Rare is the theologian or philosopher so versed in contemporary science as to offer original insights with credibility for both fields. Robert John Russell, Professor of Theology and Science in Residence, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Calif., and founding director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences there, is such a thinker. Among his many important publications are six influential volumes that he edited for the joint Vatican Observatory/Notre Dame University Press series on scientific and theological perspectives on divine action. Russell's contributions to the field, says Ian Barbour, are "extraordinary and enduring." This volume gathers much of his most important work. In these chapters, Russell takes theology and science beyond mere dialogue into a genuinely new relationship: "creative mutual interaction." The theological topics range from God, creation, suffering in nature, the theological significance of life in the universe to an eschatology involving the transformation of the universe into the new creation based on the bodily Resurrection of Jesus.

Scientific topics include the Big Bang, inflation and quantum cosmologies, relativity, quantum mechanics, molecular and evolutionary biology, exobiology, and the modern mathematics of infinity. Although, as Barbour notes, Russell "avoids giving simple answers to complex questions," readers will be amply rewarded with for their journey into this new discipline. Book jacket.