Volume 42, Issue 2, February 2016
Dana Wright
Pages 34-51
Personal Knowledge Transformed
James Loder’s Neo-Chalcedonian Science o f Practical Theology
Practical theologian James E. Loder engaged in a sustained 40+ year conversation with some of the most significant figures in science in the 20th century to construct a neo-Chalcedonian practical theology with enormous implications for both the science-theology dialogue andfor the Church’s witness to the Gospel in a scientific world. This essay focuses primarily on how Loder engaged and appropriated the post-critical epistemology of Michael Polanyi for his own critical and constructive proposals for use in the theology-science dialogue. Loder’s proposal is based on the analogia spiritus—the relationality that governs and guides divine-human knowing and being The essay encourages those working in the science-theology dialogue to engage Loder’s work as a whole, in part by including an annotated bibliography of Loder’s relevant works.