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Space and Theology

In the sciences and medicine, the past decades have seen an unprecedented differentiation and specialization. The necessity of interdisciplinarity is especially evident where one discipline alone cannot provide answers for methodological reasons: Thus, the intersubjectively objective criteria of scientific knowledge extend to empirical predictions, but not to ontologies. The aim of interdisciplinary studies is to explore the possibilities of how far the dialogical relationship between theology and natural sciences can be sharpened in such a way that conceptually relevant insights from the natural sciences enrich theology and insights from theology in turn enrich the empirical processes of the natural sciences.

Humankind is just acquiring the technical and scientific skills for interplanetary travel. Whereas the natural sciences could provide the building blocks of an interdisciplinary bridge to expand theology with answers about the universality of life and the role of humankind in the universe, the question about the relation between humankind and the Universe touches core areas of Christian faith, such as the need for redemption, the Christology, and the eschatology. Because both Theology and Natural Sciences are equally based on the claim of rationality and truth and are fields of activity of human reason, the guiding principle is the search for interdisciplinary bridges to understand the universality of life and the role of humankind in the context of the universe, which could lead us towards a truly holistic concept of "space sustainability"

 

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