Christian theology and the modern science of nature: a critical analysis of Michael Beresford Foster's Mind articles

Abstract

In 1934, Oxford philosopher Michael Beresford Foster (1903-1959) published an article in Mind, the prestigious British journal of philosophy. The article argued for a positive relationship between Christian theology and the rise of modern science. Two more Mind articles followed in 1935 and 1936. Taken as a whole, the three articles make for one philosophically sophisticated and complex argument, often referred to as the "Foster Thesis." In this paper I aim to contribute to the `Fosterian' conversation in two ways: in Part One, I present a thorough and detailed synthesis of Foster's three Mind articles, and in Part Two, I present a critical literature review of published references to the Foster Thesis. The first has never been done before, and the second has not been done since 1964 (at which time there were only six published references, as opposed to the more than forty today).