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Religions
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Humans, Science, and Faith
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Humans, Science, and Faith

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Humanities/Philosophies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2025) | Viewed by 10047

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. John A. Bloom

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, Physics and Engineering, Biola University, La Mirada, CA 90639, USA
Interests: science and religion; biophysics; astronomy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

For millennia, religion played a key role in defining what it means to be human, but since the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, religion’s role has largely been assumed by science. This revolution in how we view ourselves, our world, and God is the theme for this Special Issue.

Previous Special Issues of Religions, for which I was privileged to be the invited Guest Editor, investigated the stimulating dialogue between Christianity and science. “Christianity and Science: Fresh Perspectives”, published in 2020-21, explored the largely collegial dialogue between theology and science, both past and present, and contrasted this with popular warfare narratives. “Exploring Science from a Biblical Perspective”, published in 2022-23, found that theology, rather than stifling science, encouraged the scientific search for natural mechanical explanations for regular, repeating events, yet recognized that God, as Creator, is not limited to using only natural processes. The goal of this Special Issue is to focus on the human dimension of science and faith.

Specific topics within this theme, for which we are seeking contributions, include the following: (1) How does science influence how we value human life? (2) How is the explosion in artificial intelligence technology affecting how we think of what it means to be human? (3) Does religion continue to exert an influence on science and scientific theories today? (4) How does science influence how we view religion today?

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor (john.bloom@biola.edu) or to the Religions Editorial Office (religions@mdpi.com) by August 2025. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editor for the purposes of ensuring their suitability to the scope of this Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer-review process, and we request their submission by November 2025.

Prof. Dr. John A. Bloom
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • science
  • religion
  • Christianity
  • artificial intelligence
  • human dignity
  • human flourishing
  • Darwinism
  • abortion
  • euthanasia
  • anthropic principle

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

24 pages, 303 KB  
Article
Darwinian Narratives: Cultural Impact and Reconsideration
by Jonathan R. Witt
Religions 2026, 17(1), 114; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17010114 - 19 Jan 2026
Viewed by 1261
Abstract
The rise in the West of religious unbelief and its sometimes companions, relativism and nihilism, has been widely noted. Dostoyevsky’s famous dictum, “Without God, everything is permissible,” has in many quarters been taken as more recommendation than warning. The causes behind this trend [...] Read more.
The rise in the West of religious unbelief and its sometimes companions, relativism and nihilism, has been widely noted. Dostoyevsky’s famous dictum, “Without God, everything is permissible,” has in many quarters been taken as more recommendation than warning. The causes behind this trend are surely complex, but a key accelerant appears to have been the triumph of Darwin’s theory of evolution, in its original and now updated forms. Taken to its logical conclusions, the theory, together with part of its methodological apparatus (methodological naturalism), would seem to drain physical reality of meaning and humans of free will, significance, and higher purpose. Atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett called it a “universal acid.” The subject is one that could fill many books. One manageable way of rendering the subject manageable in a single paper is by considering key narratives that buttress Darwinian theory and by tracing the theory’s impact on the narrative arts of literature and film. How have Christians in the academy responded to modern evolutionary theory’s impact on the culture? One response has been to graft it onto Christianity in the hopes of neutralizing the theory’s more pernicious cultural implications. In practice, such attempts have tended to fundamentally alter either modern evolutionary theory or Christianity or both. Before attempting any such union, we would do well to revisit the foundations of the theory. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Humans, Science, and Faith)
16 pages, 207 KB  
Article
Powers of the Soul Beyond AI
by Angus John Louis Menuge
Religions 2026, 17(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17010008 - 22 Dec 2025
Viewed by 1348
Abstract
Could Large Language Models (LLMs) exhibit rational characteristics traditionally attributed to the human soul? I argue that five features of human rationality will likely remain beyond LLMs and other adaptive physical systems. Insight into truth: using billions of pages of text, a [...] Read more.
Could Large Language Models (LLMs) exhibit rational characteristics traditionally attributed to the human soul? I argue that five features of human rationality will likely remain beyond LLMs and other adaptive physical systems. Insight into truth: using billions of pages of text, a LLM may harvest a sound rule of inference. However the LLM has no insight into why the rule is true. Meta-insight: both humans and machines can follow instructions that constitute an infinite loop. Yet humans can, but machines cannot, recognize that they are in an infinite loop. Free will: once humans realize they are trapped in a loop, they can exercise free will to break out of the loop. By contrast, when a machine is trapped in an infinite loop, an external intervention is required to end the task. Access to necessary conceptual relations: LLMs are inductive learners and cannot justify universal necessary truths. By contrast, a human being can, via insight, see that a conceptual relation is necessarily true. Non-combinatorial creativity: LLMs can recombine the products of human creativity in amazing ways. But unlike humans, they cannot use universal concepts to find a possible item that is not derived from items already instantiated in the world. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Humans, Science, and Faith)
47 pages, 5361 KB  
Article
Are Humans Alone in the Cosmos?
by Hugh Norman Ross
Religions 2025, 16(12), 1589; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16121589 - 17 Dec 2025
Viewed by 6356
Abstract
For millennia, theologians and philosophers debated whether extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETI) exists in the universe. Some theologians concluded God enjoys creating so much he would not stop at one planet. Others argue God limits his miracles to those needed to achieve his purposes, [...] Read more.
For millennia, theologians and philosophers debated whether extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETI) exists in the universe. Some theologians concluded God enjoys creating so much he would not stop at one planet. Others argue God limits his miracles to those needed to achieve his purposes, which require only one planet with intelligent life. Thanks to exponential advances in observational astrophysics, scientists now are weighing in on the “are we alone in the cosmos” debate. Though far from resolving all the debate’s components, they now are able to provide definitive answers or steps towards definitive answers to several of the theological/philosophical issues. These answers arise from the following research endeavors: (1) search for ETI (SETI) efforts, results, and determined odds; (2) interplanetary panspermia; (3) ETI planetary habitability requirements; (4) ETI stellar habitability requirements; (5) ETI galactic habitability requirements; (6) “hard steps” in the evolution of life from non-life; (7); “hard steps” in ETI evolution from simple life; (8) interstellar space travel and exploration limitations; (9) nature of UAPs lacking natural or human-made explanations; and (10) nature of non-physical reality. The resultant answers increasingly are creating arenas of common agreement plus opening up avenues of dialog among theologians and scientists. This dialog on ‘are we alone in the cosmos’ is shedding additional light on humanity’s role and purposes in the cosmos. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Humans, Science, and Faith)
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