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Whether it is human enhancements through gene editing or combating malnutrition, clean water or the demographic transition, Stargate or Neuralink, how we respond to new technologies or challenges that impact human thriving needs more than traditional theological study. We cannot thoroughly grasp many of these contemporary puzzles without understanding the factors that brought them about and the likely consequences of various courses of action. The sciences provide us valuable tools for seeing causes, anticipating solutions, and gathering evidence to give us more confidence in our theologically-informed decision-making. But the sciences cannot guide us. The sciences are powerful tools for informing our descriptive questions but are feeble in the face of prescriptive questions. They are great for describing what is, but inadequate to saying what we should do about it. For that, we turn to theology.
These considerations are part of why Blueprint 1543 seeks to equip and inspire integrated sciency people and integrated churches. Whether they are those who work in science-related fields or are theologians or pastors who have wisdom in using the deliverances of the sciences, integrated sciency people are critical for facing these big questions and challenges that face humanity. Integrated churches are the most natural places to cultivate, equip, and deploy integrated people, and to make positive use of integrated understandings in local communities.
But how do we arrive at rigorous, trustworthy understandings that bring theological insights together with scientific findings? We call this pursuit integrated inquiry. In short, integrated inquiry is the search for new ideas and understandings that are motivated and framed by Christian theological commitments. It judiciously draws upon relevant sciences to arrive at conclusions that non-scientific theology and theology-bare sciences could not attain on their own.
Integrated inquiry is the business of integrated individuals, but it is more than that. A couple of years ago Rebecca Dorsey and I were in Oxford, England, to get insights from other people who have worked to bring the sciences and Christian faith together. We met up for dinner with two very integrated people who try to promote integrated churches and also do first-rate integrated inquiry: Anglican priest and psychologist Joanna Collicutt and her husband Anglican priest and Oxford University theologian Alister McGrath. During our wide-ranging discussion about how the sciences might better support the life of the Church and the Church might be more hospitable and supportive of scientists, Alister offered a historical observation about the challenge of integrated inquiry. He noted that when St. Augustine of Hippo was writing his landmark contributions to Christian thought, he could command mastery of his day’s philosophy and theology as well as the equivalent of what we know as psychology. And those areas of expertise could all flow into and support each other. These areas of understanding were fully integrated because there were no artificial disciplinary boundaries keeping them apart. There was not yet such a body of knowledge in each area that a single (exceptional) person couldn’t have a strong grip on all three. Those days are long gone.
Collectively, we have now acquired so much knowledge and understanding about so many topics that there is no way that any single individual can bring all of the relevant tools together to fully explore many of life’s big questions. Further still, this massive amount of understanding has been due, in large part, to specialization and breaking problems into more focused sub-problems that can be handled more thoroughly by scholars taking a narrower approach. We now have disciplines and sub-disciplines that go much deeper but less broad than scholars of past generations. As powerful as specialization has been, it doesn’t always match the nature of problems facing individuals, families, communities, nations, or the world. Often, we need integration, integration that no single individual can do anymore.
Another way to think of integrated inquiry, then, is scholarly investigation that seeks sound understanding without being restrained by disciplinary boundaries. In today’s world, this will best be done by groups of scholars from lots of different disciplines who have learned how to work well together. And they will be at their strongest when they have some common commitments that motivate and guide their inquiry, such as commitments that come from a common faith. Teams of integrated people will be key to much integrated inquiry.
Blueprint 1543 encourages integrated inquiry by equipping and inspiring individuals and communities — including churches — to pursue integrated inquiry. We help scholars from the sciences better understand Christian philosophy and theology as resources for their work. We help theologians, philosophers, and faith-leaders better understand scientific areas that are useful to their inquiry. We convene interdisciplinary groups of scholars around problem spaces that will benefit from integrated inquiry, and help them build enduring collegial communities who have shared visions and mutual respect. We also do our own scholarship, often in collaboration with others, that provides examples of integrated inquiry and invite other scholars to join the fun. These are some of the ways in which Blueprint 1543 encourages integrated inquiry.
Blueprint 1543 is focused on supporting and promoting integrated people, integrated churches, and integrated inquiry. We need all three to participate in God’s work in today’s world.
