August 10, 2020
In a collaboration with Villanova University, Professor John Bowlin is serving on the Advisory Board and as a senior mentor for Collaborative Inquiries in Christian Theological Anthropology. As a senior mentor, Dr. Bowlin will take responsibility for two to three projects and play a significant role in at least one workshop per year. The principal investigator for this project is Dr. Jesse Couenhoven of Villanova University.
In a three-year grant awarded by the John Templeton Foundation, rich connections will be promoted between Christian theology and the social scientists. Theologians have perduring interests in the relationship between bodies and personal identities, human agency and freedom, human flourishing and happiness, the development of human virtues and vices, the unity or disunity of character, and numerous other topics in which sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, linguists, neuroscientists, economists and other scientists are also deeply interested.
The grant’s goals are to nurture ambitious, science-engaged scholarship in theology, build a research team that cultivates rich intellectual community, and form scholars who will exercise lasting leadership. New ways of thinking about theology and science are to be explored.
“One of the biggest lessons I learned was how to be charitable to views other than my own. Christian charity was shown to me, not just in the readings for class, but from the professors, and the Seminary community.”