The Book of Nature

Group discussion on the article https://inters.org/book-of-nature

I. Introduction. - II. The theological import of the metaphor of the Book. 1. Scholarly contributions and their different perspectives: a short status quaestionis. 2. Historical steps and some hermeneutical clarifications. 3. The role of the metaphor in the frame of Fundamental theology. 4. The contemporary revival of the Book of Nature in the teachings of the Catholic Church. - III. The development of the metaphor within the Christian tradition. 1. Does the Bible see the cosmos as a book? 2. The Fathers of the Church and the early Christian writers. 3. Authors of the Middle Ages: the case of Hugh of St. Victor and St. Bonaventure. - IV. The Renaissance and the dawn of the Modern Age. 1. The influential Raymond of Sebond’s Liber creaturarum. 2. Toward a breaking of the harmony. - V. The metaphor of Book of Nature in the Modern Age. 1. Galileo Galilei’s view of the Book of Nature. 2. Some different perspectives co-existing along the Modern Age. - VI. Science, theology and the future of the metaphor. 1. A heritage to be appraised. 2. Science and information: a contemporary look at nature.