ADDRESSING THE NEEDHAM QUESTION FROM A THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: TOWARD A CHINESE THEOLOGY OF HOLISTIC WISDOM

Abstract

Christian theology in general, and Chinese theology in particular, has remained reticent toward the Needham Question originally posed by Joseph Needham in the 1930s. After a brief survey of the Christian response to the theory of evolution introduced into China in 1898, I address the Needham Question from a theological perspective. Then, building on Jürgen Moltmann's trinitarian proposal, which places science and theology on the common life plane of wisdom, I propose a pneumatological-trinitarian Chinese theology of science by integrating the natural wisdom and the revealed wisdom, the Chinese wisdom and the wisdom of other cultures.