Willem B. Drees

Drees addressed the analysis of cosmology limit questions with the interpretation of the explanatory success of science. His second Fulbright grant resulted in the book - Religion, Science and Naturalism (1996). John H. Brooke, historian of science and religion, concluded a review of work of the Oxford theologian Keith Ward and Drees’s book: “Because he is as secure in his epistemology as in his knowledge of theoretical physics, Willem Drees should be read by all who take a scholarly interest in the discourses of ‘science and religion’. His arguments cannot be compressed into sound-bites, and that is their strength.” [5] The analysis of naturalism as addressed in his Religious Naturalism and Science has remained a major component in Drees’s research.[6] He has also paid attention in his analysis of naturalism to the understanding of human nature, with two edited volumes on anthropology and non-reductive physicalism in Dutch and one in English (2000).

William A. Rottschaefer argues that Drees’s naturalism is seriously flawed claiming that it is both methodologically and epistemologically naturalistic. Drees maintains while rejecting both of these that ontological naturalism offers the best account of the natural world. It also provides for a supernaturalistic understanding of religion and theology. Although naturalism is often considered to be antithetical to theology and genuine religion, Drees proposes a scientifically informed account of religion, which, he contends, is not only compatible with supernaturalism and theology but provides a better account of both.[7]

As the Vice President for Interdisciplinary Affairs of IRAS, Drees has participated in the formulative discussions of Religious Naturalism and helped organize a conference on Human Meaning in a Technological Culture (2001). When it comes to his position on this emerging worldview, Drees, says of himself:

Am I a religious naturalist? Others have used that label on me. I am not sure I like the label, as it seems to constrain, whereas I want to explore. I also have some sympathy for the naturalistic theism described above. But certainly, precisely in the attitude of exploring, I fit the naturalism referenced above. Or I at least, I hope do. Even if I am not sure whether I am a religious naturalist, I am most interested in understanding what religious naturalism might mean, may become, and will offer.[8][9]

Jerome A. Stone in his 2008 book Religious Naturalism Today: The Rebirth of a Forgotten Alternative cites Drees as one of the leaders of the Religious Naturalism movement along with other member of IRAS – Ursula Goodenough, Karl Peters, Connie Barlow, Michael Cavanaugh and Stone himself.[10]

• Naked Ape or Techno Sapiens? The Relevance of Human Humanities - Tilburg, Jan 30 2015, 35 pages,ISBN 978-94-6167-229-2
• Religion and Science in Context: A Guide to the Debates - Routledge, Aug 28 2009, 176 pages, ISBN 978-0-415-55617-0 (also in German)978-0-415-55617-0
• Creation: From Nothing until Now. London: Routledge, 2002.
• Religion, Science and Naturalism. Cambridge University Press, 1996
• Beyond the Big Bang: Quantum Cosmologies and God. La Salle: Open Court, 1990 (also in Portuguese)
• Willem B. Drees, ed. Technology, Trust, and Religion: Roles of Religion in Controversies on Ecology and the Modification of Life. Leiden University Press, 2009.
• Willem B. Drees, Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld, eds., The Study of Religion and the Training of Muslim Clergy in Europe: Academic and Religious Freedom in the 21st Century, Leiden University Press, 2008.
• Willem B. Drees, Hubert Meisinger, Taede A. Smedes, eds., Creation’s Diversity. (IST 5) London: T&T Clark /Continuum, 2008.
• Willem B. Drees, Ulf Görman, Hubert Meisinger, eds., Creative Creatures: Values and Ethical Issues in Theology, Science and Technology (IST 3). London: T&T Clark, 2005
• Willem B. Drees (ed.), Is Nature Ever Evil? Religion, Science and Value. Routledge, 2003.
• Niels Henrik Gregersen, Willem B. Drees, Ulf Görman, eds., The Human Person in Science and Theology. (IST2). Edinburgh: T&T Clark and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.