Instructions for the Reader

INTERS
Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science

Edited by G. Tanzella-Nitti, I. Colagè and A. Strumia

The Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (INTERS) is a dynamic, on line only data base, consisting in extensive, updated entries, signed by scholars who are accomplished in both scientific and humanistic research work. The Encyclopedia is intended to provide sound review articles in the rapidly growing international field of Religion and Science. Each article provides a readable and comprehensive summary of what is currently being discussed in religion and science on specific topics as well as how these topics were discussed historically.

The Catalogue of the Encyclopedia is still in progress. New articles are introduced and those already on line are ready to be updated by their Authors under the direction of the Editors. A good number of the articles belonging to the INTERS dynamic data base, were originally published in Italian as part of the Dizionario Interdisciplinare di Scienza e Fede (Rome: Urbaniana University Press - Città Nuova, 2002 - ISBN 88-401-1050-X), a two-volume Encyclopedia written primarily by European authors.

A first project of translating into English part of the articles of the Italian Dizionario was supported by The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley, to foster the dialogue between European and American scholars on some of the most important topics in Religion and Science.

Part of the English version of the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science has been supported by CTNS

• About the Encyclopaedia
• To read the articles properly
• General Abbreviations
• Sources for the Documents of the Catholic Church
• Abbreviations for special sources
• Titles of the Documents of the Catholic Church

About the Encyclopaedia

The Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (INTERS) is intended to satisfy in a qualified way a specific cultural necessity in the field of Religion and Science. Through the appropriate entries of a comprehensible and easy to consult Catalogue, the reader will find an updated summary of what religion and science have to say on a specific item and/or how they came into debate on that same item throughout history. The discussion is focused mainly on the Judaeo-Christian idea of God, because that religious tradition was especially interwoven with the history and the development of scientific thought

Believing readers, university students, teachers or intellectuals, who have no special acquaintance with religion and science literature and want to compare the content of their religious faith with the outcomes of contemporary natural sciences, are often faced with popular literature that is philosophically unsound. They usually do not have an easy access to high quality interdisciplinary literature, whose circulation is generally confined to restricted cultural groups. Those who are non believers, on the other hand, find some difficulties in approaching the teachings of Christian theology, which have a specialized diffusion as well. As a consequence, they have incomplete or even incorrect information on what religious faith says on scientific topics.

The proposed subject-headings are meant to answer directly the most pivotal problems in the debate between religion and science or, at least, to put that debate on its right track. Some headings correspond to specific disciplines to show how the religion/science debate or dialogue took place and has developed up to now in that particular field of human culture. Philosophic headings are offered as well, to cast light on the conceptual knots of the debate. Theological entries supply the reader with original sources necessary to understand the content of believers' faith on issues of major religious importance. A special attention is given to those items which have an extended and consolidated role in the mass media (Ecology, Extraterrestrial Life, Artificial Intelligence, Mind-Body relationship, New Age, Shroud of Turin, etc.).

The Italian summaries of the articles that belonged to the complete Catalogue of the published Italian Dizionario Interdisciplinare di Scienza e Fede are available on line.

How to quote the Encyclopedia

INTERS data base is a dynamic, on line only Encyclopedia. Articles are periodically updated under the control and supervision of the Editors.
INTERS can be read at one of these URL addresses:
http://www.inters.org
http://www.ctns.org/encyclopaedia.html
To refer to the content of the articles, please quote Author, Title and its source:
INTERS– Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science, edited by G. Tanzella-Nitti , I. Colagè and A. Strumia, http://www.inters.org
All INTERS articles are captioned by a DOI number. 

To read the articles properly

Abbreviations, sources and Latin titles of documents, are captioned as follows:

GENERAL ABBREVIATIONS

SOURCES FOR THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

ABBREVIATIONS FOR SPECIAL SOURCES

TITLES OF THE DOCUMENTS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Only documents published after the First Vatican Council (1870) are here listed. The titles and dates of the documents issued before 1870 are reported in the texts of the articles. The dates of the documents quoted here and along the whole data base are written according to the convention DD.MM.YYYY.