If theology is to continue to have a voice in our academic and cultural dialogue, it must learn to engage and dialogue with other scientific disciplines. In the latter half of the 20th Century a number of theologians came to realize this reality, and began building bridges between disciplines such as Science, Sociology, Psychology, and many more. My first encounter with an interdisciplinary approach came through the work of T.F. Torrance and his engagement with Science, and later, John Milbank’s groundbreaking Theology and Social Theory.
Interdisciplinary work between theology and other sciences has expanded remarkably in the first decade of the 21st Century. Yet the project remains, in many ways, in a exploratory or nascent phase. Today, I am interviewing F. LeRon Shults, a theologian whose interdisciplinary work is having a remarkable impact on how we understand the relationships between theology and her peer disciplines. This includes psychology, ethics, science, philosophy, and still other fields. Beyond merely their relationships, Shults has also been instrumental in helping us understand the impact these fields might have on the content and articulation of theological propositions after they have been juxtaposed and amalgamated with other fields.
Shults has received Ph.D.’s from Walden University (Eductaional Psychology), and Princeton Theological Seminary (Interdisciplinary Studies-theology/philosophy), and has served as a Research Fellow at Oxford University and Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. He currently teaches at the University of Agder.
Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Shults for taking timeout from his very busy schedule to do this interview.
Interview
Matthew: Which five books would you identify as the most influential on you as a theologian?
Shults: Of course the “right” answer here is “the Bible!” 
This is also a serious answer, because it is certainly true that the Bible has been the book that has most influenced me, although my understanding of and engagement with it has shifted significantly over the years.
F. LeRon Shults
Besides the Bible… It is hard to limit myself to five, but with the caveat that these are among the most influential books, I would say:
Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death,
Pannenberg’s Anthropology in Theological Perspective,
[Thomas] Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation,
[Robert] Sokolowski’s The God of Faith and Reason, and [Gille] Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition.
Matthew: It has been over a decade since your influential study The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology (Eerdmans: 1999) appeared in print. Have you been pleased with the appropriation of the postfoundationalist model in contemporary theology?
Shults:
On the one hand, it is encouraging that many theologians have moved in this direction, so much so that one response to that book claimed that the model I described was in fact the “regnant” approach in theology.
On the other hand, it certainly is not regnant everywhere. I continue to be surprised at the number of theologians who resist (or ignore) the philosophical challenges to foundationalist epistemology. In my recent work, I have been exploring some of the psychological and political dynamics of such resistance.
Matthew: Have you significantly changed any of your views on the nature and task of theology since that book was published?
Shults: I have become increasingly convinced that Christian theology should take more seriously the need for engaging other religions as well as other disciplines.
In the postfoundationalist book I focused primarily on the task of theology as performed from within a particular tradition. In my recent work I am less interested in confessional theology and more concerned with what we might call public (or academic) theology. As I explain in a recent article (Transforming Religious Plurality, available on my website), I believe theology in this broader sense requires more careful attention to religious difference. 
Matthew: In Reforming Theological Anthropology (Eerdmans: 2003), you set a trajectory for how we might understand humanity after the late modern turn to relationality. Will you give a brief synopsis of your argument?
Shults: The philosophical categories of substance, stasis and sameness dominated the 17th century, during which early Protestant theology was forged. This led to anthropological questions like: how many substances (body and/or soul) compose a human being, and what stays the same in the individual human being (even after death)?
In the last two centuries, we can trace a shift toward increased attention to the generative power of other philosophical categories, such as relationality, kinesis and difference, which provide resources not simply for coming up with new answers but for radically revising the very questions that structure theological anthropological discourse.
Matthew: Is there a significant point of relation between Reforming Theological Anthropology and Reforming the Doctrine of God (Eerdmans: 2005)?
Shults: Yes, there are at least two major points of relation. First, methodologically, both are interested in conserving the intuitions of the biblical tradition by liberating them for transformative dialogue with late modern philosophy and science.
Second, materially, each book presents the relevant doctrinal themes within a triadic structure: knowing, acting and being. This encourages explicit attention to the philosophical issues of epistemology, ethics and metaphysics immediately within the presentation of doctrine, as well as providing an easy way to link theology to existential concerns about truth, goodness and beauty.
Matthew: Christology and Science (Eerdmans: 2008) in many ways constitutes an exploratory work. It is particularly unique in that it attempts to build bridges between specific topics in Christology with specific areas of Science. Why did you take this approach?
Shults: Most of the religion-science dialogue focuses on broad methodological issues (like “critical realism”) or vague material questions (like “divine action”), but I do not think this is sufficient. This is why I used three concrete case studies: incarnation and evolutionary biology, atonement and cultural anthropology, and parousia and physical cosmology.
My goal was to demonstrate how deeply philosophical categories (such as matter and spirit, or space and time) shape the formulation of Christological doctrine. As your question suggests, the constructive parts of the book were intentionally programmatic.
Matthew: How important is it, in your view, for theology to engage scientific inquiry in its ongoing task during the 21st Century?
Shults: Very. The exponential growth of information and the continued explanatory success of science across cultures have altered the conceptual context within which theology operates. It took the church several centuries to accept developments such as the Copernican revolution.
Theologians must learn to improve their interdisciplinary dexterity and response time. In fact, I would hope theology could be more than merely responsive and actually join the dialogue and contribute at the cutting edge of research and reflection. This will be important not only for Christian theology, but for all religious traditions if they are to adapt and transmit wisdom to future generations.
Matthew: Though some progress has been made in building bridges between science and theology, what work do you believe remains to be done to reverse the popular conception that Christianity and Science are hostile to one another?
Shults: I think it is important to admit that sometimes they are hostile, or at least some Christians are hostile to science and some scientists are hostile to Christianity. Some ways of articulating Christian doctrine and some scientific theories and findings are indeed incompatible.
It is also important to remember that neither Christianity nor science is monolithic. Although the bridge metaphor is helpful, it can imply two separate, static land-masses that must somehow be related. In fact, however, these traditions and disciplines are already and always linked in complex ways, even if negatively. Teasing out the complexity of these relations is a difficult but important task.
Matthew: Christology and Ethics (Eerdmans: 2010), [with Brent Waters], though a collaboration with sevral theologians, is also in many ways an exploratory work. As a group, what do the essays in this book achieve in relating Christology to the field of ethics?
Shults: My chapter in that book also illustrates my interest in the mediating role of philosophy. In this case I focus is on the categories of sameness and difference. In order to move forward in reforming the relation between such disciplines, it is necessary to acknowledge the conceptual impact of shifts such as the “turn to alterity” on theology.
Matthew: Many aspects of your career to date demonstrate a commitment to interdisciplinary study. Is this a conscious decision? If so, why do you believe that this approach is important?
Shults: Yes, it has been a conscious, and even conscientious, decision. I have heard it said that a person who knows only one religion knows none. Similarly, a person who knows only one discipline understands none. At the very least, a person who does not understand the ways in which his or her discipline is always and already constituted and even regulated by its (historical, methodological, and often material) interaction with other disciplines will be blind to significant dimensions of their own field of study.
All theology is interdisciplinary in the sense that other disciplines shape its formulations (e.g., psychological assumptions shape theory choice in Christology). The question is not whether one’s theology is interdisciplinary but whether one’s interdisciplinarity is conscious and well-done or hidden and muddled.
Matthew: You are Professor of Theology and Philosophy at University of Agder, in Kristiansand, Norway. Many in our audience will be unfamiliar with this school. Will you briefly describe the school, and the degree programs in theology and philosophy that it offers?
The University of Agder
Shults: The programs in which I now teach are explicitly inter-disciplinary. We have a master’s and a doctoral degree in “religion, society and ethics.” Regardless of special interest, all students engage the disciplines of theology, sociology of religion and philosophical ethics.
Matthew: Are you currently working on any projects that would like to share with our readers?
Shults: I am currently working on a book project that offers a theological engagement with the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary psychology and anthropology of religion.
