Epilogue

Summary

At the beginning of this book, I told you – warned you – that I am a historian and philosopher of science, not a theologian. You may now be feeling that you should have taken that comment a lot more seriously than you did. The cobbler should stick to his last. I have plowed blithely on without once discussing that fundamental Christian notion of substitutionary atonement – the claim that Jesus died on the Cross to forgive us our sins; and as for something like transubstantiation – the claim that during the eucharist the bread and wine turn literally into the body and blood of Christ – forget it.