The Center for Theology and Natural Sciences (CTNS) is a program of the Graduate Theology Union (GTU) in Berkeley CA. It began as an independent Center affiliated with the GTU in 1981. It became a Program within the GTU in 2016.
CTNS promotes the creative mutual interaction between theology and the natural sciences through research, teaching and public service. In the words of its Founding Director, Robert John Russell, CTNS pursues "a creative interaction between theology and science — an interaction which honors and respects the integrity of each partner, an interaction in which convictions are held self-critically and honest engagement is prized, an interaction which focuses specifically on the most rigorous theories of mainstream natural science and the most central positions of mainline theology, an interaction which aims at serving the broader concerns of the global human and ecological communities."
CTNS’s central scientific focus is on physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, and genetics, with additional topics in the neurosciences, technology, environmental sciences and mathematics. CTNS’s central theological focus is on Christian theology, ethics, and spirituality, with an additional focus on science and the world religions.