In the opening chapter of this volume Fraser Watts advocates an approach to understanding spiritual healing in which both theological and scientific perspectives play a role. He claims that spiritual healing can become intelligible if current scientific assumptions are broadened sufficiently, though he does not suggest that even such a broadened scientific account of healing will be complete and says that there will always be a place for a theological account of spiritual healing alongside a scientific one.

This position, which I shall call (3), is implicitly contrasted with two alternative views: (1) the ‘reductionist’ position that what appears to be spiritual healing can be explained completely in terms of currently understood scientific processes and requires no additional assumptions; and (2) the view that spiritual healing defies any scientific explanation and can only be understood in supernatural terms. The first, appealing to the authority of current science, infers that spiritual healing in a strong sense does not actually occur and seeks to accommodate to science by demythologizing religious accounts of spiritual healing or reinterpreting them psychosomatically. The second defends a traditional strong account of spiritual healing as actually occurring, without attempting to accommodate to current science.

Watts' position presupposes the accumulation of inconvenient facts that defy incorporation within current science. That leads him to call for an ‘emancipated’ version of science, and he seeks to defend a strong account of spiritual healing while accommodating to such a projected future science.