Gospel of Karin

This is a continuation of my critique of Ian Barbour’s typologies of the relationship between science and religion. Next up, the Independence (see my earlier essay for a description of this category).

Independence
A relationship of independence can elevate science and religion to a level of mutual respect. We see this, for example, in the writing of Stephen Gould, who, although denying that the two areas could overlap, maintained respect for religion.

Another strength of this category is that religion and science maintain distinctive identities and contribute diverse ontological and epistemological perspectives. Neither threatens to subsume the other.

Despite these advantages, however, I believe that a relationship of independence is not good for humans, animals, and nature. Without dialogue or integration, scientists and religious scholars miss out on opportunities to work together to envision a richer vision of the world, and in turn, enhance their ability to do good for it. 

I also think this category represents a kind of denial about the influence of religion on science. As previously mentioned, the general disposition of modern science towards nature is partially informed by the Biblical account of creation and religious doctrines. Furthermore, individual scientists cannot help but interpret world from the standpoint of their historical, cultural, and personal contexts. 

In the west, the concepts and beliefs of Judaism and Christianity have had enormous influence on the formation of our political and social institutions and cultural norms. And while I do think that science and religion ask different kinds of questions and use different methods and languages, each attempts to say something about the ground of reality in an effort to understand our place in the universe.

There is insight in the complementary perspective: both search for meaning either explicitly or implicity. Science, of course, does provide important information that has instrumental value for our lives, but to deny its metaphysical, theological, or philosophical underpinnings is to be either dishonest or naïve. 

None of this is to say that science can replace religion. I think that the Protestant neo-orthodox theologians that Barbour discusses point to a strong poetic dimension to religion. Rituals, stories, and narratives allow us to explore dimensions of experience in ways that scientific methods cannot.

Here I agree with theologian David Tracy that religion is well-placed to answer boundary questions. Where it seems neo-orthodox theologians fall short, however, is in thinking that religion can answer those questions without the insights of science.

Again, no matter how much we profess to care about the natural world, we cannot make good on that commitment without taking seriously what science can tell us about it.

Image: Einsames Haus (A Lonely House), by Michael Otto. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

For the last few weeks, I’ve posted brief descriptions of Ian Barbour’s typologies of the relationship between science and religion. Today, I begin posting my critique of each category, beginning with Conflict. 

In reflecting on the Barbour’s typologies, I concluded that reconciling science and religion, whether it involves a respectful distance or a total synthesis, must have greater implications beyond the interests of either party. The question I became interested in is this: 

“What are the benefits of a harmonious relationship between science and religion?”

Or more specifically:

“What sort of relationship is good not only for science and religion, but also for humans, animals, and nature?”

The second question is central to my examination of the strengths and weaknesses of each of Barbour’s categories. 

Conflict

I have a difficult time identifying any benefits that views in this category might bring to science, religion, humans, animals, or nature. The best I can say is that some of the scholars that Barbour puts in this category seem well intended.

E.O. Wilson, for example, appears to genuinely believe that scientific explanations have the intrinsic power to lead humans to a more respectful relationship with nature. On the other hand, religious advocates who reject natural selection, for example, form a kind of resistance to an obsession with materialism that characterizes modern secularism.

Still, good intentions barely mitigate the fact that these are totalizing views that attempt to dictate the nature of reality and how we ought to live. Both are so committed to their own reductionist ideologies that they can’t even entertain the suggestion that the other might deepen their understanding about the complexity of life and living.

Regarding religion, I find the traditional image of God as an omnipotent and wholly transcendent being to be self-defeating. This view renders God irrelevant to the daily lives of people, and has proved for many to be disappointing in a world filled with suffering. It also sets up God to fail under scientific scrutiny, falsely divides humans from the rest of nature, and blocks us from understanding our place in the world in nuanced ways.

Image: “Creation of the Sun and Moon” by Michelangelo, face detail of God. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

A couple of days ago, Brian Greene of string theory fame contributed an op-ed for the New York Times called “Put a Little Science in Your Life.”

The subtext is overflowing with opportunities for interpretation about ethics, the place of humans in the universe, the nature of reality, theories of knowledge, and much, much more.

I responded with a letter to the editor (couldn’t resist!), which the Times ran today. See the last letter on the page.

Some questions:

Why does Greene assume that our engagement with the world as children makes us “little scientists.” Why not little poets, authors, artists, ethicists, or (gasp!) theologians?

Why does awe and wonder for the universe make one a scientist first?    

Photo: Henry David Thoreau, courtesy, Wikimedia Commons.

This essay is a continuation of a series on Ian Barbour’s book When Science Meets Religion. Prior essay:

When Science Meets Religion (Dialogue). Discusses the third of Barbour’s four categories for examining the differing views on the relationship between science and religion.

Category 4–Integration
Barbour describes three theologies/philosophies that integrate religion and science:

Natural theology. Design or order in nature implies the existence of God. Scientific evidence holds a central place in providing evidence for God, who is viewed as a transcendent Designer.

Theology of nature. Maintains traditional religious doctrines, but proponents are open to reinterpreting them based on scientific findings and theories. Religious tradition, not science, forms the core of these theologies.

Process thought. Incorporates religious concepts and broad features of science (especially from quantum physics and evolution) into a single framework for thinking about how God and natural entities interrelate.

Thomas Aquinas and Isaac Newton advanced natural theologies. Aquinas for example, viewed God as the First Cause of all secondary natural causes. But the idea that all worldly events are foreordained by God has been challenged by science. This is particularly true of Darwinism, which introduced the role of chance in the evolutionary process.

Natural theologies reconcile chance in evolution in varied ways. For instance, God is seen as the “designer of a self-organizing system” in which law and chance allow for the emergence of new levels of “complexity, life, and consciousness” (113). God endows the world with potentialities but gives it freedom to develop in its own way without interfering with the laws of nature.

For some theologians, the Anthropic principle, a concept drawn from physics and cosmology, provides the basis for a natural theology. Those who hold this view argue that the existence of fined-tuned physical constants, which are necessary for sustaining life in the universe, provide strong evidence of an intelligent Creator.

Theologies of nature propose models of God that are rooted in tradition, but which are reformulated in light of science. Ecotheologians for example have reinterpreted traditional Christian doctrines to reflect the interdependent nature of ecological systems.

Theologian Arthur Peacocke suggests a variety of models of God, such as the Spirit that communicates through “patterns of nature” as well as through Christ. Images of God such a “choreographer of an unfinished dance” and a “composer of [an]…unfinished symphony incorporate the concepts of chance, experimentation, and improvisation in creation (114).

In quantum physics, William Pollard proposes that God is the “hidden variable” who determines quantum indeterminacies (87). He believes that chance at the quantum level is merely an appearance that masks divine determination.

Process philosophy is based on concepts from quantum physics and evolution. It offers a cosmology for understanding the nature of reality in this universe as a long, dynamic, and ongoing process of experiential events in which living and nonliving entities become in relation to each other and God.

Organisms such as animals and humans develop towards sentience, awareness and so on, with humans achieving the highest levels of consciousness. God is viewed as immanent, “eliciting the self creation” of entities, and as transcendent, as the entity that provides order and novel possibilities for creation (35).

Process philosophy incorporates into its conceptual framework both law and chance and accounts for the presence of suffering in the world. Furthermore, sciences such as neurobiology, support Process thought’s rejection of mind-body dualism by demonstrating how the two work together to enable creatures to think, feel, and generally experience the world.

Related essays:
Typology of Panentheism
Panentheism: Definitions and Features
Panentheism: World as God’s Body, Part I and Part II

Last fall, I graduated from Boston University School of Theology with a master’s of theological studies. I was recently honored to have been chosen as the salutatorian of the class of 2008.

Below, I share with you an annotated version of the speech I gave at the school’s commencement ceremony at Marsh Chapel on Sunday, May 18.

***********

Thank you, and good afternoon everyone.

This speech represents the very last assignment I’ll receive as a student of the school of theology, and I’m excited to have been chosen to speak to you today.

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King.[1] As such, I feel it is both good and right to honor him by drawing from his work for the theme of my address today.[2]

Reverend King had a vision of beloved community. By this vision, people would one day recognize themselves as existing in an integrated society of brothers and sisters committed to peace and justice, and redeemed through the transformative power of love.[3]

Today, King’s vision continues to inspire others both here and abroad toward non-violent means of achieving social justice.

Great visions, however, don’t occur in a vacuum. They arise in community with others whose visions can ignite in us our own courage and passion.

King himself was inspired by another great visionary, a man named Howard Thurman. Thurman served as the Dean of this Chapel while King was a student at the School of Theology here at BU.[4]

Thurman had his own vision of community, one in which people of all faiths would connect with each other in a common ground of religious experiences.

These two visions became intertwined here at BU. They’re part of a tradition of hopefulness and imagination.

Many of us came to the School of Theology with our own visions about how we might better ourselves and, in turn, make life better for others. We’ve come from many different places in life and traveled down many different paths.

Some of us came directly from undergraduate programs. Others left jobs in search of a more meaningful way of life. Many arrived with the intention of becoming ordained, while others came to explore how they might minister to the world in a different sort of way.

When I entered the School of Theology in 2004, I was heartened by the diversity of people I met here. There are, of course, students of different races, ethnic backgrounds, faith traditions, and ages.

But I also found that our experiences of BU have been varied as well. They’ve occurred in different contexts and on different schedules.

Many of us were full-time students who continued to stay involved in a range of social justice activities. Others worked part-time jobs while tackling demanding academic work loads, and maintaining close ties with our churches.

Some went straight through their programs without a break. Others took time off to tend to ailing family members, to earn money to pay the bills, or just to breath. Each of us has our own story.

King knew that achieving the beloved community involves a diversity of people, with a variety of life experiences and sometimes conflicting ideas. We here at BU haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. We’ve had our struggles and heated disagreements.

But on balance, we’ve been blessed in many ways—with new friendships, with a caring administrative staff, and with an amazing faculty of professors.

We’ve been enriched by new members, and diminished by the loss of others, such as our dear professor Simon Parker, who we sadly miss.[5]

Along the way, we’ve inspired and challenged each other to think more critically about what we presume to be absolute and true. We’ve perceived the plank in our own eye, and in doing so have learned to see ourselves and others more clearly.[6]

There are those who say that love is an unlimited resource. That there is enough love in the world to help everyone. A cynic might respond to this by saying, “Yes, but time is limited. Therefore, some must take priority, even if others are left behind.” [7]

I hope you don’t know anyone like that. But if you do, you might ask them, “how much time does it take to put your hand on someone’s shoulder and say ‘Great job. You’re making a difference.’”

Showing support often requires only a generous spirit towards those who’ve heard the divine call to minister to the world in their own distinct ways. Community must be built in different places, by different people, with different visions.[8].

The beloved community then, is about unity in difference. It’s about individual, embodied spirits who share a common commitment to achieving the peace of God which transcends all understanding.[9]

St Francis reminds us too that the beloved community need not be restricted to humans, but is a mixture of people, animals, and the natural world.[10] God’s blessings are more beautiful and diverse than we can ever know.

We need each other just for a glimpse.

When you leave here today, take a moment to step out into the plaza, and stop at the monument to Martin Luther King.[11] Think about the way you’re called to build the beloved community, and about all those who have inspired and supported you. May you, in turn, inspire and support others in pursuing their visions.

Say thanks to our merciful God that you are privileged to stand in a long tradition of unity, common ground, shared dreams, and hope.

God bless you all. I’m honored to be part of this community.

Thank you.
______________________________________________

1. King was assassinated April 4^th, 1968 in Memphis Tennessee. He was there to support striking sanitation workers.
2. A special thanks to Steve Chase, Director of Antioch University New England’s Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program. It was his enthusiasm for King’s legacy, and especially for King’s vision of the beloved community, that inspired the theme of my speech. Steve recently wrote a great essay for the Practical Ethics blog, Ethos, about Martin Luther King. You can read it here: “The Dream Reborn.”
3. The King Center website provides a nice introduction to the concept of the Beloved Community.
4. King received his Ph.D. from Boston University on June 5, 1955. Thurman was the first African American Dean of Marsh Chapel and a mentor to King. See Religion and Ethics News weekly for a great feature about the life and thought of Howard Thurman.
5. Simon Parker was a professor of Hebrew Bible studies who began teaching at BU in 1981. He passed away on April 29, 2006.
6. See Matthew 7:3–5.
7. Here I’m alluding to Mary Midgley’s argument that compassion is not a “rare and irreplaceable fluid” that must be reserved for humans to the exclusion of animals (I substituted the word ‘compassion’ with ‘love’). Instead, it is a “habit or power of the mind, which grows or develops with use” (see Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter, p. 31). I’ve read and heard more times than I care to remember variations on the uncharitable and morally hollow response referenced above.
8. This is a quote from professor Norm Faramelli, a highly respected lecturer of ethics at the BU School of Theology and other Boston-area seminaries. Norm generously offered his time to help me brainstorm ideas for this speech.
9. See Philippians 4:7.
10. For more on the concept of the mixed community of people, animals, and nature, see Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter, chapter 10.
11. A beautiful sculpture, Free at Last, erected in honor of Martin Luther King, stands in the plaza in front of Marsh Chapel. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/491106232/ for more information.

Photo: Martin Luther King, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

This essay is a continuation of a series on Ian Barbour’s book When Science Meets Religion. Prior essay:

When Science Meets Religion (Independence). Discusses the second of Barbour’s four categories for examining the differing views on the relationship between science and religion.

Category 3–Dialogue
The Dialogue category focuses on the similarities between the concepts and methods of science and religion. One way in which the two relate is through their presuppositions about nature. Barbour explains that Biblical creation stories provided a conceptual foundation for the rise of Western science.

The concept of a God who created the world by God’s own free will means that the universe is intelligible and contingent—God might have chosen not to create it at all. Since the world is not necessary, its workings cannot be deduced through logic (as the Greeks thought). Instead, we can learn about it only through observation. Judeo-Christian understandings of creation legitimized science for early practitioners, who thought they were inquiring into the mind of God. In addition, because Judeo-Christian tradition holds that nature itself is not divine, experimentation is permissible.

Science and religion are also said to relate by way of questions and answers (as opposed to asking noncontiguous questions as in the Independence category). Science raises questions about order, contingency, and human limits for which religion can provide answers. For example, if the world was created ex nihilo, who created it and why?

Theologian David Tracy calls these “boundary-limit” questions (24). These occur when we push beyond the boundaries of our understanding or when we experience existential crises. In such cases, we probe the mysteries of the universe, our purpose and place within it, and the ethical limits of our actions. Religious texts offer insight into the rational ground of reality and, therefore can help to answer questions that reach past the margins of human experience (24).

Scientist and theologian John Polkinghorne believes that the religious concept of “logos” helps us understand the way in which God communicates God’s rational order to human beings. Polkinghorne argues that we achieve knowledge of God’s rationality through the rational capacities of the human mind, especially through mathematics.

Science and religion share methodological similarities as well. Both employ theories that arise not exclusively from observation, but also through imaginative models. Religion, for example, uses models of God. Quantum physics uses models that represent the subatomic world.

In addition neither religion nor science can claim to be value-free, ahistorical, or objective. Both are informed by cultures, communities, and individual beliefs. Thomas Kuhn for example theorized that scientists form communities that share a set of common metaphysical, conceptual, and methodological assumptions (paradigms). Their commitment to a paradigm is based not on empirical evidence or logical proofs, but on shared values. Scholars such as Holmes Rolston propose that theological beliefs, like scientific theories, are bound to standards of consistency and congruency with experience.

Scientific findings can support theologians in refuting ontological reductionism as well as arguments that chance rules out the existence of God. It also helps them reveal false dualisms rooted in Enlightenment thought.

Neuroscience, for example, provides evidence that body and mind, emotions and reason are inseparable, giving scientific credence to the Biblical view that the ‘heart is the seat of reason’ (135). It also gives material substance to feminist theologians in their affirmation of embodied experience. Quantum indeterminacy challenges the notion that all phenomena are merely the sum of their parts and the materialist claim that science can fully explain reality.

In biology, some scientists suggest holistic understandings of evolutionary development. An example of this is the theory that natural selection involves top-down causation in which an organism’s entire system is involved in DNA selection, but does not interfere with lower level DNA production.

In this context, God may be viewed as setting the boundary conditions for multiple ontological levels that are free to follow their own rules without divine intervention. Related to this, some theologians see God as self-limiting. God gives creatures creative freedom but is involved in the world by suffering along with them. These theologians tend to see God in more personal terms.

Painting: “Women at the Well, Opus 238”, 1892, Paul Signac. Courtesy Mark Harden’s Artchive.

The Boston Globe has a cutting critique today of Ben Stein’s new film, “Expelled.” The film, which is a defense of intelligent design and an excoriation of science, seems to fall firmly into Barbour’s Conflict category. I described this category in one of my earlier essays.

Here’s a link to the Globe op-ed:

Trouble ahead for science

I haven’t seen this film yet. If you have, please share your thoughts about it.

This essay is a continuation of a series on Ian Barbour’s book When Science Meets Religion. Prior essay:

When Science Meets Religion (Conflict). Discusses the first of Barbour’s four categories for examining the differing views on the relationship between science and religion.

Category 2–Independence
Although science and religion as independent areas of concern may not be the most constructive relationship, it at least begins to move each toward mutual tolerance if not respect. 

By this view, religion and science are compartmentalized in three ways: 1) they ask different questions about life and reality; 2) they address different domains and perform different functions; and 3) they employ their own methods and language for inquiring about reality. 

Protestant neo-orthodox theologians believe that God acts not through nature but through human history. Their emphasis is not on discovering the way nature works; that is the domain of science. These theologians believe that scientific concerns do not overlap with those of religion and therefore require no interference from it.

For example, theologian David Kelsey argues that whether creation had a definite beginning point has little relevance to the meaning of the creation stories, the purpose of which is to inspire gratitude for life.

The domain of religion is concerned with divine revelation as conveyed through the people and communities whose lives constitute Biblical stories. The Bible is not a literal description of creation, but conveys basic messages about God’s relationship with humans and about the world’s goodness and order.

Religious methods involve use of ritual, symbolic stories, and practices to “recommend a way of life” and inspire personal transformation (20). These are dimensions of reality that transcend the material world.

This category also includes the view that nature is the unredeemed servant of God who is primary cause, and that all secondary causality is predetermined.

On the science side, Stephen J. Gould represents the view of those scientists who believe that religion and science are separate domains. Gould believed that science and religion are “non-overlapping magisteria” (99-100). Science asks questions about how the world works. Religion, Gould wrote, deals with ‘questions of ultimate meaning and moral value’ (100).

Other scholars argue for a dual-language theory, that is, the language of science is geared toward explanation, control, and prediction, whereas the language of religion deals with moral principles, attitudes, and way of life.

Citation
Barbour, Ian G. (2000). When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners? New York: Harper San Francisco, 2000.

Image: Einsames Haus (A Lonely House), by Michael Otto. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

In his book When Science Meets Religion, Ian Barbour suggests four classifications for exploring the relationship between science and religion. These include Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration. In my next few essays, I’ll provide an overview of each category.

Later I’ll discuss what I believe are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the views contained within each category in light of their potential benefits for science and religion and for the well-being of humans, animals, and the natural world.

Category 1—Conflict
Conflict is the first of Barbour’s classifications of the relationship between science and religion. In this category, Barbour juxtaposes the views of the two most extreme positions, scientific materialism and Biblical literalism. Proponents of both positions claim to offer the literal truth about the history of nature, with the result that a person must choose between the Biblical version and the scientific one.

This is essentially a battle between who owns an all-encompassing explanation of reality. For the materialists, physical phenomena, particularly as can be discerned from examining its smallest components, is all that constitutes the world. Science, therefore, is the only valid path to knowledge.1 Religion is rejected because it cannot provide observable data by which its claims can be tested.

Furthermore, science is viewed as an objective, progressive search for the truth, while religion is seen as subjective, rigid, and irrational. Conspicuous examples of materialists include Richard Dawkins and E.O Wilson in the area of evolutionary biology. Both believe that genetics and biology fully explain all human behavior.

In the area of cosmology, some astronomers claim that the role of chance in establishing the physical constants that enable life in the universe are incompatible with theistic views of a purposeful universe.

In contrast, Biblical literalists believe that scientific theories of evolution and creation undermine God as the source of the natural and moral order and the unique place of humans in creation. Here, the tension between chance and purpose is the most prominent; materialists believe that chance, whether in evolution, quantum physics, or astronomy rules out the existence of God.2

Literalists generally respond by rejecting certain scientific theories, especially Darwinism. Alternatively, in some cases, they try to find the science hidden in the Bible. An example of this is physicist Gerald Schroeder, who argues that we can reconcile scientific time scales with the first creation story in Genesis by equating six of God’s days to fifteen billion earth years.

Notes
1. The term for this is “scientism.”
2. Here’s a nice example of this view. It’s a comment in response to the article about Francisco J. Ayala in today’s NY Times. It would seem JimL holds some specific presuppositions about the nature of God:

Evolution is all about random mutation and natural selection. The very definition excludes the need for a guiding force. If evolution is “guided” what is the point? Why not just have god create all as it is and [s]imply create the illusion that there is random change and selection of beneficial variants?

Religion creates more problems than it purports to solve. it is a tragic waste of time.

— JimL, NorthernCalifornia

Citation
Barbour, Ian G. (2000). When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners? New York: Harper San Francisco, 2000.

Image: Beham, (Hans) Sebald (1500-1550): Fortuna, 1541. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

I came across this comment today, which was posted in response to an article called “Faith of Our Fathers” by Timothy Egan:

The author lays out the quote “Religion has always been about faith and a certain degree of mythology” as if it were revelation. Subsequent sentences show that the author doesn’t know what a myth is. A myth is not something “untrue” in a theological context. It is something that explains the way things are. Theologians talk about the creation myth without implying a lack of truth.

A legend is the tale of a great hero of the past.

So the story of the parting of the Red Sea, and the story of the miracle at the wedding in Canaa should be called “legends” if one isn’t approaching them from the standpoint of belief.

A myth would be “how the leopard got his spots.” A legend would be “how Ulysses got home from the Trojan War.”

Both myths and legends can be full of truth, more true than the mere photographing and cataloging of observable facts.

— Posted by WDannen

I found the distinction the author makes between myth and legend to be quite interesting. I do, however, wonder whether you can make such a clean separation of the two. The legend of Ulysses, for example, says something about “the way things are” from a certain cultural perspective. But it also gives us insight into contemporary human experience.

As a theologian, I read Biblical stories keeping in mind that they say something about the ways things were and, to an extent, about the way things are, although, both are always interpreted from the standpoint of our values and presuppositions. And so, I think the author may be oversimplifying the role of the theologian. Still, I find the distinction useful for thinking about the significance of Biblical narratives.

I also think the author’s last sentence is spot-on correct. Myths and legends can lead us to a more thorough grasp of what is real, beyond what we experience through our basic senses. This is one reason why I find so-called literal readings of the Bible so troubling. They miss the deeper meanings, complexities, and beauty of the texts.

For a related discussion, see “Seeing the Sacred.”

Photo: My cat, Shimsi, pondering the difference between legend and myth.