SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 603

SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page i

Spiritual Information
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page ii
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page iii

Spiritual Information
100 Perspectives on Science and Religion

Edited by Charles L. Harper Jr.

Essays in Honor of Sir John

Templeton’s 90th Birthday

Templeton Foundation Press

phil adelphia and lond on
SI-01 06/06/20 17:50 Page iv

Templeton Foundation Press

300 Conshohocken State Road, Suite 550
West Conshohocken, PA 19428
www.templetonpress.org

© 2005 by Templeton Foundation Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other-
wise, without the written permission of Templeton Foundation Press.

Templeton Foundation Press helps intellectual leaders and others learn

about science research on aspects of realities, invisible and intangible.
Spiritual realities include unlimited love, accelerating creativity, wor-
ship, and the benefits of purpose in persons and in the cosmos.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Spiritual information : 100 perspectives on science and religion /
edited by Charles L. Harper Jr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-59947-072-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Religion and science.
I. Harper, Charles L., 1958-
BL241.S69 2005
201'.65—dc22
2005005324

Printed in the United States of America

05 06 07 08 09 10 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page v

“How little we know, how eager to learn.”

—Sir John Templeton
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page vi
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page vii

Contents c

Preface xv
Acknowledgments xix

Part One ~
Perspectives on Sir John Templeton’s Two Domains—
Spiritual Capital and Spiritual Information 1
1. Spiritual Information and the Sense of Wonder:
The Convergence of Spirituality and the Natural Sciences
Alister E. McGrath 3
2. Sir John Templeton’s Three Passions
Michael Novak 8
3. Spiritual Capital: A New Field of Research
Robert D. Woodberry 12
4. Spiritual Capital as an Economic Force
Robert J. Barro 20
5. Spiritual Entrepreneurism:
Creating a Plan to Explore and Promote Spiritual Information
Jean Staune 26
6. Global Spiritual Confusion and the
Neglected Problem of Excess Spiritual Information
Wesley J. Wildman 33
7. Science, Semiotics, and the Sacred:
Seeking Spiritual Information in the Deep Structure of Reality
William Grassie 39
8. What Does a Slug Know of Mozart?
Introducing the Ontological Multiverse
Charles L. Harper Jr. 44
9. Complementarity
Freeman J. Dyson 52

Part Two ~
Perspectives on the History—and Future—of the Science-Religion Dialog 57
10. In Praise of Contingency:
Chance versus Inevitability in the Universe We Know
Owen Gingerich 59
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page viii

viii c contents

11. Historical Errors Impeding Progress in Science and Religion

Jeffrey Burton Russell 63
12. The Longing of Johannes Kepler
Kitty Ferguson 68
13. The Spirit of Galileo
Dallas Willard 74
14. Eminent Scientists and Religious Belief
Nicolaas A. Rupke 79
15. Biological Evolution, Quantum Mechanics,
and Non-Interventionist Divine Action:
New Research Promises Growth in Spiritual Knowledge
Robert J. Russell 84
16. Religion, Global Trends, and Religious Futurology
Philip Jenkins 90
17. “Playing God”
Noah J. Efron 96
18. The New Cognitive Science of Religion
Fraser N. Watts 101
19. Exploring Inner Space in a New Age of Discovery:
The Future of Scientific Survey Research in Religion
George H. Gallup Jr. 106
20. Theological Fiction and the Future
Gregory A. Benford 111

Part Three ~
Perspectives from Cosmology, Physics, and Astronomy 115
21. Outward Bound
John D. Barrow 117
22. An Echo of Ancient Questions from Contemporary Cosmology
Marco Bersanelli 121
23. Progress in Scientific and Spiritual Understanding
George F. R. Ellis 127
24. The Universe—What’s the Point?
Paul C. W. Davies 132
25. Choose Your Own Universe
Andrei Linde 137
26. The Goldilocks Universe: Finesse and Firepower
Karl W. Giberson 142
27. Emergent Realities in the Cosmos
Marcelo Gleiser 147
SI-01 06/06/20 17:23 Page ix

contents c ix

28. Cosmic Order and Divine Word

Lydia Jaeger 151
29. Science of the Unseen: A Perspective from Contemporary Physics
Hyung S. Choi 155
30. Design and the Designer: New Concepts, New Challenges
Robin A. Collins 161
31. Henderson’s “Fine-Tuning Argument”: Time for Rediscovery
Michael J. Denton 167
32. What God “Whispers” through Radio Telescopes
Jennifer J. Wiseman 172

Part Four ~
Perspectives from Quantum Mechanics, Mathematics, and Symbolic Logic 179
33. The “Trialistic” Structure in Physics:
New Insights for Metaphysics and Natural Theology
Gennaro Auletta 181
34. On the Perennial Oneness of Being
Michael D. Silberstein 188
35. Quantum Logic and the God-World Relationship:
A New Resource for Exploring Modern Christian Theology
Thierry Magnin 199
36. Between Mathematics and Transcendence:
The Search for the Spiritual Dimension of Scientific Discovery
Joseph M. Zycinski 208
37. Rejecting the Realm of Numbers
Edward Nelson 213
38. Is God a Mathematician?
Mario Livio 217
39. Mathematical Theology
Sarah Voss 221
40. From Now to Infinity
Michael Heller 228
41. One Universal Computation: First Zero, Then One
Kevin Kelly 232
42. “Neoreality” and the Quest for Transcendence
Clifford A. Pickover 237
43. Belief in a Superior Being: A Game-Theoretic Analysis
Steven J. Brams 242
44. On the Problem of the Existence of Evil:
Reflections of a Jewish Physicist-Philosopher
Max Jammer 250
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page x

x c contents

45. Do Quantum Experiments Challenge Kant’s Criticism

of the Proofs for the Existence of God?
Antoine Suarez 255
46. Proof or Persuasion?
F. Russell Stannard 261
47. From Information to Spirit: A Sketch for a New Anthropology
Gianfranco Basti 265

Part Five ~
Perspectives on Evolution and Purpose 273
48. Do Chimpanzees Have Souls?
Possible Precursors of Religious Behavior in Animals
Jane Goodall 275
49. Shamanic Practices in the Painted Caves of Europe
Jean Clottes 279
50. Naturalistic Spiritual Information
Ursula Goodenough 286
51. Hath Darwin Suffered a Prophet’s Scorn?
Evolutionary Theory and the Scandal of Unconditional Love
Jeffrey P. Schloss 291
52. Living Purpose: The Study of Purpose in the Living World
as a Source of New Spiritual Information
Paul K. Wason 300
53. The Evolution of Altruism: From Game Theory to Human Language
Martin A. Nowak and Natalia L. Komarova 308
54. The Form of Freedom
William B. Hurlbut 315

Part Six ~
Perspectives on Sociology and Ethics 321
55. Preparing the Way for the Lord:
Evolution, Christianity, and the Dialog on Moral Freedom
Alain J-P. C. Tschudin 323
56. Planetary Spiritual (In)formation:
From Biological to Religious Evolution
Holmes Rolston III 330
57. Is There a Place for “Scientific” Studies of Religion?
Robert Wuthnow 337
58. Sociology and Spiritual Information:
Challenging “Obvious” Opinions
David A. Martin 343
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page xi

contents c xi

59. The Emergence of Ethics from Science:

An Examination of the Ideals of Einstein and Gandhi
Ramanath Cowsik 348
60. Science in the Service of Meaninglessness
Sociological Change and the Decline of Faith
M. A. Casey 356
61. Secularization and the Sciences
Peter L. Berger 360

Part Seven ~
Perspectives on Religion and Health 365
62. The Faith Factor in Medicine, the Health Factor
in Religion: Reflections on a New Research Tradition
Anne Harrington 367
63. Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medicine, and Misunderstandings
Harold G. Koenig 376
64. Can the Body Heal the Spirit?
Ted Peters 381
65. Mental Health, Spiritual Information,
and the Power of the Mind to Shape the Brain
Jeffrey M. Schwartz 389
66. Navajo Spirituality: Native American Wisdom
and Healing in the Modern World
Lori Arviso Alvord 395
67. Of Monocytes and the Spiritual Man
Gregory L. Fricchione 400
68. Miracles Confront Materialism:
A Scientist Reflects on the Life of Christian Healer Dorothy Kerin
Stevens Heckscher 406

Part Eight ~
Perspectives on Contemplation and the Virtues 413
69. Reflection and Its Use: From Source to Meditation
Hendrik P. Barendregt 415
70. Disgust and Elevation:
Opposing Sources of Spiritual Information
Jonathan Haidt 424
71. Goodness Matters
Barbara L. Fredrickson 429
72. Psychological Science and Spiritual Pursuits
David G. Myers 433
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page xii

xii c contents

73. Spiritual Giftedness: Identifying and Measuring “Religious Genius”

Arthur J. Schwartz 440
74. Research on Forgiveness: Ten Lessons Learned (So Far)
Everett L. Worthington Jr. 445
75. Giving Thanks: Psychological Research on Gratitude and Praise
Robert A. Emmons 451
76. “Ecce Homo”: To Welcome the Suffering
Is the Sign of Our Humanity
Xavier Le Pichon 457
77. Unlimited Love
Stephen G. Post 464

Part Nine ~
Perspectives from Theology and Philosophy 471
78. If Theologians Do Not Measure, Can They Measure Up?
Rules for Acquiring Spiritual Information
Martin E. Marty 473
79. God, Spiritual Information, and Downward Causation
John W. Bowker 479
80. The Value of Risk-Taking: Human Evolution and the Love of God
Niels Henrik Gregersen 484
81. A New Relationship between Theology and Science?
One Theologian’s Reflections
Anna Case-Winters 490
82. The Emergence of Spirit
Philip D. Clayton 498
83. A Sense of Calling as a Clue to the Character of the Universe
C. Stephen Evans 504
84. The Role of Discernment in Seeking Spiritual Knowledge
Nancey C. Murphy 510
85. Spiritual Information for Integral Transformation
Kuruvilla Pandikattu 514
86. Reading an Unfinished Universe: Science
and the Question of Cosmic Purpose
John F. Haught 519
87. The Dawn of the Clone Age: Where Might Wisdom Be Found?
Celia Deane-Drummond 524
88. Moving in Mysterious Waves: Music, Meter, Silence, and Hope
Jeremy Begbie 529
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page xiii

contents c xiii

89. Grasping Eternity: Notions of God and Time

William Lane Craig 534
90. Divine Temporality and Human Experience of Time
Wolfgang Achtner 539

Part Ten ~
Perspectives from World Religions 545
91. Progress in Religion? Interfaith Opportunities
John C. Polkinghorne 547
92. Interfaith Dialog in the Global World:
Theological and Intellectual Constructs for the Future
Bruno Guiderdoni 551
93. Humility and the Future of Islam
Munawar A. Anees 557
94. Brahman and Progress: By What Knowledge Is the Spirit Known?
Ravi Ravindra 561
95. The Scientific Frontier of the Inner Spirit
B. Alan Wallace 567
96. From Biblical Story to the Science of Society:
How Judaism Reads Scripture
Jacob Neusner 572
97. Technology and Human Dignity
Jonathan Sacks 578
98. Pentecostal/Charismatic Worship: A Window for Research
Margaret Poloma 582
99. Catholicism and Science: Renewing the Conversation
James L. Heft 588
100. Quest for the Flame of the Spirit:
The Pilgrim Soul Follows the “Kindly Light”
Russi M. Lala 593

Contributors 599
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page xiv
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page xv

Preface c

T his book offers perspectives from many creative minds. Ninety of the essays
included here were presented to Sir John Templeton on the occasion of his
ninetieth birthday on November 29, 2002. To wish him continued strength of body
and mind toward his centenary celebration, we have here collected a total of one
hundred celebratory contributions for publication. These essays have been drawn
together around the central theme constituting Templeton’s core philanthropic
vision: to stimulate progress in the domain of the spirit. His aim has been to pro-
vide philanthropic resources to support the growth and development of an aca-
demically rigorous arena of research and debate engaged in this challenge, bringing
together the dynamism of the sciences with the diversity of the spiritual quest. The
aim, as he puts it, is to generate “new spiritual information.”
This term is rather loosely defined in the context of Templeton’s interests. First,
the idea reflects a desire to avoid the stasis of closure. Why consider God only
through a lens of fixed tradition without training the eye on anything new? In the
quest of the spirit, why not look to the open and progressive model of science, which
intrinsically abhors closure and for which the adventure of new discovery is every-
thing? Templeton’s vision seeks to encourage people to cultivate a mindset of look-
ing at the spiritual quest simultaneously as an adventure open to new insights from
a wide variety of sources and as an endeavor to be taken seriously by using what-
ever methods of research might be fruitful.
This idea embraces a contrarian vision: to look to sources not typically thought
of in connection with spiritual matters. Such sources may include, among others,
scientific inquiry, innovation through entrepreneurial competition within the reli-
gious sector, new insights from research on the virtues, or careful study of the dif-
ferences separating different spiritual traditions based on serious consideration and
reflection.
New insights also may come from relatively “pedestrian” sources. Consider, for
example, opinion polls. New spiritual information can be as simple as new statisti-
cal information on a spiritual topic—for example, results on what fraction of the
population of a country prays regularly, or what percentage has had an intense spir-
itual experience of some sort, or what the correlations might be between spiritual-
ity and personality type or specific social and cultural circumstances. There is nothing
particularly deep about such information, yet it may be useful knowledge. It may
help people to approach the challenge of spiritual progress in a well-informed way.
On the other hand, “new spiritual information” may refer to insights that are
specifically deep and theological in nature. The Templeton vision is properly hedged
with the caveat that the challenge of making progress in the “things of God” is by no
means as mundane as matters of research results, assembly lines, and international
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page xvi

xvi c preface

electronic equities trading markets: Deus semper maior (“God is always greater”
[than human attempts at understanding]). For example, new spiritual information
might have to do with scientific and philosophical analyses of the question of free-
dom or openness in the physical world—thus informing the continuing complex
debate over the classic problem of evil in theology. Or it may have to do with insights
into the mind obtained directly through prayer or meditation. Or it may be focused
on understanding spiritual themes, such as the mystery of love without limits. Or
it may have to do with scientific insights into the unseen, such as the nomic order
implicit in the concept of the laws of nature. Or it may have to do with aspects of
the rich strangeness of the veiled aspect of quantum reality.
These examples offer a spectrum of wide differences in considering what new
spiritual information could be. The point is to open up inquiry into a broad range
of types of potential new information pertinent to and focused on various spiritual
topics. The idea of open-mindedness as demonstrated in the range of essays in this
book also includes a commitment to a belief in the virtues of debate. Thus, chal-
lenges to Sir John Templeton’s vision are included. Such welcoming of a clash of dif-
ferences is very much a part of the Templeton way. Critical perspectives are
encouraged. Taking account of different points of view is an important part of any
effort to learn in a truly open-minded manner.
One way to understand the Templeton mindset is to see it as supporting alter-
natives to both religious and scientistic fundamentalisms. Fundamentalisms seek the
simple picture conducive to closed-mindedness and are uncomfortable with an
open adventure in seeking truth through polyphony and with appropriate humil-
ity. Rather, they seek to own the truth. And in the science-religion relationship, fun-
damentalisms of both the “for” and “against” varieties tend to focus on pushing a
clear-cut clash, typically between (philosophically loaded interpretations of) mod-
ern scientific theories and (usually simplistic literal interpretations of) ancient reli-
gious texts.
One of the most central insights into the idea of new spiritual information is
that the desire for acquiring it logically follows from a change in mindset: An open-
minded quest is possible once the idea of thinking of religion as only a matter of pre-
serving ancient tradition is discarded in favor of a different approach that drops
the presumption that one’s particular ancient tradition owns the sum total of Truth
(and, in contrast, that competing traditions correspondingly are seen to hold either
all or part of Falsehood). For this primary reason, Sir John Templeton has described
his vision as the “humble approach.”
Another aspect of the humble approach engages the notion that human beings
are likely to apprehend the infinite richness of Divine Reality in unavoidably lim-
ited ways, if only because of the immense mismatch between our perceptual appa-
ratus and the infinite reality of God. Templeton sometimes illustrates this second
aspect of the humble approach with a characteristic question: “Is the human abil-
ity to understand God just as impossible as the ability of a clam to understand the
ocean?”
A third aspect of the humble-approach mindset is to respect and appreciate les-
sons taken from the astonishing success of the scientific and technological enterprise
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page xvii

preface c xvii

in transforming human knowledge and in creating useful innovations. Rather than

seeing science and technology as competitors for the big story, or somehow together
as a modern antireligion that deflates all meanings external to itself, why should
people seeking spiritual insight not instead be open-minded and enthusiastic to
gain from possible insights that the scientific and technological enterprise might
have to offer? Such insights do not require anything particularly odd. They may
simply come from reflecting on the complex elegance of what science has discov-
ered about the nature of the physical world (e.g., the “laws” of nature) and the life
within it, and thus by implication about the creative wisdom upholding the order
of nature itself. Or they may appreciate the dynamism with which technological
innovation has transformed the quality of human life in myriad ways that we typ-
ically take for granted—from clean water, antiviral vaccines, and tomographic scan-
ners to airplanes, computers, and the Internet.
Sir John Templeton’s vision is one of constant learning. His motto, and that of all
the charitable foundations he has created, is “How little we know, how eager to
learn.” The John Templeton Foundation exists to provide support to gifted thinkers
who want to push the boundaries and are not afraid to do so, recognizing that many
vitally important issues require vision, leadership, and risk-taking beyond the often
overly narrow confines of specialized scholarship. The purpose of this collection of
one hundred essays is to exemplify the Templeton vision of adventure from a wide
diversity of points of view.
By fostering excellence in rigorous, multidisciplinary research among scientists,
theologians, and other thinkers, Sir John Templeton’s fervent wish is to unite inquiry
into the essential nature of the universe through the scientific method with human-
ity’s basic spiritual and religious quest to understand human and cosmic purpose.
In so doing, the John Templeton Foundation draws together in an ongoing sub-
stantive dialog many talented representatives from a broad spectrum of fields of
expertise, such as those whose work is represented in this volume. Were it not for
Sir John’s vision, the profound and wide-ranging output of this amazing and inspir-
ing group of one hundred experts from various fields could not have been repre-
sented in the same published work. Our hope in presenting this one-hundredfold
tribute to Sir John is that it will inspire others to pursue his quest to discover “over
one hundredfold more spiritual information than humankind has ever possessed
before.”
Charles L. Harper Jr.
Vice President and Executive Director
John Templeton Foundation
December 2004
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page xviii
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page xix

Acknowledgments c

M any people collaborated to bring this book to fruition in honor of the

ninetieth birthday of Sir John Templeton on November 29, 2002.
I am particularly grateful for the generosity of our benefactor, Sir John Temple-
ton, in making this project—and all of the Foundation’s programs—possible. Also,
I wish to thank his son, John M. Templeton Jr., President of the John Templeton
Foundation, for his enthusiastic support of this project in honor his father’s nineti-
eth birthday.
The one hundred authors whose work constitutes this volume also have my deep
thanks. The talent, knowledge, and dedication to the pursuit of truth exemplified by
all of the contributors made working on this book very enjoyable and stimulating.
The person who really carried the day on the project was Pamela Bond Contrac-
tor of Ellipsis Enterprises, whose effort was very substantial indeed. Pam served as
developmental editor and project manager, and her Herculean efforts, assisted by
Margaret Brennan, brought this large project to completion in a highly efficient
and skillful manner.
Thanks also are in order for Joanna Hill and Laura Barrett of Templeton Foun-
dation Press. I am especially grateful to them for the kindness of their patience as
we worked to finish the book!
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page xx
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 1

Part One
Perspectives on Sir John Templeton’s Two Domains—
Spiritual Capital and Spiritual Information

c
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 2
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 3

Spiritual Information
and the Sense of Wonder 1
The Convergence of Spirituality and the Natural Sciences
Alister E. McGrath

O ne of the many themes that have been deeply explored in recent years has
been the way in which our growing understanding of the cosmos leads to an
enhanced spirituality. In other words, we seek a more profound understanding and
appreciation of the universe in which we live and of the God who we believe to have
created it in such a way that it sparkles and scintillates with divine beauty and wis-
dom (Goodenough 1998; Ebert 1999). This quest is thanks in large part to the gen-
erous sponsorship of publications and conferences by the John Templeton
Foundation that have sought to catalyze the process of reflection and advancement
from both the scientific and religious perspectives.
While a “spirituality of the natural sciences” is still in its emergent phase, it is
clear that a number of points need to be examined in considerable detail if this field
of research is to achieve its considerable potential. This essay was written to celebrate
the stimulus given to the study of science and religion by the personal vision of Sir
John Templeton, while at the same time exploring a possible framework for devel-
oping the new discipline’s insights. Through this essay, I aim to advance this impor-
tant agenda by exploring a major issue that arises in the attempt to develop a
spirituality of the natural sciences: How can we hold the generalizations of theory
together with a continued concern for and loving attention to the particularities of
the natural world?
The essence of the process of theorizing may be thought of as an attempt to iden-
tify universal a posteriori patterns in local situations and represent those patterns
in a language appropriate to its subject matter. Often, in the case of the natural sci-
ences, the most appropriate language is that of mathematics. The intellectual chal-
lenge here is to preserve and respect locality while discerning universality—that is
to say, to ensure that the particularities of the observed situation are not displaced
or superseded by the universal patterns they are held to disclose.
Theory tames reality, reducing it to manageable proportions and allowing it to be
visualized in terms adapted to human reasoning. Experience is to be reduced to
repeatable formulas; phenomena are to be represented formally through mathe-
matics. In this sense, theory can be seen as embodying a central theme of the
Enlightenment: the desire to reduce everything to what Descartes called “clear and
distinct ideas.” This concern can be seen throughout the development of modern
natural science, from Newton to Einstein, in which reality is to be reduced and rep-
resented in terms conforming to three global categories: accuracy, simplicity, and
generalizability (Latour 1993).
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 4

4 c alister e. mcgrath

Of Rainbows and Refractions

Theory arises from a sustained engagement with the natural world, yet the paradox
of the explanatory successes of the natural sciences is that theories developed on the
basis of an engagement with nature often lead us away from that engagement with
nature. We risk becoming preoccupied with the theory itself rather than with the
wonders of nature that brought that theory into being. Paradoxically, the natural
sciences can thus actually discourage an appreciation of nature. This was the point
made in 1814 by John Keats in his famous lines concerning the beauty of the rainbow:
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings. (“Lamia,” Part II)
For Keats, a rainbow can be seen simply as yet another example of the laws of
optics in action, preventing the observer from appreciating its full wonder. It
becomes just another item in “the dull catalogue of common things,” where the
important thing is the process of “cataloging,” not appreciation of the individual
items being addressed.
Keats has been heavily criticized for these comments, not least by Richard
Dawkins (1998). Dawkins regards Keats’s poetry as typical antiscientific nonsense
that rests on the flimsiest of foundations:
Why, in Keats’ poem, is the philosophy of rule and line “cold,” and why do
all charms flee before it? What is so threatening about reason? Mysteries do
not lose their poetry when solved. Quite the contrary—the solution often
turns out to be more beautiful than the puzzle. And, in any case, when you
have solved one mystery you uncover others—and perhaps inspire greater
poetry.
Dawkins illustrates this point by drawing attention to the consequences of New-
ton’s analysis of the rainbow. He tells us that Newton’s dissection of the rainbow into
light of different wavelengths led to Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism and
thence to Einstein’s theory of special relativity.
The points that Dawkins makes are important and valid. Perhaps the road from
Newton to Maxwell and thence to Einstein was rather more troublesome than
Dawkins’s prose suggests, but the connection certainly exists.
Yet there is a deeper issue here that must be addressed by anyone concerned with
the spirituality of the natural sciences. For Keats, a rainbow is meant to lift the
human heart and imagination upward, intimating the transcendent dimensions of
reality, pointing to a world beyond the bounds of experience. For Dawkins, the rain-
bow remains firmly located within the world of human experience. It has no tran-
scendent dimension. The fact that it can be explained in purely natural terms is
taken to deny that it can have any significance as an indicator of transcendence.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 5

alister e. mcgrath c 5

The angel that was, for Keats, meant to lift our thoughts heavenward, disclosing the
transcendent dimensions of reality, has had its wings clipped; it can no longer do
anything save mirror the world of earthly events and principles.

“Redemption of Particularities”
So how can we celebrate the development of scientific theories that deal with the
rationality of the universe and the ability of the human mind to discern it, while at
the same time remain closely in touch with the original engagement with nature that
underlies them? How can we grasp the transcendent dimension of nature while
remaining firmly engaged with its empirical aspects? The answer lies in the great
theme of the “redemption of particularities”—the recognition of the need to con-
tinue to pay loving and meticulous attention to the individual aspects of the cosmos
while taking pleasure in the universal patterns that we discern beyond them.
One of the most interesting treatments of the “redemption of particularities”
theme is found in the literary works of the great British novelist and philosopher Iris
Murdoch. Although she deals with the theme in some of her technical writings (e.g.,
Murdoch 1952), her most impressive treatment of the issue is found in her novels.
Under the Net (1954) is arguably the least philosophical of all her novels, yet it con-
tains an extended reflection on the manner in which a Wittgensteinian “net of dis-
course” is necessary if particularities are to be described and yet also shields or
conceals those particularities to reinforce itself. As one of her characters writes:
The movement away from theory and generality is the movement toward
truth. All theorizing is a fight. We must be ruled by the situation itself, and
this is unutterably particular. Indeed it is something to which we can never
get close enough, however hard we may try as it were to crawl under the net.
Theory thus possesses simultaneously the ability to illuminate and conceal the world
of particulars. It is as if the two realms are mutually necessary and yet are perma-
nently in tension.
Literary theory, perhaps paradoxically, illustrates Murdoch’s point with disturb-
ing clarity. The theory, which was perhaps once intended to heighten the reader’s
awareness of the distinctiveness of a given text, has become interposed between the
reader and the text, rendering the latter of questionable importance. Theory-led
“readings” of texts subvert their particularities and lead to imprisonment within
preconceived theoretical categories. Aware of this, Valentine Cunningham argues for
the need for a “tactful” reading—that is, a reading that is in touch with the text,
valuing its uniqueness and affirming its distinctiveness rather than seeking to com-
partmentalize it as yet another example of a theory-driven category (Cunningham
2002).

Tactfully Reading the Book of Nature

The relevance of this to a reading of the “book of nature” is obvious. Theologians,
philosophers, and literary writers have often compared nature to a book. Cunning-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 6

6 c alister e. mcgrath

ham’s point is that we can easily read this book from the standpoint of a predeter-
mined theory that causes us to disregard the particularities of nature precisely
because we already see it in a certain manner determined by our theoretical per-
spective. Cunningham challenges us to adopt a “tactful” reading of the book of
nature: to engage directly, respectfully, and lovingly with nature, valuing its specific
features rather than merely “cataloging” them as yet more instances of a general
theoretical point.
When rightly understood, theory liberates rather than imprisons. It allows us to
“see” or “behold” a particular in a new manner—for example, to see a rainbow as a
specific instance of a general optical principle or the orbiting of the satellites of the
planet Jupiter as a specific instance of the general theory of gravitation. The beauty
and wonder of the original natural phenomenon is thus preserved and allowed to
become the gateway to a deeper theoretical appreciation of the universe.
Both science and religion begin with a sense of wonder, followed closely by a
yearning to understand. Theory arises precisely because human beings are rational
creatures and feel impelled, both morally and intellectually, to give an account of
things. The natural sciences and Christian theology are both rooted in human expe-
rience and culture; yet they also aspire to transcend the particularities of time and
place to yield truths that claim a more universal significance. The first critical ques-
tion concerns precisely how one moves from observation of and reflection on par-
ticularities—the movements of the planets, the distribution of fossils, or the history
of Jesus Christ—to universal theories that have validity and relevance beyond the
specific events that evoked and precipitated them. The second critical question has
to do with how we ensure that these particularities are not evaporated by the the-
ory that they generate, so that a universal abstraction comes to be valued more than
the concrete particularities that it enumerates.
Paradoxically, a given theory can lead us to look through rather than at the par-
ticular, causing us to ponder whether the particular illustrates a universal truth,
rather than valuing it in its own right, bathed in its inalienable individuality. It is
here that Keats’s concerns about the demystification of the rainbow come into play
in that a wonder-evoking sight of the natural world is seen simply as an example of
an optical phenomenon, rather than as a breathtaking thing of beauty in its own
right. Properly understood, theory leads to a deeper engagement with particulari-
ties, rather than retreating from them.
A “spirituality of the natural sciences” aims to keep this sense of wonder alive by
insisting that we continue to value and appreciate each and every individual aspect
of the universe, while at the same time rejoicing and admiring the underlying pat-
terns of rationality that undergird it. As Chandrasekhar (1990) and others have
reminded us, the mathematical beauty of these theories often complements and
extends the beauty of the natural world itself, thus encouraging us to appreciate
both the surface appearance and the deeper reality that lie beneath it. Science and
theology have much to contribute to each other, especially in the innovative and
important field of the spirituality of the natural sciences.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 7

alister e. mcgrath c 7

c
Alister E. McGrath, D.Phil., D.Div., was elected Principal of Wycliffe Hall in
1995. In 1999, he was awarded a personal chair in theology at Oxford University with
the title Professor of Historical Theology. His doctoral degrees, both from Oxford,
are for his research in the natural sciences and for his research on historical and
systematic theology. His most significant publication in the field of science and reli-
gion is the three-volume work A Scientific Theology, published by Wm. B. Eerd-
mans: Volume 1: Nature, September 2001; Volume 2: Reality, December 2002; and
Volume 3: Theory, July 2003.

References
Chandrasekhar, S. Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1990.
Cunningham, Valentine. Reading after Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002.
Dawkins, Richard. Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder.
London: Penguin Books, 1998.
Ebert, John David. Twilight of the Clockwork God: Conversations on Science and Spiritual-
ity at the End of an Age. Tulsa, OK: Council Oak Books, 1999.
Goodenough, Ursula. The Sacred Depths of Nature. New York: Oxford University Press,
1998. Also see her essay in this volume.
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1993.
Murdoch, Iris. “Nostalgia for the Particular.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 52 (1952):
243–60.
———. Under the Net. London: Vintage, 1954.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 8

Sir John Templeton’s

Three Passions 2
Michael Novak

S ir John Templeton turned ninety in November 2002. In his youth, he wanted

to be a Christian missionary in foreign lands. A poor lad from the mountains
of Tennessee (his ancestral home was not far from fabled Kenyon College), John had
been sent to Yale through the generosity of a family friend. From there it was off to
Oxford, where a Christian advisor told him his health was probably too frail for
strenuous work overseas. John’s summer jobs at Merrill Lynch, meanwhile, had
taught him that he had a talent for analyzing listed companies and the likely long-
term performance of their stock. He took this to signify that talents are a sign God
gives us of our vocation.
And while on the one hand Sir John at age ninety-plus looks the picture of energy
and health, on the other he still seems tiny and frail. Both his longevity and his sus-
tained energy level would not have been easy to predict fourscore years ago, so his
Oxford advisor may be forgiven. And because that same man’s candor led John to
veer off into a life of very nearly unparalleled success in worldwide investing, he
even deserves some gratitude.
For the Templeton Fund—the pioneering mutual fund through which the future
Sir John Templeton brought scores of thousands of small investors into the habit of
worldwide investing—produced record-breaking gains, year after year, with a kind
of steadiness that was a marvel then, and in retrospect still is today. (Sir John sold
off the Fund some years ago to Franklin.) Sir John had some simple secrets about
investing:
✦ Invest for the long term and be patient.
✦ Look for opportunities in places where things are so bad they can’t get much
worse.
✦ Single out good, honest, and true management that has its feet on the ground
and a zest for solid creativity.
Sir John was conservative in the virtues that he looked for and put his trust in;
he was radical in taking a worldwide view and showing willingness to seek out solid
opportunities and calculated risks in truly forbidding places. He was radical in his
worldwide vision and steadily traditional in his standards of judgment. For this rea-
son, while the record shows that he produced above-average gains (and often far-
above-average gains), Sir John radiated rocklike solidity of judgment.
In the retail investment world, Sir John was a new kind of genius. He pioneered
in bringing global capital investments to areas of the world that had hardly known
them and in teaching an international viewpoint to amateur investors on all conti-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 9

michael novak c 9

nents. He taught scores of thousands of ordinary citizens a global perspective. It

turned out that his vocation lay not in bringing the universal “good news” of salva-
tion as a Christian missionary. Instead, he learned that he could have a significant
effect in expanding opportunity and economic development for all people, includ-
ing those in the heretofore most forgotten regions. He could help reduce poverty
and misery in this world.
Behind Sir John’s vision lay the three principles that were his passion: love, humil-
ity, and the moral instruction learned through such humble realities as ownership
of property and the habit of enterprise. From these, he has never wavered.

Love
In the last line of Dante’s Paradiso, we learn of “The Love that moves the Sun and
all the stars.” Like Dante, Sir John also believes that, in the human world at least, love
is the great creative energy. He holds that this claim is empirically verifiable and
invites scholars in all disciplines to test it out. Doesn’t learning come easier when one
loves the subject? An actress who loves her audiences bonds with them deepest. A
person who loves life fares better under medical treatment. Managers and employ-
ees who love their work and love the people they serve tend to do their work better
and offer their customers better service. A republic survives when its citizens love
it dearly. All these hypotheses should be subjected to empirical testing. Meanwhile,
Sir John has kept on living accordingly—as if the proposition were true.
No doubt Sir John, like anyone, may be sometimes less than kind and loving—
but, it seems, not all that often. Journalists who have interviewed him and strangers
who meet him along the way have often experienced a kind of cherubic kindness that
he exudes. It seems to flow from within him. One suspects it would not be well to
cross him or betray him; but then, anger of a certain sort is not a violation of love,
but one of love’s classic expressions when used to defend the thing that is loved. The
point is that a certain goodness radiates from him—because he wants it that way.

Humility
Sir John is a firm believer in the proposition that both God and the universe around
us are far, far bigger than we are and that our expanding knowledge shows us how
much smaller and smaller we seem to be in the scheme of things. He likes to point
out how many times vaster is our scientific knowledge of the world in the current
year 2000 compared with one hundred years ago and how rapidly it is increasing
every few months as an unprecedented number of scientists get on with their work
day after day. But this vast knowledge is far greater than any one of us can absorb.
Sir John concludes from this that the only appropriate human attitude is humil-
ity—and further, that humility is a particularly important virtue in two great human
enterprises: the pursuit of knowledge and the building up of human community.
Arrogance and pride destroy trust and generate resentment, hostility, and division.
They also blind the inquiring mind and make it reluctant to accept evidence from
lowly and unexpected sources—whence it often comes. Thus, lack of humility
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 10

10 c michael novak

causes many human setbacks, both in the advance of science and in global living.
By humility, Sir John means a certain down-to-earth truthfulness, a lack of pre-
tension in both directions—neither know-it-all self-confidence nor excessive (and
false) modesty. The word “humility” comes from humus, the Latin word for “earth”
or “soil,” and so it suggests a kind of groundedness, a self-knowledge without any
sort of pretension.

Moral Benefits
Moral benefits are learned through the instruction conferred by such humble real-
ities as ownership of property and the habit of enterprise. Parents soon come to
understand how many things children can learn only by doing. There are certain
crucial moral habits that children learn only through owning something of their
own and having responsibility for its flourishing. Ownership teaches how much
care things need if they are to be kept in good condition or, even better, improved.
“If you borrow a neighbor’s lawnmower, return it to him in better condition than
you received it—clean it, oil it, tighten it, do something to make it better,” one father
taught a son. Even in taking over a Fortune 500 company, the son remembers that
injunction and has as his goal turning that company over to the next CEO in bet-
ter condition than he received it.
In the same way, building an enterprise of your own forces you to learn habits you
may once have counted as less important. For one, you learn how to work with oth-
ers, teaching them trust in one another, how to be better than they’ve ever been, and
how to set ever-new goals for themselves. For another, you learn how to keep track
of small losses and small gains so as to keep the enterprise moving forward by the
measure of hard-to-achieve profits, how to be grateful for small gains, and especially
how to be grateful to good customers and how to find new ways of better serving
them so as to deserve their patronage—and to find more good customers.
Building an enterprise summons up a very broad range of human skills, not all
of which one is likely to have mastered in the beginning, but all of which one has
to learn in short order. Building an enterprise is a morally stretching thing. It
requires a creative vision. It requires a tolerance for risk, even at the cost of losing
all that one has invested in it. It requires skills in inspiring and motivating others.
It requires skills in efficiency and restraining costs, even as one tries to maximize the
value to customers of the good or service provided. It requires a moral and emo-
tional equilibrium of a rather high order that is under the constant critical eye of all
those with whom one deals. For they, too, are seeking to cut costs and maximize
value, and if you can’t help them do that, they will seek someone else who can. Cre-
ativity, community building, and practical wisdom—these are the cardinal virtues
of enterprise. But there are also a myriad of others, including the “tough love”
needed to fire nonperformers for the good of the firm as a whole.
As writers since Montesquieu have noted, there is a close relationship between the
virtues taught by commercial life and the virtues required to make a republic work:
Initiative, enterprise, responsibility, community skills, trust, realism, practicality,
good service, cheerfulness, and the like are necessary both to sound enterprises and
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 11

michael novak c 11

to durable republics. Commercial virtues and republican virtue are not a perfect fit,
for there are times when self-sacrifice even at the cost of one’s own life is necessary
for a republic, and in this sense a durable republic also needs martial abilities. But
for the long haul, commercial virtues are more valuable, even, than martial abilities
for the survival and prospering of republics. For martial societies lead as well to
dictatorships as to republics, but commercial societies multiply the number of suc-
cessful citizens who demand a voice in republican government.
Sir John Templeton, knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1987 for his services to the
United Kingdom, including endowment of a new business college at the University
of Oxford, deserves to be celebrated on his ninetieth birthday for his concentration
on these three passions—not only in his own vocation, but in the philanthropies
that will carry his vision into the future.

c
Michael Novak currently holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion
and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., where
he is Director of Social and Political Studies. He received his M.A. in history and phi-
losophy of religion at Harvard University and his S.T.B. (Bachelor of Sacred The-
ology) at Gregorian University in Rome. Author of The Universal Hunger for Liberty:
Why the Clash of Civilizations Is Not Inevitable (2004), Mr. Novak has written 26
influential books in the philosophy and theology of culture that have been translated
into many languages. The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (1982), for which he
received the Antony Fisher Prize presented by Margaret Thatcher (1992), has been
influential in Latin America, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, China, and Hun-
gary. Mr. Novak served as Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Com-
mission in Geneva (1981–82). Among his awards are the Templeton Prize (1994), the
International Award of the Institution for World Capitalism (1994), the highest civil-
ian award from the Slovak Republic (1996), the Thomas G. Masaryk Medal pre-
sented by Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic (2000), and the Gold Medal of The
Pennsylvania Society (2001).

Reference
Hermann, Robert L. 2004. Sir John Templeton: Supporting Scientific Research for Spiritual
Discoveries. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 12

Spiritual Capital 3
A New Field of Research
Robert D. Woodberry

I n the United States, highly religious people tend to live longer, have fewer
mental problems, steal less, volunteer more time, and give away more money
than others. Even when other relevant factors are controlled for statistically, these
differences persist. Why? What do these people have to draw on that shapes their
lives in these ways? To extend the trend of translating the economic idea of capital
into other areas of social science—for example, human capital, social capital, and
cultural capital—those who invest in religion can be considered to accumulate spir-
itual capital.
Spiritual capital differs from the other forms of capital, not because religious
groups don’t have material resources, skills, trusting relationships, and culturally
valued knowledge—that is, financial, human, social, and cultural capital. They do.
But religious groups are concerned with more than these. For example, most reli-
gious groups purport to be more than social clubs. They often stress that their rela-
tionship with God is central and that the focus of group activity is precisely to
emphasize, actualize, and act on that relationship. Moreover, participants often
claim that people can access spiritual resources individually and anywhere without
respect to group solidarity per se. Both these suggest that what happens in religious
groups is not fully encompassed as a special subset of social capital.
Empirical evidence seems to confirm this. Research consistently shows that those
who attend religious services for social or other nonreligious reasons (the extrinsi-
cally religious) are significantly different from those who attend for religious reasons
(the intrinsically religious), even if they attend church the same amount (e.g., Gor-
such 1988). If social capital is the main resource congregations create, we would not
expect this difference.
In fact, religious people invest money and skilled work, risk certain relationships,
and forgo chances to learn culturally valued knowledge in pursuit of spiritual
returns. In the process, they build up spiritual, material, intellectual, and social
resources that shape both themselves and society. The effects of this process are
beginning to be measured. The metaphor of “spiritual capital” may aid in this inves-
tigation.
First, the metaphor helps us see religion as an investment and as a distinct end.
People and societies invest resources in religion with the hope of some return.
Although people may use religion to gain financial capital, social capital, and cul-
tural capital, many also seek something uniquely spiritual, something that cannot
be reduced to money or sex or power.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 13

robert d. woodberry c 13

The metaphor also helps us see religion as a resource: one that people draw on
to meet various challenges—sickness, political oppression, ethical choices, or social
problems. Religious organizations are repositories of financial, human, social, and
cultural capital, but they are also sources of moral teachings and religious experi-
ences that may motivate, channel, and strengthen people to reach particular ends.
These spiritual resources may also shape how people use other forms of capital in
ways these theories would not predict. Introducing the concept of “spiritual capi-
tal” may challenge scholars to analyze whether there are any uniquely religious
resources or whether religious groups are merely repositories of material resources
and networks of people that happen to be in religious organizations.
Focusing on religion as a resource may also spur research on the economic impact
of religion. Because some religions influence health, rule-following behavior, vol-
untarism, and sound work habits, they probably have an important impact on the
economy. However, perhaps because most of these influences are indirect and econ-
omists have generally not viewed religion as a resource, the impact of religion on the
economy has remained largely unexplored.
This metaphor may also spur research on the consequences to both individuals
and societies of increasing or decreasing investments in spiritual capital and the
impact of changing the types of spiritual capital in which people invest. Finally, it
invites comparison between investing in spiritual capital and investing in other
forms of capital. The resources people invest to gain one type of capital are often
resources they cannot invest to gain another type. Scholars may research the con-
sequences to individuals and societies of differential investment strategies.
However, the metaphor has some limitations. One problem is that it may overem-
phasize religion as a means of reaching particular ends, whereas religion typically is
also deeply concerned about shaping which ends people seek. It is a resource, but not
only a resource. Religious traditions help people change themselves, to decide what
they should want and the means they should use to reach those ends. This does not
mean that people always follow their stated beliefs. But some religious traditions
may provide resources to help people evaluate the match between their stated beliefs
and their behaviors and enlist divine and human aid in reducing the gap between
them. Prayer groups, Bible studies, and mentoring relationships often serve this role.
The metaphor may also suggest that the main goal of religion is personal profit.
This may be true for many people and many religious traditions, but some reli-
gious traditions stress that spiritual profit is only a byproduct of losing the self or
“dying” to self. For example, for Christians the goal is to love God: To seek first
God’s gifts is idolatry; to seek spiritual gifts for financial benefit is the sin of Simony.1

Spiritual Resources
There are many spiritual and religious resources. Some are related to material cap-
ital, social capital, and cultural capital, and others are not. One example of an unam-
biguous religious resource is the ritual “sacrament” of the Eucharist. The value of
receiving a small piece of bread and a sip of wine, and the idea that they may become
either actually or symbolically the salvific body and blood of Christ, makes sense
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 14

14 c robert d. woodberry

only within a religious worldview. The Eucharist, of course, has little direct mone-
tary or nutritional value. However, the sense of spiritual nourishment that believ-
ers experience in receiving the Eucharist reinforces the authority of the Christian
tradition to make transformative claims on the believer’s life. Such religious expe-
riences and transformative claims commonly energize people to engage in other
activities that influence society.
Other religious resources—for example, experiences of the divine, conviction on
“sin,” the strength believers feel from knowing that others are praying for them or
that God is in control, and the sense that God is watching or that “sin” will “ham-
per one’s witness”—may also prompt people to act. Because relationships in reli-
gious groups have a spiritual context and often an external moral authority, religion
may also shape social relations in ways that social capital theories would not predict.
For example, people in a small Bible study group may be more willing to call oth-
ers to ethical change or challenge them to help outsiders, than, for example, people
in boating or bowling clubs. People generally may also be more willing to let oth-
ers prod them ethically in religious contexts than in other contexts. Thus, the reli-
gious context shapes the “value” and uses of social relations. Studying the number
of group memberships and the density of social networks is not sufficient. Bowling
alone may be less a problem than lone ranger spirituality.
These examples only touch on the breadth of spiritual resources. These
“resources” are hard to explain with existing theoretical concepts, but they fill many
personal accounts of why people do the things they do—even in private journals.
Thus, social scientists should take them seriously.

Possible Economic Consequences of Religion

When people invest in spiritual capital, they are often not trying to influence the
economy, the political system, and so forth, but the religious resources they create
may indirectly shape these and other arenas. Some ways that spiritual capital may
influence the economy are through health, rule of law, voluntarism, and educa-
tion—as explored below. Unfortunately the vast majority of statistical evidence
comes from Western Europe and North America—areas where Protestantism and
Catholicism predominate. Thus, these relationships may not generalize to some
other religious traditions.
Health: Religion has an important impact on health (e.g., Smith and Woodberry
2001). For example in the West, religiously involved people generally live longer. In
fact, building on the path-breaking research of Hummer et al. (1999), Koenig (2000)
calculated that in the United States, religious uninvolvement is linked with a
decreased lifespan equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes every day for forty
years (i.e., about seven years). Highly religious people seem to have fewer mental
problems, get sick less often, and recover from sicknesses more quickly than people
who are less religiously active. They engage in less risky behavior with respect to
health; for example, they have fewer lifetime sexual partners, smoke less, drink less,
use drugs less, and attempt suicide less often. They are more socially involved and
report higher self-esteem, greater levels of happiness, better sex, less stress, and more
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 15

robert d. woodberry c 15

satisfying and lasting marriages and relationships—all social and emotional factors
that influence health (Ellison and Levin 1998; Sherkat and Ellison 1999; Koenig 2000;
Hummer et al. 1999; Smith and Woodberry 2001; Townsend et al. 2002).2 Yet to date,
no study has measured the short- and long-term economic impacts these practices
have on society. Moreover, these relationships are amenable to quantification, such
as the calculated reduction in insurance payouts, medical care, diminished pro-
ductivity, and lost workdays.
Rule of Law: Some religious traditions seem to be an important resource for
increasing cultural support for the rule of law (Woodberry 2004; Stark 2001).3 Quan-
titative evidence suggests that people affiliating with these traditions display lower
involvement in crime, political corruption, and misappropriation of resources—
for example, workers calling in sick when they are not, using company supplies for
personal benefit, and so forth (Woodberry 2004; Stark 2001; Johnson et al. 2000; La
Porta et al. 1999; Treisman 2000; Sikkink and Smith 1998).4
The economic link here should be obvious. For example, quantitative research
consistently suggests that corruption slows subsequent economic growth, accentu-
ates income inequality, reduces government efficiency, and diminishes the quality
and quantity of education, medical work, social services, infrastructure, and so on.
(Jain 2001).
Voluntarism: In the West, empirical evidence suggests that highly religious peo-
ple tend to volunteer more time and give more money to help people informally and
to support both religious and nonreligious voluntary organizations (Woodberry
2000; Smidt 2003; Regnerus, Smith, and Sikkink 1998). Religious groups are also
central to forming humanitarian organizations, private schools, and private hospi-
tals, even if these organizations no longer have religious ties (Smidt 2003; Young
2002; Woodberry 2000; Smith and Woodberry 2001; Anheier and Salamon 1998).
Voluntary activity can have an important effect on the economy by, among other
things, providing social services that make the workforce more productive, reduc-
ing the tax burden required to fund social programs, contributing to high-quality
education of youth, and so forth.
Education: Some religious traditions, particularly Protestantism, have also pro-
foundly influenced worldwide education rates (Woodberry 2000; 2004). Protes-
tants have consistently championed universal literacy, believing it is a basic religious
responsibility to be able to read the Bible. Consequently, Protestants have invested
massively in expanding education, both in their own societies and, through mis-
sionaries, in other societies. Thus, areas with more Protestant missionaries had more
formal education during the colonial period and, on average, continue to have more
formal education today (Woodberry 2000; 2004). Historical research suggests that
these missionaries were motivated primarily by religious ideals. They wanted to
convert people and thought education would help them do this. Colonial govern-
ments, settlers, and businesspeople generally resisted the expansion of mass educa-
tion in the colonies. Thus, missionaries were not primarily serving the interests of
these financially interested groups (ibid.). Missionaries and their supporters were
investing in spiritual capital, but through the educational institutions they created,
this investment had important economic consequences.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 16

16 c robert d. woodberry

Caveats
In discussing spiritual capital and the impact religious resources have on society, I
have focused on factors that many people may view as positive. But I need to pres-
ent several caveats. First, religion is not the only factor that influences health, rule
of law, voluntarism, or education. I am merely discussing one factor. Of course,
some religious groups promote unhealthy behaviors, resist certain types of educa-
tion, and hamper the economy. At times, religious differences can lead to violent and
implacable conflicts, thus squandering economic resources. Religious strictures may
also block the economical use of some resources. For example, Islam and Catholi-
cism long promulgated ethical and legal restrictions against charging interest. In
fact, all religious traditions presumably involve a complex mixture of positive and
negative effects on economic productivity.
Second, I am talking about general tendencies, not universal absolutes. For exam-
ple, it is clear that some nonreligious people volunteer more time and give more
money than the average religious person. However, individual variation does not
negate a general tendency. On average, highly religious people volunteer and give
more.
Third, although some patterns may develop originally in religious groups, they
may diffuse through society and continue to spread over time. Thus, although the
modern form of social-movement organization seems to have developed from Pro-
testant mission and revivalist groups, once these organizational forms developed,
nonreligious people learned to use them effectively without direct contact with
religious groups (Young 2002; Woodberry 2000; 2004). In some societies, the
impact of religion on corruption rates and political democracy may also be more
historic than contemporary. Once institutions and patterns of behavior are in place,
they may continue even after religiosity declines or disappears (Woodberry 2004).
Like financial capital, later generations may draw on the spiritual capital accumu-
lated by previous generations. Thus, in measuring spiritual capital, we should not
focus entirely on current investment levels or assume that only religiously active
people draw on it.

Challenges
Research on spiritual capital faces several important challenges. First, although all
societies have religious resources, they probably cannot be measured in the same
way in every culture. For example, for Jews and Christians, weekly religious service
attendance may be one good indicator of individual investment in spiritual capital.
However, this measure may not be appropriate for Buddhists and Hindus. Even
though Christians attend group religious services more often than Buddhists or
Hindus, this does not mean they invest more in generating spiritual capital; they just
invest in different ways.
Second, because people’s motivations for religious activity vary, the same exter-
nal act may not be an equivalent investment in spiritual capital. On things ranging
from racial attitudes to helping behavior, people who attend religious services to
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 17

robert d. woodberry c 17

gain social capital seem to be significantly different from those who attend for reli-
gious reasons (e.g., Gorsuch 1988). Thus, an ideal measure of spiritual capital invest-
ment would include a motivational component.
Third, investing in “spiritual capital” may generate very different resources in
different religious traditions. The beliefs and goals in different traditions, their
sources of authority, their means of interaction, and their institutional forms make
a difference. Thus, for example, quantitative analysis suggests that Protestantism is
associated with lower levels of corruption; other religious traditions are not (e.g.,
Triesman 2000; La Porta et al. 1999). Historical analysis suggests a role of Protestant
renewal movements in this process (Gorski 1993; Woodberry 2004). This does not
mean that Protestants invest more in spiritual capital or that Protestant spiritual
capital is “superior.” It merely means that investing in Protestantism may provide
resources useful for some things and investing in other traditions may provide
resources useful for other things. Thus, we can miss some of the impacts religious
traditions have if we assume that religious groups are interchangeable or that we can
measure spiritual capital in the same way regardless of religious tradition.
Still, spiritual capital may be a useful metaphor that can help us see new aspects
of religion and channel scholarship in some promising new directions. It may even
lead to important insights if spiritual “accounting” is developed with appropriate
nuance and recognition of the complexity of and barriers to quantification of those
aspects of life that are intractably intangible.

c
Robert D. Woodberry, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Univer-
sity of Texas at Austin. He earned a B.A. in political science from Wheaton College,
an M.A. in cross-cultural studies from Fuller Seminary, an M.A. in sociology from
Notre Dame, and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill. Professor Woodberry’s current research looks at religion and democ-
racy and at the long-term impact of missions and colonial policy on non-Western
societies. Along with coauthors, he received the 2001 “Outstanding Published Arti-
cle Award” from the Sociology of Religion Section, American Sociological Associ-
ation. Professor Woodberry has served on the Nominations Committee of the ASA
History of Sociology Section, 2002–03, the Councils of the ASA History of Sociol-
ogy Section, 2000–02, and the ASA Sociology of Religion Section, 2000–01. He has
coauthored numerous articles in prominent sociological journals.

Notes
1 The word “Simony” comes from Simon Magus (Acts 8:18–24), who attempted to buy
the gifts of the Holy Spirit to use for financial gain.
2 However, scholars still do not fully understand all the ways religion influences health,
and the strength of particular health benefits is still contested.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 18

18 c robert d. woodberry

3 Internationally, the link is primarily with monotheistic religious traditions, especially

Protestantism. In North America, the link is strongest with theologically conservative
traditions.
4 Research on delinquency among adolescent boys suggests the effect is primarily in areas
with high overall religiosity.

References
Anheier, Helmut K., and Lester M Salamon (ed.). 1998. The Nonprofit Sector in the Devel-
oping World. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Ellison, Chris, and Jeffrey S. Levin. 1998. “The Religion-Health Connection: Evidence, The-
ory, and Future Directions.” Health Education and Behavior. 25: 700-20.
Gorski, Philip S. 1993. “The Protestant Ethic Revisited: Disciplinary Revolution and State
Formation in Holland and Prussia.” American Journal of Sociology. 99(2): 265–316.
Gorsuch, Richard L. 1988.“Psychology of Religion.” Annual Review of Psychology. 39: 201–21.
Hummer, Robert A., Richard G. Rogers, Charles B. Nam, and Christopher G. Ellison. 1999.
“Religious Involvement and US Adult Mortality.” Demography. 36(2): 273–85.
Jain, Arvind K. 2001. “Corruption: A Review.” Journal of Economic Surveys. 15(1): 71–121.
Johnson, Byron R., Spencer De Lie, David B. Larson, and Michael McCullough. 2000. “A
Systematic Review of the Religiosity and Delinquency Literature: A Research Note.”
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. 16(1): 32–52.
Koenig, Harold. 2000. “The Healing Power of Faith.” pp. 107–10 in God for the 21st Century.
Russell Stannard (ed.). Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press.
La Porta, R., F. Lopez-de-Silanes, A. Shleifer, and R. W. Vishny. 1999. “The Quality of Gov-
ernment.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization. 15(1): 1131–50.
Regnerus, Mark D., Christian S. Smith, and David Sikkink. 1998. “Who Gives to the Poor?
The Influence of Religious Tradition and Political Location on the Personal Generos-
ity of Americans Toward the Poor.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 37(3):
481–93.
Sherkat, Darren E., and Chris G. Ellison. 1999. “Recent Developments and Current Con-
troversies in the Sociology of Religion.” Annual Review of Sociology 25: 363–94.
Sikkink, David, and Christian Smith. 1998. “Religion and Ethical Decision-making and
Conduct on the Job: Reconsidering the Influence of Religion in the Economic and Busi-
ness Sphere.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of
Religion.
Smidt, Corwin (ed.). 2003. Religion as Social Capital: Producing the Common Good. Waco,
TX: Baylor University Press.
Smith, Christian S. and Robert D. Woodberry. 2001. “Sociology of Religion.” pp. 100–13 in
The Blackwell Companion to Sociology. Judith Blau (ed.). Cambridge: Blackwell.
Stark, Rodney. 2001. “Gods, Rituals and the Moral Order.” Journal for the Scientific Study of
Religion. 40(4): 619–36.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 19

robert d. woodberry c 19

Townsend, Mark, Virginia Kladder, Hana Ayele, and Thomas Mulligan. 2002. “Systematic
Review of Clinical Trials Examining the Effects of Religion on Health.” Southern Med-
ical Journal. 95(12): 1429–34.
Treisman, Daniel. 2000. “The Causes of Corruption: A Cross-national Study.” Journal of
Public Economics. 76: 399–457.
Woodberry, Robert D. 2000. “The Long-Term Influence of Religious Traditions on Levels
of Democratization.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Soci-
ology of Religion, Washington, DC.
———. 2004. The Shadow of Empire: Christian Missions, Colonial Policy and Democracy in
Postcolonial Societies. Ph.D. Dissertation, Sociology Department, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Woodberry, Robert D. and Christian S. Smith. 1998. “Fundamentalism et al.: Conservative
Protestants in America.” Annual Review of Sociology. 22: 25–56.
Young, Michael P. 2002. “Confessional Protest: The Religious Birth of U.S. National Social
Movements.” American Sociological Review. 67(5): 660–88.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 20

Spiritual Capital
as an Economic Force 4
Robert J. Barro

P revious research has used cross-country experience to assess the determi-

nants of economic growth. One conclusion is that successful explanations have
to go beyond narrow economic variables to encompass political and social forces.
Thus, economic growth has been found to depend on education and health, fertil-
ity rates, maintenance of the rule of law, and so on. Given these and other factors,
poorer countries tend to grow faster and, thereby, converge toward the richer coun-
tries. However, because poorer countries typically rank low on a number of growth
determinants—such as education, health, and rule of law—they tend not to grow
faster in an overall sense.
Some researchers argue that explanations for economic growth should also
include a nation’s culture, especially religion. In ongoing research,1 we view the eco-
nomic influence of religion as operating through the formation of beliefs that influ-
ence traits such as honesty, work ethic, thrift, and openness to strangers. We view the
religious beliefs and related character traits as “spiritual capital,” which is analo-
gous to the human capital that is important for worker productivity.2 Human cap-
ital includes the skills and knowledge that come from formal schooling, on-the-job
training, and parental guidance. Analogously, spiritual capital derives from formal
learning through organized religion and from family and social interactions.
Our empirical analysis was focused at the countrywide level. We began with a pre-
viously constructed data set for more than one hundred countries. These data
include national accounts variables and other economic, political, and social indi-
cators observed since 1960. We recently expanded this data set to include measures
of religion.
The measures of participation in organized religion and of religious beliefs come
from surveys of individuals in about sixty countries. We use information from three
waves of the World Values Survey, two waves of the International Social Survey Pro-
gramme, and the Gallup Millennium Survey. (George Gallup has contributed an
essay to this volume.) The participation variables are the portions of the population
that attended formal religious services at least weekly, at least monthly, and so on.
The religious beliefs refer to the portion of the population who said that they
believed in heaven, hell, life after death, and God. Other questions, which might be
more robust across religions, are whether the respondent considers himself or her-
self to be religious and whether religion plays an important role in one’s life.
We know each country’s breakdown of religious adherence across the major
faiths. For persons who express adherence to some religion, we use a nine-way divi-
sion into Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, other Eastern religions,
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 21

robert j. barro c 21

Orthodox, Jewish, and other religions. We also have indicators of the interactions
between government and religion. One variable measures the existence of an estab-
lished state religion. Another gauges whether the government regulated the reli-
gion market, in the sense of appointing or approving church leaders. In subsequent
research, we will use the Religion & State Data Set being constructed by Jonathan Fox
and Shmuel Sandler to improve our measures of state regulation, subsidy, and sup-
pression of religion.3
We are interested in how differences at the national level in church attendance
and religious beliefs influence economic outcomes. However, to sort out this direc-
tion of causation, we have to deal with reverse effects from economic development
to religiosity. This reverse channel is the focus of a substantial literature in the soci-
ology of religion.
One theory in this literature is the secularization hypothesis, whereby economic
development is thought to make people less religious, as gauged by church atten-
dance, religious beliefs, and the influence of organized religion on social and legal
processes. This hypothesis is controversial, and the continuing vitality of religion in
the United States is a counterexample. A recent study by Laurence Iannaccone shows
that the classic secularization pattern, whereby nations that were once highly reli-
gious experienced steady declines in church attendance, applies only to a few coun-
tries in Western Europe.4
An important competing theory downplays the role of economic development
and other demand factors for religion and emphasizes the extent of competition
among religion providers.5 A greater diversity of religions is thought to promote
more competition and hence a better-quality religion product and therefore higher
religious participation and beliefs. The extent of religious competition depends on
how the government regulates new entrants and existing providers in the religion
market. Thus, this approach argues that government regulation, subsidy, and sup-
pression are important determinants of religiosity.
Our primary goal is not to assess the validity of alternative theories of religios-
ity. Rather, we consider the countrywide determinants of religiosity to pin down the
direction of causation from religion to economic performance, rather than the
reverse. The estimation procedure is to isolate some variables—called instrumen-
tal variables—that influence religiosity without (arguably) being influenced by eco-
nomic variables. The estimation reveals how differences in religiosity—driven by
these instrumental variables—influence economic growth.
Two instrumental variables that we use are the indicators for the existence of an
established state religion and for the presence of a regulated market structure, where
the government appoints or approves church leaders. We also use an index of reli-
gious pluralism, which gauges the degree of heterogeneity of religious adherence
within a country. The idea is that countries with primarily a single religion exhibit
less competition among religion providers than countries with religious diversity.
Our empirical framework has been used in many previous studies.6 This
approach relates economic growth to lagged values of explanatory variables, includ-
ing per capita GDP, school attainment and life expectancy, the fertility rate, indica-
tors of the rule of law and democracy, and so on. Our analysis adds measures of
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 22

22 c robert j. barro

religiosity. Thus, we examine how religion affects economic growth for given values
of the other explanatory variables.
One finding is that, for given church attendance, economic growth rises when
certain religious beliefs increase. The beliefs that seem to be growth promoting are
those concerned with hell, heaven, and an afterlife. In contrast, growth is not related
to belief in God. In our cross-country sample, the average percentage of persons
expressing belief in God is 80 percent, compared with 38 percent for hell, 55 percent
for heaven, and 58 percent for an afterlife. Thus, affirmation of belief in God seems
to be a reflexive response with little content. In contrast, the survey responses about
beliefs in hell, heaven, and an afterlife are less often positive and apparently more
indicative of the religious convictions that matter for economic performance.
For given religious beliefs, higher church attendance reduces economic growth.
Our interpretation is that church attendance affects economic outcomes mainly by
fostering religious beliefs that influence individual traits such as work ethic, honesty,
and so on. For example, beliefs in hell and heaven might affect these traits by cre-
ating perceived punishments and rewards for “good” and “bad” behavior. When we
hold fixed religious beliefs, an increase in church attendance signifies that more
resources, in terms of time and goods, are being consumed by the religion sector for
given outputs (the religious beliefs). From this perspective, we are not surprised
that higher church attendance reduces economic growth.
The link between religious beliefs and character traits depends on the nature of
religious doctrine. That is, beliefs are growth enhancing if the perceived punish-
ments and rewards reinforce good behavior, such as honesty and hard work. The
relationship would be reversed if the religious doctrine encouraged nonproductive
behavior, including violence. Our results suggest that this dark side of religion is
atypical.
Another way to view the results is that economic growth is high when believing
is high relative to belonging. Grace Davie characterized modern Britain as the pro-
totypical example of a nation that features believing without belonging.7 In our
data, Britain does have high religious beliefs relative to its low church attendance.
However, countries with higher levels of believing relative to belonging are Japan
and Scandinavia.
Our findings do not mean that increased church attendance tends overall to
reduce economic growth. To calculate the overall effect, we have to know how reli-
gious beliefs respond to greater attendance. We hope to estimate this “religion pro-
duction function” in future research. At present, we can note that when religious
beliefs and church attendance move together in their typical manner, the response
of economic growth is weak. Countries that are more religious overall—that is,
have higher beliefs and higher church attendance—tend, other things equal, to grow
at about an average rate.
Aside from its impact on religious beliefs, church attendance may contribute to
social capital built up through participation in organized religious services. The
church-attendance variable may also proxy for the influence of organized religion
on laws and regulations that affect economic behavior. Our results indicate that,
for given beliefs, the overall effect from greater church attendance is to reduce eco-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 23

robert j. barro c 23

nomic growth. This effect combines the resources used up by the religion sector, the
social-capital aspect of this sector, and the influence of organized religion on legal
and regulatory institutions. In future research, we plan to estimate directly the eco-
nomic effects of religiously based laws and regulations.
Figures 1 and 2 display some findings graphically. The horizontal axis in Figure
1 shows a measure of a country’s monthly church attendance. The vertical axis shows
the country’s growth rate of per capita GDP over ten-year intervals, 1965–75, 1975–85,
and 1985–95. (Each country appears three times if all data are available.) The variable
plotted adjusts the growth rate for the effects of all of the explanatory variables
other than monthly church attendance.8 Conceptually, the fitted, downward-sloping
line shows how economic growth would fall if monthly church attendance rose,
while the other explanatory variables did not change. One of the variables being held
fixed is religious belief, in this case, belief in hell. Thus, the negative effect on growth
applies when church attendance rises for given beliefs.
Figure 2 is analogous except that the horizontal axis measures belief in hell. The
upward-sloping line shows how economic growth would rise if belief in hell
increased, while the other explanatory variables—including church attendance—
did not change. Hence, this positive effect applies when beliefs rise for given church
attendance.

Figure 1. Economic Growth and Church Attendance Figure 2. Economic Growth and Belief in Hell

E E
C C
O O
N N
O O
M M
I I
C C

G G
R R
O O
W W
T T
H H

monthly church attendance (transformed) belief in hell (transformed)

Other empirical results suggest that the “stick” from belief in hell is more potent
than the “carrot” from belief in heaven in terms of growth promotion. We will have
more evidence on these relationships when the data from the 2001 wave of the World
Values Survey become available. These data will be useful because they contain far
greater representation of Muslim countries, which tend to have high levels of belief
in hell and heaven.
We anticipate that the effects of beliefs in hell and heaven on economic per-
formance would be weaker in religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, in which
hell and heaven do not represent ultimate individual objectives. We find weak sup-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 24

24 c robert j. barro

port for this proposition. We have more information from the 2001 World Values
Survey, which includes expanded coverage of countries in which the population
adheres primarily to Buddhism or other Eastern religions.9
The causal interpretation of the link between religion and economic growth
depends on the use of instrumental variables that relate to the interplay between
state and church. We relied especially on indicators for established state religion
and for government regulation of the religion market. These measures are rough,
and we expect to get better information from the Religion & State Data Set, which
Fox and Sandler are constructing. We are eager to see whether our findings hold up
when we use more accurate measures of the relation between state and church.
Our interpretation is that the economic effects of religious beliefs worked
through influences on character traits, such as honesty and work ethic. We plan to
check this interpretation by using survey responses from the World Values Survey to
proxy for the underlying character traits.
Our findings about the economic effects of religion are exciting, provocative, and
preliminary. We think there is more than enough to warrant further research, which
will likely modify and perhaps overturn some of our findings. One conclusion that
we expect to remain intact is that religiosity has important consequences for eco-
nomic performance.

c
Robert J. Barro, Ph.D., is Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard
University, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, co-editor of the
Quarterly Journal of Economics, and viewpoint columnist for Business Week. He was
recently vice president of the American Economic Association, is currently Presi-
dent-elect of the Western Economic Association, and is a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society. Professor Barro received
his B.S. in physics from Caltech in 1965 and his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard
in 1970. He held faculty appointments at Brown, Chicago, and Rochester before
returning to Harvard in 1987. Professor Barro has written extensively on macro-
economics, especially on economic growth, public debt, and monetary policy. His
books include Economic Growth, Macroeconomics, Nothing Is Sacred: Economic Ideas
for the New Millennium, Determinants of Economic Growth, and Getting It Right:
Markets and Choices in a Free Society.

Notes
1 See Robert J. Barro and Rachel M. McCleary, “Religion and Economic Growth,” Amer-
ican Sociological Review (October 2003).
2 I have been unable to pin down the origin of the term “spiritual capital.” Charles Harper
of the John Templeton Foundation and editor of this volume tells me that John DiIulio
may have coined it.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 25

robert j. barro c 25

3 See Jonathan Fox and Shmuel Sandler, “Separation of Religion and State in the 21st
Century: Comparing the Middle East and Western Democracies,” International Stud-
ies Association conference, Portland, OR, February 2003.
4 See Laurence R. Iannaccone, “Looking Backward: A Cross-National Study of Religious
Trends,” George Mason University, 2002, available at wcfia.harvard.edu/religion.
5 For a survey, see Laurence R. Iannaccone, “The Economics of Religion: A Survey of
Recent Work,” Journal of Economic Literature (September 1998).
6 See Robert J. Barro and Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Economic Growth, 2nd ed. (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2004), chap. 12.
7 Grace Davie, Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging (Oxford: Black-
well, 1994).
8 The average value on the vertical axis has been set to zero and is, therefore, not mean-
ingful.
9 See http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/services/index.html.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 26

Spiritual Entrepreneurism 5
Creating a Plan to Explore and Promote Spiritual Information
Jean Staune

W hen Laplace published his System of the World based on the works of
Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, he made his famous statement to
Napoleon: “Sire, je n’ai pas besoin de cette hypothese” (“Lord, I do not need this
assumption”). The “assumption” was God. In a universe conceived as a large mech-
anism in which everything is causally determined and real freedom does not exist,
the concept of God is, by definition, rendered obsolete. And although the Darwin-
ian explanation of the evolution of life, which was based on randomness and hence
on unpredictability, appeared to challenge the ordered theories of Laplace and his
successors, both the Laplacian and Darwinian hypotheses have a common thread:
Each contends that the world is explainable by itself, that no other level of reality
exists, and that the universe is not the result of a divine plan.
The remarkable progress of neurology tends to lean toward the same conclusion:
By revealing the complexity of neuronal mechanisms, it seems to lead us inexorably
to the conclusion that human consciousness is entirely contingent on the brain and,
therefore, that nothing can survive death. The French neurologist Jean-Pierre
Changeux, for example, has claimed, “Man need no longer be seen as a spiritual
but a neuronal being.”1 In much the same vein, Jacques Monod asserted, “Man
finally knows he is alone in the immense indifference of the universe in which he
appeared by chance.”2
Consequently, classical science has been associated with a “disenchantment of
the world,” in the words of Max Weber. Moreover, it has had an adverse effect on reli-
gion, increasingly seen as the product of “nothing but” human imagination whose
pervasiveness throughout human society, according to some sociobiologists, may be
due to a genetic propensity. It has even been argued by some that societies with a
belief in God are more productive, thanks to a “God gene” that has successfully sur-
vived the process of natural selection through the advantages conferred by “wish-
ful thinking” in various societies.
Spiritual information may be conceived of in two ways:
✦ Type 1—a revelation to humanity from another level of reality (which is
impossible if there are no other levels of reality);
✦ Type 2—information obtained from a scientific study of the world, which may
serve to disclose part of God’s creativity and possible elements of his cosmic
purposes, including his plan for humanity and the universe (but, of course,
impossible if such a plan does not exist).
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 27

jean staune c 27

In the context of classical science, it is clear that there is little or no room for any
kind of spiritual information. However, since the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury, another kind of scientific revolution has been under way. Running counter to
classical science, this revolution has been laying the foundation for a serious reap-
praisal of the two kinds of spiritual information described above.

Type 2 Spiritual Information: The New Scientific Paradigm

The following paragraphs briefly outline the revolutionary changes that have been
taking place in the sciences and how these might be associated with a new kind of
spiritual information.
In astrophysics, the theory of general relativity and the resulting Big Bang theory
tell us that time and space are no longer absolutes and, therefore, that other dimen-
sions located outside of time and space can exist. The Anthropic Principle shows us
that the universe is finely tuned to allow the emergence of complexity and life and
ultimately leads us to conjecture that it has been conceived in such a way as to allow
consciousness—capable of apprehending beauty and seeking out its Creator—to
appear.
Quantum physics further undermines materialism in the strict sense of the term
by showing that elementary particles, the building blocks of matter, are not objects.
As Werner Heisenberg said, “The atoms and elementary particles themselves form
a world of potentialities rather than a world of things or facts.”3 Moreover, quantum
mechanics reveals to us the existence of nonlocal connectivity free from time and
space. This concept is reminiscent of the intuitions of some religions that refer to
“interconnectedness,” as we find, for example, in the concept of the constantly
changing self in response to shifting conditions in Buddhism or the spiritual unity
of all souls in the Communion of Saints in Christianity.
The evolution of life is no longer seen as a blind process. The work of scientists
such as Michael Denton4 extends the Anthropic Principle to biology by showing
that evolution is made possible by the fine-tuning of the laws that govern bio-
chemistry.
In addition, “genetic imperialism,” which endows genes with a pivotal role in the
process of evolution (underscoring the Darwinian conclusion that no plan can be
discerned in the process of evolution), is increasingly thrown into contention. How-
ever, the recent discovery of a new RNA-based system of information in living
organisms hit the headlines of some scientific journals and important newspapers.5
Phillip Sharp of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who won the Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1993, and Gordon Carmichael of the University
of Connecticut have discovered the existence of fragments of RNA that are capa-
ble of interfering with the reading of biological information contained in DNA.
Their work is linked to the discovery of a new universal mechanism in the world
of living organisms that provides the simplest method for preventing the action of
a gene in an organism. Even if the implications of such a mechanism in the process
of evolution are not yet clearly understood, several leading scientists have not hes-
itated to talk about the discovery of a new “biological continent,” which will
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 28

28 c jean staune

inevitably change our perception of life. The progress of epigenetics also shows the
importance of the role played by the environment in the expression of genes. It
demonstrates that there is a lack of humility among those who purport (in overly
simplistic and reductive statements) that “we are nothing but selfish genes mind-
lessly reproducing themselves” and who claim that Darwinian models are able to
explain the whole of evolution. All of this raises the possibility that there may be a
purpose in evolution.
If the reductionist approach in neuroscience has had, and will no doubt con-
tinue to enjoy, much success, numerous other experiences such as those of Ben
Libet and Roger Sperry show us that there is a dimension of human consciousness
that defies explanation from a purely neuronal basis.
Thus, a reductionist explanation of the singularity of the human person as a con-
scious being seems less and less likely. The “hard problem” seems to be getting even
harder as our understanding improves. There is increasing evidence that the belief
in an extra dimension of human existence is not absurd.
In mathematics, the Gödel Theorem has revealed the incompleteness of human
logic. This, too, is a reason for humility, but it is also a justification for those who
adhere to a Platonic view of the world according to which mathematics is not merely
a construct of the spirit, but a reality intimately linked with this spirit. Gödel insisted
that his work demonstrated that mathematical “truth” is a concept far larger than
demonstrability. This transcendence of “truth” gives scientific substantiation to
2500-year-old intuition.
Hence, extensive data regarding the fine-tuning of the universe, the nature of
matter, evolution, the human spirit, and mathematics contradict the claims of mate-
rialism and give a firm basis for the existence of spiritual information.
All of this suggests that we may be witnessing a paradigm shift. We have a con-
siderable responsibility, and yet we know from the work of Thomas Kuhn that the
purveyors of a new paradigm always go through periods of isolation—and even
persecution—before they see their ideas come to fruition. How much easier it would
have been for Galileo and his successors if only they had had supporters with entre-
preneurial minds and public relations agencies to help them promulgate their ideas!
And how many years and centuries humanity would have advanced if the ideas of
the Renaissance had developed more quickly!
In short, there is no reason to shy away from using an entrepreneurial approach
to promote ideas. The purpose of this paper is not to describe a complete strategy,
but simply to show how strategic concepts can be carried from one field of inquiry
to another. By using concepts that are typically used for creating a new product or
a new market, we can contribute to the rapid evolution of knowledge.

Establishing the Plan: Promoting Spiritual Information

✦ Who are our clients?
All those who have a spiritual quest or a religious faith, as well as educational and
cultural institutions. However, it is necessary to ensure that fundamentalists, for
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 29

jean staune c 29

whom progress is impossible, should be excluded, as should all those who seek
refuge in esoteric sects.
✦ Who are our competitors?
Organizations working in the field of Science and Religion and those dealing
with the new scientific paradigm. Here, too, it is necessary to avoid organizations
involved in spreading fundamentalist or New Age ideas. However, spiritually open
joint ventures (win-win games) are possible—not only with other organizations
defending spiritualist positions, but also with promoters of emergence, self-organ-
ization, and chaos theory, even if these promoters are entirely atheistic. A Jew, a
Christian, and a Muslim who accept mainstream Science and Religion ideas have
more in common with the atheistic disciples of Varela and Prigogine than with a
Christian who believes the world is only six thousand years old or a Muslim who
claims that the speed of light is written in the Koran. Given the weakness of a new
paradigm when it emerges, alliances between organizations that might otherwise be
rivals are vital. However, such alliances are sometimes very difficult to form for ide-
ological and personal reasons. Therefore, they should be encouraged.
✦ Who are our suppliers?
Scientists, philosophers, theologians, and religious leaders who are either directly
or indirectly involved with the Science and Religion dialog or the new scientific
paradigm. Here, too, discretion should be exercised. To focus only on mainstream
thinkers would be dangerous, as history clearly shows that new ideas generally
emerge out of the mainstream. But ideas from lofty-minded people or those who
lack intellectual rigor are equally dangerous.
✦ What are our raw materials?
All the facts and discoveries that show that the intuitions and principles of the
great religions received by humanity were received from another level of reality
(Type 1 spiritual information) or that enable the progression of the new scientific
paradigm (Type 2 spiritual information).
✦ Who are the potential shareholders?
All those who believe that atheism and materialism are a dead end for humanity
and who have the means to finance currents of thought that support a nonmateri-
alist vision of the world. They can be Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or sim-
ply spiritually open people who do not adhere to any particular religion.
✦ Who are our promoters?
The main religions that have an interest in disseminating information on the Sci-
ence and Religion dialog to win back part of the public that thinks that modernity
stands in opposition to religion. Also, the media interested in the sciences or polem-
ical debates; the Science-Religion debate is often a contentious one.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 30

30 c jean staune

Advancing the Plan: Taking Spiritual Information Forward

Hence, we can see how it is possible to construct an entrepreneurial approach based
on a global strategy that would include increasing the raw materials base available
for research, including certain sectors that are not directly concerned with the field
of Science and Religion, and carefully selecting suppliers, taking into account the
credibility of the prestigious mainstream people and the creativity of some inno-
vative borderline people. This strategy should also involve lobbying large interna-
tional organizations, universities, and academies to raise awareness about the
seriousness of the field of Science and Religion, while similarly reaching out to the
main religions so that they can disseminate the findings in this field of inquiry to
their numerous congregations. It would also involve a systematic scanning of busi-
ness leaders who have religious beliefs to encourage them to provide funding for the
field. Work needs to be carried out in the area of communications and public rela-
tions to support the dissemination of works and the ideas of researchers, some-
times isolated, but who may be pioneers in the field of Science and Religion and/or
the new scientific paradigm. We must also encourage mutual alliances between
existing networks in the field that are not linked at present.
By building strategies of this nature, “spiritual entrepreneurs” will be able to her-
ald the arrival and acceptance of the new paradigm that is now in its early infancy.
Some may criticize the transposition of a “business plan” to the promotion of ideas.
However, this is to ignore the fact that the history of science shows us that, in the
long term, there is a safety net. If those who are involved in such endeavors tend to
lack honesty and rigor, their actions lead to their own demise, whatever means they
employ. This is one of the most remarkable characteristics of science (and which
the scientific researcher shares with the religious seeker): The truth is always
revealed in the end to the detriment of illusion. The best proof is surely that no
leading scientist would participate in a program whose aim was to show that the
world was only six thousand years old, even if such a program were backed with
millions of dollars. If the new paradigm that we are talking about does not relate
to facts, it will end in ruin, however many millions of dollars are spent trying to pro-
mote it.
Therefore, this approach avoids the risk of misinterpreting scientific data (as with
the Lysenko affair under the communist regime6) insofar as we retain our freedom
and the free exchange of ideas. On the other hand, if the new paradigm is con-
firmed, a global strategy for its promotion led by spiritual entrepreneurs could avoid
loss of precious time in this period of doubt and international tension when more
than ever we need to have reason to believe in the credibility of spiritual informa-
tion—which indicates that the world and our existence have meaning.
This was Sir John Templeton’s remarkable intuition when he decided to invest in
the promotion and development of the new scientific paradigm, and especially its
metaphysical and philosophical implications. And he has been working with an
international perspective covering the main points mentioned above.
In its own independent way, and with much smaller means, the Interdisciplinary
University of Paris has developed a similar strategy that does not merely limit itself
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 31

jean staune c 31

to action through academic circles, but that aims to build a genuine business plan
for the development of the field of vigorous, constructive dialog and mutual explo-
ration between science and religion.
But to be consistent, the promotion of the facts and ideas linked to the field of Sci-
ence and Religion must be carried out in line with the values and behavior that cor-
respond to them. It is impossible to assert that the world is infused with meaning,
that the emergence and development of life is part of a plan, that humans are more
than machines created at the behest of “selfish genes” and at the same time pollute
the environment and despise our collaborators and clients. Therefore, the spiritual
entrepreneur should break with a short-term vision and the maximization of profit
at all cost. There is a direct link between this type of behavior and the materialism
of the classical paradigm. “If God does not exist, everything is permitted,” said Dos-
toevsky. No morality and no ethics, only the search for individual self-interest, can
find a solid basis for a vision of the world that corresponds to the classical paradigm.
Here, too, Sir John Templeton was a pioneer. He himself attributes his profes-
sional success to the fact that his aim was to increase the wealth of his clients and
not the maximization of his personal profit. Had he chosen this latter option, he
would not have benefited from the loyalty of his clients in the long run.
At a time when we require two-figure growth rates from companies and eco-
nomic growth is between 3 percent and 4 percent, which has catastrophic results in
increasing the pressure on businesses forcing some of them to cook the books, the
example of Sir John Templeton shows us a possible alternative route: A spiritual
entrepreneur should not only take the shareholders into account, but also all the
stakeholders who constitute his or her business environment. This approach will
work because the employees, the suppliers, and the clients will be more faithful and
more motivated because of the respect and the advantage that they will obtain
instead of creating a situation where the entrepreneur is only interested in maxi-
mizing his or her own profits. Ethics and values will generate more confidence in the
business than in those of his or her competitors.
In conclusion we must be aware that we are facing a triple revolution.
✦ We are going from a dogmatic and self-assured theological vision based on
fundamentalist conceptions of religious texts (for example, closing interpre-
tation of the Koran and the damage it has caused and continues to cause) to
a more open vision based on humility about all that we still need to know
about what God wanted to convey to us, with simultaneous respect for other
religions engendered by raising awareness about the incompleteness of our
own tradition, however rich it is.
✦ We are moving from a scientist, materialist, and mechanistic vision of the uni-
verse that is devoid of the concept of an overall plan and that is closed in on
itself to the concept of a universe that is open to other levels of reality from
which we can receive spiritual information.
✦ We are shifting from a quantitative economy based only on profit, data, and
the principle of survival of the fittest to a qualitative economy in which the
respect of values, ethics, people, and nature is a requisite and not an option.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 32

32 c jean staune

Although these three revolutions are very different, they are linked by the same
concepts: the transition from arrogance to humility, from closed systems to open
ones, from quantitative to qualitative economies.
The simultaneity and scope of the three revolutions open up new perspectives to
humanity that have not been seen since the transition of the Middle Ages to the
Renaissance. They represent the framework in which humanity may be able to
acquire more spiritual information thanks to the work of seekers of truth and spir-
itual entrepreneurs.

c
Professor Jean Staune is Founder and General Secretary of the Interdiscipli-
nary University of Paris, which has organized some of the most important interna-
tional conferences and meetings in the Science and Religion dialog. He is also
Assistant Professor of the Philosophy of Science in the MBA course of l’École des
Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) in Paris, editor of the Temps des Sciences series
published by Fayard (Hachette Group), and a member of the John Templeton Board
of Advisors and the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESS-
SAT). He has a DEA in Human Palaeontology from the National Museum of Nat-
ural History and a DESS in Management from the Sorbonne. His current research
mainly focuses on the philosophical and social implications of new scientific dis-
coveries, on the links between science and religion, and on ways to popularize the
conceptual revolutions that occurred in both of these fields during the last century.
He co-edited L’Homme Face à la Science (Man in Front of Science) in collaboration
with Ilya Prigogine, Hubert Reeves, Trinh Xuan Thuan, and Bernard d’Espagnat.
Also a management consultant to large corporations, Professor Staune is working
on ways to develop strategic decision-making tools linking new scientific concepts
to management theories.

Notes
1 Jean-Pierre Changeux: L’Homme Neuronal, (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1983).
2 Jacques Monod: Le Hasard et la Nécessité, (Paris: Le Seuil, 1970).
3 Werner Heisenberg: Physics and Philosophy, (New York: Harper Torch Books, 1962).
4 Michael Denton: Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Uni-
verse, (New York: Simon and Schuster/Free Press, 1998). Also see his essay in this vol-
ume, “Henderson’s ‘Fine-Tuning Argument’: Time for Rediscovery.”
5 The Independent, 10 August 2002, and Le Monde, 13 August 2002, pages 1 and 2.
6 See “Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich,” in The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright
2003 Columbia University Press: http://www.bartleby.com/65/ly/Lysenko.html.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 33

Global Spiritual Confusion and

the Neglected Problem of
Excess Spiritual Information
6
Wesley J. Wildman

T he biggest problem facing the spiritual progress of human beings, after evil
and stupidity, is confusion. Spiritually potent visions of the world abound.
They sustain billions of lives each day. Many of us have friends and neighbors with
worldviews different from our own, and media outlets are filled with images of
diversity. Our species desperately needs to advance in wisdom or spirit to cope with
the turmoil of technology and the perpetual clash of civilizations. But advance
where? Along which path of wisdom should we stumble?
Some advise us to advance spiritually by digging deep into our own home tradi-
tions. The global picture of religious and cultural pluralism is what causes the con-
fusion, and we should just learn to ignore it. Surely it is sage advice to appreciate our
home traditions, but if we follow the path closest to hand thoughtlessly, we may
deepen global spiritual confusion. After all, personal spiritual confidence is the
proudest possession of the enthusiast, the often ignorant, sometimes dangerous,
true believer. Most of us can’t simply ignore alternatives. Nor can we rest content
with the “we have ours and they have theirs” policy without committing intellectual
suicide. The conflicts among spiritual visions of reality are obvious. We can’t just
wish them away. Digging deep in our home tradition (if we have one) might be
necessary, but it is not sufficient.
Some say the generic and allegedly global spiritualities of humanism or of nature
are the answer. But they are ideas rather than spiritual paths. They lack the symbolic
power of traditional religions. Meanwhile, New Age spiritualities make a virtue of
pluralistic confusion, while creating as much economic activity as wisdom. These
cultural and class-specific alternatives to traditional religion don’t appeal to most
people.
Some say science can resolve the confusion. Science creates basic knowledge that
people can agree on regardless of culture or religion. Cutting-edge science can be
controversial, even among scientists, but educated people all over the world accept
almost all of mainstream science. That’s promising. But science’s picture of the
world is modest. It doesn’t address issues of perennial concern to human beings: life
after death, justice and goodness, meaning and purpose.
Some insist that we shouldn’t give up just because science has a limited mandate.
They say we can search for signs of an ultimate reality hidden within the workings
of physical processes. More than that, they claim to know the secret key that unlocks
the spiritual information hidden within scientific knowledge.
How do they do this? American philosopher William Lane Craig (who con-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 34

34 c wesley j. wildman

tributed an essay to this volume) advocates analyzing scientific discoveries to find

spiritual information. He uses sophisticated arguments to show that Big Bang
cosmology discloses a creator God. Scholars as diverse as mathematician William
Dembski and biologist Michael Behe argue that some biological systems are so com-
plex in a special way that evolutionary theory will never explain them; an intelligent
designer of some sort must be invoked. A host of scientists have been studying the
effects of prayer and spirituality on health. Others have been looking for the basis
of moral teachings such as self-sacrificial love in evolutionary biology and neu-
ropsychology. The list of intellectuals seeking spiritual information through science
is long and often distinguished. (Like Craig, many are represented in this volume.)
And now there is generous funding to help them, from the John Templeton Foun-
dation and from other like-minded organizations.
The claim that scientific discoveries encode spiritual information is stunning. If
it is true, then maybe science’s knack of producing agreement about mundane mat-
ters could help us resolve our spiritual confusion. Here’s how it would work: We
extract the spiritual juice from the fruits of existing scientific research. We devise
new science research efforts to keep up the flow of spiritual information. We use a
class of middleman communicators to get the word out to the world, especially to
leaders in education and to high-profile opinion makers. And then we enter a brave
new world: science in harmony with spiritual information, overcoming ancient reli-
gious and cultural rivalries, transforming the globe into a place of peace and har-
monious prosperity.
This is a bracing picture of the future, moving and insightful, and akin to the
hopes of Sir John Templeton. But there is a challenge to overcome first because this
vision of human progress through discovering spiritual information neglects a sim-
ple but deep fact: The problem causing our spiritual confusion is not that we have too
little information, but too much.
It has always been this way, as the conflicted history of religions and cultures
shows. And it continues to be this way even now. The latest scientific discoveries do
not help to pare back this excess of information to an essential core. The basic spiri-
tual worldview options persist, and each can be made more or less compatible with
our growing knowledge of the world through science. Spiritual progress is essential
to our survival and is flourishing. But we need something other than merely more
spiritual information through science to achieve the goal of eliminating spiritual
confusion.
How can we handle excess spiritual information? Experts in extracting spiritual
information from scientific knowledge have little to say about this. Perhaps they
know a lot about science and maybe one spiritual tradition, but only a little about
the history of civilizations and cultures or about the world’s great religions and
philosophical ideas. In other words, they are biased by their local spiritual perspec-
tives and tend to notice only the way that emerging spiritual information confirms
their viewpoints. If the quest for spiritual information through science becomes
more cross-culturally balanced, this bias will collapse. In its place will arise a num-
ber of brilliant worldviews already known to experts in the study of world religious
philosophies, each more richly articulated by means of new spiritual information.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 35

wesley j. wildman c 35

But this is neither consensus nor progress. It is merely a gloriously intensified ver-
sion of the spiritual confusion that is already so familiar.
At this point, the long-suffering mystics would have us listen to them. Always
marginalized because of their obscure ways of talking and peculiar spiritual prac-
tices, mystics can’t compete with the achievements and prestige of science in our era.
But the problem of excess spiritual information gives them an opening. If their
famous claim to experience ultimate reality directly is true, then perhaps they can
help sort through the excess information.
Obviously, novices in spiritual experiences will be of little help. Their enthusiasm
for such experiences is vital for their own lives, but does not foster the wisdom and
perspective needed to handle the problem of excess spiritual information. Even
master mystics may not be able to assist much. Taken together, the collection of
spiritual insights offered with deep conviction by the world’s recognized masters of
mystical wisdom, and received with reverence by their faithful disciples, seems mas-
sively contradictory.
For mysticism to help us, we would have to consult mystics with profound knowl-
edge of the world’s spiritual traditions, attuned to both historical and scientific ways
of thinking. They would have to care about coordinating conflicting mystical
visions. They would probably be committed to the proposition that a core truth
lies beneath the diversity of mystical reports.
Enter American mystic and scholar Huston Smith. He is revered for his lucid
scholarly accounts of the world’s religions. He is also admired because of the decades
of his long life spent traveling the world and getting to know religions and mysti-
cisms from personal experience. He is an outspoken advocate of the view that mys-
tic-scholars can solve the problem of excess spiritual information.
Smith is convinced that all religious traditions have a common core. You can’t
find it in rituals or teachings, where the diversity is overwhelming. But the mystics
of all religions know about it. He argues that their direct experience of ultimate
reality has enabled them to reach consensus on this core view of reality, even though
the religious traditions to which they adhere differ enormously from one another.
This core view was already present even in preliterate tribal religions, he says, and
persists down to the present day. It is called the “primordial tradition” because of its
age or the “perennial philosophy” because of its staying power (see his book The Pri-
mordial Tradition for a summary).
What does the perennial philosophy say? There are four levels of reality, with
increasing dignity and power, and four corresponding levels of the human being:
✦ The human body = the terrestrial level
✦ The human mind = an intermediate level
✦ The human soul = the celestial level
✦ The human spirit = the highest level, the Infinite
That’s the way the universe is built. It goes beyond science, but does not contra-
dict it. We should all be able to agree on it.
But wait a minute. I noted above that a quick survey of mystics shows massive
conflict. How can Smith dare to mention consensus? He explains the variety of
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 36

36 c wesley j. wildman

mystics’ reports as the result of connecting with reality at one of these four levels:
✦ Nature mystics engage reality at the terrestrial level.
✦ Mystics grappling with discarnate beings such as demons and angels engage
at the intermediate level.
✦ Mystics for whom the final vision is a personal deity engage at the celestial
level.
✦ And mystics for whom the ultimate vision is the Infinite—God without attrib-
utes, God beyond comprehension, God beyond God—engage at the highest
level.
So here is the perennial philosophy’s recipe for human progress. Each person
should belong to a vital spiritual tradition. Using its resources, we deepen our spir-
itual and moral insight. We bring our actions into harmony with those insights.
New spiritual information unlocked from science helps experts articulate each tra-
dition more richly. For those who dare to learn about other ways, the perennial
philosophy is the master worldview. Thus, we do not fall prey to mutual incom-
prehension or deadly conflict. And for those who don’t care about such advanced
learning, each tradition has basic rules about how to behave that make for peace
within and among nations and religions. Within this framework, each person can
advance in spiritual wisdom.
It is a grand vision. And it offers a real corrective to the earlier vision of progress
through science-driven spiritual information. But just as the first vision was marred
by the problem of too much information, so Smith’s is spoiled by a simple fact: The
perennial philosophy’s claims about a common core to religious traditions simply
do not survive close scrutiny. The data don’t allow it. Who says? The overwhelming
majority of specialists who study religion might revere Smith, but they find his
arguments far too hopeful. Smith might think that his critics are in thrall to the
details of religious differences and miss the big picture. But his critics are convinced.
Rarely has a scholarly argument been read so widely and rejected so universally.
Some have argued boldly that “entheogens”—once innocently called “psyche-
delic drugs”—may hold the key to getting information about ultimate reality. Pro-
ponents claim that entheogens open up ignored human capacities for perceiving
reality. But how useful is the information that people obtain through using
entheogens? There is some evidence on this question, such as the famous “Good Fri-
day” experiment at Boston University conducted in 1962 by Walter Pahnke. It seems
that, as in mystical experience, people describe their drug-assisted experiences using
the concepts and words available to them. Thus, getting information from drug-
assisted experiences is no simpler than interpreting diverse mystical texts.
The problem of excess spiritual information has no neat answers. But that doesn’t
mean it is intractable. The world’s great religious traditions might not share a com-
mon core vision, such as the perennial philosophy, but we are not left with a riot of
absolute disagreement. The patient study of the great spiritual worldviews has pro-
duced valuable insights into the ways they agree and disagree.
The task of comparing religious ideas and practices is modest in itself, but it
serves the more adventurous goal of truth-seeking. Yet even comparison has its
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 37

wesley j. wildman c 37

skeptics. Many experts say that information about world cultures and religions is
now so richly detailed that even the modest hope of meaningfully comparing the
great spiritual worldviews is futile. How could one person ever gain deep knowledge
of the languages and material needed to make a fair comparison, let alone decide
whether one view is better than another or detect a core view beneath the diversity?
Maybe comparison was feasible a hundred years ago, but surely it is no longer.
Scholars of religion skeptical about comparison can take a lesson from scientists.
The natural sciences proceed in a corporate fashion these days. They must do so
because we are long past the days when any one scientist could know all there was
to know in science. The result is a messy social process, but it works. Perhaps the task
of managing excess spiritual information—of comparing and analyzing world-
views—can also be conceived as a corporate task for a wide variety of experts.
This lesson seems to be sinking in. Some experts in religious and philosophical
traditions—the ones who have not given up on comparison altogether—have
devised corporate methods for comparing and assessing spiritual worldviews. They
refer to their field with names such as “comparative metaphysics.” American com-
parative metaphysician Robert Cummings Neville is an example. His Cross-Cul-
tural Comparative Religious Ideas Project was a bold attempt to try out his proposed
method in a small community of expert scholars. The project’s four years and three
volumes of results show how comparative metaphysics works in detail. There are
several other noteworthy examples. But all belong to the world of scholars. The
search for patterns and core ideas in our world’s spiritual traditions is difficult.
There are no shortcuts.
Resolving global spiritual confusion requires us to dig deep into our home tra-
ditions. It calls for paying attention to the ways that science can generate the sort of
spiritual information that helps to articulate spiritual traditions more richly. But
nothing less than comparative metaphysics will be able to turn the excess of ideas
about ultimate reality emerging from the study of nature and spiritual experience
into anything like reliable information. Of course, we also need great spiritual lead-
ers and teachers, as well as technological and economic innovation and political
systems that cultivate tolerance. But spiritual progress for human beings depends on
facing a hard fact: Seeking spiritual information from science, like digging deep
into our home spiritual traditions, produces an embarrassment of riches. Spiritual
information from science is not the antidote to global spiritual confusion, at least
not by itself.

c
Wesley J. Wildman, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics at
Boston University and Convenor of the Graduate School’s doctoral program in Sci-
ence, Philosophy, and Religion. He has been a member of the Boston-based Cross-
Cultural Comparative Religious Ideas Research Project and also the Divine Action
Project jointly sponsored by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences and
the Vatican Observatory. Author of more than fifty scholarly articles and book
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 38

38 c wesley j. wildman

chapters, Professor Wildman’s research involves inquiry into comparative and con-
structive theology and a variety of philosophical and ethical topics within science
and religion, using resources from multiple disciplines such as the natural and social
sciences. He was associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Science and Religion (2003);
author of Fidelity with Plausibility: Modest Christologies in the Twentieth Century
(1998); and co-editor with W. Mark Richardson of Religion and Science: History,
Method, Dialogue (1996). Professor Wildman is a member of the American Academy
of Religion, the American Theological Society, the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and the International Society of Science and Religion.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 39

Science, Semiotics,
and the Sacred, 7
Seeking Spiritual Information in the Deep Structure of Reality
William Grassie

O ur principal benefactor at the Metanexus Institute is Sir John Temple-

ton, the ninety-year-old visionary mutual funds manager of significant fame
and accomplishment. Sir John is fond of using the term “spiritual information” to
describe the focus of his philanthropic work in science and religion, expanded to
“new spiritual information” to describe the purpose of his philanthropic mission—
to increase our storehouse of spiritual information one hundredfold. With the
explosion of information that occurred during the twentieth century and into the
twenty-first, the use of the term “spiritual information” might well lead one to fur-
ther despair in the face of ever-more unread books, magazines, and emails. When
people complain about information overload, the metaphor of spiritual informa-
tion may well carry negative connotations for many. And yet Sir John’s seemingly
idiosyncratic advocacy of this term—spiritual information—goes to the heart of a
profound epistemological and ontological shift in the sciences today and allows the
recovery of ancient insights from our received religious traditions.
Many religions have understood language to be in some way primordial to the
material constitution of the Universe. In Hinduism, the Upanishads talk of a primal
word, Om, which functions as the creative source of all Nature. In the Jewish
Midrash, the grammatical ambiguity of the first line of Genesis and the extravagant
linguistic creativity of Elohim leads to philosophical speculation about a preexistent
Torah, which God uses to speak reality into being. In Medieval Judaism, this rabbinic
tradition gave rise to the wild speculations and philosophical subtleties of the Kab-
balah. The Greeks, including Plato, drew upon Heraclitus’s notion of logos, viewing
the embodied word as that fire that animated and ruled the world, to explain their
understanding of primeval, material language. In the Gospel of John, Christians
celebrate this Word, or Logos, in a radical incarnationalist vision of a cosmic Christ
in whom and through whom all things come into being. Language, the spoken word
and the written word, was the ultimate medium for creation, revelation, and
redemption. Every time we communicate, we participate in a miracle of ultimate
significance, or at least so our ancestors intuited.
Modern humans, informed by science, live in a universe that is more enriched
with awesome subtleties and gorgeous details than our ancestors could possibly
have imagined. Paradoxically, however, our Universe seems also to be more spiri-
tually impoverished than that of traditional peoples. This new Universe as under-
stood by modern science seems to import a concomitant loss of significance,
meaning, and purpose in our lives. Here, Sir John’s advocacy of the constructive
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 40

40 c william grassie

engagement of science and religion in general, and of advancing new spiritual infor-
mation in particular, goes to the heart of intellectual history and the unfolding of
our cosmic future.
The modern metaphysics of science takes space-time and matter-energy to be
fundamental. To this we add the four nuclear forces, the laws of thermodynamics,
some algorithmic processes, an element of randomness—and, presto, we have the
Universe built from the bottom up that science has been so successful at explaining
and describing from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic in all its stunning com-
plexity. The oddity in all this new talk of information from scientists is that infor-
mation does not fit into that twentieth-century paradigm. For instance, information
is immaterial. It is not a thing you can point to, but a no-thing that must be
metaphorically “read” by some-things, which some-things are apparently consti-
tuted by the no-thing in a fine piece of circular logic. An ontology and epistemol-
ogy that looks only to materialism and reductionism for its explanations of
phenomena will have a hard time explaining information itself. Ironically, the very
pursuit of this materialist and reductionist paradigm has led to its supervenience, but
the character and nuances of this new metaphysical vision have barely been explored.
In physics, we now talk about the information states of quantum phenomena. In
cosmology, we speculate about a preexistent mathematical order, through which
the cosmos unfolds. Challenge a hard-nosed, reductionistic physicist about math-
ematics and you’re likely to find a softhearted neo-Platonist.
With the genomic revolution, biologists now also talk about information resid-
ing at the center of life processes. In cellular signal transduction, the genomic word
becomes living flesh. Although species come and go in the evolutionary epic, much
of the genomic memory of the past is retained in contemporary genomes. As new
evolutionary niches are explored, the figurative becomes literal, as new species are
reconfigured into new emergent possibilities, adding new chapters to the “book of
life.”
The neurosciences today see the brain as an information processing system. While
no doubt beautiful to the discerning eye of a scientist, a single neuron is rather
dumb. A hundred billion neurons in the human brain, however, wired in a massively
parallel system, become potentially the most complex entity in the Universe. The
neurons fire in on and off states through the synaptic media to mediate every
human experience and memory. Laying down neural networks is another way of
talking about encoding information, as the inside informational world of the brain
maps with the outside informational world of Nature, culture, and cosmos.
This new metaphysical movement in the sciences has largely been mediated by
the computer as both tool and metaphor. Among diverse scientific disciplines, the
real scientific revolution in recent decades has been the ability to collect and ana-
lyze large datasets and to further manipulate these datasets through powerful com-
puter simulations. Computers provide not just the tools for new scientific
discoveries, but also the new metaphors that now also dominate scientific discourse
(e.g., algorithms, binary code, hardware, and software—all terms that have traveled
widely outside the domains of the computer sciences). Computational finitude,
however, also points toward a complexity horizon that may thwart our unbridled
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 41

william grassie c 41

desires for controlling and predictive knowledge. The Universe may be a single data-
base, but it is so profoundly relational that the easy hackings of the codes by earlier
science may soon be exhausted.
Of course, I am using the terms “language” and “information” to be in some sense
analogous. It is worth noting that the greatest contemporary philosophers of science
are compelled to also become philosophers of language (cross-reference any intro-
ductory anthology in the two fields, and you will note philosophers such as Frege,
Hempel, Quine, Searle, and Putnam appearing on both sides of the ledger). A little
philosophical detour may help to illuminate the connection between language and
information in our search to recover and discover something new of the spiritual
center of our lives and the Universe.
The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, credited as the founder of modern lin-
guistics, distinguishes between language as langue and language as parole. Langue is
the code, grammar, and structure of any particular language. Parole is the meaning
of any particular speaker in a context-specific situation of a particular message.
Linguistics as a science can illuminate langue because it is collective and objective
in ways that particular utterances may be confoundingly context-specific. Today,
scholars would substitute the terms semiotics and semantics and broaden the inquiry
beyond “natural” human languages to include all kinds of communicative actions
from art and advertising to abstract concepts and entire ideologies. Semiotics is the
code of communication and semantics the informational content or meaning of
particular communications. Of course, the codes of languages evolve over time
through specific semantic histories, so Saussure’s radical distinction between semi-
otics and semantics cannot be maintained as we look at the evolution of human lan-
guages over time. This realization has led to the ascendancy of a kind of
philosophical relativism within linguistics today, which views the semiotics of
thought as arbitrary and always derived from specific social and historical situa-
tions. There is no simple correspondence between human language and objective
realities.
The philosophy of science has also witnessed a similar move from a simple cor-
respondence theory of sciences as Truth, referred to as positivism, to a much more
nuanced and contextual understanding of science as temporarily reliable interpre-
tations of truths. While Karl Popper’s falsification theory of science may convince
bench scientists of the epistemological purity of their endeavors, W. V. Quine,
Arthur Fine, Thomas Kuhn, Hilary Putnam, and others have thoroughly demol-
ished this understanding of science as an epistemologically privileged endeavor.
The dilemma now becomes accounting for the progressive and practical effica-
ciousness of science, in spite of its social and historical construction.
Sir John points the way out of this philosophical incoherence in science and lin-
guistics when he suggests that language as information may somehow be constitu-
tive of the ultimate nature of reality, as implied by using the adjective “spiritual” to
modify the noun “information.” Let’s see how this might work and what some of the
consequences might be.
Modern humans have tended to understand that we alone among the species of
the world possess language, that language is unique to our brain structures and cul-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 42

42 c william grassie

tural possibilities. In a developmental context, human culture must teach every

human infant anew how to speak, listen, and think. Terrence Deacon, Merlin Don-
ald, and others have convincingly argued that human languages must reside in an
“immaterial” cultural space between individual human mind-brains. The human
infant’s brain is capable of learning language, but there is no genetic or develop-
mental necessity that they become linguistically competent. In those tragic cases
when human infants are deprived of social and linguistic stimulation, they become
permanently mentally and emotionally retarded. In this contemporary under-
standing of the developmental neurophysiology of human language, language really
is “out there,” in almost a neo-Platonic sense, and only comes to temporarily reside
“in here” in our mind-brains. Indeed, in the strong sense, language helps to create
our physical mind-brains.
In an evolutionary context of human development over the last two million years,
we might rather say that Nature teaches our species to speak, listen, and think,
because Nature is already pregnant with linguistic meanings and patterns “out there”
that thankfully have the potential to map onto the “in here” realities of our mind-
brain cultures. In that sense, human language is derived from the more-than-human
world of Nature in the relational spaces between our species and the rest of creation.
The moment that we ground human language in a semiotically constituted and
semantically rich cosmos, than we have solved the problem of incoherence that
troubles contemporary philosophy of science and philosophy of language. The
solipsistic circle posited by Wittgenstein in his discussion of language games is
opened up to the dynamic and semantically rich universe. The encounter with the
other rationalities of other language games becomes the progressive hermeneutical
possibility of which Gadaamer speaks in the “fusion of horizons.” Our human lan-
guages build on the many languages of Nature. Indeed, this intelligibility of Nature
by human language is the precondition for science, so in one sense this is only to
reaffirm the realist aspirations of science, even while seeking to reclaim the roman-
tic motivations of science as a spiritual quest.
In this new view, science can be seen as a kind of translation project, where we
try to learn the language of an alien set of phenomena and try to understand the ter-
minology, syntax, and grammar that the phenomena authentically “speak.” The
semiotics of our scientific translations is represented in mathematical notations,
diagrams, charts, and models. Another intelligent civilization in a different corner
of the galaxy might use radically different semiotics to represent these phenome-
nological realities, but we would expect to be able to translate these representations,
even as every human language is translatable (although something is also always lost
in translation). Great science seems to occur most often when the scientist, like the
missionary in the foreign land, “goes native.” A good physicist dreams in the math-
ematics of the cosmos; a good chemist thinks within the three-dimensional bond-
ing space of complex molecules; a good biologist has a feel for the organism. Science
might better be defined as altruistic fidelity to the phenomena, making one’s life and
intellect a vehicle for some other reality to have a voice and value in our human
culture, consciousness, and conscience.
This new relational, linguistically centered ontology can be seen as a kind of evo-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 43

william grassie c 43

lutionary neo-Platonism. And while we gain philosophical coherence, we are also

tempered with a profound sense of our finitude, another one of Sir John’s key the-
matic foci: Epistemological humility in matters scientific and religious turns out to
be difficult for us to maintain psychologically, because we would wish to banish
cognitive dissonance and existential uncertainty from our lives. Discovering new
spiritual information is sure to be hard work, requiring patience, rigor, exertion,
hope, faith, and love. Fortunately, Sir John also points us toward the recovery of
these great virtues from our religious traditions, even as he calls for us to seek
progress in religion.
This new relational, information-centered ontology arising in the sciences today
provides a wonderful moment for the recovery and reinterpretation of traditional
religious worldviews. Today, the Universe is far grander than our ancestors could
have possibly imagined, but somehow they seem to have already intuited its deep,
spiritual, informational structure through which all things come into being.

c
William “Billy” Grassie, Ph.D., is Founder and Executive Director of the
Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science, www.metanexus.net. Dr. Grassie also
serves as Executive Editor of the Institute’s online magazine and discussion forum
with more than forty thousand weekly page views and six thousand regular sub-
scribers in fifty-seven different countries. He has taught in a variety of positions at
Temple University, Swarthmore College, and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr.
Grassie received his doctorate in religion from Temple University in 1994 and his
B.A. from Middlebury College in 1979. Before graduate school, he worked for ten
years in religiously based social service and advocacy organizations in Washington,
D.C.; Philadelphia, PA; Jerusalem; and Berlin. Dr. Grassie is the recipient of a num-
ber of academic awards and grants from the American Friends Service Committee,
the Roothbert Fellowship, and the John Templeton Foundation. He is a member of
the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

References
Boyd, Richard, et al. The Philosophy of Science. Boston: MIT Press, 1991.
Deacon, Terrence W. The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain.
New York: Norton, 1997.
Donald, Merlin. Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and
Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Martinich, A. P., ed. The Philosophy of Language. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.
Ricoeur, Paul. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth:
Texas Christian University Press, 1976.
Whitehead, A. N. Process and Reality. New York: The Free Press, (1929) 1978.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 44

What Does a Slug

Know of Mozart? 8
Introducing the Ontological Multiverse
Charles L. Harper Jr.

E instein is reported to have remarked once that a Mozart symphony is more

than an air-pressure curve. Sir John Templeton often says that an apple tree
has a limited understanding of God. To complete a triad of odd remarks, let me
add, “What does a slug know of Mozart?” If this seems a bit strange, keep reading;
it gets worse.
This essay addresses the challenge of gaining insight into the concept of spiritual
information and into the possibility of finding ways to accelerate the discovery of
new spiritual information. Such innovation-focused exploration and discovery is
the core desideratum of Sir John Templeton and forms the central mission of his
Foundation.
Of course, there are many ways to conceptualize an unavoidably fuzzy and nec-
essarily perplexing term such as “spiritual information.” These include:
A. The classical models of formation of spiritual knowledge in the different forms
of the world’s great religious traditions:
1. Western monotheism: Divine revelation from a Creator God into the realm of
that God’s creation and across a categorically uncrossable ontological gap; or
2. Eastern monistic panpsychism (and radical mysticism generally): Medita-
tive/subjective illumination, enlightenment by the stripping away of illusion to
see or know the unitive heart or “beyondness” or “nothingness” of ultimate
reality.
B. Intrinsically nonobjectifiable information obtained from a personal “realm of
the spiritual.” This might, for example, be spiritual information from the work-
ing of God within the subjectivity of a person. (For an excellent example, see the
three-article series “Judaism beyond Words” by the Yale computer scientist David
Gelernter published in the May, September, and November 2003 issues of Com-
mentary [www.commentarymagazine.com].
C. Ordinary objective scientific information about a spiritual topic or reality, such
as in the study of spiritual transformation in people’s lives. (For example, this is
the aim of the ongoing Spiritual Transformation Scientific Research Project; see
www.metanexus.net/spiritual_transformation/about/index.html.)
D. Extraordinary objective scientific information obtained from a paranormal
research project—for example, through the study of the medical efficacy (or lack
thereof) of distant, “blinded,” intercessory prayer. At present, there is a vigorous
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 45

charles l. harper jr. c 45

and healthy debate over whether any positive (non-null) results have been
obtained in studies including the health conditions of people struggling with ill-
ness and studied under scientifically “controlled” circumstances. (For example,
see www.templeton.org/studyarchive/prayer.asp.) Thus far, no information of
this type has been demonstrated incontrovertibly.
E. Sociological-scientific information about the historical and contemporary influ-
ence of “God concepts” and changes in God concepts affecting the nature and
dynamic power of culture. See, for example, Rodney Stark’s 2001 book, One True
God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism (see www.pup.princeton.edu/titles/
7122.html).
F. Information communicated within our universe from alien supreme beings and
captured, for example, through radio telescopes. The main organization pursu-
ing this vision is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. SETI now operates
with the help of four million user participants contributing home PC time for
signal analysis (see www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu). See also Steven Brams’s
1983 book, Superior Beings: If They Exist, How Would We Know? and his essay in
this volume.
G. Scientific information about the physical dynamics of possible divine action in
the world. For example, see the essay by Robert John Russell in this volume and
conference series references cited therein. Also, for a recent overview and
appraisal, see Nicholas Saunders’s 2002 book, Divine Action and Modern Science
(http://books.cambridge.org/0521801567.htm).
H. Information from a nonsubjectivity-constrained but otherwise epistemologically
difficult-to-access “realm of the spiritual,” such as from a “hidden dimensional-
ity.” The classic example of the concept of a “hidden dimension” is fictionally
described as a moral lesson in humility in Edwin Abbot’s 1884 classic, Flatland.
For modern updates in this genre, see books by the polymath Clifford Pickover
(www.pickover.com) and his essay in this volume. Also, for a philosophically
nuanced treatment by a well-respected philosophical theologian, see John Hick’s
1999 book, The Fifth Dimension: An Exploration of the Spiritual World.

(Note that some of the items in this list overlap and that [A.] is a kind of supertax-
onomy.)
This essay discusses the concept of spiritual information in the context of the
developing metascientific discussion surrounding efforts to develop a scientific the-
ory of emergence with increasing complexity. This discussion engages the question of
the proper scientific framing of different forms or levels of descriptions of Nature.
Are the different fields of inquiry in science ultimately reducible to complicated
exercises in bottom-level description in particle physics? Or does complexity intro-
duce irreducible novelty—“Is more different?”—as Philip Anderson once asked in
a famous paper? (For a particularly on-the-mark discussion, see Robert Laughlin’s
1998 Nobel Lecture in physics discussing his work on the fractional quantum Hall
effect: “Fractional Quantization,” published in Reviews of Modern Physics 71, no. 4
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 46

46 c charles l. harper jr.

[July 1999]: 863–74). Were E. O. Wilson’s early advisors correct to encourage him to
study genetic biochemistry rather than ants, arguing that anything learned from
ants could be and should be more elegantly derivable biochemically “from below”?
(Cf. Edward O. Wilson, Naturalist, 1994.) Or does the study of ants as wholes and
as complex societies offer insights fundamentally unavailable from the bottom-up
study of their biochemical parts?
The discussion of emergence provides a helpful perspective as it variously can
engage with most of the modes identified in the above list. It also has the benefit of
engaging with a central challenge of whether the concept of “spiritual” as a modi-
fier to the word “information” can or cannot be connected with scientific concepts
of objectivity. “Spiritual” may or may not imply an irreducible aspect of subjectiv-
ity in various contexts. Subjectivity is not to be confused necessarily with dismissive
concepts such as unreality or wishful thinking. Subjectivity is part of, and not dis-
tinct from, reality. However, epistemologically it may void the possibility of shared,
open, and “disinterestedly” testable “public” information. This, of course, is the gold
standard of science. This is a hugely interesting question, and the concept of emer-
gence provides a helpful basis for framing it in scientific terms. Possibly it can be
seen in an analogous way also to Gödelian incompleteness. Gödel’s famous incom-
pleteness theorem provides a clear, logical, precise demonstration for separating
truth that can be proved formally from truth that cannot be proved formally, but
that still can be truth and that is part of the everyday professional life of mathe-
maticians.
The introduction of this essay began with three odd remarks that can be restated
as three questions:
1. How is a Mozart symphony different from an air-pressure curve?
2. What can an apple tree know about God?
3. What does a slug know of Mozart?
To these we can add a fourth:
4. Does Mozart express Divine beauty?
Possibly the strangest insight in all of science and philosophy hinges on eluci-
dating the somewhat bizarre significance of the first three questions taken together
and illuminated by one of the biggest lessons in the history of cosmology. This les-
son is the “no special location” insight sometimes called the Copernican principle.
It is based on the Copernican heliocentric revolution and its expansion more
broadly to cosmology (by Giordano Bruno, Johannes Kepler, and others). Its lesson
is that our sun is one star among a large number of stars, possibly an infinity of
them. The Copernican Principle asserts that the location of the Earth is likely to be
cosmologically ordinary.
Edwin Abbot’s wonderful fantasy Flatland used the geometry of space to make a
similar point. He imagined a race of two-dimensional creatures living in a sheet
within a three-dimensional world. A similar idea was discussed by Carl Sagan in the
book accompanying his TV series, Cosmos. Sagan wrote that he thought the most
profound idea in science joining it with religion was the idea of stacked worlds-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 47

charles l. harper jr. c 47

within-worlds. (The final scene in the film Men in Black nicely visualizes this idea:
Worlds are toys within our world, which is then shown to be part of a game of cos-
mic marbles played by “superbeings” in an even larger “superworld”!) I think that
the best candidate for the most profound idea in this category is even more strange.
It requires switching a hierarchy of emergent ontology for the different sorts of spa-
tial limit concepts used by Abbot and Sagan. The result of this switch is far more
humiliating. This is because the nature of the epistemological blindness suggested
is categorically unfathomable. Ideas of this sort were explored at least as early as
Olaf Stapleton’s 1937 science fiction classic, Starmaker.
If we have learned no longer to presume that planet Earth is at the center of the
universe, why should it be generally presumed that Homo sapiens stands ontologi-
cally atop the summit of reality (Mount Epistemology)? Slugs lack aspects of their
biology linked to the possibility of perception of aspects of the world that to us are
easy to perceive. For example, our world contains things such as physics textbooks
and an intelligent culture for understanding them. Our world contains Mozart sym-
phonies and the context of perception and culture for understanding and enjoying
them. Slugs can sense vibration. However, they are not capable of perceiving music
as music. Mozart symphonies have no potentiality of existing in relation to the
domain of knowledge of which a slug is capable. Although slugs and Mozart sym-
phonies inhabit the same universe from our point of view, relative to the “point of
view” of a slug, a Mozart symphony may be said to inhabit a different universe. Pos-
sibly it is better to say that both are part of the same “multiverse.” The key point for
reflection is that maybe we are like slugs.
Is our epistemologocentric belief that our ontology permits a reliable survey of
reality correct? Could we be missing a lot of the full picture simply because what we
are limits the domain of what we can perceive, even with the benefit of scientific
instruments? Could reality be far richer than what we know? Could it be far richer
than what we can know? Perhaps we too presumptively assume that, unlike slugs,
our biological ontology is at the top of the ontological totem pole. But is this like a
pre-Copernican view? Is our position more likely to be ordinary rather than central?
There is an old Oxford ditty about the (great academic reformer) Master of Balliol,
Benjamin Jowett:
My name is Ben Jowett
I’m the Master of this College
If I don’t know it
It isn’t knowledge
So, are we masters of reality, or are we somewhere in the middle, like slugs? A fas-
cinating irony is that perhaps science can pose and substantiate the power of this
question—but not answer it.
One conclusion of this essay is to suggest that a scientific appraisal of the nature
of reality admitting hierarchically emergent ontology requires that theories of every-
thing cannot aspire to completeness. Completeness requires radically incorporating
humility, or “epistemological modesty.” This is another way of stressing incom-
pleteness and adds to the deep insights already obtained by Gödel. Without such an
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 48

48 c charles l. harper jr.

admission, wisdom seems to be categorically impossible. If, even at our cognitive

best, we may be slugs of a sort, then another conclusion may be that there may be
other universes of a categorically different kind from cosmological or quantum
multiverse models. These might be called “ontological” or “epistemic” multiverses.
(Take your pick if epistemology recapitulates ontology.) Do we live in an emergent
multiverse? A final conclusion is that “how little we know; how eager to learn” is a
good motto. (“How little we know; how eager to love” strikes a different note that
also should not be neglected.) Humility may be a good bridge for traffic in con-
structive interrelations between the different worlds of science and religion.
The following table shows a hierarchy of ways to describe a Mozart symphony
with the context of a slug’s perception being roughly at level (ii). Contextual com-
plexity increases as one goes down Table 1.

Table 1. A Mozart Symphony: Eleven Hierarchical Levels of Description

Ontological Description Description of the Level of Agency

(i) Motions of atoms Atomic interaction
(ii) Air-pressure curve Microphone acoustical signal record
(iii) Sounds from instruments Sets of vibrating musical objects
(iv) Musicians playing instruments Individual musicians
(v) Musical scores directing musicians Paper symphonic scores
to play instruments
(vi) Conductor orchestrating symphonic Conductor acting as an extension of the
music composer through the score plus applying
his own artistic creativity
(vii) A Mozart symphony Mozart
(viii) Performance of musical beauty Local culture supporting the musical arts
through a historic musical language form
celebrating respected past masters of cre-
ative genius
(ix) Activity of a culture of arts seeking to World culture supporting local cultures
express and cultivate experiences of supporting the musical arts
stimulating artistic performance
excellence for patrons
(x) Artistic dimension of history Historical “process” generating aestheti-
cal cultures
(xi) Human hunger for beauty, Human souls and cultures in spiritual
meaning, and transcendence from quest?*
the mundane

*“You have made us for yourself. Therefore our hearts will be restless until we find ourselves in Thee.” —Saint Augustine

What is interesting to consider from this table is the ordering of relations in this
hierarchy of description with respect to cause. One of the most powerful trends
emerging from the success of science is to develop modes of reductive description.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 49

charles l. harper jr. c 49

Applied to a Mozart symphony, however, this gives us an air-pressure curve, and it

should be obvious that something is muddled about giving priority to such a
description. In fact, in terms of cause, it is obvious that the vectors of cause are
much more logically persuasive if applied broadly from the bottom of the list toward
the top. One cannot describe the reality of Mozart’s influence on human history very
well if one is constrained to speak of the interactions of atoms! Far better to con-
sider the concept of physical “top-down causation” in Nature (which in the table
works from the bottom up). The performance of a Mozart symphony in 2002 is
undeniably causally related to the reality of the existence of a person called Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart in Europe from 1756 to 1791. More pertinently, the process of cre-
ativity in the mind of Mozart can be said quite reasonably to explain causally why
certain molecules in the air move in certain ways during a symphony performance
hundreds of years after Mozart’s death.
We also can take away the dimension of time in history and just consider a time-
slice approach of Mozart playing a piano by himself. Here we can consider top-
down causation directly as involving dynamic action and interaction between
distinct levels:
I. The cultural “language” of music present in Mozart’s mind
II. Processes of creativity in Mozart’s mind
III. Action activity in Mozart’s brain
IV. Signaling in Mozart’s spinal cord and arm nerves
V. Control of Mozart’s muscles for playing the piano
VI. Energy transfer to the piano keys, etc.
VII. Propagation of an air-pressure curve to Mozart’s ears
VIII. Activation of neurons and genes to lay down musical memories in
Mozart’s brain
Here we can see that levels I and II have an interestingly “immaterial” or spirit-
like ontology. However, they are the causally most potent factors of explanation. To
attempt to explain away such factors as “nothing-but” something else (reproductive
sex drives, memes, genes . . .) at a lower level involves a necessary dismissing of pow-
erful empirical testimony. It is not clear that any such reductive move should be
dignified by the descriptor “scientific.”
Such reflections on what might be called the biology of creativity leave us with a
hint that immaterial aspects of reality such as “culture” or “minds-emergent-from-
brains” are at least as “real” as the material aspects of reality with which science is
on more directly familiar terms, such as atoms, vibrating wires, genes, and nerves.
More importantly, reality gets more interesting as one goes up the hierarchy into
zones that are increasingly more difficult to describe in terms of the “parts” of real-
ity known well to basic sciences, such as physics, chemistry, biochemistry, anatom-
ical physiology, and neurobiology. But remember that if we were slugs, we would be
missing everything in Table 1 beyond levels (ii) or (iii). Between chimps and
humans, there is very little biological difference. (Note: See Jane Goodall’s essay in
this volume.) However, a relatively small increase in the scale of complexity in brain
structure (perhaps at a level of very roughly a factor of two) seems to have opened
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 50

50 c charles l. harper jr.

up an ontological enrichment on a scale of as many orders of magnitude as one

might consider. This is because the Lamarckian transition has been crossed. Reali-
ties of language and science and art and religion emerge as radically new aspects of
the biology of human beings. So great is this difference that the biology is at least
at the level of the emergence of a new phylum. Humans seem to have left slugs and
chimps in the ontological and epistemological dust.
But does that mean we are at the top? Should we apply the Copernican Principle
of likely ordinariness? Might we live at an ordinary location within the ontological
multiverse? Perhaps such questions are worth thinking about. For a concluding
reflection, I return to the subject of Mozart. The phenomenon of human genius
provides an interesting and potent hint that the Copernican Principle may be appli-
cable to the ontological multiverse question. If ontological richness exists above the
human position, then genius may be a window opening to it. The existence of peo-
ple such as Albert Einstein suggests that small increases in creativity unveil large
new domains of discovery.
For theologian Karl Barth, Mozart was the pinnacle. He wrote,“If I ever get to
heaven, I would first seek out Mozart, and only then inquire after Augustine, St.
Thomas, Luther, Calvin, and Schleiermacher.” He continued that in listening to
Mozart, “It is as though in a small segment the whole universe bursts into song
because evidently the man Mozart has apprehended the cosmos and now, func-
tioning only as a medium, brings it into song!” Barth also wrote, “There is no
Mozartean metaphysics. In the realms of nature and spirit, he sought for and found
only the opportunities, materials, and tasks for his music. With God, the world,
himself, heaven and earth, life—and, above all, death—ever-present before his eyes,
in his hearing, and in his heart, he was a profoundly unproblematical and thus a free
man: a freedom, so it seems, given to him . . .”(Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; English
translation, 1986). One can only speculate as to what horizon of wonder reality
holds in its fullness if the free creativity of Mozart is but a hint, possibly of an Infin-
ity beyond.

c
Charles L. Harper Jr. has been Executive Director and Senior Vice President of
the John Templeton Foundation since July 1996. His primary responsibilities are in
the areas of strategic planning, program design and development, vision casting, and
worldwide talent scouting in areas relevant to the Foundation’s activities. Dr. Harper
has worked to transform philanthropy by developing innovative entrepreneurial
practices in grant making. He has created more than $100 million in new grant-
based programs ranging widely from the study of forgiveness and reconciliation
and enterprise-based solutions to poverty to projects on foundational questions in
physics and cosmology, including topics in chemistry, neuroscience, evolutionary
biology, medicine, and the philosophy of science. Originally trained in engineering
at Princeton University (B.S.E. 1980), he obtained his D.Phil. in planetary science
from the University of Oxford for a thesis on the nature of time in cosmology (1988).
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 51

charles l. harper jr. c 51

He also holds the Diploma in Theology from Oxford (1988) and a Certificate of
Special Studies in Management and Administration from Harvard University (1997).
Dr. Harper was a National Research Council fellow at the NASA Johnson Space
Center from 1988 to 1991. He also was a research scientist in the Department of
Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Dr. Harper is co-editor of Sci-
ence & Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cosmology and Complexity (Cambridge
University Press, 2004) and the tentatively entitled Fitness of the Cosmos for Life:
Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. His
other scientific publications include more than fifty research articles in scientific
journals, including Nature, Science, and the Astrophysical Journal.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 52

Complementarity 9
Freeman J. Dyson

T he search for spiritual information is the grand design that inspires Sir John
Templeton’s philanthropic activities. He believes that spiritual wisdom is to be
found by combining the insights of religion with the tools and methods of science.
The John Templeton Foundation spends a major part of its resources supporting
research and teaching in the field of Science and Religion, a new academic discipline
still in the process of defining itself. Its practitioners may be theologians, philoso-
phers, psychologists, sociologists, medical doctors, biologists, or physicists. They
engage in a great variety of studies with diverse methods and purposes. But the cen-
tral purpose of Sir John in supporting such studies is clear: to rejuvenate the ancient
discipline of theology by bringing into it people and ideas from the new disciplines
of science. His dream is to see experts in Science and Religion making new discov-
eries in religion that are as revolutionary as the discoveries that have been made in
science during the last century.
One of the central new ideas in the physical sciences is “complementarity,” intro-
duced by Niels Bohr in the 1920s as a way to describe the new world of quantum
mechanics. Complementarity means the existence of two pictures of a physical
process that are both valid but cannot be seen simultaneously. The best-known
example of complementarity is the dual nature of light. Light sometimes behaves like
a continuous wave and sometimes like a hailstorm of discrete particles. To see the
wave nature of light, you do an experiment to observe its diffraction by a grating.
To see the particle nature of light, you do an experiment to observe it kicking out
electrons from a metal surface. The two experiments are complementary. Light is
both waves and particles, but you cannot see a wave and a particle at the same time.
The nature of light is richer than any of the pictures that we use to describe it.
When the idea of complementarity is applied to atomic processes governed by
quantum mechanics, the idea is mathematically precise and is verified by a wealth
of experiments. But Bohr liked to extend the idea to more general contexts where
its use has remained controversial. He introduced complementarity into biology,
pointing out that a living creature can be studied either as an organic whole or as
a collection of chemical molecules, but its behavior as a living organism and the
behavior of its constituent molecules cannot be studied in the same experiment. In
fact, the attempt to locate precisely all the molecules in a living creature would
probably result in its death. He also spoke of the complementarity between justice
and mercy in ethics, between thoughts and sentiments in psychology, between form
and substance in literature, between frame and content in scientific theories. He
spoke in an even more general way of “the mutually exclusive relationship which
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 53

freeman j. dyson c 53

will always exist between the practical use of any word and attempts at its strict
definition.”
Following Bohr’s broad use of the word, I propose that religion and science are
also complementary. The formal frame of traditional theology and the formal frame
of traditional science are both too narrow to comprehend the totality of human
experience. Both frames exclude essential aspects of our existence. Theology
excludes differential equations, and science excludes the idea of the sacred. But the
fact that these frames are too narrow does not imply that either can be expanded to
include the other. Complementarity implies exclusion. The essence of comple-
mentarity is the impossibility of observing both the scientific and the religious
aspects of human nature at the same time. When we are aware of the universe
through a religious experience, nothing is quantitative; when we are aware of the
universe through scientific observation and analysis, nothing is sacred. To
astronomers with a religious turn of mind, the heavens may proclaim the glory of
God, but the glory will never be captured in their computer models of star clusters
and galaxies. There is a danger that the academic discipline of Science and Religion
may become a frame that excludes both genuine science and genuine religion. If
frame A and frame B are mutually exclusive, then a frame C that tries to include
both A and B is likely to end by excluding both. If science and religion are comple-
mentary, it is better that they should live apart, with mutual respect but with sepa-
rate identities and separate bank accounts.
Contemporary discussions of science and religion often have a narrow focus, as
if science and religion were the only sources of knowledge and wisdom. In fact, sci-
ence and religion are members of a far wider array of human faculties, an array that
also includes art, architecture, music, drama, law, medicine, history, and literature.
Several of these faculties have closer ties than science has with religion. Every great
religion has had great art and great literature associated with it from ancient times.
The connections between science and religion are, by comparison, recent and super-
ficial. I find it strange that science should be singled out as the partner of religion
in Sir John Templeton’s vision. If we look for insights into human nature to guide
the future of religion, we shall find more such insights in the novels of Dostoevsky
than in the journals of cognitive science. Literature is the great storehouse of human
experience, linking together different cultures and different centuries, accessible to
far more people than the technical language of science.
For many years, ever since the personal computer became ubiquitous, we have
heard prophets proclaiming that books will soon be obsolete, that the new genera-
tions raised on video images will no longer be interested in reading them. Never-
theless, books survive, and new books are still being written and read. Even if books
become obsolete in the future, their content will be transferred to some other
medium, and literature will survive in another form. No matter how far we look into
the future, humans will need a way to share their stories, and the sharing of stories
is the essential basis of literature. Literature enables us to share the passions of Greek
and Trojan warriors in the twelfth century before Christ and of Hebrew prophets
and kings a few hundred years later. Literature will remain as the way we embalm
our thoughts and feelings for transmission to our descendants. Literature survives
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 54

54 c freeman j. dyson

when the civilizations that gave birth to it collapse and die. All through our history,
literature and religion have been closely tied together. It is literature that gives
longevity to religion. Religions that have no literature may come and go, but the Jew-
ish Torah and the Christian Gospels and the Muslim Koran endure through the
millennia. The more successful of the new religions of recent times also have their
sacred books. Latter-day Saints have their Book of Mormon, Christian Scientists have
their Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and the Marxists have their holy
scriptures, too.
When I look around for a recent piece of research leading to an increase of spir-
itual information, I can think of no better example than the work of Elaine Pagels
in studying and elucidating the ancient scrolls that were discovered at Nag Ham-
madi in Egypt. Her book The Gnostic Gospels is a popular account of her work,
explaining the origins of these early noncanonical Christian texts and the new light
that they throw on the canonical texts that later became the Christian Bible. Pagels
is not a scientist. Her skills and her tools have little to do with science. She is a lin-
guist and a historian. Her skills are intimate knowledge of the Coptic and Greek lan-
guages, and her tools are literary and historical analysis. Her work has given us a new
picture of the Christian religion as it existed in early times before orthodoxies were
rigidly imposed and heresies stamped out. This glimpse of a different Christianity
has had great influence in broadening the scope and style of Christian thinking. It
helps to free Christianity from the dogmatism of past centuries and resonates well
with the new generation of students who call themselves Christian but feel more at
home with heresy than with orthodoxy. The notion of complementarity can also be
used to reconcile heresy with orthodoxy, to reconcile the view of Jesus seen in the
Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas with the view seen in the orthodox Gospels of the
New Testament. The various Gospels give us different views, but they are views of
the same Jesus.
If I were asked to recommend a program for the increase of spiritual knowledge
all over the world, I would suggest a program of support for scholars like Elaine
Pagels, who are learned in the languages and histories of other cultures and other
religions, in the hope that they will discover and interpret other documents that
were forgotten long ago or condemned as heretical. All religions have a tendency to
become rigid and intolerant. Every religion has, buried in its past, heretical views
that were suppressed. If we could recover some of the ancient heretical literature of
other religions and make it accessible to students in the modern world, as Pagels has
recovered and explained the suppressed literature of the Christian religion, we might
succeed in broadening the outlook of all religions. With a broadened outlook, our
diverse religions might be better able to live together in peace. Believers in each reli-
gion might come to see that all religions are complementary, giving us views of the
same reality seen from different angles.
One of the finest Christian heretical writers was William Blake, whose poems
and prophesies were not suppressed, but were ignored when he published them in
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His orthodox contemporaries con-
sidered him insane, and he narrowly escaped being put in prison for treasonable
remarks against the British monarchy. Two hundred years later, he is honored as a
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 55

freeman j. dyson c 55

great poet and as a spokesman for the oppressed. His poem “The Everlasting
Gospel” is another heretical Gospel to put beside that of St. Thomas:
The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my Vision’s greatest enemy:
Thine has a great hook nose like thine,
Mine has a snub nose like to mine:
Thine is the friend of All Mankind,
Mine speaks in parables to the blind:
Thine loves the same world that mine hates,
Thy Heaven doors are my Hell’s gates.
Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read’st black where I read white.
In another place he wrote:
How do you know but ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way
Is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five?
William Blake, this crazy poet who invited us
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour . . .
gave us more spiritual information in a few lines than all the theologians and sci-
entists of his time in their learned volumes. If in the future we search for spiritual
information, we are more likely to find it among poets than among scientists.

c
Freeman J. Dyson was born in England and came to the United States in 1947 as
a Commonwealth Fellow at Cornell University. He settled in the United States per-
manently in 1951, became Professor of Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton in 1953, and retired as Professor Emeritus in 1994. Professor Dyson
began his career as a mathematician, but then turned to the exciting new develop-
ments in physics in the 1940s, particularly to the theory of quantized fields. Beyond
his professional work in physics, Professor Dyson has a keen awareness of the
human side of science and of the human consequences of technology. His books for
the general public include Disturbing the Universe, Weapons and Hope, Infinite in All
Directions, Origins of Life, and The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet. In 2000, he was
awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 56
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 57

Part Two
Perspectives on the History—and Future—
of the Science-Religion Dialog

c
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 58
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 59

In Praise of Contingency 10
Chance Versus Inevitability in the Universe We Know
Owen Gingerich

“We live forward,” Kierkegaard wrote, “but to understand we look back.”1

I was reminded of Kierkegaard’s words when I reflected on a conversation I once

had with Paul Freund, Harvard University’s expert on constitutional law. One of
my sons was contemplating law school, and I remarked to Freund that my son’s
strength was in history, not in logic, which I felt must be essential for understand-
ing the intricacies of legal reasoning. “On the contrary,” Freund replied. “Law is his-
torical, not logical.”
Law is not governed by logical necessity, but by chance, or contingency. That is
why case studies are so central to legal education. Looking backward is essential to
understanding what we experience going forward.
But does this apply to the universe? Is the universe strictly logical, or did it unfold
with an element of chance that we must look backward to discover? Einstein put it
succinctly: “What I’m really interested in is whether God could have made the world
in a different way. . . .”2
To those physicists seeking the “theory of everything,” discovering the logical
framework that would explain it all remains the goal. Their mission is rooted in an
ancient faith in the intelligibility of the universe—and the rationality of physicists.
Einstein’s thought, stated above, continues: “. . . that is, whether the necessity of
logical simplicity leaves any freedom at all.”
Let us for the moment consider that the cosmos has a logical simplicity that left
God no choice, an idea that has long been branded as heretical by churchmen but
appeals to physicists. There would be no contingency. The way our universe was
made would be the only way to make a universe. We can examine this hypothesis in
conjunction with two principles that achieved wide currency in the twentieth cen-
tury: the Anthropic Principle and the Copernican principle.
Throughout the twentieth century, astute observers noticed that our universe
has remarkable properties that are singularly congenial to the existence of intelli-
gent, self-contemplative life. In 1913, Harvard professor L. J. Henderson published a
book entitled The Fitness of the Environment,3 in which he noted that not only were
organisms adapted to their habitats, but that the fundamental details of chemistry
themselves made life possible—peculiarities of hydrogen and carbon and the
extraordinary physical nature of water. The march of science has made his thesis
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 60

60 c owen gingerich

ever more cogent. And, if the universe had to be this way, intelligent life was
inevitable.
Later in the last century, as knowledge of astronomy increased, it became clear
that other global cosmic properties, such as the precisely balanced rate of expansion
of the universe, played a fundamental role in making possible suitable habitats for
life. These insights led to framing the Anthropic Principle, the observed fact that the
universe favored our existence. In the words of physicist Freeman Dyson, it is a uni-
verse that “knew we were coming.”4 Said another way, our universe is a very special
place with a built-in congeniality for intelligent, self-conscious life. The pointers all
seem to say that there is purpose, direction, and intention in the universe.
But at the same time, another principle—the Copernican principle—became
popular. This is the idea that, based on the insight of Copernicus, the earth is not the
center of the universe, but that we are but an ordinary part of the universe, our
home revolving about a mediocre star in the backwaters of our galaxy. Given the
vastness of the universe, well understood only in the twentieth century, it seemed
almost absurd to think that we could be centrally located, or even in any other way
special. Yet the Copernican principle of mediocrity, which essentially denies that
our universe is anything but ordinary, seems somehow to be at odds with the
Anthropic Principle that we are indeed in a special universe.
One way to resolve the apparent conflict between these two principles would be
to declare that all those congeniality pointers were mere accidents of a cosmic
roulette: that there are many universes, and naturally we would find ourselves in the
very one, which, like the little bear’s porridge, was just right. On the face of it, the
multiverse proposal offers atheists an answer to why our universe seems specially
designed.
But, if God had no choice (as I have briefly considered for purposes of argu-
ment), then all the multiple universes would necessarily have the same congenial-
ity factors, and it would make no difference which universe we found ourselves in.
What a staggering discovery that would be! Atheists could say that, if God had no
choice, there would be no need for a Creator. Theists could still stand in awe of the
fact that the one-and-only design paved the way for our existence. There is no doubt
that such a design is awesome.
Christian theologians have long insisted that God’s creative powers included
choices in the way the universe is made. This concept played a significant role his-
torically in the so-called Galileo affair. Although Galileo was a pioneering experi-
mentalist, he also held to the ancient belief, developed by the Greek philosophers,
in the rationality of the cosmos, from which he hoped to develop a demonstrative
proof of the Copernican system. He believed that the tides were the consequence of
the earth’s motion, and he proposed to entitle his cosmological book “On the Flux
and Reflux of the Sea.” Pope Urban VIII objected to the title because it gave too
much emphasis to what Galileo believed was a proof of the Copernican system.
Urban reminded Galileo that “God, by his infinite wisdom and power, could have
created the tides in many other ways, including some beyond the reach of human
intellect.”5
Ultimately, Galileo realized, perhaps with some disappointment, that he could
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 61

owen gingerich c 61

not produce a deductive proof of the Earth’s motion. But in reality, he won the
debate with Urban concerning the Earth’s motion by changing the rules of science.
I have called Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems the “book that won
the war.” Unlike Copernicus’s Revolutions or Newton’s Principia, it did not contain
new, heavy-duty science. It contained no proofs for the earth’s mobility. Instead, it
marshaled a long series of convincing coherencies. Although it lacked “proofs pos-
itive,” his persuasive book made the seemingly ridiculous idea of the Earth’s motion
intellectually respectable. In consequence, science today proceeds not by looking
for proofs, but by building a highly probable structure, coherent and persuasive.
Yet Urban could well have been right in his theological declaration that God
could have created the world in many other ways. Convincing as a “theory of every-
thing” might be, it is hard to imagine how a scientist could ever prove that it was the
only explanation and that God had no choice. The “theory of everything” would
have to link together all of the seemingly unrelated constants of nature. But could
it ever show that the linkage system was unique and thus that our universe was
inevitable?
And even if the universe were a logical necessity, contingency would nevertheless
play a role. Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid struck the Earth in what is now
the present-day village of Chicxulub on the Yucatan Peninsula. The impact left a
crater wider than one could see across, and the ocean pouring into that red-hot
hole created a cataclysmic explosion. In its aftermath, the dinosaurs, whose family
had ruled the earth for 200 million years, perished. Out of this turmoil, tiny mam-
mals emerged, gradually evolving into the world’s dominant family, including you
and me. It is difficult to imagine that the trajectory of the Chicxulub asteroid was
foreordained in the Big Bang.
I have met hard-core physicists who deny that biology is, or ever will be, a science.
They demand a demonstrative, mathematical structure, if not tight logical necessity.
Contingency is not for them. Stephen J. Gould’s argument, so ably articulated in his
Wonderful Life, that if we replayed the tape of life again the outcome would be far
different, was anathema to them. The notion that bad luck (contingency), rather
than bad genes (a demonstrative structure), could shape life on Earth was, in their
book, enough to prevent palaeontologists from entering the science club.
On the other hand, I know of historians who have argued that the whole concept
of contingency, in a Judeo-Christian context, drove the birth of modern science. In
1951, in a philosophical discourse to the British Association for the Advancement of
Science, Professor John Baillie declared,“It is to the clear recognition of this element
of contingency in nature that science owes its very being.” Because God could cre-
ate the universe in any number of ways, only appeal to observation and experiment
could decide which of the alternate schemes might be true.“The reason why ancient
science was so little observational and hardly at all experimental was that in hold-
ing so fast to the intelligibility of the world it failed to do justice to its contingency.”
It has long been a challenging puzzle to understand why modern science arose in
the Latin West in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and not in China or the
Islamic world. It is unlikely that any one concept can explain the tangled complex
of ideas and forces that shaped the European scientific renaissance. Contingency
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 62

62 c owen gingerich

undoubtedly played an important role, even in a proposal as cerebral as the helio-

centric system. Copernicus’s idea was a “theory pleasing to the mind,” proposed
with no observational verification of the Earth’s motion. Yet the whole notion of
alternatives, that God could have created the universe in more than one way, drove
astronomers to seek new evidence to distinguish the possibilities.
Looking backward is clearly essential to understanding the particulars of the bio-
logical world in which we live. History matters! It also illumines the very process by
which we have come to understand the world about us. And, ultimately, it may help
us to better understand God.

c
Owen Gingerich, Ph.D., is Research Professor of Astronomy and of the History
of Science at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and former Chair
of the History of Science Department at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts. He is a member and former Vice President, American Philosophical Soci-
ety; former Chairman, US National Committee of the International Astronomical
Union; former Councilor, American Astronomical Society; and Member, Ameri-
can Academy of Arts and Sciences, International Academy of the History of Sci-
ence, and International Society for Science and Religion. Professor Gingerich has
published more than five hundred technical or educational articles and reviews and
most recently The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Coperni-
cus (Walker & Company, 2004).

Notes
1 Paraphrased from Peter P. Rohde, ed., The Diary of Søren Kierkegaard (London: Peter
Owen, 1960), pt. 5, sct. 4, no. 136.
2 Carl Seelig, ed., Helle Zeit - dunkle Zeit: in memoriam Albert Einstein (Braunschweig: F.
Vieweg, 1986), 72; translated by Ewald Osers in Albrecht Fölsing, Albert Einstein, A Biog-
raphy (New York: Viking, 1997), 736.
3 Lawrence J. Henderson, The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry into the Biological
Significance of the Properties of Matter (New York: Macmillan, 1913). See also http://www.
templeton.org/biochem-finetuning/.
4 Freeman J. Dyson, Disturbing the Universe (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), 250.
5 Cited by Galileo Galilei in his Dialogo and paraphrased from the Thomas Salusbury
translation on 1661; see Giorgio de Santillana, trans., Dialogue on the Two Great World
Systems (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 471.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 63

Historical Errors Impeding

Progress in Science and Religion 11
Jeffrey Burton Russell

E verybody makes mistakes about the past. Some mistakes are trivial, but oth-
ers impede progress in acquiring information—including spiritual informa-
tion—by reinforcing prejudices and ideological programming. Ideology, which
plays some role even in the natural sciences, assumes a huge role in the social sci-
ences. Religious, political, gender, and economic biases have produced and nur-
tured false ideas about the past.
The word “history,” although often used as a synonym for “the past,” really means
“investigation of the past.” History properly works by showing how any situation
(religious, political, scientific, or other) is at Point X by virtue of having moved
from Point A through Point B through Point N. Any errors we make about events
along the line between A and X weaken or invalidate the explanation of X. History
is far from an exact science, and mistakes (not to mention misjudgments) easily
creep in. But when mistakes encourage vast misunderstandings of the past, they are
impediments to gaining knowledge. An ever-present example: ideologies that insist
(from either a claimed scientific or a claimed religious point of view) that science
and religion are at odds.
For a historical falsehood to be dangerous, it must be common to many people
rather than idiosyncratic; it must endure over centuries or at least many decades; it
must influence people’s ideas about the world in general; it must be demonstrably
false according to solid evidence. A dozen examples of many historical errors that
fit these criteria follow; of these, we will discuss the first two:
Error one: Christians have traditionally read the Bible “literally” as a scientific
and historical document.
Error two: Columbus discovered that the earth is round.
Error three: The medieval “Inquisition” tortured and killed millions of women
for witchcraft.
Error four: The Catholic Church martyred Galileo for teaching that the Earth
revolves around the Sun.
Error five: Ancient events have no influence on contemporary life.
Error six: Religious ideologies caused more deaths than secular ideologies.
Error seven: Darwin invented evolution.
Error eight: Darwin originated social Darwinism.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 64

64 c jeffrey burton russell

Error nine: Medieval popes were believed to be infallible.

Error ten: King George III was a tyrant.
Error eleven: Russia was not a colonial power.
Error twelve: Alger Hiss was innocent.
Some of these falsehoods have been employed innumerable times to promote
the notion of a struggle between science and religion, a notion that has seriously
impeded the progress of both and distorted the practice of history by making his-
tory a mere handmaiden to ideologies.
Error one is an important, common historical mistake, promoted in a number of
ideologies, often even in opposing ones. The falsehood that Christians traditionally
interpreted the Bible “literally” as a scientific and historical document has led to
caricatures. This error entails even more basic misconceptions about how the Bible
was written, formed, edited, and translated—even though the evidence for the
process is vast and incontrovertible. If one believes that “there’s just the Bible, and
it’s read in one way, and that’s that,” then the possibilities for further errors are inex-
haustible. Many scientists, religious leaders, and even historians seem to labor under
such a misapprehension.
I assume that readers of this essay accept that the Bible was formed gradually
over many centuries and that its formation was not complete before the fifth, or at
least fourth, century CE. The question is how the Bible was read or interpreted.
That any reading of the Bible (or of any other document) necessarily entails some
sort of interpretation is philosophically and linguistically obvious, even if we were
ignorant enough to maintain that God Himself wrote the King James Version. For
twenty centuries, Christians have interpreted the Bible in a myriad of ways. One
perennial problem lies in the meaning of words. The term “literal interpretation” of
the Bible is now ambiguous. Precisely used, the term means accepting every word
and letter (Latin: littera) of the Bible as being “revealed.” In that precise sense, Chris-
tians over time have taken the Bible literally, but most have not taken it as a scien-
tific and historical document.
Interpretations of the Bible began in the earliest stages of its formation, because
all but the most mentally feeble realized that when Jesus said that he was a door, he
did not mean that he was a construction of nails and planks. From the first century
onward, thoughtful Christians considered how documents that they believed to be
revealed truth could best be understood. In the early centuries, Clement of Alexan-
dria (c. 150–c. 215 ce) and Origen (c. 185–c. 254 ce) propounded models that became
the basis for most subsequent interpretations, notably for the immeasurably influ-
ential Augustine of Hippo (354–430 ce). Augustine’s interpretation of Genesis, The
Literal Meaning of Genesis, sounds little like anything we would today consider “lit-
eralism.” The view of Augustine and other influential Christian writers such as John
Cassian (c. 360–435 ce) was that the Bible had as many meanings as God wants and
that the meanings may be inexhaustible by human intelligence. But, they believed,
human intelligence must work with what it has, and when humans try to under-
stand the Bible, people best understand it in four main ways: as an account of events
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 65

jeffrey burton russell c 65

that actually occurred, as an allegory (a kind of speech in which one thing is under-
stood by another) or typology (connecting the Old with the New Testament by
types such as salvation through water—the Red Sea, Jonah, baptism), as moral
guide, and as predictive of what will happen at the end of time. Ideas about which
sort of interpretation best fits which passage have always been innumerable, but
Augustine urged that the meaning that is most charitable is always the best.
At the time of the Reformation, Protestant and Catholic scholars both promoted
re-emphasis on the text of the Bible itself. Many of these scholars, while continuing
to understand the various ways in which the Bible could be interpreted, tended to
the view that it should be read historically and scientifically more than typologically
and eschatologically; this view eventually gave eighteenth-century skeptics grounds
for mocking Biblical theology. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many
leading scholars advanced views different from any of the above—for example, that
the Bible is best understood in terms of its historical provenance (when and where
different biblical authors wrote). Still, the idea that the Bible is supposed to be his-
torically and scientifically accurate persists on both sides of the growling crevasse
between fundamentalists and materialists, the former insisting that the Bible is
“true,” the latter that it is “false.”
Error two is another common historical mistake. Serious scholars have known
for eighty years that educated medieval people knew that the Earth is spherical.
Cosmology was certainly geocentric before Copernicus (1473–1543), but geocen-
tricity and sphericity are two different questions, both scientifically and historically.
Educated medieval people assumed that the Earth was the shape of a globe, just as
they assumed that the Earth was the immoveable center of the universe. About a
hundred medieval writings dealing with the Earth’s shape have so far been identi-
fied. Only five seem to assert flatness, and two others are ambiguous. From the time
of Augustine (354–430), every writer known in Western Europe who mentioned the
shape of the earth asserted sphericity.
Yet the “Flat Error” continues, despite the evidence, to be repeated in schools and
in popularized books by careless writers depicting Columbus’s opponents as bigoted
and benighted ecclesiastics. The main facts therefore need restating. First, no
medieval person ever thought of the heavens as anything but spherical. As for the
earth, the medieval term for “the entire earth” was orbis terrarum (“the globe of
lands”). Medieval astronomers and geographers refined and improved on the Greek
and Roman view of the Earth as a globe, a view completely dominant after the
fourth century CE. Numerous medieval treatises De sphaera, “About the Sphere,”
demonstrate their knowledge of the globe. In a typical medieval scheme, the Earth
is a globe around which the spheres of the Moon, planets, Sun, and stars rotate.
Schematically it can be divided, like any globe or ball, into four quarters. The
Eurasian-African landmass was supposedly set in the sea of one of these four quar-
ters, while the other three-quarters were usually supposed to be entirely sea. If the
other three quarters do not have lands, then sea runs west all the way from Portu-
gal to Japan.
Medieval scholars came close to estimating the Earth’s actual diameter and cir-
cumference. One school worked on refining the figure of 250,000 stades calculated
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 66

66 c jeffrey burton russell

by Eratosthenes (c. 275–c. 194 bce), close to the modern figure of about 40,000 kilo-
meters. The other school worked on refining the figure of 180,000 stades given by
Ptolemy about 150 ce. Eratosthenes’ more accurate view dominated; scholars fol-
lowing it assumed that the ocean ran unbroken from the Azores and Canaries to
Japan, the distance an impassible barrier to a westward voyage to the Indies. But
toward the end of the Middle Ages, some writers revived and preferred Ptolemy’s
less accurate figures. The differences led to Columbus’s misconception that the sea
was narrow enough for him to sail westward to Asia.
The arguments of the scholars and courtiers who opposed Columbus in the 1480s
and early 1490s had nothing whatsoever to do with the shape of the earth. No one
entertained the fantastic fear of sailing off the edge. Rather, Columbus’s opponents
argued that the ocean was too vast for a ship to sail west to Asia without all perish-
ing of thirst and starvation, a dangerous gamble on which to risk life—and the royal
treasury. It was a reasonable argument based on the available evidence, and Colum-
bus had to work hard to overcome it. He accomplished this by fiddling the figures
repeatedly in a number of stages until he had radically reduced both the circum-
ference of the globe and the width of the sea, audaciously ending up with a figure
for the sea’s breadth equal to about 4,450 kilometers, about one-fifth the actual dis-
tance of about 22,000 kilometers.
Not many believed such preposterous calculations. But Columbus was in politi-
cal luck. The Spaniards were eyeing new ways to expand their wealth and power in
competition with the Portuguese. So King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella approved
the adventure, and in 1492 Columbus set sail across the Atlantic. Then came the
unexpected, one of the greatest pieces of luck in all of history: On October 12, 1492,
Columbus blundered into the Americas under the mistaken impression that he was
arriving in the East Indies. If the Americas had not been in his way, he and his crew
would surely have perished, as those who opposed him had predicted.
What these examples of historical error have in common is their simplification
of complex questions into simpleminded, easy-to-swallow myths that have con-
tributed to the popular myth of a war between science and religion, a myth that con-
tinues to impede progress. Historical investigation and the other social sciences and
humanities have often been playing fields for ideologies instead of fulfilling their
proper calling as aiming at truth, willing to discard ideas that violate the evidence,
adjusting assumptions and beliefs according to the evidence, and above all opening
minds up more and more to a variety of ideas. This is no less true today than it has
been in the past. Although historians and anthropologists are often vehement in
opposing ethnocentrism, they just as vehemently (if sometimes unwittingly) pro-
mote chronocentrism—the notion that the ideas held at this moment by current
social scientists are necessarily better than older ideas or worse than those to come.
New is not always true. And to enhance understanding, spiritual information must
be true.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 67

jeffrey burton russell c 67

c
Jeffrey Burton Russell, Ph.D., received his doctorate from Emory University
and is a Harvard Junior Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fulbright Fellow, a Fellow
of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fellow of the Medieval Acad-
emy. He is Professor Emeritus in the University of California, Santa Barbara, hav-
ing taught history and religious studies there as well as at several other universities.
Professor Russell has written seventeen books translated into fifteen languages,
including Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians (1991), which
shows how nineteenth-century anti-Christians invented and spread the falsehood
that educated people in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat, and A His-
tory of Heaven: The Singing Silence (Princeton University Press, 1997), a study of the
history and meaning of heaven in Christian thought from the beginnings of time
to the time of Dante. He is most noted for his five-volume history of the concept of
the devil, published by Cornell University Press between 1977 and 1988. Professor
Russell has also published more than sixty articles, most in theology, and is cur-
rently working on a new book on heaven for Oxford University Press.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 68

The Longing
of Johannes Kepler 12
Kitty Ferguson

O ne summer day, my daughter and I sat on a boulder jutting into the Black
River as it runs through a gorge near Chester, New Jersey, and pondered the
universe. Fish, squirrels, chipmunks, deer, insects, and birds appeared, disappeared,
and darted in every direction under a canopy of leaves. Farther along the river, two
humans on another rock were locked in an embrace. I remarked, shaking my head,
that when I looked at all this vigorous, teeming, diverse life and tried to imagine it
being created by the process of evolution, my first inclination was to exclaim,
“Naah!” But both of us acknowledged that my reaction was born of an inability to
conceive of the enormous time span during which all this had come into existence.
We also both agreed that evolution and survival of the fittest had never posed any
challenge to our faith in God. In fact, evolution seemed to us a glorious example of
God’s genius—to have come up with this simple way of ensuring that life would fill
every niche and be exceedingly difficult to wipe out. My daughter, who would be
leaving the following week to begin graduate studies in molecular biology, pointed
out how far better equipped the very small (viruses, bacteria, yeasts) are to survive
than humans are.
“If anything were to challenge my faith,” she mused,“it wouldn’t be a theory about
how the universe could have started without God, and it wouldn’t be evolution—it
would be the differences between people’s experience of God.” Spiritual experience
too often seemed inconsistent, and it surely wasn’t always authentic—for didn’t the
9/11 terrorists believe they were acting on God’s instructions? For that matter, she
questioned, how do any of us trust our private spiritual perceptions, knowing that
drugs alter what seems to us to be “reality” and that our genes may make us prone
to belief or to skepticism, to mysticism or to being bluntly down-to-earth?
Johannes Kepler, the sixteenth- to seventeenth-century discoverer of the orbits of
the planets, was a man of sophisticated and exuberant faith. His education at the
University of Tübingen prepared him to be a Lutheran clergyman, and it was a
severe disappointment when he was assigned, instead, to teach mathematics to small
boys at a provincial school in Graz, Austria. Yet Kepler frequently voiced his con-
viction that even such apparently inexplicable turns of fate happened at God’s direc-
tion, and, indeed, the flash of insight that set him on course toward his greatest
discoveries occurred while he was drawing a diagram on the chalkboard for his
class. He also believed that God had incorporated deep principles of harmony and
symmetry in Creation, and, having done so, does not meddle in an arbitrary fash-
ion. Kepler felt obliged to live with this apparent contradiction between a God of
providence and a God of physical laws because he continued to encounter what
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 69

kitty ferguson c 69

seemed to him to be concrete experiential evidence of both. More profoundly mys-

terious to him was the possibility of experiencing God not only as Creator of the
universe and director of human events, but much closer. In Kepler’s words, “There
is nothing I want to find out and long to know with greater urgency than this: Can
I find God, whom I can almost grasp with my own hands in looking at the universe,
also in myself?”1 From a large portion of the human race, the answer is, “Yes, God
is to be found in ourselves, by ourselves, and God engages with us, personally.” But,
given that agreement, we seem to fall so far short of finding the same God as to
belie our answer.
The conversation with my daughter, and Kepler’s query, stick in my mind and
cause me to suspect that, within the vast range of discussion about God and human
interaction with God, those questions most frequently referred to science (having
to do with creation, invention, and design) constitute only a small part of the total
spectrum and have been blown out of proportion because they are, frankly, the eas-
iest part to study scientifically. Thousands of generations of human beings attest that
spiritual information isn’t necessarily something that requires use of a prodigious
tool like science to find. It sometimes comes unsought, even unwanted, and to the
most unlikely people. It has to do not so much with the universe, out there, as with
you and me, here and now. And it is extraordinarily difficult to systematize or study.
Personal human experience with God, if genuine, would be a rich source of vital
information. Accordingly, much of this experience has been recorded in the writ-
ings of our religions. But the “yes” to Kepler’s question doesn’t come only from
times when it didn’t seem necessary to subject such information to the rigors of a
“scientific method.” The claim from many of our contemporaries is that the private
channel is still open and that it is sheer foolishness—using pseudo-intellectual
excuses—to ignore experiential evidence. With God standing face to face with us,
must we forever insist on looking over God’s shoulder at galaxies, test tubes, com-
puter readouts? If we do, we are in denial: “Don’t bother me about engaging with
God. First I’ve got to find evidence in my science that God exists.” Not that we don’t
learn about God through nature. Indeed, Kepler also wrote that in his experience
“God wants to be known through the Book of Nature”;2 hence, everything Kepler
discovered about the universe was, to him, spiritual information. But many trust-
worthy people insist that there is also much to be learned in day-to-day engage-
ment, a lifetime of both “having it out” with God and enjoying living in the presence
of God. Though no evidence survives of Kepler giving a direct answer to his ques-
tion, it clearly was through such personal experience that he thought he had learned
what God wanted. We have to ask what science can do with this data.
If we ponder why our most widely respected method of sorting truth from false-
hood has seldom attempted to subject this body of experiential evidence to sys-
tematic study, several reasons come to mind. One is that science by definition limits
itself to public evidence—evidence that is repeatable and testable in an open arena.
Private experience with God arguably does not meet these criteria. It can’t be coaxed
or forced out by testing, or manipulated or scrutinized at will, and one person’s
experience is often not a guide to what the next person’s will be.
A second reason is a tendency to conclude that if evidence can’t be tested in a
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 70

70 c kitty ferguson

public arena with scientific tools, that means it isn’t evidence. Rewording the old
saw about the Master of Balliol (“What he doesn’t know isn’t knowledge!”), we
declare, “What we can’t study isn’t evidence,” or “What we can’t study with the sci-
entific method didn’t really happen.”
A third reason: Arguably the greatest faith in God is a faith in God’s ultimate
ability to stand up to all questioning, all testing, all profound personal doubts,
expressed in our most brutally honest way. It is wonderful to be able to act on that
faith. But many thoughtful people ask whether, in so acting, it is anyone’s right to
insist that everyone approach God in this manner. This is an extremely delicate ques-
tion. To pursue it is to revisit the minds of those in the church at the time of Galileo
who debated whether to confuse those of simple faith by publicly espousing what
they as intellectuals suspected was correct: the Copernican system. It nevertheless
behooves us to anticipate that science might turn out to be a bull in a china shop
when taking on this body of evidence that is held as a priceless treasure by many. In
none of our religious traditions, even at their most intellectually profound, has God
reportedly declared that everyone’s personal faith must be purified in intellectual
fires. Demand this (as we do if we employ a method as public as science to scruti-
nize spiritual experience), and for all we might gain we arguably trample roughshod
over much of God’s most delicate ongoing maneuvering in human lives—a disas-
trous debacle indeed if science in its present state really can’t deal adequately with
private evidence! Clearly the task calls for a profound level of humility and rever-
ence for our fellow human beings and what they believe. Yet such sensitivity is apt
to leave one open to the accusation that objectivity is impossible when one already
has too much respect for the “evidence.”
When it comes to the first two hurdles—having to do with the nature of the evi-
dence—I remind myself that the scientific method is not a monolith that has been
with us forever. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, men like Galileo and
Kepler were not heirs to a scientific method. Muddling through to their own dis-
coveries, they worked out what science would be for future generations—how it
would work, what it must include, and what it shouldn’t include. Scientists in the
twentieth century again found themselves working out what science would be for
later generations as they faced the challenges of postmodernism and found it both
wise and productive to question the assumption of scientific objectivity. A far more
significant frontier of science than “What hasn’t been studied?” is “What can’t be
studied?” and we have been clever at finding ways of pushing back that second fron-
tier. Kepler, in his struggles to describe the orbit of Mars, feared that it might not
even be mathematically describable, yet he persevered and found the means to dis-
cover that it is elliptical. Astronomers and astrophysicists have devised methods to
measure distances and quantities that seemed immeasurable. The fields of chaos
and complexity arose out of the conviction that what science had ignored because
it resisted systemization must be ignored no longer. Our method of sifting truth and
falsehood has surely not encountered the ultimate barrier between what it can and
can’t handle.
The human intellect has a genius for approaching large, intimidating, “unan-
swerable” questions by way of more manageable inquiry. The ability to evaluate
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 71

kitty ferguson c 71

spiritual information coming from personal experience relies heavily on our first
gaining much better understanding of ourselves. My daughter’s question, “How do
I know whether my own and others’ experiences of God are authentic?” doesn’t
necessarily call for us immediately to wade into the evidence, winnowing it right and
left, true or false. Rather, we ask, for example, “How do we recognize ‘reality’? What
causes one person to identify an experience as ‘real’ while another would not?”—
questions that research in the neurosciences and genetics is currently approaching.
The question, “Are emotions engendered by what we interpret as the presence of
God really indicative of anything authentic?” similarly breaks down into “What
causes us to feel joy or sorrow, inspiration or depression? What constitutes normal
or abnormal psychology? What about us does not change when we take mood-
altering drugs or otherwise manipulate our chemistry?”—problems certainly under
scientific scrutiny. Information about consciousness and when and how it evolved
should help us approach the larger questions: “Of how much of the universe are we
conscious? Might some things lie beyond our ability, except under unusual cir-
cumstances, to be conscious of them?”
Will the answers challenge faith? If our experience in the areas of evolution and
the origin of the universe are a guide, then, yes—they may, for a time. Yet it seems,
at least to my daughter and me, that the more we learn in all areas of science, the
more that challenge gives way to deeper mystery and deeper reverence. It is “a little
knowledge” that is the more dangerous thing.
This discussion cannot avoid returning to the more personal level, for that is
where the most fruitful or disastrous decisions about experience of God and God’s
will are often made. Has science given us any indication about how you and I per-
sonally should answer the question whether our own experience, be it “mystical” or
occurring more subtly over a long period of time, is authentic—and whether what
seems to be “divine guidance” should be trusted? Scientists have not been silent on
this issue, nor have all responsible ones suggested we dismiss such “information” as
worthless or imaginary.3 Among psychologists of the most rigorous scientific bent,
there are those who caution us not to down-value personal spiritual experience,
and who suggest that sensible methods of control and evaluation come from within
the faith traditions themselves. It is not a scientific test, but it is an intellectually
valid exercise to ask whether a private experience is consistent with the religious
tradition in which your or my faith has been honed—with its history, its teachings,
its writings. We have learned from those traditions some lessons in how not to dis-
cern God’s will—for instance, that it is risky to rely for endorsement of our private
spiritual perception upon only one small part of those writings or choose among
passages as though at a smorgasbord, rather than to study them as a whole and read
and interpret individual passages in the context of that whole. With regard to that
same history, we are not ignorant of the tragic errors some of our forebears have
made in the name of religion, and this historical memory helps us judge the valid-
ity of our own perceptions about what God’s will is. It is a safeguard to remain
involved in a community of faith and to test private experience against the experi-
ence, perceptions, and wisdom of responsible contemporaries within the commu-
nity. Even while we are seeking the assistance of an Intelligence far beyond ours,
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 72

72 c kitty ferguson

our own intelligence and good sense should not lie sleeping. It is not necessary to
act stupider than we really are in order to remain humble before God.
The psalmist’s question, “What is man, that you are mindful of him?” is an elo-
quent expression of awe for God, abject humility for us. But the question, refo-
cused, is even more likely to bring us to our knees. We are, arguably, for some
unfathomable reason, extremely important to God. You don’t have to be a skeptic
to ask, “Don’t lunatics ‘hear God’s voice’? Don’t terrorists feel they are obeying
God’s orders?” The body of data having to do with human experience with God is
confusing, often inconsistent, and almost certainly not all authentic. On the other
hand you don’t have to be “overly religious” or gullible to admit that the body of
data is enormous and extremely widespread and can’t all be off the mark. It is not
confined to the reports of mystics or to folk tales from the past, nor to once-in-a-
lifetime, miraculous experiences, nor to any stratum of society, any ethnic group,
any religious group, any IQ level. In a search for truth, although we should recog-
nize the pitfalls of the enterprise, we do not dare ignore this data. Using science to
address the imponderable questions has hardly begun until it can help us under-
stand and share in a more meaningful way this vast, rich, unwieldy store of spiri-
tual information that human beings—these unexplainably significant creatures—
may already have.

c
Kitty Ferguson traces her interest in science to her childhood and her father’s
infectious enthusiasm for the subject. Her formal training was in music at the Juil-
liard School, and for many years she was a successful professional musician, until
during a sojourn in Cambridge, England, she became acquainted with several emi-
nent scientists, including Stephen Hawking. On her return to the United States,
Kitty retired from music making and began to write and lecture about science. Her
six books have been translated into many languages and include the best-selling
biography Stephen Hawking: Quest for a Theory of Everything; The Fire in the Equa-
tions: Science, Religion, and the Search for God; and, most recently, Tycho and Kepler:
The Unlikely Partnership That Changed Our Understanding of the Heavens. Kitty has
been a part of workshops, panels, and lecture series in the United States and Europe;
written for Astronomy Magazine and Time Magazine’s Time for Kids; contributed a
chapter to Russell Stannard’s God for the Twenty-First Century; and served as pri-
mary consultant for Stephen Hawking’s The Universe in a Nutshell. She serves on the
Board of Advisors for the John Templeton Foundation, and she and her husband
Yale are members of the Episcopal Guild of Scholars. The Fergusons are parish-
ioners at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown, NJ, where Kitty heads up the
Companionship with the Kothapallimitta Pastorate, an “untouchable” pastorate in
the Church of South India.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 73

kitty ferguson c 73

Notes
1 Kepler to an anonymous nobleman, October 23, 1613, Johannes Kepler: Gesammelte
Werke, 17, no. 669:20–22; translation in Carola Baumgardt, Johannes Kepler: Life and
Letters, 114–15 (New York: Philosophical Library, 1951).
2 Kepler to Michael Mästlin, October 1595, Johannes Kepler: Gesammelte Werke, 13:40.
3 See James W. Jones, The Mirror of God: Christian Faith as Spiritual Practice (New York:
Palgrave, 2003).
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 74

The Spirit of Galileo 13

Dallas Willard

K nowledge grows and information increases when we test ideas and beliefs
against the realities they presume. This is true in all areas of life, including the
personal and the spiritual.
When Galileo dropped weights from the tower of Pisa and performed other
experiments with moving bodies, he tested ideas that had been accepted for mil-
lennia. He pitted them against the realities they dealt with—actual bodies in
motion—and found them to be false. But he also discovered what was true of them
and laid a foundation for a culture of testing and “research” that has continued to
develop up to the present. Galileo provided an accurate, general model of pur-
poseful increase of knowledge and information.
The burden of human existence is the need to find an adequate basis for action
in knowledge. The ancient insight that people perish for lack of knowledge is a pro-
found truth that can be gleaned from personal reflection, as well as from simple
people-watching. It is not quite as obvious as “people perish for lack of oxygen.” The
perishing involved is not as immediately striking. But it is often a more painful per-
ishing at a far deeper level of human existence.
Reliable information is so vital to us because, in a sense peculiar to humans, we
must act. We have no choice but to choose. What our individual and collective future
holds depends largely on what we do. We are relentlessly thrown into a future of
some sort, and we are always in some measure responsible for what that future will
be—for the circumstances we will live in and the kinds of persons we will become.
For us, even “doing nothing” amounts to doing something. And whether we act or
“do nothing,” we desperately need to know what we are doing.
Knowledge is the capacity to represent respective subject matters as they are, on
an appropriate basis of thought and experience. That is an accurate portrayal of
what we have in mind when we regard someone as having or not having knowledge
in specific contexts of daily life—of knowing the English or Greek alphabet, for
example, or of being qualified to operate on brains or use sewing machines. Knowl-
edge grows through engagement with its subject matter and, as it grows, puts us in
an increasingly better position to deal with our lives.
What “an appropriate basis” amounts to in the particular case will always depend
on the nature of the subject matter of the knowledge in question. There is, from
within our human limitations, no perfectly general formula for “appropriate basis”
or “conclusive evidence.” Much of the skeptical results of “modern” thought should
be attributed to outstanding thinkers insisting on one or another supposed com-
pletely general formula for what is to be appropriate or conclusive evidence.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 75

dallas willard c 75

But regardless of our doubts and confusions, we nonetheless determine perfectly

well in specific contexts when people do or do not know a certain subject matter—
how to pronounce the Greek alphabet, how to perform brain surgery, or how to
operate a sewing machine.
Now “science” in the modern sense (classical and medieval “science” is quite
another matter) is the attempt, by thought, observation, and experimentation, to
theoretically organize the events and entities of the sense-perceptible or “natural”
world under ever-more comprehensive generalizations or laws. That aim would
permit, but does not require, that all such events and entities come under one set
of laws or one science (e.g., the dream of the unification of all natural forces—the
theory of everything—in physics). And it also does not require that every ele-
ment of the observable world be itself observable in narrowly defined sense per-
ceptibility.
Thus, to witness wedding vows or an eclipse, you must have sense perceptions of
some kind, but not of every element of the event observed. And if all you had were
sensations, you would never see such common things. Also, the “unobservables” of
subparticle physics are a part of the observable world, although unobservable them-
selves. Even from within science we have learned that the observable world cannot
be understood in terms of what is observable.
It is important to realize that science, given our current understanding of it,
makes—and can support—no claim about all that exists. It also does not itself claim
to constitute the whole of knowledge, although various philosophers make that
claim about it. For its purposes, there is no need—or, indeed, possibility—of mak-
ing claims about whether something exists in some manner distinct from the nat-
ural world unless such a conclusion were forced on it by examination of that world.
Further, science has no way of answering the question of why, in general, the laws
of the natural world that are held to be true actually do hold true, or of why what-
ever “initial conditions” that obtained (at the Big Bang or whatever constituted the
origin of the universe) did obtain. It simply takes the observable world as a given and
seeks to bring its events and entities under natural law as far as possible. If we ever
get to a completely “unified theory,” then it, and what it describes, will stand as a
brute fact or arrangement with no “scientific” explanation at all. The fate of com-
pletely successful science is to eventuate in the mystical, the ineffable; and the prac-
tice of science is itself a spiritual or personal activity, impossible to derive from the
laws of nature that it discovers.
The inescapable limits of scientific explanation are galling, however, for they leave
such interesting and important questions untouched. That often provokes brilliant
and ambitious minds to speculate beyond all legitimately scientific research, and
even to call such speculations “scientific.” Of course, anyone is free to speculate, and
speculation rightly handled is one source of both information and knowledge. But
to call one’s speculations “scientific” should mean something more than that they
are carried out by certifiable scientists or by people talking about certifiable scien-
tists. As history shows, certifiable scientists are quite capable of unscientific or even
nonsensical views. Among them are views about all reality or all knowledge.
By contrast, religion as a human practice involves two essential elements: (1) the
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 76

76 c dallas willard

belief in “another” realm than the natural world available to everyone through nor-
mal sense perception, and (2) the belief that that realm has a claim on us and that
we can make claims on it through appropriate personal responses (ritualistic or
otherwise). Thus, none of the great historical religions is without forms of offering
and prayer and ways of relating our actions and daily life to that “other realm.” That
realm, whether beyond or within the realm of nature—or both—is usually thought
of as a spiritual realm.
William James opens Lecture III of his Varieties of Religious Experience with the
statement:
Were one asked to characterize the life of [personal] religion in the broad-
est and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the
belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in har-
moniously adjusting ourselves thereto. This belief and this adjustment are
the religious attitude in the soul.
Religions, in contrast to the sciences, do aim at descriptions and explanations of
“the totality” of existence, and that always includes but transcends the physical
world. Those explanations and descriptions are not, typically, of the same type as the
explanations in the sciences. Usually they take the form of stories.
Stories, unlike scientific theories, are equipped, in ways peculiar to them, to deal
with unique and total events and entities—with self-contained wholes. They char-
acteristically convey a beginning, a “once upon a time,” and an end, a “happily every
after.” These are “totalizing devices.” But that does not detract from their intent to
be an account of fact and reality, which is by no means the absolute prerogative of
scientific theorizing. For there is no reason in the general nature of fact or knowl-
edge that stories of the religious type should not provide information to guide life
and even constitute knowledge as above described.
There is a fact, a reality, in any case where some property actually belongs to
something, giving it an actual character. And there is no reason whatsoever that the
properties central to the natural sciences must be all of the properties there are.
Of course, the stories told by the various religions, or even within one religion
or by various individuals, cannot all be true in any straightforward sense because
they conflict. Scientists and “scientific” theories also frequently contradict each
other. Nevertheless, the stories, like scientific theories, are intended to be true.
Conflict of scientific theories does not cause us to wash our hands of them, but to
refine them. And the same attitude should be taken toward the reports and stories
of religion.
Another feature of the stories or sub-stories that make up a religious or spiritual
outlook is that we can “slip into” them, identify with them, and receive guidance
from them in approaching life choices. We can test the stories by thoughtful exam-
ination of them and by living them out in appropriate ways. In this way, it is possi-
ble to show that they are inadequate or inaccurate, or to verify them, or to gain
further information by means of them.
Just as Galileo demonstrated that you cannot understand bodies in motion by
abstract thought, so we have to accept the fact that spiritual reality, in the activities
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 77

dallas willard c 77

of the individual or in the cosmos, must be approached in terms suitable to its

nature. Subject matter dictates method, not the reverse. To insist on examining a
subject matter, whether spiritual or natural, by methods that don’t even deal with
it can at best yield a vacuous self-satisfaction.
But while the spiritual and scientific approaches to reality differ profoundly, they
are nonetheless overlapping enterprises. They both have wide-ranging implications
for life and practice, and they can and do make conflicting claims about the same
events or realities. In some cases, it may be possible to reasonably adjudicate such
conflicts in favor of religion, or of science, or of neither—they might both be wrong.
But it is no use to say that they deal with different things and therefore cannot,
when properly understood, come into conflict. That was the route taken by Stephen
J. Gould in one of his last books, Rocks of Ages. In this regard, he followed a long line
of thinkers over the last three hundred years. He assigned to science the realm of
“fact” and to religion the realm of “meaning.”
The thoughtful advocate of spirituality will not think Gould is overly generous
to religion with this allocation and will see that what Gould calls “religion” is noth-
ing that any sincere practitioner of it could accept.“Meaning,” understood as exalted
sentiment and purpose, cannot hang in a vacuum. It is a peculiar folly of “scientif-
ically minded” intellectuals and academics such as Gould to think that meaning
and value, including what is offered by religion, is only a projection of human will,
usually involving a social and historical process of some sort. Ethical theory since
the nineteenth century is mainly an attempt to find life-governing norms that have
no basis in reality. It is an attempt that has now manifestly failed, as is to be seen in
the writings of the most well-known ethical theorists of our day.
Conflicts of opinion between spiritual and scientific points of view are not bad,
although they are often handled badly. Appropriate openness and humility are often
remarkably absent between people supposed to be learned. But it is a natural and
good thing that any far-reaching view of things, scientific or religious, should come
into conflict with other views. This is because all such views serve as a basis of prac-
tice and policies. If they did not, they would be irrelevant to life and to the pressing
need to base collective and individual human action on knowledge. And since the
way of testing is the only path toward the growth of knowledge and information, the
tests that rival accounts pose to one another can be accepted as welcome occasions
of increased understanding of human life and the realities that support it.
What is required of us all is an open and honest approach to all views concern-
ing human life and well-being. There is a truth to be known about human life and
its spiritual nature and context. The way forward is to learn from the masters of the
spiritual side of life and to test what they offer us by thoughtfully putting it into
practice. The approach of Galileo is the right one and extends far beyond his inter-
est in the motions of bodies.
The names on the list of spiritual masters are well-known. But to take them seri-
ously as providers of information and knowledge and to put them to the test is
extremely rare. This remains true even for those who profess confidence in them or
when they are presented in a popular form, such as in Stephen Covey’s very fine
book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Few who buy that book or others
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 78

78 c dallas willard

like it actually do what it says. We sink in spiritual darkness, not because there is no
light, but because we, for whatever reason, refuse to seek out the light, put it to the
test of daily life, and share it.

c
Dallas Willard, Ph.D., received his doctorate in Philosophy and the History of
Science from the University of Wisconsin in 1964, where he taught before moving
to the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. There he is now Professor of
Philosophy, where his fields of concentration are Ethical Theory, Metaphysics, and
Contemporary European Philosophy. Among Professor Willard’s books are Logic
and the Objectivity of Knowledge (1984) and The Divine Conspiracy (1998), and forth-
coming philosophical essay “The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge”.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 79

Eminent Scientists
and Religious Belief 14
Nicolaas A. Rupke

H ow widespread is the influence of religion among today’s scientists? And

what forms does this influence take? Is conducting opinion polls of scien-
tists an effective way to find out, by asking them directly: “All those in favor of a per-
sonal God, please raise your hand”?
The results of such vote counting would certainly be arresting, especially in our
Western, democratic culture. Or so the Bryn Mawr College psychologist James H.
Leuba may have thought when in 1914 he carried out a landmark statistical survey
of the belief in God and immortality among American scientists. Leuba found that
of one thousand randomly selected scientists, 58 percent expressed doubt or disbe-
lief in the existence of a God. When he confined the sample to a smaller number of
the most eminent scientists, the figure of doubters was higher yet, nearly 70 percent.
In 1933, Leuba repeated his survey and discovered that the number of disbelievers
had increased to 67 percent and 85 percent, respectively (Leuba 1916; Beit-Hallahmi
and Argyle 1997, p. 180ff).
There have been many similar statistical studies, among which is a recent repeat
of Leuba’s survey. In 1996 and 1998, Edward J. Larson, a historian from the Univer-
sity of Georgia, and Larry Witham, a Washington Times journalist, reported that
little change from 1914 had occurred among American scientists in general, with
approximately 40 percent believers. Among the top scientists, however, the per-
centage of believers had dropped dramatically, from 30 percent to a mere 7 percent.
The lowest rate of belief existed among biologists, the highest among mathemati-
cians (Larson and Witham 1998). A current study of religiosity among Nobel lau-
reates by the Haifa psychologist Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi underscores the “eminence
effect,” showing that religiosity is negatively correlated with renown. Beit-Hallahmi
concludes that scientific excellence is tied to distance from religion and that science
and religion appear to be incompatible at both the philosophical and psychologi-
cal levels (unpublished).
These findings have shocked many Christians and reinforced the traditional
reluctance of scientists to be open about their religious beliefs and practices, rele-
gating them to a hidden sphere of life. Accordingly, scant information is to be found
in the standard biographies or biographical dictionaries for answers to our open-
ing questions. An information gap has developed at the interface of science and
religion. Over the past century or so, many hundreds of biographical studies of emi-
nent scientists have been written. Frequently, close relatives, friends, or colleagues
were directly and deeply involved in the production of these biographies, and details
about religious beliefs and practices, along with other “bits of scandal,” have been
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 80

80 c nicolaas a. rupke

left out. This multitude of books and articles has, to a large extent, served as an
instrument to perpetuate the Leuba-esque view that top-notch science is inimical
to religious faith.
In recent years, historians of science have begun drawing a different picture of the
relationship between science and religion—less antagonistic, more varied, and alto-
gether richer (see, for example, Lindberg and Numbers 1986; 2003). Modern sci-
ence, it would appear, has to a significant extent been inspired by the belief that the
study of nature reveals divine truth and that the historical revelation of divine truth
will be redemptive for humankind. This historiographical revisionism has made
use of new approaches, such as the whole-life biography of individual scientists.
No longer is a scientific life written as merely a kind of extensively narrated cur-
riculum vitae confined to a scientific career, but as a tapestry of many interwoven
strands, combining scientific work with upbringing, family life, sex life, political
leanings, religious beliefs and practices, private failures, and public successes. A par-
ticularly fine example of the new genre of “telling lives in science” has been Michael
Shortland’s work on the great Scotsman Hugh Miller (1802–1856), showing the
dynamics of real-life interactions between Miller’s self-taught expertise in geology,
his working-class beginnings as a stonemason, his fascination with divine design in
the fossil record, his involvement in founding the Free Church of Scotland, his pre-
sumed homosexual inclinations, and his tragic end by suicide (Shortland and Yeo
1996; Shortland 1996; the full biography is still in preparation).
The whole-life biographical approach informs a current project at the Univer-
sity of Göttingen on the religious beliefs and practices of scientists from the twen-
tieth century. The lives of some forty eminent astronomers, physicists, chemists,
biologists, and mathematicians are being explored, with special attention paid to
religious aspects. This may prove an effective way—although by no means an exclu-
sive one—to develop insights into the variety of interactions between science and
religion.
There are, of course, plenty of truly secular scientists who believe that their sci-
ence, narrowly conceived, is the be-all and end-all. The Dutch marine geologist and
one of the founders of modern sedimentology Philip Henry Kuenen (1902–1972), for
instance, admitted to complete agnosticism, although modestly referred to this as
his “color blindness” (personal communication). In such cases, a meaningful con-
nection with religion may still exist in the context of the scientist’s family. The fam-
ily life of scientists now, too, is being looked at in greater detail than was traditionally
done. In the case of Max Born (1882–1970), who had little time for religion, there was
nevertheless much of it in his life through his wife, who was an active and devout
Quaker. When after World War II they decided to return from Britain to Germany,
in spite of having been forced out by the Nazis in 1933, the family settled back not
in Göttingen, where Born had made his revolutionary contributions to quantum
mechanics, but in nearby Bad Pyrmont, the North German center for of the Soci-
ety of Friends. From here, Born continued to work on the moral and political impli-
cations of nuclear physics for war and peace. In 1957, he joined Otto Hahn
(1879–1968) and other leading physicists in putting forward the Göttingen Mani-
festo, in which he declared his opposition to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 81

nicolaas a. rupke c 81

Germany (Born 2002, pp. 60-64). It is likely that Born’s pacifist activities were sig-
nificantly shaped by the Judaism of his background, as well as the Quakerism of his
home life.
The essential role of family life is shown brilliantly by James Moore, author with
Adrian Desmond of the now classic biography of Charles Darwin, in describing the
life of English geneticist Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890–1962). Fisher was the Galton
Professor at University College in London and later professor of genetics at Cam-
bridge—as well as a lifelong eugenicist. His expertise in statistical methods proved
instrumental in the formulation of population genetics and the establishment of
neo-Darwinism. Moore shows that what underwrote Fisher’s work was his “Dar-
winian Christianity,” in which struggle, toil, and hardship played a redemptive role.
His faith was intensely family-bound and shaped by an Anglican family background,
as well as the nonconformist family context into which he married. “What unified
Fisher’s interests, what made a mathematically-based eugenic Darwinian Chris-
tianity not just possible but necessary for him, was the experience of family life,
with its myriad practical, emotional and intellectual challenges” (in preparation).
A further example from the Göttingen project concerns Charles Hard Townes,
who in 1964 received the Nobel Prize in physics for work that led to the development
of the laser (Oosthoek, in preparation). Townes was born in Greenville, South Car-
olina, in 1915, in the Bible Belt, where he was brought up a Baptist. His life’s story
shows an unbroken strand of Protestant religiosity, although not of a fundamentalist
or denominationalist kind. He has been a member of not only the Baptist Church,
but, in turn, the Episcopalian Church, the Methodist Church, the Presbyterian
Church, and the Congregationalist Church. His marriage in 1941 brought a family
life that was marked by traditional rituals of Bible reading and prayer. With great
effect, he combined work for industry (Bell Telephone Laboratories) with academic
life (Columbia University, MIT, University of California, Berkeley) and government
advisory work (Institute for Defense Analysis, President’s Science Advisory Com-
mittee, etc.). Townes believes that faith is a driving force of all science and that the
scientist is an instrument of God that brings new natural discoveries to the world.
He sees a convergence of science and religion and is a strong supporter of the recent
return in science of the concept that intelligent design pervades the universe.
Among the various meaningful connections between science and religion is that
which occurs when a scientist who does not believe in a personal God nevertheless
grew up in a religious environment and continues to be guided by the values of
this background. A prominent example of this is another Bible Belt scientist, the
renowned Harvard biologist and world expert on ants Edward O. Wilson, born in
Mobile, Alabama, in 1929, admired and despised for his powerfully argued socio-
biology. Among his early critics were Wilson’s Marxist Harvard colleagues Stephen
J. Gould and Richard C. Lewontin. Mark Stoll points out that Wilson’s target was
not Marxism, but religion—the conservative Protestantism of his youth. Brought
up as a Southern Baptist, and baptized by immersion at the age of fourteen, he read
the Bible avidly, at least twice from cover to cover. At university, evolutionary biol-
ogy replaced his Christianity, but his concern with religion remained when he
created a secular religion of biology. Although intended as a counter-religion to
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 82

82 c nicolaas a. rupke

conservative Christianity, it exhibits the influence of Wilson’s “inner Baptist.” As

Stoll concludes: “The culture of Southern Baptism has shaped, structured and
informed his scientific quest” (in preparation).
This brings us to yet another, major connection of religion with science: the sci-
entist as a counter-religious figure, a secular priest establishing a secular religion.
The great example was Darwin’s German “bulldog,” Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919),
whose enormously popular The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth
Century (1900; German original 1899) formed the inspiration for the Monist League,
intended as a church alternative. Thus scientists appropriated ecclesiastical functions
and structures. Or, less antagonistically, they were cast in cryptoreligious roles by a
public in need of figures on whom to pin its hopes of redemption. From the
1951–1952 Gifford Lectures by Michael Polanyi (1958) to those by Mary Midgley in
1990 (1992; see also 1985), these and similar views have been poignantly argued.
Historians of science are stepping behind the screen of public utterances and
Leuba-like vote counting to discover that there existed and exists in many eminent
scientific lives a formative interplay of science and religion.

c
Nicolaas A. Rupke, Ph.D., is Professor of the History of Science at the Univer-
sity of Göttingen, Germany. He was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, but moved
to the United States to continue his geological studies at Princeton University, where
he obtained his doctorate in 1972. Then followed a twenty-year series of research fel-
lowships at various institutions. While at the University of Oxford, Professor Rupke
found the intellectual stimulation and institutional support to change his focus of
interest from geology to the history of science. Among his books are a biography of
Oxford geologist William Buckland, The Great Chain of History (1983); a biography
of London biologist Richard Owen (1994); and the edited volume Vivisection in His-
torical Perspective (1987). His most recent publications are two edited volumes, Med-
ical Geography in Historical Perspective (2000) and Göttingen and the Development
of the Natural Sciences (2002).

References
Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. (unpublished). “Religious affiliation, religiosity, and scientific
eminence: a survey of Nobel Prize winners 1901–2001.”
Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin, and Michael Argyle. (1997). The Psychology of Religious Behav-
iour, Belief, and Experience. London: Routledge.
Born, Gustav V. R. (2002). The Born Family in Göttingen and Beyond. Göttingen: Institut
für Wissenschaftsgeschichte.
Larson, Edward J., and Larry Witham. (1998). “Leading scientists still reject God,” Nature,
vol. 394, p. 313.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 83

nicolaas a. rupke c 83

Leuba, James H. (1916). The Belief in God and Immortality: A Psychological, Anthropologi-
cal and Statistical Study. Boston: Sherman, French & Co.
Lindberg, David C., and Ronald L. Numbers. (1986). God and Nature: Historical Essays on
the Encounter Between Christianity and Science. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. (2003). When Science & Christianity Meet. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Midgley, Mary. (1985). Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears. London
and New York: Methuen.
———. (1992). Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and Its Meaning. London and New
York: Routledge.
Moore, James. (in preparation). “R. A. Fisher: A faith Fit for Eugenics.”
Oosthoek, Jan. (in preparation). “Charles Townes: Converging Science and Religion.”
Polanyi, Michael. (1958). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Shortland, Michael (ed.). (1996). Hugh Miller and the Controversies of Victorian Science.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Shortland, Michael, and Richard Yeo. (1996). Telling Lives in Science: Essays on Scientific
Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stoll, Mark. (2002) “Edward O. Wilson: The Science of Religion, and the Biologist’s ‘inner
Baptist,’” “Science and Religion: The Religious Beliefs and Practices of Scientists: 20th
Century” conference, Göttingen, Germany.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 84

Biological Evolution, Quantum

Mechanics, and Non-Interventionist
Divine Action
15
New Research Promises Growth in Spiritual Knowledge
Robert J. Russell

S ir John Templeton’s core vision, as articulated in a variety of essays and pre-

sentations, is “growth in ‘spiritual information’” or “growth in knowledge about
‘ultimate reality.’” The underlying assumption is that the term “ultimate reality”
stands for what theologians call “God” and that science can be a means of discov-
ering new knowledge about God. Using the well-known “two books” metaphor, we
could say that science reads “the Book of Nature,” and the discoveries of science
complement, deepen, and challenge what we learn about God through “the Book of
Scripture.”
I am reminded of the way the distinguished theologian Paul Tillich understood
the terms “ultimate concern” and “ground of being” as symbols for God. 1 Sir John
Templeton’s vision is also consistent with panentheism, a theological concept that
is frequently found in scholarly literature in the field of Science and Religion. Panen-
theists2—and many nonpanentheists, too3—stress both the transcendence of God
as Creator ex nihilo of the universe and the immanence of God as continuous Cre-
ator acting within the processes of nature. As transcendent Creator, God brings
about a universe that is orderly and intelligible, whose processes can be discovered
through scientific methods and that are represented by the mathematical laws of
nature. As immanent Creator, God’s action within nature is hidden from science,
and science, in turn, has no need to refer to a Creator. Thus, what science describes
within the restricted framework of natural processes and methodological natural-
ism, theology explains within the wider framework of religion and spirituality as
“divine action” (DA).
The “holy grail” of much of the field of Science and Religion over the past decade
has been to elaborate an understanding of DA, which, although based on religious
sources (e.g., Scripture, religious experience), would be rendered more intelligible
and persuasive if brought into close interaction with science. I have termed the spe-
cific goal as “non-interventionist, objective, special divine action” (NIDA).4 It is spe-
cial DA because it refers to particular events that bear unusual significance. It is
objective special DA because we can attribute the significance of the events to the
events themselves and not just to our subjective interpretation of them, although,
of course, there is always an element of subjectivity involved in the process of attri-
bution. But the key is that it is non-interventionist: God, acting through regular nat-
ural processes, brings about these special events without violating or suspending
these processes. This is crucial theologically because the routine processes of nature
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 85

robert j. russell c 85

are typically understood to be the result of God’s general action as Creator ex nihilo.
Also, God’s special actions should not contravene, but instead should depend on
(even while they transcend) God’s general action. This is also crucial theologically
because it would allow us to treat science as friend and partner for theology, rather
than as something to be rejected as atheistic and either replaced with pseudoscience,
as fundamentalism argues, or ignored theologically, as neoorthodoxy has main-
tained. Thus, NIDA would deliver the best of both theological worlds: the insis-
tence on the objective character of DA by conservatives and the insistence on the
non-interventionist character of DA by liberals across the denominational spec-
trum.5 And if contemporary science could provide the template for NIDA, then it
would convincingly demonstrate the need for theology to take science seriously—
which would be immanently satisfying because it was the science of classical physics,
among other factors, that drove conservatives and liberals into opposing camps
over precisely the issue of DA.
Molecular and evolutionary biology, however, have been viewed as providing
convincing evidence against DA. The irreducible role of genetic variation in gener-
ating biological complexity in partnership with natural selection has suggested to
many “critics” (to put it mildly) of religion that evolution is proof of atheism.6
Genetic variation—mutation and crossing-over during sexual reproduction—has
been interpreted as “blind chance.” When combined with random environmental
changes, the “blind” characteristics that lead to the adaptation of species seem to ren-
der absurd the claim that God acts in evolutionary biology, leaving us with a pale,
deistic God who acts only at the beginning of time—if, indeed, there was a begin-
ning. But deism is certainly not about the God of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
Scholars from a diversity of theological perspectives in the field of Science and
Religion have responded to this challenge, drawing on and extending positions
worked out in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.7 The gist of their
response is that evolution is in fact how God creates, since God creates through both
chance and law. Thus, God as transcendent created the universe intentionally with
both chance and law, and chance allows God to act as the immanent Creator within
and through natural processes.8
But can we make “theological progress” here and take this approach one step fur-
ther? Does God act in special ways that make a difference in evolution without inter-
vening in natural processes? For this we need to be able to claim that evolution is
genuinely open to NIDA—and that evolution provides a basis for such action.
Scholars in Science and Religion have explored a number of theories within
physics and biology in search of a science-based NIDA project.9 In my opinion,
quantum mechanics (QM) is an extremely promising place to start: I will call it the
“QM/NIDA research program.” Now, QM is subject to a variety of competing philo-
sophical interpretations.10 In the one most generally espoused—the Copenhagen
interpretation—nature is seen as ontologically indeterministic: Quantum chance is
not a product of underlying causal processes of which we are unaware; instead,
nature provides the necessary, sufficient conditions for specific events to occur. Nor-
mally, quantum processes evolve deterministically in time, governed by the
Schrödinger equation.11
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 86

86 c robert j. russell

But the Schrödinger equation does not apply to particular quantum events, often
called “measurements” for historical reasons, in which there is an irreversible inter-
action between the microscopic processes involving fundamental particles, such as
electrons, protons, and photons, and a higher level of complexity in nature. This
higher level can either be what I call the “mesoscopic” level of complexity, such as
a DNA molecule or a dust mote, or the ordinary, macroscopic world. When such
quantum events occur, the outcome is fundamentally indeterministic: According to
the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, nature simply does not fully determine the
outcome of such events. Thus, working within the Copenhagen interpretation, we
can make the theological claim that it is God’s NIDA, together with nature at the
quantum level, that brings these events about. In sum, God acts through the open
character of quantum events without intervening in them—and, to add to the pic-
ture, God created the universe in such way to render this possible!
Now the punch line is that genetic mutations involve QM: At a minimum, a
mutation requires the making or breaking of a hydrogen bond, and that process is
subject to QM. But this means that God acts at precisely the point in the evolu-
tionary scenario where atheists say God cannot act—genetic variation! Thus, God’s
actions drive the evolution of life.12 Moreover, as Sir John’s approach of “growth in
spiritual information” suggests, it is science, as it studies this whole process from the
level of quantum events to the history of life on earth, that unlocks knowledge about
the action of God as continuous Creator. Of course, belief in God is not based on
science, but is brought to our interpretation of science. Still, it is science—within the
framework of theology—that provides us with increasing knowledge about God’s
intentions and purposes as the ultimate reality that lies behind and acts within the
world of nature. This surely is evidence of “progress in theology”!
But there is another, as yet unexplored, challenge to the progress we have made
so far. As emphasized above, other, competing interpretations of QM do not involve
ontological indeterminism. In Bohm’s nonlocal hidden-variable interpretation, for
example, one can narrate QM in terms of ontological determinism: Particles have
well-defined positions and momenta, just as in classical mechanics, although unlike
the classical view their movement is governed by a de Broglie–like “pilot wave”
reflecting the presence of both the classical potential V (r, t) and the new “quantum
potential” Q (r, t). There is no “measurement problem” in Bohm’s approach, as
measurements merely reveal the otherwise hidden and deterministic variables.13
Similarly, in “many worlds” interpretations, determinism obtains, but at the cost of
the universe splitting at each measurement. In quantum logic, classical, Boolean
logic is replaced with nonstandard logic.
One of the key challenges, then, to the value of the QM/NIDA research program
is whether it will offer promising new results if other, non-Copenhagen interpreta-
tions of QM are explored. If not, then the promise of the QM/NIDA program would
be diminished. If it is highly interpretation-specific and limited to the Copenhagen
approach, its power to illuminate and make intelligible DA would be undercut. In
addition, if convincing reasons were one day given for rejecting the Copenhagen
interpretation, the QM/NIDA program, if limited to that interpretation, would
come to an end. But if one discovered that the QM/NIDA program need not be
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 87

robert j. russell c 87

limited to the Copenhagen interpretation, this would be a striking result: It would

strengthen the overall validity of NIDA, and I claim it could lead to important
research projects in physics.
To formulate this idea in its clearest and most testable form, I propose the fol-
lowing thesis:
Every standard interpretation of QM will provide a plausible, if quite different,
basis for the QM/NIDA research program, leading to progress in theology and
to progress in physics.
This thesis is easily testable. First, we study each interpretation (e.g., Bohmian,
many worlds) and discover whether each provides a basis for the QM/NIDA agenda.
There are only two possible results, each contributing to progress in knowledge:
1. Progress in theology: If we find ways to appropriate each interpretation for the
QM/NIDA agenda, this will extend the validity of NIDA as a viable theologi-
cal understanding of noninterventionist divine action in light of science. This,
in turn, will result in a striking increase in our “spiritual knowledge.”
2. Progress in science: If one finds an interpretation that cannot be appropriated
for the QM/NIDA agenda, then we might count this as evidence against
QM/NIDA. Interestingly, however, we still have another option left, one that
leads directly to the possibility for progress in science: We attempt to discover
a convincing reason that this interpretation of QM should be abandoned. If
we could, in fact, find arguments for abandoning one of the standard inter-
pretations of QM, this would constitute a very significant result for physics.14 In
the end, however, should this interpretation withstand our renewed and rig-
orous scrutiny, then its existence must be conceded as counting against the
fruitfulness of the QM/NIDA program.
In either case, however, there is a further element of progress. If, as I believe, we
urge that science and theology should best be in a relation of “creative mutual inter-
action,”15 then we must go beyond showing the stunning importance of science for
theology and discover the importance of theology in pointing us toward impor-
tant research programs in science. This thesis provides just such an opportunity: It
leads to genuine progress in both theology and in science—and progress as assessed
by the independent criteria of each field.
The results, however they turn out (for this currently is unknown—this is gen-
uinely new research), would constitute a crucial form of “spiritual information,” for
we would have empirically tested the theological claim that evolution is influenced
by God’s noninterventionist action and increased our overall knowledge about
God’s action in the natural world through new research in theology and science.

c
Robert J. Russell, Ph.D., is Founder and Director of the Center for Theology and
the Natural Sciences (CTNS) and Professor of Theology and Science in Residence
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 88

88 c robert j. russell

at The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He received a doctor-

ate in physics from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1978 and his M.Div.
and M.A. from the Pacific School of Religion in 1972. Professor Russell is also
ordained in the United Church of Christ, Congregational, to ministry in higher
education. His scientific interests include foundational issues in cosmology and in
quantum mechanics. Professor Russell has co-edited seven books on science and
theology as a result of ongoing collaborative research between CTNS and the Vati-
can Observatory, five of which form the “divine action” series (http://www.ctns.org/
publications.html). He is the editor of the forthcoming festschrift Fifty Years in Sci-
ence and Religion: Ian G. Barbour and his Legacy (Ashgate Publishers, 2004), the
author of numerous articles on the science-religion dialog, and co-editor of the
new refereed scholarly journal Theology and Science. Professor Russell worked
closely with the CTNS international programs “Science and Religion Course Pro-
gram” and “Science and the Spiritual Quest.” He is a former judge for the Temple-
ton Prize.

Notes
1 See, for example, Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1951), 1:11, 156.
2 Representatives include Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke.
3 Representatives include John Polkinghorne and myself.
4 See Robert John Russell, “Introduction,” in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives
on Divine Action, ed. Robert J. Russell, Nancey C. Murphy, and Arthur R. Peacocke, Sci-
entific Perspectives on Divine Action Series (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory
Publications; Berkeley, CA.: Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1995), 9–13.
See also Robert John Russell, Nancey C. Murphy, and Chris J. Isham, eds., Quantum
Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, Scientific
Perspectives on Divine Action Series (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publica-
tions; Berkeley, CA.: Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1993); Robert John
Russell, Nancey C. Murphy, and Arthur R. Peacocke, eds., Chaos and Complexity; Robert
John Russell, Nancey Murphy et al., eds., Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Per-
spectives on Divine Action (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications; Berke-
ley, CA.: Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1999); Robert John Russell,
Philip Clayton et al., eds., Quantum Mechanics: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action
(Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications; Berkeley, CA.: Center for The-
ology and the Natural Sciences, 2001).
5 See Nancey Murphy, “On the Nature of Theology,” in Religion and Science: History,
Method, Dialogue, ed. W. Mark Richardson and Wesley J. Wildman (New York: Rout-
ledge, 1996), esp. ch. 3.
6 See Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a
Universe without Design (New York: Norton, 1987), 6; Edward O. Wilson, On Human
Nature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), 1.
7 For a helpful recent historical survey of the variety of responses to Darwin in England,
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 89

robert j. russell c 89

Europe, and the United States, see Claude Welch, “Dispelling Some Myths about the
Split Between Theology and Science in the Nineteenth Century,” in Religion and Science:
History, Method, Dialogue, ed. W. Mark Richardson and Wesley J. Wildman (New York:
Routledge, 1996), 29–40.
8 Early contributions to this position include Ian G. Barbour, Issues in Science and Reli-
gion (New York: Harper & Row, 1971 [originally published in 1966 by Prentice-Hall]);
A. R. Peacocke, Creation and the World of Science: The Bampton Lectures, 1979 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1979); more recent ones include Ian G. Barbour, Religion in an Age
of Science, Gifford Lectures; 1989–1990 (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990); Ian G.
Barbour, “Five Models of God and Evolution,” in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology:
Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger and
Francisco J. Ayala (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications; Berkeley, CA.:
Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1998); Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a
Scientific Age: Being and Becoming—Natural, Divine and Human, enlarged ed. (Min-
neapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); Arthur Peacocke,“Biological Evolution—A Positive The-
ological Appraisal,” in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology; John F. Haught, “Darwin’s
Gift to Theology,” in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology.
9 See the CTNS/Vatican Observatory series cited above.
10 See, for example, Max Jammer, The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: The Interpreta-
tions of Quantum Mechanics in Historical Perspective (New York: John Wiley & Sons,
1974); Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics (Garden City, NY:
Anchor Press; Doubleday, 1985).
11 See, for example, http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/SchroedingerEquation.
html.
12 See Robert John Russell, “Special Providence and Genetic Mutation: A New Defense of
Theistic Evolution,” in Evolutionary and Molecular Biology.
13 Of course, the quantum potential is highly nonlocal, and its construction out of the
wave function (r, t) suggests a major break in the meaning of “mechanism” in classical
physics.
14 It goes without saying that the validity of these arguments must be entirely independ-
ent of the fact that the arguments serve to support the QM/NIDA program. Their valid-
ity must be based on their connection to new empirical predictions, to new
demonstrations of internal inconsistency or incoherence with other well-accepted the-
ories (such as special relativity), or to the general criteria of theory choice (such as
Occam’s razor, fertility, etc.).
15 See Robert John Russell, “Theology and Science: Current Issues and Future Directions”
(http://www.ctns.org/russell_article.html).
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 90

Religion, Global Trends,

and Religious Futurology 16
Philip Jenkins

A ttempts to project the long-term future have a track record that is at best
mixed, at worst embarrassing. History is littered with the bleached skeletons
of failed prophecies, and that is nowhere more true than in the realm of religion. In
1899, Mark Twain predicted that the then-booming movement of Christian Science
was likely to shape the coming twentieth century. He predicted that Mrs. Eddy’s
church might make “the most formidable show that any new religion has made in
the world since the birth and spread of Mohammedanism, and that within a cen-
tury from now it may stand second to Rome only, in numbers and power in Chris-
tendom.” (Today, far from dominating the world, Christian Scientists are rather
outnumbered by the Amish.) Other predictions have proved equally wide of the
mark. Countless warnings of imminent doom to the contrary, the Roman Catholic
Church not only survives, but remains the world’s largest religious institution. To
quote Twain again,
In this world we have seen the Roman Catholic power dying . . . for many
centuries. Many a time we have gotten all ready for the funeral and found
it postponed again, on account of the weather or something. . . . Apparently
one of the most uncertain things in the world is the funeral of a religion.
Yet, having begun on this monitory note, I would suggest that some kind of reli-
gious futurology is not only possible, but essential. Religions and denominations
simply have to have some basis for future planning and the allocation of resources,
and much of this process depends on simple demographic data. Demographic shifts
also carry implications for the nature of the spiritual marketplace in which the reli-
gions will be competing to spread their message. By projecting the future, we can
understand both the potential for spiritual progress—and what often seem to be
alarming obstacles to its accomplishment.
Yet perhaps the most important single reason for futurology is largely negative in
nature. Many people, including the well-informed, operate according to percep-
tions that the future of religion will take some particular shape, yet generally these
projections rest on nothing more than misleading assumptions, or rather preju-
dices. “Everyone knows,” for example, that liberal and progressive-minded faiths
represent the wave of the future, that fundamentalism and supernaturalism are
doomed, and that our religious institutions must obey these iron laws. As the ultra-
liberal Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of
Newark, warned us a few years ago, “Christianity Must Change or Die.”
Unfortunately for such advocates, as we saw repeatedly in the late twentieth
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 91

philip jenkins c 91

century, not only were these liberalizing trends far from inevitable, but they rather
represented the reverse of observed reality. We live in an age when religious belief
increasingly motivates political conduct and social activism, a phenomenon that
has aptly been described as “the Revenge of God.” If our religious debates are indeed
going to be so influenced by our sense of the future, then at least we should try to
get it right, to have some concrete foundation for what “everybody knows.” As long
as religions possess structures and institutions, they will need effective techniques
of projecting the future.
If the claim that “biology is destiny” is controversial in many aspects of human
activity, then this is all the more true in matters of religion. At the same time, we
neglect biological trends at our peril. To illustrate this, I want to examine the reli-
gious impact, present and future, of what might be the greatest single global trend
of our age. By this, I mean the massive relative decline in the proportion of the
world’s people who live in the traditionally advanced nations, the countries of the
“old Christendom.”
While populations are booming in the global South—Africa, Asia, and Latin
America—Northern lands are undergoing a birth dearth of epochal proportions. If
we combine the figures for Europe, North America, and the lands of the former
Soviet Union, then in 1900, these Northern regions accounted for 32 percent of the
world population. By 1950, the share had fallen a little to 29 percent, but the rate of
contraction then accelerated, to 25 percent in 1970 and around 18 percent by 2000.
By 2050, the figure should be around 10 or 12 percent. In contrast, the relative growth
of the global South has been quite impressive. Africa and Latin America combined
made up only 13 percent of the world’s people in 1900, but that figure has now grown
to 21 percent. The rate of change is accelerating. By 2050, Africa and Latin America
will probably be home to 29 percent of the world’s people. In 1900, “Northerners”
outnumbered these “Southerners” by about 2.5 to 1; by 2050, the proportions will be
almost exactly reversed. Southern nations are growing very rapidly, while their
Northern neighbors are relatively static.
To illustrate this change in practice, we can look at the example of Uganda and
Italy, representing respectively a young Southern country with a typical Third World
population profile and an aging Northern land with a stagnating population (see
Table 1).

Table 1. Population Change in Two Countries 1950–2050 1

(population figures are given in millions)

1950 2000 2050

Italy 47.10 57.64 45.0
Uganda 5.52 23.32 84.1

According to the projections of the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1950, there were more
than eight Italians for every single Ugandan; by 2050, Ugandans should outnumber
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 92

92 c philip jenkins

Italians by 1.8 to 1. In fact, the transformation is even greater than this raw number
may suggest, since many of those Italians will themselves be “Southerners,” new-
comers of African and Asian immigrant stock.
Predictions such as these are open to detailed criticism, and the demographers
who produce these figures make no claims about their absolute reliability. Projec-
tions only work as long as people maintain their present behavior while societies
adapt to changing circumstances. Populations can and do rebound from decline,
while what seems like exponential growth can taper off. During the eighteenth cen-
tury, colonial Americans noted with amazed delight that their population was dou-
bling every twenty-five years or so, a rate that would today characterize a highly
fertile Third World nation, and this pattern continued into the early nineteenth
century. If the United States had maintained these rates up to the present day, then
it would now be as populous as China. But of course it did not. To take the specific
comparison I have used here, United Nations demographers project sixty million
Ugandans by 2050, rather than the eighty million suggested by the U.S. Census
Bureau. But the broad trend is clear: In the middle term—say, the next fifty years—
we will be seeing a spectacular upsurge in Southern populations and a decisive shift
of population centers to the Southern continents. Even if the more conservative
UN estimate is correct, in 2050 there will be 1.5 Ugandans for every Italian.
This global shift is immensely significant for the future of religion. It is, for exam-
ple, the single greatest reason for the upsurge in the world’s Muslim population:
Centers of Muslim strength happen to be in those parts of the world where the age
profiles lean heavily toward the young and fertile. But Muslims are not alone in
benefiting from this trend. Christians, too, should enjoy a worldwide boom in the
new century, but the vast majority of believers will be neither white nor European,
nor Euro-American.
According to the respected World Christian Encyclopedia, some two billion Chris-
tians are alive today, about a third of the planetary total. The largest single bloc, 560
million people, is still to be found in Europe. Latin America, however, is already
close behind with 480 million, Africa has 360 million, and 313 million Asians pro-
fess Christianity; North America claims about 260 million believers. If we extrapo-
late these figures to the year 2025, and assume no great gains or losses through
conversion or persecution, then there would be around 2.6 billion Christians. Six
hundred thirty-three million would live in Africa, 640 million in Latin America,
and 460 million in Asia. Europe, with 555 million, would have slipped to third place.
Africa and Latin America would be in competition for the title of Most Christian
Continent. About this date, too, another significant milestone should occur, namely
that these two continents will together account for half the Christians on the planet.
By 2050, only about one-fifth of the world’s three billion Christians will be non-
Latino whites, and Christianity will be primarily a religion of Africa, and of the
African diaspora in the Americas. We can only begin to imagine the cultural con-
sequences of such a shift.
With full awareness of the limitations of the data, I have tried to project the
nations that should in 2050 have the largest Christian populations. Heading the list
is the United States, with perhaps 330 million Christians. Next in place come seven
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 93

philip jenkins c 93

countries, each with between eighty and two hundred million believers. In descend-
ing order, they are Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, Nigeria, the Democratic Repub-
lic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and (providing our token Europeans) Russia. The list is
striking, as much for the countries it omits as for those it includes. We note the
absence of Britain, France, Spain, and Italy, names that recall the Christianity of the
older global order.
If Christianity “goes South” in the manner I have suggested, this fact has many
implications for many aspects of politics, society, and economics, as well as reli-
gion. Since the areas of Christian growth will also be adjacent to centers of rising
Islam, the potential for political conflict is very high. But for present purposes, let
us explore the consequences for purely religious and spiritual matters. Of course,
we can hardly speak of a Nigerian or Mexican religious “character,” and still less
can imagine such an entity for the whole global South. Even in the heartlands of
the new African Christianity, we can find conservatives and liberals, fundamen-
talists and modernists, saints and time-servers. Yet while making this allowance,
we can legitimately comment that highly traditional and supernatural approaches
still flourish in the global South, to a far greater degree than we find in Europe or
North America. Across the South, flourishing Pentecostal and independent
churches attract millions of believers. These newer churches preach deep personal
faith and communal orthodoxy, mysticism, and Puritanism, all founded on clear
scriptural authority. They preach messages that, to a Westerner, appear simplisti-
cally charismatic, visionary, and apocalyptic. In this thought world, prophecy is an
everyday reality, while faith-healing, exorcism, and dream visions are all funda-
mental parts of religious sensibility. On present evidence, a Southernized Christ-
ian future should be distinctly conservative. I am reminded of John Updike’s wry
observation that “I don’t think God plays well in Sweden. God sticks pretty close
to the Equator.”
More significantly, that change seems to have the potential greatest significance
for the whole area of “spiritual information.” Knowing where Christian believers
are, or how many of them might exist at any given time, is a matter of some social-
scientific interest. Vastly more important, however, is to understand the content of
their faith and how that might change as society is transformed. The reasons for reli-
gious change run precisely contrary to what we might once have expected. Instead
of religion fading as a consequence of modernization and urbanization, it is pre-
cisely these trends that have done the most to promote the growth of religious bod-
ies, generally of the most conservative and fundamentalist kind, whether Christian
or Muslim.
These emerging Christian churches work so well because they appeal to the very
different demographics of their communities and do best among young and dis-
placed migrants in mushrooming mega-cities. Population shifts will create a steadily
growing number of huge metropolitan complexes that could by 2050 or so be count-
ing their populations in the tens of millions. Most will have next to nothing in work-
ing government services, nothing to offer in the way of welfare, health, or education;
rich pickings await any religious groups who can meet the needs of these new
urbanites, anyone who can at once feed the body and nourish the soul. In such
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 94

94 c philip jenkins

settings, the most devoted and fundamentalist-oriented religious communities

emerge to provide functional social arrangements. This sort of alternative social
system has been a potent factor in winning mass support for the most committed
religious groups and is likely to become more important as the gap between popu-
lar needs and the official capacities to fill them becomes ever wider.
People want prosperity—or, at least, economic survival—but just as critical is
the promise of health, and the desperate public health situation in the new cities
goes far toward explaining the emphasis of the new churches on healing of mind
and body. Apart from the general range of maladies that affect North Americans and
Europeans, the Third World poor also suffer from the diseases associated with
poverty, hunger, and pollution, in what has been termed a “pathogenic society.” The
attacks of these “demons of poverty” are all the graver when people are living in
tropical climates, with all the problems arising from the diseases and parasites found
in those regions. As well as physical ailments, psychiatric and substance abuse prob-
lems drive desperate people to seek refuge in God. Taking all these threats together
—disease, exploitation, pollution, drink, drugs, and violence—it is easy to see why
people might easily accept the claim that they were under siege from demonic forces
and that only divine intervention could save them. The result is a continuation—
indeed, a massive revival—of supernatural and charismatic religious views. We
Westerners must ask ourselves, soberly, what might be a troubling question: In such
a setting, are not such approaches a logical and natural means of understanding
divine reality?
I have suggested that global demographic trends are likely to have clear conse-
quences for the nature of Christianity, which in many ways could come to resem-
ble the supernatural-oriented Islam currently surging across Africa and Asia. It
might well be that this projection is too sweeping, some might even say too apoca-
lyptic. Yet it is difficult to deny that the world’s great religions will be affected by the
coming demographic transformation. Christians themselves are only beginning to
take account of the ethnic and geographical changes in their religion and the con-
comitant return of supernatural faith. Perhaps it will take decades for Westerners to
absorb the lessons in full—by which time the revolution will be largely accom-
plished. Based on these projections, however, we can already see that older vision of
a new secular liberalism, a death of God, is looking woefully inaccurate. To para-
phrase Mark Twain, “one of the most uncertain things in the world is the funeral of
a deity.”

c
Philip Jenkins has taught at the Pennsylvania State University since 1980, where
he currently holds the rank of Distinguished Professor of History and Religious
Studies. He has published eighteen books, about a hundred book chapters and ref-
ereed articles, and a hundred book reviews. His recent books (all published by
Oxford University Press) include Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 95

philip jenkins c 95

American History (2000), Hidden Gospels: The Modern Mythology of Christian Ori-
gins (2001), The Next Christendom: The Rise of Global Christianity (2002), and The
New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice (2003).

Note
1 http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbrank.html.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 96

“Playing God” 17
Noah J. Efron

People say we are playing God. In all honesty,

if scientists don’t play God, who will?
—James Watson

M etaphors matter. A good metaphor captures a snarl of unruly thought

and emotion, reducing it to a clear image we get at once and remember.
Oddly, a bad metaphor often does the same. Just as a metaphor can help us to
understand a complex state of affairs that might otherwise elude us, it can just as
effectively help us to misunderstand what’s going on. Metaphors illuminate, and
metaphors occlude. Perhaps, some do both at once.
The metaphor perhaps most often invoked to describe the work of scientists is
“playing God.” In May 2000, Prince Charles warned on the BBC against biologists
playing God in the laboratory. In an open letter, Professor Richard Dawkins replied
that the prince’s alarm was misplaced, or at least ill timed: “Playing God? We’ve
been playing God for centuries!” In August 2002, Pope John Paul II addressed a
chanting crowd of three million in a meadow near Krakow, using perhaps his final
Mass in his homeland as a vehicle to warn against scientists playing God in their lab-
oratories. Soon thereafter, George W. Bush criticized stem cell researchers for doing
the same.
“Playing God” is not solely the coin of princes, professors, popes, and presidents;
the metaphor also has mass appeal. Entering the phrase “playing God” in Google
(the Internet search engine) produces sixty thousand hits. A recent Pew poll found
that most American Christians and Muslims, and many Jews, are uneasy about
biotechnology precisely because they see it as “playing God.”1 Greenpeace activists
picketing the laboratories of Monsanto carried signs accusing corporate scientists
of “playing God.” Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of books in print about contemporary
science have “playing God” in their titles. Recent scientific milestones such as the
cloning of Dolly and the completion of a map of the human genome occasioned
hundreds of headlines that asked whether Ian Wilmut and Craig Venter had “played
God.” When the Raelian cult announced that they had undertaken to clone a
human, 20/20’s Barbara Walters hosted an interview entitled “Playing God.” To date,
eager fans have ponied up $2 billion to see the Jurassic Park trilogy, movies that are
at heart a high-tech meditation on what may result when scientists “play God.” The
notion that researchers are playing God engages, repels, incites, and excites us. When
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 97

noah j. efron c 97

we worry about science, what we are most often worried about is the specter of
men and women in lab coats playing God.
This is nothing new. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Goethe’s Faust are cau-
tionary tales of remarkably durable appeal. Although they don’t put it quite this
way, what they caution against is men of science playing God. Further back, one
finds sixteenth-century accounts nervously querying the probity of Paracelsus’s
efforts to construct a man from blood, feces, and semen. Others doubted the wis-
dom of alchemical and magical pursuits. Centuries earlier, similar doubts surfaced
concerning Albertus Magnus, who was said to have built a manservant of brass. As
Jon Turney has described in a brilliant book called Frankenstein’s Footsteps: Science,
Genetics and Popular Culture, the image of scientists building monsters they cannot
control—in fact, playing God—has a long history that explains, in part, its tremen-
dous appeal today.2
This historical image offers only a partial explanation, however. “Playing God” is
a powerful metaphor because it captures something important, frightful, and rela-
tively new about today’s science and technology. The capacity of scientists to inter-
vene in the workings of nature has increased rapidly, surpassing the predictions of
last generation’s scholars—and even the pipe dreams of science fiction writers and
fantasists. Professor Dawkins chided Prince Charles that playing God is nothing
new—and, strictly speaking, he is right. People have always tampered with nature,
taming fire, diverting rivers, domesticating animals, and so forth. John E. Smith, in
his admirable primer Biotechnology, points out that biotechnology has “been used
for many centuries to produce beer, wine, cheese, and many other foods,” tradi-
tional practices that have now been augmented by new laboratory techniques. The
long history of biotechnology, as Smith describes it, begins with “Sumerians and
Babylonians [who] were drinking beer by 6000 B.C.”3
What Dawkins and Smith and many others elide is the great increase in the extent
of our intervention into nature today, a difference in degree so great that it has
become a difference in kind. When a team of researchers at the Australian Museum
decided recently to clone back into existence the Tasmanian tiger, a marsupial
hunted into extinction in 1936, they undertook something quite different from
Babylonian brewing techniques. When researchers at Harvard engineered a mouse
to fall ill with cancer—the celebrated and controversial “oncomouse”—they were up
to something quite different from Sumerian sheepdog breeding.
Until the nineteenth century, a principal ideal of science was to apprehend a
nature deemed static and eternal. In the twentieth century, a competing ideal of
manipulating a nature that seemed plastic and changing became dominant. Thomas
Huxley could still hold that “science has fulfilled her function when she has ascer-
tained and enunciated truth,” but in the generations since, the function of science
has shifted from simply ascertaining the truth about nature to swaying nature to act
in ways it never could or would on its own. Galileo set out to read the Book of
Nature; Genentech scientists aspire to edit it—and they are succeeding to a remark-
able degree. Kepler wrote that he sought to understand the motions of the planets
so that he might, for a moment, “think God’s thoughts.” In contrast, the goal of
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 98

98 c noah j. efron

Monsanto scientists’ efforts is to make nature reflect our own thoughts, needs, and
desires.
It is our vastly increased ability to alter nature according to our designs that most
people have in mind today when they worry about scientists playing God. If God is
taken as the God of Creation—the God of Genesis, for instance—then the metaphor
is more apt than ever. For if God created hydrogen and the other naturally occur-
ring elements in the periodic table, it was a team of scientists at the Gesellschaft für
Schwerionenforschung (GSI) who created the element ununbibim by fusing a zinc
and lead atom in a heavy ion accelerator. The new element, which perhaps will never
be found in “God’s” nature, flickers into and out of existence (its half-life is 2.4 mil-
liseconds) at the pleasure of scientists. Even for the most devout, the periodic
table—the elements themselves, the building blocks of physical reality—are now a
joint production of God and a group of scientists in Darmstadt, Germany.4 When
this is the state of affairs, it is hardly a leap to say that such scientists are playing God.
But it is precisely at the moment when the metaphor of playing God becomes
most apt that it becomes most dangerous. It is a feature of the metaphor that it
inevitably invites either censure or praise. When Prince Charles suggested that
genetic engineers are playing God, he meant that their labors exceed the bounds of
good taste, proper reason, and humility, and they ought to be stopped. When
Richard Dawkins replied that we have been playing God for centuries, he meant
that we ought to be remaking nature to conform to our wishes: “[I]f we want to
sustain the planet into the future, the first thing we must do is stop taking advice
from nature,” turning our trust instead to the “scientific rationalism [that] is the
crowning glory of the human spirit.” The “playing God” metaphor counsels some
to stop science in its tracks and others to embrace science with redoubled devotion.
This pulling toward the extremes may be a sign, as it often is, that we are think-
ing about things in the wrong way. Conceptualizing increased intervention in nature
as playing God seems to invite us to see new sciences as Prince Charles does—as
thoughtlessly dangerous hubris—or as Richard Dawkins does—as tools for fulfill-
ing our destiny of dominating nature. But are these really the only options? Is there
not a scheme for thinking about our growing ability to reshape nature that allows
for, perhaps even draws us to, a middle ground? Is there not a way of thinking that
acknowledges the beauty and benefit of our scientific capabilities without dimin-
ishing our humility?
Some months ago, on the first night of Passover, my wife Susan found a lump in
the soft tissue beneath her shoulder, and by intuition and her training as a physician
she knew at once that it was cancer. Surgeons removed the tumor, and now, every
third Sunday, we travel together to a nearby hospital where she receives intravenous
doses of cytoxan, adriamycin, and fluorouracil, a cocktail of toxins that prevent
malignant cells from redividing and reproducing. It is an awesome fact about these
drugs that two generations ago they did not exist at all. Had she been born fifty years
earlier, my wife would be waiting to die. She would be dying. If a good working def-
inition of playing God is willfully interfering with the course of nature, then our
sure faith that Susan will recite blessings at our four-year-old’s bar mitzvah nine
years hence owes a debt of gratitude outright to scientists playing God. I know this
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 99

noah j. efron c 99

to be true: To love someone with cancer is to believe with fierce piety in playing God.
But ought this to preclude us from fretting, with Prince Charles, that “nature has
come to be regarded as a system that can be engineered for our own convenience or
as a nuisance to be evaded and manipulated, and in which anything that happens
can be fixed by technology and human ingenuity”? Can one be Dawkins on the
oncology ward and Charles on a hike in the woods with the kids? In the strict eth-
ical universe of the “playing God” metaphor, it is hard to see how.
There are alternative views, and these deserve some scrutiny. Early Jewish texts
concerning the creation of a golem, or artificial man, imply a very different moral
economy for evaluating science. The Talmud tells this story:
Rava said: If the righteous wishes, they could create a world, for it is writ-
ten (Isaiah 59:2), “Your iniquities have been a barrier between you and your
God.” For Rava created a man and sent him to Rabbi Zeira. The Rabbi spoke
to him but he did not answer. Then he said, “You come from the pietists:
Return to your dust.”5
A later Midrash reports that:
Abraham sat alone and meditated on [the ancient cosmogonical and cos-
mological treatise, The Book of Creation], but could understand nothing
until a heavenly voice went forth and said to him: “Are you trying to set
yourself up as my equal? I am one and have created The Book of Creation and
studied it; but you by yourself cannot understand it. Therefore take a com-
panion, and meditate on it together, and you will understand it.” There-
upon, Abraham went to his teacher Shem, the son of Noah, and sat with him
for three years and they meditated on it until they knew how to create a
world. And to this day, there is no one who can understand it alone, two
scholars [are needed], and even they understand it only after three years,
whereupon they can make everything their hearts’ desire.6
The attitudes of these odd little texts toward altering nature are very different
from those behind the “playing God” metaphor. In the first text, it is no sin for peo-
ple to strive to create life, as God might, but to do this they must first strive to be
righteous like God. In the second text, too, it is no crime to seek God’s powers, but
this can only be accomplished in society with others, through learned disputation.
Doing the God-like work of Creation is a decent goal, but to play God the Creator,
one must also play God the Moralist. And this can only be accomplished painstak-
ingly, in conversation with other people. One message of these quirky ancient pas-
sages is that one can be Richard Dawkins only by striving at the same time to be
Prince Charles. The troubling aspect of science, in this way of seeing things, is not
that we are playing God, but that we are not playing God well enough.
The fear that men and women in lab coats are playing God has had a long and
storied career. Its value now, at the moment when scientists’ skill at manipulating
nature has become exquisitely refined, is diminished, although its ability to capture
our attention is not. The simple with-us-or-against-us moral calculus of the “play-
ing God” metaphor retains its appeal, even though it now impedes more than aids
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 100

100 c noah j. efron

us in making important choices about the sciences and technologies we pursue and
how we pursue them. It stops debate just as it begins it.
As I write this, scientists in Australia are reconstituting a defunct marsupial, and
my wife is sleeping peacefully in the next room. Playing God? Perhaps. But surely
we have more important questions to ask, discuss, and—together—answer.

c
Noah J. Efron, Ph.D., is Chairman of the Graduate Program for the History and
Philosophy of Science at Bar Ilan University, Israel, where he specializes in Jewish
attitudes toward nature and science. He has been a fellow at the Massachusetts Insti-
tute for Technology and at Harvard University. Dr. Efron’s book, Real Jews, about
religion in Israel, was published by Basic Books in May 2003. He has been awarded
grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Dibner, Mellon,
Rothschild, and Thomas J. Watson Foundations, as well as the Israeli Academy for
Higher Education. Dr. Efron is a founding member of the International Society for
Science and Religion and of the Israel Society for History and Philosophy of Science.
He lives in Tel Aviv and is currently writing Golem, God and Man: Human and
Divine in the Age of Biotechnology.

Notes
1 The Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, “Genetically Modifying Food: Play-
ing God or Doing God’s Work?” 2001. Available at http://pewagbiotech.org/research/
survey7-01.pdf.
2 Jon Turney, Frankenstein’s Footsteps: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1998).
3 John E. Smith, Biotechnology, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 4.
4 In his contribution to this volume, Professor Philip Clayton cites theologian Philip
Hefner’s lovely turn of phrase that holds humans to be “created co-creators” with God.
This is an inspired way to put the issue. I differ somewhat from Clayton and Hefner in
that I think the mantle of “created co-creator,” while filled with intoxicating possibili-
ties and now in any instance inevitable, is a distressing, demanding responsibility for
which humans have scarcely proven ready. In a sense, what Clayton and Hefner see as
a solution, I see as a fearsome, unavoidable problem: What, then, ought we create?
5 Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 65b. Translation adapted from Moshe Idel, Golem: Jew-
ish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid (Albany: SUNY Press,
1990), 27.
6 R. Yehudah Barceloni’s Commentary on the Book of Creation, trans. Gershom Scholem,
in “The Idea of the Golem,” in On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York: Schocken,
1969), 176. Also see Idel, Golem, 19.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 101

The New Cognitive

Science of Religion 18
Fraser N. Watts

A n exciting new development in the study of religion is getting under way: the
cognitive science of religion. I believe it promises to be the most significant
development in the scientific study of religion so far and will really advance our
understanding of the spiritual aspect of human nature.
As far back as we can trace, humanity has had an intuitive apprehension of the
spiritual nature of reality. What contemporary cognitive science potentially enables
us to understand is how this spiritual intuition arises and how it works, what mode
of operation the human mind needs to be in to perceive the world in a spiritual
way. The “spiritual information” arising from cognitive science is an explicit,
research-based approach to the age-old intuitive grasp of the spiritual character of
the universe.
Cognitive science is a unique interdisciplinary enterprise. Part of what is exciting
about it is the way cognition is a crossroads where so many different disciplines
meet. Cognitive science has seven key strands as it is applied to religion:
1. The formulation of cognitive theories of religion using the tools of informa-
tion systems and computer science.
2. The empirical study of cognitive processes in religion using the paradigms of
experimental psychology.
3. The study of cognitive aspects of religion from the standpoint of the social sci-
ences, especially anthropology.
4. The mapping of cognitive processes in religion on to brain function and the
empirical study of religious brain processes using the rapidly expanding tools
of contemporary neuroscience.
5. The formulation of how the evolution of cognitive processes has underpinned
the evolution of the religious capacity of humanity.
6. The charting of how religious cognition develops and changes as general cog-
nitive capacities develop.
7. The philosophical formulation of cognitive aspects of religion and the use of
philosophical tools of conceptual analysis to bring precision to cognitive the-
orizing about religion.
Cognitive science has proven its value in other areas of human functioning as
well. The way it integrates these different disciplines around a single focus gives it
a unique scientific penetration. In cognitive science, the whole is more than the
sum of the parts. None of these seven disciplines can get as far alone as they can
together. That is true even of neuroscience. Knowing what parts of the brain are
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 102

102 c fraser n. watts

involved in different aspects of religion doesn’t get you very far unless you can map
those brain areas onto a theory of cognitive functioning.
Although cognitive science has a good track record in other areas, it has only
begun to be applied to religion in the last decade. The pioneers were people such as
Thomas Lawson and Robert McCauley, Pascal Boyer, Dan Sperber, Eugene d’Aquili
and Andrew Newberg, Justin Barrett, and others. Most of these pioneers have
worked on at least two of the seven strands of cognitive science. The landmark book
Religion in Mind: Cognitive Perspectives on Religious Belief, Ritual, and Experience,
edited by Jensine Andresen (2001), arose from a conference at the University of Ver-
mont in 1998. A series of volumes on Current Approaches to the Cognitive Study of
Religion has begun to be published (Pyysiainen and Anttonen 2002).
Probably the biggest success story of cognitive science has been with language.
Steven Pinker in The Language Instinct (1994) has set out the case for an inherited
cognitive module underpinning the linguistic capacities of humans. Since then,
there has been a tendency to extend this approach to all aspects of human func-
tioning, as Pinker himself did in How the Mind Works (1997). It seems natural to
assume that there will be a module for religion taking this approach as well.
But not so fast! Cognitive science sometimes gets carried away with its own enthu-
siasm. It is essential, if it is to deliver reliable scientific advances, that data keep pace
with theory. The case for a language instinct needs to be demonstrated experimen-
tally, although I believe it can be (Plotkin 1997). It is much more doubtful whether
religion will be found to have the same kind of basis in a cognitive module, even
though evidence for the role of genetic factors in religion is now coming in.
The point is that the cognitive science of religion must stay close to experimen-
tal data. Cognitive theories of religion, like all good theories, suggest research pro-
grams. But it is essential to actually do the research, not just to assume the
conclusions. Fortunately, research usually brings surprises, and it will probably be
the surprises in the cognitive investigation of religion that will advance our under-
standing most.
My own contribution to this area began almost fifteen years ago with a book
written with Mark Williams, The Psychology of Religious Knowing (Watts and
Williams, 1988). The field had not then really gotten going, but we were trying to
identify some of the key issues on the basis of the fragmentary literature available,
such as:
✦ The use made in religious contexts of intuitive and nonanalytic modes of cog-
nition.
✦ The relation between the cognitive understanding of the self and of God,
which seem to be closely intertwined.
✦ The analysis of a prayer as an exercise in the religious schooling of several
aspects of cognition that play key roles in everyday life.
✦ The nature and significance of the figurative or metaphorical concepts that
seem to play such a key role in religious thinking.
My current work is partly theoretical, partly empirical—and cognitive science
always needs to be advancing on both those tracks simultaneously. On the theoret-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 103

fraser n. watts c 103

ical side, I am exploring the application to religion to what I believe to be one of the
most fruitful and versatile models of the general cognitive architecture currently
available: the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems (ICS) developed by Philip Barnard
(Watts 2002). A key feature of this approach is the distinction between two subsys-
tems concerned with meaning in the central engine of cognition: (1) the “implica-
tional” system, which identifies, in rather intuitive and holistic ways, meanings and
regularities at a very high level of abstraction, and (2) the “propositional” system,
which formulates meanings in a more logical and sequential form, rendering them
more readily capable of articulation.
It is one of the key features of human cognition that the implicational system
exists separately from the propositional system. In evolutionary terms, this creates
problems—for example, giving us a capacity for worry and insomnia. But it also
underpins distinctive human achievements, such as the capacity for religion. One
aspect of religious experience that the ICS approach handles particularly well is the
sense of ineffability. The model assumes that mystical experiences arise in the
“implicational” subsystem, but that they defy adequate translation into the differ-
ent code of the “propositional” subsystem. Of course, propositional meanings of
some kind can always be produced (and mystics have often written at length about
their “ineffable” experiences). However, the sense remains that this is not the orig-
inal experience, and that in order to communicate the experiences have had to be
translated into a rather alien code.
ICS also helps to capture the way in which religious cognition changes as children
grow up. Initially, they seem to undergo a phase of powerful and intuitive experi-
ences of God that are difficult to articulate and not much shared with other people.
This is followed by the gradual development of a more adult capacity to think about
religion, which seems to eclipse the earlier, more intuitive religious experiences.
This seems to be a mode of religion that is initially mainly “implicational” and is
gradually supplanted by one that is more “propositional.” Some spiritual practices,
such as meditation, seem to be designed to temporally reverse this process and to
create the mental space in which it is possible to become like children again in the
sense of having a powerful and intuitive sense of the presence of God.
My experimental work on religious cognition, undertaken with Nicholas Gibson
in the Centre for Advanced Religious and Theological Studies (CARTS) at Cam-
bridge, uses the paradigms of experimental psychology to assess and investigate
religious cognition. One of the recent success stories of experimental psychology has
been the application of such paradigms to the study of emotional cognition, and I
had the opportunity to contribute to work in that area (e.g., Williams et al. 1988/
1997). The paradigms that have worked well in “cognition and emotion” research
seem likely to be applicable to religious cognition, too. They promise to get at a
deeper level of religious belief than conventional pencil-and-paper questionnaire
measures. In ICS terms, they will get closer to the deep, implicational levels of cog-
nition, rather than the more superficial propositional levels. Or to put a similar
point in more conventional religious language, they may give us something closer
to “heart” knowledge, not just “head” knowledge.
We are at an early stage of this work, but it is already clear that paradigms exist
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 104

104 c fraser n. watts

that give a good measure of religious belief, such as the speed with which people can
decide whether or not attributes apply to God. The challenge now is to see what
advantages such measures may have, for example, in exploring the link between
religion and health and, more fundamentally, to see what these approaches can tell
us about how religious cognition is organized in the cognitive system. The cogni-
tion-and-emotion literature has found an interesting distinction between simpler
emotional states, such as anxiety, and more cognitively complex ones, such as
depression. Anxiety affects attention more reliably than memory and does so in an
automatic, rather reflex-like way. Depression, in contrast, affects memory more reli-
ably than anxiety and in a way that depends on elaborated cognitive encoding. Our
preliminary hypothesis is that, in terms of this distinction, religion is cognitively
more similar to depression than to anxiety.
At present, we are just at the start of an exciting phase of the cognitive science of
religion in which we will discover a lot about how religion is organized in the human
mind. But beyond that, there will be big theoretical debates about the status of reli-
gious cognition and how it relates to wider realities. As with mathematics, there are
two possible views. Mathematics is sometimes regarded as a clever human invention
that just happens to be useful in understanding the world. Others see it as a dis-
covery of the nature of the real world. Similarly, is religious cognition just a purely
human development, or does it reflect the spiritual nature of the world? My sym-
pathies are with the latter view, and I look forward to marshalling the arguments and
joining the debate.

c
Fraser N. Watts, Ph.D., is Starbridge Lecturer in Theology and Natural Science
and Director of the Psychology and Religion Research Program at the University of
Cambridge. He is also Fellow and Director of Studies in Theology at Queens Col-
lege, Vicar-Chaplain of St. Edward’s Church in Cambridge, and Secretary of the
International Society for Science and Religion. He was formerly at the MRC Applied
Psychology Unit, working on cognitive aspects of emotional disorders, and has been
President of the British Psychological Society. Professor Watts’s research is con-
cerned with the interface between psychology and theology. He has recently pub-
lished Theology and Psychology (Ashgate, 2002) and, with Rebecca Nye and Sara
Savage, Psychology for Christian Ministry (Routledge, 2002), and edited with Eliza-
beth Gulliford, Forgiveness in Context (T & T Clark, 2004).

References
Andresen, J. (2001), Religion in Mind: Cognitive Perspectives on Religious Belief, Ritual and
Experience, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pinker, S. (1994), The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, New York:William
Morrow.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 105

fraser n. watts c 105

———. (1997), How the Mind Works, New York: Norton, and London: Allen Lane.
Plotkin, H. (1997), Evolution in Mind: An Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology, London:
Allen Lane.
Pyysiainen, I., and Antonnen, V. (eds). (2002), Current Approaches to the Cognitive Study of
Religion, London: Continuum.
Watts, F. (2002), “Interacting cognitive subsystems and religious meanings.” In Neurothe-
ology: Brain, Science, Spirituality and Religious Experience, ed. Joseph, R., San Jose:
University Press.
Watts, F., and Williams, M. (1988), The Psychology of Religious Knowing, Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Williams, J. M. G., Watts, F., Macleod, C., and Matthews, A. (1997), Cognitive Psychology and
Emotional Disorders, 2nd ed., Chichester: John Wiley.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 106

Exploring Inner Space

in a New Age of Discovery 19
The Future of Scientific Survey Research in Religion
George H. Gallup Jr.

S cientific survey research plays a vital role in illuminating the fundamen-

tal forces that drive humanity. Many social observers maintain that these forces
are spiritual and moral, not just economic and political. Therefore, survey research
is poised to make a solid contribution in this century to understanding the spiritual
underpinnings of humankind—yielding more “spiritual information.”
Polling organizations already survey cross-culturally on many different “external”
experiences. The continuing challenge to pollsters, sociologists, and others is to
devise measurements that are useful for understanding people’s “internal” experi-
ences as well. These, after all, are the most important experiences for understand-
ing and improving life on Earth.
Whether because of disinterest, skepticism about religious or spiritual matters, or
the belief that it is pointless to attempt to measure the “immeasurable,” it wasn’t
until the final decades of the last century that sociologists and others turned their
full attention to the inner life. Media commentators, furthermore, routinely ignored
this dimension of life in their assessments of the state of the nation.

The Five Areas of Spiritual Survey Research

Exploration into the inner life, however, has now begun in earnest through scien-
tific surveys and other forms of investigation. Survey research in this realm falls
under five subcategories: metaphysical, historical, sociological, implementable, and
theological.
Metaphysical: Scientific surveys can shed light on the beliefs of humankind related
to first principles and the ultimate basis of existence. A key focus of such explo-
ration is the “religious or mystical experience,” a sudden transcendent moment of
insight or awakening that seems to lift one out of oneself and offer a glimpse into a
world of connectedness, peace, and love.
The challenge to survey research science is to probe beneath the surface of life,
deep into the center of the human psyche where a common universal voice of some-
one or something is heard.
Religious or mystical experiences frequently take the form of “healing.” Twenty-
seven percent of Americans say they have experienced a “remarkable healing,” with
21 percent noting a physical healing and 16 percent a psychological or emotional heal-
ing. Inspired by such findings as these, Dr. Dale Matthews wrote in The Faith Factor
that the relationship between faith and faith healing is no longer simply conjecture:
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 107

george h. gallup jr. c 107

The lessons my patients and others have learned from personal experience
are echoed in over three hundred clinical studies that demonstrate one sim-
ple fact: faith is good medicine. Indeed, the medical effect of religious com-
mitment is not a matter of faith, but of science, and both doctors and
patients are taking part in a revolutionary convergence of medicine and
faith, which is transforming the way people seek healing.1

Historical: A full understanding of a given society includes an awareness and

knowledge of the spiritual underpinnings of that society. A large majority of Amer-
icans (eight in ten) are found to believe that the overall health of the nation depends
on the spiritual health of its citizens. It is important to ask: What is the spiritual
state of the union?
The CRRUCS/Gallup Spiritual Index represented the combined efforts of the
Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (CRRUCS) at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, The Gallup Organization, and The George H. Gallup Interna-
tional Institute. The Index sought to measure the breadth and depth of spirituality
and religious faith in the United States and to shed light on the relationship of these
factors to national well-being.
The CRRUCS/Gallup Spiritual Index, as reported in January 2003, stood at 74.7
percent out of a possible score of 100 percent. Although scores for individual respon-
dents ran the full gamut from 0 to 100, the average score was 74.7 percent (plus or
minus 1.4 points). This figure was the average of the measures for two key compo-
nents:
1. Inner Commitment—These questions were designed to gauge feelings of con-
nection with a God, a Divine Will, a Higher Power, etc. The average score on
this set of questions was 79.8 percent (plus or minus 1.5 points) out of a pos-
sible 100 percent.
2. Outer Commitment—These questions tapped the ways inner commitment
was being lived out in service to others, to one’s community, and to society as
a whole. The average American’s score on this scale stood at 69.5 percent (plus
or minus 1.5 points) out of a possible 100 percent.
Sociological: A mounting body of findings from surveys and other sources point
to the power of the “spiritual dynamic” or the “faith factor” in the United States
and in other nations. Deeply spiritually or religiously committed people experience
less stress and cope better with the stress they do experience. They have fewer drug
and alcohol problems, less depression, and lower rates of suicide. They enjoy their
lives more than do less spiritually or religiously committed individuals.
Implementable: Survey research into the inner life can be of significant practical
value to faith communities in shedding light on levels of belief, practice, and knowl-
edge among both the churched and unchurched. With polling findings today reveal-
ing an unprecedented desire for spiritual and religious growth among Americans
and people of other nations, faith communities face a historic moment of oppor-
tunity.
Theological: If one does not subscribe to “reductionism” (that is, taking an
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 108

108 c george h. gallup jr.

approach that explains away God), one could maintain that it is of prime impor-
tance to use those survey tools available to gain insight into the response of humans
to God. Indeed, this pursuit could be described as the most profound and worthy
goal of scientific sampling. We honor God in recording how lives had been trans-
formed by belief in God. We honor God by discovering those things that bring peo-
ple closer to God. We honor God by helping people discover their God-given talents
and strengths, which can be used to build healthier faith communities, as docu-
mented by the creative work in the “gifts-based” ministry of Albert Winseman and
others at The Gallup Organization.

The Spirit of Change—A Change in Spirit

Author and theologian Michael Novak, on the eve of the current century, expressed
the view that the twenty-first century would likely be the most religious century of
the last five hundred years. In The New Christendom, Philip Jenkins writes about the
explosion of Christianity in the Southern hemisphere (specifically in Africa, South
America, and Asia) and the lack of attention given to this phenomenon:
I suggest that it is precisely religious changes that are the most significant,
and even the most revolutionary in the contemporary world. . . . We are
currently living through one of the most transforming moments in the his-
tory of religion worldwide.2
The U.S. public’s views on the future shape of religion and spirituality were
sought in a survey conducted for the John Templeton Foundation by The Gallup
Organization in 2000 (“Religious Beliefs, Spiritual Practices and Science in the 21st
Century”). The U.S. public, the survey revealed, generally expected there would be
a surge in spiritual and religious feelings that would profoundly affect the world
scene. This, they believed, would be fed by global communications, discoveries in
astronomy, and an extended lifespan.
Six in ten in the survey thought that religious beliefs and spiritual practices would
change the way we think over the next one hundred years. And by the ratio of four
to one, Americans predicted that such beliefs and practices would become more of
a force in people’s lives. Eight in ten predicted that such beliefs and practices would
have either a great deal or some impact on the course of history.
Eight in ten survey respondents said it was either very or fairly likely that indi-
viduals would experience advancement in religious beliefs or spiritual growth over
the next one hundred years. They saw this happening with individuals; among fam-
ilies; in the areas of politics, medical research, and education; and in terms of
encouraging greater acceptance of religious and cultural diversity.
Seven in ten, according to this survey in 2000, agreed that greater understanding
between religious groups would lead to more harmony and reconciliation. (It
should be noted that this survey was conducted before September 11, 2001. One of
the key areas to be monitored in the years ahead will be relations between Christians
and Muslims, as well as people of other religions.)
One of the most exciting pursuits of scientific surveys will be to identify the fore-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 109

george h. gallup jr. c 109

runners of the coming age—the “advance” men and women who will lead us to a
higher level of civilization anchored in a loving God.
These “forerunners” are probably very much like the “everyday saints” whom
Tim Jones and I interviewed for our book The Saints among Us. These are persons
who have yielded their lives to God, have a sense of the nearness of God, and are able
to live in other people’s lives to a remarkable extent. Transformed individuals such
as these are having an impact on societies far out of proportion to their numbers.
They are the “quiet leaders” of our day, responsible for populaces being more kind,
tolerant, forgiving, loving, and optimistic.
The saints are new heroes for an age of moral spiritual leadership. They are role
models for the future. Swedish theologian Nathan Soderblom once said, “Saints are
persons who make it easier to believe in God.”
Here is what William James wrote about “saints,” more than a century ago, in his
classic The Varieties of Religious Experience:
The saints . . . are the great torchbearers . . . the tip of the wedge, the clear-
ers of the darkness. Like the single drops which sparkle in the sun as they are
flung far ahead of an advancing wave-crest or of a flood, they show the way
and are forerunners. The world is not yet with them, so they often seem in
the midst of the world’s affairs to be preposterous. Yet they are impregna-
tors of the world, vivifiers and animators of potentialities of goodness which
but for them would lie forever dormant.3
Writing from a Christian perspective, C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity described
people who have been transformed by Jesus Christ into “new men”:
Already the new men (and women) are dotted here and there all over the
earth. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are
different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, and more radiant. They begin
where most of us leave off. . . . They will not be very much like the idea of
“religious people” which you have formed from your general reading. They
do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being
kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more
often than other men do, but they need you less.4
The inner life, which remains largely unexplored internationally at this point in
history, could be said to be the “new frontier” of survey research, in a new era of dis-
covery—not of the world around us, but of the world within us. We can be certain
that the “spiritual information” that will be revealed will be as thrilling as the dis-
coveries thus far made of our external earthly domain.

c
George H. Gallup Jr. has been in the field of polling for half a century, serving
in executive roles at the Gallup Poll, The Gallup Organization, and most recently as
Chairman of The George H. Gallup International Institute. Much of his work has
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 110

110 c george h. gallup jr.

been focused on spirituality and religion, having directed more than one hundred
special surveys in these areas. Mr. Gallup received his B.A. from Princeton Univer-
sity’s Department of Religion in 1954 and holds seven honorary degrees. He has
served on many boards dealing with education, religion, youth, and urban prob-
lems, among others. He is author of numerous books, including: The Gallup Guide:
Reality Check for Churches in the 21st Century (2002); Surveying the Religious Land-
scape: Trends in US Beliefs (1999); The Next American Spirituality: Finding God in the
Twenty-First Century (2000); Growing up Scared in America: And What Experts Say
Parents Can Do About It (1996); and The Saints Among Us (1992). Mr. Gallup is cur-
rently a Trustee of the John Templeton Foundation.

Notes
1 Dale A. Matthews, M.D., with Connie Clark, The Faith Factor: Proof of the Healing Power
of Prayer. New York: Viking Publishing, 1998.
2 Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2002; 2.
3 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. London: Longmans, Green and
Co., 1902, The Penguin American Library, 1982.
4 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1943; paper-
back edition, 1960, 187–88.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 111

Theological Fiction
and the Future 20
Gregory A. Benford

F reeman Dyson’s insightful piece on the tradition of theological fiction in the

March 2002 New York Review of Books implies a gap in the current literary
world:
Between science and theology there is a genre of literature which I like to call
theofiction. Theofiction adapts the style and conventions of science fiction
to tell stories that have more to do with theology than with science.
His examples include the novels of Octavia Butler (a MacArthur Grant winner),
C. S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, and, principally, Olaf Stapledon. These works remain
in print many decades after publication and point to a continuing interest in the-
ofiction.
Where is this genre headed? Advancing fronts of science and technology provoke
theological conflicts and fundamental questions. If science and Godhood are to
find common ground, they will meet in the imaginations of writers.
In the twentieth century, the Big Bang had considerable theological impact,
enshrining the idea of Creation. Viewed through the lens of general relativity, which
stated that space and time were created simultaneously, literally nothing happened
“before”—because there was no “before.” Theologically, the Big Bang showed that
St. Augustine was right and that popular religion was mistaken in its view that God
existed in the stream of “time” before Creation.
I also believe that the emerging concern for long-term prospects comes, at least
in part, from our greatly expanded lifetimes. Figure 1 shows how greatly our
prospect for longevity has grown. Reflect that the average lifespan of a man born in
1900 was forty-eight years. All the great religions were born in times when a man of
forty-eight was old. Early cultures’ concerns for origins may have arisen from the
short lives of their populations.
Our ideas about the future hinge on theological assumptions geared to those dis-
tant eras. The year 2100 may hold a greater prospect for longevity, as the figure proj-
ects, giving birth to a similar greater interest in the far future. What theologies will
emerge from such an expanded view?
We have always had some sort of cosmology, however simple. Our yearning for
connection explains many cultures’ ancestor worship: We enter into a sense of pro-
gression, expecting to be included eventually in the company of the venerated. Deep
within us lies a need for continuity of the human enterprise, perhaps to offset our
own mortality. Deep time’s panoramas, both past and future, redeem this lack of
meaning, rendering the human prospect again large and portentous.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 112

112 c gregory a. benford

Figure 1. As our prospects of living longer have improved,

so have our attitudes toward the far future altered.
100

England (1960s)
80 2100?

Present best possible

60
% survival

Mexico (1920s)
40

British India (1920s)

20

A typical curve
in pre-history

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Age (years)

We gain stature alongside such enormousness. This presents us with an ultimate

question: Will the time come when humanity itself will not be remembered, our
works lost and gone for nothing? To illuminate the interplay between fact and fic-
tion, here I shall treat one major idea just emerging—linking the human prospect
to cosmology. By considering the far future, I expect that cosmology will have sim-
ilarly large implications for theology and popular religion alike. These ideas may
yield, in a more nuanced mode, hints that the cosmos we inhabit may be rich with
purpose, or at least provide a discernible goal for life.
A major change in our ideas of cosmology occurred only a few years ago, with the
discovery that our universe’s expansion is accelerating—implying a forever-growing
cosmos. Some feel repulsed by the entire notion. Evolution may have programmed
us to expect cycles; the seasons deeply embedded this notion in our ancestors’ think-
ing, as in the ancient Hindu system.
The Abrahamic faiths “of the book”—Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike—envi-
sion linear, not cyclic, time. Christian scripture says that this is a suffering world,
addicted to attachment, ultimately to be transcended. God’s agenda is rigorous: cre-
ation, fall, incarnation, redemption, final judgment, and then the ultimate fate—
Last Things. The far future then lies beyond that goal. We moderns think long; the
far future matters to us.
William Shakespeare’s works endure—yet, forever? As Bertrand Russell put it in
Why I Am Not a Christian:
All the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noon-
day brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast heat
death of the solar system, and . . . the whole temple of man’s achievement
must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 113

gregory a. benford c 113

So he doesn’t believe in God because nothing lasts.

Yet the opposite, Paradise, seems boring to many, if it is mere joyful indolence. But
is perpetual novelty even possible? Can we think an infinite variety of thoughts?
These ideas converge in our present understanding of the very far future, our ulti-
mate destiny. Science may be able to settle whether this eternally deferred arrival is
physically possible.
Kurt Gödel’s famous theorem showed that mathematics contains inexhaustible
novelty: true theorems that can’t be proved with what has come before. Only by
expanding the conceptual system can they be proved. Most people would not turn
to mathematics for a message of spiritual hope, but there it is.
So theofiction confronting this subject must face a paradox. We seem to harbor
twin desires—purpose and novelty, progress and eternity alike.
Christian theology solved this dilemma by putting God outside time, so that holy
eternity was not of infinite duration but rather not time at all. This belief is long-
standing, but it need not stay in fashion forever. Faiths may arise that long for the
heat death, or embrace the coming Big Crunch, becoming cosmological cheerlead-
ers for cleansing ends.
In 1979, Freeman Dyson’s Reviews of Modern Physics paper “Time Without End”
brought this entire issue to center stage for physicists and astronomers. He already
had his prejudices: He wouldn’t countenance the Big Crunch option because it gave
him “a feeling of claustrophobia.” What was the prognosis for intelligent life? Even
after stars have died, he asked, can life survive forever without intellectual burnout?
Energy reserves are finite, and at first sight this might seem to be a basic restric-
tion. But he showed that this constraint was actually not fatal. He looked beyond the
time when stars will have tunneled into black holes, which would then evaporate in
a time that will be, in comparison, almost instantaneous. As J. D. Bernal foresaw in
The World, the Flesh, and the Devil (1929):
. . . consciousness itself may end . . . becoming masses of atoms in space
communicating by radiation, and ultimately resolving itself entirely into
light . . . these beings . . . each utilizing the bare minimum of energy . . .
spreading themselves over immense areas and periods of time . . . the scene
of life would be . . . the cold emptiness of space.
In the twenty-three years since Dyson’s article appeared, our perspective has
changed in two ways—and both make the outlook more dismal. First, most physi-
cists now suspect that atoms don’t live forever. The basic building block, the proton,
will decay into lesser particles. White dwarfs and neutron stars will erode away,
maybe in 1036 years. The heat generated by particle decay will make each star glow,
but only as dimly as a domestic heater.
We speak here of very long times. By then our local group of galaxies would be
just a swarm of dark matter, electrons, and positrons. Thoughts and memories
would only survive beyond the first 1036 years if preserved electromagnetically in
clouds of electrons and positrons—maybe something that resembles the threaten-
ing alien intelligence in The Black Cloud, the first and most imaginative of
astronomer Fred Hoyle’s science fiction novels.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 114

114 c gregory a. benford

As this darkened universe expands and cools, lower-energy quanta can be used
to store or transmit information. Just as an infinite series can have a finite sum (for
instance, 1 + ½ + ¼ + ........ = 2), so there is no limit to the amount of information
processing that could be achieved with a finite expenditure of energy. Any conceiv-
able form of life would have to keep ever-cooler, think ever-more slowly, and hiber-
nate for ever-longer periods.
But there would be time to think every thought. As Woody Allen once said, “Eter-
nity is very long, especially toward the end.”
Characteristically, Dyson was optimistic about the potentiality of an open uni-
verse because there seems to be no limit to the scale of artifacts that could eventu-
ally be built. He envisioned the observable universe getting ever vaster. Many
galaxies, whose light hasn’t yet had time to reach us, would eventually come into
view, and therefore within range of possible communication and “networking.”
Interactions will matter.
These long-range projections involve fascinating physics, most of which is quite
well understood. But what happens in zillions of years has vast uncertainties as well.
These ideas will probably loom larger as we learn more about the destiny of all vis-
ible Creation.
Theofiction can confront even such grand epochs. This area of science and liter-
ature gives one example of its power to inform and shape our human agenda. Fic-
tion at the cutting edge of these developments is still rare and should be encouraged.
The Odyssey was a founding text of Western civilization, an imaginative fiction
about fantastic events. Grand epics of the far future could set our ideas just as pow-
erfully.

c
Gregory A. Benford, Ph.D., is Professor of Physics at the University of Califor-
nia, Irvine. He specializes in plasma plastic theory and was presented with the Lord
Prize in 1995 for achievements in the sciences. Dr. Benford has served as an advisor
to NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the White House Council on Space
Policy. He has received two Nebula awards for science fiction writing. In 1992, Dr.
Benford received the United Nations Medal in Literature. He is the author of nearly
130 research papers in his field and several books, including Timescape (1980), Deep
Time (1999), and Cosm (1999).
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 115

Part Three
Perspectives from Cosmology, Physics, and Astronomy

c
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 116
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 117

Outward Bound 21
John D. Barrow

O ne of the most interesting features of the pattern of progress in science is

the way in which greater understanding of reality, and our increasing success
in predicting its changes, has grown hand in hand with its growing separation from
human-centered experience. When we look for the most accurate predictions of
the way the world works, they are not to be found in our attempts to understand the
activities of society, fluctuations in financial markets, or vagaries of the weather.
Rather, it is in describing the interactions of elementary particles or the motions of
distant astronomical objects where accuracies of one part in 1016 are to be found.
Some sociologists of science have argued that the human contribution to scien-
tific theories is the dominant factor in their success, not their uncovering of any
objective reality. But if the latter were true, we would expect our scientific theories
to become less and less successful when applied to the extremes of inner and outer
space. We would expect to find them at their weakest when applied to environments
that were far removed from immediate human experience or the circumstances out
of which natural selection has fashioned our senses and sensibilities over millions
of years. Exactly the opposite is found. It is in the description of events outside of
the direct realm of human experience where our power to predict and explain is best
and those areas closest to human intuition and experience are worst, by virtue of
their intrinsic complexity. Just because there is an undeniable sociology of science
does not mean that science is nothing but its sociology.
The course of scientific progress can be seen as a march toward a conception of
reality that is divorced from human bias as much as possible. There are several land-
marks on this outward journey from us to ultimate reality. First, Copernicus taught
us that we should not expect the world to revolve around us; the structure of the
universe guarantees us no special location in space. Then Darwin taught us that we
are not the culmination of any special design, and Lyell discovered that most of
earth’s geological history went by, rather eventfully, without us. These insights do
not mean that our location in the universe cannot be special in some ways (as the
Anthropic Principle shows); we could not expect to live in a place where life is
impossible, like the center of a star, for example. But our location must not be spe-
cial in every way. We know that our location in time is indeed rather special, in a
niche of cosmic history about fourteen billion years since the universe’s expansion
began, after the stars first formed but before they die. This is why we should not be
surprised to find our universe to be so big and old.
Deeper still was the insight of Einstein, who showed how to express the laws of
Nature so that they look the same to all observers, no matter where they are or how
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 118

118 c john d. barrow

they are moving. Newton’s famous laws of motion did not possess this universal
expression. They would only be seen to take their simple form by special observers
who move in a simple way, without acceleration or rotation. For these special
observers, the universe’s laws would appear simpler than they would for others.
Such an undemocratic situation was a signal to Einstein that something was wrong
in our conception of Nature’s laws. And he was right. Now we express the basic laws
of Nature in forms that would be found by all observers investigating the universe,
from Vega to Vegas, wherever they are, whenever they look, no matter how they are
moving. This is the second step.
The third great step in the divorce of science from human idiosyncrasy occurred
when a further ingredient was recognized. Besides the laws of Nature and their out-
comes, the structure of the universe around us is determined by a collection of
unchanging qualities that we can encode in a list of numbers that we call the “con-
stants of Nature.” These qualities include things such as the masses of the smallest
subatomic particles, the strengths of the forces of Nature, and the speed of light in
vacuum. They are quantified by ever-more-precise measurement, and in the backs
of physics books the world over you will find their latest values listed to large num-
bers of decimal places. These quantities generally have units—the speed of light is
measured in meters per second or furlongs per fortnight—which are often rather
anthropocentric: centimeters, feet, and inches are conveniently related to the scale
of the human frame. Or, equally, they may be geocentric or heliocentric in origin—
days and years are units of time that derive from the time for the Earth to rotate once
on its axis and to orbit the Sun. These constants are far from universal. They describe
properties of pieces of metal or the lengths of standard meters kept in special con-
tainers in laboratories on earth. But gradually, physicists realized that the universal
constants of Nature allowed standards of mass, length, and time to be defined that
did not depend on particular human-made artifacts. By counting the wavelengths
of light emitted by a certain species of atom, or counting its vibrations, or the mass
of its nucleus, it is possible to define units of length, time, and mass that can be
communicated through interstellar space to physicists who had never seen Earth or
human physicists.
This march toward established constants of Nature that were not explicitly
anthropocentric, but based on the discovery and definition of universal constants
of Nature, can be seen as a super-Copernican step. The fabric of the universe and
the pivotal structure of universal laws were seen to flow from standards and invari-
ants that were truly superhuman and extraterrestrial. The fundamental standard of
time in Nature, just 10-43 of our seconds and defined by the gravitational, quantum,
and relativistic constants of Nature, bore no simple relation to the ages of man and
woman; no link to the periods of days, months, and years that defined our calen-
dars; and was too short to allow any possibility of direct measurement.
These steps have depersonalized physics and astronomy in the sense that they
attempt to classify and understand the things in the universe with reference only to
principles that hold for any observer anywhere. If we have identified those con-
stants and laws correctly, then they provide us with the only basis we know on which
to base a dialog with extraterrestrial intelligences other than ourselves. They will be
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 119

john d. barrow c 119

the ultimate shared experience for everyone who inhabits our universe.
Modern cosmology makes one further tantalizing suggestion about the nature of
the universe. Before the inception of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, all the-
ories of physics were of a similar sort. They provided mathematical formulae that
could be used to predict how things would move or change when they encountered
other things. They described the action of forces, such as gravity, magnetism, and
motion. But in all cases, these laws described the actions of the forces and motions
in the universe and within its prespecified space and time. No motion or force could
alter the Nature of space or of time. They were fixed: God-given and eternal.
Einstein changed all that. His theory is far more sophisticated. When the parti-
cles and their motions are introduced into a world governed by the general theory
of relativity, they dictate the very geometry of the space and the flow of time. This
curved space and time dictates how matter and energy can move, and its motion in
turn tells space and time how to curve. It is this feature that gives Einstein’s theory
its most remarkable quality. Every solution of Einstein’s equations describes an entire
universe. Some are very simple—too simple to describe our universe as a whole,
but very useful for describing parts of it; some are more elaborate and provide us
with wonderfully accurate descriptions of our entire visible universe. Others
describe universes different from our own and impress on us the remarkable nature
of its special properties. We hear a lot about that accurate description of our uni-
verse, of its past and its present, and of what to expect in the far, far future. But it
has passed unnoticed how remarkable it is that a mathematical theory, a collection
of penstrokes on a piece of paper, can provide a description of an entire universe.
The fact that there can exist a mathematical structure of which our whole universe
is a particular outcome is rather astonishing. There could be no stronger evidence
of the inadequacy of materialism and no better argument for the reality of a logic
behind the appearances that is larger than visible reality itself. How amazing that the
mathematical structure that appears to be something bigger than the astronomical
universe itself is the very means by which we can understand its workings. Super-
human the universe may be, but the ultimate simplicity of the mathematical reality
at its heart is what enables us to understand it and have faith that our understand-
ing can converge on the truth.

c
John D. Barrow, D. Phil, FRS, received his doctorate in Astrophysics from the
University of Oxford (1977). He held positions at Oxford and the University of Cal-
ifornia, Berkeley before becoming Professor of Astronomy and then Director of the
Astronomy Centre at the University of Sussex (1981-99). In 1999 Professor Barrow
took up his current appointment as Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the Uni-
versity of Cambridge, where he is also Director of the Millennium Mathematics
Project and a Fellow and Vice-President of Clare Hall. He is also the current Gre-
sham Professor of Astronomy (2003-06) at Gresham College, London. He was
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 120

120 c john d. barrow

elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2003 and served as a member of the Coun-
cil of the Royal Astronomical Society. He is a recipient of the Locker Prize for
Astronomy (1989), the Kelvin Medal of the Royal Glasgow Philosophical Society
(1999), and the Lacchini Medal for Astronomy (2005). Professor Barrow was also
awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of Hertfordshire
(1999). He is the author of more than 380 scientific papers in cosmology, astro-
physics and mathematics and seventeen books, translated into twenty-eight lan-
guages, that explore historical, philosophical, and cultural aspects of astronomy,
physics, and mathematics; these include The Constants of Nature: From Alpha to
Omega and, most recently, The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Time-
less, and Endless. He is also the author of the successful play, Infinities, which was per-
formed (in Italian) at the Teatro Piccolo, in Milan (2002 and 2003), directed by Luca
Ronconi, and in Spanish at the Valencia Festival (2002) and for which he received
the Premi Ubu Theatre Prize (2002) and the Italgas Prize (2003) for contributions
to Italian scientific culture. Professor Barrow has given many named lectures,
including the 1989 Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow. With Paul C.W.
Davies and Charles L. Harper, Jr., he is co-editor of Science & Ultimate Reality:
Quantum Theory, Cosmology and Complexity (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
and, with Simon Conway Morris, Stephen J. Freeland, and Charles L. Harper, Jr., co-
editor of Fitness of the Cosmos for Life: Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning, forthcoming
from Cambridge University Press.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 121

An Echo of Ancient Questions

from Contemporary Cosmology 22
Marco Bersanelli

F or thousands of years, humankind has perceived itself within a virtually

unlimited earthly environment under the mysterious expanse of the sky. Only
in the last few centuries—less than 0.1 percent of the human presence on Earth—
has scientific knowledge led us to a sudden, breathtaking awareness of the nature,
structure, and astonishing size of our cosmic environment. Perhaps the most con-
troversial and amazing step was Copernicus’s removal of the Earth from the cosmic
center, reducing its status to just one of several planets orbiting the Sun. Eventually,
the Sun was recognized as one of an inestimable multitude of stars. In the mid-
1920s, Edwin Hubble demonstrated that spiral nebulae constitute vast “island uni-
verses” containing hundreds of billions of stars. Since the introduction of the
telescope early in the seventeenth century, the size of the measured universe has
grown by fifteen orders of magnitude, or a million billion times. Today we know that
the horizon of our observable universe is a sphere 13.7 billion light-years in radius,
growing at the rate of 26 billion kilometers per day. And we know that this is a fun-
damental boundary: At any moment, we simply can’t see what lies beyond.
Recent developments in cosmology further solidify the impression of our mar-
ginality in the universe. We now understand that the type of material that makes
everything we know—including us—is only a tiny fraction of the universe’s mass-
energy content. Recent measurements of distant supernovae (Perlmutter et al. 1998)
and of the cosmic microwave background (Bennett et al. 2003; Bersanelli et al. 2002)
indicate precise proportions for the main types of mass-energy ingredients of our
universe. Only about 4 percent is in the form of baryons and other familiar types of
matter; the rest is made up of an unknown “cold dark matter” component (approx-
imately 23 percent) and an even more exotic “dark energy” (about 73 percent), pos-
sibly associated with vacuum energy. Consequently, we don’t know what 96 percent
of our accessible universe is made of; however, we do know that most of it consists
of something radically different from what makes us and all known objects.

Ancient Queries and Infinite Longings

We are like nothing in a cosmos whose vastness and diversity surpass our imagina-
tion. But well before modern cosmology and our use of highly sensitive instru-
ments, the ancient Jews posed a fundamental question: “When I consider your
heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in
place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for
him?” (Psalm 8:4–5). After three thousand years, modern science brings us back to
SI-01 06/06/15 18:08 Page 122

122 c marco bersanelli

the same deep question with new insights, new language, and newly added dra-
matic force. What are we in this immensity of the universe? On our small planet, we
feel lost in a seemingly wasteful huge space: What is the purpose of such an enor-
mous abyss out there? We are fashioned out of material that is marginal in nature’s
overall budget: Why is there so much “reality” that appears superfluous and alien to
our human condition?
But the psalmist continues by immediately opening up another part of the par-
adox: “Yet, you made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, and crowned him
with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:6–7). Indeed, humans are exceedingly special crea-
tures. The “I” of every single human being—whose body is a pointlike fragment of
the physical universe—exists as a sort of “singularity” in which nature reveals
unheard-of properties: self-consciousness and freedom. We often lack appreciation
of the “unnecessary” and “incomprehensible” status of creatures like us. Biological
systems successfully selected by evolution could well exist with no a priori need of
consciousness and self-awareness—as has been true for 99.9 percent of the history
of life on Earth. Yet humans are gifted with a personal existence in which the whole
universe is reflected: With our self-aware nature, we strive to find meaning for our-
selves and for all things (Giussani 1997). As Thomas Aquinas notes: “Anima est quo-
dammodo omnia” (The spirit of a man is in a certain way all things) (De Veritate, In
Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14).
Scientists of all ages have expressed their wonder at the enigmatic condition of
human nature (Bersanelli and Gargantini 2003). Pioneer astronomer Maria Mitchell
suggests, “These immense spaces of creation cannot be spanned by our finite pow-
ers . . . but the vibrations set in motion by the words that we utter reach through all
space, and the tremor is felt through all times.” Even an infinite array of infinite
worlds, such as those postulated in some multiverse theories, would be way too nar-
row to satisfy the extent of human desire and aspiration. The “Infinity” that we long
for cannot be filled by any endless amount of space, time, matter, or any other phys-
ical quantity. The Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi expressed this idea poignantly,
lamenting, but with awe, that humans suffer from
. . . the inability to be satisfied by any worldly thing or, so to speak, by the
entire world. To consider the inestimable amplitude of space, the number of
worlds and their astonishing size—then to discover that all this is small and
insignificant compared to the capacity of one’s own mind; to imagine the
infinite number of worlds, the infinite universe, then feel that our mind and
aspirations might be even greater than such a universe; to accuse things
always of being inadequate and meaningless; to suffer want, emptiness, and
hence ennui—this seems to me the chief sign of the grandeur and nobility
of human nature (Leopardi, Pensieri, LXVIII).

Cosmological Answers and the Nature of “Reality”

It is strange that creatures such as us, clearly structured to embrace the totality of
things, appear to be physically insignificant at a universal level. In the past few
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 123

marco bersanelli c 123

decades, scientific progress has added new and unexpected elements to the debate.
Nuclear physicists have shown that the heavy elements necessary for biological
chemistry are the result of nuclear reactions within stars that require an exquisite
balance in the laws of nature. Moreover, fundamental parameters such as the rela-
tive strength of the four fundamental forces, the mass and charge of elementary
particles, the rate of cosmic expansion in the early universe, and the number of
space and time dimensions appear precisely tuned to allow complexity to emerge
(Barrow and Tipler 1984). We do not know how diffuse life is in our galaxy and
beyond; certainly, the list of universal circumstances necessary for life’s existence
anywhere remains way too long to discuss here. Interestingly, even if we don’t yet
understand the nature of dark matter and dark energy, cosmologists already recog-
nize how both components probably played a central role in creating galaxies in a
cold, empty space—structures ultimately needed to give rise to life and to human
existence.
A number of multiverse theories have been proposed that allow us to interpret
these apparent coincidences as selection effects. The most extreme multiverse sce-
narios become modern reiterations of the old “Principle of Plenitude,” which claims
that anything that might potentially exist does exist (Lovejoy 1936). Even in this
case, however, the fundamental question of why there is a reality at all remains
unanswered, and a paradox may arise when pushing the multiverse approach too
far. Recently, it has been argued that the ultimate form of multiverse is one in which
every sub-universe is identified as one among all possible mathematical structures,
each possessing an actual physical existence (Tegmark 2003). Some of them—like
our universe—would be unbelievably complex, others trivially simple. In this vision,
the physical multiverse coincides with the space of all mathematical possibilities.
Now, if mathematics is a product of our human minds, then our mental creativity
would be the source of the physical existence of all things—indeed, we would
inhabit a very self-centered universe! On the other hand, mathematical objects
might not be our inventions; rather, they could be the texture of reality itself. Even
in this case, however, when we recognize a given abstract entity as mathematical, we
necessarily use our brain’s logical system to make this recognition from within the
limits of our own mind. So we say that “the set of complex numbers” is a mathe-
matical object, but “the scent of roses” is not—and we all agree. The criterion that
qualifies a given package of symbols and rules as a “mathematical structure” (and
therefore as a truly existing parallel universe) is written in the logical pattern of our
intellect. Therefore, a particular understanding that our species has developed would
coincide with the essential element that defines the physical existence of all things,
which would mean that Homo sapiens possesses the yardstick for what does and
does not exist. Ironically, therefore, the most general version of multiverse theory
appears to coincide with the view of an ultimately anthropocentric universe. In fact,
this scenario may appear more rigidly “homo-centered” than the hint of an
anthropic design that multiverse theories seek to explain in terms of selection
effects.
To avoid this situation, one could attempt further generalization. Could what we
call “mathematics” represent just another layer of selection effect? Maybe the space
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 124

124 c marco bersanelli

of all mathematical patterns should be regarded as a particular case of a vastly wider

metalogical space in which very basic concepts such as “symbol” and “rule” assume
broader meanings, completely beyond the range of our comprehension. Moreover,
infinite metamathematical multiverses might be postulated, each with a real phys-
ical existence; perhaps even the concept of “physical existence” might then be gen-
eralized, and so on. Unfortunately, however, we have now arrived at a place where
by definition we don’t know what we are talking about! Both our imaginations and
our words break down, and we are lost in a desert of nonsense.
As long as language contains meaning, the extreme multiverse speculations seem
to drive us toward a radically human mind–centered view of the world. In my
opinion, this conclusion makes the concept of an ultimate multiverse unlikely. We
have learned to be skeptical about hypotheses supported by scarce data leading to
anthropocentric conclusions. Indeed, physical reality is likely to be deeper and
more surprising than we can imagine. Inflation theories suggest that regions
beyond our cosmic horizon may be highly diverse and exotic, so that our visible
universe might indeed represent a unique cosmic habitat. High-precision obser-
vations in the near future will be able to test the inflation paradigm, but what lies
beyond our horizon will always be out of reach. We should be careful with any
drastic extrapolation into unlimited unknown territory based solely on what we see
in our cosmic garden.

The Interconnectedness of All That Is

The uncontroversial and yet remarkable fact is that from subatomic particles to
superclusters, nature appears far more deeply and actively interconnected in our
lives than we might have ever guessed before the advent of science. A thousand years
ago, all farmers knew that they owed their lives to the sun, rain, and regularity of sea-
sons. Now we know that life is rooted much deeper in the soil of nature. Not only
do we need sun and clouds, but we could not exist without cosmic expansion, dark
matter, supernovae explosions, neutrinos, plate tectonics—the list is long. The uni-
verse would be hostile to life without very specific and yet sufficiently “flexible” fun-
damental laws. Furthermore, the local astronomical and geological characteristics
of any environment supporting complex animal life must be extremely stable and
yet delicate, as in the case of planet Earth (Ward and Brownlee 2000); the coupling
of local requirements with universal physical parameters is likely to be even more
sophisticated. No one has yet systematically explored how far the chain of depend-
encies extends that connect biological complexity to all observable physical struc-
tures. But certainly no farmer or scientist a century ago would have imagined that
things such as the size of our universe or the speed of light are precisely what they
need to be in order to give life a chance.
Contemporary science touches on some deep perceptions that the Judeo-Chris-
tian tradition has introduced and developed. Consider again the psalmist and his
appreciation of order, aesthetics, and creativity in the universe: “How many are your
works, O Lord. In wisdom you made them all” (Psalm 104:24). Likewise, Isaiah per-
ceives the cosmos as an active element contributing to life: “He stretches out the
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 125

marco bersanelli c 125

heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in” (Isaiah 40:22).
That same universe that science initially seemed to have taken apart and made for-
eign to us may now regain its own unity when understood as a hospitable environ-
ment for life and for consciousness. Scientific knowledge is not equipped, I believe,
to answer profound ultimate questions; however, some recent scientific develop-
ments have provided effective ways to rediscover them in new, rational, and drama-
tic terms. In the long run, science will need this openness to preserve its fascination
for us, as well as its credibility and perspective.

c
Marco Bersanelli, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in Astrophysics at the Univer-
sity of Milan, where he does research in cosmology. He is particularly interested in
observations of the cosmic microwave background, the relic radiation from the
early universe. After graduating from the University of Milan in 1986, Professor
Bersanelli worked as Visiting Scholar at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Univer-
sity of California, and then at Istituto di Fisica Cosmica, CNR, Milan, as Senior Sci-
entist. He participated in a number of experiments in cosmology, including two
expeditions to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica. Professor
Bersanelli is Instrument Scientist and a member of the Science Team of the Planck
Surveyor space mission, the European Space Agency project studying the early uni-
verse. He is president of Euresis, a scientific and cultural association promoting
interdisciplinary dialog on frontier topics in science, and has given many public
seminars, coordinated public exhibits, and published essays exploring the links
between science and the religious sense. Professor Bersanelli is author of the book
Solo lo stupore conosce (Rizzoli, 2003) about the human adventure of scientific
research.

References
Barrow, J. D.; and F. J. Tipler. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford: Clarendon,
1986.
Bennett, C., et al. “First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observa-
tions: Preliminary Maps and Basic Results,” The Astrophysical Journal Suppl. Ser., No.
148, pp. 1–27, 2003.
Bersanelli, M., M. Gargantini. “Solo lo stupore conosce,” BUR, Milano: Rizzoli, 2003.
Bersanelli, M., D. Maino, A. Mennella. “Anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Back-
ground,” La Rivista del Nuovo Cimento, No. 9, pp. 1–82, 2002.
Giussani, L. The Religious Sense. McGill: Queen’s University Press, 1997.
Lovejoy, A. O. The Great Chain of Being. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 126

126 c marco bersanelli

Perlmutter, S. et al., “Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Super-

novae,” The Astrophysical Journal (1999). N. 517, p.565, 1998.
Tegmark, M. “Parallel Universes,” in Science and Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cos-
mology and Complexity, J. D. Barrow, P. C. W. Davies, C. L. Harper, eds. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Ward, P. D., and D. Brownlee. “Rare Earth,” in Copernicus. New York: Springer Verlag, 2000.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 127

Progress in Scientific
and Spiritual Understanding 23
George F. R. Ellis

P rogress in physical cosmology has been dramatic since 1965, with the hot Big
Bang model of the early universe now being vindicated by a variety of con-
curring observations. Simultaneously with this in the last century we have made
great progress in understanding the nature of matter on the one hand, through
development of quantum field theory and the standard model of particle physics,
and experienced extraordinary breakthroughs in understanding the physical basis
of life on the other, in particular through identifying both the molecular basis of the
genetic code and the neurological basis of brain functioning.
These triumphs throw amazing light on the nature of the Creator, for he has
devised all these marvelous mechanisms that allow our existence. Today, it is unfash-
ionable for physicists to consider themselves to be exploring the mind of God, but,
of course, that is what they are doing. He is the particle physicist, cosmologist, and
group theorist supreme, a chemist and biologist in addition—the master of both
fundamental physics and complexity. Thus, scientific progress can be regarded as a
major step toward discovering greater spiritual information. However, other aspects
of the mind of God are not touched by these developments—for example, those to
do with justice and rightness, with love and mercy, with joy and beauty. In these
areas, too, progress has been made, although not as dramatic or rapid. Indeed, much
of the “progress” made has been nothing other than the rediscovery of old truths
that cannot themselves be encompassed by science. However, a major front of
progress is the way we are beginning to see how new scientific discoveries—our
understanding of the physical mechanisms that underlie our existence as living
beings—are compatible with old spiritual truths.

Emergence of Complexity
One area of ongoing progress is our growing understanding of how the laws of
physics underlie and enable the remarkable creative activity whereby matter spon-
taneously organizes itself into simple chemical structures and then living cells, which
then through a slow evolutionary process lead to the development of plants, ani-
mals, and eventually self-aware human beings. This is the way we now need to
understand how spirituality arises—through a slow evolutionary process underly-
ing the historical emergence of complexity.
Two key features underlie the ability of physical Nature to support true com-
plexity. First, there is the feature of top-down action in the hierarchy of physical
structure. Just as lower levels of order underlie what happens at higher levels
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 128

128 c george f. r. ellis

through the combined action of physical forces on fundamental particles, higher

levels of order control what happens at lower levels, and hence they are able to have
their own independent existence and meaning. This occurs through higher levels
channeling lower-level actions according to high-level structures and boundary
conditions. Second, information is incorporated in these higher levels of structure
and governs their activity. It does so by setting the goals in feedback-control systems
that endow matter with teleonomic properties; they are purposeful in their activ-
ity, arranged so that they attain specific goals, which thereby become causally effec-
tive. The goals are based on received information that is classified, analyzed, and
remembered, thus enabling higher levels of order and meaning to emerge. At the
highest level, symbolic processing and theoretical analysis drive goals and actions.
However, the evolution and development of the brain is based on emotional
responses, which guide brain development and function. Therefore, intellectual
pursuits are not divorced from emotional responses. They are tied to each other in
a deep pattern of harmony and tension. This balance is the basis of the way the
brain can function as a spiritual instrument.

Cosmology and Anthropic Issues

How can the universe have a nature that allows all these complex structures to arise
spontaneously through evolutionary and developmental processes? This is the new
form of the Design question, where it is becoming increasingly apparent that a high
degree of fine-tuning of both physical laws and cosmological boundary conditions
is required so that life can function, and so any biological evolutionary process can
take place at all. There are basically two options for explaining the great degree of
improbability of a human-friendly (“anthropic”) universe: (1) the scientific pro-
posal that the universe we live in is just one of a host of universes that together form
a “multiverse,” this plenitude of universes making the existence of life in some frac-
tion of them probable; and (2) the religious proposal that the universe was designed
by a Creator.
The current issue is whether a multiverse provides a legitimate scientific expla-
nation that can supplant the idea of a Creator. It is clear that, because of the limi-
tations of human ability to probe the nature of what exists, the existence of a
multiverse can never be proved scientifically. The humble way is to acknowledge this
limitation. This is an aspect of one of the greatest kinds of progress that one can
make in spirituality: to acknowledge the inevitability of intellectual uncertainty and
doubt in such matters, recognizing that in the end the choice is a matter of faith.

Ethics and Meaning

Human goals are hierarchically structured, with ethics as the highest level because
it determines which lower-level goals are acceptable. Ethics in turn derives its nature
from the telos, or meaning, envisaged by the actor. The key progress recently made
in this regard is the rediscovery that the basis of deep ethics is kenosis, a joyous,
kind, and loving attitude that is willing to give up selfish desires and to make sacri-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 129

george f. r. ellis c 129

fices on behalf of others for the common good, doing this in a generous and creative
way and avoiding the pitfall of pride. In short, it is unlimited love, “emptying” the
self in spiritual generosity.
The idea of self-sacrifice can be distorted and become a vision in which one’s
own self is not valued. But this is not the nature of the true idea, which is life-affirm-
ing and joyous because it extends to the self as well as the other. It is also the foun-
dation of a profound path of social and political action, as evidenced in the writings
and lives of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Desmond Tutu, among
others. It is at the core of a truly spiritual life—a fact that has been known for thou-
sands of years and is incorporated in the deeply spiritual traditions of all the major
religions, and particularly in the life of Jesus. It is the way humility makes a true dif-
ference in individual and communal life.

Existence
The nature of existence is more complex than envisaged by any simple materialis-
tic worldview. Opportunity for important spiritual progress lies in determining its
characteristics—that is, the true nature of ontology. It can be argued that the fol-
lowing worlds are ontologically real:
✦ World 1: The Physical World of Energy and Matter, hierarchically structured to
form lower and higher causal levels whose entities are all real.
This is the basic world of matter and interactions between matter, based at the
micro level on elementary particles and fundamental forces, that provides the ground
of physical existence. The hierarchical structure in matter is a real physical phenom-
enon and exists in addition to the physical constituents that make up the system.
✦ World 2: The World of Individual and Communal Consciousness—ideas, emo-
tions, and social constructions; this again is real (it is clear that these all exist)
and is causally effective.
This world of human consciousness can be regarded as comprising three major
parts, different from the world of material things, and realized through the human
mind and society: the world of rationality, the world of intention and emotion, and
the world of consciously constructed social legislation and convention.
✦ World 3: The World of Aristotelian Possibilities that characterizes the set of all
physical possibilities, from which the specific instances of what actually hap-
pens in World 1 are drawn.
This world of possibilities is real because of its rigorous prescription of the bound-
aries of what is possible. It provides the framework within which World 1 exists and
operates. There is no element of chance or contingency here, and it certainly is not
socially constructed (although our understanding of it is so constructed).
✦ World 4: A Platonic World of (Abstract) Mathematical Realities that are inde-
pendent of human existence, but not embodied in physical form.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 130

130 c george f. r. ellis

Major parts of mathematics are discovered rather than invented (rational num-
bers, zero, irrational numbers, and the Mandelbrot set, for example) and hence have
an existence of their own. They have an abstract character, and the same abstract
quantity can be represented and embodied in many symbolic and physical ways.
They are not determined by physical experiment and are independent of the exis-
tence and culture of human beings.
The existence of these worlds shows that reality is much more diverse than envis-
aged by reductionist materialists and opens the way to contemplate the underlying
reality:
✦ Foundation World 0—underlying fundamental reality, the world of God, par-
tially described by theology and incorporating the fundamental meanings of
the universe and of life.
This world is transcendent—that is, of a totally different nature than the others,
indeed not properly describable in the same terms. This world is nevertheless able
to interact with the others and influence them in important ways—in particular, the
ground of their existence. It incorporates the underlying purpose, the set of values
and meanings expressing the purpose (telos) of God and therefore underlying ethics.
These values embrace justice as well as love. At their core is a paradoxical nature
associated with kenosis and self-sacrifice (“he who would save his life must lose it”),
in a profound sense contradicting the world of logical argumentation. Discovering
this truth remains one of the most profound experiences enabling spiritual progress
for each one of us. Its centrality to the life of Christ is clear in many sections of the
New Testament, including Philippians 2:5–11 and the Sermon on the Mount. It is
central to the resolution of the temptations in the desert, as is very clearly demon-
strated in William Temple’s book Readings in St. John’s Gospel. Its rediscovery as a
central feature of spirituality and ethics is profoundly hopeful for the future of
humanity.

Multiple Paths to Spiritual Understanding

This deep nature is compatible with all those religious strands capable of seeing the
value of the search for truth in religions other than their own and rejects those that
dogmatically claim sole access to truth (representing the idolatry of claiming infal-
libility, which is against the kenotic virtue of giving up certainty). Indeed, we now
recognize that because of the transcendent nature of ultimate reality and the vari-
ety of cultures, many different understandings will inevitably arise and be embod-
ied in different faiths. The great spiritual progress now developing is the growing
recognition that these can all be visions of the same underlying reality.

Spiritual Progress
The true nature of spirituality lies in an openness and awareness that takes all valid
human experiences and understanding seriously—and sees in them, at least dimly,
glimpses of the transcendent nature of an underlying reality that encompasses all
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 131

george f. r. ellis c 131

these aspects and much more. It is in this holistic kind of awareness and apprecia-
tion that one can to a small degree encounter the glory of the Creator with true
humility. This is not to claim that the part we happen to be expert in or are partic-
ularly aware of is the center of all or the only thing that matters. It is, rather, to see
our part as belonging to a far greater whole in which our beloved truths are certainly
valid, but where manifold aspects that others see may also be true and vital—even
if we find them difficult to appreciate. The integration of all of this—seeing all
dimensions of experience as simultaneously true—is spiritual growth.
Spiritual progress, then, resides in an increase of profound comprehensive under-
standing. The present-day Science and Religion movement is one significant vehi-
cle that is enabling this to happen.

c
George F. R. Ellis, Ph.D., is Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University
of Cape Town. He has written many papers on relativity theory and cosmology and
inter alia co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with Stephen Hawk-
ing, The Density of Matter in the Universe with Peter Coles, and Dynamical Systems
in Cosmology with John Wainwright. He was co-author with Nancey C. Murphy,
who contributed an essay to this volume, On the Moral Nature of the Universe. He
is Past President of the International Society of General Relativity and Gravitation
and of the Royal Society of South Africa. He has been awarded various honorary
degrees and prizes, including the Star of South Africa Medal by President Nelson
Mandela in 1999 and the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 2004.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 132

The Universe—
What’s the Point? 24
Paul C. W. Davies

I n a famous conclusion to a popular book on cosmology,1 physicist Steven

Weinberg wrote, “The more the universe appears comprehensible, the more it
also appears pointless.” This comment echoes the sentiment of many contemporary
scientists. Although they may wax lyrical about the awesome beauty, majesty, and
subtlety of the natural world, they nevertheless deny any point or purpose to the
universe. In this essay, written to honor Sir John Templeton’s bold and sweeping
vision, I shall critically reappraise Weinberg’s claim.
Appealing to science to bolster the doctrine of cosmic pointlessness is by no
means new. A hundred years ago, the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand
Russell used the second law of thermodynamics in a trenchant attack on theism. The
second law states, in effect, that the universe is dying, descending inexorably into
chaos as its reserves of useful energy are squandered. Russell reflected on the “vast
death of the solar system” that will follow when the sun burns out in several billion
years and concluded that these depressing facts were consistent only with a philos-
ophy of “unyielding despair.”2 Russell’s position seems to be that if the universe as
a whole is doomed, then physical existence is ultimately pointless; even human life
and endeavor are, in the final analysis, futile. In recent years, the chemist Peter Atkins
has developed this theme by tying the second law directly to the purposeless motion
of molecules.3 It is the random agitation of molecules that drives, say, a gas to states
of higher and higher entropy, culminating in a state of thermodynamic equilib-
rium and effective macroscopic inactivity. Atkins elevates this indisputable fact
about molecular motion to the status of a universal principle of purposelessness, in
which the aimless meanderings of molecules become emblematic of the pointless-
ness of the universe as a whole. Even Freeman Dyson shares the sentiment that if the
universe is ultimately doomed, “we might as well give up,” in spite of the fact that
the final cosmic state might lie trillions of years in the future and hence has no
impact at all on individual human lives and society.4
The weakness of this argument is twofold. First, it assumes that entropy alone is
an appropriate indicator of cosmic change. The decision to focus on this quantity
is a purely ideological one. Russell and Atkins select entropy as the physical prop-
erty for discussion because it paints a bleak picture of a degenerating, indeed
doomed, universe. But there are other ways to describe cosmic evolution. For exam-
ple, good astronomical evidence shows that the universe began in a state of almost
total blandness. The richness and diversity of physical systems we observe today
have emerged since the beginning through a long and complicated series of self-
organizing and self-complexifying processes.5 Viewed this way, the conspicuous
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 133

paul c. w. davies c 133

story of the universe so far is one of unfolding enrichment, not decay. One could
define, say, a measure of organized complexity that increases with time even as
entropy increases. Nothing within science compels one to favor entropy over organ-
ized complexity in characterizing the evolution of the universe.
Second, let me contest the assumption that a system with a finite lifespan cannot
have a point. This is obviously false. Individual human lives and cultures are sub-
ject to the same strictures of the second law of thermodynamics and are finite as a
result. Yet human beings and society have all sorts of goals and purposes. To say
there is no point to human life because one day we each will die is clearly ridiculous.
So the fact that the stars may not burn forever or that the entire universe may even-
tually approach a state of thermodynamic equilibrium (or even dark emptiness)
has little bearing on whether or not the universe has a point.
As with physical scientists, so biologists have used the supposed lack of direc-
tionality in physical processes in support of a philosophical position similar to
Weinberg’s. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, took pains to attack the Victorian
notion of evolutionary progress.6 He stressed that Nature is blind and so cannot
look ahead to anticipate solutions to evolutionary problems. Darwinism, he pointed
out, is based on purely random accidental changes, some good, some bad. There is
no direction to evolution; it is not going anywhere, just exploring the vast space of
biological possibilities. Therefore, so the reasoning goes, if biological evolution is
blind, the universe as a whole must be pointless. Like Weinberg, Russell, and Atkins,
Gould was scathing in his attacks on notions of cosmic purpose, which he saw as an
anachronism, an unwelcome hangover from a bygone religious culture.
The evidence for the directionlessness of biological evolution is scientifically less
compelling than is the case for the second law of thermodynamics. Taking the bios-
phere as a whole, its complexity has clearly risen since life on earth was restricted
to a few microbes. The issue, however, is whether this merely represents a random,
undirected exploration of the space of biological possibilities or whether there is a
systematic trend toward greater complexity. The fossil record is somewhat ambigu-
ous in this respect. Certainly some trends are discernible; for example, the so-called
encephalization quotient (ratio of brain mass to body mass) escalated persistently
during hominid evolution. Some contemporary biologists (e.g., Richard Dawkins,7
Christian de Duve,8 and Simon Conway Morris9) make a case that, at least within
some lineages, there are trends toward greater complexity. So it is far from decided,
even among professional biologists, that the evolutionary record supports a doctrine
of biological chaos.
Recently, some cosmologists have attempted to advance a catch-all argument for
cosmic pointlessness by invoking the multiverse concept.10 This is based on the the-
ory that what we have hitherto considered to be “the universe” is but a small com-
ponent in a vast assemblage of universes, some resembling ours, others not. The
universes may co-exist in parallel, so that they are physically disconnected, or they
may connect to each other in remote regions of space or through “wormholes.”
Universes may differ in both their physical laws and initial conditions in such a way
that all conceivable laws and conditions are represented in a universe somewhere.
The overwhelming majority of the universes would go unseen because their laws
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 134

134 c paul c. w. davies

and conditions would not be conducive to the emergence of life and conscious
beings. Only in a tiny subset where, purely by chance, things fell out just right would
observers arise to marvel over the ingeniously contrived appearance of their uni-
verse. The relevance of the multiverse to cosmic pointlessness is easy to grasp. If
anyone should discover some aspect of Nature that hinted at a deep underlying
purpose, then this superficially amazing fact could be shrugged off as a random
accident that is observed by us only because that very same accident is a necessary
prerequisite for the existence of life.
The multiverse theory suffers from a number of problems. In most versions, the
existence of the other universes cannot be verified or falsified, even in principle, so
its status as a scientific theory is questionable. Second, the degree of bio-friendliness
we observe in the universe seems far in excess of what is needed to give rise to a few
observers to act as cosmic selectors. If the ingenious bio-friendliness of our uni-
verse were the result of randomness, we might expect the observed universe to be
minimally, rather than optimally, biophilic. Note, too, that multiverse explanations
still need to assume the existence of laws of some sort, so they do not offer a com-
plete explanation of the lawlike order of the universe. Finally, invoking an infinity
of unseen universes to explain certain features of the universe we do observe seems
the antithesis of Occam’s Razor: It is an infinitely complex explanation. In this
respect, it is effectively equivalent (in a mathematical sense) to naive theism in which
the bio-friendliness of the cosmos is simply attributed, without further considera-
tion, to selection from a “shopping list” of possibilities by a beneficent Deity. Both
explanations appeal to an infinite amount of hidden information.
Cosmic pointlessness has also been argued on philosophical grounds on the basis
that the very concept of a “point” or “purpose” cannot be applied to a system such
as the universe because it makes sense only in the context of human activity. Some
years ago, I took part in a BBC television debate with Hugh Montefiore, then bishop
of Birmingham, and the atheist Oxford philosopher A. J. Ayer. Montefiore declared
that without God all human life would be meaningless. Ayer countered that humans
alone imbue their lives with meaning. “But then life would have no ultimate mean-
ing,” objected the bishop. “I don’t know what ‘ultimate meaning’ means!” cried Ayer.
His objection, of course, is that concepts such as meaning, purpose, and having a
point are human categories that make good sense in the context of human society,
but are at best metaphors when applied to nonliving systems.
However, scientists have long been guilty of projecting onto Nature categories
that are rooted in human society. Each culture has used technological metaphors to
describe cosmologies. The Greeks built a cosmological scheme based on musical
harmony and geometrical regularities, because musical and geometrical instru-
ments were the current technological marvels. Newton’s universe was a gigantic
clockwork mechanism. Russell’s was an imperfect heat engine—a sort of Victorian
industrial contraption writ large and running out of fuel. Today it is fashionable to
describe the universe as a gigantic computer.11 Information theory, which stems
from the realm of human discourse, is routinely applied to physical problems in
thermodynamics, biology, and quantum mechanics. All these designations capture
in some imperfect way what the universe is about. It is not a clockwork mechanism
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 135

paul c. w. davies c 135

or an information processor, but it does have mechanistic and informational prop-

erties. Living organisms have goals and purposes, and I see no reason that we may
not use the organism as a metaphor for the universe (Aristotle already did). I am not
suggesting that the universe is alive, only that it may share with living organisms cer-
tain properties, such as possessing “purposes,” in the same way that it shares with a
machine the property of having interlocking parts, a finite fuel supply, and so forth.
I have put the word “purposes” in quotation marks because I am reasoning by anal-
ogy. This is, of course, dangerous, but the machine and information systems desig-
nations are also analogical, and few scientists object. So I contend that the universe
may have purposelike or pointlike properties, alongside mechanistic and compu-
tational properties. All these characterizations require a leap from the human realm
to the cosmic realm, and all are equally valid, if imperfect and incomplete, windows
on aspects of cosmic reality.
I should like to finish by pointing out that science is founded on the notion of the
rationality and logicality of Nature. The universe is ordered in a meaningful way,
and scientists seek reasons for why things are the way they are. If the universe as a
whole is pointless, then it exists reasonlessly. In other words, it is ultimately arbitrary
and absurd. We are then invited to contemplate a state of affairs in which all scien-
tific chains of reasoning are grounded in absurdity. The order of the world would
have no foundation, and its breathtaking rationality would have to spring, mirac-
ulously, from absurdity. So Weinberg’s dictum is turned neatly on its head: The
more the universe seems pointless, the more it also seems incomprehensible.

c
Paul C. W. Davies, Ph.D., is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist who holds
the post of Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Australian Centre for Astrobi-
ology at Macquarie University, Sydney. His research has been in the fields of quan-
tum gravity, black holes, and early-universe cosmology. More recently, he has
worked in astrobiology on problems concerning the origin of life and the transfer
of microorganisms between planets. He is the author of more than twenty-five
books, including several best-sellers such as The Mind of God, About Time, The
Fifth Miracle, and How to Build a Time Machine. In addition, he has made and pre-
sented many television and radio documentaries that bring fundamental topics in
science to a wider public. Dr. Davies was the recipient of the 1995 Templeton Prize
for Progress in Religion.

Notes
1 Weinberg, S. The First Three Minutes (Harper and Row, New York, 1988), 155.
2 Russell, B. Why I Am Not a Christian (Allen and Unwin, New York, 1957), 107.
3 Atkins, P. “Time and Dispersal: The Second Law,” in The Nature of Time, eds. R. Flood
and M. Lockwood (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1986).
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 136

136 c paul c. w. davies

4 Dyson, F., September 2, 2002, private remark during discussion of the fate of cosmo-
logical models with a non-zero cosmological constant, at Fine Tuning and the Laws of
Physics, symposium held at Windsor Castle, UK.
5 See, for example, Davies, P. The Cosmic Blueprint (Heinemann, London, 1987).
6 Gould, S. J. Life’s Grandeur (Jonathan Cape, London, 1996).
7 Dawkins, R. Climbing Mount Improbable (Viking, London, 1996).
8 de Duve, C. Vital Dust (Basic Books, New York, 1995).
9 Conway Morris, S. The Crucible of Creation (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998).
10 See, for example, Rees, M. Before the Beginning (Simon & Schuster, London, 1997),
chap. 15.
11 Lloyd, S. Physical Review Letters 88, 237901(2002).
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 137

Choose Your Own Universe 25

Andrei Linde

O ne of the main goals of science is to find a theory that explains all features
of our universe. The scientific approach is remarkably successful. And yet,
some of the parameters of elementary particles still look like a collection of random
numbers. We still do not know why electrons are two thousand times lighter than
protons, why the force of gravity is so weak, and why the energy density of a vac-
uum is so small. Meanwhile, a minor change (by a factor of two or three) in the mass
of the electron, in its charge e, or in the gravitational constant G would lead to a uni-
verse in which life as we know it could never have arisen. Adding or subtracting
even a single spatial dimension of the same type as the known three dimensions
would make planetary systems impossible. Furthermore, in order for life as we know
it to exist, it is necessary that the universe be sufficiently large, flat, homogeneous,
and isotropic. These facts lie at the foundation of the so-called Anthropic Principle
(Barrow and Tipler 1986). According to this principle, we observe the universe to be
as it is because only in such a universe could observers such as ourselves exist.
For a long time, scientists did not like this principle. The standard point of view
was that the universe arose with one set of laws of physics. From this perspective, it
did not make any sense to ask why the universe is so large, why space is three-dimen-
sional, and why electrons are so light. It is just so. It seemed naive to assume that the
laws of physics were fine-tuned in order to make our existence possible. One could
argue that if somebody took the trouble of making the universe for our benefit,
isn’t it strange that he or she worked so hard to prepare the same conditions every-
where, even far away from earth? Wouldn’t it be much easier to establish good con-
ditions for our life only in a small vicinity of the solar system?
The negative attitude toward the Anthropic Principle changed only after the
development of inflationary cosmology. This theory claims that immediately after
its creation the universe went through the stage of inflation, exponentially rapid
expansion in an unstable, vacuumlike state. As a result, the universe became expo-
nentially large within an extremely short period. The simplest version of inflation-
ary theory is the chaotic inflation scenario (Linde 1990), which describes the
universe as being filled by a massive scalar field. An example of this is the Higgs
field, which plays an important role in the standard model of electroweak interac-
tions. It can be shown that if the scalar field originally was sufficiently large and
homogeneous, its energy density could change its value only very slowly. According
to Einstein’s theory of gravity, the universe containing matter with constant energy
density should expand exponentially. This corresponds to the stage of inflation.
However, gradually the scalar field decayed and created usual matter consisting of
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 138

138 c andrei linde

elementary particles. After that, the universe expanded in accordance with the stan-
dard Big Bang theory.
Why do we need an extra stage of expansion of the universe if in the end we
return to the standard Big Bang theory? The answer is that during inflation our
universe could expand as much as 101000000000000 times. Rapid expansion makes the
universe extremely large and homogeneous. The geometric properties of space
become similar to the properties of an almost flat surface of a huge inflating balloon.
This explains why our universe is so big, homogeneous, and isotropic and why its
geometric properties are so close to the properties of a flat space.
In addition to stretching the universe, inflation generates small density pertur-
bations, which are responsible for galaxy formation. This happens because of ampli-
fication of quantum fluctuations during inflation. In certain cases, such quantum
fluctuations become extremely large and may considerably increase the initial value
of the scalar field. The probability of such events is small, but those rare parts of the
universe where it happens begin expanding with much greater speed. This creates
a lot of new space where inflation may occur and where large quantum fluctua-
tions become possible. As a result, the universe enters an eternal cycle of self-repro-
duction: It permanently produces new inflationary domains, which in their turn
produce new inflationary domains. Therefore, instead of looking like a single
expanding balloon, as in the standard Big Bang theory, the universe looks like a
huge, growing fractal consisting of many inflating balloons producing new bal-
loons.
Each of these balloons is so large that its inhabitants will never see other parts of
the universe. So for all practical purposes, each of these balloons can be considered
to be a separate universe. Various scalar fields may take different values in these
universes. These values determine properties of elementary particles and the way
they interact with each other. Thus, the universe after inflation becomes divided
into many universes operating by different laws of physics.
This provides a simple justification of the Anthropic Principle. One does not
need to assume that a creator repeatedly turned out one universe after another in
order to make our existence possible. The universe itself produces exponentially
large domains with different laws of physics. And we should not be surprised that
the conditions necessary for our existence appear everywhere in the visible part of
the universe rather than only in a vicinity of the solar system. If the proper condi-
tions are established near the solar system, inflation ensures that similar conditions
appear everywhere within the observable part of the universe. But these conditions
may become dramatically different at a distance 101000000000000 cm away from us.
Twenty years ago, one could wonder whether this was a real theory or science
fiction. However, during the last ten years, many predictions of inflationary theory
have been confirmed by cosmological observations, and this theory gradually
became the standard paradigm of modern cosmology.
Once we get used to this new picture of the universe, we can take one more step
and consider a multiverse, an infinitely large set of different universes with differ-
ent laws of physics operating in each of them. This will provide us with an unlim-
ited number of universes and laws of physics to choose from (Rees 2000). Whereas
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 139

andrei linde c 139

the idea of a collection of different universes is conceptually much more compli-

cated than the idea of a single inflationary universe consisting of many different
parts, we believe that the notion of the multiverse is quite legitimate and can be
given a precise mathematical meaning (Linde 2002). Introduction of the concept of
the multiverse shows the way toward justification of the Anthropic Principle in its
strongest form: All types of universes and all laws of physics are possible, but we can
live in only the universes with laws of physics compatible with our existence.
Thus, we can go very far in our quest for the theory of everything, representing
the universe as a huge, self-replicating machine offering all options beyond imagi-
nation. But is this theory complete, or is the complicated picture of the multiverse
still too simplistic?
There is at least one part of this picture that remains a bit blurry. In order to fully
justify the use of the Anthropic Principle, we should know what life is and how it
emerges.
The simplest assumption is that life is a function of matter and that our con-
sciousness is just a tool for describing the real world. So once we know the structure
and composition of the universe, we know everything. However, in the context of
quantum cosmology, the notion of an observer acquires an important role, and the
evolution of the universe is directly linked to the possibility that it can be seen.
Indeed, it can be shown that the wave function of the universe, which describes the
probability of all processes in the universe, is time-independent. The universe
becomes alive (time-dependent) only when one divides it into two parts: an
observer and the rest of the universe. Then the wave function of the rest of the uni-
verse depends on the time measured by the observer (DeWitt 1967). In other words,
evolution is possible only with respect to the observer. Without an observer, the
universe is dead.
One could argue that instead of a conscious observer we can use any recording
device. But do we really know that the universe depends on time recorded by this
device if nobody is there to check it? Attempts to address this question bring us
back to the old problem of the origin of knowledge.
Our knowledge of the world begins not with matter, but with perceptions. I know
for sure that my pain exists, my “red” exists, and my “sweet” exists. I do not need any
proof of their existence, because these events are a part of me; everything else is a
theory. Later, we realize that our perceptions obey some laws that can be conve-
niently formulated if we assume that an underlying reality lies beyond them. The
model of the material world obeying laws of physics is so successful that we forget
about our starting point and say that matter is the only reality and that perceptions
are only helpful for describing it. But, in fact, we are substituting the reality of our
feelings with the theory of an independently existing material world. This theory is
so incredibly successful that we almost never think about its possible limitations.
However, investigation of quantum cosmology persistently returns us to the most
fundamental questions regarding our universe and our place in it. One can remem-
ber that before the development of the general theory of relativity, space (like con-
sciousness) was considered to be just a tool for describing matter. Later, we learned
that space has its own degrees of freedom, gravitational waves. Space can exist and
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 140

140 c andrei linde

change in time even in the absence of electrons, protons, and photons—that is, in
the absence of anything that had been called matter before the formation of the
theory of general relativity. Gravitational waves interact with matter so weakly that
we have not found any of them as yet. However, their existence is crucial for the con-
sistency of the theory of spacetime.
The dream of Einstein was to unify all internal symmetries of elementary parti-
cles with the symmetries of our world. This problem was solved in the 1970s after
the discovery of supersymmetric theories. In these theories, all particles can be inter-
preted in terms of the geometric properties of a multidimensional superspace.
Thus, the concept of space, or superspace, ceased to be simply a tool for the
description of the real world and instead took on independent significance, gradu-
ally encompassing all particles as its own degrees of freedom. In this picture, instead
of using space for describing the only real thing, matter, we use the notion of mat-
ter in order to simplify the description of superspace. This change of the picture of
the universe is one of the most profound (and least known) consequences of mod-
ern physics.
What if something similar happens with our understanding of consciousness?
What if mind, just like space, has its own degrees of freedom, which may exist even
in the absence of what we now call “matter”? Is it possible to unify our description
of mind and matter and obtain a complete and internally consistent picture of our
world? Persistent appearance of the word “observer” in quantum cosmology, as well
as the recent developments related to the Anthropic Principle, indicate that sooner
or later we may need to consider this possibility quite seriously.
One of the main principles of science is to move as far as possible without mak-
ing any unnecessary assumptions. But on our way toward discovering the laws of
nature, from time to time we may ask questions that might seem naive and meta-
physical. Twenty years ago, it seemed naive to ask why there are so many different
things in the universe, why nobody has ever seen parallel lines intersect, why dif-
ferent parts of the universe have been created simultaneously. Now that inflation-
ary cosmology has provided a possible answer to all of these questions, one can
only be surprised that before the 1980s it was sometimes taken to be bad form even
to discuss them. Perhaps we should learn this lesson and not be too afraid if our pur-
suit of knowledge brings us to the boundaries of what we could study by traditional
methods. Traditions can be changed. Our ultimate goal is to find the truth by any
method that we find useful and productive.

c
Andrei Linde, Ph.D., has been Professor of Physics at Stanford University since
1990. He studied physics at Moscow State University. In 1972–1974, he developed
with David Kirzhnits a theory of cosmological phase transitions. From 1975 to 1988,
Dr. Linde worked at Lebedev Physical Institute and then spent two years at CERN,
Switzerland. He is one of the authors of inflationary cosmology: In 1982 he suggested
the new inflationary universe scenario; in 1983 he proposed the chaotic inflationary
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 141

andrei linde c 141

universe scenario, and in 1986, the theory of a self-reproducing inflationary uni-

verse. Among Dr. Linde’s latest developments are the theory of a stationary infla-
tionary universe and the theory of the creation of elementary particles after
inflation. He is the author of two hundred papers and two books on particle physics
and cosmology. Among Dr. Linde’s honors and awards are the Lomonosov Prize of
the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1978), the Oskar Klein Medal in Physics
(2001), the Dirac Medal for the development of inflationary cosmology (2002), the
Peter Gruber Prize for the development of inflationary cosmology (2004), and the
Robinson Prize in Cosmology of the University of Newcastle, UK (2005).

References
Barrow, J. D., and Tipler, F. J. (1986). The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford Univer-
sity Press, New York.
DeWitt, B. S. (1967). Quantum Theory of Gravity. 1. The Canonical Theory, Phys. Rev. 160, 1113.
Linde, A. D. (1990). Particle Physics and Inflationary Cosmology. Harwood Academic Pub-
lishers, Chur, Switzerland.
Linde, A. D. (2002). “Inflation, Quantum Cosmology, and the Anthropic Principle,” in Sci-
ence & Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cosmology and Complexity, eds. J. D. Barrow,
P. C. W. Davies, & C. L. Harper. Cambridge University Press (2004).
Rees, M. (2000). Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe. Basic Books,
Perseus Group, New York.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 142

The Goldilocks Universe 26

Finesse and Firepower
Karl W. Giberson

F rederick Forsyth’s thriller Day of the Jackal tells the story of a fiendishly
clever assassin, the Jackal, who almost brings down Charles DeGaulle. Through
a combination of elaborate planning and ingenious subterfuge, the Jackal manages
to get himself and a high-powered rifle into position to take a single shot at his tar-
get. At the last minute, the target moves and the bullet buries itself in the ground,
unnoticed by the cheering crowd. The 1973 Hollywood version of the story, starring
Edward Fox as the clever, elusive Jackal, was faithful to Forsyth’s original scenario
of ingenuity and cunning.
The 1997 remake of Jackal starred Bruce Willis. Gone was the elegant, understated
assassin whose presence and attempted assassination were all but invisible. The new
Jackal goes after his target—this time, the First Lady—with so much firepower that
the assembled crowd flees in terror as shattered brick and glass from the front of the
building rain down on them. In fact, so great was the carnage that a casual observer
would have had some difficulty in determining the Jackal’s exact target.

Alternate Realities
As the saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. If you want to assassi-
nate a highly protected figure, you need copious quantities of either finesse or fire-
power—finesse to do it once and get it right, or firepower to blast away recklessly
and eventually hit the target. Finesse and firepower, curiously enough, often define
the means to various ends—and, when one fails, there is always the other. You can
write Hamlet with the finesse of a Shakespeare or the firepower of the infinite sta-
dium of monkeys typing randomly; you can solve political problems with the finesse
of diplomacy or the firepower of cruise missiles; and you can explain the marvelous
design of our universe as the finesse of a wise Creator or the firepower of some
mindless cosmic machine extravagantly belching out alternate realities, some of
which have the ingenious design of this one, but most of which do not—collateral
damage on a cosmic scale.
Such alternate realities have long been the stuff of science fiction; after all, who
is not interested in the question of whether “our” reality is the only possibility?
Could there be alternate realities with beings that are immaterial? Or lack sight? Or
live forever? Are there alternate versions of ourselves, new and improved? Can we
find a way to bring these speculative alternate realities into this one? Could we, for
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 143

karl w. giberson c 143

example, freeze ourselves and be thawed out at some later time and live again, per-
haps in a century when there were no more “reality” TV shows?
Speculation about alternate realities is hardly new. The atomist philosophers of
classical Greece were convinced that the universe contained an infinity of particles,
combining in an infinity of random ways and producing every imaginable and
unimaginable possibility. Aristotle rejected all this cosmic firepower. He preferred
a compact, tidy, high-finesse, solitary universe with the Earth firmly anchored in the
center of things, where it remained for almost two millennia with few challenges.
Renaissance thinkers such as Copernicus unhooked the Earth and promoted it to
the heavens with the other planets. If the Earth was a planet like the others, then it
seemed all the more natural to wonder about alternate worlds. If there are planets
besides Earth, then they must be inhabited, for, as some would argue, God makes
nothing in vain, and empty planets would surely be a waste. Such speculations con-
tinued through the birth and development of both science and science fiction as
thinkers from Kepler, Kant, and Whewell to Asimov, Sagan, and Benford created
more or less plausible scenarios of alternate realities, imaginative extrapolations of
their experience with this most remarkable reality.
Most of the historical flirtations with alternate realities were modest affairs,
entailing little more than people like us living on the moon or on distant Earthlike
planets. (Ever notice how the crew of the Starship Enterprise was always beaming
down to planets that looked just like Earth?) Recently, however, speculation about
infinite alternate realities that realize all possible scenarios has been ramped up sev-
eral notches, but not by fiction writers. The current speculations, which make their
predecessors look pale and anemic, come from leading scientists—and they even
appear in legitimate scientific journals.
One might suspect that such prolific speculations about other realities have
emerged from some unusual observation. Maybe planets are disappearing, or space-
ships that venture beyond the asteroid belt mysteriously lose contact with NASA.
Perhaps new stars are popping into existence from nowhere, or strange new televi-
sion shows are suddenly appearing in prime time. But, while there may be some evi-
dence for strange new television shows, speculation about alternate universes is not
based on such observations.

The Goldilocks Universe

What, then, is the basis for the speculation that there may be many, even an infin-
ity, of alternate universes? Surprisingly, the many universes—all of them completely
disconnected from ours—are invoked as a way to explain this universe. Our uni-
verse, the one we live in, has been determined by contemporary cosmologists to be
quite remarkable. The argument, which goes by the name of the Anthropic Princi-
ple and is by now quite familiar, goes like this: If you change the laws of Nature in
our universe even slightly, then the place becomes uninhabitable. Make gravity 1
percent stronger or weaker, and suns won’t shine properly; change the electrical
force just a bit, and organic molecules won’t form; make the universe expand just a
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 144

144 c karl w. giberson

little faster, and there won’t be any solar systems. And so on. All of the various fea-
tures of this universe appear to have been optimized for life. Change any of them,
and the universe becomes boring and sterile. Our universe is neither too hot nor too
cold; it is just right—a Goldilocks Universe.
All this would occasion no surprise if it turned out that the laws of Nature some-
how have to have their current form, if there is some reason that gravity has its par-
ticular strength, electrons their mass, photons their energy, and so on. But, as near
as anyone can tell, and they seem to be able to tell quite nearly, there is no reason
that the various features of our universe are the way they are and not some other,
equally plausible way.
All this makes our gigantic fifteen-billion-year-old universe seem rather puz-
zling, with all its various parameters so finely adjusted to accommodate us so nicely.
Fred Hoyle, one of the past century’s greatest cosmologists and author of a science
fiction book, said that some “super intellect” must have “monkeyed with the
physics.” Freeman Dyson (who contributed a chapter to this volume), after looking
closely at the fifteen-billion-year cosmic history that preceded our timely arrival,
suggested that somehow “the universe knew we were coming.” John Wheeler even
suggested that, in some really bizarre (meaning quantum mechanical) way, the exis-
tence of our universe was dependent on our existence. No people, no universe—the
ultimate symbiosis.
But Hoyle’s “super intellect” and Dyson’s “intentional universe” are hardly satis-
factory answers to the mystery of our high-finesse, Goldilocks Universe, at least
from a scientific point of view. These explanations are too traditional, too theolog-
ical, too high on finesse and intelligence in an age that prefers heavy-duty cosmic
firepower.
The requisite cosmic firepower comes in the form of some truly mind-boggling,
or at least atom-jiggling, speculations about the existence of multiple universes.
And by “multiple” we don’t mean seven or eight, or even a few hundred. We are
talking about an infinite number of real, live universes, with real stuff in them, real
matter governed by real laws, maybe even alternate forms of intelligence possessed
by alternate creatures; and perhaps even “alternate-reality” TV programs.
The first really serious proposal for multiple universes came from quantum the-
orist Hugh Everett, who thought that the problems of quantum mechanics were so
deep that they could be solved only if the universe were constantly splitting off into
slightly different futures. This idea has been rather eloquently updated by the
extraordinary and eccentric Oxford physicist David Deutsch. In a few short pages
in The Fabric of Reality, Deutsch shows how the behavior of electrons passing
through a slit reveals the presence of other universes. Deutsch even has a proposal
for a quantum computer that will perform half its calculations in some other uni-
verse, and thus run twice as fast as the old-fashioned kind that have to do everything
in just one universe. Deutsch believes that it may one day be possible to build such
a computer to test this strange idea. (He does not say how we will know that the
extra calculations are being done in another universe, rather than in some hidden
spot in this one.) The many universes that you get with quantum theory are the
ultimate in cosmic firepower. Simple interactions, of the sort that are happening on
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 145

karl w. giberson c 145

your retina as you read these words, are splitting the entire universe, making mul-
tiple copies of everything that exists—every star, every galaxy, every television set.
Lee Smolin, who became a cosmologist after failing to get his rock band off the
ground, offers another ingenious mechanism to get lots of universes. His idea runs
like this: At the “centers” of black holes are tiny regions of infinite density called
“singularities,” where the laws of physics appear to completely break down (because
of incompatibilities between relativity and quantum theory that cosmologists would
like to resolve with a proper quantum theory of gravity that nobody has been able
to find, although Smolin claimed in Princeton in March 2002 that he had such a the-
ory1). If the laws of physics break down, and it appears that they do in the middle
of black holes, then anything can happen. All bets are off. If anything can happen
in the middle of the black hole, then maybe a new universe might erupt there, dis-
connected from this one. Smolin argues that this is exactly what happens, but that
these “daughter” universes are slightly different from their parents. If some daugh-
ter universes differ in ways that give them more firepower to generate black holes,
then that configuration will be favored in a sort of cosmic Darwinism. As time
passes, this cosmic Darwinism will result in universes that are quite prolific, as uni-
verses that produce black holes have more “children” than those that do not. And,
as luck would have it, universes that are good at making black holes are also good
at making planets like ours.
In the prologue to his fascinating The Life of the Cosmos, Smolin humbly labels
his idea a “frank speculation” and a “fantasy.” Leading cosmologist Sir Martin Rees,
however, in an essay in the anthology Many Worlds, says that Smolin’s proposal is a
“reasonable reaction” to the mystery of our just-right Goldilocks Universe.
The question at hand that motivates the speculation about multiple universes is
how to explain the finely tuned, high-finesse, Goldilocks character of the one uni-
verse of which we have any real knowledge—this one. If there are an infinity of dif-
ferent universes with all manner of different characteristics, then it is not in the
least remarkable that one of them happens to look like ours; and it is not remark-
able that we happen to live in one of the universes that is compatible with our exis-
tence. On the other hand, if there is but one universe, then it certainly looks as if it
was designed by some transcendent intelligence. The two choices, which we have
been calling “finesse” and “firepower,” are very different. A designed universe
requires information, lots of information, of the sort that even skeptics are pre-
pared to attribute to “God.” An infinity of universes, with one accidentally looking
like ours, needs very little information. If you have enough universes, then some of
them will naturally and fortuitously look like this one; the impression of design,
however, will be illusory.
It may be that an ingenious observational test might one day be devised to detect
these alternate universes. But it is hard to see how such a test could be conclusive.
If Deutsch’s quantum computer does run twice as fast, can we confidently attribute
the extra speed to the assistance of an otherwise undetectable alternate universe? All
kinds of strange things happen in the world of the quantum, but most physicists are
reluctant to suppose that the strangeness is coming from some other universe.
Our universe is remarkable in so many ways. Those who understand this most
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 146

146 c karl w. giberson

clearly offer extraordinary explanations: the universe is the product of either an

information-rich source, such as the Creator of tradition, or it is one of a vast
ensemble of universes. Both options are mind-boggling in their own way, and the
choice toward which one gravitates, to use a nearby metaphor, depends very much
on where one starts. And, if history is any guide, human ingenuity will always be up
to the task of devising plausible explanations that are consistent with both one’s
presuppositions and generally accepted scientific notions.

c
Karl W. Giberson, Ph.D., is the founding editor of Science and Theology News ,
editor in chief of Science and Spirit, and Professor of Physics at Eastern Nazarene
College in Quincy, Massachusetts. He has undergraduate degrees in physics, phi-
losophy, and mathematics from Eastern Nazarene College and an M.A. and Ph.D.
in physics from Rice University. Dr. Giberson has written many articles and two
books on science and religion: Worlds Apart: The Unholy War between Religion and
Science (1993) and Species of Origins: America’s Search for a Creation Story (2002,
with Donald Yerxa). His primary area of interest is America’s creation-evolution
controversy, particularly within the evangelical church. He is a contributing editor
for Books and Culture and has been involved in various science and religion proj-
ects and conferences.

Note
1 The statement was made during Smolin’s presentation at a symposium, Science & Ulti-
mate Reality: Celebrating the Vision of John Archibald Wheeler, held March 15–18, 2002
in Princeton, New Jersey. See http://www.metanexus.net/ultimate_reality/main.htm
for more information. A book chapter based on this presentation is included in a vol-
ume published by Cambridge University Press in 2004—Science and Ultimate Reality:
Quantum Theory, Cosmology and Complexity, edited by John D. Barrow, Paul C. W.
Davies, and Charles L. Harper Jr.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 147

Emergent Realities
in the Cosmos 27
Marcelo Gleiser

T here is a creative tension in the cosmos. We feel it every time we look at

Nature, and we feel it within ourselves. It is revealed in the smallest of details,
a dewdrop balancing on the tip of a leaf in an early fall morning, the hexagonal
symmetry of snowflakes resulting from water’s molecular structure and heat dissi-
pation. And it is revealed in large-scale natural phenomena, a lightning strike rip-
ping across the sky during a stormy night, in stars burning their entrails in order to
survive the inexorable crush of their own gravity. Our collective history can be told
as an effort to represent and make sense of this creative tension, this constant dance
of chaos and order that shapes the world.
We have created countless stories, drawings, dances, and rituals in search of
meaning, in search of answers. We look at the cosmos with a mixed sense of awe and
wonder, of terror and devotion. And we want to know: How can something come
from nothing? What is the origin of all things? Can order emerge by itself, without
a guiding hand? Is beauty a mere accident of Nature, or is there a deeper meaning
to it? Why do we crave beauty? What is it that makes us plant gardens, compose
poems and symphonies, create mathematical theorems and equations? Why can’t we
be content simply by eating, procreating, and sleeping? These are questions that
bridge and expand our ways of knowing, our being part of cutting-edge scientific
research, philosophical meditation, religious prayer, and artistic output. We have
an unquenchable urge to understand who we are and what our place is in this vast
universe. In many ways, it is through this search for answers that we define our-
selves. By asking, by wanting to know, we define what it means to be human. And,
although the answers may vary, just as cultures vary from place to place and time
to time, many questions are the same—and remain, to a large extent, unanswered.
Modern science has developed a comprehensive narrative describing the emer-
gence of material structures in the universe. Although many of the details and fun-
damental questions remain open, we now can claim with certitude that the history
of the cosmos traces an increasing complexification of its living and nonliving
inhabitants, of the hierarchical development of form and function from the simple
to the complex. Thus, at very early times, when the universe was extremely hot and
dense, matter was in the form of its most basic constituents, the indivisible ele-
mentary particles. As the universe expanded and cooled, attractive forces between
the different particles made clustering possible: Protons and neutrons emerged from
binding quarks, atomic nuclei from binding protons and neutrons, light atoms from
binding atomic nuclei and electrons, galaxies from huge collapsing hydrogen clouds,
stars from smaller hydrogen-rich clouds within these galaxies, until, eventually,
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 148

148 c marcelo gleiser

living beings emerged in at least one of the billions of solar systems spread across
the cosmos.
The scientific account describing the emergence of complex material structures
has enjoyed enormous success. Cosmology is now a data-driven branch of physics,
as opposed to even two decades ago. However, in spite of this success, or perhaps
because of it, several fundamental questions have surfaced that defy present knowl-
edge. Among the most fascinating of these questions are those that address origins:
the origin of the cosmos, the origin of life, and the origin of the mind. The answers
to these questions, even if currently unknown, are all related to the issue of emer-
gence: How is it that structures self-organize to the point of generating extremely
sophisticated complex behavior? Be it a surging cosmos out of a primordial soup of
cosmoids, a simple living being made of millions of organic macromolecules, or a
thinking being capable of wondering about his or her own origins and of ponder-
ing moral dilemmas, the emergence of complexity encompasses some of the most
awesome and least understood natural phenomena.
These three origin questions may be compressed into a single one: “How come
us?” This is the kind of exasperating question that makes most scientists throw in
the towel. A common answer is: “Who cares?” After all, there may not be a reason
at all; we may be here simply as the result of a random sequence of accidents on the
right-size planet, with the right amount of water, at the right distance from a mod-
erate-size star, and so on. “The Universe may be full of Earth-like planets with other
forms of intelligent life,” the argument proceeds. Indeed, it is quite possible that the
universe is filled with Earth-like planets, some of them with similar amounts of
water and Earth-like atmospheric compositions. Possibly, several will also have some
form of living beings. If Earth is a demonstrative example, life is very resilient and
can adapt to extremely adverse circumstances. But intelligent life is a whole other
story. (By “intelligent,” I mean a species capable of self-reflection and with the abil-
ity for abstract thinking.)
Evolutionary arguments claiming that natural selection necessarily leads to intel-
ligence are flawed. Consider the history of life in the only place we actually know it
exists, Earth. The dinosaurs were here for about 150 million years and showed no
signs of decline or of intelligence. Intelligence may be a sufficient condition for
dominating the food chain, but it is not a necessary one. It took a devastating col-
lision with a ten-kilometer-wide asteroid 65 million years ago to decimate the
dinosaurs, together with 40 percent of all life forms on earth. Ironically, the mam-
mals, which up to that point were pretty much insignificant, survived and flourished
in the wake of this cataclysm. In a very real sense, we are here because of this cata-
strophic collision.
Life is an experiment in emergent complexity: We may know what the ingredients
are, but we cannot predict its detailed outcome. (And we still cannot repeat it in the
laboratory.) Intelligent life is certainly a very rare outcome. This goes against every-
thing we have learned over the last four hundred years of modern science—that the
more we know about the universe, the less unique we seem to be. True, we live among
billions of other galaxies in the visible universe, each of them with billions of stars.
True, the matter that makes up people and stars is subdominant; most of the matter
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 149

marcelo gleiser c 149

that permeates the cosmos is not made of protons and electrons, but of something
else that does not shine like the matter making up stars. Our location in the cosmos
and our material composition are not of great cosmic relevance or particularly spe-
cial. But our minds are. As far as we know, there aren’t any others out there. If there
were, chances are we would have been visited by now. Our galaxy, being about one
hundred thousand light-years across and 12 billion years old, could have been tra-
versed countless times by other intelligent civilizations. But it hasn’t—unless, of
course, aliens have been here long before we have and didn’t leave any clues, or do not
want to make contact. (Taking the first 2 billion years off for good measure, and
assuming intelligent civilizations can travel at least at one-tenth the speed of light,
gives a total of ten thousand galaxy crossings in the last 10 billion years. Either we have
been purposely ignored, or we are really inconspicuous.) Given the unknowns (how
can we presume to understand an alien psyche if we don’t even understand our own?),
we should keep an open mind, repeating, as suggested Carl Sagan, that “absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence.” (Or, maybe the aliens are just very shy.)
If, indeed, we are a rare event, we must be ready to take on an enormous respon-
sibility: We must preserve our legacy, learning how to survive in spite of ourselves.
Humans are capable of the most wonderful creations and the most horrendous
crimes. It is often very convenient to dream of archetypical aliens, wise and all-
knowing, who will inspire and educate us before it’s too late. Those aliens are not
so different from the saints and prophets of many religions who bring us hope and
direction. But if we are alone, we must learn to save ourselves following our own
guidance and acquired wisdom. It is here that a blending of science and religious
ethics can be profoundly useful. We can start by extending the New Testament
maxim “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” to all known and
unknown living beings, here and across the cosmos.
Then, we must learn from the way Nature operates. There is a single principle
behind all existing order in Nature, an all-embracing urge to exist and to bind what
manifests itself at all levels, from the racing world of subatomic particles to the
edges of the observable universe. It also manifests itself in our lives and in our his-
tory. Humans cannot escape this alliance with the rest of the cosmos. Our tensions
are part of this universal trend, our creations and destructions part of the same
rhythms that permeate the universe. Through them, we search for transcendence,
for a reality deeper and more permanent than our own. However, we have distanced
ourselves from Nature and have become wasteful. Our wastefulness is reflected in
the way we treat our planet and ourselves. It is a cancer that grows and overwhelms
what lives and what doesn’t.
The laws of physics dictate that inanimate systems never use more energy than
they have to, never choose a more costly path to achieve the same end result. We
must learn from Nature’s simple elegance, from its aesthetic and economical com-
mitment to functionality and form. We must look beyond our immediate needs
and greed, reintegrating ourselves into a physical reality that transcends political
and social boundaries. Perhaps then we will start to respect our differences, to learn
from those who believe, live, and look differently than we do. And we don’t have a
minute to waste.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 150

150 c marcelo gleiser

c
Marcelo Gleiser, Ph.D., holds the Appleton Professorship of Natural Philoso-
phy and is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth College. To date, he
has published more than sixty-five papers in refereed journals and has participated
in many domestic and international conferences as an invited speaker. In 1994, he
received the Presidential Faculty Fellows Award (PFF) from the White House and
NSF. In 2000, he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. His first
book, The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang, received the 1998
Jabuti Award, the highest literary award in Brazil. He has appeared in several science
documentaries, including the PBS/BBC Stephen Hawking’s Universe. He received
the 2001 José Reis Award for the Popularization of Science, offered every two years
by the Brazilian Research Council (CNPq). His second book, The Prophet and the
Astronomer: A Scientific Journey to the End of Time, was published in May 2002 in
the United States (W.W. Norton). The Brazilian version was published in mid-
August 2001 and received the 2002 Jabuti Award.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 151

Cosmic Order
and Divine Word 28
Lydia Jaeger

I t was fascination for natural order that got me into physics. As a high-school
student, I took a course in physics mainly because it was supposed to concentrate
on astronomy—and because my older brother was convinced that I had to do
physics. About a year and a half later, I had completely changed my mind and was
seriously contemplating studying physics at university. What made all the differ-
ence was that I had discovered the mystery of Cosmic Order.
The fascination that got me into physics has never left me: Why does the pencil
in my hand, each time I let it go, fall to the ground following a precise mathemat-
ical formula? In fact, we are so convinced of Nature’s tidiness that we do not even
bother to repeat the experiment; we do not feel any need to check that Nature will
next time follow the same rule. The “law”-like regularity and consequent modela-
bility of natural phenomena are the unquestioned assumptions that underlie all
scientific research. The revolutions that took place in physics at the beginning of
the twentieth century have certainly changed our philosophical understanding of
the nature of Cosmic Order. Quantum mechanics has introduced chance at the
most basic level of our physical theories. Nevertheless, quantum probabilities are
themselves described by precise mathematical formulae. Quantum theory does
not transport us into the daunting world of magic where just anything can happen.
It is part of the deep order of Nature that science has been able to partially com-
prehend.
Different approaches to understanding Cosmic Order exist. Most scientists prob-
ably see it as simply a “given” by Nature, something to discover and describe. Oth-
ers would want to make room for creative activity by the human agent. They
consider that we do not so much discover Natural Order as construct it. Through
the constraints imposed by experimental practice, we participate in shaping scien-
tific laws in a kind of partnership with Nature. But common to all except for the
most extreme relativists is the conviction that there is some basic, deep order in
Nature that allows for the emergence of meaningful scientific practice. If Nature
were a completely chaotic aggregate, no comprehensible mathematical description
of Cosmic Order would be possible.
The recognition of harmony in Nature predates the birth of modern science in
the seventeenth century. Very early hints are found in the Hebrew Bible. Its mag-
nificent opening fresco shows God’s work of Creation structured in six days. Plants
and animals are produced “according to their various kinds.” Of particular impor-
tance is God’s Word giving rise to a structured Creation: “And God said, ‘Let there
be light,’ and there was light. . . .” Ten times, the sacred author refers to God bringing
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 152

152 c lydia jaeger

forth Creation by speaking. Other texts develop the same idea. Thus the psalmist cel-
ebrates God’s Word in Creation: “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth” (Ps 33:6). This view, and the refrain of
ultimate goodness (“God saw all that He had made, and it was very good”), stands
in clear contrast to the Babylonian imperial cosmology in which Creation results
from warfare in a power struggle between competing gods.
That Divine Word structured Creation is given special importance in the New
Testament. One of its most significant contributions with regard to Creation con-
cerns the role of Christ. Creation and its corollary, the providential sustaining of the
world, are specifically attributed to the second Person of the Trinity. Echoing the first
creation account in Genesis, the evangelist John writes: “In the beginning was the
Word [logos]. . . . Through him all things were made; without him nothing was
made that has been made” (John 1:1–3).
To be sure, we should not read back into the biblical texts the science of modern
times. We need to beware of “precursorism” that, in an apologetical mood, tries to
find all kinds of intimations of later findings in the ancient texts! Nevertheless, the
more I think about Cosmic Order the more I realize how promising it is to under-
stand it in terms of Divine Word. Logos Christology, as it is called in the jargon (after
the Greek word for “word, reason”), has a longstanding tradition. It allows us to see
Natural Order both as truly immanent and as pointing beyond itself.
The spoken (or written) word is incarnated in physical spacetime, but we will
get the message only if we hear (or read) it as revelatory by the person who wants
to communicate. In a similar vein, Cosmic Order understood as Divine Word is
implemented in Nature, which is in turn studied by science. Creation is not a suc-
cession of unrelated instantaneous acts. God has spoken, and as rational creatures
we are capable of reading Nature’s “book.” But at the same time, the logic of logos
protects us from the excesses of scientism. There is more in heaven and on earth
than our science has dreamt of. In particular, laws of Nature are not self-explana-
tory. To me, they are most powerfully interpreted as traces of the Creator’s hand-
writing.
One outstanding feature of logos Christology has been somewhat neglected in
classical accounts: It interprets Cosmic Order in personal categories. Already in the
Hebrew Bible, the Word of Creation is spoken by the personal Creator God. Cre-
ation is no impersonal emanation of God’s nature, as pantheistic thought would
have it. It is the free act of the transcendent Lord who, in his wisdom, chooses to call
the universe into existence. The personal character of Cosmic Order is reinforced
when the New Testament links it to the Son of God, who communicates lovingly
with the Father and the Spirit throughout all eternity and who, in the fullness of
time, became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth.
Interpreting Natural Order in terms of the Divine Word helps us to realize that
the personal dimension is no foreign element in scientific practice. For too long, the
theory of knowledge has been hampered by the unattainable ideal of complete for-
malization. To be sure, science can flourish only when high standards of intersub-
jective rational inquiry are respected. Scientific theories are not emendable to
individual liking. Nevertheless, I suggest that it is good for the depth and richness
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 153

lydia jaeger c 153

of science to resist philosophical positivists who believe that eliminating an anthro-

pocentric perspective is obviously a step in the right direction. I see no reason that
this should be so.
The heydays of positivism are far behind us, even if the ideal of impersonal
knowledge still continues to haunt scientific laboratories (and the philosophical
imagination). At least since the publication of the historical works of Thomas Kuhn,
Paul Feyerabend, and others, it has dawned on most of us that scientific research
does not progress by induction from neutrally collected experimental “facts.” More-
over, the formation of scientific theories cannot be reduced to disembodied
processes of formalized reasoning. Such theories are often accepted, in the absence
of sufficient support from experiments, on the basis of human “gut feeling” in
respect of criteria such as rational beauty and the ideal of unification of the scien-
tific worldview. Social and historical conditions play a role; we cannot free ourselves
completely from the conventions of the community within which we work.
Scientists already make unavoidable existential commitments in choosing the
problems on which they concentrate in their research. Problem-solving strategies
also resist complete formalization. Scientists often describe the experience of hitting
on the solution as “illumination,” even if afterward they verify the correctness of the
solution by more conventional and less revelatory methods. “Real” research strate-
gies engaged in by “real” scientists disclose the personal character of scientific
knowledge. Its recognition has led some into skeptical despair, appearing as if there
is no escape from the prejudices of their own time. Is the pursuit of knowledge
bound to fail? Is generalizable, objective truth forever beyond the grasp of us finite
beings?
Reading Cosmic Order as logos provides us with the resources necessary to resist
the bleak perspective of skepticism. There is no need to deny the human factor. Sci-
entists bring to their enterprises all the diverse aspects of their experience. So truth-
seeking through research is a quest for the truly human person. In fact, there is no
other way to do responsible science. Nature, being the Lord’s handiwork, calls for
personally committed scientists. There is a human dimension to all knowledge, even
in the hardest sciences. This is not a defect, as positivism claims. It is part and par-
cel of what it means to study Nature scientifically. There is no other way to grasp cre-
ated reality with appropriate richness.
Therefore, Cosmic Order understood as Divine Word points to the direction to
take if we want to overcome the antithesis between scientific knowledge and per-
sonal involvement that has crippled so much of modern thought. Without any con-
cession to the relativistic mode, it is possible to bring the human subject back into
our world picture. Only if humans accept going down that road can they once again
be at home in the universe studied by science.
Acknowledging the personal character of all knowledge will also prevent us from
seeing science as the only legitimate method of encountering reality. The develop-
ment of modern sciences is an astonishing success story. It would be foolish to deny
the staggering complexity of new insights that the rigor of scientific inquiry has
allowed us to access. But the achievements of science should not lure us into think-
ing that natural sciences, and in particular physics, are the paradigm that should
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 154

154 c lydia jaeger

guide explorations of all reality. If we decipher God’s handwriting in Cosmic Order,

we may instead come to realize that the encounter between two persons can be a
more sublime mode of knowledge than the encounter of persons with inanimate
matter and forces. It is here in the personal dimension that the human subject most
fully interacts with reality. This is not to deny the pertinence of the scientific
method. But we now see it as a reduction by means of a highly useful projection of
complex reality onto the limited plane of what objectifying inquiry can capture.
Therefore we should not look for accounts of human freedom and moral respon-
sibility solely in terms provided by natural science. Likewise, attempts to reduce
psychology to biology or biology to physics are doomed to fail. This does not mean
that there is nothing to learn from applying methods of a more fundamental science
to other fields of inquiry. But we should not expect to gain exhaustive knowledge
through such reductionist research projects. Cosmic Order brought forth by Divine
Word shows us that the hierarchy of knowledge works the other way around. It is
not the hard sciences, and in particular physics, that set the agenda for human explo-
rations of reality. The logic I have pursued suggests that human knowledge attains
its summit in the empathic encounter between two persons. The Bible reveals that
true religious experience is of the same kind. In such experience, we encounter the
personal ground of being, our Master and Creator, in whom all Cosmic Order has
its origin and who has entered human history in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

c
Lydia Jaeger holds a permanent lectureship and is academic dean at the Institut
Biblique de Nogent-sur-Marne, an interdenominational Evangelical Bible college
near Paris that trains pastors and other church workers at an undergraduate level
and laypeople in extension programs. She completed postgraduate studies in physics
and mathematics—including research in theoretical solid-state physics—at the Uni-
versity of Cologne (Germany), in theology at the Seminary for Evangelical Theol-
ogy in Vaux-sur-Seine (France), and in the philosophy of science at the Sorbonne
(Paris). Currently, Ms. Jaeger is completing her Ph.D. thesis in philosophy on the
possible links between the concept of law of nature and religious presuppositions
at the Sorbonne under the supervision of Michel Bitbol (CNRS, France). Since 2000,
Lydia Jaeger has had several short-study leaves in the Department of History and
Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), where
she is also an associate member of St. Edmund’s College. Ms. Jaeger is a member of
the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians (FEET), the Tyndale Fellow-
ship, and Christians in Science (CiS). She is the author of Croire et connaître: Ein-
stein, Polanyi et les lois de la nature (1999) and Pour une philosophie chrétienne des
sciences (2000).
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 155

Science of the Unseen 29

A Perspective from Contemporary Physics
Hyung S. Choi

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
—Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5

S ince the dawn of civilization, human knowledge has extended to the realms
of both the seen and the unseen. Including the relatively brief period of moder-
nity when materialistic and positivistic metaphysics had its own heyday, careful
thinkers of all ages have acknowledged the possibility that there are things that may
be known beyond what can be observed by our limited perceptions.
Plato expressed his idea of knowledge of reality through his famous allegory of
the cave, in which prisoners were chained facing the wall on which only shadows
were cast. According to Plato, we are those prisoners who pitifully think that the
shadows are the only reality. Aristotle, in his Physics, also declared that the objects
of scientific knowledge are not the things that are clear to our senses, but the under-
lying nature or hidden principles that are behind those phenomena.

Contemporary Physics and the Unseen

By the end of the last millennium, an increasing number of scientists saw the
glimpses of the unseen looming beyond what they had naively thought as the final
chapter of scientific inquiry. In their effort to understand the new discoveries in
quantum physics, cosmology, and other scientific frontiers, scientists were forced to
push the boundaries of their disciplines further to include new ideas and theories
that would have been unimaginable even a few decades before. These new ideas,
such as “veiled reality,” “eternal inflation and many universes,” “hyperspaces and
hidden dimensions,” “creation out of vacuum,” and so on would have been labeled
mere “metaphysical speculations” by their predecessors.
This new development in physics is a sure sign that physicists are starting to break
away from the positivistic attitude that had dominated their minds for the past few
centuries and are returning to the idea that true knowledge should not preclude
what is not observable. It was no accident that, at the turn of the new millennium,
the American Physical Society, the largest professional society of physicists, pub-
lished a one-hundredth-anniversary special issue that surveys the status of physics,
entitled More Things in Heaven and Earth (Bederson 1999).
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 156

156 c hyung s. choi

While scientific understanding of the world has changed dramatically, positivis-

tic philosophy that suspects and even denies spiritual realities still has a strong grip
on the general scientific community. In such a typical framework of thoughts, reli-
gious discourse does not address issues of reality; they only express the ideas and
imaginations that may be a source of subjective value and meaning. It follows, sci-
entism and positivistic philosophy conclude, that there can be no true sense of
progress in religious truth-seeking activities.
Recent postmodern philosophies claim to have overcome this modern paradigm
through their hermeneutical emphasis. However, many of these approaches rely on
social or linguistic deconstruction rather than on reexamination of the very roots
of the modern epistemology that has marginalized religious and metaphysical
reflections. No rigorous, broad-based, systematic philosophical examination has
been done on this all-important issue of “knowledge of reality” in spite of what we
have learned from contemporary physics.
In the absence of this necessary philosophical groundwork, theologians and
philosophers are bound to dwell in the long shadow of the Enlightenment when
describing what they mean by “reality” and what they think proper knowledge
should be. Unless we provide a sound theory of knowledge that encompasses both
the seen and the unseen based on a new scientific view of the world, the dialog
between science and religion will remain simply a curious intellectual side activity
and will not be taken seriously as a legitimate, well-founded, mainstream academic
research area.
Overcoming this prejudice requires removing the two important mind-blinders
from current academia. The first of these is the strong prejudice against the idea of
spiritual realities. This stems from the distorted view of the unseen as it has been
almost equated with ancient myths and collective imaginations (Choi 2001). The
second is the prejudice against the possibility of systematic research on the unseen,
including what we call “religious” or “spiritual realities.” Our idea of what is spiri-
tual has become largely antithetical to what we consider rational and practical.

Search for the Fundamental Fabric of Nature

Science has been in the vanguard for overthrowing rigid ideas and old paradigms
with fresh new thoughts and perspectives. For the last few centuries, as Richard
Feynman once observed, physics has been serving effectively as “natural philosophy”
as physicists have been seeking the fundamental fabric of reality. The first step in
overcoming the prejudice against the “spiritual” aspects of the world is to cultivate
the awareness of the metaphysical implications of scientific findings among scien-
tists themselves. Then, the renewed philosophical discussions on epistemology and
ontology will naturally follow that and provide a solid ground for serious academic
research on the deep nature of reality beyond positivistic science. I believe that an
entire new revision of epistemology itself is necessary as a result of our new under-
standing of the world provided by contemporary scientific developments.
Today, the physics community faces a number of challenges that have significant
metaphysical implications. In addition to the well-publicized ideas of the “multi-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 157

hyung s. choi c 157

verse,” the Anthropic Principle, and complexity theory, there is a resurgence of inter-
est in understanding the nature of vacuum, the underlying principles of quantum
mysteries, the nature of space-time itself, higher dimensional realities, macroscopic
quantum phenomena both in atomic and condensed-matter physics, the role of
information in fundamental natural processes, and the relationship between the
mathematical and physical worlds. These are only a few of the promising research
areas in physics that may wholly revise or significantly expand our present view of
the world. We do not even know what surprises are in store on the way to our search
for the deep nature of reality.
For a few important reasons, I suspect that the next fifty years will bring another
Copernican revolution in our perspectives on nature. There has been an accumu-
lation of signs that our present picture provided by well-established “standard” the-
ories is not really adequate or truly fundamental. Of course, a well-known reason
for this is the conceptual incompatibility between the pictures provided by the two
pillars of contemporary physics: general relativity and quantum mechanics. Cur-
rently, major attempts are being made to unify the two with some significant theo-
retical success (Smolin 2001). If any of these attempts ever succeeds, the results will
completely shake the very foundations of physics, including our ideas of space, time,
and matter.
On the other hand, after about eighty years of development, we are just beginning
to see the vast ramifications of quantum mechanics (Greenberger et al 1993). During
the last couple of decades, physicists started to discover such unexpected phenom-
ena as macroscopic quantum superposition, quantum nondemolition measure-
ment, quantum eraser, temporal nonlocality, quantum teleportation and
cryptography, and quantum computing, which tries to harness the parallel reality
of the quantum world.
Another area that may bring about a fundamental change of our view of the
world is the research on the nature of vacuum, or what we used to call “empty space”
(Barrow 2000). Some suspect that the secret of the underlying fabric and origin of
space, time, matter, and energy all lie deep within what we have naively called “noth-
ing.” Novel research is being undertaken by different groups of physicists.

Physics and Metaphysics

As John Archibald Wheeler once envisioned, the final theory that unifies these fun-
damental aspects of physics may turn out to be extremely simple, beautiful, and
even compelling. Even if we ever have such a theory in the future, it does not mean
that the success will signal the end of physics. On the contrary, I suspect that it will
lead to new vistas in which physicists seek deeper and broader connections with
other equally important aspects of the world. If we have learned one thing from
science so far, it is that Nature has brought ever-present turns and surprises to our
limited scientific vision. It is much more likely, as many limit theorems indicate, that
we will never be able to solve all the mysteries of Nature, as all inquiries from within
are inherently limited (Barrow 1998). After all, we are only a small part of the mys-
tery that we seek to understand.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 158

158 c hyung s. choi

Other signs in the physics community indicate that physics is heading toward an
era that will increasingly accommodate diverse perspectives and paradigms. Some
prominent physicists are advocating a nonreductionist approach to fundamental
physics (Anderson 1972). Others have become much more open to interdisciplinary
issues with metaphysical elements. Still others, following David Bohm’s legacy, have
started to believe that physics itself needs to be integrated with metaphysics as it
seeks deeper aspects of the world (Shimony 1993).
The current state of affairs in physics presents us with a tremendous opportunity
to advance scientific research of metaphysical significance. It is very likely that we
will observe a great renaissance in physics in this new century as truly creative and
mind-boggling ideas sprout and blossom. This is not only because the physics com-
munity has a long history of open-mindedness to new ideas and nonorthodox
approaches, but because the current situation requires innovative thoughts and
fresh outlooks.
The question is whether we will be able to engage these new scientific ideas and
theories with equally open-minded philosophical and theological perspectives.
Often, the danger is that, without sufficient philosophical guidance on broader con-
texts of their works, physicists tend to interpret their theories and findings within
the naturalistic or materialistic framework. Their rather conservative interpretive
tendency is not surprising despite their innovative ideas and theories. By virtue of
their own profession, physicists are often immersed in physical aspects of reality.
Although changes in scientific theories can come into being rather quickly, changes
in perspective need a much longer period of gestation. This is not to say that the nat-
uralistic framework is wrong, but that it is much more desirable and can be fruit-
ful to recognize that other persuasive ways of interpreting new scientific ideas and
findings may exist. Proper interpretation of fundamental scientific ideas in broader
metaphysical contexts is important because, as Alfred North Whitehead once noted,
the future of humanity depends on how we relate these new scientific understand-
ings with the greater perspectives of religion and ethics.

Conclusion
In some sense, new ideas in fundamental physics of the last century already have
serious metaphysical components in them, as the boundary between physics and
metaphysics has become largely blurred. The search for the fundamental fabric of
reality will also become much more interdisciplinary as scientists try to incorporate
equally fundamental ideas from other fields of study. Physicists used to feel that
physics could ultimately explain everything in Nature using the reductionist pro-
gram, an explanatory tool that had been so successful in physics and chemistry.
However, today an increasing number of physicists start to view the reductionist
program as wanting because of the implications of quantum wholeness and new
developments from other sectors of physics (Laughlin and Pines 2001). Once we
become free of the prejudices of positivistic philosophy and realize that the reduc-
tionist picture may not be adequate to understand the fundamental fabric of the
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 159

hyung s. choi c 159

world, scientific quests for the ultimate reality will eventually include such phe-
nomena as mind, consciousness, and religious experiences.
Here we will see the disciplines of physics, mathematics, biology, neuroscience,
robotics, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and others all converge in our pursuit of
the fundamental fabric of the universe. No scientific discipline will remain unaf-
fected by such basic changes in our perspective of Nature. In this search for the
unity of knowledge, we will find metaphysical issues and the ideas of the unseen
increasingly important. The Dark Age of materialism will pass away, and a new
Renaissance will arrive when scientists talk freely of their imaginative ideas of the
unseen.
Through this period of integration of science and metaphysics, a new kind of
science will emerge that may be called the “science of the unseen.” This time, the
unseen realities will neither be regarded as a product of unscientific speculations nor
be considered antithetical to rational endeavors. Rather, they will be seen as the cul-
mination of the most rigorous scientific understanding and their best rational and
creative syntheses. Then we will experience genuine progress in our pursuit of the
knowledge of ultimate reality that lies at the hidden heart of all human inquiry.

c
Hyung S. Choi, Ph.D., is Director for Research and Programs in the Natural Sci-
ences at the Metanexus Institute in Philadelphia and a Visiting Fellow at St.
Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. Dr. Choi was a Witherspoon Fellow at
the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences in Berkeley between 1994 and 1996
and, until assuming his position at Metanexus, was Professor of Mathematical
Physics and Philosophy of Science at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Direc-
tor of the Canyon Institute for Advanced Studies, and Chairperson of the Greater
Phoenix Science and Religion Society. He is the recipient of many honors and
awards for his teaching and research, including the Quality and Excellence in Teach-
ing Award from CTNS.

References
Anderson, Philip W., 1972, “More Is Different,” Science 177, 393–96.
Barrow, John D., 1998, Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
———, 2000, The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins
of the Universe, New York: Pantheon Books.
Bederson, Benjamin, ed., 1999, More Things in Heaven and Earth: A Celebration of Physics
at the Millennium, New York: Springer-Verlag.
Choi, Hyung S., 2001,“‘Knowledge of the Unseen: A New Vision for Science & Religion Dia-
logue,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 53:2, 96–101.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 160

160 c hyung s. choi

Greenberger, Daniel M., Michael A. Horne, and Anton Zeilinger, 1993, “Multiparticle Inter-
ferometry and the Superposition Principle,” Physics Today, August, 22–29.
Laughlin, R. B., and David Pines, 2001, “The Theory of Everything,” The Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 97:1, 28–31.
Shimony, Abner, 1993, Search for a Naturalistic World View: Scientific Method and Episte-
mology (vol. 1); Natural Science and Metaphysics (vol. 2), Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Smolin, Lee, 2001, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, New York: Basic Books.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 161

Design and the Designer 30

New Concepts, New Challenges
Robin A. Collins

P icture this: A human family is hurtling through the cosmos on a small

spaceship. Unsure of their position in a vast swath of time and space, they have
lost contact with their point of origin and can perform only rudimentary calcula-
tions with the help of their trusty robot. They have no idea where home is! They are
trying to reorient themselves so they can complete their mission, but it looks about
as likely as finding a particular atom in the entire galaxy.
Have our science and technology left us, like this fictional human family, Lost in
Space? I do not believe they have. The findings of science in the twentieth century,
I believe, suggest the existence of a subtle and ingenious intelligence behind the
structure of the universe. The fine-tuning of the laws of nature and the initial con-
ditions of the universe for life have been the most widely discussed cosmological evi-
dence for design, although other aspects of the laws of nature, such as their beauty
and discoverability, also suggest design. Taken together, they constitute a powerful
case for design, but one that challenges older mechanistic models based on notions
such as Paley’s watch. For the theistic scientist or philosopher, these findings of sci-
ence suggest a broadened and deepened conception of a designer, which may offer
new insights into the designer’s purposes for creation. And for the person commit-
ted to atheistic naturalism as scientific, these scientific findings may themselves pose
a challenge to be open to a reality beyond what we think of as the natural order.
The fine-tuning of the cosmos for life refers to the fact that many of the funda-
mental parameters of physics and the initial conditions of the universe are balanced
on a razor’s edge for intelligent life to occur: If these parameters were slightly dif-
ferent, life of comparable intelligence to our own would not exist. The first major
discovery along these lines was in 1956—that the resonance states of carbon and
oxygen had to fall within a narrow range for significant quantities of both carbon
and oxygen to be produced in stars. Without enough carbon and oxygen, the exis-
tence of carbon-based life would be seriously inhibited. Many other instances of
cosmic fine-tuning have been brought to light since then, and much work is con-
tinuing. One of the most impressive and discussed cases of fine-tuning is that of the
cosmological constant, a term in Einstein’s equation of general relativity that gov-
erns the rate at which space expands. For the universe to be hospitable to life, this
constant must be fine-tuned to at least one part in 1053—that is, one part in one
hundred million billion billion billion billion billion—of what physicists consider
its natural range of values. To get an idea of how precise this is, it would be like
throwing a dart at the surface of the earth from the moon and hitting a bull’s-eye
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 162

162 c robin a. collins

one trillionth of a trillionth of an inch in diameter—less than the size of an atom!

Many physicists and others have taken the position that fine-tuning provides sig-
nificant evidence that the cosmos is designed—and, furthermore, that one of the
purposes of the designer was to create embodied, intelligent beings. Others have
questioned this inference by saying that, as far as we know, the values of the funda-
mental parameters will eventually be explained by some grand unified theory.
Hence, it is argued, we do not need to invoke a designer to explain why these param-
eters have life-permitting values. As astrophysicists Bernard Carr and Martin Rees
note, however, “even if all apparently anthropic coincidences could be explained
[in terms of such a unified theory], it would still be remarkable that the relationships
dictated by physical theory happened also to be those propitious for life” (1979, 612).
For the theist, then, the development of a grand unified theory would not under-
cut the case for design, but would only serve to deepen our appreciation of the inge-
nuity of the creator: Instead of separately fine-tuning each individual parameter, in
this view, the designer simply carefully chose those laws that would yield life-per-
mitting values for each parameter.
Another objection to considering fine-tuning as evidence for design is one that
takes us almost into the realm of science fiction: the proposal that there are a very
large number of universes, each with different values for the fundamental param-
eters of physics. If such multiple universes exist, it would be no surprise that the
parameters in one of them would have just the right values for the existence of intel-
ligent life—just as in the case where if enough lottery tickets were generated, it
would be no surprise that one of them would turn out to be the winning number.
How did these universes come into existence? Typically, the answer is to postu-
late some kind of physical process, what I will call a “universe generator.” Against the
naturalistic version of the universe-generator hypothesis, one could argue that the
universe generator itself must be “well designed” to produce even one life-sustain-
ing universe. After all, even a mundane item such as a bread-making machine, which
only produces loaves of bread instead of universes, must be well-designed as an
appliance and have just the right ingredients (flour, yeast, gluten, and so on) in just
the right amounts to produce decent loaves of bread. Indeed, as I have shown in
detail elsewhere (2002), if one carefully examines the most popular and most well-
developed universe-generator hypothesis, that arising out of inflationary cosmology,
one finds that it contains just the right fields and laws to generate life-permitting
universes. Eliminate one of the fields or laws, and no life-sustaining universes would
be produced. If this is right, then, to some extent, invoking some sort of universe
generator as an explanation of fine-tuning only pushes the issue of design up one
level to the question of who or what designed it.
Despite these objections and the fact that the multiple-universe hypothesis typ-
ically has been advanced by naturalists as an alternative explanation to design, I am
not objecting to the notion of many universes itself. I actually believe that theists
should be open to the idea that God created our universe by means of a universe
generator. It makes sense that an infinitely creative deity would create other uni-
verses, not just our own. Further, the history of science is one in which our con-
ception of nature keeps increasing in size in terms of both space and time—from
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 163

robin a. collins c 163

believing that the universe consisted of the Earth and a few crystalline spheres cre-
ated around six thousand years ago to positing a fifteen-billion-year-old universe
with more than three hundred billion galaxies. For the theist, the existence of mul-
tiple universes would simply support the view that creation reflects the infinite cre-
ativity of the creator. This begins to bring us to an expanded notion of a designer,
one far different and more interesting than the more anthropocentric and restrained
God of much traditional and popular religious thought.
Another area in which the fundamental laws and mathematical structure of
nature suggest design, and offer us some glimpses into the nature of the designer,
is their remarkable beauty and elegance. Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven
Weinberg, for instance, devotes a whole chapter of his book Dreams of a Final The-
ory to explaining how the criteria of beauty and elegance are commonly used with
great success to guide physicists in formulating laws. Indeed, one of the most promi-
nent theoretical physicists of this century, Paul Dirac, has gone so far as to claim, as
Einstein did, that “it is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to
have them fit experiment” (1963, 47). The beauty, elegance, and ingenuity of math-
ematical equations make sense if the universe was purposefully designed like an
artwork, but appear surprising and inexplicable under the nondesign hypothesis.
Weinberg, who is a convinced atheist, even admits that “sometimes nature seems
more beautiful than strictly necessary” (1992, 250).
According to Weinberg (1992, 149), the sort of beauty manifested by the theories
of fundamental physics is the elegant, sparse sort characteristic of Greek architec-
ture—what is known as the classical conception of beauty. Traditional “design”
arguments appeal to this sort of ordered beauty in nature and consequently tend to
represent God as an engineer or architect. The sort of beauty manifested in the bio-
logical realm, however, seems different, and much more difficult to reconcile with
the restrained God of much traditional religious thought: The wild extravagance,
energy, and apparent “messiness” of nature have often been explained away as a
flaw of some kind in a more benign, original design. Such an explanation, however,
clashes with what evolutionary theory teaches us about the emergence of human
beings. To account for the biological realm, I suggest, we need a view of God as a cre-
ative artist with a fully developed aesthetic sense, not a view that models God as
merely a great mechanical engineer or precise watchmaker. This latter view paints
a false and harmful picture of the creator that theists should not feel obligated to
defend and that is probably also partly responsible for the perceived conflict between
religion and science.
On closer inspection, however, even the beauty of the mathematical structure of
fundamental physics is not as restrained as is often claimed, but is more akin to art
forms that go beyond traditional notions of classical decorum. For instance, vari-
ety and surprise are interwoven into the fundamental principles of physics in such
deep and clever ways that it takes years of work by our planet’s best minds to figure
out how to extend the fundamental principles discovered in one domain to that of
another. Further, as evidenced in quantum mechanics, the material world of mat-
ter and energy is deeply mysterious and perplexing at the most fundamental level.
Thus, while nature can be described with mathematical simplicity in certain respects
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 164

164 c robin a. collins

and in certain domains, even fundamental physics itself points beyond conceiving
of God as simply an engineer or watchmaker, with the attendant mechanical and
reductive model of God’s interaction with the world.
The final way in which the laws of nature and the structure of physical reality sug-
gest design, and may reveal information about the nature of the designer, is in what
I will call their “discoverability:” that is, the laws of nature themselves seem to be
carefully arranged so that they are discoverable by beings with our level of intelli-
gence—like solving a clever puzzle. One way in which this discoverability manifests
itself is in the deep and beautiful mathematical structure of nature, something we
already touched on above. According to physicist Eugene Wigner, one of the prin-
cipal founders of quantum mechanics, “The miracle of the appropriateness of the
language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful
gift which we neither understand nor deserve” (1960:14).
Work on articulating detailed examples of this discoverability has just begun in
the last ten years, and the road ahead looks promising. Philosopher Mark Steiner’s
recent book, The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem (1998), for
instance, is devoted to articulating examples of such discoverability of the laws of
nature. At the end of the book, he concludes that the world is much more “user-
friendly” for the discovery of its fundamental mathematical structure than seems
explicable under naturalism (1998, 176). Similarly, physicist A. Zee provides several
examples of this discoverability. Zee notes, for instance, that it is only because the
four fundamental forces of nature—gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force, and
the strong nuclear force—have widely varying strengths and domains of operation
that, when we study one force, we can conceptually neglect the effects of the others.
This allows us to disentangle the effects of each for analysis. As Zee explains, because
of this “we can learn about Nature in increments. We can understand the atom
without understanding the atomic nucleus. . . . Physical reality does not have to be
understood all at once. Thank you, nature” (1986, 20).
Finally, as Michael Denton points out in his book Nature’s Destiny (1998, 392-
95), our advanced technology and science have only been possible because nature
has the right elemental ingredients, such as various metals and silicon. If metals did
not exist, for instance, industrial technology would not have developed much
beyond the horse-drawn wooden buggy. Certainly, without silicon, the informa-
tion revolution of the last twenty years could not have occurred. The right physical
“stuff ” would simply not have been available to extend those domains of invention
and discovery, at least in the ways we know.
I believe that, if valid, the discoverability of the laws of nature is particularly excit-
ing. It not only suggests design, but implies that our development of sophisticated
science and technology was somehow in the cards, or at least was always a possible
outcome of this particular universe. Such potential information about the creator’s
purposes, although certainly tentative, would go a significant way toward putting the
development of science and technology into a larger, spiritually oriented context.
This context could give technological and scientific advancement the moral and
spiritual dimension they need, validating a degree of optimism about our contin-
uing scientific and technological progress, while at the same time prompting us to
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 165

robin a. collins c 165

recognize our science and technology as a gift that we have a profound responsibility
to use appropriately.
The case for design that I have sketched above is very similar to the sort of argu-
ments offered for many other scientific theories, in which many factors all point in
the same direction and seem difficult to explain on any other hypothesis. As biolo-
gist and geneticist Edward Dodson says regarding the case for evolution, “The
strongest evidence for evolution is the concurrence of so many independent prob-
abilities. That such different disciplines as biochemistry and comparative anatomy,
genetics and biogeography should all point toward the same conclusion is very dif-
ficult to attribute to coincidence” (1984, 68).
Further research and elaboration, of course, would be needed to make the case
for design from the fine-tuning, beauty, and discoverability of nature of compara-
ble strength. Furthermore, as with the theory of evolution, these design-indicating
features of the laws of nature suggest certain kinds of larger purposes and intentions
(or lack of them) that must be interpreted. For the theist, the potential implications
these features have for our understanding of God and God’s purposes for creation
might be theologically revolutionary. For the naturalist, they pose an intellectual
and moral challenge—to do the best science honestly while not discounting the
evidence.

c
Robin A. Collins, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Messiah College in Gran-
tham, Pennsylvania. He spent two years as a graduate student studying theoretical
physics at the University of Texas at Austin before receiving his Ph.D. in Philosophy
from the University of Notre Dame in 1993, where he received the graduate award
in the humanities for “outstanding research, teaching, and publication.” He has
received several awards, most recently a Pew Evangelical Scholars Fellowship
(1999–2000) and a Research Fellowship from the Center for Philosophy of Religion
at the University of Notre Dame (2003). Collins is widely regarded as one of the
leading people in philosophy working on the argument from design, with several
recent articles published or forthcoming on this topic. He is also currently working
on a book on this topic, tentatively entitled The Well-Tempered Universe: God, Cos-
mic Fine-Tuning, and the Laws of Nature.

References
Carr, B. J., and Rees, M. J. “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle and the Structure of the
Physical World.” Nature 278, 12 April 1979: 605–12.
Collins, Robin. “The Argument from Design and the Many-Worlds Hypothesis,” in Phi-
losophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide, William Lane Craig, ed., Trenton, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 2002.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 166

166 c robin a. collins

Denton, Michael. Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe.
New York: The Free Press, 1998.
Dirac, P. A. M. “The evolution of the physicist’s picture of nature.” Scientific American, May
1963.
Dodson, Edward. The Phenomena of Man Revisited: A Biological Viewpoint on Teilhard de
Chardin. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.
Steiner, Mark. The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Weinberg, Steven. Dreams of a Final Theory. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
Wigner, Eugene. “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,”
Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 13, 1960: 1–14.
Zee, A. Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics. Princeton, NJ: Prince-
ton University Press, 1986.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 167

Henderson’s
“Fine-Tuning Argument” 31
Time for Rediscovery
Michael J. Denton

A re the laws of Nature fine-tuned for life on earth—and perhaps even intel-
ligent life forms like humans? Over the past thirty years, many physicists have
claimed they are. And many books presenting the evidence have been published.
The idea has even become fashionable. But the first and most important book on
the subject was published long before the current wave of interest. The book was The
Fitness of the Environment. The author was Lawrence Henderson. The date was 1913!
Henderson was at the time Professor of Biological Chemistry at Harvard. He was
already famous for the many contributions he had made to physiology. One of his
equations is known by every medical student, the Henderson-Hasselbalch equa-
tion. But The Fitness was Henderson’s greatest achievement. This great classic is a
historic landmark in human thought. In it Henderson examined the basic proper-
ties of the key components of life. His conclusion was unequivocal. The properties
of matter are “fined-tuned” specifically for life as it exists on Earth. Moreover, this
“fine-tuning” is “adjusted” for higher life forms like us. If the properties of matter
were any different, we could not exist. Here for the first time was clear scientific
evidence that the universe must have “known we were coming.”
No one can read this great classic and fail to be impressed. It was highly regarded
by many of the great biologists of the early twentieth century. The embryologist
Joseph Needham called it that “Golden Book” (1936). J. B. S. Haldane conceded that
it presented convincing evidence for design (1985). More recent supporters of Hen-
derson have been Nobel Laureate George Wald (1958) and Yale biophysicist Harold
Morowitz (1987). I first read The Fitness twenty years ago. The impact was immedi-
ate. For me, it opened up a whole new perspective on the living world. Of course, I
was familiar with the fine-tuning argument of the physicists. I was aware of the idea
that the basic forces of Nature must be close to what they are. If they were different,
life would be impossible. Planetary systems would not exist. Atoms and chemistry
would not exist. We would certainly not be here (Barrow and Tippler 1986). But I
knew that physics could only take us so far. Only biology can go further and show
that Nature is fine-tuned for life forms like us. It is because The Fitness extends the
argument to beings like us that it has such impact.
In The Fitness, Henderson examines all the properties of the key building blocks
of life. He begins with water. He considers the thermal properties of water that act
to retard freezing—high thermal capacity, high latent heat of fusion, expansion
before freezing, and expansion on freezing. As he points out, this ensemble of prop-
erties is unique. Then he shows how all these properties work together as if by magic
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 168

168 c michael j. denton

to prevent freezing. He then looks at another key building block, carbonic acid. He
shows that, like water, it again possess many unique properties, and he shows how
these act together to maintain the acid-base balance of living tissues. The result is
again like magic, a process providing life with a mechanism “of the highest possi-
ble efficiency.” He examines the way carbon combines with itself and atoms of
hydrogen and oxygen. He shows why no other atoms can combine in such variety
and number as these. In his words, “No other element can match carbon, and no
other chemistry organic chemistry.” He also shows that oxidations “are the best
chemical source of energy.” Moreover, of all oxidations, those of carbon and hydro-
gen yield the greatest quantities of energy. Finally, he shows that the building blocks
of life are common and abundant throughout the cosmos. So they are also fit to
“enter into the stream of life” because of their availability. He concludes with the fol-
lowing words: “Hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, water and carbonic acid are not to
be rivaled. The fitness of water, carbonic acid, and the three elements make up a
unique ensemble of fitness for the organic mechanism. No other [set of con-
stituents] could possess such highly fit characteristics . . . to promote . . . the organic
mechanism we call life.”
All the evidence points in one direction. Each of life’s building blocks is maxi-
mally fit for its role. And in each case, no alternative is known. The whole ensem-
ble of building blocks is like the pieces of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. They
can only be assembled to one unique end: life as it exists on Earth. The argument is
elegant and convincing. The conclusion is compelling. The laws of Nature are fine-
tuned for life on Earth. Life is an inevitable consequence of cosmic evolution. And
of course the inference regarding design is obvious.
If The Fitness had gone no further, it would have still been an immense achieve-
ment. But Henderson does go much further. He shows that this fine-tuning extends
also to “advanced life forms like modern Humans.” Or, as Henderson puts it, “ani-
mals like man.” Take, for example, the way air-breathing active organisms such as
humans rid themselves of heat. There are, as Henderson points out, only three ways
of doing this: by conduction, by radiation, or by evaporative cooling. But at tem-
peratures close to 40 degrees centigrade—the temperature of the body—only evap-
orative cooling will work. It turns out that the evaporative cooling of water is greater
than any other known fluid and works with increasing efficiency as the temperature
approaches 40 degrees. If the evaporative cooling effect of water were like that of any
other fluid, it is very doubtful that advanced warm-blooded organisms such as
mammals and birds could ever have evolved. High intelligence means high tem-
peratures. How fortuitous, then, is the evaporative cooling of water. Without it, no
advanced intelligence would grace the earth—or any other planet, for that matter.
The universe would be unconscious.
Another product of metabolism that must be excreted from the body is the end-
product of oxidative metabolism, carbon dioxide. As Henderson points out:
In the course of a day a man . . . produces some two pounds of carbon diox-
ide. All this must be rapidly removed form the body. Because it is a gas, this
can be easily done by breathing it out in the lungs.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 169

michael j. denton c 169

Henderson continues: “. . . were carbon dioxide not gaseous, its excretion would be
the greatest of physiological tasks.” The fact that carbon dioxide is a gas has another
consequence. It makes possible one of the most exquisite and brilliant adaptations
in the whole of biology. It allows the body to rid itself of excess acid by simply exhal-
ing it in the lungs. As acid accumulates, it is neutralized by bicarbonate base in the
blood. The carbonic acid formed is converted to water and carbon dioxide in the
lungs, where it exits the body effortlessly. This stunning example of fine-tuning for
organisms like us strikes every student of human physiology.
I became aware of the sheer brilliance of this adaptation while teaching respira-
tory physiology to medical students. This was before I had read The Fitness. Here was
a case of fitness that was in the nature of things. It was not the result of selection.
For me, the discovery was a personal epiphany: If matter can provide one adapta-
tion, why not others? Perhaps matter played an important role in evolution. It was
this insight that first led me to an increasingly skeptical view of pan-selectionism.
Later, on reading The Fitness, I was intrigued to learn that it was the study of the
bicarbonate buffer system that first led Henderson himself to consider the whole
question of environmental fitness.1
Today, few disagree with the facts to which Henderson alludes. Some may doubt
that things are as “maximally fit” as he claims, but no one seriously looking at the
evidence doubts that the laws of Nature facilitate and permit only “our type of life.”
When NASA scientists contemplate looking for life in space, it is carbon-based life
that they seek. Henderson would have approved. Since Henderson’s day, a vast
amount of new biochemical knowledge has been acquired. We know of things that
he never dreamed of. But nearly all that has been learned only reinforces his argu-
ment. Many additional cases of fine-tuning have come to light. (Some of these are
presented in my recent book Nature’s Destiny [1998].) Take, for example, new evi-
dence of fine-tuning for the origin and evolution of proteins. Recent analyses of
meteorites have revealed the presence of many of the amino acids used in proteins.
These same amino acids are also the easiest to obtain in prebiotic syntheses (Miller
1987). This means that the building blocks of the proteins are spontaneously formed
and common throughout the cosmos. Here is a clear case of fine-tuning toward
protein-based life. But this is not all. Recent studies have also shown that stable pro-
teins are very easy to form. In fact, they arise simply like crystals out of the basic
properties of amino acid sequences (Denton and Marshall 2001; Denton et al. 2002).
Here we have a second case of fine-tuning toward protein based life. Henderson
would have been delighted.
The Fitness is one of the most important books published in the twentieth cen-
tury. Few other books carry a message as profound. But instead of being widely
read, it is largely ignored today. This is all the more surprising considering that we
all hunger for some evidence, even a hint, that we are here by design. And The Fit-
ness certainly provides more than a hint. So why has Henderson’s great work fallen
into relative oblivion? Why is this great classic not compulsory reading for every
biology major throughout the world?
One reason for its lapse into relative obscurity is that, to a very large extent, the
force of Henderson’s argument is in the details. Only on a careful reading can The
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 170

170 c michael j. denton

Fitness have real impact. The mutual fitness of life’s constituents can be appreci-
ated only by considering the details. And it helps to have a biochemical or medical
background. But the major reason must be the challenge it poses to conventional
Darwinian thought. Darwin claimed that fitness is generated by natural selection.
But fitness like that of the bicarbonate buffer for acid-base balance is given by
Nature. It is adaptation “for free” arising out of the intrinsic properties of matter.
As Henderson insists in such cases: “. . . natural selection could not be involved.”
Again, Darwin considered evolution to be mainly a contingent process. But The Fit-
ness clearly implies that the origin and evolution of life is built into the properties
of matter. Such an idea is quite alien to Darwinian thought.
Henderson’s views may have fallen out of fashion. But I think his core idea is
beyond dispute. There is no question that the properties of matter have played a
decisive role in directing the course of evolution. I also agree with Henderson that
these properties are fine-tuned for beings like us. Of course, the idea that natural law
has influenced the course of evolution is not new. This was orthodoxy in pre-Dar-
winian days. The Fitness echoes the views of Richard Owen and Goethe. But like all
great works, The Fitness is many things. It is part Platonism, part Naturphilosophie.
It is materialistic, while at the same time a great work of teleology. Its rediscovery is
long overdue. Had it been required reading for students of biology since 1913, I
believe the history of twentieth-century biology would have been very different.

c
Michael J. Denton, Ph.D., has been a Senior Research Fellow in Human Genet-
ics, Biochemistry Department, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, since
1989. His main research focus has been on the genetics of human retinal disease; his
group made a major contribution to the field by identifying several new genes
responsible for retinal diseases. He has had a longstanding interest in evolutionary
biology and has argued in recent publications that molecular forms such as the pro-
tein folds are determined by natural law, not natural selection. Recently, Dr. Den-
ton was invited to present these views in Nature and in an article for the recently
published Encyclopedia of Evolution (Oxford University Press). He has an article on
the same subject in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. In his latest book, Nature’s Des-
tiny, he argues along similar lines to Lawrence Henderson’s Fitness, presenting evi-
dence for believing that the laws of nature are fine-tuned for life on Earth and for
organisms like modern humans.

Note
1 See Henderson’s (1958) comments on the bicarbonate system in the preface of The Fit-
ness and see footnote on 156.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 171

michael j. denton c 171

References
Barrow, J. D., and Tipler, F. J. (1986) The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Denton, M. J. (1998) Nature’s Destiny. New York: The Free Press.
Denton, M. J., and Marshall, C. J. (2001) The Laws of Form Revisited. Invited Concepts Col-
umn, Nature. 410: 411.
Denton, M .J., Marshall, C. J., and Legge, M. (2002) The Protein folds as Platonic forms:
New Support for the pre-Darwinian conception of evolution by natural law. J Theor
Biol. 2002 Dec 7;219(3):325-42. Comment in: J Theor Biol. 2003 Jul 21;223(2):263-5.
Haldane, J. B. S. (1985) On Being the Right Size. New York: Oxford University Press.
Henderson, L. J. (1958) The Fitness of the Environment. Boston: Beacon Press.
Miller, S. L. (1987) Which Organic Compounds Could Have Occurred on the Prebiotic
Earth? Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 52: 17–27.
Morowitz, H. J. (1987) Cosmic Joy and Local Pain. New York: Scribner.
Needham, J. (1936) Order and Life. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wald G. (1958) See introduction in Henderson, op. cit. xvii-vviv.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 172

What God “Whispers”

through Radio Telescopes 32
Jennifer J. Wiseman

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from
the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
—James 1:17, NIV

A few years ago, the movie Contact, based on the book by Carl Sagan,
intrigued viewers with a vision of how alien beings might actually try to make
themselves known to those residents of Earth who are inquisitive enough to listen
for their messages. In the story, astronomer Ellie Arroway uses radio telescopes,
such as the Arecibo dish in Puerto Rico and the Very Large Array (VLA) in New
Mexico (see Figure 1), to monitor the heavens for incoming signals that could only
have originated from intelligent beings sending intentional messages. Despite the
skepticism and discouragement of her scientific colleagues, Dr. Arroway continues
to monitor the heavens, and indeed she does detect an unmistakable pattern in sig-
nals heard through the VLA radio dishes. This received message launches Ellie, and
in fact the whole world, into an adventure unmatched in human history as the
experts decide whether to follow the instructions in the message and make true
interactive contact with the alien message-senders.
I watched the film with special attentiveness because, like Ellie, I am a radio
astronomer. Often, I have used the VLA to study signals from the heavens—not
messages from alien life forms, but radiation emitted from the gas in distant galax-
ies and in nearby interstellar clouds where new stars are forming. To date, no con-
firmed message-carrying signal from alien intelligence has been received from any
radio telescope, although private groups diligently scan the skies for such greetings.
Yet the vast compilation of new astronomical information that scientists have dis-
cerned through radio—and all other—telescopes in just the last few decades has
drastically and forever changed the human view of the universe.
And so I ponder: Have I, too, received messages through radio telescopes? Cer-
tainly, I have not received or recognized any coded pulse from an alien life form. And
yet, on a still grander scale, I think about the possibility of receiving “messages”
from God—the God of the Bible; the Creator and Sustainer of all the laws and
grandeur that govern the universe; the God who is personal and who speaks through
Nature, through prophets, and through the love and intervention of a Savior. Does
this God speak to us, in a sense, through the wonders we discover in the heavens,
through our telescopes? As I pause to reflect in stillness, listening beyond the clamor
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 173

jennifer j. wiseman c 173

of producing works for academic publishing, participating in professional meet-

ings and talks, pursuing funding and grants, teaching, and encountering academic
trials of all sorts, the messages I have heard throughout my early career play again
in my ears—seven messages that I believe God “whispers” through radio—and all—
telescopes.
I. Seek the mysteries of my handiwork. The radiating signals of marvelous workings
in the Universe have emanated for eons, yet only for a few decades have you even
barely begun to discover them and to trace them to discoveries beyond your imag-
ination.

Figure 1.: The Very Large Array (VLA) and

the Radio Galaxy 3c31
Courtesy of the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory / Associated Universities, Inc.

Within the last century, knowl-

edge of the universe opened up to a
scale never before contemplated by
humankind. In the 1920s, following
the “Great Debate” of Harlow Shap-
ley and Heber Curtis and the subse-
quent discoveries of Edwin Hubble,
it was finally realized and agreed that
the swirling nebulae of light ob-
served along with stars in the heav-
ens are not located within our own Milky Way galaxy of stars. Instead, it was
determined that they must be distinct and separate galaxies located millions, and
even billions, of light-years away, rushing away from one another as the very fabric
of space expands. A few decades later, the faint echoes of the very beginning of that
expansion—microwave background radiation signals left over from the Big Bang—
were discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of Bell Laboratories as they
grappled with what they thought was simply “noise” in their receivers. This radia-
tion emitted from forming galaxies, and even from near the beginning of time, has
been swirling to us and past us throughout all of human history, throughout all the
generations and civilizations of great thinkers as they postulated various cosmolo-
gies and cosmogonies to explain the universe they could observe. And yet only now
have we been able to capture and decode these radiative messengers from the heav-
ens, telling us of other galaxies and even of the beginning of time and space. Are we
now gaining a complete picture of the universe, or are we just at the beginning of
discovery of what the cosmos holds?
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 174

174 c jennifer j. wiseman

II. I take pleasure in your discoveries. My joy in creating is not complete until you
see and rejoice in what I have made, and I rejoice in that discovery with you. For
when you see the outworking of the forces and processes I have set in motion and
the immensity and beauty of time and space, you see something of my character.

We are told in the biblical narrative of Genesis that one of the first tasks God
assigned to the first human was to name the animals (Gen 2:19–20a). One gets the
definite sense that God was enjoying the process and the intrigue of finding out
what the man would see in each unique creature. The image conveyed in the text is
that the man studied the attributes of each animal and bestowed on each a fitting,
descriptive name—in essence, the first act of observational science. To the author
of Genesis, this was seen as an enjoyable activity to both God and man in an unfallen
Edenic paradise. How similar to the task of the modern astronomer! We observe
objects in the heavens—objects that we cannot manipulate—and we bestow on
them descriptive names: spiral galaxy, red giant star, radio jet, dark interstellar cloud.
Could it be that after fourteen billion years of evolution of the universe, and even-
tually of life itself, that God takes joy when we use our developed minds and skills
to discover and study the wonders of Creation? I believe so, especially when the joy
and awe instilled by such discoveries lead to recognition of the presence, majesty,
and creativity of the Creator.
III. There is more to the Universe than meets the eye. Keep looking.
When Galileo Galilei pointed an optical magnifying glass toward the heavens, he
saw a new world of detail, such as moons orbiting Jupiter, that contributed to a rev-
olution in human understanding of the cosmos. With each large technological
advance in telescopes, a new, previously unseen universe opened before us, reshap-
ing and refining our comprehension of the cosmos. The discovery of cosmic radio
waves in 1932 by Karl Jansky led to the development of radio telescopes and the dis-
covery of the “radio sky.” Hitherto unknown “radio galaxies” were discovered, many
with bipolar outflowing jets larger than the galaxy itself that are spewing material
away from the galaxy at nearly the speed of light as an exhaust mechanism for mate-
rial swirling around a hungry black hole at the galaxy center (see Figures 1 and 2).
Radio emissions from regions previously simply known as “dark clouds” for their
opaqueness suddenly revealed complexes of swirling and fragmenting interstellar
gas coalescing into new stars. Similarly, infrared telescopes are now revealing the pat-
terns of interstellar dust, and X-ray telescopes are revealing energetic galaxies; ultra-
violet telescopes are telling us of the mechanisms of the sun and of the production
of elements early in the universe, and millimeter-wave telescopes are telling us of cir-
cumstellar material around other stars where planets may form. Each “new look” at
the sky with different frequencies, different resolutions, and different filters gives us
a new sky to add to our growing understanding of the cosmos. We must never stop
looking; there is always more to learn.
IV. Creation continues. Stars still form.
It is still a surprise to most people to find out that the universe is not static.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 175

jennifer j. wiseman c 175

Figure 2. The Hubble Deep Field, a long exposure of the Hubble Space Telescope
revealing many faint and distant galaxies. Most light spots on the image are
not stars, but galaxies, each containing billions of stars. Some are very distant,
requiring billions of light-years for the light to reach us. Some of these galaxies
radiate also in infrared, radio, or X-ray light, indicating high activity of internal
star formation or black holes.
Courtesy of R. Williams, the Space Telescope Science Institute HDF Team, and NASA.

Through the time machine of light emitted hundreds of millions of light-years ago
from distant heavenly bodies, we see ancient galaxies tidally stripping one another
as they closely pass, sometimes merging in a spectacular display of interacting spi-
ral arms. Stars exploding as supernovae at the end of their lifespan shine as beacons
and distance indicators from both faraway and nearby galaxies. Closer to home, gas
clouds observed with radio telescopes even in our own Milky Way are condensed by
the motions of the galaxy or by the remnant compression of a supernova, leading
to the collapse of pockets of gas into new stars. These “protostars” shine brightly in
infrared and millimeter wavelengths through the dense gas of their nursery. As
infalling material accretes onto the forming star, some is ejected by the surround-
ing magnetic field, creating from each stellar pole outflowing jets streaming across
the interstellar cloud and beyond in a spectacular display. Shortly after their birth,
large stars brighten the surrounding leftover gas by radiatively ionizing it into col-
orful nebulae. Eventually, the gas is blown away, and the star shines as long as its
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 176

176 c jennifer j. wiseman

inner hydrogen fuel lasts. When the fuel is used up, a large star ends as a supernova
explosion, dispersing heavy elements into the interstellar medium and creating a
disturbance that can trigger the next generation of star formation. Indeed, as we
study our dynamic universe, it becomes clear that Creation is not a static collection
of matter, but rather a universe evolving according to the processes and forces set
in motion long ago and upheld in stability. It even appears that several cycles of
star formation and supernovae were needed to produce the heavier elements we
now require for life. Created beauty need not be unchanging.
V. You seek, and yet your findings are gifts from Me.
We study and strive diligently to make new discoveries and to understand more
of the universe; surely this is pleasing to our Creator. And yet the ability to com-
prehend the nature of Nature is itself a gift. Moreover, many of the greatest discov-
eries of the cosmos (and in my own work) have been unintended “accidents,”
perhaps to remind us that all discoveries are gifts.
VI. Human life is significant because I have chosen it to be so.
One of the puzzles of the cosmos is how to measure the value of human life,
given the unfathomable vastness of time and space. One popular measure of our
value depends on our uniqueness: Are intelligent beings like us common in the uni-
verse? If not, that would seem to increase our “value.” So then the arguments and
counterarguments tend to go forward along two opposing lines: (1) intelligent life
must be common throughout the universe, given the statistical unlikelihood that
our solar system is the only one out of billions of galaxies (each with billions of
stars) that has components necessary for life to evolve; or (2) we are likely to be the
only case of self-aware intelligent life because, given the rather violent nature of cir-
cumstellar environments (asteroids, radiation, etc.), our solar system is extremely
unusual in its arrangement and has protected Earth from catastrophe long enough
for highly evolved life to thrive. However, if one considers other revelations, it
appears that our value is not based on our uniqueness as a species. Rather, it lies in
the fact that we have been created to have a personal relationship with our Creator
(perhaps by evolving to the point where we can begin to comprehend this) and that
God has entered our world personally, speaking to us through prophets and rescu-
ing us as Savior. We have a problem accepting this because we forget that “infinite”
goes in both directions, that an infinite God is interested in both vast time and space
and in the minutiae of our daily lives, knowing even the number of hairs on our
head. This is not a new difficulty, for even the biblical Psalmist had trouble com-
prehending this:
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than God
and crowned him with glory and honor. (Ps. 8:3–5, NIV)
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 177

jennifer j. wiseman c 177

VII. Work together, and share what you learn. I am more interested in the discov-
erers than in the discovery!

Here is a message counter to the classic scientific mindset. A celestial object exists
whether or not it is being observed and studied by a detached human being. Even
in quantum mechanics, where observation actually changes the state of a system, it
is the act of observation, and not the inner character of the observer, that matters.
And yet to the One responsible for the cosmos, science conducted in human unity
and discoveries shared to uplift others are worth far more than “equivalent” dis-
coveries made for selfish gain or unshared with those unable to make such discov-
eries themselves. As I write part of this essay, I am working as an American at a
Japanese telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii for a few nights with my Japanese col-
laborators and friends. We are studying magnificent outflowing jets emitted from
forming stars with one of the world’s most powerful telescopes. Just a few decades
ago, such cooperation would have been unthinkable. I ponder the horrors of the
World War II attacks here at Pearl Harbor and in Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
How much better it is for the peoples of the world to work together, using technol-
ogy not for war or greed, but to discover the magnificent handiworks of God! How
pleased the Lord must be when the magnificent discoveries of the universe are
explained to those whose eyes are cast down from the burdens of life, thereby lift-
ing their sights to beauty and awe and hope.
Again, the biblical Psalmist declares:
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
(Ps 19:1–4a, NIV)

P.S. And a bonus whisper: You are part of something beautiful.

Radio telescopes, and indeed all telescopes, reveal a universe of complexity and
beauty that speaks of great care and creativity in its design. This very reality tells us
that our lives mean more than simply survival. Indeed, we can even see that God is
very good for even choosing to make a universe of beauty that leads to life, and thus
everything good must proceed from God. Even while terrible evil is present and
allowed in our world for a time, we can still proclaim, along with the writer of the
book of James just as at the beginning of this essay: “Every good and perfect gift is
from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not
change like shifting shadows. . . .”

c
Jennifer J. Wiseman, Ph.D., is an Associate Research Scientist in the Department
of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, and was the American Phys-
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 178

178 c jennifer j. wiseman

ical Society’s 2001–2002 Congressional Science Fellow. She received her B.S. in
physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987 and had the dis-
tinction of co-discovering a comet while still an undergraduate. At Lowell Obser-
vatory in Arizona, she discovered an unexpected object—later deemed Comet
Wiseman-Skiff—on a photographic plate taken by astronomer Brian Skiff. After
her early success, she earned her Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University in
1995 with a thesis entitled “Large-Scale Structure, Kinematics and Heating of the
Orion Ridge.” Dr. Wiseman then served three years as a Jansky Fellow at the National
Radio Astronomy Observatory and three years as a Hubble Fellow at Johns Hopkins
University before her service on Capitol Hill for the House Science Committee. At
Johns Hopkins, she currently studies regions of star formation, specifically the con-
ditions in interstellar gas clouds that lead to the birth of new stars.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 179

Part Four
Perspectives from Quantum Mechanics,
Mathematics, and Symbolic Logic

c
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 180
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 181

The “Trialistic”
Structure in Physics” 33
New Insights for Metaphysics and Natural Theology
Gennaro Auletta

I n this paper, I examine complementarity, a concept introduced by Niels Bohr

for interpreting quantum mechanics (QM). I explain that QM has three basic fea-
tures: events, correlations, and dynamics. These features stem from the nature of
quantum information, which is a general paradigm—far more general than classi-
cal information—covering the emergence of any dynamic system.
If these three features of QM are so general, we may ask how philosophers might
perceive them. Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Sanders Peirce pursued this
line of thought. Dynamics can be understood as a trade-off between local events and
“nonlocal” quantum correlations, results that were partly anticipated by Whitehead
and Peirce. Moreover, according to Peirce, the reason these three features are so gen-
eral is that they are the imago Dei (“image of God”); that is, they show a Trinitar-
ian structure, which Peirce called “trialism.” In this context, I also briefly consider
some consequences of QM for natural theology.

The Complementarity Principle and an Unseen Reality

As is well known, Bohr (1928) developed the idea that, in terms of classical physics,
a causally complete description of a physical system has two features: spacetime
coordination and the causal, dynamic definition of the system. He pointed out that
the unity of these two claims breaks down in QM, so we cannot simultaneously
obtain the exact individuation of a system’s position and its dynamic description.
This is the basis of the complementarity principle. However, there is a certain ambi-
guity in Bohr’s statements, so that we could reformulate this principle by saying
that there is a complementarity between an event (by definition, a spacetime local-
ized phenomenon) and the wavelike behavior of the physical system.
The delayed-choice experiment proposed by Wheeler (1978 and 1983) sheds light
on this point. Consider a Mach-Zender interferometer (see figure). In Wheeler’s ver-
sion of this setup, the final detectors may be switched from the “ordinary” (not
delayed) positions DA’ and DB’ to positions DA and DB before the photon goes
through BS2. This may be done after the beam has already passed through BS1. In the
arrangement DA-DB, we detect the (corpuscular) path of the photon, and this rep-
resents an event. Instead, in the arrangement DA’-DB’, we detect the (wavelike) inter-
ference (produced by the transformations induced by BS1 and BS2), and this cannot
consist of an individual event. In fact, in order to obtain interference, many exper-
imental runs may be necessary. In general, it is impossible to measure the wavelike
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 182

182 c gennaro auletta

features (the wave function) of a single system (D’Ariano and Yuen 1996). Obvi-
ously, the two detection typologies are incompatible, according to Bohr’s prediction.

Figure 1. Mach-Zender Interferometer: A light beam emitted by the laser on the left is split into two
paths by a beam splitter (BS1), a half-silvered mirror that partly transmits and partly reflects an inci-
dent beam. The two beams are then reflected by full mirrors (M1 and M2). The phase shifter (PS)
tunes the phase between the two components. In the ordinary (not delayed) setup, the photons will
be detected by detectors DA’ and DB’ after the two beams are recombined and split again by a sec-
ond beam splitter (BS2). In the setup proposed by Wheeler, the two detectors may be switched from
positions DA’ and DB’ (interference detectors) to positions DA and DB (which-path detectors).

In order to better understand the specificity of the second typology (wavelike

interference), let us say that the results obtained by measuring the wavelike prop-
erties in a delayed-choice experiment and those obtained by doing the same in an
“ordinary” (not delayed) interferometry experiment show no difference. In other
words, we are totally free to perform delayed-choice experiments (i.e., to decide up
to the last attosecond, 10-18 seconds before reaching BS2, to displace the detectors)
without altering quantum predictions. This teaches us a general lesson: There are
time intervals—in our case, in which the photon travels from BS1 to the detectors—
where we cannot assume that an event happened; otherwise we could not be free in
our experimental arrangement. However, after such an interval, an event may have
occurred—for instance, the photon has been registered by DA’ or DB’.
On the other hand, we cannot have an input photon before BS1 and a detection
output, say at DA’ or DB’, and nothing between the input and the output. We are
then forced to admit that there must also be a reality before an event has been reg-
istered (at DA’ or DB’), since events can emerge only from some form of reality.
What, then, is this form of reality? It is the superposition-state (in our experiment,
the combination of the lower and upper path of the interferometer), or the wave-
like nature of the photon (i.e., the initial state and the evolved state before interac-
tion with the detectors).
As I have said, we cannot directly detect the “superposed” reality (again, see D’Ar-
iano and Yuen 1996), but only infer it indirectly (see Auletta and Tarozzi 2004). This
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 183

gennaro auletta c 183

is precisely because any measurement is local in nature. However, we should then

carefully distinguish between two features. One feature is the reason for the quantum
(detection) event. There is no reason that we obtain this result and not another (i.e.,
quantum events are unpredictable or completely random). The other feature is
whether this result comes from nothing. This is impossible. Therefore, there must be a
form of reality that somehow establishes the general (but not the particular) condi-
tions from which the event emerges. Let us consider what this form of reality can be.
Whereas the detection event is discontinuous and unforeseeable, the superposi-
tion is a form of continuity. Again, a superposition of, say, two states allows all lin-
ear combinations of these two states. Moreover, these states associated with possible
measurement outcomes, as components of a superposition, cannot be separated.
This is a notable difference from classical physics, in which no probability of an
outcome “interferes” with another. In other words, the initial state may be seen as a
combination of all possible outcomes where interference terms are also present.
What, then, is complementarity? It is the relationship between an initial state and
any of the evolved states from the initial one before interaction with detectors on the
one hand (any one of these states comprises, in terms of probabilities, all the pos-
sible measurement results in a continuous way) and the final detection event on
the other (which, in an abrupt way and without apparent reasons, is a “decision” of
a result in particular). In this sense, an event is a selection of one among a huge
number of possibilities “encapsulated” in the initial state of the system.
Dynamics is the joint, the connection between these two complementary fea-
tures—the unforeseeable detection event and the initial superposed (relative to the
measured observable) or entangled state, which is “nonlocal” because of the “inter-
ference” of probabilities. In order to understand this, we must not consider the pho-
ton as an isolated system. Instead, it is necessary to consider the total system
encompassing the photon, including the apparatus and also the environment (any
quantum system is always correlated to the environment). It is the dynamics that
allow the result to be either of the measurement of the path or of the interference
pattern. It is also the dynamics that may either destroy an entanglement or consti-
tute it, that may allow a measurement outcome or annihilate this possibility by
returning to the initial state through reversible dynamics (the so-called quantum
eraser). And any of these possibilities must be considered as an extreme point of a
wide range of intermediate possibilities, especially between pure corpuscular and
pure wavelike behavior (Mittelstaedt et al. 1987). Therefore, contrary to Bohr’s opin-
ion, these two must be understood as limiting cases of dynamic behavior. In other
words, dynamics should be considered the trade-off between events and the conti-
nuity of quantum correlations.

The “Trialistic” Structure in Physics and Metaphysics

In QM, therefore, three fundamental features must be distinguished (see also Auletta
2003): (1) the abrupt, discontinuous, local production of an event; (2) the relational,
continuous, “nonlocal” dimension of superposition and entanglement; and (3) the
dynamic trade-off between these two opposite features.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 184

184 c gennaro auletta

My point is that these features are not only characteristics of quantum reality, but
also of the universe in general. In fact, they are a direct consequence of the nature
of information in QM (see Auletta 2004a, 2004b) as any quantum system repre-
sents information. The initial (wavelike) state may be seen as potential informa-
tion that contains all possible measurement outcomes. An event may then be seen
as a form of selection of this initial source of potential information.
If these features are so general, we might ask whether they have been perceived,
even if in a confused form, by great metaphysicians. The answer is yes—in partic-
ular, by Whitehead and Peirce. It is stunning to realize that Whitehead wrote his
considerations (1929, 169) at almost the same time that Bohr published his article
(1928). Although to my knowledge neither knew of the other’s opinions, they each
addressed the fact that (classical) science requires scientific observations that have
to do with what Whitehead calls “presentational immediacy”—the location of
things in the present time (1929, 61–70 and 121–26)—as well as with scientific the-
ories (and laws) that have to do with causal efficacy.
This is perhaps the place to shed some light on the misunderstanding of causal-
ity. Causality may be only the result of the convergence between observation and
law, between events and the correlations that allow the possibilities from which
events may emerge. The important point is that Whitehead completely agrees with
the idea that at any moment the universe “makes decisions” that represent a selec-
tion of the potentialities that the past state allowed (1929, 42–46).
In explaining his notion of trialism, Peirce introduced the concepts of firstness,
secondness, and thirdness. About firstness, he said:
The idea of First is predominant in the ideas of freshness, life, freedom. The
free is that which has not another behind it, determining its actions. . . . (CP
1.302)
And:
It must be initiative, original, spontaneous, and free; otherwise it is second
to a determining cause. . . . It cannot be articulately thought: assert it, and
it has already lost its characteristic innocence; for assertion always implies
a denial of something else. Stop to think of it, and it has flown! What the
world was to Adam on the day he opened his eyes to it, before he had drawn
any distinctions, or had become conscious of his own existence—that is
first, present, immediate, fresh, new, initiative, original, spontaneous, free,
vivid, conscious, and evanescent. (CP 1.357)
I stress here the idea that the “first” is not determined by the preceding conditions,
as in the case of a quantum-mechanical event.
About secondness, Peirce wrote:
The second category that I find, the next simplest feature common to all
that comes before the mind, is the element of struggle. . . . Now there can be
no resistance where there is nothing of the nature of struggle or forceful
action. By struggle I must explain that I mean mutual action between two
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 185

gennaro auletta c 185

things regardless of any sort of third or medium, and in particular regard-

less of any law of action. (CP 1.322)

The stress on struggle remains from classical (mechanical) science. The important
point, I think, is that “secondness” implies relationships between several things.
It is also interesting that Peirce developed the idea that individuals (and events)
are the result of a selection among many possibilities, apparently with no reason:
Hence, remembering that the word “potential” means indeterminate yet
capable of determination in any special case, there may be a potential aggre-
gate of all the possibilities that are consistent with certain general condi-
tions; and this may be such that given any collection of distinct individuals
whatsoever, out of that potential aggregate there may be actualized a more
multitudinous collection than the given collection. Thus the potential aggre-
gate is, with the strictest exactitude, greater in multitude than any possible
multitude of individuals. But being a potential aggregate only, it does not
contain any individuals at all. It only contains general conditions which per-
mit the determination of individuals. (CP 6.185)

The Trinity in Natural Theology

Peirce called the first category tychism (CP 6.102), which comes from the ancient
Greek word for “chance.” The second category he called synechism (CP 6.103), which
comes from the ancient Greek word for “continuity.” The thirdness is often said to
be the middle between the first and the second (CP 1.337). Peirce called this third cat-
egory agapism (CP 6.302), which comes from the Greek Christian word for “love.”
This is not fortuitous, because already the young Peirce (1866) had spoken of the
Christian Trinity in referring to the three categories. And he would do the same at
the end of his life by speaking of the triad in terms of the Triune God (1906a: 364;
see CP 5.436). Later, he often called the first “God the creator” (CP 1.362).
The second, the continuity, then is analogous to the Son (the Mediator), and the
third is analogous to the Holy Spirit, the dynamic mediation between Father and
Son—Love. In summary, the Father is the will and act of creation, therefore the
event. The ultimate reason of the act of the creation is God’s Will. On the other
hand, the act of creation is in itself a germinal event in the sense that it is a call for
the creature to actively participate to it. The destiny of our universe in this sense is
open, and in this sense it is an event that renews itself at each moment and at any
scale; any event is the renewal of the First Event. The Son, the Mediator, is therefore
relation, but not only between God and His creatures. The Logos is also relation in
itself; any intellectual act is ultimately a relation between elements and for this rea-
son can be cast in conditional form (Peirce 1868).
Therefore, the Holy Spirit, Love, is the dynamic bond between Father (event)
and Son (relation). Love is the elevation of any interaction because it is integration
into a superior whole. In this sense, Peirce could write that “the continual increase
of the embodiment of the idea-potentiality [in the Creation] is the summum
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 186

186 c gennaro auletta

bonum” [1906b: 388]. Peirce tried to see the universe as an embodiment of this trini-
tarian structure.
The three features I discuss above may be seen as a further development of
Peirce’s tripartite trialistic structure. His main idea, with which I agree, is that the
modern age, especially the scientific culture, is a heritage of middle-age nominal-
ism. According to this philosophy, only objects (or events) that can be directly expe-
rienced exist. On the other hand, Peirce pointed out that there is no reason to deny
reality to other forms of being that do not have a bodily structure. In my opinion,
the wavelike behavior of quantum systems is such a reality. It displays a character
that is common to all forms of relationships, namely (1) the interdependence
between parts, (2) the fact that this interdependence is ultimately a form of covari-
ance, (3) nonlocality, (4) the fact that any relation is a decrease of the “degree of
freedom” of the relatives, and (5) the fact that it is impossible to have a direct expe-
rience of it. Given a local reality (events) and a nonlocal reality (relations, correla-
tions, interdependencies), the problem is how to join or to connect these two
extremes. This is the role played by dynamic processes, a point that Peirce did not
completely understand because he thought in classical terms. In fact, dynamics in
the classical framework of physics is rather kinematics extended over dynamic vari-
ables such as energy and momentum. Since a system is always perfectly determined,
the dynamics does nothing other than “displace” the system in a given “space,” for
instance in the phase space. In quantum mechanics, this is a trade-off between
opposite realities or exigencies and as such is the only source of any thing that we
consider existent.

c
Gennaro Auletta, Ph.D., obtained his doctorate in philosophy in 1993 at Rome
University. He is Invited Professor at the Free University of Urbino and at the Pon-
tifical Athenaeum Antonianum. Professor Auletta is also Scientific Director of Sci-
ence and Philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome. He is the editor
of four books and author of fifteen papers and three books: Determinismo e Con-
tingenza, Naples, 1994 (about the modal logic and metaphysics of Leibniz); Foun-
dations and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: A Critical-Historical Analysis of the
Problems and a Synthesis of the Results, Singapore, 2000, 2001; and Introduzione alla
Logica, Roma, 2002 (a short introduction to logic). Professor Auletta’s main interests
are in the domain of the foundation and interpretation of quantum mechanics,
information theory, philosophy of nature and ontology, history of science, and logic.

References
Auletta, Gennaro. 2000 Foundations and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. In the Light
of a Critical-Historical Analysis of the Problems and of a Synthesis of the Results, Singa-
pore: World Scientific; rev. ed. 2001.
SI-01 06/06/15 18:09 Page 187

gennaro auletta c 187

———. 2003 “Some Lessons of Quantum Mechanics for Cognitive Sciences,” Intellectica
36-37, 293–317.
———. 2004a “Quantum Information and Inferential Reasoning,” submitted to Founda-
tions of Physics.
———. 2004b “Quantum Information as a General Paradigm,” submitted to Foundations
of Physics.
Auletta, G., and Tarozzi, G. 2004 “Wavelike Correlations versus Path Detection: Another
Form of Complementarity,” Foundations of Physics Letters 17, 89–95.
Bohr, Niels. 1928 “The Quantum Postulate and the Recent Development of Atomic The-
ory,” Nature 121, 580–90.
D’Ariano, G. M., and Yuen, H. P. 1996 “Impossibility of Measuring the Wave Function of
a Single Quantum System,” Physical Review Letters 76, 2832–35.
Mittelstaedt, P., Prieur, A., and Schieder, R. 1987 “Unsharp Particle-Wave Duality in a Pho-
ton Split-Beam Experiment,” Foundations of Physics 17, 891–903.
Peirce, Charles S. 1866 “The Logic of Science or Induction and Hypothesis: Lowell Lec-
tures,” in W I, 357–504.
———. 1868 “Some Consequences of Four Incapacities,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy
2, 140–57; in W II, 211–42.
———. 1906a “The Basis of Pragmaticism in Phaneroscopy,” in EP II, 360–70.
———. 1906b “The Basis of Pragmaticism in Normative Sciences,” in EP II, 371–97.
———. CP The Collected Papers, Vols. I–VI (eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss),
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931–35; vols. VII–VIII (ed. Arthur W. Burks),
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958.
———. W Writings, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1982–.
———. EP The Essential Peirce, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
Wheeler, John A. 1978 “The ‘Past’ and the ‘Delayed-Choice’ Double-Slit Experiment,” in A.
R. Marlow (ed.), Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Theory, New York: Academic,
9–48.
———. 1983 “Law without Law,” in J. A. Wheeler and W. H. Zurek, (eds.), Quantum The-
ory and Measurement, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 182–213.
Whitehead, Alfred N. 1929 Process and Reality, London, New York: Macmillan Pub., 1929,
1957, corrected ed. 1978, 1979.
Zurek, Wojciech H. 1981 “Pointer Basis of Quantum Apparatus: Into What Mixture Does
the Wave Packet Collapse?’’ Physical Review D24, 1516–25.
———. 1982 “Environment-induced Superselection Rules,” Physical Review D26, 1862–80.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 188

On the Perennial
Oneness of Being 34
Michael Silberstein

The Brain – is wider than the Sky –

For – put them side by side –
The one the other will contain
With ease – and You – beside –
The Brain is deeper than the sea –
For – hold them – Blue to Blue –
The one the other will absorb –
As Sponges – Buckets – do –
The Brain is just the weight of God –
For – Heft them – Pound for Pound –
And they will differ – if they do –
As Syllable from Sound –
– Emily Dickinson (1862)

I have been asked to write about the ultimate fate of what the twentieth-century
American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars called “the manifest image” in light of pres-
ent and future developments in science. The manifest image of humans is that we
are beings with consciousness, beliefs, desires, intentions, and volitional powers.
The scientific materialist image portrays humans as embodied machines subject to
study and ultimate explanation by physics, molecular biology, and neuroscience.
The question of reconciling these two apparently disparate worldviews is a question
not just about our image of humanity, but about our conception of the whole of
reality. For example, string theory paints a very different picture of the universe
than we learn from the world of our everyday experience, and for many, the mani-
fest image includes supernatural entities such as God and souls, which do not appear
as components of theories in physics and other sciences.
Can one reconcile the scientific materialist worldview with the manifest image?
Or are these differing perspectives largely mutually exclusive? If they are mutually
exclusive views, then does the success of science render the manifest image a mere
death mask? Has science defeated the ancient picture even of humans as persons
with freedom and real choice? And does it render the idea of a spiritual reality noth-
ing but a realm of faerie stories?
I argue that neither the reductive scientific image nor the commonsense dualis-
tic manifest image represents the deepest conception of reality. In the spirit of Hux-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 189

michael silberstein c 189

ley’s The Perennial Philosophy (1944), I advance the notion that the most profound
scientific thinking and spiritual thinking actually converge on a conception of real-
ity that is radically counterintuitive from the perspectives of both the manifest
image and the reductive scientific image: that the world and everything in it is one
system—a deep unity—which, for various pragmatic reasons, we human beings
carve up into systems and subsystems, parts and wholes, causes and effects, local-
ized and separable mechanisms, and so on. The core aspect of the oneness of being
is a fact missed by both the manifest image and the causal/mechanical scientific
perspective. The basic insight goes by many names, such as “emergence,”“relation-
alism,” “holism,” “potentia,” and so forth. I call this perspective of unified diversity
“perennial pluralistic monism,” which has definite consequences regarding several
great debates and questions. These include the mind-body problem, the question of
purpose, and the nature and existence of God.

The Real Meaning of Quantum Mechanics

Many people do not realize that what most bothered Einstein about quantum
mechanics (QM) was not nonlocality or even indeterminism; it was nonsepara-
bility:
But whatever we regard as existing (real) should somehow be localized in
time and space. That is, the real in part of space A should (in theory) some-
how ‘exist’ independently of what is thought of as real in space B. When a
system in physics extends over the parts of space A and B, then that which
exists in B should somehow exist independently of that which exists in A.
That which really exists in B should therefore not depend on what kind of
measurement is carried out in part of space A; it should also be independ-
ent of whether or not any measurement at all is carried out in space A. If
one adheres to this programme, one can hardly consider the quantum-the-
oretical description as a complete representation of the physically real. If
one tries to do so in spite of this, one has to assume that the physically real
in B suffers a sudden change as a result of a measurement in A. My instinct
for physics bristles at this. However, if one abandons the assumption that
what exists in different parts of space has its own, independent, real exis-
tence, then I simply cannot see what it is that physics is meant to describe.
For what is thought to be a ‘system’ is, after all, just a convention, and I
cannot see how one could divide the world objectively in such a way that
one could make statements about parts of it. (Einstein, in a 1948 letter to
Max Born)
Einstein’s concerns with QM were based on conflicts with two principles that he
regarded as crucial for “realism”: (1) separability, the notion that the universe can be
divided into separable systems with their own definite properties: what we think of
as existing or real in region A should exist independently of what we think of as
existing or real in region B; and (2) locality, the notion that the properties of a sys-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 190

190 c michael silberstein

tem in region A should be independent of what we choose to measure in region B

or whether any measurement at all is performed in region B.
Now, if we assume that a system in region B does not have any properties inde-
pendent of the properties of system A, then we violate separability. The possibility
of quantum entangled states over any pair of spacelike separated regions A and B
means that a measurement at A can change the catalog of properties not only at A
but also at B; this violates locality. Einstein, on my reading, was most bothered by
nonseparability (quantum holism). He held that the very possibility of doing science
demands that a system be describable as being localized in a continuously con-
nected spatiotemporal region.
My preferred interpretation of QM (see Howard 1994 for more details) sides with
Bohr against Einstein. It embraces the holism that Einstein and many others found
so repugnant. The causal-mechanical worldview requires separability and locality,
a world of autonomous subsystems in which the measuring devices (including
observers) and the systems measured are separable. Directions in modern QM, both
theoretical and experimental, seem to be clear in telling us that we must give up this
notion. My answer to John A. Wheeler’s question “Why the quantum?” is that the
holism glimpsed by QM is the most fundamental fact about the universe. My claim
is that QM is not fundamentally about the behavior of nonclassical waves and par-
ticles, but about the inextricable wholeness or oneness of the universe, which is one
system. The nonclassical features of QM result from the entanglement of the
observer/observed, measuring devices, and the systems measured. It is because of
entanglement that QM has nonseparability, nonlocality, complementarity, proba-
bilistic outcomes, an absence of transtemporal objects, and so forth. QM cannot
ascribe independent reality to an observer or the observed. It cannot therefore elim-
inate “external disturbances” from acts of observation and measurement (Howard
1994).
Bohr’s idea is that scientific knowledge emphasizes space, time, transtemporal
objecthood, causality, and so forth as necessary a priori categories under which our
representations and knowledge of physical systems must be organized. The point of
the “complementarity interpretation” is to articulate a different conception of the
nature of physical or scientific knowledge in light of radical quantum holism. Com-
plementarity (such as the well-known position/momentum example or the space-
time/causal example) is a function of entanglement. Recall that properties related
by complementarity in QM are noncommuting. Noncommuting properties are
mutually exclusive. They complement each other. Such properties are essential
aspects of the same entity or system. The most well-known formal example is the
noncommuting relationship between position and momentum. And the most noto-
rious informal example is wave/particle duality. We cannot ascribe to an observed
system alone a unique, complete, and correct description. Complementarity allows
us to maintain Kantian intuitions that classical assumptions are needed to make
sense of experimental results.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 191

michael silberstein c 191

Relationalism and Complementarity in Eastern Thought

Eastern philosophical and religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and
Jainism incorporate metaphysical and epistemological teachings that seem similar
to the kind of holism, relationalism, complementarity (in the much more informal
philosophical sense), and so on that have been championed by many students of
QM over the years. While mystics and physicists may not literally be making iden-
tical claims, they may recognize similar insights, acquired by very different means.
Take the following examples from Bohr and Schrödinger, respectively:

For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory . . . we must in fact turn to quite
other branches of science, such as psychology, or even to the kind of epis-
temological problems with which already thinkers like Buddha and Lao-tse
have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectator
and actor in the great drama of existence. (Bohr 1987, 20)

Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said
to have been broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sci-
ences [quantum mechanics], for this barrier does not exist. (Schrödinger
1958, 3)

It is well known that many of the founding fathers of QM see echoes of its deeper
lessons in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism, and other spiritual traditions.
Two representative texts follow. The first is from a twentieth-century Hindu saint
echoing the Upanishads. The second is from a scholar of Buddhism. These exam-
ples demonstrate why the founding fathers of QM cited parallels between physics
and Eastern metaphysical thought:

Everything is inter-linked and therefore has numberless causes. The entire

universe contributes to the least thing. All divisions are illusory. (Sri Nisar-
gadatta Maharaj 1973, 36–40)

We might also say that a dharma’s [things, thoughts, mental events] iden-
tity is not self-contained but relational. And since the other dharmas to
which it is related also exist only relationally, there is no ‘fixed point,’ no
self-established entity anywhere. A dharma by itself has no nature, any more
than an electron can itself be said to be either a wave or a particle. Call it
interdependent arising, dependent origination, emptiness, the absence of
intrinsic nature, but all facts, all phenomena, are relational. (William Ames
2003, 300–301)

Although one can find the concept of complementarity stated philosophically

within Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the most direct place to find it empha-
sized is in Jainism. The central philosophy of Jainism is Aneka–ntava–da (see Shaw
2000). The ontological aspect of the doctrine holds that reality is multifaceted and
possibly has infinite aspects, features, or modes. It also holds that reality comprises
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 192

192 c michael silberstein

opposite (complementary) aspects—for example, it is both many and one. The

doctrine of Aneka–ntava–da also has an epistemological aspect—namely, that all
propositions attributing properties to an object or reality as a whole are true only
in relation to a certain point of view, in a particular context, under a certain condi-
tion, or in some respect.
Thus, whether one is talking about complementarity in QM or in the context of
Eastern philosophy, the world is considered primarily a unity, such that it is we who
do the carving, whether by sensory modalities, conceptual schemas, explanatory
schemas, mathematical formalisms, or experimental setups. A complementary rela-
tionship therefore exists between the oneness and multiplicity of the universe. Con-
sider a passage from the Hindu tradition, the first to articulate this idea:
From the highest point of view the world has no cause. Once you create for
yourself a world in time and space, governed by causality, you are bound to
search for and find causes for everything. You put the question and impose
an answer. Each moment contains the whole of the past and creates the
whole of the future. In reality all is here and now and all is one. Multiplic-
ity and diversity are in the mind. Everything is caused by all and affects all.
The diversity is in you only. See yourself as you are and you will see the
world as it is—a single block of reality, indivisible, indescribable. Your own
creative power projects upon it a picture and all your questions refer to the
picture. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj 1973, 39)

Philosophical and Theological Consequences

of Perennial Pluralistic Monism
While unavoidably “fuzzy,” such a basic framework of thinking has far-ranging con-
sequences for metaphysics and epistemology. Take, for example, the issue of causa-
tion. While good, pragmatic reasons may exist to divide the world into causes and
effects, causal mechanisms, causal-mechanical subsystems, and so forth, holism
affirms an underlying unity: We have one system—the universe.
Radical relationalism also has definite consequences regarding the question of
whether the universe is structured into a hierarchy of discrete layers, levels, or enti-
ties such as particles, atoms, molecules, cells, brains, minds, and so on. Given radi-
cal relationalism, even if the ordering of complexity in structures (ranging from
those of elementary physics to those of neurophysiology) is discrete, the interactions
between such structures will be entangled. Therefore, any separation into levels will
be arbitrary and selected for pragmatic purposes only. Such divisions will be
dependent on what question is being put to nature and what “scale” of phenomena
is being probed. Reality in this view has a decidedly “non-Boolean” structure (i.e.,
it can’t be reduced to interrelationships between entities perceived to be separate and
distinct).
On the related subject of scientific explanation, radical relationalism suggests
that we should be polyphonists and not monistic exclusivists about matters of expla-
nation. Philosophers of science debate whether the most fundamental explanation
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 193

michael silberstein c 193

for any given phenomenon is causal/mechanical, nomological, or unificationist.

However, radical relationalism speaks in favor of the pragmatic account of scientific
explanation, which holds that the answer to the question is to be determined on a
case-by-case basis. There just is no perspective- or interest-independent fact about
what constitutes the most fundamental scientific explanation in any given case.
All of this has implications for the debate between reductionism and emergence.
There are far too many versions of each of these doctrines to enumerate here (see Sil-
berstein 2002, for more details). Nevertheless, we can focus on two issues concern-
ing reductionism: (1) reduction in the sense of atomism and (2) intertheoretic
reduction such as the so-called Theory of Everything (TOE). “Atomism” here refers
to the idea that the most fundamental intrinsic properties of the most fundamental
parts (e.g., particles, strings) determine all the properties of the less fundamental
objects (e.g., atoms, molecules, cells) that they “compose,” “realize,” or what have
you. For example, if two possible worlds are identical with respect to their funda-
mental physical facts, then they will be doppelgangers with respect to all their macro-
scopic facts as well. Quantum entanglement stands partially against atomism.
Indeed, given radical relationalism there simply are no intrinsic properties. However,
the failure of atomism still leaves the second question open—whether there exists a
unique TOE, such as string theory, from which it is possible, in principle, to derive
or otherwise obtain the laws and phenomena of “higher-level” physical theories.
One way of interpreting the thinking of the founding fathers of emergentism
(e.g., C. D. Broad) is to note their focus on the point that intertheoretic reduction
fails as a matter of principle. Thus, the quantum does not necessitate the classical.
And this in turn does not necessitate life. And this in turn does not necessitate mind.
And so on. For Broad, the quantum, the classical, life, and mind are all fundamen-
tal facts or features of the world. Each domain possesses laws and properties irre-
ducibly specific to itself.
Consider, for example, QM as a TOE. As Robert Laughlin puts it:
We know the Schrödinger equation is correct because it has been solved
accurately for small numbers of particles (isolated atoms and small mole-
cules) and found to agree in minute detail with experiment. However, it
cannot be solved accurately when the number of particles exceeds about 10.
No computer existing, or that ever will exist, can break this barrier because
it is a catastrophe of dimension. It is possible to perform approximate cal-
culations for large systems, and it is through such calculations that we have
learned why atoms have the size they do, why chemical bonds have the
length and strength they do, why solid matter has the elastic properties it
does, etc. With a little more experimental input for guidance it is even pos-
sible to predict atomic conformations of small molecules, simple chemical
reaction rates, structural phase transitions, ferromagnetism, and sometimes
even superconducting transition temperatures. But the schemes for approx-
imating are not first-principles deductions but are rather art keyed to exper-
iment, and thus tend to be the least reliable precisely when reliability is
most needed, i.e., when experimental information is scarce, the physical
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 194

194 c michael silberstein

behavior has no precedent, and the key questions have not yet been iden-
tified. Predicting protein functionality or the behavior of the human brain
from these equations is patently absurd. So the triumph of the reduction-
ism of the Greeks is a pyrrhic victory: we have succeeded in reducing all of
ordinary physical behavior to a simple correct TOE [i.e., quantum mechan-
ics] only to discover that it has revealed nothing about many things of great
importance. (Laughlin and Pines 2000, 28)

In this preceding passage, Laughlin’s remarks about QM’s being for all practical
purposes a TOE are well taken. However, his remarks are ambiguous with respect
to our present concern. Is it in principle possible (viz., for God to do it) to derive
molecular structure and other classical features of the universe from QM alone? Is
our inability to do so simply a function of ignorance?
Here I offer a Bohrian, or radical relationist, answer to this question. Is QM a
TOE? Yes and no. Is our inability to derive ab initio classical phenomena, such as
molecular structure from the Schrödinger equation, just a function of ignorance?
No! In order to explain the phenomena of classical mechanics, must we posit emer-
gent laws and properties in the sense defended by Broad? No! Therefore, QM is a
TOE in some sense. For example, it is well known that researchers are attempting to
screen off objects at higher and higher scales (i.e., objects that are more and more
“macroscopic,” or classical) to determine whether there is a classical limit to quan-
tum interference effects. If we were to discover such a limit (whether at the level of
viruses or of elephants), then Broad’s brand of emergentism with respect to the
classical realm might be largely vindicated. The Bohrian view that I am defending
is betting that no such classical limit exists. Nonetheless, QM is not a TOE in any
sense implying that classical mechanics would be desirable from it and has not been
merely a function of ignorance. It is well known, for example, that a smooth or reg-
ular limiting relation exists between special relativity and Newtonian mechanics
such that (v/c)2 à 0. It is also well known that the limiting relation between quantum
and classical mechanics is not smooth, but results in an asymptotic singularity in the
semiclassical limit in which Planck’s constant → 0. From this, some might try to
infer some kind of classical limit to quantum interference effects or some kind of
Broad-type thesis of emergence with respect to classical phenomena. However, the
view I am espousing will explain the asymptotic singularity in terms of the neces-
sity of requiring the introduction of a new “contextual topology.” Classical proper-
ties such as molecular structure “emerge” only given the “fundamental” quantum
description plus the new contextual topology. It is the radical relationalism built
into the nature of reality that explains the need to introduce contextual topology,
not the other way around.
Next, consider the “hard problem of consciousness.” Once again, we find a con-
vergence of thought between the great minds of Eastern philosophy and the found-
ing fathers of QM as to the significance of radical relationalism:
The general problem of the relations between psyche and physis, between
the inner and the outer, can, however, hardly be said to have been solved. . . .
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 195

michael silberstein c 195

Yet modern science may have brought us closer to a more satisfying con-
ception of this relationship by setting up, within the field of physics, the
concept of complementarity. It would be most satisfactory of all if physis
and psyche could be seen as complementary aspects of the same reality.
(Pauli 1994, 260)
Consciousness and the world appear and disappear together, hence they are
two aspects of the same state. That which matter and consciousness are but
aspects is never born and never dies. What makes the bridge between the
two [between matter and mind]? The very gap between is the bridge. That
which at one end looks like matter and at the other end like mind, is in itself
the bridge. Don’t separate reality into mind and body and there will be no
need of bridges. Consciousness arising, the world arises. (Sri Nisargadatta
Maharaj 1973, 17)
“Mind” and “matter” are different ways of looking at or describing the same
thing—two interdependent and essential sides of the same coin. You cannot have
one without the other, just as you cannot have either a measuring device or a quan-
tum system being measured without the other.
While the take on the mind/body problem being described here is in some sense
a dual-aspect neutral monism, once again pragmatic pluralism is called for. One
should not be confounded by questions such as “What is the nature of mind?” The
question is ill-posed if there is no singular nonperspectival, non-context-depend-
ent answer to such questions. There is some sense in which, minus the implicit
exclusivist assumption, the identity theory, dualism, functionalism, and so forth are
all correct theories of mind. Mind is phenomenological, physical, informational,
and functional, depending on the model under consideration, as well as the ques-
tions being asked and other contextual features of explanation. Unfortunately, in
philosophy of mind we define these various theories about the nature of mind in
such a way that they are competing and mutually exclusive. I believe this is a mis-
take driven by old-fashioned Platonic essentialism and the idea that to explain is to
reduce. Again, we find that Asian philosophy is way ahead of its Western counter-
part on this matter:
Consciousness and unconsciousness, while in the body, depend on the con-
dition of the brain. Consciousness as such is the subtle counterpart of mat-
ter. Just as inertia and energy are attributes of matter, so does harmony
manifest itself as consciousness. You may consider it in a way as a form of
very subtle energy. Wherever matter organizes itself into a stable organism,
consciousness appears spontaneously. With the destruction of the organism
consciousness disappears (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj 1973, 265).
There is certainly a convergence between Buddhism and science when you
speak of gross levels of consciousness. Buddhists would agree that the
gross levels of consciousness are contingent upon the body, and when the
brain ceases to function, those levels of consciousness do not arise. We’ve
agreed that this [gross] consciousness arises in dependence upon the brain.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 196

196 c michael silberstein

Consciousness or mind is not a thing existing in and of itself. This is a false

representation, because there are many degrees of subtlety of conscious-
ness. For example, the gross level of mind and energy exists in dependence
upon the gross physical aggregates. As long as the brain is functioning, there
is gross consciousness, and as soon as one becomes brain-dead, one has no
more consciousness at this gross level. So far, this Buddhist perspective
accords with the neurosciences. (The Dalai Lama 1997, 165)

A more Western, directly scientific way to express the Buddhist and Hindu con-
ception of mind and consciousness is one that has been defended by myself and oth-
ers (Varela et al. 1991; Silberstein 2001): to view mental processes as emerging from
self-organizing networks that tightly interconnect brain, body, and environment at
multiple levels. From this perspective, it makes no sense to think of the brain, body,
and environment as internally and externally located with respect to one another.
Instead, they are mutually embedding and embedded systems, tightly intercon-
nected on multiple levels. The point is that radical relationalism obtains through-
out reality, from the quantum to the mind.

Conclusion
We have seen that the most profound Western physics and many of the spiritual tra-
ditions of the East do in fact converge on a view about the nature of ultimate real-
ity—specifically, the perennial oneness of being. Huxley argued that perennial
pluralistic monism is also an interpretation fitting within much of the Western spir-
itual tradition as well. We have also seen that the oneness of being is equally con-
trary to scientific materialism, the manifest image, and the classical emergentism of
C. D. Broad. For all their differences, these traditions assume a universe carved at the
joints complete with autonomous forces, mechanisms, parts and wholes, and
transtemporal objects. Much of the literature in the field of Science and Religion
presupposes that any possible convergence between the scientific worldview and
the manifest worldview must come down on one side or the other—for example,
by naturalizing spirituality and religion or demonstrating that the natural world
leaves room for Divine action, dualism, or libertarian free-will. I hope to have shown
that such a presupposition may be false—and furthermore that there is good rea-
son to think it false. I take myself to be practicing what Huxley called “empirical the-
ology.” If nothing else, I hope this essay encourages intellectual humility about our
views concerning the ultimate nature of reality and real pluralism in the realm of
religious and theological thought. The nature of God may also turn out to be rad-
ically counterintuitive from this theological perspective. If perennial pluralistic
monism is true, there is no justification for exclusivism in either science or theol-
ogy. Given perennial pluralistic monism, fundamental physics and theology are
converging on the same spiritual information, and the information we are getting
is best characterized by panentheism in Western theology, Advaita Vedanta in
Hinduism, etc. On my interpretation, science and religion are not two distinct
“nonoverlapping magisteria,” and they are not two opposing and mutually exclusive
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 197

michael silberstein c 197

paradigms. Rather, they are both, in their complementary way, providing com-
mensurate spiritual information about the fundamental nature of reality.
If Western theology will allow itself to be humbled by the possibility of perennial
pluralistic monism, it may find that many of its ancient driving concerns will dis-
solve rather than be resolved. In philosophy and science we make a distinction
between those problems that are resolved outright, such as the discovery of the dou-
ble helix, and problems that get deflated by the realization that the assumptions
driving the problem were false. Much of Western theology still operates in the con-
text of the manifest image of God and humanity respectively as numerically distinct
beings or substances with distinct purposes, etc. But perhaps it is the very idea of and
quest for purpose that is our real prison. If God and the universe are truly one, then
nothing separate is being created: The film, the director, and the actors are one—as
in a dream. What is the purpose of a dream? If God, man, and the universe are one
in some substantial sense (such as that advocated by Advaita Vedanta), then perhaps
the problem of purpose or meaning and the problem of evil are illusions in need of
dissolution and not problems to be solved head-on.

c
Michael Silberstein, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Elizabeth-
town College and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland, where he is
also a faculty member in the Foundations of Physics Program and a Fellow on the
Committee for Philosophy and the Sciences. A National Endowment for the
Humanities Fellow, Professor Silberstein has published and delivered papers on
both philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. His primary research interests
are philosophy of physics and of cognitive neuroscience, especially how they bear
on more general questions of reduction, emergence, and explanation—a topic that
he explored in his most recent book, The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Science
(co-edited with Peter Machamer, 2002). Professor Silberstein is currently working
on The Whole Story: Emergence, Reduction and Explanation Across the Disciplines
and Illuminating Images: Philosophy, Film and Interpretation.

References
Bohr, N. 1987. The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr. Vol. 2. Essays on Atomic Physics and
Human Knowledge, 1933–57. Ox Bow Press.
Howard, D. 1994. “What Makes a Classical Concept Classical? Toward a Reconstruction of
Niels Bohr’s Philosophy of Physics.” In Niels Bohr and Contemporary Philosophy. Folse,
H., and Faye, J. (eds.). Boston: Kluwer, 201–29.
Huxley, A. 1944. The Perennial Philosophy. Harper and Row Publisher.
Laughlin, R. B., and Pines, D. 2000. “The Theory of Everything.” PNAS 97, no. 1 (Jan. 4):
28–31.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 198

198 c michael silberstein

Maharaj, N. 1973. I Am That. M. Frydman, trans. The Acorn Press.

Pauli, W. 1994. Writings on Physics and Philosophy. C. P. Enz et al. (eds.). Springer Berlin.
Shaw, N. J. (ed.). 2000. Jaina Theory of Multiple Facets of Reality and Truth. Motilal Banar-
siparss Publishers.
Shrödinger, E. 1958. Mind and Matter.
Silberstein, M. 2002. “Reduction, Emergence, and Explanation.”
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 199

Quantum Logic and the

God-World Relationship 35
A New Resource for Exploring Modern Christian Theology
Thierry Magnin

S cience and theology have their own distinct languages and modes of rep-
resenting reality. These must be clearly distinguished in order to avoid naïve
concordism. However, it is interesting to explore how the methods and logic used
in one field can be applicable to the other, taking into account the specific con-
straints of each.
The aim of this paper is to consider quantum physics and its possible application
to Christian theology. We will see that Christian dogmas—Trinity and Incarnation,
as well as the biblical notion of Covenant—can be fruitfully explored through the
logic of the “included middle” as applied to quantum physics. This application of
methods from one field to another emphasizes that deep, common human atti-
tudes enable both physicists and believers to explore the nature of reality without
any confusion between the fields of science and theology. Common attitudes derive
from the study of the logic of the included middle and its role in science and the-
ology. Such a field of pursuit is called “moral philosophy” because it is related to crit-
ical analysis of the ethical principles involved in comparative epistemologies in
science and theology.
Taking into account the different domains of science, metaphysics, and theology,
I show how moral philosophy can be a new foundation for the dialog between sci-
entists and people of faith. Such a dialog can perhaps be helpful in promoting qual-
ity in education and in supporting peace in the modern world.

On the Question of Reality in Science . . .

Enormous progress in science occurred during the twentieth century. However, part
of this progress ironically involved determining the limits on knowledge. In quan-
tum physics, new insights have generated a different way of considering the subject-
object relation. For quantum physicists, reality is “veiled” (d’Espagnat 1979) because
of unseen interactions between the subject and the object. Defining the physical
quantities thus depends on the specifics of observation and measurement. There is
a coupling between the experimental conditions and the conceptual apparatus. As
shown by the classical wave-particle dualism, we can say: If you do this (with one
kind of apparatus), you will observe that. Then if we try to interpret the situation
in terms of “what really exists,” it becomes completely different with respect to clas-
sical physics. Something coming from the subject is contained. Independent reality
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 200

200 c thierry magnin

cannot be reached by science, as previously advocated by Kant. Complete objectiv-

ity is not possible in quantum physics. Thus, in the quantum world, the scientist is
a kind of “translator” of a complex reality in which observers are irrevocably
included.
One can say that the scientism of the nineteenth century in Europe has been con-
siderably weakened by quantum physics, which questions objectivity; by Laplacian
determinism; and by subject-object separability. Scientism is also weakened by the
thermodynamics of irreversible processes, which questions the validity of reduc-
tionism, and also by the Gödel theorem, which considers the question of undecid-
ability in mathematics. Such evolution is generally translated by the following
sentence: “Something of reality is beyond our knowledge” (Barbour 1997).
Even if quantum physics gives new insights about reality through science, we
must never forget the status of the observer in Kant’s analysis. But quantum physics
has generated new insights into the subject-object problem, stressing the contextu-
ality and relationality of reality. More and more, science is shown to correspond to
“the game of possibilities.” In his book by this name (Le jeu des possibles), Nobel lau-
reate François Jacob compares myth and science in their relation to reality:
Mythic or scientific, the representation of the world by man is related to his
imagination. . . . To give valuable observations in science, one must initially
have in mind some idea about what must be observed. We need to decide
before the observation what can be observed, what is possible. A previous
idea about reality is necessary. . . . The scientific investigation always starts
with the invention of a possible world, or a fragment of this possible world.
Mythic thought also started in the same way. But then Myths and Science
completely differ. (Jacob 1981)
Such an approach has been described in detail for exploring the relation between
science, philosophy, and theology (Russell, Stoeger, Coyne 1988).

The New Logic of the Included Middle in Quantum Physics

Quantum mechanics, and later quantum physics, caused the sudden appearance of
mutually exclusive contradictories (A and non-A), as in the wave-particle duality
problem. The qualities of continuity (wave mode) and discontinuity (particle mode)
are mixed when referring to quantons1 (and in describing them mathematically),
even if a quanton appears experimentally either in the wave mode or in the parti-
cle mode. In the same way, separability and nonseparability, local causality and
global causality, symmetry and asymmetry, reversibility of time and irreversibility
of time simultaneously occur as conjoined contradictions in the description of real-
ity in the quantum world.
Niels Bohr applied the complementarity principle to investigating the wave-par-
ticle duality problem, stressing the relatedness of outcomes to the specific nature of
the measurements being made (see Bohr 1958). The question is: How do we com-
bine continuity and discontinuity, separability and nonseparability, symmetry and
asymmetry? Bohr’s complementarity principle suggests that mutually exclusive
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 201

thierry magnin c 201

descriptions must be taken into account simultaneously. This was expressed by

Bohr’s colleague Heisenberg as follows:
When playing with these two images, going from one to the other and then
back again, we finally obtain the right impression of the strange sort of real-
ity which hides behind our atomic experiments. (Heisenberg 1969)

One possible solution to this situation of apparent logical paradox is to replace

the axiom of the excluded middle of classical logic—something cannot be this and
also that at the same time—argued by Aristotle. By the contrary axiom of the
included middle, we have the idea that there is a third term T that is at the same time
A and non-A. Lupasco (1941) and Nicolescu (1991) in France have done consider-
able work defining the logical status of quantum complementarity through the logic
of the included middle.
Nicolescu defines two kinds of complementarity through the notion of “levels of
reality.” To provide an overview, some definitions are needed. By the word “reality,”
we mean something that resists our simple representations, descriptions, or images.
By the term “level,” we mean a group of systems that is invariant under the action
of certain laws. The passage from one level of reality to the other then involves a
breakdown of laws and logic, of fundamental concepts such as causality. In analyz-
ing the complementarity principle, the two levels of reality that must be consid-
ered are the macroscopic (level 1, related to classical physics with its appropriate
and specific language and logic) and the microscopic (level 2, related to quantum
physics with its own appropriate and different logic).
The content of the axiom of the included middle becomes clear if we put the
three terms A, non-A, and T on a triangle diagram with the dynamics associated
with them, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Levels of reality in the logic of the included middle.

NR* 1 = macroscopic (level 1, local causality and separability, classical physics)
NR* 2 = microscopic (level 2, global causality and nonseparability, quantum mechanics)
NR = niveau de réalité (level of reality)
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 202

202 c thierry magnin

Research at point T corresponds to research focused on a level of reality where

what is mutually exclusive at level 1 can be unified at level 2. It corresponds to the
included middle for which point T is not at the same level of the contradictory log-
ical antagonism. Notice that the antagonism is never completely solved. New antag-
onisms can appear from point T at level 2. The figure is only a simple heuristic to
represent the level structure of the included middle in quantum physics. In this rep-
resentation, no basic contradictions with Aristotle’s logic of noncontradiction occur
because point T is not at the same level as the two components of the basic contra-
diction.
Contraries, contradictions, antagonisms, and opposites are terms that have
evolved since the time of Aristotle. We propose the following definition of “antag-
onism,” both in science and (as we will see) in theology, consisting of eight charac-
teristics (Kaiser 1974): unity (the complementary modes of representation are related
to the same object), common properties, completeness of each mode in one experi-
mental situation, co-exhaustivity (the two modes are sufficient to simultaneously
describe the object), equal necessity (the two modes are equally necessary), alterna-
tivity, co-inherence (each mode exists potentially inside the other), and mutual exclu-
sivity.

The Classical Logic of the Included Middle

in Christian Theology
At the end of each truth, one must consider the opposite truth, the two
opposite reasons. If not, everything is heretic. (Pascal)
This statement from the scientist-philosopher-theologian Pascal asserts that the
approach to truth requires the clash and synthetic combination of opposites. This
is not so far from Heisenberg’s statement about a completely different problem, the
wave-particle duality, which asserts that the contrary of a deep truth can itself be
another deep truth. In theology, this insight has been called the via eminentiae (the
eminent way) based on the debate between differing views or perspectives since
Thomas Aquinas. Thus, God in the Bible is presented both as personal and non-
personal, both humble and nonhumble—which means that he cannot be personal
and humble as we imagine by simple, direct analogy to human attributes.
Indeed, one sees the formal representation of several logical antagonisms within
the Christian tradition. For example, the history of the dogma of the Holy Trinity
clearly shows a continuous dialectical process used to explore a unity of antago-
nisms. This is detailed in the Quicumque Symbol of Athanasius (Magnin 1998;
Camus, Magnin, Nicolescu, and Voss 1994). But the famous dogma of Incarnation
is probably the best example of the use of the complementarity principle within
theology. Jesus is held to be both true Man and true God, realizing on the Cross the
unity of antagonisms “full power–no power.” On the Cross he reveals both who is
Man and who is God. Then for the disciples of Jesus, the Cross unifies the antago-
nisms “to become themselves [vs.] to be completely dependent and given to God.”
This opens a new way and power of life! One finds oneself in losing oneself!
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 203

thierry magnin c 203

The question for the present analysis is to examine whether notions such as
included-middle logic used in science may be interesting for advancing the theol-
ogy of Incarnation. This can be done without any confusion between the fields,
taking into account their clearly distinct specificities. In theology, a distinction sep-
arates the concepts of knowledge from revelation and knowledge from conceptual
thought. For example, theologian Karl Rahner said:
Theology is mainly (i) the believer’s explicit awareness to revelation of God
in History through His Word which is Revelation per se and (ii) the scien-
tific method in order to gain insight into His Word as knowledge on newly
acquired information. (Rahner and Vorgrimler 1970)
Thus, revelation is not separable from the experience of the community of
believers in the Church in a peculiar social and cultural context. In theology, there
always is “something beyond our understanding” that we call “mystery” and that
is beyond the domain of logical analysis according to the empirical and logical sci-
entific method. A mystery is not something we cannot understand. It is something
we will never get to the end of (St. Augustine). A mystery is something in which the
subject is involved, in contrast with an analytical problem independent of the sub-
ject. Thus, the question of the mode of representation occurs in theology as well
as in science.
There is a specific coupling between experimental conditions and conceptual
apparatus. Figure 2 illustrates an analogous representation of the dogma of Incar-
nation in terms of an included-middle logic.

Figure 2. Representation of the dogma of Incarnation in terms of

levels of reality in the logic of the included middle.

In classical language, man is finite and God is infinite: Finite man cannot be infi-
nite God! This statement defines reality level 1 (bottom of triangle). In the Christ-
ian tradition, the unity of antagonisms between finite and infinite is realized by
Jesus Christ, reality level 2 (faith, top of triangle). Here, the incarnate Son of God,
Christ, realizes the unity of antagonisms, particularly on the Cross (the death of
eternal life). But for the believer, the Cross is still the sign of a “passing-through,” a
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 204

204 c thierry magnin

sign of conversion that is never finished! Thus the believer goes by faith from level
1 to level 2, but never reaches point T. The novelty of Christ is given by revelation
and is completely beyond what we can imagine.
Even if there is no relation between the status of quantum reality and the status
of Jesus the Christ (obviously!), the antagonism of finite-infinite in theology in
comparison with the continuous-discontinuous antagonism in science, along with
their corresponding modes of representation, are quite analogous in terms of logic
of the included middle. Analogy is here related to the mode of representation in
terms of logic, not the attributes! The logic of quantum physics appears quite inter-
esting for presenting the terms of Christian dogmas and to emphasize the potential
logic with respect to reality of such formally paradoxical beliefs.
Another important point of the Christian tradition, the Covenant between God
and Man in the Bible, can also be expressed in terms of complementarity using the
logic of the included middle. Creation is separated from God (one of the transla-
tions of “creation” in Hebrew means “separation”) and, at the same time, is in rela-
tion with God through the Covenant. Thus, the Covenant includes both the
separation (alterity) and the relation (unity/communion), as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Representation of the biblical Covenant between man and God.

There is a strong unity of antagonisms in the Covenant that allows both freedom
of choice for man and the freely given gift of love from God to humanity. The love
of God given to humanity is completely free, which is open to a free man’s response.
The experience of faith is open to an understanding of the Covenant as a unity of
contradictions that is never completely solved by man. Using the terms from the
hylemorphism of Aristotle, one can say that the actualization of the separation
induces the potentialization of the relation. Similarly, the actualization of the relation
induces the potentialization of the separation. This is in dynamic equilibrium. The
Bible shows a lot of historical examples of such actualization/potentialization. Thus,
quantum logic can be fruitful in exploring the biblical Covenant in its specificity!
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 205

thierry magnin c 205

Related Common Attitudes between Physicists and Believers

Consequences of the analogous use of the logic of the included middle in both the-
ology and science are interesting in terms of human attitudes about the nature of
reality. My argument seeks to avoid comparing science and theology directly. It is
more important to show that the use of paradoxical complementarity by the scien-
tist can also be an interesting application for the believer. This analogy can illumi-
nate the depth of Christian dogmas, which many people feel must be untrue because
they seem prima facie to be logical self-contradictions. However, such an analogy
demonstrates common issues between scientists and theologians, in completely dif-
ferent fields. Therefore, one can propose the following attitudes to be common
through analysis of included-middle logic and complementarity:
✦ Acceptance of reality as “reality of interactions” and as “something that resists
simple representation.”
✦ Positive acceptance of the incompleteness of our understanding of reality. Some
aspects of reality are generally beyond our normal modes of understanding.
Classical science used the terms “stability,”“permanence,”“decidability,”“deter-
minism,” and “certainty.” The evolution of modern science leads to consider-
ations of “instability,” “chance,” “undecidability,” “unsettlement,” and
“uncertainty” in our knowledge. It is essential to see that such an evolution
does not correspond to a defeat of scientific reason, but, on the contrary, is a
condition of progress toward a deeper conceptual understanding of reality.
Nevertheless, this evolution implies a considerable change of mentality for
scientists. This is similar to a challenge in ethics where acceptance of human
finitude is necessary, if unwelcome. This posture of humility is also the fun-
damental, necessary attitude for the believer facing the mystery of God.
✦ Partial understanding of reality. Despite the incompleteness of our under-
standing, the world is partly understandable! One can then perhaps say some-
thing about God!
✦ Acceptance and openness to alterity through the sense that reality is deep and
resists easy understanding. Reality is always partly beyond our compartmen-
talized representations. The same alterity is observed by the believer in theo-
logical research into God.
✦ Edification through confronting alterity. Moral lessons are learned in both sci-
ence and theology by recognizing that we are subjects facing that which is
innately beyond what we can easily confront, capture, and comprehend.
Recognition of the depth and inexhaustibility of reality and the limitation of
our concepts can be an important, morally potent lesson both in science and
in matters of faith.
✦ Openness to the sense of mystery. This mystery is different in science and in
theology, but is similarly significant in each.
In conclusion, one can say that the incompleteness of our scientific knowledge
opens new ground for a clarifying dialog between scientists and believers. Quantum
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 206

206 c thierry magnin

logic can be very fruitful for presenting the ways in which some Christian dogmas
are in fact addressing deep issues. It induces common human attitudes between sci-
entists and believers, which can be of great interest for education.

c
Thierry Magnin, Ph.D., Th.D., is Professor of Solid-State Physics at l’École
Nationale Supérieure des Mines, St. Étienne, France, and Head of the Material Sci-
ence Research Laboratory (URA) at the Centre National de la Recherche Scien-
tifique (French National Center for Scientific Research [CNRS]). He has written
two hundred papers and reviews and five books on solid-state physics and won the
prestigious Laureat Award of the French Academy of Sciences in 1991. Professor
Magnin is also a Catholic priest and General Vicar of the diocese of St. Etienne. The
topic of his thesis in theology was “The relationship between science and theology
today.” He has helped organize many conferences on this topic and has written four
books in French (Which God for a Scientific World? Nouvelle Cité, 1993; Between
Science and Religion, Le Rocher, 1998; Scientific Parabola, Nouvelle Cité, 2000;
Becoming Oneself at the Light of Science and Bible, Presses de la Renaissance, 2004).
Professor Magnin is a Member of the Board of Scientific Advisors of the Université
Interdisciplinaire de Paris.

Note
1 The wavelike/particlelike objects of the quantum world (http://www.worldscinet.com/
ijmpb/18/1804n05/S02179792040241 85.html); quantum change carriers in quantum
reality that are “Dawkinsian” (quantum included-middle, both “mind” and “body”); see
Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene (http://www.quantonics.com/Level_5_QTO_
Quanton_Primer.html).

References
Barbour, Ian G. Religion and Science, San Francisco: Harper, 1997.
Bohr, Niels. Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, New York: Wiley and Sons, 1958.
Camus, Michel, Magnin, Thierry, Nicolescu, Basarab, and Voss, Krister. Levels of represen-
tation and levels of reality, Munick: ESSSAT, 1994.
d’Espagnat, Bernard. A la recherche du réel, Paris: Gauthiers-Villars, 1979.
Heisenberg, Werner. Der Teil und Das Ganze, Munich: Piper et Verlag, 1969.
Jacob, François. Le jeu des possibles, Paris: Flammarion, 1981.
Kaiser, Christian. The logic of complementarity, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press,
1974.
Lupasco, Stephane. L’expérience microphysique et la pensée humaine, Paris: Le Rocher, 1941.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 207

thierry magnin c 207

Magnin, Thierry. Entre science et religion, Paris: Le Rocher, 1998.

Nicolescu, Basarab. Science, Meaning and Evolution, New York: Parabola Books, 1991.
Pascal, Blaise. Pensées, 83, Edition de Brunschvig.
Rahner, Karl, and Vorgrimler, Hermut. Petit dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Paris: Seuil,
1970.
Russell, Robert J., Stoeger, William R., and Coyne, George V. Physics, Philosophy and The-
ology: A common quest for understanding, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1988.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 208

Between Mathematics
and Transcendence 36
The Search for the Spiritual Dimension of Scientific Discovery
Joseph M. Zycinski

I n the fourteenth century, Nicole of Oresme tried to describe human emo-

tions mathematically. But human psychic processes finally turned out to be too
complicated for mathematical formulae, and this ambitious attempt ended in fail-
ure. Seven centuries later, the astonishing variety of physical processes can be
described in the language of mathematics, no matter whether these processes take
place in New York, Beijing, or Kinshasa. One cannot avoid the question as to why
the language of mathematics has been so effective in the physical description of
Nature and why physical processes are described by universal physical laws even
when they could have been nothing but an uncoordinated mess. These questions
could be regarded as the counterpart of the classical philosophical problem: Why
does being exist when there could have been mere nothingness? This question, crit-
icized as trivial and meaningless by empirical positivists in the 1930s, now can be
expressed in a new form that now also is meaningful for empiricists: Why do math-
ematically described laws of physics exist at all when Nature could have been man-
ifested as uncoordinated chaos?

The Mysterious Effectiveness of the Language of Mathematics

The effectiveness of mathematical language in describing natural phenomena has
amazed many authors. At the beginning of modern physics, an important contro-
versy arose between Isaac Newton, author of the Philosophiae naturalis principia
mathematica, the work containing the first theoretical exposition of new physics,
and John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal and founder of the Greenwich
Observatory. Newton determined the positions of celestial objects on the theoreti-
cal basis underlying his principle of gravity. Flamsteed determined them on the
empirical basis using the best observational equipment accessible at that time.
Finally, after an emotional debate, Flamsteed had to correct his observational results.
Mathematical formulae, worked out theoretically, better revealed the structure of the
physical world in our cosmic neighborhood than did the observational evidence.
Three centuries later, Eugene Wigner called this mysterious and astonishing prop-
erty “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences” (Wigner
1960).
The same “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” was revealed by Albert
Einstein when, on the basis of field equations in his general theory of relativity, he
discovered the expansion of the universe, which was confirmed by observation sev-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 209

joseph m. zycinski c 209

eral years later. In 1965, the same effect was illustrated by the discovery of the
microwave radiation that originated fourteen billion years ago with the Big Bang.
The main problem was that the existence of such radiation was already predicted on
the basis of mathematical calculations in the late 1940s. How does one explain that
the language of mathematics is not only adequate to describe physical processes, but
that it also helps us to discover new phenomena previously unknown? To better
understand this astonishing property of our world, let us refer to an analogy closer
to our everyday experience. Imagine that someone had created a new language as a
purely artificial product. Had he later discovered that an African tribe spoke this very
language, such a coincidence would have amazed him. It would be as improbable as
the existence of a tribe reciting fragments of James Joyce’s Ulysses or using, as a
means of communication, a new language created specifically for computers. Such
occurrences could not be considered obvious or natural.
Perhaps the people who either do not know computers or who are critical of
Joyce would not find anything amazing about such a situation; for them, any
sequence of English or English-like words would be only an unintelligible jabber. A
similar situation occurs among the people who do not understand mathematics
and do not appreciate its role in the physical description of Nature. Those who do
understand the role of mathematics in science think like Paul Davies, who, when
awarded the Templeton Prize in 1995, expressed the essence of his philosophy by
saying: “It is impossible to be a scientist, even an atheist scientist, and not be struck
by the awesome beauty, harmony and ingenuity of nature. What most impresses
me is the existence of the underlying mathematical order.” This order described by
abstract mathematical formulae has often been regarded as either a bare fact or an
unintelligible mystery.
In my opinion, to explain the nature of such an order one has to go beyond math-
ematics as well as beyond the natural sciences. This transcending of the level of sci-
entific discovery brings us to the divine Logos underlying the mathematical
structure of the world. Some authors call such a structure “the rationality field” or
“the formal field.” Jan Lukasiewicz, the well-known representative of the Polish
School of Logic, argued that the reality of ideal mathematical structures independ-
ent of human experience could be regarded as an expression of God’s presence in
Nature (Lukasiewicz 1937). Such an approach seems justified because this mysteri-
ous reality provides us with an experience of the sacred, which transcends the
domain of empirical observations and seems to precede all observation. Conse-
quently, I call this astonishing reality permeating our physical world the theosphere.

Mathematical Presuppositions for Cosmic Mysticism

For methodological reasons, references to the theosphere were eliminated from
modern science in the time of Galileo. Although he never denied the value of the-
ological explanation, the author of the Dialogo was right when he claimed that all
references to metaphysical or theological factors must be excluded from the domain
of astronomical research. If, in the spirit of medieval astronomy, one were to refer
to the role of angels to explain the motion of planets, one could always introduce
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 210

210 c joseph m. zycinski

the hypothesis of angels to explain any set of empirical data. As a result, in such an
approach astronomy would merely remain a branch of applied “angelology”
(Galileo Galilei 1890).
Galileo’s methodological distinctions were important in separating science from
philosophy. They do not eliminate, however, philosophical questions inspired by
new scientific discoveries. Neither do they eliminate the aesthetic contemplation of
Nature or our reaction to its beauty. In premodern science, this very beauty, as well
as the contemplation of it, were regarded as a purely subjective factor. Thanks to the
growth of modern science, one discovers that the physical order and its mathemat-
ical description constitute the objective basis for our aesthetic fascination. In its
strongest form, this fascination has been called “mystical” because it provides a non-
conceptual experience of the deepest level of physical reality. Albert Einstein called
this kind of experience, inspired by “a deep conviction of the rationality of the uni-
verse” and its mathematical description, “cosmic religious feeling.”
The question therefore arises: What would be the ultimate rational justification
for this expression of the rationality of Nature, which combines mathematical
description and mystical insight? The contemporaries of Galileo never asked such
a question because they used mathematics without ever discussing why its use was
so effective. As a matter of fact, again for methodological reasons, the question of
the mysterious effectiveness of mathematics transcends the cognitive level of both
mathematics and physics. It could be answered on the level of philosophy and the-
ology when we refer to the transcendent reality of God, which ultimately justifies the
cosmic order as well as its sophisticated mathematical description.

Cosmic Harmony and Human Ecology

Because of their dislike for pantheism, in their reflections about God many philoso-
phers spoke mainly about transcendent reality as it exists outside the world of
Nature. However, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the immanence of God within
Nature was no less important. We see this especially in Psalms, which presents God
clothed in majesty and splendor, wearing light as a robe (Ps. 103:1–4). In this per-
spective, harmony exists between the world of Nature and that of spirituality. Har-
mony is created by the great cedars of Lebanon and also by tiny herbs, by mountains
full of marmots and also by wild goats—as well as by the Spirit of God, which
renews the face of the Earth (Ps. 103). Specific aspects of this harmony are seen in
the Gospels, in which unseen divine reality reveals itself in some of the basic ele-
ments of Nature—the lilies of the field and the vine plant, the fig tree and the storm
on the lake, the Bethlehem plain and the Garden of Olives. In the biblical perspec-
tive, as in the philosophical reflections of Plato and Leibniz, God reveals his pres-
ence not in the gaps of our knowledge about Nature, but in the harmony of Nature.
To this tradition also belongs Teilhard de Chardin, who, writing in The Divine
Milieu, speaks of divinity revealing itself in the heart of the universe. A particular
form of this tradition would be developed in A. N. Whitehead’s process philosophy,
in which the role of God, immanent in his creation, has been compared with that
of the “Poet of the world.”
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 211

joseph m. zycinski c 211

The Poet not only creates his poems, but also expresses his nature in their beauty.
Aesthetic categories are important for mathematical equations as well as for our
spiritual harmony because they reflect the initial harmony of the world created by
the divine Poet. God’s presence can be discovered in the various forms of harmony:
physical, aesthetic, mathematical, ethical, spiritual. The different expressions of this
harmony make up a human ecology, which facilitates our personal growth thanks
to continuous cooperation with the divine Poet of the world. In this dynamic frame-
work, all of us are invited to multiply the beauty of existence while spiritual har-
mony becomes an important component of our human ecology.
The spiritual consequences of human interaction with the immanent God can be
described in St. Luke’s well-known words “hearts burning” (Luke 24:32). Our fasci-
nation with aesthetic beauty and our openness to altruistic actions such as human
gentleness and kindness disclose the presence of the immanent God at the level of
intentional processes. Of course, this presence cannot be reduced to intentional or
psychological factors. The physical study of supersymmetry discloses the most basic
forms of cosmic harmony that were ignored earlier in physics in the same way that
the aesthetic aspects of physical theories were ignored at a time when empiricism
dominated in science.
To come to know our human ecology means to discover in our existence the role
of physicobiological determinants and their relationship to the patterns of exis-
tence proposed by the divine Poet. Describing the nature of our interaction with
God, we can follow Whitehead when in his Process and Reality he uses the expres-
sion “the lure for feeling.” The causal influence of this lure can be described in cat-
egories of subtle persuasion, which can influence our decisions not only at the
conscious but also at the subconscious level. This form of divine persuasion leads
to human behavior in which special attention is paid to real values and gives rise to
a fascination, thoughtfulness, and amazement in situations that may previously
have seemed trivial. God, as a subtle Artist, never forces his patterns of beauty on
us. He respects our freedom as well as the possibility of our rejecting his subtle per-
suasion.
In some physical processes, such as those described in classical Newtonian
dynamics, mutual dependencies of interacting objects are strictly determined. In
deterministic chaos, such strict determinism disappears, and many marginal factors
can influence the final result. In our interaction with God, the subtle divine Poet
never violates human freedom. Our personal decisions are ultimately free in the
sense that God never determines them independently from us, but only influences
us through subtle persuasion. For this reason, Whitehead compares God’s role with
that of a Poet who introduces his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness into our
world. This form of introduction merely brings a proposal of harmonious exis-
tence, but never a strong, necessary determination. The better our cooperation with
the immanent God in our personal growth, the more mature become our actions
and the more evident our spiritual search for the basic harmony of human existence.
St. Paul, speaking to the inhabitants of Athens on the Areopagus, powerfully
expresses the presence of God in the created world when he says: “In Him we live,
move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). This divine presence constitutes a world of
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 212

212 c joseph m. zycinski

meaning, and thanks to this the reality in which we live is neither governed by the
logic of dreams nor is a manifestation of the absurd. Mathematical equations, the
effectiveness of which allows us to affirm that the world is a manifestation of the
Logos and not a mere result of absurd and meaningless coincidence, are a special
example of this world of meaning.
Immersed in this world of meaning, all of us are inhabitants of the invisible
theosphere, which consists not only of the rationality discovered in scientific exper-
iments, but also of the beauty experienced both in direct contact with Nature and
in contemplation of Einstein’s field equations. We have become used to this reality
and tend not to notice it, just as in our daily lives we take gravity and genetic con-
ditioning for granted. The invisible world of the divine Logos that penetrates our
daily lives shows that, just as the fox says in Saint Exupery’s Little Prince, “what is
essential is invisible to the eye.”

c
Joseph M. Zycinski is Archbishop of Lublin and Professor of Philosophy and
Grand Chancellor at the Catholic University of Lublin. His fields of interests are
primarily (1) philosophy of science, (2) relativistic cosmology, (3) metalogic, (4)
history of science, and (5) the relationship between the natural sciences and Chris-
tian faith. Archbishop Zycinski is a Member of the European Academy of Science
and Art in Vienna; the Congregation for Catholic Education; the Pontifical Coun-
cil for Culture, Vatican; and the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Moscow. He
has authored more than 25 significant books, among them The Structure of the Meta-
scientific Revolution; Three Cultures; Science, the Humanities and Christian Thought;
Theism and Analytic Philosophy; Language and Method; and The Universe and Phi-
losophy: Philosophical Issues in Relativistic Cosmology (1980 and 1986) with Michael
Heller (who also contributed an essay to this volume). He has written numerous
articles and more than 350 scholarly papers published in Polish, English, German,
French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Slovak, and Hungarian that have appeared in such
periodicals as Zygon; British Journal for the Philosophy of Science; The Review of
Metaphysics; Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture; Philosophy in Sci-
ence; and Cultures and Faith.

References
Galileo, Galilei, Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, ed. A. Favaro, Florence: G. Barbera, 1890; vol.
VII, 263; vol. V, 316.
Lukasiewicz, Jan, “Wobronie logistyki,” Studia Gnesnensia 15 (1937): 219.
Wigner, Eugene, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,”
Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics 13 (1960): 1.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 213

Rejecting the Realm

of Numbers 37
Edward Nelson

I n one of the non-Platonic dialogs of antiquity, Genesis 18:22–33, it is significant

that it is Abraham, not his interlocutor, who appeals to an abstract idea: “Shall not
the Judge of all the earth do right?” How unsettling it is to live in a world ruled by
a Person rather than by ideas.
The God Without Properties, the I Am Who I Am, is not governed by an infinite,
uncreated, immutable realm of abstract ideas. This realm is a human fabrication,
and a pagan one at that.
I will not expound here on the evils, as I see it, of this fabrication. William Blake
in The Human Abstract1 and Isaiah Berlin in The Crooked Timber of Humanity2 have
done so far more eloquently than could I. Rather, I shall describe how I approach
the question as a mathematician.3
I enjoy doing mathematics. Starting from axioms and previously proved theo-
rems, each step I take involves an act—applying a rule of inference. I enjoy hiking
in the mountains. Starting at the trailhead, each step I take requires an act—setting
one foot before the other. To me, the two activities are similar. But this is not so in
the prevailing view of mathematics. According to this view, the truths of mathe-
matics already exist in an infinite, uncreated, immutable realm, and all I do is dis-
cover them. Mathematicians call this view Platonism, with good historical
justification, because Plato was strongly influenced by Pythagoras, who more than
anyone was the originator of mathematics as a deductive discipline.
Platonism finds its simplest expression in the theory of numbers. In mathemat-
ical logic, numerals are constructed as follows: 0 is a numeral; given a numeral n,
construct its successor by writing Sn. Thus 0, S0, SS0, . . . are numerals. Each con-
struction of a new numeral requires an act. Now imagine that the process of writ-
ing all possible numerals has been completed and call the resulting set N, the set of
all numbers. Thus N is conceived of as an infinite, uncreated, immutable realm.
Numerals are concrete; the realm of numbers is abstract.
In mathematics, one constructs a formal language to discuss numbers, contain-
ing in addition to the symbols 0 and S the symbols + (addition) and · (multiplica-
tion) and the logical symbols not, and, or, implies, for all, there exists, and =, as well
as the variables x, y, and so forth. Formulas are constructed from these symbols. Like
numerals, formulas are concrete objects.
This is a powerful language for expressing concepts of the theory of numbers. For
example, the twin primes conjecture, that there exists arbitrarily large primes y such
that y + 2 is also a prime, is an unsolved problem of the theory of numbers: No one
has proved it or disproved it. It is easily expressed in this language, as follows:
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 214

214 c edward nelson

“1”: S0;
“2”: SS0;
“x is less than y”: there exists z such that x + z = y;
“x divides y”: there exists z such that x · z = y;
“y is a prime”: not y = 1 and for all z, z divides y implies z = 1 or z = y;
“the twin primes conjecture”: for all x there exists y such that x is less than y and
y is a prime and y + 2 is a prime.

The idea of truth in mathematics is a peculiar one. It is an abstract idea, for the
truth of a formula such as “for all x there exists y such that B(x, y)” where B(x, y) is
a previously constructed formula, presupposes the cogency of an infinite search
through all elements x and y of N. The idea of mathematical truth can be illustrated
by a fable.
Late one night while working on the twin primes conjecture, a mathematician
perceived a pungent odor. Looking up, he saw that a visitant was present.
V. Do you want to know whether the twin primes conjecture is true?
M. Yes, with all my soul. I have been working on it for years without success.
V. I can show you. I can take you directly into the Platonic realm.
M. (cautiously) What do you require of me in return?
V. Only that you look at what I show you. Do you agree to this bargain?
M. Yes.
V. Good. Swallow this.
The hands of the clock showed 1:00 as they entered the infinite, uncreated,
immutable realm of numbers. One by one, starting with 0, proceeding to S0 and so
on, they examined all numbers x. One by one, starting with x, proceeding to Sx and
so on, they examined all numbers y bigger than x to verify whether y and y + SS0
were primes. As the search progressed, these verifications became lengthier and
lengthier. Eventually:
M. I am infinitely weary. Can we stop?
V. No, you are only finitely weary. An infinite search still lies ahead of us. You
must keep your bargain. Let us continue.
This exchange was repeated infinitely often. Truly infinitely weary at the end of
the search, the mathematician saw, let us say, that the twin primes conjecture is true.
As they returned to the mathematician’s study, the hands of the clock showed 1:00.
M. No time has elapsed!
V. There is no time in that realm, no becoming. All is static.
M. It is a dead realm.
V. No. Nothing in it was ever alive.
M. The knowledge that the twin primes conjecture is true is of no use to me as
a mathematician; I cannot publish it by itself. I need a proof.
V. Why waste your time trying to construct a proof? All proofs already exist in
the Plutonic—pardon me, Platonic—realm. Let us enter that realm again,
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 215

edward nelson c 215

search through all proofs, and see whether one of them is a proof of the twin
primes conjecture.
M. No, never again! I do not believe in your realm; you have given me some per-
nicious drug. Hence!

One writes down certain axioms and argues that they are true. The resulting the-
ory is called Peano Arithmetic after the great Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano,
although the name is something of a historical misnomer. The most important
axioms are the induction axioms, which can be described informally as follows.
Let A(x) be some formula. Suppose that you have proved (1) A(0) and also (2)
for all x, A(x) implies A(Sx). Then induction allows you to conclude (3) for all x,
A(x). The motivation for postulating induction is the following: Consider a
numeral, such as SS0. We have A(0) by (1). By (2) we have A(0) implies A(S0), so
by the logical rule of inference called modus ponens we have A(S0). By (2) again we
have A(S0) implies A(SS0), so again by modus ponens we have A(SS0). In this way,
for each numeral n we can dispense with induction to prove A(n) from (1) and (2).
But accepting induction as true requires conflating the concrete notion of a
numeral, whose construction requires acts, with the abstract idea of a number; and,
indeed, many theorems in Peano Arithmetic can be proved using induction that
cannot be proved without it.
Finally, one argues that the axioms of Peano Arithmetic are true and that the log-
ical rules of inference preserve truth, so all theorems of Peano Arithmetic are true.
But 0 = S0 is not true; hence, there is no proof in Peano Arithmetic of 0 = S0.
Now this is an interesting conclusion. The argument proceeds by the abstract
idea of mathematical truth, about which logicians can and do dispute, but the con-
clusion is concrete. A proof in Peano Arithmetic is a concrete object, and all logi-
cians agree as to whether a putative proof is indeed a proof.
This is where Platonism is perhaps vulnerable. According to Platonic ideas, there
is no proof in Peano Arithmetic of 0 = S0. So if someone were to present a proof in
Peano Arithmetic of 0 = S0, Platonism could no longer excrete its poison into
human thought, and Platonists of the future would have the intellectual status of
flat-earthers today.
The world is not static, but alive. There is time, there is becoming, in the world.
Things in the world move by law and by chance, by will and by grace, and who has
the wisdom to disentangle the threads of this living tapestry?
Mathematics is made by mathematicians, and without mathematicians there
would be no mathematics. How do mathematicians use induction in their work?
They use it to bring into being new things, things that did not exist before.
Here is a simple example. We can ask, given a number x, is there a number y that
is divisible by all numbers less than x? Using 0, S, +, and · only, there is no way to
write down such a y in terms of x. Let A(x) be the formula “there exists y such that
for all z, z is less than x implies z divides y”. We have (1) A(0)—let y = 0. We have
(2) for all x, A(x) implies A(Sx)—for let y 0 be a number that is divisible by all num-
bers less than x; then y = y 0 · Sx is a number that is divisible by all numbers less than
Sx. Induction allows us to conclude (3) for all x, A(x). We write y = x!, using the new
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 216

216 c edward nelson

symbol !, to denote the y whose existence is asserted by A(x). But how do we know
that induction can be applied to the new kind of number that x ! denotes?
If we examine induction as it is used in living mathematics, we are less sure about
its justification. Induction can be used to create new kinds of numbers. Therefore,
postulating induction requires a leap of credulity—that it can be applied not only
to those numbers that already exist, but also to those that induction itself brings into
being. There is a circularity here that perhaps can be exploited to construct a proof
in Peano Arithmetic of 0 = S0.
I search for such a proof, at times with “hope dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope
with that obstreperous joy success would bring.”4

c
Edward Nelson, Ph.D., received his doctorate in mathematics at the University
of Chicago in 1955. He joined the Princeton University faculty in 1959, becoming
Professor of Mathematics in 1964. Professor Nelson’s early work was in probability
theory, functional analysis, and mathematical physics. His work in constructive
quantum field theory included “A Quartic Interaction in Two Dimensions” (in Ele-
mentary Particles, MIT Press, 1966), for which he was awarded the 1995 Steele Prize
for seminal contribution to research by the American Mathematical Society. Pro-
fessor Nelson’s less orthodox work in quantum theory includes two books and a
number of articles on stochastic mechanics, a theory based on an unconventional
interpretation of the Schrödinger equation. His recent work has focused on logic
and the foundations of mathematics. He invented a new approach to nonstandard
analysis, Internal Set Theory, discussed in his book Radically Elementary Probabil-
ity Theory (Princeton University Press, 1987). In his book Predicative Arithmetic
(Princeton University Press, 1986), Professor Nelson develops at length the reasons
for his skepticism of classical mathematics. He was elected a member of the Amer-
ican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1975 and of the National Academy of Sciences
in 1997. In 1991, he became doctor honoris causa of the Université Louis Pasteur in
Strasbourg, France.

Notes
1 “The Human Abstract” by William Blake is a poem from Songs of Experience, in The
Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne & The Complete Poetry of William
Blake, New York: The Modern Library, 1941.
2 Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas, New
York: Vintage Books, 1992.
3 A technical account of matters related to this article is in the author’s Predicative Arith-
metic, Mathematical Notes 32, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.
4 From “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” in Selected Poems of Robert Browning,
New York: Walter J. Black, 1942.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 217

Is God a Mathematician? 38
Mario Livio

M any outstanding physicists, most notably Albert Einstein, Eugene Wigner,

and James Jeans, noted that mathematics appears to be just too effective in
explaining the universe. Wigner, in particular, wrote a remarkable paper in 1960
entitled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Physical Sciences.”
He notes: “The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics to
the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither under-
stand nor deserve.” We may wonder, for example, why it is that all the phenom-
ena encompassed by electromagnetism, from the behavior of electrons to the
nature of light, can be explained by a set of four differential equations—Max-
well’s equations. Equally puzzling is the fact that some geometrical curves such as
the ellipse, invented/discovered by the Greek mathematician Menaechmus around
350 bce, were found two thousand years later to describe the orbits of planets
around the sun. Similarly, group theory proved to be essential in the understand-
ing of both the organization of elementary (subatomic) particles, and the struc-
ture of solids. What is it, then, that makes mathematics fit the observable universe
like a glove?
Attempts to answer this question fall generally into two broad categories. Accord-
ing to one view, mathematics is in some sense the actual “language” of the universe.
It exists independent of us humans, and we are merely discovering it in the workings
of the cosmos. Proponents of this philosophy like to point out that even some of the
more esoteric areas of mathematics, such as non-Euclidean geometries, were even-
tually found to provide cornerstones to cosmological models. The success of math-
ematics in explaining Nature is not an accident, if one accepts this premise. The
cosmos has literally imposed mathematics on humanity.
Many thinkers throughout history have espoused the above view. In Il Saggiatore
(The Essayist), Galileo Galilei writes:
Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—which
stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one
first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in
which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its char-
acters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it
is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it, without these, one
is wandering about in a dark labyrinth.
Given that these ideas put mathematics on a somewhat similar footing to reli-
gion —both represent a relationship between humans and the universe—it should
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 218

218 c mario livio

come as no surprise that some religious natural philosophers regarded mathemat-

ics as a manifestation of a divine thought. In the words of astronomer Johannes
Kepler:
Geometry, which before the origin of things was coeternal with the divine
mind and is God himself (for what could there be in God which would not
be God himself?), supplied God with patterns for the creation of the world.
Even Hermann Weyl, one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century,
writes:
. . . purely mathematical inquiry in itself, according to the conviction of
many great thinkers, by its special character, its certainty and stringency,
lifts the human mind into closer proximity with the divine than is attainable
through any other medium.
There exists, however, a very different view of mathematics, according to which
it is nothing but a human invention that has no real existence outside the human
brain. In the words of the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant: “The ultimate
truth of mathematics lies in the possibility that its concepts can be constructed by
the human mind.”“Theories” of the universe are, according to this view, only mod-
els, the utility of which is determined solely by their success in explaining natural
phenomena. The effectiveness of mathematics in the physical, biological, and social
sciences is in this case a direct consequence of evolution and natural selection of
ideas. In other words, over the centuries mathematicians have produced a plethora
of mathematical constructs and models of the universe galore. Many of these mod-
els proved to be blind alleys (e.g., the Ptolemaic model of the solar system) and
were eventually discarded. The successful ones have been continually improved,
with superior data and new mathematical machinery becoming available. The road
to our present theoretical thinking of the cosmos has, according to this view (some-
times labeled “intuitionist”), been very similar to the emergence of Homo sapiens
through the tortuous evolution of the species. The apparently miraculous applica-
bility (to models of the universe) of some mathematical tools originally conceived
with no application in mind reflects, in this case, a mere overproduction of ideas,
of which physics has selected only the appropriate ones. The latter point of view has
become increasingly popular, especially with psychologists and researchers in the
field of embodied cognition. For example, Berkeley linguist George Lakoff and
Freiburg University psychologist Rafael Núñez write (in Where Mathematics Comes
From): “Sometimes human physicists are successful in fitting human mathematics
as they conceptualize it to their human conceptualization of the regularities they
observe in the physical world.” Similarly, cognitive neuropsychologist Stanislas
Dehaene concludes in The Number Sense:
There is one instrument on which scientists rely so regularly that they some-
times forget its very existence: their own brain. . . . Is the universe really
“written in mathematical language,” as Galileo contended? I am inclined to
think instead that this is the only language with which we [emphasis mine]
can try to read it.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 219

mario livio c 219

So, was mathematics discovered or invented? In his recent thought-provoking

book, A New Kind of Science, computer scientist Stephen Wolfram strongly argues
that mathematics is a human invention. Wolfram shows that computer programs
and cellular automata can embody more general rules than afforded by mathemat-
ical equations. He also shows that the systems of axioms representing conventional
mathematics cover only a tiny fraction of the huge range of all possible abstract sys-
tems. Any attempt to describe mathematics as a pure discovery would thus leave us
entirely in the dark with respect to two major questions: (1) How can the human
mind gain access to that mythical space in which mathematics presumably exists?
(2) How can we call the choice of a small number of sets of rules (out of an immense
range of possibilities) a “discovery”?
However, if we were to conclude that mathematics is entirely a human invention,
this would raise two different questions: (1) How can we explain all the unantici-
pated theorems that emerged from the systems of axioms that were chosen (includ-
ing ones that we still don’t know how to prove)? (2) Why did the Italian
mathematician Giuseppe Peano, after all, choose a particular set of carefully crafted
axioms for the theory of numbers, and not any other set?
There is no doubt that even extremely simple systems of rules or axioms can gen-
erate highly complex behavior or unexpected “theorems.” In this sense, mathemat-
ics does take on a life of its own once the basic rules are specified, and humans do
have to discover its endless list of properties. Mathematics is therefore a human
invention that intrinsically contains discoveries. Why did humans come up with
this particular version of mathematics, and why is it so effective in explaining the
universe? The answers to these two questions may actually be intimately related.
Humans may have developed branches of mathematics (such as arithmetic and
geometry) that are largely based on the human perception of the universe. Arith-
metic may reflect the human ability to discern discrete objects, and geometry may
represent the human brain’s response to edges and lines. If this is true, then the
effectiveness of mathematics may indeed be a consequence of the fact that the uni-
verse has imposed, in some sense, a particular brand of mathematics on humans.
Jef Raskin, who helped create the Macintosh computer, goes even somewhat further.
He thinks that human logic, from which mathematics has presumably emerged, was
shaped and essentially forced on us by the workings of the universe, via Darwinian
natural selection. Raskin’s argument goes something like this: For most proposi-
tions encountered in everyday life, humans can assert whether they are true or not.
If some creatures were to develop with a logic allowing them to assert “true and
not true” for certain propositions, such creatures would not have survived for long.
For example, such a creature might jump off the edge of a cliff thinking that noth-
ing would happen to it, even if it had seen others before jumping to their inevitable
deaths.
As strange as this may sound, astronomy could, in principle, provide a more defin-
itive answer to the question about the effectiveness of mathematics. Imagine that we
were to discover many extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations, all of which evolved
independently of one another. Imagine further that we were to find that all of these
civilizations recognize, for example, the value of π and the prime numbers. One
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 220

220 c mario livio

could then argue that mathematics, as we know it, is, in this sense, “universal.” These
particular astronomical discoveries may prove, however, to be entirely unfeasible.
Not only is the discovery of extraterrestrial civilizations extremely difficult, even
the definition of an “intelligent civilization” may prove to be an insurmountable
task if other civilizations are very different from us. In the meantime, therefore, we
are forced to continue to use our mathematics, while the question as to the cause of
its effectiveness remains somewhat unresolved.

c
Mario Livio, Ph.D., is Head of the Science Division at the Space Telescope Science
Institute (STScI), which conducts the scientific program of the Hubble Space Tele-
scope. Dr. Livio has published more than four hundred scientific papers and has
received numerous awards for research and for excellence in teaching. In addition
to his scientific interests, he is a self-proclaimed “art fanatic” who owns many hun-
dreds of art books. Recently, he combined his passions for science and art in two
popular books, The Accelerating Universe, which appeared in 2000, and The Golden
Ratio, which appeared in 2002.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 221

Mathematical Theology 39
Sarah Voss

A decade and a half ago, when I was teaching calculus at a small Midwest-
ern college and my career in ministry was still barely a dream, I struggled to
find anything in the literature that would justify a term such as “mathematical the-
ology.” Although the concept can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, the term is
relatively new.
Today, things are different. Now we find the occasional book bearing an explic-
itly mathematic-theological title,1 and we find numerous works where the relation
between math and theology is indirect and metaphorical, but with the same intent.2
Mathematical physicists and other scientists often make direct statements relating
God to mathematical concepts.3 Even the prestigious Scientific American recognizes
the term, albeit somewhat less than enthusiastically.4
So, what is mathematical theology, anyhow? What good is it? Why should we take
any note of it? The short answers to these questions are simple. Mathematical the-
ology is a study of the Divine, which in some way draws on mathematics. It’s good
because it opens our minds (and maybe our hearts) to new possibilities. And, finally,
it brings hope.
The longer answers are too involved for this essay, but perhaps I can point you in
an appropriate direction. And perhaps you will become intrigued by how much
mathematics “counts” in the theological world.
First, more on the nature of mathematical theology. When guests enter our home,
they are often startled to find a large mannequin sitting on our sofa. They are star-
tled partly because “Jonesy” is unusual and partly because she greets our visitors
wearing a T-shirt that pretty much sums up (humorously, but also seriously) what
I mean by “mathematical theology.”
But unless I draw their attention to it, most people
overlook her T-shirt inscription:5
and God said,

and there was light!

“Jonesy”
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 222

222 c sarah voss

The implication, of course, is that God speaks in mathematics. This idea is old.
The Pythagoreans held much the same view, believing that “Number is all” and
that “the harmony of the spheres” depended on right relationship between those
numbers.
Through most of the years since the Pythagoreans, people have played variations
on this same theme. Only in the last couple of hundred years did the dissociation
between the spiritual realm and the world of mathematics become a requirement
for scientific legitimacy. Fortunately, this false separation is now coming to an end.
God seems to speak in mathematics in two basic ways. One is through the preci-
sion of numerical calculation, logical proofs, and all the other phenomena associ-
ated with mathematics in the “hard” sciences. The other way is through metaphor.
Most of the book titles cited earlier (see notes 1 and 2) are also metaphors drawn
from mathematics and applied to theological and spiritual notions. For example, the
universe has been said to work like a mathematical hologram, and theology is in
some manner like mathematical chaos theory.
It has been only in the last decade or so that our society has started to acknowl-
edge the existence of mathematical metaphors, or what I call “mathaphors.” And
when they apply to the spiritual realm, I call them “holy mathaphors.” Mathemat-
ical theology involves both straight calculation and mathaphors, but it leans more
heavily on the latter.6 I’ll say more about one such holy mathaphor when we talk
about hope.
What good comes from examining holy mathaphors? Elsewhere, I have explored
ten ways in which metaphors drawn from mathematics are impacting us.7 In short,
these analogies are
1. Changing our metaphors for God
2. Challenging our human role in the universe
3. Helping us accept ambiguity
4. Revamping our understanding of the one and of the many
5. Revising our thoughts about free will and determinism
6. Moving us toward pluralistic, multiworld views
7. Pushing the envelope on what our understanding of “consciousness” is
8. Altering our expectations for the afterlife
9. Offering the hope of a more compassionate future
10. Encouraging faith perspectives that are always incomplete and in process
While a case can be made for all of these statements (and probably others), the
point here is that ideas drawn from mathematics greatly extend our spiritual world-
views. Such mathematical notions are suggestive, not conclusive. But in those sug-
gestions lie the makings of new ways of interacting with one another, of healing, of
understanding God. In a world that is often spiritually fractured and hurting, we can
look to mathematical theology for the seeds of new hope.
Mathematics, it should be noted, has long been a reservoir for radical change.
Consider holography, for instance. Twenty years before the invention of the laser,
which is essential to producing holographic images, the theory of holography was
nonetheless complete and available in the mathematics textbook—and this is not
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 223

sarah voss c 223

an isolated example. Over and over, we first become aware of valuable new ideas
through the language of mathematics.
To some, drawing analogies from math and the hard sciences is a suspect process.
Some fear that extrapolating scientific concepts to a nonscientific discipline such as
religion or philosophy clouds the truth of our spiritual insights and leads to mis-
understanding of the science involved. Truthfully, this can happen.8 Yet to prema-
turely close our minds to the exciting possibilities that mathematical analogies can
bring to such nonmathematical disciplines is, in my opinion, a tragedy.
A tragedy, in fact, is what my favorite mathematician’s life turned out to be when
his mathematical discoveries were labeled “heretical” by his more “successful” (tra-
ditional) colleagues. Georg Cantor was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on March 3,
1845, to a father who converted to Christianity from Judaism and a mother who
was Roman Catholic. A deeply religious man himself, Cantor became a mathemat-
ics professor at what he considered a “second-rate” institution, the University of
Halle.9 During his career, Cantor virtually single-handedly contributed to the world
what is now known as “transfinite set theory.” This theory, which introduced the
notion of the actual infinite,10 revolutionized mathematics. He had a quasi-religious
self-justification for his work, believing his ideas had come to him as a messenger
of God. But at Halle, Cantor chafed under the constant and often mean-spirited
criticism of his own former teacher and very influential mathematician, Leopold
Kronecker. These vicious attacks and the general lack of recognition of his mathe-
matical triumphs contributed to Cantor’s eventual nervous breakdown. He died in
a mental hospital in Halle in 1918, a dispirited and bitter man.
Although Cantor did not live to see this revolution happen, he never doubted
that it someday would. In the hindsight of the century that has passed since his
great discoveries, perhaps it is time to wonder whether he was right. Cantor’s work
involves numerous radical conclusions about infinity and the continuity of num-
bers. For example, he showed that there are different sizes of infinities, with some
being larger than others. Furthermore, the ones we think should be smaller or larger
than others are not necessarily so. The sequential counting numbers {1,2,3,4,…}
would seem to most of us to be a larger set than the set of even counting numbers
{2,4,6,8,…}. But Cantor showed that because they could be put into one-to-one
correspondence with one another, they have an unexpected equivalency. Thus, in an
odd way, a part of a set is actually equal to the whole of it. Another way of saying
this is that in mathematics the part may have the power of the whole.
This is only one of the unusual notions that Cantor presented. In the Cantorian
world, there also exists an entity that is infinitely many yet simultaneously infinitely
sparse. The infinite both is and is not infinite; incompleteness is intrinsic to the
structure of the system.
It is interesting to take these characteristics of Cantorian set theory and say,“What
happens if something like this occurs in an area other than mathematics?” In par-
ticular, what happens if something similar to these ideas works in our theological
and spiritual realms?11
One of the possibilities that arises from this reflection is a new notion of plural-
istic religion. Until now, there have been three ways of responding to the fact that
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 224

224 c sarah voss

we humans have more than one religious understanding. Whose faith is “right”?
The religious exclusivist says, “Mine is.” The inclusivist says that lots of them appear
to be right, but that they are all included in one “real” way to salvation or liberation.
The traditional pluralist says, “You can have yours and I’ll have mine, and that’s just
fine.”
Now, with a Cantorian perspective, we can consider that the part may have the
power of the whole. When we use Cantorian set theory as a metaphor for a new way
of thinking about contemporary religious pluralism, we find a wonderful prece-
dent for accepting the “unacceptable” contradictions inevitable in any discussion of
“right” faith(s). In other words, many different religious traditions are “equivalent”
to the one whole truth.12
Cantorian mathaphors give rise to the idea of a “religion which contains all reli-
gions.”13 In spite of its initial sense of grandiosity, this mathaphor suggests that such
an all-encompassing religion is still just one more religion, with both its good and
flawed aspects. Cantorian mathaphors also offer new possibilities in our under-
standing of an “infinite” God. For example, might God in some way be both infi-
nite and bounded? Might God be “actual” rather than (or as well as) “potential” in
nature? And what are the implications of such a God for our lives?
These and other questions are ripe for further examination. Mathematical the-
ology gives us one tool for doing the exploration. If we use it, it promises to stretch
us, to challenge us, to offer us hope. The “strange metaphor” in the poem below
strives to capture the essence of this.

Cantor Religion14
The lamps are different, but the Light is the same.
(Jalalu’l-Din Rumi, thirteenth-century Sufi poet)

In the room my mind

sit many different lamps.
The lamp of Christianity, an old oil
lantern, recently wired for electricity,
all the latest scientific gadgets;
when I approach,
it springs on automatically.
I trust this lamp:
it was the light in the hallway
when I was small and afraid of the dark.
I use this lamp even now, oh,
not all the time . . . but
when I have moments free,
in fancy Gothic cathedrals
or tiny country chapels
smelling of warm waxed wood.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 225

sarah voss c 225

The Eastern lamp is hand-crafted copper,

gondola-shaped, wick lit
Aladdin’s lamp, it charms
with ancient promise
of untold treasure, I must
but rub it and attend, oh
there, can you see?
The earnest, handsome Buddhist
from Sri Lanka
who resides in the basement of my house,
who laments that the young women
in this country don’t care much
for the color of his skin. Me?
I’m old. I love the rich
blue-black glow which lives
in the light of this lamp.
The Jewish lamp, really seven candles
welded together. The one
in the room my mind
is highly stylized. Contemporary.
Unorthodox. You can’t make out much
in its soft flame, mostly abstract
markings, maybe it makes a difference
if you read Hebrew. Still, I love
to search the shadows it forms
for things familiar and strange,
as order out of nothing
in only seven days
and bushes that burn
with the Sabbath light
now and forever Amen.
In this land where I was born
are Native lamps; mine
a gray clay
artifact, discovered lying
by a tattooed Erie Indian
whose body was dug from a pit
and whose spirit finds me yet today
when I dig my bare toes
deep into the earth
and listen to the breath
of the wind.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 226

226 c sarah voss

All these and more are the lamps

which rest in the room
my mind, yet the one
I cherish most is the chalice
that ignites my heart,
for I see in its light
the room my mind
with all its magnificent lamps,
among them the chalice
that ignites my heart
which shows the room my mind
Dear God of many iterations,
may all their light shine on
and on and on, like a Cantor set
transcending.

c
Sarah Voss, D.Min., a Unitarian Universalist minister and former mathematics
professor, writes, lectures, teaches, and preaches widely about the relationship
between religion and mathematics/science. She is the author of several books,
including What Number Is God? (1995), an exploratory work on mathematical
metaphors, and Zero: Reflections about Nothing (1998), a book of inspirational
essays. She has written articles dealing with mathematics and religion, which have
appeared in journals such as Parabola, The UU World, and Mathematicia
Philosophia, and in collections such as Rocking the Ages, a Swedenborg Foundation
“Chrysalis Reader.” She has also developed and taught an award-winning course
called “Bridging Science and Spirit: A Mathaphorical Journey.” Her most recent
projects include the “St. Mathematicia” sermon series, which she offered in 2004 as
consulting minister to the First Unitarian Church of Sioux City, and an informal
educational workshop focused on “moral math.” Currently, she is a part-time lec-
turer in religion at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. For more about her work,
see www.PiZine.com.

Notes
1 Consider, for example, Chaos Theology: A Revised Creation Theology (Sjoerd L. Bonting,
Novalis, 2002), and Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics (Diar-
muid O’Murchu, Crossroad/Herder & Herder, 1997).
2 For example, The “God” Part of the Brain (Matthew Alper, Roger Press, 2001); The Holo-
graphic Universe (Michael Talbot, Harper Collins Publishers, 1991); The Soul in Cyber-
space (Douglas Groothuis, Baker Books, 1997); The Bible Code (Michael Drosnin, Simon
& Schuster, 1997); The Age of Spiritual Machines (Ray Kurtzeil, Viking, 1999); The Loom
of God: Mathematical Tapestries at the Edge of Time (Clifford A. Pickover, Plenum Press,
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 227

sarah voss c 227

1997); Sacred Geometry (Robert Lawlor, Thames & Hudson, 1989); and What Number
Is God? (Sarah Voss, SUNY, 1995).
3 For a nice example, see John Houghton’s analogy of God in the fifth (mathematical)
dimension, in “Where Is God? Thinking in More Than Three Dimensions,” from God
for the 21st Century (ed. by Russell Stannard, Templeton Foundation Press, 2000, p 159).
4 In “A Pixelated Cosmos,” George Musser writes that mathematical string theory “has
been called an exercise in ‘recreational mathematical theology’” (Scientific American,
October, 2002, p 18).
5 J. C. Maxwell’s four famous equations of electricity and magnetism.
6 See also my book What Number Is God? and my article “Sacred Qualities” in Parabola
(Fall 1999, pp 32–37). I also teach a class/seminar that deals with “holy mathaphors”; see
www.PiZine.com.
7 I developed these ideas in two invited lectures: “Old Pythagoras Would Be Pleased:
Theological Reflections on Dyson Mathematics,” CTNS Templeton Conference on the
works of Freeman Dyson, Omaha, NE, October 2000; and “Ten Ways Contemporary
Mathaphors Are Shaping Our Spiritual Lives,” Klein 2000 Lecture, First Unitarian
Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 2000.
8 See, for example, “A Review of Mikael Stenmark’s Scientism: Science, Ethics, and Reli-
gion,” by Ciprian Acatrinei, Metanexus: The Online Forum on Religion and Science;
Views 2002.10.07, http://www.metanexus.net.
9 Martin Luther University of Halle, Wittenberg, is located in the German city of Halle,
Saxony-Anhalt. It was merged in 1817 from the University of Halle (founded 1694) and
the University of Wittenberg (founded 1502, closed in 1813 by Napoleon) and named
after Martin Luther. It is the largest and oldest university in the Bundesland of Saxony-
Anhalt, with about fourteen thousand students.
10 As opposed to the more commonly held idea of the infinite being filled with potential.
11 See chapter 4 of my book What Number Is God? My eventual hope is to revise and
extend these ideas for a lay audience.
12 The material in these last two paragraphs appears in “Viewpoint: The Many Faiths or
One Faith Question,” by Sarah Voss, printed in Publisher’s Weekly Religion Bookline,
November 1, 1996, p 2.
13 Cf. the Cantorian notion of a “set which contains all sets.”
14 From What Number Is God? pp 132–33.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 228

From Now to Infinity 40

Michael Heller

T he mathematical-empirical method of modern science was born when

investigators gave up asking questions that were too difficult and limited them-
selves to those aspects of the world that could be measured. In spite of this, it soon
appeared that the new method was exceedingly efficient in many hitherto unex-
pected fields of investigation. The idea that “the world should be explained in terms
of the world itself ”—that is, with no help of elements alien to the mathematical-
empirical method—has been quickly elevated to the rank of the fundamental
methodological principle. Many people either openly claim or are inclined to think
that the limits of the scientific method coincide with the limits of rationality in
general. What is beyond the scientific method is beyond rationality. In this sense,
totalitarian tendencies are inherent in the practice of science.
Nowhere are these tendencies better visible than in modern cosmology. When
thinking about the universe on its most “global” scale, it is difficult to avoid think-
ing about the limits of science and its method. Nevertheless, even in this field of
research, the scientist has, according to the scientific code, the duty to “explain the
world in terms of the world itself.” Several strategies have been promulgated to ful-
fill this duty. Let us enumerate some of them.
The most ancient of these strategies is the claim that the universe is “eternal.” If
it had no beginning, it is simply “given”; then, as far as its origin is concerned, there
is nothing to be explained. When Einstein created his first relativistic world model
in 1917, he was ready to change his equations by adding a new term (containing the
famous cosmological constant) rather than admit that the universe was nonstatic
and, consequently, that it could have a beginning. Einstein’s model soon turned out
to be in conflict with astronomical observations, and the theory of the “expanding
universe,” with the Big Bang as its beginning, took precedence. However, to kill the
idea of the “eternal universe” was not that easy. In 1948, Hermann Bondi, Thomas
Gold, and Fred Hoyle promoted “steady-state cosmology” and defended it vigor-
ously. They proposed the image of a universe in which matter re-creates itself con-
tinuously, and therefore a universe that lasts indefinitely. Recent versions of chaotic
inflationary cosmology, created by Andrei Linde (a contributor to this book) and
modified by Lee Smolin, can be thought of as a new incarnation of the same idea
with the proviso that there are no material particles, but rather new universes that
are continuously regenerated.
Another version of the same strategy is the idea of “eternal return.” In its strong
form, time itself is “closed,” like a circle, and each event in the universe was, and will
be, repeated infinitely many times. In its weaker form, the universe oscillates: Each
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 229

michael heller c 229

contracting phase is followed by an expanding phase, with a “big bounce” between

phases. In this way, the universe continues to pulsate ad infinitum. Various modifi-
cations of this scenario are possible and, in fact, have been proposed.
In the above strategies, the universe is simply “given,” and as such continues its
existence indefinitely. More ambitious strategies aim at explaining scientifically how
this could be. To this category belong various models of the “quantum creation of
the universe,” also called “models of quantum tunneling out of nothing.” The idea,
proposed by James Hartle and Stephen Hawking in 1983, was subsequently devel-
oped by several authors. It consists of a combination of quantum physics, in which
a “game of probabilities” plays the key role along with general relativity that is a
paradigmatic theory for modeling the universe in its largest scale. Creation models
aim at showing that there is a non-zero probability for the universe (in its certain
state) to emerge out of nothing. Unfortunately, however, we have not yet developed
a full unification theory of quantum physics and general relativity. Many approaches
have been tried, leading to different results.
The above explanation clearly presupposes the existence of physical laws. With no
laws of physics, no physical model is possible. With no laws of physics, nothing
would forever remain nothing. How then does one explain the existence of physi-
cal laws? One possible explanation is to assume that, on the fundamental level, no
physical laws exist at all. On this level, everything is equally probable; the only “law”
is randomness and its attendant “stochastic noise.” What we call the “laws of physics”
emerge out of this primordial chaos as the outcome of some averaging process. This
strategy seems to be an attractive explanation, but its results are so far rather poor.
It elevates a “game of probabilities” to the rank of a fundamental ontology of the
universe. Here the question could be asked: In what respect does the probability
calculus differ from other mathematical theories such that it is elevated to such a
prominent rank?
Another attempt to explain the existence of physical laws consists of arguing that
there is only one logically consistent set of such laws. If we ever discover the “final
theory of everything,” it will be constituted by exactly this set of laws. This strategy
provides an ultimate explanation in the sense that, if it is correct, there is no choice:
either this set of laws, or nothing. However, according to Gödel’s incompleteness
theorems, this can hardly be correct. If in mathematics the ideal of a complete and
logically consistent set of axioms is excluded, the chance that something similar
could be done in physics is indeed minuscule.
The whole of the history of physics testifies to the fact that the universe has a
property owing to which it (i.e., the universe) can be modeled with the help of
mathematical structures. In mathematics, we may think of two structures that, in
a sense, determine each other. Such structures are called “dual.” Roughly speaking,
if f and x are elements of two dual structures, then the “evaluation” of f on x, that
is f(x), can also be read as the “evaluation” of x on f, that is x(f). It can happen that
a structure is dual with itself; in such a case, it is called “self-dual.” We could rightly
say that it explains or justifies itself. Mathematical structures are not static; they
can act on one another. One could say that the whole of modern mathematics is
about actions of various structures on various other structures. Mathematics is, in
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 230

230 c michael heller

a sense, a science of “structure dynamics.” It can happen that a structure is not only
self-dual, but also acts on itself in a self-dual manner. Such a structure can truly be
said to be “self-sufficient.” If the universe, on its most fundamental scale, is mod-
eled by a self-dual structure in the above sense, it is “self-explaining” in the truest
sense of this term. There exist many self-dual structures in contemporary mathe-
matics (for instance, in the theory of quantum groups), and some of them have
interesting applications to physics. However, for the time being, no self-dual struc-
ture is known that is rich enough to provide a “global explanation of everything.”
Shan Majid, a mathematical physicist from Cambridge University, the author and
main propagator of this idea, says briefly that a fundamental theory of physics is
incomplete unless it is self-dual in the above sense.
We do not know which of these strategies (if any) is correct or closest to being
correct. Most probably new ones, with more clever and more self-explaining
answers, will be invented. However, all of them—those that already exist and those
that will exist in the future—must presuppose the existence (in whatever sense of
this term) of something that is to be explained and of something that explains it. In
the most ambitious of these strategies, these two instances of “something” coalesce
into one self-explaining something. Here the famous Leibniz question is unavoid-
able: Why does something exist rather than nothing? The most self-explanatory ele-
ment is nothingness. If there were nothing, there would be nothing to be
explained—no questions to be asked, nobody to answer them. Nothingness is the
simplest state of all.
The question itself—Why does something exist rather than nothing?—bears an
important metaphysical message. It would hardly be possible to better express the
astonishing fact that the universe exists and that it does not seem to contain in
itself any justification of its own existence. It is not without meaning that the aston-
ishment takes the form of a question. Questions open vast fields of possibilities
that are usually blocked by positive statements. Leibniz’s question is perhaps the less
anthropomorphic of all questions ever asked in philosophy and, at least indirectly,
in theology. Moreover, this question is free from any involvement in time or space.
The Leibnizian “something” is neither temporal nor timeless, neither localized in
space nor totally abstract. When I ask this Leibnizian question, I am not directly
alluding to God; I am only wondering about the existence of “something” that con-
tains me. I start thinking with what I know from my direct experience, namely,
that I am. But my thought is not trapped in itself. It is the word “Why?” that opens
broad horizons.
Leibniz’s question also alludes to an infinite distance separating something from
nothing. In this context, “infinite” is a synonym for “indefinite”—like the distance
between any real number and zero (their ratio is indefinite) or like the proportion
between my transient “now” and the entirety of time, of which my “now” is only a
negligible, but real, instant surrounded by an already-nonexistent past and a not-
yet-existent future. From “nothing” to “something” is like from “now” to “infinity.”
The existence of an Absolute, Something that infinitely transcends me, cannot be
doubted. It constitutes the content of my direct experience, if by “experience” I
mean not merely sensorially perceiving the fact that I am, but also “touching my
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 231

michael heller c 231

own existence” by my wondrous human ability to think about the fact that I “am.”
It is another question that clamors for an answer: What or Who is the Absolute? An
impersonal, but in some sense infinite, power that is at least partially expressed in
the mathematical laws of Nature, or a Conscious Being infinitely transcending any-
thing we can imagine?
Could Infinity be Infinity if it is less rather than more?

c
Michael Heller, Ph.D., a Roman Catholic priest, is Professor of Philosophy at
the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Cracow, Poland, and an adjunct member of
the Vatican Observatory staff. He twice held the Lemaître Chair at the Catholic Uni-
versity of Louvain, Belgium. Fr. Heller is an ordinary member of the Pontifical Acad-
emy of Sciences in Rome, a founding member of the International Society for
Science and Religion, and a member of several other international societies. The
list of his publications contains more than eight hundred entries, including nearly
three hundred research papers in physics, cosmology, philosophy of science, and
history of science. He also is author of more than twenty books, the most recent
being Is Physics an Art? (1998), Quantum Cosmology (2001), The Beginning Is Every-
where (2002), The Meaning of Life and of the Universe (2002), and Creative Tension
(2003) .
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 232

One Universal Computation 41

First Zero, Then One
Kevin Kelly

A three-gigabyte genome sequence represents the prime coding informa-

tion of a human body—your life as numbers. Biology, that pulsating mass of
plant and animal flesh, is conceived by science today as an information process. At
today’s rates of compression, you could download the entire three billion digits of
your DNA onto about four CDs. As computers keep shrinking, we have little diffi-
culty imagining our complex bodies being numerically condensed to the size of
two tiny cells. These micro-memory devices—egg and sperm—are packed with
information.
That life might be information, as biologists propose, is far more intuitive than
the corresponding idea that hard matter is information. When we bang a knee
against a table leg, it sure doesn’t feel like we knocked into information; yet that’s
the idea many physicists are formulating.
The spooky nature of material things is not new. Once science examined mat-
ter below the level of fleeting quarks and muons, it knew the world was incorpo-
real. What could be less substantial than a realm built out of waves of quantum
probabilities? (And what could be weirder?) Digital physics is both. It suggests that
those strange and insubstantial quantum wavicles, along with everything else in the
universe, are themselves made of nothing but 1s and 0s. The physical world itself
is digital.
The scientist John Archibald Wheeler (coiner of the term “black hole”)1 was onto
this in the 1980s. He claimed that, fundamentally, atoms are made up of bits of
information. As he put it in a 1989 lecture, “Its are from bits.” He elaborated: “Every
it—every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself—derives
its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely from binary choices—bits. What
we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes/no questions.”
To get a sense of the challenge of describing physics as a software program, pic-
ture three atoms: two hydrogen and one oxygen. Put on the magic glasses of digi-
tal physics and watch as the three atoms bind together to form a water molecule. As
they merge, each seems to be calculating the optimal angle and distance at which to
attach itself to the others. The oxygen atom uses yes/no decisions to evaluate all
possible courses toward the hydrogen atom and then usually selects the optimal
104.45 degrees by moving toward the other hydrogen atom at that very angle. Every
chemical bond is thus calculated. If this sounds like a simulation of physics, then you
understand perfectly, because in a world made up of bits, physics is exactly the same
as a simulation of physics. There’s no difference in kind, just in degree of exactness.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 233

kevin kelly c 233

Unlike the fantastic world of The Matrix movies, in which simulations are so good
you can’t tell whether you’re in an artificial world; in a universe run on bits, every-
thing is a simulation.
An ultimate simulation needs an ultimate computer, and the new science of dig-
italism says that the universe itself is the ultimate computer—actually the only com-
puter. Further, it says, all the computation of the human world, especially our puny
little PCs, merely piggyback on cycles of the “Great Computer.” Weaving together the
esoteric teachings of quantum physics with the latest theories in computer science,
pioneering digital thinkers are outlining a way of understanding all of physics as a
form of computation.
From this perspective, computation seems almost a theological process. It takes
as its fodder the primeval choice between yes or no, the fundamental state of 1 or 0.
After stripping away all externalities, all material embellishments, what remains is
the purest state of existence: here/not here. Am/not am. In the Old Testament, when
Moses asks the Creator, “Who are you?” the Being says, in effect, “Am.” One bit. One
Almighty Bit. “Yes.” “One.” “Exist.” It is the simplest statement possible.
All creation, from this perch, is made from this irreducible foundation. Every
mountain, every star, the smallest salamander or woodland tick, each thought in our
mind, each flight of a ball is but a web of elemental yeses/nos woven together. If the
theory of digital physics holds up, movement (f = ma), energy (E = mc2), gravity,
dark matter, and antimatter can all be explained by elaborate programs of 1/0 deci-
sions. Bits can be seen as a digital version of the “atoms” of classical Greece: the
tiniest constituents of existence. But these new digital atoms are the basis not only
of matter, as the Greeks thought, but of energy, motion, mind, and life.
From this perspective, computation, which juggles and manipulates these pri-
mal bits, is a silent reckoning that uses a small amount of energy to rearrange sym-
bols. The result is a signal that makes a difference—a difference that can be felt as
a bruised knee. The input of computation is energy and information; the output is
order, structure, and extropy.
Our awakening to the true power of computation rests on two suspicions. The
first is that computation can describe all things. To date, computer scientists have
been able to encapsulate every logical argument, scientific equation, and literary
work that we know about into the basic notation of computation. Now, with the
advent of digital signal processing, we can capture video, music, and art in the
same form. Even emotion is not immune. Researchers Cynthia Breazeal at MIT
and Charles Guerin and Albert Mehrabian in Quebec have built Kismet and EMIR
(Emotional Model for Intelligent Response), two systems that exhibit primitive
feelings.
The second supposition is that all things can compute. We have begun to see that
almost any kind of material can serve as a computer. Human brains, which are
mostly water, compute fairly well. (The first “computers” were clerical workers fig-
uring mathematical tables by hand.) So can sticks and strings. As an undergradu-
ate student in 1975, engineer Danny Hillis constructed a digital computer out of
skinny TINKERTOYS. In 2000, Hillis designed a digital computer made of only
steel and tungsten that is indirectly powered by human muscle. This slow-moving
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 234

234 c kevin kelly

device turns a clock intended to tick for ten thousand years. He hasn’t made a com-
puter with pipes and pumps, but he says he could. Recently, scientists have used
both quantum particles and minute strands of DNA to perform computations.
A third postulate ties the first two together into a remarkable new view: All com-
putation is one.
In 1937, Alan Turing, Alonso Church, and Emil Post worked out the logical under-
pinnings of useful computers. They called the most basic loop—which has become
the foundation of all working computers—a finite-state machine. Based on their
analysis of this machine, Turing and Church proved a theorem now bearing their
names. Their conjecture states that any computation executed by one finite-state
machine writing on an infinite tape (known later as a Turing machine) can be done
by any other finite-state machine on an infinite tape, no matter what its configura-
tion. In other words, all computation is equivalent. They called this “universal com-
putation.”
When John von Neumann and others jump-started the first electronic comput-
ers in the 1950s, they immediately began extending the laws of computation away
from math proofs and into the natural world. They tentatively applied the laws of
loops and cybernetics to ecology, culture, families, weather, and biological systems.
Evolution and learning, they declared, were types of computation. Nature com-
puted.
If nature computed, why not the entire universe? In a June 2002 article published
in Physical Review Letters, MIT professor Seth Lloyd posed this question: If the uni-
verse were a computer, how powerful would it be? By analyzing the computing
potential of quantum particles, he calculated the upper limit of how much com-
puting power the entire universe (as we know it) has contained since the beginning
of time. It’s a large number: 10120 logical operations. There are two interpretations
of this number. One is that it represents the performance “specs” of the ultimate
computer. The other is that it’s the amount required to simulate the universe on a
quantum computer. Both statements illustrate the tautological nature of a digital
universe: Every computer is the computer.
Continuing in this vein, Lloyd estimated the total amount of computation that
has been accomplished by all human-made computers that have ever run. He came
up with 1031 logical operations. (Because of the fantastic doubling of Moore’s law,
more than half of this total was produced in the past two years.) He then tallied up
the total energy-matter available in the known universe and divided that by the
total energy-matter of human computers expanding at the rate of Moore’s law.
“We need three hundred Moore’s law doublings, or six hundred years at one dou-
bling every two years,” he figures, “before all the available energy in the universe is
taken up in computing. Of course, if one takes the perspective that the universe is
already essentially performing a computation, then we don’t have to wait at all. In
this case, we may just have to wait for six hundred years until the universe is run-
ning Windows or Linux.”
The relative nearness of six hundred years says more about exponential increases
than it does about computers. Neither Lloyd nor any other scientist mentioned here
realistically expects a second universal computer in six hundred years. But what
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 235

kevin kelly c 235

Lloyd’s calculation proves is that over the long term, there is nothing theoretical to
stop the expansion of computers. “In the end, the whole of space and its contents
will be the computer. The universe will in the end consist, literally, of intelligent
thought processes,” David Deutsch proclaims in Fabric of Reality. These assertions
echo those of the physicist Freeman Dyson, who also sees minds—amplified by
computers—expanding into the Cosmos “infinite in all directions.”2
Yet while there is no theoretical hitch to an ever-expanding computer matrix that
may in the end resemble a universal machine, no one wants to see themselves as
someone else’s program running on someone else’s computer. Put that way, life
seems a bit secondhand.
Yet the notion that our existence is derived, like a string of bits, is an old and
familiar one. Central to the evolution of Western civilization from its early Hel-
lenistic roots has been the notion of logic, abstraction, and disembodied informa-
tion. The saintly Christian guru John writes from Greece in the first century: “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Charles Babbage, credited with constructing the first computer in 1832, saw the
world as one gigantic instantiation of a calculating machine, hammered out of brass
by God. He argued that in this heavenly computer universe, miracles were accom-
plished by divinely altering the rules of computation. Even miracles were logical
bits, manipulated by God.
There’s still confusion. Is God the Word itself, the Ultimate Software and Source
Code, or is God the Ultimate Programmer? Or is God the Necessary Other, the off-
universe platform where this universe is computed?
But each of these three possibilities has at its root the mystical doctrine of uni-
versal computation. Somehow, according to digitalism, we are linked to one another,
all beings alive and inert, because we share, as John Wheeler said, “at the bottom—
at a very deep bottom, in most instances—an immaterial source.” This commonal-
ity, spoken of by mystics of many beliefs in different terms, also has a scientific
name: computation. Bits—minute logical atoms, spiritual in form—amass into
quantum quarks and gravity waves, raw thoughts, and rapid motions.
The computation of these bits is a precise, definable, yet invisible process that is
immaterial yet produces matter. “Computation is a process that is perhaps the
process,” says Danny Hillis, whose new book, The Pattern on the Stone, explains the
formidable nature of computation. “It has an almost mystical character because it
seems to have some deep relationship to the underlying order of the universe.
Exactly what that relationship is, we cannot say. At least for now.”
Probably the “trippiest” science book ever written is The Physics of Immortality,
by Frank Tipler. If this book were labeled standard science fiction, no one would
notice, but Tipler is a reputable physicist and Tulane University professor who writes
papers for the International Journal of Theoretical Physics. In Immortality, he uses
current understandings of cosmology and computation to declare that all living
beings will be bodily resurrected after the universe dies. His argument runs roughly
as follows: As the universe collapses in on itself in the last minutes of time, the final
spacetime singularity creates (just once) infinite energy and computing capacity.
In other words, as the giant universal computer keeps shrinking in size, its power
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 236

236 c kevin kelly

increases to the point at which it can simulate precisely the entire historical universe,
past, present, and possible. He calls this state the Omega Point. It is a computa-
tional space that can resurrect “from the dead” all the minds and bodies that have
ever lived. The weird thing is that Tipler was an atheist when he developed this the-
ory and discounted as mere “coincidence” the parallels between his ideas and the
Christian doctrine of Heavenly Resurrection. Since then, he says, science has con-
vinced him that the two may be identical.
While not everyone goes along with Tipler’s eschatological speculations, theorists
such as Deutsch endorse his physics. An Omega Computer is possible and proba-
bly likely, they say.
I asked Tipler which side of the Fredkin gap he is on. Does he go along with the
weak version of the ultimate computer, the metaphorical one, that says the universe
only seems like a computer? Or does he embrace Fredkin’s strong version, that the
universe is a twelve-billion-year-old computer and we are the killer app? “I regard
the two statements as equivalent,” he answered. “If the universe in all ways acts as if
it was a computer, then what meaning could there be in saying that it is not a com-
puter?”
Only hubris.
And if the universe is a computer, then the Spirit of God seems to dwell in its tini-
est bit, the elemental, immaterial act of computation, which is shared by everything.
There is but one Universal Computation, and we each manifest this unseen power
in our specific material way.

c
Kevin Kelly helped launch Wired magazine in 1993, served as its Executive Editor
until January 1999, and is currently Editor-at-Large. In 1994 and 1997, during Kelly’s
tenure, Wired won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence (the indus-
try’s equivalent of two Oscars). His books include Out of Control: The New Biology
of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World (1994); New Rules for the New
Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1998), which was a bestseller
in the United States and has been translated into various languages; Bicycle Haiku
(2001), Asia Grace (2002), Cool Tools (2003), and Bad Dreams (2003). Kelly serves on
boards of high-tech companies and is a frequent speaker at conferences and cor-
porate meetings.

Notes
1 Also see http://www.metanexus.net/ultimate_reality/main.htm and http://us.cam-
bridge.org/titles/catalogue.asp?isbn=052183113X.
2 Freeman J. Dyson, Infinite in All Directions: Gifford Lectures Given at Aberdeen, Scotland,
April-November 1985. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. Also see his essay in this volume.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 237

“Neoreality” and the

Quest for Transcendence 42
Clifford A. Pickover

The nature of reality is this: It is hidden, and it is hidden, and it is hidden.

—Rumi, thirteenth-century Sufi poet and mystic

W hat is reality? What is transcendence? How can we open our minds so

that we can reason beyond the limits of our intuition? When Albert Einstein
was asked about reality, he replied, “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very per-
sistent one.” In an effort to stretch readers’ minds, I have considered both Einstein
and Rumi while publishing thirty books on topics on the borderlands of science and
religion. Most recently, and perhaps most importantly, I published four science-fic-
tion novels in a “Neoreality” series in which both the reader and protagonists cope
with realities separated from ours by thin veils. These distortions and parallel uni-
verses are a backdrop for human emotion, scientific logic, grand adventure, and a
variety of religious discussions. For example, in Liquid Earth, religious robots help
humans cope with a reality that melts along a rustic Main Street in Shrub Oak, New
York. In The Lobotomy Club, a group of people perform brain surgery on them-
selves to allow them to see religious visions and a “truer” reality. In Sushi Never
Sleeps, readers ponder a fractal society with inhabitants living at different size scales.
Would individual population groups, because of size, develop their own separate
societies, religion, and laws? Would some of the tiny Fractalians believe that indi-
viduals a million times their size even existed, or would they be relegated to the
realm of mythological creatures, like the superhuman gods of yore? And, finally, in
Egg Drop Soup, an alien object allows people to explore countless realities populated
by a host of mysterious beings.
Sometimes readers of the “Neoreality” series ask me why I write on God, strange
realities, and religious subjects. I tend to be skeptical about the paranormal. How-
ever, I do feel that there are facets of the universe we can never understand, just as
a monkey can never understand calculus, black holes, symbolic logic, and poetry.
There are thoughts we can never think, visions we can only glimpse. It is at this
filmy, veiled interface between human reality and a reality beyond that we may find
the numinous, which some may liken to God.
But what exactly is neoreality? In my book series, I use the word “neoreality” to
imply a new or altered reality that is so close to ours that the differences are usu-
ally imperceptible. These realities are often futuristic, fresh, and alive with detail.
Readers find themselves in touch with a hyper-reality, a religious reality beyond
space and time. Odd portals help characters transcend ordinary existence. The
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 238

238 c clifford a. pickover

word “neorealism” has traditionally described a movement in Italian filmmaking,

characterized by the depictions of poor people and their daily challenges. In neo-
realistic movies, directors often featured ordinary characters in plots that mean-
dered like wisps and eddies of wind. The directors did a minimum of editing and
fancy camerawork. My new use of the word “neoreality” is not synonymous with
neorealism, although I can resonate with the old neorealistic characters, buffeted by
the seemingly random circumstances around them. Navigating the chaotic churn,
and speculating about God, is the very essence of adventure.
Belief in an omniscient God and the promise of heaven are important ideas to
adherents of great monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
These beliefs pervade much of Western culture and are clearly evident in the United
States. Recent surveys indicate that:
✦ The United States ranks highest, along with Iceland and the Philippines, for
those who believe in heaven (63 percent of the population).
✦ The United States ranks highest for those who believe in life after death (55
percent).
✦ Eighty-four percent of Americans believe that God performed miracles.

Indeed, science and religion are both thriving in America.

Not only do many laypeople believe in God, but various scientists have used evi-
dence from physics and astronomy to conclude that God exists. Note, however, that
the scientists’“God” may not be the God of the Israelites, who smites the wicked, but
rather a God that established various mathematical and physical parameters that
permitted life to evolve in the universe. Some scientists feel we exist because of cos-
mic coincidences—or, more accurately, we exist because of seemingly “finely tuned”
numerical constants that permit life. Those individuals who believe this Anthropic
Principle pronounce these numbers to be near-miracles that might suggest an intel-
ligent design to the universe. Here are just a few examples of where religion and
science become close.
We owe our very lives to the element carbon, which was first manufactured in
stars before the Earth formed. The challenge in creating carbon is getting two
helium nuclei in stars to stick together until they are struck by a third. It turns out
that this is accomplished only because of internal resonances, or energy levels, of
carbon and oxygen nuclei. If the carbon resonance level were only 4 percent lower,
carbon atoms wouldn’t form. Were the oxygen resonance level only half a percent
higher, almost all the carbon would disappear as it combined with helium to form
oxygen. This means that human existence depends on the fine-tuning of these two
nuclear resonances. The famous astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle said that his atheism was
shaken by facts such as these:
If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by
stellar nucleosynthesis, these are just the two levels you have to fix. Your fix-
ing would have to be just about where these levels are actually found to be.
. . . A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect
has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and there
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 239

clifford a. pickover c 239

are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one cal-
culates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion
almost beyond question. . . . Rather than accept that fantastically small prob-
ability of life having arisen through the blind forces of nature, it seemed
better to suppose that the origin of life was a deliberate intellectual act.

Robert Jastrow, the former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
called this the most powerful evidence for the existence of God ever to come out of
science. Other amazing parameters abound. If all of the stars in the universe were
heavier than three solar masses, they would live for only about five hundred million
years, and life would not have time to evolve beyond primitive bacteria. Stephen
Hawking has estimated that if the rate of the universe’s expansion one second after
the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million mil-
lion, the universe would have re-collapsed. And the universe must live for billions
of years to permit time for intelligent life to involve. On the other hand, the universe
might have expanded so rapidly that protons and electrons never united to make
hydrogen atoms.
Paul Davies (who contributed a chapter to this volume) has calculated that the
odds against the initial conditions being suitable for later star formation as one fol-
lowed by a thousand billion billion zeroes. Davies, John Barrow (who also con-
tributed a chapter to this book), and Frank Tipler estimated that a change in the
strength of gravity or of the weak force by only one part in 10100 would have pre-
vented advanced life forms from evolving. There is no a priori physical reason that
these constants and quantities should possess the values they do. This has led the
one-time agnostic physicist Davies to write, “Through my scientific work I have
come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together
with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact.” Of
course, these conclusions are controversial, and an infinite number of random (non-
designed) universes could exist, ours being just one that permits carbon-based life.
Some researchers have even speculated that child universes are constantly budding
off from parent universes and that the child universe inherits a set of physical laws
similar to the parent, a process reminiscent of evolution of biological characteris-
tics of life on earth.
We can go even further and think about the wild implications for multiple uni-
verses—such as those presented in my “Neoreality” series—and what they say about
our power in relation to God’s. Stanford University physics professor Andrei Linde
(who contributed a chapter to this volume) has speculated that it might be possi-
ble to create a new baby universe in a laboratory by violently compressing matter
at high temperatures—in fact, one milligram of matter may initiate an eternal self-
reproducing universe. What would be the economic or spiritual gain we would get
from creating a universe, considering it would be extremely difficult, if not impos-
sible, to enter the new universe from ours? Would God care if we created such uni-
verses at will? Andre Linde and writer Rudy Rucker have discussed methods for
encoding a message for the new universe’s potential inhabitants by manipulating
parameters of physics, such as the masses and charges of particles, although this
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 240

240 c clifford a. pickover

would be a precarious experiment given the difficulty of manipulating these con-

stants so that they code a message and permit life to evolve. In light of the possibil-
ity of multiple universes, perhaps the term “omniscient” takes on a new meaning,
and the God of the Old Testament might be omniscient only in the sense that he
knows all that can be known about a single Universe and not all universes.
Is God a mathematician?1 Certainly, the World, the Universe, and Nature can be
reliably understood using mathematics. Nature is mathematics. The arrangement of
seeds in a sunflower can be understood using Fibonacci numbers. The shape
assumed by a delicate spider web suspended from fixed points, or the cross-section
of sails bellying in the wind, is a catenary—a simple curve defined by a simple for-
mula. Seashells (such as the chambered nautilus, the symbol of the John Templeton
Foundation), animal horns, and the cochlea of the ear are logarithmic spirals, which
can be generated using a mathematical constant known as the “golden ratio.” Moun-
tains and the branching patterns of blood vessels and plants are fractals, a class of
shapes that exhibit similar structures at different magnifications. Einstein’s E = mc2
defines the fundamental relationship between energy and matter. And a few simple
constants—the gravitational constant, Planck’s constant, and the speed of light—
control the destiny of the Universe. I do not know whether God is a mathematician,
but mathematics is the loom upon which God weaves the fabric of the Universe.
I think that our brains are wired with a desire for religion and belief in an omnis-
cient God. If so, the reasons for our interest, and the rituals we use, are buried deep
in the essence of our nature. Religion is at the edge of the known and the unknown,
poised on the fractal boundaries of history, philosophy, psychology, biology, and
many other scientific disciplines. Because of this, religion and religious paradoxes
are an important topic for contemplation and study. Even with the great scientific
strides we will make in this century, we will nevertheless continue to swim in a sea
of mystery. Humans need to make sense of the world and will surely continue to use
both logic and religion for that task. What patterns and connections will we see in
the twenty-first century? Who and what will be our God?
And what about the Bible itself? Why do I use so much biblical imagery in the
“Neoreality” book series? For one thing, the Bible is as an alternate-reality device.
It gives its readers a glimpse of other ways of thinking and of other worlds. It is also
the most mysterious book ever written. We don’t know the ratio of myth to history.
We don’t know all the authors. We are not always sure of the intended message. We
only know that that the Bible reflects and changes humankind’s deepest feelings. The
Bible, an ancient book, paradoxically describes the ultimate Neoreality—and is the
hammer that shatters the ice of our unconscious. Dan Platt, of the IBM Watson
Research Center, once told me, “The Bible is at minimum an interesting model of
human understanding—of how we reach across cultures to understand each other
and learn about what we hold as sacred. I have the notion that that kind of inter-
face is the most visible place to look for God.”
Perhaps Dr. Platt is right. Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer once compared
events in our world to the tops of waves in an ocean. We notice the tops of the iso-
lated waves, but beneath the surface there may be some kind of synchronistic mech-
anism that connects them. Whatever you believe about such far-out speculation, be
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 241

clifford a. pickover c 241

humble. Our brains, which evolved to make us run from lions on the African
savanna, may not be constructed to penetrate the infinite veil of reality. We may
need science, computers, brain augmentation, and even literature and poetry to
help us tear away the veils. For those of you who read the “Neoreality” series, look
for the hidden mechanism, feel the connections, pierce the cosmic shroud, and sail
on the shoreless sea of love.

c
Clifford A. Pickover received his Ph.D. from Yale University’s Department of
Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and is the author of more than thirty highly
acclaimed books, translated into ten languages, on such topics as computers and cre-
ativity, religion, art, mathematics, black holes, human behavior and intelligence,
time travel, alien life, and science fiction. Dr. Pickover is a prolific inventor with
dozens of patents, associate editor for several journals, author of colorful puzzle
calendars, and puzzle contributor to magazines geared to children and adults. His
recent books include The Paradox of God and the Science of Omniscience, The Loom
of God, Surfing through Hyperspace, Time: A Traveler’s Guide, Dreaming the Future,
Keys to Infinity, Wonders of Numbers, The Mathematics of Oz, and four science-fic-
tion novels in his “Neoreality” series: Liquid Earth, The Lobotomy Club, Sushi Never
Sleeps, and Egg Drop Soup and he has a forthcoming book Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and
Elves: Sushi, Psychedelics, Parallel Universes, and the Quest for Transcendence (2005).
Dr. Pickover’s Web site, www.pickover.com, has now received more than a million
visits and worldwide attention in the press.

Note
1 Also see Mario Livio’s chapter by this title in this volume.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 242

Belief in
a Superior Being 43
A Game-Theoretic Analysis
Steven J. Brams

T heology addresses the relationship that human beings have with a superior
being—God—in most monotheistic religions. Before exploring this relation-
ship, however, it is appropriate to ask the prior existential question: Is belief in a
superior being justified, and under what circumstances?
Knowing the answer to this question may provide spiritual guidance to the gen-
uinely perplexed. True, a scientific investigation will not provide a definitive answer,
but game-theoretic analysis of the kind I describe does, in my view, offer new
insights into the foundations of belief in a superior being.
In this essay, I begin by constructing a simple game, the “Revelation Game,” that
reflects issues raised in several Hebrew Bible stories and also speaks to two questions
that concern many people today:
1. Is belief in a superior being rational?
2. If a superior being exists, should he reveal himself?
To be sure, modeling the complex relationship that a person (P) might have with a
superior being (SB), such as God, drastically simplifies a deep and profound reli-
gious experience for many people.1 My aim, however, is not to describe this experi-
ence but to abstract from it in order to analyze strategic choices that P and SB might
face.
Is it reasonable to view SB as a game player who, like P, makes rational choices?
Or is SB too ethereal or metaphysical an entity to put in these terms? Consider the
view expressed by the theologian Martin Buber (1958, 135) about his approach to
understanding God:
The description of God as a Person is indispensable for everyone who like
myself means by “God” not a principle . . . not an idea . . . but who rather
means by “God,” as I do, him who—whatever else he may be—enters into
a direct relation with us.
It is not a great leap of faith to model a “direct relation” as a game, although as
Raymond Cohen (1991, 24) points out, “the concept of a personal, unmediated rela-
tionship between human being and deity is quite incomprehensible” in the non-
Western world.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 243

steven j. brams c 243

The Revelation Game

The game I use to explore the rationality of belief in an SB, the Revelation Game,
supposes specific primary and secondary goals of P and SB. To preview the subse-
quent analysis, I will show that
✦ play of this game leads to a Pareto-nonoptimal equilibrium outcome—a stable
outcome that is worse for both players than some other outcome; but
✦ both P and SB can induce Pareto-optimal outcomes if one or the other pos-
sesses “moving power.”
In the Revelation Game, I assume that SB has two strategies: reveal himself (R),
–
which establishes his existence, and don’t reveal himself R, which does not establish
his existence. Similarly, P has two strategies: believe in SB’s existence (B), and don’t
–
believe in SB’s existence B (see matrix game in the figure).

Figure 1. Outcome and Payoff Matrix of Revelation Game

P
Believe in SB’s existence (B) Don’t believe in SB’s existence ( b–)

Reveal himself (R) P faithful with evidence: P unfaithful despite evidence:

(establish his existence) belief in existence nonbelief in existence
confirmed unconfirmed
(3,4)P (1,1)

SB

Don’t reveal P faithful without P unfaithful without evidence:

himself ( r–) (don’t evidence: belief in nonbelief in existence
establish his existence) existence unconfirmed confirmed
(4,2)SB (2,3) Dominant
–––

Key: (x,y) = (payoff to SB, payoff to P)

4 = best; 3 = next best; 2 = next worst; l = worst
Nash equilibrium underscored
Arrows indicate direction of cycling
SB = moving power outcome SB can induce
P = moving power outcome P can induce

I begin by specifying (i) primary and (ii) secondary goals of each player:
SB: (i) Wants P to believe in his existence; (ii) prefers not to reveal himself.
P: (i) Wants belief (or nonbelief) in SB’s existence confirmed by evidence (or
lack thereof); (ii) prefers to believe in SB’s existence.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 244

244 c steven j. brams

The primary and secondary goals of each player, taken together, completely spec-
ify the players’ orderings of outcomes from best (4) to worst (1). The primary goal
distinguishes between the two best (4 and 3) and the two worst (2 and 1) outcomes
of a player, whereas the secondary goal distinguishes between 4 and 3, on the one
hand, and 2 and l on the other.
Thus, for SB, (i) establishes that he prefers outcomes in the first column of the
payoff matrix (4 and 3), associated with P’s strategy of B to outcomes in the second
–
column of the matrix (2 and 1), associated with P’s strategy of B . Between the two
outcomes in each column, (ii) establishes that SB prefers not to reveal himself
(hence, 4 and 2 are associated with B over revealing himself (3 and 1 are associated
with R).
For P, (i) says that she prefers to have her belief or nonbelief confirmed by evi-
dence (so the main-diagonal outcomes are 4 and 3) to being unconfirmed (so the
off-diagonal outcomes are 2 and 1). Between the pairs of main-diagonal and off-
diagonal outcomes, (ii) says that P prefers to believe (so 4 and 2 are associated with
–
B) rather than not to believe (so 3 and 1 are associated with B ).
I assume that P is somebody who takes the Bible (or other monotheistic reli-
gious works) seriously. Although these works may describe experiences that are
outside P’s ken or beyond the secular world, I suppose that P has yet to make up her
mind about the existence of an “ultimate reality” embodied in some SB.
While P entertains the possibility of SB’s existence, and in fact would prefer con-
firmatory to nonconfirmatory evidence in the Revelation Game (according to her
secondary goal), evidence is P’s major concern (according to her primary goal). More-
over, P realizes that whether or not SB provides evidence will depend on what SB’s
rational choice in the Revelation Game is.
To highlight the quandary that the Revelation Game poses for both players,
–
observe that SB has a dominant strategy of R : this strategy is better for SB whether
–
P selects B [because SB prefers (4,2) to (3,4)] or B [because SB prefers (2,3) to (1,1)],
–
so SB would presumably choose it. Given SB’s choice of R , P, who does not have a
dominant strategy but prefers (2,3) to (4,2) in the second row of the Revelation
–
Game, will choose B as a best response.
These strategies lead to the selection of (2,3), which is the unique Nash-equilib-
rium outcome in the Revelation Game: Either player that departs from this outcome
will do immediately worse, which makes this outcome stable, or in equilibrium.
But, paradoxically, it is an outcome Pareto-inferior—worse for both players—to
(3,4).
Even though (3,4) is better for both players than (2,3), (3,4) is not a Nash equi-
librium because SB has an incentive, once at (3,4), to depart to (4,2). But neither is
(4,2) an equilibrium, because once there, P would prefer to move to (2,3).
According to the theory of moves (Brams 1994), the Revelation Game is “cyclic.”
This means that when the players cycle in the direction of the arrows shown in the
figure (counterclockwise), the player moving from one outcome to another never
moves from the best outcome of 4. For example, if play starts at the upper-right
outcome of (1,1), then
> from (1,1), P departs from her worst to her best outcome of (3,4);
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 245

steven j. brams c 245

> from (3,4), SB departs from his next-best to his best outcome of (4,2);
> from (4,2), P departs from her next-worst to her next-best outcome of (2,3);
> from (2,3), SB departs from his next-worst to his worst outcome of (1,1).

Observe that all these moves immediately benefit the mover, except SB’s move
from (2,3) to (1,1), which creates an “impediment.” But because the latter move is not
from SB’s best outcome of (4,2), the Revelation Game is still cyclic.
In a sense, a thoughtful agnostic plays the Revelation Game all her life, never cer-
–
tain about SB’s strategy choice, or even that SB exists. In choosing B , I interpret P
to be saying that she does not believe either in SB’s existence or nonexistence yet—
in other words, she wants to keep her options open.
Should P become a believer or a nonbeliever, then she no longer would be torn
by the self-doubt reflected in her choices in the Revelation Game. The evidence, so
to speak, would be in. But I assume that P is neither an avowed theist nor an avowed
atheist but, rather a person with a scientific bent who desires confirmation of either
belief or nonbelief. Preferring the former to the latter as a secondary goal, P is clearly
not an inveterate skeptic.
What SB might desire, on the other hand, is harder to discern. Certainly the God
of the Hebrew Bible very much sought—especially from his chosen people, the
Israelites—untrammeled faith and demonstrations of it. Although he never revealed
himself in any physical form, except possibly to Moses before he died, God contin-
ually demonstrated his powers in other ways, especially by punishing those he con-
sidered transgressors.

Moving Power
A player has “moving power” by outlasting the other player in a cyclic game. By
“outlast” I mean that one (stronger) player can force the other (weaker) player to
stop the move-countermove process at an outcome where the weaker player has the
next move.
More precisely, P1 has moving power in a 2 x 2 game—that is, one in which each
of two players has two strategies—if it can induce P2 eventually to stop, in the
process of cycling, at one of the two outcomes at which P2 has the next move. The
state at which P2 stops, I assume, is that which P2 prefers.
In the Revelation Game, moving power is effective—the outcome that each player
can induce with moving power is better for it than the outcome that the other player
can induce with this power. To further understand this, assume that SB possesses
moving power. Because cycling is counterclockwise, SB can induce P to stop at either
(4,2) or (1,1), where P has the next move. Obviously, P would prefer (4,2), which is
indicated as the moving-power outcome that SB can induce by the superscript SB
in the Revelation Game; it gives SB his best outcome, 4, and P her next-worst out-
come, 2.
On the other hand, if P possesses moving power, she can induce SB to stop at
either (3,4) or (2,3), where SB has the next move. Obviously, SB would prefer (3,4),
which is indicated as the moving-power outcome that P can induce by the superscript
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 246

246 c steven j. brams

P in the Revelation Game; it gives P her best outcome, 4, and SB his next-best out-
come, 3.
Notice that the player with moving power can ensure a better outcome (4) than
the player without it (either 2 or 3). Hence, it is better for a player to possess mov-
ing power in the Revelation Game than for the other player to possess it, which
makes this power effective.
If SB has moving power, he can induce P to believe without evidence, which sat-
isfies both of SB’s goals. By contrast, P satisfies only her secondary goal of believ-
ing, but not her primary goal of having evidence to support this belief.
Endowing SB with moving power raises a feasibility question: Whenever P moves
from belief to nonbelief, SB should switch from revelation to nonrevelation. But
once SB has established his existence by revealing himself, can it be denied?
I suggest that this is possible, but only if one views the Revelation Game as a
game played out over a long time. To illustrate this point, consider the situation
recounted in Exodus. After God “called Moses to the top of the mountain” (Exodus
19:20) to give him the Ten Commandments, there was “thunder and lightning, and
a dense cloud . . . and a very loud blast of the horn” (Exodus 19:16). This display pro-
vided incontrovertible evidence of God’s existence to the Israelites; but for readers
of the Bible today, it is perhaps not so compelling.
Yet even the Israelites became wary and restive after Moses’s absence on Mount
Sinai for forty days and nights. With the complicity of Aaron, Moses’s brother, they
revolted and built themselves a golden calf. God’s earlier displays of might and
prowess had lost their immediacy and, therefore, their force.
Moving to the present, the basis of belief would seem even more fragile. Many
people seek a more immediate revelatory experience than reading the Bible, and
some find it. For those who do not, God remains hidden or beyond belief unless
they can apprehend him in other ways.
This is where the problem of revelation arises. Without a personal revelatory
experience, or the reinforcement of one’s belief in God that may come from read-
ing the Bible or going to religious services, belief in God’s existence may be difficult
to sustain with unswerving commitment.
Revelation, also, may be a matter of degree. If God appears with sound and fury,
as he did at Mount Sinai, he may likewise disappear like the morning fog as mem-
ories of him slowly fade. Thereby seeds of doubt are planted. But a renewal of faith
may also occur if a person experiences some sort of spiritual awakening.
A wavering between belief and nonbelief created by SB’s moving between reve-
lation and nonrevelation shows that P’s belief in SB may have a rational basis for
being unstable. Sometimes the evidence manifests itself, sometimes not, in the Rev-
elation Game. What is significant in this game is that SB’s exercise of moving power
is consistent with SB’s sporadic appearance and disappearance—and with P’s
responding to revelation by belief, to nonrevelation by nonbelief.
Relying on faith alone, when reason dictates that it may be insufficient to sustain
belief, produces an obvious tension in P. Over a lifetime, P may move back and forth
between belief and nonbelief as seeming evidence appears and disappears. For
example, the indescribable tragedy of the Holocaust destroyed the faith of many
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 247

steven j. brams c 247

believers, especially Jews, in a benevolent God, and for some it will never be restored.
But for others it has been rejuvenated. Furthermore, many former nonbelievers
have conversion experiences—sometimes induced by mystical episodes—and, as a
result, pledge their lives to Christ or God. For still others, there is a more gradual
drift either toward or away from religion and belief in an SB, with belief positively
correlated with age. More broadly, periods of religious revival and decline extend
over generations and even centuries, which may reflect a collective consciousness
about the presence or absence of an SB—or maybe both. As Leszek Kolakowski
(1982, 140) remarked, “The world manifests God and conceals Him at the same
time.”
It is, of course, impossible to say whether an SB, behind the scenes, is ingeniously
plotting his moves in response to the moves, in one direction or another, of indi-
viduals or society. But this is not the first Age of Reason, although it has had differ-
ent names in the past (for example, Age of Enlightenment), in which people seek out
a rational explanation. Nor will it be the last, probably again alternating with peri-
ods of religious reawakening as occurred during the Crusades and arguably today,
that will also come and go. This ebb and flow is inherent in the instability of moves
in the Revelation Game, even if an SB, possessed of moving power, has his way on
occasion and is able temporarily to implement (4,2).
Perhaps the principal difficulty for SB in making this outcome stick is that peo-
ple’s memories erode after a prolonged period of nonrevelation. Consequently, the
foundations that support belief may crumble. Nonbelief sets up the need for some
new revelatory experiences, sometimes embodied in a latter-day messiah, followed
by a rise and then another collapse of faith.
If P is assumed to be the player who possesses moving power, then she can induce
(3,4), which SB would prefer to (2,3), given that SB must stop at one or the other of
these two outcomes when he has the next move. If the idea of “forcing” SB to reveal
himself—and, on this basis, for P to believe—sounds absurd, it is useful to recall that
God exerted himself mightily on occasion to demonstrate his awesome powers to
new generations. By the same token, God left the stage at times in order to test a new
generation’s faith, usually being forced to return in order to foster belief again.
The effects of moving power, whether possessed by SB or P, seem best interpreted
in the Revelation Game as occurring over extended periods of time. Memories fade,
inducing SB to move from nonrevelation to revelation when the next generation
does not understand or appreciate SB’s earlier presence. Even when SB moves in the
opposite direction, going from revelation to nonrevelation, his actions may not
appear inconsistent if P, effectively, is a different player. Thereby the earlier concern
I raised about infeasible moves is dissipated in an extended game in which the iden-
tity of P changes.
Because the Revelation Game is a cyclic game with two Pareto-optimal outcomes,
one of which each player can induce, it seems best viewed as a game of movement,
in which either player possessing moving power can induce the best outcome. Yet
this is usually only a temporary “passing through,” because the other player can
respond by switching strategies. Finally, the player without moving power will be
forced to desist. But if that player is P, and she believes for a time without evidence,
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 248

248 c steven j. brams

then eventually she will be replaced by another P that feels less piety in the face of
an ineffable SB.
Feasibility may militate against too-quick switches on the part of the players, but
fundamentally the Revelation Game is a game for the ages. Its fluidity—rather than
the stability of its Pareto-inferior (2,3) Nash equilibrium—seems its most striking
feature. I have highlighted its unsettling nature as players alternate between belief
and nonbelief when they cycle through the two Pareto-optimal moving-power out-
comes, (3,4) and (4,2).

Conclusions
Emphatically, my interpretation of players’ goals in the Revelation Game is not
sacrosanct. If readers disagree with those I have postulated, they can propose alter-
native goals and explore their ramifications using game theory and the theory of
moves.
Normally, one would suppose that SB possesses moving power and so would be
able to implement its most-preferred outcome, getting P to believe without revela-
tion. However, when the torch passes to a new generation of people that does not
remember the punishment their forbears suffered for their lack of faith, it is just as
reasonable to think that the game will cycle to nonbelief. SB will then be forced to
reveal himself, possibly through the retribution he inflicts on nonbelievers, and
belief in SB once again will be restored.
The alternation between belief and nonbelief, and revelation and nonrevelation,
illustrates the instability inherent in the Revelation Game, despite its unique Nash
equilibrium. In thinking afresh about the central theological questions posed at the
outset, we understand better why answers to them may well be strategic.
To be sure, many theologians reject the proposition that a person’s relationship
with a superior being is strategic. Fideists, in particular, argue that we believe in
God by making a leap of faith, not because it is strategically optimal to do so (or not
do so), much less that God is acting strategically.
But this criticism rejects not only the framework developed here but also the
abundant evidence of strategic calculations in the Hebrew Bible, which I have pre-
sented in detail elsewhere (Brams, 2003). If the Revelation Game does not provide
a definitive answer to the spiritually perplexed, it shows why this perplexity occurs
and what information may lead people toward or away from belief in a superior
being.

c
Steven J. Brams, Ph.D., is Professor of Politics at New York University. He is the
author or co-author of fourteen books that involve applications of game theory
and social choice theory to voting and elections, international relations, bargaining
and fairness, and the Bible and theology. His most recent books are Biblical Games:
Game Theory and the Hebrew Bible, rev. ed. (MIT Press, 2003) and (co-authored
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 249

steven j. brams c 249

with Alan D. Taylor) Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting to Dispute Resolution (Cam-
bridge University Press, 1996) and The Win-Win Solution: Guaranteeing Fair Shares
to Everybody (W. W. Norton, 1999). He is a Fellow of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, the current president of Public Choice Society, a
Guggenheim Fellow, a past president of the Peace Science Society (International),
and in 1998–99 was a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.

Note
1 I refer to “SB” as a “he” and to “P” as a “she” for convenience only; these gender desig-
nations could as well be reversed. This essay is adapted from Brams (2003, ch. 10),
wherein a more extended analysis, replete with several examples from the Bible, is given.
The theory of moves—on which part of this analysis is based—is given in Brams (1994);
the theology underlying the analysis is developed more fully in Brams (1983), wherein
the work of early theorists, such as Blaise Pascal, is discussed.

References
Brams, Steven J. (1983). Superior Beings: If They Exist, How Would We Know. Game-Theo-
retic Implications of Omniscience, Omnipotence, Immortality, and Incomprehensibility.
New York: Springer-Verlag.
———. (1994). Theory of Moves. New York: Cambridge University Press.
———. (2003). Biblical Games: Game Theory and the Hebrew Bible, rev. ed. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Buber, Martin. (1958). I and Thou, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith, 2nd ed. New York: Scrib-
ner’s.
Cohen, Raymond. (1991). Negotiating across Cultures. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of
Peace.
Kolakowski, Leszek. (1982). Religion. New York: Oxford University Press.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 250

On the Problem
of the Existence of Evil 44
Reflections of a Jewish Physicist-Philosopher
Max Jammer

T he invitation to write an essay in honor of Sir John Templeton on the occa-

sion of his ninetieth birthday gives me the opportunity to express my highest
esteem for Sir John. It also gives me the chance to express my admiration for the
John Templeton Foundation for promoting the values of religion, morality, and
excellence in academic and scientific pursuits to discover more about spiritual infor-
mation among all people on earth, irrespective of color, gender, nationality, or creed.
For my contribution, I have chosen to focus my reflections as a Jewish physicist-
philosopher on the problem of the existence of evil as a method of furthering spir-
itual information.
Let me begin with a statement concerning the philosophy of physics that Albert
Einstein made a few years before World War II. Still in Berlin and talking to Esther
Salman, a student of physics, Einstein made the following confession about the ulti-
mate motive behind his scientific work: “I want to know how God created this
world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or
that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.”1 A few years after the
war, when talking in Princeton with his assistant Ernst Gabor Straus, Einstein
repeated this statement with an additional explanatory comment: “What I am really
interested in is knowing whether God could have created the world in a different
way; in other words, whether the requirement of logical simplicity admits a margin
of freedom.”2
More recently, the cosmologist Stephen Hawking, in his best-seller A Brief His-
tory of Time, raised a similar question: ”Why does the universe go to all the bother
of existing?”3 Or, in other words,“Why is there something rather than nothing?” And
almost repeating Einstein, he added: ”If we find the answer to that, it would be the
ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we should know the mind of God.”
The problem I wish to discuss in this essay is similar to, but more restrictive than,
the questions raised by Einstein and Hawking. Paraphrasing Einstein, what I am
interested in is knowing whether God could have created a world different from
ours, namely a world in which evil does not exist.
That evil exists in the world in which we live and did exist throughout its history
can hardly be doubted. In recent years, the Holocaust in Europe, the events of Sep-
tember 11, 2001, in the United States, and the recent earthquakes and floods in Asia
and elsewhere testify to the existence of evil. Almost paradoxically, even the history
of the world’s religions, both in the present and in the past, abounds with evil. In
our times, for example, Protestants fight against Catholics in Northern Ireland, Hin-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 251

max jammer c 251

dus against Muslims in the Far East, Muslims against Jews in the Near East. Because
of the evils caused by religious wars, especially in the Middle Ages, Baron Paul Henri
Thiry d’Holbach, a leading atheistic materialist of the eighteenth century and author
of anticlerical treatises that shocked even Voltaire, found it appropriate not only to
deny the existence of God, but even to declare, in his Système de la Nature, that the
idea of God is an invention that inflicted the greatest tragedy on humankind.4
Interestingly, evil and good are often inseparably connected. Thus, for example,
the discovery of the famous mass-energy relation E = mc2 in the theory of relativ-
ity initiated our present era of nuclear energy with its beneficial consequences in
industry and medicine, but it also led to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
and to the catastrophe caused by the breakdown of the Russian nuclear reactor at
Chernobyl.
Numerous other examples can be cited to illustrate that what is evil and harm-
ful in one respect is good and beneficial in another. It may therefore be claimed,
physically speaking, that evil and good are relative and complementary, that they
balance or compensate for each other, and that their sum total, like that of negative
and positive electric charges in the universe, is null.
Ideas of such competition, with mutual annihilation of the principles of evil and
good, can be found in the early medieval doctrine of Manichaeism, which originated
from ancient Persian Zoroastrianism. As it evolved from Zoroastrian (Zarathus-
tran) theology, Ormazd, the lord of goodness and of light, wages war incessantly
against Ahriman, the lord of evil and of darkness. In contrast, traditional Judaism
and Christianity believe in the ultimate victory of good over evil in the ideal of a
world free of suffering. For Jews and Christians who believe in a benevolent and
almighty God, the undeniable existence of evil in the past and present, as we have
seen, therefore poses a serious problem.
The philosophical discipline dealing with this problem is usually called theodicy,
a term coined in 1710 by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnizfrom the Greek theos (God) and
dike (justice), because it vindicates the justice of God in permitting evil to exist.5 But
of course the problem of theodicy is much older than its name. It was raised by the
author of the biblical book of Job, who described him as a “perfectly honest and
upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil.”6 But in spite of undeserved
pain and misery, even amidst the worst of his afflictions, Job never cried out against
God or swerved from his confidence in the Almighty. A modern analog can be found
in Elie Wiesel’s record of his experience in the death-camp Auschwitz,7 where thou-
sands of Jews, hungry and sick and in spite of the horror they experienced, met on
the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and prayed: “Blessed be the Name
of the Eternal!”
The task of theodicy consists of resolving the apparent logical contradiction or,
as logicians call it, the “trilemma” between the following three basic, generally
accepted (at least by theists) propositions:
1. God is omnipotent.
2. God is perfectly good and benevolent.
3. Evil exists in the world.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 252

252 c max jammer

It is, of course, a purely logical problem, for it cannot be resolved by observation

or experimentation. It is easy to verify that the truth of any two of these three propo-
sitions contradicts the truth of the remaining one. In fact, if (1) and (2) are supposed
to be true, then (3) must be wrong, because an omnipotent and perfectly benevo-
lent God could not allow any evil to exist. Similarly, if (1) and (3) are valid, then obvi-
ously God cannot be perfectly good and benevolent, and (2) would be falsified.
Finally, if (2) and (3) are true, then God cannot be omnipotent in contradiction to
(1), because an absolutely benevolent and compassionate God could approve of a
world with evil only if he were not omnipotent. Strictly speaking, propositions (1)
and (2), combined only with the assumption that a world exists, lead to severe log-
ical difficulties. For whatever the world created by God may be like, his omnipotence
must always have enabled Him to create a world better than the one he did cre-
ate—which involves infinite regress.
Of course, for philosophers and scientists who, like Aristotle in antiquity or
Feuerbach in modern times, deny a divine creation of the world, such problems do
not exist. On the other hand, for philosophers, who like J. L. Mackie doubt the
possibility of solving the trilemma, this impossibility “suggests that there is no
valid solution of the problem which does not modify at least one of the essential
propositions in a way which would seriously affect the essential core of the theis-
tic position.”8
Concerning the first horn (1) of the trilemma, it should be noted that in biblical
and early rabbinic literature the notion of God’s power was fully acknowledged, but
divine omnipotence was not.
When the first patriarch, Abraham, exclaimed,“shall not the Judge of all the earth
deal justly?”;9 when the prophet Jeremiah cried to God, “why doth the way of the
wicked prosper?”;10 when Habakkuk criticized God, “Thou that art of eyes too pure
to behold evil”;11 or when Job complained that “the judge of all the earth shall not
do justice,”12 the issue was not God’s omnipotence, but His acquiescence in the exis-
tence of injustice and evil. Jewish theology admitted the notion of divine omnipo-
tence only in the Middle Ages, probably under the influence of Islamic philosophy.
But even thereafter it was said that “whenever people obey God’s command, they
strengthen the power of the Almighty,” a statement that,strictly speaking, is self-con-
tradictory. Similarly, but without involving a logical contradiction, the Kabala
declares: “The Holy One said: when Israel is worthy below My power prevails in
the universe, but when Israel is found to be unworthy My power weakens above.”13
Such ideas of course contradict the validity of proposition (1) and therefore resolve
the trilemma.
Another proposal to resolve the problem is based on a denial of proposition (3).
The foremost proponent of such a solution is undoubtedly Maimonides (Moses
Ben Maimon), the great Jewish philosopher of the thirteenth century whose philo-
sophical and theological thoughts strongly influenced not only Jewish but also
Christian and Islamic philosophers. According to Maimonides, evil is not some-
thing that has its own existence; it is only a privation of good, a state in which good
is absent. “Evils are only evils in relation to something; and everything that is an evil
with reference to one particular existent, that evil is the privation of this thing or one
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 253

max jammer c 253

of the states suitable for it. For this reason the following proposition may be enun-
ciated in an absolute manner: All evils are privations.”14
In the sequel, Maimonides applies his identification of evil as a privatio beni to
human society and tries to prove that all “great evils that come about the human
individuals who inflict them upon one another because of purpose, desires, opin-
ions, and beliefs, are all of them likewise consequent upon privation. For all of them
derive from ignorance, that is from a privation of knowledge.”15 True, there are evils
that, even physically speaking, originate from the deprivation of good, such as the
danger that faces future generations of humankind to have enough life-sustaining
clean air to breathe.
But it seems difficult to believe that Maimonides, had he been alive to witness the
horrors of the Holocaust, the destructions of World War II, the threats of nuclear
weaponry, and the terrorist acts all over the present-day world, would retain his
identification of evil merely as a privation of good and not ascribe to it a self-exis-
tent, independent, and actual, though harmful, reality.
Still, I believe and hope that if, and only if, Maimonides’ conception of evil as a
privation of good will be interpreted and enacted as an admonition to replace evil
by good, will there be a future for humankind on earth.

c
Max Jammer, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Physics and former President of
Bar-Ilan University. He also was co-founder of the Institute for Philosophy of Sci-
ence at Tel-Aviv University and has served as President of the Association for the
Advancement of Science in Israel. Among Dr. Jammer’s awards are the prestigious
“Israel Prize,” the “Monograph Prize of the American Academy of Sciences,” and
most recently (in 2000) the “Prize for Outstanding Books in Theology and the Nat-
ural Sciences” awarded by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in
Berkeley, California. His most recent works include Concepts of Mass in Classical
and Modern Physics (1997), Einstein and Religion (1999), and Concepts of Mass in
Contemporary Physics and Philosophy (2000).

Notes
1 E. Salman, “A Talk with Einstein,” The Listener 54, 570–71 (1955).
2 C. Seelig, Helle Zeit–Dunkle Zeit (Zurich: Europa Verlag, 1956), 72.
3 Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time (London: Bantam Press, 1989).
4 Baron Paul Henri Thiry d’Holbach, Système de la Nature (Amsterdam, 1770).
5 G.W. Leibniz, Essais de Théodicée sur la Bonté de Dieu (Amsterdam, 1710).
6 Job 1:8.
7 E. Wiesel, Night (London: MacGibbon and Kosle, 1961), chap. 5.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 254

254 c max jammer

8 J. L. Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence,” Monist 64, 200–212 (1956).

9 Genesis 18:25.
10 Jeremiah 12:1.
11 Habakkuk 1:13.
12 Midrash Pesikta 25:1.
13 Zohar (Vilna edition) 2:65.
14 Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1963),
459–60.
15 Ibid., 462.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 255

Do Quantum Experiments
Challenge Kant’s Criticism of the
Proofs for the Existence of God?
45
Antoine Suarez

T he development of a consistent religious attitude is based on the primary

conviction that God exists and that rational discussion about God is possible.
Without this basis, theology cannot be considered as a part of knowledge. Religious
faith would necessarily be reduced to superstition. Criticisms of attempted rational
philosophical “proofs” of the existence of God are based on the assumption that
one visible event is always caused by some earlier visible event, or material cause.
The consequence of this assumption (“visible from visible”) has been a general
expectation that deeper knowledge of the universe would render God superfluous.
A “God of the (scientific) gaps” ceases to be necessary once science fills those gaps.
Sir John Templeton has dared to challenge this view, investing his fortune in
exploring whether it is possible to increase spiritual information through the con-
structive engagement of science and religion. Does science destroy the logic for the
existence of God or build it? Recent quantum experiments have provided evidence
that visible (or, to be more exact, observable) things do not originate exclusively
from visible (observable) causes. This would seem to indicate that Sir John’s intu-
ition may be correct.

Generic Failure of the Rational Basis of Theology

It is by definition impossible to argue that God (the infinite, invisible Being) exists
outside of the world we see if one postulates in advance that visible things originate
exclusively from visible things. The postulate “visible from visible” has contributed to
a view called “scientism.” Scientism affirms a “nothing but” vision such that the ques-
tion of the existence of God is generically beyond the domain of rational knowledge.
It expects that scientific progress, by filling explanatory gaps, eventually will render
the notion of God conceptually superfluous (Laeuffer 1997; Hewlett 2000). One main
source of the present crisis of religion within scientific and technological civilization
may be the expectation that eventually science will make it possible to explain all that
happens in the universe—and indeed most importantly the existence of the universe
itself (and its underlying rational order)—by means of temporal-causal chains. In this
view, belief in God is intrinsically antiscientific. It violates methodological canons of
naturalism understood to be basic to the scientific worldview.
This assumption—“visible from visible”—was a core element in the worldview
of philosophers such as Laplace, Kant, and Comte. In particular, it was the heart of
Kant’s criticism of the philosophical proofs for the existence of God. He postulated
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 256

256 c antoine suarez

that in the chain of causes responsible for a phenomenon, each single cause is itself
observable (Kant 1956). Kantian philosophy assumes that determinism is the correct
underpinning of causality considerations (Bernays 1971). According to this under-
standing of causality, each physical effect can be explained exclusively by causes
working within spacetime or by observable elements of reality that propagate in
spacetime (Kant 1968a, 1968b).
Undoubtedly, investigations of temporal deterministic causal chains through
experiment have been of great benefit to the scientific, economic, and cultural devel-
opment of humankind. The massive success of classical physics seems to give sci-
entific validity to the idea that there is no reality beyond what is visible (observable).
But today, science itself seems to support the idea that the world cannot exclusively
be explained by observable influences. I argue that recent quantum experiments
demonstrate this clearly. Modern physics does not exclude unobservable causes. In
fact, it includes them at a very basic and general level within the laws of quantum
mechanics. This generates a new model of reality that is open rather than closed. I
must emphasize that this view in no primary way argues for the existence of God.
It simply argues that a popularly accepted assumption associated with a positivis-
tic/“scientistic” philosophical interpretation of the meaning of science is no longer
justifiable. It cannot be used properly as an argument against a basic premise of
religion: That which exists is far more than that which is causally observable.

Quantum Experiments and Events without Temporal Causes

Two events cannot be correlated if each occurs at random: “Correlations cry out for
explanation” (Bell 1987). Either the two events are directly dependent on each other
(such as dialing a telephone number and hearing a telephone ring), or they are pre-
determined by a common cause that occurred in the past (such as two television sets
showing the same image).
Quantum mechanics predicts correlated outcomes in spacelike separated regions
in experiments using two-particle entangled states. If all events in nature must be
explicable by the effects of signals propagating in spacetime with a velocity (v) that
cannot be faster than the speed of light (v ≤ c), then one has to exclude any direct
dependence between spacelike separated events. By this logic, quantum correlations
therefore must imply the existence of particles carrying hidden variables that deter-
mine the particle’s behavior. Apparently, this was what Einstein thought. As a con-
sequence, he concluded that the quantum-mechanical description of physical reality
could not be considered complete (Einstein et al. 1935). However, Bell showed that
if one admits only relativistic local causality (causal links with v ≤ c), the correla-
tions occurring in two-particle experiments should fulfill clear locality conditions
(“Bell’s inequalities”). Experiments, however, have clearly shown that locality is vio-
lated by quantum mechanics (Bell’s theorem) (Bell 1964 1987). In fact, many Bell-
type experiments conducted over the past two decades clearly demonstrate violation
of local causality. Violation of Bell’s inequalities ensures that these correlations are
not predetermined by local hidden variables.“Entangled” separated particles behave
as if there were a faster-than-light connection between them.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 257

antoine suarez c 257

If the correlations are not predetermined, then there must be a direct dependence
between two spacelike separated events. But what kind of causality does such
dependence involve? Physicists are used to the time-ordered causality of relativity,
in which a “temporally” earlier event influences a “temporally” later event. As long
as one believes (like Einstein) that there are no spacelike (faster-than-light) influ-
ences, the fundamental temporal notion could not be other than proper time along
a timelike trajectory. Yet, because Bell experiments did reveal a world consisting of
nonlocal links, the “reasonable” position in the very spirit of relativity is to assume
time-ordered causality and to describe the nonlocal links using lines of simultane-
ity to distinguish between “before” and “after.”
Indeed, such a description is possible in conventional Bell experiments, in which
all apparatuses are standing still in a laboratory frame. In this frame, one of the
measurements always takes place before the other, and the particle arriving later
can be considered to take account of the outcome of the one arriving before. In
fact, this is the way Bell tried to explain things. And, in so doing, he came to discover
quantum nonlocality. Orderings with one measurement before and the other after
in time are referred to as before-after or after-before timings. In experiments with all
measuring devices at rest, it is possible to explain quantum correlations through
time-ordered causality.
But what about experiments with moving apparatuses in which different space-
time reference frames are involved? In this case, it is possible to define “conflicting”
time orderings. If each measuring device in its own reference frame is the first to
select the output of photons, we have before-before timing. If each measuring device
in its own reference frame selects the photon output after the other, we have after-
after timing. Is it also possible to give a time-ordered causal explanation for rela-
tivistic experiments using such apparatuses in motion? I was convinced it was and
developed an alternative nonlocal description termed “multisimultaneity.”
This description of nonlocality integrates a time-ordered description of the non-
local correlations in experiments with both before-before and after-after timings
(Suarez 1997, 2000). Consider, for instance, experiments in which the measuring
devices are in motion in such a way that each of them, in its own reference frame, is
the first to select the output of photons (before-before timing). Then each particle’s
choice will become independent of the other’s. According to multisimultaneity, the
nonlocal correlations should disappear (Suarez and Scarani 1997). In contrast, the
standard predictions of quantum mechanics require that the particles stay nonlocal
and correlated independently of any timing, even in a before-before situation.
This means that before-before experiments are capable of acting as a standard of
time-ordered nonlocality (much as Bell’s experiments act as a standard of locality).
If timing-independent quantum mechanics prevails, nonlocality cannot properly be
imbedded in a relativistic chronology. However, if quantum mechanics fails, there
is a time ordering behind nonlocal correlations.
In February 2000, experiments using detectors in motion showed results that
were in agreement with quantum mechanics (Zbinden 2001). Taking advantage of
the fact that traveling acoustic waves can act as moving beam splitters, before-before
experiments using beam splitters in motion were made in June 2001 (Stefanov et al.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 258

258 c antoine suarez

2002). Again, the correlations did not disappear. The predictions of quantum
mechanics were vindicated. Quantum correlations have now been demonstrated
to hold regardless of any relativistic frame-of-reference or time ordering.

Explaining Quantum Entanglement

Bell-type experiments both with and without moving measuring devices demon-
strate that quantum correlations in some sense transcend spacetime and do not
appear to be bound by the usual temporal-causal ordering of before and after.
Quantum correlations reveal logical ordering. Experiment shows that this depend-
ence, or logical order, is beyond any real-time ordering.
Suppose a physicist could act nonlocally and would like to bring about Bell cor-
relations. She or he would first choose one event, randomly assigning a value x (x
being either + or -) to it, and subsequently would assign a value y (y being either +
or -) depending on x to the second event. Suppose these operations occurred with-
out the flow of time? As quantum mechanics suggests, and the experimental results
confirm, this is the way nature is.
Signals follow timelike trajectories and can consistently be described in terms of
“before” and “after” by means of real clocks. Einstein’s universe contains only such
local causal links. Bell showed that Einstein’s reality is not the whole of physical
reality. The conventional Bell experiments discovered apparent connections acting
faster than light. Again, the results of recent experiments strongly suggest that this
nonlocal quantum realm is curiously transcendent with respect to a causal order-
ing of time. Perhaps this is a small but possibly not insignificant window into aspects
of deeper domains of existence traditionally described as ”spiritual.”
Moreover, it is important to stress that controlling nonlocal links is something
beyond our power. Quantum mechanics tells us, and experiment confirms, that we
cannot use nonlocal links for faster-than-light communication. The notion of time
makes sense only in the seen universe we can control. Where our power reaches,
there is time; and what is beyond our power is also beyond time. Therefore, time is
the domain or horizon of our finite power.

Spiritual Information: “Visible from Invisible”

Sir John Templeton has dared to challenge the conventional opinion that science and
religion are destined to preside over totally separate domains. The ultimate reality
that science progressively frames, in Sir John’s view, is an expression, in part, of the
infinite well of the Divine Reality that both fills and transcends nature. Therefore,
the immense and accelerating stream of new information about nature generated
by the ongoing adventure of the sciences should be a factor in realizing progress in
spiritual information. Just as science has revolutionized our understanding of the
natural world, so perhaps it also can expand our understanding of the Divine in real,
albeit small and humble, ways (Harper 2005).
Will Sir John Templeton once again succeed by “investing as a contrarian”?
Remarkably, he has invested his fortune in pursuits directly opposed to Kantian
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 259

antoine suarez c 259

criticism and scientism’s view of a world without God. His vision that it might be
possible to gain “progress in spiritual information” through scientific research
clearly is based on the assumption that science itself will acknowledge that “reality
is deeper than the visible or the tangible” (Templeton 1995 2001:36).
Bernard d’Espagnat has described the quantum domain as “veiled reality” (d’Es-
pagnat 2003). I have argued that recent experiments have emphasized the serious-
ness of this inference. Quantum correlations reveal a domain of existence that
cannot be described with the notions of space and time. The experiments we have
discussed rule out the belief—in particular, Kant’s causality postulate—that phys-
ical causality necessarily relies on observable signals only. Moreover, they demon-
strate that we never will achieve complete power in the universe: Nature always will
do things that humans are not able to do.
In conclusion, science itself vindicates the idea that the world is deeper than the
visible (observable). In a small but ontologically deep way, this finding may support
Sir John Templeton’s prediction that “scientific revelations may be a goldmine for
revitalizing religion in the twenty-first century” (Templeton 2003).

c
Antoine Suarez, Ph.D., is Founding Director of the Center for Quantum Phi-
losophy at the Zurich-based Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies. He received his
doctorate in natural science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1975,
where he became interested in the philosophical significance of quantum mechan-
ics and in genetic epistemology. For more than a decade, he conducted research on
cognitive growth, which led to the development of improved methods for teaching
mathematics and science to children. He directed this Swiss think tank from 1985 to
1993, and, with major support from the Leman Foundation, did studies incorpo-
rating the insights of philosophers, theologians, and ethicists. Dr. Suarez was the first
(with Valerio Scarani in 1997) to propose experiments using moving measuring
devices to investigate the tension between quantum mechanics and relativity, espe-
cially whether there is a real-time ordering behind nonlocal influences, and collab-
orated with Nicolas Gisin’s group in conducting these experiments. In addition to
articles in scientific journals, chapters in volumes of collected works, and an early
study on the relation of thought to action in adolescents, Dr. Suarez is editor (with
Alfred Driessen) of Mathematical Undecidability, Quantum Nonlocality and the
Question of the Existence of God (Kluwer, 1997).

References
Bell, J. S. 1964, Physics, 1, 195–200.
———. 1987, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 152.
Bernays, P. 1971, “Causality, Determinism and Probability,” in W. Yourgrau and A. van der
Merwe, Perspectives in Quantum Theory, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 261.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 260

260 c antoine suarez

d’Espagnat, B. 2003, Veiled Reality: An Analysis of Present-Day Quantum Mechanical Con-

cepts, Frontiers in Physics Series, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Einstein, A., Podolsky, B., and Rosen, N. 1935, Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of
Physical Reality Be Considered Complete? Phys. Rev. 47, 777–80.
Harper, C. L., Jr. 2005, Spiritual Information: 100 Perspectives on Science and Religion, Phila-
delphia: Templeton Foundation Press.
Hewlett, M. 2000,“God or Science: Do I Have to Choose?” in God for the 21st Century, Stan-
nard R., Ed., Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press.
Kant, I. 1956, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 466, 580, 589, 600 (B 483,
B 637, B 649, B 664).
———. 1968a, Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik, Text edi-
tion of the Königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band II, Berlin: Walter de Greyter,
370–72.
———. 1968b, Vor dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume, Text edi-
tion of the Königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band II, Berlin: Walter de Greyter,
383.
Laeuffer, J. 1997, “Scientism and Scientific Knowledge of Things and God,” in Mathemati-
cal Undecidability, Quantum Nonlocality and the Question of the Existence of God, A.
Driessen and A. Suarez, Eds., Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
Stefanov A., Zbinden H., Gisin N., and Suarez A. 2002, Quantum Correlations with Space-
like Separated Beamsplitters in Motion: Experimental Test of Multisimultaneity, Phys.
Rev. Lett. 88:120404.
———. 2003, Quantum entanglement with acousto-optic modulators: Two-photon beats
and Bell experiments with moving beam splitters, Phys. Rev. A 67:042115.
Suarez A. 1997, Relativistic Nonlocality in an Experiment with 2 Non-before Impacts, Phys.
Lett. A, 236, 383.
———. 2000, Quantum Mechanics versus Multisimultaneity in Experiments with
Acousto-optic Choice-devices, Phys. Lett. A, 269, 293.
Suarez A. and Driessen A. 1997, Mathematical Undecidability, Quantum Nonlocality and
the Question of the Existence of God, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
Suarez A. and Scarani V. 1997, Does Entanglement Depend on the Timing of the Impacts
at the Beam-splitters? Phys. Lett. A, 232, 9.
Templeton, J. M. 2001, Bridging Two Worlds; Interview with Sir John by M. Marty and L.
O'Connell, Second Opinion, July 1993. Edited and updated version in Report 2001 of the
John Templeton Foundation, 36.
———. 2003, Biography of Sir John Templeton: http://www.templeton.org/sirjohnbio.asp.
———. 1995, The Humble Approach, Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 13–24.
Zbinden H., Brendel J., Gisin N., and Tittel W. 2001, Experimental Test of Non-local Quan-
tum Correlation in Relativistic Configurations, Phys. Lett. A, 63:022111.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 261

Proof or Persuasion? 46
F. Russell Stannard

“P rove to me that God exists, and I’ll believe.”

We have all heard that.
It sounds fair enough. After all, we live in a scientific age—one in which we are
encouraged to be skeptical. Science is based on experiment, fact, and logic. So why
should we not be equally rigorous in requiring indisputable proof before subscrib-
ing to religious beliefs?
Before demanding the clinching piece of evidence that conclusively demonstrates
the existence of God, let us first ask whether the findings of science really are as
clear-cut and incontrovertible as is generally supposed.
Take, for example, the Big Bang theory. Most scientists today accept that the uni-
verse began with the Big Bang. Why? The experimental evidence, of course. Obser-
vations with telescopes reveal that the galaxies of stars are receding from one
another; the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it recedes into the distance. That is
exactly the kind of motion one would expect if all the material of the universe had
originally been squashed together and had suddenly exploded. The faster-moving
material would by now have receded farthest—which is what we see. Case proved.
Except that it is not. At the time when the recession of the galaxies was the sole
evidence available, many noted cosmologists were unimpressed. They preferred an
alternative idea: the Steady State theory. According to this rival hypothesis, as the
galaxies moved out of a given region of space, they were replaced by spontaneously
created new material. This in time gathered together to form new stars and galax-
ies. These new galaxies later, in their turn, joined the recessional movement and left
the region. Thus the process was endlessly repeated. In this way, the overall picture
remained essentially unchanged. There was no Big Bang origin of the universe—
indeed, no origin at all. The universe had always existed, and would continue to
exist for all time; hence the term “Steady State.”
Then along came a second piece of evidence. The Big Bang would have been very
hot and violent; there would have been a blinding flash of light—as one gets when
a nuclear bomb goes off. The cooled-down remnants of that radiation ought still to
be around in the universe (there being no other place for it to be). Sure enough, with
the right types of instruments, it was detected. The so-called “cosmic microwave
background radiation” has all the characteristics expected of that fireball remnant.
So does that mean we ought to be regarding this radiation as proof of the Big
Bang—rather than the recession of the galaxies? The problem with that notion is
that space has many other sources of radiation. It is conceivable that some of those
sources might, by chance, combine to emit radiation that mimics the kind we are
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 262

262 c f. russell stannard

looking for. If this radiation were the sole evidence for the Big Bang, it would be
no more decisive than the recession of the galaxies. And yet, the case for the Big
Bang has undoubtedly been strengthened by the addition of this second piece of
evidence.
Then along came a third indication. From a theoretical study of the temperature
and density conditions of the early stages of the Big Bang, it proved possible to cal-
culate the chemical composition of the emerging gases. The estimates yielded 77
percent hydrogen, 23 percent helium (by mass), and just traces of the heavier ele-
ments. Experimental observation of today’s interstellar gas medium shows that it
has a composition in very good agreement with these figures. Not that the com-
parison is that straightforward. The result needs to be treated with caution. Nuclear
processes occurring in stars since the Big Bang have altered the original chemical
composition of the elements. To measure the original composition—that emerging
from the Big Bang—one must select out regions of space where subsequent con-
tamination by the newly synthesized materials is thought to be less significant. Such
a selection procedure is open to some doubt. It is open to the charge that one might
to some extent be defining an “uncontaminated region” as one that happens to give
you the result you are seeking. For this reason, the measurement is not exactly
clinching evidence for the Big Bang. Nevertheless, it is still an encouraging result. It
fits in well with the overall picture we are building up.
Indeed, there are now altogether five independent indications of the Big Bang.
None of them, considered in isolation, constitutes proof of the hypothesis; they can
each be explained away on other grounds. What is compelling is that the Big Bang
theory is capable, at a stroke, of elegantly explaining them all. The theory is eco-
nomical, and it is this feature that has progressively won over the cosmologists to
accept the Big Bang hypothesis. Not that there was any defining moment when the
Big Bang received official recognition. Rather, it was the case that the scientific com-
munity gradually ceased arguing about it and took it for granted.
The same kinds of considerations surface in the field of biology. Why do the vast
majority of biologists today accept that all-important hypothesis: evolution by nat-
ural selection?
Again, no single incontrovertible piece of evidence compels absolute, universal
acceptance. The fossil record showing how we humans and today’s other animals
evolved over time from less developed species is incomplete. It has many gaps.
Although these are progressively being filled, the evidence is likely always to remain
fragmentary; some animals, by their very nature, did not leave fossils. Others have
had their remains destroyed as shifting crustal movements carried them down into
the earth’s interior.
Fortunately, we do not have to rely on the fossil record. We have other indications.
For instance, we see evolution going on around us today. Admittedly, this is on a
modest scale—species developing immunity to pesticides is a well-known example.
The extent of the changes we have witnessed during our own lifetime is not suffi-
cient to convince everyone that something as complex as the eye could have emerged
in such a manner. But given the enormous span of time that has been available to
the evolutionary process in the past . . . maybe.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 263

f. russell stannard c 263

Then there are anatomical comparisons between species, and furthermore, the
evidence of DNA similarities.
As with the Big Bang, and with other truly powerful scientific theories, the case
for evolution by natural selection rests on a broad raft of evidence. It is not so much
a matter of proof based on some single, decisive experiment. Rather it is the case that
one becomes progressively persuaded of the truth of the hypothesis. This acceptance
is grounded in the accumulation of diverse types of evidence, all of which point to
a common explanation.
Which brings us to the question of religion. If, contrary to popular thinking, sci-
ence is not based on knock-down proof, it is surely unreasonable to claim, in the
name of science, that there has to be knock-down proof of the existence of God
before taking religion seriously. I would contend that much the same kind of think-
ing should be applied to the big religious questions as to the big scientific ones. The
case for God, like that for the Big Bang and for evolution, has to be built up pro-
gressively. There are several indications. Here are some together with a religious
interpretation:
✦ Take for a start the simple fact that we and the universe exist. Why? To what
do we owe our existence? The religious response is to say that God is the Cre-
ator—the ground of all being. That might indeed be how we define the term
“God.” It is the name we give to whatever is responsible for all existence.
✦ The world operates in accordance with intelligible laws of Nature. The source
of their intelligibility? The Mind of God.
✦ If the laws of Nature had come into existence spontaneously of their own
accord—or if the force of gravity, the magnitude of the electric charge on the
electron, the violence of the Big Bang, and a host of other variables had taken
on their values purely by chance—the odds of them all conspiring together to
produce conditions capable of supporting life would be less than those of
repeatedly winning first prize in the lottery. The universe appears to be fine-
tuned for the production of life. Why? Could it not have been deliberately
designed that way? Could not the designer have been God?
✦ Religious experience—the numinous presence sensed in devotional prayer—
is perceived by the devoted as a direct encounter with God.
✦ Many are the claims that prayers have been answered. God’s response to our
requests?
✦ Reports of miracles. If God is the source of the laws of Nature, might he not
set them aside on occasion, given sufficient reason so to do?
✦ Often, people who have committed their lives to God find on looking back
over those lives that they appear to have followed a plan whereby even the
seemingly bad times were later turned to one’s ultimate good. This is seen as
the work of the guiding hand of God.
✦ We are all possessed of an inner moral law—the sense of right and wrong.
Where does this come from if it is not God speaking through the voice of con-
science?
✦ As evolved animals, we are subject to genetically influenced behavior fash-
ioned in the sometimes harsh conditions of the past. Such inherited traits
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 264

264 c f. russell stannard

tend to center on selfishness, aggression, and a disregard for the needs of oth-
ers not closely related to oneself. How is it then, as is often claimed, that true
happiness and fulfillment come in such paradoxical ways as turning the other
cheek, giving rather than receiving, sacrificing for others rather than indulging
oneself? Could not the source of this special kind of wisdom be found in God’s
“foolishness”?
✦ Finally, for the Christian believer, there is above all else the remarkable life, and
even more remarkable resurrection, of Jesus. This has a ready explanation in
his truly being the Son of God.

Such then is a whole variety of life’s features and experience and the religious
interpretations of them. I am not denying that it is possible to conjure up alterna-
tive hypotheses for explaining away each of these indications—picking them off
one at a time in some ad hoc manner. None of them in isolation constitutes the
kind of proof or argument that would compel the atheist to abandon the path of
skepticism. But what appears to me and to many as so compelling is that the whole
of this wide range of indications can all be explained by a single hypothesis: God.
The world and life just make better sense in the light of the God hypothesis than
without it.
Which is not so different from the kind of thinking that has always guided sci-
entific work.

c
F. Russell Stannard, O.B.E., Ph.D., is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the
United Kingdom’s largest academic institution, the Open University, where for
twenty-one years he headed the Physics Department. A high-energy nuclear physi-
cist, Dr. Stannard has carried out research at CERN in Geneva and at other labora-
tories in the United States and Europe. He is a Licensed Lay Minister in the Episcopal
Church and has been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by the
Queen. Dr. Stannard has received the Bragg Medal from the Institute of Physics and
the UK Project Trust Award of the John Templeton Foundation. He has been made
a Fellow of University College London and currently serves as President of the UK’s
Science and Religion Forum. A prolific writer for adults and children, his books are
translated into nineteen languages. His most recent book for adults on the rela-
tionships between science and religion, The God Experiment, based on his Gifford
Lectures, is published in the United States by HiddenSpring. Dr. Stannard is a fre-
quent broadcaster on British radio and TV and a regular contributor to the most
popular BBC radio program, Thought for the Day. He devised The Question Is. . .
video series, which is currently used by 40 percent of all UK secondary schools as
the basis for stimulating discussions about science and religion. Dr. Stannard’s tril-
ogy of Uncle Albert books, introduces children ten years and older to relativity and
quantum theory.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 265

From Information
to Spirit 47
A Sketch for a New Anthropology
Gianfranco Basti

I n the history of Western philosophy, three main solutions to the mind-body

problem have been put forward: dualistic, monistic, and dual.
In the dualistic solution, defended in ancient Greek philosophy by Plato, in the
modern age by René Descartes, and in the last century by John C. Eccles and K. R.
Popper (Eccles & Popper 1977), the soul is conceived as being separated from the
body and interacting with it (i.e., mind is moving particles). Theologically, this solu-
tion makes it impossible to justify the individual survival of humans (i.e., because
the same soul, independent of matter, can be reincarnated in different bodies).
Anthropologically, we lose the psychophysical unity of the human person, at the
same time giving a negative valuation to the body. Physically, the relationship
between mind and body as an interaction implies a violation of the principle of
energy conservation—or, in reference to quantum mechanical unpredictability
(Eccles), also to the very strange notion of “backward causation” (Popper).
The monistic solution was defended in Greek philosophy by the Stoics and the
Epicureans, who reproposed, against Plato’s dualism, Democritus’s mechanistic
interpretation of the functioning of the mind. In the modern age, it was defended
by all philosophers who, after Hume’s pioneering attempt, tried to extend the mech-
anistic method of Newtonian physics to the study of the psyche in order to repro-
pose Democritus’s mechanism from within modern Galilean science. In the last
century, the monistic solution was also defended by the so-called “functionalist”
approach to the mind-body problem, which identifies mind functioning with Tur-
ing machine extensional calculations on the supposition that a purely entropic
information measurement (the Shannon measure, the famous “bit”) is sufficient
for dealing with biological and cognitive information exchanges in animals and
humans. But this is not so, as we see in the next section. In any case, for the monis-
tic approach, mind functions are interpreted as products of the human brain just
as any other physiological function is the product of its respective organ (Feigl 1958).
The dual solution was defended in Greek philosophy by Aristotle, in medieval
philosophy by Scholastic philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas, and today by phe-
nomenologists. According to this solution, given that what exists is only the human,
individual living body (i.e., the human person in its psychophysical unity), this bod-
ily unity consists of two irreducible components: the formal one (mind) and the
material one (particles). This ontological solution may correspond to the modern
informational approach to living and cognitive systems, insofar as they are consid-
ered dynamically self-organizing, dissipative structures (Prigogine 1981; Thom 1990;
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 266

266 c gianfranco basti

see Figure 1) for which neither entropic information measurements (such as Shan-
non’s bit) nor Turing-like paradigms (for characterizing their information pro-
cessing) are sufficient. This approach offers an original solution consisting of both
mind localization relative to the body (mind containing its body) and of the possi-
ble survival of the human mind after death (mind survival depending on informa-
tion exchanges).

From the Monistic to the Dual Solution

The identity theory of mind and body, in scientific use, depends on the extension-
ality axiom in modern predicate logic. In mathematical logic, indeed the so-called
“extensionality principle” holds. If two classes (i.e., the extensions of two different
predicates, such as “to be water” and “to be H2O”) are equivalent, they are the same
class, and we can reciprocally substitute them for each other. Their meaning is, in
fact, extensionally the same. The identity of wholes implies the sameness of parts
and of their relations.1
The identity theory between mental and physical states in this strictly logical
interpretation was confuted by the logical analysis of the neopositivistic philosophy
of intentional (with a “t”) statements (“I-talk”). In this framework, identity would
imply the reducibility of the statements by which a human subject expresses his or
her own conscious psychical states (i.e., a belief statement of the intentional, con-
tent-related form “I . . . see, want . . . something”) to the external observer statements
(“O-talk”) by which the neurophysiologist describes the corresponding brain mod-
ifications. On the contrary, it is evident that the two statements are reciprocally irre-
ducible because the former is necessarily expressed in an intensional (with an “s”)
predicate logic—i.e., a logic in which the extensionality axiom does not hold—and
the second one is necessarily expressed in an extensional predicate logic (Searle
1983; Zalta 1988; Basti 2001; Basti and Perrone 2002).
To understand roughly what this sort of nonreducibility means, it is sufficient to
remember that many instances of everyday language become immediately mean-
ingless as soon as we apply the extensionality axiom to a logical analysis of them. For
instance, let us consider the religious statement: “Almighty God, bless this water. . . .”
If we substitute the predicate “to be water” with the equivalent predicate “to be
H2O,” the religious statement becomes immediately meaningless: “Almighty God,
bless this H2O. . . .”
This logical nonreducibility of the I-talk of conscious experience to the O-talk of
scientific observation is unavoidable. Indeed, the only way a human can know what
happens in the conscious experience of another person is through the I-talk by
which the conscious subject describes it. The mind-body problem is thus primarily
(Quine 1989, 133), but not exclusively, a logical problem of the nonreducibility of
many meaningful uses of ordinary language (effectively, all the uses strictly related
to human conscious states) to the only extensional languages of modern mathe-
matical sciences.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 267

gianfranco basti c 267

The Dual Solution of the Mind-Body Problem

What makes the dual solution so appealing today is the following evidence. Given
that we completely change the matter by which our bodies are constituted at the cel-
lular level at least twice every year, it is evident that the stability and persistence of
ourselves in time (our identity) is strictly related to some sort of “sameness” of the
global information pattern organizing corporeal matter (Penrose 1996). Of course,
the previous discussion helped us to understand that the core of the problem con-
sists, in the proper sense, of our having to attribute the information pattern to this
notion of identity.
To deal seriously with the connection between the dual theory of the mind-body
problem and the informational approach to it, we have thus to deepen our under-
standing of the logic underlying Aristotle’s ontology—i.e., its formal ontology.2
“Formal ontology” is a particular evolution of modern analytic philosophy that
tries to solve the problem of a logical scientific theory of meaning by recovering to
modern symbolic logic the core of classical (Greek and Scholastic) formal logic.
The most basic senses of the most fundamental (transcendental or preceding any
further categorical distinction) predicate “to be” (Cocchiarella 2001) are twofold:
1. The being of essence, saying what a given being is (Scholastic philosophy
named it quidditas, literally “whatness”); e.g., saying “The runner is what is
running” without saying anything about the effective existence of the object;
2. The being of existence, saying whether a given individual instance of an
essence exists; e.g., saying “There is a runner on the street.”
By making such a distinction, ancient formal logic is able to do what modern
mathematical logic—because of the extensionality axiom—is no longer able to do:
to have identity (sameness of the essence, of the “whatness,” of what existence is)
without equivalence (sameness of the parts-whole partition and relationship, given
that both parts and whole are what exists). Applied to the mind-body problem, this
means that we can agree with Quine when he affirms that, given the logical nonre-
ducibility of I-talk to O-talk, nevertheless what effectively exists (i.e., the only object
that both language frameworks are referring to) is only brain processes (Quine 1989,
133). Given that living brains are not only energetically but also informationally
“open” physical systems, their nature (being of essence) is characterized not only by
material, but also by formal, exchanges. They are systems able to generate infor-
mation not only in the sense of a growth in entropy (loss of a precedent order), but
also in the sense of a structure modification (creation of a new, unpredictable
order).
Dual ontology implies a criticism of mechanistic ontology. It is evident that in
most dynamic processes (primarily, but not only, those concerning living bodies),
it is not true that we can predict unequivocally their final stable states by consider-
ing only their “initial conditions” (“initial causes” in ontology). That is, in mechan-
ics we cannot make such predictions by considering only the kinetic momentum (in
ontology, the acting causality) and the position (in ontology, the element states) on
which the former acts in order to interpret the final stable state as deducible from
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 268

268 c gianfranco basti

them, as a theorem is from its postulates in geometry. Starting from similar initial
conditions, in most physical processes neither the final states nor (given similar
final states) the trajectory in the phase-space of the dynamic system (in ontology,
the spatiotemporal path) by which the processes reach the final states are the same.
Therefore, a sufficient ontology of dynamic systems must also consider the formal
component of the physical causality, i.e., the dynamic rearrangement of parts-whole
relationships. In cinematic dynamic systems, it corresponds to a deep rearrangement
of the phase space, such as occurs in chaotic systems.
Effectively, both in biological and neurological realms, the cyclic and logically
reversible processes are synonyms of disease and biological disorder. For instance,
a particular cyclic tracing appearing in an ECG means that the heart is fibrillating.
Or, a particular cyclic tracing appearing in an EEG means that an epileptic fit is
impending in the brain. Similarly, in the intentional behavior of animals and
humans, perfectly deterministic, cyclic behavior is synonymous with “stupidity” in
the cognitive realm. To change paths to reach the same end, or even to change inter-
mediate objectives in order to achieve the final objective, is characteristic of living
and intelligent functioning. As D. R. Hofstadter summarized in his bestseller on the
informational approach to life and intelligence (Hofstadter 1977), the behavior of a
wasp that always follows the same path to try to reach the light behind the window,
condemning itself to bump indefinitely on the glass until it dies, is synonymous
with stupidity, not intelligence.
The limit of all the modern information notions and measurements is evident.
Insofar as they all are entropy measurements, not only can they not be operational
versions of the Aristotelian notion of “form,” but they fail completely in measuring
information generation related to “a creation of order” (a rearrangement of the
parts-whole relationships in the phase-space) in self-organizing systems—primarily
the chaotic behaviors characterizing most neural and biological systems (Perrone
1995, 2000; see Figure 2). Therefore, it is not surprising that the classic informa-
tional approach has failed in dealing with the emerging property of “pleotropism”
of the genome in genetics and particularly of neurons in neuroscience—i.e., the
capability both of genes in the genome and of neuron arrays in the brain of chang-
ing their coding function according to different situations (phase-space rearrange-
ments) in the ongoing global dynamics.

Metaphysical and Theological Relevance of the Dual Solution

According to dual ontology, what generally characterizes living bodies is their capa-
bility of controlling the form of their functions for better satisfying the biological
ends of their species. On the contrary, what characterizes humans as such is their
rational functions. Humans, unlike other animals, are indeed able to control not
only the form, but also the goals, of their biologically driven behavior. In ethologi-
cal terms, humans are also able to control their instincts, which are localized in the
inner part of the brain (the limbic system), and even to give themselves new goals
not determined by biology to their behaviors. Also, the human faculty of logical
thought depends on this control of instincts. In fact, as Konrad Lorenz pointed out,
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 269

gianfranco basti c 269

Figure 1. The “stretching” (top) and “folding” (down)

mechanism in a stable far-from-equilibrium dynamic
system. Through the recurrence of dynamic instability
points (stretching) under a condition of energy dissipa-
tion (folding), two distant points on bidimensional
divergent trajectories can become closer by the folding
of the third dimension. By stretching, we have a growth
in entropy (loss of memory about the initial condi-
tions), but by folding we have an unpredictable creation
of order. This is a sort of “invention” of a new path for
reaching far-from-equilibrium stabilities. Any of the
neighbors of the points of the original trajectory (not
only the equilibrium points) can thus become stability
points in order to originate (pseudo-)cycles. Because
the folding consists of an energy dissipative condition,
we can say that these systems are able “to eat” energy
“for producing” order (structural information). For this reason, 1977 Nobel Prize Laureate in Chem-
istry Ilya Prigogine named them dissipative structures, rightly referring to Aristotle’s “dual” ontology
for philosophically characterizing these systems (Prigogine 1981). The limit of Prigogine’s scientific
approach to these systems is his use of the notion of entropy (more precisely, the strange notion of
“micro-entropy”) for trying, without success, to define the “mathematical laws” of these systems.

Figure 2. Map of the Lorentz chaotic attractor (left) and of a pseudocycle within this attractor
(right). It is evident that the system’s pseudocycle is composed by different trajectories depending
on the resolution (i.e., for a specific precision) at which we observe it. In this sense, a chaotic attrac-
tor is said to have a “fractal” nature from the geometrical standpoint. The temporal series of a
chaotic system is characterized by the ability of the system to jump in an absolutely unpredictable
way from one to another of its pseudocycles in order to give the observer the false impression of
“randomness.” Only with suitable, very large statistics are we able to understand that only a finite
volume of the phase-space is, on the contrary, effectively visited by the system. In other words, like a
classic “deterministic” system (e.g., a pendulum), it has an attractor. Nevertheless, its behavior is
absolutely unpredictable and “chaotic.” The expression “deterministic chaos” for denoting such sys-
tems is derived from this apparently contradictory nature. It is amazing to note that all the informa-
tional richness (the practically infinite number of pseudocycles of whichever order, i.e., connecting
whichever number of [pseudo-]stable points) the Lorentz system is able, in principle, to generate is
derived mathematically by a system of only three nonlinear differential equations.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 270

270 c gianfranco basti

dealing with the difference between animal and human intentionality, unlike ani-
mals that know physical objects to the extent necessary for satisfying their instincts,
humans desire to know objects as they really are; that is, their goal is to know truth.
Of course, this type of active control has to be localized outside the human organ-
ism as such because it concerns the ultimate level of organism control: its biologi-
cal goals.
This “outside” is generally identified—by Aristotle as well as by most contempo-
rary psychologists, psychoanalysts, cognitive scientists, and philosophers (Minsky
1988, Freeman 2001, Searle 1997)—in the culture to which each human belongs. Of
course, this solution is not satisfying philosophical personalism. In order to grant
equality, intellectual creativity, and individual responsibility to each human per-
son—i.e., the basis of modern Western culture—it is necessary to grant that every-
body has his or her own individual, “separated” mind. This “separateness” must be
intended as the effective capability given to each individual of controlling not only
his or her biological instincts (for this, a “society of minds” could be sufficient, at
least in principle), but also his or her cultural constraints. Otherwise, not a person,
but his or her biology or culture, are the only actors, and hence the only moral and
legal responsible agents of human thoughts and actions!
In this way, the so-called spiritual component of the individual human mind in
dual personalistic theory is the formal relation each individual has with a Tran-
scendent Agent (named “God” by believers). Through this formal relation, the
human person is made capable of being aware of, and hence of controlling, the tan-
gle of formal relations with the other biological and cultural agents constituting
the texture of his (progressively) conscious and (largely) unconscious experience in
life. Every human, as far as he or she is intelligent and free, is endowed with this rela-
tion, although only religious people are—sometimes and partially—conscious of it.
In any case, in the dual theory mind is not located somewhere inside the body
(e.g., in the brain), as in all the dualistic and monistic theories. It is located in the
dynamics of formal relations (i.e., in the nonentropic information exchanges)
among the different parts of the body continuously rearranging themselves and
between the body and its complex (physical, cultural) environment.
To sum up, it is not the body that contains the mind, but the mind that contains
its body (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 76, 8; MacKay 1980; Basti 1991,
265–69). The goal of gathering spiritual information may be for the mind to real-
ize this.

c
Gianfranco Basti, Ph.D., an ordained priest for the Diocese of Rome and Chap-
lain to His Holiness the Pope John Paul II, became Rector of the historical Basilica
of St. Pudenziana, Rome in 2003. He earned his doctorate in Philosophy of Science
from the State University of Rome, basing his thesis on the relation between the
neural network approach in neuroscience and the physical foundation of inten-
tionality according to Aristotelian theory. Currently, Mgr. Basti is Full Professor of
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 271

gianfranco basti c 271

Philosophy of Nature and of Science at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome

and Invited Professor of Logic at Pontifical Gregorian University. His research
focuses on neural networks and the logical foundations of science. In 1995, Mgr.
Basti earned the Neural Network Leadership Award from the International Neural
Network Society. In 1997, he cofounded the International Research Area on Foun-
dations of the Sciences at Pontifical Lateran University with Edward Nelson of the
Department of Mathematics at Princeton University (who contributed an essay to
this volume), Ennio De Giorgi, and Antonio Luigi Perrone. Mgr. Basti is a member
of several editorial boards and the author of more than eighty scientific and philo-
sophical papers and four books.

Notes
1 Also, the locality principle in geometry and in physics is a corollary of such an axiom.
The nonlocality paradoxes in quantum mechanics are thus strictly dependent on a revi-
sion of such an axiom in modern mathematics. In this sense, a dual ontology of math-
ematical and physical entities can offer a precious contribution also in this direction.
2 For an introduction to formal ontology, visit www.formalontology.it. For an introduc-
tion to dual formal ontology, see (Cocchiarella 1996; 2001; Basti 2002).

References
Basti G. (1991). Il rapporto mente-corpo nella filosofia e nella scienza, Edizioni Studio
Domenicano, Bologna.
———. (1995). Filosofia dell’uomo, Edizioni Studio Domenicano, Bologna.
———. (1996). Per una lettura tomista dei fondamenti della logica e della matematica. In
Basti & Perrone (1996), 23–252.
———. (2001). Intentionality and Foundations of Logic: a New Approach to Neurocom-
putation, in What should be computed to understand and model brain function? From
Robotics, Soft Computing, Biology and Neuroscience to Cognitive Philosophy, T. Kitamura
(Ed.), World Publishing, Singapore-New York, 2001, 239–88.
———. (2002a). Filosofia della natura e della scienza. Vol. I: I Fondamenti, Lateran Uni-
versity Press, Rome.
———. (2002b) (Ed.). Proceedings of “IRAFS’02. Foundations and the ontological quest.
Prospects for the new millennium”, Rome, Pontifical Lateran University, January 7-10,
2002. Online publication on the Web site: www.pul.it/irafs/irafs.htm.
Basti G, Perrone A. L. (2002). Neural nets and the puzzle of intentionality. In Neural Nets.
WIRN Vietri-01. Proceedings of 12th Italian Workshop on Neural Nets, Vietri sul Mare,
Salerno, Italy, 17–19 May 2001, Roberto Tagliaferri and Maria Marinaro (Eds.), Springer,
London 2002, 313–27.
Cocchiarella N. B. (1996). Conceptual Realism as a Formal Ontology, in R. Poli and P.
Sirnor (eds.), Formal Ontology, Kluwer Academic Press, Dordrecht.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 272

272 c gianfranco basti

———. (2001). Logic and ontology, Axiomathes 12: 117–50.

Eccles J. C. , Popper K. R. (1977). The self and its brain, Springer, Berlin-New York.
Feigl H. (1958). The “mental” and the “physical”. In: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy
of Sciences, II, Feigl H. and Scriven Maxwell M. (Eds.), Minnesota University Press,
Minneapolis, 370–497.
Freeman W. J. (2001). How brains make up their minds, Columbia University Press, New York.
Hofstadter D. R. (1977). Gödel, Hescher and Bach. An eternal golden braid, Basic Books,
New York.
MacKay D. M. (1980). The interdependence of mind and brain, Neuroscience 5:1389–91.
Minsky M. (1988). Society of mind, Touchstone Books.
Penrose R. (1996). Shadows of mind. A search for the missing science of consciousness, Oxford
University Press, Oxford.
Perrone A. L. (1995). A formal scheme to avoid undecidabilities: an application to chaotic
dynamics characterization and parallel computation. In: Andersson S. I. (Ed.), Cogni-
tive and dynamical systems. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 888, 9–52, Springer, Berlin.
———. (2000). A new approach to chaotic systems characterization and its implication for
biology, Aquinas, 43: 381-409.
Popper K. R., Eccles, J. C. (1977). The self and its brain, Springer Verlag, Berlin.
Prigogine I. (1981). From being to becoming: time and complexity in the physical sciences, W.
H. Freeman, New York.
Quine W. V. O. (1989). Quiddities. An intermittently philosophical dictionary, Harvard Uni-
versity Press, Cambridge.
Searle J. R. (1983). Intentionality. An essay in the philosophy of mind, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge.
———. (1997). The construction of social reality, Free Press, Chicago.
Thom R. (1990). Semiophysics, a sketch. Aristotelian physics and catastrophe theory, Addison-
Wesley, Redwood City.
Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae). St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica (translated
by Fathers of the English Dominican Province), 5 volumes, Thomas More Publishing,
London, 1981.
———. (De Unitate Intellectus contra Averroistas). Aquinas Against the Averroists: On There
Being Only One Intellect. Transl. by R. McInerny, Purdue University Press, Indianapo-
lis, 1993.
———. (Quaestio Disputata de Anima). Questions on the Soul: St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P.
(Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation, No 27), Transl. by J. H. Robb, Marquette
University Press, Milwaukee WI, 1983.
Zalta E. (1988). Intensional logic and the metaphysics of intentionality, MIT Press, Cambridge.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 273

Part Five
Perspectives on Evolution and Purpose

c
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 274
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 275

Do Chimpanzees Have Souls? 48

Possible Precursors of Religious Behavior in Animals
Jane Goodall

D o animals have souls? Do chimpanzees show any sign of religious behavior?

These questions are seldom topics of discussion among scientists studying
animal behaviour. Indeed, for the most part they will deny the existence of “soul”
and deem the subject of religion inappropriate for scientific debate. It was not my
intention to become a scientist when, in 1960, I went to Africa to learn about wild
chimpanzees. Thus, I went about my study in a different and unorthodox manner.
Probably this is why, despite the fact that I acquired a doctoral degree in the end, I
am not at all reluctant to explore the intangible concept of “soul” and the possible
precursors of religious behaviour in chimpanzees and other animals.
I arrived in Gombe with no scientific training. I watched the chimpanzees with
a mind unbiased by reductionist scientific theory. I was not afraid to let intuition
play a part in my gradually evolving ability to interpret the complexities of chim-
panzee society and behavior. Knowledge gained from the Gombe study, now in its
forty-third year, and information from other studies of the great apes, has helped
us to redefine our own place in the animal kingdom. These studies demonstrate, on
scientific as well as intuitive grounds, that we humans are not, as was once believed,
the only living beings with personalities, minds capable of rational thought, and
emotions similar to—and sometimes perhaps identical to—those that we call hap-
piness, sadness, fear, anger, and so on. The great apes have brains more like ours than
that of any other living creature. They demonstrate the ability to make as well as use
tools. They are capable of intellectual performances that we once thought unique
to ourselves, such as recognition of self, abstraction and generalization, cross-modal
transfer of information, and theory of mind. They have a sense of humor. Chim-
panzees form affectionate and supportive bonds between individuals, especially
family members, which can last throughout a life of up to sixty years. They show
compassion and true altruism. Sadly, all too much like us, they also have a dark side
and are capable of extreme brutality. They are aggressively territorial and may attack
“strangers” from neighboring social groups, leaving them to die of their wounds.
They may even wage a kind of primitive warfare.
Clearly, the line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom, once
thought so sharp, has become extremely blurred. Perhaps, after all, it is not so ridicu-
lous to speculate as to whether chimpanzees might show precursors of religious
behavior. In fact, it seems quite possible that they do.
In one of the remote, steep-sided valleys in Gombe, there is a glorious, hidden
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 276

276 c jane goodall

waterfall. As one approaches, moving quietly through the forest, the roar of the falls
gradually gets louder. Suddenly, through the vegetation, one glimpses the living,
moving water as it cascades down from the stream bed some eighty feet above. Over
time, the water has worn a perpendicular channel in the rock. Vines hang down on
either side, and ferns move ceaselessly in the wind created by the falling water. For
me, it is a magical, spiritual place. And sometimes it seems that the chimpanzees too
are strangely moved. As they approach their hair may bristle, a sign of excitement.
And then they may start to display, charging with a slow, rhythmic motion, often in
an upright position, splashing in the shallow water at the foot of the falls. They pick
up and throw great rocks. They leap to seize the hanging vines and swing out over
the stream in the spray-drenched wind. For ten minutes or more, they may per-
form this magnificent “dance.” Usually it is the males who display thus, but I have
seen females react in the same way.
It is not only a waterfall that stimulates such performances. Quite often, the chim-
panzees display thus when they cross a stream, charging rhythmically up and down,
stamping through the shallow, racing water, picking up and throwing rock after
rock. And even more often, we see the “rain dance” that takes place at the sudden
onset of a heavy downpour. Strangely, the most incredible “dance” of this sort ever
observed at Gombe occurred right at the start of my study. I had a grandstand view
of no fewer than seven adult males displaying on the other side of a narrow, steep-
sided valley opposite me. Each of them charged down, dragging huge branches,
leaping up to sway vegetation, while the thunder growled and crashed, rain teemed
down from purple black clouds, and a group of females and youngsters watched
from trees on the skyline. Every performer charged down at least twice, some more
often, pausing briefly in trees at the bottom of the slope before plodding up, then
starting their magnificent dance all over again.
What triggers these marvellous performances? Is it possible that the chimpanzees
have a sense of awe, a feeling generated by the elements—rain, thunder, falling
water? Or even, as I witnessed once, the sudden onset of a fierce wind that raced up
the valley from the lake? Certainly, all these things generate intense feelings of awe
and wonder and excitement in me.
After a waterfall dance, a chimpanzee may sit on a rock in the stream gazing up
at the sheet of falling water, water that seems alive, always rushing past yet never
going, always there yet ever different. Was it perhaps similar feelings of awe, or won-
der, that gave rise to the first animistic religions, the worship of the elements and the
mysteries of nature over which there was no control? Only when our prehistoric
ancestors developed a spoken language would it have been possible to discuss such
internal feelings—discussions that could create a shared belief system.
My years spent in the forests of Gombe crystallized my own spiritual awareness.
Day after day I was alone, sharing the wilderness with the animals and the trees, the
gurgling streams, the mountains, the awesome storms, and the star-studded night
skies. I became one with a world in which, apart from the change from day to night,
from wet to dry season, time was not important. I became ever more attuned to the
great Spiritual Power that I felt around me, the Power that is worshipped as God,
Allah, Tao, Brahma, the Great Spirit, the Creator, and so on. I came to believe that
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 277

jane goodall c 277

all living things possess a spark of that Spiritual Power. We humans, with our
uniquely sophisticated minds and our spoken language, call this spark, in ourselves,
a “soul.” If this is so—and it cannot be proved either way—then it follows that chim-
panzees and other animal beings have souls also. Certainly, we cannot prove that
they do not.
As most scientists do not admit the possibility of a soul in humans, a study of the
animal soul is hardly a subject for scientific investigation! But religious behavior in
humans is a fact. A study that compared religious rituals across a variety of human
cultures, searching for elements shared by most (or all) such rituals, would be sci-
entifically respectable. And, in this context, we could ask whether chimpanzees (or
other animals with complex brains and behavior) might show precursors to human
ritualistic behaviors.
Careful documentation of the contexts and behaviors involved in the elemental
displays of chimpanzees would be extremely interesting. Our videography records
of waterfall, stream-bed, and rain displays would provide valuable information
because they allow detailed analysis of movement patterns and social interactions.
And these filmed sequences are typically accompanied by field notes that describe
behaviors leading up to and following the displays.
Such investigations might throw new light on the emotions that trigger the dis-
plays and whether they sometimes resemble those that we describe as awe and
wonder.
It seems most unlikely that animals other than ourselves are aware of their souls
or are concerned about the existence of God. They are concerned with going about
their lives, finding food and shelter, propagating their species. But most of them
are probably far more in tune with their spiritual selves than we are, more aware of
the great Spiritual Power in which we all “live and move and have our being.”
It is important that science dares to ask questions outside the prison of the biased
mind, dares to explore new areas of animal being. Such explorations might not only
increase our understanding of and respect for other-than-human mental states, but
also illuminate aspects of our own spiritual development.

c
Jane Goodall, Ph.D., C.B.E., began her landmark study of chimpanzees in Tan-
zania in June 1960 under the mentorship of anthropologist and paleontologist Dr.
Louis Leakey. Her work at the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve would become
the foundation of future primatological research and redefine the relationship
between humans and animals. Dr. Goodall’s observations of chimpanzees making
and using tools would force science to rethink the definition “man the toolmaker.”
Defying convention, she gave the chimpanzees names instead of numbers and
observed that they had distinct personalities, minds, and emotions. Today, scientists
and field staff continue her work at the Gombe Stream Research Center, which Dr.
Goodall established in 1964. In 1977, she established the Jane Goodall Institute in Sil-
ver Spring, Maryland, which focuses on research, education, conservation, and
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 278

278 c jane goodall

development. Her publications include two overviews of her work at Gombe—In

the Shadow of Man and Through a Window—and the spiritual autobiography, Rea-
son for Hope. The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior is recognized as the
definitive work on chimpanzees. Today, Dr. Goodall travels three hundred days per
year or more, speaking about conservation issues and the preservation of all species.
In April 2002, she was appointed to serve as a United Nations “Messenger of Peace.”
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 279

Shamanic Practices in the

Painted Caves of Europe 49
Jean Clottes

A rchaeology and physical anthropology have long shown that the Upper
Palaeolithic people, our Cro-Magnon ancestors, were beings exactly like us.
Our direct lineage started in Africa at least 150,000 years ago. About 90,000 years
ago, Homo sapiens were living in the Middle East. Some went east and eventually
populated Australia between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago. Others went west and
arrived in what is now Western Europe between 45,000 and 40,000 years ago. They
and/or their descendants were the creators of what we call “cave art.” Many of those
paintings and engravings were made deep inside caves where nobody lived; thus, the
inescapable consequence was that ever since they were discovered most specialists
have agreed that the art must have been created for religious purposes and that
some of the beliefs of those ancient peoples could be approached through them.
Comparisons were made with the rock art of modern hunter-gatherers in other
parts of the world. The universality of human religiosity, as well the indisputable fact
that we all belong to the same species with the same abilities, needs, and cravings,
made those comparisons possible.
That European Palaeolithic religions could be shamanistic1 was an idea pro-
pounded half a century ago (Eliade 1951). The hypothesis was further developed in
later years (in particular by Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1988). Shamanic cultures
still exist today and existed in the nineteenth century and before, and we have tes-
timonies about them. By studying these “contemporary” or “recent” cultures and
their ways of thinking about the world, we can make inferences about long-dead cul-
tures such as those in the Upper Palaeolithic.
Before being applied to what was discovered in the painted caves, three distinct
series of observations were used to support the idea that these early religions were
shamanistic—in the neuropsychological model of altered states of consciousness, the
shamanic societies in the world, and the rock art of known shamanic cultures, such as
the San in southern Africa and numerous Native American groups in the western
United States. In the 1990s, I worked with Lewis-Williams to determine whether
the theory could be applied to European cave art (Clottes and Lewis-Williams 1996,
1997, 2001). Recently, Lewis-Williams developed and expanded his model and his
ideas in a groundbreaking book (Lewis-Williams 2002).

The Neuropsychological Model of Altered States of Consciousness

Altered states of consciousness are an intrinsic part of human psychological makeup.
In addition to sleeping dreams and daydreams, our perceptions may be modified by
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 280

280 c jean clottes

tiredness, lack of sleep, violent emotions, and genuine hallucinations. The latter can
be caused not only by drugs or pathological states, but by fasting, isolation, dark-
ness, suffering, throbbing sounds, flickering lights, intense concentration, sensory
deprivation, and other things. In our ultra-rationalist society, such events are looked
down on, and often they are not talked about. In different types of cultures, how-
ever, vision seekers become prophets, spiritual leaders, saints, or shamans.
Lewis-Williams and Dowson (1988), referring to the numerous studies published
on hallucinations, mention a model with three stages. This model is “ideal,” mean-
ing that some people will go from one stage to the next, others will directly reach
Stage 3, and still others will never go beyond Stages 1 or 2.
Stage 1 is characterized by entoptic phenomena (i.e., within the eye) and the per-
ception of geometric forms. In Stage 2, one’s mind instinctively tries to rationalize
those forms and to give them meaning. They start to become organized. One fre-
quent feeling is going through a tunnel or being sucked into a vortex. Emerging
from it, one reaches Stage 3, with spectacular hallucinations in which all senses par-
ticipate and sometimes intermix in strange confusion. One may levitate, meet
extraordinary creatures, talk with animals, or be transformed into an animal. Entop-
tic phenomena often persist in the background (Lemaire 1993).
According to at least one ethnologist (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1978), the Columbian
Tukano Indians’ visions closely followed the model described. Variants of the model
have been found in numerous shamanic societies in various parts of the world. For
example, the shaman’s soul flight often takes him to the other world through a tun-
nel or under the water. This is reminiscent of some mystical experiences or of near-
death experiences, in which one sees a great white light at the end of a tunnel and
can float or be acutely sensitive to the presence of people dear to him or her. All
those reactions are then those of the human nervous system under the stimulus of
exceptional situations.

Shamanic Societies in the World

Among the multiple components of shamanism (Hultkranz 1987; Vitebsky 1995), a
few features are basic and directly relate to our purpose. First, people living in a
shamanic society believe in a complex cosmos in which several worlds coexist. They
may be parallel or tiered. They interact with one another, and in ours most events
are caused by the influence of the other world(s).
Second, some people are believed to be able to get deliberately in touch with the
other world(s) for practical aims: to cure the sick; to maintain a good relationship
with the “gods,” or supernatural beings, or to restore destroyed harmony with them;
to make the rain come in arid countries; to ensure good hunting or to address a
“Master of Animals” to make hunting possible; or to predict the future or bewitch
an enemy.
Third, contact can be made when spirit-helpers come to the shaman or vision-
seeker, often in animal form. Shamans identify with their spirit-helpers. They may
also send their soul to the other world to meet the spirits there and obtain their
help. This is done through trance.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 281

jean clottes c 281

Finally, shamanism is widespread among hunter-gatherers all over the world.

Until recent days, it was present over an enormous area—the Arctic, from Siberia
to Canada, the Scandinavian countries, all of North America, and the northern part
of South America. Taking into account that religions last for very long periods, even
among changing societies, as well as the very ancient peopling of the Americas in
Upper Palaeolithic times, a strong shamanistic framework for Palaeolithic religions
is a logical hypothesis.

The Rock Art of Known Shamanic Cultures

Many similarities, caused by a commonality of beliefs, can be noticed in the loca-
tion of the art, as well as in its themes and in its motivations.
Painted or engraved places are often believed to be an entrance to the world of the
spirits, a door that can work both ways. They also help to facilitate having visions.
A person who seeks access to the supernatural world will go to a solitary place to
await a vision, often at the foot of a wall loaded with the power of images. Access to
the other world may be through a tunnel watched over by guardian animals (bears
and/or rattlesnakes in California). In those sacred places, spirit-animals come out
through the cracks in a rock and go back the same way. This is one of the reasons
that so many snakes and other animals are so often represented as appearing to
emerge from walls.
The images were full of power, which explains why they crowd some panels: Each
new one drew on the power there and added its own. The number of subjects rep-
resented is always restricted. In the Californian Coso Range, bighorns were preva-
lent as rain-animals, a vital role in that desert region.
The images include geometrics similar to entoptic forms and composite crea-
tures (with both human and animal characteristics), which ethnological testimonies
describe either as spirits met during the trance or as the transformation of the
shaman him- or herself.
In various cases, rock art was used to “capture” visions. In Nevada and Califor-
nia, if this was not done seekers would “lose” their vision and die. Sometimes, the
shaman’s soul journey was represented by means of metaphors (“death” or “killing”
for trance).
In this relatively recent shamanic rock art, one can see an obvious relationship to
Palaeolithic art.

Palaeolithic Art
Palaeolithic art evinces an overall unity in various ways. First, deep caves were used
consistently for more than twenty thousand years. To make paintings or engrav-
ings in the complete dark is exceptional in the history of humankind. For such a tra-
dition to have gone on for so long, firmly rooted beliefs must have been passed on
from generation to generation.
All over Europe and at all times, priority has been given to representation of ani-
mals and geometric signs, with many indeterminate lines. Humans are scarce. Com-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 282

282 c jean clottes

posite creatures also belong to Palaeolithic art (see Figure 1), from a man with a
lion’s head in the Aurignacian of Hohlenstein-Stadel to the Middle Magdalenian
“Sorcerers” of Trois-Frères (see Figure 2).

1 2
Figure 1. The so-called “Sorcerer” in the Gabillou Cave (Dordogne, France), representing a com-
posite creature, part human, part animal. Tracing by J. Gaussen.
Figure 2. The so-called “Sorcerer with Musical Bow” from the Trois-Frères Cave (Ariège, France),
part man, part bison. Therianthropes such as this one or the one from Gabillou, common in
shamanic cultures, may represent a transformed shaman or a supernatural spirit. Tracing by H.
Breuil.

3
Figure 3. Part of the famous “Scene of the Well” in the Lascaux Cave (Dordogne, France), in which
a man with a bird’s head seems to fall in front of a wounded bison. Below the man, a bird seems
perched on a pole. The bird images might represent the flight of the soul, a common metaphor for
a shaman’s trance. The Lascaux Well is not so extensive a place as some other chambers in the
same cave. Tracing by A. Glory.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 283

jean clottes c 283

In the caves, Upper Palaeolithic people behaved in exactly the same way from
32,000 to 12,000 BP.2 They went to the most remote passages and recesses, sometimes
to places where only one or two persons could gain access at a time (Portel, Chau-
vet, Tuc d’Audoubert, Candamo). In this case, the act of drawing was paramount,
not its result. The Lascaux Well might have been such a place (see Figure 3). On the
other hand, impressive compositions were made in vast chambers, such as at Las-
caux (Salle des Taureaux), Niaux, and Chauvet, and other drawings were superim-
posed over one another in complex palimpsests, such as at Trois-Frères, Gargas,
and Lascaux (Abside). This implies participation in collective ceremonies in which
the images played a part for the perpetuation of beliefs, worldviews, and ritual prac-
tices to obtain the help of the spirits.
The cave itself was most important. Very often, animals were drawn by using nat-
ural reliefs for some parts of their bodies, making them appear as though they were
coming out of fissures, shafts, or the ends of galleries. Many bone fragments were
stuck into the cracks of the walls for no practical purposes except reaching into the
deep rock. Such nonutilitarian gestures were found in a number of caves ranging
from about 27,000 BP at Gargas to 14,000 in the Volp Caves. They confirm that the
cave and its walls were thought of and used in the same way. Those facts are too
numerous to be haphazard or coincidental. They testify to traditions and the mate-
rialization of fundamentally the same beliefs for more than twenty millennia.

Palaeolithic Art as the Testimony of a Shamanistic Religion

Upper Palaeolithic people, our forebears, had a nervous system identical to ours
and thus also experienced modified states of consciousness, which they had to inter-
pret in their own way. We know that they deliberately and repeatedly went into the
deep caves to make drawings, not to live. This went on for immense periods of time.
We also know that everywhere in the world and in all sorts of mythologies, the sub-
terranean world has always been considered a supernatural realm, that of the gods,
the dead, or the spirits. To go there was to venture into another world where one
would meet supernatural beings. The analogy with shamanic soul journeys is obvi-
ous. In addition, experiences from modern spelunkers testify to the hallucinogenic
properties of caves (Fénies 1965). Those accidental hallucinations are due to the
cold, the wet, the weariness, and the lack of external stimuli. When Magdalenians
or their predecessors went into the deep caves, they were aware of being inside the
world of the supernatural and expected to find spirits there. Such a state of mind,
reinforced by tradition, was bound to facilitate the experience of having visions.
The caves might thus have played a dual role: to facilitate visions and to get in
touch with the powers through the walls that constituted a kind of veil between
their world and ours. The use of natural reliefs then makes perfect sense. People
believed that the animal spirit itself was present in the rock, literally at hand. By
drawing it, they reached across the veil and tapped its power. The hollows, shafts,
and gallery ends played the complementary role of the places that the animals were
coming from.
Palaeolithic people’s desire to contact the spirits or powers in the subterranean
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 284

284 c jean clottes

world may have manifested itself in three other ways. First, they stuck bits of bone
into the cracks of walls, such as at Trois-Frères, Enlène, Tuc d’Audoubert, Bédeilhac,
Labastide, Troubat, Brassempouy, Portel, Llonin, and other places. The elementary
symbolism of this kind of gesture can be found in all sorts of contexts, even today—
for example, the Jerusalem Wailing Wall.
Finger flutings and indeterminate traces could have been created from the same
motives. They were not meant to draw an image, but to leave a trace on the wall
wherever this was feasible, as in Cosquer and Gargas. The gesture itself was what
counted. Within the sacred context of the caves, the most likely explanation is that
people tried to get in direct touch with the powers beneath the rock. This might
have been done by non-initiates who thus participated in the ceremonies in their
own way.
Handprints and hand stencils may have served the same kind of purpose. When
applying one’s hand on the wall and blowing sacred paint onto it, the hand blended
with the rock and took its color, red or black. It metaphorically vanished into the
wall, leaving a kind of ghostly mark of itself when removed. Such an act would
establish a concrete relationship with the world of the spirits and enable some per-
sons (children in Gargas, for example, or sick people) to benefit from a direct con-
tact with the powers beyond.

Conclusion
We have not attempted to explain all of Palaeolithic art through shamanism. From
what is known about shamanism (or rather, shamanisms) in the world, we have
examined the way Palaeolithic caves were used over a period of more than twenty
thousand years. This has led us to think that most of the art was done within a
shamanistic framework of beliefs. It does not imply that all the images came from
visions, even though trance and hallucinations must have played an important role.
At present, we have no way of knowing the details of those people’s beliefs. How-
ever, we have taken a step toward understanding their attitude to the supernatural
and their ways of approaching their own gods.

c
Jean Clottes, Ph.D., studied at Toulouse University, where he based his Doctorat
d’Etat dissertation on dolmens (prehistoric megalithic burial chambers). From 1990
to 1993, Dr. Clottes taught an advanced course in Prehistoric Art at Toulouse Uni-
versity. In 1992, he was appointed General Inspector for Archaeology at the French
Ministry of Culture, where from 1993 to 1999 he was Scientific Advisor for prehis-
toric rock art. Dr. Clottes is editor of the International Newsletter on Rock Art, has
published more than three hundred scientific articles, and has authored or edited
twenty-three books, the most recent including Passion Préhistoire (2003 ; World Rock
Art (2002); La Préhistoire Expliquée à Mes Petits-Enfants (2002); and La Grotte Chau-
vet—L’Art des Origines (2001). Dr. Clottes also serves as director of collections (“Arts
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 285

jean clottes c 285

Rupestres”) at Éditions du Seuil and la Maison des Roches in Paris, and he is a mem-
ber of various committees and councils dedicated to prehistoric monuments and
rock art.

Notes
1 From sha·man n — spiritual leader: somebody who acts as a go-between for the phys-
ical and spiritual realms, and who is said to have particular powers such as prophecy and
healing. [Late 17th century. Via Russian from Tungus šaman, ultimately from Sanskrit
śramaná? “Buddhist ascetic,” from śrámas “religious exercise.”] Microsoft® Encarta®
Reference Library 2003. © 1993–2002 Microsoft Corporation.
2 BP = Before Present.

References
Clottes and Lewis-Williams D., 1996. Les Chamanes de la Préhistoire. Transe et Magie dans
les Grottes ornées. Paris, Le Seuil.
———, 1997. Préhistoire. Les Chamanes des Cavernes, Archéologia 336: 30–41.
———, 2001. Les Chamanes de la Préhistoire. Texte intégral, polémiques et réponses. Paris,
La maison des roches.
Eliade M., 1951. Le Chamanisme et les techniques archaïques de l’extase. Paris, Payot.
Fénies J., 1965. Spéléologie et médecine. Paris, Masson, Collection de Médecine légale et de
Toxicologie médicale.
Hultkranz A., 1987. Native religions of North America: the power of visions and fertility. San
Francisco, Harper and Row.
Lemaire C., 1993. Rêves éveillés. L’âme sous le scalpel. Paris, Les Empêcheurs de penser en
rond.
Lewis-Williams D., 2002. The Mind in the Cave. Consciousness and the Origins of Art, Lon-
don, Thames and Hudson.
Lewis-Williams D. and Dowson T., 1988. The signs of all times. Entoptic phenomena in
Upper Palaeolithic art.. Current Anthropology 29(2), 201–45.
Reichel-Dolmatoff G., 1978. Beyond the Milky Way: hallucinatory imagery of the Tukano
Indians. Los Angeles, UCLA Latin American Centre.
Vitebsky P., 1995. Les Chamanes. Paris, Albin Michel.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 286

Naturalistic
Spiritual Information 50
Ursula Goodenough

T he title of this essay, suggested in the invitation I received to contribute to

this volume, brought to mind the following oft-quoted paragraph:
It seems to me we are losing the sense of wonder, the hallmark of our species
and central feature of the human spirit. Perhaps this is due to the depreda-
tions of science and technology against the arts and humanities, but I doubt
it—although this is certainly something to be concerned about. I suspect it
is simply that the human spirit is insufficiently developed at this moment
in evolution, much like the wing of archaeopteryx. Whether we can free it
for further development will depend, I think, on the full reinstatement of the
sense of wonder. It must be reinstated in relation not only to the natural
world but to the human world as well. At the conclusion of all our studies
we must try once again to experience the human soul as soul, and not just
as a buzz of bioelectricity; the human will as will, and not just a surge of hor-
mones; the human heart not as a fibrous, sticky pump, but as the
metaphoric organ of understanding. We need not believe in them as meta-
physical entities—they are as real as the flesh and blood they are made of.
But we must believe in them as entities; not as analyzed fragments, but as
wholes made real by our contemplation of them, by the words we use to
talk of them, by the way we have transmuted them to speech. We must stand
in awe of them as unassailable, even though they are dissected before our
eyes. (Melvin Konner, The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the
Human Spirit. Holt, 1982)
Konner is working here in the territory that has come to be called emergence. I
develop in this essay some useful ways to think about emergence, ways that are
importantly influenced by my understandings of Terry Deacon’s thinking.1 I then
suggest how Konner’s thinking might be expanded and even reconfigured in light
of these ideas and indicate how emergentism functions in my own spiritual quest.
The concept of emergence says that since the first moments in the thirteen billion
years of our observable universe, something more keeps arising—emerging—from
“nothing-but.” Some of these emergent properties, such as surface tension, arise from
shape interactions alone: Surface tension emerges when water or other molecules
interact to form a liquid; it doesn’t exist until the liquid state is adopted. Other emer-
gent properties entail both shape interactions and time, as in snowflake formation
or complex systems, where the shape interaction that happens next depends on the
shape interaction that happened before. The possibilities for novelty are enormous.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 287

ursula goodenough c 287

But the emergent properties that hold our attention—what we can call “third-
order emergence”—are those that arose with the advent of biology and then con-
tinued to arise through biological evolution. These also entail shapes moving
through time; but, in addition, they are encoded and remembered, thereby becom-
ing substrates for natural selection, which biases what is or is not remembered. I
refer to these properties, loosely but usefully, as biological traits.
Biological traits are made up of biomolecules, such as enzymes and hormones
and ion channels, that interact and play out in space and time. The difference
between traits and complex systems, then, is that traits are specified by instructions:
the shape of an enzyme, its capacity for productive shape changes, the timing of its
appearance in a given cell, how much of it is made, and what regulates its interac-
tional possibilities. These things are not left to chance or to fluctuating initial con-
ditions or boundary conditions. They are encoded, either in the genomic
instructions themselves or in epigenetic instructions (cell-cell interactions), such
that pretty much the same outcome—the same emergent trait—occurs with a quite
remarkable degree of reliability.
And, indeed, to generate a reliable outcome is what organisms are about. When
a species is unable to reproduce itself in a reliable fashion, it either drifts toward
extinction, or, through mutation and natural selection, it adopts a more reliable
strategy—that is, it evolves.
Granted that the ultimate substrate for natural selection is the organism itself, the
units of selection are its emergent biological traits. Thus, natural selection does not
“see” the enzymes, the individual gene products that catalyze an organism’s energy
transduction; rather, it “sees” the outcome, the emergent trait metabolism. In the
same way, natural selection “sees” an organism’s motility and not the contractile
and regulatory proteins that together allow that motility to happen. Instructions
for a less adaptive metabolism or motility are less likely to spread through a popu-
lation than instructions for a more adaptive metabolism or motility, with the wild-
card word “adaptive” having everything to do with the match between an organism’s
genomic expectations and the niche wherein it in fact finds itself. Metabolism and
motility are nothing but their constituent parts. But they are also something more,
something new and emergent.
What is particularly important about biological traits is that they are about some-
thing. Metabolism allows an organism to carry out its chemistry; motility allows it
to move toward food and mates and away from toxicity and predators. There is a
point to a trait that we cannot ascribe to a snowflake. A trait, and the traits that it
combines with to generate an organism, has a purpose—namely, to allow the organ-
ism to carry on and thereby transmit the instructions for those traits. Organisms of
different sorts may inhabit other planets in the universe, but, for me, a vital piece
of naturalistic spiritual information is that the organisms on this planet, and their
inevitable evolution given its inhomogeneous environment, are steeped in teleology.
Except for us—and us very recently—organisms have no idea whatsoever that
their traits emerge because genetic instructions have been transmitted and correctly
interpreted. Organisms are only aware, to the extent that they are aware at all, that
their traits serve to carry out their purposes, their goals. Moreover, except for us—
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 288

288 c ursula goodenough

and us very recently—organisms have no idea that their traits are emergent prop-
erties with underlying “nothing-but” parts. All of this is as hidden from view, as is
the way that water molecules interact to generate surface tension or colloids inter-
act to generate fractals. We are, to the best of our knowledge, the only ones who
know about bioelectric buzzes and sticky pumps and the chromosomes that encode
the instructions for making these things.
So we arrive at “us very recently,” us maybe two million years ago, when there
emerged a new trait: the capacity for symbolic language and the co-evolution of
both culture and the capacity for symbolic (self-) representation. We modern humans
experience what we experience. The extent to which this trait is latent/manifest in
other organisms as well is an intensely interesting question, but one we can set to
the side as we acknowledge an important truth: this human trait of symbolic (self-)
representation is a remarkable new kid on the evolutionary block. As we manipu-
late our symbolic understandings in the contexts of our remembered cultures, we
effectively create a new kind of reality, a virtual reality, one infused with concepts
and ideals and histories and expectations.
Although our new capacities for symbolic (self-) representation and cultural
transmission have been evolving for some time, it has only recently been the case
that they have been used to dissect the material world, and in particular biological
traits—and, in particular, our own biological traits—into their component parts.
While this activity now occurs worldwide, it began only in very small pockets of
human culture. Most humans, after pursuing their imperatives to eat and find shel-
ter and procreate, have been engaged throughout the ages in articulating their sense
of awe and wonder—their spirituality—in totems and rituals and cave-paintings
and songs and prayers, modes of expressing wonder that have been transmitted
through culture in the forms that we call “religions.”
This version of human history leads us to an interesting realization: We inhabit
cultures wherein our sense of awe and wonder has been yoked to things that we
don’t really understand, things that are larger and more powerful and more myste-
rious than we are, things that we can access only through our symbolic minds,
things such as Tribe and Beauty and Soul. As these large and abstract entities exist
only in our virtual reality, they activate experiences of transcendence because our
virtual reality is itself a transcendent modality. They are infused with the property
we sometimes call “the supernatural.”
So, then, goes one version of the story: we wrecked it all. We went too far, we ate
the whole apple, we came to understand that all these things emerge from under-
lying mechanisms—that Tribe has a great deal to do with primate forms of hierar-
chy and xenophobia, Beauty with sensory perception, and Soul with bioelectric
buzz. The shockwaves of disappointment continue to resound, hundreds of years
later, with huge attendant efforts to ignore or explain away or deny these under-
standings, even as we avidly consume the technologies that they generate.
But there is another version of the story: that our scientific understandings have
simply provisioned us with more to engage our awe and wonder. To absorb that we
have evolved from elegant simple creatures and with them co-inhabit a broiling,
beautiful planet spinning through endless space—to take this in and find oneself
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 289

ursula goodenough c 289

within it—is to gasp just as deeply as in any other modality of spiritual encounter.
Spiritual encounters don’t cancel one another out; they complement one another.
So we can now return to Konner. He starts out by simultaneously saying that we
haven’t yet reached our evolutionary possibilities for wonder and that we need to re-
instate the sense of wonder that we once had but have since lost. I would say that we
already have a thrilling capacity for wonder—it needn’t wait for “evolutionary
enhancement.” And I would further say that to the extent that it is true that our
sense of wonder has been lost, this is not so much because of our scientific under-
standings as because we have not yet developed robust ways to access spiritual
responses to these understandings. We remain trapped in the notion that the tran-
scendent is resident only in the supernatural. The project is not to re-find some
old-time sense of wonder, but to expand its modes and sources of elicitation.
Konner goes on to suggest that remediation of this state of affairs will best be
accomplished when we figure out how to reframe how we experience ourselves—
not as bioelectricity and hormones and metabolism, but as persons of soul and will
and heart. I would counter that, in fact, we have no idea how to experience ourselves
as bioelectricity and hormones and metabolism; we only know, intellectually, that
these activities undergird our experience. I no more experience myself as a bio-
electric buzz than my cat does, even though I know about these things and she does
not. The only way I know how to experience myself is through symbolic (self-) rep-
resentation, which by definition is a virtual reality that doesn’t feel material at all.
Konner concludes that the real solution is to believe in soul and will and heart as
entities, as unassailables, as wholes rather than fragments, “made real by the words
we use to talk of them, by the way we have transmuted them to speech . . . even
though they are dissected before our eyes.”
From my perspective, emergentism offers us another way to configure this inter-
face, one that I find more helpful to my spiritual journey. I would say that we don’t
need to subdue the parts and salvage the wholes through some set of semantic tricks
and transformations. The wholes are fully as real as the parts; they are each mani-
festations of the same thing, the one emergent from the other. Emergentism, I would
say, defeats the artificial dualism that Konner and many others correctly regard as
having confused and polluted our sense of wonder.
Our new kinds of minds allow us to encounter a universe resplendent with emer-
gent properties and their component parts. Many go on to ask whether the uni-
verse itself has a purpose and a plan; some say yes, others no. I prefer to focus on the
purposiveness of our kind. All of us here belong to the same lineage—the lineage
of intentionality, the trait that defines all earthly creatures. This understanding
serves as the bedrock of my naturalistic spirituality: I am knocked out every time I
think about it.

c
Ursula Goodenough, Ph.D., is currently Professor of Biology at Washington
University in St. Louis, Missouri. Her research has focused on the cell biology and
(molecular) genetics of the sexual phase of the life cycle of the unicellular eukaryotic
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 290

290 c ursula goodenough

green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, and, more recently, on the evolution of the
genes governing mating-related traits. She wrote three editions of a widely adopted
textbook, Genetics, and has served in numerous capacities in national biomedical
arenas. Dr. Goodenough joined the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science in
1989 and served continuously on its Council and as its president for four years.

Note
1 Many of our ideas were developed in the context of meetings we attended together
under the auspices of the “Science and the Spiritual Quest” (SSQ) project, ably stew-
arded by Philip Clayton and Mark Richardson. We are deeply grateful for the many
opportunities that we were afforded to engage in fruitful discourse during the three
SSQ meetings.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 291

Hath Darwin Suffered

a Prophet’s Scorn? 51
Evolutionary Theory and the Scandal of Unconditional Love
Jeffrey P. Schloss

Charles Darwin: Prophet or Profligate?

O ne of modernity’s most provocative but disruptive intellectual battles has

been the century-and-a-half-long blood-feud between conservative Christian
theism and evolutionary naturalism. Although it is currently fashionable to gainsay
“warfare” accounts of the interaction between science and religion, this tension
between traditional religious constituencies and the pillar of contemporary biology
has proven to be both crucial and enduring. Just scanning current book titles and
newspaper articles reveals the elusiveness of a workable truce, much less a peaceful
resolution to this conflict. Why is this? Ironically, it may involve a fight about love.
It is tempting at first blush to dismiss religious resistance to Darwinism as one
more episode in the inevitable retreat of belief in the supernatural, driven by the
relentless advance of scientific understanding. But the ready abatement of religious
distress over other naturalistic explanations in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
biology and cosmology suggests there is something more at work. Indeed, both reli-
gious and secular commentators point out that it is not mere naturalism, but the
implications of a specifically Darwinian naturalism, that appear to entail unique
challenges for traditional religious understandings—involving not just the mecha-
nism of life’s origin, but the very meaning of life itself (Haught 2000; O’Hear 1997;
Ruse 2000).
Western theism has traditionally affirmed a transcendent Creator of and pur-
pose to life, which the design of the cosmos manifestly, even jubilantly, testifies to;
and it has embraced the conviction that human beings, fashioned in the Creator’s
image, are specially suited to apprehend and cultivate that purpose in a moral vision
of self-giving and unconditional love. On the other hand, philosopher James Rachels
is by no means alone in pointing out that “Darwin’s great contribution was the final
demolition of the idea that nature is the product of intelligent design” (1990:110) and
that evolutionary theory “undermines the idea that man is made in the image of
God . . . The idea of human dignity turns out, therefore, to be the moral effluvium
of a discredited metaphysics” (1990:5). In an essay that explores the issue of incom-
mensurability between evolutionary biology and the Christian love command,
Michael Ruse cautions that “those who are worried about the clash between sci-
ence and religion have good reasons for their worries” (1994:5).
The question is, does this apparent clash constitute a genuine threat to religious
insights that are fundamental to Christian belief and even essential to human flour-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 292

292 c jeffrey p. schloss

ishing? Or does it entail a constructive, perhaps prophetic, challenge to reformulate

or revisit moribund religious understandings in light of important new informa-
tion? I want to argue that both are simultaneously the case. There is consonance and
dissonance—each of which may be constructive—between some evolutionary and
religious understandings of love and human purpose. Moreover, these agreements
and disagreements reflect resonant ambiguities within each tradition as well. As I
hope to show, the mantra of “science-religion dialog” turns out to be profoundly
true in this case: There is an earnest need for tentative, mutually respectful exchange
between disciplines on the issue of love.

The Provocative Evolutionary Love Story

The issue of sacrificial love occupies a crucial position in both religious and bio-
logical understandings of life. In the Christian tradition, it is considered the ultimate
telos of human existence, the summation and fulfillment of all moral obligation. For
evolutionary biology, it constitutes a “central theoretical issue” (Wilson 1975; Hol-
comb 1993) inasmuch as it has entailed a quandary needing explanation. Why so?
Darwin himself recognized that an exclusively other-benefiting trait “would anni-
hilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection”
(1859:199). And yet it appeared that the world in fact did contain such traits, from
sterile, other-serving castes in social insects to manifold instances of ostensibly self-
relinquishing altruism in human societies.
A century after Darwin, two important theoretical insights extended the power
of evolutionary theory to make sense of ostensible sacrifice. First, fitness was recon-
ceptualized as a property of genes, not just of individuals. William Hamilton’s (1964)
notion of kin selection meant that fitness could be inclusively furthered, not only
directly by having offspring, but also by caring for genetically related kin, as long as
the cost to the giver was less than the gain to the beneficiary times the index of
genetic relatedness (C ≤ B * R). J. B. S. Haldane encapsulated this idea by his famous
quip, reputedly made while scribbling calculations on a napkin in a pub, that he
would lay down his life to save two brothers or eight cousins.
Second, using an analogous cost/benefit logic to explain sacrifice outside of kin-
ship boundaries, Robert Trivers (1971) argued that sacrificial behaviors could be
selectively established if the cost to the actor is less than the benefit of a future com-
pensatory return times the probability of receiving such a return. He termed this
“reciprocal altruism.” While this sounds like an oxymoron—after all, altruism is
precisely not reciprocity—the idea is that such behaviors are not strictly and imme-
diately reciprocated. Rather, it is that individuals make genuinely costly investments
in others—but only in those particular others with whom the net balance of trade
is likely to be positive in the long run. Thus, reciprocal altruism involves recogniz-
ing other individuals and monitoring the history of reciprocation.
These powerful insights have been immensely successful in making sense of pre-
viously puzzling sacrificial behaviors and have formed the basis for the sociobio-
logical revolution—the comprehensive attempt to explain social behavior in light
of evolutionary theory (Wilson 1975; Dawkins 1976). In its initial triumphalist zeal,
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 293

jeffrey p. schloss c 293

sociobiology ambitiously asserted that all human social behavior could be explained
by the two processes discussed above, or hence reduced to nepotism and favoritism.
However, things are clearly more complicated than that. In what E. O. Wilson calls
the “scandal of mammalian biology,” human beings manifest an unusual degree
and scope of cooperation: We invest in others outside the boundaries of kin and
crony, and do so at significant personal cost.
In order to help explain this human anomaly, Richard Alexander (1987) advanced
the notion of indirect reciprocity utilizing a modification of the above cost/benefit
calculus. Indirect reciprocity theory argues that in human beings—the only pri-
mate living in groups too large to keep track of personal relationships—reputation
for being a faithful reciprocator mediates inclusion in the cooperative matrix.
Morality is an adaptation to large group size that provides the rules for accruing
resources in one’s reputational bank account. Conscience serves as a “reputation
alarm” that goes off when one is behaving in a way likely to erode “principal”
(Alexander 1987). Thus in humans, and perhaps only in humans, individuals exhibit
sacrificial cooperation with others who will never repay the favor, but only so long
as the cost of the sacrifice is less than the benefit of an indirect compensatory return
from someone else, times the increased likelihood this will happen from reputa-
tional enhancement. According to indirect reciprocity theory, we’re as unselfish as
it pays to be; we’re as selfish as we can get away with.
Cynical implications notwithstanding, indirect reciprocity does make sense of,
and successfully predicts, many patterns of human social cooperation. But there
are also explanatory limits. Virtue may be its own reward, but virtue consciously
pursued for reward’s sake strikes most people as suspiciously unvirtuous; thus
humans are on vigilant lookout for hypocrites whose goodwill is intentionally tied
to the rate of reputational return. Moreover, human group sizes are often so large
that we need to make decisions about cooperating with others whose reputations we
don’t know. Enter signaling theory, which suggests that individuals develop hard-
to-fake, often involuntary displays that reliably convey cooperative disposition.
Indeed, consciousness is understood by some evolutionary biologists primarily as
an adaptation for inferring the interior state of others, “a game of life in which the
participants are trying to comprehend what is in one another’s minds before, and
more effectively than, it can be done in reverse” (Alexander 1987:133). As a comple-
ment, the uniquely neotonous and hairless human facial morphology is a highly
effective stage for emotional display. Recent experimental work has confirmed the
connection between involuntary facial signals and altruistic dispositions and has
revealed that people indeed have a fascinating ability to make accurate inferences
from facial information (Brown et al. 2003).
So the very best strategy for cooperative inclusion is to be a genuinely good per-
son. Or is it? Groucho Marx quipped that “The secret of life is honesty and fair-deal-
ing—if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Yet the best, perhaps the only way, to
“fake” an involuntary display is to be sincerely but erroneously convinced of one’s
good intentions. Self-deception theory, the last refinement in the above sociobio-
logical line of argument, suggests that human cognition is structured with a bias
toward overestimating one’s own virtue and concealing one’s ultimately self-serv-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 294

294 c jeffrey p. schloss

ing motives from self-conscious recognition. The most effective fitness-maximizing

strategy is not intentional hypocrisy, but entirely sincere, although inauthentically
self-deceived, professions of beneficence. Indeed, believing that you believe the New
Testament love command has been described as the most effective strategy for
manipulating others to your own benefit.
As Oscar Wilde observed, “A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the
luxury of an emotion without paying for it.” Evolutionary theory posits this as a bio-
logical adaptation. Recognizing this, “No hint of genuine charity ameliorates our
vision of society, once sentimentalism has been laid aside. What passes for cooper-
ation turns out to be a mixture of opportunism and exploitation” (Ghiselin
1974:247).

Darwinism as Profligate
Given this deconstruction of genuine altruism as a legitimate end, or even a realis-
tic possibility for human existence in the name of Darwin, those who claim there is
no overlap (much less conflict) between science and religion (Gould 2002) and
those who offer glib assurance of happy congruence between evolution and Chris-
tian belief (Miller 1999) seem to be proposing “peace, peace, where there is no
peace.” In light of this, the religious reflex toward anti-evolutionism seems under-
standable, if intellectually and socially counterproductive. I would like to suggest
that religious belief may constructively speak to these scientific issues in three ways.
First, it may graciously but persistently articulate what we know about the real-
ity of love from ways of understanding outside the sciences. With no religious
agenda, Frans de Waal (1996:14) critiques gene-centric theories as dismissing what
“many of us consider to be at the core of being human” and concludes “a more cyn-
ical outlook is hard to come by.” Mary Midgley (1994:17) observes that “Darwinism
is often presented . . . as a reductive ideology requiring us to dismiss as illusions
matters which our experience shows to be real and serious.” Now such assertions do
not themselves advance, or even answer, scientific propositions; but they do remind
us that there is unresolved tension between truth claims. Ironically, a good deal of
religious thought has been so eager either to refute or to accommodate itself to Dar-
winian theory that it may have overlooked the opportunity—and responsibility—
to keep us clear about mysteries that so far remain unclear. The tentative
disinclination to thinking everything has essentially been solved is what Sir John
Templeton, in whose honor this volume is being assembled, has called “humility the-
ology.” As Nicholas Lash eloquently suggests, “[Conflicts] arise when evolutionary
science, having forgotten its ‘fragmentary’ character, expands into a comprehensive
explanatory system. . . . Christian hope paradoxically ‘enriches our knowledge’ by
protecting our nescience from illusion” (1995:283).
Second, as alternative scientific accounts for the evolution of altruism and human
purpose emerge, theology can take care to reflect on the entire landscape of scien-
tific theory and not just a favored position or easy target; moreover, it can serve as
a conversation partner in territory that it has spent much effort mapping. In recent
years, unifactorial explanations involving individual selection have been supple-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 295

jeffrey p. schloss c 295

mented with theories invoking different levels of genetic selection (Sober and Wil-
son 1998; Boehm 1999) and nongenetic or cultural evolution (Durham 1991). These
revisionist accounts present a more nuanced but ambiguous picture of human
nature as entailing deep ambivalences relating to contrasting legacies of individual
and group selection (Boehm 1999) and tensions between biological and cultural
(even religious) influence. But these developments over the last decade mirror
debates about the conflictedness and transformability of the human capacity to
love that theology has been wrestling with for centuries. Indeed, recent “camps” in
evolutionary thought in many ways mirror longstanding polarities in Augustinian
vs. Thomistic and Reformed vs. Wesleyan theology (Schloss 2002a).
Third, most concretely but perhaps most controversially, religious understand-
ing may actually inform scientific research (Russell 2001; Schloss 2002b). For the tra-
dition of natural theology, purpose is an inference based on the limitations of
naturalistic explanation. I would propose the converse: Religious notions of purpose
are starting assumptions that may serve as a wellspring of alternative hypotheses, not
suggested by prevailing theory, but fully investigatable by scientific means. One
example of this concerns the frequency and effects of altruism. Prevailing evolu-
tionary accounts are primarily econometric and posit that human social behaviors
optimize the ratio of material inputs to outputs (Schloss 1996). Because there has
been no theoretical warrant, we have never asked the fundamental organismic ques-
tion about what happens inside the individual as a function of cooperative dispo-
sition: Are there internal biological benefits to altruism? Another example involves
the role of morality and religion in promoting altruism. Virtually all evolutionary
accounts see religion as a nonadaptive spandrel, an adaptation for individual fitness,
or a facilitator of intra-group cooperation (Schloss 2000). Ironically, however, most
world religions expressly eschew exclusively individual and group interest, urging
unconstrained or, to use Sir John’s term, “unlimited love.” Now maybe this is all
explainable by self-deception theory, but the point is it is empirically addressable
(Schloss 2002a): Is there a connection between the professions of such religions and
the altruistic behavior of their adherents? After longstanding lack of interest, these
issues are currently being investigated by a variety of empirical studies.

Darwinism as Prophetic
It would be presumptuous to suggest that religion should speak and not listen to
science on the issue of love, and I want to propose that spiritual understanding may
be both refreshed and advanced by contemporary evolutionary accounts of altru-
ism in at least two ways. First, notions of kin selection and reciprocal altruism con-
stitute the most systematic explanation to date of the natural loves, theologically
regarded as expressions of common grace. Moreover, they provide a basis for
inquiry into the groupish constraints of natural affection and the question of how
to expand the domain of human beneficence in ways that all religions urge. Indeed,
Jesus almost sounds like a sociobiologist in the Synoptic Gospel accounts that
exhort us not to restrict our greetings or invitations or lending to those who do the
same in return. He seems to regard these behaviors as native defaults, observing
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 296

296 c jeffrey p. schloss

that even Gentiles, sinners, and tax collectors do the same. He might just as easily
have commented that all social vertebrates do the same! Religious indifference to
the very real constraints, and provisions, of biological embodiment in the name of
transcendence is an intellectual presumption that subverts, rather than advances,
love and genuine spirituality. As Pascal observes, “Man is neither angel nor brute.
And the unfortunate thing is, he who would act the angel, acts the brute” (1958:
Pensee 358).
Second, notions of indirect reciprocity and self-deception constitute an unusu-
ally rich resource for understanding—and exposing—religious inauthenticity and
the conditions that promote it. Religious profession uncoupled from genuine love
has consistently been viewed as counterfeit spirituality in biblical and church tra-
dition. Signaling theory provides a polarizing lens to examine behaviors that have
been culturally reified as emblems of religious commitment, but that may mask
self-serving and even exploitive personal orientations or social structures (Schloss
1996). This is precisely what the biblical prophetic tradition confronts in its criticism
of mere lip service, or frequent exhortations to justice over religious ritual. Con-
temporary biological accounts provide a heuristically effective tool, which we have
not yet developed the ability to disarm.
Indeed, I want to conclude by suggesting that Darwinism may function as—and
be received with no less scorn than—religious prophets who exposed moribund
spiritual understanding to the increasing illumination of love’s demands. While it
is understandable that religious faith will reject the hubris of hyper-Darwinian
nihilism, it is noteworthy that conservative religious tradition has not welcomed
with palm branches those conceptual tools of evolutionary biology that are not
only highly congruent with traditional religious understandings, but potentially
useful for advancing religious ends. Equally significant is contemporary anti-evo-
lutionism’s focus on relative minutiae such as radiometric dating, the Noahic flood,
and fossil gaps. This appears to constitute a scrupulous tithe of intellectual mint and
cumin, while quite literally ignoring the weightier matters of the law—love and
human purpose. Why strain at gnats and overlook camels?
Thomas Luckmann (1967) has a profound account of religious nominalization
that may help explain this (Schloss 1987). Building on Weberian notions of rou-
tinization, Luckmann observes that the sacred values in religion that make sense of
life and govern behavior may gradually come to do neither. Even though they con-
tinue to be rhetorically affirmed, they are imperceptibly replaced by unrecognized
values or an “invisible religion.” Nominalization occurs not when people become
halfhearted, but when hearts are invested in religious rhetoric that does not reor-
ganize life but instead merely names or ontologically distinguishes the community.
The twofold function of a prophet is to point out the unrecognized counter-values
that actually organize the community and to pull down icons of social justification
and community distinction.
Thus, John the Baptist says, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do
not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that
out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham” (Luke 3:8). He then
goes on to specify what tangible, specifically altruistic behaviors would reflect the
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 297

jeffrey p. schloss c 297

authenticity of religious commitment. I would argue that a similar implication of

Darwinism—made overt in the Rachels quote cited at the beginning of this essay—
has been to say, “Do not say to me you are uniquely made in God’s image, or super-
naturally born again by the Spirit of God: for I say to you God is able ‘to breathe life
into’ (using the very words from the Origin) any number of life forms that bear the
same unremarkable fruit that you do.” It is then quite clearly specified what kind of
altruistic behaviors would be tokens of genuine transcendence, restating with
prophetic and contemporary impact the ancient Johanine challenge to Gnostic
nominalism, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For any-
one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he
has not seen” (1 John 4:20).
At the beginning of this essay, I commented that the tension between religion
and evolution might be understood, in part, as a conflict over love. I did not spec-
ify which side either was on! Indeed, the traditions are as frail as the human hearts
that birth them, which is why we need them to cooperate in enriching our capacity
to explore and promote genuine charity. In the last analysis, there seems to be pre-
cious little in thoughtful versions of evolutionary theory that is intrinsically incom-
patible with Christian orthodoxy from any age. There is, however, a great deal that
stands to make orthodoxy more demanding.

c
Jeffrey P. Schloss, Ph.D., is Professor of Biology at Westmont College in Santa
Barbara. He received his doctorate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Wash-
ington University. Professor Schloss has taught at the University of Michigan,
Wheaton College, and Jaguar Creek Tropical Research Center. He has been awarded
a Danforth Fellow and an AAAS Mass Media Fellow in Science Communication.
Professor Schloss has served on the editorial and advisory boards of numerous jour-
nals relating science and religion, including Zygon: The Journal of Theology & Sci-
ence, Science & Christian Belief, Science & Theology News, and Science & Spirit. His
twofold interests are in the ecophysiology of poikilohydric regulation and the impli-
cations of evolutionary theory for our understanding of ethics and human pur-
pose. Professor Schloss’s recent projects include several collaborative volumes:
Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue (Oxford,
2002) (two of his collaborators—Stephen G. Post and William B. Hurlbut—con-
tributed essays to this volume); Research on Altruism and Love (Templeton Foun-
dation Press, 2003) (again with Stephen G. Post, and others); a two-volume series
of the Journal of Psychology & Theology focusing on biological and theological per-
spectives on human nature; and Evolution and Ethics: Morality in Biological and
Religious Perspective (Eerdmans, 2004) (with Philip Clayton, who contributed an
essay to this volume).
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 298

298 c jeffrey p. schloss

References
Alexander, R. D. 1987. The Biology of Moral Systems. Chicago. Aldine-de-Gruyter.
Boehm, C. B. 1999. Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior. Cam-
bridge. Harvard University Press.
Brown, M., Palameta, B., and Moore, C. 2003. Are there non-verbal cues to commitment?
An exploratory study using the zero acquaintance video presentation paradigm. Evolu-
tionary Psychology. 1: 42–69.
Darwin, C. 1859, 1967 ed. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or, the Preser-
vation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Cambridge. Harvard University Press.
Dawkins, R. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
de Waal, F. 1996. Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Ani-
mals. Cambridge. Harvard University Press.
Durham, W. 1991. Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity. Stanford. Stanford
University Press.
Ghiselin, M. T. 1974. The Economy of Nature and the Evolution of Sex. Berkeley. University
of California Press.
Gould, S. J. 2002. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York. Bal-
lantine Books.
Hamilton, W. D. 1964. The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior. The Journal of Theoret-
ical Biology, 7: 1–16.
Haught, J. F. 2000. God after Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. Boulder, CO. Westview Press.
Holcomb, H. R. 1993. Sociobiology, Sex, and Science. Albany. State University of New York
Press.
Lash, N. 1995. Production and Prospect: Reflections on Christian Hope and Original Sin.
In Evolution and Creation, ed. E. McMullin, 273–89. Notre Dame. University of Notre
Dame Press.
Midgley, M. 1994. The Ethical Primate: Humans, Freedom and Morality. London. Rout-
ledge.
Miller, Kenneth R. 1999. Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground
between God and Evolution. New York. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Luckmann, T. 1967. The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society. New
York. MacMillan.
O’Hear, A. 1997. Beyond Evolution: Human Nature and the Limits of Evolutionary Explana-
tion. Oxford. Clarendon Press.
Pascal, B. 1958. Pensees. T. S. Eliot, commentator. New York. E. P. Dutton.
Rachels, J. 1990. Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism. New York.
Oxford University Press.
Ruse, M. 1994. Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics: Are They in Harmony? Zygon:
Journal of Religion & Science. Vol. 29(1): 5–24.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 299

jeffrey p. schloss c 299

———. 2000. Can a Darwinian be a Christian? The Relationship between Science and Reli-
gion. New York. Cambridge University Press.
Russell, R. J. 2001. The Relevance of Tillich for the Theology and Science Dialogue. Zygon:
Journal of Religion & Science 36(2).
Schloss, J. P. 1987. Social Ecology and the Nominally Religious World View: Cultural Trans-
formation or Accommodation by the Christian Liberal Arts. Faculty Dialogue 8:99.
———. 1996. Sociobiological Explanations of Altruistic Ethics: Necessary, Sufficient, or
Irrelevant Perspective on the Human Moral Quest. In Investigating the Biological Foun-
dations of Human Morality. James Hurd, editor. New York. The Edwin Mellen Press.
107–45.
———. 1998. Evolutionary Accounts of Altruistic Morality and the Quandary of Goodness
by Design. In Mere Creation William Demski, editor. Downers Grove, IL. InterVarsity
Press. 236–61.
———. 2000. Wisdom Traditions as Mechanisms of Homeostatic Integration: Evolution-
ary Perspectives on Organismal ‘Laws of Life’. In The Science of Wisdom and the Laws of
Life. Warren Brown, editor. Philadelphia. Templeton Foundation Press. 153–91.
———. 2002a. ‘Love Creation’s Final Law?’: Emerging Evolutionary Accounts of Altru-
ism. In S. Post, L. Underwood, J. Schloss, and W. Hurlbut, eds. Altruism and Altruistic
Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue. New York. Oxford University Press.
2002.
———. 2002b. From Evolution to Eschatology. In Resurrection: Theological and Scientific
Assessments. Ted Peters, Robert J. Russell, and Michael Welker, editors. Grand Rapids.
Wm Eerdmans. 56–85.
Sober, E., and Wilson, D. S. 1998. Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish
Behavior. Cambridge. Harvard University Press.
Trivers, R. L. 1971. The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology,
46: 35–39.
Williams, G. C. 1993. Mother Nature Is a Wicked Old Witch. In Evolutionary Ethics, eds. M.
H. Nitecki and D. V. Nitecki. Albany. State University of New York Press.
Wilson, E. O. 1975. Sociobiology. Cambridge. Harvard University Press.
———. 1978. On Human Nature. Cambridge. Harvard University Press.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 300

Living Purpose 52
The Study of Purpose in the Living World
as a Source of New Spiritual Information
Paul K. Wason

W hat is the meaning of life? When I was in college we debated this ques-
tion through many long winter nights. Those were pre-postmodern nights
when “finding yourself ” meant locating your being in an existing web of meaning
and purpose. We tossed about many strange suggestions, never doubting the exis-
tence of “meaning.”
But what if Jacques Monod had been among us? Would a sparkling night have
ended in the gray dawn of recognition that we are “alone in the unfeeling immen-
sity of the universe, out of which [we have] emerged only by chance” (1972:167)? Had
George Gaylord Simpson joined us, he might have rendered some fine stories, but
all with the same amoral: “Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic
process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned” (1949:344). E. O. Wil-
son was then writing his great text on sociobiology. But had he made a quick appear-
ance on the way to the library, he would have left us to ponder the idea that “no
species, ours included, possesses a purpose beyond the imperatives created by its
genetic history” (1978:2).
Would we have believed them? Possibly. Undergraduates are easily overwhelmed.
But I hope not, for there is purpose in the universe. Humans have purposes. We
engage in planning, act intentionally, seek and create meaning. Some appear to deny
this, accepting Monod’s sweeping claims with stiff lip and steady gaze. But I suspect
they still believe in the reality of purpose. Can we imagine Richard Dawkins drag-
ging a pen one day across some paper, without purpose or intent, only to discover
the beautifully crafted text of The Blind Watchmaker? If Wilson really believed there
is no purpose at the end of the genetic leash, why such great devotion to convert-
ing us? Why not do something a little more genetic? Perhaps I shouldn’t speak for
them. But I do not believe their line. In order to come to believe it, I would have to
purposefully choose to believe that purpose and choice are illusory. That would be
a rather silly thing to do. And if you cannot accept an apparently inevitable con-
clusion without becoming silly or incoherent, it is time to revisit the premises.
There is more. These human intentions, designs, and purposes genuinely affect
the material world. I break no natural laws in playing billiards, yet the balls end up
where I intended them. Well, sometimes. They all end up in different places from
where they would have were it not for my purpose.1 Human purposes accomplish
things that would not have been predicted. Elements of our world, such as the New
Jersey Turnpike, single-malt scotch, and California, would not make sense if we
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 301

paul k. wason c 301

tried to understand them without accounting for human purpose. They may not
make sense anyway. But we do know that real purposes have genuine causal efficacy
in the realm of biology.
If we are to understand life at all, we must account for all of life.2 Human thought
is as much a part of the living world as the first multicellular organism, so any effec-
tive understanding of life must account for our purposive behaviors. Including Cal-
ifornia. And we may discover purpose to be far more widespread than this. In causal
terminology, these are questions of teleonomy and teleology. “Teleonomy” concerns
whether the laws of nature can be interpreted in terms of generic goal-directedness
with respect to their role in evolution. “Teleology” concerns questions of tran-
scending meaning and purpose. It is the study of phenomena exhibiting order,
design, purposes, ends, goals, and direction. Purpose is the more familiar concept,
of course. Among humans, it is that which we set before ourselves as an object, end,
result, or plan.3 So far, so good. But there is one more word we must consider.

Purpose and Design

Design. There, I said it. A word scorned not just by religion’s cultured despisers, but
throughout mainstream science and religion. It’s tempting to avoid it, but we can-
not, for purpose and design are deeply intertwined. It is no accident that in many
people’s minds purpose is implicated in objections raised against design.
It has been two hundred years since William Paley first asked us to imagine find-
ing a watch on the NJ Turnpike. (Or something like that.) Most would agree that the
watch was designed. Surely it didn’t coalesce spontaneously from the random wind-
currents of ten billion tires. A close look would reveal “that its several parts are
framed and put together for a purpose” (Paley 1802:2). Design, it seems, makes little
sense without purpose—at the very least, what something was designed for. Con-
versely, purpose is often expressed through design (as in, what were they thinking
when they built that ramp?).
But times have changed. Paley had argued that, just like watches, the eye and
hand must have been designed too because, well, how else could such intricacy have
come about? Once immensely persuasive, this reasoning no longer works. We now
have a perfectly plausible alternative, natural selection. Darwin’s The Origin of
Species, it is said, “did away for all time with the problem of teleology” (Plotkin
1994:51). Purpose and design became obsolete together. This, I believe, is the heart
of what Monod, Simpson, Wilson, and Dawkins are trying to get us to see.
Does this mean our late-night search for meaning was in vain? I don’t think so.
First, selectionist explanations are powerful but not necessarily complete. I am not
proposing heresy. I can recite the creed in good conscience: Many biological features
make far more sense if we assume a history of descent with modification than if we
see each as the efficient, independent, freely creative design of a wise and benevo-
lent designer.4 And with 99 percent of all life forms extinct, planned obsolescence
seems a better summation of earth’s history than timeless design. And yet, in evo-
lutionary psychology and perhaps elsewhere, explanations using natural selection
as the primary causal agent are often little more than clever just-so stories. Also,
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 302

302 c paul k. wason

the presumption that anything having to do with life can be explained by natural
selection, and that life overall must have the character we ascribe to selection,5 does
not follow even from the very fruitful success of the idea.
Second, natural selection could be a vehicle for purpose. What we need are not
more assertions of the opposition between biological processes and purpose or
design, but improved methodologies for distinguishing purpose from contingency,
randomness, and determinism, meaning from meaninglessness, and design from
chaos within a biological context. Much of modern design theory has too readily
accepted the premises of Monod and Plotkin and so have taken a largely unpro-
ductive path—that of trying to oppose design to natural selection and trying to
understand design without reference to purpose. After all, much of the living world
can very neatly be explained by natural selection. If we propose, as many theists do,
that purpose and/or design are pervasive as well, there must be compatibility, even
synergy, among design, purpose, meaning, and selection.
Third, there are other approaches to design (Gregersen 1998:220). Design argu-
ments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were mechanistic, not unlike the
science of the time (Davis and Poe 2002). But science has changed. Why, then, must
design still conjure up great cosmic blueprints for specific organismal traits?
Although unaware of natural selection, Paley was not unaware of these issues. He
meant his arguments to be in line with, not opposed to, the most current biologi-
cal understanding. We should do the same if we really want design or purpose argu-
ments to offer new insight into the nature of reality. Even human artifacts, known
to have been intelligently designed, often owe their current form and functionality
to long periods of trial and error, exploration, and artificial selection. This evolu-
tion is not considered evidence against design, plan, and purpose. Why, then, should
we persist in pitting purpose, design, and natural selection against each other in
the wider realm of life?

Possibilities for the Study of Purpose in the World of the Living

The study of purpose in the living world is not impossible. Not even its deep con-
nections with design render it obsolete. But how might we actually go about it?
First, it cannot all come from within biology. The world’s religions are a major
source of the insight that purpose permeates existence. Philosophers have been
studying purpose and causation for a long time. These are debates biology cannot
afford to ignore. In addition, research in physics and cosmology has documented a
remarkable range of apparent “fine-tunings” of physical laws and constants sug-
gesting that we inhabit a “bio-friendly universe” (Davies 1999:20).
While nineteenth-century natural theology emphasized the intricate design of
specific biological features, modern biologists might build on cosmology and study
broad features of life in a search for overarching design and purpose. Michael Den-
ton has recently shown that many aspects of the universe are strikingly suitable for
the emergence and evolution of life (1998). Is life part of a broader cosmic purpose,
perhaps built in?
What is life, anyway? Can the living be adequately understood in terms of reduc-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 303

paul k. wason c 303

tive physical and chemical processes? The architectures of life might also be an area
of study relevant to purpose. In the realm of the very small, consider that protein
function depends not just on the sequence of amino acids, but on their folding and
coiling, their three-dimensional structure. Could it be that evolutionary pathways
for proteins are determined by physical laws? And what of the higher architectures
of life? Can life take just any form or is the wondrous profusion around us built from
just a limited number of possibilities that are part of a plan built into the creation
from the beginning? The pervasiveness of convergence, for example, suggests limits
to the number of real possibilities (Conway Morris 1998).
A casual overview of the history of life reveals trends (larger body size, greater
physiological complexity) and even trends of trends (increasing integration, coop-
eration, freedom). Are these real? Is selection working on random mutation the
only plausible mechanism, or do physiological and molecular constraints, and exter-
nal forces (such as asteroids) have a significant cumulative effect? Are genes (which
somehow manage to be selfish in an amoral and purposeless world) the ultimate
purpose of life? Very likely, higher levels of integration (organism, population, com-
munity) are also essential for understanding biology, with implications for hierar-
chical or emergent purpose.
And just what are the purposes of life? Suppose we began by thinking about what
is really important to us, at the deepest level of who we are? However subjectively
we start out, I expect we will discover commonalities, elements basic to us as
humans, as human animals, as examples of life. Instead of assuming these are late,
ephemeral, and hopelessly individual, what if we found ways of determining their
broader influence throughout life. Could they be fundamental elements of life, even
fundamental aspects of reality?
I know what you’re thinking. This guy really is from California. But consider—
very likely, we already know what some of these deep elements are—love, grace,
humility, compassion, relationship, thanksgiving, communion with God. We can
add to and check the list by reviewing the world’s religious teachings, extracting
elements of the perennial philosophy, and asking our children. Indeed, scholars in
astrobiology and SETI message development are already exploring what elements
of humanity are sufficiently universal to be understandable by independently
evolved intelligent life. I hope they succeed in their great quest, but this work is also
of immense value now for the equally profound quest for understanding purpose
in life on Earth.
Purpose in human affairs often comprises intentions, a plan or design with goals,
and some means for carrying them out. Can we identify any of these elements in the
nonhuman biological world as clues to how purpose works? Indeed we can. Bekoff
has evidence that canids not only have intentions, but make them known to each
other, thus enabling higher orders of sociality such as social play and a sense of fair-
ness (Bekoff 2002). Tschudin (2001) has found dolphins capable of rudimentary
moral reasoning, and Heinrich even reports planning and play among ravens (Hein-
rich 1999:310, 324). Cognitive ethology may be the most immediately rewarding
approach available for studying purpose in the living world.
Can we uncover traces of purpose beyond the level of individual and social
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 304

304 c paul k. wason

behavior? What does it tell us that evolution has led to conscious beings who stay
up all night asking about the purpose of life? What does it tell us about the universe
that the most intelligent known life forms willingly drive the New Jersey Turnpike?
What is the basis for moral, spiritual, and religious awareness?6 What is religion,
anyway, and why has it been of utmost importance for all humans throughout his-
tory, save a minuscule minority of recent Western elite?
Humans are small, bipedal primates who drink ten-year-old single-malts. We
engage in design, act with future goals in mind, and are as much a part of the liv-
ing world as our dear friend the yeast. Purpose, meaning, intention, design, and
teleology are found in profusion in the living world, from California to Scotland to
New Jersey. What might we learn about other life forms, about life itself, if we start
by recognizing that there is real, serious purpose among at least some living beings?
Well, kind of serious.

c
Paul K. Wason, Ph.D., was named Director of Science and Religion Programs for
the John Templeton Foundation in 1999. He works with scientists, theologians,
philosophers, and ministers on programs that feature the constructive engagement
of science and religion. Dr. Wason is an anthropologist with a specialty in prehis-
toric archaeology. His research on inequality, social evolution, and archaeological
theory has been published as The Archaeology of Rank (Cambridge, 1994) and in
other works. Currently, he is studying the changing relations between religion, sta-
tus, and leadership as evidenced by the stone circles and other monuments of
Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe. Previously, Dr. Wason spent ten years at Bates
College as Director of Foundations and Corporations and as a sponsored research
administrator and served on the College’s multiyear strategic planning effort. Dr.
Wason received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the State University of New York at
Stony Brook and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bates College, where he earned a
B.S. in biology.

Notes
1 This illustration is borrowed from Keith Ward’s clear and helpful discussion (1992:48).
2 Hans Jonas suggests: “Perhaps, rightly understood, man is after all the measure of all
things—not indeed through the legislation of his reason but through the exemplar of
his psychophysical totality which represents the maximum of concrete ontological com-
pleteness known to us” (Jonas 1966:23–24).
3 Even defining (never mind studying) teleonomy and teleology is very complicated, but
exploring what scholars have said about the words provides much insight into what they
think about the living world. Importantly, not everyone uses the words as I have defined
them here. See Barrow and Tipler 1986:133–36; Ayala 1998, 2000; Mayr 1982, 1991.
4 As just one of literally hundreds of possible examples, human embryos have yolk sacks
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 305

paul k. wason c 305

even though drawing their nourishment from their mothers (Miller 1999:100–101; see
also Williams 1996 for many examples, some perhaps a little stretched, and the writings
of Stephen Jay Gould, such as 1980:19ff).
5 To the extent that natural selection is used as a baseline model for the way the world is,
it does lead to a different perspective from that of traditional theology. It is often con-
sidered random, directionless, meaningless, lacking in purpose, cold, selfish; and, as
George Williams points out, these are things we would want to condemn (Williams
1996:157). Williams and I condemn this as a way of human life, others say that is the only
rational basis for morality. But a third view is that there must be more to the world than
is revealed through this mechanism as already shown by the reality of effective purpose.
6 Recently scholars from several disciplines have given attention to religion in their study
of human evolution including paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall (1998, 2002), psy-
chologist Merlin Donald (1991, 2001), archaeologists Colin Renfrew (1994, 1998) and
Steven Mithen (1996), anthropologist Pascal Boyer (1994, 2001) and evolutionary biol-
ogist David Sloan Wilson (2002). In turn scholars whose main interest is in religion
itself like Stewart Guthrie (1993), Walter Burkert (1996), Wentzel van Huyssteen (per-
sonal communication), and John Haught (2000) have discovered the relevance of evo-
lutionary material for their work.

References
Ayala, Francisco, 2000. “Teleology and Teleological Explanation.” Counterbalance Foun-
dation: Meta Library,w
w
w.
/on
br
m
eo
eev
-body.html.
n
ry
te
i/lu
tp
la-/ltio
.:ah
———, 1998. “Teleological Explanations in Evolutionary Biology.” In Colin Allen, Marc
Bekoff and George Lander (eds.), Nature’s Purposes: Analyses of Function and Design in
Biology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 30–49.
Barrow, John D., and Frank Tipler, 1986. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Bekoff, Marc, 2002. Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Boyer, Pascal, 2001. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New
York: Basic Books.
———, 1994. The Naturalness of Religions Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion. Berkeley:
The University of California Press.
Burkert, Walter, 1996. Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Conway Morris, Simon, 1998. The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of
Animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Davies, Paul, 1999. The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life. New
York: Simon and Schuster.
Davis, Jimmy H., and Harry L. Poe, 2002. Designer Universe: Intelligent Design and The
Existence of God. Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 306

306 c paul k. wason

Dawkins, Richard, 1987. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a
Universe Without Design. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Denton, Michael J., 1998. Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the
Universe. New York: The Free Press.
Donald, Merlin, 2001. A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness. New York:
W. W. Norton & Company.
———, 1991. Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cog-
nition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gould, Stephen Jay, 1980. The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Gregersen, Niels Henrik, 1998. “A Contextual Coherence Theory for the Science-Theology
Dialogue.” In Niels Henrik Gregersen and J. Wentzel van Huyssteen (eds.) Rethinking
Theology and Science: Six Models for the Current Dialogue. Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 181–231.
Guthrie, Stewart Elliott, 1993. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Haught, John F., 2000. God After Darwin—A Theology of Evolution. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press.
Heinrich, Bernd, 1999. Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds.
New York: Cliff Street Books.
Jonas, Hans, 1966. The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press.
Mayr, Ernst, 1991. One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and The Genesis of Modern Evolu-
tionary Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———, 1982. The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Miller, Kenneth R., 1999. Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientists’ Search for Common Ground
Between God and Evolution. New York: Cliff Street Books.
Mithen, Steven, 1996. The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and
Science. London: Thames and Hudson.
Monod, Jacques, 1972. Chance and Necessity. Tr. A. Wainhouse. London: Collins.
Paley, William, 1802. Natural Theology, or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the
Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature. London: R. Faulder.
Plotkin, Henry, 1994. Darwin Machines and the Nature of Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press.
Renfrew, Colin, 1998. “Mind and Matter: Cognitive Archaeology and External Symbolic
Storage.” In Colin Renfrew and Chris Scarre (eds.) Cognition and Material Culture: The
Archaeology of Symbolic Storage. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological
Research.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 307

paul k. wason c 307

———, 1994. “The Archaeology of Religion.” In Colin Renfrew and Ezra B. Zubrow (eds.)
The Ancient Mind: Elements of A Cognitive Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 47–54.
Ruse, Michael, 2000. “Teleology: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow?” Studies in History and
Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 31, no. 1: 213–32.
———, 2000. The Evolution Wars: A Guide to the Debates. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Simpson, George Gaylord, 1949. The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and
of Its Significance for Man. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Tattersall, Ian, 2002. The Monkey in the Mirror: Essays on the Science of What Makes Us
Human. New York: Harcourt, Inc.
———, 1998. Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness. New York: Harcourt
Brace and Company.
Tschudin, A. J-P., 2001. “Mindreading Mammals? Attribution of Belief Tasks with Dol-
phins.” Animal Welfare 10: S119–27.
Ward, Keith, 1992. Defending the Soul. Oxford: One World.
Williams, George C., 1996. Plan and Purpose in Nature. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Wilson, David Sloan, 2002. Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Soci-
ety. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Wilson, E. O., 1978. On Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 308

The Evolution
of Altruism 53
From Game Theory to Human Language
Martin A. Nowak and Natalia L. Komarova

I t is a common pattern in nature for simple things to give rise to more com-
plicated things. Great complexity arises in a sequence of incremental steps, and
the resulting system acquires features that could not have existed in the beginning.
One such feature is altruism. In this essay, we show how altruism, which is not sus-
tainable in simple systems, becomes a necessary component of more sophisti-
cated scenarios, where it actually keeps the system together. This holds true for the
evolutionary dynamics of co-existing organisms. It also holds true for the spiri-
tual evolution of individuals. As we strive to find God, truth, and love through-
out our lives, we can rise to higher and higher levels of understanding and
spiritual sophistication. And one of the great fruits found on this path is selfless-
ness, the willingness to give oneself for the good of others. An outsider in the
early stages of life, altruism is a familiar presence in fairy tales, games, and songs
and becomes vitally important as we mature, becoming one of the pillars of the
spiritual temple built in the course of one’s life.
This common motivating force in the universe is the subject of this essay. We
explain how cooperation could have arisen naturally, despite the always-present
temptation to defect. We first present the famous Axelrod et al.’s “Prisoner’s
dilemma” and then talk about more complicated versions of the game, which mimic
different aspects of human interactions. We see that in a complex society with a
sophisticated infrastructure, altruistic behavior is necessary for survival and pros-
perity. It is also a necessary prerequisite for the existence of language, with all of its
consequences, including our ability to share thoughts, pass on moral values, and
pray. Altruism is there in the beginning as a prerequisite for what it means to be
human, and it is there at the end as one of the most cherished spiritual values. Fol-
lowing is an attempt to make sense of this.

The “Prisoner’s Dilemma”

Cooperation and mutual help are integral parts of human society. So are deceit and
selfish behavior. Family members, neighbors, and colleagues often find themselves
in situations where personal interests are in conflict with the interests of the larger
group. The temptation is to cheat and maximize one’s own benefit without concern
for others. The alternative choice is to cooperate, which means accepting a (small)
cost in order to help somebody else. All world religions call for an attitude that pro-
motes such altruistic behavior, and so does evolutionary game theory.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 309

martin a. nowak and natalia l. komarova c 309

The problem of cooperation and defection is described mathematically by the

famous “Prisoner’s Dilemma” (Trivers 1971, Axelrod and Hamilton 1981). This game
has two players (two prisoners that are being accused of having committed a crime
and are questioned by the police in separate rooms). Each player has two choices:
to cooperate (to be silent) or to defect (to betray the other). The idea is that each
player gains when both cooperate (the police will not have proof, so the punishment
will be reduced); but if only one of them cooperates, the one that defects will gain
more (i.e., will be freed for offering evidence against the other). If both defect, both
lose, but not as much as the “cheated” cooperator whose cooperation is not returned
(if each of them reports on the other, the punishment for both is reduced for help-
ing the police). The essence of the game is that the temptation to defect (five points)
exceeds the reward for mutual cooperation (three points), which exceeds the pay-
off for mutual defection (one point), which exceeds the payoff for exploited coop-
eration (zero points); see Table 1.

Table 1. Payoffs in the “Prisoner’s Dilemma”

You Cooperate You Defect
I Cooperate I receive 3, you receive 3 I receive 0, you receive 5
I Defect I receive 5, you receive 0 I receive 1, you receive 1

What would you do in this situation? If you cooperate without knowing what the
other one is up to, you would face the risk of being severely punished in case the
other betrays you. And even if the other prisoner cooperates, you are still better off
defecting. So, the decision is easy: No matter what the other player does, you should
defect. Thus, both players will defect—and as a result will receive only one point
each. On the other hand, if they had both cooperated, they would have received
three points each! This is the dilemma of cooperation.
Both in On the Origin of Species (1859) and in The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin
mentions that cooperation is not easily explained by natural selection. In terms of
modern evolutionary game theory, imagine a population of individuals consisting
of cooperators and defectors. Individuals play the Prisoner’s Dilemma in random
pairwise encounters. The payoffs are added up, and individuals reproduce propor-
tional to their payoff. It is straightforward to see that defectors will always do bet-
ter than cooperators. After some time, cooperators will become extinct. Natural
selection chooses defection. Yet, as noted by Darwin, cooperation is abundant in
nature. How can we explain this?

The “Altruism” of “Selfish” Genes

The first answer to Darwin’s question was given by William D. Hamilton (1964).
Cooperation among relatives can be explained by kin selection. Genes that induce
altruistic behavior are shared among relatives. Hence, genes, selfishly, promote their
own survival. Hamilton’s equation demands that the coefficient of relatedness be-
tween the donor and the recipient of an altruistic act has to exceed the cost-benefit
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 310

310 c martin a. nowak and natalia l. komarova

ratio of this act. As the famous biologist J. B. S. Haldane once said, “I would jump
into the river to save two brothers or eight cousins.”
Kin selection is one of the most successful theories in evolutionary biology. But
the question remains: How do we foster cooperation among nonrelatives?

Direct Reciprocity
In a single round of a nonrepeated game of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, there is no
incentive to cooperate. If the game is repeated, however, cooperation can become a
viable option. The repeated game of the Prisoner’s Dilemma admits an infinite
number of possible strategies. A strategy has to specify whether to cooperate or to
defect given any history of the game. The simplest and least cooperative strategy is
Always Defect (AD). Interestingly, more cooperative strategies such as Tit-for-Tat
(TFT) can take over AD. In TFT, a player cooperates on the first move and then
does whatever the other player did in the previous round. If the other player coop-
erated, the second player cooperates. If the other player defected, the second player
defects. Hence, these moves somehow embody the harsh advice referred to in the
New Testament: “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Matt 5:38). TFT can take
over AD if the initial abundance of TFT players exceeds a certain threshold (the
“invasion barrier”) or if the TFT players form clusters.
TFT does well against many other strategies, but it has a weakness. If two TFT
players interact and one makes a mistake and defects, then both players will be
locked in a series of alternating defection and cooperation. Another mistake can
bring the sequence to all-out defection. In the long run, in a world such as ours
where mistakes are possible, two TFT players perform as poorly as players who
choose cooperation or defection randomly with a 50 percent chance on each move.
Hence, TFT’s unforgiving retaliation is its Achilles’ heel.
The population of TFT players can be invaded by more forgiving strategies such
as Generous TFT (GTFT), which always answers cooperation with cooperation and
sometimes answers defection with cooperation (Nowak, May, and Sigmund 1995).
The optimum level of forgiveness for the payoff values in the Table is that one in
three defections of the other player are followed by cooperation. The rule of GTFT
is “never forget a good move, but sometimes forgive a bad move.”
GTFT in turn can be undermined by Always Cooperate (AC). In mixed popula-
tions of AC and GTFT, there is (almost) only cooperation, and the payoff is the
same for every player. Random drift can lead to populations dominated by AC. This
is reminiscent of a peaceful society that loses any mechanism to retaliate or punish
defection. The outcome is clear: After some time, AD will invade again. A cycle of
war and peace is closed, as shown in Figure 1. The evolution of altruism displays
cycles of cooperation and defection.
A simple strategy such as Win-Stay, Lose-Shift (WSLS) can break this basic cycle.
In WSLS, a player will stick with his or her move from the previous round if this was
successful (e.g., earning five or three points) and change if it wasn’t (e.g., earning
only one or zero points). WSLS can correct errors and hence is as forgiving as GTFT.
In addition, WSLS can exploit AC; hence, WSLS populations cannot be undermined
by AC.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 311

martin a. nowak and natalia l. komarova c 311

Figure 1. The cycle of war and peace.

Indirect Reciprocity
The model of direct reciprocity assumes repeated interactions between two players.
This is a good assumption in many situations, but it does not hold for all social
interactions. People often are willing to cooperate with those whom they are unlikely
to meet again. The motivation for such behavior can be explained by models of
indirect reciprocity. The basic idea is that cooperation leads to a reputation that
elicits help from others (Nowak and Sigmund 1998). In this setting, cooperation
pays because it confers the image of a valuable community member on the coop-
erating individual.

Effect of Neighborhoods
Finally, we note that cooperation is easier to maintain in a sedentary population
(Nowak, May, and Sigmund 1995). Defectors can thrive in an anonymous crowd, but
mutual aid is frequent among neighbors. It is interesting that territorially struc-
tured interactions promote cooperation even if no follow-up encounter is expected.
This result favors cooperation even for the seemingly hopeless single round of the
Prisoner’s Dilemma. Let us suppose that each member of the population is con-
strained to a node of a square grid and interacts only with his or her eight closest
neighbors. We further assume that each player is either a pure cooperator or a pure
defector. After each round of the game, each player is replaced by a copy of the win-
ner. It is easy to see that a lone cooperator will be exploited by the surrounding
defectors and succumb. Four cooperators in a block, however, may hold their own,
because each of them interacts with three cooperators, and a defector from the out-
side can reach and exploit only two. If the bonus for cheating is not too high, clus-
ters of cooperators will grow! On the other hand, lone defectors will do very well at
first because they can exploit all their neighbors; but as soon as they spread, defec-
tors will surround themselves with their like, and so diminish their returns.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 312

312 c martin a. nowak and natalia l. komarova

Cooperation, Defection, and Communication

We have seen that game-theoretic models, crude as they are, illustrate how cooper-
ation and altruism might arise and be maintained in a population of individuals.
Sophisticated creatures such as humans may be drawn to follow strategies that
encourage cooperation because of repeated interactions among individuals that
can recognize and remember one another or by virtue of self-organizing structures
generated by interactions with neighbors. Once cooperation is in place, it can give
rise to a new level of highly complex interactions among individuals. One of the
most amazing examples of that is human language.
To see that the very existence of language is impossible without cooperation, let
us perform the following thought experiment. Assume that individuals in the pop-
ulation can exchange information. At each interaction, one person acts as a
“speaker” and the other as a “listener.” The speaker has a choice of either giving
away some piece of useful information (telling the truth) or lying. Telling the truth
may be associated with some cost to the speaker (for instance, telling others about
a food source may harm the donor in the future), and it confers a positive payoff to
the listener. On the other hand, telling a lie may be beneficial to the speaker and
harmful to the listener. This sets up a game-theoretic scenario in which different
strategies may have more or less success in the evolutionary dynamics. Let us sup-
pose for a moment that the AD strategy (always tell a lie) wins over the population.
It is immediately clear that a language cannot evolve under such circumstances
because there is no point for listeners to learn to decode the messages of the speak-
ers! In a population of liars, those who can pass on messages and understand the
messages of others have no advantage compared with individuals who do not have
the ability to communicate, which shows that evolving a signaling system requires
some level of cooperation.
Interesting examples can be found in biology. Bees have a highly sophisticated sig-
naling system in which they can “tell” other members of the hive about the location,
and even the quality, of food sources. This is hardly surprising considering the high
level of cooperation that exists in bee colonies. The biological explanation of coop-
eration is kin selection (bees in a hive are closely genetically related, and thus by
helping others they help spread their own genes). In its turn, cooperation leads to
the development of language. Similarly, one could argue that the existence of human
language relies on a high level of cooperation and altruism in human society; the
difference is, of course, that the reason for altruism is not kin selection, but other,
more sophisticated interactions, some of which we have examined.
If cooperation exists in a population of individuals, then we can argue that a
coordinated signaling system can arise. Humans use words as a basic unit of com-
munication. If the cognitive abilities of the individuals are high enough, then the
population will follow self-organizing dynamics until all individuals have a common
lexicon (Komarova and Nowak 2001). The next step is to clump words together and
construct sentences following a common system of generative rules, which eventu-
ally leads to the emergence of syntactic communication. We argue that this is pos-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 313

martin a. nowak and natalia l. komarova c 313

sible only in a highly cooperative society in which it pays to have the ability to com-
municate (Nowak, Komarova, and Niyogi 2002). Once a communication system is
established, it leads to a wealth of sophisticated social behaviors and promotes the
emergence of complex social structures, morals, and a common system of values—
altruism usually being one of them.

Conclusion
We have seen that evolution as we know it would be impossible without altruism;
altruistic/cooperative behavior arises naturally (and by necessity) and gives rise to
a great variety of phenomena we observe in nature and in society. At the same
time, altruism appears to be one of the highest and most desirable moral values of
modern religions. A person on his or her spiritual quest will not advance far with-
out embracing an altruistic attitude. This common pattern, which has arisen in a
rather unexpected way, suggests that there are “favorite” themes in the universe.
Our efforts to find them and internalize them should come from both the theo-
logical and scientific perspective. Future interdisciplinary research should include
mathematical modeling in ecology and sociology, performed in close contact with
experts in human spirituality, cultural history, and religion. This will shed more
light on the emergence of altruism and on broader questions of human spiritual
evolution.

c
Martin A. Nowak, Ph.D., is Professor of Mathematics and of Biology at Harvard
University since 2003, Director of the newly founded Center for Theoretical Biol-
ogy, and the Faculty Director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. He
received his Ph.D. from the University of Vienna in 1989, where he studied bio-
chemistry and mathematics. His diploma thesis was on quasi-species theory, and his
Ph.D. thesis was on the evolution of cooperation. After graduating, he went to the
University of Oxford as the Erwin Schrödinger scholar to work with Robert May. In
1992, he became a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and in 1997 Professor of
Mathematical Biology. In 1998, Professor Nowak moved to Princeton to establish the
first program in Theoretical Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study. He is inter-
ested in all aspects of mathematical biology, particularly the dynamics of infectious
diseases, cancer genetics, the evolution of cooperation, and human language. In an
effort to describe the evolution of human language, he designed a mathematical
approach bringing together formal linguistics, learning theory, and evolutionary
dynamics. Professor Nowak has published more than two hundred papers and is on
the editorial board of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London, Jour-
nal of Theoretical Biology, and Journal of Theoretical Medicine. His first book, Virus
Dynamics (together with Robert May), was published by Oxford University Press in
2000. Professor Nowak is a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sci-
ences and has won numerous awards.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 314

314 c martin a. nowak and natalia l. komarova

c
Natalia L. Komarova, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor, Department of Mathemat-
ics, University of California, Irvine, and a member of the Institute for Advanced
Study, Princeton. She studied theoretical physics at Moscow State University, where
her master’s thesis was on chaos control in 2-D maps. She received her doctorate in
Applied Mathematics in 1998 from the University of Arizona, where her thesis title
was “Essays on Nonlinear Waves.” In 1998–1999, Dr. Komarova was a Research Fel-
low at the Mathematics Institute, the University of Warwick, United Kingdom,
where she continued her work on natural pattern formation and competition
between nonlinearity and randomness. She went to IAS in 1999 as a member of the
School of Mathematics, where she became interested in problems of mathematical
biology. In 2000, Dr. Komarova joined the Program in Theoretical Biology at IAS,
and in 2003 she became part of the faculty in the Department of Mathematics at
Rutgers University. She is interested in applying mathematical tools to describe nat-
ural phenomena. She received the 2002 Prize for Promise from the Student Achieve-
ment & Advocacy Services Corporation.

References
Axelrod, R., and Hamilton, W. D. The evolution of cooperation. Science 211, 1390 (1981).
Hamilton, W. D. The genetical evolution of social behaviour. J. Theor. Biol. 7, 1–52 (1964).
Komarova, N. L., and Nowak, M.A. (2001). Evolutionary dynamics of the lexical matrix.
Bull. Math. Biol., 63(3), 451–85.
Nowak, M. A., Komarova, N. L., and Niyogi, P. (2002) Computational and evolutionary
aspects of language, Nature, 417, 611–17.
Nowak, M. A., May, R. M., and Sigmund, K. The arithmetics of mutual help. Scientific
American 272, N6, 76–81 (1995).
Nowak, M. A., and Sigmund, K. Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring. Nature
393, 573–77 (1998).
Trivers, R. The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Q. Rev. Biol. 46, 35–57 (1971).
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 315

The Form of Freedom 54

William B. Hurlbut

W e are living in the Age of Information, and the assertion is often made
that information is freedom. Yet, even as we give assent to these claims, we
rarely pause to reflect on their meaning or their implications concerning natural
reality and our capacity to comprehend the world in which we exist. Such an inquiry
might allow us to discern an overarching process and purpose within the order of
creation and thereby inform and enrich our spiritual quest.
The concepts of information and freedom are so familiar to us that they resist
easy definition or description. While information is generally taken to imply objec-
tive factual data, it is immediately evident that the apprehension of information is
itself a subjective capacity dependent on our ability to gather, analyze, and assimi-
late—to be in-formed and trans-formed in conformity with an underlying aspect
of reality. Furthermore, to be of use in navigating and negotiating our way within
the world, information must provide not just data, but the pattern of knowledge and
the wider picture of understanding. Information is but the foundation for the fuller
comprehension essential for spiritual formation—the deepest alignment with the
source and significance of life.
Recognized in this way, freedom cannot be merely a result of information, but is
an essential condition for its apprehension. We must be capable of discerning the
dimensions and distinctions within the multiformed world, of selectively perceiv-
ing, evaluating, and comprehending the very character of the cosmos. Yet freedom
is also an invitation, beckoning us onward to be further transformed in the direc-
tion of transcendence—toward a fuller freedom built on a more comprehensive
understanding. It is in light of these capabilities (and callings) that we gain a greater
appreciation of the crucial complexity and specificity of human embodiment as
the essential “form of freedom.” We are creatures capable of ascending to a knowl-
edge of our Creator, open to be spiritually in-formed with the freedom of love—as
the very “image of God.”

The Evolutionary Ascent of Freedom

If we step back and look anew at the evolutionary process within which we have
emerged, we are amazed at the majesty of its meaning. At every stage in both the
phylogenetic process and the ontogenetic unfolding of the developing individual,
there is an essential interplay, a flow of information drawing life into a richer free-
dom and fullness in response to the exigencies and opportunities within the order
of Nature. The very principles and conditions of the physical world provide the
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 316

316 c william b. hurlbut

powers and possibilities for the stable continuity and creative extensions of Nature’s
living forms.
Only certain combinations of chemicals with particular properties could have
formed the first structural and functional elements necessary for the continuity of
life. These few highly constrained specific molecular elements in turn became the
foundation with which all further complexity had to develop in coordinated and
complementary integration. Looking back over nearly four billion years of evolu-
tion, it is astonishing to realize that these early life forms set the platform for an
absolutely extraordinary proliferation of possibilities and the emergence of increas-
ing freedom, communication, and comprehending consciousness within the phe-
nomenon of life.
At its most primary level, freedom within living Nature is prefigured as a widen-
ing range of possibilities in the service of continuity and constructive change. This
pattern of increasing freedom (and the apprehension of information it allows) is
manifest within a rising scale of complexity built on mutation, modulation, mod-
ular specialization, and the emergence of mind—culminating in the comprehensive
consciousness of communal moral and spiritual awareness.
Whereas early life forms adapted through a multitude of variations produced by
reproduction and mutation (changes in the coding sequence of DNA), more com-
plex systems of adaptation soon evolved that allowed individual organisms to draw
information from their environment and to adjust internally to changing condi-
tions. Such individual freedom is first manifest as modulation of the timing or pat-
tern of gene expression in direct response to chemical conditions and is already
seen in single-cell life forms. A major advance in the ascent of freedom occurs with
multicellularity and its possibilities for specialized cell functions and complemen-
tary division of labor. This modularization is further extended with body segmen-
tation (head, thorax, and tail, etc.) and the independent developmental programs
of specialized organs of awareness and action (and later, appetite, a felt sense of
desire or need that motivates and governs these vital powers).
With the evolutionary emergence of brains nearly five hundred million years ago,
more primary capacities of selective perception and locomotion were transcended
by programs of integrated organismal response—innate reflex arcs of nerves and
muscles triggered by external stimuli. This improved the coordination of informa-
tion and action and allowed the extension of life into more varied and challenging
environments. But, whereas the oceans had provided a more or less steady chemi-
cal context and constant temperature, the ascent to dry land required more complex
self-regulation of water, pH, and temperature. This control of internal milieu, how-
ever, ensured the stability of chemical structures and reaction rates essential for the
neurological basis of body representation, emotion, and memory. These capacities,
in turn, provided the platform for a sense of inwardness, continuity of identity and
self-awareness. From here forward, the evolutionary ascent toward the fullness of
freedom would be about the emergence of mind and would culminate in the moral
and spiritual awareness of the human person.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 317

william b. hurlbut c 317

The Psychophysical Unity of the Human Person

To understand the emergence of mind within the evolutionary process, it is essen-
tial to recognize its role in the service of life, its crucial significance in matters of the
body. Indeed, as neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has pointed out, “The mind had
to be first about the body, or it could not have been.”1 Whatever abstractions and
extensions of thought we may have, they are grounded and built on a capacity to
comprehend in and through our bodily being and its dynamic of experience. It is
here, with a deeper appreciation of the psychophysical unity of the human person,
that we begin to see the full significance of our physical form.
The origins of mind may be understood as a further extension of the most fun-
damental principles of biology: continuity and constructive change. Brains emerged
in response to the need for integrated organismal control of mechanisms to sustain
and regulate stability of body states. These adaptations, crucial for continuity of
physical identity, came to be under the control of complex neurological regulation
through a system of body representations within the brain. Together with periph-
eral sensory awareness of the body surface and proprioceptive perception of the
musculoskeletal dynamics of body position and balance, this inner awareness of
bodily state became the basis for the sense of self. This web of self-awareness, like a
map suspended in mental space, provides a constantly updated image of our state
of being against which any perturbation or alteration can be compared. Damasio
explains that the body, as represented in the brain, constitutes “the indispensable
frame of reference for the neural processes that we experience as the mind; that our
very organism rather than some absolute external reality is used as the ground ref-
erence for the constructions we make of the world around us and for the construc-
tions of the ever-present sense of subjectivity that is part and parcel of our
experience. . . .”2 Precision and clarity in consciousness, and the coordination and
application of memory across time and circumstance, are only possible because of
the defined borders and the remarkably invariant reference of the “self ” anchored
in the body. Indeed, the body serves as a stable standard against which change can
be measured.
The mind, then, is not an abstract neurologic function, but is an activity of the
whole body. And we know the world not as a separate reality, but with reference to
ourselves. The accurate apprehension and genuine acquisition of information
allowed by the stable ground of the body make possible the crucial human capac-
ity for adaptive self-transformation through learning. The detection and interpre-
tation of an outside stimulus culminates in the in-forming of our physical body
(through memory encoded as synaptic connections): its conformation to a wider
consciousness of the nature of the world and the self within the world. This capac-
ity for adaptive transformation through learning is the basis for both continuity of
personal identity and the interpersonal and intergenerational transmission essen-
tial for culture.
The awareness and learning that the sensitive and responsive self make possible,
however, are not the objective knowing of a dispassionate observer. The mind has
been selectively shaped for perception and interpretation in accordance with its
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 318

318 c william b. hurlbut

service to survival and the goals of life. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, in Phi-
losophy in the Flesh, explore the meaning of this “embodied mind” for its implica-
tions in individual consciousness and social communication. They argue that reason
is not literal but metaphorical, that the very structures of our categories and con-
cepts come from the nature of our bodily experience—the world as we know it by
living in it. Time, for example, is understood by its representation through the
movement through space. Likewise, we have evolutionarily selected perceptual cat-
egories such as color discrimination (allowing detection of ripe fruit) and enhanced
discrimination at the acoustic boundaries between certain sounds (allowing spoken
language). Grounded in these inherited patterns of categorization and conceptual-
ization, we are endowed with a certain preferential perception that helps us organ-
ize our understanding of the world. These do not just represent useful analogies, but
actual felt realities, conceptualized through a common grounding in bodily expe-
rience that in turn provides the foundations for genuine communication and com-
munity of mind.

The Synergy of Social Cooperation

All of these shared foundations of human existence, our particular evolved form of
embodied being and the common challenges of a similar environment in which
our lives are embedded, provide the crucial underpinnings of human social life and
its cultural and moral meaning. It is here that we see most clearly the significance
of the human form in the ascent to freedom and comprehensive understanding of
the world.
Human beings are intrinsically social; our long period of childhood dependency
ensures that social stimulation plays a formative role in the maturation of the mind.
This intricate social interplay, especially between infant and mother, is built on a
remarkable set of anatomic and physiologic adaptations—facial expressions, visual
perception, and shared emotional responses—that make possible the unique human
capacity for empathy, a genuine intersubjectivity of feeling. This grounding in inter-
subjectivity in turn supplies the patterning for personal identity and the platform
for shared cultural awareness. From earliest childhood, there is an “attunement”
between mother and child that provides the crucial lessons of pure social interac-
tion, the ties of attachment and the nonverbal foundations on which language will
later be built.
This primary grounding of communication and trust, based on shared biology,
bridged by empathy, and built by personal interaction, provides the foundation for
moral awareness and cultural community. The philosopher Charles Taylor writes,
“The genesis of the human mind is . . . not ‘monological,’ not something each
accomplishes on his or her own, but dialogical.”3 Within this common conscious-
ness, and the shared capacity for language, we move beyond the imperatives of the
present to the creative constructions of cultural meanings and values. Forging for-
ward in a collective extension of mind, we explore our world within the counter-
point and corrective of a shared dialog, seeking a clarity of knowledge that
penetrates to the core of the cosmic order.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 319

william b. hurlbut c 319

The Peril of Freedom and the Meaning

of “Spiritual Information”
We have traced the evolutionary outlines of the trajectory of ascent from the con-
straints of chemistry, to the contingency of passive response, to the active agency and
self-determination of a creature of genuine freedom. At every step, the capacity to
draw on the information accessible within the multiformed world was a crucial fac-
tor in the continuity and extension of living forms. Culminating in the collective
consciousness and momentum of mind of our modern technological society, this
combination of freedom and information has become at once a source of both
promise and peril.
In our dominant and mastering position within the world, we sense ourselves
above the flow of natural process, and, with our advancing biotechnology, we may
come to see all of living Nature as mere matter and information to be reshuffled and
reassigned for projects of the human will. Liberated from the basic struggles of sur-
vival, we are opened to imagination, to the ambitions of technological self-trans-
formation that could shatter the fragile balance of our physical and psychological
functioning, the fine-tuned freedom of our embodied being and its relational
dynamics of meaningful existence.
Yet, within this rising scale of freedom and peril, we sense a significance in human
life that mysteriously transcends the persuasions of our earthly appetites and ambi-
tions. Self-aware and sensitive to others, we have awakened to a moral meaning that
beckons beyond to a deeper spiritual wisdom, a more comprehensive consciousness
of an overarching process and purpose within the phenomenon of life. We come to
see all of the order of creation as an intelligible language for a drama of the deep-
est significance. Drawn forth in an evolutionary ascent, the constructive comple-
mentarity of an ever-more distilled sense of self set within a wider and richer
relation with the world, we ascend from sensation to perception to knowledge, and
then to the comprehensive understanding of spiritual information—the embod-
ied conformation of spiritual formation, a participation in the very life of God, the
fullness and flourishing of love.
Cradled and called forward within this mystery of time and space and material
being, we are the “form of freedom”: dust with a cosmic destiny. Like the emerging
spiral of the Chambered Nautilus, we have been brought forth from nothing and
opened to the infinity and eternity of being.

c
William B. Hurlbut, M.D., is a physician and lecturer in the Program in Human
Biology at Stanford University. After receiving his undergraduate and medical train-
ing at Stanford, earning an M.D. in 1974, Dr. Hurlbut completed his postdoctoral
studies in Theology and Medical Ethics, first studying under Robert Hamerton-
Kelly. Dr. Hurlbut’s main areas of interests involve the ethical issues associated with
advancing technology and the integration of the philosophy of biology and Chris-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 320

320 c william b. hurlbut

tian theology. Dr. Hurlbut has co-taught integrative courses at Stanford with Luca
Cavelli-Sforza, Director of the Human Genome Diversity Project, and Nobel
Prize–winner Baruch Blumberg. Dr. Hurlbut also works with the Center for Secu-
rity and International Cooperation on a project formulating policy on Chemical
and Biological Warfare and with NASA on projects in Astrobiology.

Notes
1 From Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, New York: Grosset/Put-
nam, 1994, xvi.
2 Ibid.
3 Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1992, 33.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 321

Part Six
Perspectives on Sociology and Ethics

c
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 322
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 323

Preparing the
Way for the Lord 55
Evolution, Christianity, and the Dialog on Moral Freedom
Alain J-P. C. Tschudin

P resupposing that science and religion can engage in dialog, can such a con-
versation be informative and bear fruit in the future? As a Catholic Christian
who studies social evolution and Christian ethics, I shall answer “yes,” notwith-
standing the challenge mounted by conflicts inherent in this debate. My interest
lies in the dialog between Christian moral philosophy and the theory of Darwinian
evolution, as first published in On the Origin of Species (1859). The information flow
arising out of a shared understanding of knowledge from these disciplines may be
mutually beneficial. By contextualizing Jesus within evolutionary history, I shall
argue that evolutionary theory can inform the Christian conception of human
nature in relation to the world and, equally, that Christian thinking can contribute
to the ethics of scientific and secular engagements with the world. In particular, my
aim in this essay is to focus on the issue of freedom as a bridge between evolution-
ary/biological and theological points of view. Despite continued confrontation
between science and religion, I hope to negotiate some of the impasses in order to
trace a path toward conflict resolution.

God, Creation, and the Evolution of Moral Freedom

It is well known that in the twentieth century Creationism impeded the improve-
ment of relations between science and religion. Creationists (they are not yet
extinct!) support a literalist reading of the biblical stories of creation presented in
Genesis and thus hold that God created all species separately. Hence, according to
this view, there is no genetic relatedness between species and no need to invoke evo-
lution as an explanation for life on earth. The abundant evidence in support of nat-
ural selection makes any preoccupation with Creationism obsolete (see Ruse 2001).
From Darwin onward, the theory of natural selection has, at least in the scientific
community, radically undermined the notion of direct creation.
It is also interesting to note that the theory of natural selection has undermined
another old myth—that life is an outcome of random physical processes. Natural
selection involves a generic directionality in evolution. And this directionality
involves selection for traits that increase the possibility of individual survival and
reproduction, which are retained when they improve “fitness” between an organism
and its prevailing environmental conditions.
Regarding the possibility of God, the theory of evolution necessarily remains
agnostic in character. And rightly so, precisely because the theory, even if capable of
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 324

324 c alain j-p. c. tschudin

describing the origins of the cosmos and of life, cannot state what underlies them.
In this sense, science and theology typically deal with different domains and sets of
specific questions. Thus, theistic evolution, the belief in a God who promotes such
origins, does not conflict with evolutionary theory (Bowler 1989).
Some scientist-skeptics (Sober 1993) attempt to portray God post-creation as a
passive, armchair observer of a universe characterized by laissez-faire. This is inad-
equate, if only because it represents only one possible view of God with scant con-
sideration given to plausible alternatives. One alternative view is that God does not
doze in an armchair after the act of creation ex nihilo. The very causal act of creat-
ing something from nothing can be interpreted to show that God is actively involved
in all of creation. Such a suggestion is consistent with theories purporting to explain
cosmic evolution from a single source, such as the Big Bang (Lemaitre, Hubble,
Penzias, and Wilson).
St. Thomas Aquinas, for one, recognizes that through the act of creation the world
and all its creatures are dependent on God. As a consequence of unbounded divine
love, however, the world evolves in relative freedom according to the laws of nature.
So Herbert McCabe (1987) can rightly observe that although creation is dependent
on divine causation, human freedom of action does not contradict the nature or
being of God.
Rather, from a Christian perspective, one might argue that human freedom allows
for the image of the Creator—and for the intention of the creation—to be reflected.
For Christians, therefore, such evolutionary freedom is qualified only by the divine
hope for humanity and the rest of creation to be reconciled with God through love,
not force. It follows that this reunion can only be effected autonomously through
the exercise of freedom of choice (Rahner 1993), as is most explicitly exemplified in
the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
This realization packs a mighty punch. If we were preprogrammed automatons,
exactly where would our freedom lie? Freedom per se, in the sense of being created
and existing, is absolute: we are, versus we are not. In another sense, however, free-
dom may be said to be relative, to evolve. This relates to the evolution of behavior
within a broader social and physical environment and to the moral freedom to
choose between behaviors and their consequences. Such freedom is monumentally
significant for humans. To grasp this, some evolutionary context is necessary.
Darwin argued that natural selection operates to maximize individual fitness in
a dynamic environment, but it was only following the heritability studies of Austrian
monk Gregor Mendel that his theory was verified. Yet, Mendelian genetics represents
only the beginning of the genetic “revolution.” Most notoriously, Richard Dawkins,
of The Selfish Gene fame, along with a cohort of other “selfish geneticists” and socio-
biologists, has been accused of advancing a view of genetic determinism that under-
mines moral responsibility for behavior (see Rose 1978). Dawkins explains that
determinism is equated with a “physical, materialistic basis” for action (1982:11).
It appears that the determinists do have a point. Many of the behaviors in the ani-
mal world are instinctual and are characterized by self-interest, which is necessary
for self-preservation and propagation. Humans and other social animals seem to
have originally clustered in groups because they provided increased fitness for indi-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 325

alain j-p. c. tschudin c 325

viduals within the group (Humphrey 1976). Yet, as environmental resources are lim-
ited, group living leads to competition and to the evolution of “Machiavellian”
intelligence or tactical deception (Byrne and Whiten 1988). The most successful
individuals in a group are those who know when and with whom to compete and
cooperate. One might also expect selection for improved “cheater” detection in
social groups, and thus deception often results in conflict and aggression. Yet, if this
scenario fully described group living, groups would rapidly fragment, with no
apparent benefit from sociability.
Given that conflict and aggression do arise, something else must occur for social
living to remain viable. This is the capacity to manage and resolve conflict through
peacemaking or reconciliation. De Waal (1989) suggests that peacemaking is crucial
to maintaining social cohesion in primate societies. Indeed, peacemaking is there-
fore integral to the evolution of extended cooperation in social animals. But we
should resist the temptation to breathe a sigh of relief at how good-natured we ani-
mals are: The impetus behind such solidarity is individual self-interest.
In animal societies, reconciliation occurs selectively as a means-to-an-end strat-
egy to elicit continued support and cooperation from others. Picture the alternative:
Excluded from your community, you wander alone on the African plains, no friends
to alert you to predators and none to help you forage for food; your predicament
becomes clear: This is not a pleasant place to be. Although sociality in some
species—humans, for example—has evolved from humble beginnings to the point
where perspective-taking, empathy, and altruism frequently occur, much remains to
be discovered about ourselves and other animals. But surely our elaborate human
sociality transcends such basal, animalistic self-concern? Not so! As Ganya pro-
claims in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, “Why, the instinct of self-preservation is the nor-
mal law of humanity . . .” (1996:349).
Even Plato, in his Symposium, can be interpreted as writing on love from the per-
spective of self-interest. Kerr (1987) suggests that this love is characterized by the
desire to possess and control others, who are substitutes for “absolute beauty” and
are loved as a means to an end. Aristotle, recognizing the pitfalls of his teacher’s
doctrine, sought rather to promote a love based on intrinsic value for those of
shared moral excellence. Although this shift is noteworthy, it still retains—through
partiality—the possibility of loving in self-interest, precisely because for Aristotle
such love was intended for one’s equals. Similarly, in the Judaic tradition, where
love was to be demonstrated for God and for neighbor (but not for all), the poten-
tial for partiality remained. Such love was seemingly as good as it got for humanity
before an event that occurred two thousand years ago, an event that I shall argue has
radically changed the course of evolution: the coming of Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus of Nazareth and Evolutionary History

Given my choice of title and subject matter, I would like to introduce a concept for
consideration: the placement of the historical figure of Jesus within the broader
context of evolutionary history. This depiction of Jesus is intended to balance the
scale with Teilhard de Chardin’s “Cosmic Christ.” Such a balance is envisaged by
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 326

326 c alain j-p. c. tschudin

offsetting the conception of the revealed, continuous human nature of the man
Jesus with the mystical, discontinuous, divine nature of the Christ, co-existent in the
person of Jesus the Christ.
While I hope to develop this theme more fully in a forthcoming publication, let
it suffice to say here that the concept of the Jesus of evolutionary history by no
means implies an ongoing messianic unfolding, nor does it allow for a potential
New Age distortion of Christian dogma. On the contrary, it affirms the singular
Incarnation and confirms the teaching to the Romans (6:9–11) that Christ died to
expiate sin, once and for all. Such a conceptualization is merely intended to broaden
theological investigations of the meaning—and significance—of Jesus with regard
to the process of evolution and to life on Earth.
Many terms have been developed to describe Jesus. Haight (1999), for example,
describes him as the “symbol of God.” Yet, what is symbolized? St. John’s Gospel
clearly portrays Jesus as the symbol of God’s unbounded love for the world (“God
so loved the world that . . .”). It is precisely this link of love that is of critical impor-
tance to our discussion. The reason for insisting on this emphasis is that Jesus,
through selfless love, releases those confined to a world of determinism. And it is
perhaps an appreciation of such love that “crusading” atheists are lacking, when
they succumb (for a myriad of possible reasons, including deceit, egoism, fear, igno-
rance, pride, or vanity), to the self-centered blindness of nature.
The hallmark of Christian love is precisely that it is other-centered—freely given
and shared with all, friends and enemies alike. Jesus thus represents a profound
departure from his forebears when he comments, “If you love those who love you,
what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you
greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans
do that?” (Matt 5:46–47).
Imagine the shock and contempt with which Greek and Jewish scholars alike
would have viewed such radicalism. Yet, it is precisely in this novel solidarity that
Jesus demonstrates the greatest contrast between himself and the world. He is with
creation for creation’s sake. By surrendering his life freely and willingly for the sal-
vation of all, Jesus voluntarily empties himself of himself. The “reward” described
by Jesus is thus clearly not of a worldly nature, but rather something to be regarded
in the sense of spiritual salvation. In this sense, the Christian love for others cannot
be construed as motivated by an evolutionary reward, and hence by “self-interest,”
precisely because it negates any worldly adaptive benefit otherwise gained.
This must be puzzling for the determinists, but perhaps some elaboration would
be helpful. Insofar as Jesus shares our human nature, he has the possibility of exer-
cising the moral freedom to choose between alternative behaviors that, in his case,
hold extremely different consequences. Nonetheless, to stand for truth (which,
according to Jesus’s own reading, sets one free) and in good faith, Jesus voluntarily
yields his life (John 10:18). In this instance, the truth demands what to most evolu-
tionarily endowed humans would seem the ultimate penalty: loss of life. To Jesus,
however, this represents the freedom to give the greatest gift: love (John 15:13). The
exercise of moral freedom, based on unconditional love, is thus central to the Chris-
tian faith and pivotal for the role Christians play in bearing witness to the truth.
SI-02 06/06/20 17:30 Page 327

alain j-p. c. tschudin c 327

Unconditional Love and the Freedom to Share

Jesus encourages humanity to share: “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matt
10:8). But what are we called to give? In a world characterized by self-interest, Chris-
tians can give of themselves. The litmus test for Christians, individually and com-
munally as the church, is whether we forego our own interests and live by
“being-there-with-others” (Moltmann 1973). Through solidarity with “the poor,”
which combines the praxis of Pope John Paul II and the theology of liberation,
Christians make their contribution to the world. It is thus in the Christian concep-
tion of solidarity that the contrast with its naturalistic counterpart, worldly soli-
darity, is most apparent. Whereas on the latter reading the strong can subordinate
the weak into social cohesion, and so sustain injustice and poverty, this cannot be
supported by Christian social teaching.
It follows that although Christians are not opposed to the world, they may be
called to be so—not exclusively in times of injustice, but in the dilemmas of daily
life in actions related to self, to others, and to the environment. Schillebeeckx (1979)
commences his book Jesus with the story of a crippled man (Acts 3). From the Chris-
tian perspective, we are all represented by that crippled man with respect to limita-
tions and inadequacies, and yet we are simultaneously empowered with the
Christ-given capacity exercised by Peter to share in the healing and transformation
of the world. By displaying solidarity with “the poor” (broadly defined), Christians
harmonize well with other believers, humanists, and naturalists who actively pur-
sue justice and peace. However, the bout with the world is not yet over, especially
while Christians stand opposed to those generically known as “social Darwinists.”
Darwin gets a rough deal, for these individuals are not promoters of Darwinian
evolution, but rather are proponents of Spencer’s philosophy that individuals act in
self-interest and are rewarded with natural success. Hence, social Darwinists (who
are not that social after all!) support a policy of laissez-faire in which the fittest
individuals survive, and survive well—much to the detriment of the common good.
In our current socioeconomic and political milieu, such self-interested individuals
and collectives increasingly show themselves to be in opposition to the teaching of
the Gospels. Indeed, the policies of social Darwinists de facto represent the antithe-
sis of Christian solidarity. Locally and internationally, the difference between the
powerful and powerless becomes more polarized and antagonized, leading many to
fear much more than a boxing match and nothing short of apocalyptic doom.
Lebedyev appears perhaps to summarize human nature when he says to Ganya,
“Yes, sir, the law of self-destruction and the law of self-preservation are equally
strong in humanity.”
Yet, this need not necessarily be the case. During precarious times, when human
self-interest could easily wreak havoc, Christians can share solidarity with the world
and thereby provide a gift of hope in the knowledge that the coming of Jesus of
Nazareth has changed the course of evolution. The Jesus of evolutionary history
has provided an infusion of selfless love and defense of moral freedom that provides
humanity with a chance to prove Lebedyev and others wrong.
Appropriately, perhaps, the greatest gift of all for humanity is to have the freedom
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 328

328 c alain j-p. c. tschudin

to choose, in the words of St. Paul, between the old life and the new. The “spiritual
information” provided by an intensified exchange between science and religion can
serve to bring out the similarities and differences between these lives. This in turn
may enhance the meaning and significance of personal and interpersonal life
choices. I have attempted to demonstrate this in the current example by using the
interplay of evolution and Christian philosophy to provide an evolutionary con-
textualization of Jesus. This is intended as an initial probe into the significance of
the Christ event for the unfolding of moral freedom. The exchange of spiritual
information is historically tidal, with its ebbs and flows; to prepare the way for the
Lord in contemporary, pluralistic society, this dialog must be revised and renewed.

c
Alain J.-P. C. Tschudin, Ph.D., completed his doctoral studies on social evolu-
tion and comparative cognition in mammals through the School of Psychology,
University of Natal, South Africa, and as a Commonwealth Scholar in the School of
Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool. As part of his studies, he developed
nonverbal tests of social intelligence for use with animals and humans. Following
this, Dr. Tschudin held a Swiss Academy Research Fellowship at the University of
Cambridge in the Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry. Cur-
rently, he is studying for a Ph.D. in Applied Christian Ethics at Cambridge in the
Faculty of Divinity. Dr. Tschudin’s recent works include a Master of Philosophy dis-
sertation at Cambridge entitled “Social Evolution and Christian Ethics as Moral
Freedom”; journal articles including “Comprehension of Signs by Dolphins” (Jour-
nal of Comparative Psychology, 115[1], 100–105) and “Mindreading Mammals?” (Ani-
mal Welfare, 10:S119–127); and a forthcoming book chapter, “Dumb Animals, Deaf
Humans?” (in Rational Animals? edited by Susan Hurley and Matthew Nudds,
Oxford University Press). Dr. Tschudin is a member of Corpus Christi College and
fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

References
Aristotle. (1976). The ethics of Aristotle: the Nicomachean ethics. London: Penguin.
Aquinas, T., St. (1970). Summa Theologiae. London: Blackfriars.
Bowler, P. J. (1989). Evolution: the history of an idea. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Byrne, R. W., and Whiten, A. (Eds). (1988). Machiavellian Intelligence: social expertise and
the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes and humans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Darwin, C. R. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection. London: John
Murray.
Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. New York: Oxford University Press.
———. (1982). The extended phenotype: the gene as the unit of selection. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 329

alain j-p. c. tschudin c 329

de Waal, F. B. M. (1989). Peacemaking among primates. London: Penguin.

Dostoevsky, F. (1996). The Idiot. Ware: Wordsworth.
Haight, R. (1999). Jesus, symbol of God. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Humphrey, N. K. (1976). The social function of intellect. In (Bateson, P. P. G., and Kinde,
R. A., Eds.) Growing points in ethology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kerr, F. (1987). Charity as friendship. In (Davies, B., Ed.) Language, meaning and God: essays
in honour of Herbert McCabe. London: Geoffrey Chapman.
McCabe, H. (1987). God matters. London: Geoffrey Chapman.
Moltmann, J. (1973). Theology and joy. (Translated by Ulrich, R.). London: SCM Press.
Plantinga, A. (1991). When faith and reason clash: evolution and the Bible. Christian
Scholar’s Review, 21(1): 8–32.
Plato. (1951). The Symposium. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Rahner, K. (1993). Foundations of Christian faith: an introduction to the idea of Christian-
ity. (Trans. Dych, W. V.). New York: Crossroad.
Rose, S. (1978). Pre-Copernican sociobiology? New Scientist, 80: 45–46.
Ruse, M. (2001). Can a Darwinian Be a Christian: The relationship between science and reli-
gion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schillebeeckx, E. (1979). Jesus: an experiment in Christology. Collins: London.
Sober, E. (1993). Philosophy of biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 330

Planetary
Spiritual (In)formation 56
From Biological to Religious Evolution
Holmes Rolston III

D ecoding the human genome accentuated the cybernetic turn in biology—

but, somewhat surprisingly, revealed fewer genes than we thought we had.
The focus immediately shifted to cognitive psychology, to the cybernetic brain, with
its neural genius for mental (or “spirited”) experience. The ideational powers of the
human mind, which has accumulated knowledge over the millennia of human cul-
ture, have vigorously intensified in, and been documented by, these recent, spec-
tacular discoveries in the biomolecular and neural sciences. We earthy, embodied
humans are better informed about our world and ourselves—and are more search-
ingly, more spiritedly self-conscious than ever before.
What next? The newspaper headlines confirm that, politically and ethically, we
confront value questions as sharp and as painful as ever, advances in the sciences
notwithstanding. Those who rejoice in (or fear) these advances in scientific infor-
mation about where on Earth we came from, how we evolved, and who we are must
also look ahead to what we will be.
We grow increasingly competent scientifically and technologically and simulta-
neously decreasingly confident about keeping life human/humane. The sciences
may also claim to be value free and warn that there is no scientific guidance of life.
Looming worries about ever-returning wars and ever-elusive peace, escalating pop-
ulations, massive consumption of Earth’s resources, poverty, unsustainable devel-
opment, deteriorating environments, climate changes—these cut to the quick.
Alternatively put, the planetary crisis for this new century—if not the millennium—
calls for accelerated acquisition of spiritual (in)formation.

Earth and Its Information Explosion

Earth as seen from space was the stirring picture of the last century. But the simple
global photograph belies a pervasive spectrum of escalating, increasingly complex
information at multiple scales—from the global through the ecological and the
organic to the molecular levels. We are now confronted with the escalating advances
in information that first occurred in evolutionary natural history and are now
exploding in cultural history.
Once it was thought that, in nature, there were two metaphysical fundamentals:
matter and energy. The physicists reduced these two to one: matter-energy. The
biologists afterward discovered that there were still two metaphysical fundamen-
tals: matter-energy and information. At the start of the cybernetic age, Norbert
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 331

holmes rolston iii c 331

Wiener insisted, “Information is information, not matter or energy” (Wiener 1948,

155). George C. Williams cautions, “Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize
that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of infor-
mation and that of matter. . . . The gene is a package of information” (in Brockman
1995, 43).
John Maynard Smith, dean of British theoretical biologists, says, “Heredity is
about the transmission, not of matter or energy, but of information” (Maynard
Smith 1995). The most spectacular thing about Earth, says Richard Dawkins, is this
“information explosion,” even more remarkable than a supernova among the stars
(Dawkins 1995 145). The astronomical universe—so cosmologists have been notic-
ing with their Anthropic Principle—must be there, about as it is, if we are to be
here, about as we are. At a minimalist level, the surface of the moon, for example,
contains information from which a geologist can passively read moon history.
Biological information, by contrast, is actively agential, self-actualizing. Only on
Earth (so far as we yet know) can anything be learned. The first secret of animated
life—genetic coding that enables coping in an environment—was revealed when
we unlocked the genome. The essential characteristic of a biological molecule, con-
trasted with a merely physicochemical one, is that it contains vital information. In
this light, genetic natural history is actually a search program for increasing infor-
mation, transmitted from one generation to the next, reticulated and variegated
sexually, increasing adaptive fit. This is a most impressive result: If the DNA in the
myriad cells of the human body were uncoiled and stretched out end to end, that
microscopically slender thread would reach to the sun and back over a half dozen
times.

The Mind and Its Information Explosion

Yes, but we just found out that we humans don’t have as many genes as we thought.
That doesn’t mean, however, that we have less intelligence than we once believed;
rather, it means that the secret of our capacity for processing advanced information
lies somewhere else, made possible by genetic flexibility that opened up our cerebral
capacity.
Generally, in body structures such as the blood or liver, humans and chimpanzees
are 95 percent to 98 percent identical in their genomic DNA sequences and the
resulting proteins. But this is not true in their brains. “Changes in protein and gene
expression have been particularly pronounced in the human brain. Striking differ-
ences exist in morphology and cognitive abilities between humans and their clos-
est evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees.” So concluded a team of molecular
biologists and evolutionary anthropologists from the Max-Planck Institutes in Ger-
many (Enard et al. 2002).
Cognitive development has come to a striking expression point in the hominid
line(s) leading to Homo sapiens, growing from about three hundred to about four-
teen hundred cubic centimeters of cranial capacity in a few million years. E. O. Wil-
son, Harvard sociobiologist, emphasizes, “No organ in the history of life has grown
faster” (E.O. Wilson 1978, 87). This line seems “headed for more head,” so to speak.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 332

332 c holmes rolston iii

An information explosion gets pinpointed in humans, an event otherwise unknown,

but undoubtedly present in the human brain.
Animal brains are already impressive. In a cubic millimeter (about a pinhead) of
mouse cortex are an estimated 450 meters of dendrites and one to two kilometers
of axons; each neuron can synapse on thousands of others. The human brain, with
a cortex three thousand times larger than that of the mouse, is of such complexity
that descriptive numbers are astronomical and difficult to fathom. A typical estimate
is 1012 neurons, each with several thousand synapses (possibly tens of thousands),
in a flexible neural network that is more complex by far than anything else known
in the universe. This network can be formed and re-formed, making possible vir-
tually endless mental activity (Braitenberg and Schüz 1998). The result of such com-
binatorial explosion is that we have more possible thoughts than there are atoms in
the universe. Compare how many sentences can be composed rearranging the
twenty-six letters of the English alphabet.
What is really “exciting”—using that word in both the “agitated” and “provoca-
tive” senses—is that human consciousness is now “spirited,” an ego with felt, psycho-
logical inwardness. Molecules, trillions of them, spin round in this astronomically
complex webwork and generate the unified, centrally focused experience of mind,
a process for which we can as yet scarcely imagine a theory. The self-actualizing, self-
organizing process (autopoiesis) doubles back on itself in this reflexive animal, with
the qualitative emergence of what the Germans call “Geist” and existentialists call
“Existenz.” “Conscious” has the root meaning: “I know.” An object, the brain-con-
trolled body, becomes a spirited subject.
This brain is as open as it is wired up. The self we become is registered by its
synaptic configurations, which is to say that the information from personal experi-
ence, both explicit and implicit, goes to pattern the brain. Informed mind, or spir-
ited experience, reconfigures brain processes, and there are no known limits to this
flexibility and interactivity (LeDoux 2002).

Culturally (In)forming the Human Spirit

Earth seen from space reveals no apparent culture, but on the ground, culture is as
evident as nature. Animals can undoubtedly intend to alter or imitate other animals’
behaviors, but there is little evidence that they have “a concept of mind” or that
they can recognize the presence or absence of ideas in other animals from whom
they may learn or whom they might teach. Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Sey-
farth conclude, “It is far from clear whether any nonhuman primates ever commu-
nicate with the intent to inform in the sense that they recognize that they have
information that others do not possess” (Cheney and Seyfarth 1990, 209). If a mon-
key doesn’t see it (or smell or hear it), a monkey doesn’t know it.
What is missing is precisely what makes human cumulative transmissible cul-
ture possible. The central idea is that acquired knowledge and behavior are learned
and transmitted from person to person by one generation teaching another, ideas
passing from mind to mind, existential human spirits forming and reforming each
other with their shared notions.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 333

holmes rolston iii c 333

Humans come into the world by nature unfinished, if also with unlimited pos-
sibilities for education. A newborn is information waiting to happen. Persons live,
move, and have their being in their communities, and this generates language, con-
versation, cooperation, conflict, negotiation, criticism, evaluation. The determi-
nants of events are anthropological, political, economic, technological, scientific,
philosophical, ethical, religious. Ideas are as determinative as forces or fields or
metabolisms or genetics.
The Homo sapien is the only part of the world free to orient itself with a view of
the whole. That makes us, if you like, free spirits; it also makes us social spirits. Spir-
its interact with fellow spirits, person-to-person; these “political animals” (Aristo-
tle) build their historically ongoing cultures. Richard Lewontin, another Harvard
biologist, emphasizes the social over the biological: “The genes, in making possible
the development of human consciousness . . . have been replaced by an entirely new
level of causation, that of social interaction with its own laws and its own nature”
(Lewontin 1991, 123).
This information explosion, says Richard Dawkins (1989), is powered by social
“memes” rather than by biological genes. Information transfer in culture can be
several orders of magnitude faster and overleap genetic lines. The informing is delib-
erate, critical. This recompounds again the combinatorial cybernetic explosion.

Forming and Informing Ethics

Cooperators need ethics—at least cultured free spirits in critically reflective com-
munities do. The self-conscious need conscience. Yet reflection about charity, jus-
tice, and honesty are not virtues found in wild nature. No natural decalogue
endorses the Ten Commandments.
It is not difficult to see how a first-level “ethics” is generated: Reciprocators can
help each other out to their mutual benefit. This already exists in animal societies.
Political scientists, psychologists, and biologists have discovered that reciprocity can
arise and be maintained within communities of those who seek their enlightened
self-interest, with the caution that such cooperation has to be protected against “free
riders” or “cheaters.” Scientists have created computer models of this, such as the
“tit-for-tat” strategy and its variants (Axelrod and Hamilton 1981). But have we yet
found or formed actual ethics?
Tribes with more cooperators do well against tribes with fewer cooperators.
Lately, group selection, long disfavored in biology, has reappeared, especially in
human affairs. Those communities prosper where the members have “motivational
pluralism”: “Natural selection is unlikely to have given us purely egoistic motives”
(Sober and Wilson 1998, 12, 323). This produces altruism blended with enlightened
self-interest—the patriot going into battle to save others, the Rotarians building
their community spirit, the Presbyterians loving both self and neighbor. But, except
for international reciprocity, we still have nothing informing a global picture of eth-
ical cooperation.
In the global village, tribalism, even if altruistic, is the problem rather than the
answer because we have not surpassed group competition. Sober and Wilson can
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 334

334 c holmes rolston iii

find no “universal benevolence. Group selection does provide a setting in which

helping behavior directed at members of one’s own group can evolve; however, it
equally provides a context in which hurting individuals in other groups can be selec-
tively advantageous. Group selection favors within group niceness and between
group nastiness” (Sober and Wilson 1998, 9). Can we find a more inclusively spir-
ited ethic?

The Promise of Spiritual (In)formation

Donald T. Campbell offers a more promising account. Animals are selected to con-
serve values under the regimes of nature, where genetic inheritance is virtually the
sole means of transmitting information across generations. The requirements of
humans in their transmissible cultures differ. To elevate prehumans to humans,
morality arose, almost always religion-based. Morality moves humans away from
their merely genetic instincts toward more appropriate cultural behavior. “Social
evolution has had to counter individual selfish tendencies which biological evolu-
tion has continued to select as a result of the genetic competition among the coop-
erators” (Campbell 1975).
Those religions best succeed that most help humans pull away from their genetic
instincts toward the biosocial optimum in culture, although this too often remains
in-group—the gods are for us and our children (D. S. Wilson 2002). Even the best
religions are not so successful as would be ideal because of the counterproductive
tugging of the animal legacy of self-interests. But major world faiths nevertheless are
globally inclusive. They preach not just tribal, but universal, altruism.
The religions, preaching altruism, (in)form us spiritually and make culture pos-
sible. Without them, we are beasts. There is nothing shameful about a beast being
a beast; but a human “spirit” ought to be something more. In the behavior that reli-
gions exhort, stretching humans away from our lingering ancestral genetic dispo-
sitions, the world religions are right. What begins as the beast in us becomes also the
brokenness in us. The information preached needs to inform our personal regen-
eration, as well as enable us to regenerate offspring. Redemption and salvation
empower this ethics, although the saints have often been wary about thinking of this
as human achievement; it is also the gift of grace.
Such religiously inspired altruism is progressively less tightly coupled to the genes,
whether individually or tribally. Disciples need not have the genes of the prophets,
seers, and saviors who launched these teachings. In successful world religions, they
seldom have. Nor need they be in the same tribe or local group. People do better
with genes plastic enough to follow the best religion, whether their kith or kin
launched it or not. In faith universalized, there is no longer any differential survival
benefit to me or my tribe; the benefit is open to all.
Spiritual formation may once have been tribal, but today it must be increasingly
planetary, ecumenical—becoming spiritual “in-formation.” Religions will be tested
for their capacity to educate us, and the best ones will survive. So much for the
complaint that religion is of no earthly use. Or for the fear that theology will be
more and more displaced by science. Or economics. Or politics. Quite the contrary.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 335

holmes rolston iii c 335

On Earth, we humans increasingly need increased spiritual “in-formation” if we are

globally to survive as a species, if (as biologists might put it) we are able to adapt as
“fits” on the planet.
Christians can plausibly make the claim that no harmony between humans in
their nation-states, or between humans and their landscapes (or planet), can be
gained until persons learn to use the Earth both justly and charitably. Those twin
concepts are not found either in wild nature or in any science that studies nature.
They must be grounded in some ethical authority, and this has classically been reli-
gious. The Hebrews, for instance, were convinced that they were given a blessing
with a mandate. The land flows with milk and honey, if and only if there is obedi-
ence to Torah.
We are living on Earth; the spiritual formation required must be of earthly use
and globally inclusive. Religions must think globally while they act locally. Beyond
that, it does not follow that nothing universally true can appear in human moral-
ity because it emerges while humans are in residence on Earth. Keep promises. Tell
the truth. Do not steal. Respect property. There is nothing particularly “earth-
bound” about: Do to others as you would have them do to you. Love your enemies.
Do good to those who hate you. Such commandments may be imperatives wher-
ever there are moral agents living in a culture that has been elevated above natural
selection. We humans can therefore also hope that there is extraterrestrial love, jus-
tice, and freedom.
Perhaps, after all, this primate rising from the dust of the Earth, on becoming so
remarkably spiritually informed, bears the image of God.

c
Holmes Rolston III, Ph.D., is University Distinguished Professor and Professor
of Philosophy at Colorado State University. He is Past and Founding President of the
International Society for Environmental Ethics and a founding editor of the jour-
nal Environmental Ethics. He has served on the editorial board of Zygon for two
decades. Professor Rolston also is a founding member of the International Society
for Science and Religion. He has written seven books and is featured in Fifty Key
Thinkers on the Environment (2000). A distinguished international lecturer, Profes-
sor Rolston spoke at the World Congress of Philosophy, Moscow, 1993, and again in
Boston, 1998. He participated by invitation in preconferences and the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, 1992,
where he was an official observer. Professor Rolston was the recipient of the 2003
Templeton Prize.

References
Axelrod, Robert, and William D. Hamilton, “The Evolution of Cooperation,” Science 211 (27
March 1981): 1390–96.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 336

336 c holmes rolston iii

Braitenberg, Valentino, and Almut Schüz, 1998. Cortex: Statistics and Geometry of Neuronal
Connectivity, New York: Springer.
Brockman, John, 1995. The Third Culture, New York: Simon and Schuster.
Campbell, Donald T., 1975. “On the Conflicts Between Biological and Social Evolution and
Between Psychology and Moral Tradition,” American Psychologist 30: 1103–26.
Cheney, Dorothy L., and Robert M. Seyfarth, 1990. How Monkeys See the World, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Dawkins, Richard, 1989. The Selfish Gene, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1995. River out of Eden, New York: Basic Books, 1995.
Enard, Wolfgang, et al., 2002. “Intra-and Interspecific Variation in Primate Gene Expres-
sion Patterns,” Science 296 (12 April): 340–43.
LeDoux, Joseph, 2002. Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are, New York:
Viking.
Lewontin, Richard, 1991. Biology as Ideology, San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Maynard Smith, John, 1995. “Life at the Edge of Chaos?” New York Review of Books, March 2.
Sober, Elliott, and David Sloan Wilson, 1998. Unto Others, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
Wiener, Norbert, 1948. Cybernetics, New York: John Wiley.
Wilson, David Sloan, 2002. Darwin’s Cathedral, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wilson, E. O., 1978. On Human Nature, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 337

Is There a Place for

“Scientific” Studies of Religion? 57
Robert Wuthnow

R ecently, numerous calls have gone out for a better understanding of religion.
Of course, many of those were heard after September 11, 2001, when it became
clear how little most Americans know of Islam and how much misunderstanding
exists between Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists. But even before
the terrorist attacks, the Bush administration’s efforts to promote faith-based serv-
ice organizations challenged scholars to consider religion and its continuing place
in American life. The volatile border between religion and citizenship saw rhetori-
cal skirmishes again over a court ruling on the mention of God in the Pledge of
Allegiance.
Few would doubt that religious studies, theology, history, and even belles-lettres
have much to offer in providing relevant information about religion and spiritual-
ity. A student interested in learning about Islam would do well to read the Koran and
study the history of Muslim teachings. That student would also benefit from know-
ing something about the societies in which Islam is prominently located today. A
good intellectual background for thinking about faith-based social services would
require an understanding of religious teachings on charity and the history of reli-
gion’s place in serving the common good. Some first-hand observations, perhaps
vividly communicated by journalists, of soup kitchens and homeless shelters would
prove useful as well.
But is there a place for scientific studies of religion? That is a harder question.
Isn’t it a mismatch to impose scientific methods on religion? Haven’t hermeneu-
tics and phenomenology taught us to be skeptical of science? And, for that matter,
what do we mean by “science”? I thought about these questions recently when I
asked a graduate student whether she thought of her research on Native American
religion as scientific. Taken aback, she replied, “Well, no, it’s just religious studies;
definitely not science.” She said science smacked of positivism, which, by all means,
she wanted to avoid.
I’d like to be counted among those who see a place for a scientific approach
toward the study of religion. However, in that context, I think we need to interpret
the word “scientific” broadly.
In the now-famous Gifford lectures that he delivered one hundred years ago,
William James remarked, “I do not see why a critical Science of Religions might not
eventually command as general a public adhesion as is commanded by a physical
science.’’ James had in mind that a science of this kind could do better at shedding
light on religion than could philosophy. The trouble with philosophy, he said, was
that it “lives in words” and thus fails to capture the depth, motion, and vitality of
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 338

338 c robert wuthnow

religion. Science could do that. Properly conceived, it would focus on the facts of
religion, employing induction and deriving knowledge from the concreteness of
spiritual experience. James gave few examples of what he had in mind, but I imag-
ine he might have been intrigued by studies of prayer, religious experience, and
healing.
History has been kind to James, but not to his point regarding a “Science of Reli-
gions. ” As generations of students tackle James’s The Varieties of Religious Experi-
ence,1 they discover in its pages interesting anecdotes about the saints and timeless
musings about the differences between healthy-mindedness and the sick soul. But
they seldom come away inspired by the idea of applying science to religion. The
reasons are not hard to find. Human behavior has proven more complex than early
advocates of the human sciences imagined. Positivism has given up ground in the
face of arguments about the inevitability of interpretation and perspective. The
brave new world promised by science has turned out still to be dominated by war
and injustice as much as by technological progress. If the choice C. P. Snow offered
between two cultures—one scientific and one humanistic—has to be made, the
spiritually inclined will reasonably opt for keeping religion in the realm of values
and meaning, rather than reducing it to the dry world of scientific investigation.
In his book Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, John Milbank, a
professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, wrote a powerful cri-
tique of the scientific impulse in the study of human behavior.2 Standing James’s
view on its head, Milbank argues that the human sciences are not about knowledge
at all, but about power. It is a grab for dominance in discussions of values. It works
only by creating an illusion of objectivity and by eliminating from consideration all
that does not fit that illusion. If Milbank is right, it certainly makes more sense for
people interested in religion to side with theology than to run amuck in the social
sciences.
Milbank’s criticisms may be overly harsh, for the assumptions he attributes to
social scientists scarcely resonate with how practicing social scientists actually think.
In my experience, at least, social scientists usually make no pretense of explaining
all of human nature, only a piece of it. And they are far less interested in meta-
physical assumptions than Milbank suggests.
Yet the application of science to religion may still be judged folly because of the
narrowness of the questions it seems able to explore. Take, for instance, the current
interest in whether brain-imaging research, such as that of the Princeton psychol-
ogist Jonathan Cohen, can identify spots in the brain that “light up” when people
make decisions about whether actions are morally correct. Or in brain activity when
people show kindness to their neighbors, make love, or pray. While interesting as a
description of neurological processes, such research fails to tell us much about which
moral decisions are right, how kindness affects social relations, the meaning of love,
or why people pray.
In my own discipline, sociologists have, in recent years, been quite attracted to a
theoretical perspective, advanced by such prominent scholars as University of Wash-
ington sociologist Rodney Stark and Pennsylvania State University sociologist Roger
Finke. This perspective helps make sense of such widely varying religious phe-
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 339

robert wuthnow c 339

nomena as the growth of Methodism in nineteenth-century America, the late-twen-

tieth-century decline of mainstream Protestantism, the spread of early Christianity,
and the superiority of monotheism among world religions. The argument, as I
understand it, is that people make rational choices about religion, much as they do
about buying cars (well, maybe not cars), and thus choose religions that give them
the most gratification (such as certainty about their fate in the world to come).
Elegant in its simplicity, this is nevertheless an argument that, in the manner of
science, cannot be easily proven or disproven. It is perhaps better to think of this
perspective as an effort to bring sociological insights to bear on historical interpre-
tation than as an application of scientific method.
But if there are reasons to be skeptical about science in the study of religion, there
are also reasons to make the most of what science has to offer. Science teaches us the
value of empirical rigor and the need for systematic investigation. The scientific
method involves thinking of ways in which our cherished assumptions about the
world may prove to be wrong. It involves the strategic use of rationality, not in the
interest of doing away with all that is not rational (any more than the legal system
is meant to replace literature and music), but to have reasons for conducting our
research in one way rather than another. Science also involves the criterion of replic-
ability, and that means candidly disclosing what we have done so others can track
our mistakes.
Those aspects of science can be followed without claiming to find universal laws
of human behavior, and they can be employed in the study of religion without
“explaining away” the topic of inquiry. The more scholars have applied scientific
methods to the study of human behavior, the more they have learned that human
behavior is indeed contextual and contingent and that its meanings must be exam-
ined from multiple perspectives. Recent American Sociological Association Presi-
dent Alejandro Portes’s critique of simplistic models of economic and political
development illuminated that gap.3
Science is no longer regarded by social scientists, as it was by the early positivists,
as the grand search for great truths. Indeed, there has been a remarkable shift in how
social scientists think about the role of science in their work over the past half-cen-
tury. With little empirical evidence in the past, science seemed an attractive beacon;
but as empirical evidence accumulated, the hope of making sweeping generaliza-
tions about the human condition faded. In the study of religion, for example, schol-
ars a half-century ago offered grand generalizations about its social functions, about
its attractions to the dispossessed, and about the universality of religious experience.
Today, all of those generalizations have been qualified.
For some, of course,“scientific method” suggests research that employs numbers.
The phrase calls to mind the numerous polls and surveys we read about that include
questions on religion—for instance, polls by the Gallup Organization in Princeton
that followed Americans’ attendance at religious services after the 2001 terrorist
attacks.4 By employing rigorous methods of sampling, such surveys tell us about
beliefs and behavior in ways that we would not be able to know from our limited per-
sonal experience. Among sociologists, the General Social Survey, conducted nation-
ally by the University of Chicago every two years since 1972, has provided an
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 340

340 c robert wuthnow

impressive stock of information from which to draw conclusions about trends in

religious beliefs, practice, and affiliation.
But scientific method can equally pertain to studies involving qualitative infor-
mation drawn from participant observation, interviews, and archival materials.
Carefully sifting through letters and diaries in an archive, or through artifacts at an
archeological dig, is every bit as much science as computing regression equations or
life-expectancy tables. For example, recent archeological studies, such as those of the
forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution, are pro-
viding new insights into the lives and cultures of the first human inhabitants of the
Pacific Northwest. If science is understood in this broader way, then we can iden-
tify more clearly some of the challenges in which it may usefully be employed.
One of the greatest challenges is understanding more clearly the vast diversity that
characterizes our own religious culture and that of the wider world. We are once
again, just as we were a century ago, a nation populated by a large number of recent
immigrants from a wide array of ethnic and religious backgrounds. For the first
time, the United States includes a sizable minority of its population who practice
religions other than Christianity or Judaism (some estimates range as high as ten
million, when Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus are included). The role of scientific
studies should not be, in the first instance, to discover what is common among the
various religious traditions, but to understand what is different and to gauge reac-
tions to those differences. That task is especially important because of conflicts
among religious traditions, on the one hand, and because of the superficial assump-
tions that one still encounters among naive observers that “all religions are the
same.”
To their credit, social scientists who study religion today are much more likely to
insist on in-depth analysis of specific traditions than to settle for superficial gener-
alizations. Investigations of Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity
have all moved in this direction, paying closer attention to distinct practices and illu-
minating the internal diversity of each tradition. For instance, in the series of books
on religious practices being edited by the University of Michigan Buddhism scholar
Donald Lopez, the emphasis has shifted decidedly toward the variability of lived
religious experience and away from seeking grand generalizations.
In sociology, the concern for detail is evident in in-depth studies of the beliefs and
practices of new immigrant religious communities. In Houston, Los Angeles, New
York, Chicago, Miami, and several other cities, research is now being conducted on
how such communities are adapting religiously and culturally to their urban envi-
ronments. For instance, University of Houston sociologists Helen Rose Ebaugh and
Janet Saltzman Chafetz have edited an illuminating collection of essays that describe
in detail how Asian Christians, Hispanic Christians, Hindus, and other groups are
coming to terms with life in suburban Houston.5
To be sure, the boundary here between social science and investigative journal-
ism is sometimes blurred. But scholars have opportunities that journalists don’t,
both in asking questions about topics that may not be newsworthy and in taking the
months and years that may be required to conduct in-depth research. I think espe-
cially of the book Terror in the Mind of God by Mark Juergensmeyer,6 a sociologist
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 341

robert wuthnow c 341

at the University of California at Santa Barbara. It is a masterful study of the rela-

tionship between religion and violence that became an instant sensation after Sep-
tember 11, 2001, but which was based on nearly a decade of research with accused
and convicted terrorists, survivalists, and vigilante groups.
Another challenge is to harness the vast resources currently available to scholars
interested in religion (especially from private foundations, and from colleges and
universities) for studies having strong normative concerns. I’ve worked for many
years with students in various disciplines who are interested in religion. My biggest
complaint about these students isn’t that their studies lack rigor, but that they lack
purpose. All too often studies are initiated because data are there, or because nobody
has looked at a particular topic before, rather than because the research explores a
larger concern. That is the fault of faculty members more than of students. We have
done a better job teaching methods than we have of instilling purpose.
We need studies that investigate more pointedly the great human concerns that
redound in special ways to each generation, whether those are framed in terms of
such problems as violence and injustice or in the language of virtue and hope. Cer-
tainly, the possible connections between terrorism and particular interpretations
of religious teachings have come to be of concern, as the response to Juergens-
meyer’s research shows. Recent research examining the role of religion in encour-
aging forgiveness, or in promoting acts of unconditional love, also fits the bill.7
If the study of religion were more consistently deliberate in bringing together
the realm of facts with the world of values, then it would be harder to imagine where
the objections to scientific studies would lie. Of course, humanistically oriented
scholars and many in the social sciences would probably be put off by studies seek-
ing to reduce religious impulses to hard-wired biological or economic concerns.
But such studies differ from the looser and more practical ways in which most social
scientists currently approach scholarship on religion.
It is in relating fact and values that scientific studies of religion can illuminate
issues such as Islamist terrorist attacks or the relative merits of faith-based service
organizations. Besides reading religious texts, students should explore research on
Americans’ responses to September 11, examining the roots of religious prejudice or
the extent of contact between Christians and Muslims. Beyond discussing the sep-
aration between church and state, students should do more, as exemplified by the
work of the University of Pennsylvania sociologist Byron Johnson, or the team of
scholars at the State University of New York at Albany under the direction of Richard
Nathan, to compare the effectiveness of faith-based and nonsectarian service organ-
izations.
There is also a continuing role for the kind of science that William James had in
mind if we consider a point that is often neglected in discussions of his argument.
James recognized that we have a natural tendency to concentrate on the “local” and
the “accidental” and that these should be the starting point for any scientific
inquiries. In the same spirit as James, Clifford Geertz has observed that “local knowl-
edge” is of particular value, both in daily life and to the enterprise of the human sci-
ences. We know ourselves only by comparing the locale in which we live with the
locales in which we do not. This quest for comparison and generalization probably
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 342

342 c robert wuthnow

inspired the first generations of social scientists. In the process of comparative inves-
tigation, the familiar does not become general; it becomes strange, and thus is expe-
rienced in new ways.
Scientific studies of religion need to be guided both by hubris (to venture
hypotheses at all) and humility (to acknowledge when they are wrong). William
James said it well:
The science of religions would forever have to confess, as every science con-
fesses, that the subtlety of nature flies beyond it, and that its formulas are but
approximations.
Those approximations, nevertheless, are valuable guides to understanding what
it means to be human. And properly conceived, scientific studies of religion can
contribute significantly to those approximations.

c
Robert Wuthnow, Ph.D., received his doctorate from the University of Califor-
nia, Berkeley. He currently is Professor of Sociology of Religion and Cultural Soci-
ology, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University. Professor Wuthnow
specializes in the use of both qualitative and quantitative (historical and ethno-
graphic) research methods. He is the author of many works, including The Crisis in
the Churches: Spiritual Malaise, Fiscal Woe (1997), Poor Richard’s Principle: Recover-
ing the American Dream through the Moral Dimension of Work, Business, and Money
(1996), and Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis (1987). Pro-
fessor Wuthnow’s recent books include After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since
the 1950s (1998) and Loose Connections: Joining Together in America’s Fragmented
Communities (1998). He has also edited the recent Encyclopedia of Politics and Reli-
gion (2000). Currently, Professor Wuthnow is directing a Lilly-funded project on
The Public Role of Mainline Protestantism in America since the 1960s.

Notes
1 William James. The Varieties of Religious Experience. Longmans, Green and Co., 1902.
2 John Milbank. Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Blackwell, 1990.
3 Alejandro Portes. “The Hidden Abode: Sociology as Analysis of the Unexpected.” Amer-
ican Sociological Review, February 2000.
4 Note that George H. Gallup Jr. contributed an essay to this volume.
5 Helen Rose Ebaugh and Janet Saltzman Chafetz, eds. Religion and the New Immigrants.
AltaMira Press, 2000.
6 Mark Juergensmeyer. Terror in the Mind of God. University of California Press, 2000.
7 See, for example, the essays by Stephen G. Post and Everett L. Worthington Jr. in this
volume.
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 343

Sociology and
Spiritual Information 58
Challenging “Obvious” Opinions
David A. Martin

H ow might sociology help in the quest for spiritual information, pursued

throughout a lifetime of commitment by Sir John Templeton?
One of the unexpected uses of sociology is to puncture the social illusions of the
secularist intelligentsia—in particular, misconceptions about the social role of reli-
gion and assumptions about the inevitability of secularization. When it comes to the
relation of religion to society, a sector of the educated public—including scientists
otherwise concerned to promote scientific thinking—assumes unlimited license to
air unsupported opinion. Once off their own patch, such people take for granted
what they ought critically to examine. Although science notoriously subverts the
obvious, in matters of religion the obvious reigns supreme.
In what follows, I take two standard opinions, one to the effect that religion causes
war, and the other proclaiming that religion is in terminal decline. Of course, these
opinions seem obvious because neither is a straightforward mistake. Anyone who
believes religion causes war just points to Ulster or the Middle East or to the “wars
of religion” from (say) 1520 to 1648. Anyone who holds that religion is going down
before the linked advance of science and secularization points to the evident con-
trast between the “ages of faith” and the science-based societies of today. After all,
in Europe most of the indices of belief and practice point downward, and even
where belief exists it is no longer held in the old way. Some observers point to cir-
cumstances, such as the undermining of ancient establishments, that may render
Europe exceptional in its religious apathy; but there are others for whom Europe
previews the future.
One oddity of standard opinion on these matters is that were people to pause
even for a moment they would come up with some of the counter-evidence. They
would recognize, for example, that in Ulster religion dovetails into historic dispar-
ities of power and memories of ethnic displacement. So merely pointing to the con-
flict is simple-minded, indeed a refusal to think sociologically. Equally they know
that the science-based United States is at one and the same time the most advanced
and most religious of modern societies. Yet people do not follow through what they
know. In the case of the evident religiosity of the United States, they deal with the
anomaly by dismissing American society as in this respect “artificially retarded.”
Nor do they ask why skepticism is more evident in some of the humanities and the
“soft” sciences than the “hard” sciences. Counter-evidence is not allowed to under-
mine the dominant paradigm.
We need to examine, therefore, why it is that we dismiss counter-evidence we
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 344

344 c david a. martin

know perfectly well. Could it be that opinions in this matter derive not so much
from observation as from “faculty club culture” and an ideological take on progress
going back to the Enlightenment? Too many of us are willing prisoners of compre-
hensive views arising out of the long conflict over claims to real knowledge between
enlightened modernizing elites and their opponents. According to the enlightened,
truth, secularity, and tolerance have been ever pitted against superstition, fanati-
cism, and violence, and as truth is great and will prevail, secularization follows. Para-
doxically, this position has the character of faith: What ought to be so, will be so.
Suppose, however, that we systematically doubt the obvious and critically exam-
ine our two standard opinions: that religion causes war and that it is in terminal
decline. Maybe this will not yield spiritual information precisely, but we will in this
way gain understanding about how spiritual aspirations and the templates of faith
and hope mesh with the historical sequence of social structures and with the par-
ticular structures arising in modernity. We can inform ourselves about the ways
“the spirit” enters into and is deflected by social relationships. In that way, we allow
understanding of why religious hope is frustrated and constrained by social struc-
tures to replace condemnation.
As to our first statement that “religion causes war,” this is about as vacuous as say-
ing that “politics causes violence” or “ethnic solidarity gives rise to conflict.” The
simple truth is that group struggles for power, dominance, and resources—or for
survival—are endemic, while in any given conflict the factors are multiple, varied,
and intertwined. There is a complicated interplay of symbolic triggers, presenting
symptoms, overt justifications, and underlying causes.
If we start with the two most devastating wars in human history that deluged
our modern world in the last century, neither had much to do with religion. These
were secular wars of nations and ideologies, even though religious reasons were put
forward for sacrifice in battle. For that matter, the protests against war throughout
the modern period from the time of the first Peace Societies in 1816 onward owed
much to religious motivation.
World War I derived from alliances and arms races to counter the potential eco-
nomic and political domination of the European heartland by Germany, and the
ideological aspects were framed in terms of civilization against barbarism and Ger-
man Idealism against French skepticism. The origins of World War II lay partly in
the political dispositions following Allied victory in the First World War, as well as
the Great Depression, but there was also the great clash of purely secular ideologies
in the mighty triangle of liberalism, communism, and fascism.
Even in much earlier conflicts where religious aspects were more to the fore, you
have to ask how far religion dovetailed with ethnicity or was identified by rulers
with established power under threat or with imperial and cultural expansion and
dynastic rivalries. What was the role of the pursuit of booty or economic resources
or the eruptions of peoples? Just these questions have also to be asked about the cen-
tury or so of the “wars of religion.” To give one example, one has to inquire about
the political and economic opportunities perceived by German Protestant rulers
over against the Holy Roman Empire. After all, the incidence of wars both before
and after this period was roughly the same. And so far as the early modern period
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 345

david a. martin c 345

goes, emergent nationalism was a perfectly adequate casus belli, even where nation-
alism promoted itself in religious terms, as it was prone to do when subject nations
such as Poland defended their cultural survival. Britain provides a clear instance of
an imperial nation promoting itself behind the idea of a freedom-loving Protestant
people.
Such questions press us to pursue the more profound issue of the way ideas and
images, whether religious or secular, are absorbed into the social practices and
power structures of very different kinds of society—feudal, mercantile, industrial,
or whatever. What would you expect a feudal society based on knightly service to
make of the Sermon on the Mount? Not much, perhaps, but you would need to
look into the role of Christ’s body as a governing metaphor of social membership
and at the origins of “courtesy” and Chaucer’s “parfit gentil knight” to gain some
understanding of the assimilation of Christianity into social practice. What is true
of a religious idea is equally true of a secular one, as for example when Darwin’s
ideas were utilized in late Victorian society to promote social Darwinism, the sur-
vival of the fittest, and its malign derivatives. Does that permit us to say “Darwin-
ism causes war” because it describes it?
You can think of religious images and ideas as templates of aspiration and hope
as well as sources of foundation charters, of moral and social disciplines, and of
sacred legitimations of social order. As these templates are adopted by and inserted
in structures of power and economic organization, they modify them and are mod-
ified by them. Selective use is made of the religious repertoire, and the most radi-
cal ideas may even be turned upside down by the pressure of dominant social
interests. Those items of repertoire we know best, such as kingship under God,
inevitably represent the powerful who make history, but there is also an under-
ground take-up by the powerless who suffer history. Either way a faith is partly con-
verted by those it partly converts. Once a peaceable faith in a suffering God initially
carried by artisans and the powerless is adopted as part of the political legitimation
of Rome, the kingdom of Heaven comes down to earth as the empire and “Roman-
itas.” The cross becomes a sword. Christian anticipations of a better spiritual king-
dom will then infiltrate the interstices of the social imagination sotto voce.
In this way, peaceable and radical images of fraternal feasting or reversals of the
roles of the lowly and the proud or charismatic prophecies of social justice will be
simultaneously assimilated to social realities and feed contrary imaginations—as in
those Medieval sculptures where rich and poor alike face the even scales of a last
judgment. Moreover, once the common people gain direct access to the original
templates through the spread of printed Scripture, hitherto slumbering imagina-
tions will wake up to all kinds of possibilities, as they did in the English Civil War.
So, then, putting the matter in theoretical terms, repertoires of ideas, religious and
secular, are bent by the prism of interests. If that sounds abstract, we hear it pro-
claimed quite concretely whenever a political leader frankly declares a country’s
interests the cornerstone of foreign policy or when a reforming politician seeking
office responds to pressure of the interested constituencies that form his power
base. Democracy itself has to be specifically grounded in the play of interests. The
processes are endemic and universal, and scientific understanding of them ought to
SI-02 06/06/15 17:59 Page 346

346 c david a. martin

ameliorate the conspicuously “interested” and selective condemnation of religion.

If absorption of the “light” of faith by structures of power led to the Grand Inquisi-
tor as well as St. Francis, the implementation of the secular Enlightenment came to
include the horrors of postwar communist Europe, as well as ideals of liberty, equal-
ity, and fraternity.
Turning to our second standard opinion, what then of the “secularization thesis”?
Given that the idea of a one-way track from religious past to secular future was a
master narrative historically embedded in the ideological dynamic as well as in the
power struggles and practical policy of European elites, whether radical or Marx-
ist, one has to pull out the elements of genuine observation. As pointed out earlier,
secularization is not a simple mistake, and when we take into account genuine
observation, a major body of opinion locates secularization not in the direct impact
of science but in the process of social differentiation, constitutive of modern soci-
ety. Social differentiation refers to the way the overarching monopolies found in
organic society fragment into autonomous spheres, as for example education, wel-
fare, or indeed religion itself. A prime instance of increasing autonomy would be
provided by the historic shift from the church-state to a free church in a free state,
of which the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was an early harbinger. It
is in this restricted sense that one can speak of a secularizing process, as I have done
in my own work, A General Theory of Secularization (1978). But that does not entail
an eventual secular society.
Once you look at the historical record, you certainly find past societies (for exam-
ple, in the late medieval period) where the theological mode is pervasive and reli-
gious monopoly is established. You also encounter, however, a series of secularizing
episodes suggesting that there may be several different stories to be told about sec-
ularization, even within Christianity—let alone Islam—which raises even more
complex questions. The overall master narrative needs to be qualified.
For example, a major secular shift came about when monarchs, beginning with
Henry VIII but eventually including most of the absolute rulers of Europe, took
over the church. But then a quite different secular shift occurred as the church-state
link was increasingly undermined, beginning in Holland and Britain but arriving at
complete severance in the United States. That second shift inaugurated a plural
society where religious organizations competed on an open market to create a ver-
sion of modernity uniquely religious in character. What began in a semi-Christian
Enlightenment generated an evangelical and enthusiastic response to dawning
modernity, powering the expansion of voluntary religion and linking increasing
active participation in the religious sphere with increasing democratic participa-
tion in politics. So, once you open up the historical horizon, the single track diverges
into varied options and pathways.
Divergence is most dramatically illustrated by the contrast between the Anglo-
American pattern and the “Latin” pattern of Southern Europe and South America.
This contrast has all manner of cultural and political correlates parallel to the specif-
ically religious difference, which turns on a cooperation of Enlightenment with
Christianity on the one hand and a struggle between radical enlightened elites and
the Catholic Church on the other. What is special in the Anglo-American case is the
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 347

david a. martin c 347

positive association between modernity, nation-building, democracy, and pluralis-

tic participatory religion. The issue has been and remains whether the Anglo-Amer-
ican or Franco-Hispanic pattern exemplifies the future.
That is where the massive expansion of Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity
in the developing world may turn out to be very significant. The linkage between
religion, economic discipline, and democratic participation forged in early moder-
nity is currently reappearing alongside the southward shift in the center of gravity
of Christianity from Europe and even from North America. Moreover, this evan-
gelical expansion is paralleled by a voluntaristic and an often radical or charismatic
Catholicism, particularly the latter. Perhaps an alternative master narrative could be
constructed based not on the anticipations of the philosophers of 250 years ago,
but on the association of democratic and economic advance with an open market
in religion—and not only in religion.
Sociology, like meteorology, is not renowned for predictive power, and one does
not know whether the global future will be characterized by active participatory
religious organizations or the kinds of individualistic and therapeutic spirituality
with mystical or Eastern elements currently popular in Europe. That is an open
question and another story.

c
David A. Martin, Ph.D., is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School
of Economics. His research interests include the theory of secularization; religion
and violence, peace, and conflict; Christian language, sacred space, ritual and the
arts, especially music and architecture; the contemporary expansion of Pente-
costalism in the developing world; the relation between sociology and theology;
and religion in Eastern Europe. Dr. Martin is a regular reviewer for The Times Lit-
erary Supplement and is author of many books, including Christian Language in the
Secular City (2002) and Christian Language and Its Mutations (2002); Pentecostal-
ism—The World Their Parish (2001); Does Christianity Cause War? (1997); Reflections
on Sociology and Theology (1997); Forbidden Revolutions: Pentecostalism in Latin
America and Catholicism in Eastern Europe (1996); Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of
Protestantism in Latin America (1990); and A General Theory of Secularisation (1978).
He is Honorary Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster University;
International Associate, Institute for the Study of Economic Culture, Boston Uni-
versity; sometime Scurlock Professor of Human Values, Southern Methodist Uni-
versity (1986–90); and Sarum Lecturer, Oxford University (1995). Dr. Martin
received an Honorary Doctor of Theology degree from Helsinki University (1999)
and has served as President of the (then) International Society for the Study of Reli-
gion (1975–83).
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 348

The Emergence of Ethics

from Science 59
An Examination of the Ideals of Einstein and Gandhi
Ramanath Cowsik

I n his thought-provoking book The Humble Approach, Sir John Templeton

has recommended that our approach to human knowledge, be it scientific or
spiritual, be one of humility:
The approach asks each of us, whether we are students of the natural or the
supernatural, to [be] witness to the intimate relationship of physical and
spiritual reality in our own lives. In a humble manner we can use our tal-
ents to explore the universe to discover future trends. (Templeton 1998)
This approach is particularly relevant today, poised as we are at the beginning of
the twenty-first century, distracted by wars and violence and challenged by the rapid
growth of science and technology. However objective our religion and science may
appear to be, each of us has to ultimately develop a worldview of his or her own
based on an examination of the complex world around us. Sir John’s remarks have
inspired me to reflect on the life and thoughts of two great people of recent times,
Einstein and Gandhi, who serve as archetypical examples of the ideals expressed by
Sir John Templeton.

Albert Einstein
Einstein’s Science
Einstein’s scientific contributions revolutionized almost every major aspect of mod-
ern physics: quantum theory, gravitational physics, and statistical physics. In fact,
Einstein redefined the very concept of spacetime. Whereas the Copernican revolu-
tion moved us away from a geocentric point of view nearly five hundred years ago,
Einstein’s theory of general relativity connected space and time in a single manifold,
rendering the fundamental question of the “center of the universe” meaningless
because the theory holds that there is absolute freedom of choice in the universe.
Moreover, the equations of Einstein’s theory of gravitation revolutionized cosmol-
ogy. The earth is about 150 million kilometers away from the sun, a star; the stars that
fill “our” firmament, about 100 billion of them, are conglomerated as the Milky Way
galaxy; and scores of billions of galaxies fill space distributed in a quasi-random
way. Thus, the cosmological principle states: The universe is homogeneous and
isotropic on large scales.
When Einstein’s equations were used to investigate the consequences of this
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 349

ramanath cowsik c 349

aspect of the universe, the solutions indicated that the universe was expanding in a
very special way—the galaxies were moving apart in the same manner as dots would
on an expanding balloon. It was as though the fabric of space was being continu-
ously created, distancing the galaxies from one another. Approximately ninety years
ago, Edwin Hubble firmly established that the galaxies were indeed moving as pre-
dicted by Einstein’s equations.
Astronomical research during the intervening years has shown that the universe
expanded from an extremely hot, condensed state after the Big Bang. As the universe
expanded and cooled within about one second, it contained only neutrons, pro-
tons, electrons, positrons, neutrinos, and neutrino-like particles, in addition to radi-
ation. After five minutes, the universe cooled enough to synthesize helium nuclei.
For a million years, the universe went through an uneventful expansion and cooled
continuously. When the temperatures fell enough for electrons and protons to com-
bine to form atoms of hydrogen, the close coupling between radiation and matter
vanished with dramatic effect. During this process, the neutrino-like particles sim-
ilarly cooled, their random motions slowed, and their self-gravitation drove them
to clump together into clouds. Because these neutrino-like particles do not emit or
scatter light, they are called particles of dark matter. The clouds of dark matter grav-
itationally attracted atoms that radiated. Slowly, radiating atoms settled into the
central regions of the clouds. Clouds of atomic gas then merged to form galaxies,
such as our own Milky Way. Carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, and other elements—
the building blocks of life—did not exist, and our familiar world was yet to be made.
The gas in the central regions of these systems condensed to form stars. The cen-
tral core of a star has a temperature of about ten million degrees. Here, nuclei of
hydrogen and helium fuse to form the heavier elements, which are then dispersed
back into interstellar space by stellar winds. Occasionally, when the mass of the stel-
lar core exceeds the Chandrasekhar mass, it undergoes a collapse under self-grav-
ity, the outer regions are expelled in an explosion, and the resulting debris contains
many of the heavy elements, including uranium. In the intervening eight to ten bil-
lion years since the birth of the universe, such processes have seeded most of the
galaxies with heavy elements. Thus, everything that we see has an intimate connec-
tion with the birth of the universe and with the subsequent stages of its evolution.
Because most of the human body is made up of carbon and oxygen, with traces of
elements such as nitrogen, iron, and others that were synthesized in stars, we are all
made of star dust.
It was only during the last few billion years that life appeared on Earth in the
form of unicellular organisms. The slow evolution of the species led finally, within
the last one hundred thousand years, to humankind as we know it. The history of
civilization with agricultural capabilities is even shorter—a mere ten thousand years.
Two points should be noted here: First, a systematic and progressive sequence of
evolution has brought the world to its present state. Humankind, with its intelli-
gence and capacity for articulation and organization, has been shaped by the pro-
gressive evolution of the exotic particles and fields of the early universe, the
formation of galaxies, nucleosynthesis in the stars, and the origins of life on this
planet. The implications of this arrow of positive evolution connecting us to the
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 350

350 c ramanath cowsik

major events in the depths of space and time, and indeed directly back to the Big
Bang itself, are profound. Second, the span of humankind’s existence is but a minus-
cule speck in this vast universe, which is about fourteen billion years old and has an
extent of 1023 kilometers. We also see that normal matter, of which we are all made,
is only a tiny fraction of the much vaster dark matter. Furthermore, the dynamics
of the universe are controlled by vacuum energy, which is not matter at all. All of
this reinforces our connection with the universe and, at the same time, leads us
away from a simple anthropocentric view. Yet humankind’s indomitable spirit has
striven to comprehend this cosmos.
I have attempted to illustrate this evolution in the following figure.

Figure 1. Tableau showing the evolution of the universe, as well as of science and spiri-
tuality, whose beginnings, we may argue, are coincident with life itself.

Einstein’s “religion” was an attitude of cosmic awe and of devout humility before
the harmony in nature. His God-concept was more sophisticated than the com-
mon view of a personalized God, the lawmaker who punishes us for our sins and
rewards us for our virtues. Einstein said, “My comprehension of God comes from
the deeply felt conviction of a superior intelligence that reveals itself in the know-
able world” (Calaprice 2000). He considered himself an agnostic, and his spiritual-
ity was similar to that taught by Buddha and later by Spinoza—not unlike the
paramarthika or the transcendental interpretation of the Vedanta delineated by
Shankara in contrast to the Vyavaharika view held by the common people. In close
parallel with the Hindu saints, especially Gautama Buddha and Shankara, Einstein
felt the futility of human desires.
Just as Einstein opened up science, which had reached a watershed in the begin-
ning of the twentieth century, so did Shankara revitalize the religions of India with
spirituality in the eighth century. Individual existence in pursuit of mundane mate-
rialistic goals impressed Einstein as a sort of prison, and, similar to the philosophy
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 351

ramanath cowsik c 351

of Advaita expressed by Shankara, Einstein felt a deep inner urge to experience the
universe as a significant whole. Einstein felt that whatever there is of God and good-
ness, it must work itself out and express itself through us—we cannot stand aside
and “let God do it.” He was truly a karmayogi and followed the dictum of Gita ma–
té sango–stvakarmani (do not detach yourself from your duty) as he strove inces-
santly to prevent war and bring peace among nations (Jammer 19991).
It should be emphasized that there is a universality to Einstein’s cosmic experi-
ence that is closely akin to that of monks and nuns in deep, fervent prayer or of the
mystics of the East during meditation. A common characteristic is that these expe-
riences are so intense that they transform the individual in a fundamental way. The
neuroscientist Andrew Newberg has noted that these “religious” experiences are
common to all faiths in that they induce a sense of oneness with the universe and a
feeling of awe that impress such experiences with great importance. During these
religious experiences, believers feel their sense of self dissolve, and their sensory
inputs weaken and even turn off completely, as they feel a continuing loss of bound-
ary. The attendant psychosomatic reactions imbue such experiences with deep sig-
nificance characterized by great joy and harmony, similar to the feeling of Bhakti
described by the spiritual leaders of India and the feelings experienced by parents
when they first see their newborn offspring. Perhaps part of the nervous system of
creatures, including humans, has been hardwired this way to ensure the survival of
the species and to sustain evolution.
Let us focus attention on the implications of Einsteinian cosmology for the spir-
itual quest in general. The two points that were underscored during the earlier dis-
cussion of cosmology were: (1) our connection to the grandest and earliest events in
the universe and (2) the extremely minuscule span of human existence in the vast-
ness and enormousness of cosmic space and time. Even the planet on which we live
is more than four billion years old—ancient in comparison with our sojourn on it.
More than a billion years ago, a subtle condition composed of light, heat, water,
and a proper mix of elements led to the birth of life on this planet. During most of
the epochs of evolution, nature was all-powerful. It nurtured life and made life
forms that evolved progressively. Eventually, humans appeared and also were con-
trolled by nature. Yet even though they are a product and creation of nature, humans
have now grown powerful enough to exert control over it. We can choose to destroy
nature, or we can protect it and make it even more beautiful. Science alone cannot
and will not tell us what we humans should do. Spirituality has a prescription for
this dilemma, but cannot adequately defend it without relying on a certain degree
of faith. However, a complete perspective can be provided jointly by science and
spirituality and can point to a set of values that may guide humankind through the
labyrinth of choice.
Let us, for a moment, take inspiration from our connection with the rest of the
universe and sensitize ourselves to the character of progressive evolution to higher
levels that is innate in us. To assume that those values that support such an evolu-
tion are the right ones is both natural and consistent with the teachings of the great
leaders of humankind, such as Buddha, Jesus, and Shankara. When we recognize our
connection to the rest of the world—both the inanimate and living things on
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 352

352 c ramanath cowsik

earth—we sensitize ourselves to our common origins and are endowed with an
empathy that gives us strength to follow the precepts of universal love, including the
ideal of “love thy enemy,” as taught by Jesus and others. However, we may wonder
whether living up to this ideal is possible in the present world.

Mahatma Mohandass Gandhi

Mohandass Karamchand Gandhi, discoverer of the method of peaceful noncoop-
eration in South Africa, was born in India about ten years before Einstein. Not sur-
prisingly, he called his freedom struggle to bring about sociopolitical change
peacefully through moral persuasion rather than through the use of force satya-
graha, or pursuit of truth. The unflinching and unwavering adherence to truth, not
unlike that of an exemplary scientist, is at the heart of Gandhi’s personality. From
this quality emerges Gandhi’s Christ-like love and nonviolence in all aspects of life,
even in thought. In support of this idea, one may quote Gandhi himself:
To see the universal truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest
creation as oneself. . . . For me the road to salvation lies through incessant
toil in the service of my country and humanity. In the language of the Gita,
I want to live in peace with both friend and foe. (Radhakrishnan 1944)
Thus, we see the two facets of Gandhi’s personality—the spiritual inner self for-
ever devoted to the pursuit of truth and the activist outer self, which found expres-
sion in this world through his deep love of humanity and untiring efforts toward its
betterment. We may identify ahimsa (nonviolence), satya (truth), and universal love
as Gandhi’s three quintessential virtues, which became luminously clear during the
long struggle for freedom in India, when these three qualities blended, supported,
and added glory to one another.
Through the years, satyagraha has proven remarkably successful in bringing free-
dom from discriminatory control of one people by another—a freedom that is per-
manent and leaves both parties not in antagonism, but in friendship. In Einstein’s
own words we find a clear description of Mahatma (“Great Soul”) Gandhi and the
peaceful movement he launched in South Africa and India to gain freedom from
prejudice and oppression:
A leader of his people, unsupported by any outward authority; a politician
whose success rests not upon craft nor on mastery of technical devices, but
simply on the convincing power of his personality; a victorious fighter who
has always scorned the use of force; a man of wisdom and humility; armed
with resolve and inflexible consistency, who has devoted all his strength to
the uplifting of his people and the betterment of their lot; a man who has
confronted brutality with the dignity of a simple human being, and thus at
all times risen superior. Generations to come, it may be, will scarcely believe
that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth. (Ein-
stein 1950)
The quotation from Einstein touches on some of the salient aspects of Gandhi’s
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 353

ramanath cowsik c 353

personality. But what Einstein said of Gandhi, we may say of Einstein himself. We
see clues to the most enduring of Einstein’s concerns, exactly consonant with those
of Gandhi: peace in this world and the evolution of society to one that holds the
highest values. Einstein’s life was spent in an unceasing effort to bring about these
values with the same consistency and quiet resolve that he so admired in Gandhi,
coupled with the spiritual ideals preached so effectively by the great spiritual lead-
ers, such as Buddha and Jesus.
Apart from the personal qualities that helped Gandhi face fearlessly any
onslaught, including incarceration, during his satyagraha movement, he had
another deep idea that has relevance today. He felt that no individual, group, or
nation—rich or poor—should be without gainful employment. Just as the poorest
among us who eke out a living can be redeemed when provided with an opportu-
nity to work and earn that living, he believed that the rich who have gained wealth
as individuals through inheritance or as a nation through exploitable natural
resources would benefit greatly if they regularly worked hard in their chosen fields
of interest. Gandhi’s Charka or Khadi (village industries) program was a tremen-
dous help to the poor in India in the 1930s. Even today, no one can remain merely
a consumer. All of us should be engrossed in some creative effort in order to give
meaning to our lives.
Thus, we see that science and spirituality both tell us that we should work to sus-
tain the positive universal evolution. According to the ancient Indian way of life, this
is following one’s dharma. In our incessant effort toward peace, which is essential
for positive evolution, we should follow the path shown by Buddha, Jesus, and
Gandhi. This method is not restricted to the oppressed and the poor, but is avail-
able to the rich and powerful as well, as indeed Emperor Asoka of India showed
more than two thousand years ago when he renounced warfare and adopted the
doctrines of Buddhism.

In Conclusion . . .
We see that the reductionist approach of science has clearly pointed out our con-
nection with the rest of this vast universe and events that occurred in the depths of
time. Science has shown that a positive vector of evolution has transformed the
exotic fields and particles of the Big Bang into the universe in which we live. But the
reductionist approach, as it stands today, cannot tell us how to attach value to things
or actions. We can try to circumvent this impasse by augmenting the reductionist
approach with an additional axiom: All actions and attributes that support positive
evolution have a positive value, and all of our efforts should be directed to nurture
this positive evolution. For example, love of humanity, nonviolence, and the bet-
terment of the world should be endowed with positive value, just as the great spir-
itual leaders have been telling us all along. However, this message cannot find easy
purchase in minds rigorously trained in the reductionist approach, minds that tend
to ignore the subtle urgings of our inner self. This extra axiom allows us to bridge
the gap between science and spirituality. It gives meaning to lives dedicated to
bringing about peace and tranquility, to lives engaged in creating beautiful art and
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 354

354 c ramanath cowsik

sensitive poetry, and to lives engrossed in understanding science so that we approach

ever closer to truth. I can do no better than to end by quoting Rabindranath Tagore:
where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
where knowledge is free;
where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
where the words come out from the depths of truth;
where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
in the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
where the mind is led by thee into ever widening thought and action
—into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

c
Ramanath Cowsik, Ph.D., has held faculty positions at the University of Cali-
fornia at Berkeley and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in India. Cur-
rently, he is a Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in
Bangalore and Professor of Physics in Arts and Sciences at the McDonnell Center
for the Space Sciences of Washington University, St. Louis. He is one of the world’s
preeminent astrophysicists, with pioneering contributions in both theory and
experiment. His work on the cosmological influence of massive neutrinos helped
establish the now rich and vigorous field of astro-particle physics. During the last
decade under his leadership, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics developed a world-
class astronomical observatory at an altitude of fifteen thousand feet above sea level
at Hanle, in southeastern Ladakh. His work has been honored with numerous
Indian and international awards, including the Bose Prize (India); the Third World
Academy of Sciences Award; the president of India’s second-highest civilian honor,
the Padma Shri; and election to the Membership of the National Academy of Sci-
ences (USA).

Note
1 Also see Max Jammer’s essay in this volume.

References
Calaprice, A. The Expanded Quotable Einstein. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2000.
Einstein, A. From “Out of My Later Years,” New York: Philosophical Library, 1950. New
translations and revisions by Sonja Bargmann, based on Mein Weltbild, edited by
Carl Seelig, Laurel Edition, Dell Publishing Co. Written on the occasion of Gandhi’s
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 355

ramanath cowsik c 355

seventieth birthday in 1939. [Note the several other essays in this volume discuss
Einstein and Gandhi; see, for example, the essay by Kuruvilla Pandikattu.]
Jammer, M. Einstein and Religion, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Templeton, Sir John, The Humble Approach. Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press,
1998.
Radhakrishnan, S. Ed. M. K. Gandhi: Essays and Reflections on His Life and Work—
Presented to him on his seventieth birthday (Kitabistan, Allahabad, 1944).
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 356

Science in the Service

of Meaninglessness 60
Sociological Change and the Decline of Faith
M. A. Casey

S cience is often presumed to have played an important part in the demise of

faith in the modern world, while remaining unaffected by the situation of mean-
inglessness that has followed in its wake. This is an overstated claim and one that
needs to be reexamined. This essay is a preliminary attempt to sketch out the main
lines that such a reexamination might follow and what it might mean for our under-
standing of the relationship between religion and science.
One of the major reasons for the waning of faith in the West is the decline of
community. We are inclined to sentimentalize community now, but it was not so
long ago that it was the object of a huge emancipatory effort that successfully swept
aside all the restrictions communal life necessarily imposes, making the individual the
supreme arbiter of when he will and will not be obligated to others. As a consequence,
community for most of us is something we have to opt into if we are going to be
part of it at all. But for most of human history, it was something we were born into
and that worked powerfully to support the values that were taught in the family.
Importantly, communities were credal. It was thought that social stability and
peace—and often even society’s very survival—required not just common values,
but a common faith in God. This created a world with clearer, and in some ways
more certain, ideas about good and evil, freedom and truth, individual character
and human nature than we have today. It was also a more limited world. We should
not despise it on this account, anymore than we should romanticize it. Nietzsche
describes human beings as animals whose well-being depends on firm limits and
clear horizons. Far from falsifying this proposition, the configuration of modern life
has only served to reinforce its validity.
It is no surprise that with the demise of community’s hold on the individual the
compelling force of faith has also diminished. Being associated with the old world
of fixed horizons and immutable laws, faith is treated as something incompatible
with the new dispensation of limitless possibility and individual supremacy. It con-
tinues to be tolerated, of course, but preferably as a private therapeutic device for
managing the feelings of dread, guilt, and insignificance that attend the human con-
dition and that the modern situation often magnifies.
The relegation of faith to the realm of therapy is exemplified by the rise of “spir-
ituality” as a surrogate for traditional religion. Part of its appeal is that unlike reli-
gion, spirituality does not come with a moral code. In fact, it has no consequences
for action at all. Religion demands that the individuals radically change the way
they live to better conform with a law that is directed to their true happiness, but
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 357

m. a. casey c 357

which is not of their own making. Spirituality makes no such demand. Happiness
in this account consists of continuing just as you are, but with a new overlay of
“inspiration, myth, and insight” to affirm the supposedly unique and intrepid qual-
ities of a life lived in mediocre selfishness.
No doubt, this sort of thing helps some people, especially in the midst of the lone-
liness, anxiety, and confusion about fundamental questions that infuses so much of
modern life. But considered sociologically, spirituality amounts to the veneration of
the self for purposes that are ultimately therapeutic rather than properly religious or
spiritual. It flatters the self in its lonely supremacy and reinforces that supremacy with
bits and pieces of “esoteric” knowledge, but it does nothing to bring the supreme
individual back within the ambit of something greater than him- or herself.
The situation is different when it comes to faith, understood as a relationship
with a truth that is supreme to the individual. In this case, strenuous efforts are
made to exclude religion from public affairs and to confine it to private life on the
basis that faith of this kind is a dangerous and infantile illusion—infantile because
continuing to believe in God in the face of his nonexistence is to be like children pre-
ferring wishes over reality. “Maturity” (for both the individual and the species)
means overcoming the need for faith—and perhaps the need for any kind of mean-
ing at all. Those unable to do this are not penalized, but their contributions to pub-
lic life, especially on certain key issues, are often regarded as suspect.
The assumption at work here is that belief is an illusion and persistence in it an
exercise in self-deception. Bring people to see clearly, the thinkers of the eighteenth
century argued, and they will grow beyond faith—ultimately, the thinkers of the
nineteenth century argued, to the point where they will be able to behold the mean-
inglessness of existence without despair, and perhaps even with serenity. Freedom,
not only from faith but from any sort of meaning, is the destiny and greatness of the
human animal.
Although it is an old idea, the conceit that faith can maintain its hold on the
imagination only as long as there are blinkers on human vision still has consider-
able appeal. Its validation depends on the dubious assertion that modern science has
made belief in God untenable, at least to the intellectually honest. It is clear that faith
in the West, as measured by religious affiliation and practice, has declined. And even
in countries such as the United States and Australia, where most people still tick the
“Christian” box on census forms, an unreflective and somewhat complacent prac-
tical atheism—living in effect as if there is no God—is generally the rule rather than
the exception. But the very incoherence of this situation suggests that it is socio-
logical change rather than the breakthroughs of science that is the key to under-
standing the decline of faith.
This is not the place to rehearse in detail the enormous changes that modernity
has brought to human life. Material abundance, social stability, the decline of com-
munity, the rise of individualism, and the enormous freedom, mobility, and level of
opportunity we enjoy are one part of it. The powerful patterns and demands of
production, consumption, and technology that drive and sustain these conditions
is another. What is important is that together they have radically reduced both the
need and the occasion to engage consistently with the deeper levels of existence.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 358

358 c m. a. casey

Practical unbelief, even among believers, has been facilitated particularly by the
fragmentation of life into discrete compartments and the obviation of any require-
ment to bring one’s life into a coherent whole. If faith has been displaced not just
among intellectuals but also among the broad mass of people in the West, it is not
because science has made belief in God untenable. It has much more to do with the
way modernity has massively increased our capacity for muddle and self-contra-
diction, while making it easier than ever before to live almost entirely on the surface
of existence.
What this makes clear is that the facile opposition of science and faith is a hope-
lessly outdated and inadequate explanatory paradigm. A token of this is the way
evolutionary theory in all its various and apparently endless elaborations continues
to be regarded as the knockout blow in the argument its partisans insist on having
with religion. It is interesting, and not entirely peripheral to the present discussion,
to note that Darwin is the only member of the once-vaunted “scientific” trinity of
Marx-Darwin-Freud (which not so long ago was often credited with the final dis-
patch of faith) who still has any serious standing. But one could be excused for
hearing in the insistent tones adopted by some of his followers a fear that he is also
destined to share their fate.
There can be no doubt that the picture presented by mainstream evolutionary
theory is deeply disenchanting in its depiction of human life. It has been very suc-
cessfully popularized and in many ways epitomizes the way science apparently advo-
cates meaninglessness at the expense of faith. But it also exemplifies why the
resonance of this particular form of disenchantment is limited: Quite aside from
whatever the truth may be, no one in their heart of hearts genuinely believes that
they are merely a chance conglomeration of “selfish genes.”
While some may see this as an instance of human narcissism defeating scientific
understanding, we would do better to see it as a reason for tempering the narcissism
of science. People value and respect science and are grateful for the many great
goods it brings. But in the end, science is looked to for the wonderful ways in which
it can improve life, not for an explanation of the meaning and purpose of existence.
More than anything else, the supremacy of the individual characterizes our age.
We are utterly free, utterly sovereign. We believe in this more than we believe in
God, and certainly more than we believe in science. As a result, the experience of the
individual trumps everything, and appeals to authority—whether the authority of
faith or the authority of science—have little weight. Obviously, this is not to say
that we are not influenced by the ideas and forces around us. But no matter how
compelling these influences may be in themselves, their effective force can be
reduced to nought unless they register directly with the particular and personal
experience of a given individual.
Of particular importance is the personal experience of meaninglessness, as
opposed to its various intellectual conceptualizations. It is loneliness, uselessness,
and the absence of hope that makes the experience of meaninglessness so powerful.
While it is sometimes underscored by the disenchanted account of human existence
generated not so much by science as by the materialistic assumptions of a certain ide-
ology of science, it is the individual experience that is decisive, not the scientism.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 359

m. a. casey c 359

This also applies to the experience of life as meaningful. It is one of the reasons
that love is so important. Those who place science and religion in opposition over-
look the fact that God is not an intellectual proposition. If a person becomes a
Christian, for example, he or she does so primarily because of personal experience
of the reality of God’s love. The intellectual elaboration of what this love implies for
the living of daily life comes afterward.
One point of connection between science and the love that faith reveals is won-
der. Every new scientific discovery amplifies our reasons for wonder. But strangely,
when we enter into this we quickly come up against an adamant insistence that the
only certain thing the wonders of life point to is their own cancellation in blind
chance and absurd concatenations.
Is this the truth? No. The truth does not contradict itself, and for this reason
there is no contradiction between science and faith. Within its limits, science seeks
the truth, and so too does faith; for meaning has no value unless it is true. It is this
that is not understood by those who would place science in opposition not only to
faith but to meaning itself. Just as faith is not well served by those who would reduce
it to a private therapeutic exercise, science is not well served by those who insist
that meaninglessness is the only truth we can know. The sundering of science and
faith in this way makes of them a deception and a self-deception, distorting our
vision in a way that not only makes it difficult to see clearly, but that often blinds
us to the true reality of things.
The only beneficiary of the adversarial relationship imposed on religion and sci-
ence two hundred years ago has been meaninglessness. Science has been just as
much diminished by this as has faith. But this is not a destiny. It is possible to recast
the terms on which science and religion interact so that both can flourish in a con-
text of authentic meaning. The first step is to bring down the curtain on the very
tired Punch-and-Judy show that nineteenth-century presuppositions have lum-
bered us with and to start afresh where we find ourselves today—at the beginning
of a new millennium.

c
Michael Casey, Ph.D., is Permanent Fellow in Sociology and Politics at the Aus-
tralian session of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family and a soci-
ologist on the staff of the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney. He holds degrees in law,
English literature, and modern European history from Monash University, Mel-
bourne, and a doctorate in sociology from La Trobe University, also in Melbourne.
Dr. Casey’s book Meaninglessness: The Solutions of Nietzsche, Freud and Rorty was
published in 2002 by Rowman and Littlefield. His articles have been published in
Society and First Things. In 2001, Dr. Casey won the Acton Institute’s Novak award
for an essay on religion and globalization. His research interests include the rela-
tionship between authority and freedom and the impact of twentieth-century polit-
ical ideology on modern culture.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 360

Secularization
and the Sciences 61
Peter L. Berger

F or a long time, the conventional view has been that modernity goes hand in
hand with secularization, in the sense of a decline in the credibility of religion.
And at least one of the reasons for this is supposed to be the rise of modern science:
Supposedly the scientific understanding of the world leaves less and less room for a
“God hypothesis.” There are people who still adhere to this view, not least among
them theologians who try to find a place for religion in an allegedly secular culture.
Unfortunately for them, the empirical evidence is massively to the contrary. The
contemporary world is full of powerful religious revitalization movements, many of
them erupting in emphatically modernizing contexts. Thus, the two most dynamic
religious movements in the world today—the worldwide explosion of Pentecostal
Protestantism and the comparably explosive spread of resurgent Islam—are occur-
ring not in backward villages, but primarily in the context of modernizing urban-
ization. America, despite the assertions of many of its intellectuals, continues to be
a strongly religious society, especially if one compares it with Western and Central
Europe (one of the few geographical areas where secularization does indeed appear
to be dominant). This is not the place to discuss possible reasons for this difference
(although this happens to be one of the most interesting topics in the sociology of
contemporary religion). Clearly, however, America is no less modern than, say, Swe-
den. Whatever the reason for American religiosity, it cannot be the absence of
modernity, let alone of science.
To say the least, then, the relation between science, modernity, and religion is
more complicated than assumed by the aforementioned conventional view. If one
wants to throw light on this relation, it is important to make an important distinc-
tion—that between the natural sciences and the human sciences (the latter encom-
passing the humanities and social sciences). And, indeed, it appears that the degree
of secularity in practitioners of disciplines in these two areas is quite different.
The natural sciences have thrown out two great challenges to religion. The first
was the result of the Copernican revolution, marginalizing the place of the earthly
habitat of humanity in the universe.1 The second challenge was posed by the Dar-
winian revolution, putting in question the place of Homo sapiens in the evolu-
tionary scheme of things. Both revolutions made it very difficult to adhere to a
literal understanding of the biblical account of creation and human origins. Both
challenges, especially the evolutionary one, continue to be troubling to people who
adhere to a belief in literal biblical “inerrancy.” Most religious people, including
most theologians in the Christian and Jewish traditions, have successfully integrated
the respective scientific findings into their view of the world.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 361

peter l. berger c 361

What is more important, the advances in the natural sciences over the last cen-
tury or so have not, as expected, led to what Max Weber classically called a “disen-
chantment of the world.” On the contrary, many natural scientists—especially
physicists, astronomers, and biologists—have testified to an increasing sense of
wonder and awe resulting from their work and have consequently become very
open to religious interpretations of the world. A lively dialog now exists between
natural scientists and theologians. The John Templeton Foundation has devoted
large resources to this dialog. Although I must confess that I have nothing to con-
tribute to this dialog as my knowledge of the natural sciences is embarrassingly
minimal, I do feel certain that the dialog will continue and that it is important.
The human sciences have posed a very different challenge. It is the challenge of
the insight that all beliefs and values are relative in terms of time and place. The
insight was already expressed eloquently by Pascal, when he wrote that what is truth
on one side of the Pyrenees is error on the other. Historians pioneered in this chal-
lenge, beginning in the early nineteenth century, not only by dismantling the tra-
ditional understanding of the biblical texts, but also by their bringing to attention
the vast literatures of non-Western religions. Religious believers now had to con-
front the fact that the scriptures they took to be divinely inspired were the result of
complicated historical processes, and further by the fact that scriptures of other tra-
ditions made comparable claims to supernatural authority. More recently, psychol-
ogy showed how beliefs and values could be seen as “projections” of very mundane
human needs, and the social sciences could show how beliefs and values depend on
empirically analyzable “social constructions.”
For a time, this sense of relativity was limited to people with higher education in
the relevant fields. The number of these people has, of course, increased enormously
over the last half-century. More importantly, however, a similar sense of relativity
is now shared by even larger numbers of people as a result of their experiences in
ordinary, everyday life. This is the result of an ever-widening pluralism. As far as
America is concerned, the religious consequence of this has been amply docu-
mented by the Pluralism Project directed by Diana Eck at Harvard University. No
longer can the religious identity of Americans be subsumed under the three cate-
gories in the title of the important book by Will Herberg published in 1955: Protes-
tant, Catholic, Jew. Immigrants from every corner of the world have brought their
religions with them, and they, and especially their children, are engaged in an ongo-
ing conversation with people belonging to the older American denominations. This
conversation is not taking place just in academic seminars and interfaith colloquia.
It occurs daily in the workplace with colleagues and across the fence with neighbors;
it even occurs in kindergartens.
This is not secularization. Secularization would mean that there is too little reli-
gion in the world today. Pluralism means that there is too much religion. More pre-
cisely, individuals in the pluralistic situation must somehow come to terms with
the fact that others, especially those they respect and like, have beliefs and values
greatly different from their own. Among ordinary people, this has led to what Robert
Wuthnow, the Princeton sociologist, has nicely called “patchwork religion”: Indi-
viduals put together their own little religious system, more or less sophisticated as
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 362

362 c peter l. berger

the case may be, by patching up bits and pieces of their native tradition with some
taken from other traditions. They can say something like, “I am Catholic, but . . . ,”
or “I am Jewish in my own way,” or even “right now I’m into Buddhism.” It is facile
to caricaturize this phenomenon. I, for one, would take a more positive view of the
challenge of pluralism. It impels individuals to make religious choices because their
original faith can no longer be taken for granted. I fail to see why a taken-for-granted
religion is superior to one that is consciously chosen. Christians in particular should
reflect on the fact that contemporary religious pluralism has remarkable similari-
ties with the pluralism of the Graeco-Roman world in which the early church came
into being: Should we bemoan a situation that resembles those in which Paul and
the early church fathers lived and thought? I think not.
It seems to me that our contemporary religious pluralism calls for reflection
quite different from that demanded by the dialog between theology and the natu-
ral sciences. Such reflection is not new. It has occurred in different places and in dif-
ferent times—for one example, on the Silk Road in Central Asia, where for
centuries religious traditions rubbed up against each other. A highly sophisticated
product of this pluralism is the classic Buddhist text The Questions of King Milinda,
consisting of a dialog between a Buddhist teacher and a Hellenistic ruler. In the his-
tory of Christianity, its thinkers first had to confront the challenges of rabbinical
Judaism and Hellenism, later with Islam (without which medieval Christian
scholasticism would have been much poorer). Each of these confrontations led to
what the French aptly called a prise de conscience—a deliberate assessment, in the
face of the challenge from “the other,” of what in one’s own faith is essential and
must never be given up and what may be put aside as the result of this or that his-
torical accident.
A vast intellectual task is before the thinkers of every religious tradition. For
Christian theologians, the dialog with Judaism and Islam is as timely as ever. But
there is also the urgent necessity to confront the immense riches of the religious tra-
ditions of southern and eastern Asia, notably in the encounter with Hinduism, Bud-
dhism, and Confucianism. In Africa and also elsewhere, the confrontation persists
with surviving or robustly reassertive traditions often subsumed under the some-
what patronizing category of “primal religions”—traditions that have kept alive the
archaic nexus between humanity, Nature, and supernatural realities. Out of this has
come an expanding and widening set of conversations. These do not always lead to
agreement. Indeed, I would propose that in such conversations it is as important
sometimes to say no as it may in other cases be to say yes.
What is quite clear, I think, is that this dialog between the great religious tradi-
tions is immensely promising both intellectually and spiritually. To use a term
favored by the John Templeton Foundation, such dialog does constitute “progress
in religion.”
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 363

peter l. berger c 363

c
Peter L. Berger, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at Boston University. A sociologist
by training, he is currently director of two research centers at the University—the
Institute for the Study of Economic Culture (founded in 1985) and the Institute on
Religion and World Affairs (founded in 2000). He received his Ph.D. from the Grad-
uate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, New York, in 1953. Subsequently,
before joining the faculty at Boston University in 1979, he taught at the University
of North Carolina, the Hartford Theological Seminary, the New School for Social
Research, Rutgers University, and Boston College. He holds honorary doctorates
from five universities in the United States and Europe. His recent books include A
Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity (1992), Redeeming Laughter: The
Comic Dimension of Human Experience (1997), and (editor, with Samuel Hunting-
ton) Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World (2002).

Note
1 For discussion of an opposing viewpoint, see Dennis R. Danielson, “The great Coper-
nican cliché,” Am. J. Phys. 69, 1029, October 2001 [http://ojps.aip.org/ajp: DOI:
10.1119/1.1379734].
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 364
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 365

Part Seven
Perspectives on Religion and Health

c
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 366
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 367

The Faith Factor in Medicine,

the Health Factor in Religion: 62
Reflections on a New Research Tradition
Anne Harrington

T he values of a regular religious life and spiritual practice have long been
extolled, but until recently few have thought that these values might include
enhanced physical health. The past five or six years, however, have seen an escalat-
ing number of studies offering new evidence for the health benefits of religious
practice and spirituality. This evidence in turn is leading to a growing number of
suggestions that medical science and religion now have a basis on which to enter
into a new and progressive partnership: one in which medicine is inspired to
become more spiritual and in which religion gains new utility and status in the
modern world.
Two questions can be asked: (1) Without critiquing the soundness of every spe-
cific piece of evidence offered,1 what is the general nature of the argument for the
health benefits of religion? (2) Does this trend, in fact, offer a foundation for bring-
ing what we would consider to be “best practice” medicine and “best practice” reli-
gion into fruitful partnership? In this article, I aim to answer both of these questions
in turn.

The Nature of the Argument in Four Parts

The argument about the health benefits of religion is actually not a single argu-
ment, but four separate claims. Each of these has its own data set, and each has
come out of a distinct research tradition in medicine. Let me take each in turn.

Going to Church Is Good for Your Health

The origins of the interest in the health benefits of church attendance lie in epi-
demiological work that began in the late 1960s, a time of great medical interest in
identifying the lifestyle and environmental factors that were contributing, in par-
ticular, to the rising incidence of heart disease in the United States. Out of this work,
a person’s degree of social isolation versus social embeddedness emerged as an
important factor. Some work suggested, for example, that living in traditional close-
knit communities acted as a protection against heart disease—and, possibly, other
common forms of morbidity and mortality. Other studies indicated that more iso-
lated people within a community tended to be sicker and to die earlier than those
who were more socially embedded.2
From the beginning, membership in a religious community was commonly in-
cluded as one independent variable among many others that might act as measures
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 368

368 c anne harrington

of the effects of social embeddedness and social isolation. Studies began to emerge
that suggested that the link between health and religion was a particularly impor-
tant one.3 Various kinds of work began to suggest that church attendance was
strongly correlated with a reduced likelihood of suffering from any number of
health problems, especially in old age. Some studies even suggested that going to
church was correlated with extended lifespan.4
What might be the reason for this? Initially, the tendency was still to reduce
churchgoing to social support. Researchers said that churches (and, by extension,
synagogues and mosques) are good for your health because they provide really good
community. Nevertheless, not everyone was satisfied that this was the whole story.
For example, in 1996, Israeli epidemiologist Jeremy Kark compared mortality rates
in eleven secular and eleven matched religious kibbutzim between 1970 and 1985
and found that mortality in the secular kibbutzim was twice that of mortality on the
religious kibbutzim. At the same time, he and his colleagues insisted, “there was no
difference in social support or frequency of social contact between religious and
secular kibbutzim. . . .”5
What else might be going on, then, to explain such differences? The answer we
begin to see emerging takes us to the next two claims about the health benefits of
religion, both of which are concerned with what are often called “intrinsic” (roughly,
one’s private, experience-based sense of the divine, sometimes also called “spiritu-
ality”) as opposed to “extrinsic” (the degree to which one publicly participates in the
structures of religious life) religiousness.6

Meditation/Contemplative Practice Is Good for Your Health.

When, in the 1960s, middle-class Americans began a romance with mantra-based
meditative practices such as transcendental meditation (TM), they were interested
in the emotional and spiritual benefits. Few thought that meditation might have a
positive effect on physical health. Meditation began to be reconceptualized regard-
ing its potential health benefits only in the 1970s, with the work of people such as
cardiologist Herbert Benson at Harvard University.7 Against a background of evi-
dence that stress—a still relatively novel concept of human ailment8—played a signi-
ficant role in a large number of diseases, especially heart disease, Benson repackaged
meditation as a stress-buster. To do this, he distanced himself from the sectarian
aspects of TM, renamed it the “relaxation response,” and reconceptualized it as a
natural physiological counterpart to the stress response.9
Beginning in the 1980s, Benson found both a comrade and, to a certain extent, a
rival in meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn, who in 1979 established what was then
called the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School
in Worcester. There he taught patients a type of meditative practice based on an
attention-training technique widely practiced in Buddhism called “mindfulness.” In
best-selling books such as Full Catastrophe Living, Kabat-Zinn offered evidence that
mindfulness meditation helped chronic patients cope better with the stress of their
disorders. In other publications, he offered evidence that the practice directly influ-
ences resistance to disease and the healing process.10
While both Benson and Kabat-Zinn taught practices with origins in Asian con-
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 369

anne harrington c 369

templative traditions (particularly Hinduism and Buddhism), both researchers also

insisted in their different ways that you don’t have to be Hindu or Buddhist to med-
itate. Indeed, according to these investigators, you don’t even have to be religious.
At the same time, if you are religious and your religion happens not to be Hinduism
or Buddhism, you do not have to be concerned about possible doctrinal conflict. In
interviews, Benson has talked about how when he first began spreading the word
about meditation—or what he was then calling the “relaxation response”—he was
“startled at the excitement among the religious pros” in the Christian community.
They told him that in introducing them to the relaxation response, he had reminded
them of the power of similar practices in their own tradition with which they had
largely lost touch. “‘This is why I came into church work in the first place,’ said one,
‘and I’d lost it. . . .’”11

Belief Is a Healing Power

The claim that belief is a healing power has roots that are more explicitly faith-
based than either of the two other claims I’ve reviewed so far. Its origins lie, in fact,
in a late-nineteenth-century Protestant movement in America that variously called
itself “mind-cure,”“New Thought,”“Christian Science,”“Unity Science,” and “prac-
tical Christianity.” The leaders of this movement were influenced by ideas about the
power of belief derived from European investigations into mesmerism, hypnosis,
and so-called faith healings (Lourdes in these years was a subject of intense scrutiny
by some medical doctors).12
If faith can heal, reasoned the leaders of this movement, then why not cultivate
it? Doing so, they argued, shows no lack of respect for God, but is instead a way of
proactively realizing the practical presence of God in one’s own life. William James,
observing the fruits of this movement at the turn of the twentieth century, was at
once impressed and bemused: “The blind have been made to see, the halt to walk;
lifelong invalids have had their health restored. . . . One hears of the ‘Gospel of Relax-
ation,’ of the ‘Don’t-Worry Movement,’ of people who repeat to themselves, ‘Youth!
Health! Vigor!’”13
The history is worth knowing because the mind-cure of the previous century
has played a largely unrecognized role in shaping popular views about the power of
the mind over the body—from Norman Vincent Peale’s doctrines about the “power
of positive thinking” to various “New Age” ideas about how thoughts become
things.14 The history also helps us better understand how it came to be that the John
Templeton Foundation—a philanthropic organization whose stated mission is to
“pursue new insights at the boundary between theology and science”—should have
emerged in the past several years as the single most important supporter of research
into the religion-health link.15 Sir John Templeton, who at the age of ninety-plus still
largely sets the research priorities for the Foundation, was raised at least partly
within a branch of mind-cure called “Unity Church” and has remained influenced
as an adult by the ideas he learned there.16
Present-day empirical research into the power of belief can be understood in part
as an attempt to subject these deeply rooted popular understandings to new, more
rigorous forms of investigation. The results in support of the tradition have included
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 370

370 c anne harrington

studies suggesting that terminally ill patients with strong faith, a “fighting spirit,” and
a “positive attitude” may live longer or face better odds of recovery than more pes-
simistic or fatalistic patients.17 They have also included attempts to study how
“dummy” pills—placebos—that people believe will help them might result in meas-
urable changes in a clinical condition.18
Taken as a whole, the message from the new research has produced a highly ecu-
menical and utilitarian message about belief. Just as it is claimed that going to
church is good for your health, irrespective of the kind of church you attend, and
that meditating is good for your health, irrespective of the kind of meditative prac-
tice you employ, so it is also claimed that belief or faith is good for your health irre-
spective of what you believe. All beliefs in a higher power are equal because all (or
so it is assumed) equally marshal the body’s endogenous healing abilities. In the
words of Herbert Benson, “In my scientific observations, I have observed that no
matter what name you give the Infinite Absolute you worship, no matter what the-
ology you ascribe to, the results of believing in God are the same.”19

Prayer Works
The fourth claim for the health benefits of religion stands in a somewhat different
and potentially destabilizing relationship to the other three: Prayer works.
Let us be very clear what is being said here. Prayer works—not because it provides
a strong sense of social connection, not because it facilitates a special meditative
state, and not because it deepens one’s sense of faith. No. Prayer itself changes peo-
ple’s health in ways that are independent of all of those other factors. We know this,
say the people who make this claim, because when individuals or groups of people
pray for the health of a sick person—even when the sick person is not sure or even
aware that he or she is being prayed for—it has a measurable effect.
The origin of this research tradition goes back to the rise of statistics, and more
specifically to the rise of a vision of statistics in the late nineteenth century as a new
tool for resolving longstanding questions of social policy.20 In this context, Darwin’s
cousin Francis Galton proposed in the 1870s to use statistics to test the efficacy of
prayer. He reasoned that if prayer works as a protector of health and life, then those
whose health was most frequently the subject of prayer should on average live longer
than those who were less frequently prayed for. Because the Church of England
service includes prayers for the health of members of the British royal family, Gal-
ton decided to compare the longevity of members of that family against others who
had “the advantage of affluence.” He found that, rather than living longer, they were
“literally the shortest-lived.”21
For the naturalistically inclined intellectuals of the time, all this was a good joke.
For many of the clergy, it was unseemly and wrongheaded. Prayer, as one clergyman
of the time insisted, was a private matter, unquantifiable, with an efficacy beyond
the reach of statistics.22 Nevertheless, the idea that the efficacy of prayer should be
an empirical question has continued to tempt. In our own time, people have tried
to test it using the gold standard of evidence-based clinical medicine: the random-
ized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial.
The launching study in this vein was conducted by Randolph Byrd in the 1980s.23
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 371

anne harrington c 371

This study assigned 393 patients who had been admitted to a coronary care unit to
one of two groups: a prayed-for group and a control group.24 Byrd found that in six
out of twenty-six kinds of possible complications, the prayed-for patients did bet-
ter on a statistically significant level than the controls. In contrast, the controls did
not do better than the prayed-for patients on any of the twenty-six measures.25
Today, a range of replications and variations on the Byrd study have either been
completed or are in progress. In 1999, a Kansas-based researcher named William
Harris claimed to have replicated Byrd’s findings with a larger population sample
(although his study did not reproduce the specific measures of improvement found
by Byrd), triggering a new spate of media attention, as well as a lot of critical scrutiny
by skeptics.26 Currently, Herbert Benson’s lab at Harvard University is attempting an
ambitious, multi-site study that claims to be a definitive replication of the Byrd
study.27
Theologically, we are somewhere new. Proponents of the other three claims are
always careful to leave God’s existence as an open question, but the force of their
arguments does not inherently depend on whether God exists. Matters here are
different. If prayer works—and works in ways that cannot be reduced to the
placebo effect, social support, or stress reduction—then medical science has appar-
ently obtained evidence for the existence of God.28 Small wonder that this is the
most fiercely contested, criticized, and publicized arm of the religion-and-health
tradition.
Even when the other three arms of the tradition do attempt to engage with reli-
gion in more than an instrumental way, they do it very differently than does this last
arm. The other three arms see themselves as theologically neutral. They insist that
there is something called “religion” or “spirituality” that stands above any and all
specific faith traditions and whose health effects can be discussed. Whatever the
intentions of the researchers or the funders, matters in the prayer arm of this tra-
dition—at least at the moment—are different. The fact that all the widely publicized
studies to date have tested the efficacy of explicitly Christian prayer has not been lost
on at least some people. One Christian fundamentalist Web site devoted to posting
scientific evidence for the reality of the Judeo-Christian God has thus triumphantly
announced that “no other religion has succeeded in scientifically demonstrating
that prayer to their God has any efficacy in healing.”29

The Religion-Health Link:

What Kind of Medicine? What Kind of Religion?
If church attendance protects against mortality and morbidity, does that mean that
churchgoing should be medically prescribed, like exercise and a low-fat diet? If all
forms of belief produce equivalent health benefits, does this mean that we should
be uninterested in the specific content of different historical faith traditions?30 Con-
versely, does the current sectarian direction of the prayer studies mean that this
research tradition, inadvertently or not, is invoking the authority of medical sci-
ence to pit the God of one faith tradition against that of another?
Research into the links between religious practice and health has produced an
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 372

372 c anne harrington

empirically provocative and complex set of data. This work has the potential to
contribute to a much richer understanding of human functioning in health and
disease than currently exists. The vistas are exciting. Nevertheless, at present the
real potential of this work is being increasingly obscured by a range of simplistic,
polemical, and ill-thought-out extrapolations. In particular, I worry about well-
meaning but under-theorized ideas that putting “prayer alongside Prozac”31 will
lead to a new “spiritualizing” of medical practice itself 32 or that religion can now
claim a heightened status for itself—but only (this part is rarely noted or perhaps
even recognized) to the extent that it is willing to conceptualize its goods within the
value system of a consumerist “therapeutic culture” that prizes individual well-being
above all things.33
Both medicine and religion—acting alone as well as in partnership—have a
responsibility to demand more from themselves. And, happily, the research tradi-
tion linking health and religion is in a position to help them do it.

c
Anne Harrington Ph. D., is Professor for the History of Science at Harvard Uni-
versity, specializing in the history of psychiatry, neuroscience, and the other mind
sciences. She received her doctorate in the History of Science from Oxford Univer-
sity in 1985 and has held postdoctoral fellowships in England and Germany. Strongly
committed to the interdisciplinary exchange between the humanities and the bio-
medical sciences, from 1997 to 2002 she co-directed Harvard’s Interfaculty Initiative
in Mind, Brain, Behavior. From 1994 to 1998, she was a core member of the
MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Mind-Body Interactions, where she
headed projects on the placebo effect, trance, and meditation. She is the author of
Medicine, Mind, and the Double Brain (1987) and Reenchanted Science: Holism in
German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler (1996), as well as of about forty articles
ranging across mind-body medicine, German-speaking holistic science, neuro-
science, and psychiatry. She is also the editor of The Placebo Effect: An Interdiscipli-
nary Exploration (1997) and, with Richard J. Davidson, Visions of Compassion:
Western Scientists and Tibetan Buddhists Examine Human Nature. Her newest book,
Stories under the Skin, will be published by W. W. Norton.

Notes
1 Virtually all of the research remains controversial, although to varying degrees, and for
various reasons. See for example “Evidence Behind Claim of Religion-Health Link Is
Shaky, Researchers Say,” a report of an article published in the March 2002 issue of the
Annals of Behavioral Medicine, http://hbns.org/newsrelease/religion3-11-02.cfm. Com-
pare that to the encouraging note sounded in the 2003 special edition of American Psy-
chologist on “Spirituality, Religion, and Health” as an “emerging research field,”
American Psychologist (January 2003) 58(1): 24–74.
2 Some classic reference points in this literature include: L. F. Berkman and S. L. Syme,
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 373

anne harrington c 373

(1979), “Social Networks, Host Resistance and Mortality: A Nine-Year Follow-Up Study
of Alameda County Residents,” American Journal of Epidemiology 109: 186–204; J. G.
Bruhn and S. Wolf (1979), The Roseto Story (Norman: University of Oklahoma); S. Wolf
(1992), Predictors of myocardial infarction over a span of 30 years in Roseto, Pennsyl-
vania. Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science 27(3): 246–57; J. S. House, K. R.
Landis et al. (1988), “Social relationships and health.” Science 241(4865): 540–45.
3 See, for example, J. S. House, C. Robbins et al. (1982), “The association of social rela-
tionships and activities with mortality: prospective evidence from the Tecumseh Com-
munity Health Study.” Am J Epidemiol 116(1): 123–40.
4 See, for example, W. J. Strawbridge, R. D. Cohen, G. A. Kaplan (1997), “Frequent atten-
dance at religious services and mortality over 28 years,” AJPH 87: 957–61. It is worth
remembering that correlation refers to nothing more or less than a linkage between
variables and does not necessarily prove causality.
5 J. D. Kark, S. Carmel, R. Sinnreich, N. Goldberger, Y. Friedlander (1996), “Psychosocial
factors among members of religious and secular kibbutzim.” Israeli Journal of Medical
Science, Mar–Apr, 32(3–4): 185–94.
6 The classic reference here is G. W. Allport and J. M. Ross (1967), “Personal religious ori-
entation and prejudice.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5: 432–43.
7 On this historical phenomenon, see, among others, Megan Peimer, “Transcendental
meditation: a prototype for the translation of spirituality into science in the 1970s” (a
senior undergraduate honors thesis presented to the Department for the History of
Science, Harvard University: 1997). Available through the Harvard University (Widener)
library system.
8 The development and popularization of the concept of “stress” as we today understand
it was led after World War II by the Viennese-born physiologist Hans Selye, who came
to Canada (the University of Montreal) in the 1930s. See, e.g., Hans Selye (1973), “The
Evolution of the Stress Concept,” American Scientist 61: 692–99. For more on the history
of stress, see John W. Mason (1975), “A Historical View of the Stress Field,” Part II, Jour-
nal of Human Stress 1 (June): 22–36.
9 For an introduction to Benson’s early research in this area, see R. K. Wallace, H. Ben-
son, and A. F. Wilson (1971), “A Wakeful Hypometabolic State,” American Journal of
Physiology 221: 795–99; R. K. Wallace and H. Benson (1972), “The Physiology of Medi-
tation,” Scientific American 226(2): 84–90; J. F. Beary and H. Benson (1974), “A Simple
Physiologic Technique Which Elicits the Hypometabolic Changes of the Relaxation
Response,” Psychosomatic Medicine 36: 115–20. Benson’s best-selling book popularizing
his technique and its health-promoting effects was published in 1975: The Relaxation
Response (with Marion Z. Klipper, New York: Avon Books).
10 J. Kabat-Zinn (1982), “An outpatient program in behavioral medicine for chronic pain
patients based on the practice of mindfulness meditation: Theoretical considerations
and preliminary results,” General Hospital Psychiatry 4: 33-47; J. Kabat-Zinn, L. Lip-
worth, and R. Burney (1985), “The clinical use of mindfulness meditation for the self-
regulation of chronic pain,” Journal of Behavioral Medicine 8(2): 163–90; J. Kabat-Zinn
(1991), Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress,
pain, and illness (New York: Delacorte); J. Kabat-Zinn, E. Wheeler, T. Light, A. Skillings,
M. J. Scharf, T. G. Cropley et al. (1998), “Influence of a mindfulness meditation-based
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 374

374 c anne harrington

stress reduction intervention on rates of skin clearing in patients with moderate to

severe psoriasis undergoing phototherapy (UBV) and photochemotherapy (PUVA),”
Psychosomatic Medicine 60(5): 625–32.
11 Psychology Today (October 1989).
12 Jean-Martin Charcot (1893), “la foi qui guérit,” Progrès Medicale; “The faith-cure,” The
New Review 8: 18–31.
13 See William James, “The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness,” Lectures IV and V from The
Varieties of Human Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: Penguin Books,
1902 [1987]).
14 For a discussion of the influence of the mind-cure movement on Norman Vincent
Peale, see Charles Braden, Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought
(Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1966 [reprinted, 1987]); for its links to the
so-called New Age movement, see, among others, “New Age and the New Thought
Movement,” http://websyte.com/alan/newage.htm; and “Science of Mind, New
Thought, Unity, and the New Age Movement,” http://www.new-thought.org/sug-
gest.html.
15 For the mission statement of the John Templeton Foundation, and a description of its
commitment to funding work on interactions between spirituality and health, see its
website: http://www.templeton.org.
16 John Sedgwick, The Unlikely Philanthropic Odyssey of Sir John Templeton, Worth Busi-
ness eBooks (July/August 2000) (http://www.ebooks.com/item/042895.htm); excerpt
reprinted online at http://www.templeton.org/worth.asp.
17 See, for example, L. A. Gottshalk (1985), “Hope and other deterrents of illness,” Ameri-
can Journal of Psychotherapy 39: 515–24; N. Cousins, Head First: The Biology of Hope
(New York: Dutton, 1989); K. W. Pettingale et al. (1985), “Mental attitudes to cancer: An
attitudinal prognostic factor,” Lancet 8, 750; P. C. Roud (1987), “Psychosocial variables
associated with the exceptional survival of patients with advanced malignant disease,”
Journal of the Nat. Med Association 79: 97–102.
18 On the placebo effect, see, among others, my own edited volume, A. Harrington, The
Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1997).
19 Herbert Benson (with Marg Stark), Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief
(New York: Scribner), 1996, 200.
20 Ted Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).
21 Francis Galton (1872), “Statistical inquiries into the efficacy of prayer,” Fortnightly
Review 12: 125–35.
22 D. W. Forrest, Francis Galton: The Life and Work of a Victorian Genius (London: Paul Elk,
1974), 172.
23 Before Byrd, there were one or two other studies—all with negative results—that have
received less attention: C. R. B. Joyce and R. M. C. Welldon (1965), “The objective effi-
cacy of prayer: a double-blind clinical trail,” J Chronic Dis. 18: 367–77; P. J. Collipp (1969),
“The efficacy of prayer: a triple-blind study,” Med Times 97: 201–4.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 375

anne harrington c 375

24 There was no attempt to stop family members and others from praying for the people
in the control group, leading to odd discussions about the effects of “background”
prayer and “prayer dosage.”
25 R. J. Byrd (1988), “Positive therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer in a coronary care
unit population,” Southern Medical Journal 81: 826–29. Also available online at
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/smj.pdf.
26 W. S. Harris, M. Gowda, J. W. Kolb et al. (1999), “A randomized, controlled trial of the
effects of remote, intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients admitted to the coronary
care unit,” Arch Intern Med. 159: 2273–78. For the transcript of a March 13, 2001, debate
between Harris and a skeptic, Irwin Tessman, see http://www.csicop.org/articles/2001
0810-prayer.
27 The organization’s official position on the intercessory prayer work it is funding can be
read at: http://www.templeton.org/spirituality_programs.asp.
28 See, for example, Patrick Glynn’s God: The Evidence (Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing,
1997).
29 “Evidence for God from Science: Harmony between the Bible and Science,” http:
//www.godandscience.org/index.html.
30 Cf. Joel James Shuman and Keith G. Meador, Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medicine, and
the Distortion of Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 40–43.
31 It was Dale Matthews who told a group of graduating medical students that the “med-
icine of the future is going to be prayer and Prozac.” See H. Side (1997), “The calibra-
tion of belief,” New York Times Magazine (December 7): 92–95. Reprinted as:
“Prescription: Prayer,” St. Petersburg Times (December 29, 1997): D1–2. Ironically Dale
Matthews’s own widely anticipated study investigating the power of intercessory prayer
at a distance proved disappointing. See Gary P. Posner (2002), “Study Yields No Evi-
dence for Medical Efficacy of Distant Intercessory Prayer: A Follow-up Commentary,”
The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine 6, no. 1 (Winter). Also online at:
http://members.aol.com/garypos/prayerstudyafterpub.html.
32 Cf. here Harold G. Koenig, Michael E. McCullough, David B. Larson, Handbook of Reli-
gion and Health (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 5.
33 Some classic, critical works on American “therapeutic culture” include Philip Rieff, The
Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1966 [1987]); T. J. Jackson Lears, “From Salvation to Self-Realization: Advertising
and the Therapeutic Roots of the Consumer Culture, 1880–1930,” in The Culture of Con-
sumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880–1980, ed. Richard Wightman Fox
and T. J. Jackson Lears (New York: Pantheon, 1983), 1–38.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 376

Heal Thyself 63
Spirituality, Medicine, and Misunderstandings
Harold G. Koenig

S cience and religion have been at odds throughout most of recorded his-
tory. Usually, science uncovers new information that seems to invalidate reli-
gious beliefs or teachings. In the most recent battle between religion and science,
however, conflict seems to have arisen over the exact opposite: findings that appear
to validate the health benefits of religion for humankind and society. And, surpris-
ingly, the strongest objectors in this debate have not been scientists, but theolo-
gians. This essay examines their concerns and attempts to clarify the issues.
Medical and social scientists have over the years collected a lot of evidence that
those who are more religious tend to be healthier, happier, and less burdensome to
society. This research has stimulated a small revolution within the field of medicine
and healthcare more broadly. Surprisingly, such trends have received relatively lit-
tle criticism from other medical researchers, with the exception of primarily one
(Sloan et al. 1999; 2000). As a result, there are signs of growing acceptance of a role
for religion and spirituality within mainstream medicine (Koenig 2001; 2002). This
is particularly notable given that scientific communities typically change their views
only very slowly and over long periods of time.
But another group of critics is put off by efforts to explore the connection
between religion and health. Several articles in popular magazines, medical journals,
and at least one book illustrate the objections to such research by leaders within
the religious community. In the January 27, 1999, issue of The Christian Century, an
article appeared entitled “Faith’s Benefits.” Quoting from that article, “By praising
religion’s health benefits, scientists subtly confirm their own cultural authority”
(77). In the August 2001 issue of the Journal of the South Carolina Medical Associa-
tion, the Reverend Joe Baroody writes, “By claiming that faith heals, the authors
place faith directly in opposition to death, thereby oversimplifying faith’s role in
relation to illness” (347). Most recently, a book entitled Heal Thyself: Spirituality,
Medicine, and the Distortion of Christianity (Shuman and Meador 2002) raised seri-
ous concerns about how the information from such research is being interpreted
and applied.
Objections can be categorized into three major concerns: (1) That health profes-
sionals will encourage people to become religious in order to achieve better health;
(2) that scientists are trying to validate religion, which has traditionally been viewed
by those within the religious field as needing no proof or verification; and (3) that
healthcare professionals, because of their interest in addressing spiritual issues, are
invading the turf of clergy, taking over their role, and squeezing them out of an area
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 377

harold g. koenig c 377

in which they, not health professionals, are the experts. Let us examine each concern
more closely.

Prescribing Religion
As a result of this research, there is concern that doctors will prescribe religion to
nonreligious patients in order to improve their health. For example, physicians may
encourage patients to attend church or pray to God, just as they would suggest that
patients stop smoking or exercise. This use of religion for health purposes alone is
seen as both trivializing and utilitarian.
This argument has two parts. First, it emphasizes that religion has intrinsic value
and worth that are far greater than any health benefits it may confer. In fact, true,
devout faith may prompt people to risk their emotional or physical health in order
to advance the religious cause, as commonly seen among missionaries, prophets,
and martyrs. Religious beliefs often have a cost in terms of self-sacrifice, including
giving up certain pleasures that provide satisfaction and comfort. Thus, devout reli-
gion may not always improve health or relieve suffering. To imply that religion is not
valid unless it enhances health or makes someone feel good is simplistic at best and
heretical at worst.
Second, if a person becomes religious with the primary goal of improving their
health, then better health may not result. While nearly twelve hundred research
studies during the twentieth century explored the relationship between religion and
health (Koenig et al. 2001), no studies examined whether becoming religious only
to achieve health accomplished this result. In fact, nonreligious people who attend
church expecting to cure high blood pressure or strengthen their ability to fight off
disease may be sadly disappointed. If religious teachings make them uncomfort-
able by challenging their lifestyles, stress levels may increase, blood pressures may
rise, and immune function may plummet. While more than six hundred studies
show that people who are religious are healthier, most of these people weren’t reli-
gious just for the health benefits. Rather, better health was likely a natural byprod-
uct of devout faith pursued for its own value.
If these points are valid, then should physicians and nurses seek to bring about
spiritual transformation in order to achieve better health for their patients? I think
not. Bringing about a spiritual transformation in nonreligious patients is not a pri-
mary, or even a secondary, concern for health professionals. It is the clergy who
have been trained to serve as spiritual guides. Thus, it is inappropriate (and proba-
bly unethical) for a physician to prescribe religion as they would penicillin or aspirin
to a nonreligious patient. Such prescriptions would instill expectations that becom-
ing religious for health reasons alone will improve health, which is neither scientif-
ically demonstrated nor theologically sound.
There is much, however, that health professionals can do short of taking on the
clergy’s role. First, at least in America, the vast majority of patients are already reli-
gious. Rather than ignore or devalue this (as has been the custom for the past sev-
eral centuries), should not health professionals recognize the importance of religion
as a resource for health and healing? Although health professionals are not experts
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 378

378 c harold g. koenig

in this area, are there no actions they can properly take to ensure that spiritual needs
are met, while at the same time not overstepping professional boundaries? I think
there are. Taking a spiritual history, showing respect for the patient’s religious beliefs,
and taking a few moments to listen to spiritual concerns without giving advice are
just a few examples.

Science Validating Religion

In today’s culture, science has become for many the ultimate and final source of
authoritative knowledge about the world. Many view religion as simply one other
aspect of the natural world that can be subject to scientific scrutiny and therefore
be either proved or disproved. Theologians object to this. They say that there are
other ways of “knowing” besides science and that there are other sources of truth
beyond the ability of science to verify or disprove them.
Religious leaders are reluctant to give scientists the power to either credit or dis-
credit their sacred beliefs and practices, and it is not surprising that they are
offended by attempts to do so using scientific tools designed to examine natural
phenomena. Examining events that occur outside of Nature belongs squarely in the
province of religion, which, they claim, has its own methods of identifying and
assessing spiritual truth. Many scientists agree with them and believe that religion
and science are not compatible.
Why, then, are biomedical researchers attempting to study the relationship
between religion and health, against objections from both other scientists and many
theologians? To answer this question it is important to understand that two very dif-
ferent approaches are now being taken by researchers in this area. The first, as rep-
resented by double-blinded intercessory prayer studies, seeks to scientifically prove
the supernatural. The second examines the effects of religious belief and practice on
mental and physical health through pathways that are widely acknowledged and
accepted by science.
The first approach, as I see it, is neither scientifically nor theologically credible,
and experts from both sides of the fence should be objecting to such studies. They
lack scientific value because the mechanism by which health effects are thought to
occur is completely outside of the recognized laws that govern the universe. Such
studies do not build on existing scientific knowledge, as research usually does. If the
existence of such effects could be verified, then this would involve a leap in scien-
tific knowledge that has no precedent in human history.
The first approach also raises theological questions that are not easily answered,
at least within a monotheistic Western religious worldview. That view sees the uni-
verse as being governed by an all-powerful, all-knowing, unlimited, and just but
merciful personal God who is well described in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic holy
texts. This is not a God who can be controlled to act within the confines of a research
study, a God who must follow natural laws, a God who has no other purpose for
humankind other than health, and a God who always answers yes—like a magic
genie at our beck and call. Instead, God is portrayed as separate from Creation, act-
ing outside of time and space, above and beyond that which can be scientifically
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 379

harold g. koenig c 379

measured and verified—indeed, a God whose “ways are not man’s ways” and for
whom “a day is like a thousand years.”
In contrast to attempts to prove the supernatural, a second approach relies
entirely on the scientific method. In this case, it is the effects of religious belief and
practice that are of primary interest. This is an entirely different game—this time,
played according to the rules. Over the years, scientists have developed ways of accu-
rately and reliably measuring psychological, social, and physical health. In addition,
literally hundreds of religious measures exist that can assess types of beliefs and
quantify the intensity of those beliefs and their associated behaviors.
From a scientific viewpoint, then, there is absolutely no reason that one cannot
measure a person’s religiousness and observe how this relates to mental, social, or
physical health. Likewise, there is no reason that experiments cannot be undertaken
to increase the religious practices of persons in one group and compare their speed
of healing with that of a control group. This approach should not unduly concern
either theologians or scientists since such research has no bearing on whether or not
God exists and answers prayers or whether the supernatural is “real.” Such an
approach is firmly based within the current scientific model and relies on well-
known psychological, social, and behavioral mechanisms within the field of sci-
ence. The focus is on the consequences of having religious belief and living out those
beliefs, not on whether those beliefs are true or false.

Health Professionals Invading Turf

The third objection by religious professionals, sometimes spoken and sometimes
not, is that if physicians and nurses begin to regularly address spiritual issues, then
this would involve an invasion of turf. Health professionals are not trained to
address patients’ spiritual needs and therefore are limited in what they can do. What
they can do is largely restricted to spiritual assessment. What they cannot do is
address complex spiritual issues or provide spiritual advice on subjects about which
they have little or no knowledge.
Job security, however, is probably the last thing that clergy need worry about if
health professionals become more cognizant and appreciative of the role that spir-
ituality plays in medicine. Most physicians and nurses are already overwhelmed by
their own duties and don’t have time (nor often the desire) to address patients’ spir-
itual needs. The result would most likely be an increase in demand for pastoral serv-
ices—possibly one that would be difficult to meet with existing resources.

Conclusion
Misunderstanding and confusion surround scientific research that is now examin-
ing the relationship between religion and health. This is widespread both among
medical researchers and religious professionals and prevents progress in under-
standing the role that spirituality plays in healthcare. As these misunderstandings
begin to clear, my hope is that religious and health professionals will increasingly see
one another, and religion-health researchers, as allies in a common effort to help
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 380

380 c harold g. koenig

people heal and become whole. Admittedly, the ultimate goals of medicine and reli-
gion are different. The goal of medicine is to relieve suffering and achieve health.
This is not the primary task of religion. However, health and relief of suffering often
result from religion sought after for the right reasons. Because of this, medicine and
religion are connected.

c
Harold G. Koenig, M.D., M.H.Sc., currently is on the faculty at Duke Univer-
sity Medical Center as Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Associ-
ate Professor of Medicine. He is Director and Founder of the Center for the Study
of Religion/Spirituality and Health at that institution and has published extensively
in the fields of mental health, geriatrics, and religion, with nearly 170 scientific peer-
reviewed articles, more than 40 book chapters, and 24 books in print or in prepa-
ration. Dr. Koenig is Editor of the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine and
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Research News & Opportunities in Science and The-
ology. His latest book is Spiritual Caregiving with Verna Carson (Templeton Foun-
dation Press, 2004).

References
Koenig, H. G. (2001). Editorial. Religion, spirituality and medicine: How are they related
and what does it mean? Mayo Clinic Proceedings 76: 1189–91.
——— (2002). An 83-year-old woman with chronic illness and strong religious beliefs.
Journal of the American Medical Association 288: 487–93.
Koenig H. G., McCullough M., and Larson D. B. (2001). Handbook of Religion and Health.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Shuman, J., and Meador, K. (2002). Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medicine, and the Distortion
of Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sloan, R. P., Bagiella, E., and Powell, T. (1999). Religion, spirituality, and medicine. The
Lancet 353: 664–67.
Sloan, R. P., Bagiella, E., VandeCreek, L., Hover, M., Casalone, C., Hirsch, T. J., Hasan, Y.,
Kreger, R. (2000). Should physicians prescribe religious activities? New England Journal
of Medicine 342: 1913–16.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 381

Can the Body

Heal the Spirit? 64
Ted Peters

W e find ourselves in a struggle between flesh and spirit, says St. Paul in the
New Testament. When the spirit wins, we enjoy the fruits: “love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22).
When the flesh takes control, it drives us to “fornication, impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy,
drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (Gal 5:19–20). The question I wish to
pose now is: Can our body influence the spirit? If we are born with a genetic pre-
disposition toward the things of the flesh, does it make the task of spiritual growth
impossible, or at least more difficult? If we devise a pharmaceutical to overcome an
inherited genetic predisposition, could such therapy be considered growth in the
spirit?

Flesh and Spirit vs. Body and Soul

Before we proceed further, I’d like to introduce a theological clarification. The strug-
gle between flesh and spirit ought not to be equated simply with the distinction
between body and soul, even though many have lived vibrantly with this partially
misleading equation. In St. Paul’s theology, both body and soul are caught up in the
war between flesh and spirit. Flesh and spirit are forces exerted on body and soul,
even if it seems at first glance that flesh wells up out of the body to contaminate the
soul while spirit strengthens the soul so it can gain control over the body. Therefore,
by “flesh” we mean the body at war with the Spirit of God; fleshly forces can dim the
soul, coercing it into doing their bidding. The countervailing force of the divine
Spirit liberates the self, both body and soul, from fleshly degradation.
Despite the above clarification, Stoics and ancient Christian theologians tended
to associate flesh with body and spirit with soul. They dubbed the former our “lower
nature” and the latter our “higher nature.” The spiritual task, they said, was to cul-
tivate the life of the mind or soul so that our higher nature could gain control over
our lower nature. We are born dominated by our body; we should die victoriously
free in the life of the liberated mind. Our higher natures cleave to sublime thoughts
about God, to virtuous ideals such as justice and beauty, to moral integrity, and to
mental disciplines such as prayer and meditation. These higher thoughts are eter-
nal, whereas thoughts about cravings dictated by the body are ephemeral. Strength
in the soul enables the higher or spiritual dimension to gain freedom from our bod-
ies through control over the source of fleshly desire. Whether they used the word
“soul” or “mind,” they were actually seeking victory for the spirit. The result of such
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 382

382 c ted peters

thinking led to centuries of spiritual practices where the goal was to gain mental
control over the physical, immaterial control over the material, and hence spiritual
control over the flesh.

Biological Reductionism vs. Human Freedom

This history of spiritual thought provides a valuable resource for assessing the rapid
pace of developing knowledge about human nature rising out of research in molec-
ular biology and the neurosciences. Although to date the experiments have been
few and empirically reliable information remains fractional at best, a mood of
genetic determinism and biological reductionism is beginning to emerge.
Researchers are looking for genetic predispositions to mental states and propensi-
ties toward antisocial behavior, and brain researchers are looking for the roots of
intellectual and emotional processes in neuronal activity. Yet, even as the specters of
genetic determinism and biological reductionism are looming on the horizon, reli-
gious reactions to such thinking could be plastic and protean, given what we have
just noted regarding the tradition of theological thinking about the struggle between
flesh and spirit.
Is contemporary science about to take away our freedom? Are biologists about to
imprison the human spirit in a fleshly jail? Is our higher nature reducible to our
lower nature, so that the spirit no longer has leverage to deal with our fleshly desires?
The level of alarm need not be this shrill. There is no need to react like Pavlov’s
dogs in defense of human freedom against the alleged scientific jailers. There is no
need to avoid the science on the grounds that it is irrelevant to truths already firmly
and independently established by religion.

Genes, Nurture, and Antisocial Behavior

Let us take a brief look at a single scientific study, the kind we would expect from
those seeking biological explanations for human behavior. Under the hypothesis of
genetic determinism or, perhaps more modestly, genetic influence, questions are
being asked about biological factors in human behavior. This becomes especially rel-
evant to theology when the behavior in question is either sinful or virtuous. Do
genes make us sin? If so, does this contradict or complement what Christian the-
ologians have previously thought about our bodily inheritance and its influence on
the soul, or even on the spiritual dimension of who we are?
Our sample study—we will nickname it the “X chromosome study”—addresses
the question of genetic influence in moderating environmental factors affecting
human behavior, specifically antisocial or criminal behavior. The conclusion is that
if a certain gene regulator on the X chromosome permits only a low level of expres-
sion of the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, which governs a neurotransmit-
ter-metabolizing enzyme in the brain, then young boys have an increased risk of
going to jail; conversely, a higher level of this gene’s expression reduces the risk of
engaging in the kind of antisocial behavior that makes a young man jail bound.
The X chromosome study looked at young boys, maltreated in their youth, whom
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 383

ted peters c 383

we would expect to grow up to become criminals. Yet, an identifiable level of a cer-

tain gene’s activity seems to reduce the otherwise fatalistic power of a family envi-
ronment of abuse (Caspi et al. 2002). The research question was formulated thus:
Why do some male children who are maltreated in their homes grow up to develop
antisocial behavior traits while others do not?
The assumptions orienting the research question are worth noting. First, male
children rather than female children were selected because the researchers were
already looking for a factor that only the male gender carries on the X chromosome
—that is, they assumed that the antisocial behavior in question is a gender-specific
phenomenon. Second, the researchers assumed that maltreatment of young boys
increases the risk that they will grow up exhibiting antisocial personality symptoms
and conduct disorders and will become violent offenders—that is, they assumed
that a social environment of victimization exerts a strong influence toward becom-
ing a victimizer.
With these assumptions in hand, the researchers built their experiment on top of
a previous study of one thousand children, half boys and half girls, who were
assessed for maltreatment at ages 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21, and 26. Of these, 8 percent
were categorized as having experienced “severe maltreatment” between years 3 and
11; 28 percent were dubbed as “probable maltreatment” cases; and 64 percent expe-
rienced no maltreatment. The researchers focused on the first category, 26-year-old
males who had been severely maltreated between the ages of 3 and 11, and slated
them for genetic testing. Then on the X chromosome they examined the gene for
MAOA, or actually the promoter or regulatory sequence for this gene expression.
They found a polymorphism that down-regulates gene activity. Those young men
whose MAOA gene exhibited low expression levels were much more likely to exhibit
aggressive antisocial behavior and become incarcerated for violent crimes than those
whose gene exhibited a high level of expression.
The research team noted that the effect of childhood maltreatment on antisocial
behavior was significantly weaker among males with high MAOA activity. More
broadly, they noted that maltreated males with a low MAOA-activity genotype were
more likely than nonmaltreated males with this genotype to be convicted of a vio-
lent crime by a significant ratio, thereby reinforcing the environmental assumption
identified above. Finally, the scientists concluded that the association between mal-
treatment and antisocial behavior is conditional, depending on a child’s MAOA
genotype. In sum, environmental or social influences are relevant but insufficient
to explain antisocial behavior. Genotype must be factored in. DNA is decisive.
As we tease out the significance of this X chromosome research, we note that
both assumptions and conclusions are deterministic in structure. They begin with
the assumption of environmental determinism—if young boys are maltreated, then
they will grow up antisocial—and then shift to genetic determinism—gene expres-
sion exacerbates or mitigates environmental influence. The net effect of both the
assumptions and the conclusions is that some boys are born into situations in which
the combination of gene expression and social context heavily determine what kind
of person they will be in adult society.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 384

384 c ted peters

Are We Born Morally Neutral?

Do such findings by contemporary science contradict or complement what the-
ologians have traditionally believed? We could imagine that a modern Pelagian
might want to defy the science of the X chromosome study by asserting that we are
born morally neutral, that we enter the world and grow up with the capacity to
decide equally between right and wrong. In the fifth century, Pelagius himself actu-
ally showed little interest in the concept of original sin; his thesis was that human
beings could take initiative toward salvation from our natural state without the aid
of divine grace. Yet the Pelagian tradition down to modern humanism emphasizes
original neutrality over original sin. Good and evil here are thought to be equal
options standing before a freely deciding human psyche. So, assumptions about
determinism, either biological or social, would have to be dismissed as compro-
mising this morally neutral anthropology. Science must be mistaken if it asserts
that some, if not all, of us are driven by birth or by rearing toward an ineluctable
propensity for evil behavior. The theological position that we are born morally neu-
tral will find rough sledding in this scientific environment.
An Augustinian, in contrast, might see such scientific research as partially demon-
strating what Christians have known all along—that we emerge from our mother’s
womb with a self-orientation that makes loving God and loving neighbor contra-
dictory to our innate propensity. We are born homo incurvatus in se, curved in on
ourselves. It takes an act of divine grace to reorient us toward loving God and lov-
ing our neighbor as we would love ourselves. It takes the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit to orient our hearts and wills and minds toward expressing the fruits of the
Spirit.
Now, what we have in theology is much broader and more sweeping in scope
than what appears in such a scientific study, to be sure. Such research does not even
ask about the total orientation of the human self. It deals only with one segment of
human behavior and a pattern of behavior that applies to some, but not all, of us.
Does this obviate the value of comparing science and theology? By no means. Such
science is still quite relevant to theological anthropology. If genetic inheritance and
social inheritance combine to predispose us to behavior with moral valence in some
cases, then we can hypothesize that some level of genetic and environmental deter-
minism has an effect on everyone’s life. Our genes and our family experience pro-
vide both opportunity and constraint for us to become the kind of person we will
grow up to be.
Further, although we are focusing here on the predisposition toward sinful behav-
ior, in another setting we might provide a parallel analysis of caring behavior. I
believe we can safely assume that favorable genotypes and certainly loving family
contexts increase a child’s opportunity to grow up with high-minded values and
an increased capacity for loving his or her neighbor.
Further still, a nuance related to the X chromosome study might be worth pon-
dering here. The young men studied were victims of maltreatment. We might wish
to ask: Do they love themselves? Does their overwhelming experience of abuse per-
mit the emergence of self-love, or might maltreatment more likely retard the growth
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 385

ted peters c 385

of self-worth and leave the child with self-loathing? Might the antisocial behavior
in question be an expression of self-hatred rather than a self-love unable to expand
to include others? If the Augustinian lens through which sin is interpreted is this—
sin is too much love for self and not enough love for God or neighbor—then per-
haps we need a more subtle analysis of the young men in the X chromosome study.
If scripture is right that we love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19), then per-
haps all of us, these young men included, need first to experience love before the
capacity to love either self or neighbor can develop. Perhaps we need to experience
unconditional love before we can develop the capacity to love others uncondition-
ally. This may be the way grace works in a redemptive way.

Original Sin as Inherited Sin

The theological language of original sin creates discordant sounds in the ears of
modern intellectuals. The concept is unwelcome, even shunned. Perhaps this shun-
ning is due to the historical connotations of the term “original.” The picture painted
by Augustine is that Adam and Eve committed the first sin, the original sin, in the
Garden of Eden; and through procreation they have passed this fallen state on to
each subsequent generation. We all inherit—and participate—in Adam’s sin.
This prompts two contemporary objections. First, our modern notions of justice
would limit our responsibility to our own sins; we should not be held accountable
for an action of someone else, such as Adam or Eve. This is a Pelagian objection built
on the assumptions that we are born as isolated individuals disconnected to human-
ity as a whole and born with moral neutrality accompanied by the freedom to
choose between two equal options, good and evil. The second objection is that the
Augustinian history is apparently no longer acceptable in a Darwinian era. The
dominance of the theory of evolution with its deep time and epic of human emer-
gence from previous species has no room for a myth of origin that places the human
race in a prior state of grace. The Garden of Eden cannot be located geographically
or geologically. Rather than a fall from a pristine state, modern science sees the
human race arising from a long struggle characterized by natural selection and sur-
vival of the fittest.
It seems to me that the concept of “original” in the context of sin does not require
a history that includes a past Garden of Eden with a now-lost perfection; nor does
it require blaming Adam and Eve for our own moral condition. Rather, it is suffi-
cient for “original” to refer to the “origin” of each one of us. Our own individual ori-
gin is characterized by conditioning—genetic conditioning and family-context
conditioning. We are born with opportunities and constraints over which we had
no original control, and some of this conditioning influences our predisposition to
behavior toward others.
Perhaps we might retrieve here the theological term “inherited sin.” When the
Augsburg Confession discusses “original sin,” we read that all of us who are con-
ceived according to nature are born into sin, that we are “full of evil lust and incli-
nations” from our mothers’ wombs onward, that we are unable by nature to have
true fear of God and true faith in God. This state is referred to as Erbsunde, “inborn
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 386

386 c ted peters

sickness and hereditary sin” (Article II). In Institutes of the Christian Religion, John
Calvin similarly interprets the concept of original sin so that what we inherit
becomes prominent: “Original sin, therefore, seems to be a hereditary depravity
and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes
us liable to God’s wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture
calls ‘works of the flesh’” (II:i:8).
Much is being said here. The single item I would like to lift up is the ease with
which such theological thinking accepts the notion of inheritance. When we are
born, we find ourselves already conditioned, already predisposed toward a life that
is alienated from God’s will, even alienated from faith in God. Although the pre-
sumption here is that this inheritance is physical—that is, passed on through con-
ception and birth—the point is that we begin our life of moral responsibility already
conditioned by factors beyond our control. It is certainly consistent, then, for Social
Gospel theologians such as Walter Rauschenbusch early in the last century to
observe how prejudice and social discrimination are passed down from one gener-
ation to the next; and it is consistent for liberal theologians today to incorporate
observations about social inheritance—what liberation theologians and feminist
theologians call “social location” or “systemic evil”—into our understanding of the
human condition. Whether biological or social, innate or environmental, we begin
our morally responsible life with a specific inheritance and a predisposition toward
behaving in specific ways.

Fruits of the Spirit

Let us speculate. Suppose a clever medical scientist could invent a pharmaceutical
capable of up-regulating the expression of MAOA. Suppose the young boys sub-
jected to family abuse could have access to MAOA therapy. And suppose that this
genetic therapy strengthens the influence of genetic determinants over environ-
mental determinants. Suppose the result would be that when attaining adulthood
these young men would possess a greater sense of social responsibility exercised
through greater self-control. Theologically speaking, should we consider this to be
a fruit of the spirit?
Let me offer a qualified “yes” in answer. As Augustine sorts out the dialectic of sin
and grace in Enchiridion, he begins with bondage to sin and then moves to liberty
from it: “He who is the servant of sin is free to sin. And, hence, he will not be free
to do right, until, being freed from sin, he shall begin to be the servant of right-
eousness. And this is true liberty” (chapter XXX). Might we think of the combina-
tion of genetic predisposition and maltreatment in youth as a form of bondage?
And might we think of medical therapy that readies a person for increased self-
control a form of liberation?
Note a pitfall I am trying to avoid here: that of defining the question in terms of
metaphysics. If we are assuming that the distinction between body and soul, or the
conflict between flesh and spirit, are metaphysical divisions, then the situation
would be conceptually hopeless. If we would assume that body and soul are differ-
ent substances and that flesh and spirit are metaphysical opposites, then the spiri-
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 387

ted peters c 387

tual conflict precipitated by gene function would be unanalyzable. However, if we

presume that a person is a psychosomatic unity, that who we are as persons is inclu-
sive of both body and soul, then their interaction at the level of the human self
becomes accessible.
Recall that earlier I suggested that we can best understand flesh and spirit as
forces, not merely as alternative terms for body and soul. One of the fruits of the
spirit in St. Paul’s list is “self-control.” No matter what genotype we are born with
or what family pattern of rearing we experience, self-control remains an achieve-
ment that each self must attain in the maturing process. In common parlance, “self-
control” means what it says, namely, the self takes over a level of control that was
previously under the hegemony of bodily cravings and social influences. If a phar-
maceutical could enhance one’s capacity for self-control, such therapy could very
well be thought of as a spiritual force. That such therapy works on the body does not
make it any less spiritual. Nor does it make medical therapy anything less than an
expression of God’s grace in the life of a person who benefits from it.
Need we theologians become anxious that modern medicine will put us out of a
job? No worry is fitting here. The struggle between flesh and spirit is a big one, and
winning one little battle over genetic expression of MAOA does not in itself indi-
cate that we are ready to declare total victory in the war against the flesh. The spirit’s
orchard covers many acres, and there are many more fruits of empowering grace
that the Holy Spirit can cultivate through either our body or our soul.

c
Ted Peters, Ph.D., received his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1973
and is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Cur-
rently, he serves as Professor of Systematic Theology at Pacific Lutheran Theologi-
cal Seminary, of which he is the former president, and at the Graduate Theological
Union in Berkeley, California. Professor Peters is editor of Dialog, A Journal of The-
ology and co-editor of Theology and Science. He is author of GOD—The World’s
Future (Fortress, 2000); Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom
(Routledge, 2002); and Science, Theology, and Ethics (Ashgate, 2003). He is also co-
editor of Bridging Science and Religion (Fortress, 2003). From 1990 to 1994, Profes-
sor Peters worked as Principal Investigator on a research grant from the U.S.
National Institutes of Health, “Theological and Ethical Questions Raised by the
Human Genome Project.” From 1998 to 2002, he directed the “Science and Religion
Course Program” at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.

References
The Augsburg Confession, in The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church, edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert. Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 2000.
Augustine, The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love. Washington: Gateway, 1961.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 388

388 c ted peters

Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated and annotated by Ford Lewis
Battles. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975.
Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John T. McNeill, Library of Chris-
tian Classics XX, XXI. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960.
Caspi, Avshalom, Joseph McClay, Terrie E. Moffitt, Jonathan Mill, Judy Martin, Ian W.
Craig, Alan Taylor, and Richie Poulton, “Role of Genotype in the Cycle of Violence in
Maltreated Children,” Science 297 (2 August 2002): 851–54.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 389

Mental Health, Spiritual

Information, and the Power of
the Mind to Shape the Brain
65
Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Suppose I say of a friend: “He isn’t an automaton.”

What information is conveyed by this, and to whom would it be information? To a

human being who meets him in ordinary circumstances? What information could it
give him? (At the very most that this man always behaves like a human being, and
not occasionally like a machine.)

“I believe that he is not an automaton,” just like that, so far makes no sense.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Part II, Section IV

T he new science of brain imaging has already amply demonstrated that, with
appropriate training and effort, people are capable of rewiring brain circuitry
associated with a variety of mental and physical states. For example, people suffer-
ing from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a neuropsychiatric condition that
causes thoughts and urges to intrude into the stream of daily experience, can change
the brain activity associated with that condition (see Figures 1a and 1b). This is done
by applying basic principles of mental training developed in the course of my work
at the University of California, Los Angeles, over the past decade.

Figures 1a and 1b. PET scan of a person with OCD before and after treatment. Figure 1a (PRE)
shows the brain before and Figure 1b (POST) shows the brain ten weeks after behavioral therapy
with no medication. Note in Figure 1b the decrease in “size,” which signifies decreased energy use
in the right caudate (rCd) nucleus (which appears on the left side of a PET scan) after treatment.
Reprinted with permission from Archives of General Psychiatry, February 1996, Volume 53, page 112.
© 1996, American Medical Association. All rights reserved.1
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 390

390 c jeffrey m. schwartz

Further, and quite importantly, studies have demonstrated that directed mental
effort can alter brain function in normal people undergoing stressful situations.
The brain’s responses even to experiences as basic as sexual arousal can be readily
modified by simple willfully applied acts of the mind. In my recent book The Mind
and The Brain, co-authored with Sharon Begley, we coined the term “self-directed
neuroplasticity” to serve as a general description of the principle that focused train-
ing and effort can change brain function in ways that permit people to potentially
become active participants in the treatment of their own medical and psychologi-
cal conditions.
The possible application of this recent work to the design and discovery of new
approaches to the treatment of brain-related diseases is obviously of great practical
importance. Because this approach to treatment carries with it the explicit message
that people can change their own brain function, it can have a potentially profound
impact on issues concerning the culture of public health. Further, and crucially,
these findings can help us shed new light on the critical question of the relationship
of the striving human spirit to the biological matter of the human body.
Beyond the obvious clinical significance of scientifically demonstrating that
humans can, with appropriate effort and training, rewire their own brain circuitry,
perhaps the most important aspect of this research is its implications for our under-
standing of the role of willfully directed attention in shaping brain activity. Scien-
tific research on the workings of the human brain tends to assume that what the
brain does in any given situation is understandable in ways that view people as basi-
cally no different than machines. For instance, a person, let’s call her Susan, is shown
pictures depicting emotionally or perhaps sexually arousing scenes while images
are made of the inner workings of her brain. Certain brain areas are noted to be acti-
vated. The scientist generally concludes that the observed brain activity is the cause
of the emotional and other responses Susan is observed to have. All well and good,
as far as it goes. And all quite passive and machinelike from Susan’s point of view;
all she had to do was remain reasonably awake and alert while the pictures were
shown to her. What was being studied was how her brain machinery operates in that
situation.
While this may be quite interesting to know for a scientist, it doesn’t tell us very
much about Susan as a person, and tells us close to nothing at all about her as a striv-
ing and willfully directed spiritual being. But if, as happens in a growing number of
studies, Susan were encouraged to make an active response aimed at systematically
altering the nature of her emotional response to what she was being shown—for
example, by actively performing a new therapy skill she had been taught—under-
standing the experiment merely as a study of her brain’s machinery would actually
miss the basic point of the whole experiment. For in such a situation the point
would be to show that Susan was able to change how her brain works by applying her
new knowledge. This is especially true when one is doing medical research on how
to develop improved methods for altering the emotional and brain responses to
stressful stimuli. In such a case, we would not merely be studying Susan the human
machine. We would be working together with Susan, a human person who was
applying her new knowledge to help us discover better ways to treat brain-related
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 391

jeffrey m. schwartz c 391

emotional problems. By doing that she would also be proving that by using her
mind she could change how her brain works. And this is an action that, beyond
doubt, has true spiritual content, insofar as it empowers the value-laden inner life
of a person to transcend the merely mechanical aspects of the material machinery
of the brain. It thus provides a scientifically accessible context in which to demon-
strate the capacity of self-aware and knowledge-seeking spiritual beings to reshape,
through directed effort, their most deeply entrenched biological processes.
Simply stated, confusion concerning the relative importance of physical and men-
tal aspects of the human condition can lead literally to fatal confusion about causes
and effects in the study of human behavior. Tricky though it sometimes is to sort out
these kinds of “chicken and egg” questions, serious investigators of the human con-
dition must make a good-faith effort to do so. This is especially so when the inves-
tigation involves facts that are value-laden and can critically influence ethical choices
we make about the world we live in.
In the case of studying psychological treatments and their physical effects, the dis-
tinction between mind and brain becomes absolutely critical. That’s because if one
simply assumes the most common belief of our era of medical research, namely
that all aspects of emotional response are passively determined by biological (and
especially brain) mechanisms, then developing genuinely effective self-directed psy-
chological strategies that cause real changes in how the brain works becomes, in
principle, impossible. The treating clinician thus becomes locked into the view,
often without even realizing it, that the psychological treatment of ailments caused
by physical brain-based problems is not a realistic goal.
There is already a wealth of data arguing against this view. For instance, the work
in the 1990s on patients with OCD referred to above demonstrated significant brain
changes in those who responded to psychological treatment. More recently, work by
Mario Beauregard and colleagues at the University of Montreal have demonstrated
brain changes after psychological therapy for spider phobia. There are now many
scientific reports on the effects of self-directed regulation of emotional responses in
conditions such as depression, panic anxiety, pathological shyness, and so on; the list
continues to grow. Similar findings showing that self-directed effort can help heal
the brain have even been made in such serious medical conditions as stroke and
some forms of paralysis. Thus, the limitations and restrictions caused by even pro-
foundly damaged biological matter can be transcended, and the brain itself re-
formed, by the directed striving that epitomizes the capacity of a the human spirit
to prevail over adversity.
One aspect of willful mental activity seems particularly critical to the effective
application of self-directed therapy: dispassionate self-observation, frequently called
“mindfulness” or “mindful awareness.” This mental act of clear-minded contem-
plation and scrutiny has a long and distinguished history in the description of
human mental states. The most systematic and extensive description is in the canon-
ical texts of classical Buddhism. Because of the critical importance of this type of
close attentiveness in the practice of Buddhist meditation, some of its most refined
descriptions in English are in texts concerned with meditative practice (although it
is of critical importance to realize that the mindful mental state does not require any
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 392

392 c jeffrey m. schwartz

specific meditation practice to acquire and is certainly not in any sense a “trancelike”
state). One particularly well-established description, referred to as “bare attention,”
is as follows:
Bare attention is the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually
happens to us and in us at the successive moments of perception. It is called
“Bare” because it attends just to the bare facts of a perception as presented
either through the five physical senses or through the mind . . . without
reacting to them.2
Perhaps the essential aspect of mindful observation is that you are just watching,
observing all facts, both inner and outer, very calmly, clearly, and closely.
This mental action is the core aspect of all self-regulation, for it is the means by
which self-regulating strategies are performed. It is the essential ingredient of what
the ancient Stoics called “self-command,” the core element of controlling one’s own
responses to life’s ups and downs. That is because mindful awareness is the mental
act whereby one monitors whether the act of regulating one’s responses is actually
being effectively performed; that is, mindfulness is the way in which one evaluates
whether one is, in fact, coping more successfully with stress. In a nutshell, bare atten-
tion is the key to putting self-regulating strategies into practice.
When observing and modulating one’s own mental states, the mind plays a will-
ful role in which it actively affects the brain and is not merely affected by it. High-
lighting the active role of the mind in self-regulation is critical for a proper
understanding of what is actually happening when a person directs his or her inner
resources to the challenging task of modifying emotional responses. It takes effort
for people to do this. That is because it requires a redirection of the brain’s resources
away from responses controlled largely by lower brain centers and toward higher-
level functions that are associated with parts of the brain unique to human beings.
This does not happen automatically. Rather, it requires willful training and directed
effort. This is precisely why the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith, following the
ancient Stoics, so extolled the development of self-command as the source of all
human greatness. As he put it, “Self-command is not only itself a great virtue, but
from it all other virtues seem to derive their principal lustre.” The use of mindful
awareness is the practical key that opens up the human capacity for self-regula-
tion. The application of bare attention to one’s own mental processes is the activ-
ity that leads to the development of the human mind’s full potential. And as we now
know, because of advances in scientific understanding, it is an act of the mind that
is capable of rewiring the brain. The fact that immaterial mental states can causally
influence the material workings of the brain is thus becoming established within the
paradigmatic realm of mainstream science. As described in detail in a recent pub-
lication co-authored with theoretical physicist Henry Stapp, “the effects of mental-
istically described human intentional actions upon the physically described systems”
of the brain (Schwartz et al., 2004, italic in original),3 is now something all scien-
tifically oriented investigators, whatever their spiritual inclinations, must take into
account.
Scientists and other technocratic elites pride themselves on being precise, yet
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 393

jeffrey m. schwartz c 393

when it comes to questions concerning the ethical and spiritual nature of human
beings they too frequently use language glibly. They refer to willfully acting people
with words that are more appropriate to the description of machines. As the
philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein so lucidly pointed out in the quotation with which
we began this discussion, the string of words “I believe that he is not an automaton,”
just like that, so far makes no sense. This is so because of the plain fact that state-
ments about the motives and ethics of people we interact with on a regular basis
always convey spiritual information. Our intrinsic capacity to connect empathi-
cally with people we genuinely respect and love conveys real information to both
them and us, information that is an inextricable aspect of both their and our spir-
itual natures. This is a core truth that exists prior to and is a requirement for gen-
uinely intimate communication among humans in the real world. There is no need
to prove that my best friend is not a machine—that the word “friend” has clear
meaning is proof enough. Even so, it seems somehow reassuring that twenty-first-
century brain science is now ready to reaffirm that fact.

c
Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., Research Professor of Psychiatry at the University of
California, Los Angeles, is a seminal thinker in the field of self-directed neuroplas-
ticity. His major interest has been brain imaging/functional neuroanatomy and cog-
nitive-behavioral therapy, with a focus on the pathological mechanisms and
psychological treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dr. Schwartz is the
author of The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force,
more than one hundred scientific publications, and two popular books: Brain Lock:
Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior and Dear Patrick: Letters to a Young
Man. He received an honors degree in philosophy from the University of Rochester.
In the 1970s, he began to immerse himself in Buddhist philosophy—in particular,
the philosophy of mindfulness, or conscious awareness—and it became his goal to
find a scientific underpinning for the belief that mindfulness affects how the brain
works. In the 1990s, he made his key discovery: that cognitive behavioral therapy is
capable of changing the activity in a specific brain circuit of patients with obsessive-
compulsive disorder. This breakthrough provided hard evidence that the mind can
systematically change the brain’s chemistry and that it can do so through the clas-
sic Buddhist idea of mindfulness.

Notes
1 Schwartz, J. M., Stoessel, P. W., Baxter, L. R., et al. (1996). Systematic changes in cerebral
glucose metabolic rate after successful behavior modification treatment of obsessive-
compulsive disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry 53: 109–13.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 394

394 c jeffrey m. schwartz

2 Nyanaponika, Thera. (1973). The Heart of Buddhist Meditation. York Beach, ME: Samuel
Weiser, 30.
3 Schwartz, J. M., Stapp, H. P., Beauregard, M. (2004). The volitional influence of the
mind on the brain, with special reference to emotional self-regulation. In Beauregard
M. (Ed.). Consciousness, Emotional Self-Regulation and the Brain. Amsterdam and
Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 195–238.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 395

Navajo Spirituality 66
Native American Wisdom and Healing in the Modern World
Lori Arviso Alvord

I am a member of the Navajo Tribe, and the first Navajo woman to become a sur-
geon. Currently, I practice at Dartmouth Medical School. My surgical practice is
based on years of the careful, disciplined, and difficult training of the U.S. medical
school system to master the art and science of medicine and my specialty in general
surgery. In my professional life, I am able to bring healing to my patients using the
benefits of this long training, drawing together the best of medical research and
surgical innovation gained over the last century of medical progress. Yet I also carry
with me another kind of long learning as a person, which comes from my people,
the Navajo. This learning cannot be dated. It includes senses of the word “healing”
that are quite different from what the term usually connotes in the halls of Dart-
mouth Medical School.
Part of my vision of life is to combine what is best from both worlds—as differ-
ent as they are. And, even more ambitiously, I hope that the dynamism of the world
of medical research will understand the insights that we Navajo cherish and will
expand and multiply them. Spirituality and healing are intertwined in our cere-
monies. An examination of some of the principles of our ceremonies may be one
vision of what “expanding spiritual information” can be.
If we contemplate the existence of our Creator, it would stand to reason that our
Creator would provide a spirituality that would mirror the beauty and vastness of
the world that S/He created. And this spirituality would not be separate from the rest
of daily living, but rather, interwoven, united with all things.
When Europeans first encountered Native American cultures, they dismissed
much of it as inferior. Indigenous religions were considered primitive compared
with other theologies. Yet a deeper look reveals a connectedness and complexity
that rivals that of the universe itself. In the belief system of my tribe, we use cere-
monies that are blueprints for how to live a life that is whole and balanced, a life con-
nected to all of Creation, a life that honors all living things. All wisdom, all life,
arises from one source: Sa’a naghaii bik’e hozho, which literally means “To travel
along life’s path with spiritual beauty.” This is also the name of a unifying force that
is within all things, connects all things, and creates all things. Healers, medicine
men in our tribe, have described it as “Universal Mind,” indicating that this force has
consciousness and exists throughout the universe. Because it is within all things, we
learn that we, as humans, are not separate from other humans or the rest of our
world. It is said that the First Man carried this force up through four previous worlds
in his medicine bundle. This journey, by the way, mirrors evolution. The First World
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 396

396 c lori arviso alvord

was filled with “mist beings”; the Second, with insects and small animals; the Third,
with larger animals; and the Fourth, with humans.
Our ceremonies teach us to live in hozho, a word that describes a combination of
beauty, balance, and harmony. It includes the teaching that humans should honor
and respect other humans, a practice that is capable of creating family and work-
place stability. This reduces the likelihood of destructive relationships. When oth-
ers are honored and respected, the self-esteem of all rises, and the byproducts of low
self-esteem—hatred of self and others, depression, and fear—are diminished. Strong
interpersonal relationships help build strong families and communities. An inter-
generational approach to raising children creates a safety net that protects them in
the event that the “nuclear family” is ineffective. We also learn that elders should be
respected for their wisdom; this helps counteract elder abuse or neglect.
Hozho is extended to the realm of thoughts. In this world, it is possible to “speak
something into existence.” Therefore, Navajos avoid speaking in a negative way
about the future. The expectation of good outcomes, also known as “positive think-
ing,” is a cornerstone of Navajo culture. Positive thinking has been embraced by
Western civilization and shown to produce positive outcomes. Optimists live longer;
athletes who visualize success are more likely to achieve it. It actually is possible to
think something into existence.
Hozho and positive thinking have another benefit. The practice of seeking to
reduce conflict and produce positive outcomes reduces stress, and stress reduction
has been found to have healthy side effects. The field of psychoneuroimmunology
has shown that stress and depression are capable of suppressing the immune system,
which in turn interferes with our ability to fight infections and to defend against
cancer. Ceremonies encourage this process as well through physical and mental/spir-
itual purification. The prayers and chants are vivid examples of guided imagery and
create powerful images for the mind to use for rebalancing. Here is an example
excerpted from “The Night Chant,” our winter ceremony, which includes more than
750 chants, including this one:
House made of Dawn
House made of Morning Light
House made of Evening Light,
With the light fall of the she-rain,
With the jagged lightning high above,
On the trail of pollen,
With Beauty (Hozho) before me,
There may I walk.
With Beauty behind me,
There may I walk.
With Beauty above me,
There may I walk,
With Beauty below me,
There may I walk,
With Beauty all around me, there may I walk.
In Beauty (Hozho) it is finished.
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 397

lori arviso alvord c 397

Recently, art has been shown to be a healing force. When the mind encounters
certain forms of art, the joy, delight, or awe it experiences is capable of relieving
stress, of counteracting depression, and through psychoneuroimmunology (mind-
body medicine) of possibly helping the immune system. Those who produce art
sometimes say that it comes through them, rather than from them. The creation
process has its own energy. Navajo ceremonies include layers upon layers of art—
from multiple sources, but designed to be woven together, integrated. From the
power and beauty of the chants and the images they evoke to the powerful rhythms
of the drums and the music that carries the words forward, art moves through cer-
emonies as both the background and the foreground, as both the earth and the air.
Art is expressed in paintings created with sand. The Yeii’is (katchinas), our spiritual
guardians, are represented in the sandpainting images (see Photo 1), visual
metaphors of the stories the ceremonies describe. These intricate designs are created
with great attention to detail, but their images are returned back to Mother Earth
at the end of the ceremony. In the same way, art is made manifest by dancers who
represent the spiritual beings and animal guardians described by the ceremonies.
Headdresses (of deerskin, buffalo skins, eagle feathers, and spruce branches), buck-
skin clothing, and moccasins are created. Beauty and art are present in even the
smallest objects used in ceremonies. Medicine bundles contain beautiful buckskin
bags of corn pollen, prayer feathers, small carved animal spiritual guardians, and
bundles of earth from the four sacred mountains. The combined effect is a tapes-
try that deeply endorses the belief that art has the power to heal, that art is not sep-
arate from spirituality (see Photo 2).

Photo 1. Medicine
man and large sand-
painting of Yeii’is, or
spiritual guardians.
[From Navajo
(New York: Harry N.
Abrams, Inc., 1995).
Copyright 1995
Susanne Page
and Jake Page.]

This spirituality goes beyond the individual to elements that strengthen the health
of entire communities and the natural world. Ceremonies reinforce the belief that
we live in harmony with the animal world and the natural world. Humans have val-
ued many things, but they often assign greatest value to those they consider family,
or that which they consider sacred. Many Native American tribes have assigned
both a spiritual and a familial value to the animal world and the environment. The
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 398

398 c lori arviso alvord

earth is “Mother,” the sky “Father.” The eagle and bear are “Brother.” Mother Earth
is sacred in her mountains and valleys. The relationship of humans and their envi-
ronment is therefore one of deep respect, a desire to protect and defend the animal
world and the environment. The protective element provided by spirituality has
direct healing effects on human beings: By keeping the environment protected, we
have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, clean earth in which to grow plants.
We are shielded from the illness that results when our world becomes toxified.

Photo 2.
“Sacred mountain”
tapestry showing that
art is not separate
from spirituality.
[Courtesy of Museum of North-
ern Arizona Photo Archives,
(81C.24).

A message of sustainable living is found within our ceremonies. The “Night

Chant” carries a warning within it, in a story known as “The Dream of the Blue
Rams.” Ages ago, it is said, a boy had a dream. In the dream, rams with blue faces
came and told the boy that the men of the tribe who hunted game had taken more
food than they needed and that this had thrown the world off balance. They added
that if this continued, the rams would make the game scarce, and the people would
starve. The boy awoke and went to the men who led the hunting and told them
about the dream. The men told him, “Go back to your dreaming, and let us do the
hunting.” And what the rams predicted came to pass, and the people suffered greatly.
They then remembered, and they listened. Even today, Navajos remember and prac-
tice the teachings of the “Night Chant”: “Never take more than you need, use every-
thing fully, give some of what you have to those who cannot hunt for themselves, and
leave everything the way it was found—there should be no sign that a human has
passed this way.” We are taught that the natural world has spirit and life. These teach-
ings contain powerful principles for how we use the resources of the natural world.
Luther Standing Bear, an Oglala Sioux chief, expressed this concept well: “I am
going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life
and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity
with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civi-
lization.”
Ceremonies are often performed for the purposes of healing, as described earlier.
The effects of stress and depression on the immune system are better understood,
SI-02 06/06/15 18:00 Page 399

lori arviso alvord c 399

and the effects of ceremonies are easily understood in this context. These principles
are now beginning to be used by other healing systems as well. Western medicine is
waking up. It has started to realize the power of healing that exists beyond the realms
of procedures and medications. Studies have started to prove the healing power of
such realms as spirituality, support group therapy, art and music therapy, pet ther-
apy, massage therapy, aromatherapy, and so on. The research is still in its beginning
stages, but points to the fact that healing can be influenced by multiple forces within
our lives, that we are deeply interconnected to all aspects of our lives, and that we
can immerse ourselves in many areas to achieve healing.
During my training as a surgeon, I was unable to harmonize my background as
a Navajo with my medical world. Initially, I encountered not a healing environ-
ment, but a place that needed as much healing as the patients it treated. I hope that
healing environments can be created that incorporate many “ceremonial” aspects.
Among these are creating a space of trust and deep support for patients, develop-
ing an environment for staff that is supportive and that encourages building teams
that have good working relationships, and encouraging spaces that are visually beau-
tiful and comfortable for both patients and families. We have moved away from
cold, sterile medical surroundings, but we still have worlds of healing that are wait-
ing to be included in medical models of the future.
By examining the extraordinary complexity and interrelatedness of our natural
world, we may begin to understand that, in much the same way, the forces of art, cer-
emonies, sustainability, and healing are deeply woven and interconnected. The cul-
tures of Native people encourage the recognition of interconnectedness, a “systems
dynamics” interpretation of the world. The beauty and complexity of our world are
not accidents. It is the mirror of a universal spirituality.

c
Lori Arviso Alvord, M.D., is Associate Dean of Student and Multicultural Affairs
at Dartmouth Medical School, as well as a practicing board-certified general surgeon
and Assistant Professor of Surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. She
earned her undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College and her M.D. at Stanford
University, where she completed her surgical residency. For the next six years, she
worked for the Indian Health Service in Gallup, New Mexico, providing healthcare
to members of the Navajo and Zuni tribes. The Scalpel and the Silver Bear (Bantam,
1999), her autobiography, tells the story of her journey from a Navajo reservation to
the world of surgery and her efforts to combine Navajo with Western medicine.
Her lectures describe how she has incorporated this wisdom into her surgical prac-
tice and how others can apply these principles to their own lives and communities.
Dr. Alvord has received numerous awards, including an honorary Doctor of Science
Honoris Causa from Albany Medical College (2001) and the Governor’s Award for
Outstanding Women from the State of New Mexico (1992).
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 400

Of Monocytes
and the Spiritual Man 67
Gregory L. Fricchione

I n the laboratory, white blood cells called monocytes, when separated out
from other blood products, sit placidly in well-rounded repose on a slide. It takes
the addition of a chemical attractant at the edge of the cover slip to activate the
monocytes. These macrophages, as they are also called, then elongate and move
toward the chemotactic agent in a process essential to life called chemotaxis. If mor-
phine is applied, the cells will “round up and stone out,” becoming unresponsive to
the chemoattractants. This is a miracle of evolutionary engineering I find enjoyable
to watch.
More than ten years ago, I was called to see a man in the intensive care unit. As a
medical psychiatrist, my job was to evaluate him for depression in the wake of his
receiving an unusual diagnosis. This unfortunate sixty-five-year-old man, some-
one’s husband and father, had a rare cancer of his macrophages, something called
malignant histiocytosis (Mongkonsritragoon et al. 1998). This is a death sentence in
most instances. Macrophages become voracious “pac-man-like” organisms, gob-
bling up platelets, red blood cells, other white blood cells, and anything they can get
their pseudopods on. Patients succumb to bleeding, infection, and multiorgan fail-
ure. I find this very hard to witness.
That this can be hard to witness is because of something called empathy—our
ability to, in varying degrees, feel the anguish of others. Fortunately for the human
race, empathy can be exercised into compassionate love, although this occurs less
frequently than one would like. There are several ways to understand empathy
(Brothers 1989). It could be an unconscious somatic mimicry capability that pro-
duces a feeling in the subject akin to that observed in the object, or it could also be
an unconscious psychological identification with another’s feelings. Perhaps it is
the sensory experience of witnessing another’s suffering state, processing it, and
matching it with one’s own experience, resulting in a cascade of brain changes cul-
minating in an empathic response.
It turns out that the brain has both fast and slow analysis systems. The former
mode takes advantage of a fast, single-synapse connection that has been delineated
between the sensory nucleus called the thalamus and a limbic emotion processor
called the amygdala (LeDoux 1996). The amygdala is then connected with the auto-
nomic nervous system responder, which can increase pulse and blood pressure and
cause other bodily changes. The slower mode involves cortical processing in a mul-
tisynaptic, multimodal, more refined analysis of incoming information. This latter
“cognitive” appraisal will eventually match the former “emotional” appraisal, and an
empathic response can then result.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 401

gregory l. fricchione c 401

We think the selection of such a response takes place in the so-called paralimbic
circuit that includes the anterior cingulate cortex (Devinsky et al. 1995). This par-
ticular circuit, like several other circuits that are integrated yet segregated in the
brain, contains a motor area (the basal ganglia), a sensory locus (the thalamus),
and an analyzer-effector section (the cortex) (Alexander et al. 1990). It evolved in
mammals to enable us to employ parent-offspring and social attachments as our
survival strategies (MacLean 1990). The paralimbic zones are tightly connected with
the prefrontal cortex, which enables us to plan and execute our attachment behav-
iors. Empathy then can be described as the afterglow of what burns in the furnace
of our brain’s attachment area.
Our empathic brain is an organ evolved from unicellular life as represented in the
amoeboid existence of the monocyte inside of us. The monocyte can be said to pos-
sess a primordial intelligence as it optimizes its behavior in light of incoming data.
Cell surface sensory receptors are attached to machinery inside the cell, which effects
a cytoskeletal motor change (Cairns-Smith 1996). What is the brain for? It uses its
sensory thalamus, its motor basal ganglia, and its analyzer-effector cortex to make
optimal immobilization-mobilization, avoidance-approach, and separation-attach-
ment response selections in an environment of much noisy information. The body
is the apparatus available to immobilize or mobilize, avoid or approach, separate or
attach. The mind is what the brain produces in interaction with its internal and
external environments in order to accomplish what the brain is for.
Decision making in the brain is informed not only by sensory data, but also by
memory and foresight. A mind that can “leave” the body in order to picture it in
some future desirable setting can make plans on how to get there, using what David
Ingvar called “a memory of the future” (Ingvar 1985). As mentioned, processing of
these cognitive and emotional sources of information takes place so that appropri-
ate responses can be selected. Such information is evolutionarily important only in
proportion to what it tells us about human separation from or attachment to the
needs of existence or the desiderata of life.
Against this backdrop, it may become clearer why the conceptual network of
physical terms and the conceptual network of mental terms—or, for that matter,
spiritual terms—evolved and are delimited by the dialectical language of separation
and attachment (Fricchione 2002). This is especially clear in the parlance of psy-
chology in general and object relations theory in particular, where separation-indi-
viduation challenges and attachment to a secure base are the dipoles of development
(Bowlby 1969). But the cosmologist, too, must use similar dipolar language to
describe the moment of creation in the Big Bang by assuming a gravitational sepa-
ration energy surge to overcome the initial gravitational moment. And what is the
cosmological constant, if not an attempt to understand the fate of the universe
based on the ratio of repulsive (separative) forces and attractive (attachment) forces
(Weinberg 1992)? The chemist speaks to us of the separation of electrons (oxidation)
or their attachment (reduction), while the poet laments “The Stolen Child” as one
taken from us too young (Yeats 1968). Poets suffer from the metaphorical impera-
tive—the need to bind up two separated objects; but so do scientists. Poets and sci-
entists are both moved from theoretical sources by their attractions to hypothetical
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 402

402 c gregory l. fricchione

targets (Holland 1998). And for the theologian, of course, there is the matter of sin
or separation from God. And then there is communion.
Human language must give vent to this dialectic of separation and attachment,
no matter what discipline is used to provide information and regardless of whether
matter or spirit is being expressed. In this way, all expressed information flows from
the same source, and fields as diverse as science and theology share an extensional
identity in terms of knowledge. Examining the source of the common language of
separation and attachment may provide the vehicle for consilience (Fricchione 2002;
Wilson 1997).
Information then can be thought of as the ratio of separation to attachment.
This ratio allows us to depict the complexity of the world around us. Thus, a cos-
mological constant that is a small number reflects a physical universe that is slowly
expanding. And a biological organ like the brain is complex inasmuch as it has com-
ponents that are simultaneously segregated and integrated (Tononi et al. 1994). And
Jesus can inform us all that he has come not to bring peace, but to separate moth-
ers from daughters and to pronounce that he who loses his life will gain it—and
with it, peace.
Yes, indeed. But my patient lies in bed destined to die soon. We talk about
macrophages and how they need chemical information to do their chemotaxis. He
gives me a blood sample so we can analyze in the lab why his particular macrophages
have become voracious and treacherous. He is happy to do this. “Maybe it will help
someone someday,” he says. Yet he is locked in his own more inexplicable mystery,
which no lab can help him understand, and all he really wants is to be back with his
wife and family. We talk about the Odyssey; how he is a modern-day Odysseus fight-
ing to return home. And we talk about the Christian paradox as well. Often at the
bedside my hand is on his arm as he reminisces about Christmas mornings with his
smiling children and other such reveries. He is proud of them and the college edu-
cations they have all earned. “I used to read to them all the time,” he remembers. I
picture him reading the Christopher Robin stories to them when they were young,
helping them face the separation challenge of sleep and the monsters that inhabit
the night. He acknowledges with his tears how painful it is to be away and to be drift-
ing further away with the current of the days. This is the time of spiritual man, and
this particular man needs his spiritual separation and attachment information to
select the responses most important for his life . . . even as he loses it.
As there is a chemical concentration gradient that enables the monocyte to make
a response selection, so too there is a spiritual concentration gradient for the human
being, which enables him to do his “spiritotaxis.”
God can be the strongest attractant for those who are suffering. Even Freud rec-
ognized (and lamented) the supremacy of God’s attractiveness for us. It is stronger
than the “intoxicating substances,” or the “substitutive satisfactions” of “illusions in
contrast to reality” to be found in pursuit of the arts or the “powerful deflections”
of the scientific project (Freud 1961).
I have felt him at the bedside. He is in the ether, the surround, at the edge of the
“universal cover slip”—whatever you want to call it—and most strongly at the spir-
itual time in the clarity of the moment of serious illness. Is he really there? I don’t
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 403

gregory l. fricchione c 403

know for sure. As a scientist, I do know that there needs to be a chemotactic agent
at the edge of the cover slip for the amoeboid cell to move in the agent’s direction.
And as a physician at the bedside, I do know that we are all potentially drawn along
by the spiritual information inherent in the moment of suffering when we experi-
ence serious illness. I also think sufferers, by the way, can themselves serve as attrac-
tants for those with compassionate love, perhaps because those with compassion are
themselves drawn nearer to God in their accompaniment of the suffering ones.
The macrophages of my patient were examined in the lab of my friend and col-
laborator, George Stefano. We thought we could cause them to round up by apply-
ing morphine. But his cells kept on moving in random, nondirected, chemokinetic
frenzy. We discovered they had lost their ability to do chemotaxis, partly, perhaps,
because of the disappearance of a cell-surface morphine receptor.
I recall thinking at the time about Albert Schweitzer in Gabon peering in with his
microscope at Trypanosoma brucei gambiense, the dreaded cause of the West African
sleeping sickness. He felt bad for the little microbe going about the basic life rhythms
of avoidance/approach in an ever-present foreshadowing of our evolved separa-
tion/attachment mystery. He describes this in the elucidation of his “Reverence for
Life” philosophy. “But every time I put the germ that causes the disease under the
microscope, I cannot but reflect that I have to sacrifice this life in order to save
another” (Schweitzer quoted in Cousins 1985, 236).
I felt no such empathic bond with the delinquent unicells seen under our micro-
scope. These mutated little monsters, although themselves part of my patient, were,
in a basic physical way, unrelenting in devouring important parts of him. It was
difficult to revere the destructive “greed” in these forms, which took on lives all their
own, separate from the whole.
The trouble is: Here the monsters win, and it is very hard to witness. My patient
had one remission. He was worried and sad, but became reconciled to his fate when
the disease recurred. He inquired about the study we had done on his macrophages.
I told him about the lack of morphine effect and the receptor loss and the resultant
maniacal cell activity. He said that maybe the new information might help someone
down the road someday. I said, “Yes.” He thanked God for the time he had at home
with his family during his remission. He had shared moments with his wife and his
children and grandchildren “that will last forever.” He really didn’t need me much
toward the end. I believe he was a man who had loved and been loved, and in that
way he had felt God’s presence. And with that secure attachment attracting him, he
could face the ultimate separation challenge.
I read recently about AIDS mothers in Uganda facing death, or as they call it the
“final separation.” They are spending time putting together “memory books” for
their soon-to-be orphaned children, filled with photos of loved ones and of happy
times. Wisdom is passed on in the form of motherly advice and biblical sayings.
These memory books will have the power to transubstantiate into love for these
children as they grow and develop. At each transition in their lives, the books will
kindle the love that will entangle them back with their mothers, who have gone
before them out past the boundary.
Perhaps the concept of love is indeed unlimited as it slips past the dialectical
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 404

404 c gregory l. fricchione

boundary. As the process theologian Daniel Day Williams pointed out in his clas-
sic description, love is in essence mutuality (Williams 1968). Self-affirming love and
self-giving love are entangled and harmonious. One individuates only in commu-
nity. True community requires individuals with the freedom to select it.
According to Williams, self-asserting love contains “both the pole of autonomy,
the affirmation of self-integrity and independence, and the pole of symbiosis, which
requires conformity and relatedness to the other” (Williams 1968, 206). And with
this separation-attachment-based understanding, “We now see human loves in a
new light. Agape is not another love, which is added to the others. Neither is it their
contradiction. It is the love which underlies all others, leads them towards the dis-
covery of their limits, and releases a new possibility in the self, which is created for
communion” (Williams 1968, 210).
“Agape indeed bears an assurance for every future. It overcomes the fear of death
and defeat. ‘Nothing can separate us from the love of God.’ Love never disappears.
But what love may do and will do, what creative and redemptive work lies ahead, can
only be known partially in the history of love until the ‘end’” (Williams 1968, 212).
God’s love can overcome the “permanent separation” my patient faced as it can
overcome the permanent separation of the AIDS mother from her child. Nothing
can separate us from the love of God, which “releases a new possibility in the self,
which was created for communion.”
We went on to publish an article in the American Journal of Hematology on this
case, detailing the computerized microscopic analysis of the behavior of the
macrophages in question (Fricchione et al. 1997). The article was more about the
monocytes than the man. But he was a good man, and he had a spirit. And I believe
he was being attracted to Someone who loved him.

c
Gregory L. Fricchione, M.D., is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard
Medical School and Associate Chief of Psychiatry and Director of Psychiatry in
Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Recently, he spent two and a half years
directing the Mental Health Program at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and
continues on the board of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Human Development.
Dr. Fricchione provides care for patients with problems at the interface of the body
and the mind. His research includes studies on neuroimmunology, catatonia, and
the relationship between mood dysfunction and cardiac disease. He is a consultant
for the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love at Case Western Reserve Univer-
sity School of Medicine. Dr. Fricchione is an associate editor of Medical Science
Monitor and Acta Pharmacologica Sinica, as well as a reviewer for many other med-
ical and psychiatric journals.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 405

gregory l. fricchione c 405

References
Alexander, G. E., Crutcher, M. D., DeLong, M. R. Basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical circuits:
parallel substrates for motor, oculomotor, “prefrontal” and “limbic” functions. Prog
Brain Res 1990; 85: 119–46.
Bowlby, J. Attachment and loss. Vols I and II. Basic Books, NY, 1969.
Brothers, L. A biological perspective on empathy. Am J Psychiatry 1989; 146: 10–19.
Cairns-Smith, A. G. Evolving the mind: On the matter and the origin of consciousness. Cam-
bridge University Press, NY, 1996.
Devinsky, O., Morrell, M. J., Vogt, B. A. Contributions of the anterior cingulate cortex to
behavior. Brain 1995; 118: 279–306.
Freud, S. Civilization and its discontents. Trans. by James Strachey. W.W. Norton and Co.,
NY, 1961.
Fricchione, G. Separation, attachment and altruistic love: the evolutionary basis for med-
ical caring. In: S. G. Post, L. G. Underwood, J. F. Schloss, W. Hurlbut (eds). Altruism
and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue. Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 2002.
Fricchione, G. L., Cytryn, L., Bilfinger, T. V., Stefano, G. B. Cell behavior and signal mole-
cule involvement in a case study of malignant histiocytosis: a negative model of mor-
phine as an immunoregulator. Am J Hematol 1997; 56; 197–205.
Holland, J. H. Emergence: From chaos to order. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1998.
Ingvar, D. Memory of the future: an essay on the temporal organization of conscious aware-
ness. Human Neurobiol 1985; 4: 127–36.
LeDoux, J. The emotional brain. Simon and Schuster, NY, 1996.
MacLean P. D. The triune brain in evolution: Role in paleocerebral functions. Plenum Press,
NY, 1990.
Mongkonsritragoon, W., Li, C. Y., Phyliky, R. L. True malignant histiocytosis. Mayo Clin
Proc 1998; 73: 520–28.
Schweitzer, A. Out of my life and thoughts. Quoted in Cousins, N. Albert Schweitzer’s mis-
sion: healing and peace. W. W. Norton and Co., NY, 1985.
Tononi, G., Sporns, O., Edelman, G. M. A measure for brain complexity: relating func-
tional segregation and integration in the nervous system. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1994;
91: 5033–37.
Weinberg, S. Dreams of a final theory: The search for the fundamental laws of nature. Pan-
theon Books, NY, 1992.
Williams, D. D. The spirit and forms of love. Harper and Row, NY, 1968.
Wilson, E. O. Consilience. The unity of knowledge. Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 1997.
Yeats, W. B. The stolen child. In: M. H. Abrams (ed). The Norton Anthology of English Lit-
erature, Vol 2. W. W. Norton and Co., NY, 1968.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 406

Miracles Confront Materialism 68

A Scientist Reflects on the Life of Christian Healer Dorothy Kerin
Stevens Heckscher

I s science the only valid way to knowledge? Is all knowledge limited, or reducible,
to what rationality and science can tell us? Or does scientific fidelity to the full
testimony of reality lead us away from philosophical materialism? Many—but by no
means all—scientists would answer “yes” to the first two questions and “no” to the
third. As a scientist, I respond contrariwise: “no” to the first two and “yes” to the third.
In the following essay, I adduce several modern case studies that, I argue, present
a robust challenge to materialistic philosophy, much as other numerous, carefully
studied, similar events have done. On this basis, I set forth the hypothesis that the
foundations of the world’s great religions are firmer than many believe today. Thus,
I suggest that reality is too rich and strange to be blithely dismissed as containing
no basis for eternal hope and that science is not the only valid way of knowing:
There is a reality beyond the purview of science that can only be known by follow-
ing other pathways. To illuminate those other pathways for scientists and other crit-
ical thinkers, I urge debate on, and serious research into, examples such as those I
discuss below.

“London’s Modern Miracle”

Greater London, 1912. Late on a winter’s evening, family, relatives, and friends are
standing around the deathbed of a young woman. Emaciated, almost without flesh
on her limbs, she has been nearly comatose for two weeks; and for the past five
years, she has been bed-ridden, suffering from tuberculosis with many complica-
tions, her whole body filled with infection. For nearly eight minutes now, there has
been no sign of life—no breath, no pulse, no discernible heartbeat. To all appear-
ances, she has died. Suddenly, she sighs and resumes weak breathing. Her mother,
one of a number of witnesses, tells us:
. . . we distinctly heard Dorothy say to some unseen being, “Yes, I am listen-
ing.” Her face was radiant with a beautiful smile. . . . As we looked we saw
her raised up in bed, and her arms were gracefully raised, as though she
were being lifted up bodily. She turned her head round and faced us, at first
squinting horribly; but almost instantaneously her eyes returned to their
natural beauty. . . . Holding her head up as if in prayer, she said, “Mother, I
am well; I am to get up now,” at the same time asking her sister for her dress-
ing-gown. . . . She put it on, got out of bed, and walked quite steadily across
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 407

stevens heckscher c 407

the room. She went to the door, and advanced along the passage, saying,
“Don’t touch me, I am following the light.” She had apparently not the least
difficulty in walking, and on returning to the room she said, “Why are you
all here, and why are you so frightened? I am quite well.” She was the calmest
person in the house, and seemed so surprised at our wonder and excite-
ment. (E. J. Kerin, quoted by D. Kerin 1914a)

The young Englishwoman was named Dorothy Kerin. Following her walk, she
asked for food and descended two flights of stairs by herself to prepare a cold meal,
the first solid food she had taken for years. She ate this meal with relish and suffered
no ill aftereffects. The next morning on her awakening, it was found that her nor-
mal body weight had been restored overnight, her arms and legs fully fleshed out.
From that moment, she enjoyed perfect health for nearly two years. In spite of sev-
eral later illnesses, X-ray examinations showed no evidence of recurrence of her
tuberculosis (Arnold 1965).
During her fortnight of apparent unconsciousness, Dorothy reported, she
“seemed to drift into space,” where, according to her account, she met angels and
then Christ himself, who asked her to return to earthly life to perform a mission.
At the time, this event was reported in the press worldwide, and sometimes
referred to as “London’s modern miracle.” Today it would be termed a “near-death
experience.” While thousands of such events have been carefully studied, this one
appears to be especially worthy of note, as it contains not only what appears to be
an encounter with Christ (as in many such experiences), but his prediction, later ful-
filled in an astonishing way, that she would do something important for him, fol-
lowed by her revival and complete and nearly immediate physical restoration after
eight minutes of what, as far as can be determined today, was total lifelessness (D.
Kerin 1914b).
She also had seemingly miraculous recoveries from two subsequent grave threats
to her life and health. Thereafter, Dorothy entered spiritual direction under one of
the few priests in the Church of England at that time sufficiently learned in mysti-
cal or ascetical theology to be able to guide her. In 1929, she established a nursing
home in London, which she removed to the country following World War II, even-
tually locating all her work at the Burrswood estate in Kent. She brought to this
labor a saintly life and a gift for healing of body, emotions, and spirit. By the time she
died in 1963, this petite Anglican woman had brought religious faith and bodily and
inner healing to thousands. A number of apparently miraculous recoveries resulted
from her ministrations, and to two of these we shall shortly turn our attention.
First, it must be emphasized that she never showed signs of hysteria, instability,
or idiosyncrasy. She was a serene but energetic Christian woman who spent much
time in contemplative prayer, who brought comfort to many in sorrow, and who was
sought for her reputed wisdom. She stressed the importance of religion and medi-
cine working together, and her centers always had the finest medical resources avail-
able. The healing ministry growing today in the Anglican Church and beyond owes
much to her pioneering work.
I should also remark that the annals of Christianity and of all the great religions
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 408

408 c stevens heckscher

contain many instances of modern “saints” who performed well-attested miraculous

works often reminiscent of biblical accounts (e.g., Treece 2001). St. Seraphim of
Sarov (Russian Orthodox, nineteenth century) and Padre Pio (Roman Catholic,
twentieth century) are two famous Christian examples. Dorothy Kerin is one mod-
ern “saint” whose remarkable life is especially well documented and whose mem-
ory still lies fresh in many people’s minds, especially in England and Western
Europe.
I want now to examine scientifically—that is, in as disciplined a manner as pos-
sible from careful and detailed accounts—two of many apparently miraculous
events in Dorothy Kerin’s life. I offer two criteria of authenticity, namely, reliability
and objectivity in the form of detailed eyewitness accounts by several trustworthy
persons. In this essay, I advance no formal explanation for the events. I propose only
that they, and the many others like them, present a serious challenge to a naturalistic
or materialistic worldview. Science is limited mostly to investigation of replicable or
repeatedly observable events, while of course the episodes presented here cannot be
replicated. Despite this limitation, I hope that the disciplined reflections of a scien-
tist on the matter at hand may lend conviction to the findings. I also urge that a sys-
tematic and disciplined project be undertaken to attempt to catalog in one place,
under stringent guidelines to avoid fraud and deception, the gamut of all recent
and well-attested phenomena of the kind we are discussing.

Report I
The following account by Peta Pare (Pare n.d.) is reproduced here in full for its
richness of detail.
In 1961 a man of 47 went to see his doctor about his troublesome “piles.”
During the examination the doctor discovered some enlarged abdominal
glands. A subsequent visit to a surgeon, an abdominal operation, and a
depressing prognosis followed. Robert, a highly intelligent and sensitive
man, was shocked, and anxious for his wife and two young children. The
deep X-ray therapy which followed the operation did nothing to cure his
depression. When his wife asked the doctor how long he might have to live,
she was told 18 months would see him facing another major operation. And
then? . . . [ellipsis in original].
Robert improved, and went back to his academic job of working on
ancient manuscripts. His wife started to train as a teacher.
Twenty months later, Robert became ill with what was clearly an acute
obstruction. There was no possibility of admission to hospital until the fol-
lowing day. The Doctor gave him a pain-killer, and a friend rang up Dorothy
Kerin to ask for her prayers. She was unable to come over to see him, and
she sent back this message, “Give him my love and tell him I am thinking of
him especially.” A priest took the message to Robert, explaining very briefly
about Dorothy, and her capacity for lifting people into the presence of God
by her prayers. He laid his hands on Robert’s head, and prayed the Burr-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 409

stevens heckscher c 409

swood prayer, “May new life quicken thy mortal body . . .”, because as he
said afterwards, “I thought that’s what she would have wanted me to do.”
That night, Robert slept soundly, and opened the front door when the
friend called early the next morning. He went into hospital later that day,
and was operated on. There was no sign of disease, and his wife had to wait
ten days before the laboratory report showed that this time there was no
cancer. The doctors stood round his bed, astonished and unbelieving.
That was years ago, and Robert and his family thrive.

Report II
Following is another report of a dramatic, instantaneous physical healing (Chav-
chavadze 1995) associated with Dorothy Kerin. This occurred after the end of World
War II:
Jummie [the head of the community nursing staff] fell down the main stairs
and lay unconscious in a pool of blood. Dr. Elliott [the Visiting Physician]
ascertained that she had a deep gash in her head, over four inches long, a
compound fracture of her right arm, and broken ribs; and immediately rang
for an ambulance. He then telephoned the surgeon who was having his Sun-
day rest in the country. In view of the emergency the surgeon agreed to drive
straight to the hospital. Dorothy [Kerin] accompanied Jummie in the ambu-
lance and in the hospital they were met by the theatre Sister [nurse] who
took them to the X-ray room. Before going in, Dorothy was able to pray
over Jummie and give her the laying-on of hands [a form of ministration to
the sick frequently used in the Church], and when the Sister re-examined
her she was amazed to find no trace of any kind of injury [emphasis mine];
only blood in the hair where the gash had been. Fortunately for John Elliott
[i.e., for his professional surgical reputation], the Sister confirmed the accu-
racy of his diagnosis.
Several comments are in order. First, these episodes are only two of numerous
such occurrences in Dorothy Kerin’s life. Many of them, including these two, satisfy
both of our criteria, reliability and objectivity (multiplicity and agreement) of wit-
ness. However, Dorothy herself, who possessed great humility and modesty, did not
emphasize these miraculous or spectacular events. Rather, she continually taught
that healing of mind and spirit was the most important part of her and the church’s
ministry. Second, and contrary to most popular belief, in addition to the works per-
formed by Dorothy, ample reliable testimony describes the occurrence in modern
times, inside as well as outside the Christian orbit, of what to all appearances are
interventions in the material world by supernatural agency. Of course, I am empha-
sizing here well-documented instances within Christianity, such as visions shared by
more than one person, healings witnessed by several reliable observers, messages
that are independently corroborated, and the like. While almost all of these events
individually could be argued away, although sometimes only with special pleading,
collectively the number, variety, and verifiability of so many of them pose a serious
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 410

410 c stevens heckscher

problem for materialist philosophy. Third, so much scope for both fraud and self-
deception exists in this area that the entire subject does need to be approached with
great care. The skepticism that protects scientific investigation from much error
must remain part of the investigator’s equipment. Many careful investigations have
exposed charlatans and credulous practitioners, and we do well to keep that in mind,
remembering that the existence of fraud and gullibility does not prove that all sup-
posed supernatural interventions are hoax or illusion.
In Western culture, a swing away from the gullible to the skeptical has been the
trend since the Enlightenment. This has resulted in great loss of religious faith, but
it has also taught us to be circumspect, to examine minutely claims of supernatu-
ral intervention, and always to look first for natural causes. In these matters, one
extreme, gullibility, is as dangerous as the other, a priori skepticism. I am arguing
here for a middle pathway.
The nature of faith has always been a mystery. It is not mere acceptance of an
attractive belief system. Rather, religious faith, beginning with the Kierkegaardian
leap into a largely unknown realm, often leads to a state of knowing that those in
that state claim, sometimes with great conviction, is illuminated either from deep
within the self—or from without. Those who have this experience can never rigor-
ously prove that the illumination is real; they can only invite us to make the leap and
to see for ourselves. Dorothy Kerin claimed that her life was so permeated by this
illumination that she was able to insist that she had passed beyond faith to knowl-
edge, to a state that is known as mystical (cf. Underhill 2002; Clement 1995). “I do
not believe,” she sometimes said, “I know.”
I began the journey that led to my faith equipped both with the scientific skep-
ticism that requires strong evidence before acceptance of a hypothesis and with
hope that I could believe in a world beyond, and more glorious than, the material
world. I had heard the Christian message and longed to be able to accept it.
Although well versed in the New Testament accounts of Christ, I was haunted by the
dread that—ancient, remote, and filtered through many chroniclers as they then
seemed to be—I could not put my trust in them. I took the Kierkegaardian leap,
retaining the scientific skepticism of my professional training. A long pilgrimage led
me to examine the lives of modern saints, among whom Dorothy Kerin stood out
because, only a few years after her death, I met and talked with persons who had
known her well. Accounts of her life, like those of other contemporary saints, were
so well attested, and so resembled those arresting New Testament stories of Christ,
that the proper demands of my professional skepticism had gradually to yield to the
conviction that interventions from a world beyond the material do occur.
Although the well-documented, seemingly miraculous events in the lives of mod-
ern saints are congruous with the supernatural events reported in the New Testa-
ment, Christ himself is recorded as saying that marvelous works will not of
themselves compel religious belief (Luke 16:31). Rather, he invited his hearers to
look at him, listen to his message, and consider his works. Thus, striking occur-
rences such as those discussed in this essay will not convince skeptics. But I think
that they do present gainsayers with a serious challenge to the foundations of nat-
uralistic belief. And they invite us to look deeply and questioningly at the super-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 411

stevens heckscher c 411

natural interventions reported in the New Testament and in times past, undertak-
ing systematic, directed research into recent occurrences, across the boundaries of
denominations and religious systems, asking whether it is as easy to dismiss these
interventions as “myth,” as many contemporary critics have asserted. I propose that
such research would result in strengthening the challenge to materialism—and, like
Dorothy herself, might point to what is beyond.

c
Stevens Heckscher, Ph.D., received his doctorate in Mathematics from Har-
vard University in 1960. He taught in the Mathematics Department of Swarthmore
College until 1980, when he left to take a position with the Natural Lands Trust, a
regional land conservancy in the Delaware Valley. Currently, he is Conservation
Biologist with that organization and Lecturer in Earth and Environmental Science
at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests are mathematical and plant
community ecology and spiritual theology. He is the author of a number of scien-
tific and theological papers and senior author of The Good Shepherd Manifesto, a
document recently published on the Internet calling for fundamental reforms and
renewal in the Anglican Church. He is also Lay Associate for Spiritual Direction at
the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, PA.

References
Arnold, Dorothy, 1965. Dorothy Kerin, Called by Christ to Heal. First published 1965; fourth
impression 1972 by K&SC (Printers) Ltd., High Brooms, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, U.K.,
59–60.
Chavchavadze, Marina, 1995. Dorothy Kerin As I Knew Her. K&SC (Printers) Ltd., High
Brooms, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, U.K., 61–62.
Clement, Olivier, 1995. The Roots of Christian Mysticism. New City Press, NY.
Kerin, Dorothy, 1914a. The Living Touch. First published 1914. 1987 printing by K&SC (Print-
ers) Ltd., High Brooms, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, U.K., 49–57. Numerous other accounts
of this event have been published.
Kerin, Dorothy, 1914b. Ibid., 54.
———, 1960. Fulfilling: A Sequel to The Living Touch. First published 1952. Third edition
1960 by K&SC (Printers) Ltd., High Brooms, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, U.K., 149–51.
Pare, Peta, n.d. Chosen Vessel: A Story of Dorothy Kerin and Burrswood. Printed privately by
the Dorothy Kerin Trust, Burrswood, Kent, U.K.
Treece, Patricia, 2001. Apparitions of Modern Saints. Charis, Servant Publications, Ann
Arbor, MI.
Underhill, Evelyn, 2002. Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual
Consciousness. First published 1911; 1930 New York edition reprinted by Dover Publica-
tions, Mineola, NY.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 412
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 413

Part Eight
Perspectives on Contemplation and the Virtues

c
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 414
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 415

Reflection and Its Use 69

From Science to Meditation
Hendrik P. Barendregt

R eflection plays a fundamental role in our existence in several ways. Among

the areas in which the phenomenon occurs are biology, language, computing,
and mathematics. A fifth area in which reflection occurs is spiritual development.
In all of these cases, the effects of reflection are powerful, even downright dramatic.
We should be aware of these effects and use them in a responsible way. In this essay,
I introduce the notion of reflection and expand and clarify it with examples.

Reflection: Domains, Coding, and Interaction

Reflection occurs in situations in which there is a domain of objects that all have
active meaning—that is, specific functions within the right context. Before turning
to the definition of reflection, let us present the domains relevant to the four exam-
ples. The first domain is the class of molecules occurring in biology known as pro-
teins, which have very specific functions within living organisms, from bacteria to
Homo sapiens. The second domain consists of sentences in natural language that are
intended, among other things, to make statements, ask questions, or influence oth-
ers. The third domain consists of (implemented) computable functions, which per-
form computations—sometimes stand-alone, sometimes interactive—that produce
output that usually serves users in one way or another. The fourth domain consists
of mathematical theorems, which express valid phenomena about numbers, geo-
metric figures, or other abstract entities that, when interpreted in the right way,
enable us to make correct predictions.
Now let us turn to reflection itself. Besides having a domain of meaningful
objects, it needs coding and interaction. Coding means that for every object of the
domain there is another object, the (not necessarily unique) code, from which the
original object can be reconstructed exactly. This process of reconstruction is called
decoding. The code C of object O does not directly possess the active meaning of O
itself; this happens only after decoding. Therefore, the codes are outside the domain,
and form the code set. Finally, the interaction needed for reflection consists of an
encounter of objects with their codes. Hereby, some objects may change the codes
and, after decoding, give rise to modified objects. This process of global feedback (in
principle on the whole domain through codes) is the essence of reflection.
It should be emphasized that just the coding of elements of a domain is not suf-
ficient for reflection. A music score may code for a symphony, but the two are on dif-
ferent levels: Playing a symphony usually does not alter the written music.1
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 416

416 c hendrik p. barendregt

Examples of Reflection
Given this definition, I present four examples of reflection.
1. Proteins: The first domain consists of proteins, each protein being essentially a
linear sequence of a set of twenty amino acids. Because some of these amino acids
attract one another, the protein assumes, with the help of proteins already present,
a three-dimensional shape that provides its specific chemical meaning (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. A schematic display of the protein NGF_Homo_Sapiens, a nerve growth factor. Its three-
dimensional structure can be perceived by looking at the picture with crossed eyes such that the left
and right images overlap. Courtesy of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Peitsch et al. [1995] (see
ftp://ftp.expasy.org/databases/swiss-3dimage/IMAGES/JPEG/S3D00467.jpg).

To mention just two possibilities, some proteins may be building blocks for struc-
tures within or between cells, while others may be enzymes that enable life-sus-
taining reactions. The code-set of the proteins consists of pieces of DNA, a string of
elements from a set of four “chemical letters,” or nucleotides. Three such letters
uniquely determine a specific amino acid, and hence a string of amino acids is
uniquely determined by a sequence of nucleotides (see Table 1 and Alberts et al.
1994). A DNA string does not have the meaning that the protein counterparts have,
for one thing because it does not have the specific three-dimensional folding (see
Table 2).
The first advantage of coding is that DNA is much easier to store and duplicate
than the protein itself. The interaction in this example is caused by a modifying
effect of the proteins on the DNA. This is also a second advantage of the protein cod-
ing, providing the possibility of change, to be described later.

Table 1. Amino acid sequence of NGF_Homo_Sapiens

Protein: 241 amino acids; molecular weight 26987 Da.

www.ebi.ac.uk/cgi-bin/expasyfetch?X52599

MSMLFYTLIT AFLIGIQAEP HSESNVPAGH TIPQVHWTKL QHSLDFTTALRR ARSAPAAAIA 60

ARVAGQTRNI TVDPRLFKKR RLRSPRVLFS TQPPREAADT QDLDFTFEVGGA APFNRTHRSK 120
RSSSHPIFHR GEFSVCDSVS VWVGDKTTAT DIKGKEVMVL GEVFTNINNSVF KQYFFETKCR 180
DPNPVDSGCR GIDSKHWNSY CTTTHTFVKA LTMDGKQAAW RFFTIRIDTACV CVLSRKAVRR 240
A 241
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 417

hendrik p. barendregt c 417

Table 2. DNA code of NGF_Homo_Sapiens

ACGT-chain: Length 1047 base pairs.

www.ebi.ac.uk/cgi-bin/expasyfetch?X52599

agagagcgct gggagccgga ggggagcgca gcgagttttg gccagtggtc gtgcagtcca 60

aggggctgga tggcatgctg gacccaagct cagctcagcg tccggaccca ataacagttt 120
taccaaggga gcagctttct atcctggcca cactgaggtg catagcgtaa tgtccatgtt 180
gttctacact ctgatcacag cttttctgat cggcatacag gcggaaccac actcagagag 240
caatgtccct gcaggacaca ccatccccca agtccactgg actaaacttc agcattccct 300
tgacactgcc cttcgcagag cccgcagcgc cccggcagcg gcgatagctg cacgcgtggc 360
ggggcagacc cgcaacatta ctgtggaccc caggctgttt aaaaagcggc gactccgttc 420
accccgtgtg ctgtttagca cccagcctcc ccgtgaagct gcagacactc aggatctgga 480
cttcgaggtc ggtggtgctg cccccttcaa caggactcac aggagcaagc ggtcatcatc 540
ccatcccatc ttccacaggg gcgaattctc ggtgtgtgac agtgtcagcg tgtgggttgg 600
ggataagacc accgccacag acatcaaggg caaggaggtg atggtgttgg gagaggtgaa 660
cattaacaac agtgtattca aacagtactt ttttgagacc aagtgccggg acccaaatcc 720
cgttgacagc gggtgccggg gcattgactc aaagcactgg aactcatatt gtaccacgac 780
tcacaccttt gtcaaggcgc tgaccatgga tggcaagcag gctgcctggc ggtttatccg 840
gatagatacg gcctgtgtgt gtgtgctcag caggaaggct gtgagaagag cctgacctgc 900
cgacacgctc cctccccctg ccccttctac actctcctgg gcccctccct acctcaacct 960
gtaaattatt ttaaattata aggactgcat ggtaatttat agtttataca gttttaaaga 1020
atcattattt attaaatttt tggaagc 1047

A simple calculation (1047/3 ≠ 241) shows that not all the letters in the DNA
sequence are used. In fact, some proteins (RNA splicing complex) make a selection
as to what substring should be used in the decoding toward a new protein.
2. Natural language: The domain of the English language is well known. It con-
sists of strings of elements of the Roman alphabet extended by numerals and punc-
tuation marks. This domain has a mechanism of coding, called quoting in this
context, that is so simple that it may seem superfluous. A string in English, for exam-
ple, might look like this:
Maria

This has as its code the quote of that string:

“Maria”

In Tarski (1933/1995), it is explained that of the following sentences

Maria is a nice girl.
Maria consists of five letters.
“Maria” is a nice girl.
“Maria” consists of five letters.
the first and last one are meaningful and possibly valid, whereas the second and
third are always incorrect, because a confusion of categories has been made (Maria
consists of cells, not of letters; “Maria” is not a girl, but a proper name). We see the
simple mechanism of coding and its interaction with ordinary language. Again, we
see that the codes of the words do not possess the meaning that the words them-
selves do.
3. Computable functions: The third domain comes from computing. The first
computers made during World War II were ad hoc machines, each built for a specific
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 418

418 c hendrik p. barendregt

use. As hardware at that time was a huge investment, it was recycled after each com-
pleted job by rewiring the parts. Based on ideas of Turing, this procedure was
changed. One particular computer was constructed, the universal machine (see Fig-
ures 2 and 3), and for each particular computing job one had to provide two inputs:
the instructions (the software) and the data that the instructions act on. This has
become the standard for all subsequent computers.

Figure 2. Two ad hoc machines: M1 for doubling and M2 for squaring a number.

Figure 3. Universal Machine (UM) with programs p1, p2 simulating M1, M2, respectively. So p1 is a
code for M1 and p2 for M2. Because we can consider M1 (p2) (i.e., M1 acting on p2) and M2 (p2),
there is interaction: agents acting on a code, in the second case even their own code.

The domain in this case consists of implemented computable functions—that is,

machines ready for a specific computing job to be performed. A code for an element
of this domain consists of a program that simulates the job on a universal machine.
The program of a computable function is not yet active, not yet executable in com-
puter science terminology. Only after decoding does a program come into action.
Besides coding, interaction is also present. In the universal machine the program
and the data are usually kept strictly separate. But this is not obligatory. One can
make the program and the input data overlap so that after running for a while on
the universal computer the initial program is modified.
4. Mathematical theorems: A final example in this section is concerned with math-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 419

hendrik p. barendregt c 419

ematics. A mathematical theorem is usually about numbers or other abstract enti-

ties. Gödel introduced codes for mathematical statements and used as a code-set the
collection {0, 1, 2, 3,…} of natural numbers that do not have any assertive power. As
a consequence, one can formulate in mathematics not only statements about
numbers, but, through coding, also about other such statements. There are even
statements that speak about themselves. Again, we see that both the coding and
interaction aspects of reflection are present.

The Power of Reflection

The mentioned examples of reflection all have quite powerful consequences.
We know how dramatically life has transformed our planet. Life essentially
depends on the DNA coding of proteins and the fact that these proteins can mod-
ify DNA. This modification is necessary in order to replicate DNA or to “proof-
read” it to prevent fatal errors.
One particular species, Homo sapiens, possesses language. We know its dramatic
effects. Reflection using quoting is an essential element in language acquisition. It
enables a child to ask questions such as: “Mom, what is the meaning of the word
‘curious’?”
Reflection in computing has given us the universal machine, just one design2 with
possible variations through software. This has had a multitrillion-dollar (US)
impact on the present stage of the Industrial Revolution of which we cannot yet see
all the consequences.
The effects of reflection in mathematics are less well known. In this discipline,
there are statements that one can see intuitively are true, but a formal proof is not
immediate. Using reflection, however, proofs using intuition can be replaced by for-
mal proofs3 (see Howe 1992 and Barendregt 1997, 21–23). Formal provability is
important for the emerging technology of an interactive (human-computer) theo-
rem for proving and proof verification. Such formal and machine-checked proofs
are already changing the way hardware is being constructed4 and may in the future
also affect the way software is developed. As to the art of mathematics itself, it will
bring the technology of computer algebra (dealing exactly with equations between
symbolic expressions involving elements such as ℘2 and ≠) to the level of arbitrary
mathematical statements (involving more complex relations than just equalities
between arbitrary mathematical concepts).

The Other Side of Reflection

Anything that is useful and powerful (like fire) also can be applied to negative effect
(such as arson). Similarly, the power of reflection in the four given examples can be
used in different ways.
Reflection in the chemistry of life has produced proteins, but it also has produced
viruses. Within natural language, reflection gives rise to learning, but also to para-
dox.5 The universal machine provides useful output, but it also produces unsolvable
problems, notably the ones in which we are most interested.6 Reflection within
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 420

420 c hendrik p. barendregt

mathematics means that for almost all interesting consistent axiomatic theories,
there are statements that cannot be settled (proved or refuted) within that theory
(e.g., Gödel’s incompleteness result).
We see that reflection can be compared with the forbidden fruit: It can seem an
appealing and powerful agent for good, but at the same time it presents dangers
and limitations. A proper view of these latter aspects will make us more modest.

Reflection in Spirituality
Insight (vipassana) meditation, which stems from classical Buddhism, concerns
itself with consciousness. When impressions come to us through our senses, we
obtain a mental representation (e.g., an object in front of us). Now this mental
image may be recollected: This means that we obtain the awareness of the awareness,
also called mindfulness. To develop the right mindfulness, awareness should be
applied to all aspects of consciousness. Parts that usually are not seen as the content
of consciousness, but rather as a “coloring” of it, become just as important as the
object of meditation. If a leg hurts during meditation, one should be mindful of it.
Moreover, one learns not only to see the pain, but also the feelings and reactions in
connection to that pain. This fine-grained mindfulness will have an “intuitive ana-
lytic” effect: Our mind becomes decomposed into its constituents (input, feeling,
cognition, conditioning, and awareness). Seeing this, we become less subject to var-
ious possible vicious circles in our mind-body system that often push us into greed,
hatred, or compulsive thinking.
Because mindfulness brings the components of consciousness to the open in a
disconnected, bare form, they are devoid of their usual meaning. The total infor-
mation of ordinary mental states can be reconstructed from mindfulness. That is
why it works like coding with the contents of our consciousness as domain.
The reflective role of mindfulness in our consciousness is quite similar to that of
quoting in ordinary language. As proteins can purify part of our DNA, the insight
into the constituents of consciousness can purify our mind. Mindfulness makes
visible processes within consciousness, hitherto unseen. After that, mindfulness
serves as a protection by not letting the components of consciousness exercise their
usual meaning. Finally, the presence of mindfulness reorganizes consciousness, giv-
ing it a degree of freedom greater than before. Using mindfulness, one may act,
even if one does not dare; or one may abstain from acting, even if one is urged.
Then wisdom will result: morality not based on duty, but on virtue. This is the
interaction of consciousness and mindfulness. Therefore, by our definition, one
can speak of reflection.
This power of reflection through mindfulness also has another side. The splitting
of our consciousness into components causes a vanishing of the usual view we hold
of ourselves and the world. If these phenomena are not accompanied in a proper
way, they may become disturbing. But during intensive meditation retreats, the
teacher pays proper attention to this. With the right understanding and reorgani-
zation, the meditator obtains a new stable balance, as soon as one knows and has
incorporated the phenomena.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 421

hendrik p. barendregt c 421

Mental disorders related to stress can cause similar dissociations. Although the
sufferers appear to function normally, to them the world—or worse, their person—
does not seem real. This may be viewed as an incomplete and unsystematic use of
mindfulness. Perhaps this explains the enigma of why some sufferers become “weller
than well,” as Menninger et al have observed (1963). These cured patients might
very well have obtained the mental purification that is the objective of vipassana
meditation.

Pure Consciousness
In Hofstadter (1979), the notion of the “strange loop” is introduced: Something that
contains a part that becomes a copy of the total when zoomed out. In the present
paper, reflection is inspired by that notion, but focuses on a special aspect: Zoom-
ing out in reflection works through the mechanism of coding. The main thesis of
Hofstadter is that “strange loops” are at the basis of self-consciousness. I partly agree
with this thesis and would like to add that mindfulness serves as the necessary zoom-
ing mechanism in the strange loop of self-consciousness. On the other hand, the
thesis only explains the “self” aspect; the “consciousness” part remains obscure. I dis-
agree with the title of Dennet (1993): Consciousness Explained. No matter how many
levels of cognition and feedback we place on top of sensory input in a model of the
mind, a priori it seems not able to account for experiences. We always could simu-
late these processes on an old-fashioned computer consisting of relays, or even play
it as a social game with cards. It is not that I object to basing our consciousness on
outer agents such as card players (we depend on Nature in a similar way). It is the
claimed emergence of consciousness as a side effect of the card game that seems
absurd.
Spiritual reflection introduces us to awareness beyond ordinary consciousness,
which is without content, but is nevertheless conscious. It is called pure conscious-
ness. This phenomenon may be explained by comparing our personality with the
images on a celluloid film, in which we are playing the title role in the story of our
own life. Although everything that is familiar to us is depicted on the film, it is dark.
We need light to see the film as a movie. It may be the case that this pure con-
sciousness is the missing explanatory link between the purely neurophysiologic
activity of our brain and the conscious mind that we (at least think to) possess.
This pure light is believed to transcend the person. The difference between you and
me is in the matter (cf. the celluloid of the film). What gives us awareness is said to
come from a common source: the pure consciousness acting as the necessary “light.”
To understand where this pure consciousness (our inner light) comes from, we
may have to look better into Nature (through a new kind of physics; see, for exam-
ple, Chalmers [1996] or Stapp [1996]) or better into ourselves (through insight med-
itation; see for example Goldstein [1983]). Probably, we will need to do both.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 422

422 c hendrik p. barendregt

c
Hendrik P. Barendregt received his Ph.D. for a thesis in Mathematical Logic in
1971 from Utrecht University. From 1972 to 1979, he studied Zen meditation with
Kobun Chino Roshi (1938–2002) in California, and from 1977 to the present he has
been studying Vipasssana meditation with Most Venerable Phra Mettavihari in
Amsterdam. His publications in the field of mathematical logic and theoretical com-
puter science are frequently cited; among the best known are The Lambda Calculus,
Its Syntax and Semantics (Elsevier, 1984) and “Lambda Calculi with Types,” in Hand-
book of Logic in Computer Science, Vol. II (Oxford University Press, 1992), 117–309.
He has received substantial personal research funds from Nijmegen University
(1997) and also the Spinoza award in 2002 given by the Dutch National Science
Foundation (NWO). He holds memberships in the Academia Europaea, the Hol-
landsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, and, since 1997, the Royal Dutch Acad-
emy of Sciences. Currently, Dr. Barendregt occupies the Chair for Foundations of
Mathematics and Computer Science at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Nether-
lands.

Notes
1 However, in aleatory music—the deliberate inclusion of chance elements as part of a
composition—the performance depends on dice that the players throw. In most cases,
the score (the grand plan of the composition) will not alter. But music in which it really
does alter is a slight extension of this idea—that is, a score on a computer and electronic
alterations in the score induced by the dice, or even by the playing, would involve an
interaction, and hence reflection.
2 That there are several kinds of computers on the market is a minor detail; this has to
do with speed and user-friendliness.
3 Often an opposite claim is based on Gödel’s incompleteness result. Given a mathe-
matical theory T containing arithmetic that is at least consistent [expressed as Con(T)],
incompleteness states the following: There is a statement G (equivalent to “G is not
provable”) within the language of T that is neither provable nor refutable in T, but
nevertheless is valid (see Smullyan 1992). It is easy to show that G is improvable if T is
consistent; hence, by construction, G is true. So we have informally proved that G fol-
lows from Con(T). Our (to some unconventional) view on Gödel’s theorem is based on
the following: By reflection, one also can show formally that Con(T ) ⇒ G. Hence, it
does not come as a surprise that G is valid on the basis of the assumed consistency.
This has nothing to do with the special quality of the human mind, in which we believe,
but on different grounds (see the section “Reflection in Spirituality”).
4 That is, making it much more reliable.
5 That is, as in “This sentence is false.”
6 “Is this computation going to halt or run forever?” (See Yates 1998.)
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 423

hendrik p. barendregt c 423

References
Alberts, B. et al. [1994] The Cell. Garland.
Barendregt, H. [1997] The impact of the lambda calculus. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 3, no.
2: 181–215.
Chalmers, D. [1996] The Conscious Mind, Towards a Fundamental Theory, Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Dennet, D. C. [1993] Consciousness Explained. Penguin Books.
Goldstein, J. [1983] The Experience of Insight. Shambhala.
Harrison, J. [1995] Metatheory and Reflection in Theorem Proving: A Survey and Critique,
available at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/jrh/papers/reflect.dvi.gz.
Hofstadter, D. [1979] Gödel Escher Bach. Harvester Press.
Howe, D. J. [1992] Reflecting the semantics of reflected proof, in: Proof Theory, Aczel et al.
(eds.). Cambridge University Press, 229–50.
Menninger, K., M. Mayman, and P. Pruyser. [1963] The Vital Balance: The Life Process in
Mental Health and Illness. Viking.
Peitsch, M. C., D. R. Stampf, T. N. C. Wells, and J. L. Sussman. The Swiss-3D Image Col-
lection and PDB-Browser on the World-Wide Web. Trends in Biochemical Sciences 20
1995): 82–84, available at http://www.expasy.org.
Smullyan, R. [1992] Gödel‘s Incompleteness Theorems. Oxford University Press.
Stapp, H. [1996] The Hard Problem: A Quantum Approach. Journal of Consciousness Stud-
ies 3 (3): 194–210.
Tarski, A. [1933/1995] Introduction to Logic. Dover.
Yates, M. [1998] What computers can’t do. +Plus, issue 5, available at http://plus.maths.org/
issue5/index.html.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 424

Disgust and Elevation 70

Opposing Sources of Spiritual Information
Jonathan Haidt

I f emotions evolved to make us care about and respond to important events in

our lives, then what are the emotions that underlie spiritual life? And what exactly
are these emotions telling us?
Some emotions tell us that we live in a world of enormous beauty and complex-
ity, a world that feels to us to be full of meaning and design. The emotion of awe,
for example, seems to be a response both to direct encounters with divinity and to
encounters with nature, art, or music, in which we are transported out of our every-
day selves and feel in some way nearer to heaven (Keltner and Haidt 2003).
Other emotions tell us that we live in a world of bounty and generosity. Gratitude
may have evolved as part of a suite of emotions that help humans engage in trade
and long-term reciprocal alliances (Trivers 1971), but many people feel what McCul-
lough et al. (2001) call “cosmic gratitude,” that is, gratitude for the simple gift of life
and for all the good things in it.
Still other emotions tell us that we live in a world where people show greater or
lesser degrees of divinity in their actions. This essay is about a pair of opposing but
related emotions—disgust and elevation—that help us navigate the social world by
providing us with spiritual information about our fellow human beings and what
is noble, decent, and virtuous in ourselves and others.

Disgust and the “Wisdom of Repugnance”

Disgust is a fascinating and underappreciated emotion. It appears to have been
shaped by evolution to help our omnivorous ancestors figure out what to eat while
simultaneously avoiding various sources of bacterial and parasitic infection (e.g.,
from corpses, waste products, certain animals, and each other). Disgust allowed our
ancestors to go beyond immediate sensory information and to reject foods (or peo-
ple) based on what these foods (or people) had touched previously. Since bacteria
and parasites spread by contact, this kind of contamination sensitivity makes good
evolutionary sense.
But somewhere along the line, disgust became a social emotion, too. My col-
leagues and I have studied disgust in several cultures, and, while the specific elici-
tors of disgust may vary, all cultures we looked at have a concept of an emotion
that responds both to physical things (including certain foods, animals, body prod-
ucts, corpses, and violations of the external envelope of the body) as well as to a sub-
set of social violations. A study we did in Japan and the United States (Haidt et al.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 425

jonathan haidt c 425

1997) indicated a great deal of similarity for the physical elicitors, but a larger degree
of difference for the social elicitors. For Americans, social disgust was a response to
cruelty, racism, and other cases where one person stripped away the dignity of
another. The Japanese, however, extended the word ken’o from the physical world
into the social world to apply to cases where the self had failed to achieve the proper
fit into society, either because of a personal failure or because others were treating
the person as a nonentity.
Thus, the emotion of disgust seems to work in both cultures to provide moral
information about violations of some of the culture’s most important values. Amer-
ican morality, with its extreme emphasis on rights and individuality, seems to use
social disgust as a way to reinforce the importance of the person, while Japanese
morality, with its greater emphasis on harmony and interdependence, may use social
disgust to support the importance of the group.
The idea that disgust provides moral information has been discussed recently by
the ethicist Leon Kass (chairman of President Bush’s Council on Bioethics). Kass is
concerned about the continual encroachment of a utilitarian and technocratic ethos
into medical decision making in which the sacredness and dignity of human life is
ignored. In discussing human cloning, Kass (2001) writes:
In some crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of
deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power completely to articulate it. Can any-
one really give an argument fully adequate to the horror that is father-
daughter incest (even with consent), or bestiality, or the mutilation of a
corpse, or the eating of human flesh, or the rape or murder of another
human being?
Kass argues that we should take our feelings of disgust into account when thinking
about matters such as cloning, assisted suicide, and reproductive technologies. We
should not follow these feelings blindly—indeed, some practices that used to trig-
ger disgust (such as interracial marriage) we have now come to fully accept. But, as
Kass says, “Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder.”

The Spiritual Dimension of Social Cognition

My colleagues and I have been trying to understand the “wisdom of repugnance”
for many years. Why do certain social violations trigger disgust, while others trig-
ger anger, or contempt, or indifference? From our review of both anthropological
and psychological sources, our best explanation is this: Human cultures generally
order their social space in terms of a vertical dimension, running from God and
moral perfection above to demons and moral evil below. Human beings are gener-
ally seen as being suspended precariously somewhere in the middle, capable of ris-
ing to godly sainthood or falling to bestiality or “subhuman” behavior. The medieval
scala natura and the Hindu notion of reincarnation at higher or lower levels,
depending on one’s actions in life (karma), illustrate this vertical dimension. Social
disgust can then be understood as the emotional reaction people have to witness-
ing others moving “down,” or exhibiting their lower, baser, less God-like nature. We
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 426

426 c jonathan haidt

feel revolted by moral depravity, and this revulsion has some overlap, and also some
difference, with the revulsion we feel toward rotten food and cockroaches (Rozin et
al. 2000).
But if this powerful negative emotion can be triggered by seeing people move
“down” on the vertical dimension, then what happens when we see people move
“up”? Is there a corresponding positive emotion triggered by seeing people mani-
festing their higher, better, more saintly nature?

Elevation and the Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson

I believe that there is such an emotion, and that it was best described more than two
hundred years ago by Thomas Jefferson. In 1771, Jefferson’s friend Robert Skipwith
wrote to him asking for advice on what books to buy for his own library. Jefferson
loved to give advice and he loved books, so he embraced the chance to give advice
about books. Along with a list of suggested titles in history, philosophy, and other
branches of learning, he sent a letter making the case for the inclusion of literature.
Great works of fiction, he said, contribute to our moral education by making us
feel the right feelings:
[E]very thing is useful which contributes to fix us in the principles and prac-
tice of virtue. When any . . . act of charity or of gratitude, for instance, is pre-
sented either to our sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its
beauty and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and grateful
acts also. On the contrary when we see or read of any atrocious deed, we are
disgusted with its deformity and conceive an abhorrence of vice. Now every
emotion of this kind is an exercise of our virtuous dispositions; and dispo-
sitions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise. (Jef-
ferson 1771/1975, 350)
Jefferson went on to say that the physical feelings and motivational effects caused
by a good novel are as powerful as those caused by real episodes:
[I ask whether] the fidelity of Nelson, and generosity of Blandford in Mar-
montel do not dilate [the reader’s] breast, and elevate his sentiments as much
as any similar incident which real history can furnish? Does he not in fact
feel himself a better man while reading them, and privately covenant to copy
the fair example?
Jefferson was saying quite explicitly that emotions give us moral information. He
specifically cites “disgust” as giving us an “abhorrence of vice,” and he describes an
unnamed emotion that impresses us with the beauty of virtuous deeds and makes
us want to do “charitable and grateful acts also.” Jefferson then goes on to describe
this emotion in much the same way that a modern emotion theorist would—by
breaking it down into its component parts: elicitors, physiological changes, moti-
vations, and subjective feelings. The elicitors of this moral emotion include acts of
charity, gratitude, fidelity, and generosity. The physiological effects are said to be in
the chest, a feeling of dilation (opening). The motivation is clearly moral self-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 427

jonathan haidt c 427

improvement, wanting to copy the virtuous exemplar. The subjective feelings of

this emotional state include elevated sentiments and feeling oneself to be a better
person.
It is this last component that suggests to me that this moral information is also
spiritual information. Jefferson’s unnamed emotion tells us about what is best in life,
and gives us a glimpse of a higher and nobler way of being.

Moral Information Is Spiritual Information

It is a lovely coincidence that I happen to work at Jefferson’s university—the Uni-
versity of Virginia—where statues of Jefferson and inscriptions bearing his words
surround students and faculty alike, inspiring us even as we exercise in the gymna-
sium. The coincidence is particularly lovely because my recent research has begun
to prove Jefferson right.
For the last few years, I have been studying Jefferson’s emotion, which I call “ele-
vation” (both because of Jefferson’s phrase “elevated sentiments” and because of its
fit with the vertical spiritual dimension of social cognition I described earlier). I
have asked people to recall times when they witnessed a good deed and compared
what they wrote to times when they got something good for themselves. I have
shown people video clips about Mother Teresa and about an eleven-year-old boy
who founded a shelter for the homeless, and I have compared their responses to
those of people who watched video clips of comedians. I have found that viewing
or thinking about acts of moral beauty causes the set of responses that Jefferson
described: feelings in the chest (sometimes described as a warm or open feeling)
coupled with a motivation to help others and a feeling of being uplifted oneself
(Haidt 2003). I am now looking into the possibility that elevation can be used in
moral education programs, inspiring young people in ways that more traditional
teaching techniques cannot.
I believe that elevation is one of the most important emotions underlying human
spiritual life and spiritual growth. It is a surprising and very beautiful fact about our
species that each of us can be moved to tears by the sight of a stranger helping
another stranger. It is an even more beautiful fact that these feelings sometimes
motivate us to change our own behavior, values, and goals. Narratives of the lives
of Jesus, Buddha, Mother Teresa, and other inspiring figures are full of stories of
people who, upon meeting the saintly figure, dropped their former materialistic
pursuits and devoted themselves to advancing the mission of the one who elevated
them.
If elevation is an emotion that creates disciples and helps moral visions to spread,
then elevation has changed our world. Elevation and its opposing emotion, disgust,
provide us with a constant stream of emotionally charged spiritual information,
telling us not just who is good, but what is good.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 428

428 c jonathan haidt

c
Jonathan D. Haidt, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychol-
ogy at the University of Virginia. He studies morality, emotion, and culture. Pro-
fessor Haidt has been awarded three teaching awards by the University of Virginia
and one by the State of Virginia. His recent publications include: “The Emotional
Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment,” Psy-
chological Review (2001); and “Appreciation,” in C. Peterson and M. E. P. Seligman
(Eds.) Character Strengths and Virtues. (American Psychological Association Press.

References
Haidt, J. (2003). “Elevation and the Positive Psychology of Morality.” In C. L. M. Keyes and
J. Haidt (Eds.), Flourishing: Positive Psychology and the Life Well-lived (275–89). Wash-
ington DC: American Psychological Association Press.
Haidt, J., Rozin, P., McCauley, C. R., and Imada, S. (1997). “Body, Psyche, and Culture: The
Relationship between Disgust and Morality.” Psychology and Developing Societies 9:
107–31.
Jefferson, T. (1975). Letter to Robert Skipwith. In M. D. Peterson (Ed.), The Portable Thomas
Jefferson (349–51). New York: Penguin.
Kass, L. (2001). “Preventing a Brave New World,” The New Republic, May 21, 30–39.
Keltner, D., and Haidt, J. (2003). “Approaching Awe, a Moral, Spiritual, and Aesthetic Emo-
tion,” Cognition and Emotion 17: 297–314.
McCullough, M. E., Kilpatrick, S. D., Emmons, R. A., and Larson, D. B. (2001). “Is Grati-
tude a Moral Affect?” Psychological Bulletin 127: 249–66.
Rozin, P., Haidt, J., and McCauley, C. R. (2000). “Disgust.” In M. Lewis and J. M. Haviland-
Jones (Eds.), Handbook of Emotions, 2nd ed. (637–53). New York: Guilford Press.
Trivers, R. L. (1971). “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism.” Quarterly Review of Biology
46: 35–57.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 429

Goodness Matters 71
Barbara L. Fredrickson

A mericans today face prospects of war, further terrorist attacks, and other
untold bloodshed. Sometimes the world gives us one bad thing after another.
In the face of all this bad, what good is it to think about the good in the world?
What good is it to feel good? Won’t the world be the same no matter what you think
or feel?
Think back to people’s emotional reactions to the September 11 attacks. Most
Americans (and many others) were horrified by them. Yet some people, amidst their
feelings of horror, also felt profound gratitude. Why? Because they were still alive.
Still able to hold their loved ones close. Did it do any good to think about the good
side of this tragedy? Did it do any good to feel grateful? Surprisingly, it did. New psy-
chological science tells us that goodness matters.
A recent landmark study sounds a wake-up call about the profound benefits that
a focus on goodness holds. This was a study of 180 Catholic nuns who pledged their
lives not only to God but also to science. As part of a larger study of aging and
Alzheimer’s disease, these nuns agreed to give scientists access to their archived work
and medical records (and to donate their brains at death). The work archives
included autobiographies handwritten when the nuns were in their early twenties
and about to take their final vows, which was in the 1930s and 1940s. Researchers
scored these essays for emotional content, recording instances of positive emotions,
such as happiness, interest, love, and hope, and negative emotions, such as sadness,
fear, and lack of interest. No association was found between negative emotional
content and mortality, perhaps because negative emotional content was rather rare
in these essays. But a strong association was found between positive emotional con-
tent and mortality: Those nuns who expressed the most positive emotions lived up
to ten years longer than those who expressed the least positive emotions (Danner,
Snowdon, and Friesen 2001). This gain in life expectancy is considerably larger than
the gain you’d get from quitting smoking. Imagine how long you’d live if you both
quit smoking and accentuated the positive!
Although this study of nuns is compelling, it does not address how positive think-
ing and pleasant feelings help people live longer, or whether they help people live
better—or thrive—as well. My own scientific research targets the possible pathways
for many life-enhancing effects of positive emotions. I’ve distilled this research into
what I call the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, because positive emo-
tions both broaden people’s mindsets and build their enduring resources.
Like many scientists and scholars, I see emotions as products of evolution. They
are time-tested solutions to recurrent life problems. Problems such as facing a snake,
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 430

430 c barbara l. fredrickson

a bear, or any other clear-and-present danger spark fear. And along with feelings of
fear come a whole set of useful responses: an adrenaline surge, the urge to run, and
a scream or look on your face that warns others nearby of the danger as well. This
package of reactions makes fear (and other negative emotions such as anger and dis-
gust) a useful or adaptive response to threatening situations. Emotions, this view
holds, are creative and efficient solutions to recurrent problems our ancestors faced
over the ages.
Yet positive emotions posed a puzzle to scientists. From the vantage point of evo-
lutionary theory, joy, serenity, gratitude, and other positive emotions didn’t seem as
useful as fear, anger, or disgust. These good feelings don’t spark specific bodily
changes, action urges, or facial expressions. Your smile, after all, doesn’t tell which
positive emotion you feel or why. If positive emotions didn’t promote our ancestors’
survival in life-threatening situations, then what good were they? Did they carry
any adaptive value at all? Perhaps they merely signaled the absence of threats.
Yet the puzzle of pleasant feelings stems from trying to squeeze positive emo-
tions into the same mold as negative emotions. We can solve the puzzle by allow-
ing positive emotions to solve different sorts of ancestral problems than those solved
by negative emotions. I argue that instead of solving problems of self-survival, pos-
itive emotions solved problems of self-improvement (Fredrickson 1998). For exam-
ple, when and how should individuals better themselves so that down the road they
are better equipped to survive life’s challenges? It turns out that situations that spark
positive emotions seem to lead naturally to self-improvement. To see why this is so,
it’s useful to look closer at how positive emotions change people’s thinking and
actions.
As we’ve seen, one virtue of negative emotions is that they spark strong urges to
act in specific ways: to fight when angry, to flee when afraid, or to spit when dis-
gusted. Put differently, negative emotions narrow your action urges toward those
that worked best in getting our ancestors out of life-or-death situations. Positive
emotions, by contrast, have a complementary effect. They broaden your thinking
and actions. Joy creates the urge to play, serenity the urge to savor, and gratitude the
urge to repay kindness in creative ways. The virtue here is that positive emotions
expand your typical ways of thinking and being in the world. They push you to be
more creative, more curious, or more connected to others than you otherwise would
be. This broadening effect of positive emotions has been tested scientifically. My
colleagues and I find that when we induce people to feel negative, neutral, or posi-
tive states, only those who feel positive emotions—joy, serenity—show broader
scopes of attention and thinking, as well as more socially connected views of them-
selves (Fredrickson 2001).
What good is a broader scope of attention or thinking? Even though positive
emotions and these broadened mindsets are themselves short-lived, they can have
lasting effects. By momentarily broadening your attention and thinking, positive
emotions can lead you to discover novel and creative ideas, actions, and social
bonds. Playing, for instance, can build your physical, social, and intellectual
resources; savoring can solidify your life priorities; and creatively repaying kind-
nesses can strengthen your social ties and build your skills for expressing love and
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 431

barbara l. fredrickson c 431

care. Importantly, these outcomes often endure long after the initial positive emo-
tion has vanished. In this way, positive emotions build up your store of resources to
draw on in times of trouble, including physical resources (e.g., health), intellectual
resources (e.g., problem-solving skills), psychological resources (e.g., resilience,
optimism), and social resources (e.g., someone to turn to for help).
These building effects of positive emotions have also been tested scientifically.
My colleagues and I surveyed a group of people early in 2001 and learned how
resilient and optimistic they were relative to their peers. In the days after the Sep-
tember 11 attacks, we surveyed these same people again, asking them the emotions
they were feeling, what they had learned from the attacks, and how optimistic they
were about the future. We learned that, after September 11, nearly everyone felt sad,
angry, and to a lesser degree afraid, and that overall more than 70 percent were
depressed. Yet resilient people (as identified earlier in 2001) felt positive emotions
strongly as well, and they were half as likely to be depressed. Plus, statistical tests
showed that resilient people’s greater positive emotions were what buffered them
from depression (Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, and Larkin 2003).
It turned out that feeling grateful was particularly common after the attacks. And
in turn, gratitude was associated with both learning many good things from the cri-
sis (e.g., “I learned that most people in the world are inherently good”) and to
increased levels of optimism. Put differently, feeling grateful broadened positive learn-
ing, which in turn built optimism, just as the broaden-and-build theory suggests.
So feeling good, this new scientific evidence suggests, does far more than signal
the absence of threats. Feeling good can actually transform people for the better,
making them more optimistic, resilient, socially connected, and healthy versions of
themselves.
Indeed, this insight solves the evolutionary mystery of positive emotions: Simply
by experiencing positive emotions, our ancestors would have naturally accrued
more personal resources. And when later faced with threats to life or limb, these
greater resources translated into greater odds of survival, and greater odds of living
long enough to reproduce. The good in feeling good, then, lies in automatic self-
improvement. This begins to explain how those nuns got to live ten years longer:
People who regularly feel positive emotions will not be stagnant. Instead, they will
be automatically lifted on an upward spiral of continued growth and thriving.
But that’s not all. Positive emotions don’t just transform individual people. They
can also transform groups of people, within communities and organizations. Com-
munity transformation becomes possible because each person’s positive emotion
can resound through others. Take helpful, compassionate acts as an example. Clas-
sic research demonstrates that feeling good means doing good: People who feel
good become more helpful to others. Yet being helpful not only springs from pos-
itive emotions, but also produces positive emotions. People who give help, for
instance, can feel proud of their good deeds, and so experience continued good
feelings. Plus, people who receive help can feel grateful, and those who merely wit-
ness good deeds can feel elevated. Each of these positive emotions—pride, gratitude,
and elevation—can in turn broaden people’s mindsets and inspire further com-
passionate acts. So, by creating chains of events that carry positive meaning for
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 432

432 c barbara l. fredrickson

others, positive emotions can trigger upward spirals that transform communities
into more cohesive, moral, and harmonious social organizations.
Return now to the question posed at the start “… what good is it to think about
the good in the world?” Our minds are powerful allies. As John Milton told us, they
“can make a heaven into a hell, or a hell into a heaven.” The new psychological sci-
ence that I’ve described begins to unravel how such stunning transformations occur.
Think about the good in the world, or otherwise finding positive meaning, and you
seed your own positive emotions. Positive emotions, in turn, broaden your mind-
sets and build your enduring personal resources. Finding the good, and feeling it
emotionally within you—in terms of gratitude, love, or joy—can transform you
for the better. A focus on goodness, then, can not only change your life and your
community, but perhaps also the world, and—over time—create a heaven on earth.

c
Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology at the Uni-
versity of Michigan and a Faculty Associate at the Research Center for Group
Dynamics at UM’s Institute for Social Research. Dr. Fredrickson’s research centers
on positive emotions. She has won numerous academic prizes, and in 2000 she was
awarded the first-ever, first-place Templeton Prize in Positive Psychology (the largest
prize awarded in psychology) for her original research on how positive emotions
cultivate and build human strengths. Dr. Fredrickson is the author of forty articles
and book chapters on emotions. Her research is supported by the National Institute
of Mental Health, and she directs the Positive Emotion and Psychophysiology Lab-
oratory at UM’s Department of Psychology (PEPLab).

References
Danner, D. D., Snowdon, D. A., Friesen, W. V. (2001). Positive emotions in early life and
longevity: Findings from the nun study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80:
804–13.
Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology
2: 300–319.
———. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-
build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist 56: 218–26.
Fredrickson, B. L., Tugade, M. M., Waugh, C. E., and Larkin, G. R. (2003). What Good Are
Positive Emotions in Crises? A Prospective Study of Resilience and Emotions Follow-
ing the Terrorist Attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001. Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology 84(2):365-76.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 433

Psychological Science
and Spiritual Pursuits 72
David G. Myers

A s I explain in Intuition: Its Powers and Perils,1 today’s cognitive science reveals
some astounding powers (and notable perils) of human intuition. This grow-
ing scientific appreciation of nonrational, intuitive forms of knowing lends cre-
dence to spirituality. Great activity lies beneath the ocean’s surface, and perhaps
untapped wisdom resides beneath our conscious, rational mind. Hamlet was surely
right: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in
your philosophy.”
Science also informs the spiritual quest as it helps us winnow genuine from
pseudo-spirituality. When people make certain claims of spiritual intuition, science
can test them. Putting spiritual claims to the test may sound like letting the scien-
tific fox into the spiritual chicken coop, but actually a religious mandate for science
exists—even science applied to religion.

The Religious Mandate for Science and Skepticism

Religion and spirituality come in two forms: (1) Dogmatic faith—absolute certainty
in one’s convictions—feeds fanaticism: “I am right; if others disagree, they are
wrong.” (2) Humble faith feeds openness, dialog, and searching: “As a finite and fal-
lible human, I am sometimes wrong; if others disagree, we may each have something
to learn. ‘Judge not.’”
Humility lies at the heart of theology. Biblical monotheism, someone has said,
offers two simple axioms: (1) There is a God. (2) It’s not you. These axioms man-
date humility, and humility lies at the heart of science. “Lord, I have given up my
pride and turned away from my arrogance,” wrote the author of Psalm 131.2 Biblical
spirituality understands the Psalmist’s humility, views human reason as limited,
and implies that our most confident belief can, therefore, be the conviction that
some of our beliefs are in error. In the Reformation tradition, theology itself must
be ever-reforming its always imperfect understandings. In principle if not always in
practice, people of faith can readily accept Cromwell’s plea to “think it possible you
may be mistaken.”3 They can test their ideas against the axioms of their faith, against
the historic convictions of their community, and against the insights of science.
Humility also lies at the heart of science. What matters in science is not my opin-
ion or yours, but whatever truths nature reveals in response to our questions. If
people don’t behave as our ideas predict, then so much the worse for our ideas. His-
torians of science remind us that many of the pioneers of modern science were peo-
ple whose faith made them humble before nature and skeptical of human authority.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 434

434 c david g. myers

One of psychology’s early mottos expressed this humble attitude: “The rat is always
right.” It is also the testing attitude commended by both Moses—“If a prophet
speaks in the name of the Lord and what he says does not come true, then it is not
the Lord’s message” (Deut 18:22);4 and St. Paul—“All must test their own work” (Gal
6:3–4a).5
Humility, that synthesis of faith in God and skepticism of human presumption,
helps us critique certain spiritual claims, challenging some and affirming others.

Near-Death Experiences
“A man . . . hears himself pronounced dead by his doctor. He begins to hear
an uncomfortable noise, a loud ringing or buzzing, and at the same time
feels himself moving very rapidly through a long dark tunnel. After this, he
suddenly finds himself outside of his own physical body . . . and sees his
own body from a distance, as though he is a spectator. . . . Soon other things
begin to happen. Others come to meet and to help him. He glimpses the
spirits of relatives and friends who have already died, and a loving, warm
spirit of a kind he has never encountered before—a being of light—appears
before him. . . . He is overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy, love, and peace.
Despite his attitude, though, he somehow reunites with his physical body
and lives.”
This passage from Raymond Moody’s bestselling book Life after Life is a com-
posite near-death experience.6 Near-death experiences are more common than one
might suspect. Several investigators each interviewed a hundred or more people
who had come close to death through physical traumas such as cardiac arrest.7 In
each study, 30 percent to 40 percent of such patients recalled a near-death experi-
ence. When George Gallup Jr. (who contributed an essay to this volume) inter-
viewed a national sample of Americans, 15 percent reported having experienced a
close brush with death. One-third of these people—representing eight million peo-
ple by Gallup’s estimate—reported an accompanying mystical experience.8 Some
claimed to recall things said while they lay unconscious and near death. (But then,
anesthetized surgical patients in a “controlled coma” are sometimes not as out for
the count as surgical teams might suppose. Occasionally, they can later recall oper-
ating room conversation or obscure facts or words presented over headphones.)9
Moody’s description of the “complete” near-death experience sounds peculiarly
like psychiatric researcher Ronald Siegel’s descriptions of the typical hallucinogenic
experience.10 Both offer a replay of old memories, out-of-body sensations, and
visions of tunnels or funnels and bright lights or beings of light. Patients who have
experienced temporal lobe seizures also reported profound mystical experiences, as
have solitary sailors and polar explorers while enduring monotony, isolation, and
cold.11 Oxygen deprivation can produce such hallucinations. As lack of oxygen turns
off the brain’s inhibitory cells, neural activity increases in the visual cortex, notes
Susan Blackmore.12 The result is a growing patch of light, which looks much like
what one would see moving through a tunnel.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 435

david g. myers c 435

Perhaps, then, the bored or stressed brain manufactures the near-death experi-
ence, which, argued Siegel, is best understood as “hallucinatory activity of the
brain.”13 It’s like gazing out a window at dusk: We begin to see the reflected interior
of the room as if it were outside, either because the light from outside is dimming
(as in the near-death experience) or because the light inside is being amplified (as
with an LSD trip).
Some near-death investigators object. They report that those who have experi-
enced both hallucinations and the near-death phenomenon typically deny their
similarity. Moreover, a near-death experience may change people in different ways
than a drug trip. Those who have been “embraced by the light” may become kinder,
more spiritual, and more devout in their life-after-death belief. And even if the near-
death experience is hallucinatory, might it not also be a genuinely mystical, authen-
tic, and rare opportunity for spiritual insight? Skeptics reply that these effects stem
from the death-related context of the experience. When near death, people world-
wide sometimes report intuitions of another world, although their content varies
with the culture.14 Under stress, the brain draws on what it knows.

Spirituality and the Good Life

Scientists have similarly challenged spiritual claims of conversations with the dead,
reincarnation, and miracles called up by people with a supposed hotline to God.
After discarding spiritual “bath water,” does a spiritual “baby” remain? Can one
challenge the sort of spirituality that gives spirituality a bad reputation without
expressing a condescending cynicism toward all spirituality?
Medicine, twisted, can kill people. But far more often, medicine enhances life.
Can the same be said of religion? In both The Pursuit of Happiness and The Ameri-
can Paradox,15 I explore evidence pertinent to religion’s adaptiveness. Here is a quick
synopsis of four links between an active faith and health, well-being, and goodness.

Health
Recent epidemiological studies comparing health and longevity in secular and reli-
gious Israeli kibbutzim, and among religiously active and inactive Americans, find
consistent correlations between religion and health. One recent national health
study following twenty-one thousand lives through time revealed that life
expectancy among those never attending church is seventy-five years, but eighty-
three years among those attending church more than weekly. For several reasons, an
active faith is nearly as strongly associated with longevity as is nonsmoking.16

Happiness
Many studies have also found correlations between faith and “subjective well-being”
(happiness and satisfaction with life). For example, in National Opinion Research
Center surveys of 40,167 Americans since 1972, 26 percent of those never attending
religious services reported being “very happy,” as did 47 percent of those partici-
pating in services more than weekly. Faith, it seems, connects us with others, engen-
ders meaning and purpose beyond self, provides a grace-filled basis for
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 436

436 c david g. myers

self-acceptance, and sustains our hope that, in the end, the very end, all shall indeed
be well.

Coping
One national survey found that people who had recently suffered divorce, unem-
ployment, bereavement, or serious illness or disability retained greater joy if they
also had a strong faith.17 Compared with religiously inactive widows, recently wid-
owed women who worship at their church or synagogue report greater well-being.18
Compared with irreligious mothers of children with developmental disabilities,
those with a deep religious faith are less vulnerable to depression.19 “Religious faith
buffers the negative effects of trauma on well-being,” concluded University of Texas
sociologist Christopher Ellison.20

Goodness
Does faith feed morality and compassion, as Senator Lieberman argued during the
2000 presidential campaign? No way, said New York Times columnist Natalie Ang-
ier: “No evidence supports . . . the canard that godliness and goodliness are linked
in any way but typographically.”21 But Angier is demonstrably wrong: The 24 per-
cent of Americans who attend church weekly give 48 percent of all charitable con-
tributions to all causes in the United States and are twice as likely as the irreligious
to volunteer among the poor, infirm, and elderly. Moreover, in areas where church-
going is high, crime rates are low. Even the unbelieving skeptic Voltaire recognized
the faith-morality connection: “I want my attorney, my tailor, my servants, even my
wife to believe in God,” he said. “Then I shall be robbed and cuckolded less often.”22
And consider: Who is most likely to sponsor food pantries and soup kitchens? Who
took medicine into the Third World and opened hospitals? Who sheltered orphans?
Who spread literacy and established schools and universities? Who led movements
to abolish the slave trade, end apartheid, and establish civil rights? Who most often
adopts children? The answer to all these questions is the same.
Let no one get smug. As Steven Pinker noted, faith sometimes provides justifica-
tion for greed, war, bigotry, and terrorism. The Christian writer Madeleine L’Engle
acknowledged as much: “Christians have given Christianity a bad name” (and some
Muslims and Jews have done the same for their faiths).23 No wonder that Stephen
Jay Gould could write that much of his “fascination” with religion “lies in the stun-
ning historical paradox that organized religion has fostered, throughout Western
history, both the most unspeakable horrors and the most heartrending examples of
human goodness.”24 The “insane courage” that enabled the horror of 9/11 “came
from religion,” noted Richard Dawkins.25 If “a martyr’s death is equivalent to press-
ing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to another universe,
it can make the world a very dangerous place,” he concluded. Although the worst
genocides have mostly come from irreligious tyrants (Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot) who
did not value fellow humans as “God’s children,” religion’s record is indeed mixed.
Still, on balance, the evidence now suggests that faith more often breeds health,
happiness, coping, character, and compassion.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 437

david g. myers c 437

All this cannot tell us whether spirituality pursues an illusion or a deep truth. Is
“God” merely a word we use to cover our ignorance? Is spirituality an opiate of the
people? Or is it human ignorance to presume God’s absence from the fabric of the
universe? If we are honest with ourselves, we cannot know which is right. In the
dark of the night, the theist and atheist will each have moments when they wonder
whether the other might be right. Perhaps all spiritual intuitions are illusions. Or,
perhaps those missing a spiritual dimension are flatlanders who miss another realm
of existence. If we could prove the nature of ultimate reality, we would not need faith
to bet on God’s existence.
Lacking proof or certainty, should we straddle the fence with perfect indecision?
Sometimes, said Albert Camus, life beckons us to make a 100 percent commitment
to something about which we are 51 percent sure. Credit Dawkins for the courage
to get off the fence and stir the debate. It is understandable that the successes of sci-
entific explanation combined with the superstition and inhumanity sometimes
practiced in religion’s name might push some people off the fence toward skepti-
cism. And credit people of faith, including those who practice faith-based skepti-
cism, for venturing a leap. Many do so mindful that they might be wrong, yet bet
their lives on a humble spirituality, on a fourth alternative to purposeless scientism,
gullible spiritualism, and dogmatic fundamentalism. They can root themselves in
a spirituality that helps make sense of the universe, gives meaning to life, opens
them to the transcendent, connects them in supportive communities, provides a
foundation for morality and selfless compassion, and offers hope in the face of
adversity and death.
Although we’re all surely wrong to some extent—we glimpse ultimate reality
only dimly, both skeptics and faithful agree—perhaps we can draw wisdom from
both skepticism and spirituality. Perhaps we can anchor our lives in a rationality and
humility that restrains spiritual intuition with critical analysis and in a spirituality
that nurtures purpose, love, and joy.

c
David G. Myers, Ph.D., is a social psychologist and communicator of psycho-
logical science to college students and the general public. His scientific writings,
supported by National Science Foundation grants and fellowships and recognized
by the Gordon Allport Prize, have appeared in two dozen periodicals, including Sci-
ence, the American Scientist, the American Psychologist, and Psychological Science.
Professor Myers has digested psychological research for the public through articles
in more than three dozen magazines, from Scientific American to Christian Cen-
tury, and through fifteen books, including The Pursuit of Happiness: Who Is Happy—
and Why (Morrow, 1992; Avon, 1993), The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an
Age of Plenty (Yale University Press, 2000), and Intuition: Its Powers and Perils (Yale
University Press, 2002). His textbooks, including Psychology, 7th ed., Exploring Psy-
chology, 6th ed., Social Psychology, 8th ed., and Exploring Social Psychology, 3rd ed.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 438

438 c david g. myers

are studied by students at one thousand colleges and universities and translated
into twelve languages. Professor Myers is also the author of books relating psycho-
logical science to religious faith.

Notes
1 Myers, D.G. Intuition: Its Powers and Perils. Yale University Press, 2002.
2 Psalm 131:1, Today’s English Version.
3 Cromwell, O. Letter, Aug. 3, 1650, to the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk. In: Car-
lyle, T., Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, 1845.
4 Today’s English Version.
5 New Revised Standard Version.
6 Moody, R. Life after Life. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1976, 23–24.
7 Ring, K. Life at Death: A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience. New York:
Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1980; Schnaper, N. “Comments Germane to the
Paper Entitled ‘The Reality of Death Experiences’ by Ernst Rodin,” Journal of Nervous
and Mental Disease 168 (1980): 268–70.
8 Gallup, G. H., Jr., and O’Connell, G. Who Do Americans Say That I Am? Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1986; Gallup, G. H., Jr. Adventures in Immortality. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1982.
9 Bonke, B., Schmitz, P. I. M., Verhage, F., and Zwaverling, A. “Clinical Study of So-Called
Unconscious Perception During General Anaesthesia,” British Journal of Anaesthesia 58
(1986): 957–64; Jelicic, M., De Roode, A., Bovill, J.G., and Bonke, B.“Unconscious Learn-
ing During Anaesthesia,” Anaesthesia 47 (1992): 835–37; Merikle, P, and Daneman, M.
“Memory for Unconsciously Perceived Events: Evidence from Anesthetized Patients,”
Consciousness and Cognition 5 (1996): 525–41.
10 Siegel, R. “Hallucinations,” Scientific American (Oct. 1977): 132–40.
11 Suedfeld, P., and Mocellin, J. S. P. “The ‘sensed presence’ in unusual environments,”
Environment and Behavior 19 (1987): 33–52.
12 Blackmore, S. “Near-Death Experiences: In or Out of the Body?” Skeptical Inquirer (Fall
1991): 34–45; Dying to Live. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1993.
13 Siegel, R. “Of the Brain: The Psychology of Life after Death,” American Psychologist 35
(1980): 911–31.
14 Kellehear, A. Experiences Near Death: Beyond Medicine and Religion. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996.
15 The Pursuit of Happiness: Who Is Happy, and Why? Morrow, 1992, Avon, 1993; The Amer-
ican Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty. Yale University Press, 2000.
16 Hummer, R. A., Rogers, R. G., Nam, C. B., and Ellison, C. G. The National Health
Interview Survey Study: “Religious Involvement and U.S. Adult Mortality,” Demogra-
phy 36 (1999): 273–85. I summarize this evidence in my Psychology, 6th edition. New
York: Worth, 2000.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 439

david g. myers c 439

17 Park, C., Cohen, L. H., and Herb, L. “Intrinsic Religiousness and Religious Coping as
Life Stress Moderators for Catholics Versus Protestants,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 59 (1990): 562–74.
18 McGloshen, T. H., and O’Bryant, S. L. “The Psychological Well-being of Older, Recent
Widows,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 12 (1988): 99–116; Harvey, C.D., Barnes, G.E.,
and Greenwood, L. “Correlates of Morale Among Canadian Widowed Persons,” Social
Psychiatry 22(1987): 65–72.
19 Friedrich, W. N., Cohen, D. S., and Wilturner, L. T. “Specific Beliefs as Moderator Vari-
ables in Maternal Coping with Mental Retardation,” Children’s Health Care 17 (1988):
40–44.
20 Ellison, C. “Religious Involvement and Subjective Well-Being,” Journal of Health and
Social Behavior 32 (1991): 80–99.
21 Angier, N. “Confessions of a Lonely Atheist,” New York Times Magazine, Jan. 14, 2001.
22 Voltaire, quoted by Wilson, J. Q. The Moral Sense. New York: The Free Press, 1993, 219.
23 L’Engle, M. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw,
1980, 59.
24 Gould, S. J. Rocks of Ages, New York: Ballantine, 1999.
25 Dawkins, R. “Discussion: That’s religion for you,” The Guardian, September 15, 2001.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 440

Spiritual Giftedness 73
Identifying and Measuring “Religious Genius”
Arthur J. Schwartz

After three days Joseph and Mary found Jesus in the Temple courts, sitting among
the teachers, listening and asking them questions. Everyone who heard Jesus was
amazed at his understanding and his answers.
—Luke 2:46–47

B iblical scholars, in their efforts to discern the significance of Luke’s story

about the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple, have debated for centuries what
so “amazed” the rabbis. One group of scholars posit that Jesus was simply pro-
foundly “learned” in the traditional sense, possessing an uncommonly mature intel-
lectual grasp of Torah, especially for a twelve-year-old. Other scholars suggest that
the rabbis (as well as Joseph and Mary) were “amazed” because this pre-adolescent
from Bethlehem was communicating a new—if not revolutionary—understand-
ing of God and God’s nature.
Although this debate may rage on for centuries to come, what is clear is that Luke
sought to portray Jesus as a religious or spiritual prodigy. The notion of spiritual
prodigies is well established in many religions. In Judaism, for example, the Baal
Shem Tov, founder of Hasidim, was widely acknowledged as a religious prodigy,
especially his mystical (and nonrational) orientation to God and Torah. And it is dif-
ficult to understand the theology of Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism, with-
out recognizing that each of the fourteen Dalai Lamas possessed at birth and
throughout childhood extraordinary spiritual gifts and proclivities.
This essay seeks to explore the nature and nurturing of spiritual giftedness. Does
it exist? If so, how might it be identified and measured? And even if research could
develop an empirically valid measurement tool to examine this aspect of human dif-
ference, why undertake such an effort? Don’t we all have the capacity to be spiritual
prodigies in different ways or according to our “callings”? Hasn’t God provided each
one of us with our own unique spiritual gifts? And in this age where the pervasive
yoke of radical egalitarianism abounds, is it problematic to suggest that some of us
are more spiritually gifted than others?
Yet if we examine other domains, it is clear that individual differences do exist.
And quite frequently these God-given attributes, qualities, and skills are exuber-
antly praised and celebrated. Tiger Woods made a guest appearance on The Tonight
Show with Johnny Carson at age six because of his extraordinary ability to hit a golf
ball. And most of us, I would venture to say, if asked to define the term “prodigy”
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 441

arthur j. schwartz c 441

conjure up the genius of Mozart and the manifestation of his musical gifts at such
a tender age. History is replete, moreover, with examples of gifted chess players and
mathematical virtuosi whose profound talents and skills became apparent during
their first decade of life.
Indeed, whether it is in the academic classroom or on the athletic field, educators
and coaches are identifying and nurturing individual differences. Throughout much
of the world, gifted education has become a well-established and significantly
funded component of schools, whereby students who possess even “moderate” aca-
demic talents (in disciplines ranging from science to history to the arts) are offered
a smorgasbord of enrichment programs and challenging curricula. And who can
deny that coaches in almost all sports have become adept at identifying and culti-
vating athletic “giftedness” in very young children? My own son, along with 150
peers, was evaluated at age eight for his ability as a soccer player. After assessing his
soccer ability, he was placed on the township’s “A” team. For the past five years, his
team has practiced more frequently than teams deemed less “gifted,” and the team
has been given the opportunity to learn from highly knowledgeable and expert soc-
cer coaches. Is there any doubt that these highly structured “interventions” have
helped to maximize my child’s athletic gifts?
Perhaps the reader has already raised in his or her mind the following question:
Why is it necessary to identify and measure “giftedness” in any domain? Indeed,
readers may be recalling stories they’ve read about talented tennis players or piano
prodigies who suffer burnout before they are old enough to drive a car. Why must
we be so focused on identifying and nurturing the skills and talents of our young
people? It is a fair question to ask.
The answer is deceptively simple: Research has shown that we soar with our
strengths. While the risk of burnout is real, the reality is that young people who are
gifted in a particular domain often want to exercise and strengthen their talent.
Scholars from a wide variety of research disciplines have demonstrated a strong
correlation between what we’re good at and what we like doing. That is to say, kids
who are especially talented at solving mathematical problems tend to enjoy math
and readily seek out opportunities to improve their math skills. In the realm of ath-
letics, scores of articles have been written about talented basketball players, labeled
“gym rats” at an early age because of their love and passion for the game.
In other words, no matter how much raw talent and innate skills a young person
may exhibit, these abilities will wither unless there exists what researchers describe
as a “rage to master.” Once again, the research is clear: There is no substitute for
hard work and the intrinsic motivation to excel at a particular task or domain of
activity, no matter how much natural ability is prevalent. While it may be stretch-
ing the research to suggest that high achievement is more a function of tenacity
than talent, deliberate practice is a critical and necessary ingredient. Prodigies prac-
tice—and often quite a bit. For example, while Mozart could play the clavier by his
fourth birthday and began to compose little keyboard pieces by age five, it wasn’t
until he was fifteen that he began to produce significant musical creations.
It is doubtful that Mozart thought of practicing as an arduous or painful enter-
prise; rather, it is more likely that he found his time at the piano a positive (if not
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 442

442 c arthur j. schwartz

joyful) experience. Indeed, a considerable body of contemporary research shows

that children like to practice and strengthen their God-given “gift”—especially when
their practices are viewed as preparation for a “performance” or “final project”
(whether it be an athletic competition or building a model rocket). Professor Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi suggests that during these practices and performances individu-
als may experience what he calls “flow,” a biological term to describe how people feel
when they are involved in a sustained activity worth doing for its own sake. Flow
occurs, he suggests, when an activity challenges the individual to fully engage his or
her capacities. Furthermore, as these capacities grow, staying in flow requires tak-
ing on increasingly greater challenges (e.g., more complex equations or rocket
designs).
In sum, while there may be multiple reasons that societies focus on identifying
and nurturing the skills and talents of our young people, one very compelling rea-
son may be that parents and educators clearly recognize that children thrive when
they have the opportunity to develop their God-given skills and talents. It’s a sim-
ple calculus: Kids like to do what they’re good at, and what they’re good at they
tend to like to do. Furthermore, ample research suggests that when given the oppor-
tunity to soar with their strengths, kids are more intrinsically motivated, happier,
less at risk, and—if you ask almost any educator—fun to teach!
It is clear as well that contemporary educators utilize, whether within the domain
of science or soccer, roughly the same set of pedagogical strategies: (1) identify a
“gifted” child through a range of assessment tools; (2) determine whether the child
has an intrinsic motivation to acquire new skills in that domain; if so, (3) provide
opportunities, through sustained practice, for the child to strengthen his or her nat-
ural talents and skills in that domain; and (4) offer a scaffolding of increasingly
more difficult challenges, such as performances or projects, whereby the child can
self-assess his or her acquisition and mastery of skills compared with the recog-
nized “experts” in the domain.
The question that frames the final section of this essay is whether the principles
and pedagogical strategies outlined above can be applied to religion and spiritual-
ity. First, I recognize that developing a range of assessment tools to measure spiri-
tual giftedness is a challenging task. It is difficult to envision a pencil-and-paper
test that captures the validity and essence of a young person’s religiosity or spiritu-
ality, although a number of researchers have begun to develop and refine such
empirical instruments.
Perhaps the first step is to identify more precisely what I mean when I suggest
that someone is religiously or spiritually “gifted.” Am I referring to his or her reli-
gious piety? Or should we measure selfless acts of compassion for those less for-
tunate? What about those children who possess extraordinary knowledge of sacred
texts? While these are clearly elements of religiosity that need to be more closely
investigated and measured, none of these dimensions exemplify, for me, spiritual
giftedness.
Research by Professor Ralph Piedmont suggests that the domain of spiritual gift-
edness consists of three independent dimensions. First is prayer fulfillment, which
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 443

arthur j. schwartz c 443

is a feeling of joy and contentment that results from personal encounters with a
transcendent reality (e.g., “I find inner strength and/or peace from my prayers”).
The second dimension is universality, a belief in the unitive nature of life (e.g.,“I feel
that on a higher level all of us share a common bond”). The final dimension is con-
nectedness, a belief that one is part of a larger human reality that cuts across gener-
ations and across groups (e.g., “I am concerned about those who will come after me
in life”).
These three dimensions are clearly principles that animate the world’s faith tra-
ditions and theological literature. Furthermore, we know from the writings of spir-
itual geniuses, ranging from Meister Eckhart to Maimonides, that these three
principles are at the core of the religious experience. Yet how might religious edu-
cators and parents assess these dimensions in young people? How might we begin
to measure “prayer fulfillment” in children?
Certainly this challenge is not as simple as denoting how far a golf ball is hit or
how fast and elegantly a complex algebraic equation is completed. Perhaps we ought
to be guided by the maxim that George Gallup once shared with me: “Just because
we don’t yet know how to measure something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
Therefore, let’s begin by acknowledging that some young people have (statisti-
cally) more meaningful “prayer lives” than others. And would any religious educa-
tor disagree that some kids simply have a stronger or more deeply felt understanding
of the universality and connectedness of life? In sum, there is a phenomenological
truth to the reality of “spiritual giftedness” that simply has never been researched.
For example, in my review of the literature, I have yet to identify a single book or
article (in any religion) that explores the concept of spiritual giftedness in ways
analogous to mathematical or athletic giftedness. As Sir John Templeton might put
it, we are at a point of “maximum pessimism.”
Perhaps during the twenty-first century we will witness the radical acceleration
of interest and enthusiasm for discovering new methods to identify and measure
spiritual giftedness in young people. This is not to say that I am suggesting that only
spiritually gifted children should learn how to pray, any more than I would advo-
cate that only mathematically precocious children learn geometry. However, in a
spirit of humility, let me forward the possibility that by taking more seriously the
identification and nurturing of the spiritually gifted, we may be entering a century
in which spiritual adepts are as cherished and praised as mathematical prodigies, a
century in which houses of worship (across religious traditions) provide sustained
opportunities for spiritually gifted children to practice and strengthen their innate
ability to communicate with God, a century in which it will be commonplace for
spiritually gifted children to learn from “experts” and “masters” about the practices
and methods by which to develop a deeper relationship with God. In many ways,
the novelist Chaim Potok captures this vision, within my own religious tradition, in
his classic book The Chosen.
If a spiritually accelerating society can encourage and support this level of
advancement, we may one day educate an “Einstein of the Spirit” who radically rev-
olutionizes our understanding of God and of God’s divine purposes.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 444

444 c arthur j. schwartz

c
Arthur Schwartz Ed.D. is Vice President for Research and Programs in Human
Services at the John Templeton Foundation. He has been a member of the Foun-
dation’s senior staff since 1995. Previous to joining the Foundation, Dr. Schwartz
taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has written numerous
chapters and articles, with a primary focus on adolescent moral and spiritual devel-
opment.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 445

Research on Forgiveness 74
Ten Lessons Learned (So Far)
Everett L. Worthington Jr.

I f you asked one hundred people to name a word they associate with religion
or spirituality, many would answer “forgiveness.”“Forgiveness is what Christians
must practice,” Christians might say. “God is forgiving, and Mohammed forgave
his enemies,” Muslims might suggest. Jewish scholars have described forgiveness as
a necessary response when one transgresses and returns to the path of God, or
engages in teshuva.
Forgiveness has been both lauded and maligned throughout the ages. But in
recent times, world events have brought forgiveness to a different degree of atten-
tion than ever before. Forgiveness has been examined under the microscope of sci-
entists. But can a topic so thoroughly associated with religion and spirituality be
scientifically investigated? Will its study yield new information about religion, spir-
ituality, and the way we live our daily lives?
Since September 11, 2001, I have visited Nassau, Canada, the Philippines, Brazil,
Singapore, and Malaysia. In every country, people have asked: “Can the USA forgive
the terrorists?” This is an important question. The events of 9/11 have already influ-
enced U.S. policy in the Philippines, Iraq, Israel, and elsewhere.
A more accurate question would be: “Can the people of the USA forgive terror-
ists?” A country cannot forgive. Only people can forgive. The policy of the United
States toward terrorists depends on what the politicians sense the collective will of
the people to be. So, ultimately, we will answer the question as to whether the United
States can forgive by understanding how forgiveness is practiced by individuals.
Since early 1998, researchers have been studying forgiveness by individuals. A
grant program was initiated by the John Templeton Foundation (JTF), which put
up $3 million to fund research. A Campaign for Forgiveness Research was later estab-
lished and raised an additional $3.4 million. Altogether, twenty-nine research proj-
ects have been funded, and countless other researchers have been galvanized into
action by this grant program.
World events made studies of forgiveness a hot topic. In 1989, when communism
fell, former enemies had to figure out how to coexist. In the early 1990s, spectacu-
lar examples of forgiveness and reconciliation—such as in Northern Ireland and
South Africa—contributed to optimism. Tragic examples of human cruelty—in
Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia-Serbia—added an urgency of need. The promise and need
are no less today. The events of nations trickle, and sometimes cascade, down into
the lives of individuals.
What have researchers learned from scientific studies of forgiveness? Religions
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 446

446 c everett l. worthington jr.

have advocated forgiveness for millennia, and each major religion has taught peo-
ple different lessons. Scientific researchers have typically asked different questions
than religious theologians have asked. Below, I briefly examine only ten of the many
findings from the research on forgiveness.
Finding 1: Forgiveness involves changes in thinking,
feeling, motivation to act, and acting.
Researchers have adopted different ideas about what is important in forgiving.
They have pursued different definitions of forgiveness. Author Beverly Flanagan
studied hard-to-handle hurts and believes that when people forgive they re-form
their worldview. Leslie Greenberg, professor at Toronto’s York University, believes
that forgiveness entails resolving feelings against the offender. Michael McCullough,
health psychologist at the University of Miami, believes that forgiveness means giv-
ing up on revenge and avoidance motivations for behavior. Social worker Fred
DiBlasio, researcher at the University of Maryland–Baltimore County, believes that
forgiveness is a decision. Indeed, sometimes it is. We might give up seeking revenge
against or avoiding our transgressor. But although that decision affects our future
behavior, it doesn’t necessarily change our internal experience. Robert Enright, pio-
neer of research into forgiveness and professor at the University at Wisconsin–Madi-
son, believes that forgiveness involves thinking, feeling, and acting differently. These
researchers have turned up evidence that forgiveness can begin with thoughts, feel-
ings, motivations, decisions, or actions. I believe that forgiveness is complete, how-
ever, when a person has changed both his or her emotions and motivations toward
the person who has offended.
Finding 2: Forgiveness is related to justice.
After 9/11, when General Norman Schwarzkopf was asked whether the United
States could forgive the terrorists, he said: “I believe that forgiving them is God’s
function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting.”
When a person transgresses against another, the relationship is thrown out of
balance. The icon of justice is portrayed as blindfolded with scales in her hand. Jus-
tice seeks to restore financial and social equanimity. When an injustice occurs, there
is always a gap between what a person believes should transpire to restore the rela-
tionship and where the person believes the relationship is currently. I call this the
“injustice gap.” People can fill this injustice gap with both unforgiveness and moti-
vations to achieve a just solution. When that injustice gap is huge, people have dif-
ficulty forgiving.
Many things can reduce the injustice gap and allow people to at least consider for-
giving. In the attack on the World Trade Center, people lost loved ones and posses-
sions, a sense of safety and security, a sense of a just world, a sense of pride, and a
stable worldview. For many, the injustice gap is so cavernous that forgiveness might
not be an option. The person might want justice alone, as the quotation from Gen-
eral Schwarzkopf illustrates.
Over time, justice will be attained. More terrorists will be caught. More will be
punished. The United States will rebuild its sense of national self-esteem, security,
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 447

everett l. worthington jr. c 447

and a sense of a just world. The injustice gap will narrow. Eventually, some people
will forgive. As time ticks by, others may forgive. Perhaps U.S. national policy might
change to reflect a shift in public opinion. In 1942, no one would have predicted
that the America would ever have friendly relations with Japan.
Finding 3: People don’t have to forgive. There are alternatives to forgiveness.
There are many ways to deal with transgressions besides forgiving. We’ve already
mentioned legal or political justice, but other avenues to obtaining justice also exist.
Obviously, seeking revenge—what Francis Bacon called “wild justice”—is an alter-
native to forgiving. Also, a perpetrator’s apology is a form of justice. Apologies bal-
ance the social books. A person who harms me places himself or herself above me.
If he or she apologizes, it brings the person back to my level. If the person makes
restitution—particularly if it involves punitive payments—then financial justice
can be obtained.
People can close the injustice gap by excusing or justifying the transgression.
They can simply accept the tragedy and move on with their lives. Sometimes they
merely forget what happened. Many in the current generation of youth do not know
what happened in Vietnam. In time, many people will forget what happened at the
World Trade Center. In twenty years, many youth might think of 9/11 as just old tel-
evision footage.
Finding 4: Forgiveness is related to predictable personality traits.
In 1992, psychologist Paul Mauger began to study people with a forgiving per-
sonality. Since then, others have carried forth the work. McCullough has looked at
vengeful personalities—what we might term “Type V.” Type V people seem to be
highly reactive to disturbances. They ruminate about problems, mulling the events,
consequences, and potential vengeful responses. Type V people might also have gen-
erally high levels of negative emotions, such as anxiety, depression, and anger. In
fact, other scientists have found trait anger, hostility, and narcissism to be associated
with this Type V personality.
On the contrary, Jack Berry, research professor at Virginia Commonwealth Uni-
versity, has studied what we might term a forgiving personality type, or “Type F.”
Type F people generally get along with others easily. They dissipate negative events,
allowing them to simply roll off their shoulders. Type F people are empathic. They
can see things from other people’s points of view, even in emotionally taxing situ-
ations. Some research has tied qualities of gratitude and humility to the Type F per-
sonality. Type F people are not doormats who forgive out of “wimpiness.” Rather,
they have deep respect for fellow humans and are willing to look at things from
others’ points of view. They try to get along—but not by giving up their sense of self.
Finding 5: Forgiveness is good for your mental health.
If we forgive, we often feel more hope in our interactions with a person. Enright
has shown that forgiving can reduce people’s depression and anxiety and increase
their hope and sense of well-being.
Of course, holding onto a sense of injustice can also have positive effects. It can
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 448

448 c everett l. worthington jr.

restore people’s sense of control and give them inspiration to right the injustices.
Some people have “proactively reacted” to horrid events, such as Carolyn Swinson,
past president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada. She suffered the loss of
her father and a child to drunk-driver-related accidents within a short time. She
turned her sense of injustice into dedication to reduce drunk driving in Canada.
Finding 6: Forgiveness is good for your relationship.
Frank Fincham, professor at Florida State University’s Family Institute, has stud-
ied forgiveness in families in both the United States and Italy. When family tensions
rise, he says, making up is like two porcupines kissing: It must be done carefully.
DiBlasio and three other researchers—Donald Baucom, Douglas Snyder, and
Kristina Gordon—have looked at how to promote healing in couples that have suf-
fered an infidelity. They conclude that forgiveness is a long process, but can result
in eventual healing.
Finding 7: Forgiveness is good for your physical health.
Several scientists have studied how forgiveness or unforgiveness affects health.
For example, Loren Toussaint headed a group that conducted a national probabil-
ity survey in the United States. They found that forgiving people have fewer health
problems. Why might this happen? Health psychologists have taken several paths to
understanding why this might occur. For some, like Italian researcher Pietro Pietrini
and British researcher Thomas Farrow, the answer is in brain structures. They have
found that the emotional brain takes over from the reasoning brain when people are
upset. Charlotte van Oyen Witvliet, at Hope College in Michigan, has shown that
when people imagine holding a grudge, their bodies respond in a stress pattern. Jack
Berry and I have shown that people who are unforgiving toward a spouse or rela-
tional partner produce additional cortisol, a stress hormone. From many laborato-
ries, the results have converged to show that unforgiveness is stressful. The negative
health effects accumulate, so the elderly are most likely to show physical symptoms.
Finding 8: Forgiveness may be good for your spirituality.
Sometimes people are called on to forgive others, but they have experienced lit-
tle forgiveness from people in their own lives. Richard Gorsuch of Fuller Theolog-
ical Seminary has shown that people who believe that God has forgiven them are
more likely to forgive other people. Some people blame God when things go wrong.
When that occurs often, people experience many ill effects on their physical and
mental health, as Julie Exline, a professor at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, has
found.
Forgiveness does not have to occur within a formal religious setting, but it seems
that forgiveness is tied to people’s spiritual existence. Friends can help each other
forgive. Robert Wuthnow, from Princeton University (who has a contribution in
this volume), has found that people receiving support from friends in church groups
report being able to forgive harms more than church people who do not participate
in groups.
Neal Krause and Berit Ingersoll-Dayton of the University of Michigan inter-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 449

everett l. worthington jr. c 449

viewed elderly Christians about their experiences with forgiveness. Not everyone
experienced forgiveness similarly. Some were inclined to forgive instantly. Others
forgave reluctantly or intentionally held grudges. Still others believed that trans-
gressors had to earn forgiveness through apologizing, groveling, suffering, or mak-
ing restitution.
Finding 9: Psychologists can help people forgive.
Enright has developed a twenty-step forgiveness method to help people who have
been seriously harmed. He and several colleagues have applied his method to incest
survivors, men whose wives have had abortions, elderly women, and adolescents
who feel that their parents have deprived them of love. Others have applied Enright’s
methods. Ken Hart, a researcher from Canada, studied forgiveness as an adjunct to
twelve-step methods in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Enright’s methods have
been found to be effective even in very severe cases.
In my own research, my colleagues and I have developed a five-step process to
help people forgive. In seven studies, this has also been found to be effective. Other
investigators, such as Carl Thoresen and Fred Luskin in the Stanford Forgiveness
Project and Mark Rye and Ken Pargament in Ohio, have developed effective for-
giveness groups.
Finding 10: Forgiveness usually takes time.
Here’s one eye-catching fact: There are no quick forgiveness solutions. The best
interventions typically take six to ten hours to help people forgive. In severe cases,
such as incest survivors, Enright and colleague Suzanne Freedman found that an
average of sixty hours was required before people had forgiven the perpetrators.
Let’s reconsider the question: “Can people in the United States forgive the ter-
rorists?” We see that this will take time. People might need to spend as many as fifty
hours intentionally trying to forgive. It will take years for many people to accumu-
late such effort trying to forgive.
Meanwhile, the injustice gap caused by 9/11 is still huge. As a nation, we are
attempting to re-establish social, political, and legal justice. Until we do, the events
will weigh on our minds, our relationships, our bodies, and our spirits. We don’t
have to forgive the terrorists, but research in the last five years suggests that some day
it might be a good idea.

c
Everett L. Worthington Jr., Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Department
of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and also a licensed
clinical psychologist. He has published 20 books and more than 200 articles and
chapters, mostly on forgiveness, marriage, and family topics. The most recent books
are Five Steps to Forgiveness: The Art and Science of Forgiving (Crown Publishers,
2001) and Forgiving and Reconciling (InterVarsity Press, 2003). He directs A Cam-
paign for Forgiveness Research (www.forgiving.org), which sought from 1998 to 2001
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 450

450 c everett l. worthington jr.

to raise money to support research into forgiving, and since December 2001 has
sought to disseminate findings about forgiveness arising from research. He was
founding editor of Marriage and Family: A Christian Journal. He has received awards
for overall professional contributions from the American Association of Christian
Counselors (Gary R. Collins Award for Excellence in Christian Counseling, 1999)
and Christian Association for Psychological Studies (Distinguished Member Award,
2001), as well as awards for teaching, scholarship, and leadership from several organ-
izations. An international speaker, Dr. Worthington’s mission is “to bring forgive-
ness into every willing heart, home, and homeland.”
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 451

Giving Thanks 75
Psychological Research on Gratitude and Praise
Robert A. Emmons

“
I n ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give,
and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich,” wrote German theolo-
gian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Religions and philosophies around the world would agree.
They have long acclaimed the inner state of gratitude and its outward manifestation
of thanksgiving to be indispensable aspects of virtue and an integral component of
health, wholeness, and well-being. Gratitude is an expression of a fundamental value
of human existence that has been known and acknowledged by thinkers from the
Roman philosopher Seneca to contemporary writers, from the oldest religions and
cultures to modern expressions of thanksgiving customs and rituals around the
world.
What exactly is gratitude? Derived from the Latin gratia, it means “grace, gra-
ciousness, or gratefulness.” All derivatives from this Latin root have to do with kind-
ness, generosity, gifts, and the beauty of giving and receiving. At the cornerstone of
gratitude is the notion of undeserved merit. This is reflected in one definition of
gratitude as “the willingness to recognize the unearned increments of value in one’s
experience.” There is also a cosmic gratitude that is felt in the form of awe and won-
der elicited by the grandeur of natural beauty. Whatever the source of gratitude, in
this attitude people recognize that they are connected to one another, their God, and
their world in a mysterious and miraculous way that is not fully determined by
physical forces, but is part of a wider, or transcendent, context.

Gratitude and Religion: A View from Tradition

As far as we know, there has never been a religion that has not embraced the con-
cept of gratitude. From the beginning of time, those who have entered into a rela-
tionship with God have expressed their gratitude to that God. In the great
monotheistic religions of the world, gratitude permeates texts, prayers, and teach-
ings. The word “thank” and its various cognates appears more than 150 times in the
Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament and 71 times in the Koran. Worship is prais-
ing God for who he is, and gratitude is thanks directed toward God for the many
gifts he has bestowed. What begins as thanking God for specific things culminates
in praising God for his goodness, steadfast love, and mercy. Furthermore, entire
theologies have been built around the concept of gratitude. In his doxological the-
ology, John Wesley stated:
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 452

452 c robert a. emmons

[T]rue religion is right tempers toward God and right tempers toward man.
It is, in two words, gratitude and benevolence—gratitude to our Creator
and supreme Benefactor, and benevolence to our fellow creatures. (Wesley
1987, 66–67)

Gratitude was also central to the religious affections of theologians such as

Jonathan Edwards, who wrote of the “gracious stirrings of grateful affection toward
God,” and Karl Barth, who noted that “grace and gratitude belong together like
heaven and earth.” From these perspectives, gratitude begins with God, is made
possible by God, and reveals to humanity the purposes of God.
Religious narratives provide methods and models for affirming the goodness in
one’s life and for recognizing that the sources of this goodness lie outside oneself.
Many religiously oriented events, such as reflection days or scheduled weeklong
retreats (for example, those influenced by Jesuit spirituality), have as a recurring
theme the notion of “gift.” Similarly, many self-help groups and organizations, such
as Alcoholics Anonymous, make use of the theme of gratefulness. Religions remind
us that gratefulness is not just a positive-thinking veneer, but is a deep and abiding
sense that goodness and hope dwell even under devastation and despair.
Do only the monotheistic faiths commend gratitude? Or, to phrase it differently,
does one have to believe in a personal God in order to be grateful? The available
evidence suggests not. A positive affirmation of life comes from a deep sense of
gratitude to all forms of existence, a gratitude rooted in the essence of being itself,
which permeates one’s every thought, speech, and action. Gratitude, in this pro-
found sense, is not simply a mere attitude, a deep feeling, or even a desirable virtue.
It is as elemental as life itself. In many world ethical systems, gratitude is the com-
pelling force behind acts of compassion because life is seen as a vast network of
interdependence, interpenetration, and mutuality that constitutes being. In Indian
Buddhism, for example, gratefulness, humbleness, and compassion are the natural
flowerings of life.

Gratitude and the Human Person:

Effects on Well-Being and Health
Psychological Well-Being
Does the conscious practice of gratefulness matter for human well-being? Devo-
tional writers have long assumed that an effective strategy for enhancing one’s spir-
itual and emotional life is to count one’s blessings. At the same time, current
psychological dogma states that one’s capacity for joy is biologically set. Psycho-
logical research has begun to put these conflicting assertions to rigorous test. Pre-
liminary findings suggest that those who regularly practice grateful thinking do
reap emotional, physical, and interpersonal benefits. Studies have shown that adults
who keep gratitude journals exercise more regularly, report fewer illness symptoms,
feel better about their lives as a whole, and are more optimistic about the future.
These benefits were observed in experimental studies when comparisons were made
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 453

robert a. emmons c 453

with those who were asked to chronicle their daily travails or to reflect on ways in
which they were better off than others. In daily studies of emotional experience,
when people report feeling grateful, thankful, and appreciative, they also feel more
loving, forgiving, joyful, and enthusiastic. These deep affections appear to be formed
through the discipline of gratitude. In this regard, it is interesting that the Greek root
of the word enthusiasm, entheos, means “inspired by or possessed by a god.”
Other research has found that adopting an attitude of gratitude results in higher
reported levels of alertness and energy, better sleep quality, a greater sense of inter-
personal connectedness, and more helpfulness toward others. In other words, grat-
itude leads not only to feeling good, but also to doing good, lending empirical
support to Albert Schweitzer’s claim that “the gratitude that we encounter helps us
believe in the goodness of the world, and strengthens us thereby to do what is good.”
How does one explain these findings? Grateful thinking may become a form of
positive, automatic thought for those who train their minds in this fashion. For
these individuals, a grateful response to life circumstances might be an adaptive
psychological strategy and an important process by which they positively interpret
everyday experiences. Focusing on the gifts one has been given is an antidote to
envy, resentment, regret, and other negative states that undermine long-term hap-
piness. The experience of gratitude, and the actions stimulated by it, also build and
strengthen social bonds and friendships. We know that social support is vital to
physical and psychological well-being. Encouraging people to focus on the benefits
they have received from others leads them to feel loved and cared for.

Physical Health
In addition to the psychological and interpersonal benefits of gratitude, there
appears to be growing evidence that gratitude and related states can positively affect
physiological functioning and physical health. Studies of the physiological effects of
positive emotions closely related to gratitude—namely, appreciation and compas-
sion—suggest that reliable changes in cardiovascular and immune functioning may
confirm these findings. Rollin McCraty and his colleagues at the HeartMath Insti-
tute in Boulder Creek, California, have found that consciously experiencing appre-
ciation increases parasympathetic activity, a change thought to be beneficial in
controlling stress and hypertension. A grateful heart, then, might be a healthy heart.
In research conducted at the University of Pittsburgh, thankfulness and appreci-
ation as aspects of religious faith in heart recipients were positively related to per-
ceived physical and mental health one year after transplant, with greater compliance
to medical regimens and with fewer difficulties with diet and medications. Another
study found that medical patients with higher levels of gratitude for their medical
care reported greater levels of satisfaction and fewer emotional problems.
Can gratitude add years to one’s life? In what might be the most significant study
to date on positive emotions and health, University of Kentucky researchers have
found a strong inverse association between positive emotional content in autobi-
ographies from 180 Catholic nuns written at age twenty-two and risk of mortality
in later life. The more positive emotions expressed in their life stories (content-
ment, gratitude, happiness, hope, love), the more likely they were to be alive six
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 454

454 c robert a. emmons

decades later. Specifically, the study found a 6.9-year difference in longevity in the
“happiest” compared with the “least happy” nuns.
Scientific and medical research showing the beneficial effects of religious involve-
ment on health has been rapidly accelerating. Researchers are just beginning to
unravel the complex causal mechanisms responsible for these relationships. One
particularly promising explanation might involve the experience of the religious
affections: hope, love, forgiveness, joy, and gratitude. Psychoneuroimmunologists
are beginning to explore the pathways by which these and other positive emotions
influence the immune system. Given that expressions of praise and thanksgiving are
key components of religious worship, the physiological effects of gratitude hold
promise for understanding religion’s impact on health. We know that prayer is asso-
ciated with improved health outcomes. A plausible hypothesis is that prayers satu-
rated with praise and thanksgiving lead to neurochemical changes that produce
beneficial physical outcomes over time.

Religion and Spirituality: A Lifelong Pursuit

What does research tell us about the link between gratitude and religion/spiritual-
ity? People who describe themselves as either religious or spiritual are more likely
to be grateful than those who describe themselves as neither. A Gallup survey
reported that 54 percent of adults and 37 percent of teens said they express thanks
to a God or Creator “all of the time.” Two-thirds of those surveyed said they express
gratitude to God by saying grace before meals, and three out of four reported
expressing thanks to God through worship or prayer. In a classic study conducted
over a half-century ago, gratitude was one of the main motivations for religious
conversion in college students. We have found that those who regularly attend reli-
gious services and engage in religious activities such as prayer or reading religious
material are more likely to be grateful. Grateful people are more likely to acknowl-
edge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment and responsi-
bility to others. In addition, grateful individuals place less importance on material
goods; they are less likely to judge success in terms of possessions accumulated.
How can people, young and old, be guided toward a life of thanksgiving? As an
attitude, gratitude does not emerge spontaneously in children. As with other virtues,
it is acquired only through sustained focus and effort. Nearly seventy years ago, one
developmental psychologist suggested that parents emphasize the sense of com-
munity created or strengthened through gratefulness—and diminished or destroyed
through ingratitude—rather than appeal to a child’s sense of politeness or obliga-
tion. Today, children’s books and articles in parenting magazines regularly encour-
age the cultivation of gratitude and thankfulness in children and offer strategies for
parental inculcation. The essence of these approaches is that gratitude is taught as
a form of unlimited love, rather than as a baptism into moral recordkeeping.
Yet practically no scientific research has been conducted on the emergence of
gratitude in children. In this regard, programmatic, developmental research stands
out as a critical priority. What are the most promising means for increasing grati-
tude literacy in our children? The Thanksgiving Leadership Forum of Dallas, com-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 455

robert a. emmons c 455

prising business and civic leaders, has sponsored essay-writing contests for high-
school students in which they write thousand-word essays on gratitude and thanks-
giving as a way of life. College scholarships are awarded for the best essays. Others
have developed curricula and gratitude activities for use in schools and in parent-
ing. A sustained research commitment to reveal the most effective strategies for
increasing thanksgiving literacy would enable parents and educators to guide more
effectively their child’s passage into responsible and grateful adulthood. In these
efforts, psychologists would be wise to enlist the assistance of schools, religious
organizations, and parenting groups to develop climates that educate for gratitude.

Conclusion
John Calvin stated, “we are . . . overwhelmed by so great and so plenteous an out-
pouring of benefactions . . . that we never lack reason for praise and thanksgiving.”
Through modern research we are beginning to recognize this basic truth and dis-
cover how this attitude can be cultivated for the betterment of individuals and com-
munities.
Unquestionably, there are limits to the power of gratitude. Grateful thinking will
not in and of itself cause tumor cells to shrink, nor will individuals whose depres-
sion is caused by a biochemical imbalance necessarily profit from gratitude train-
ing. Yet one thing is clear: People who live under an “aura of pervasive thankfulness”
reap the rewards of grateful living. Conversely, those who fail to feel gratitude cheat
themselves out of their experience of life.
The significance of gratitude lies in its ability to enrich human experience. Grat-
itude elevates, energizes, inspires, and transforms. People are moved, opened, and
humbled through expressions of praise and gratitude. By embracing life itself as a
gift, gratitude provides our lives with meaning. Within such a framework, gratitude
can come to dominate one’s entire life outlook, or even the outlook of entire
nations.
By cultivating a thankful perspective on life, the grateful person sees himself or
herself in a transcendent context, opening one’s soul to an endless stream of divine
blessings.

c
Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of Cali-
fornia, Davis. He was formerly an affiliated scientist with the Duke University
Center for Religion/Spirituality and Health and a research fellow for the Interna-
tional Center for the Integration of Health and Spirituality. Professor Emmons
served as 2003–2004 President of the American Psychological Association’s Divi-
sion 36, The Psychology of Religion. He is the author of nearly 80 original publi-
cations in peer-reviewed journals or chapters in edited volumes and is an associate
editor for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the International
Journal for the Psychology of Religion. Professor Emmons is the author of the
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 456

456 c robert a. emmons

acclaimed The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns (Guilford Press), and he also co-
edited with Michael McCullough the newly released The Psychology of Gratitude
(Oxford University Press).

References
Danner, D. D., Snowdon, D. A., and Friesen, W. V. Positive emotions in early life and
longevity: Findings from the nun study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80
(2001): 804–13.
Emmons, R. A., and Hill, J. Words of Gratitude for Mind, Body, and Soul. Radnor, PA: Tem-
pleton Foundation Press, 2001.
Emmons, R. A., and McCullough, M.E. “Counting blessings versus burdens: Experimen-
tal studies of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life.” Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology 84 (2003): 377–89.
Emmons, R. A., and Shelton, C. S. “Gratitude and the science of positive psychology.” In
Handbook of Positive Psychology, edited by C. R. Snyder and S. J. Lopez, 459–71. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Gallup, G. H., Jr. “Thankfulness: America’s saving grace.” Paper presented at the National
Day of Prayer Breakfast, Thanks-Giving Square, Dallas, 1998.
McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., Tiller, W., Rein, G., and Watkins, A. D. “The effects of emotions
on short-term power spectrum analysis of heart rate variability.” The American Journal
of Cardiology 76 (1995): 1089–93.
Wesley, J. The Works of John Wesley: Vol. 4 (Sermons IV: 115–51). A. C. Outler (Ed.).
Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 457

“Ecce Homo” 76
To Welcome the Suffering Is the Sign of Our Humanity 1
Xavier Le Pichon

T he remarkable interest of Sir John Templeton in what he calls progress in

acquiring spiritual information is similar to the spiritual quest that has been
close to my heart. This quest has led me to share the life of mentally handicapped
people. My life is built on two anchor points—science, with my passion for earth sci-
ences, and the community of L’Arche,2 where I have lived since 1976 with mentally
handicapped people. This link between science and suffering people may seem
strange, but I feel that such a connection is crucial in the development of humanity.
Science has to be humane, and it cannot be so if scientists do not integrate their
scientific vision and their love for humanity. Teilhard de Chardin is my role model
in this respect. This mystic was also a great specialist in earth sciences. He knew
that the history of the Earth and the universe and the history of humanity are inex-
tricably linked; he contemplated the best scientific conclusions as a Christian
believer in order to reflect on evolution in human societies. Like me, Teilhard de
Chardin was offered a chair at the College of France, but he was not permitted to
accept this offer. I owe it to his memory to emphasize the importance of the type of
reflection that he inaugurated and that I have tried, in a more modest way, to pur-
sue in a recent book.3
I often use the term “human/humane.” In French, “humain” is used to denote
someone who is both human and humane; that is, someone who is sensitive to the
suffering of others and tries to alleviate that suffering. In the same way, a society is
“humain” to the degree that it takes care of those who suffer most without either
rejecting or marginalizing them. In 2000, I organized a conference of specialists at
the College of France to discuss “The Unhappiness of Others: Suffering and Cul-
ture.” A dozen of us shared our thoughts about the way in which different cultures
understand this situation.
The first paper was given by Yves Coppens, a specialist in prehistoric human fos-
sil evidence.4 He reported that an adult skeleton had been found in Iraq in a tomb
dating back sixty thousand to one hundred thousand years. It was the skeleton of a
crippled adult man that showed multiple fractures that had healed long before his
death. Examination of the skeleton showed that, during a major traumatic event, the
man had lost the use of his right arm, that he was partially blind, and that he would
have had serious difficulty with mobility. In other words, he was unable to take care
of himself. For him to have been able to continue living for many years (as the
healed bones showed he did), it would have been necessary for him to be entirely
taken care of by his community. This community would have consisted of perhaps
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 458

458 c xavier le pichon

twenty or thirty people living by hunting and gathering, with no permanent camp.
Every day, the community would have moved on in search of new resources. We can
only imagine the considerable effort this group had to make over many years to
transport this person from camp to camp, to care for him, and to allow him to live.
In the past, the mere fact of being buried showed the great respect shown by the
community for that person; internment became common only around ten thousand
years ago. Thus, caring for a living person in such a manner was extraordinary,
although by no means is this the only such example.
We are therefore faced with a phenomenon as old as humanity itself: In the face
of the utilitarian logic that dominates the world, humankind devised a way to put
someone who no longer had any “utility” at the center of his community, thus allow-
ing him to continue occupying his place in society. Such a choice inevitably leads to
a reorganization of society. As soon as such a seemingly foolish choice is made,
everything must be reorganized around the person who is the most wounded and
handicapped. That person becomes the center of everyone’s attention, and some-
thing completely different is created: This person becomes the new focus of society.
The practice of protecting the weakest members of society certainly existed before
this, as the very young were always taken care of; without them there would be no
future. But many animal societies are organized in the same way to ensure the pro-
tection of their offspring. Putting those who are suffering at the center of society in
a systematic way is specific to humanity, so that those who are at the end of life or
who no longer lead a productive and useful life are looked after. This is at the heart
of human culture. Scientists have been looking for and discovering signs of “com-
passion” in other animal societies, but compassion is not integrated in a systematic
way within the cultures of other animal societies. Most research today seems to be
driven by the view that no fundamental differences exist between humans and other
living beings. Yet this difference seems to be fundamental, and I make the plea that
it be investigated in a more systematic manner.
We are dealing with a species par excellence, a human group that is discovering the
true and full meaning of its humanity. In a way, one can say that since humankind’s
beginnings we have not ceased to reinvent our humanity. When faced with the suf-
fering of a sick, wounded, aging, or handicapped person, we are confronted with an
extremely difficult and painful choice: We may say, “I cannot” or “I don’t want to”
or “I don’t want anymore” to care for this person. This is rejection. Either society
becomes hardened by concentrating on only those who are productive or who will
be so in the future, or it opens up by refocusing on new avenues, new dialogs, and
new ways of life. In this way, people will invent new benefits for society, such as
communication, openness, and sharing. Those who are no longer capable of direct
contribution to society discover that they are nevertheless welcomed as full partic-
ipants in that society. And this profoundly changes the community that practices it.
Society must continually reinvent its humanity by responding to new challenges.
It would be a remarkable undertaking for the John Templeton Foundation to help
show how different cultures have “reinvented their humanity,” how they were able
to take a seemingly foolish gamble on their weakest members. This gamble would
not pay off if this were about a one-way relationship. Something must be received
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 459

xavier le pichon c 459

in return. I believe that what societies receive in return for opening their hearts to
the suffering is an increase in their humanity. This is the discovery that the person
whom we have welcomed changes us and raises us up.
I have certainly experienced this in the community of L’Arche co-founded by
Jean Vanier and Father Thomas Philippe. My family and I live there with mentally
handicapped people who are placed at the center of the community. Together, we
are discovering our humanity. Often, when people arrive who want to live with the
community, usually the young, they explain that they have come to help the hand-
icapped. But as time passes and they find that they themselves have been truly wel-
comed by those they came to help, they acquire a new perspective about life and live
fuller lives with their hearts more open to the possibility of growth. They discover
new paths leading to communication and communion. They no longer say, “I am
here to help,” but “I have discovered friends who have taught me something entirely
new about who I am.”
Our friends at L’Arche love to receive postcards and letters, even though they
cannot read or write. They understand the deepest and most basic meaning of a let-
ter: “You have written to me, therefore you have not forgotten me.” They attach
themselves to us first as people, and they know that when we welcome them we
accept who they are as people. They have no idea what kind of work I do. They
sometimes say to me, “You seem very tired. Were your students acting up today?”
Although they have no idea of what I do in my work, they notice immediately when
I have ceased to be “present.” It is my person that interests them, not my social posi-
tion or my job. The steps that we are taking at L’Arche are not so different from
those that our ancestors took a hundred thousand years ago. As soon as we wel-
come anyone who is marked by their difficulties in life, someone who may no longer
be “productive,” a transformation is operative in both the one who welcomes and
the one who is welcomed.
To explain the nature of this transformation, I will use the example of my par-
ents at the end of their lives. I have written about this in a little book on death.5 My
mother was affected by Alzheimer’s disease, and my father chose to stay with her
until the end. Alzheimer’s is a terrible illness that progressively destroys the neurons.
It results first in loss of short-term memory, leads progressively to deterioration, and
then finally ends in dementia. The choice my father made led him to accept a rad-
ical change in his life: He had been a man of action; he became a man of service.
When Alzheimer’s affects someone, the little memory and security that they retain
must be protected because our sense of security depends on our memory. Each one
of us has experienced the feeling of waking up in the morning and not knowing
where we are, no doubt recalling the fright that accompanies this sensation. Mother
lived permanently with this fright. “Where am I?” “Who are you?” Father struc-
tured their days in order for them to lead a life that was as consistent as possible, with
unchanging rituals: morning and evening prayers (said in Latin because those were
the prayers Mother remembered), regular mealtimes, afternoon tea, Mass at the end
of the day. This meant that Father always had to be present and give her his contin-
uous attention, and it also demanded what I would call an “inventive heart.” Mother,
to whom he devoted all his time, became the center and source of his life. This new
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 460

460 c xavier le pichon

phase of his life gave him a new name. Although Mother had forgotten that Father
was her husband, for her he became “Jean,” the person who was always there when
she needed him. Mother had never had so much influence on her husband, had
never changed him so much than during this time when she was at her weakest and
poorest. But she greatly benefited from the change in her husband. Until her death,
she was able to keep in touch with reality, keep her faith by continuing to pray and
participate in the Eucharist. Father said at her death: “I have never loved her so
much. And I am only discovering now what the Sacrament of Marriage really is.”
The experimental L’Arche community and what my mother and father experi-
enced together during her long and painful illness help us to better understand the
nature of this mysterious transformation of relationships that comes when we wel-
come handicap, suffering, and illness. If this welcome is made with dignity and love,
the person we welcome becomes the one who leads us into a new deepening of our
true humanity. That person changes us deeply as they also change the nature of the
community around them.
The community and the society become more human in the deepest sense of the
word. But this humanity is not acquired in a single moment. We must be constantly
inventive in order to respond to new handicaps and new suffering. And even if this
inventiveness demands all our technical and scientific resources, it remains funda-
mentally an inventiveness of the heart. In the end, the humanization of society
comes through the way in which it welcomes its most wounded members. It is, in
fact, the response society brings to such a challenge that makes it more, or less,
human/humane.
This brings us directly to the teaching that Jesus gave us on how to enter his
Father’s Kingdom. As is true for all that he taught us, we are not given cut-and-dried
directions. We have signposts pointing the way, following in Jesus’s footsteps. Whom
did he welcome? Toward whom did he go? Those who were most rejected by soci-
ety, the suffering, the wounded, the mistrusted, the avoided. In one of his key teach-
ings, Jesus deals with the Last Judgment. Here, he tells us that those who live their
earthly life in poverty and rejection are the ones who hold the keys to his Father’s
Kingdom:
Come, you that are blessed by my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world;
For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you gave me clothing,
I was sick and you took care of me,
I was in prison and you visited me.6
It is those who are fed, welcomed, clothed, cared for, and visited who open the door
of heaven to those who come toward them. Note that we are talking in each case
about services to the body, services that imply our presence and therefore the gift
of our time. Finally, Jesus speaks to us in this passage of welcoming the “poor.” The
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 461

xavier le pichon c 461

poor person we welcome on Earth is the one who welcomes us in Heaven. Chris-
tians have speculated on the interpretation of the Last Judgment throughout the his-
tory of the church. What is Jesus saying to us when he affirms that he is present in
the person who is rejected, suffering, or wounded? These days, more and more peo-
ple are discovering in this teaching the sacrament of the poor, which is a sign of
God’s presence. But have we really entered into the mystery of this sacrament? Have
we understood that the poor really possess the keys of the Kingdom? What is the
Kingdom? “The Kingdom of God is in your midst,”7 said Jesus. It is the Kingdom of
God where peace, fraternity, and love reign. And, in fact, these people hold the keys
to the Kingdom, for if we do not welcome them, how can there be peace, love, and
fraternity? How can we take possession of God’s Kingdom on Earth?
Something very mysterious and very profound is found in this welcome. Jesus says,
“I am showing you these people. They have a secret, the secret of my Kingdom. It is
up to you to discover this secret with them and through them.”Again, he does not give
us directions. He invites us to share in suffering, but suffering shared in community.
Without us, the suffering cannot get away from their unhappiness and risk falling
into despair. But without them, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Father
Thomas Philippe, co-founder of L’Arche with Jean Vanier, said: “If we take away from
someone who is suffering, any meaning to his suffering, if we make them feel even
indirectly that their suffering is useless and is a burden to the community, what is left
for them? Despair.” We must welcome each person in such a way that they retain
their full dignity and still have a sense of having something to offer to the community.
I conclude by citing another paper from the 2000 conference, this one given by
Claude Birman. The theme was suffering in the Jewish tradition.8 The speaker con-
centrated particularly on a very beautiful commentary from Talmud Babli, written
in the fifth century CE. Rabbi Anan comments on verse 4 of Psalm 41:
He who comes to visit someone who is sick must not sit on the edge of the
bed nor on a chair; he must cover himself entirely and sit in front of the one
who is sick, because the divine presence is over the head of the sick person.
This is because the psalm says “The Eternal, who is above the bed of the
one who is sick, upholds him.”
Claude Birman explained that the divine presence manifests itself particularly to
those who suffer:
To be in the presence of suffering, he says, is to be in the presence of God.
The visitor, parent, friend, carer, consoler is in the image of God. He is pres-
ent to the sick person in the same way that God is there, bending over him.
But this resemblance remains respectful and leaves the divine presence its
rightful place; no one takes the place of God.
What suffering does for the one who is sick is in some way to lay bare his human-
ity and reveal him as a child of God. Everything else is of lesser importance.
In this commentary, we touch on what Pontius Pilate reveals when he presents
Jesus to the crowd, Jesus who is suffering, scorned and humiliated: “Ecce Homo”
(Behold the man).9 Man in his suffering, man wounded and tortured, at this
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 462

462 c xavier le pichon

moment more than any other reveals the mystery of his humanity, the mystery that
renders him in the image of God. Let us not forget that it is as the Suffering Servant
that Jesus chose to reveal his humanity to us.
In the same way as the sick person is supported in his bed by the presence of God
and becomes a sign of God, Jesus in his extreme agony reveals to us his humanity
as “God-Man.” Rabbi Anan made the discovery long ago of the mystery hidden in
the hearts of those who suffer. Following them, following so many people who have
approached the mystery of suffering, and of course, following Jesus who invites us
to engage ourselves fully, we must now respond to this call to deepen our human-
ity. The only way is to go the way of the suffering person, as John Paul II has writ-
ten: “The suffering person is in a special way the path of the Church.”10 The rejected,
the suffering, the handicapped are put on our path so that we will welcome them,
and thereby find our way to Heaven.
The inventive heart permits each of us to freely discover our own humanity—and
the humanity of the whole of society. It seems to me that this call is more urgent
than ever because we see new challenges continually arising among certain of soci-
ety’s members: the aging, the mentally ill, the disadvantaged—all those who feel
lost and abandoned.
The challenges we face are perhaps not so different from those faced by our ances-
tors millennia ago. Did they not need just as much, if not more, courage to accept
what appears to be an intolerable burden? The burden of taking long-term care of
a disabled person in their small group of hunter-gatherers with no permanent
home? In caring for him, in putting him at the center of their lives, they discovered
that they were creating a new way of life. They did not know that it was a
human/humane way, but they invented it just the same. Is it more difficult for us
today? Perhaps. But we have to take up the challenge in the same way. In order to
do this, we must change the way we look at the “other,” the one who is suffering, the
one Jesus calls our “neighbor.” Those who have never had contact with the mentally
handicapped are often afraid at the first contact. But in visiting the L’Arche com-
munities, they lose their fear because they see how the people who live there are
loved and regarded. Their ideas change because their heart is touched.
The changed discover what Father Thomas Philippe said, that the poor who are
accepted become “peacemakers.”11 This radiated peace is visible to all hearts that
allow themselves to be touched. Thus, through the disfigured features of the Suf-
fering Servant, we begin to see his true essence: “Ecce Homo.” Jesus chose to be pre-
sented by Pilate as “man” at the mock tribunal, in all his derisory finery, so that we
would discover the secret of humanity: Welcoming the suffering enables us to enter
the Kingdom of Heaven.

c
Xavier Le Pichon, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Geodynamics at the Collège
de France. He received his doctorate in Geophysics at Strasbourg in 1966. A major
contributor to Plate Tectonics Theory, he was the first to develop a global model
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 463

xavier le pichon c 463

based on quantitative analysis, which has become the basis for a better under-
standing of the distribution of earthquakes and the large-scale reconstruction of
the configuration of continents and ocean basins in the past. Professor Le Pichon’s
book Plate Tectonics (with Jean Bonnin and Jean Francheteau 1973) became the stan-
dard reference work in the field for many years, and he was the most-cited author
in Earth Sciences between 1965 and 1978. Since the late 1990s, geodetic methods
using satellites have allowed him to shed light on interseismic deformation. By
combining mathematics, geophysics, and geology, Professor Le Pichon has played
a leading role in the development of marine geology in France and in many inter-
national programs. Among his awards are the Maurice Ewing Medal (1984), the
Huntsman Prize (1987), the Japan Prize (1990), the Wollaston Medal (1991), the
Balzan Prize (2002), and the Wegener Medal (2003). He is a member of the French
(1985) and American (1995) academies of science. Since 1976, Professor Le Pichon
has also been a member of L’Arche, which brings together people that have learn-
ing disabilities with others who choose to live in the same community (see http:
//www.larche.org/).

Notes
1 Address to the 76th session of the Semaines Sociales de France, November 23–25, 2001:
Que ferons-nous de l’homme? Published by Bayard Ed., Paris, 2002: 51–66. Current essay
translated and adapted with permission from the publisher.
2 The first L’Arche community was founded at Trosly-Breuil near Compiegne in 1964 by
Jean Vanier and Father Thomas Phillipe to welcome mentally handicapped people as full
human persons. It has since become an international federation of communities, which
share a common charter inspired by the Beatitudes of the Gospels (see http://www.
larche.org/). The author has lived at Trosly-Breuil with his family since 1976.
3 Xavier Le Pichon, Aux Racines de l’Homme, de la Mort à l’Amour, Presses de la Renais-
sance, 1997.
4 Yves Coppens, “La Conscience et le rapport à la souffrance et à la Mort dans la Préhis-
toire.” Coppens was referring to the discovery of Ralph Solecki in the Shanidar cave of
a Neanderthal Mousterian cemetery. Solecki considered that his discovery demon-
strated that Neanderthals were “human, humane, compassionate, and caring.”
5 Tang Yi Jie and Xavier Le Pichon, La Mort (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1999).
6 Matthew 25:34–36. Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.
7 Matthew 12:28.
8 Claude Birman, “Souffrance et signification dans la Tradition Juive,” Colloquium Le
malheur de l’autre: souffrance et culture, 22–23 September 2000 à la Fondation Hugot du
Collège de France.
9 John 19:5.
10 John Paul II, Le Sens Chrétien de la Souffrance Humaine (Paris: Le Cerf, 1984), 89.
11 Matthew 5:9.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 464

Unlimited Love 77
Stephen G. Post

S piritual experience is typically envisioned as a mystical vision of God, a

worshipful quietude, or an existential sense of awe before a presence in the uni-
verse that is greater than our own. Yet it can also be said that whenever human
beings move through everyday life with loving-kindness, they are one with God.
The New Testament reads, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God,
and God abides in them” (1 John 7–8). Can this be true? And is it true that when we
love our neighbor we are “participating in God” on the levels of both human nature
and God’s grace? If so, what does this entail?
In the tradition of Sir John Templeton, we can ask: What new information might
be learned about such love, which rests at the center of all true spirituality? Can
focused research on love lead to spiritual progress and important new insights?
Ours is an age seriously beginning to consider “transhuman” possibilities through
biotechnological enhancements in human biological capacities such as lifespan,
personality type, and intelligence. But what will be the status of love as adventur-
ous human beings begin to experiment with efforts to alter their own biology and
that of their descendants? Will altruistic love be left behind in favor of the biotech-
nological pursuit of bigger muscles, happy dispositions, and unfading beauty? Or
is love the “ultimate human enhancement”? What can science do to move us for-
ward toward a better future? The remarkable powers of science very likely can help
humanity to discover and illuminate the “ways and power of love” (Sorokin
1954/2002).

Unlimited Love
Unselfish love for all people, without exception, is the most important point of con-
vergence between all significant religions and spiritual pursuits. We often marvel at
the ways and power of love and may consider it the best reason to hope for a far bet-
ter human future. Innumerable everyday people excel in demonstrating loving-
kindness, not only toward their nearest and dearest, but frequently in service to the
neediest or most imperiled. But how do our complex brains—our unique imagi-
nations, communicative abilities, reasoning powers, moral sense, and spiritual
promptings—give rise to the remarkable and not at all uncommon practice of
showing unselfish love for our neighbors, or for those we do not even know? It is
natural to love one’s children and friends. But it is less so to love strangers, enemies,
or those made unattractive by an illness that robs them of normal functioning. Yet
most of us have encountered unselfish, genuinely kind, and deeply generous indi-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 465

stephen g. post c 465

viduals, some of whom have put themselves at considerable risk in service to per-
fect strangers.
If we could answer this question and harness the power of love, the world would
indeed be a place of great hope. It is in reaching outward to all humanity that one
transmits to children and friends the higher purpose that can elevate their lives
beyond the confines of fulfilling their own immediate needs. Tapping the love that
resides within us is an unambiguous source of good in a world that otherwise
engages in a battle between “right and wrong.”
Sir John Templeton’s term “unlimited love” is intriguing.1 What other term could
describe the scope of unselfish love for every person without exception? Such love
might take many forms, ranging from compassion to correction—sometimes it
might have to be constructively “tough” to be effective. But underlying all the expres-
sions of love is an affirmation of the goodness and potential in every life. Sir John
understands that “unlimited love” at its highest is God’s love for humanity and that
we can participate in this love to varying degrees.
One alternative to unlimited love is reasonable, law-abiding self-interest. Such
moral minimalism does not abide by the positive version of the Golden Rule, “Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you,” but rather by the less demand-
ing negative version, “Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto
you.” In a culture of moral minimalism, the principle of nonmaleficence (“do no
harm”) stands alone, enforced by law and contract. Yet there is no elevating call for
kindness, generosity, compassion, and beneficent love. It might easily be argued
that without the influence of love and beneficence in the form of forgiveness, even
such minimalism would be unsustainable.
Another alternative to unlimited love, in addition to the pursuit of ultimately
meaningless selfish goals connected with narrow ambitions and materialism, is the
descent into hatred. Before September 11, 2001, there was April 20, 1999, when thir-
teen students were gunned down by two of their peers at Columbine High School
in Littleton, Colorado,. We are astounded at the downward spiral of relatively young
people of all creeds and nationalities into a vortex of hatred and murderous suicide.
To some extent, we can study the opposites of love in order to understand what
love requires. For example, Paul Connolly surveyed 352 children between three and
six years of age from across Northern Ireland. Through the influence of the family,
the local community, and the school, Roman Catholic and Protestant children have
learned to loathe and fear one another even at these very young ages; by age five they
have absorbed hatred and prejudice. This early inculcation of hatred mirrors stud-
ies of the attitudes of Israeli and Palestinian children (Connolly 2002). Yet such atti-
tudes do not imply that loving-kindness is not within the repertoire of human
nature.
How can love penetrate and transform young and old from emptiness to fullness?
Faith in love can prevail despite the turbulence of our lives. How can a world in
which we not only respect, but actually cherish, one another be achieved? This
would require that every scientific, educational, spiritual, ethical, and religious
insight be brought to this endeavor, along with an evidence-based shift in our
perceptions of human motivational structure and a renewed confidence in the
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 466

466 c stephen g. post

genuineness of our helping inclinations. We owe this to humanity, our dignity, our
future, and our Creator.

The Science of Unlimited Love

Anders Nygren was, perhaps, the foremost theologian of agape (selfless love) in the
twentieth century. However, in hindsight, it is clear that his analysis was wrong in
two ways. First, Nygren argued that generous, unselfish love is entirely a divine gift.
Correspondingly, he argued that the human creature is by nature locked in an ego-
istic or eros motivational structure, contrary in all respects to the spirit of agape.
However, empirical research, particularly the work of C. Daniel Batson, paints a
different picture, one that is consistent with the existence of an “empathy-altruism
axis.” Even with regard to non-kin, Batson’s work shows that human motivational
structure includes something beyond eros—that is, acquisitive desire and longing.
Science makes it more plausible to believe that our natural capacity for generous,
unselfish love (non-eros) is richly elevated, strengthened, and universalized by divine
grace—that is, transmuted into agape.
Second, if Batson is correct, Nygren was partly mistaken in thinking of the human
agent as a passive conduit through which agape merely flows. The energy of divine
unlimited love does flow, but not through a passive or empty vessel. Rather, it is the
enlivening, quickening, and transposing non-eros capacities that are already part of
human motivational structure. We are not just the empty conduit through which
agape “comes down” (Batson 1991, 210); within each person is a capacity for gener-
ous and unselfish love that combines with agape to make us more and more “unlim-
ited.” A better image might be a flask that contains a base chemical with which some
much grander substance from above will be bonded in a process of elevating trans-
formation.
It is this potential for transformation that underlies the great paradoxical law of
life associated with all wisdom traditions: In the giving of self lies the unsought-for
discovery of self. Nygren misses the paradoxical nature of a passage such as this:
“Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will
find it” (Matt 10:39). In the losing lies the unintended finding. This may be true
even when the giving of self requires the “tough love” of skillful confrontation with
evil: Agape does not seek the cross, but sometimes the cross comes, and agape is
“open” to it (Jackson 1999). It is noteworthy that in the Translator’s Preface to
Nygren’s great work, Phillip S. Watson, a Methodist thinker, acknowledges the theme
of self-discovery in a way that Nygren himself never could:
Agape is by nature so utterly self-forgetful and self-sacrificial that it may
well seem (from an egocentric point of view at any rate) to involve the
supreme irrationality of the destruction of the self, as some critics have
alleged that it does. But in fact, agape means the death, not of the self, but
of selfishness, which is the deadliest enemy of true selfhood. Man realizes his
true self just in so far as he lives by and in agape. That is what he was cre-
ated for by God, who is agape. (xxii)
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 467

stephen g. post c 467

There is no need, when reflecting on agape, to confuse the valid norm of

unselfishness with selflessness, its exaggeration. While the idea of “no self ” has a
role in Buddhist thought and deserves serious attention, it is more ontologically
valid to speak of a transformation from an old self to a higher, unselfish self.

Unlimited Love as a Law of Life

Giving ourselves in unselfish love is transformative. Religious traditions have always
captured this insight in their narratives. For example, Christianity speaks of keno-
sis, a Greek word that means literally “emptying” in spiritual generosity to open the
heart of another (Phil 2:6–10). And the Rig-Veda, a foundational Hindu text, intro-
duces the concept of Rita, or self-sacrifice, into both cosmology and human
growth—sacrifice of the old is a prerequisite to subsequent development.
Perhaps unlimited love is the Master Poet behind the universe, fostering altruis-
tic behavior in a still incomplete and chaotic human world. Unlimited love may be
a real energy that draws forth latent human possibilities. Is our human potentiality
for love much greater than most of us think? Is there evidence that the direction of
human development has been toward greater cooperation and that love is an evo-
lutionary necessity (Montagu 1955; Wright 2002)?
In the giving of self lies the unsought discovery of self. This fundamental law of
life is simple and intuitive, yet it is not clearly acknowledged. In essence, the law is
simple: To give is to live. And the root experience of love is, I think, the amazing real-
ization that another person actually means as much or more to me than myself.
Love can take so many forms. As a teacher, I am always impressed at graduation
ceremonies when family members and friends gather joyfully around a loved one
who has a new degree in hand. Their loving delight in his or her successful com-
pletion of studies and in the start of a new stage of life is unmistakable. Such joy is
palpable and easily observed and felt by anyone around them. Here love takes the
form of celebration, something we need to remind ourselves that life is a blessing.
In times of celebration, we give ourselves and we discover ourselves.
Love can take the form of active compassion when someone is suffering and
needs support. Compassion includes responsive, helping behavior. It is an emo-
tional state with practical consequences. In times of compassion, we give ourselves
and we discover ourselves.
Love can take the form of forgiveness when someone needs to be reconciled with
the community, a loved one, or a nation after making a significant mistake. Every-
one who is truly apologetic deserves to be forgiven. In times of forgiveness, we give
ourselves and we discover ourselves.
Love can take the form of caregiving when someone falls ill or infirm and has
needs that must be met by others. Every day, family caregivers tend to the needs of
children, older adults, and other loved ones. Professional caregivers, from health
professionals to social workers, are trained to give competent care as needed. In
times of caregiving, we give ourselves and we discover ourselves.
Love can take the form of companionship when solitude becomes burdensome.
The simple experience of being with another in friendship is a form of love, whether
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 468

468 c stephen g. post

breaking bread, sharing wisdom in quiet conversation, or attentively and actively lis-
tening. In times of companionship, we give ourselves and we discover ourselves.
Love can take the form of correction, or tough love. At the deepest level, love
always affirms the value of all others; but it will not affirm hatred and harmful
actions. Only a cowardly love is unwilling to confront maleficence. In an informed
and beneficent way, love is ready to skillfully confront behaviors that are destructive
of both self and others. Thus do we honor the memories of Bonhoeffer and King.
As psychiatrist M. Scott Peck writes, love must be willing to take “the risk of con-
frontation” (1978, 150–55). But love must never give way to malice when confronting
harmful motivations and behaviors. In times of tough love, we give ourselves and we
discover ourselves.

Visionary Philanthropy
How do we approach the study of unlimited love? Just as we investigate the force
of gravity or the energy of the atom, we can scientifically examine the power of
unlimited love in human moral and spiritual experience. Even though thousands
of books have been written about this love, they have focused on the history of
religious and philosophical ideas without considering scientific research. How can
we better understand unlimited love in a way that brings together evolution, genet-
ics, human development, neurology, social science, positive psychology, philan-
thropy, marriage and family studies, and leadership with great religious thought
and practice, affirming the moral vision of a common humanity to which deep
spiritual traditions give rise? Without that vision, the future of humankind is
increasingly compromised.
Philanthropists typically support programs that implement helping behavior and
service in practical ways. This emphasis is entirely correct, for the practice of love
is essential to society, and especially to the most needful. Yet if only a small portion
of this philanthropic support were focused on the scientific study of such helping
behavior, the benefits to society would be very great. Leading-edge science can
demonstrate the benefits of such kindness not only for recipients, but also for those
who live unselfishly, and thereby convey to the wider culture in concrete terms an
empowering image of human good. Because love is so central to human moral,
spiritual, and political concerns, and because science continues to have a dominant
impact on our images of human flourishing, those probing the contemporary love-
and-science symbiosis are engaging in matters of vast importance to our future.
For these reasons, the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, a nonprofit
organization, was formed in 2001 with initial funding from the John Templeton
Foundation to conduct high-level empirical research on topics such as unselfish
love, compassion, caregiving, loving-kindness, and altruism, as well as to encourage
scientifically informed pedagogy.2 Devoted to progress in the scientific under-
standing and practice of such remarkable phenomena as altruism, compassion, and
service, the Institute’s mission is chiefly focused on supporting leading-edge and
visionary scientific research. It offers the following definition of unlimited love:
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 469

stephen g. post c 469

The essence of love is to affectively affirm, as well as to unselfishly delight in,

the well-being of others and to engage in acts of care and service on their
behalf. Unlimited love extends this love to all others without exception in an
enduring and constant way. Widely considered the highest form of virtue,
unlimited love is often deemed a Creative Presence underlying and integral
to all of reality: Participation in unlimited love constitutes the fullest expe-
rience of spirituality. Unlimited love may result in new relationships, and
deep community may emerge around helping behavior. But these are sec-
ondary goals. Even if connections and relations do not emerge, love endures.

The Institute has initiated collaborations with major national foundations and
institutions to explore how unlimited love and creative altruism fit into every aspect
of positive human experience. Ideas are encouraged from all people, from all walks
of life, who wish to assist us in enhancing our understanding of loving-kindness and
service to humanity without exception. Such understanding has the potential to
shape science, thought, education, spirituality, and culture globally in the twenty-
first century. Researchers currently are conducting groundbreaking investigations
into the nature of unselfish and unlimited love, exploring topics as varied as the
impact of compassionate love on the therapeutic relationship in healthcare settings,
the role of benevolent love in marriage, the protective effects of love with respect to
mental illness, the impact of spiritual commitment on civic engagement and pub-
lic service, and the ways in which subjects both perceive and are inspired by divine
love, which prompts them to extend love to their neighbors and to their neediest
community members.
In summary, our goal is to shed scientific light on the human substrate of gen-
erosity and love and to better understand how that substrate can be elevated and
enhanced through the perfect unlimited love that is perennially associated with
Divine Nature. This is no short-term project. But through the Institute for Research
on Unlimited Love, we hope to make the world a more loving place in the long
term.

c
Stephen G. Post, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Bioethics at Case West-
ern Reserve University School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. from the Univer-
sity of Chicago Divinity School (1983), where he was an elected doctoral fellow in
the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion. He is also Senior Research Scholar
at the Becket Institute at St. Hugh’s College, University of Oxford. Since 2001, he has
served as President of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, which focuses
on the scientific study of altruism and theological concepts of unselfish love. Pro-
fessor Post has written extensively on these topics, most recently as co-editor of
Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue (Oxford
University Press, 2002), and also as author of Unlimited Love: Altruism, Compas-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 470

470 c stephen g. post

sion, and Service (Templeton Foundation Press, 2003). He is also editor-in-chief of

the Encyclopedia of Bioethics, 3rd edition (Macmillan Reference Division, 2003), and
co-editor of The Fountain of Youth: Cultural, Scientific, and Ethical Perspectives on a
Biomedical Goal (Oxford University Press, 2004). Professor Post is the author of
more than 130 articles in a number of leading peer-reviewed journals representing
the sciences and humanities, ranging from The Journal of the American Medical
Association to The Journal of the American Academy of Religion. He has received
funding from the National Institutes of Health Human Genome Research Institute
and from the National Institute on Aging.

Notes
1 See Pure Unlimited Love: An Eternal Creative Force and Blessing Taught by All Religions,
Templeton Foundation Press, 2000.
2 See http://www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org/.

References
Batson, C. Daniel. The Altruism Question: Toward a Social Psychological Answer. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991.
Connolly, Paul, Smith, A., and Kelly, B. “Too Young to Notice? The Cultural and Political
Awareness of 3-6 Year Olds in Northern Ireland.” Belfast: Northern Ireland Community
Relations Council, 2002.
Heschel, Abraham Joshua. God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. New York: Far-
rar, Straus and Giroux, 1955.
Jackson, Timothy P. Love Disconsoled: Meditations on Christian Charity. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1999.
Montagu, Ashley M. F. The Direction of Human Development: Biological and Social Bases.
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955.
Nygren, Anders. Agape & Eros, trans. Philip S. Watson. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1982 [original 1932].
Peck, M. Scott. The Road Less Traveled. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978.
Rilling, James K., Gutman, David A., and Zeh, Thorston R.“A Neural Basis for Social Coop-
eration,” Neuron 35 (July 2002): 395–405.
Sorokin, Pitirim A. The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques of Moral
Transformation, with a Foreword by Stephen G. Post. Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foun-
dation Press, 2002 [original 1954].
Wright, Robert. Nonzero: The Logic of Human Development. New York: Vintage, 2002.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 471

Part Nine
Perspectives from Theology and Philosophy

c
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 472
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 473

If Theologians Do Not Measure,

Can They Measure Up? 78
Rules for Acquiring Spiritual Information
Martin E. Marty

E unomius of Cyzicus, bishop and scholar of early Christianity, gets my vote as

Fool Number One in the crowded gallery of theological absurdists. He would
have failed “Humility Theology 101” because of his contention that he knew God bet-
ter than God did, concluding that God was evidently busy realizing all of his com-
mitments. Eunomius, in contrast, had the freedom and mandate to specialize. He
chose to refine his discipline and focus his inquiry on the nature and action of God,
with results that his contemporaries found to be heretical. His claim about knowl-
edge, it turns out, succeeded in informing us not at all about God. But it did provide
information about Eunomius that we might wish to forget. His efforts showed how
an errant individual can block progress in acquiring spiritual information.
To the scientists in our company, I leave the task of nominating Fool Number One
in their similarly crowded gallery. Nominees must include those who, through the
scientific method, either claim to prove that non-God is the only reality, or that this
God or that God is the God. There had better be a course called “Humility Science
101,” which such characters can fail as they in their own way block progress in spir-
itual information.
The pursuits of progress have to include better ways than those just mentioned.
Among the dictionary meanings of the word “progress,” the most congenial for
present purposes is “to go or move forward.” A second dictionary definition, “to
proceed to a further or higher stage,” or “to further a higher stage continuously,” is,
of course, the outcome one hopes for from such movement. Both those devoted to
the scientific and to the spiritual should know enough to withhold judgment about
whether some measurable results even exist for the steps to such a stage.
This project also focuses on the word “information,” which signals what people
who are devoted to the spiritual would advance. The word “information” is “knowl-
edge communicated concerning some particular fact, subject, or event,” and it is
“that of which one is apprised or told; intelligence.” One derives information from
investigation, study, or instruction.

Freedom from the Tug of the Past

We historians are not alone in our ability to observe and document the fact that
activity in respect to progress in acquiring spiritual information is inhibited when
the self is captive of the past, which includes earlier formulations in science or the-
ology. While scientists may often be retarded because of their bondage to obsolete
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 474

474 c martin e. marty

paradigms, the temptation for theologians to “move backward” is greater. Theolo-

gians, who must work with the word (logos) or words in respect to God (theos),
belong to traditions. These are based on revelations that religious thinkers ordi-
narily perceive as having shaped the experience and witness of people in the past.
These theological scholars then characteristically study ancient sacred texts.
To “move forward,” however, does not and need not mean rejecting the past; it
indeed may imply a reworking of the heritage. The old books and traditions, one
remembers, had themselves challenged and often replaced older books and tradi-
tions. The prophets who came newly onto the scene often referred positively to
covenants older than those cherished in the earlier texts they criticized as idola-
trous or deceptive. Consequently, they could celebrate newness. Only someone not
fully alert to irony, which may mean the majority of religious people, would suggest
that they are continually doing justice to what they think of as The Tradition while
they are actually ossifying it.
Everyone devoted to progress in acquiring spiritual information has to use con-
cepts, symbols, and words. If these are to communicate at all, they must come from
a past that has to be transmuted in present-day exchanges. Many religious scholars
justify their attention to older texts and concepts for quite other than antiquarian
reasons. Instead, they suggest that when the texts were originally written and the
concepts developed, the people “back there” knew some things that we do not know
“as yet.” In that spirit, whenever I am invited as a historian or theologian to partic-
ipate in conversations on progress in acquiring spiritual information, I not only do
not feel marginal or retarded, but I feel—I hope “humbly”—at home in the central
activities. To make that claim is one thing. To confront the books and records and
demonstrate that one can make contributions to progress using them as a basis is
another.

Yet Voices from the Past Can Address Us Afresh

My personal experiment in “moving forward” is grounded in my recent studies of
one historic figure out of one tradition. Martin Luther was listed near the very top
of the list of those who left a mark on the past millennium, and I just published his
biography for the Penguin Lives series.1 Luther was not like men of our times, but
was in almost all respects a medieval person. He believed, moderately, in witches and
poltergeists, in omens and signs in the sky. Scientifically, the formulators who were
called “Lutheran” put into their doctrinal book folk beliefs such as this: that rubbing
a magnet with garlic would have an effect on the magnetic power. They could have
served as scientists and checked such a claim empirically; but they didn’t. Luther
himself held medieval views of patriarchy and governance and would resist the
attempts of some scholars and devotees to turn him into a modern.
At the same time, among people seeking to make progress in acquiring spiritual
information, it is possible to successfully defend the idea that on some issues Luther
“knew some things already that we do not know as yet.”2 This means that in talks
between scientists and theologians, when the former nudge the latter to come up
with something larger than conventional references in respect to God-talk, the voice
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 475

martin e. marty c 475

of Luther the grand cosmologist as well as the miniaturist can inform the discussion
with this kind of word, chosen from among many possibilities:
Nothing is so small but God is still smaller, nothing is so large but God is still
larger, nothing is so short but God is still shorter, nothing is so long but
God is still longer, nothing is so broad, but God is still broader, nothing is
so narrow but God is still narrower, and so on. [God] is an inexpressible
being, above and beyond all that can be described or imagined. (Pelikan
and Lehmann 1955; 37:228)
Accept that—and it is hard to reject it, if one listens to major religious traditions—
and another barrier against making progress in acquiring spiritual information will
have fallen. Whether in nature, in the human heart, in revelation received as some-
how divine, or in the laboratory, the question arises: While moving forward, what
or who do you seek that can go by the name of God?
In Sir John Templeton’s vision, the final word has to be “Infinity,” which, by def-
inition, the finite can never reach. Still, humans seek language to describe the
boundaries of what they might come to know and what will always go beyond infor-
mation as facts. Once more, Luther strikes me as still being ahead of us by speaking
of deus nudus, the nude, naked God, who is always beyond what human vision or
discovery can gain or sustain. True, for him God is somehow and partly revealed in
nature and human witness. At the same time, however, this revealed God, deus rev-
elatus, remains hidden, deus absconditus. Whoever would claim that there are not
hidden dimensions to God or, conversely, that one has fully exposed the revealed
God would not likely qualify to be in the ranks of those who cherish “humility the-
ology,” like Sir John Templeton.3
Luther became radical on this point. God is hidden, he says, masked “in” his rev-
elation, which in the particular Christian perception meant in sacraments and scrip-
tures, religious speech and action. But God is also hidden “behind” his revelation.
Some dimensions of God’s reality, in this understanding, will always remain masked,
elusive, and beyond reach. God is larger than God’s revelation and does not disclose
all dimensions of God’s being in it. One cannot exhaust this partly inscrutable God.
To affirm something about limits along that line need not mean that scientific
and theological efforts to “move forward” in acquiring spiritual information are
futile. It does not mean that current boundaries of knowledge are to be frozen and
set as inhibitors in the search. It need not mean that scientists or theologians have
to fall into relativism and cynicism, as if nothing can be known because not all can
be known. Instead, humility theology uses this recognition of both temporary lim-
its, which are known, and final or ultimate limits, which can never be known, as a
dual impetus for inquiry, for experiment, for study of the human subject who expe-
riences and speaks of God and nature.

Humility Theology Invites Conversation

Throughout this essay, I have used the words “science” and “theology” to refer to two
ways of moving forward through two discourses about the goal of acquiring spiri-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 476

476 c martin e. marty

tual information, code-named “God.” I have been among those who have welcomed
the Templeton effort to refine the languages and to bring the various voices of the
disciplines together. At their best, these conversations have demonstrated that no
single “mode” or “voice” has or should have a monopoly and, at the same time, that
no two “modes” or “voices” should be confused.
The voice of the scientist, philosopher Michael Oakeshott reminds us, is exer-
cised sub specie quantitatis. That is, whatever else the scientist does, he or she meas-
ures. Scientists may measure the cosmos in search of the “theory of everything” and
seek to measure human consciousness, something that most philosophers who are
devoted to the subject say cannot by definition be finally done. “How do I know that
my ‘blue,’ the ‘blue’ of which I am conscious, is your ‘blue’?” The scientist will always
be pushing back the boundaries in studying the universe “out there” and the uni-
verses “in here.” Yet measurement and quantification, so useful in natural and
human affairs, fail when one deals with deus nudus, the God hidden not only “in,”
but “behind,” revelation.
Similarly, the theologians, who listen to and analyze the voice of those who speak
of the experience of God, operate with other modes than those used to measure.
They may speak sub specie moris, or sub specie voluntatis, or sub specie imaginationis,
which, in practical terms, means setting out to alter the world in respect to morals,
the will, or the act of imagining. The social scientist cannot meet the pope and
announce that, having measured this or that human practice or perception, the reli-
gious leader must change a particular doctrine. Well, one could make the announce-
ment, but it would have no effect. Such witness might be influential, but it is not
determinative. To confuse the languages, one would be guilty of ignoratio elenchi,
category mistakes.
This notion of science as a mode whose differentia is measurement and quan-
tification, while the mode of theology is not that, deserves careful attention, some
of it directed at the John Templeton Foundation agenda and enterprises. When
invited to contribute to a book edited by John Marks Templeton entitled How Large
Is God? (1997), I asked, half playfully but also half seriously: When I wear my the-
ologian’s hat, “If I don’t measure, do I measure up?”
The notion that God, the subject of theology and of most religious reflection,
can be grasped by or reduced to questions of size and measurement can sound
bizarre. There is no question that much of what the Foundation encourages does,
indeed, measure. What it measures, however, is not God, but the human subject,
whether by the relaxation response, quantifications of healing successes and fail-
ures, the state of the brain when a subject is meditating, or the size of the universe.
A safeguard against “reduction” is the regular reminder by the editor of that book
and most of those who associate with him that God is infinite and thus beyond
measurement. One might also note that when the human subject receiving or
reaching God is being measured, theologians do not have to be ignored. “Infinity”
is by definition beyond the reach of theologians and scientists alike. Still, differences
exist that representatives among them in both sets of disciplines must remember
and respect.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 477

martin e. marty c 477

Oakeshott’s Voice in the Conversation

Scientists and theologians operate within distinctive modes and speak with dis-
tinctive voices. That assertion could imply to some critics that there can be no com-
munication, only two voices given to solipsism and then to nihilism. Instead, as the
Templeton venture has shown, these voices do meet, in what philosopher Michael
Oakeshott formally defined as “conversation.” As Oakeshott contended, “the image
of this meeting place is not an inquiry or an argument, but a conversation.” For
here “the diverse idioms of utterance which make up current human intercourse
have some meeting-place and compose a manifold of some sort.” Conversing, in this
sense, has been one of the main Templeton contributions to spiritual progress.
I agree with Oakeshott that one cannot transport information in the form of
“facts” from one mode to the other. Instead, this exchange occurs:
In conversation, “facts” appear only to be resolved once more into the pos-
sibilities from which they were made; “certainties” are shown to be com-
bustible, not by being brought in contact with other “certainties” or with
doubt, but by being kindled by the presence of ideas of another order;
approximations are revealed between notions normally remote from one
another. Thoughts of different species take wing and play around one
another, responding to each other’s movements and provoking one another
to fresh exertions. There is, we are told, no hierarchical order among these
voices, there is no symposiarch or arbiter; not even a doorkeeper to check
credentials.
Admittedly, to encourage progress toward coherence, the John Templeton Foun-
dation does check credentials of participating scholars. But once at the table, they are
called “in humility” to listen to one another’s distinctive voices, to be willing to
change and thus to be more ready than they would have been, apart from the con-
versation, to contribute to progress in acquiring spiritual information.

c
Martin E. Marty is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of
the History of Modern Christianity in the Divinity School at the University of
Chicago and a member of the Committee on the History of Culture. He is also the
original director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion, which offi-
cially opened at the University of Chicago in October 1979 and was renamed “The
Martin Marty Center” after his retirement. Professor Marty has received the
National Medal for Humanities, the Medal of the American Academy for Arts and
Sciences, and the National Book Award. A prolific author who has written or edited
more than fifty books on religious subjects, his foremost field of expertise is religious
history. Professor Marty’s most recent book, Martin Luther: A Penguin Life (2004),
describes Luther as a seminal Christian figure, his place in history, and his relevance
to our times.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 478

478 c martin e. marty

Notes
1 Martin Luther: A Penguin Life. New York: Viking Penguin, 2004.
2 I suppose one would have to define “we” or acknowledge that he is speaking for him-
self. I here refer to the observation that in cultures tinged by religion the temptation is
strong to cut God down to congenial size.
3 See References.

References
Fuller, Timothy, ed., Michael Oakeshott. Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. Indi-
anapolis, Indiana: Liberty Press, 1991, 489.
Marty, Martin E. Martin Luther: A Penguin Life. New York: Viking Penguin, Penguin Lives
series, 2004.
Pelikan, Jaroslav, and Lehmann, Helmut T., eds. Luther’s Works. 56 vols. St. Louis: Concor-
dia Publishing House. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955: 37:228.
Templeton, John M. Possibilities for Over One Hundredfold More Spiritual Information: The
Humble Approach in Theology and Science. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press,
2000.
Templeton, John M., ed. The Humble Approach: Scientists Discover God. Philadelphia: Tem-
pleton Foundation Press, 1998.
———. How Large Is God? The Voices of Scientists and Theologians. Philadelphia: Temple-
ton Foundation Press, 1997.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 479

God, Spiritual Information,

and Downward Causation1 79
John W. Bowker

I n recent years, the notion of “downward” or “backward causation” has

become increasingly important in the natural sciences, especially in biology. It is
equally important in religions: Without it, it is impossible to understand a major
way in which spiritual information acts causatively in human life.
At first sight, the idea of downward or backward causation seems counterintu-
itive because we tend to think of causes as sequential. One event leads to a second
event in such a way that the second is a consequence, direct or indirect, of the first:
If I push a book, it moves in that sequence of two events, the one earlier than the
other. It seems, therefore, paradoxical to think of future states being causative in
relation to the present.
But the trouble here lies in the word “cause.” What is meant by “downward” or
“backward causation” becomes much clearer if we use the word “constraint.” In my
book Is God a Virus? Genes, Culture and Religion,2 I have summarized why the word
“constraint” is a far wiser choice than the word “cause.” The point about constraint
is that it includes active causes of a direct or indirect kind, but it also alerts us to a
far wider network of what has brought an eventuality into being, including passive
and domain constraints. The fact that the book moves is indeed because I pushed
it, but also because both I and the book are constrained by (among many other
influences) the laws of motion.
Of course, in the ordinary business of life, and especially in the business of offer-
ing scientific explanations, we do not have time to specify all the constraints that
have controlled an eventuality into its outcome, into its being what it is. In explain-
ing, therefore, any phenomenon, we choose from the whole range of actual con-
straints those that relate most closely and immediately to our concern and leave the
others as an unspoken assumption. But the fact remains that we do have to choose.
If, as loss adjusters for an insurance firm, we ask, “What caused that fire?” we are
unlikely to specify,“The presence of oxygen.”Yet, if we are seeking to explain the out-
break of fire in a space capsule, we undoubtedly want to include the presence of
oxygen in the specification of constraints.
So how do we choose? It is at this point that a version of Occam’s razor is usually
wielded (“where one explanation will do, don’t multiply explanations”); but
Occam’s razor has virtue only so long as you do not use it to cut off your own head.
As I put it in Is God a Virus?
Where additional constraints must be specified in order to account for an
eventuality, nothing is gained by insisting, in the name of Occam, on only
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 480

480 c john w. bowker

one. A better principle is this: be sufficiently, but not recklessly, generous in

the specification of constraints; or at least otherwise be modest in what you
claim to be “the true and only explanation.”3

If, then, we think of constraints instead of causes, we can avoid the futile battles
of reductionism that so vitiated the exposition of science in the last century. To
repeat: Nothing is brought into being by one single cause. Eventualities are brought
into their outcomes (into their being what they are) by networks of constraint. We
can obviously continue to recognize and specify that active and proximate causes of
eventualities exist while still insisting on the fact that, in the case of complex trans-
formations of energy, many contingent constraints would need to be specified if a
full account were to be given of what has brought them into being.
In that context, it becomes straightforward to see how the future acts as a con-
straint over eventualities in the present. Consider the case of the little brown bat
(Myotis lucifugus), which has a wide distribution in North America, at the moment
almost entirely in the United States. It is one of the tasks of ecology to explain the
geographic distribution of organisms.4 In the case of the little brown bat, ecology
will specify constraints that set a limit on its possible habitats. Some of these will be
from the past (e.g., an inherited biology that enables it to occupy a particular eco-
logical niche, above all in terms of its intake of sufficient food to secure hibernation
through the winter).
But clearly the resource of sufficient food is dependent on climate, and climate
is not stable. Climatic change will set new boundaries on feasible habitats, so that
in this case the future condition acts as a constraint over the unfolding behaviors of
the bat. The distribution of the bat will change as it conforms to the conditions set
by climate change. It is thus possible to produce a bioenergetics model to predict the
feasibility of mammalian hibernation under different climatic conditions:
Our model predicts pronounced effects of ambient temperature on total
winter energy requirements, and a relatively narrow combination of hiber-
naculum temperatures and winter lengths permitting successful hiberna-
tion.5
The model, therefore, is able to predict the consequence of future climatic con-
ditions acting as a constraint on successful hibernation. Climate change acts as a
constraint over the exploration of ecological niches, and on this basis the authors
predict that the little brown bat will be found by 2080 almost entirely in Canada. It
is noteworthy that in doing so the language used is that of constraint, not of cause:
The pronounced increase in hibernation energy requirements at low ambi-
ent temperatures, combined with constraints on the size of fat reserves at the
onset of hibernation and the length of the hibernation season, permits
application of our model to predict the northern biogeographical limit for
Myotis lucifugus hibernation. . . . Energetic constraints at higher latitudes
should be especially severe for juveniles, owing to their limited capacity to
grow and fatten during a short active season.6
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 481

john w. bowker c 481

Conditions that lie in the future (from the point of view of the organism) set
limits on possible behaviors, particularly when projected behavior is (or is not)
rewarded by survival. In the whole evolutionary process, future conditions act as a
constraint on the bearers of mutations; as they move into those conditions, some
survive and flourish, but many do not.
The importance of backward or downward causation, understood as constraint,
becomes even more obvious in the case of motivated and conscious behavior,
because the future can be internalized as a relevant and positive constraint. Anyone
playing a game of patience knows what the future outcome should be. That future
outcome acts as a constraint over the ways in which the cards are played in the pres-
ent. In general terms, this is true of any homeostatic system, such as a guided mis-
sile or a mechanical governor. The future state (for example, the target) acts as a
constraint: If the feedback loop regulates the matrix of transition probabilities and
controls future states of the system, and if the set of stable system states is limited,
then the system will tend to oscillate around and converge on successive stable
states.7
The consequences of constraint in this sense are immense for our understanding
of God’s relation to the universe and to the human lives within it.8 They are equally
important for the forming of spiritual life; it is obvious that religions map the future,
often with considerable precision, and that they clearly expect those future states to
act as a constraint over present behaviors. Thus, the Qur’an describes the ultimate
future states in detail:
Surely, those who reject our signs we will soon roast at the fire. As often as
their skins are burnt through, we change them for other skins, that they
may taste the penalty. Surely, God is powerful, wise. And those who believe
and do deeds of righteousness we will cause to enter gardens with rivers
flowing beneath, dwellers there forever. There they will have companions
unsullied, and we will bring them into the shade of shades.9
Few Muslims allow that these descriptions might be metaphorical. In The Islamic
Book of the Dead, al-Qadi insists that it is “not acceptable to reduce the descriptive
content of the after-death states to the realm of myth.”10 Not surprisingly, therefore,
observant Muslims allow those future states to constrain their lives in the present;
otherwise, they may, in the final judgment, fail what Mohammad Jamali called “the
examination of life”:
My view is that all life is an examination and that Allah created man in order
to examine him in this world. . . . Success is required not only in mathe-
matics and chemistry but in everything, and we must seek the help of the
Holy Koran every day for success in the examinations of life.11
Other religions may look to the future in far less literalistic ways, in terms, for
example, of union with God or of the realization of enlightenment or of the Bud-
dha-nature. Even so, it will be equally the case that those futures will constrain
behaviors in the present—or should do so, if the goal is to be attained.
Within that broad understanding of downward causation and constraint, we can
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 482

482 c john w. bowker

then see many specific ways in which downward causation operates in the detail of
life as projected into an acknowledged and hoped-for future. Think of El Greco sit-
ting in Rome and gaining few commissions because of the prejudice against foreign
artists. Then in 1756 came the invitation from Don Diego de Castilla to paint appro-
priate pictures for the altarpieces of the Church of the Convent of Santo Domingo
in Toledo. El Greco returned to Spain, and his genius was let loose, culminating in
the brilliant and moving “Apocalyptic Vision” (now in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York).
Both the commission and the art demonstrate the profound importance of
downward causation in spiritual life. Don Diego believed that the future state
includes a period in purgatory when the deserved penalties of sinners are alleviated
by the prayers of the faithful.12 The future constrained him into rebuilding the
Church in Toledo to serve as burial place for himself and his son where priests
would pray for their souls. The same constraint from the future led to the wide-
spread endowment of chantry priests and chapels for that purpose.
Where El Greco was concerned, the painting “Apocalyptic Vision” exhibits how
the future constrained the artist’s work in the present—his vision, his technique, and
his design—because El Greco attempted to convey the final resurrection.13 Down-
ward causation constrains the artist into producing a work of art that otherwise
would not exist.
Spiritual information, therefore, enters human lives, not only from the past (from
revelation, teachers, etc.), but also from the future, from the One to whom they
offer their lives in faith and hope. The consequence of that downward causation
can be seen in the extent to which it constrains lives in the present. It is therefore
appropriate that this paper is offered to John Templeton, in whose life the conse-
quence of grace and truth is so abundantly clear.

c
John Westerdale Bowker has served as Dean of Trinity College of Cambridge
University and is an Honorary Canon of Canterbury Cathedral. Currently, he is a
Fellow of Gresham College, London. He has written numerous books on religion,
including The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, The Meanings of Death, Is God
a Virus? Genes, Culture and Religion, and, most recently, God: A Brief History.

Notes
1 An expanded version of this article appeared in Theology (March/April 2004): 81–88.
2 Is God a Virus? London, SPCK, 1995.
3 Ibid., 104.
4 See, e.g., D. M. Gates, Climate Change and its Biological Consequences, Sunderland, Sin-
auer, MA, 1993, 162–201.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 483

john w. bowker c 483

5 M. M. Humphries, D. W. Thomas, and J. R. Speakman, “Climate-mediated energetic

constraints on the distribution of hibernating mammals,” Nature 418, no. 6895 (2002):
313.
6 Ibid., 315.
7 See Bowker, The Sense of God: Sociological, Anthropological and Psychological Approaches
to the Origin of the Sense of God, Oxford, Oneworld, 1995, 50.
8 See my “Prayer for Others: The Language of Love,” A Year to Live, London, SPCK, 1991,
52.
9 iv.59f/56f.; cf. xx.20ff.
10 The Islamic Book of The Dead, Wood Dalling, Diwan Press, 1977, 9.
11 Letters on Islam, London, Oxford University Press, 1965, 3.
12 See my God: A Brief History, New York, Dorling Kindersley, 2002, 290.
13 Some argue that the painting is of the breaking of the fifth seal, Revelation 6:9–11, but
Richard Mann, El Greco and His Patrons, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989,
has shown why the final resurrection is more likely; but in either case, the conceptual-
ized future is acting as a downward constraint, producing a unique consequence.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 484

The Value of Risk-Taking 80

Human Evolution and the Love of God
Niels Henrik Gregersen

S ince the advent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, religious thinkers

from all faith traditions have continued to discuss the implications of Darwin-
ian biology for the truth-claims of theism. Today, we have achieved a consensus
about the compatibility between Darwinian biology and theism—provided that
theists do not slide back into scriptural literalism or think of God as predetermin-
ing the course of biological evolution from the beginning. Quite a few scholars,
both biologists and theologians (like myself), even believe that Darwinian biology
and Judeo-Christian belief are highly congenial. Both suggest a picture of a world
developing through trial and error, through labor and work.
One might say that a “law of life” pertains, albeit in different ways, both to the
world of biology and to the world of human culture: Important results of evolu-
tionary ascent can be obtained only by trying out new possibilities—and thereby
incurring the risk of failure. But sometimes gain comes only through pain. This law
may be said to constitute spiritual information that is of central importance to
understanding the evolving place of humanity in God’s creation. However, it also
raises critical ethical concerns. What are the ethical limits of risk-taking? Human
risk-taking often involves third parties who do not bear the potential cost of the
adventure. But what ethical concerns will an adventurous Creator, Giver of the very
laws of life that include a demand to try out new possibilities even in the face of
potential loss, have to respond to?
Certainly, the debate still rages about how far evolutionary theory can explain
specific cultural developments within human history, such as the emergence of
novel moral insights, religious belief systems, and scientific discoveries. Culture is
constrained by biology insofar as any cultural development needs to be biologically
sustainable. But the world of biology seems to afford a wide variety of cultural
options. In fact, one can well argue that the present state of our multicultural civi-
lization is a sign of the inexhaustible flexibility of the human species.
Evolutionary biology, nonetheless, may inspire both philosophers and theolo-
gians to reevaluate the importance of specific features of human culture. This essay
on risk and risk-taking is but one example of an ethics and a theology inspired by
the Darwinian discovery of the constructive role of chance in evolution. Indeed,
although an understanding of the productive role of risk in human culture cannot
be reduced to biological explanations, a parallel exists between the biological prin-
ciples of trial and error and the human discovery of the value of risk-taking as it
emerged during the Renaissance.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 485

niels henrik gregersen c 485

Risk = Danger + Adventure

Life is a risky affair. It is risky to fly. It is risky to drive. Stay home, however, and you
risk becoming dull and fearful. Playing it safe is not easy in the world we inhabit.
This risk awareness is so self-evident that it is hard to believe the logic of risk-tak-
ing is a rather late discovery in human history. Historians tell us that the concept of
risk first appeared in the mercantile world of the Renaissance, when sailors
embarked on adventurous expeditions. “Risk” is probably derived from the Greek
riza, which means both “root” and “cliff.” If so, the Latin risicare means something
like “sailing around dangerous cliffs,” and riscum is the result of such a venture.
Thus, the word itself tells us that risks are not “things” that wait on the horizon, but
are the result of our engagement with the world.
Living with danger is one thing; living with risk something else. Danger is that
which comes to us from outside in the form of accident, illness, war, and other neg-
ative events. Such dangers were much more imminent in ancient times than they are
today. Thanks to progress in science, technology, and our political institutions, today
we are less vulnerable to external dangers. At the same time, however, we are becom-
ing acutely aware that we ourselves are the co-creators of risk. Danger exists “out
there,” but risk is prompted by our method of coping with danger in a spirit of
adventure. Even preventing risk creates new risks. For example, the use of antibiotics
to defeat infections has slowly made many forms of bacteria resistant to antibiotics,
so that future infections may not be curable with today’s drugs. Paradoxically, we
find ourselves placed in an evolutionary race in which we face great risk because we
happily incur ever-greater risk.

The Value and Limit of Risk-Taking

The road back to Paradise is blocked, yet there seems only one way to proceed: for-
ward. As we move forward, we discover the value of risk-taking: Important advances
can be made only by accepting certain risks. By taking a chance, we also run the risk
of being harmed or of imposing harm on others. This leads to new questions: What
are the risks that are worth taking? And what are the conditions under which risks
are acceptable? These questions will hardly find a general answer, for risks are as
numerous as are the array of future possibilities multiplied by the number of our
possible interactions with these possibilities—indeed, an astronomical number!
Here an important distinction in types of risk comes to the fore. Existential risks
are those in which we put everything at stake for one desired purpose. Distributed
risks are those whose outcomes do not bring an irreversible impact, either posi-
tively or negatively, and we can live comfortably with a variety of outcomes. Exis-
tential risk-taking involves matters of ultimate significance. Proposing marriage—
laying bare one’s intentions, declaring one’s love to the beloved other—entails the
risk of rejection. Avoiding this risk, however, also entails the further risk that the
moment of opportunity will be lost forever. In this case, risk-taking is a matter of
winning or losing it all. There are no mean values to be calculated. The result is
purely yes/no and depends ultimately on the response of the other person.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 486

486 c niels henrik gregersen

It is different in the case of distributed risk-taking, which is about apportioning

the risks. For example, provided that one has trust in the growth of the stock mar-
ket over a significant period of time, it is prudent to spread one’s investments across
issues, markets, and regions. The potential for large losses in any one sector is off-
set by the exposure to numerous other sectors that may result in significant gains.
Here the averaging “Law of Large Numbers” applies: The greater the risk-toler-
ance an individual possesses, the greater the possible long-term reward for that
individual.
Thus, risk-avoidance cannot be our highest value. Neither, however, can risk-
taking be a value in itself. It all depends on the reasonableness of the goals that one
seeks. There also are ethical limits to risk-taking because we, for better or for worse,
share the risks with one another. There may thus be a catastrophe threshold to risk-
taking.
In the case of nuclear power plants, experts provide us with various risk assess-
ments about potential breakdowns, such as those in Chernobyl. Even if the proba-
bilities of such disasters can be significantly reduced by improved technology, one
can well argue that an outcome above a catastrophe threshold should be avoided,
even if the probability of such an outcome is very low. In addition, we have to ask,
Whose risks are we talking about? There is a paramount distinction to be made
between incurring a risk on behalf of oneself and imposing a risk on others. Here
a distinction is clear between taking a risk and creating a risk: Enjoying skydiving
and cajoling scared friends into jumping are two very different actions.
An ethically informed risk-taker acts differently (1) in cases of ultimate impor-
tance, where only one end is desired; (2) in cases of distributed risk-taking, where
many options are possible; and (3) in the face of potential catastrophes, where one
particular outcome would be fatal. In the first case, one has to cast one’s lot unre-
servedly and be willing to lose everything. In the second and most frequent case, one
seeks to maximize benefits while accepting certain losses along the way. In the third
case, one follows the precautionary principle of minimizing the risks of the worst
possible scenario.

Does God Take Risks?

Does the logic of risk have any bearing on the relationship between God and the
world? I believe so, although the point is contestable. In classical Jewish, Christian,
and Muslim theism, God was seen as directing every movement within the world.
As the “Cosmic Controller,” God certainly did not take risks and did not provide
room for risk-taking. Accordingly, the gateway to God was to stay within the
unchangeable boundaries of the Torah, the Law, and the Sharia.
This view is still a living option in the Abrahamic traditions. But perhaps God is
forever greater than our inherited images of him? In fact, there is an alternative
notion. This idea is sometimes called kenosis, or “divine self-emptying.” The largesse
of God may imply setting free and handing over power to his creatures. Let me sug-
gest a picture from my own faith tradition by offering a view that combines keno-
sis and risk-taking.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 487

niels henrik gregersen c 487

The teachings of Jesus often suggest a dauntingly positive view of human risk-tak-
ing. In the parable of the talents (Matt 25:14–30; Luke 19:11–27), a master hands over
to his servants a certain amount of money (talents). Some went out to trade with it
and came back with even more money. One of the servants, however, was so terri-
fied of his master that he immediately went off to dig a hole in the ground; there he
hid the talent entrusted to him. As the story goes, the master, who took the one tal-
ent given to the fearful servant and handed it over to the most risk-taking servant,
thus punished this strategy of safety. It is in this context that the general maxim “to
those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from
those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” applies. The point
is clearly that the strategy of safety fails for certain, whereas risk-taking may pay
off—and may do so abundantly.
Positive views of risk-taking can be found in many other strands of the Jesus tra-
dition, especially in relation to the need for giving up everything for one purpose:
entering the Kingdom of God. The followers of Jesus were after all those who had
left the safe routines of work and family life. Accordingly, the early church under-
stood itself as nomadic, composed of a wandering people of God who had no tem-
ple or sanctuary on Earth in which to dwell. Yet, only the one who is willing to
face uncertainty on the streets of life will find the pathway to God. The basic idea
is that the world is created to favor and reward a risk-taking attitude. Even death
cannot put an end to the logic of abundance: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the
earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it dies, it produces much grain”
(John 12:24).
However, the concept of risk may also apply to God. It seems to me that God
takes substantial risks both by creating a world of autonomous agents and by lov-
ing a world that does not love him. First, if God establishes a creation endowed with
freedom, he is a risk-taker: Freedom includes the liberty to explore as well as the
ability to say no. Admittedly, the freedom of creatures is never absolute. They are
bounded by natural laws and informed by moral principles. However, the freedom
of creation suggests that divine power is not a commodity that God wants to pos-
sess in peaceful isolation. Rather, God continuously reaches into the matrix of cre-
ation; the loftiness of divine creativity is not the least displayed by the Creator’s
ability to make creatures that make themselves.
Second, God shares the risks involved in love. According to Christian faith, God
not only bestows the gift of existence on the world, but also is the paragon of self-
giving love: “God loved us first” (1 John 4:19). As with proposing marriage, loving
with no guarantee of being loved in return inevitably involves a twofold risk: the risk
of being misunderstood and the risk of being rejected. By revealing his love to
human beings, God is both exposed to the risk of negligence and to the risk of not
being accepted. God’s exposure to vulnerability reveals the generosity of divine love.

The Threefold Risk of Divine Love

A theology of risk will thus emphasize Love as the divine matrix for risk-taking.
First, as the Father, God is the prime initiator of risks. If God had a definite plan or
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 488

488 c niels henrik gregersen

design for the world, he would be infringing on the respect for otherness provided
by divine love. Instead, God seems to be “building” His creatures in small steps in
accordance with their own self-development. Moral freedom can be exercised only
by human beings; however, an exploratory freedom is also exercised by biological
life forms that are able to learn from and adapt to their environments. The pathways
of creation are thus laid down, for example, in the process of walking. God is both
setting creation free “in the beginning” and awaiting its achievements “at the end”
of the journey.
However, God is not only taking a risk by giving autonomy to his creatures. God
is also bearing the risks incurred by his unfinished creation. In Christian symbolism,
the Divine Spirit is the One who insists on the goals of creation while patiently
offering the time needed to complete the process. Here, God is not only active in,
but also responsive to, the sighs, pains, and laments of creation (cf. Rom 8:22–23).
In helping us overcome our shortcomings within an ever-evolving creation, the
Holy Spirit bears the mark of the resourcefulness and proficiency of God.
In the third step of divine risk-taking, God is also assuming the victim’s role
through incarnation. The story of Jesus tells us that God is not only the author but
also the bearer of risk. The crucifixion and resurrection demonstrate how God the
Creator of risk is also the co-bearer of risk. On the cross, God is self-giving, even
while crumbling under the great burden of having taken on risk. As he had no off-
spring, Jesus is the iconic “loser” in the evolutionary arms race. As he did not have
the protection of social networks, Jesus is also the iconic “outlaw” who refused to
play the game of success in social competition.
Thus, the limits of risk-taking—to the catastrophic threshold—apply even to
God. In an interconnected world, risks are shared. God did not withdraw from the
ethical act of sharing risks, even to the point of death. In fact, if God imposed risks
on his creatures without also absorbing them, his creation would be morally tainted.
The more risks God is willing to take in ordering creation, the more risks he must
be able to absorb. If not, divine risk-taking falls outside the logic of love.
From this perspective, the classic question of theodicy may be seen in a new light.
The question is no longer, How can God permit suffering at all? The question now
is, How can God permit so much suffering? Could the grandeur of life, of which
Darwin himself spoke in the concluding paragraph of On the Origin of Species, be
achieved at a cheaper price? Could human civilizations have been brought about
without so much suffering of individuals, who were forced into carrying the risks
that others heaped on them? What is the responsibility of God? Of human beings?
The theodicy question may thus be translated from a simple affirmation or nega-
tion of God’s fairness to a much more subtle question concerning the extent of
responsible divine risk-taking.
Thus, acts of both taking and bearing risks belong together and must be affirmed
together. In acknowledging this law of life, a Christian theology and a philosophi-
cal reflection on the implications of Darwinian theory might be able to concur.
This notion in principle is open to the quantitative approaches of the natural and
social sciences. New approaches to this old problem should be explored in the future
interaction between theology and the sciences. It’s worth the risk.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 489

niels henrik gregersen c 489

c
Niels Henrik Gregersen, Ph.D., obtained his doctorate from Copenhagen Uni-
versity. Previously Research Professor in Theology and Science at the University of
Aarhus, Denmark, in 2004 he became Professor of Systematic Theology at the Uni-
versity of Copenhagen, Denmark. From 1992 to 2003, Professor Gregersen was a
leader of the Danish Science-Theology Forum. From 1998 to 2002, he was Vice-
President of The European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESS-
SAT) and responsible for its publication program. In 2002, Professor Gregersen was
elected president of The Learned Society, Denmark, and served through 2003. His
most recent publications include From Complexity to Life: On the Emergence of Life
and Meaning (Oxford University Press, 2003) and Design and Disorder: Perspectives
from Science & Theology (T & T Clark, 2002). He is associate editor of the Encyclo-
pedia of Science and Religion, Volumes I-II (MacMillan Reference, 2003), and sys-
tematic theological editor of Dansk teologisk Tidsskrift.

References
Bernstein, Peter L. 1998. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (New York: John
Wiley & Sons).
Gigerenzer, Gerd. 2002. Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty (London:
Allen Lane/Penguin Press).
Gregersen, Niels Henrik. 2002. “Faith in a World of Risks,” in For All People: Theology and
Globalization, Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen and Peter Lodberg, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans).
———. 2003. “Risk and Religion: Toward a Theology of Risk Taking,” Zygon: A Journal of
Theology 38, no. 2 (June).
Saunders, John. 1998. The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence (Downer’s Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press).
Vanstone, W. H. 1978. The Risk of Love (New York: Oxford University Press).
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 490

A New Relationship between

Theology and Science? 81
One Theologian’s Reflections
Anna Case-Winters

A new day is dawning in the relationship between theology and science.

Emblematic of the change is a 1998 cover of Newsweek announcing “Science
Finds God.”1 After the conflict-ridden decades that followed publication of Dar-
win’s discoveries, an uneasy truce was declared. Science and theology were described
notably by Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould as “non-overlapping magis-
teria”2 having different questions, different methods, and different domains that in
no way meet on common ground. At least for those willing to entertain this “good
fences make good neighbors” solution, there was an advance from conflict into the
partitioned safety of isolation.

The Dialog Reopened: A Dual Crisis of Authority

What has changed? Why do theology and science once again find themselves in
conversation? Part of the story may be that, of late, both dialog partners have under-
gone some changes. With the entry into the postmodern era, each in its own way has
faced a crisis of authority.
In days gone by, theology conducted its work under the shelter of the “house of
authority.”3 Scripture and tradition were treated as a kind of ahistorical, immutable
deposit of truth needing no explanation and no defense. Under the weight of his-
torical criticism and the disturbing accusations of ideological abuse of scripture
and tradition, this “house of authority” that once seemed solid has collapsed.
A parallel crisis of authority has occurred in science. The naive realism of the
nineteenth century has been largely discredited. The sociology of knowledge has
posed probing questions about the extent to which what appears to be “hard,” objec-
tive information about the world may be, in some cases, socially constructed. It is
now well appreciated that previous understandings of the world and its processes
often have undergone radical revision. For example, the Euclidean and lawful world
of Newton gave way to the relativistic frameworks of Einstein, dismantling con-
cepts of absolute time and space. Now, quantum mechanics proclaims a funda-
mental indeterminacy at the heart of things. With such rapid and radical shifts,
science has observed in some of its most spectacular advances that its sureties can
be readily overturned by new breakthrough insights.
The crisis of authority has produced a humbling effect in both fields. Both admit
that their respective claims are to some extent “socially constructed,” or, as the sci-
entists say, “underdetermined by the data.” Humility has made both fields to some
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 491

anna case-winters c 491

degree more open and teachable, and a new space for dialog has been created. Inter-
estingly, some common ground seems to be emerging. For example, both are admit-
ting that there is a distance between “referents” and verbal representations of them
(whether we are talking about physical reality in science or ultimate reality in the-
ology). Both have moved beyond terms of un-nuanced epistemic dogmatism and
realist literalism. Moreover, neither science nor theology is willing to placidly adopt
the bland relativism urged on us by the dominant postmodern ethos. Both are
unwilling to collapse into a cynicism of seeing knowledge as “nothing but” power.
Both continue in the quest for truth. Both continue to make claims and argue for
them. A kind of alliance of stubborn truth-seeking is formed here.
Beyond the crisis of authority that both fields have experienced, another factor
may be at work. From the longer historical view, this present engagement is not so
much a “new day dawning” as it is a normalization of relations. Even the briefest
review of the context of history shows that neither conflict nor indifference is really
characteristic of the science-theology relationship. The evidence of history reveals
that (speaking broadly) all the great theologians were fully conversant with the
intellectual currents of their day and allowed those currents to significantly shape
their work. This is certainly the case for Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin (and
indeed for countless others). The fearful isolation of theology from the wider
human quest for truth is truly an anomaly. As theologian Ulrich Zwingli affirmed,
“The truth, wherever it is found and by whomever it is brought to light, is from the
Holy Spirit” (Treatise on Providence, 1530). In his Commentary on Titus (1:2), he
says, “All truth is from God, who is the fountain of all truth.” In such a view, the-
ology should have nothing to fear from the pursuit of truth, whether in science or
anywhere else. In this sense, the new relationship can be viewed as really the old
relationship restored.

The “New Old” Relationship: Changing Patterns of Interaction

Yet, if contemporary theology is to be relevant and intelligible today, very clearly it
needs to be fully conversant with the scientific picture of the natural world. This
does not necessarily mean that, with every new theory in science, theology must
somehow be reinvented. As William Ralph Inge, dean of St. Paul’s, famously
remarked: “Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the
next.” Rather, theology should be in a situation where it can engage intelligently
with scientific pictures of the world and in an informed manner be able to reflect
theologically on substantive issues in a process of dialogical learning.
Here, I have listed some elements that characterize an enhanced quality of inter-
action between theology and science (this vision of the dialog is significantly shaped
by the work of Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke, and John Polkinghorne):
✦ Mutual respect. The conversation is more likely to be beneficial for mutual
learning if there is mutual respect. Perhaps the science and theology dialog can
build on learnings from cross-cultural conversations. Sometimes, for example,
one side is the “dominant culture,” and power differentials result. One party
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 492

492 c anna case-winters

is in the position of always accommodating the other, needing to learn the

language of, and to put things in the terms of, the other. Mutual respect would
require that there be reciprocity in which each party tries to learn the other’s
language, to hear the other in his/her own terms.
✦ Willingness to challenge. Those already committed to the dialog seem more
comfortable with listening respectfully than with offering challenge and cri-
tique. This may be a second step, but it is a necessary one. There are salutary
admonitions that each has to offer the other. For example, theology might
challenge science where it falls into crude ontological reductionism. Or science
might challenge theology where it relies on habituated tradition for its best
argument in areas where scientific facts and trends are substantively involved.
✦ A stance of critical realism. This is a point of view that takes empirical phe-
nomena seriously, but does not assume that reality is always straightforwardly
apparent from the phenomena observed.
✦ A spirit of forbearance and humility in the face of limitations. The limitations
to be acknowledged would include not only those of the respective disciplines,
but also personal limitations as each scientist/theologian is gifted and limited
by his/her particular historical, cultural, and social location.
✦ A valuing of both knowledge (“scientia”) and wisdom (“sapientia”). Neither of
these should have a privileged position over the other. Nor, of course, should
it be assumed that science has all the knowledge while theology has all the
wisdom.
✦ Hope for consonance4 and an ability to recognize it when it happens. For exam-
ple, speaking theologically, it sometimes is said that all things are “utterly con-
nected” in Divine Reality. In this light, it is fascinating to discover that the
phenomenon of quantum “nonlocality” implies a kind of transcendent
togetherness-in-separation with respect to causal relationships in space and
time. This seems prima facie to be a stunning instance of consonance. The-
ologians talk about how we are created for relation, socially constituted, inter-
dependent, and connected with one another. Hence, science appears to
demonstrate (something like) relationality at the level of particle physics.5
✦ Recognition of the “benign circularity” of the interplay between interpretation
and data/experience. This dynamic is present in both science and theology.
Interpretations of reality shape hypotheses. Hypotheses shape experiments.
Experiments yield data. Data illuminates the interpretation of reality. And the
process begins again. In this way, knowledge progresses, spiraling more than
simply circling. Interpretation and data inevitably and appropriately influence
each other.6 This phenomenon of the vorverstehung (fore-understanding)7 is a
common, deep insight in both fields and can be self-critically employed.
✦ Recognition of the line between descriptive work (the data of experience) and
interpretation at the level of metaquestions/metaphysics. Scientists might agree,
for example, that the cosmos demonstrates a phenomenon of temporal evo-
lution toward ordered complexity.8 However, it is an interpretive, rather than
a factual, leap if a theologian concludes that this is because there is a con-
scious/purposive Creator working in the process.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 493

anna case-winters c 493

✦ Recognition of the limits of the dialog. As it is unlikely that science would prove
the existence of God, it similarly is impossible that theologians could develop
interpretive “knock-down answers of a logically coercive kind.” In the history
of “proofs” for the existence of God, it has usually been the case that they are
compelling only to those who already believe on other grounds. Such logical
“proofs” do not remove the necessity for a rationally underdetermined “leap
of faith.” The way one construes relevant evidence is a conscious decision, not
a foregone conclusion: “The most we can require is an interpretation that is
coherent and persuasive.”9 At most, perhaps, the discoveries of science may
now and then give evidence that seems like confirmation—a reason to believe
that it is not unreasonable to believe. Theologians, therefore, should not expect
to derive a natural theology from science. However, they may find science
helpful as an aid to constructing a theology of nature.10
✦ Avoidance of the bad habit of the “God of the gaps” thinking. This is a habit of
thought that is generically tempting to religious thinkers wherein God inhab-
its the domain of mystery corresponding to whatever the science of the day
cannot explain or predict, thus offering the “hypothesis of God” as an expla-
nation.11 The problem is, of course, that as knowledge expands, the “gaps”
shrink. It is good theology to avoid such bad habits!
✦ Caution regarding easy resolution of differences. Sometimes it will be important
to let differences stand rather than to seek easy (but false) resolutions. “There
are times when one must cling to the strangeness of experience, resisting the
temptation to deny part of that experience in order to achieve a facile, but
unsatisfactory relief from perplexity.”12

Furthering the Relationship: A Model for Proceeding

There are, it seems to me, three basic “movements” in any dialog between theology
and science: listening, clarifying, and rethinking. The example of scientific account-
ings of the operation of the universe as they relate to traditional understandings of
Divine Providence help to illustrate these movements.

Listening
A first step is in listening carefully to what scientists say about the way the world
works. This listening requires learning the language of science. Discussions of the
laws of nature, cause-and-effect relations, the interplay of chance and necessity, etc.,
need to be attended to carefully. Scientific accountings pose a question of whether
and in what sense God may be said to “act” in the world. Traditional ways of pic-
turing this as intervention from outside the system may be difficult to incorporate
within current scientific understandings. Listening is an important skill because the
specific arguments may scientifically be both technical and nuanced. It is important
for a theologian to have a clear understanding of what the technical issues actually
are. If the issue is one of lower-level description, the scientific issue may be an inabil-
ity to conceptualize a “personal cause” in general.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 494

494 c anna case-winters

Clarifying
Among other steps of clarifying, one may ask, “What really is at stake theologically
in this?” The traditional doctrine of Providence has affirmed that God in some sense
governs world process, acting in the world with personal and particular care to
accomplish good purposes. This much seems important to affirm. But how impor-
tant is it to view this as intervention from outside world process? Can God work
within the ordinary processes of nature? Interestingly, some scientists working in
quantum physics and chaos theory speak of “openness” at the heart of things. This
prospect raises all kinds of interesting questions. How closed is this system, really?
How do the detailed technical debates actually work?
Clarification is also needed in what we mean by “miracle.” Not all theologians
view “miracle” in the same way. In the view of Thomas Aquinas, for example, the
meaning of miracle is an act of God that overrides laws of nature; it is this overrid-
ing that makes a miracle a miracle. Here we may have a conflict with the typical sci-
entific picture. However, another theologian, John Calvin, thinks of “miracle” in
terms of God’s working everywhere and always. It does not imply an occasional
intervention from the outside that overturns laws of nature. And, more basically,
how do living beings such as we act as causes within the physical world? He related
the laws of nature to God’s own self-consistency; they were not external to God. (To
multiply loaves and fishes is not qualitatively different from providing daily bread.
It is just more calculated to strike the eye.) Other differences among theologians on
how we may think of God acting in the world can be highlighted. There are ranges
of substantive nuance on both sides.

Rethinking
Along the way, it might be noted that some of the more telling objections to “mir-
acle” (as occasional intervention from outside) are theological. Affirming an occa-
sional intervention from outside brings in its wake an unwanted affirmation of the
ordinary absence of God. Are there ways to maintain Divine activity in world
process without this kind of interventionist thinking? Might we imagine God as
present and active in world process without being the sole causal element? This
would require rethinking notions of God’s activity as coercive exercise of unidirec-
tional power and articulating visions of God as Creator of a self-creating Creation.
In fact, there are a number of good candidates for expression of an alternative vision.
Process theology sees God as presenting “initial aims” that lure Creation persua-
sively toward its best possibilities, but that do not coerce. Polkinghorne talks about
“active information” functioning within an open physical ontology from the top
down. This concept engages the idea of possible scientific support for an underly-
ing ontological openness in Creation. As he says, the concept of active information
“might prove to be the scientific equivalent of the immanent working of the Spirit
on the inside of creation.”14
All these functions have the advantage of maintaining God’s presence and activ-
ity in world process and doing so in such a way that seems consistent with a rea-
sonable understanding of scientific constraint. “God acts but does not overrule. The
Spirit guides, but with a gentle respect for the integrity of creation.”15 “God can
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 495

anna case-winters c 495

indeed do anything that is in accordance with the Divine Will, but it would not be
consonant with that will to create a world as a kind of puppet theater. Instead, there
is a Divine ‘letting-be,’ a making room for the created-other, together with the
acceptance of the consequences that will flow from free process and from the exer-
cise of human free will.”16 In fact, the quest to understand freedom may represent an
exciting joint adventure for both science and theology.
Theologically, what is needed is a more comprehensive picture of God’s activ-
ity in world process. When science observes that there is both chance and neces-
sity in the way the world works, it would seem important theologically to think
through God’s activity in terms of both—not just one or the other. Polkinghorne
invites us to look for God’s presence in the historical contingency (chance), as well
as in the regularity (necessity), of what is happening. “Historical contingency is
God’s gift to creation of the power to make itself; lawful necessity is God’s gift of
dependability. Fruitfulness and frustration are both consequences of the resulting
interplay.”17

Conclusion
Let me reiterate that a new day is dawning in the relationship between theology and
science. Again, this signals restoration of a longstanding relationship, lately inter-
rupted by conflict and isolation. In these decades of re-engagement, it is essential to
find patterns for interaction and models for proceeding that will enhance and
strengthen this resumed relationship. Possibly, such efforts at serious dialog will be
richly rewarded with new insight. I certainly hope so!

c
Anna Case-Winters, Ph.D., M.Div., is Associate Professor of Theology at McCor-
mick Theological Seminary in Chicago and an ordained minister in the Presbyter-
ian Church (U.S.A.). She obtained her M.Div. from Columbia Theological Seminary
and her Ph.D. in theology from Vanderbilt University. Dr. Case-Winters was recip-
ient of the John H. Smith Fellowship. She is a member of the American Academy of
Religion and past president of the American Theological Society. Dr. Case-Winters
is currently serving as Moderator of the Theology Committee of the World Alliance
of Reformed Churches (Caribbean and North American Area). She is also the Chair
for Christian Unity on the Ecumenical Relations Committee of the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) and has been a representative at several international ecumenical
dialogs. Dr. Case-Winters is regularly engaged in research and writing on the topic
of theology and science. She is the author of Divine Power: Traditional Under-
standings and Contemporary Challenges (Westminster Press, 1990) and currently is
completing Reconstructing a Christian Theology of Nature.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 496

496 c anna case-winters

Notes
1 Sharon Begley, “Science Finds God,” Newsweek, July 20, 1998.
2 Stephen Jay Gould, “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,” Natural History. March 1997, 1.
3 Edward Farley, Ecclesial Reflection: An Anatomy of Theological Method (Philadelphia:
Fortress), 165–68.
4 John Polkinghorne opts for what he calls “consonance” that admits more independence
for theology, but insists that there should be consistent fit with science where there is
overlapping concern. I prefer a position more like what he calls “assimilation,” the search
for as close a conceptual relationship between the two subjects as can be achieved with-
out the surrender of one to the other (Polkinghorne 1998, 118). I think “assimilation” is
a bit of a misnomer here and really implies surrender.
5 Ibid., 31–32.
6 Ibid., 102.
7 Fore-understanding is a concept that is helpfully treated by Martin Heidegger in Being
and Time and is also taken up by Hans-Georg Gadamer in Truth and Method.
8 “The whole history of the universe, and particularly the history of biological life on
Earth, has been characterized by the steady emergence of complexity. The story moves
from an initial cosmos that was just a ball of expanding energy to a universe of stars and
galaxies; then on to at least one planet, to replicating molecules, to cellular organisms,
to multicellular life, to conscious life, and to humankind” (Polkinghorne 1998, 44).
9 Ibid., 73.
10 Barbour 2002, 2.
11 We still have a bit of a holdover in popular language here when insurance companies
refer to tornadoes and the like as “acts of God.”
12 Polkinghorne 1998, 108–9.
13 Ibid., 84.
14 Ibid., 89.
15 Ibid., 95.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., 84.

References
Barbour, Ian. 2002. Nature, Human Nature, and God. Minneapolis: Fortress.
———. 1990. Religion in an Age of Science. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Case-Winters, Anna. 1990. God’s Power: Traditional Understandings and Contemporary
Challenges. Louisville: Westminster Press.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 497

anna case-winters c 497

Farley, Edward. 1982. Ecclesial Reflections: Anatomy of Theological Method. Fortress:

Philadelphia.
Hartshorne, Charles. 1948. The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
———. 1984. Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. Albany: SUNY Press.
Kaufman, Gordon. 1993. In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology. Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press.
Peacocke, Arthur. 1990. Theology for a Scientific Age. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Polkinghorne, John. 1998. Science and Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Thomas, Owen. 1983. God’s Activity in the World. Chico, CA: Scholars Press.
Ward, Keith. 1996. God, Chance and Necessity. Oxford: One World.
Whitehead, Alfred North. 1933. Adventures of Ideas. New York: Macmillan Co.
———. 1926. Science and the Modern World. New York: Macmillan Co.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 498

The Emergence of Spirit 82

Philip D. Clayton

I t is not typical for theologians to learn much from investors. Recently, how-
ever, one renegade investment entrepreneur and mutual funds manager, Sir John
Templeton, has been making some strange recommendations for theology that at
least some theologians are heeding—and not only because he has put the rather
substantial resources of the John Templeton Foundation behind his ideas.

Spiritual Information
Sir John’s recommendations are based on the notion of spiritual information. Read-
ers need no reminding of exactly how unfashionable this notion is. After all, we live
in the age of hermeneutics, in which the idea and ideals of objectivity often take a
back seat to the intricacies of interpretation. Beyond hermeneutical sensitivity, how-
ever, some postmodern theologians proclaim that theology is only about the feelings
and subjective perceptions of the speaker, writer, or religious community. Thinkers
such as the British theologian Don Cupitt promote the vision of a theology set free
from any object of reference outside itself. On this view, theological statements can-
not provide information about anything more than the mental states of the speaker
or the linguistic and political systems in which he or she is embedded.
Sir John, by contrast, means information about spiritual realities. For Christians,
that would mean, among other things, information about God and God’s actions
in the world.
This controversial notion of pursuing new spiritual information has a second
implication, which is also contra temps. It suggests that one look to areas of the
human intellectual quest where new information is becoming available, where
knowledge is increasing. In our current intellectual world, that means, paradig-
matically, looking to the sciences as allies in the theological project. Herein lies the
real controversy of Sir John’s suggestion and the focus of this essay: What does it
mean to speculate about the nature of God based on the most recent scientific
breakthroughs?
Much has already been written about the exploding religion-science discussion
and its growing impact on the self-understanding of theology; those roads don’t
need to be retraveled here. Suffice it to say by way of summary that the religion-sci-
ence movement is having an impact on pastors, theological educators, and congre-
gations akin to the huge influence of “spirituality and science” discussions in the
broader society.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 499

philip d. clayton c 499

Instead of chronicling the impact of the movement, I would like to make a some-
what daring proposal about what might happen to the doctrine of God if we indeed
trace out the speculative lines suggested by the most recent breakthroughs in natu-
ral science. Theologically trained readers will recognize the influence of my Dok-
torvater, Wolfhart Pannenberg, in what follows. (The following paragraphs are
nontechnical, and unashamedly so; those interested in the full theories and further
references can find a fuller account in Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Con-
sciousness (2004).

The Divorce That Never Existed

Natural science (or “natural philosophy”), it turns out, has always offered a frame-
work for conceiving God—or for dispensing with the concept of God, as the case
may be. Consider just a few brief examples. As Augustine realized, Plato’s forms
needed to be located somewhere, and the mind of God was the natural place to put
them. Hence, Augustine could argue, since any successful science requires the exis-
tence of forms, there must be a God to eternally think them. No God, no science.
Aristotelian science, dominant in the West for nearly fifteen hundred years, just
as clearly required a God, at least according to St. Thomas’s masterful interpretation.
Consider, for example, the famous doctrine of the “four causes.” From Aristotle to
(roughly) Galileo, to “do science” just meant to discover the four causes of a thing.
As we saw above, the forms (formal causes) require a divine mind in which they can
be located. Assuming that matter, or the material cause of a thing, is not eternal, it
must be created—by God, of course. Efficient causes—say, the sculptor who trans-
forms a block of marble into a statue of Athena—exist as separate from God; but
since they are contingent, they too require God as their ultimate cause. And the
final cause, or goal toward which everything develops, is of course God, for God
must be the one who brings about the final outcome of the earthly process in accor-
dance with the divine aims. Hence, again: no God, no science.
I have mentioned only St. Augustine and St. Thomas, but dozens of other exam-
ples of the intimate union of science and theology could be listed—nearly as many
as there are theologians!
Admittedly, connecting science (or natural philosophy) and theology became
progressively more difficult as the modern era progressed. Yet even as late as New-
ton, a compelling line of speculation still seemed to lead from science to God. Or,
to use that controversial phrase again, the science of the day provided “spiritual
information” about the nature of God. It appeared that Newton’s laws could account
for the interactions of all bodies in the universe. But, as Newton saw, applying these
laws required an ultimate, unchanging framework of “absolute space” and “absolute
time” within which bodies moved. This framework could only be located within
God, or as the eternal object of God’s thought—or at least it could only exist with
the concurrence of God’s will and as a reflection of the divine nature. Hence, it
seemed, the greatest insight in the history of physics, Newton’s laws, still commu-
nicated something of the nature of God.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 500

500 c philip d. clayton

The New Science of Emergence

With this background in place, it is now possible to state my central thesis. It comes
in two parts. First, beginning shortly after Newton and continuing until very
recently, most of the dominant scientific models left precious little place for the sort
of theological connections we have been considering. The explosion of scientific
knowledge, the predictive accuracy of mathematical physics, the emergence of evo-
lutionary science based on random variation rather than on purpose, the control-
ling paradigm of reductionism, the dominance of materialist explanations and
assumptions—all of these made science-based theological speculations difficult and
even, in the eyes of many, impossible. The story of the modern warfare between
science and theology has been well told elsewhere (see, among others, the works by
John Hedley Brooke) and need not be repeated here.
Let us focus instead on the more controversial second half of the thesis: The last
few decades have brought an important new opening for science-based reflection on the
nature of God. This opening lies in the ascendance of the concept of emergence, and
more recently in the development of the new field of emergence studies. What is this
new concept, and why does it so clearly give rise to speculation about God? Finally,
assuming that it does, what might one conclude about the nature of God based on
the new science of emergence?
In one sense, it is a truism to note that things emerge. Once there was no universe
and then, after the Big Bang, there was an exploding world of stars and galaxies; once
the Earth was unpopulated, and later it was teeming with primitive life forms; once
there were apes living in trees, and then there were Mozart, Einstein, and Gandhi.
But the new empirical studies of emergence move far beyond truisms. A growing
number of scientists and theorists of science are working to formulate the funda-
mental laws that explain why cosmic evolution produces more and more complex
things and behaviors, perhaps even by necessity. Especially significant for religion-
ists, they are also arguing that the resulting sciences of emergence will break the
stranglehold that reductionist explanations have had on science. Attention is turn-
ing to what we might call the laws of becoming: the inherent tendency toward an
increase in complexity, toward self-organization, and toward the production of new
emergent wholes that are more than the sum of their parts. Perhaps, many now
suggest, it is a basic rule or pattern of this universe that it give rise to ever-more
complex states of affairs, ever-new and different emergent realities. (See, among
many recent works, Stuart Kauffman’s Investigations and Harold Morowitz’s The
Emergence of Everything.)

The Theological Bottom Line

Assume for a moment that these theorists are right and that it is an inherent feature
of our universe to produce new types of entities and new levels of complexity. What
might this fact tell us about the existence and the nature of God?
Traditional theology looked backward; it postulated God as the cause of all things.
Emergentist theology looks forward; it postulates God as the goal toward which all
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 501

philip d. clayton c 501

things are heading. Moreover, if God stood at the beginning and designed a universe
intended to produce, for example, Jesus, then God would have to use deterministic
laws to reliably bring about the desired outcome. Where the deterministic processes,
left on their own, are insufficient to produce a theologically acceptable world, God
would have to intervene into the natural order, setting aside the original laws to
bring about a different, non-lawlike outcome. Divine action then becomes the work-
ing of miracles, the breaking of laws; and God becomes, paradigmatically, the being
whose nature and actions are opposed to Nature. Of the results of this disastrous
dualism, the opposition of God and Nature, readers are well enough aware.
By contrast, emergence suggests a very different model of the God-world rela-
tionship. In this model, God sets in motion a process of ongoing creativity. The laws
are not deterministic laws. Instead, they are “stochastic” or probabilistic: Although
regularities still exist, the exact outcomes are not determined in advance. More and
more complex states of affairs arise in the course of natural history through an
open-ended process. With the increase in complexity, new entities emerge—the
classical world out of the quantum world; molecules and chemical processes out of
atomic structures; simple living organisms out of complex molecular structures.
And then gradually emerge complex multicellular organisms; societies of animals
with new emergent properties at the ecosystem level; and, finally, conscious beings
that create culture, use symbolic language, and experience the first intimations of
transcendence.
As conceived of according to the model of emergence, God is no longer the cos-
mic lawgiver. Thus, the result is a far cry from Calvin’s God, who must predestine
all outcomes “before the foundation of the world.” Instead, God guides the process
of creativity; God and creatures together compose the melodies of the unfolding
world, as it were, without pre-ordaining the outcome. Emergentists note that this
God must rejoice in the unfolding richness and variety, apparently willing to affirm
the openness of the process and the uncertainty of particular outcomes. In this
model, God’s finite partners are the sum total of agents in the world, and all join in
the process of creation. In theologian Philip Hefner’s (editor of Zygon) beautiful
phrase, we become “created co-creators” with God.
Finally, in the emergence model, God does not sit impassively above the process,
untouched and unchanged by the vicissitudes of cosmic history. Instead, there must
be emergence within God as well. God is affected by the pain of creatures, is gen-
uinely responsive to their calls, acquires experiences as a result of these interactions
that were not present beforehand—all ideas familiar to readers of process theology
or (to cite only one example) Jürgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God. Ultimately, is
not such a picture of God closer to the biblical witness than the distant God-above-
time of classical philosophical theism?

Emergence and Panentheism

How radical should God’s closeness to the world be thought? Should emergence-
based reflection on the nature of God be allowed even to cast the very separation
between God and world into question? A major school of late-twentieth-century
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 502

502 c philip d. clayton

theology known as panentheism argues that the world is more correctly understood
as located within the divine being rather than as separate from it (see Arthur Pea-
cocke and Philip Clayton, eds., In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being,
2004). Panentheists, reflecting on the scientific evidence and willing to explore the
intimate interdependence of God and world, now conceive of the world as “within”
God and God as “in, with, and under” all existing things (to adapt Luther’s lan-
guage for the sacraments).
Does all this mean that, given the turn to emergence, the transcendence of God
will be lost and the Divine will be completely “immanentized”? Such was the famous
claim of Samuel Alexander in Space, Time and Deity: As the world gradually devel-
ops more and more complex structures, it becomes more God-like or (in Alexan-
der’s atrocious neologism) it “deisms.” On such a view, “divinity” is a property that
the world develops in the course of emergent evolution. There is no longer a tran-
scendent God—only an emerging, fully immanent one.
Some may wish to go this far, but emergence in the natural world does not require
it. As a theological model, panentheism is responsive to the emergentist turn, yet is
able to preserve a basic (and highly desirable!) feature of traditional theology: the
transcendence of God. For panentheists, the world is in God, but God is also more
than the world. Fundamental differences in the natures of the two remain: God is
necessary, the world contingent; God is eternal, the world limited in duration; God
is infinite, the world finite; God is by nature morally perfect, the world . . . well,
that’s obvious.

The Political Agenda of Emergentist Theologians

With this last subheading, we finally reach the social and political implications of
emergentist panentheism—the dimension that for many of us is the real motivation
for the position. The first implication was already implicit in the opening para-
graphs: A doctrine of God inspired by emerging scientific models is speculative
rather than dogmatic, not fixed in stone but open to new information and revi-
sions. It is a dialog partner in the political process, not a final authority or arbiter
of all truth. Moreover, a God who is intimately involved in the world, who is respon-
sive to its joys and its suffering, can never be apathetic to the injustices in the world.
And if each of us is in some sense “within” the Divine, then our striving for justice
is itself part of the unfolding purposes of God.
There is no moral triumphalism here, however. The mystery of evil is pervasive:
How can God allow evil actions when these now take place not “at the far ends of
the earth,” but within the divine being itself? No less decidedly, however, emergen-
tist panentheism also testifies to the mystery of grace: Somehow the divine love is
such that it even tolerates imperfection within itself—presumably, because of some
metaphysical necessity beyond our ken, it is not possible to create finite, limited
agents without their engaging in actions that are imperfect, short-sighted, self-serv-
ing. That evil exists in our societal structures and in our very souls is for panenthe-
ists not an invitation to quietism, but rather a clarion call to action. Because we live
“in, through, and under” the divine presence, it behooves us to do everything that
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 503

philip d. clayton c 503

lies within our power to make the world around us reflect more clearly the divine
source and presence to which it owes its very existence.

c
Philip D. Clayton, Ph. D., holds a doctorate in both philosophy and religious
studies from Yale University. He has taught at Haverford College, Williams College,
and California State University and is currently the Ingraham Chair at the Clare-
mont School of Theology. Dr. Clayton has been guest professor at the Harvard
Divinity School, Humboldt Professor at the University of Munich, and Senior Ful-
bright Professor, also at the University of Munich. Dr. Clayton is currently Princi-
pal Investigator of the “Science and the Spiritual Quest” (SSQ) project at the Center
for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley, California. SSQ has brought
together more than one hundred top scientists from around the world to explore the
connections between science, ethics, religion, and spirituality. As author of numer-
ous books in science and religion, he has edited and translated several other volumes
and published forty articles in the philosophy of science, ethics, and the world’s
religious traditions. His current research interest lies in developing a theology of
emergence, published as Mind and Emergency: From Quantum to Consciousness
(Oxford University Press, 2004).
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 504

A Sense of Calling as a Clue

to the Character of the Universe 83
C. Stephen Evans

any persons throughout history have had a sense that they had a “calling” to
M some particular task. Notable examples include, of course, the Hebrew
prophets who had a sense that they were called by “Yahweh” to “speak the word of
the Lord.” However, such a sense of calling is by no means unique to Judaism and
Christianity. In the ancient Greek world, Socrates provides a powerful example of
an individual with a sense of calling.
Those who have at least a modest knowledge of the history of philosophy will
remember that in Plato’s Apology, Socrates defends his life as a philosopher in a
powerful, memorable way. On trial for his life for corrupting the youth and under-
mining religious belief, Socrates testifies that he has been called by “the god” to the
task of philosophizing. (Interestingly, to a monotheist at least, when Socrates dis-
cusses the beliefs of the community, he speaks of “the gods,” but when he speaks of
his own convictions he usually switches to the singular form of the expression, “the
god.”) Socrates’ critical examination of the leading politicians and poets and self-
proclaimed wise men is not, he says, a task undertaken lightly. Rather, when the
Oracle at Delphi told Socrates’ friend that there was no one wiser than Socrates,
Socrates set out to prove the Oracle wrong. When he discovered that true wisdom
was not to be found among humans, Socrates realized the truth of the god’s utter-
ance. Socrates and his contemporaries all lack wisdom, but Socrates is at least wise
enough—and perhaps humble enough—to recognize his ignorance. Far from
undermining religious faith, Socrates thinks the upshot of his philosophical work
is to drive home the realization that true wisdom belongs to God alone, and that
human wisdom is worth little or nothing. God has placed Socrates in Athens as a
gadfly to prod the Athenians to a concern with virtue, in much the same way that a
commanding officer places a soldier at a post in wartime. Socrates must not desert
his calling, even if it costs him his life.
Socrates is, of course, a notable figure in human history. However, many ordinary
people, both past and present, have had a sense that they were, like Socrates, called
to a certain kind of life, and even to particular activities or work. Recently, this sense
of calling has been made the subject of scientific investigation. Psychologists such
as Amy Wrzesniewski of New York University have developed empirical criteria for
discovering how people approach their work. Building on the seminal thinking of
sociologist Robert Bellah in Habits of the Heart, Wrzesniewski and her colleagues
developed ways of distinguishing between people who think of their work simply
as a job, those who think of their work as a career, and those who think of it as a call-
ing.1 Roughly, those who think in terms of a job are motivated primarily by mate-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 505

c. stephen evans c 505

rial benefits, while those who think of their work in terms of career are motivated
not simply by financial rewards but by a sense of accomplishment and prestige as
they advance through the occupational ladder. Those who think of their work as a
calling, however, find intrinsic fulfillment in the work, not necessarily because the
work is inherently enjoyable or interesting, but because they see themselves as
thereby doing something of significance to others.
The interesting thing about this psychological research is that it turns out that
people who have this sense of calling are in fact happier and more contented than
others. This is true not merely for people who have interesting and prestigious jobs,
such as physicians and professors, but people who have jobs with low status and
menial tasks. Psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman (who has contributed an essay to
this volume) nicely summarizes these findings:
People with callings are consistently happier than those with mere jobs or
careers. And if you think callings are only for artists and healers, think again.
Recent studies suggest that any line of work can rise to that level.
In one seminal study, researchers led by Amy Wrzesniewski studied twenty-eight
hospital cleaners. Some viewed their work as drudgery, but others had found ways
to make it meaningful. Researchers have seen the same phenomenon among secre-
taries, engineers, nurses, kitchen workers, and haircutters.2
What conclusions can we draw from these findings? There is, of course, the obvi-
ous practical conclusion that those of us who wish to be happy should seek to view
our own work in this way. However, I wonder whether there are not deeper lessons
to be drawn from these findings. As I thought about them, I tried to apply these
findings to my own life.
I myself am a philosopher, and I do indeed have a sense that I am called to work
as a philosopher. I believe that my work can be of value to my fellow human beings
and even to my religious community. What implications might this sense of calling
have for the work I do as a philosopher? Can a philosopher have a calling? Must a
true philosopher have a calling? If a philosopher has a calling, should this fact shape
in some way the content of the philosophy of that individual? To ask such questions
is to raise the issue of the relation between the life of the philosopher and philoso-
phy itself. For some philosophers, such questions are illegitimate. Hegel warns us
against mixing the personal and the philosophical when he advises us, “Philosophy
must beware of the wish to be edifying,” an admonition that is directly opposed by
Kierkegaard in Either-Or, who ends the book by having one of his pseudonyms tell
us that “Only the truth that edifies is truth for you.”
David Hume, perhaps implicitly taking what was later to be Hegel’s side in this
controversy (although, of course, Hume wrote before Hegel), recommends per-
sonal life as a kind of cure or antidote for philosophy. When doing philosophy, says
Hume, he winds up in a dreadful skepticism, “ready to reject all belief and reason-
ing,” and in a state where he “can look upon no opinion as more probable or likely
than another.”3 This deplorable state of “philosophical melancholy” cannot be dis-
pelled by reason, says Hume, but only by what we might call “real life,” which seems
to be something that cannot be combined with philosophy:
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 506

506 c c. stephen evans

I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my

friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I wou’d return to
these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain’d, and ridiculous, that I
cannot find in my heart to enter upon them any farther.4

These innocent amusements rescue Hume from philosophy and make it possible for
him “to live, and talk, and act like other people in the common affairs of life.”
Is it a merit or a defect if a philosopher’s thought be such that it is impossible to
combine that thought with human life? Some would doubtless consider it a meri-
torious thing, a sign of the heroic path the philosopher has followed to the truth,
impervious to the personal distress the bitter truth has brought in its train. William
James, for example, quotes poet Clough (although James does not agree with the
quoted sentiment), who writes:
It fortifies my soul to know
That, though I perish, Truth is so:5
Kierkegaard, however, once more takes a different perspective. While praising
ancient Greek philosophers for their attempts to embody their lives in their philos-
ophy, he finds it comical that modern philosophers have constructed grand theo-
ries that make no contact with their own existence: “A thinker erects a huge building,
a system, a system embracing the whole of existence, world history, etc., and if his
personal life is considered, to our amazement the appalling and ludicrous discov-
ery is made that he himself does not personally live in this huge, domed palace but
in a shed alongside it, or in a doghouse, or at best in the janitor’s quarters.”6
I side with Kierkegaard here. It has always struck me that if a philosophy cannot
be lived, that this is a problem for that philosophy. It is true that there is something
in our nature that fears that the ultimate truth will be something terrible, and we
are tempted to see the individual who faces up to an unlivable bitter truth as heroic.
However, fear fulfillment is no more rational than wish fulfillment, and we have no
a priori reason for thinking that the ultimate truth is something that humans can-
not live with. To the contrary, it seems plausible to me that the reality that has pro-
duced human beings, whatever the ultimate nature of that reality might be, would
in some way fit the aspirations and lives of the humans it has produced. If that is so,
and we have a need to think of our lives as a calling, then perhaps we should also
try to interpret the world as a place where the notion of “calling” makes sense.
According to this line of thought, if a philosopher takes himself or herself to have
a calling to do philosophy, then the philosophy this individual produces should be
one that can make sense of the idea that a human being has a calling. It is perhaps
natural for a religious philosopher, particularly a believer in God, to see philosophy
in this way; after all, many religious believers think that every human has a calling.
Each of us is called to become the unique individual God intends and make a con-
tribution to God’s Creation. Curiously, however, among philosophers I have known
it is not just the religious ones who tend to think this way about philosophy. I am
confident that a great many nontheists I have known would also say that philoso-
phy is for them a calling. Perhaps they would apply the term only metaphorically,
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 507

c. stephen evans c 507

as a symbol of the sense of satisfaction they gain from philosophy, or to express

their enthusiasm and love for the discipline. However, I suspect that for many the
sense of “call” goes deeper than that. Perhaps if they thought more deeply and hon-
estly about this they would be open to the possibility that if they really do hear a call,
there must be someone who has called them.
Having a sense of calling as a philosopher pushes us toward philosophizing in a
particular way. Perhaps it should suggest to us that we ought to think of God in
personal terms, as the kind of being who can call us to a task, offer us assistance in
carrying out that task, and hold us responsible for performing that task. There is a
certain kind of piety, often seen in philosophy, that resists such views of God. Think-
ing of God in personal terms, we might imagine someone saying, is too limiting.
Surely God far exceeds our human conceptions, including our human concept of
personhood. When in the grip of this mode of thinking, we are tempted to agree
with Tillich that God must not be thought of as a being, but as being itself, or the
ground of being, or that which is simply beyond all being or thought of being.
Certainly there is something right about this way of thinking. In relation to God,
we are like the grass that is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,
(Matthew 6:30, KJV) and such a God must far surpass any human concepts of God.
If we say that God is personal or is a person, we must recognize that the personal
life of God must differ vastly from our own lives as persons. However, it is all too
easy, when we try to safeguard God’s transcendence and guard against anthropo-
morphism, subtly to reduce God’s majesty. In attempting to conceive of God as
more than personal, we may easily fall into the trap of thinking of him as less than
personal, as C. S. Lewis wisely noted many years ago.7 Instead of picturing God as
a parent, friend, or lover, we picture God as “ground of being” or “power of being,”
nonpersonal images that lack both specificity and power.
When I remind myself that God is the one who has called me to do philosophy,
I am aware in a powerful way of the personal character of God. This was certainly
true for Socrates himself. His conception of God was doubtless far from a Christ-
ian conception, but Socrates thought of God as the Commander with authority
who had placed Socrates at his philosophical post. Religious philosophers could do
worse than to follow Socrates here. Whatever else God may be like, God is a being
who can act, for he has performed the act of calling me to practice philosophy. God
is enough like a person to enable me to have a relationship with him. I may look to
God for guidance, pray to him for assistance in my task, ask him for forgiveness for
my failings. If I really take my vocation as a philosopher seriously, I must not fall into
a practical contradiction by denying in my philosophy what is presupposed in my
life. This has been important to me in my work in philosophy of religion and philo-
sophical theology. The God who is the object of my reflection is also the one who
has called me to reflect. If I am going to err in my conception of God, as I surely will,
let it not be an error that makes nonsense of the calling that sustains me by making
God into a being who is incapable of calling anyone to do anything. If I said that I
was called by God to philosophize about a God who does not and cannot call any-
one, I would testify not to God’s call, but to my own confusion.
In any case, I find the discoveries of contemporary psychology with respect to the
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 508

508 c c. stephen evans

notion of calling to be interesting and provocative. For these findings imply that it
is not just a personal idiosyncrasy on my part when I think of my work as part of a
calling; rather, this is something many humans do naturally. And when humans do
think of their lives in this way, they find happiness and a sense of satisfaction, as I
do myself. It appears, one might say, that humans are made such that they flourish
when they think about themselves in this way. That seems to be a fact about human
nature. And such facts about human nature may give us insight into the character
of the universe that has produced that human nature.
Of course, one may argue here that humans who think of their lives in terms of
a calling do not necessarily think of themselves as having a literal calling. Rather,
they think of their lives as ones that can serve others; we might say they may live as
if they have been called to live in a certain way. And that is certainly true for many
nonreligious persons. However, it is also possible that these people may in fact have
a calling in a literal sense, even if they do not recognize it. Perhaps their sense that
they are called to live in an unselfish and loving way for the good of others really
does stem from a loving creator. For it is quite possible to be aware of a call from
God without being aware that such a call is a call from him. The way in which a sense
of call is embedded in our human nature may be one of the clues that God has
implanted within that nature, a clue that points in a non-coercive manner to God’s
reality and character—and toward the ultimate purpose of human existence.

c
C. Stephen Evans is currently University Professor of Philosophy and Humani-
ties at Baylor University. His published works include fifteen books, among which
are Faith Beyond Reason; The Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith: The Incarna-
tional Narrative as History; and Passionate Reason: Making Sense of Kierkegaard’s
Philosophical Fragments. More popular recent works include Why Believe? and
Pocket Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion and Apologetics. Evans has published
many professional articles and has received two Fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, as well as a major grant from the Pew Charitable
Trusts. Before going to Baylor, Evans taught at Wheaton College; St. Olaf College,
where he served as Curator of the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library, as
well as being a member of the Philosophy Department; and at Calvin College,
where, besides teaching philosophy, he served as Dean for Research and Scholarship
and was the inaugural holder of the William Spoelhof Teacher-Scholar Chair. He is
a past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Søren Kierkegaard
Society.

Notes
1 Amy Wrzesniewski et al.,“Jobs, Careers, and Callings: People’s Relations to Their Work,”
Journal of Research in Personality 31 (1997): 21–33.
2 “How to See the Glass Half Full,” Newsweek, September 16, 2002, 49.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 509

c. stephen evans c 509

3 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1888), 268–69.
4 Ibid., 269.
5 Clough, Hugh, “With Whom Is No Variableness, Neither Shadow of Turning,” from
Poems, with a Memoir (New York: Macmillan, 1862). Quoted in William James, “The
Will to Believe,” in Essays in Pragmatism, ed. Alburey Castell (New York: Hafner Pub-
lishing Co., 1948), 92.
6 Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death, trans. and ed. by Howard V. Hong and
Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 43–44.
7 Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan, 1952), 141.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 510

The Role of Discernment

in Seeking Spiritual Knowledge 84
Nancey C. Murphy

D oes religious experience contribute to new spiritual knowledge? Scientific

research could tell us whether it does or not.
While many fine works have been written on what can be learned from scientific
methods for the pursuit of spiritual knowledge (Barbour 1974, 1990; Pannenberg
1976), the objection critics will raise is that theology, unlike science, has no data.
Christian theologians might reply that they treat the Scriptures as data, and other
data are gathered from history and religious experience. So, the problem is not the
absence of anything that functions as data; it is rather that Scriptural texts and reli-
gious experiences seem defective when compared with scientific data. Religious
experience seems too subjective. And how do we know that Scripture tells us any-
thing reliable about God and not just about Jews’ and Christians’ beliefs about God?
I concentrate here not on Scripture, but on religious experience. The puzzle of
how religious experience can be used as a source of valid data for new spiritual
knowledge can be solved by putting together two pieces—theories of instrumenta-
tion (a concept from the philosophy of science) and the Christian practice of spir-
itual discernment.
An important component of scientific research programs is what philosophers
call theories of instrumentation. Consider the measurement of temperature. We have
a variety of instruments: mercury and alcohol thermometers, procedures based on
the thermoelectric effect, and others. The confidence we place in any of these is
based, first, on the consistency of results obtained by the various methods. But,
more important to my purposes here, the operation of each of these instruments is
explained by, and thus validated in part by, scientific theory. For example, the kinetic
theory of heat, which defines heat in terms of movement of particles, partially
explains the expansion of liquids when heated, and so supports the use of ordinary
thermometers.
Thus, an entire network of theory, laws, and experimental results is accepted as
a whole because of its consistency and its explanatory power. There is always a
degree of circular reasoning involved—as when a thermometer is used in confirm-
ing certain consequences of the kinetic theory—but it might be called “virtuous”
rather than “vicious” circularity because it is part of what goes into showing the
consistency of the entire network.
Now, what about religious experience? We surely do not want to count all so-
called religious experiences as data for theology. Nor do we want to count all sen-
sory experiences as data for science. If we did we would have to explain, for instance,
how oars bend when put into water and straighten immediately when taken out.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 511

nancey c. murphy c 511

The relevant parallel in theology to a theory of instrumentation is the theory of

discernment. The Christian tradition offers a treasury of answers to the question of
how it is possible to distinguish between “religious experiences” that represent
encounters with God and those that do not. So, here we have a theory that states that
it is possible to recognize the activity of God in human life by means of signs or cri-
teria, some of which are public and relatively objective. I claim that the theory of dis-
cernment functions in Christian theology in exactly the same way as theories of
instrumentation do in science.
The criteria for discernment can be grouped under two headings: consistency
and fruits. “Consistency” for Protestants means consistency with Scripture. For
Catholics, consistency with church teaching is also important. Use of the consistency
criterion, of course, raises all of the problems of interpretation involved in using the
Bible for any purpose—problems I shall not address here except to note the fol-
lowing: A wooden application of this criterion would mean that no religious expe-
rience could ever challenge traditional teaching because such an experience would
automatically be judged inauthentic. However, if this criterion is used in conjunc-
tion with others, there will be cases where an experience, attested on the grounds of
other signs, conflicts with a traditional interpretation of Scripture. The experience,
together with critical reflection on the received interpretation, may then result in the
overturning of an interpretation. So there is room for a dynamic interplay among
texts, interpretations, and religious experiences.
If this is the case, a clear parallel exists with science, where an observation or
experimental result that conflicts with accepted theory will be regarded with suspi-
cion. The decision either to ignore the datum or to revise the theory can go either
way and will only be made after reevaluating the theory and performing additional
experiments.
The criterion of “fruits” refers to various effects in people’s lives and in their com-
munity. Jesus declared that false prophets could be known by their fruits (Matt 7:16).
Paul listed the fruits of the Holy Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gen-
erosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22–23). Other spiritual writ-
ers would add humility, contrition for sin, and the consensus of the church.
Consider this example: Catherine of Siena, a fourteenth-century mystic, posed
questions to God and then wrote (or recorded) passages that were supposed to be
God’s replies. One of these is about how to distinguish between experiences that
come from God and those that do not:
Now, dearest daughter . . . I told you how she could discern whether or not
these [visions] were from me. The sign is the gladness and hunger for virtue
that remain in the soul after the visitation, especially if she is anointed with
the virtue of true humility and set ablaze with divine charity. (Noffke 1980)
So Catherine would say that she could recognize when a religious experience is
from God by these signs: if it is from God, it produces gladness, hunger for virtue,
humility, and charity.
Now, the critic would ask Catherine:
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 512

512 c nancey c. murphy

Critic: “How do you know that those are reliable signs?”

Catherine: “Because God told me so.”
Critic: “How do you know it was God who told you that?”
Catherine: “Well, the experience produced gladness, humility, charity. . . .”

So you see the problem.

In the case of science, theories of instrumentation are confirmed by two factors:
One is the experienced reliability of the instrument; it produces similar or identi-
cal readings again and again under similar circumstances, and these results corre-
late with those produced by other measuring devices. The other is that a theory of
instrumentation follows from theoretical beliefs that we have no good reason to
call into question. In other words, the truth of the theory of instrumentation is sup-
ported by its consistency with a network of other experiential and theoretical state-
ments.
The Christian theory of discernment is likewise supported by its connections to
a variety of other statements, some based on experience, others of a theoretical (or
theological) nature. For example, the great American theologian Jonathan Edwards
presents a simple theoretical account of why the fruits of the Spirit should provide
valid signs of God at work in a human life. The fruits of the Spirit jointly constitute
a particular kind of character—what Edwards calls the “lamb-like, dove-like char-
acter” of Christ (Edwards 1746/1959). In light of Christian theology, this is exactly
what is to be expected. The fruits are signs that the Holy Spirit is at work in a per-
son’s life; the Holy Spirit is otherwise known as the Spirit of Christ; Christ’s spirit
should manifest itself in a Christ-like character.
The second kind of support for the theory of discernment needs to be experien-
tial—does it work reliably, and is it connected in a consistent way with other expe-
riences? As we saw above, the process of discernment is exactly the test of whether
the inner experience, putatively of God, is correlated with the other sorts of expe-
riences that our theories lead us to expect. Reliability means, simply, that a meas-
urement or process results in roughly or exactly the same results under similar
circumstances. Reliability is always a matter of degree; different degrees are required,
depending on the complexity of the matter under study. Measurements with a ruler
are highly reliable; measurements with an I.Q. test are only moderately reliable.
We have anecdotal data on the reliability of believers’ judgments regarding the
presence or absence of God’s agency in certain events. However, it would seem to
be possible to design research to measure the reliability of these practices. I antici-
pate that the development of an adequate methodology would be difficult, but not
impossible. Were such a study to be done, positive results of this second-order inves-
tigation would provide valuable tools for the search for new spiritual knowledge.
Just as scientific instruments are tested before being used in a laboratory, this
“instrument” for detecting the presence and activity of the Spirit of God might be
validated for future first-order research on spiritual subjects. Thus, we could have
scientific evidence for the reliability of religious experience.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 513

nancey c. murphy c 513

c
Nancey C. Murphy, Ph.D., Th.D., has been Professor of Christian Philosophy at
Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena since 1989 and is an ordained minister in
the Church of the Brethren. She received her doctorate in Philosophy from the
University of California, Berkeley and her theology degree from the Graduate The-
ological Union, Berkeley. Her research focuses on the role of modern and post-
modern philosophy in shaping Christian theology and on relations between
theology and science. Professor Murphy speaks internationally on these topics and
has published numerous books. Her first book, Theology in the Age of Scientific Rea-
soning (1990), won the American Academy of Religion award for excellence. She is
the author of six other books, including On the Moral Nature of the Universe with
George F. R. Ellis, and is co-editor of six. Her book with Warren Brown and New-
ton Malony, Whatever Happened to the Soul? was awarded the 1999 Templeton Prize
for Outstanding Books in Theology and the Natural Sciences. She also serves as a
corresponding editor for Christianity Today. Professor Murphy is former Chair of
the Board of Directors of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berke-
ley, where she still serves on the Board, and is also is a member of the Planning
Committee for conferences on science and theology sponsored by the Vatican
Observatory.

References
Barbour, Ian, Myths, Models, and Paradigms. New York. Harper and Row, 1974.
———. Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures 1989-91, vol. 1. New York. Harper
and Row, 1990.
Edwards, Jonathan,“A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections.” Reprinted in Perry Miller,
ed., The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2. New Haven. Yale University Press, 1746/1959.
Noffke, Suzanne, trans. and ed., Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue. New York. Paulist Press,
1980.
Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Theology and the Philosophy of Science. Philadelphia. Westminster
Press, 1976.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 514

Spiritual Information
for Integral Transformation 85
Kuruvilla Pandikattu

The Crises in Humanity

J ohn F. Kennedy, in his inaugural address, promised Americans two things: to

take human beings to the Moon and to eliminate world poverty. The former was
a technical feat, which was accomplished spectacularly. It required scientific infor-
mation and led to technical success. It could also have led to transformation of the
country’s identity. But the latter is a moral feat that requires one important element
before it can be achieved: spiritual information.
Information, like knowledge, is power. It changes both the individual and the
larger society. That is why Paul Ricoeur maintains, “Every understanding is self-
understanding.” Every bit of information acquired leads to a better understand-
ing of the self and therefore inevitably to transformation, both at the level of
consciousness. As G. K. Chesterton put it, “The most practical thing is a good
theory.”
In this essay, I deal concisely with the primary sources of information and trans-
formation in our modern society: science and religion. I briefly examine the crises—
the challenges and the opportunities—created by these two primary sources of
information based on my perspective that a healthy and enterprising collaboration
between them leads to a total, integrative transformation of society at the level of
human consciousness. That, I believe, is crucial for the survival and progress of
humanity.

The Sources of Information

The primary sources of information could be generally classified as rational (the
intellectual challenge of science) and intuitive (the spiritual creativity of religion),
both of which have personal and institutional dimensions. Although they have unal-
terably affected human life and promise to continue to do so, we cannot ignore the
threats they pose.

The Intellectual Challenge of Science

The empirical knowledge and technical information provided by science have led
to marvelous progress. Not only has science taken humans to the Moon, it has
enabled the whole of humankind to be connected—through communication, trans-
portation, information technology, and so forth. Paradoxically, science also has
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 515

kuruvilla pandikattu c 515

taken the world to the brink of extinction. The threat of nuclear explosions, chem-
ical and biological weapons, depletion of the ozone layer, and other human-made
catastrophes also are destructive possibilities produced by our technological “mar-
vels.” Survival of the human species—and life itself—is at stake!
Such a crisis was predicted by Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist humanity has
yet produced, who maintained that “all our lauded technological progress—our
very civilization—is like the axe in the hands of the pathological criminal.” While
this is a strong indictment, indeed, he further stated: “It has become appallingly
obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
Much more than fostering technological comforts and dangers, science has irrev-
ocably altered our worldview, lifestyle, and, through the Human Genome Project,
our very understanding of life. Science has led to arguments that states of nihilism
and absolute relativism are plausible, making despair an irrevocable burden of
humanity exacerbated by an increasingly pervasive reductionistic, mechanistic
interpretation of life.

The Spiritual Creativity of Religion

Confronted with these challenges, it is reassuring to refer to another assertion by
John F. Kennedy: “Every problem created by humans has a human solution.” While
we may totally agree with this, we need to remember the caveat put forward by Ein-
stein: “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of think-
ing we were at when we created them.”
Fortunately, we have recourse in religion. If anything can inspire a new vision
and provide a new worldview, it is the creative commitment and innovative moti-
vation offered by the world’s spiritual traditions. They enable us to discover the
harmony and beauty in life. Religions—or, may I say religion?—can offer us an all-
encompassing worldview that can stand up to the hubris of technology and the
nihilism of destructive science. At the same time, religion can promote constructive
technology and cooperative science for the progress of humanity. What we need is
a worldview that can help us cope with the conflicts and possibilities offered by sci-
ence and technology, neither rejecting them totally nor accepting them uncondi-
tionally, but rather affirming them cautiously, creatively, and ingeniously.
To quote Einstein again: “The release of atomic power has changed everything
except our way of thinking. . . . The solution to this problem lies in the heart of
mankind.” What truly touches the human heart is religion. Yet religions, particularly
the institutional varieties, have been responsible for promoting violence, hatred,
and inhuman behavior toward the “out-groups.” The negative aspects of institu-
tional religion, like the potentially destructive power of science, cannot be denied.
However, we can assert that religion provides humanity with the most precious—
although fallible—knowledge we possess. Religion has given humans a sense of
meaning, dignity, and a reason to live, which is tremendously reassuring and enrich-
ing for humanity. When brought to bear on the realms of values and ethics, religions
help us to respond positively to the challenges posed by modern science and the
worldviews it inaugurates.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 516

516 c kuruvilla pandikattu

Need for Constructive Collaboration between Science and Religion

The crises that confront us can be viewed either as the result of a relentless human
quest for self-annihilation or as an opportunity provided by life to transcend itself.
We prefer to look at today’s moral, spiritual, and technological threats—which are
definitely grave—as chances for the forces of life to recuperate, so that humanity can
forge ahead to unexplored territories. Seen as the birth pangs of a new generation—
a new way of life—the crises of the world should be perceived as fresh challenges for
science and religion to come together in close and imaginative collaboration.

From a Pragmatic Perspective: Preserve Precious Life

The close collaboration between science and religion is necessary to counter the
most obvious problem threatening us: the extinction of life from the planet. Many
critical observers are convinced that the world’s progression will inevitably lead to
self-destruction. Yet the situation is not hopeless. The essential human spirit is tena-
ciously open to inexhaustible creativity and boundless innovation. Where there is
a collective will, there is a collective way to overcome the crucial problems con-
fronting us.
Science cannot handle the threat of self-annihilation alone. Neither can religion
deal with it on its own. We need a concerted effort, pooling all the resources at our
disposal. What threatens us is not “just” the destruction of the soul, but the whole
of life. Thus, for the most pragmatic of all purposes—saving precious life on planet
Earth—religion and science must collaborate with urgency and creativity.
Although many people are aware of these concerns, they do not always undertake
concerted, unified action. However, it is encouraging that so many individuals and
groups are addressing the problem in their own ways. We can very well hope that
the larger problems of hunger, sickness, violence, terrorism, and poverty will be
reduced, although not totally eliminated. We can hope that life-threatening forces
such as nuclear war, biological and chemical weapons, and ecological disasters will
be managed innovatively and ingeniously. Once humans have the will, they will
find the way. Friedrich Nietzsche’s slogan,“If you have a why, then you can cope with
any how,” is apt. Once the “why” for protecting human life is provided (primarily
by religion), we can cope with the “how” to accomplish the task (primarily through
science). Therefore, once the issue is saving the world, and saving precious human
life on this planet, no force on Earth can really stop the constructive collaboration
between science and religion.

From a Human Perspective:

Retain Humanness and Humaneness
It is a fundamental “law” that life progresses unhindered. Human beings, following
this law, become more progressive technologically, morally, psychologically, and
spiritually.
All religious traditions affirm that life is worthy and meaningful. Worth and
meaning are found in being true to oneself and in realizing the truth of oneself. In
this process of realization, love for oneself and openness to others are imperative.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 517

kuruvilla pandikattu c 517

It is a universal spiritual insight that in humility and gentleness human beings

become authentic, genuine, transparent, and joyful. By getting in touch with our
own humanity, grasping the enigma of human existence, grappling with the ques-
tions of life, and rejoicing in day-to-day experience, we become more human—and
more humane.
To be authentic and complete, scientific progress, both in terms of technology
and worldview, has to permeate the spiritual domain, too. The true realization of
our humanness and humaneness causes a gradual spiritual evolution in which we
get more and more in touch with our deepest selves through listening, awareness,
gentleness, and compassion. Therefore, at the human level, science and religion fos-
ter our humaneness by helping us to realize ourselves truly, to enable us to be
authentic, to open our hearts so we can connect with others.

From a Cosmic Perspective:

Widen Consciousness to Be Co-Creators
At a deeper level, when we look at the flow of evolution and the progress of life, we
realize that we humans have reached the highest level of consciousness. Our con-
sciousness—the integration of our intellectual, moral, spiritual, and metaphysical
selves—has emerged, evolves, and will develop further. This growth of consciousness
is integral to life. It is here that our world within converges on the world without.
Today, we have passed beyond the stage of “evolution becoming conscious of
itself.” We have become capable of guiding the evolutionary process forward, in and
through us. We are at the juncture where we can influence evolution—and with it
the whole of life—dynamically, even at the level of consciousness.
Are we not today at such a level, where we are open to the whole cosmos, tran-
scending the limits of our tribal, linguistic, national, religious—and even human—
identities? We are possessed by life and also further it by expanding our own
consciousness—toward a mystical, numinous, or liminal level! Thus, we are not
just widening our horizons—our consciousness—to include everything, but we are
actually becoming part of “everything,” and thus merging with the whole of cre-
ation.
Spiritual information—obtained through genuine scientific enterprise and true
religious dynamism—promotes this sense of oneness. In such a noble, all-embrac-
ing, ever-widening endeavor, science and religion cannot stand apart as two dis-
tinct disciplines, but must creatively and innovatively contribute to a grander vision
of the whole of which they are an integral part. This is the life-fostering sat-cit-
ananda (being-consciousness-bliss) described in the Indian traditions.

Opportunity to “Outgrow” Ourselves

Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi were two people who contributed signifi-
cantly to the collaboration between science and religion in an effort to protect life,
promote humanness (and humaneness), and extend our consciousness. Although
different in personal history and field of engagement, both were genuine and hum-
ble seekers of truth. They strove to liberate humanity from the clutches of narrow
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 518

518 c kuruvilla pandikattu

self-interest. Both were spiritually informed people who were key figures in the
quest to widen human consciousness in their respective disciplines of science and
religion.
Information—especially the spiritual information that results from a collective,
collaborative, creative quest between science and religion at the deepest human
level—integrates, transforms, and leads to an integral and total transformation of
humanity. The result is a nobler, deeper, and wider consciousness that is both com-
passionate and all encompassing. This is both the challenge and the opportunity fac-
ing humanity today.
We can aptly conclude by quoting what Einstein said of Gandhi, hoping that
future generations will express similar sentiments about themselves as a community:
“Generations to come, it may be, will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in
flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”1

c
Kuruvilla Pandikattu, S.J., Ph.D., is a Catholic priest whose area of special-
ization is the dialog between science and religion and between religion and
hermeneutics. He obtained two doctorates in Philosophy and Christian Theology,
both from the University of Innsbruck. Fr. Pandikattu teaches science, philosophy,
and religion at Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune, India, and is a visiting professor at
many other universities and colleges. He is a founding member of the Association
of Science, Society, and Religion, the first organization of its kind in India, and is an
active member of various other learned associations and societies. Author of more
than thirty scholarly articles and secretary to two scholarly journals, Fr. Pandikattu
writes a regular column in the local newspapers. Among his numerous books are:
Dialogue as Way of Life (with an American edition); Idols to Die, Symbols to Live; and
It’s Time! Science, Religion and Philosophy on Time. He has edited seven books,
including Hopefully Yours; Meaning of Mahatma for the Millennium (with an Amer-
ican edition); and Human Longing and Fulfillment. Fr. Pandikattu has organized
and participated in many national and international symposia on science and reli-
gion.

Note
1 Einstein, A. From “Out of My Later Years,” New York: Philosophical Library, 1950. New
translations and revisions by Sonja Bargmann, based on Mein Weltbild, edited by Carl
Seelig, Laurel Edition, Dell Publishing Co. Written on the occasion of Gandhi’s 70th
birthday in 1939. Note the several other essays in this volume discuss Einstein and
Gandhi; see especially the essay by Ramanath Cowsik.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 519

Reading an Unfinished Universe 86

Science and the Question of Cosmic Purpose
John F. Haught

B efore modern times, most people thought the universe had a purpose. The
natural world existed for a reason, although it was not always easy to say exactly
what this was. Philosophies and religions were aware of Nature’s flaws, of course, but
they viewed the cosmos as a “great teaching,” at times even as a sacred text. By
approaching it reverently, one could read beneath its surface and discover a pro-
found message hidden from ordinary awareness. Pythagoreans, for example, found
in the depths of Nature a mystical realm of musical and numerical enchantment.
Ancient Israelites read the universe as an expression of Divine Wisdom. Egyptians
delved beneath the surface of Nature to the realm of Maat, Indians to the domain
of Dharma, and Taoists to the Tao. Stoics read the cosmos as the outward manifes-
tation of an inner rationality that they called Logos. And the Gospel of John pierced
beneath all things to an eternal Word that was in the beginning with God, and that
was God.
Traditionally, almost all religions and philosophies read the universe as a revela-
tion of order or purpose. Reading the universe, however, was not an exercise to be
undertaken lightly, for beneath Nature’s surface lurked layer upon layer of chal-
lenging mystery and meaning. In the process of penetrating to the world’s inner
substance, the interpreter would have to undergo a purifying transformation. One
could not really come to know the universe without being deeply changed in the
process.
The universe no longer works this way for most of us. With the help of science
we can now read it quite competently—or so it seems—but we are seldom signifi-
cantly changed in the process. We have laid bare Nature’s atomic and molecular
alphabet, its genetic lexicon, and its evolutionary grammar; but we are less confident
than ever that any profound teaching lies beneath its surface. While scientific under-
standing of the universe progresses at an accelerating rate, our lives do not neces-
sarily become deeper, better, or happier. Transformation does not keep pace with
information.
Scientifically educated people today, generally speaking, do not read the cosmos
as a text bearing any deep meaning at all. To some, the universe is a swirl of mean-
ingless matter on which a patina of life and mind glimmers for a cosmic instant
before fading out forever. To others, it is a blank tablet onto which we may inscribe
our own human meanings. “I, for one, am glad that the universe has no meaning,”
says philosopher E. D. Klemke, “for thereby is man all the more glorious.” A mean-
ingless universe, he testifies,“leaves me free to forge my own meaning.” Likewise, the
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 520

520 c john f. haught

late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould claimed that a pointless universe is a great new
opportunity for humans. We can now fill it, he counseled us, with our own mean-
ings. Yet both Klemke and Gould would agree that, in the end, all meaning will van-
ish along with our lives.
Today, “cosmic purpose” is scarcely mentioned in learned circles—a hush not
only tolerated but at times even celebrated in the academic world. After Darwin, any
claim that the universe is the unfolding of a profound meaning sounds especially
strained. The randomness and impersonality of life’s evolutionary epic have made
Nature seem forever incompliant to the human heart’s habitual longing for a pur-
posive universe. Commenting on neo-Darwinism, the philosopher Daniel Dennett
has confidently declared that the only message in evolution is that “the universe has
no message.”

Science and Purpose

If the idea is to make sense at all today, therefore, what could it possibly mean to say
that the universe has a purpose? “Purpose” usually means the “goal” or “end” toward
which a particular set of events is oriented. Deeper yet, purpose implies that some-
thing of great value is in the process of being realized. Our own lives, for example,
are said to have purpose if we dedicate them to bringing about something of last-
ing importance. By surrendering ourselves to causes that embody imperishable val-
ues, we discover a coherence to our lives, a backbone to our commitments, and at
times even a reason to die. But what value could the universe possibly be in the
process of realizing? And how might we understand the entire cosmic process dis-
closed by modern science as purposeful?
Parallel to a meaningful human life, a purposeful universe would have to possess
at least a loosely directional aim toward bringing about something of great and last-
ing consequence. But what could this possibly be? What is really going on in the uni-
verse? And can science help us find out?
Science, it is true, does not deal formally with the question of purpose or value.
It is concerned with physical, not final, causes. However, any answer we give to the
question of what’s going on in the universe requires our taking into account the
undeniable discoveries of science. Since it is primarily through scientific exploration
that we learn about the universe, any coherent quest for cosmic purpose today can-
not ignore what science has seen. This means also that such a quest cannot truth-
fully disregard the ambiguities in evolution and the prospect of an eventual physical
dissolution of the entire universe.
What pillars of certainty, then, could we possibly uncover in the burgeoning
mound of scientific information that might render it at least conceivable that the
universe has some overall point to it? I would suggest that there are at least two.
These two scientific fixtures do not by themselves prove that purpose pervades the
universe, but they give us something to stand on as we speculate about what might
be going on in the cosmic depths. They were entirely unknown to ancient religions
and philosophies, and they have altered forever the rules for reading the universe.
The first pillar is our new certainty that the physical universe is unfinished. Evo-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 521

john f. haught c 521

lutionary biology, geology, and cosmology have now established as fact that the cos-
mos is still emerging and that it remains incomplete. As a work in progress, an
unfinished universe is a book still being written. The incontestable fact of an unfin-
ished universe may not seem like much of a footing on which to erect a sense of cos-
mic meaning, but at least it invites us to keep on reading. And if a plot is still
unfolding there, we cannot expect it to be fully manifest to us yet. Any meaning it
may have will be at least partially hidden from us—at least for now.
Our second pillar is the new scientific disclosure of a universe that has evolved
over the course of an unimaginably prolonged history into a stupendous array of
beauty. By beauty I mean the harmony of contrasts, the ordering of complexity, the
fragile combining of what is new with what is stable, of fresh nuance with persist-
ent pattern. The cosmos, to be specific, has made its way gradually from a monot-
onous primordial sea of subatomic mist, through the emergence of atoms, galaxies,
stars, planets, and life, to the bursting forth of sentience, mentality, self-conscious-
ness, language, ethics, art, religion, and science. Surely, by any objective standard of
measurement, something momentous has been going on here. For all we know, a
deeply meaningful story is in the process of unfolding. But how are we to read a nar-
rative that is still being written? And what is the story really all about?

The Aim toward Beauty

As with any book in progress, we cannot yet read the universe all the way down to
its ultimate depths, either through science or theology. The vast distances below,
above, behind, and ahead of us extinguish any such pretense. However, we may still
approach the emerging cosmos in a spirit of expectation. Now that we know for sure
that the universe is an incomplete story, we may find there the kind of dramatic
tension that compels us to keep on reading.
It simply cannot be unremarkable, for example, that the universe eventually aban-
doned the relative simplicity of its earliest moments and flowered, over the course
of billions of years, into an astounding array of complexity and diversity, including
human consciousness and moral aspiration. Something other than just the mere
reshuffling of atoms has been going on here. And while the journey from primor-
dial cosmic monotony to the intense beauty of life, mind, and culture is no hard
proof of an intentional cosmic director, this itinerary is at least open to the kind of
“ultimate” explanation that religions seek to provide.
The universe, in any case, has an overarching inclination to make its way from
trivial toward more intense versions of beauty. This aesthetic directionality was
enough finally to convince the great philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, after a
long period of skepticism, that there is indeed a point to the universe. Purpose
means the “realizing of value,” and to Whitehead beauty is the queen of all values.
Cosmic purpose, he argued in Adventures of Ideas, consists of an overall aim—not
always successful—toward the heightening of beauty.
But what about the dark side of things—the tragedy in life’s evolution and the
moral evil in human existence? And what sense can we make of the dismal scenar-
ios that cosmologists are now entertaining about the eventual, although certainly
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 522

522 c john f. haught

far-off, demise of the universe? How do we know that all things will not finally trail
off into lifeless and mindless oblivion?
Whitehead speculated that the problem of evil comes down, in the end, to the
plain fact that “things perish,” and he was acutely aware that the most beautiful
entities and ideals last least long of all. Organisms all die, and great civilizations
sooner or later decay. Hence, if there is any purpose to the universe, perishing must
be redeemed—not only our own but all perishing. At one time an atheist, White-
head eventually concluded that there is something in the depths of the world-
process that redresses the fact that nothing lasts. His own suffering and searching led
him to reach beneath the transient flux of immediate things to something that
endures everlastingly, and in whose embrace all actualities attain a kind of immor-
tality.
In arriving at his sense of the permanence beneath all perishing, unlike most
other academic philosophers in the twentieth century, Whitehead took religious
experience as seriously as he took science. Although religions are imprecise and
inconsistent, he thought they could read more penetratingly into the fabric of uni-
verse than can the clearer abstractions of science. Science deals well with the surface
of Nature, but only religious intuition can carry us beneath the temporal flux to a
“tender care that nothing be lost”; that is, to God. In God’s experience, the entire
sweep of events that we call the universe is endowed with permanence along with
purpose. Even the passing of an entire cosmic epoch—such as the predicted disso-
lution of our own expanding universe—would not entail its absolute disappear-
ance. Its history, down to the last detail, is internalized forever in the life of God.
God, therefore, is not only the lure that summons the world to realize more
intense beauty, but also the compassionate “fellow sufferer” who preserves ever-
lastingly all of the transient value that the evolving cosmos achieves. God, in White-
head’s interpretation of religion, has the breadth and depth of feeling to take into
the divine life the entire cosmic story, including its episodes of tragedy and its final
expiration. Within God, the whole universe and its finite history are transformed
into an everlasting beauty. The ever-expanding divine beauty, in turn, becomes the
ultimate context for the ongoing world-process, adding new definition to what has
already become. In God, the world remains eternally new, even if many of its tem-
poral epochs are now over.
Is such a proposal believable? We can’t know for sure. Here, as Whitehead also
understood, the risk of faith accompanies the certainties of science. But before com-
plaining that faith is an escape from reason or reality, we might reflect on an obser-
vation made by Whitehead’s contemporary, the Jesuit geologist Teilhard de Chardin.
That we have to walk by faith and not by sight, Teilhard noted, is one more corol-
lary of the fact that we and our religions are also part of an unfinished universe. Can
we realistically expect our faith traditions to answer with climactic clarity the truly
big questions as long as the universe itself is still in via—and we along with it? Faith
reads the universe now only “through a glass darkly,” and the darkness that goes
with faith, Teilhard instructed us, is somehow inseparable from the incompleteness
of the cosmos.
Finally, however, both Whitehead and Teilhard would not let us forget that the
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 523

john f. haught c 523

incompleteness of the cosmos, our first scientific pillar, is inseparable from the sec-
ond—that out of nothingness a world rich in beauty and consciousness has already
awakened. If the cosmos is an unfinished story, it is also a story that at least up until
now has been open to surprising and momentous outcomes. For fifteen billion
years, our universe has shown itself to possess a fathomless reserve of creativity. It
has not only been winning the war against nothingness, but in its emergent beauty,
feeling, and “thought” it has triumphed. If the unfinished universe has something
to do with the uncertainty in our faith, then the creative resourcefulness embedded
in the universe cannot fail to give us “a reason for our hope.”

c
John F. Haught, Ph. D., is the Healey Distinguished Professor at Georgetown Uni-
versity and a member of the theology faculty. He is also the founding director of
Georgetown’s Center for the Study of Science and Religion. Dr. Haught is the author
of more than fifty articles and book chapters and has published twelve books,
including The Promise of Nature: Ecology and Cosmic Purpose (1993); Science and
Religion: From Conflict to Conversation (1995); and God after Darwin: A Theology of
Evolution (1999). He is also the author of Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect for
Religion in the Age of Evolution (2003).
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 524

The Dawn of the Clone Age 87

Where Might Wisdom Be Found?
Celia Deane-Drummond

T he wave of publicity surrounding the birth of Dolly the cloned sheep in 1997
betrayed the fear that human beings might eventually be able to make copies
of themselves, evoking the specter of Frankenstein and images of a new eugenicized
race. At the time, scientists claimed that, as far as they could tell, Dolly was simply
a normal sheep. However, she subsequently developed arthritis, unexpected for a
sheep of her age, and then died prematurely early in February 2003. Her death,
according to her “creators” at the Roslin Institute in Scotland, vindicated their ear-
lier decision to argue against human reproductive cloning. But this has not stopped
heated debates in the last six years about whether human cloning is permissible.
The somewhat bizarre American-based Raelian cult, for example, believes that the
human species first appeared on Earth through a cloning process devised by aliens,
who had arrived here from outer space. For Raelians, cloning is simply the next step
in the advancement of the human race.
Raelians are also highly successful at fundraising, acting as brokers between cou-
ples desperate to have children and between scientists eager to break the boundaries
of knowledge. They have established a service called “Clonaid,” which offers oppor-
tunities to become involved in the experimental process of cloning humans. In July
2002, a criminal investigation began in Korea against a woman who was supposedly
two months pregnant with a cloned embryo obtained through Clonaid, who claimed
that they were not breaking the law. If the pregnancy was successful, then the couple
would have been in debt to the company (Valiant Venture) to the tune of hundreds
of thousands of dollars. But, interestingly, there have been no further reports on the
case. Subsequently, legislation banning human cloning was rushed through the Korean
government. By September 25, 2002, a bill was in place; by November 2002, the law had
been passed. Korean public opinion favored the ban, apparently based on the belief
that allowing a human clone to be born would make Korea “an international disgrace.”

The Uses and Limits of Human Cloning

Most Christian theologians oppose the use of human cloning for reproductive pur-
poses, although some support its more limited use for treating human diseases.
Other secular philosophers argue in favor of human reproductive cloning, includ-
ing allowing a cloned egg to implant in a woman’s womb. According to their think-
ing, as long as the risks are sufficiently reduced and as long as it can do some good
(e.g., treating infertility), why not permit it?
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 525

celia deane-drummond c 525

The issue of cloning raises a number of fascinating questions, some of which

apply more generally to biotechnology. General questions include: What are the
limits, if any, to the freedom of scientific investigation? What are the risks involved?
Who benefits from the procedure? What is the motivation behind the process? What
are the sociopolitical implications? What are the costs? More specific questions that
relate to the fact that this is human cloning include: Can the cloned embryo be
thought of in any sense as a person having a soul? Does cloning infringe on human
dignity? What might be the psychological outcomes for a child born through
cloning? What are the implications for social and family relationships? All these
questions have become the subject of intense debate.
The limits to scientific freedom are, more often than not, couched in terms of
legal restrictions on scientific activity. However, so far no international agreement
on cloning has been reached regarding what is permissible and what is not. Cloning
animals is currently legal, although the degree of suffering caused through the
cloning process is a matter for serious ethical debate. Sadly, perhaps, scientists are
more inclined to work within the legal framework rather than listen to ethical argu-
ments, which frequently seem to be confused and may be biased against their work.
As far as the legal situation is concerned, laws and treatises on human cloning have
developed very quickly in some countries where strong public opinion has fueled
the debates. The Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights and Biomedi-
cine added an Additional Protocol in 1998 outlawing human reproductive cloning.
Germany and Switzerland have banned all cloning technology in humans, includ-
ing “therapeutic” cloning, and Canada is set to follow suit. Greece and Ireland have
effectively banned cloning through general legislation against experimentation with
human embryos. In the United States, a bill is in place to ban the creation of
embryos for therapeutic purposes; although existing cell lines can be used, consid-
erable debate continues about the extent of availability of embryonic stem cells for
research. In the United Kingdom, a law has been in place since 2001 that prohibits
reproductive cloning; however, it is still possible to engage in therapeutic cloning as
long as proper procedures are followed, including obtaining a license for the
research through the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority. In other
countries, such as Israel and Russia, a five-year moratorium on reproductive cloning
is in place. Although Korea banned all human cloning in 2002, in other nations,
including most countries in Africa, Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe, a legal
vacuum exists; no laws have been passed.
Korean scientists were frustrated by the blanket ban on all human cloning, includ-
ing therapeutic cloning, which for them amounted to an unwarranted restriction on
their freedom because, from their perspective, such techniques would do good. Such
restriction echoes those times in history when the church condemned scientific
work, largely out of ignorance. But, from a theological perspective, freedom is not
simply what we are allowed to do from a legal perspective as individuals, but also
how far and to what extent our actions may impinge on others. Freedom seems like
a natural gift, but if it is orientated toward selfish ends it is no longer serving a high
purpose. When considered correctly, freedom exists for the good of individuals, of
communities, and of society.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 526

526 c celia deane-drummond

Many scientists strongly support the use of human cloning to produce embryonic
stem cells for therapeutic purposes because they foresee the potential for positive
outcomes in treating human ailments such as Parkinson’s disease and diabetes. Yet
for some Christian believers those early embryonic cells are not simply “tissue” to
be used for particular purposes, but are the stuff of human life that has a special dig-
nity from the moment of its beginning. Treating such cells as “material” to be used
for the benefit of another human life is unacceptable for those who have a strong
sense that all human life requires protection. The added danger, for those opposed
to human cloning, is that therapeutic cloning would then open the door for the use
of reproductive cloning to create “designer” babies, evoking memories of the desire
for a “pure” race that led to the horrific eugenics practiced in Nazi Germany, even
though this is a somewhat remote scientific possibility.
We are left, then, with two broad questions for humankind: Are we masters of the
universe, and so able to use our technology and skill for the benefit of humanity in
any way that we choose? Or are we subject to a certain ordering in Nature, put here
by God, and hence subject to particular limits with respect to such an order? Nei-
ther extreme seems very helpful. How might we mediate between them?

Seeking Wisdom in Two Thought Systems:

Neo-Confucian and Christian
Cloning represents a global issue for humanity. What might religious traditions
contribute to the debate? I suggest that, contrary to expectation, a common search
for wisdom can offer ethical perspectives grounded in spiritual information. Asian
religious traditions often seem far removed from Christian traditions in the West-
ern world. However, I suggest that commonality does exist and can become the
basis of a search for a global ethic. For example, one of the main strands in the
teachings of Confucius is that humans need to cultivate a moral sense. In Confucian
times, everyone who sought to acquire morality tried to fit in with the patterns
found in the universe itself, leading to a peaceful, flourishing society.
In the Judeo/Christian tradition, wisdom is also embedded in the creative
processes of the world, so that to observe the natural world in one sense is also to
find wisdom. In the Christian tradition, Christ becomes the exemplar of wisdom.
However, a tension exists between the old and new nature in Christian teaching.
Virtues are not just “acquired” through learning; they are also “received” as gifts
from God. The closest that Confucian thought comes to this is in the strands of
teaching suggesting the possibility of acquiring a new nature, although such a nature
does not come from “God” as such. Confucian thinkers also affirmed the role of the
“heart and mind” in making decisions. The term they used for this (xin) contained
the cognitive and the emotional faculties, as well as the moral sense. Christian the-
ology has tended to separate these two functions. For example, Aquinas distin-
guished the intellectual virtues of understanding, scientia (science), and wisdom
from the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. However, he strongly
believed in the unity of virtues, so that wisdom was necessarily rooted in charity.
Thus, the end result was similar to Confucian reflection. Both Confucian and Chris-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 527

celia deane-drummond c 527

tian virtues were orientated toward the good, understood in terms of what is best
for individuals and for society, and both led to feelings of deep joy. Both argued for
purgation of all forms of selfish behavior or self-seeking.
Both Neo-Confucian and Christian traditions stress that theoretical knowledge
without action fails to lead to progress in moral life, with some writers putting par-
ticular emphasis on the primary importance of daily practice. For Aquinas, pru-
dence, or practical wisdom, is the correct discernment of a particular course of
action, a way of expressing a particular virtue. This combination of judgment-with-
action is also integral to Confucian thought. For Neo-Confucian thinkers, there was
a grand design for individuals, families, and society. Moral self-cultivation was the
way to bring human needs into harmony with the natural world and Nature’s capac-
ity for producing practical goods. Medieval Christian writers, such as Aquinas, also
believed in an ordered universe, but it was one that placed humanity in charge of
the natural world. There is less a sense of finding harmony with Nature than of
becoming masters of it for human benefit. The wisdom traditions remind us of the
paramount importance of looking to our own human attitudes and dispositions.
While for Christian wisdom the source of such insight ultimately comes from God,
Neo-Confucian wisdom reinforces the holistic nature of such a task. In other words,
it is not just about an individual’s journey, but who a person is in relation to others
and in relation to the natural world. For those following the Neo-Confucian tradi-
tion, this amounts to an expression of “The Way” (Tao). For Christian writers, such
an orientation is impossible without reference to Christ, who is also “The Way, the
Truth, and the Life”—and one might also say “Wisdom incarnate.”
Where might this take us in making complex decisions about the future of
biotechnology, the dawn of the clone age? The wisdom traditions remind us of the
importance of developing character, of seeking to instill ingrained habitual atti-
tudes so that virtues become part of who we are as persons. It is from within such
a pursuit, gained through openness to the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Christian
tradition or through moral self-cultivation in Confucianism, that discernment for
the good of the whole community becomes possible and practical. Science can then
exist not so much in detachment from religious concerns, or in opposition to them,
but in partnership for the wider good of society. Seeking such wisdom takes time
and involves the whole community. Yet the beatitude most commonly associated
with wisdom is peacemaking. Hence, the task becomes one of dialog, mutual
respect, and fostering of right relationships. Only in this spirit will contested issues
over biotechnology begin to be resolved.

c
Celia Deane-Drummond, Ph.D., Director of the Centre for Religion and the
Biosciences at University College Chester, received her doctorate in plant physiol-
ogy from Reading University. After working at the International Consultancy on
Religion, Education, and Culture in Manchester, she obtained a doctorate in theology
from Manchester University and then took the teaching post at Chester. Professor
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 528

528 c celia deane-drummond

Deane-Drummond’s research has focused particularly on the interrelationship

between Christian theology and the biological sciences, for which she received a
personal Chair in Theology and the Biological Sciences in 2000. She previously held
postdoctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia (Canada) and the
University of Cambridge and a lecturing post in plant physiology in the Botany
department at Durham University. Professor Deane-Drummond has published
more than thirty articles in science journals and has continued to be active in
research relating science to theology. She has published a number of books, includ-
ing A Handbook in Theology and Ecology (SCM, 1996), Ecology in Jurgen Moltmann’s
Theology (Mellen, 1997), Theology and Biotechnology (Chapman, 1997), and Creation
through Wisdom: Theology and the New Biology (T&T Clark, 2000). She is joint edi-
tor of Reordering Nature: Theology, Society and the New Genetics (2003) and editor
of Brave New World: Theology, Ethics, and the Human Genome (2003). Her most
recent book is The Ethics of Nature (Blackwells, 2004).
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 529

Moving in Mysterious Waves 88

Music, Meter, Silence, and Hope
Jeremy Begbie

H ow does music keep our attention? Although we may rarely stop to think
about it, one of the great mysteries of music is that it can keep us interested
and involved—even when it comes without words or images. Once a piece starts, if
it is the kind of music we like, we want it to carry on. Why? It doesn’t “tell” us
things—like a novel; it doesn’t picture things—like a painting. On the face of it, it
just chugs along, one sound after another. And yet we’re caught up in it, captured
in its movement. We don’t want it to stop. It makes us hope for more. How?
Asking and answering this question, I believe, takes us close to the heart of what
it means for humans to have hope. More than this, we can learn much about the way
hope is created and sustained by God. This might seem like an outrageous claim, but
it is a defensible one, as I hope to show. And if it is true, then something remark-
able about music begins to emerge: It can be a vehicle not just for human expres-
sion (which few would dispute), but also a means of discovery, with unique powers
to open up the world we live in, in its physical as well as well as its theological dimen-
sions.1 As such, it may well have a key role to play in the dialog between the natural
sciences and theology.
But this all sounds rather grand. We need to begin more modestly by going into
the engine room of music, to find out what drives it along. In particular, we need
to examine meter, the pattern of beats underlying musical sounds. In a score, it is
indicated by a “time signature” (e.g., 2/4, 3/4). When you tap your feet to music,
you’re tapping your feet to meter. The conductor of an orchestra beats to meter.
When you dance, the chances are you are dancing to meter.
Metrical beats are grouped into measures, or bars. A waltz has three beats to a
measure, and the beats are not of the same strength—as you will know if you have
ever tried to dance to one. The first beat is strongest, the second is weaker and sets
up a tension, and the third is weaker still, “moving toward” a release of the tension
on the first beat of the next bar. A wave of tension and resolution is set up, repeated
bar after bar:

Now comes the interesting part. Meter operates at different levels. The successive
downbeats of each bar are themselves of a different strength. In many pieces, beats
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 530

530 c jeremy begbie

are grouped in twos or fours—the first of each group the strongest, the last of each
group the weakest. Together, then, they build up a wave of tension and resolution
at a higher level. And the downbeats of that wave are also of a different strength, set-
ting up a further wave, and so on. The process continues up, level after level, higher
and higher, until the whole piece is covered:

A pattern something like this applies to virtually all types of Western music, from
Bach to Brahms, REM to Eminem. It is basic to the way most of the music we hear
operates.
The key point is this: Every downbeat kicks forward a wave on another level. One
level’s return is always another’s advance. Every return closes and opens, completes
and extends, resolves and intensifies. In short—there is always hope on another level.
Music keeps our attention because, as along as the piece is running, we are aware
that there is at least one wave at a higher level that is not yet closed. And so we
expect—and want—more. (Try singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and stopping
after the words “through the perilous fight.” The musical phrase has ended [on the
lower level], but the music sounds incomplete, because many upper waves still have
to close. You expect—and want—more.)
The God of the Jewish and Christian faiths, I would suggest, moves not just in
mysterious ways, but in mysterious waves. God invites people to live on more than
one level; that is how he keeps them hoping. So, typically, God makes a promise—
for example, he promises his people a Saviour-figure and that they will be part of a
vast, new community. This generates hope. The coming of Jesus, so the New Testa-
ment claims, is the climactic fulfillment of this promise and hope—“the hopes and
fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Yet the fulfillment does not kill the
hope. Just the opposite. The original promise is widened and intensified. The com-
ing of Christ makes the writers of the New Testament hope all the more, and for
more—for a final, ultimate fulfilment of the promise, when a huge, multi-ethnic
community will inhabit the new Heaven and the new Earth. The closing of one
wave pushes a higher wave forward, and hope is regenerated.
Time and time again, the Jewish and Christian Scriptures seem to be saying, in
effect: “Stay on the one level, and your hope will die. Tune into the upper waves of
what God is doing, and you’ll never stop hoping.”
Our so-called postmodern culture encourages us to live on the lowest level—as
Frederic Jameson has put it, in “flat time”—typically with only little short-term
“micro-hopes,” one day at a time. We dare not hope for anything too great in the
long term, nor do we know how to hope like this. With no comforting grand story
to hold together our view of the world, we settle for mini-hopes, a lifespan at the
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 531

jeremy begbie c 531

most. But to be drawn into the waves of God means that our lives are set in the
context of a multilevel hope, covering different time scales. Within the vast hope
stretching into God’s eternity, many shorter-term waves are operating, right down
to the micro-level. And these can all get drawn into the larger hope. So, for exam-
ple, it may be that out of the little short-term routines of our lives, something won-
derful is being crafted, the thought of which will make hope live again.
Fundamentalism is music on the lowest level. It tends to read Scripture in the
“flat.” Every word is treated as if it were literal, plodding prose about events on one
level. So every prophecy has to come true at only one single time and in one unam-
biguous way. Often, when the fulfillment doesn’t appear exactly as expected, there
is a huge panic, and strenuous efforts are made to make texts say things they obvi-
ously don’t say. But if we think on many levels, many of these problems disappear.
When God promised to Abraham that he would make “a great nation” (Gen 12:2),
how is that fulfilled—in the people who settled in Canaan? the Kingdom of David?
the community who returned from exile in Babylon? the church at the end of time?
The answer surely is: yes. All of them. A single promise can have many different ful-
fillments. We can’t understand that with a single straight line. But we can with mul-
tistoried waves, for the tension generated by any one “promise” may have many
resolutions.
We can take this further. Hope needs to be utterly realistic. It needs to cope with
waiting. When I was teaching in Seattle recently, I sent a team of students to a hospi-
tal and got them to ask: What kind of worship will best meet the needs of the peo-
ple there? They came back and answered: worship that helps people to wait. The
commonest activity in a hospital is waiting—for results, to see a doctor, for a bed
to become free, for a relative to be brought out of the operating room. This kind of
waiting also often involves coping with delay when the expected resolution doesn’t
arrive on schedule. Vast amounts of our time are spent in waiting. And religious lit-
erature is full of accounts of people waiting for God, struggling with divine delay
(“How Long, O Lord?”).
Today, in a culture so enamoured with spiritual “highs” and immediate, pain-
free gratification, how can we begin to understand what it means to have hope in
the midst of delay, and what might be going on when God seems detained, other-
wise held up? Here again music comes to our aid. In most music, the waves are not
as neat as in our diagram. They will typically be “stretched.” Resolutions are held up.
On at least one level, we are made to wait. The most intense form of delay in music
is silence—when the music stops. In one of her songs, Alanis Morissette sings about
The conflicts, the craziness and the sound of pretenses
Falling all around . . . all around
And then the music ceases, and she sings:
Why are you so petrified of silence?2
Why? In large part because we think silence means nothingness, void, blank space.
But music tells us that silence needn’t be empty, that waiting can be full of hope.
Toward the end of Sibelius’s fifth symphony, the vast orchestra simply stops playing,
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 532

532 c jeremy begbie

and there follow six crashing chords, separated by silence. But the silence is anything
but dead. We are on the edge of our seats. Even in the absence of sound, we sense
the waves of meter that have been building up for ten minutes, unfinished waves
pulsing through the silence—promise after promise, craving fulfillment. (There’s
more to music than meets the ear.) To live with God’s delay means learning and
helping others to learn that the waves of God’s activity are “in there,” in life’s silences.
In religious traditions such as Christianity, believers have found that constantly
recalling the promises of God for the future means that the present moment—how-
ever silent—can become charged with hope. Hope can live in the midst of silence.
Wherever I have spoken about musical waves, I have been astonished at the reac-
tions. I have been told, “That’s a picture of my marriage!” An economist once said
to me, “That’s how economic rhythms operate in the marketplace.” A young woman
commented, “Isn’t spirituality essentially about learning how to believe in an upper
wave rising, when all you can hear are waves falling?” What this suggests is that
music, in its own unique way, might be tapping into a dynamic that is quite funda-
mental to what it means to be human, to be creatures who hope.
It may even be that this multilevel dynamism can be found much farther afield,
if we are to believe that the God who gives hope to humanity is the same God who
gives a future hope to Creation at large. I have argued elsewhere3 that music has
many features that make it especially well-suited to embodying a theological vision
of the physical world. It may be that we need to explore these capacities of music
much more fully today. In the modern West, we have typically thought of music as
chiefly a human creation, the outward expression of inner feelings or ideas. But for
a large part of Western history, this would not have been the dominant way of think-
ing about music. For most of the Medieval era, for example, music was viewed not
primarily as the externalizing of the inner human world, but more fundamentally
as a way of “tuning in” to the order and beauty of the God-given cosmos, a way of
discovering and inhabiting more fully the divinely structured universe.4 From the
Renaissance onward, however, music is pulled out of this theological-cosmological
matrix and seen more and more as a human tool (especially of the passions), some-
thing we create from our own inner resources and share (or impose on) one
another.5 And this view—which comes in a variety of forms—has come to domi-
nate the way we think about music today.
I am not suggesting a nostalgic return to Medieval music theory in any of its
forms. But I am suggesting there were some well-honed intuitions that developed
in that epoch that were in many respects far healthier than our own: above all, a con-
cern to ground music in the sonic properties of a physical world, a world that is in
turn grounded in the sustaining and redeeming purposes of an intelligent Creator.
If music has a unique place in accessing and articulating in sound the dynamic
order of the physical world, it means that sciences, both biological and physical,
insofar as they seek to disclose and give expression to that order, could well benefit
by drawing far more on music. Further, if music has distinctive capacities to access
and articulate the theological dimensions of this order, then it has unique resources
to offer any theologian pursuing such interests.
The Templeton prize–winner Arthur Peacocke is one of a number of scientist-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 533

jeremy begbie c 533

theologians who has drawn extensively on musical models.6 Long may this con-
tinue. The possibility of a rigorous three-way conversation between musicians, sci-
entists, and theologians is surely one of the most exciting and fruitful on the
horizon.

c
Jeremy Begbie, Ph.D., is Honorary Professor of Theology and Associate Director
of the Institute of Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St.
Andrews, United Kingdom. He is also Associate Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge,
and an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity there. The Rev. Professor Beg-
bie holds degrees in music and philosophy and gained his Ph.D. in theology from
the University of Aberdeen. He also holds music diplomas in performing and teach-
ing from the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. A profes-
sionally trained musician, Professor Begbie has lectured extensively in the United
Kingdom, North America, and South Africa, using multimedia presentations. At
St. Andrews, he directs an international research project, “Theology Through the
Arts,” concerned with the potential impact of the arts on theology. Professor Beg-
bie is author of a number of books and articles on the interface between theology
and the arts, including Music in God’s Purposes; Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a
Theology of the Arts; and Theology, Music and Time. He also is editor of Sounding the
Depths: Theology Through the Arts.

Notes
1 I expand on this at much greater length in Begbie (2000b).
2 From the song “All I Really Want.”
3 Begbie (2000a), ch. 8; and (2000b).
4 For a popular presentation, see James (1993).
5 Chua (1999).
6 See e.g., Peacocke (1993), 175ff. Cf. also Begbie (2000b), 67 n. 99.

References
Begbie, Jeremy, ed. 2000a, Beholding the Glory, London: DLT/Grand Rapids: Baker.
———, 2000b, Theology, Music and Time, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chua, Daniel, 1999, Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning, Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
James, Jamie, 1993, The Music of the Spheres: Music, Science and the Natural Order of the Uni-
verse, New York: Copernicus, Springer-Verlag.
Peacocke, Arthur, 1993, Theology for a Scientific Age, London: SCM.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 534

Grasping Eternity 89
Notions of God and Time
William Lane Craig

T ime, it has been said, is what keeps everything from happening at once. When
you think about it, this definition is probably as good as any other. For it is
notoriously difficult to provide any analysis of time that is not, in the end, circular.
This is the import of St. Augustine’s famous disclaimer, “What, then, is time? If no
one asks me, I know; but if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I know not” (Con-
fessions 11.14).
Still, it is hardly surprising that time cannot be analyzed in terms of nontempo-
ral concepts, and the usual analyses are not without merit, for they do serve to high-
light some of time’s essential features. For example, most philosophers of time
would agree that the earlier than/later than relations are essential to time. Time,
then, however mysterious, remains “the familiar stranger.”
Now the question theologians face concerns the relationship of God to time. The
Bible teaches clearly that God is eternal. In contrast to the pagan deities of Israel’s
neighbors, the Lord never came into existence, and he will never cease to exist. Min-
imally, then, it may be said that God’s being eternal means that God exists without
beginning or end. Such a minimalist account of divine eternity is uncontroversial.
But there the agreement ends. For the question is the nature of divine eternity.
Specifically, is God temporal or timeless? God is temporal if and only if he exists in
time; that is to say, his duration has phases that are related to one another as earlier
and later. Given his beginningless and endless existence, God would be omnitem-
poral; that is to say, he exists at every moment of time there ever is. By contrast, God
is timeless if and only if he is not temporal. This definition makes it evident that
temporality and timelessness are contradictories: An entity must exist one way or
the other and cannot exist both ways without qualification.
Although biblical authors usually speak of God as temporal and everlasting, when
God is considered in relation to creation, the biblical writers sometimes portray
him as the transcendent Creator of time and the ages and therefore as existing
beyond time. As the biblical data are not entirely clear, we seem forced to conclude
with James Barr that “if such a thing as a Christian doctrine of time has to be devel-
oped, the work of discussing it and developing it must belong not to biblical but to
philosophical theology” (1962, 149).
But why, it may be asked, not simply rest with the biblical affirmation of God’s
beginningless and endless existence, instead of entering the speculative realms of
metaphysics in an attempt to articulate a doctrine of God and time? At least two
responses may be given to this question.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 535

william lane craig c 535

First, the biblical conception of God has been attacked precisely on the grounds
that no coherent doctrine of divine eternity can be formulated. Two examples come
immediately to mind. In his God and the New Physics, Paul Davies, a distinguished
physicist who was awarded the million-dollar Templeton Prize for Progress in Reli-
gion in 1995 for his many popular books relating science and religion (and who
contributed an essay to this volume), argues that God, as traditionally understood,
can be neither timeless nor temporal. On the one hand, God cannot be timeless
because such a being “cannot be a personal God who thinks, converses, feels, plans,
and so on for these are all temporal activities” (1983, 133–34). Such a God could not
act in time, nor could he be considered a self and, hence, a person. On the other
hand, God cannot be a temporal being because he would then be subject to the laws
of relativity theory governing space and time and so could not be omnipotent; nei-
ther could he be the Creator of the universe because in order to create time and
space God must transcend time and space. The logical conclusion of Davies’s
dilemma is that God as the Bible portrays him does not exist. The importance of this
dilemma has grown in Davies’s thinking over the years; he has more recently writ-
ten, “No attempt to explain the world, either scientifically or theologically, can be
considered successful until it accounts for the paradoxical conjunction of the tem-
poral and the atemporal, of being and becoming” (1992, 38).
A second example is the critique of God as Creator set forth by Stephen Hawk-
ing, one of the most celebrated mathematical physicists of the twentieth century, in
his runaway bestseller A Brief History of Time. Hawking believes that in the context
of standard Big Bang cosmology it makes sense to appeal to God as the Creator of
the spacetime universe. This is because according to that theory spacetime had a
beginning point, called the “initial singularity,” at which the universe originated. By
introducing imaginary numbers (multiples of √-1) for the time variable in the equa-
tions describing the very early universe, Hawking eliminates the singularity by
“rounding off,” as it were, the beginning of spacetime. Instead of having a beginning
point akin to the apex of a cone, spacetime in its earliest state in Hawking’s theory
is like the rounded tip of a badminton birdie. Like the surface of a sphere, it has no
edge at which one must stop. Hawking is not at all reluctant to draw theological con-
clusions from his model: “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could sup-
pose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having
no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end. What place, then,
for a creator?” (1988, 140–41).
The success of Hawking’s gambit to eliminate the Creator of the universe hinges
crucially on the legitimacy of his concept of “imaginary time.” Because on Hawk-
ing’s view imaginary time is indistinguishable from a spatial dimension, devoid of
temporal becoming and earlier than/later than relations, the four-dimensional
spacetime world just subsists, and there is nothing for a Creator to do.
Both Davies’s and Hawking’s writings have been enormously influential in pop-
ular culture, as well as in scientific thinking. An adequate answer to the challenges
they pose requires a coherent theory of divine eternity and God’s relation to time.
The second reason that it is incumbent on the philosophical theologian to artic-
ulate a doctrine of God and time is that a great deal of careless writing has already
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 536

536 c william lane craig

been done on this topic. The question is not whether religious believers will address
the issue, but whether they will address it responsibly. It is inevitable that when
Christians think about God’s eternity or divine knowledge of the future or our
“going to be with the Lord in eternity,” they will form conceptions of how God
relates to time. These are usually confused and poorly thought through, a situation
often exacerbated by pronouncements made from the pulpit concerning divine
eternity. Unfortunately, popular authors frequently compound the problems in their
treatments of God and time.
Again, two examples will suffice. Philip Yancey is an enormously popular Chris-
tian author. In his award-winning book Disappointment with God, Yancey attempts
to come to grips with the apparently gratuitous evil permitted by God in the world.
The centerpiece of his solution to the problem is his understanding of God’s rela-
tionship to time (1988, 194–99). Unfortunately, Yancey’s view is a self-contradictory
combination of two different positions based on a pair of confused analogies. On
the one hand, appealing to the special theory of relativity, Yancey wants to affirm
that a being co-extensive with the universe would know what is happening from the
perspective of any spatially limited observer in the universe. A cosmic observer such
as Yancey imagines would experience the lapse of worldwide cosmic time and be
able to know what is happening anywhere in the universe. Such a being would be
temporal and experience the flow of time. This understanding is, however, incon-
sistent with Yancey’s second analogy of the relation between the time of an author
and the time of the characters in his book or film. “We see history like a sequence
of still frames, one after the other, as in a motion picture reel; but God sees the
entire movie at once, in a flash” (1988, 197). This analogy points in a direction oppo-
site the first, to an understanding of time as static, like a film lying in the can or a
novel sitting on the shelf, with a timeless God existing outside the temporal dimen-
sion. Yancey’s two analogies thus issue in a self-contradictory view of divine eter-
nity—unless, perhaps, he makes the extravagant move of construing eternity as a
sort of hyper-time, a higher, second-order time dimension in which our temporal
dimension is embedded—and so provides no adequate solution to the problem of
disappointment with God.
Our second example is provided by the popular science writer Hugh Ross, who
apparently makes so bold as to affirm that God exists and operates in hyper-time.
Explicitly rejecting the Augustinian-Thomistic doctrine of divine timelessness, Ross
affirms that “The Creator’s capacities include at least two, perhaps more, time
dimensions” (1996, 24). In attempting to solve the problem of God’s creating time
(raised by Davies above), Ross asserts that God exists in a sort of hyper-time, in
which he created our spacetime universe. Unfortunately, Ross does not accurately
represent this notion. A divine hyper-time would be a dimension at each of whose
moments our entire time dimension exists or not. On a diagram, it would be rep-
resented by a line perpendicular to the line representing our dimension, as illus-
trated in Figure 1.
But Ross misconstrues the nature of hyper-time, representing God’s time on his
diagram by a line parallel, rather than perpendicular, to the line representing our
temporal dimension (1966, 62). Figure 2 reproduces Ross’s Figure 7.1.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 537

william lane craig c 537

t3

t2

t1

t0 Figure 1. At successive moments of hyper-time T,

T0 T1 T2 T3 our entire time series t exists.

Figure 2. Ross’s diagram of God’s

hyper-time. B represents God’s timeline,
C our timeline, and A other supposedly
possible timelines. Reproduced with per-
mission from my book Time and Eternity:
Exploring God’s Relationship to Time:
Crossway, 2001 (Figure 1.2).

What Ross’s diagram implies is that God’s temporal dimension is actually the
same as ours, but that he pre-exists for infinite time before the creation of the uni-
verse. This is, in fact, a classical, Newtonian view of God and time. Newton believed
that God existed from eternity past in absolute time and at some moment created
the physical universe. The proper distinction to be drawn on such a view is not
between two dimensions of time, but rather, as Newton put it, between absolute
time and our relative, physical measures of time. In affirming God’s infinite pre-exis-
tence, Ross must face the old question that dogged Newtonians: Why would God
delay for infinite time the creation of the universe?
In short, Ross’s views, while ingenious, are not coherently developed. I suspect
that for Ross talk of God’s extra-dimensionality is but a façon de parler for God’s
transcending space and time—but then he has expressed himself in a most mis-
leading way, which is bound to create confusion and still leaves us with no clear
understanding of God’s relationship to time.
The philosopher Max Black once remarked that “a rough measure of the philo-
sophical importance of a concept is the amount of nonsense written about it. Judged
by this test the concept of time comes somewhat ahead of the concept of space and
behind the concept of deity” (1962, 179). Combine time and deity, and we really
have something both important and difficult to write about! If we are to move
beyond the nonsense, clear, rigorous thinking, not silence, is called for on this issue.
We therefore have good reason to invite philosophical theology to articulate a
coherent account of divine eternity. In carrying out this project, we shall have to
keep an eye on science as well as on philosophy. Of course, for the Christian, one’s
theory of divine eternity will be held tentatively, as our best effort to understand
how God relates to time, not dogmatically, as if it were the teaching of Scripture.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 538

538 c william lane craig

Scripture teaches that God exists beginninglessly and endlessly; now it is up to us

to figure out what that implies.

c
William Lane Craig, Ph.D., D.Theol., is Research Professor of Philosophy at
Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He pursued his graduate stud-
ies at the University of Birmingham (England), where he received his Ph.D. in 1977,
and the University of Munich, where he received a D.Theol. in 1984. From 1980 to
1986, Dr. Craig taught philosophy of religion at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
In 1987, he pursued research at the University of Louvain in Brussels, where he
remained until 1994. His research interests include the interface of philosophy of
religion and philosophy of space and time. The co-author of Theism, Atheism, and
Big Bang Cosmology (Clarendon, 1993), as well as articles in the Journal of Philoso-
phy, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, International Studies in the Philos-
ophy of Science, Philosophia Naturalis, Astrophysics and Space Science, among others,
Dr. Craig has recently completed four volumes on divine eternity and tensed/tense-
less theories of time, including Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to
Time.

References
Barr, James (1962): Biblical Words for Time. London: SCM Press.
Black, Max (1962): Critical notice of The Natural Philosophy of Time, by G. J. Whitrow, Sci-
entific American 206 (April).
Davies, Paul (1983): God and the New Physics. New York: Simon and Schuster.
———. (1992): The Mind of God. New York: Simon and Schuster.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 539

Divine Temporality and

Human Experience of Time 90
Wolfgang Achtner

T ime is enigmatic. It is seemingly nowhere to be found, the least tangible of

anything and still the most basic aspect of experience. What is time? What is
eternity? Can eternity enter into time? How does time relate to the structure of
human consciousness? How does the experience of time change, if consciousness
changes? Can the human consciousness encompass eternity, or is there an insur-
mountable abyss between time and eternity? How is time conceived in different
religious cultures?
What is even more scientifically interesting is this question: Can the objective
structure of time in theories about physical reality (as in the theory of relativity,
quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and chaos theory) be linked to the subjec-
tive experience of time in consciousness? Can the gap between objective time in
Nature and subjective time in consciousness be closed in order to achieve a com-
prehensive understanding of time?
These questions have to be tackled in a scientific way in order to make real pro-
gress in acquiring “spiritual information” about time, eternity, and consciousness.
What is needed is a scientific understanding of (1) the way human beings expe-
rience time and eternity, (2) the link between time in physical reality and human
perception of time, and (3) a cross-religious understanding of time.
My major thesis is threefold. First, I argue that the neurosciences can help to
understand in a scientific way what is recorded as the religious experience of eter-
nity. Second, I argue that this possibility to experience eternity is a basic feature of
all human beings encoded in human nature and accessible by different religious
techniques. Third, however, I argue that this experience of eternity is closely asso-
ciated with human creativity. Thus, human creativity points to divine creativity.
To begin, I would like to propose as a working hypothesis a model of time that
links it to neurophysiological research, religious experience, and the most recent
mathematical concepts. It is in neuroscience, logic, and mathematics where progress
in understanding time and consciousness is most likely to emerge. I suggest that the
ways relating time to consciousness can be reduced to three basic forms, which I dis-
cuss further below:
1. Cyclical Time: In mythological religions, as those found in India and early
Greece, time is conceived in a cyclical way.
2. Linear Time: In commonsense experience, time is perceived as linear. This
way of perceiving time is also apparent in classical physics, as in Newton’s
definition of time as absolute and independent.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 540

540 c wolfgang achtner

3. Holistic Time: In the context of the developing psychology of religion, the

mystical experience of time was rediscovered in the records of these experi-
ences. The mystics conceive time as timelessness, which might be interpreted
as eternity.

From this purely phenomenological approach, we can distinguish three different

modes of experiencing time. I refer to them as the (1) mythological-cyclical, (2)
rational-linear, (3) mystical-holistic ways of perceiving time. The question is: In
what way are these three forms of time-perception present simultaneously in a
human being without logical contradiction? I suggest interpreting these three ways
of understanding time as emerging properties of a growing consciousness on a hier-
archy of levels.

Mystical-holistic time perception (highest level)

growing strength
Rational-linear time perception (middle level)
of consciousness

Mythological-cyclical time perception (lowest level)

In any of these three ways of perceiving time, the consciousness has a certain struc-
ture, indicated by the first part of the double-notion. This structure not only deter-
mines the way of experiencing time, but also the way to experience the world. We
will now explore them from the lowest to the highest strength of consciousness.
✦ In mythological consciousness, the world is perceived as a miraculous and
frightening entity full of unpredictable interferences by powerful deities. This
consciousness is also deeply interwoven into the cycles of Nature, and there-
fore is itself cyclic.
✦ In rational consciousness, this connection of consciousness with Nature is
somewhat cut. Consciousness emancipates itself from the cycles in the world,
and the world is perceived as a rational intelligible order that is scientifically
accessible. From this point of view, the mythological structure of conscious-
ness has to be defeated as a primitive precursor of rational consciousness. In
this rational consciousness, time is perceived as linear. The components of
memory, perception, and expectation as a feature of the will clearly relate to
the linearity of time as past, present (which has a pointlike structure), and
future. This linear notion of time in its physical aspect is also well known in
Newton’s famous definition of absolute time. And it is only in this structure
of linear time that the classical rules of logic, discovered by Aristotle, can
emerge (the Law of Identity, the Law of Forbidden Contradiction, the Law of
Excluded Middle). Also, the concept of causality is associated with this notion
of time.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 541

wolfgang achtner c 541

✦ However, there is also a third way of perceiving time that may be called the
mystical consciousness. What is the structure of this form of time perception
like? In it, the linearity of time and the sequence of time units are cut in a
unique moment of liberation from time in which eternity enters into time
and timelessness is experienced. In this mode of consciousness, the way to
experience the world is no longer dominated by its rational intelligibility, but
as a unity. The structure of time consciousness and the structure of world
perception can be depicted as in the following scheme:

Structure Strength of World World

of Time Consciousness Structure Perception

Mystical-Holistic; High; peak

Unity beyond Self-
eternity entering experience of
space and time transcendence
into time reativity

Rational-Linear; Lawful
Middle; common
progression in intelligibility in Self-control
sense; everyday life
time space and time

Disorder
Mythological-
counterbalanced
Cyclical; Low Dependency
by sacred space
recreational time
and time

These considerations about the ways humans experience time and its relation to
physical reality raise four questions: (1) Is there a link between the subjective expe-
rience of time in consciousness and the objective time in physical reality? (2) Is this
structure revealed through this purely phenomenological approach based on a neu-
rophysiologic structure, and, if so, what would be the mathematical tools to describe
this structure? (3) Does this structure have any relevance for cross-religious simi-
larity or differences in time-experience? (4) What would be the difference to a gen-
uine Christian understanding of time that takes the biblical writings concerning
the Trinitarian God actions in history seriously?
All four questions deserve close examination in future research. Here I propose
some preliminary considerations about the direction that such future investigation
might take:
A. Subjective time and objective time. Until now, it has been a mystery how the
subjective time of consciousness can be linked to objective time in Nature. In
fact, a number of gaps separate subjective and objective time. I offer four
examples: (1) Logic: Classical Aristotelian logic and causality are associated
with linear time. But quantum mechanics has revealed that all features of
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 542

542 c wolfgang achtner

classical logic are invalidated, including causality. (2) Arrow of time: The arrow
of time is evident in consciousness, but not in physical reality, except ther-
modynamics. (3) Static and dynamic time: In consciousness, time brings
about change, but the physical world of the special theory of relativity is a
static four-dimensional space-time without change. (4) The “now”: Research
in neuroscience has shown that the “now” has a duration of three seconds. But
in the world of special relativity, the ”now” at the intersection of the light-cone
has no temporal extension at all. All this means that the relation between
consciousness, time, logic, and physical reality is far from being understood.
B. Neurophysiologic structure of time perception. It is well known from research
that one can distinguish three different parts of the brain. The oldest part,
the cerebellum (including the amygdala and the limbic system), is the sea of
emotions and basic biological needs. The mesencephalon is a more recent
part of the brain and includes the frontal lobe. The youngest part of the
brain is the neocortex. Furthermore, the two hemispheres of the brain are
interconnected by the corpus callosum. One may consider whether these
parts of the brain are associated with the three ways of experiencing time. I
would like to suggest testing the following hypothesis: It may be the case
that the mythological-cyclical way of perceiving time is linked to the oldest
part of the brain, the cerebellum. The rational-linear way of time perception
may belong to the mesencephalon, especially to the frontal lobe. The mysti-
cal-holistic way to experience time may not be located as exactly as the two
preceding ones. However, since this highest form of time experience encom-
passes the two other ones, one may argue that it is a kind of integration of
the three parts of the brain under special predominance of the neocortex. It
is also worth considering that a mystical experience of time is associated
with a growth of interhemispheric exchange of activity through the corpus
callosum. This working hypothesis is well in accord with the recent “con-
nectionist approach” in neuroscience (Atmanspacher et al. 1997, 134). How-
ever, time is still not understood as an emergent property of the brain. It is
even less understood how the experience of time is genetically determined.
Since the brain is a highly complex system, the most recent mathematical
concepts, such as chaos theory and complexity theory (which have already
been successfully applied in brain research), are needed to describe its func-
tioning. Especially, the three levels of time experience could possibly be
understood by the concept of an attractor from chaos theory.
C. Cross-religious experience of time. If it is true that these ways of experiencing
time have a neurophysiological basis common to all human beings, it makes
sense to argue for a similarity in time experience in all major world reli-
gions. Especially, the religious peak experience of timelessness in a unique
moment deserves further attention and investigation. I pose the question,
Can such an experience be identified in different religious traditions point-
ing to a common anthropological root of religious experience of time?
In fact all world religions have a mystic tradition in which the experience
of time and eternity plays a major role:
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 543

wolfgang achtner c 543

✦ The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart often describes the unique moment
when eternity enters into time. He writes, “Id est nunc aeternitatis quod
est verum nunc” [It is the now of eternity, which is the true now].
✦ In the Islamic tradition, this specific experience of time appeared in
Sufism. We find an equivalent word, which is waqt, denoting eternity
entering into time. Therefore, the Sufi master, who has attained this peak
experience, is called, Ibn al-waqt, the “son of the present moment.” The
famous Islamic scholar Annemarie Schimmel describes waqt as follows:
“The Prophet’s expression ‘I have a time with God’ (li ma’a Allah waqt) is
often used by the Sufis to point to their experience of waqt, ‘time,’ the
moment at which they break through created time and reach the Eternal
Now in God. . . .”
✦ In Hinduism, the problem of time has been extensively discussed, and
many different ways of interpreting time have been developed. However,
in Yoga as well as in Sankhya philosophy, the notion ksana denotes the
opening of the sequence of time atoms toward timelessness. The same
interpretation of ksana as a gate to eternity can be substantiated for Yoga
philosophy by the exposition about time in the Patanjali, Yoga Sutra III, 52.
✦ Buddhists single out a moment of time in meditation when the sequence
of past, present, and future is intersected by eternity. This moment in Zen
Buddhism is called Nikon.
Although these findings point to a common root of religious experience
of time, other religious concepts of time defy such an anthropological
basis—yet are no less influential—such as all kinds of apocalyptic and escha-
tological perceptions of time. A cross-religious investigation would have to
take them into account as well.
D. The problem for Christian theology is to take these anthropological struc-
tures of experiencing time seriously on the one hand and to relate them to
the basic features of Christian belief, such as Christology, historicity, and the
Trinitarian God on the other.
A program for “Divine Temporality and Human Experience of Time” would have
to investigate in detail:
(i) the relation between objective physical time and the subjective time of con-
sciousness
(ii) the neurophysiological structure for the three modes of time
(iii) the moment of time, mentioned in all world religions, where time and eter-
nity meet
(iv) the relation of these anthropological structures of time to the mentioned
basic features of a Christian understanding of time
Such a future-oriented program could yield the following results as spiritual
information about the time of humans and divine temporality: (1) A scientific
understanding of the religious experience of eternity based on neuroscience, math-
ematical concepts, and new forms of logic; (2) a better mutual cross-religious under-
standing and reconciliation based on the scientific insight that all religious human
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 544

544 c wolfgang achtner

beings share the same possible experience of eternity; and (3) the link between the
experience of timelessness and creativity, which may cast new light on the question
of divine creativity and thus the way the Trinitarian God operates.

c
Wolfgang Achtner, Ph.D., a German theologian and mathematician, studied
theology at the University of Mainz, Göttingen, Heidelberg, and mathematics by
correspondence at the Fern Universität Hagen. A parish minister for fifteen years,
he currently is a campus minister and an adjunct professor for science and theol-
ogy at the Justus Liebig University Giessen; and a scientific consultant for Metanexus
Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His awards and honors include Kleines
Lutherstipendium (1981), translation grant for the book Dimensions of Time (Eerd-
mans, 2000), and LSI-Grant (2002). He served as editor of Religion und Wirtschaft,
Giessener Hochschulgespräche und Hochschulpredigtender ESG I (2001/2002) and
Ethik in der Medizin, Giessener Hochschulgespräche und Hochschulpredigten der
ESG II (2002).

References
Achtner, Wolfgang et al. 2002. Dimensions of Time. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Atmanspacher, Harald, and Ruhnau, Eva. 1997. Time, Temporality, Now. Berlin, New York:
Springer.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 545

Part Ten
Perspectives fromWorld Religions

c
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 546
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 547

Progress in Religion? 91
Interfaith Opportunities
John C. Polkinghorne

I spent twenty-five years working as a theoretical elementary particle physicist. In

1952, when I was a novice research student, we believed that matter was made of
protons and neutrons. In the course of the subsequent quarter-century, we discov-
ered that the protons and neutrons are themselves composites, made up of quarks
and gluons. There was a lot of argument along the way to this conclusion; when the
dust finally settled, all agreed that a great advance had been made.
Science makes progress in a way that is deeply impressive. The contrast with reli-
gion seems very striking and not a little unnerving. Here the arguments continue
for centuries about the simplest and most basic assertions, without attaining any
universally agreed resolution (Is there a God?). In view of this, is it at all realistic to
hope for progress in religion? One way of addressing the issue is to think about the
various ways in which scientific progress is actually made.
One way is by exploring a new realm of experience. Quarks were discovered essen-
tially because experimentalists gained access to higher energies than had ever before
been possible. The analogy for religion is not encouraging in this respect. Spiritual ex-
perience cannot simply be induced (that is the error of magic), for when it comes it
does so as a gracious gift. Moreover, all religious traditions look back to the founda-
tional people and events from which they originated and that are of unique and
unrepeatable significance for that tradition. Religion can never rely solely on contem-
porary resources; it must always have a strong historical dimension. In this respect,
the relevant scientific analogy is not with experimental science, but with those his-
torico-observational sciences, such as cosmology or evolutionary biology, that also
cannot command their own phenomena, but that have to appeal to a single skein of
given experience in forming their understanding. I shall return to this point shortly.
Another means of scientific progress is to make better and more systematic use
of material of a kind already available in a fairly straightforward way, but insuffi-
ciently analyzed. Medical epidemiology provides a good example of this happening.
It was the careful analysis of routine information that revealed the link between
smoking and lung cancer. There have recently been some attempts to apply this
kind of technique to religious experience, for example by double-blind trials aimed
at showing whether intercessory prayer is effective in aiding physical recovery from
serious illness. I must confess to feeling some reserve about these investigations.
Two problems complicate the evaluation of exercises of this kind, both arising from
the multifactorial character of the phenomena. This is an issue that science also
faces in its investigations, but it is a difficulty that religion faces in spades because
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 548

548 c john c. polkinghorne

of the deeply personal and individual character of its concerns. The aim of prayer
for healing is to seek wholeness for the person prayed for, but this may come not
only through physical recovery, but also through the spiritual acceptance of the
imminent destiny of death. No one can prescribe beforehand which might prove to
be God’s will. It is hard to ensure that this latter possibility is properly reflected in
the statistics. The second problem is the difficulty of control. Only God knows who
is praying for whom at any given time.
However, there are other ways in which science makes progress, particularly in the
historico-observational sciences. Charles Darwin did not have a great wealth of
entirely new information at his disposal when he wrote On the Origin of Species
(and it seems that the significance of some of what he did have—such as the dif-
fering beaks of the Galapagos finches—did not dawn on him until later). Instead,
he was able to organize a vast collection of known facts, and it was then viewing the
whole from an entirely new perspective that led him to his great discovery. Here is
a much more encouraging analogy for religion to consider.
In fact, I believe that it would be timely for religious thinkers to start to take a sim-
ilar line. Today we are acquiring a new perspective on how to view the relationships
between the world’s great faith traditions. Together they represent a vast reservoir
of spiritual experience, but in times past it was only too easy to dismiss traditions
other than one’s own as being simply collections of odd beliefs held by strange peo-
ple in faraway countries (even if Christians could never properly have thought this
way about Jews). Today, however, the adherents of other faiths are no longer exotic
oddities, but they are our neighbors, living down the street. We can see for our-
selves the spiritual authenticity of their lives. No longer can we simply congratulate
ourselves that we are all right and they are all wrong. But neither can we believe the
simplistic notion that really we are all saying the same thing, dressed up in cultur-
ally different linguistic clothing. There are real differences between us of a most
perplexing kind. These matters do not only relate to the obvious points of dis-
agreement between the traditions, such as the status of Jesus or the status of the
Qur’an. They also relate to fundamental beliefs about the general nature of reality.
Is the human person of unique and persistent significance (as all the three Abra-
hamic faiths affirm), or is personality recycled through reincarnation according to
the law of Karma (as our Hindu friends tell us), or is the self ultimately an illusion
from which we have to seek release (as the Buddhist doctrine of anatta appears to
assert)? Is time a linear pilgrim path to be trodden, or a samsaric wheel from whose
revolutions we need to seek to escape?
It cannot be denied that there are grave cognitive clashes between the faith tra-
ditions. These contradictions make it scarcely surprising that many people look to
science for truth, but believe that religion is no more than culturally molded opin-
ion. Progress in religion must surely require that we make some form of advance in
our understanding of these perplexing problems. Yet, if we are to do so, we must also
recognize that underneath the puzzling diversities of the world faiths is also a dis-
cernible degree of commonality. In their different ways, each is testifying to
encounter with a dimension of reality of transcendent importance, one that might
properly be called a meeting with the Sacred. I became fully aware of this years ago
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 549

john c. polkinghorne c 549

in the course of watching a television series called The Long Search. It consisted of
a series of exploratory meetings between Ronald Eyre and a succession of represen-
tatives of different faith traditions. The program that sticks in my mind (and the
experience which I know had greatly influenced Ronald himself) was an encounter
with a Buddhist Zen master. I suppose that Zen Buddhism is a spiritual tradition
that is about as far as can be from anything that I find it easy to get my mind or my
heart around, but there was an overwhelming spiritual authenticity about that per-
son that was deeply impressive and humbling to behold.
The dialog between the world faiths is only just beginning in earnest. It is a theo-
logical task of the highest importance, and I think that many centuries of mutual
exploration are likely to lie ahead. (Think about how slow has been the growth of
understanding between different Christian sub-traditions, and you will see the mag-
nitude of the interfaith task.) By taking this project seriously, we shall gain a great
expansion in the range of religious experience and spiritual testimony available for
coherent review in the light of this new perspective of a truly global ecumenism. I
simply want to make two comments on the way in which we might seek to proceed.
The first is to affirm that the traditions have to meet one another in the integrity
of their understandings and of their differences. I do not believe that we should be
seeking a lowest-common-denominator form of “world religion” based on state-
ments so watered down in content that scarcely any adherents of any faith tradition
would want to affirm them, or even to take them seriously. I want to meet my broth-
ers and sisters from other faiths and to listen respectfully to them, for I am sure I
have things that I need to learn from them; but I can only truly meet them if I do
so preserving my identity as a Christian. Only in this way shall I have anything to
offer to our mutual encounter. It will be of no use trying to disguise my firm belief
in the unique significance of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, although I know that
this will seem strange, and may even repel some of them. Ultimately, the basis for
our meeting can only be the search for truth, and we shall all have to speak for the
truth as we have come to understand it. This means that interfaith encounter is
inevitably going to be painful and difficult.
This acknowledgment leads me to my second point. The world faiths will have to
meet one another initially in ways that are not too threatening. If the status of
Christ, or of the Qur’an, is the main item on the opening agenda, defenses will go
up at once, and no progress will be made. The grounds for a first encounter have to
be serious, but not too intimidating. Considering together how the faiths respond
to the insights of science into the nature and history of the universe is a possible ini-
tial topic of this kind. In fact, the John Templeton Foundation supports a series of
initiatives through the “Science and the Spiritual Quest” (SSQ) project, in which
people who have common science backgrounds but are drawn from different reli-
gious traditions meet to consider shared concerns. I have had the privilege of par-
ticipating in some of these activities. The gains are real, even if they are sometimes
slow in coming. I believe that here is a fruitful pattern for the future.
I hope that the Third Millennium will be a period of true ecumenical encounter
between the world’s faith traditions. If that is so, it will be a time of true progress
in religion.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 550

550 c john c. polkinghorne

c
John C. Polkinghorne, Ph. D., holds the degrees of Sc.D. and Ph.D. from the
University of Cambridge and honorary doctorates from Durham, Exeter, Kent,
Leicester, and Marquette Universities. After twenty-five years working as an ele-
mentary particle physicist (Professor of Mathematical Physics, Cambridge Univer-
sity, 1968–79), he trained for the ministry of the Church of England and was
ordained priest in 1982. He was President of Queens College, Cambridge, 1989–96,
and he is now Canon Theologian of Liverpool and a Fellow of Queens College. Dr.
Polkinghorne is a Fellow of the Royal Society (1974), the British National Academy
of Science. He was made a Knight of the British Empire in 1997. Dr. Polkinghorne
writes extensively on science and religion, including monographs on theoretical
physics and popular books on science, such as The Quantum World (1984) and
Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2002). Other publications include One
World (1986); his Gifford Lectures, Science and Christian Belief (1994; North Amer-
ican title, The Faith of a Physicist); his Terry Lectures, Belief in God in an Age of Sci-
ence (1998); The God of Hope and the End of the World (2002), and Science and the
Trinity (2004). In 2002, Dr. Polkinghorne was awarded the Templeton Prize for
Progress in Religion.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 551

Interfaith Dialog
in the Global World 92
Theological and Intellectual Constructs for the Future
Bruno Guiderdoni

T he French novelist and essayist André Malraux is said to have once sum-
marized the uncertain destiny of humankind with a famous assertion: “The
twenty-first century will be religious or it will not be.” Now, more than forty years
after this once futuristic statement was made, it is still not easy to foresee what the
future of religions will be in the twenty-first century.
Religions face a great challenge produced by the rapid pace of technological and
cultural change with associated dislocation of traditional sources of situation and
identity in the world. The sense of place and self are jeopardized by the conflict
between the two opposing forces of religion/theology and science/technology, made
worse by the tendency toward extreme positions: “relativism,” which transforms
religions into secularized, ordinary market products; “lifestyle” choices, which can
be tried, consumed, and changed at will; and “absolutism,” which makes religions
into politicized tools used to create a totalitarian, “pseudo-theocratic” organization
of societies. Such an unstable tendency toward extremes on the spectrum of thought
is more or less the direct result of the incredibly rapid development of science and
technology. (This relation is especially strong and much discussed in my own reli-
gion, Islam.) So it is prudent to analyze the two opposing forces and to examine the
consequences of the interaction between religion/theology and science/technology
in the context of the general “modernization” of religious thought.

Two Theological Tasks

Theologians of the twenty-first century find two major tasks on their agenda.
The first is revision of their worldview under the light shed by scientific discov-
eries. The effect of science on intellectual culture is ironic: While it has resulted in
a devaluing of the importance of traditional cultures and their knowledge or wis-
dom based on narrative or story, the turn toward naïve religious fundamentalism
often is associated with scientific and engineering training rather than with tradi-
tional philosophical education. This is doubly ironic considering that any literalis-
tic reading of the Holy Scriptures is not uncommonly contradicted by scientific
facts. Such a situation naturally creates tension within religious groups: Those who
accept a philosophy of open-minded revision in the way they understand and inter-
pret Scripture often find themselves in opposition to those who adhere militantly
to a literalistic “doubters-be-damned” approach.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 552

552 c bruno guiderdoni

The second task is a collective endeavor for all religions: to understand why there
are so many religions. Is this “Babel” of faiths a meaningless accident or the loving
wisdom of the Divine? The task of addressing this endeavor is just beginning.
Of course, the existence of many religions is an obvious fact. But there is a gap
between recognizing other religions and understanding why other religions exist. If
we restrict our focus to the Middle Ages, for instance, Jews, Christians, and Muslims
had more or less directly conflicting relationships. Typically, members of one group
knew little of the other faiths. Peaceful coexistence was separate coexistence. Few
tried to understand their neighbor’s religion with any degree of seriousness or sym-
pathy. On the contrary, the necessity of going to war was always justified, on each
side, by the belief that one’s own group followed the only true faith, whereas the
enemy was misguided into following a false or “forged” religion. As a consequence,
theologians worked out elaborate systems to explain the reason for the plurality of
(false or imperfect) religions and for the uniqueness of the true religion (always
their own).
The situation is now changing very quickly—a very important matter. The causes
of change are several. The development of academic studies and the translation of
sacred texts into the most common languages have made the corpus of the main
religions available to all. Moreover, modern travel has made encounters between
the members of all faiths much easier and more common than they used to be. The
model of secular, liberal societies that is spreading on a worldwide scale encour-
ages cosmopolitan discussion and dialog between diverse peoples. Awareness of the
diversity of faiths and of the differences in their teachings—as well as of the impor-
tance of tolerance and mutualism—is growing. We are the first generation of
humankind to experience such a dialog on a global scale, very much as we are the
first generation that has ever contemplated the astonishing pictures of planet Earth
taken from space. This collective experience brings important opportunities and
challenges for gleaning new spiritual information. Theologians are just beginning
to investigate and evaluate its consequences. Once a new set of paradigms has been
developed, it is probably reasonable to predict that their impact will be dramatic.
And toward this end I want to add a note of encouragement.

Two Theological Patterns

It should be clear that traditional theological discourse is typically conducted at the
level of interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and of oral traditions. The theological
work that has been developing for centuries within our faiths is aimed at orches-
trating a balance in the interplay of revelation, reason, experience, and tradition. As
a consequence, the elaboration of theological thought that has occurred in each
religion has mainly been centered on self-consistency. In other words, the existence
of multiple faith traditions appeared as a troublesome and unpleasant fact. This
“problem” had to be incorporated in some way into the existing theological con-
struct. To this end, an “as-small-as-possible” place was allotted to the disturbing
presence of other religions.
The multiplicity of religions has caused two identifiable patterns in thinking
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 553

bruno guiderdoni c 553

about them. The first pattern simply consists of excluding other religions by deny-
ing them any status. Thus, only one religion is construed to be “true.” Other religions
are deemed to be “false,” mere imitation systems constructed by human beings to
quench their thirst for spirituality or to fight against the only true religion. The fun-
damentalist currents in all religions promote this hard, dismissive paradigm. There
is simply no room for the other religions in the theological construct of the first
kind.
The second pattern consists of finding a peripheral place for the other religions.
Other faith traditions, according to this “peripherality” model, are generally under-
stood as incomplete, “on-the-road-toward-better-times” systems. They are consid-
ered a means of preparing for the final revelation. And when this final revelation
occurs, the other, older religions will be incorporated or absorbed into the new
Truth. This softer model is, perhaps, the opinion shared by the majority of believ-
ers in all religions. In this theological construct of the second kind, the members of
other faiths have to be gently persuaded that they will find the plenitude of Truth
in the only complete religion.
Let us review two doctrinal examples of the second pattern, drawn respectively
from Christianity and Islam. The first doctrine, about the faiths that came before
Jesus, was held primarily by Christians. For centuries in mainstream Roman
Catholic theology, other faiths were considered to be only preparation for the com-
ing of Jesus Christ, the praeparatio evangelica, or the “seeds of God’s Word” (the
logoi spermatikoi or semina verbi). However, a somewhat similar model has been
used by Muslims to interpret Christianity. In mainstream Islamic theology, all reli-
gions were considered as actually having been revealed by God through the messages
of the prophets. Although all religions were held to have been true at the begin-
ning, their disciples were typically understood to have altered and corrupted the
original messages so radically that a last revelation (that is, Islam) was made neces-
sary. This was called tahrîf (“alteration”) within Islamic theology and was based on
an interpretation of some Qur’an verses.
To summarize, fundamentalists see other religions as simply false, whereas more
moderate mainstream theologians view other religions as historically incomplete.
At this stage, the main issue is to know how religions can address the new situation
brought forth by globalization. Religions are often accused of promoting a world-
view that encourages the exclusion of the other faiths, thereby promoting xeno-
phobia and prompting people toward inter-ethnic violence. It is obvious that the
theological constructs of fundamentalists foment violence. But what is the value of
the condemnation of violence that is espoused by less radical, mainstream theolo-
gians if they retain a narrow, symmetrically problematic view of other religions?
Such theologians may try to promote spectacular interfaith meetings or gatherings
of talented theologians. The results of these meetings are often solemn declarations
in favor of peace. But can these efforts be more than attempts at diplomatic grand-
standing? Religions now suffer a deficit of credibility in public opinion, which crit-
icizes their inefficiency in opposing and preventing violence perpetrated in the
name of God. But theological problems must have theological solutions.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 554

554 c bruno guiderdoni

Cosmological and Theological Constructs:

Two Ways of Looking at “Truth”
By analogy, the theological constructs elaborated over centuries may be compared
with the cosmological worldview of the Middle Ages. This model was built on Aris-
totelian physics and Ptolemaic astronomy and was held for roughly two millennia.
It interpreted the complexity of astronomical phenomena with an elaborate sys-
tem of concentric spheres centered on Earth. Theological interpretations of the
Holy Scriptures used this Ptolemaic world model. But the theological constructs of
the Jews, Christians, and Muslims and the scientific developments in medieval cos-
mology were contemporaneous. When the Ptolemaic system became increasingly
unable to accommodate the accumulation of new astronomical facts, astronomers
added new wheels, epicycles, and equants to their complicated machinery to “save
the phenomena.” But astronomers became more and more skeptical about the abil-
ity of astronomy to actually explain the world.
Then along came Nicolas Copernicus. Copernicus demonstrated that a simple
and elegant solution could be found that not only reproduced the phenomena, but
that also was able to predict them with a greater degree of accuracy. Moreover, this
solution proposed a new world model that was much simpler and more geometri-
cally refined in placing the Sun at the center of the known universe. In his book De
Revolutionibus Orbis Cœlorum published in 1543, Copernicus argued that such a
position was much more suited to the Sun than to Earth: The Sun was, he argued,
the symbol of God’s power, providing light and fecundity to the whole of Creation.
Some theological constructs may be viewed as analogous to cosmological mod-
els. We now know that our theologies are centered on themselves, somewhat anal-
ogous to the medieval cosmos that was centered on the terrestrial observer. These
theologies incorporate the existence of other faiths by means of theological con-
structs that are roughly similar to the wheels, epicycles, and equants of Ptolemaic
cosmology. The accumulation of new spiritual facts brought about by a better
understanding of what the other religions actually preach requires constructs that
are increasingly elaborate. More and more people doubt the intent and authentic-
ity of religions that seem to preach against other truths and claim to own the only
Truth. This is perhaps similar to the situation that existed before the Copernican
revolution, when many doubted the ability of astronomy to explain a cosmos that
was seen as being artificially held together.
Perhaps what is needed is a basic transformation of perspective from “theo-
logicocentric” theologies—that is, theologies centered on the issue of their own self-
consistency and robustness with respect to any new fact—to truly “theocentric”
theologies—that is, those in which God’s light and creativity are at the center of the
construct. Thus, we may need a Copernican revolution in theology as much as we
needed it in cosmology five centuries ago. In such a new view, the diversity of reli-
gions would appear as a “natural” God-given phenomenon, one that was created
with purpose.
If such a paradigm shift took place, religious leaders would be driven to view
theological constructs as creations by human beings operating in specific, possibly
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 555

bruno guiderdoni c 555

sublimely inspired, contexts. However, the traditions would never be able to encap-
sulate the whole of Truth, of which only God is the author.

A Third Pattern: Toward a Global View of Religions

Under this paradigm shift, theologians of all religions would want to incorporate
new spiritual information associated with their discovery of and new interest in the
diversity of religions. They have to not only move away from the narrowness of
hateful exclusion, but drop the model of pitiful inclusion. What is needed, in my
view, is a third pattern: a “non-exclusive” and “non-inclusive” construct. Here, God’s
bounty would require the existence of other religions to fulfill the spiritual needs of
the marvelous diversity of human beings. Similarly, the grandeur of God’s mystery,
beyond any attempt to describe or summarize the Divine in formulae, would require
global polyphony of expression and perception of revelation.
As the Qur’an says, “had God pleased, He could have made of you one commu-
nity: but it is His wish to prove you by that which He has bestowed upon you. Vie
with each other in good works, for to God you shall all return and He will resolve
for you your differences.”1
It is perhaps helpful to note that scientific and technological developments have
modeled the idea of a plurality of “books” written by God. The natural tendency of
theological xenophobia or text-fundamentalism is to state that truth inheres only in
a single Book, the book of sacred Scripture specific to the religion or tradition in
question. Some theological positions have had to adjust to the idea that God has
written two books: the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature, written in very
different languages and frequently seeming to be in contradiction. (The struggle
over the “debacle of Galileo” is a classic case of such an evolution of doctrine within
Catholicism.) It may be a difficult matter for groups with literalistic tendencies to
accept that the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature speak the same Truth,
although this Truth is sometimes difficult to elucidate and enunciate and often
requires that religious members and authorities struggle with the hard questions of
revision. But this insight is only half the story. The other half is the challenge that
has to be embraced. God not only has written the Book of Nature, a single Book for
a single cosmos shared by all human beings, but he has written many books of Scrip-
ture. Is the apparent contradiction that comes out of this plurality caused by the
impossibility of capturing the absolute Truth within a single human vision and lan-
guage? For this reason, the relationships of theological constructs with the scientific
worldview and with the existence of other religions are intimately linked. As we
progress, perhaps we will realize that God never ceases to speak: He speaks from
under the veils of nature’s phenomena as well as from under the veils of the revela-
tions that are adapted by and to human cultures.
As the Qur’an also says, “If the sea were ink for the Words of my Lord, the sea
would be spent before the Words of my Lord are spent, though We brought replen-
ishment the like of it.”2
We face an immense challenge. But it may also be surprisingly simple to resolve.
Perhaps, in spiritual humility, we need only to incorporate an acknowledgment that
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 556

556 c bruno guiderdoni

our systems are incomplete. In 1931, Kurt Gödel discovered that incompleteness is
present within any given formal system powerful enough to include arithmetic. As
a consequence, any formal system contains many true statements that cannot be
demonstrated. Perhaps something similar occurs with the Divine. Surely, in his infi-
nite reality, God escapes from complete description by any formal system. Why then
do we always want to enclose Him within our limited understanding? We need only
to remember the teachings of the mystics and holy persons of all our traditions,
who repeatedly testified that “God is greater” than the ideas we have about Him. To
put it very simply, we need to take humility into account. This is the price we pay if
we want to save our religions from the double danger of relativism and absolutism.
But it is a very attractive price if we consider that by paying it we may contribute to
driving humankind from its own arrogant foolishness.3

c
Bruno Guiderdoni, Ph.D., has been an astrophysicist at the Institut d’Astro-
physique de Paris, Laboratoire du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(Paris Institute of Astrophysics of the French National Center for Scientific Research
[CNRS]), since 1988. His area of research, observational cosmology, is mainly
focused on galaxy formation and evolution. He has published more than one hun-
dred articles and organized several international conferences on these issues. After
a two-year stay in Morocco, his spiritual pursuit led him to embrace Islam in 1987.
From 1993 to 1999, he has been in charge of the weekly French TV show Knowing
Islam. In his papers and lectures, he attempts to present the intellectual and spiri-
tual aspects of Islam, reflect on the relationship between science and the Islamic
tradition, and promote an interreligious dialog. In 1995, he contributed to found-
ing the Islamic Institute for Advanced Studies (IHEI), aimed at helping European
Muslims recover the intellectual dimension of Islam. He has published more than
fifty papers on Islamic theology and mysticism, and his book An Introduction to the
Spirituality of Islam is scheduled for publication in Paris.

Notes
1 Qur’an 5, 48.
2 Qur’an 18, 109.
3 I acknowledge a fruitful discussion with Charles Harper on these topics in May 2003.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 557

Humility and the

Future of Islam 93
Munawar A. Anees

“R ead in the name of thy Lord Who created.” This is the first verse of the
Qur’an, which in the year 610 announced the advent of Islam as a Revelation
continuing the Abrahamic tradition. By the end of the Revelation, which lasted for
over two decades, the Qur’an came to contain nearly eight hundred instances of
words and nuances associated with “knowledge” (al-‘ilm).
From this Divine gift of Revelation and out of the Arabian heartland emerged a
“Civilization of the Book” that by the year 1100 flourished from the Iberian Penin-
sula in the West to the Pacific Rim in the East. From the majestic minarets of the
Blue Mosque in Istanbul through the winding bazaar of Timbuktu in Mali to the
emerald-studded marble façade of Taj Mahal in India, even today a sublime echo of
the civilizational grandeur of this world remains.
The early Muslim civilization was heir as well to a diverse intellectual stock. Incor-
porating aspects of the civilizations of Greece, Rome, India, and Persia as a con-
glomerate, it accomplished a unique synthesis of ideas in all branches of knowledge.
From the eighth to the thirteenth century, there were more religious, philosophical,
medical, astronomical, historical, and geographical works written in Arabic than
in any other human language of the period.
Today, Muslims do not retain an intellectually rich understanding of their faith
as one should expect in view of such a heritage. Even the early discourse on specu-
lative theology (kalam) is absent from their circles. Muslims are engulfed in seem-
ingly endless wars of rhetoric and anger among themselves and against the West.
Orthodoxy trumps reason. Progress, skepticism, and respect for the value of
humane debate are sacrificed at the altar of a totalizing puritanism. We are suffo-
cating because of the loss of pluralism and progressive thought, so distinctive a trait
of the Muslim past. The contemporary global Muslim community (ummah) con-
tinues to suffer after a devastating closure of a great tradition of diverse and poly-
phonic reasoned argument (ijtihad) a millennium ago.
The state of Muslim debate on progress in religion or spiritual information is
blurred. It is largely an articulation of a viewpoint that betrays the paucity of know-
ledge and engagement with the modern scientific ethos. Contemporary discussion
tends to perpetuate an ossified style of theological reasoning. Others take it from an
extreme apologetic perspective to the point of turning the Qur’an into a book of
science containing all necessary insights into astronomy, biology, chemistry,
mathematics, and physics. Much of it is promoted as Islamic education. With a ring
of authority, critical thinking is demonized.
Similarly, epistemological revisionism in the garb of “Islamization of knowledge”
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 558

558 c munawar a. anees

has fallen into the trap of an allegedly value-free science. Advocates have thought it
sufficient only to add an adjective to some disciplinary categories (Islamic astron-
omy, Islamic biology, and so forth).
Then there is the poorly articulated idea of “Islamic science” that randomly makes
use of a few common Islamic concepts and values in a rhetoric borrowed from the
Western social radicalism.
Against the backdrop of unimpressive intellectual currents lurks a traditionalist
discourse that altogether consigns modern science to oblivion and attempts to prop
up a fatal mix of mystical and alchemical knowledge. That, too, in the name of
Islamic science! Much of the historical discourse on the subject remains panegyric
in nature, to the extent of self-delusion. The so-called jihadi agenda, although
adhered to by only a minority, partially thrives on this nostalgic thread.
Neither scientific apologies for the Qur’an nor the relegation of science to a
Quranic literalism are helpful. Both tend to obfuscate the advance of knowledge.
Contrarily, we need a dynamic invocation that may play a pivotal role in breaking
the impasse that continues to grip Muslim minds and cultures. The concept of
humility offers a foundation for the indispensable engagement of religion and sci-
ence in the Muslim context.
The Qur’an explicitly speaks of humility in relation to one’s faith and how it can
enhance one’s spiritual awareness and commitment to God:
“Has not the time arrived for the believers that their hearts in all humility
should engage in the remembrance of God and of the Truth, which has been
revealed to them?” (al-Hadid 57:16)
Commentary: “Humility and the remembrance of God and His Message
are never more necessary than in the hour of victory and prosperity.”
“Say whether ye believe in it or not, it is true that those who were given
knowledge beforehand, when it is recited to them, fall down on their faces
in humble prostration and they say: Glory to our Lord! Truly has the prom-
ise of our Lord been fulfilled! They fall down on their faces in tears, and it
increases their earnest humility.” (al-Isra 17:107–9)
Commentary: “A feeling of earnest humility comes to the man who real-
izes how, in spite of his own unworthiness, he is brought, by God’s mercy,
into touch with the most sublime truths. Such a man is touched with the
deepest emotion which finds its outlet in tears.”
“Those who are near to thy Lord disdain not to do Him worship: They cel-
ebrate His praises, and bow down before Him.” (al-Airaf 7:206)
Commentary: “The higher you are in spiritual attainment, the more is
your desire and opportunity to serve and worship your Lord and Cher-
isher and the Lord and Cherisher of all worlds; and the greater is your
pride in that service and that worship.”

The Quranic term for humility is khushu’. The Arabic word hilm carries a simi-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 559

munawar a. anees c 559

lar connotation. It is narrated that even the Prophet was exhorted, and he labored
to lace his prayers with utmost humility and tears. He, in turn, reminded the believ-
ers to follow his example in prayers. The opposite of humility is arrogance (kibr in
the Quranic terminology). The Qur’an speaks of Satan (iblis) as the arrogant one
who refused to obey God’s command to show humility toward His creature (Adam).
In other words, one may consider absence of humility tantamount to arrogance—
not an angelic, but a satanic attribute. Arrogance defines its own boundaries, fore-
closing new possibilities of knowing. Further, in the Quranic phrase, arrogance
leads to tyranny (zulm).
Humility was a clearly enunciated theme in the writings of Dr. Muhammad
Abdus Salam of Pakistan, the first Muslim Nobel Laureate. He often referred to the
role of humility in the understanding of Nature and called for the infusion of this
concept into the body of science. The celebrated Pakistani poet and Lenin Prize
Laureate, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, was another prominent advocate for the organic neces-
sity for humility. His poetry, often reflective of the bewilderment felt at the cosmic
splendor, carries an implicit ode to humility.
The example of a believing physicist and a secular poet tells us that there runs a
common thread of humility in the human mind. It may not be uniformly mani-
fested as one attempts to deny it under the guise of secular objectivity. However, as
Sir John Templeton articulates, recognition of humility as a universal value reawak-
ens a positive force in human thinking.
The humble approach to progress in religion opens new vistas of knowledge and
understanding. While immersing one deeper into spiritual experience, this mind-
set, contrasted with the positivist heroic approach in science, opens infinitely new
avenues for learning. This, we believe, is one of the outstanding characteristics of Sir
John Templeton’s vision of humility.
Again, in the Muslim context, as well as in other religions, humility could be
regarded at once as an agent of both spiritual and cognitive progress. We observe
that the Quranic dictum on knowledge is evolutionary at its core. The journey
toward spiritual and cognitive excellence commences with human submission to
God. This submission symbolizes the pinnacle of humility. The dynamics of knowl-
edge and progress in Islam are thus deeply rooted in a humility originally learned
in relation to God and in need of extension to embrace knowledge of the world
created and sustained by God.
The Qur’an emphasizes one’s obligation to shape one’s own future. In that sense,
it disapproves of knowledge that creates static minds. Similarly, the Islamic concept
of knowledge is intricately woven into action. This integral synchrony of knowledge
and action has deeper meanings for both personal and societal progress. First, as an
act of obligation, knowing is enjoined. Next, as a corollary of knowing, one is called
on to act. Shaping one’s future, therefore, becomes an informed, conscious, and
knowledge-driven activity.
Fatalism has no place in Islam. If the argument for a nexus between knowledge
and action is valid, then the only recourse left is perpetual action toward more
knowledge and greater progress. It is this complimentarity of knowledge and action
that shapes one’s future.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 560

560 c munawar a. anees

Sir John Templeton has often reminded us of the ambitious desire for a hun-
dredfold increase in spiritual knowledge. Here lies the challenge for the Muslim
mind: reconciliation between that ever-increasing knowledge and strategies for
action.
Muslims cannot afford to ignore the ongoing evolution of human and spiritual
information. Stemming from a single source, the Muslim creed recognizes knowl-
edge as a “unity.” It does not distinguish between the secular and the spiritual. There-
fore, all knowledge, with its dependent moral contingency, is destined to lead to
spiritual evolution.
A humility-centered quest for knowledge is perhaps the key to a better Muslim
future. We need not only to recognize humility by its moral or spiritual connotation,
but to harness its epistemic potential for the right action. For Muslims, progress in
religion or evolution of spiritual information implies a strategy encompassing three
tiers: humility, knowledge, action. We earnestly hope, with God’s infinite mercy,
that Muslim intellectuals will rise to the occasion and contribute to a greater under-
standing of human quest for spirituality.

c
Munawar A. Anees, Ph.D., is Executive Director of Knowledge Management Sys-
tems (KnowSys) in Tucson, Arizona and a writer and a social critic. A biologist who
earned his doctorate at Indiana University, his contributions in the monthly Inquiry
(London) have played a pioneering role in the Muslim dialog on religion and sci-
ence. Author of half a dozen books and more than three hundred articles, book
reviews, and bibliographies, he has contributed to the Encyclopedia of the Modern
Islamic World and Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in
Non-Western Cultures. His book Guide to Sira and Hadith Literature in Western Lan-
guages is considered a classic. Islam and Biological Futures has brought Muslim
bioethical problems to the forefront of contemporary discourse. He founded the
journal of current awareness on the Muslim world, Periodica Islamica, recognized
as “an invaluable guide.” He is a founding editor of the International Journal of
Islamic and Arabic Studies, and an advisory editor of the Journal of Islamic Science
and Islamic Studies. In 2000, he was selected as Religion Editor for the new online
encyclopedia, Nupedia. Dr. Anees is an elected member of the Royal Academy, Jor-
dan, and a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion,
Cambridge, England. An American citizen, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize in February 2002.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 561

Brahman and Progress 94

By What Knowledge Is the Spirit Known?
Ravi Ravindra

“Two kinds of knowledge are to be known . . . the higher as well as the lower. . . .
And the higher is that by which the Undecaying is apprehended.”
—Mundaka Upanishad I.i. 4–5

W ith all the progress in scientific and medical fields, have human beings
morally or spiritually advanced? Is it reasonable to assume that future Nobel
Prize winners in science will be more spiritually advanced than the past ones
because more scientific knowledge will be available to them? What sort of scientific
facts or spiritual information will or can lead to this transformation in the nature
of human beings? Is a quantitative extension of our information about the uni-
verse likely to lead us to a more spiritual life?
All traditions assert that the spirit is higher than and prior to the body-mind,
which is sometimes called the “body‚” for simplicity. One of the ideas that is com-
mon to all the great religious traditions of the world is the assertion that, in general,
human beings do not live the way they should—and furthermore, the way they
could. The Christian perspective claims that we live in sin, but we could live in the
grace of God; the Hindu-Buddhist way of saying this is that we live in sleep, but we
could wake up. All the traditions suggest ways by which human beings could move
toward a life of grace or wakefulness, a shift that is a qualitative transformation of
being. Here, I will focus largely on the Indian spiritual traditions, more particularly
on the theory and practice of Yoga, the way of transformation.
Yoga begins from a recognition of the human situation. Human beings are bound
by the laws of process, and they suffer as a consequence of this bondage. Yoga pro-
ceeds by a focus on knowledge of the self. Self-knowledge may be said to be both the
essential method and the essential goal of Yoga. However, self-knowledge is a rela-
tive matter. It depends not only on the depth and clarity of insight, but also on what
is seen as the “self” to be known. The Chandogya Upanishad (VIII.7.2–13.6) instructs
spiritual seekers in identifying the self with progressively more and more spiritual-
ized self.
A change from the identification of the self as the body (including the heart and
the mind) to the identification of the self as inhabiting the body is the most crucial
development in Yoga and is considered a matter of great progress. Yoga identifies the
person less with the body than with the embodied. Ancient and modern Indian lan-
guages reflect this perspective in the expressions they use to describe a person’s
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 562

562 c ravi ravindra

death: in contrast to the usual English expression of giving up the ghost, one gives up
the body. It is not the body that has the spirit, but the spirit that has the body.
The identification of the person in oneself with something other than the body-
mind and the attendant freedom from the body-mind is possible only through a
proper functioning and restructuring of the body and the mind. The Sanskrit word
sharira is useful to steer clear of the modern Western philosophic dilemma called the
“mind-body” problem. Although sharira is usually translated as “body,” it means the
whole psychosomatic complex of body, mind, and heart. Sharira has the same
import as flesh in the Gospel of Saint John, for example in John 1:14, where it is said,
“The Word became flesh.” The important point, both in the Indian context and in
John, is that the spiritual element, called Purusha, Atman, or Logos (“Word”), is
above the whole of the psychosomatic complex of a human being and is not to be
identified with mind, which is a part of sharira, or the “flesh.”
Sharira is both the instrument of transformation and the mirror reflecting it.
The way a person sits, walks, feels, and thinks reveals the connection with the deeper
self, and a stronger connection with the deeper self will be reflected in the way a per-
son sits, walks, feels, and thinks. Sharira, which is individualized prakriti (Nature),
is the medium necessary for the completion and manifestation of purusha (the
inner spiritual being), which itself can be understood as individualized Brahman
(literally, “the Vastness”), whose body is the whole of the cosmos, subtle as well as
gross.
Sharira is the substance through which each one of us relates to the spirit, accord-
ing to our ability to respond to the inner urge and initiative. The development of this
relationship is the spiritual art. To view the sharira, or the world, as a hindrance
rather than an opportunity is akin to regarding the rough stone as an obstruction
to the finished statue.
The most authoritative text of Yoga is the Yoga Sutras, which consists of apho-
risms of Yoga compiled by Patañjali sometime between the second century BCE
and the fourth century CE from material already familiar to the gurus (teachers,
masters) of Indian spirituality. Patañjali teaches that clear seeing and knowing are
functions of purusha (the inner person) and not of the mind.
The mind relies on judgment, comparison, discursive knowledge, association,
imagination, dreaming, and memory, through which it clings to the past and future
dimensions of time. The mind is limited in scope and cannot know the objective
truth about anything. The mind is not the true knower: It can calculate, make pre-
dictions in time, infer implications, quote authority, make hypotheses, or speculate
about the nature of reality; but it cannot see objects directly, from the inside, as
they really are in themselves.
In order to allow direct seeing to take place, the mind, which by its very nature
attempts to mediate between the object and the subject, has to be quieted. When the
mind is totally silent and totally alert, both the real subject (purusha) and the real
object (prakriti) are simultaneously present to it. When the seer is there and what
is to be seen is there, seeing takes place without distortion. Then there is no com-
paring or judging, no misunderstanding, no fantasizing about things displaced in
space and time, no dozing off in heedlessness nor any clinging to old knowledge or
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 563

ravi ravindra c 563

experience; in short, there are no distortions introduced by the organs of perception,

namely the mind, the feelings, and the senses. There is simply seeing in the present,
the living moment in the eternal now. That is the state of perfect and free attention,
kaivalya, which is the aloneness of seeing and not of the seer separated from the
seen, as it is often misunderstood by commentators on Yoga. In this state, the seer
sees through the organs of perception rather than with them, or as William Blake
says, one sees “not with the mind, but through the mind.”1 Blake speaks about the
transformation of perception that this re-ordering allows in “Auguries of Inno-
cence”:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
It is of utmost importance from the point of view of Yoga to distinguish clearly
between the mind (chitta) and the real Seer (purusha). Chitta pretends to know,
but it can itself be known and seen—that is, it is an object, not a subject. However,
it can be an instrument of knowledge. This misidentification of the seer and the
seen, of the person with the organs of perception, is the fundamental error from
which all other problems and sufferings arise (Yoga Sutras 2.3–17). It is from this fun-
damental ignorance that asmita (“I-am-this-ness,” or egoism) arises, creating a lim-
itation by particularization. Purusha says, “I AM”; asmita says, “I am this” or “I am
that.”2 This is an expression of egoism and self-importance and leads to the strong
desire to perpetuate the specialization of oneself and to a separation from all else.
The sort of “knowledge” that is based on this misidentification is always colored
with pride and a tendency to control or to fear.
The means for freedom from the ignorance that is the cause of all sorrow is an
unceasing vision of discernment; such vision alone can permit transcendental in-
sight (prajña) to arise. Nothing can force the appearance of this insight; all one can
do is to prepare the ground for it. The purpose of prakriti is to lead to such insight,
as that of a seed is to produce fruit; what an aspirant needs to do in preparing the
garden is to remove the weeds that choke the full development of the plant. The
ground to be prepared is the entire psychosomatic organism, for it is through that
organism that purusha sees and prajña arises, not through the mind alone, nor the
emotions, nor the physical body by itself. A person with dulled senses has as little
possibility of coming to prajña as the one with a stupid mind or hardened feelings.
Agitation in any part of the entire organism causes fluctuations in attention and
muddies the seeing. This is the reason that Yoga puts so much emphasis on the
preparation of the body, as well as of feelings by right moral preparation and of the
mind by immersing oneself in the views from the real world, for coming to true
knowledge. It is by reversing the usual tendencies of the organism that its agitations
can be quieted and the mind can know its right and proper place with respect to
purusha: that of the known rather than the knower (Yoga Sutras 2.10, 4.18–20).3
If the notion of the spiritual and the corresponding possibilities of enlighten-
ment, freedom, or salvation are taken seriously, then what is spiritual is almost by
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 564

564 c ravi ravindra

definition, as well as by universal consensus, higher than what is intellectual. The

intellect is contained in being, as a part in the whole, and not the other way around.
It is a universal insight and assertion of the mystics and other spiritual masters that
spirit is above the mind. Of course, many words other than “Spirit” have been used
to indicate Higher Reality, such as God, Brahman, the One, Tao, the Buddha Mind,
and the like. Furthermore, it has been universally said that in order to come to know
this Higher Reality in truth, a transformation of the whole being of the seeker is
needed to yoke and quiet the mind so that, without any distortions, it may reflect
what is real.
Paraphrasing St. Paul, it can be said that the things of the mind can be understood
by the mind, but those of the spirit can be understood only by the spirit (1 Cor
2:11–14). It is this spiritual part in a person that needs to be cultivated for the sake
of spiritual knowledge. In some traditions, this spiritual part, which like a magnetic
compass always tries to orient itself to the north pole of the spirit, is called “soul.”
This part alone, when properly cultivated, can comprehend and correspond to the
suprapersonal and universal spirit. Any other kind of knowledge can be about the
spirit but cannot be called knowing the spirit.
Of course, to be against knowledge, scientific or otherwise, is hardly any guar-
antee of transcending the limitations of the mind. Ignorance is not to be com-
mended. For almost all the sages of India, the ultimate cause of all sorrow or
bondage is ignorance. As the Buddha is quoted in the Dhammapada (243) to have
said, “avijja paramam malam” (ignorance is the greatest impurity). To recognize
that a certain kind of knowledge is lower, and that the Undecaying is apprehended
by the higher knowledge of a radically different sort, does not deny the necessary
role of the lower knowledge. But does a quantitative extension of such knowledge
and information necessarily lead to wisdom or spiritual life?
In order to understand the sages and the scriptures spiritually we need to undergo
a change of being or a rebirth or a cleansing of our perceptions. How can progress
in intellectual, scientific knowledge lead to the sort of insight and transformation
that takes one beyond the intellect? An intellectual and physical (that is, scientific)
understanding neither requires any transformation of our being nor can lead to
such a transformation. Neither scientific knowledge about people who have spiri-
tual knowledge nor theoretical knowledge about the spirit makes one a sage.
At the end, I return to the importance of humility and wonder in the presence of
the Great Mystery. In my long experience in academic life, I have been struck by the
difficulty of freedom from arrogance of knowledge, a major obstacle to spiritual
life. I wonder whether this darkness of intellectual conceit worse than ignorance is
what a sage in Isha Upanishad (9) has in mind by saying, “Into blinding darkness
enter those who worship ignorance and those who delight in knowledge enter into
still greater darkness.”
It seems to me that it is a matter of spiritual progress when one becomes free not
only of the knowledge that is inevitably from the past, but also from the need to
know, which is so often permeated by a fear of the unknown and a desire to predict
and control—an attempt to squeeze the Vastness into one’s mental categories. In this
freedom, one can wonder and stand before the Mystery. In a way, one then knows
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 565

ravi ravindra c 565

something; but it is not anything that can be expressed in a way that our ordinary
mind can categorize and argue about—it is not anything that can be measured as
progress in a quantitative sense. It is closer to an insight into the suchness of things,
as in the following remark of Albert Einstein:
There is the cosmic religious feeling of rapturous amazement at the har-
mony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that,
compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is
an utterly insignificant reflection.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
source of all true art and science.
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as
the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can
comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feel-
ing, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only,
I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.4

c
Ravi Ravindra, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University in Halifax,
Nova Scotia, from where he retired as Professor and Chairman of Comparative Reli-
gion, Professor of International Development Studies, and Adjunct Professor of
Physics. He received his doctorate in Physics from the University of Toronto and
held postdoctoral fellowships in Physics (University of Toronto), History and Phi-
losophy of Science (Princeton University), and Religion (Columbia University). He
was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1977 and a Fel-
low of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, in 1978 and 1998. He was the
Founding Director of the Threshold Award for Integrative Knowledge and Chair-
man of its international and interdisciplinary Selection Committee in 1979 and 1980.
Professor Ravindra’s books include Theory of Seismic Head Waves; Whispers from the
Other Shore; The Yoga of the Christ (also published as Christ the Yogi and The Gospel
of John in the Light of Indian Mysticism); Science and Spirit; Krishnamurti: Two Birds
on One Tree; Yoga and the Teaching of Krishna; Heart without Measure: Gurdjieff
Work with Madame de Salzmann; Science and the Sacred; Centered Self without Being
Self-Centered: Remembering Krishnamurti; and Pilgrim without Boundaries. He was
a member of the Board of Judges for the Templeton Prize from 1999 to 2001.

Notes
1 For some further discussion, see the chapter “Healing the Soul: Truth, Love and God,”
in R. Ravindra, Science and the Sacred: Eternal Wisdom in a Changing World, Wheaton,
IL: Quest Books, 2002.
2 For a discussion of many utterances of “I Am” by Christ the Logos (Word, Purusha), see
R. Ravindra, The Yoga of the Christ, Shaftesbury, England: Element Books, 1992, 72–81.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 566

566 c ravi ravindra

(This book has been reprinted with the same pagination under a misleading title of
Christ the Yogi, Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International, 1998.)
3 For a more detailed discussion of Yoga, see R. Ravindra, “Yoga: the Royal Path to Free-
dom,” in Yoga and the Teaching of Krishna: Essays on the Indian Spiritual Traditions, ed.
Priscilla Murray, 52–71. Adyar, Chennai (Madras): Theosophical Publishing House,
1998.
4 Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions. Based on Mein Weltbild. New York: Crown, 1954, 11.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 567

The Scientific Frontier

of the Inner Spirit 95
B. Alan Wallace

A s we enter the twenty-first century and look back on the past four hundred
years of scientific progress, can we fail to be impressed by the frontiers of
knowledge that have been opened to human inquiry? The physical sciences have
illuminated the realm of the extremely minute—the inner core of the atomic
nucleus; events in the distant past—the first nanoseconds after the Big Bang; and
phenomena on the far side of the universe—the constitution of galactic clusters
billions of light-years away. At the same time, the biological sciences have made
great discoveries concerning the evolution of life, mapped the human genome, and
revealed many of the inner workings of the brain. But in the midst of such extraor-
dinary knowledge of the objective world, the subjective realm of consciousness
remains largely an enigma. While neuroscience searches for correlates between the
functions of the human brain and the depths of the human spirit, the actual nature
of the mind/body correlation is still a matter of philosophical conjecture: No hard
scientific evidence explains how the mind is related to the brain. There is no scien-
tific consensus concerning the definition of “consciousness,” and there are no objec-
tive, scientific means of detecting the presence or absence of consciousness in
anything—mineral, plant, animal, or human. In short, scientists have not yet fath-
omed the nature of consciousness, its origins, or its role in Nature.
How is it possible that something so central to scientific inquiry—human con-
sciousness—remains so elusive? Is it because it is inherently mysterious or even
impenetrable to scientific inquiry? Or have scientists simply failed thus far to devise
appropriate methods for exploring the frontiers of the inner spirit? To seek an
answer to this question, let us review the ways in which scientists have successfully
explored other realms of the natural world.
Looking first to the physical sciences, astronomy began to move beyond its
medieval heritage when researchers such as Tycho Brahe devised instruments for
making unprecedentedly accurate measurements of the relative movements of the
planets. Whereas previous generations of astrologers were content to focus prima-
rily on the alleged correlations between the movements of celestial bodies and ter-
restrial events, Brahe made careful observations of the planets themselves, albeit
with the intention to improve the precision of astrological predictions. Similarly,
Galileo made precise observations of falling bodies and other terrestrial and celes-
tial phenomena. In short, careful observations of these natural phenomena them-
selves were the necessary basis for the subsequent explanation of why these physical
phenomena act as they do.
The life sciences developed in a similar way. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 568

568 c b. alan wallace

naturalist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek used the microscope to observe minute organ-
isms, and over the centuries this combination of technology and precise observa-
tion of tiny life forms led to the development of cell biology, molecular biology,
genetics, and neuroscience. It is important to bear in mind, however, that what the
astronomers, physicists, and biologists were observing were mere appearances to
the human mind, not external, physical objects existing independently of con-
sciousness. The mind has always played a central role in scientific observation and
analysis, yet the scientific study of the mind did not even begin until three hundred
years after Galileo. The obvious assumption behind this long delay was that con-
sciousness plays no significant role in Nature. But this is a metaphysical conjecture,
not a scientific conclusion. Whether that hypothesis is valid or not, it is certainly an
oversight to postpone for three centuries scientific examination of one’s primary
instrument of observation of the natural world: human consciousness.
At the dawn of the modern science of the mind in the late nineteenth century, the
pioneering American psychologist William James defined this new discipline as the
study of subjective mental phenomena and their relations to their objects, to the
brain, and to the rest of the world (1892). He argued that introspective observation
must always be the first and foremost method by which to study these matters, for
this is our sole access for observing mental phenomena directly (1890/1950: I:185).
This approach parallels that of Brahe, Galileo, and van Leeuwenhoek in the devel-
opment of astronomy, physics, and biology, respectively: Carefully observe the phe-
nomena themselves before trying to explain their origins or the mechanical laws
governing their movements. James added that introspective study of subjective men-
tal events should be complemented with objective examination of their behavioral
and neural correlates. Since his time, great advances have been made in the behav-
ioral sciences, and even more stunning progress is taking place in the brain sciences.
But James’s emphasis on the importance of introspectively observing subjective
mental phenomena themselves has been largely ignored, so there has been no com-
parable development of rigorous methods for observing and experimenting with
one’s own mental phenomena firsthand.
Progress in astronomy before the time of Brahe and his contemporary Johannes
Kepler was hampered by both empirical and theoretical limitations. Empirically,
medieval astrologers and astronomers failed to devise new, rigorous methods for
precise observation of celestial bodies. They were too caught up in their concern
with the terrestrial correlates of celestial events. Theoretically, their research was
limited by their unquestioning acceptance of the metaphysical assumptions of Aris-
totelian logic, Christian theology, and medieval astrology. In a similar fashion, con-
temporary behavioral and neuroscientific research into the mind is empirically
limited by the absence of rigorous methods for observing mental phenomena first-
hand. And, theoretically, such inquiry is hampered by the metaphysical assump-
tion that all mental events can be reduced to their neural correlates. This materialist
premise is not a scientific conclusion, but an assumption that underlies virtually all
scientific research into the mind/body problem.
It is with introspection alone that consciousness and a wide range of other mental
phenomena can be examined directly. While this subjective mode of perception is
SI-03 06/06/15 18:14 Page 569

b. alan wallace c 569

still marginalized by the cognitive sciences, the contemplative traditions of the world
have for centuries devised a wide range of methods for rigorously exploring the fron-
tier of the inner spirit. Long before the time of Aristotle, the contemplatives of India,
for example, devised sophisticated means of refining the attention, stilling compul-
sive thoughts, and enhancing the clarity of awareness. This discipline is known as the
development of samadhi, or deep meditative concentration, which was then used to
explore firsthand a wide range of mental phenomena (Wallace 2005a, 2005b).
In profoundly stilling the mind, Hindu and Buddhist contemplatives have
allegedly probed beyond the realm of ordinary human thought to an underlying
substrate consciousness. In their view, experientially corroborated by hundreds of
contemplatives throughout Asia (many of them adhering to diverse philosophical
and religious beliefs), the human mind emerges not from the brain, but from this
underlying substrate that carries on from one life to the next. This substrate con-
sciousness need not be reified into a kind of ethereal substance or immutable soul,
but can be viewed more as a continuum of cumulative experience that carries on
after death. In each lifetime, this stream of consciousness is conditioned by the body,
brain, and environment with which it is conjoined. In the context of such an
embodiment, specific mental processes are contingent on specific brain processes.
The brain is necessary for the manifestation of those mental functions once the
substrate consciousness is embodied, but it and its interaction with the environment
are not sufficient for the occurrence of consciousness. Memories and character traits
from one life to the next are stored in this substrate, not in the brain, and past-life
memories can allegedly be recalled while in samadhi. However, if specific brain
functions are impaired, one may lose access to their correlated mental functions as
long as the substrate consciousness is conjoined with a body.
Pythagoras, Plato, Origen (a highly influential third-century Christian theolo-
gian), and much of the Christian community during the first four centuries of the
Common Era affirmed the continuity of individual consciousness from one life to
the next. While Augustine thought that souls are likely created because of conditions
present at the time of conception, he acknowledged that, as far as he knew, the truth
of this hypothesis had not been demonstrated (391/1937: III: chs. 20–21). Moreover,
he declared that it was consonant with the Christian faith to believe that souls exist
prior to conception and incarnate by their own choice (ibid.: 379). This subject, he
claimed, had not been studied sufficiently by Christians to decide the issue. Accep-
tance of the theory of reincarnation in the Western world decreased from the fifth
century onward because of its condemnation by ecclesiastical councils and the
decline of contemplative practice in general and of deep meditative concentration
in particular.
The theory of the substrate consciousness and its relation to the human mind has
not been invalidated by contemporary neuroscience. While James did not advocate
reincarnation, he believed that the relation of the workings of the brain to the per-
ceptions of the mind is akin to that of a prism refracting light, rather than an organ
(the brain) creating mental events (1989: 85–86). He declared that this nonmateri-
alist view was compatible with the neuroscientific knowledge of his time, and this
remains true today. Thus, no purely scientific grounds exist for assuming a materi-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 570

570 c b. alan wallace

alist view of the mind. While materialists claim that the burden of proof of the non-
physical nature of the mind rests on those who can provide evidence to that effect,
this is open to question. Introspective observation of mental phenomena does not
suggest that they are physical in nature, nor does it provide knowledge of the brain.
Likewise, the study of neural events alone provides no knowledge of the mind; one
never sees any mental events in the brain, just electrochemical processes. So it takes
a leap of faith to believe that mental events are really brain functions viewed from
a subjective perspective. Generally speaking, if one believes that two types of phe-
nomena that appear to be radically different are in fact identical, the burden of
proof lies in demonstrating their equivalence.
Is the belief that the mind is nothing more than a function, or emergent property,
of the brain a scientific hypothesis? If so, there should be some way, at least in prin-
ciple, to falsify that claim; otherwise, it loses its status as a scientific theory. Insofar
as scientific research on the mind/body problem is confined to the study of the
behavioral and neural correlates of the subjective experience, it is hard to imagine
how one could ever test for the existence of nonphysical mental events. One would
need to step outside materialist methodologies to detect anything nonphysical. One
viable way to put the materialist hypothesis to the test, thereby establishing its sta-
tus as a scientific theory, is by studying the empirical evidence suggestive of rein-
carnation. Such research has been done not only by contemplatives exploring their
past-life memories, but by modern researchers, such as psychiatrist Ian Stevenson
(1997), probing the mysteries of the human mind.
Stevenson’s remarkable work, however, has received little attention by the scien-
tific community. The reason for this may be quite simple. As neurologist Antonio
Damasio comments, many neuroscientists are guided by one goal and one hope: to
thoroughly explain how neural patterns become subjectively experienced mental
events (1999: 322). So they do not welcome empirical evidence that might suggest
that the goal of their research is illusory. This situation is reminiscent of the goal
of medieval astronomers to demonstrate how all celestial bodies move in perfect
circles. Eventually, Kepler, who was also committed to this belief, was distressed
when the empirical evidence accumulated by Brahe forced him to conclude that this
long-held assumption was false. (Kepler later deduced that planetary orbits are
elliptical; nevertheless, his preliminary calculations agreed with observations to
within 5 percent.)
With the union of scientific and contemplative inquiry, humanity may explore
the frontier of the inner spirit in unprecedented ways (Wallace 2000). The impor-
tance of such collaborative research can hardly be overestimated. The very nature
of human identity is at stake, and those who are committed to the pursuit of truth
must rely on rigorous, empirical research, even if it invalidates their most cherished
assumptions.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 571

b. alan wallace c 571

c
B. Alan Wallace, Ph. D., earned his doctorate in religious studies at Stanford
University in 1995 after obtaining his undergraduate degree in physics and the phi-
losophy of science at Amherst College. He began his studies of Buddhism in 1970
and has been teaching Buddhist meditation and philosophy in Europe and the
United States since 1976. Since 1987, Dr. Wallace has helped organize and served as
interpreter for a biannual series of Mind and Life conferences on the relation
between Buddhism and modern science with the Dalai Lama and distinguished sci-
entists. He is the author, translator, or editor of, or a contributor to, more than thirty
books, among them: Choosing Reality: A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind
(Snow Lion Publications), The Bridge of Quiescence: Experiencing Tibetan Buddhist
Meditation (Open Court), The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Con-
sciousness (Oxford University Press), and Buddhism & Science: Breaking New Ground
(Columbia University Press). Dr. Wallace is the founder and president of the Santa
Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies (http://sbinstitute.com), which pro-
motes the collaboration of scientific and contemplative modes of inquiry into the
nature and potentials of consciousness.

References
Augustine. (391/1937) The Free Choice of the Will. Francis E. Tourscher (trans.), Philadelphia:
The Peter Reilly Co.
Damasio, Antonio. (1999) The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making
of Consciousness, New York: Harcourt, Inc.
James, William. (1890/1950) The Principles of Psychology, New York: Dover Publications.
———. (1892) “A plea for psychology as a science.” Philosophical Review 1: 146–53.
———. (1989) Essays in Religion and Morality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Stevenson, Ian, M. D. (1997) Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect, Westport, CT:
Praeger.
Wallace, B. Alan. (1998) The Bridge of Quiescence: Experiencing Tibetan Buddhist Medita-
tion. Chicago: Open Court.
———. (2000) The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Consciousness, New
York: Oxford University Press.
———. (2005a) Genuine Happiness: Meditation as a Path to Fulfillment. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley & Sons.
———. (2005b) Balancing the Mind: A Tibetan Buddhist Approach to Refining Attention.
Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 572

From Biblical Story to

the Science of Society 96
How Judaism Reads Scripture
Jacob Neusner

S ir John Templeton, who celebrated his ninetieth birthday on November 29,

2002, has taken a keen interest in the relationship of science and religion. Some
conceive that relationship to be adversarial, but he has viewed science as a medium
for advancing human knowledge about God. Those who see conflict between sci-
ence and religion treat Scripture as a principal battleground, finding contradictions
everywhere between its narratives and the laws of science: Creation in six days, the
splitting of the Red Sea, the sun’s standing still. But cannot Scripture still serve to
support the science-religion relationship when contemplated within a different
framework?
Why the conflict? Each side—science and biblical religion—finds fault in the
other. Science discovers laws of Nature, and Scripture’s miracles disrupt those laws.
So, science objects to religion. Some of those who affirm Scripture in the name of
Creationism take exception to evolution. So, religion finds fault with science. More
recently, archaeology has called into question the very historicity of Scripture’s nar-
ratives, yet another point of conflict between science and the religious knowledge
conveyed by the Hebrew Scriptures of ancient Israel (i.e., the “Old Testament”).
How can knowledge attained through the scientific method—experimentation,
testing, hypotheses—mesh with the Scriptures that Judaic and Christian faithful
affirm to be God-given, the medium of God’s self-disclosure? Specifically, is there
a science to which Scripture may supply valuable data, and is there a program of
reading Scripture that science may illuminate? Judaism in its normative sources,
the Torah as mediated by the rabbinic sages of the first six centuries CE, answers
both questions with a firm “yes.” The answer lies in identifying other models for
reading Scripture besides the one that today sets Scripture against science. Such a
model exists, subject to critical illumination.
The ancient Rabbinic sages read Scripture as God’s design for the science of soci-
ety, for the social order of a sanctified community. They read the facts of Scrip-
ture—its narratives, laws, and exhortations—in the manner of social scientists,
looking for the “mathematics” of the social order and finding the design of the
entire human society that Scripture sustains. When, therefore, we understand how
Judaism reads Scripture, we can take a step toward resolving the conflict of science
and religion concerning the role of Scripture—its stories and its miracles.
Why social science? Because, just as natural historians seek laws of created order
in Nature, and specifically in natural history, so the Judaic sages searched Scripture
for patterns indicating laws subject to generalization and testing. The social sci-
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 573

jacob neusner c 573

ences undertake the effort to uncover patterns out of diverse information, to test
generalizations against episodic observations, and to produce “truth” out of “facts.”
The quest for hypothesis and validation in other contexts marks the Rabbinic sages’
writings as a mode of thought congruent with social, and even natural, science.
The comparison may be simply stated. Just as natural history gains knowledge of
God in Nature, so the Judaic sages find knowledge of God through Scripture’s priv-
ileged narratives, the exemplary cases of the Torah. The “facts” of Scripture per-
taining to the social order then correspond to the “facts” of Nature pertaining to
Creation. So what is to be hoped from systematically finding the patterns and rules
yielded by Nature and society? That mode of thought and inquiry bears the prom-
ise of improving our understanding of God’s plan and intent in forming our con-
cept and knowledge of “ultimate reality.”
Let us turn to concrete matters. Precisely how does Judaism address the rules for
society contained in Scripture? And what does Judaism learn about God from Scrip-
ture, construed within the science of natural history? We turn to a case that shows
how the Rabbinic sages looked for generalizations yielded by the episodic narratives
of Scripture.
Specifically, in the manner of natural history, they categorized like data with like,
all in the quest for the rule governing them all. This they did in relationship to the
social rules of Scripture and also to historical events. Here is a simple example of the
progress from Scriptural story to the science of society:
And Abraham rose early in the morning, [saddled his ass, and took two of
his young men with him, and his son Isaac, and he cut the wood for the
burnt offering and arose and went to the place which God had told him]
(Gen. 22:3).
Said R. Simeon b. Yohai [a second-century CE saint, sage, and legal
authority], “Love disrupts the natural order of things, and hatred disrupts
the natural order of things.”
Love disrupts the natural order of things we learn from the case of Abra-
ham: “. . . he saddled his ass.” But did he not have any number of servants?
[Why then did a slave not saddle the ass for him? Out of his dedication to
his son, Abraham performed that menial task.] That proves love disrupts the
natural order of things.
“Hatred disrupts the natural order of things we learn from the case of
Balaam: ‘And Balaam rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass’
(Num. 22:21). But did he not have any number of servants? That proves
hatred disrupts the natural order of things.
“Love disrupts the natural order of things we learn from the case of Joseph:
‘And Joseph made his chariot ready’ (Gen. 46:29). But did he not have any
number of servants? But that proves love disrupts the natural order of things.
“Hatred disrupts the natural order of things we learn from the case of
Pharaoh: ‘And he made his chariot ready’ (Ex. 14:6). But did he not have
any number of servants? But that proves hatred disrupts the natural order
of things.” (Genesis Rabbah 55:8)
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 574

574 c jacob neusner

In this perfect case, four facts of Scripture involving Abraham and his opposite,
Balaam, and Joseph and his counterpart, Pharaoh, are classified and contrasted.
The common classification is “saddling one’s own ass,” rather than having a ser-
vant do the work. This is taken to signal something extraordinary in the transaction.
In the one pair, it is the love of Abraham pitted against the hatred of Balaam, the love
of Joseph and the malice of Pharaoh. But they have in common the disruption of
the natural order of things. Then the social rule follows: An excess of emotion,
whether love or hatred, leads to the violation of social norms.
What matters in this humble reading is what has happened in Scripture: The
question has shifted. Now we no longer ask, did it really happen? That question
proves monumentally irrelevant, obtuse even. Nor are we engaged by the scientific
facts of the matter. We are unconcerned with questions such as what kind of sad-
dles did they have and whether archaeology proves that the saddles in the time of
Abraham and Joseph required servile labor to be put into place. Rather, the ques-
tion is now: How do patterns yielded by Scripture’s widely separated facts yield a
rule about the social order? Judaism asks Scripture to supply data for analysis and
generalization; that is the main point.
The Rabbinic sages found patterns in Scripture because they took for granted
that in revealed narrative they would find the lessons they needed for making sense
of their own situation. They searched for patterns, or paradigms, because they expe-
rienced existence as a pattern. How so? Living in the centuries beyond the destruc-
tion of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, they looked back on two calamities in
sequence—the loss of Jerusalem and its sacrificial service to the Babylonians in 586
BCE and then the repetition of that event in the recent past, 70 CE. The urgent
question facing them was, Does the paradigm of exile and return mean that we are
trapped in a cycle of destruction and restoration, exile from the Land and return to
the Land? And, if not, then what lessons are we to learn?
They thought paradigmatically. What happened once marked an irreversible his-
torical event. Events that occurred twice represented either a cycle or a paradigm,
although determining which was a problem. For sages looking for patterns in Scrip-
ture, what had taken place the first time, in 586 BCE, and was thought to be unique
and unprecedented took place a second time, in 70 CE, in precisely the same pat-
tern. They therefore formed a series from these individual episodes.
Here is where thinking scientifically, in the manner of natural history with its
hierarchical classification, intervened: What conclusion is to be drawn from the
destruction of the Temple once again? The choice was between a cycle that recurs
and a pattern that yields lessons to be learned and acted upon. A theory of the cycli-
cal nature of events might have followed. That theory would have held that, just as
Nature yielded its spring, summer, fall, and winter, so the events of humanity or of
Israel in particular can have been asked to conform to a cyclical pattern, in line, for
example, with Ecclesiastes’ view that what has been is what will be. But the Rabbinic
sages did not take that position at all.
They rejected cyclicality in favor of a different ordering of events altogether. They
did not believe the Temple would be rebuilt and destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed,
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 575

jacob neusner c 575

and so on endlessly. They stated the very opposite: The Temple would be rebuilt but
never again destroyed. That represented a view of the second destruction that
rejected cyclicality altogether. The sages instead opted for patterns of history and
against cycles. That is because they retained that notion for the specific and concrete
meaning of events that characterized Scripture’s history, even while rejecting the
historicism of Scripture. They maintained that a pattern governed, and the pattern
was not a cyclical one. Here, Scripture itself imposed its structure, its order, its sys-
tem—its paradigm. And the Official History—Genesis through Kings read as a con-
tinuous narrative—left no room for the conception of cyclicality. If matters do not
repeat themselves but do conform to a pattern, then the pattern itself must be iden-
tified. That is where natural history enters in.
Paradigmatic thinking formed the alternative to cyclical thinking because Scrip-
ture defined how matters were to be understood. Viewed as a whole, the Official His-
tory indeed defined the paradigm of Israel’s existence, formed out of the
components of Eden and the Land, Adam and Israel, and then Sinai. This was given
movement through Israel’s responsibility to the covenant and Israel’s adherence to,
or violation of, God’s will, fully exposed in the Torah, that marked the covenant of
Sinai. Scripture laid matters out, and the sages then drew conclusions that con-
formed to their experience.
So the second destruction in 70 CE precipitated thinking about paradigms of
Israel’s life, such as came to full exposure in the thinking behind the reading of
Scripture. Here is where the thinking of natural history intervenes: the quest for
generalizations out of bits of information. In the case of the destructions of 586
BCE and 70 CE, with the episodes made into a series, the sages’ paradigmatic think-
ing asked different questions from the historical ones posed in 586 BCE. The Rab-
binic sages brought to Scripture different premises, drew from Scripture different
conclusions. Scripture serves as a collection of data, similar to a laboratory where
facts are established. These facts concern relationships and one-time events and
exemplary transactions. What do they mean, what lessons do they teach?
Asking these questions does not resolve the conflict between evolution and Cre-
ationism. Rather, it turns attention to another set of questions Scripture can be
asked to answer, questions that I think are more authentic to the purpose of reve-
lation. The faithful who found—and still find—privileged truth (“God’s word,” in
theological terms) have taken an approach to Scripture that treats its statements as
exemplary. And science, with its power to frame hypotheses out of bits and pieces
of fact and test theories against new facts, cannot object either. Scientific modes of
thought, it would seem, transform the study of Scripture into the science of soci-
ety. And that is what the great theologians of Judaism and Christianity have under-
taken for two millennia.
I conclude with a model of paradigmatic thinking that has served Judaism well
for two thousand years and that shows the acutely contemporary lessons to be
learned from Scripture, read as the Rabbinic sages teach. It concerns the theology
of the destruction of the Temple and bears heavy implications for post-Holocaust
theology and the response to calamity in contemporary Judaism:
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 576

576 c jacob neusner

Rabban Gamaliel, R. Joshua, R. Eleazar b. Azariah, and R. Aqiba were going

toward Rome. They heard the sound of the city’s traffic from as far away as
Puteoli, a hundred and twenty mil away. They began to cry, while R. Aqiba
laughed.
They said to him, “Aqiba, why are we crying while you are laughing?”
He said to them, “Why are you crying?”
They said to him, “Should we not cry, since gentiles, idolators, sacrifice to
their idols and bow down to icons, but dwell securely in prosperity, serenely,
while the house of the footstool of our God has been put to the torch and
left a lair for beasts of the field?”
He said to them, “That is precisely why I was laughing. If this is how He
has rewarded those who anger Him, all the more so [will He reward] those
who do his will.”
Another time they went up to Jerusalem and go to Mount Scopus. They
tore their garments.
They came to the mountain of the house [of the temple] and saw a fox
go forth from the house of the holy of holies. They began to cry, while R.
Aqiba laughed.
They said to him, “You are always giving surprises. We are crying when
you laugh!”
He said to them, “But why are you crying?”
They said to him, “Should we not cry over the place concerning which it
is written, ‘And the common person who draws near shall be put to death’
(Num. 1:51)? Now lo, a fox comes out of it.
“In our connection the following verse of Scripture has been carried out:
‘For this our heart is faint, for these things our eyes are dim, for the moun-
tain of Zion which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it’ (Lam. 5:17–18).”
He said to them, “That is the very reason I have laughed. For lo, it is writ-
ten, ‘And I will take for me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest and
Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah’ (Is. 8:2).
And what has Uriah got to do with Zechariah? What is it that Uriah said?
‘Zion shall be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall become heaps and the
mountain of the Lord’s house as the high places of a forest’ (Jer. 26:18).
“What is it that Zechariah said? ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Old men
and women shall yet sit in the broad places of Jerusalem”’ (Zech. 8:4).
“Said the Omnipresent, ‘Lo, I have these two witnesses. If the words of
Uriah have been carried out, then the words of Zechariah will be carried out.
If the words of Uriah are nullified, then the words of Zechariah will be nul-
lified.
“‘Therefore I was happy that the words of Uriah have been carried out,
so that in the end the words of Zechariah will come about.’”
In this language they replied to him: “Aqiba, you have given us comfort.”
(Sifre to Deuteronomy 43:3:7–8)
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 577

jacob neusner c 577

Here is that pattern of the social order that sages find in Scripture. They lay no
claim to set forth the laws of natural science, let alone the history of Creation. They
find in Scripture answers to a different order of questions altogether. And in light
of current events, I can think of no more telling response to the nihilism of post-
Holocaust theology and questions such as, “where was God on 9/11?” than Aqiba’s
discovery in Scripture of the pattern of revealed truth.

c
Jacob Neusner, Ph.D., is Research Professor of Religion and Theology and Senior
Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College. He also is a Member
of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and Life Member of
Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He has published more than 850 books and
unnumbered articles, both scholarly and academic and popular and journalistic,
and is the most published humanities scholar in the world. He has been awarded
nine honorary degrees. He was President of the American Academy of Religion
(1968–1969), the only scholar of Judaism to hold that position, and a member of the
founding committee of the Association for Jewish Studies (1967–1970). He founded
the European Association of Jewish Studies (1980–1981). He also served, by appoint-
ment of President Carter, as Member of the National Council on the Humanities
and, by appointment of President Reagan, as Member of the National Council on
the Arts in 1978–1984 and 1984–1990, respectively.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 578

Technology and
Human Dignity 97
Jonathan Sacks

H istory is a journey, and for any journey we need to ask two questions: How
do we get there? And, where do we want to go? If we cannot answer the first
we get lost. If we fail to ask the second, we may not even know we are lost. That is
why we must always have a dialogue between technology and ethics. Technology is
the map, ethics the destination; and the more power we have, the more is at stake
in how we use it—to heal or harm, mend or destroy. What is fascinating is that the
Bible offers a deep perspective on this dialogue, and it does so in its opening chap-
ters. To a surprising degree, its story is ours.
The book of Genesis contains not one account of creation, but two, each sup-
plementing the other. The first is Genesis 1, one of the defining texts of the Western
imagination: “And God said, Let there be . . . and there was . . . and God saw that it
was good.” Contemporary science has added a rich layer of commentary to this
spare and multidimensional narrative. We now know about the Big Bang and its
astonishing explosion of energy, the formation of atoms coalescing into stars, the
emergence of planets, and the birth on earth of ever-more sophisticated forms of
life, their ordered complexity swimming against the tide of entropy. The more we
discover, the more wondrous and improbable it seems. I, for one, am moved each
time I read of a new scientific discovery, to say in the words of Psalm 104, “How
many are your works, O Lord. You have made them all in wisdom.”
The aspect of God emphasised in Genesis 1 is mirrored in its portrait of mankind.
By making Homo sapiens “in his image,” the creative God endowed humanity with
the power to create. “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue
it.” God in the Bible is not like the gods of ancient myth who kept their knowledge
to themselves and were angry when Prometheus stole the secret of making fire.
Instead, he wants us to learn in pursuit of knowledge, fathoming the inner structures
of matter and life. Genesis 1 is the biblical mandate for science and technology. It is
about how God and human beings create.
But the Bible is a subtle book, and its stories rarely end where we expect them to.
Genesis 2 contains a second account of creation. This time the vantage point has
changed. We no longer see the whirl of galaxies and the echoing vastnesses of space.
The focal point of this second account is not man the biological species, but rather
the individual, the self, the person. We see God fashioning the first man “from the
dust of the ground,” breathing into him “the breath of life.” There is a tenderness
here, a human dimension that we miss in the first chapter. Man is charged not to
dominate the earth, but “to serve it and protect it.” For the first time the phrase “not
good” is heard.“It is not good for man to be alone.” God makes the first woman, and
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 579

jonathan sacks c 579

waking, man utters the first poem: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my
flesh.” Genesis 2 is about how God and human beings relate.
The first chapter is about how order emerges from chaos. The second is about
how we redeem our solitude. The first is about power, the second about love. Tech-
nology is the ability to control, but true relationship is not. (I love the remark made
by one young mother, who said, “Now that I’ve become a parent, I can relate to
God. Now I know what it’s like to create something you can’t control!”) Ethics in the
Bible is born in the recognition that the human other has a dignity and independ-
ence that must be respected. That is why ethical relationships are based not on dom-
inance or exploitation, but on the coming together of persons in a bond of trust.
Without the ability to create, love is lame. But without the ability to relate, tech-
nology is blind.
That is why over and above the question, “How?” religion poses the question,
“Why?” Science tells us what is. Technology tells us what could be. But the great
faiths tell us what should be. In Genesis 1, God invites us to explore, discover, invent,
create. Genesis 2, though, is the corollary. It is about where, ultimately, we seek to be.
It suggests that the world we make should honour the world God made. It tells us
that we were placed on Earth “to serve it and protect it.” It asks us to honour other
persons as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Without a sense of destination,
we risk the fate of the fabled Russian politician who said, “Comrades, yesterday we
stood on the edge of the abyss, but today we have taken a giant step forward!”
By any standards, we live in an age of astonishing technological advance. The
twentieth century alone saw the invention of television, the computer, the Internet,
the laser beam, the credit card, artificial intelligence, satellite communication, organ
transplantation, and microsurgery. We have sent space probes to distant planets,
photographed the birth of galaxies, fathomed the origins of the universe, and
decoded the genetic structure of life itself.
And yet, today, 1.3 billion people—22 percent of the world’s population—live
below the poverty line; 841 million are malnourished; 880 million are without access
to medical care; 1 billion lack adequate shelter; 1.3 billion have no access to safe
drinking water; 2.6 billion go without sanitation. Among the children of the world,
113 million—two-thirds of them girls—go without schooling; 150 million are mal-
nourished; 30,000 die each day from preventable diseases.
Even in the advanced economies of the West, there has been an unprecedented
rise in depressive illness, suicide and suicide attempts, drug and alcohol abuse, vio-
lence and crime. Since the 1960s, in virtually all the liberal democracies of the West,
divorce rates have risen six times, the number of children born outside of marriage
five times, and the number of children living with a lone parent three times. Chil-
dren have become the victims of modernity. In the United States, every three hours
gun violence takes a child’s life. Every nine minutes a child is arrested for a drug or
alcohol offence. Every minute an American teenager has a baby. Every twenty-six
seconds a child runs away from home.
Technology transforms the scope of our power, but the great human questions
remain. We can communicate instantaneously across the globe—but can we com-
municate with our marriage partners, our children, our neighbours? We can travel
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 580

580 c jonathan sacks

great distances with astonishing speed, but can we traverse the greatest distance of
all, between one centre of consciousness and another, my “I” and your “Thou”? In
Arecibo, Puerto Rico, a vast reflector telescope scans the heavens for sounds of intel-
ligent life in outer space, yet we can be deaf to the cry of children in our midst.
Looking up, we see a heaven of more than a billion galaxies, each with more than a
billion stars. Looking down, we see the human body with its hundred trillion cells,
each of which contains a double copy of the human genome with its 3.1 billion let-
ters of genetic code. Yet looking forward, there is one thing we do not and will never
know: what tomorrow may bring. The future remains the undiscovered country.
How then do we face it without fear? By knowing that we are not alone. “I will fear
no evil, for you are with me.”
The two creation accounts of Genesis complement each other, and we must be
mindful of both. From the dawn of civilization, humankind has reflected on its
place in the universe. Compared with all there is, we are each infinitesimally small.
We are born, we live, we act, we die. At any given moment our deeds are at best a
hand waving in the crowd, a ripple in the ocean, dust on the surface of eternity. The
world preceded us by billions of years, and it will survive equally long after we die.
How is our life related to the totality of things? To this, there have always been two
ways of conceptualizing an answer.
One sees the universe in terms of vast impersonal forces. For the ancients, they
were earthquakes, floods, famines, droughts. Today, we would probably identify
them as the environment, the global economy, the genetic stream, and technologi-
cal change. What they have in common is that they are indifferent to us, just as a
tidal wave is indifferent to what it sweeps away. Global warming does not choose its
victims. Economic recession does not stop to ask who suffers. Genetic mutation
happens without anyone deciding to whom.
Seen in this perspective, the forces that govern the world are essentially blind. We
may stand in their path, or we may step out of the way. But they are unmoved by our
existence. They do not relate to us as persons. In such a world, hubris (the idea that
we can change things) is punished by nemesis. Human hope is a prelude to tragedy.
The best we can aim for is to seize what pleasure comes our way and make our-
selves stoically indifferent to our fate. This is a coherent vision, but a bleak one.
In Genesis 2, a different vision was born, one that saw in the cosmos the face of the
personal: God who brought the universe into being as parents conceive a child, not
blindly but in love. We are not insignificant, nor are we alone. We are here because
someone willed us into being, who wanted us to be, who knows our innermost
thoughts, who values us in our uniqueness, whose breath we breathe, and in whose
arms we rest—someone in and through whom we are connected to all that is.
That discovery was utterly new and explosive in its implications. It meant that
although decoding the natural universe may involve identifying forces or powers,
the key to the human universe is the personal—and the personal is anything but
blind. All else in the Bible flows from the attempt to make this fact the foundation
of a new social order. The question then becomes not, How can we manipulate
Nature? but What relationships honour the dignity of the person—of all persons in
their dependence and independence? We redeem the world to the degree that we
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 581

jonathan sacks c 581

personalize it, taming the great forces so that they serve rather than dominate
humanity. That was and remains a marvellous vision. It changed and still challenges
the world.
Through God, our ancestors found themselves. Hearing God reaching out, they
began to understand the significance of human beings reaching out to one another.
Through the words of revelation, they learned that God is not just about power,
but also about relationship; that God is found not only in Nature, but also in soci-
ety, in the structures we make to honour his presence by honouring his image in
other human beings.
We must never lose the ethical dimension of technology, the Genesis 2 that weaves
its counterpoint to Genesis 1. To the question, Where do we want to go? the answer
must surely be: to enhance human dignity; to respect the image of God in the neigh-
bour and the stranger; to make our world a less random, cruel, capricious place;
feeding the hungry, tending the sick, healing the brokenhearted, and binding up
their wounds.
Every technological advance brings in its wake two opposing dangers. One is por-
trayed in the Bible in the story of Babel—the hubris that says: we have godlike pow-
ers, therefore let us take the place of God. The other is the paralyzing fear that says:
in the name of God, let us not use these godlike powers at all. Both, I believe, are
wrong. Every technology carries with it the possibility of diminishing or enhancing
the human situation. What we need are what I call the three Rs: reverence in the
face of creation, restraint that comes from knowing that not everything we can do
we should do, and responsibility to those many lives that will be affected tomorrow
by what we do today.

c
Jonathan Sacks has been Chief Rabbi of Britain and the Commonwealth since
September 1, 1991. When appointed, he was Principal of Jews’ College, London, the
world’s oldest rabbinical seminary. He has been rabbi of two major London syna-
gogues. Educated at Cambridge, where he obtained first-class honors in Philosophy,
he pursued postgraduate studies at Oxford and King’s College, London. In 1990, he
delivered the BBC Reith Lectures on The Persistence of Faith. In 2001, the Chief
Rabbi was awarded a Lambeth Doctorate in Divinity by the Archbishop of Canter-
bury. Rabbi Sacks has been Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Essex, Sherman Lecturer at Manchester University, Riddell Lecturer at Newcastle
University, and Cook Lecturer at the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, and St.
Andrews. He holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Cambridge, Glas-
gow, Middlesex, Haifa, Yeshiva University, New York, the University of Liverpool,
and St. Andrews University, and he is an honorary fellow of Gonville and Caius
College, Cambridge, and King’s College, London. He holds a number of visiting
professorships. The Chief Rabbi is a frequent contributor to the national media.
He is the author of fourteen books, many of which have been serialized by The
Times.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 582

Pentecostal/
Charismatic Worship 98
A Window for Research

Margaret Poloma

In the coming age we must all become mystics—or be nothing at all.

—Karl Rahner

A lthough modern science has enabled us to abandon the flat-world view of

reality and to replace it with the four-dimensional (4-D) perspective of space-
time, scientists increasingly are questioning whether the empirical world as we know
it is all there is. Religious believers of all ages and persuasions have professed and
continue to profess a reality that somehow transcends the four dimensions. In this
brief piece, I would like to explore how Pentecostal/Charismatic (P/C) worship can
provide a window for research into another dimension of reality commonly referred
to in religious writings as “mysticism.”

Who Are the Pentecostal/Charismatics?

Pentecostals and their neo-Pentecostal cousins, commonly referred to as “Charis-
matics,” are biblically orthodox Christians who believe that the “gifts of the Holy
Spirit” as found in the Acts of the Apostles operate today just as they did in the first-
century church. The roots of classical Pentecostalism are found in early-twentieth-
century revivals, while many Charismatics trace their origins to the Charismatic
Renewal in mainline churches and the countercultural Jesus People Movement in
the 1960s and 1970s. The latter gave birth to the so-called Third Wave and the revivals
of the 1990s, whose followers may eschew both the Pentecostal and the Charismatic
label. Although differing in social context and articulation of specific beliefs, the
Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals (Charismatics) share a common worldview and
are generally regarded as a distinct stream of Christianity. “Pentecostalism” has been
used generically to refer to the entire movement, but I prefer the compounded term
to remind readers that this movement includes both the historic Pentecostalism of
the early twentieth century and various forms of neo-Pentecostalism birthed in the
second half of the century.
Although assuming diverse structural forms, P/C Christianity nevertheless rep-
resents a single cohesive movement reflecting an alternative worldview. The move-
ment that historians date to the beginning years of the twentieth century now
accounts for an estimated half-billion believers worldwide and is growing. Its fuzzy
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 583

margaret poloma c 583

denominational boundaries, reticulate and weblike organizational matrices, and

syncretistic tendencies (particularly in developing countries) have been catalytic in
blurring traditional denominational, ethnic, and geographical divisions. What binds
adherents together is a core religious worldview or spirituality that makes them
active members of an unseen Kingdom (of God) empowering them to speak in
tongues, heal the sick, work miracles, prophesy, and drive out demons. The P/C
worldview is a curious blend of premodern miracles, modern technology, and a
postmodern mysticism in which the natural merges with the supernatural. Signs
and wonders analogous to those described in the premodern biblical accounts are
expected as normal occurrences in the lives of believers. Rejecting a Cartesian dual-
ism that separates body from spirit, P/C believers regard “supernatural” phenom-
ena as “natural” experiences.
The P/C worldview is experientially centered, with its followers in a dynamic and
personal relationship with a deity who is both immanent and transcendent. God is
seen as active in all events. It is a worldview that tends to be “transrational,” pro-
fessing that knowledge is not limited to the realms of reason and sensory experience.
Consistent with this transrational characteristic, P/C Christians also tend to be anti-
creedal, believing that “knowing” comes from a personal and intimate relationship
with God rather than through systematic theology, human reason, or even the five
senses. Theirs is a God who is in a loving relationship with each believer, a Divinity
who can defy the seeming “laws” of nature. For the most part, however, the P/C
worldview incorporates science and technology, believing that God commonly uses
modern developments for the betterment of humankind. In summary, a P/C par-
adigm for truth develops out of an intimate and experiential knowledge of God
that alters the believer’s approach to experiencing and interpreting reality. Whatever
else they may be, P/C Christians tend to be mystics.

P/C Believers as “Main Street” Mystics

I believe that mysticism is a common and possibly universal human experience
found in all cultures. Recent research suggests that in its “core” form, it is “natural”
to the human species. Psychologist Ralph W. Hood and his collaborators, in accord
with other similar studies of cross-cultural mysticism, recently confirmed reports
of introversive mysticism (sometimes called a “pure consciousness experience”) in
both the United States and Iran. Although the unity experience may be universal,
the interpretations given to it are contextual and reflect the sociocultural milieu in
which they are experienced. Unlike introversive mysticism, interpretations (which
have been termed “extroversive mysticism”) appear to lack a common core that can
be readily found across religious traditions. Not surprisingly, many P/C believers
recognize that paranormal experiences are not unique to Christianity, but would
eschew any universalistic interpretations. While regarding their experiences as being
of divine origin, they commonly teach that paranormal experiences outside their
fold are the work of demons.
It is best here not to get sidetracked with the different interpretative schema, as
so often happens with a cognitively driven social science of religion. My research on
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 584

584 c margaret poloma

revival experiences of P/C Christians suggests that “pure consciousness experience”

(described as entering into God’s presence—encounters that leave believers with
feelings of love, peace, and joy) is commonplace. The vast majority (nine out of
ten) of those involved in the recent revivals reported, for example, that they are
more in love with Jesus than they have ever been and that they now know the
Father’s love in a dramatically new way. Although visions, dramatic physical man-
ifestations, healing in various forms, and prophetic insights are the first things to
capture the attention of the uninitiated, at the heart of the revival testimonies are
claims of a deeper awareness of the presence and love of God.
In sum, as discussed in detail in my book Main Street Mystics,1 whatever else they
are, P/C Christians are modern mystics who walk Main Street. While some of their
experiences are as old as shamanism, their interpretations are rooted in Judeo-
Christian biblical writings. Their encounter with mysticism is more than a private
experience. The medium through which divine empowerment is given and received
tends to be communal, particularly in its worship rituals in revitalized P/C churches,
in worldwide conferences, and as practiced on Main Street. For many P/C adherents,
these mystical experiences occur in a communal setting with spiritual empower-
ment that has corporate consequences.

P/C Ritual as a Holistic Experience

P/C worship is not designed to talk about God, but to provide opportunities for
communion with the divine. Like the expressive religions that preceded it (includ-
ing that of the Shakers and the Quakers), Pentecostalism encourages worship that
engages the individual’s spirit, mind, and body within an interpersonal setting. Its
worship is holistic in at least two important ways: (1) it involves an entire range of
human faculties, including the precognitive and somatic, and (2) its practice is not
limited to so-called sacred spaces.
On a personal level, P/C ritual encompasses all three components—spirit, mind,
and body—or what Paul MacLean has called the “triune brain,” a concept used by
the late anthropologist Victor Turner in an attempt to reconcile culturology and
neurology. The “instinctual” or “reptilian” brain can find expression in bodily man-
ifestations, especially through glossolalia (speaking in tongues), but also in jerking,
shaking, falling, and other seemingly involuntary somatic actions. The “emotional”
or “old mammalian” brain finds its expression in a wide range of emotions during
P/C rituals where both tears and laughter, sometimes occurring simultaneously, are
welcome. The “neo-mammalian” brain with its left and right sectors can be found
in both intuitive/prophetic and cognitive/rational expressions. Because their wor-
ship services are ideally more than left-brained exercises, early Pentecostals were
disparagingly called “holy rollers,” and contemporary ones are often critiqued as
“mindless.” A more neutral and informed description of P/C ritual and its practi-
tioners recognizes the opportunity it provides for catharsis that is rare in contem-
porary society.
P/C worship, particularly in its revivalist form, seeks to retain a permeable struc-
ture where diverse expressions of worship are encouraged. Victor Turner succinctly
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 585

margaret poloma c 585

described religious ritual as being “antistructural, creative, often carnivalesque and

playful,” a description that fits P/C worship well. Especially during waves of revival
that have occurred with regularity throughout P/C history, its worship provides an
example of what Turner referred to as “liminality,” a phase of culture that is char-
acterized by the subjunctive rather than indicative moods. It is often, to use Turner’s
description, “a storehouse of possibilities, not a random assemblage but a striving
after new forms and structures. . . .” Through the adept use of music, communal
prayer, preaching, or teaching, the heavens are opened and God enters to breathe life
into the gathering. A palpable presence is often experienced, reflecting what Turner
has called “communitas” or what Emile Durkheim referred to as “collective effer-
vescence.” Recent revivals have produced services that are partylike, with somatic
manifestations of spiritual drunkenness and holy laughter, but they have also
spawned somber times with sounds of loud weeping and wailing and cries for divine
mercy. For many, these cathartic rituals are both healing and empowering, experi-
ences that have led some to move beyond the sacred space of churches to take to the
streets what they have received.
Although P/C Christians have houses of worship, many of their number wor-
ship in seemingly secular settings. From the storefront churches and abandoned
theaters that characterized much of early Pentecostalism (and still can be found
among residents of inner cities), modern and more affluent suburban descendants
have set up worship facilities in rented public facilities, especially school auditori-
ums and civic centers, as well as sports arenas. Although most might aspire to own
a typical suburban church and eventually do, the makeshift churches are reflective
of the P/C worldview. The natural and the supernatural, the secular and the sacred,
the modern and the premodern, and religion and science are more permeable cat-
egories for P/C Christians than they are for most modernists. Increasingly they are
taking their services to the streets, where young followers can be found singing and
praying on the beaches of California or leading worship for the homeless on the
streets of downtown Atlanta. Some complement their churches with “healing cen-
ters” in rented facilities that are beginning to dot the American landscape or round-
the-clock (24/7) “houses of prayer” that are springing up in major cities. Still others
take their empowered worldview to their professions where they might pray for
healing or incorporate their intuitive abilities into secular counseling techniques.
Entrepreneurial followers have set up booths at Renaissance or New Age fairs to
pray for healing or to provide dream analysis (prophecy). These ritual exhibitions
are not intended for show or for profit, but rather for bringing others into the “King-
dom of God” as followers have experienced it. Through their empowered prayer,
many report release from addictions, the lifting of depression, reconciliation in rela-
tionships, physical healing, and other modern-day miracles.

P/C Worship and Future Research

As an insider and sociological investigator of the P/C movement for a quarter of a
century, I have seen a noticeable improvement in the quality and quantity of schol-
arly literature on the topic. Few scholars beyond those interested in religious studies,
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 586

586 c margaret poloma

however, have seen the potential significance of moving beyond sociohistorical

description toward better explanations of P/C phenomena. Few recognize the win-
dow that interdisciplinary study of Pentecostal experience can provide for seeing
beyond a modernist 4-D reality.
The P/C movement provides a metaphysical and mystical way of approaching the
world for an estimated half-billion people around the globe. Although its growth is
much slower and its worldview more domesticated by the forces of modernism in
the Western world than in Asia, Africa, and South America, revivals and renewals
have continued to revitalize American Pentecostalism throughout its hundred-year
history. Waves of renewal ebb and flow, with each wave seeming to leave a clearer
articulation of a democratized approach to receiving empowering spiritual gifts.
Scientific research into the P/C “gifts of the Spirit” seems to have begun and
ended with the study of glossolalia. Although sometimes made the litmus test for
identifying a “true” P/C Christian, more commonly Pentecostal ideology recognizes
its limitations. Given its private rather than corporate nature, tongues may be but
an entryway to other paranormal gifts that are experienced interpersonally.
Prophecy, in its many forms, and divine healing are commonly held in higher accord
because of their relevance for the community, but to date scholars have demon-
strated little interest in them. The empowerment that the P/C movement claims to
experience through its worship rituals suggests a window for scientists to explore
another dimension of reality commonly experienced around the globe in Christian
and possibly non-Christian contexts.
To study P/C worship rituals scientifically requires teamwork that crosses disci-
plines. Sociology, history, anthropology, linguistics, and to some extent psychology
have already made pioneering efforts to discover the nature of P/C beliefs and prac-
tices. Their descriptive findings need to be explored further through the lenses
offered by other scientific disciplines. Findings from studies of corporate mystical
experience as found in P/C ritual might cast light on a fourth dimension of reality
beyond space and time as we know it. These findings have the potential to teach
modernists more about what it means to be fully human.

c
Margaret Poloma, Ph.D., is professor emerita at the University of Akron where
she was professor of sociology until her retirement in 1995. During this time, she also
accepted visiting professorships at various seminaries and universities. Early retire-
ment has permitted Professor Poloma to focus her research and teaching on her
longstanding interest in the integration of spirituality and social science. For much
of her career as a sociologist, Professor Poloma has allowed her experiential religious
faith and her work as a sociologist to peacefully coexist. Although at times she felt
very alone, many others are now engaged in the dialectic, trying to use scientific
tools to study the things of the spirit. She feels it is a privilege to stand on the shoul-
ders of Pitirim Sorokin, whose creative sociology on love, which had been eclipsed
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 587

margaret poloma c 587

by the rise of positivism, is now receiving new recognition. Professor Poloma has
written five books, including Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviv-
ing Pentecostalism (AltaMira Press, 2003), and numerous book chapters and articles.

Note
1 Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism (AltaMira Press,
2003).
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 588

Catholicism and Science 99

Renewing the Conversation
James L. Heft

I t is time for the Catholic Church to resume its conversation with science, a
conversation that has never been completely broken off. Over the past fifty years,
the Catholic Church has grown into a different understanding of itself and its rela-
tionship to science. The Church has taken history more seriously, has understood
the Bible better in its historical and cultural contexts, has welcomed dialog with
those who think differently, and has come to a clearer understanding of its respon-
sibility for the human rights of the whole human family, especially the poor. It now
does not hesitate to recognize the great achievements of modern science, even if it
continues to raise questions about their moral applications. It accepts science’s inde-
pendence. The time is ripe for a fruitful conversation.
There are historical and theological precedents for this new conversation. From
the time of its origins, and especially in the fourth century, Christianity developed
a respectful relationship of intellectual engagement with the Greek and Roman cul-
tures. The Church also affirmed, it might be said, three “revelations”: the revelation
of God through the creation of the world at the beginning of time, the revelation
of God personally in Jesus Christ, and the revelation of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost,
which marked the birth of the Church itself. In fact, during the Middle Ages, the
Church actually created the conditions for modern science. It then laid the foun-
dations of modern science with its conviction that the world—God’s first revela-
tion—is open to rational investigation and that it has within it an order that can be
understood.
But as happens in many long-term human relationships, the Church’s relation-
ship with science underwent serious strains. That relationship included a spirited
and sometimes tense give-and-take between faith and reason, between technolog-
ical power and the common good, between the desire to know and the desire to
dominate. At the beginning of the modern era, science declared its independence
and assumed it could go it better alone. Some scientists even thought they could
explain everything. The Church opposed these scientists, judging that they were
Promethean in their claims. Even though scientists have unleashed some energies
that have caused dreadful human catastrophes, they have also made some extraor-
dinary discoveries, sometimes at first opposed by the Church, that have extended
and improved the human condition immensely.
But we live in a time when the conversation between the Church and science can
begin anew. The Vatican has established the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, through
which some of the leading scientists of the world, many of whom are not Catholics,
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 589

james l. heft c 589

gather to discuss their research and its ramifications for the human family. Perhaps
the most striking example of the new possibilities for conversation is a little-known
letter, dated September 1987, written by Pope John Paul II to Fr. George V. Coyne,
S.J., director of the Vatican Observatory. The letter was occasioned by an interna-
tional conference held to commemorate the three hundredth anniversary of New-
ton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. It addresses the relationship of
natural science, philosophy, and theology. In it, the pope draws attention to the
fragmented state of the world, the growing division between rich and poor nations,
and “the antagonism between races and religions that splits countries into warring
camps.” At the same time, he notes the openness of many in the scientific commu-
nity to dialog and the search for coherence and collaboration. He says that the time
is ripe for a renewed conversation between the Church and modern science, noting
that in recent years there has been “a definite, though still fragile and provisional,
movement towards a new and more nuanced interchange.” The pope does not hes-
itate to ask some very bold questions about what the Church might learn from
modern science:
If the cosmologies of the ancient Near Eastern world could be purified and
assimilated into the first chapters of Genesis, might contemporary cos-
mology have something to offer to our reflections upon creation? Does an
evolutionary perspective bring any light to bear upon theological anthro-
pology, the meaning of the human person as the imago Dei, the problem of
Christology—and even upon the development of doctrine itself? What, if
any, are the eschatological implications of contemporary cosmology, espe-
cially in light of the vast future of our universe? Can theological method
fruitfully appropriate insights from scientific methodology and the philos-
ophy of science?
The pope’s questions exemplify a humility and profound openness to the dis-
coveries of modern science. He sees mutual benefit in the conversation and states
that “science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify
science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider
world, a world in which both can flourish.” One is reminded of Albert Einstein’s
statement of a half-century earlier: “Religion without science is blind, science with-
out religion is lame.” Or, in the light of the pope’s statement, religion without the
benefit of science runs the risk of misinterpreting some of its own sacred texts (e.g.,
taking literally the two stories of creation in the book of Genesis or thinking that
Scripture teaches that the Earth is the center of the universe). Science without the
benefit of religion runs the risk of trying to explain everything and, in the process,
losing the bigger picture (as it does in the case of various forms of reductionism; for
example, of claiming that the mind is only the brain or that consciousness can be
fully explained by the ways in which neurons interact).
So much for the pope’s openness (which echoes that of many Catholic thinkers)
to a conversation with modern science. What about modern scientists? Are they
ready to reciprocate and enter that conversation with the Church? A number of
recent developments would seem to suggest a positive answer. Developments in
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 590

590 c james l. heft

modern physics suggest that our ever-expanding universe may well have had a
beginning. Physics also tells us that, however precise our instruments, we cannot get
a fully objective picture of what we are looking at. Modern biology and environ-
mental studies show us that for us to live at all we require special and hospitable
ecological systems. In the striking words of theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson
(who contributed an essay in this volume), “I do not feel like an alien in the uni-
verse. The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the
more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we
were coming.”1
Some years ago, the great chemist-turned-philosopher of science Michael Polanyi
showed how in order to draw experimental conclusions, all scientists must first
affirm a certain worldview, one that they can not account for scientifically. The fact
that most scientists do this, unconscious of that fact that they are doing so, makes
it no less true that they do it. Several decades earlier in another field, the great math-
ematician Kurt Goedel showed that it is impossible to demonstrate that any mathe-
matical system is both complete and consistent. In other words, every mathematical
system depends on true statements that it cannot demonstrate. These and other
discoveries provide grounds for a degree of humility among scientists. These dis-
coveries make clearer the limitations of their scientific disciplines. If scientists have
discovered many of the limitations of their disciplines, they should feel them even
more when they turn to the great human questions that theologians and philoso-
phers address. As the eminent psychologist William James wrote a century ago,“The
science of religions would forever have to confess, as every science confesses, that the
subtlety of nature flies beyond it, and that its formulas are but approximations.”
For that matter, not just the scientists who study religion but also theologians and
philosophers should say essentially the same thing about their own capabilities to
articulate who God is and what the world is for.
We may conclude, then, from the pope’s letter and from recent scientific discov-
eries that the time is ripe for a renewed conversation between Catholicism and sci-
ence. Conversations take time; they also benefit from a supportive environment. A
new institute dedicated to facilitating such conversations was recently established at
the University of Southern California: the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies
(IACS, http://www.ifacs.com/main.asp). Several factors drove the foundation of
this Institute. The first is the realization of the profound impact institutes for
advanced studies have had on the intellectual developments of the past decades.
The institutes at Princeton, North Carolina, Washington DC, Palo Alto, and Berke-
ley have provided support for multiple breakthroughs in scholarship in the human-
ities, the physical sciences, and the social sciences. None of these institutes, however,
supports much research in religion—still less specifically on Catholicism. Given the
recent decline of the great religious orders in the West that have enriched Catholic
intellectual traditions over the centuries, IACS—independent and yet fully com-
mitted to exploring and developing the intellectual resources of Catholicism—meets
an especially urgent need of the Church and the world today.
Catholic intellectual traditions reach far back into history and have assumed
many forms and expressions. Like all great traditions, Catholicism represents, in
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 591

james l. heft c 591

the words of philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre, a historically extended and socially

(and artistically) embodied conversation. Not only theologians and philosophers,
but also scientists, historians, poets, artists, and musicians give it breadth and depth,
texture and shape. Their faith informed their scholarly and cultural traditions,
which in turn enriched their faith. The purpose of this Institute is to develop and
deepen Catholic intellectual and cultural traditions—and to do so through engag-
ing many of the major issues that face the world today. The goal of IACS is to have
eight to ten scholars in place at any given time. When fully operational, it will wel-
come twenty to twenty-five fellows a year, at least five from other parts of the world
than the United States, from all fields and from different faiths or from no religious
faith.
Today, scholars most often work in modern universities. These universities are
built on the specialization of knowledge. However, specialization “fragments”
knowledge because of the unavoidable consequence of “small domain” expertise. In
a world of increasing specialization, the good news is that major advances also have
come through interdisciplinary research. IACS will encourage this tendency within
its specific domain, seeking to enrich and expand the Catholic tradition of schol-
arship and theological research. Our aim is to bring together specialists and gener-
alists in and across many fields. Our mission will foster cross-disciplinary research
and conversation. This approach, we hope, will precisely arrive at a more holistic
vision of reality, one that will include a historical perspective as well as philosoph-
ical and theological reflections. We affirm a strategic perspective that a holistic vision
of reality is desperately needed in our “theologically unchallenged culture.”
One of the clearly most important conversations the Institute will facilitate is the
dialog between Catholicism and science. The influence of modern science and its
application through technology profoundly affects most aspects of modern life.
The revolution in information technologies, the genome project, and recent dis-
coveries about the human brain by neuroscientists deeply affect the way we think
of ourselves and the way we act. Few theologians and philosophers, however, are
deeply engaged within the cultures of modern science. A mirror-image problem is
that few scientists know enough philosophy and theology to locate their discover-
ies in a rich and nuanced way within a larger context of meaning. Having interdis-
ciplinary conversations does not necessarily mean becoming incompetent in two
disciplines. Rather, it means that theologians and scientists find the time to learn
from one another what they need to know to better appreciate the significance of
what they do and how it can contribute to the enhancement of life on this planet.
What scholars most want is time and a stimulating environment. At IACS, schol-
ars will be fully supported for periods of ten months. They will have the benefit
and leisure of scholarly support to pursue their research in depth, engage at length
in conversations across disciplines, and, in that stimulating environment, create a
network of colleagues from many disciplines and different religions interested in
learning from one another. If the pope can ask with sincerity whether evolutionary
perspectives might shed any new light on how Christians think theologically of
Jesus Christ, surely scientists can ask whether theological insights might shed new
light on the challenges of understanding how progress in the science of genetics
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 592

592 c james l. heft

might be engaged in a responsible manner with new concepts affecting our view of
the nature and dignity of the human person. Happily, the Catholic Church is open
to such a dialog, and IACS is prepared to provide a place and a community of schol-
ars in which new productive conversations between intellectual and scientific lead-
ers can flourish.

c
James L. Heft, S.M., Ph.D., is University Professor of Faith and Culture and Chan-
cellor at the University of Dayton. He received his doctorate from the University of
Toronto in Historical Theology in 1977. Fr. Heft served as Chair of the Religious
Studies Department at the University of Dayton from 1983 to 1989 and as Provost
from 1989 to 1996, at which time he was appointed to his current position. He also
devotes much of his time to the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the Uni-
versity of Southern California, of which he is the President and Founding Director.
Fr. Heft is the author of John XXII (1316–1334) and Papal Teaching Authority
(Mellen Press, 1986) and has edited Faith and the Intellectual Life (Notre Dame Press,
1996), A Catholic Modernity? An Essay by Charles Taylor (Oxford University Press,
1999), and Beyond Violence: Religious Sources for Social Transformation (Fordham
University Press, 2004). Currently, he is working on a book on Catholic higher edu-
cation. Fr. Heft’s article entitled “Mary of Nazareth, Feminism and the Tradition,”
co-authored with Una Cadegan, won the 1990 Catholic Press Association award for
best scholarly article. He has authored more than 150 articles and book chapters
and serves on the editorial board of two journals, as well as served on numerous
boards and, most recently, chaired the board of directors of the Association of
Catholic Colleges and Universities.

Note
1 Freeman J. Dyson, Disturbing the Universe (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), 250.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 593

Quest for the

Flame of the Spirit 100
The Pilgrim Soul Follows the “Kindly Light”
Russi M. Lala

The breath of God allows each human mind to unfold according

to its genius . . . the whole man is quickened, his senses are new senses,
his emotions new emotions, his reason, his affections,
his imagination, are all new born.
—R. W. Trine, “In Tune with the Infinite”1

F or eighteen years until April 2003, I was director of one of the largest foun-
dations in India: the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Mumbai (Bombay). In this essay, I
touch on the faith of a foundation. But primarily I focus on the foundation of my
faith. My hope is that my personal reflections help to illuminate the quest for “spir-
itual information” as I have known it in my work and in my life.

Spiritual Information and Philanthropic Pursuits

There are two ways to start institutions. One is to build the institution and then
look for a director to head it. This is what Sir John Templeton did by starting his
Foundation to investigate the confluence of science and spirituality and then hiring
a planetary scientist, Dr. Charles Harper, as its executive director. The other is to find
the director and then build an institution around him. This is what the Trustees of
the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust did by taking note of the very good social work that an
American missionary, Clifford Manshardt, was doing in Bombay in the 1930s and
accepting his proposal to start the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The Trust gave
India not only its first Institute of Social Sciences in 1936, but also its first Hospital
for Cancer in 1941 and its first Institute of Fundamental Physics in 1945. It pursued
its mission with compassionate outreach and intellectual rigor.
A philanthropic organization such as The Trust has to deal with the emerging
needs of a nation on a number of different fronts. Today, one need that is very clear
is for ecological preservation alongside essential social and technological develop-
ment. Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, winner of the first World Food Prize and known as
the father of India’s Green Revolution, was running a research foundation in Chen-
nai, South India. On a visit, one could see the potential of this work, and a num-
ber of Tata Trusts jointly established a practical arm for the research foundation.
The J.R.D. Tata Centre for Eco-Technology was inaugurated by the president of
India in 1998. A year later, the trustees accepted my proposal to start a Centre for
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 594

594 c russi m. lala

Research in Tropical Diseases at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science, Ban-

galore.
The Tata Trust, through its mission, has demonstrated a deep commitment to
humanity through the application of remedies in areas of basic, external need. But
the journey into the internal world requires a guiding light in addition to a helping
hand.

The Pilgrim Soul

There is a pilgrim soul in all of us. Each reaches its destination in a distinctive way.
Gathering spiritual information is one step, often followed by embarking on a spir-
itual quest. The more fortunate have a spiritual experience of their own. Only a few,
like St. Paul and Lord Buddha, attain spiritual enlightenment: St. Paul through a
flash of lightning that blinded him, Lord Buddha by meditation under a Bodh Tree
that gave him insight.
As a child and into my early teens, I had a tenuous faith in God. Then I encoun-
tered an atheist Marxist teacher. One day we argued about the existence of God. He
won his argument. I lost my faith.
By the age of sixteen, I argued against the existence of God. But in the desert of
my atheism, there were no fountains of water for the transcendent thirst in my
spirit. I then ceased to argue for atheism and instead searched for the meaning of
life. And so from atheism I moved toward agnosticism. I was open to believing in
God. However, I wanted to be convinced. I wanted proof of his existence.
In my early twenties, I faced a personal crisis. At that time, I would go to a fire
temple (I am a born Zoroastrian) to be quiet and watch the flames. It soothed my
spirit, but I had to wait for an answer. The quest had begun.
At age twenty-six, I saw a play produced by “Moral Rearmament” (now “Initia-
tives of Change”) in my hometown, Bombay. At a meeting the next day, I learned
about setting out a daily quiet time to listen to one’s inner voice and to focus on
endeavoring to live by absolute moral standards of honesty, purity, unselfishness,
and love. I felt challenged and uncomfortable. Months later, I put right a relation-
ship by being absolutely honest. A fortnight after that, I was walking along at a hill
station in Western India, Khandala. In the 1950s, this was a sleepy place, and it had
another small hill perched on it. This hill was practically deserted and barren at the
time. There was only one hotel at the far end. Walking on the hill at noon, I stood
on a small bridge that spanned a gap containing huge black pipes conveying water
to a hydroelectric project. Looking down at the pipes from the bridge, I told myself:
“If there were a hundred snakes there and I was thrown in their midst and still sur-
vived, I would believe there was a God.”
No snakes appeared. No bells rang. I walked home. A few days later, at about 11
a.m. on a deserted site not far from the bridge, I sat on the ground absorbed in a
book. I heard a rustling in the distance. I said to myself, I am damned if I am going
to be disturbed. Then a voice within told me powerfully, Look. I did. A snake was
coming straight at me from less than twenty feet away. There was a depression in
front of me, and I jumped back once, twice, thrice. The long snake came exactly to
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 595

russi m. lala c 595

the spot where I had been sitting and slithered down the depression. As I watched
the end of his tail, the thought flashed through my mind: You wanted proof with a
hundred snakes. God has given you enough with one.
Had I not been forewarned and instead been bitten, I would have had to run for
almost a mile for help. This is not necessarily proof of the existence of God. But for
me it was enough. Since that time, I have never doubted his existence or his inter-
est in my life. W. Stanley Jones put it aptly: “When you find a faith, all your sums add
up.” For me, they did. My life assumed a new meaning. You first search for a faith
that you can hold to and then find that faith upholds you.
Faith flourishes best when you accept that God has a plan and you have a part in
it. Quiet times for me became the means to find that plan day by day. In my morn-
ing reflections, I sought not only correction but day-to-day direction through the
inner voice. I began with a brief prayer or an inspirational reading from the scrip-
tures or elsewhere. As I continued this discipline, life took on a purpose and a shape.
On the hill, he commanded me; but now he whispers and leads me on despite my
frailties. It is important to write down these fast-fleeting reflections. The Chinese
have a proverb: “The strongest of memories is weaker than the faintest of ink.”

The “Kindly Light”

The desire for spiritual information is itself an indication of the soul’s search. But
spiritual information alone is not adequate to lead to a faith unless one wants that
faith. Mark Twain said: “It is not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that worry
me. It is the parts I do!” And St. Augustine, although he had potential access to spir-
itual information through his pious mother, who prayed for her philandering son
to no avail for years, himself prayed: “Please, Lord, make me pure; but not yet.”
Each person has his or her own time when they are ripe for faith. In his “Con-
fessions,” St. Augustine penned the following moving words:
Too late I loved thee, O Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! Thou wast
within and I went abroad searching for thee. Thou wast with me, but I was
not with Thee.
He concluded:
Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.
Faith is nourished frequently by streams of silence. “It is in the sphere of the heart
that God speaks,” says Mother Teresa. “Try speaking directly to God,” she adds. “Just
speak. Tell Him everything, talk to Him. He is a father. He is father to all, whatever
religion we are. We are all created by God, we are all His children . . . but it is not
what we say but what He says to us that matters. . . . God is the friend of silence—
we need to listen to God.”
Over the years, one develops a relationship as expressed in this hymn:
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 596

596 c russi m. lala

And the joy we share as we tarry there,

None other has ever known. (Hymn and music by C. Austin Miles, 1912)

God’s love became more real and helped me at difficult moments in my life—
never more so than when I was told in 1989 that I had cancer. I relate how my expe-
rience of faith helped me in Celebration of the Cells.2 I had seven years of remission.
Now it has recurred. I am writing this while undergoing radiation; earlier, I had
chemotherapy.
Before the first radiation treatment, I read the words: “I uphold you”—not “I
will uphold you,” but a confident “I uphold you.” The first session with a new mask
was uncomfortable, and once under the linear accelerator there was little I could do.
The words, “I uphold you,” sustained me. Even earlier in an MRI tunnel I felt claus-
trophobic and restless. I recited Psalm 103 as far as I could. My body relaxed. Among
the lines in the Psalm are “and forget not all His benefits.” This is good to remem-
ber when life is rough.
I try to align my life to the moral laws programmed within me. It leads me toward
being an integrated person. The flame of the spirit is the “kindly light.”
John Henry Newman wrote that beautiful hymn “Lead, Kindly Light” not at a
time of triumph, but at a time of deep anguish, when he was torn between his alle-
giance to the Church of England and his attraction to Rome. He had just recovered
after convalescing for a month, victim of an epidemic in Italy. For nearly a week, his
ship had been stranded in the Straits of Bonifacio, becalmed and drifting. The pas-
sengers were weary of the delay. He read in the Psalms the lines: “Teach me thy way,
O Lord, and lead me in a plain path.” He prayed to God, for he could not see the path
he should traverse. With this experience was born the hymn that was Mahatma
Gandhi’s favorite:
Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th’ encircling gloom;
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead, Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.

Conclusion
The task of philanthropy is to support the quest for human betterment and knowl-
edge. Through my work, I learned that supporting science, technology, medicine,
and other human endeavors requires boldly reaching out to help humanity leap
forward. But it is within the human heart that the quest for spiritual enlightenment
takes place and where spiritual information takes root and flourishes with quiet
courage.
There is always the next step for each pilgrim Soul. When we become enlightened
as individuals, the path we follow is illuminated and the work we hope to do is
accomplished.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 597

russi m. lala c 597

c
Russi M. Lala, publisher, editor, author, and director of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust
from 1985 to 2003, co-founded the Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy. He
began his journalism and publishing career in 1948 at the age of nineteen. In 1959,
Mr. Lala established and managed the first Indian book publishing house in Lon-
don. Together with Rajmohan Gandhi (the Mahatma’s grandson), Mr. Lala founded
the newsweekly Himmat in India in 1964 and was its editor for the next decade. His
first book, The Creation of Wealth—The Tata Story, appeared in 1981 to critical
acclaim and was followed by seven other books. Mr. Lala’s book Celebration of the
Cells—Letters from a Cancer Survivor (1999) has helped a number of patients.
Inspired by the New York Community Public Trust, he helped to start the Bombay
Community Public Trust. Until recently, Mr. Lala was on the Governing Board of
the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India’s premier scientific and technolog-
ical institute, and was also on the Governing Board of the first Institute of Social Sci-
ences and the first cancer hospital in India. He has been associated with Initiatives
of Change (formerly Moral Re-Armament) for more than fifty years.

Notes
1 In Tune with the Infinite by Ralph Waldo Trine, copyright 1965, The Estate of the late R.
W. Trine. Published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins.
2 Celebration of the Cells—Letters from a Cancer Survivor. Viking Penguin, India, 1999.
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 598
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 599

Contributors

Wolfgang Achtner, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany

Lori Arviso Alvord, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire,
United States
Munawar A. Anees, Knowledge Management Systems, Tucson, Arizona, United
States
Gennaro Auletta, Free University of Urbino, Italy
Hendrik P. Barendregt, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Robert J. Barro, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
John D. Barrow, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Gianfranco Basti, Pontifical Lateran University, Rome, Italy
Jeremy Begbie, University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom
Gregory A. Benford, University of California, Irvine, United States
Peter L. Berger, Boston University, Massachusetts, United States
Marco Bersanelli, University of Milan, Italy
John W. Bowker, Gresham College, London, United Kingdom
Steven J. Brams, New York University, New York, United States
Anna Case-Winters, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois,
United States
Michael A. Casey, Staff of the Catholic Archbishop, Sydney, Australia
Hyung S. Choi, Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, United States
Philip Clayton, Claremont School of Theology, California, United States
Jean Clottes, French Ministry of Culture, Paris, France
Robin A. Collins, Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania, United States
Ramanath Cowsik, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, India
William Lane Craig, Talbot School of Theology, La Mirada, California,
United States
Paul C. W. Davies, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 600

600 c contributors

Celia Deane-Drummond, University College Chester, United Kingdom

Michael J. Denton, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Freeman J. Dyson, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey,
United States
Noah J. Efron, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
George F. R. Ellis, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Robert A. Emmons, University of California, Davis, United States
C. Stephen Evans, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, United States
Kitty Ferguson, Chester, New Jersey, United States
Barbara L. Fredrickson, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan,
United States
Gregory L. Fricchione, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
United States
George H. Gallup Jr., The George H. Gallup International Institute, Princeton,
New Jersey, United States
Karl W. Giberson, Eastern Nazarene College, Quincy, Massachusetts,
United States
Owen Gingerich, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, United States
Marcelo Gleiser, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, United States
Jane Goodall, Jane Goodall Institute, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
Ursula Goodenough, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, United States
William Grassie, Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, United States
Niels Henrik Gregersen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Bruno Guiderdoni, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, France
Jonathan D. Haidt, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
Charles L. Harper Jr., John Templeton Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
United States
Anne Harrington, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
John F. Haught, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., United States
Stevens Heckscher, Natural Lands Trust, Media, Pennsylvania, United States
James L. Heft, The University of Dayton, Ohio, United States
Michael Heller, Pontifical Academy of Theology, Cracow, Poland
William B. Hurlbut, Stanford University, California, United States
Lydia Jaeger, Institut Biblique de Nogent-sur-Marne, France
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 601

contributors c 601

Max Jammer, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

Philip Jenkins, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States
Kevin Kelly, Pacifica, California, United States
Harold G. Koenig, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina,
United States
Russi M. Lala, Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy, Mumbai, India
Xavier Le Pichon, Collège de France, Aix en Provence, France
Andrei Linde, Stanford University, California, United States
Mario Livio, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland,
United States
Thierry Magnin, l’École Nationale Supérieure des Mines, St. Étienne, France
David A. Martin, London School of Economics, United Kingdom
Martin E. Marty, University of Chicago, Illinois, United States
Alister E. McGrath, Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, United Kingdom
Nancey C. Murphy, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California,
United States
David G. Myers, Hope College, Holland, Michigan, United States
Edward Nelson, Princeton University, New Jersey, United States
Jacob Neusner, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, United States
Michael Novak, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., United States
Martin A. Nowak, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
& Natalia L. Komarova, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey,
United States
Kuruvilla Pandikattu, Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune, India
Ted Peters, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, California,
United States
Clifford A. Pickover, T. J. Watson Research Center (IBM), Yorktown Heights,
New York, United States
John C. Polkinghorne, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Margaret Poloma, University of Akron, Ohio, United States
Stephen G. Post, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland,
Ohio, United States
Ravi Ravindra, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Holmes Rolston III, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado,
United States
Nicolaas A. Rupke, University of Göttingen, Germany
SI-03 06/06/15 18:15 Page 602

602 c contributors

Jeffrey Burton Russell, University of California, Santa Barbara, United States

Robert J. Russell, Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley,
California, United States
Jonathan Sacks, Office of the Chief Rabbi of Britain and the Commonwealth,
London, United Kingdom
Jeffrey P. Schloss, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, United States
Arthur J. Schwartz, John Templeton Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
United States
Jeffrey M. Schwartz, University of California, Los Angeles, United States
Michael D. Silberstein, Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, United States
F. Russell Stannard, Open University, Leighton Buzzard, United Kingdom
Jean Staune, Interdisciplinary University of Paris, France
Antoine Suarez, Center for Quantum Philosophy, Zurich, Switzerland
Alain J.-P. C. Tschudin, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Sarah Voss, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Nebraska, United States
B. Alan Wallace, Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, California,
United States
Paul K. Wason, John Templeton Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
United States
Fraser N. Watts, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Wesley J. Wildman, Boston University, Massachusetts, United States
Dallas Willard, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, United States
Jennifer J. Wiseman, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland,
United States
Robert D. Woodberry, University of Texas, Austin, United States
Everett L. Worthington Jr., Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond,
United States
Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University, New Jersey, United States
Joseph M. Zycinski, Catholic University of Lublin, Poland