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Harvard conference explores interface between science and religion
By Barbara Smith-Moran
2001-317
11/1/2001
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[Episcopal News Service]
Those who minister in a scientific and technological milieu know how difficult it is to induce scientists and engineers to talk about their religion or spiritual expression. While they belong to parishes in the same proportion as other Americans, they are often consider it taboo to speak about it with each other. Perhaps it's tantamount to admitting to a lapse in intellectual integrity. Perhaps it's too private a matter for discussion among colleagues. Whatever the reason, a project called Science and the Spiritual Quest has sought to change the cultural pattern.
The project is the brainchild of two theologians connected with the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS), part of the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley, California--the Rev. Dr. Robert John Russell and the Rev. Dr. Mark Richardson. Russell, the center's director, is also a high-energy physicist and United Church of Christ clergyman. Richardson, an Episcopal priest, was formerly the program director at CTNS and is now professor of theology at the General Theological Seminary in New York.
The October 21-23 conference on 'The Quest for Knowledge, Truth and Values in Science and Religion' at Harvard's Memorial Church was the second of four planned over a span of four years. The conferences are designed to give some of the nation's leading scientists, who have met with each other in closed sessions over a year's time, to publicly discuss their conclusions about the connections between their scientific and their spiritual practices. Between the bookend presentation by two prominent scientist-theologians, 16 participants spoke of how they feel that their own spiritual expression interfaces with their practice of science.
Guru-scientists
Oxford biochemist and eminent Anglican theologian, the Rev. Arthur Peacocke, delivered the opening keynote address. Winner of the 2001 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, he spoke of the emergence of the 'guru-scientists' who 'are calling the tunes in the general intellectual scene'--especially among other scientists, and also in the wider culture. Some of these guru-scientists deny the legitimacy of theology as an intellectual pursuit in a contemporary university.
Peacocke admits the need for change in the way theology is done today. He sees the need for an 'open, revisable, exploratory theology in all religions.' Such a global theology would not be wholly dependent on authoritative scriptural sources read uncritically. The findings of science, he said, are a global resource that offer new images, metaphors and symbols for exploring and speaking of the 'creative Ultimate Reality' that is God.
The views represented by the speakers were wide-ranging. Physicist Paul Davies, of Imperial College London and the University of Queensland, spoke of a 'cosmic religious feeling,' inspired by his study of a universe whose laws permit it to become self-creating, self-organizing, and self-aware. He was critical of religions that are based on stories that tell of a God active in history.
Appearing opposite him in the same session, Nobel laureate physicist William Phillips spoke of the joy it brings him to know about God's personal care for him. 'If we look at the world just through the window of science,' he said, 'then love is just biochemistry.' He moved the audience to hand-clapping with a rousing video of his church's gospel choir, with himself in the bass section. He says that he doubts that any scientific experiment can be designed that will support what brings him such joy, his belief in a personal God.
Realities of violence
Many speakers referenced the terrorist attacks of September 11. The session entitled 'What Does it Mean to Be Human?' confronted the realities of human violence and altruism. Primatologist Jane Goodall spoke to the conference by live videocast from Calgary, Alberta. Her classic studies of chimpanzees in the wild have demonstrated that these closest relatives of human beings share with us the capacity for cooperation, modifying and using tools, sense of humor and wonder, self-awareness, fear, despair, happiness, mental suffering, empathy--and brutal behavior.
She identifies speech as the ability that makes human beings unique. It allowed an explosion of intellectual development, which has, in turn, enabled our species to be both better and worse than the chimp. Because of the ability to think through the results of actions, human beings alone among all animals are capable of terrorism and altruism.
Paired with Goodall in this session was neurobiologist William Newsome, of the Stanford University School of Medicine. Newsome said that in order to answer the question of what it means to be human, he found he needed 'to take off his neuroscientist hat and put on his human hat. We're the only species pondering the possibility that there is no meaning to our existence.'
His own scientific work has led him to believe that the most significant aspects of who he is are rooted in the functioning of his central nervous system, especially the cerebral cortex. The most fundamental aspect of being human is not addressed by facts from science, he said. ' The facts are ambiguous about our meaning and our role in the universe. We must all go beyond science in search for ultimate meaning. He concludes that the Central part of what it means to be human is to come into relationship with 'the central reality of the universe and find it to be good.'
Spiritual quest
The session on 'Information Sciences, Intelligence, and Creativity' paired computer scientist Manuela Veloso of Carnegie-Mellon University with Praveen Chaudhari, a research staff member of IBM's Research Center. Veloso, who is Roman Catholic, works with multi-robot systems, each member of which is designed to be autonomous. Autonomy involves perception, response to stimuli, and cognition--the ability to reason, experiment, and learn. While robots may eventually do all the tasks a human being can do, and perhaps better, she does not believe that that is the same as being human. Robots will always be missing something, she says. She struggles with the question of whether a robot can ever have feelings, even if programmed to have them.
Chaudhari addressed the issues connected with spirituality by quoting from the sacred texts of different world cultures and traditions. He said that in the culminating state of spiritual growth, the distinction between doing science and being spiritual vanishes. 'We cannot describe, there are no words for, our underlying humanity and what is at the cosmos at depth,' he said. 'We struggle with words to do that, but they are the wrong medium.'
As the final bookend for the conference, physicist-theologian Ian Barbour provided the summary. Conference organizer Phillip Clayton rightly introduced him as the founder of the field of science and religion. Now retired from Carleton College, his most recent book (2000) is When Science Meets Religion.
In his summary, Barbour noted that none of the scientists tried to use science to prove the existence of God. He observed that the physical scientists have been more receptive than the biological scientists to the idea of a spiritual quest. He noted the agreement among the scientists that there hasn't been much progress toward understanding consciousness. It may turn out to be inaccessible to science, he ventured.
Regarding human nature, not much reference was made to the contributions that religion might make to this topic. The dualism of body/spirit, critiqued by neuroscience, is also rejected by modern theology. He proposed that since so little attention was given to ethical issues, an entire conference should be devoted to it in the future. Observing that all religious traditions have their scriptural fundamentalists, Barbour concluded with a question: 'From this conference, how can we help our religious communities to take the findings of science more seriously and to practice the spirit of inquiry?'
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