Religion and Science: History, Method, Dialogue
ed. by W. Mark Richardson and Wesley J. Wildman.
New York: Routledge, 1996.

Reading Notes
Adam Kissel
(See also some excerpts in my work for Williams.)
for Booth's course

• Part I: History -- Wesley J. Wildman, "The Quest for Harmony"
• Case Study VI: Social Genetics and Religious Ethics
• Part III: Dialogue (below)

Introduction. This part pairs studies of "significant contemporary developments in a given [scientific] field" with theological or philosophical responses written by theologians (170). The theologians attempt "to articulate classical religious beliefs ... in the contemporary setting, and in relation to developments in some of the sciences" (170-71). Knowledge here is meant to become intelligible in "all domains of human experience" (171).

Case Study I: Cosmology and Creation
William R. Stoeger, SJ, and Robert John Russell

Introduction: after Stoeger discusses our cosmological "totality," Russell aims "to show how a theology of creation can find a path between independence from, and overidentification with, science ... to identify what 'theological data' might be [with reference to] "a network of interacting beliefs. This ... clarifies the function of scientific information in the theological context [and] gives theology a way to discriminate in more rational, less arbitrary, fashion among competing theological views" (172).

The main developments in science that impact philosophy and theology, regard: the biggest things, the littlest things, and systems/structures. Such ideas alter our sense of "God and God's interaction with [creation]" (185). For example, the concept of "totality" returns us to theological and philosophical questions, but now with more concrete data and theories (193). Theology and philosophy must adequately incorporate scientific knowledge into their systems of knowing. New knowledge must be used to "confront, purify, and enrich" our philosophical and theological knowledge, as well as to help articulate "the revelatory experiences" we consciously have (194).

Cosmology. Deals with our place in space and time, and with the evolution of matter and energy. Space and time cannot "be considered independently of the mass-energy they 'contain'" (184, cf. 190). In equations, space and time are interlocked and can only be separated arbitrarily (190). At t=0, the Big Bang, there was a "singularity" of everything including all forces; t=0 stands outside our ability to understand it (191-92). In a sense we might think of space-time as infinitely curved, i.e. boundless but finite like a continuous surface (197).

Quantum Physics. An "irreducible determinism" in stuff like particle-waves, and other weird quantum phenomena like "the collapse of the wave-packet," undercut "traditional forms of realism" (185). Chance, "eventualities which to not have a definite truth or falsity, independent of the observer," and probabilities and potentialites of quantum states, seem to precede the finding out about the "truth" (i.e. an observer is necessary) of the actual eventuality. States seem to be tied together inextricably, and "wholes" seem to have discontinuous elements. [one possibility is that the science itself is at error; cf. 193!]

Complex Systems. Anything too hard for physics seems to fall here (e.g. biological structures of life). Systems are disorganized enough to break time and space symmetries, yet self-organize and even reproduce themselves (188). Yet life seems to have developed from non-life, and it seems as though chemistry and physics can explain the process (189).

Cosmology has tended to be about gravity, while quantum studies have been about other forces. Only recently have these two been seen as reconcilable (195). Scientists feel a need to get a unifying theory (this is not to say that the forces are basically unified as one superunified force, just that the parts go together in a coherent theory, 195) because they are unhappy with an unknowable singularity at t=0 (197). The theory will have to deal with extreme temperatures and situations of matter/energy/space/time, probably with quantization of gravity (196).

Mathematical "symmetry groups" seem to be getting close. Math's symmetry groups may provide a "Theory of Everything." But at low energies, such as in our universe where the usual laws apply, symmetry is broken [entropy]. So physicists' optimism is limited to a very unusual period at which everything may have been unified--it has little application for the world as we live in it, even for chemistry or biology.

We can never a know a thing-in-itself: we only know our observations [duh, sounds like Plato]. No human knowledge can be completely objective [why bother? Humans are limited; nothing new here]. Yet we are "more than" our constituent parts and structures (187, 194). The physical principles together make a knowledge greater than our knowledge of each separately (194). Reality has a lot to do with "constitutive relationships" among various entities (199). Still, Stoeger claims that "only" through primary scientific knowledge can "anything else ... be known" (187): this knowledge "provides a new story" that starts to answer our fundamental questions (194). Yet the sciences alone "will probably never come close to accounting on their own terms for cosmic existence ... they are not competent to bridge the tremendous gap between [Creator] and something created" (198).

Though we seem to be fragile, infinitesimal to the point of insignificance, and helpless regarding an uncertain and bleak future, "this universe of ours seems peculiarly hospitable towards life and consciousness." We fantasize about other conscious beings in the cosmos (194). Since time is ambiguous in character, there is left open a created or ultimate reality which is prior to time or beyond time--eternal (198). Scientific knowledge, unable to assess t=0, or attempting to replace it someday with "curved," quantized gravity, returns us to metaphysical accounts of an ultimate origin rather than of some kind of temporal origin (194, 197). One might even venture a natural theology: "God has continued God's creative activity" via scientifically-known processes (194, 198). God keeps all the parts working together, perhaps (199).

Stoeger concludes, unfortunately to me, by claiming that "matter and spirit must be different aspects of the same reality--spirit arises out of matter and is based somehow in matter" (198) [where did this point suddenly come from?]. Yet Stoeger accepts a God/not-God dualism [why not then also separate matter from spirit? or, as I prefer, will from not-will?].

Overview: History of the Doctrine of Creation [evidence = Scripture, history, wisdom, theological anthropology (220)]. Biblical sources on creation: Ps 19, 44, 74, 77, 89, 121, 136; Isaiah 40-55; Prov 8:22-31; Ge 1-11. These are rich, varied sources of witness. Primarily, the LORD is bound up in interactions with Creation, particularly in the theme of mercy/redemption. How are we to understand this kind of witness?

Creation themes in history: God as creator/preserver. Creatio ex nihilo and creatio continua. Emanationism: creation as made up of divine material. Creatio ex nihilo "affirms that God alone is the [free] source of all that is" and that Creation is distinct from God as Creator; "The world's reality and goodness are entirely contingent upon God as ultimate reality, ultimate godness, ultimate source" (203). Since God could create whatever God wanted, we must figure out about our universe through reason and experiment together, not reason alone--God created a particular universe. This is the usual emphasis of the Reformed tradition.

Creatio continua posits an ongoing process of creation, of preserving the natural order. From this may come doctrines of divine intervention. But nowadays this concept is also about God as the source of order and un-entropy.

Emanationism suggests that creation is a natural overflowing of God's being, into plurality and hence moral ambiguity. This idea has links to mystical traditions, though it also has been taken up by Tillich and Moltmann.

Augustine: recognized that time itself is also part of the world. God is outside time and can create other beings outside of it.

Aquinas challenged Aristotle's idea that the world simply existed without a beginning. Aquinas argued that "the age of the world could not be settled by appealing to reason alone" (205). He said that Creation depends on God for its existence and that Creation does have a "beginning of time" (206). To speak in this way of time's own "beginning" is already to be outside of time, in a way, and so this fact can only be "an article of faith, known by revelation alone" (206).

Schleiermacher, representing the Enlightenment/Modern view, saw God as simultaneous Creator and Preserver, but focused on the perspective of Creation, which depends on God for its very existence and cannot be said to even understand non-existence. God created ex nihilo everything. The main question is about the present relationship between Creation and Creator, not about how Creation came to be. Neo-Reformed theologians (Barth, Brunner, Niebuhr, Bonhoeffer) challenge Schleiermacher's theology but not his doctrines of creation.

Trinitarian creation is also getting discussed more nowadays.

Creation and Cosmology. Gilkey likewise sees both creatio ex nihilo and creatio continua in the history of creation doctrine, but seems to stress the latter or the combination of the two. Indeed Gilkey seems averse to "any empirical language about creation," adhering to Aquinas's view (consistent with t=0's ambiguity) that revelation can be the only source of ultimate knowledge about Creation (210). Like Stoeger and Aquinas, Gilkey sees an "unbridgeable gap" between cosmology and metaphysics (211). But Russell sees that the gap is only unbridgeable from the cosmology side--from faith/God/metaphysics/revelation's side, theology can have something to say about t=0 (212). Said another way, to say that one cannot make "factual claims ... about ultimate or transcendent things" is to raise philosophy and metaphysics above science (213). Of course the world contains all kinds of empirical facts about everyday things, too (214).

A primary problem for Big bang theorists is the singularity at t=0. But for theologians, t=0 fits nicely with creatio ex nihilo. But, as Stoeger pointed out, t=0 may disappear in equations of a Grand Unified Theory, in which case theologians would be stuck. Also, in t=0 one loses the sense of creatio continua in favor of a kind of deism.

Finally, one must keep in mind that scientism can never be a conclusion: "science raises philosophical questions that go beyond the competence or purview of science" (209, quoting ASA). In this sense science can inform philosophy/religion but cannot be coequal with it; one should avoid "the extremes of either direct support [of R for S or vv.] or independence [of R & S]" (213). Barbour likewise explains that there's more to original Creation than merely t=0 (212). Interaction models of revelation's consonance with science are thus becoming more common. "Consonance" accepts not just experiment, reason, and revelation, but also history, politics, and the humanities, as sources of knowledge and worldview, recognizing the tentative nature of [most?] conclusions (213). Consonance draws on theory of language, esp. metaphor.

Interaction. How can we make room for "the rationality of theology" in this "age of scientific epistemology" (214)? How can we place theological utterances within the wider range of fact-asserting intellectual domains, whose objects are more definite"? How can we judge "the relative merits of alternative theological perspectives, and even what counts as success and failure in theology" (216)? Lakatos, followed by Nancey Murphy and Philip Clayton, provides criteria "for rational means to decide between competing research programs" (214). The criteria are primarily based on empirical verification--but is this a method that can be used for theology?

Russell wants to re-emphasize the creatio continua aspect of creation, its ontological dependence on God. If creatio ex nihilo is merely the first part of creatio continua, then we have a more factual basis for creatio continua. For Russell it makes sense to have as hypothesis that creatio ex nihilo implies ontological dependence for Creation; a possible reason would be that Creation is ontologically finite. Evidence would be brought to bear on this proposed reason (finitude). Finitude would be defined spatially, temporally, and in other ways. So long as t=0 holds, this would be enough empirical evidence, at present, to accept that "creatio ex nihilo means ontological dependence" (216). Though t=0 may not count as direct empirical evidence, it would be excellent circumstantial evidence for sustaining creation by God. In natural theology, "the sheer existence of the universe is the foundational [empirical] basis for the central philosophical argument for ex nihilo" (216).

Quantum Cosmology. The goal is to move from a Special Relativity view of gravity & cosmology to a quantum one; maybe t=0 will drop from the equations. The Hartle-Hawking model uses "imaginary time" (i) and uses only "the present" [i.e. reality?] as the boundary condition; they dropped t=0. "The universe 'would just BE'"; it would be finite but unbounded [see above] (28). Russell is glad that finitude (though different) is not lost in this model. This model is similar to Augustine's point that time itself was created and that we can't really understand what such a "beginning" is. [In other words it seems as though existence itself is the boundary; the universe IS, in time, and is therefore finite? God also exists, but not in time, so isn't finite(?)]

Philosophy, theology, and science all are working together and overlapping.

Trinitarian doctrines of God probably will help get to the next step of looking at some theological implications of the above.