USE OF THE PHRASE “PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS”: TOWARD A COMPREHENSIVE INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPLANATION

When people use the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus,” how does one explain its significance? Normally attributed to evangelical Protestant Christians, use of the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” is a complicated phenomenon, and an explanation of it requires drawing upon resources from across multiple disciplines rather than a single discipline only. Attempts to explain exactly what the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” means frequently can be mystifying, on the one hand, or dismissive and simplistic, on the other hand. This article moves potentially toward a better context for understanding use of the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” by drawing upon insights from multiple disciplines, including (1) rhetorical and cultural‐historical studies, (2) evolutionary and cognitive psychology, and (3) biological/behavioral and social/anthropological studies in order to set forth some basic lines of explanation for use of the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus.” The article concludes with some possible testable statements for future empirical studies.     

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN,THE “SIX PROPOSITIONS,” AND THE HOLY OFFICE

Between 1924 and 1937, the Jesuit Curia in Rome repeatedly placed restrictions on what Jesuit priest‐paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was allowed to write on those aspects of human origins that, in the view of the Curia, had theological as well as scientific aspects. In 2018, David Grumett and Paul Bentley published an account of the first of those restrictions, together with a previously undiscovered document associated with that restriction. This article corrects a relatively important error in their historical narrative, offers an alternative to their comments about the case, and concludes by embedding the events of 1924–1925 in a slightly larger history of Teilhard's relations with the Jesuit Curia and with the Holy Office. That larger narrative shows that, while Grumett and Bentley's account was mistaken about the involvement of the Holy Office in the case they discuss, it was not wrong about the concerns of that Congregation in questions of human origins.     

PATIENT‐ANALYST “WITHNESS”: ON ANALYTIC “PRESENCING,” PASSION,AND COMPASSION IN STATES OF BREAKDOWN,DESPAIR, AND DEADNESS

This paper focuses on the analyst's “presencing” (being there) within the patient's experiential world and within the grip of the psychoanalytic process, and the ensuing deep patient–analyst interconnectedness, as a fundamental dimension of analytic work. It engenders new possibilities for extending the reach of psychoanalytic treatment to more disturbed patients. Here patient and analyst forge an emergent new entity of interconnectedness or “withness” that goes beyond the confines of their separate subjectivities and the simple summation of the two. Using a detailed clinical illustration of a difficult analysis with a severely fetishistic‐masochistic patient, the author describes the kind of knowledge, experience, and powerful effects that come into being when the analyst interconnects psychically with the patient in living through the process, and that relate specifically to the analyst's compassion.     

THE “GHOSTS” OF IRAS PAST AND THE CHANGING CULTURAL CONTEXT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Beginning with our cosmic ancestors and the 1950s ancestors of Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS, the “Ghosts”), this essay highlights the wider, post‐World War II cultural context, including other science and religion organizations, in which IRAS was formed. It then considers eight challenges from today's context. From the context of science there are (1) the challenge of scale that leads us to question our place in the scheme of things and can lead to a challenge to morale concerning whether we make any difference; (2) the challenge of human variability that leads to the question whether there is a single human moral nature; and (3) the challenge of detailed explanation that leads to the question of what is the task of theology in relation to detailed scientific explanation. From the religion context there are (4) the challenge of objectivity—studying religion without practicing religion; and (5) the challenge of pluralism and the variety of cultural and religious perspectives. From the context of the growing and diverse science‐and‐religion enterprise, considered from the perspective of IRAS developed in the first part of this essay, there are the challenges of (6) apologetics and (7) intellectualization. Finally, from the context of our growing, worldwide consumerist culture that is contributing to the radical alteration of the planetary environment, leading to much suffering, there is (8) the challenge of becoming more motivated to act for the long‐term global good.     

“THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF EXPERTS”: IN DEFENSE OF THE “ELITES” OF THE SCIENCE‐AND‐RELIGION DEBATE

This article takes a critical stance on John H. Evans's 2018 book, Morals Not Knowledge: Recasting the Contemporary U.S. Conflict between Religion and Science. Highlighting the significance of the book for the science‐and‐religion debate, particularly the book's emphasis on moral questions over knowledge claims revealed in social‐scientific studies of the American public, I also suggest that the distinction between the “elites” of the academic science‐and‐religion field and the religious “public” is insufficiently drawn. I argue that various nuances should be taken into account concerning the portrayal of “elites,” nuances which potentially change the way that “conflict” between science and religion is envisaged, as well as the function of the field. Similarly, I examine the ways in which the book construes science and religion as distinct knowledge systems, and I suggest that, from a theological perspective—relevant for much academic activity in science and religion—there is value in seeing science and religion in terms of a single knowledge system. This perspective may not address the public's interest in moral questions directly—important as they are—but nevertheless it fulfils the academic function of advancing the frontiers of human knowledge and self‐understanding.     

“THE NEW SCIENCE OF HEALTH AND HAPPINESS”: INVESTIGATING BUDDHIST ENGAGEMENTS WITH THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF MEDITATION

Clinical and neuroscientific studies of Buddhist meditation practices are frequent topics in the news media, and have helped certain practices (such as mindfulness) achieve mainstream cultural status. Buddhists have reacted by using these studies in a number of ways. Some deploy the studies to show the compatibility of science and Buddhism, often using the authority of science to lend credence to Buddhism. Other Buddhists use meditation studies to demonstrate the superiority of Buddhism over science. Within inter‐Buddhist debates, meditation studies are used to argue for changes in practice or belief, but also sometimes to reinforce certain traditional practices. Benjamin Zeller's threefold categorization of religious groups’ attitudes toward science (guide, replace, absorb) and José Ignacio Cabezón's three ideal types of relationships between Buddhism and science (conflict/ambivalence, compatibility/identity, complementarity) contribute to analysis of Buddhist uses of scientific studies of meditation.     

“THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS”: KANT ON THE HANG ZUM BÖSEN AND THE UNIVERSAL EVIL OF HUMANITY

This paper offers a new interpretation of the propensity to evil and its relation to Kant's claim that the human race is universally evil. Unlike most of its competitors, the interpretation presented here neither trivializes Kant's claims about the universal evil of humanity nor attributes a position to him that is incompatible with his repeated insistence that we are blameworthy for actions only when we could have acted differently. This interpretation also accounts for a number of otherwise bewildering claims in the Religion and makes sense of the analogy Kant draws between the propensity to evil and addiction.     

“SCIENCE,” “RELIGION,” AND “SCIENCE‐AND‐RELIGION” IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Many intellectuals wrote texts on the relations between Islam and science in the nineteenth‐century Ottoman Empire. These texts not only addressed the massive social and cultural changes the Empire was going through, but responded to European authors’ claims about the extent to which Islam was compatible with the modern world. Focusing on several texts written in the second half of the nineteenth century by the influential Muslim Ottoman authors Namik Kemal, Ahmed Midhat, and ?emseddin Sami, this article shows the influence of these exigencies on arguments on Islam and science. In order to represent Islam as a respectable religion in harmony with science, these intellectuals defined a “pure Islam” that was a set of basic principles that could be found in the Qur'an. Rather than an embedded way of life, Islam in these texts was an objectified, delimitable entity that could be imagined as having relations with other entities, such as science.     

THE “SCIENTIFIC MIRACLE OF THE QUR’ĀN,” PSEUDOSCIENCE,AND CONSPIRACISM

This article, after tracing a precise classification of the exegetical trend known as i?jāz ?ilmī, summarizes and discusses the criticism leveled at it and examines how the “scientific interpretation” of the Qur’ān is liable to blend with pseudoscience and conspiracy theories to the detriment of a solid harmonization of science and religion and of a genuine appreciation of natural science. Furthermore, the article offers some practical ideas that can be implemented in order to effectively and fairly address i?jāz ?ilmī in the Muslim world.     

RESPONSE TO “STEPS TOWARD A SCIENCE OF FREE WILL”: Determinism,Nondeterminism, and the Distinction Between Uncaused and Unpredictable Behavior

Howard's (1993) reconceptualization of free will and determinism is elaborated to distinguish between uncaused and unpredictable actions by drawing on principles derived from chaos theory. Findings from research on the career alternatives pursued by women are related to the distinctions proposed in these models. Further debate, elaboration, and empirical scrutiny of these ideas are encouraged.     

“WHITE CRISIS” AND/AS “EXISTENTIAL RISK,” OR THE ENTANGLED APOCALYPTICISM OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

In this article, I present a critique of Robert Geraci's Apocalyptic artificial intelligence (AI) discourse, drawing attention to certain shortcomings which become apparent when the analytical lens shifts from religion to the race–religion nexus. Building on earlier work, I explore the phenomenon of existential risk associated with Apocalyptic AI in relation to “White Crisis,” a modern racial phenomenon with premodern religious origins. Adopting a critical race theoretical and decolonial perspective, I argue that all three phenomena are entangled and they should be understood as a strategy, albeit perhaps merely rhetorical, for maintaining white hegemony under nonwhite contestation. I further suggest that this claim can be shown to be supported by the disclosure of continuity through change in the long‐durée entanglement of race and religion associated with the establishment, maintenance, expansion, and refinement of the modern/colonial world system if and when such phenomena are understood as iterative shifts in a programmatic trajectory of domination which might usefully be framed as “algorithmic racism.”     

TWO TYPES OF “EXPLAINING AWAY” ARGUMENTS IN THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

This article discusses “explaining away” arguments in the cognitive science of religion (CSR). I distinguish two rather different ways of explaining away religion, one where religion is shown to be incompatible with scientific findings (EA1) and one where supernatural entities are rendered superfluous by scientific explanations (EA2). After discussing possible objections to both varieties, I argue that the latter way offers better prospects for successfully explaining away religion but that some caveats must be made. In a second step, I spell out how CSR can be used to spell out an argument of the second kind. One argument (“Bias Explaining Away”) renders religion superfluous by claiming that it results from a cognitive bias and one (“Adaptationist Explaining Away”) does the same by claiming religion was (is) a useful evolutionary adaptation. I discuss some strengths and weaknesses of both arguments.     

INVESTIGATING THE “SCIENCE” IN “EASTERN RELIGIONS”: A METHODOLOGICAL INQUIRY

This article explores some of the understandings of “science” that are often employed in the literature on “science and Eastern religions.” These understandings crucially shape the raging debates between the avid proponents and the keen detractors of the thesis that Eastern forms of spirituality are uniquely able to subsume the sciences into their metaphysical–axiological horizons. More specifically, the author discusses some of the proposed relations between “science” and “Eastern religions” by highlighting three themes: (a) the relation between science and metaphysics, (b) the relation between science and experience, and (c) the European origins of science. The analysis of these relations requires a methodological inquiry into some of the culturally freighted valences of “science,” “metaphysics,” and “experience.”