A RESPONSE TO STANLEY KLEIN: A DIALOGUE ON THE RELEVANCE OF QUANTUM THEORY TO RELIGION

Abstract. I respond to Stanley Klein's critique of my essay “Quantum Reality, the Emergence of Complex Order from Virtual States, and the Importance of Consciousness in the Universe,” arguing in support of the necessity to derive a quantum perspective of evolution rather than adhering to an essentially classical view. In response to Klein's criticism of my concept of a cosmic morality, the origins of that concept are traced back to Zeno of Citium. I wholeheartedly embrace Klein's suggestion that the new science inspires views of the human condition that can help us make the world a better place.     

Does God Play Dice? A Response to Niels H. Gregersen, “The Idea of Creation and the Theory of Autopoietic Processes”

The idea that the Creator has a plan for creation is deeply rooted in the Christian notion of Providence. This notion seems to suggest that the history of creation must be the execution of the providential plan of God. Such an understanding of divine providence expects science to confirm that cosmic history is under supernatural guidance, that evolution is therefore oriented toward a goal—to bring forth human beings, for example. The problem is, however, that science finds evidence for neither supernatural guidance nor teleology in nature. To address this problem, I understand Niels H. Gregersen to suggest that God is involved in the creative process. The reason science cannot demonstrate God's supernatural guidance of evolution is that the Creator structures the process from within. Gregersen argues that God is involved in the process of creation by changing the overall probability pattern of evolving systems.
In my view, such a model of how God interacts with creation is supported neither by orthodox Christianity nor by modern science. After a critique of Gregersen's argument and a brief history of the relationship between Christianity and science, I shall suggest an alternative. It is that the freedom of creation to create itself is implicit in the fundamental dogma of Christianity that God is love.     

How One Unitarian Universalist Integrates Evolution into his Theology and Religion

Evolution can be a "weasel word" unless circumscribed to mean only a morphological change over time. When this is done, the fact of what can be distinguished from the faith of how . I believe that evolution is purely a natural process, but recognizing that everyone creates his or her own God, I feel justified in giving the name God to that mysterious presence in every interaction that causes transformation, since this is what gives the universe its dynamism. I relate how this God concept informs my religious and ethical life and gives my life meaning and purpose.     

WONDER SUSTAINED: A REPLY TO CRITICS

A set of science‐inspired cosmic narratives referred to as the Epic of Evolution and the Universe Story or, collectively, the new cosmology, proposes to bring humans closer to nature by placing us into the broader narrative of the cosmos. This article responds to commentary and critique on my book Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World, which critically examines these science‐based cosmic narratives and their particular and problematic modes and objects of wonder. Themes include the relationship of wonder to science and ethical engagement; the question of whether wonder, grounded in everyday sensory experience, can scale up to the level of global environmental problems; the relevance of wonder to nonideal environments and negative affects like fear or grief; and the importance of humanistic and religious studies scholarship for critiquing grand narratives of science, among other themes. I also respond to claims that my book misdiagnoses and distorts the work of the new cosmology and its claims to wonder.     

HUMANITY IN NATURE: CONSERVING YET CREATING

Abstract. Developing a scientifically grounded philosophy of cosmic evolution, and using the moral norm of completeness as dynamic harmony, this paper argues that humans are a part of nature in both its conserving and emergent aspects. Humans are both material and cultural, instinctual-emotional and rational, creatures and creators, and carriers of stability and change. To ignore any of the multifaceted aspects of humanity in relation to the rest of nature is to commit one of a number of fallacies that are grounded in a dualistic-conquest mentality. Examples of some new developments in philosophy and theology, metaphorical images, and ritual show how to overcome dualism in favor of a dynamic harmony of humanity within nature.     

仁与天理通而为一视域下的程颢易学

置身由汉唐经学向宋明理学转型过程中的程颢,对易学的天人之学作出了创造性诠释与转化,建构起仁与天理通而为一视域下的崭新易学天人之学,推出了他的理学体系。程颢的易学,首先开示了一个充满盎然生机、生意的有机整体宇宙图景,继之揭示了此一生机、生意之所自来的终极宇宙根基、根据,即天理,并指出天理是一终极的令物生生之理,即是一最高的绝对之善本身,由此天理即仁体。天理与仁通而为一,可名之日天理—仁体。此一天理—仁体令天地万物涵具并彰显出盎然生机、生意,且一体无隔。人禀受它而具备了存在的所以然的终极宇宙根基和充足的价值根据与资源,应据之一则珍视自己生命的内在价值,令其原发性畅然舒展、展现与实现,再则珍视并善待他人他物的内在价值,视天地人物一体无隔的有机宇宙整体中的一切皆为我生命的有机组成部分,期其亦皆能原发性畅然舒展、展现与实现自我,从而成就起一宇宙式大我,达到成为天理—仁体自觉圆融化身的最高的生命境界,即天地境界。为此,尚需作识仁与定性的工夫。     

Religious Ethics and the Environment

This essay discusses three recent books which each offer an integrative account of religious ethics and the environment. Religious environmental ethics is an area of inquiry within the larger field of religion and ecology. After a narrative that contextualizes the development of religious environmental ethics in relation to the environmental social movement, I describe the formation of the field including its focus on worldview, the “cosmological turn,” and its engagement with science, the “cosmic turn.” Elizabeth Johnson exemplifies the cosmic turn by developing a Christian theology of life in nature which explicitly accepts Darwin's theory of evolution. Willis Jenkins advocates a prophetic pragmatism and critiques a focus on worldview that is abstracted from practice and defers moral responsibility. Larry Rasmussen joins analysis of worldview with reflection on cross‐cultural resources for “anticipatory communities” of moral formation to catalyze change. I argue with Rasmussen that religious environmental ethics needs multiple approaches and should allow room for methodological pluralism.     

CHEMISTRY: WHAT DOES ONE NEED TO KNOW?

Abstract. The general knowledge and understanding that every teacher of religion and science should have relative to chemistry can be found in the answers to three major questions. In my own response to the first question, How did chemistry emerge as a discipline? I trace the origins, establishment, and subsequent historical significance of cosmology. I contend that chemistry is “the obvious, oldest science” and, as such, has played a key role among the sciences in agelong human efforts to understand reality. In my response to the second question, How do chemists currently view (cosmic) reality? I outline three prominent examples in support of my contention that chemistry, despite being “the obvious, oldest science,” is seen by some as playing only a tacit role in current efforts to (re)integrate religion and science. In my response to the third question, How do chemists currently view ultimate reality and meaning? I argue that “unifiers” in chemistry can also now play a key role in a reality revolution that is pointing humankind not only toward a possible historical (re) integration of religion and science but also toward a return to cosmology.     

The Spiritual Task of Religion in Culture: An Evolutionary Perspective

It is quite impossible to consider human nature within an evolutionary perspective if we leapfrog over culture and establish some direct relation between cosmic and human evolution without taking culture into consideration. Culture holds a significant place within the structures of nature, as the "epic" of evolution portrays nature—cosmic, physical, and biological. Religion emerges within culture, and it plays a role in organizing the human consciousness and in generating the stories, rituals, and morality that constitute the organization of consciousness. Since organization of consciousness determines how culture is conducted, and since we face a global crisis today because of the ways we are conducting our culture, religion's role is critical for the future of culture. Wherever it is attempted, whether in terms of traditional or posttraditional modes, the fashioning of adequate worldviews, rituals, and morality is an essentially religious activity. For both traditional and posttraditional modes, the task is to weave structures of meaning with the sciences of evolution so as to effect the most suitable organization of consciousness.     

Becoming (and Remaining) an Analyst in Latin America

The following overview of the development of psychoanalysis in Brazil and in Porto Alegre outlines the current situation and the challenges to psychoanalysis in my country. I will explain my own experiences on becoming an analyst, the main reasons for my choice, my main influences, and my evolution as a clinical psychoanalyst and as a member of psychoanalytic and psychiatric institutions. I include my main contributions to psychoanalysis and consider two broad areas of interest: psychoanalytic technique and its teaching, and the relationship of psychoanalysis and culture. As for the former, my main interests are studies on countertransference and analytic neutrality, to which I will propose a comprehensive concept. As for the latter, I discuss a culture that contrasts vividly with the one in which Freud created the discipline, psychoanalytic views on violence and perversity, psychoanalytic institutions, and the application of analytic ideas for the understanding of some artists and their work.

I will also describe some general features of my country and the development of psychoanalysis in it; report my experiences as a candidate and an analyst; and offer some information about my evolution as an analyst through papers I have written over the past 30 years.     

The rise of information in an evolutionary universe

This paper outlines the grand scenario of cosmic evolution by examining the ongoing changes among radiation, matter and life in standard, big‐bang cosmology. Using aspects of non‐equilibrium thermodynamics and information science, we argue that it is the contrasting temporal behavior of various energy densities that have given rise to the environments needed for the emergence of galaxies, stars, planets, and life forms. We furthermore argue that a necessary (though perhaps not sufficient) condition—a veritable prime mover—for the emergence of such ordered structures of growing complexity is the expansion of the Universe itself. Neither demon‐strably new science nor appeals to non‐science are needed to explain the impressive hierarchy of developmental change, from quark to quasar, from microbe to mind.     

Social evolution and the planetary crisis

This article provides perspective on today's planetary crisis by seeing it as a transition within the larger picture of human social evolution. There are certain ground qualities that were present at the beginnings of our social evolution—natural living, belonging, vitality, community, equality. Over the span of human history certain emergent qualities have developed to give us greater power in the world—technology, social organization, rational thinking. However, in developing these qualities we have suppressed the ground qualities, at the expense of our health and wholeness and now leading to a profound crisis. The next step in social evolution is to take conscious charge of our future by integrating the ground qualities with the emergent qualities. This model of social evolution helps to extend and deepen the concept of general evolution, giving us a broad view of our place in human and cosmic evolution.     

‘The friend of my enemy is my enemy’: Modeling triadic internation relationships

The evolution of internation relationships is studied by means of a mathematical model based on a popular rule of triadic interaction: the friend of my friend is my friend, the friend of my enemy is my enemy, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the enemy of my friend is my enemy. The rule is shown to lead to the formation and preservation of unipolar and bipolar configurations of nations, with the strengths of relationships, both friendly and conflictual, intensifying through time. These results confirm speculations originally made in static, graph theoretic studies of the balancing of relationships within individuals, small groups and systems of nations.This research was funded by a grant from the World Society Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland.     

TELESCOPE + MIRROR = REFLECTIONS ON THE COSMOS: UMBERTO ECO AND THE IMAGE OF RELIGION

Umberto Eco argues that a mirror image is not a sign. At best it is a double, a thing that ceases to be once the reflected object is removed. Harry Mulisch narratively suggests that mirror images function metaphorically as gateways between human suffering and the divine. And interestingly, science employs mirrors and mirror images both to turn our gaze upwards and to show us reflections of our place in the cosmos. Tying together Eco's notion of the double, Mulisch's insistence that mirror images reflect humanity's construction of the divine, and the Giant Magellan Telescope Project's cosmic images, it is my contention that modern, telescopic mirror images are much more than snapshots of the cosmos. They are constructions of human and divine meaning that—signifying—pose the question, what is reflected: the cosmos or humanity?     

Dialogue in Our Cosmic Aloneness

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is briefly summarized to serve as a background for making the case that, due to the highly exceptional characteristics of the earth's position and motion in the solar system as well as the precarious history of human evolution, we may be alone in the universe. With the conviction that this cosmic isolation enhances our need for dialogue with God, I discuss the nature of authentic dialogue as exhaustively explored by Martin Buber. I conclude with remarks dealing with the importance of understanding and using Buber's insights on dialogue as a way of satisfying our primal need to communicate with a cosmic “other,” in particular, God. Thus, in contrast to the numerous articles that have discussed the theological implications of SETI being successful, I treat here what it might mean if we are alone.     

THE PROBLEM OF NATURAL DIVINE CAUSATION AND THE BENEFITS OF PARTIAL CAUSATION: A RESPONSE TO SKOGHOLT

In this article, I defend my previous argument that natural divine causation suffers under the problem of causal overdetermination and that it cannot serve as a line of demarcation between theistic evolution (TE) and intelligent design (ID). I do this in light of Christoffer Skogholt's critique of my article. I argue that Skogholt underestimates the naturalistic ambitions of some current thinkers in TE and fails, therefore, to adequately respond to my main argument. I also outline how partial causation better serves as a model for the relationship between God's providence and evolution.     

The Crucial Importance of Nancey Murphy’s Deployment of Lakatos’s Methodology for Theology and Science

Russell's paper explores the astonishing fruitfulness of Nancey Murphy’s use of Imre Lakatos’s philosophy of science in the field of “theology and science.” Murphy’s work can be used to choose between competing theologies according to the theologians’ willingness to engage with science, their ability to continue the engagement as scientific theories change, and their ability to make empirical predictions based on this engagement. Topics range from creation and cosmology, the “cosmic Christ”, and non-interventionist objective divine action in quantum mechanics and evolution. Russell has followed Murphy’s lead and used Lakatos to place theology and science into “creative mutual interaction” (CMI).     

Now and Then

I describe my development as a psychoanalyst from my dream of psychoanalysis as a revolutionary movement battling against ignorance and fixed beliefs to finding in Freud's theoretical framework a reliable, scientific base from which I could pursue my own thinking. I trace the evolution of my thinking through my experiences on the training and at my first post-training job in an antenatal department. I give an account of the culmination of my analytic development in my work at Brent Adolescent Centre where my husband, Moe Laufer, and I developed our theory of developmental breakdown in adolescence. Here we pioneered work and research with adolescents in analysis and at the walk-in center.     

My Psychoanalytic Journey

In this article I describe the evolution of my psychoanalytic thought and my current perspective of psychoanalysis, after almost a half century of professional practice. For the most part, three ideas have guided this evolution: (1) considering the patient’s mind as the major source of knowledge; (2) my firm belief that the patient–analyst dialogue, taken from the Gadamerian point of view, is the best way to have access to the patient’s mind and also to that of the analyst himself; and (3) the notion that the mind constitutes an open, dynamic, and nonlinear system in constant interaction with the environment that surrounds it. In my writings, I have tried to show that the therapeutic action in the psychoanalytic process is formed by the therapist–patient interaction. I also propose that psychoanalysis must endeavor to be a social therapy, even as it treats individuals, and go beyond what is purely instinctual so as to emphasize what is particular to human beings and sets us apart from the other animal species.     

From individual cognition to populational culture

In my response to the commentaries from a collection of esteemed researchers, I reassess and eventually find largely intact my claim that human tool use evidences higher social and non-social cognitive ability. Nonetheless, I concede that my examination of individual-level cognitive traits does not offer a full explanation of cumulative culture yet. For that, one needs to incorporate them into population-dynamic models of cultural evolution. I briefly describe my current and future work on this.