NATURE, REALITY, AND THE SACRED: A MEDITATION IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Abstract. Many scientists now recognize the participation of the knower in the known. Not many admit, however, that scientists rely upon intuitions about reality commonly attributed to philosophy and religion: that sensory experience relates us to an order in nature congruent with our minds and of value congruent with our fulfilled being. Nature has disclosed itself to scientists—albeit fragmentarily—as power, life, order, and unity or meaning. In science these remain limit questions, raised but unanswered. In the unity of these qualities, assumed by science, the sacred begins to appear. Addressing the limit questions, not only of scientific but of human experience, is the province of philosophy and religion.     

COSMOLOGY, RELIGION, AND SOCIETY

Abstract. It is a mistake to assume that science and religion are competing accounts of the same subject matter, so that either science supersedes religion or religion anticipates science. Using the question of cosmic origins as an example, I argue that the basic task of religion is not the scientific one of establishing the most accurate acccunt of the origin of the universe. Rather, as illustrated from Jewish, Hindu, Chinese, and Buddhist thought, religion uses a variety of cosmologies to help specify the necessary terms and conditions on which human social life is possible in particular ecological niches.     

FROM ANGELS TO ALIENS: HUMANKIND'S ONGOING ENCOUNTERS WITH,AND EVOLVING INTERPRETATIONS OF, THE GENUINE CELESTIAL UNKNOWN

Throughout history, people have observed aerial events that appeared extraordinary and anomalous. In earlier eras, these were often interpreted through a lens that invoked special classes of divine beings, such as angels (who, compared with gods, are regarded as more likely to interact with humans). Today, in our ostensibly secular scientific age, there is a tendency to assume such observers were mistaken, and that with the benefit of modern knowledge, these events can be “debunked” and attributed to conventional naturalistic explanations. However, recent years have seen a burgeoning interest and even concern over the issue of unidentified aerial phenomena. Through the lens of our “space age,” these are sometimes interpreted using notions such as extraterrestrial agents. Ultimately though, this article suggests that both categories of explanation, from angels to aliens, may be the perennial human quest to render comprehensible, through the prism of prevailing beliefs and traditions, an ongoing encounter with celestial phenomena that remain genuinely unknown but deeply significant.     

THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMAGINARY: BRINGING MYTH AND IMAGINATION INTO DIALOGUE WITH BRONISLAW SZERSZYNSKI'S NATURE,TECHNOLOGY AND THE SACRED

Bronislaw Szerszynski's Nature, Technology and the Sacred (2005) offers a fresh look into the historical, cultural, and political implications of technology use in our contemporary situation. By challenging the standard interpretation of the secularization thesis, the book opens the door to a new kind of postmodern ordering of the sacred, which includes our ever‐developing perception of the environment and our ongoing use of technology. In my discussion of the text, I suggest that Szerszynski's argument could have been furthered by exploring the role played by both imagination and myth in creating the postmodern sacred that he describes. I argue that by giving consideration to Friedrich Dessauer's Christian theology of technology and the mythical imagination of contemporary science fiction literature and film, a more explicitly religious dimension of technology can be allowed to emerge in the form of the technological imaginary.     

BEING AND DOING: AN INQUIRY INTO THE COLONIZATION,DECOLONIZATION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF AMERICAN SOCIETY AND ITS STATE,Marcus Raskin

The emerging planetary culture is viewed from an autobiographical perspective. The author discusses the importance of complex thought (Morin) and the notions of gylany and partnership (Eisler) to address the need to develop a heterogeneous, diverse context which supports creativity and mutually beneficial relations. Systems‐theoretical and feminist approaches are brought to bear on the need to develop an ecology of creativity, which focuses not simply on individual genius but on the potential for creative collaboration. Ecological concerns are viewed in the context of our understanding of gender, creativity and progress.     

DONNA HARAWAY'S METATHEORY OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION: CYBORGS, TRICKSTER, AND HERMES

Abstract. This article is a close reading of two essays by Donna Haraway on feminist philosophy, the biophysical sciences, and critical social theory. Haraway's strong social constructionist approach to science is criticized by colleague Sandra Harding, resulting in an epistemological reconceptualization of objectivity by Haraway. Haraway's notion of “situated knowledges” provides a workable epistemology for all social and biophysical sciences, while inviting the reintegration of religions as critical conversation partners in an emancipatory hermeneutics of nature, culture, and technology.     

Dialoguing Height Psychology into a life of interconnectedness: Response to commentaries by Hwang,Bhawuk, King & Hodgetts,Kashima, and Xie,Su, & Zhong

Liu (Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 000, 000) attempts to articulate an epistemology for the aspirational practice of Height Psychology as a human science informed by Kantian epistemology in dialogue with other philosophies, especially Confucianism and Taoism. Height Psychology is a framework or metatheory for the practice of teaching, research, and service rooted in Kantian epistemology, in dialogue with other philosophies. It provides a holistic philosophy for social scientists responding to wicked problems unfolding over long periods of time. In responding to commentaries, I suggest a corollary to Shweder's (Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 3, p. 207) ‘One mind, many mentalities’: ‘Many indigenous psychologies, interconnected by one epistemology’. Height Psychology is about holding to an invisible moral centre. The practical postulates are foundational to the moral and ethical practices of human societies: they are for doing, their value is ontological. Human agency, proscribed by natural science epistemologies takes centre stage in Height Psychology by facilitating social scientists to act reflexively from multiple positions (from basic to action research) to benefit society. Height Psychology is dedicated to articulating and actioning the moral and ethical basis of a human science that can assist present and future generations of social scientists to meet the grave situational futures facing us in different parts of the world.     

IMAGO DEI,DUALISM, AND EVOLUTION: A PHILOSOPHICAL DEFENSE OF THE STRUCTURAL IMAGE OF GOD

Most contemporary theologians have distanced themselves from views that identify the image of God with a capacity or a set of capacities that humans have. This article examines three arguments against the structural view and finds them wanting. The first argument is that the structural view entails mind/body dualism and dualism is no longer viable given neuroscience and contemporary philosophy. Against this, I argue that contemporary forms of dualism are able to circumvent such worries and are at least prima facie plausible. The second claim is that structural views end up disvaluing the human body and our relatedness. Here, I argue that neither the structural view nor dualism has such consequences. The third issue consists of various evolutionary worries that have to do with the lack of a clear‐cut boundary between human capacities and the capacities of nonhuman animals. As a response, the article argues that although there might not be a clear‐cut set of capacities that all humans share, we could still have a notion of human distinctiveness that is sufficient for the structural image of God.     

The place of human values in the language of science: Kuhn,Saussure, and structuralism

The current paradigm in medicine generally distinguishes between genetic and environmental causes of disease. Although the word paradigm has become a commonplace, the theories of Thomas Kuhn have not received much attention in the journals of medicine. Kuhn's structuralist method differs radically from the daily activities of the scientific method itself. Using linguistic theory, this essay offers a structuralist reading of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Our purpose is to highlight the similarities between these structuralist models of science and language. In part, we focus on the logic that enables Kuhn to assert the priority of perception over interpretation in the history of science. To illustrate some of these issues, we refer to the distinction between environmental and genetic causes of disease. While the activity of scientific research results in the revision of concepts in science, the production of significant differences that shape our knowledge is in part a social and linguistic process.     

SCIENCE,SPIRITUALITY, AND AYAHUASCA: THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND SPIRITUAL ONTOLOGIES IN THE ACADEMY

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew from Amazonas, popularized in the last decades in part through transnational religious networks, but also due to interest in exploring spirituality through altered states of consciousness among academic schools and scientific researchers. In this article, the author analyzes the relation between science and religion proposing that the “demarcation problem” between the two arises from the relations among consciousness, intentionality, and spirituality. The analysis starts at the beginning of modern science, continues through the nineteenth century, and then examines the appearance of new schools in psychology and anthropology in the countercultural milieu of the 1960s. The author analyzes the case of ayahuasca against this historical background, first, in the general context of ayahuasca studies in the academic field. Second, he briefly describes three cases from Spain. Finally, he discusses the permeability of science to “spiritual ontologies” from an interdisciplinary perspective, using insights from social and cognitive sciences.     

EMERGENCE FROM PHYSICS TO THEOLOGY: TOWARD A PANORAMIC VIEW

Abstract. At its best, the emergence debate provides a helpful model of what religion‐science scholarship can and should involve. (At its worst it represents the faddishness and bandwagon effects to which our field is also prone.) Those involved in the debate must pay close attention to concrete theories and results in the natural sciences. They rely on the careful conceptual distinctions that philosophers of science draw concerning complexity, novelty, and organization. The resulting views about human mentality and consciousness are tested against these results and checked for their adequacy to the phenomena of human experience. Emergentist theories of nature and personhood have entailments for one's theory of religion and for theological reflection; conversely, theological accounts may constrain one's interpretation of emergent phenomena. In my response to the four symposiasts I draw out these deeper dimensions of the emergence debate.     

QUANTUM PHYSICS, PHILOSOPHY, AND THE IMAGE OF GOD: INSIGHTS FROM WOLFGANG PAULI

Abstract. Nobel Laureate in physics Wolfgang Pauli studied philosophy and the history of ideas intensively, especially in his later years, to form an accurate ontology vis-à-vis quantum theory. Pauli's close contacts with the Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung gave him special qualifications for also understanding the basic problems of empirical knowledge. After Pauli's sudden death in 1958, this work was maintained mainly in his posthumously published correspondence, which so far extends only to 1939. Because Pauli's view differs essentially from the direction physics research took after the deaths of the founding fathers of quantum theory, this article attempts to describe the main features in Pauli's revolutionary thought, which is based on nature's "epistemological lesson" as revealed by Pauli's atomic research. Pauli's conclusions have important implications for various issues in Western culture, not least with the limits of science and the relation of science to religion.     

SIGNALING STATIC: ARTISTIC,RELIGIOUS, AND SCIENTIFIC TRUTHS IN A RELATIONAL ONTOLOGY

Abstract. In this essay I point toward the difficulties inherent in ontological objectivity and seek to restore our truth claims to validity through a relational ontology and the dynamic of coimplication in signals and noise. Theological examination of art and science points toward similarities between art, religion, and science. All three have often focused upon a “metaphysics of presence,” the desire for absolute presence of the object (the signified, the divine, the natural object). If we accept a relational ontology, however, we must accept that the revelation of presence is always simultaneously a concealment. This helps explain technoscientific achievement without recourse to a philosophically flawed objectivity. Twentieth‐century information theory shows the impossibility of a “pure signal.” By accepting that signal and noise are permanently interconnected, we begin to see how noise makes signal possible and even how noise becomes signal (allowing the discovery of novel facts). Information theory thus underscores important similarities and leads toward new approaches in aesthetics, Christian theology, and scientific research. By comparing art, religion, and science, I argue that rejecting a metaphysics of presence without rejecting presence itself allows human beings to know the world. Although religion, science, and art often seek the absolute presence of their objects, they function better without.     

INTERRELATING NATURE, HUMANITY, AND THE WORK OF GOD: SOME ISSUES FOR FUTURE REFLECTION

Abstract. This essay suggests some future items for an agenda about human viability, defined as survivability with meaning and purpose, by exploring interrelations between nature, humanity, and the work of God. It argues for intrinsic and creative value in nature, so there is a value kinship, as well as a factual kinship, between humans, nature, and God-working. It considers humans as "webs of culture, life, and cosmos" and suggests some implications of this notion of human nature for viability. And it asks what human fulfillment can be in light of the awesome creative-destroying-recreative activity that seems to be the ground of an evolving universe.     

SCIENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE: WESTPHAL,DERRIDA, AND RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract. On the naive reading, “radical social constructivism” would be the result of “deconstructing” science. Science would simply be a contingent construction in accordance with social determinants. However, postmodernism does not necessarily abandon fidelity to the objects of thought. Merold Westphal's Derridean philosophy of religion emphasizes that even theology need not eliminate the transcendence of the divine other. By drawing an analogy between natural and supernatural transcendence, I argue that science is similarly called to responsibility in the encounter with that which lies outside its horizon of expectation. Science's rational autonomy is overcome by the heteronomy of realities that precede it. Understanding species as homeostatic property clusters is an example of nonessentialist, postmodern, and scientific realism. Science is still a vehicle for encountering natural alterity, thus decentering the relativism thought to characterize postmodernism. However, natural science must not attempt to place the whole of being at human disposal if it is to fulfill the potential of Westphal's philosophy of religion.     

ISOLATING THE INDIVIDUAL: THEOLOGY,THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION,AND THE PROBLEM OF ABSTRACT INDIVIDUALISM

Debates about the theological implications of recent research in the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion have tended to focus on the question of theism. The question of whether there is any disagreement about the conceptualization of the individual human being has been largely overlooked. In this article, I argue that evolutionary and cognitive accounts of religion typically depend upon a view of cognition that conceptually isolates the mind from its particular social and physical environmental contexts. By embracing this view of the mind, these accounts also unwittingly embrace an abstract individualist view of individual personhood that Christian theologians have explicitly battled against. Taken as a whole, the field leaves sufficient room for supplementary theories that are compatible with theological accounts of the relational individual, but in practice, no effort has been made to engage, or even to accommodate, any other view of individual personhood.     

BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE: HOW FAR CAN THE DIALOGUE PROCEED?

On the stage of the religion‐and‐science dialogue, Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism, is a late arrival. However, thanks primarily to the long‐standing personal interest of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan tradition he represents has come to engage deeply with various disciplines of modern science. This essay follows the active engagement that has occurred particularly in the form of the biannual Mind and Life dialogues between the Dalai Lama and scientists. From the perspective of an active participant, I present the careful deliberations that ensure constructive parameters for these dialogues so that no one side can exert a hegemonic voice. I explore the challenges that are likely to confront the Buddhist side from its encounter with science, particularly with respect to its worldview. I identify specific areas where the two sides can and do engage in concrete collaboration, especially with respect to investigating healthy qualities of the mind and the effects of conscious mental training for attention and emotion regulation. Finally, I explore the question of the possible impact of this dialogue on modern science.     

PANTHEISM RECONSTRUCTED: ECOTHEOLOGY AS A SUCCESSOR TO THE JUDEO‐CHRISTIAN,ENLIGHTENMENT, AND POSTMODERNIST PARADIGMS

The Judeo‐Christian, Enlightenment, and postmodernist paradigms have become intellectually and ethically exhausted. They are obviously failing to provide a conceptual framework conducive to eliminating some of humanity's worst scourges, including war and environmental destruction. This raises the issue of a successor, which necessitates a reexamination of first principles, starting with our concept of God. Pantheism, which is differentiated from panentheism, denies the existence of a transcendent, supernatural creator and instead asserts that God and the universe are one and the same. Understood via intuition, modern cosmology, and other natural sciences, it offers an alternative worldview that posits the divine and sacred nature of the universe/creation. By asserting the fallacy of the creator/creation dichotomy and any attempts to anthropomorphize or personalize God, pantheism precludes hubris stemming from erroneous notions of divine favoritism. The links between Judeo‐Christianity and the Enlightenment are traced and a case made that the latter has resulted in the equally erroneous and hubristic notion of human ascendancy to a Godlike status, with the concept of progress providing a secular version of the Christian belief in salvation. By reestablishing the natural sciences’metanarrative, even as it asserts the divinity of the material universe, pantheism simultaneously demotes postmodernism and reconciles science with religion. Pantheism provides a theological foundation for deep ecology and also stakes out a viable third position in relation to the ongoing dispute between advocates of intelligent design and the scientific establishment.