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.     

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.     

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.     

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.