John Polkinghorne on Three Scientist-Theologians

In 1996, John Polkinghorne published Scientists as Theologians: A Comparison of the Writings of Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne. Responding to this book and his subsequent writing, I first summarize four topics on which we all agree: (1) critical realism; (2) holism, emergence, and levels of organization; (3) human nature; and (4) limitations in God's power. I then discuss our differences concerning: (1) classification schemes; (2) concepts of God; (3) laws of nature; (4) divine action; and (5) Christology. I then explore the contexts in which we were writing: our differing scientific disciplines, theological traditions, and academic institutions. Some concluding reflections concern our place in the interdisciplinary field of “science and religion.”     

John Polkinghorne and the Task of Addressing a "Messy" World

As a physicist-theologian, John Polkinghorne has done a great service for the community of scholars engaged in the theology-and-science dialogue as well as for a broader audience of interested persons. We examine Polkinghorne's theological method to see what it suggests about his understanding of the function of systematic theology and his philosophy of science. His strong emphasis on rationality in theology corresponds to his epistemological discussions. Polkinghorne links his methodology to "thinking," so "experience" seems relegated to the minds, and not the lives, of the believers. Consequently, his theology does not easily engage ethical, political, and cultural landscapes where the concrete contexts of particular people's lives engage their faith. The challenge for those of us in religion-and-science is to come to grips with this messy, complicated world.     

Expert Advice and Argumentation: Some Remarks on the Work of Douglas Walton

Appeal to expert judgement has become a wide-spread and unavoidable element in public debates in modern society. The many and fundamental argumentative complications that they raise have not received proportional attention in argumentation studies so far. A prominent exception is a recent book by Douglas Walton, devoted entirely to arguments involving expert opinion (Walton, 1997). Confronting some examples from the field of Science and Society with Walton's earlier work, the need can be traced for a more elaborate and sophisticated treatment of the many issues involved, particularly for the model of information seeking dialogue and the treatment of source reasoning. With these issues as points of reference, it is examined in what way this challenge has been taken up in the new book. A few further additions are suggested.     

How Religious tradition Survives in the World of Science: John Polkinghorne and Norbert Samuelson

The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker John Polkinghorn
Judaism and the Doctrine of Creation Norbert Samuelson     

The Rise of Sympathy and the Question of Divine Suffering

Seventeenth-century Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth, writing just at the time when the concept of sympathy was moving from the realm of magic to that of ethics, argued that God must be understood as having a vital sympathy with suffering human beings. Yet while Cudworth invoked sympathy in an attempt to capture God's intimate relation with creation, in fact, it served as a principle of mediation that tended either to collapse God into the world or to distance God from the world. The broader implications of this problematic conception of divine transcendence can be seen in the secularizing tendencies within sentimentalist ethics and in the work of the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Anglican theologians, who were the first to affirm divine passibility.     

Schrödinger's Cat and Divine Action: Some Comments on the Use of Quantum Uncertainty to Allow for God's Action in the World

I present results of recent work in the field of quantum optics and relate this work to discussions about the theory of quantum mechanics and God's divine action in the world. Experiments involving atomic decay, relevant to event uncertainty in quantum mechanics, as well as experiments aimed at elucidating the so–called Schrödinger's–cat paradox, help clarify apparent ambiguities or paradoxes that I believe are at the heart of renewed attempts to locate God within our constructed physical theories and tend to narrow the gaps proposed as an opening for divine action. Some problems arise because of imprecise use of nonmathematical language to force quantum mechanics into an intuitive "classical" framework.     

Creation,Redemption and Theodicy in the Work of Christopher Southgate

This paper analyzes the work of Christopher Southgate with a view toward interpreting his insights into the integrity of creation, redemption and theodicy in light of Saint Augustine's theology. Drawing on various contributions that Southgate has made, this paper seeks to establish parallels, connections and some agreement between his work and the great African bishop without papering over the obvious disagreements over the Fall, Original Sin, the premises of salvation and biblical hermeneutics.     

COSMOLOGY FROM ALPHA TO OMEGA: RESPONSE TO REVIEWS

I gratefully acknowledge and respond here to four reviews of my recent book, Cosmology from Alpha to Omega. Nancey Murphy stresses the importance of showing consistency between Christian theology and natural science through a detailed examination of my recent model of their creative interaction. She suggests how this model can be enhanced by adopting Alasdair MacIntyre's understanding of tradition in order to adjudicate between competing ways of incorporating science into a wider worldview. She urges the inclusion of ethics in my model and predicts that this would successfully challenge the competing naturalist tradition in contemporary society. John F. Haught weighs the alternatives of viewing divine action as objective versus subjective and of divine action at one level in nature or at all levels. He asks whether physics is fundamental to nature, arguing instead that metaphysics should be considered as fundamental. Michael Ruse assesses occasional versus universal divine action, the problems raised to divine action when it is related to quantum mechanics, and the way these relations exacerbate the challenge of natural theodicy. As an alternative he suggests viewing God as outside time and acting through unbroken natural law. Willem B. Drees discusses my use of the bridge metaphor for the relation between theology and science, the implications when science is inspired by theology, the role of contingency and necessity in the anthropic principle/many-worlds debate, and the challenge of cosmology to eschatology with the ensuing problem of theodicy.     

The Solubility of Salt: A Divine Action Account

In the burgeoning literature on dispositions, solubility is a standard example. In this paper we give a rigorous theistic divine action account of the simple mechanism of the dissolving of salt, NaCl, into the ions Na⁺ and Cl^?. We explore this reaction in terms of an alternative view of divine action, Divine Compositionalism, which holds that the functioning of every physical, chemical, and biological mechanism in the universe is a manifesting complex disposition, which is nothing other than ways God acts according to plan.     

Some Remarks on Exploring the History of Women in Philosophy

A discussion of the status of work on the history of women in philosophy and an introduction to the special issue of HYPATIA on the history of women in philosophy.     

罢工权立法问题的若干思考

罢工权是市场经济下劳动者的基本权利,也是市场经济国家普遍承认的公民权利。这一权利对于平衡和协调劳资关系、促进经济和社会的稳定发展具有积极的意义。但法律所保障之罢工,是合法罢工。合法罢工的要件包括:必须由工会所组织;必须以缔结集体合同为目的;必须保证社会和经济秩序的稳定和安全。合法罢工享有特定的法律保障,这主要表现在合法罢工的民事免责和刑事免责方面。由于劳资矛盾激化和劳工权益的被侵害,我国目前的集权争议和罢工事件有不断上升的趋势。我国现行法律并未禁止罢工,但也没有明确规定公民或劳动者享有罢工权。这种状况致使罢工的发生和处理都难以规范。面对日益突出的劳资冲突,目前亟需完善罢工权立法,适时明确地规定中国的劳动者享有罢工权,并规定合法罢工的要件。文章具体分析和探讨了完善我国罢工权立法的意义、法律依据、立法内容和立法时机等问题。     

Philosophy in America: Remarks on John McCumber's Time in the Ditch: American Philosophy and the McCarthy Era

John McCumber is right to think that analytic philosophy has had a particularly central and dominating position in American philosophy, and that philosophy is less significant in American public life than in the public life of many European countries. I believe he is wrong to think that American philosophers have turned to analytical work in order to escape being politically relevant, and that he is wrong to suppose that prominent academic philosophy is something to wish for.     

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.     

文明冲突论:被揭示的与被遮蔽的

在20世纪的最后十年即所谓世纪之交,随着中国国内的一场政治地震和苏联解体、东欧剧变带来的东西方冷战体制的崩溃,以美国为首的西方国家与中国之间的"人权斗争"以及相关的经济制裁和政治对立形成了新的大国冲突战线.与此同时,美国率领其盟军在海湾地区制服伊拉克,赢得一场"文明之间的战争"①.     

对"橄榄型社会结构"一说的反思

橄榄型社会结构的提法是建立在中产阶级理论的基础之上的.本文对世界三条不同的中产阶级成长之路进行了历史的考察,认为橄榄型社会结构并不符合当代中国的国情,我们无法借鉴;相对于中产阶级,我们更应该正视最广大社会群体的基本诉求.巩固党的执政基础和阶级基础需要我们更重视底层的广大民众,把工人阶级和广大劳动群众作为党执政的根本立足点.因此,造就一个橄榄型社会并不是我们现阶段所要关注的焦点.追求社会的公平正义才是我们党和政府要着手解决的首要问题.     

Divine Action in the World of Physics: Response to Nicholas Saunders

Nicholas Saunders claims that, in my view, divine action requires and is confined to indeterminacies at the quantum level. I try to make clear that, in speaking of "gaps" in physical causality, I mean that the existence of intentions entails that determining law explanations alone cannot give a complete account of the natural world. By "indeterminacy" I mean a general (not quantum) lack of determining causality in the physical order. Construing physical causality in terms of dispositional properties variously realized in more or less creative ways in different contexts may be most helpful in developing an account of divine action.