AUGMENTED REALITY,ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE,AND THE RE‐ENCHANTMENT OF THE WORLD

There has recently been a surge of development in augmented reality (AR) technologies that has led to an ecosystem of hardware and software for AR, including tools for artists and designers to accelerate the design of AR content and experiences without requiring complex programming. AR is viewed as a key “disruptive technology” and future display technologies (such as digital eyewear) will provide seamless continuity between reality and the digitally augmented. This article will argue that the technologization of human perception and experience of reality, coupled with the development of artificial intelligence (AI)–based natural language assistants, may lead to a secular re‐enchantment of the world, in the sense outlined by Charles Taylor, where human existence is shaped through AR inhabited by advanced personal and social AI agents in the form of digital avatars and daemons, and that enchantment has been persistent throughout the formation of modernity and is being rekindled by the integration of AI in the plane of AR.     

CHARLES LYELL,UNIFORMITARIANISM, AND INTERPRETIVE PRINCIPLES

I examine the development of Charles Lyell's principle of uniformity and its influence on the development of modern geology and biology and argue that distinguishing between philosophical starting points and empirical findings is essential for clarity in the discussion between science and religion. First, I explore Lyell's arguments against catastrophism and how these were both empirically and religiously motivated. I then consider how David Hume's empiricism, theory of causation, and rejection of miracles influenced Lyell. Using these insights, Lyell formulated his principle of uniformity, which he believed was based on current empirical findings, and rejected explanatory hypotheses that used the biblical Flood or other catastrophist accounts as violations of uniform causation and introductions of theological concepts into empirical science. I next examine the influence of Lyell's principle on Charles Darwin. Although Lyell opposed Darwinism for most of his life, Darwin relied heavily on Lyell, as is evidenced by references throughout The Origin of Species. I contend that the most important aspect of Lyell's principle for Darwin is that it makes natural evil (the struggle for survival) a process that has always been occurring rather than something introduced after the Fall as recorded in Genesis. Finally, I discuss the role that uniformity plays for Lyell, Darwin, and modern science as an interpretive principle rather than as an inference from empirical data, and I conclude by noting that keeping the distinction in mind between interpretive principles and empirical findings will help clarify debates between science and religion.     

Effects of toy guns and airplanes on children's antisocial free play behavior.

The effects of toy guns and toy airplanes on children's antisocial (aggression and rule-breaking) behavior was investigated in two settings (ten children in Study I and 13 in Study II) during 30-min free play sessions. Four-and 5-year-old children were observed during 15–16 free play sessions. During some sessions the children played either with (novel, aggressive) toy guns or with (novel, nonaggressive) toy airplanes in addition to their usual toys. In both studies, the toy guns treatment produced a reliably higher rate of antisocial behavior than the average of the toy airplaines and the usual toys. The novel-nonaggressive toy airplanes also increased the rate of antisocial behavior as compared to usual toys in Study II. The results were related primarily to Berkowitz's and Bandura's analyses of aggressive behavior, but they were related also to other theoretical models which predict stimulus control of behavior.     

PROBLEMS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY IN THE COURSE OF THEIR MODERN HISTORY

Abstract. It is misleading to speak of warfare between science and Christian theology, as Andrew White did in 1896. White also was mistaken in exaggerating the conflict between the church and Galileo and Copernicus. The more important issue between science and theology has to do with the mechanistic interpretation of nature. When he introduced the principle of inertia in his natural philosophy, René Descartes insisted that God's immutability renders it impossible for God to intervene in the creation. He reduced the idea of God to a deistic notion by speaking of motion exclusively as a property of bodies. Even though Isaac Newton offered a different view, the Cartesian view dominated subsequent thinking. This made dialogue with theology difficult. Michael Faraday, followed by Albert Einstein, introduced the idea of field; bodily phenomena were subordinated as manifestations of fields. The precursor of the idea of field is the Stoic idea of spirit, which is close to the biblical concept of spirit. Thomas Torrance and I have taken this concept of field as an occasion to reopen dialogue. Mechanistic thinking accounts for the tension between Darwinian thought and theology. In principle the tension can be resolved, because the Bible itself asserts that all living things were brought from the earth—that is, organic life emerged from inorganic matter. Thus, emergence, contingency, and novelty are consistent with Darwinian evolutionary thinking. Contingency can be related conceptually to the activity of God in creation.     

Evolution,Suffering, and Eschatological Redemption: Sollereder,Southgate, and Russell on Theodicy

Two new books helpfully refine the position vaunted by Theistic Evolution. These two books will garner the interest especially of the proleptic school within Theistic Evolution, which affirms (1) the long history of evolution as God's creative work; (2) the Theology of the Cross wherein God shares in the sufferings and even death of all creatures, animals included; (3) Jesus’ Easter resurrection as a prolepsis of the eschatological new creation; and (4) the coincidence of creation with redemption. These two provocative new works are Bethany Sollereder's God, Evolution, and Animal Suffering: Theodicy without a Fall, along with Christopher Southgate's Theology in a Suffering World: Glory and Longing. This article tackles a problem surfacing in the work of both Sollereder and Southgate: when eliminating the fall, the combination of redemption and creation becomes incoherent. Robert John Russell's “fall without a fall” provides greater coherence in the proleptic version of Theistic Evolution.     

The corona crisis unmasks prevailing social ideologies

This essay contrasts two visions of selfhood: the buffered, autonomous self, and the flexible, resonant self. The autonomous self, while robustly assertive and active, seeks to insulate itself from threats, thereby robbing it of vital connections to other selves and to nature. The resonant self, in contrast, risks more by standing in fluid relationships of resonance and dissonance with its social and natural environments. While the two stand in tension, a baptismal theology entails both elements of a sheltered self and a resonant self that remains flexible and responsive to the ups and downs of human experience. Conversely, even a secular-minded person will have access to important zones of resonance.     

Charles F. Mackenzie and Early Colonial Racism

Archdeacon Charles F. Mackenzie ministered in the diocese of Natal in South Africa from 1855 to 1859. The early days of the diocese and the colony of Natal were characterized by conflict both inside and outside the church. The church conflict of Bishop John Colenso is perhaps most infamous. Mackenzie attempted to navigate this space and minister to settlers, soldiers, and Africans alike. This article draws on primary sources to explore the life and times of Mackenzie and argues that despite Mackenzie's remarkable story, the inseparability of coloniality from the missionary endeavour, racism, and the civilizing narrative was inescapable. Racism has evolved and is still a challenge for many churches.     

Secular and religious: the intrinsic doubleness of analytical psychology and the hegemony of naturalism in the social sciences

In recent years a number of prominent social theorists, including Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor, have voiced concern about the hegemony of naturalistic, secular assumptions in the social sciences, and in their different ways have sought to address this by establishing greater parity between secular and religious perspectives. This paper suggests that C.G. Jung's analytical psychology, which hitherto has been largely ignored by social theory, may have something to contribute on this issue as it can be understood coherently both empirically, without reference to transcendent reality, and metaphysically, with reference to transcendent reality. It is argued that, despite his denials of any metaphysical intent, Jung does in fact engage in metaphysics and that together the empirical and metaphysical vectors of his thought result in a rich and distinctive double perspective. This dual secular and religious perspective can be seen as part of Jung's own critique of the hegemony of naturalism and secularism, which for Jung has profound social as well as clinical relevance. The concern and approach that Habermas and Taylor share with Jung on this issue may provide some grounds for increased dialogue between analytical psychology and the social sciences.     

Honesty and inquiry: W.K. Clifford’s ethics of belief

ABSTRACT

W.K. Clifford is widely known for his emphatic motto that it is wrong, always everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. In fact, that dictum and Clifford’s condemnation of a scheming self-deceptive shipowner sum up how his ethics of belief is most often remembered and how it has been subsequently interpreted. In contrast to other recent interpretations, we argue that the motto is misleading as a guide to Clifford’s position. It is best understood as essentially a rhetorical flourish. Moreover, in important ways the scheming shipowner is not stereotypical of the kind of believer Clifford thought blameworthy. A careful study of Clifford’s various writings on the ethics of belief finally reveals him not to be an evidentialist in the Humean tradition. Rather, inspired by Charles Darwin’s work in moral psychology, he applied an evolutionary-functional virtue ethics to the doxastic realm. This perspective allows a fruitful examination of his engagement with contemporaries like Matthew Arnold. It also allows us to recognize him as a predecessor to modern attributionist accounts of blameworthy belief.