Editor’s note: This edition has been slightly revised from the original posting to correct a possible misinterpretation that was brought to our attention.

What’s It All About?

International Society of Science and Religion Debates Life’s Biggest Questions

By Stephen Henderson

“God is assumed to be free - bound by or contingent on nothing or no one. But what of humanity, as well as non-human organisms? What freedom do they have?”

With these provocative questions, Dr. Fraser Watts, Starbridge Lecturer in Theology and Natural Sciences at Queen’s College, Cambridge, opened the second annual meeting of the International Society of Science and Religion (ISSR). The meeting, convened in Boston, Massachusetts from August 18-22, attracted over sixty scholars from countries around the world - including Australia, Germany, Great Britain, India, Japan, Sweden, and the United States.

Watts welcomed this international assembly and introduced the conference’s organizing theme, “Creation: Probability and Law,” which he predicted would be both broad and focused enough to allow consideration from varying perspectives of philosophy, theology and science. This proved to be the case, and then some.

Beginning with an historical overview, several speakers described how the understanding of natural law has changed over time. Whereas for centuries it was agreed that God laid down laws of nature “as a king rules his kingdom” - an apt analogy offered by Niels Gregersen of Copenhagen University - during the Enlightenment, this notion began to be linked with determinism. How, after all, could the ever-developing, ever-changing world be completely preordained, yet still allow humanity to have free will?

Laws of nature are an ancient idea and important to most cultures, but the operations of chance are equally ancient and important, according to Wesley Wildman, a professor of theology and ethics at Boston University.

“What we are looking for,” agreed Robert Russell, a professor of theology and science at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, “is a more holistic view of the world, where indeterminism can have some place.”

With a general groundwork thus laid out, discussion was soon underway about distinctions between lawfulness and chance, probability and predictability, as well as attempts to contrast the idea of “agency” - meaning human freedom and purpose - with “non-agency,” in which all of nature’s laws are determinate and contingent.

Some suggested that the world couldn’t have been fruitful unless its design had a high degree of orderliness. “If you tinker with physics much at all, life as we know it would not be possible,” said George Ellis, a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Cape Town and recently elected President of the ISSR.

“Carbon is a rare element and has no replacement on the table of elements,” observed Gregersen. “It is curious and worth noting that human life is based on such an exotic substance.”

Speakers like these scientists and theologians alluded frequently to the universe’s “fine-tuning” which led to the formation of human life - what’s sometimes referred to as the anthropic principle.

Yet, even if the universe is fine-tuned, other presenters argued, it is still dangerous to restrict agency to humanity, as it may be that humans simply act in a more conspicuous way than other organisms on earth. Finally, there was discussion about whether the biosphere might be expanding. Could there be other forms of life - say, non-carbon-based organisms - on distant planets?

These inquiries, and many more, surfaced as delegates responded to presentations with titles such as “Chance and Purpose in Evolution,” “The Laws of Physics and the Rules of Complexity,” “Neuroscience, Determinism and Downward Causation: Defusing the Free-Will Problem,” and “God and Probability.” As befits the ecumenical approach of the ISSR, scrupulous effort was made to consider the laws of nature in both Christian and non-Christian cultures.

For instance, according to Carl Feit, who teaches Health Sciences at Yeshiva University in New York City, Judaism’s Talmudic tradition holds that before God created our universe, He created and destroyed others. This way of thinking, Feit noted, has a fascinating parallel in the more contemporary scientific theory of “multiverses.”

In Islam, said Bruno Guideroni, director of research at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics, God is not thought of as a being, but as an act of being. “Could God not be a spring, a never ending stream,” he asked, “that continuously brings all sorts of possibilities to life?”

While the atmosphere remained collegial throughout, there were at times sharp differences of opinion expressed in the question and answer sessions that followed each address. Tempering any argument, however, was a sense that topics under consideration were highly speculative, and on the very edges of human comprehension.

[Edited 6/15/06 at the request of Anindita Balslev.]

More than a few delegates expressed surprise at how mentally challenging the meetings were. Dr. Antje Jackelsen of Chicago’s Lutheran School of Theology likened it to the torrent of different languages released by the Day of Pentecost as described in The Bible’s Acts 2: 1-11. And, Dr. Pauline Rudd, a lecturer at the Glycobiology Institute of the University of Oxford, said, “most conferences I attend, I am tuned into professional concerns. Yet this is a forum where you think, ‘What does my field mean? Why am I doing this?’”

It was not uncommon to see world-renowned scholars embracing the role of students, eagerly attentive to their peers and taking copious notes. “I was trained as a physicist, but most of the main problems facing the world today have to do with biology,” Ian Barbour explained.

As the gathering wound down, some began to feel that a new theory of “continuous creation” was gaining ground. There was also discussion of God’s activities in relation to “directed mutations” or “chance mutations”. Cambridge University’s Dr. John Polkinghorne declared, “Life can’t be too rigid, or nothing will happen. Life can’t be too haphazard, or nothing will persist.”

“Instead of a God who has it all worked out - done and dusted at the start - it’s a God that’s making it up as He’s moving along,” said Bill Phillips, a cognitive neuroscientist at Stirling University in Scotland. “This gives a context for free will and allows room for human agency to have a role in the shaping of the universe. At some point, God has to step back and let His creation find its way.”

The International Society of Science and Religion helped light such a path with a public lecture, “The Science and Religion Dialogue: Why It Matters,” which was held midway through the conference.

This event attracted a standing-room-only crowd of more than 500 to the Constitution Hall ballroom in Boston’s Sheraton Hotel. Academics and laymen of all ages - ranging from tweedy seniors wearing bifocals, to youngsters sporting torn blue jeans - listened to addresses by George Ellis, John Polkinghorne and Holmes Rolston III, the three most recent Templeton Prize laureates.

“Science is the first fact of modern life, but religion is the traditional carrier of meaning,” Rolston said. “Science, you see, can’t teach us what we most need to know about nature, which is how to value it.”

Summing up the proceedings, Polkinghorne added, “Why is science even possible? Why is the world so rationally transparent and beautiful to us? For me at least, this is a proof of God’s existence.”

Links of Interest
International Society of Science and Religion

Stephen Henderson is a freelance writer based in New York and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun and Religion News Service.

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