Promising Prospects for the Future of Science and Religion
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VIDEO: Dr. Michael Welker gives a welcoming address at the opening ceremony |
What has been achieved in over forty years of dialogue between science and theology? What might the future of the discipline look like and how might it best progress?
These questions framed a major conference last month at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. The Science and Religion Dialogue: Past and Future, supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, gathered leading scholars in the field to assess the current and future state of the academic study of science and religion. “The weekend attracted 400 visitors from 33 countries, in addition to the 60 or so academics who presented papers and chaired discussions,” says Michael Welker, professor of systematic theology at the University of Heidelberg and conference host. “There is work of real quality and diversity being undertaken, and the future is exciting.” Videos from the conference, including the opening ceremony and presentations, are now available online.
A key feature of the work is that it engages seriously and deeply with cutting-edge science. “Scientific innovation is not a threat to religious belief and theology but a source of inspiration for renewal,” said Hans Joas of the Universities of Freiburg and Chicago in his opening remarks.
For example, Günter Wagner of Yale University presented a paper on how the complexities of contemporary developmental biology have exploded the notion that organisms are merely the expression of genomes. Rather, epigenetics is demonstrating how organisms are a unique synthesis of all manner of factors, including the social and environmental. This insight carries ethical significance. “Life has real dignity,” Wagner believes. Other cutting-edge science discussed included whether or not the cosmos is causally closed, and the ramifications this has for the possibility of divine intervention.
Several young scholars who won the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise, formerly the John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, gave presentations at the conference, including Jan Stievermann from the University of Heidelberg. His presentation argued that knowing about the history of the dialogue between science and religion can correct misapprehensions commonly made today.
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| VIDEO: Dr. Stephen Post speaks about the centenary of the birth of Sir John Templeton |
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So what might future research look like? What are the most promising prospects? If there is one word that might act as a guide, it is “interdisciplinary,” Welker explains. The natural sciences will continue their long-established discussion with theology, but the social sciences must be brought more squarely into the picture, too, particularly anthropology. Welker also believes that an interdisciplinary approach is most likely to be productive when particular issues are considered, rather than the general question of how science and religion relate. One example, represented at the conference, is concepts of law in the natural sciences. Examining this issue should draw not only on philosophy and science, but legal studies, too.
Anthropology is so important because many of the matters that engage the science and religion dialogue have been most fruitfully addressed by considering what it is to be human. This was highlighted by John Polkinghorne, one of the pioneers in the field, when he explained how central tenets of Christian theology, such as resurrection and eschatology, require an understanding of how human individuality might continue beyond the death of the individual—and also the death of the cosmos. This possible continuity needs to be set against aspects of ourselves that will not continue, such as the fleshly matter of which we are physically made.
In fact, none of us is made of the same atoms that we were even a few years ago, and yet we are the same individuals that we were. Perhaps addressing that problem might throw light on the theological hope of a new creation succeeding the old. “More generally,” continues Welker, “what this interdisciplinary approach demonstrates is that reductionist and dualist accounts of what it is to be human, as if we were just mind and/or body, are being superseded. We need multi-dimensional conceptions that bring in notions of flesh, heart, reason and spirit, too.” Welker also notes that the interfaith element needs further developing, supported in the conference by scholars on Judaism, Indian and Chinese religions, and Islam.
The conference, which was held in the year of the 25th anniversary of the Foundation, the 40th anniversary of the Templeton Prize, and the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sir John Templeton, aimed to illustrate the range of research supported by the Foundation in the field of science and religion. Mary Ann Meyers, co-chair with Barnaby Marsh of the Foundation’s Anniversaries Steering Committee, commented that she was “especially gratified to observe that the conference participants speaking about science, whether astronomy, biology, physics, or mathematics, sought to engage theologians in matters of meaning making that they were grappling with in their own disciplines.” It honored Sir John’s realistic vision, she added, that “those engaged in the dialogue at Heidelberg resisted easy accommodations as they wrestled with framing the questions that would lead them into a deeper understanding of fundamental reality.”
The Future of Giving
The religious and philosophical grounds for giving, as well as the psychology and evolution of altruism, will be discussed at a three-day conference at the New School for Social Research in New York City on December 6–8, 2012. “Giving: Caring for the Needs of Strangers” will bring together scholars, policy makers, and philanthropists to explore the relationship between democracy and philanthropy as well as the effectiveness of various types of philanthropy. The conference is open to the public and tickets may be ordered online.
Confirmed speakers include Deogratias Niyizonkiza, founder and director of Village Health Works in Burundi, J. Bryan Hehir, professor of the practice of religion and public life at Harvard, and Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton.
The importance of giving in different faiths, including Christian, Islamic, and Hindu, will be considered. The impact on philanthropy of the psychology of altruism, as well as the way it is shaped by the law and the welfare state, will also be on the conference agenda.
Entitlements and the Character of Citizens
Entitlement spending by American administrations has grown exponentially over the past fifty years. Nicholas Eberstadt, the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute and one of America’s foremost demographers, charts the rise in A Nation of Takers: America’s Entitlement Epidemic, published by Templeton Press. In 1960, entitlement payments accounted for under a third of the federal government’s total outlays. Today, it accounts for two-thirds of the budget. Further, Eberstadt continues, such spending has a long-lasting and negative impact upon the character of American citizens.
The book has provoked continuous, widespread discussion in the media since Labor Day, September 2, including The Wall Street Journal that carried an excerpt, The New York Times in an opinion piece by David Brooks, The Atlantic, Fox News, CNBC, and two separate opinion pieces in the Washington Post by George Will and Robert Samuelson. Eberstadt was also interviewed on national talk radio shows including The Michael Medved Show and The Mike Huckabee Show, and he is scheduled to be on The Dennis Prager Show on November 19. Further major print and electronic media outlets are committed to covering the book now that the election is over.
The book contains responses from William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, and Yuval Levin, Hertog Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Centre. In a final response, Eberstadt himself invites others to join the conversation.
