Showing papers in "Zygon in 2007"

I to we: The role of consciousness transformation in compassion and altruism

Abstract: It is clear that human consciousness can be transformed through spiritual experiences and practices. Little is known, however, about what the predictors, mediators, and outcomes are of such transformations in consciousness. In-depth structured interviews were conducted with forty-seven teachers and scholars from religious and spiritual traditions and modern transformative movements to identify factors common to the transformative process across traditions. Compassion and altruism were almost universally identified as important outcomes of positive consciousness transformation. Results of our analysis suggest that altruism and compassion may arise as natural consequences of experiences of interconnection and oneness. These experiences appear to lead to shifts in perspective and changes in one's sense of self and self in relationship to others. Based on these findings, we suggest several mechanisms by which transformative experiences and practices might influence the development of compassion and altruism.

Beyond reductionism: Reinventing the sacred

Abstract: We have lived under the hegemony of the reductionistic scientific worldview since Galileo, Newton, and Laplace. In this view, the universe is meaningless, as Stephen Weinberg famously said, and organisms and a court of law are “nothing but” particles in morion. This scientific view is inadequate. Physicists are beginning to abandon reductionism in favor of emergence. Emergence, both epistemological and ontological, embraces the emergence of life and of agency. With agency comes meaning, value, and doing, beyond mere happenings. More organisms are conscious. None of this violates any laws of physics, but it cannot be reduced to physics. Emergence is real, and the tiger chasing the gazelle are real parts of the real universe. We live, therefore, in an emergent universe. This emergence often is entirely unpredictable beforehand, from the evolution of novel functionalities in organisms to the evolution of the economy and human history. We are surrounded on all sides by a creativity that cannot even be prestated. Thus we have the first glimmerings of a new scientific worldview, beyond reductionism. In our universe emergence is real, and there is ceaseless, stunning creativity that has given rise to our biosphere, our humanity, and our history. We are partial co-creators of this emergent creativity. It is our choice whether we use the God word. I believe it is wise to do so. God can be our shared name for the true creativity in the natural universe. Such a view invites a new sense of the sacred, as those aspects of the creativity in the universe that we deem worthy of holding sacred. We are not logically forced to this view. Yet a global civilization, hopefully persistently diverse and creative, is emerging. I believe we need a shared view of God, a fully natural God, to orient our lives. We need a shared view of the sacred that is open to slow evolution, because rigidity in our view of the sacred violates how our most precious values evolve and invites ethical hegemony. We need a shared global ethic beyond our materialism. I believe a sense of God as the natural, awesome creativity in the universe can help us construct the sacred and a global ethic to help shape the global civilization toward what we choose with the best of our limited wisdom.

Robots and the Sacred in Science and Science Fiction: Theological Implications of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract: In science-fiction literature and film, human beings si- multaneously feel fear and allure in the presence of intelligent ma- chines, an experience that approximates the numinous experience as described in 1917 by Rudolph Otto. Otto believed that two chief elements characterize the numinous experience: the mysterium tremen- dum and the fascinans. Briefly, the mysterium tremendum is the fear of God's wholly other nature and the fascinans is the allure of God's saving grace. Science-fiction representations of robots and artificially intelligent computers follow this logic of threatening otherness and soteriological promise. Science fiction offers empirical support for Anne Foerst's claim that human beings experience fear and fascina- tion in the presence of advanced robots from the Massachusetts In- stitute of Technology AI Lab. The human reaction to intelligent machines shows that human beings in many respects have elevated those machines to divine status. This machine apotheosis, an inter- esting cultural event for the history of religions, may—despite Foerst's rosy interpretation—threaten traditional Christian theologies.

Golems in the biotech century

Abstract: . The legend of the golem, the creation of life through mystical and magical means, is the most famous postbiblical Jewish legend. After noting recent references to the golem legend in fiction, film, art, and scientific literature, I outline three stages of the development of the legend, including its relationship to the story of Frankenstein. I apply teachings about the golem in classical Jewish religious literature to implications of the legend for ethical issues relating to bioengineering, reproductive biotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence, artificial life, and corporate ethics. The golem legend emerges as a source of prudent guidance through the minefield of ethical and spiritual problems emerging from current and expected developments in biotechnology.

Teleology for the Perplexed: How Matter Began to Matter

Abstract: Lacking a plausible model for the emergence of telos (purposive, representational, and evaluative relationships, as in life and consciousness) from simple material and energetic processes, the sciences operate as though all teleological relationships are physically epiphenomenal. Alternatively, in religion and the humanities it is as- sumed either that telos influences the material world from an outside or transcendental source or that it is a fundamental and ineffable property of things. We argue that a scientifically sound and intu- itively plausible model for the physical emergence of teleological dy- namics is now realizable. A methodology for formulating such a model and an exemplar case—the autocell—are presented. An autocell is an autocatalytic set of molecules that produce one another and also pro- duce molecules that spontaneously accrete to form a hollow container, analogous to the way virus capsules form. The molecular capsules that result will spontaneously enclose some of the nearby molecules of the autocatalytic set, keeping them together so that when the au- tocell is broken open autocatalysis will resume. Autocells are thus self-reconstituting, self-reproducing, and minimally evolvable. They are not living and yet have necessary precursor attributes to telos, in- cluding individuality, functional interdependence of parts, end-di- rectedness, a minimal form of representation, and a normative (evaluational) relationship to different environmental properties. The autocell thus serves as a missing link between inanimate (nonlife) and animate (living) phenomena. We conclude by discussing the chal- lenges that a natural origin for telos poses for religious thought.

Space, time, and causality

Abstract: . The characters of space, time, and causality are issues that are constrained by physics but that require also acts of metaphysical decision. Relativity theory is consistent both with the idea of an a temporal block universe and with a temporal universe of true becoming. Science's account of causal properties is patchy and does not imply the closure of the universe to other forms of causal influence. Intrinsic unpredictabilities offer opportunities for metaphysical conjecture concerning the form that such additional causal principles might take. Different theological understandings of how God relates to time afford legitimate criteria for differing metaphysical decisions about the nature of temporality.

Spiritual transformation, ritual healing, and altruism

Abstract: Based on studies of spirit healing in Puerto Rico and the United States, this essay proposes a model of ritual healing process focused on the core components of spiritual transformation and empathy. It describes the central role of spiritual transformation in healers from which emerges their capacity for relation, empathy, and altruism. Many spirit healers, following a spiritual transformation, begin to exercise what I label here radical empathy, in which individual differences between healer and sufferer are melded into one field of feeling and experience. This produces a type of altruism in which spirit healers feel compelled to be altruistic in responding to suffering whenever they encounter it. The model is compared and contrasted with aspects of healing process in some psychotherapeutic and analytic therapies. These comparisons are offered in the light of the growing interest in incorporating spirituality into psychological and medical treatments.

Altruism: toward a psychobiospiritual conceptualization

Abstract: . Altruism, defined here as a regard for or devotion to the interest of others with whom we are interrelated, is pitted against two other dispositions in human beings: nepotism and egoism. We propose that to become fully human is to become more altruistic. We describe how altruism is mediated by our physiology, is expressed in our psychological development, is evolving in our social institutions, and becomes the moral communities that enforce our sense of right and wrong. A change in any one of these influences changes our disposition—changes who we are and what we do—potentially making altruism more possible in the world.

A relativistic eschatology: time, eternity, and eschatology in light of the physics of relativity

Abstract: Unique epistemological challenges arise whenever one embarks on the critical and self-critical reflection of the nature of time and the end of time. I attempt to construct my preference for an eschatological distinction between time and eternity from within a middle way, avoiding both the hubris that claims complete com- prehension and the resignation that concedes readily to know noth- ing. Surveying the history of reflection on this multifaceted question of time, with its ephemeral and everlasting dimensions, I argue that the eschatological interplay between the "already" and the "not yet" has much to offer: promise for the religion-science dialogue as well as hope for humanity, especially for those on society's bleakest edges. But understandings of time, to be authentically theological, must be also informed by cosmology and the physics of relativity. My pro- posal seeks to respect the theological and scientific interpretations of the nature of time, serving the ongoing, creative interaction of these disciplines. Between physics and theology I identify four formal dif- ferences in analyzing eschatology, all grounded in the one fundamen- tal difference between extrapolation and promise. Discussion of what I term deficits in both the scientific and theological approaches leads to further examination of the complex relationship between time and eternity. I distinguish three models of such relationships, which I label the ontological, the quantitative, and the eschatological distinc- tion between time and eternity. Because of the way it embraces a multiplicity of times, especially relating to the culmination and the consummation of creation, I opt for the eschatological model. The eschatological disruption of linear chronology relates well to relativ- istic physics: This model is open, dynamic, and relational, and it may add a new aspect to the debate over the block universe.

Emergence of Life

Abstract: Discussions of the origin of life usually assume that there is a specific event, however improbable, by which dead matter be[ came a living entity. Naturalistic accounts, although in seeming opposition to theistic explanations of the apparent design of even the simplest cells, often share the assumption that there is a specific line to be crossed. If the problem is recast as one of a process of emergence of biochemistry from protobiochemistry, which in turn emerged from the organic chemistry and geochemistry of primitive earth, the resources of the new sciences of complex systems dynamics can provide a more robust conceptual framework within which to explore the possible pathways of chemical complexification leading to life. In such a view the emergence of life is the result of deep natural laws (the outlines of which we are only beginning to perceive) and reflects a degree of holism in those systems that led to life. Further, there is the possibility of developing a more general theory of biology and of natural organization from such an approach. The emergence of life may thus be seen as an instance of the broader innate creativity of nature and consistent with a possible natural teleology.

A christian theology of evolution and participation

Abstract: . Recent controversies surrounding the discernment of design in the natural world are an indication of a pervasive disquiet among believers. Can God as creator/sustainer of creation be reconcilable with the belief that God's work is indiscernible behind secondary evolutionary causes? Christian piety requires that the order experienced in the natural world be evidence of God's love and existence. Theistic evolutionary models rarely examine this matter, assuming that God is indiscernible in the processes and order of the world because only secondary causes can be examined. This leaves antievolutionary perspectives to interpret and address the problem of seeing God in the world. I examine these issues in order to gain more credibility for the religious longing to discern God in nature while at the same time affirming the indubitable truth of an evolutionary history. I argue that God's trinitarian nature, hiddenness, and incarnation give us reason to believe that God's presence in the natural world will be discernible, but only within the natural processes, and thereby only in an obscured fashion. I also argue that newer understandings of evolutionary mechanisms are more consistent with theological appropriation than are strictly Darwinian ones.

Biomedical ethics: muslim perspectives on genetic modification

Abstract: . Technology pertaining to genetically modified foods has created an abundance of food and various methods to protect new products and enhance productivity. However, many scientists, economists, and humanitarians have been critical of the application of these discoveries. They are apprehensive about a profit-driven mentality that, to them, seems to propel the innovators rather than a poverty-elimination mentality that should be behind such innovations. The objectives should be to afford the most benefit to those in need and to prevent hunger around the world. Another major concern is the safety of genetically modified food. Muslims, as well as those in other religious communities, have been reactive rather than proactive. Muslims must connect scientific knowledge and ethical behavior based on faith. In Islam, there is no divide between the two. God has commanded us to seek knowledge and make discoveries to better our lives and our environment. We are trustees of this world and everything in it. The poor, the sick, and the wayfarers have a right to be fed and cared for. God reminds Muslims continuously that the earth and all the heavens belong to God; therefore, no one should feel hunger, no one should suffer or be prevented from sharing this bounty.

Ipseity, alterity, and community: the tri-unity of maya therapeutic healing

Abstract: Taking K'iche' Maya therapeutic consultations in Guatemala as its focus, this essay explores some astonishing indigenous accounts of "healing-at-a-distance" and "pain passing" between healers and wellness-seekers. Rather than exoticizing or dismissing such reports, we attempt to understand what it means to conceive of the bodily boundaries of healers and wellness-seekers (self and other) as sympathetically defiable and transgressable in healing. Within the moral space of K'iche' healing, when one cares to feel, if one dares to feel with another or others, the experiential space between healer and wellness-seeker is transformed as the alterity (otherness) of what is felt and who feels becomes (through a sympathy in ipseity) but one thing. I argue that Maya therapeutic healing may be seen as a tri-unity, involving a movement from an enfolded illness experience (alterity) to an unfolding sickness experience (ipseity), passing through empathy until participants together arrive at sympathy (community) to experience healing.

Religion on which the devout and skeptic can agree

Abstract: A starting point for a constructive exchange between two groups, devout religionists and scientific skeptics, is that they can hold certain religious ideas in common. These ideas, however, must preserve the compelling nature of religious commitment with- out unduly compromising rational sensibilities. In the histories of both science and religion progress has been made by synthesis. The definition of religion is a key issue for the success or failure of synthe- sis, and I propose a new definition. Both devout religionists and scientific skeptics must make compromises if synthesis is to be suc- cessful. For the devout these compromises include waiving the pre- requisite of belief in the supernatural and placing behavior above belief. For the skeptic they include abandoning explanatory exclusivity, ac- knowledging the authority of moral experts, and recognizing the ne- cessity of community in achieving moral excellence. I defend each of these compromises as reasonable and tolerable costs of integration.

A Guide to Thinking about Emergence

Abstract: A basic survey of the issues that arise in discussing emergence is presented, together with suggestions on how the concept should be approached. Emergence is an alternative to reductionism. The emergence story invites us to see that nothing transcends nature like nature itself; it is a radically new way to think about the natural order, and it reshapes our ideas of matter. Special attention is given to the idea of meaning in life. Three options are discussed for thinking about the meaning of life: that it is fundamental to the nature of things, that it is an illusion, and that it is an emergent property of matter. The third option is favored-that the universe has no telos, and yet makes possible the spontaneous emergence of purpose. Caution is advised against exploiting the idea of emergence. The most important task is to understand the science of emergence and only then to move into interpretations from the humanities and theology.

The western roots of avataric evolutionism in colonial india

Abstract: . British colonialism and Orientalist scholarship on India were key factors affecting the initial Hindu responses to modern science and technology in the nineteenth century. One response was the elaboration of avataric evolutionism—the idea that ancient myths of Vishnu's ten incarnations anticipated Darwinian evolution. This idea quickly became intertwined with political and nationalist concerns and cannot be fully understood in a purely theological context. These concerns were reflected in scriptural interpretation, especially in what may be termed the scientific exegesis of the Vedas and Puranas. Such scientific exegesis of scripture appealed to Keshub Chunder Sen, the leading figure of the Brahmo Samaj in the second half of the nineteenth century. Keshub was apparently the first Indian to develop the notion of avataric evolutionism, in the context of his “New Dispensation,” a synthesis of all religious traditions (in particular Hinduism and Christianity) and modern science. His pronouncement of avataric evolutionism in 1882, however, was not the first proposal of the idea. I conclude with an examination of the Western roots of this idea, specifically in the writings of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.

Genetic and reproductive technologies in the light of religious dialogue

Abstract: Since the gene splicing debates of the 1980s, the public has been exposed to an ongoing sequence of genetic and reproduc- tive technologies. Many issue areas have outcomes that lose track of people's inner values or engender opposing religious viewpoints defy- ing final resolution. This essay relocates the discussion of what is an acceptable application from the individual to the societal level, ex- amining technologies that stand to address large numbers of people and thus call for policy resolution, rather than individual fiat, in their application. A major source of guidance is the "Genetic Frontiers" series of professional dialogues and conferences held by the National Conference for Community and Justice from 2002 to 2004. Ge- netic testing, human gene therapy, genetic engineering of plants and animals, and stem cell technology are examined. While differences in perspective on the beginning of life persist, a stepwise approach to the examination of genetic testing reveals areas of general agreement. Stewardship of life, human co-creativity with the divine, and social justice help define the bounds of application of genetic engineering and therapy; compassionate care plays a major role in establishing stem cell policy. Active, sustained dialogue is a useful resource for enabling sharing of religious values and crystallization of policies.

A Religious Interpretation of Emergence: Creativity as God

Abstract: Thinking of God today as creativity (instead of as The Creator) enables us to bring theological values and meanings into significant connection with modern cosmological and evolutionary thinking. This conception connects our understanding of God with today's ideas of the Big Bang; cosmic and biological evolution; the evolutionary emergence of novel complex realities from simpler realities, and the irreducibility of these complex realities to their simpler origins; and so on. It eliminates anthropomorphism and anthro-pocentrism from the conception of God, thus overcoming one of the major reasons for the implausibility of God-talk in today's world-here viewed as a highly dynamic reality (not an essentially stable structure), with God regarded as the ongoing creativity in this world. This mystery of creativity-God-manifest throughout the universe is quite awe-inspiring, calling forth emotions of gratitude, love, peace, fear, and hope, and a sense of the profound meaningfulness of human existence in the world-issues with which faith in God usually has been associated. It is appropriate, therefore, to think of God today as precisely this magnificent panorama of creativity with which our universe and our lives confront us.

Why the New Atheism Shouldn't Be (Completely) Dismissed

Abstract: Daniel Dennett begins his book Breaking the Spell (2006) by comparing religion to a lancet fluke, a small parasite that enters the brain of ants, causing them to climb to the top of stalks of grass so that they may be eaten by cows or sheep. While this does not end so well for the ant, it works out great for the lancet fluke, which is able to complete its reproductive cycle in the mammal’s gut and then spread its progeny with the expelled feces. Perhaps, Dennett suggests, the human mind is enslaved by ideas in a similar manner, and goes on to remind us (in case we didn’t get the connection) that islam in translation means submission. The “New Atheism,” as the movement behind the recent wave of books attacking religion has come to be called, is many things, but subtle is not one of them. To read the recent works on the evils of religion by Dennett, Sam Harris (The End of Faith, 2004), and Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion, 2006) is to expose oneself to heavy doses of hyperbole, sarcasm, and outrage, sometimes all in the same paragraph. The books have sold well enough to be on best-seller lists, and the authors have achieved, at least briefly, intellectual celebrity status. These works are intentionally divisive, and the reviews have ranged from the laudatory to the scathing, depending in no small part on the reviewers’ sympathies with the take-noprisoners approach of these works. For most religion-and-science scholars, the likely action will be to read the reviews, perhaps listen to an interview or two on public radio, and then go on with one’s life and research, secure in the knowledge that much of what these books contain is not sophisticated enough to bother with. I would suggest, however, that to completely dismiss these works would be a mistake. It is a remarkable fact that books promoting atheism and attacking religion, typically in the name of science and reason, are now regularly

Teilhard de chardin's evolutionary natural theology

Abstract: . Pierre Teilhard de Chardin develops, as is well known, a model of evolution as a convergent progression from primordial multiplicity through increasing degrees of complexity toward a final Omega point of spiritual consummation. I explore how Teilhard fuses Darwinian and Lamarckian theories of evolution in developing his own, and in particular his defense of the view that Lamarckism is fundamental to a proper understanding of evolution's human phase. Teilhard's scientific interpretation of evolution is inspired by Christian cosmological insights derived from patristic theology and contemporary Pauline scholarship and cannot be separated from them. His integration of science and theology provides the basis for a renewed evolutionary natural theology that supplants the traditional static models developed by William Paley and others. Teilhard's natural theology also provides a framework for theological ethical reflection on how humanity should act in its capacity as created co-creator with God. In later work, he considers the implications of his evolutionary theology for the wider universe. Teilhard thus presents an invigorated natural theology grounded in evolution that confirms and completes a dynamic and teleological view of the cosmos.

First person plural : Self-unity and self-multiplicity in theology's dialogue with psychology

Abstract: . In contradistinction to the contemporary human sciences, recent theological accounts of the individual-in-relation continue to defend the concept of the singular continuous self. Consequently, theological anthropology and the human sciences seem to offer widely divergent accounts of the sense of self-fragmentation that many believe pervades the modern world. There has been little constructive interdisciplinary conversation in this area. In this essay I address the damaging implications of this oversight and establish the necessary conditions for future dialogue. I have three primary objectives. First, I show how the notion of personal continuity acquires philosophical theological significance through its close association with the concept of personal particularity. Second, through a discussion of contemporary accounts of self-multiplicity, I clarify the extent of theological anthropology's disagreement with the human sciences. Third, I draw upon narrative accounts of identity to suggest an alternative means of understanding the experiential continuity of personhood that maintains the tension between self-plurality, unity, and particularity and thereby reconnects philosophical theological concerns with human-scientific analyses of the human condition. Narrative approaches to personhood are ideally suited to this purpose, and, I suggest, offer an intriguing solution to understanding and resolving the problem of self-fragmentation that has caused recent theological anthropology so much consternation.

The “death of the ego” in east‐meets‐west spirituality: diverse views from prominent authors

Abstract: . Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, have traditionally held to the view that in order for an individual to fully benefit from their practice it was important to lessen or eliminate one's individual desires. Such practice was sometimes referred to as the “death of the ego” in order to emphasize its importance. However, the relatively recent popularity of East-meets-West spirituality in Western consumer cultures tends to emphasize the acceptance and transformation of one's ego rather than its death. This essay discusses sociological changes that have shaped and contributed to the popularity of East-meets-West spirituality in Western culture that in turn have brought about a modification of the principle of ego death. The views of six Western authors and practitioners of East-meets-West spirituality on the importance of the principle of ego death are compared and contrasted. Theories related to the management of self-identity in consumer society can partly explain the modification of traditional Eastern religious practices, such as ego death, in order that they become relevant and appealing to a society that increasingly reifies the concept of the self. The implication is that the excision of the concept of ego death from the practice of East-meets-West spirituality may affect its efficacy.

Religion and francis bacon's scientific utopianism

Abstract: . Francis Bacon often is depicted as a patriarch of modernity who promotes human rational action over faith in divine Providence and as a secular humanitarian who realized that improvement of the human condition depended on human action and not on God's saving acts in history. Bacon's New Atlantis is usually described as a “scientific utopia” because its ideal order, harmony, and prosperity are the result of the investigations of nature conducted by the members of Solomon's House. I challenge these characterizations by showing that Bacon's so-called scientific utopianism is grounded in his religious convictions that his age was one of Providential intervention and that he was God's agent for an apocalyptic transformation of the human condition. I examine the centrality of these religious themes in two of his philosophical works, The Advancement of Learning and The Great Instauration, which are well known for setting out Bacon's critique of the state of learning and for presenting the principles of his epistemology. Analysis of The Advancement of Learning demonstrates Bacon's conviction that his reform of natural philosophy was part of a Providentially guided, twofold restoration of the knowledge of nature and the knowledge of God. Examination of The Great Instauration reveals that Bacon sees his age as one of apocalyptic transformation of the human condition that restores humanity to a prelapsarian state. Analysis of the New Atlantis shows that utopian perfection can be achieved only through a combination of right religion and the proper study of nature. Moreover, when the “scientific” work of Solomon's House is recontextualized within the religious themes of salvation and deliverance that permeate the New Atlantis, the full scope of Bacon's “scientific utopianism” can be seen, and this project is not the one usually portrayed in scholarly treatments. Bacon's program for rehabilitating humanity and its relation to nature is not a secular, scientific advance through which humanity gains dominion over nature and mastery of its own destiny but rather one guided by divine Providence and achieved through pious human effort.

Theological ethics and technological culture: a biocultural approach

Abstract: This article examines an orientation for thinking theo- logically and ethically about the cultural pattern of technology and a vision for living responsibly within it. Building upon and joining select insights of philosophers Hans Jonas and Albert Borgmann, I recommend the analytic and evaluative leverage to be gained through development of an integrative biocultural theological anthropology. The motivation for this article stems in part from a teaching experience. At a given point in a recent ethics course, I deemed that it would be help- ful to organize a discussion around Robert Nozick's famous thought ex- periment, "the experience machine." Nozick presents his experiment thus: Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience that you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life's desires? Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think it's all actually happening. . . . Would you plug in? What else can matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside? (Nozick 1977, 43) I assumed that my students would immediately affirm the greater moral worth of embodied agency and creative commerce with actual things, oth- ers, and places over the simulated pleasure or virtual happiness of hyper- reality. Teaching in a so-called "smart" online classroom to students cultured by the Matrix trilogy who needed to be reminded to turn off their cell

Is Christian theology well suited to enter the discussion between science and humanism

Abstract: . The last several years have seen the emergence of increasing hostility from philosophers toward some pronouncements on human nature by the biological and cognitive sciences. Theology is also concerned about such matters, even if there have been, until now, few theologians involved in the discussion. This essay examines both the reasons that justify a neutral position of theology in the face of scientific disqualification of human uniqueness and the reasons to engage apologetically in such a debate on the side of humanists. Constructing a synthesis, I propose a greater theological involvement and concern in the discussion already underway, even if it means accepting some trade-offs.

Charles lyell, uniformitarianism, and interpretive principles

Abstract: . 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.

Is there a basis for teleology in physics

Abstract: . The basic laws of physics for particles and fields can be formulated in terms of variational principles. The initial development of a variational principle had distinct teleological implications. The formulation of physical laws in terms of variational principles is outlined with specific reference to classical and quantum mechanics and field theory. Because of time irreversibility no variational principle exists for thermodynamics. In order to obtain time irreversibility molecular trajectories must be abandoned in the lowest-level description of complex multicomponent systems. A more open set of possibilities results. I suggest that this may be more consistent with a modern teleology.

Beyond the Sociobiological Dilemma: Social Emotions and the Evolution of Morality

Abstract: . Is morality biologically altruistic? Does it imply a disadvantage in the struggle for existence? A positive answer puts morality at odds with natural selection, unless natural selection operates at the level of groups. In this case, a trait that is good for groups though bad (reproductively) for individuals can evolve. Sociobiologists reject group selection and have adopted one of two horns of a dilemma. Either morality is based on an egoistic calculus, compatible with natural selection; or morality continues tied to psychological and biological altruism but not as a product of natural selection. The dilemma denies a third possibility—that psychological altruism evolves as a biologically selfish trait. I discuss the classical treatments of the paradox by Charles Darwin ([1871] 1989) and Robert Trivers (1971), focusing on the role they attribute to social emotions. The upshot is that both Darwin and Trivers sketch a natural-selection process relying on innate emotional mechanisms that render morality adaptive for individuals as well as for groups. I give additional reasons for viewing it as a form of natural, instead of only cultural, selection.

Peircean approaches to emergent systems in cognitive science and religion

Abstract: Cognitive science and religion provides perspectives on human cognition and spirituality Emergent systems theory captures the subatomic, physical, biological, psychological, cultural, and transcendent relationships that constitute the human person C S Peirce's metaphysical categories and existential graphs enrich traditional cognitive science modeling tools to capture emergent phenomena From this richer perspective, one can reinterpret the traditional doctrine of soul as form of the body in terms of information as the constellation of constitutive relationships that enables real possibility