C. Clark Triplett
The relationship between science and theology has often been described in a manner that is not conducive to open dialogue. A “warfare model” of the interaction has captured the popular mind. David N. Livingstone argues that both ignorance and propaganda have played a significant role in maintaining the myth of a death struggle between scientists and theologians (2). Unfortunately, the military model does little to advance mutual respect among scholars in either field.
While there are clearly divergent accounts about how the dialogue has faired, a number of theologians and scientists believe that the two are inextricably linked, arguing that modern science is historically rooted in the Christian faith. R. Hooykaas, a historian of science at the University of Utrecht, makes a valid case that the Christian faith and the biblical tradition exerted a healthy influence on the development of science. This is not so difficult to accept because, as he claims, “In the epoch when modern science arose, religion was one of the most powerful factors in cultural life” (xiii). Religion played an important role in creating a certain attitude toward nature which provided a unique context for the investigation of nature.
Even in those more public instances in which there have been noisy differences between religion and science, the apparent conflict has not always been straightforward. It is interesting that even in the fierce skirmishes in the recent past between creationism and scientific evolution, as evidenced in the 1981 trial in Arkansas, the loyalties of the adversaries were not what would be expected. Historian Ronald L. Numbers recounts that in the trial “plaintiffs who opposed creation came overwhelmingly from the ranks of religious organizations, while virtually all of the experts testifying in support of creationism possessed graduate degrees in science” (xv).
The warfare image of the relationship between science and theology, however, does not die easily. Even in a postfoundationalist culture in which the universal aspirations of both science and theology have been radically questioned, there are still crusaders from both disciplines who draw lines in the sand and make unwarranted claims that retard discussions that could be beneficial to both. Theologians, in particular, seem to be most apologetic about this change in climate even though it offers new opportunities for mutual understanding. As Phillip Clayton laments, multiple perspectives are now being celebrated, but theologians “march forward under the umbrella of protecting themselves and their traditions against the universal demands of reason, apparently not seeing that the sun is actually shining on particularity” (2).
In spite of the persistence of the warfare image, there are those who believe that an alliance between science and theology is necessary for an adequate understanding of the universe. John Polkinghorne, an elementary particle physicist and ordained Anglican priest, argues that one of the reasons the human mind has such ready access to the deep structures of the universe is that insight into its reality is an encounter with the divine. The outcome of a lifetime of scientific investigation has led him to the conclusion that there is a “divine purpose behind this fruitful universe, whose fifteen-billion-year history has turned a ball of energy into the home of saints and scientists and that this purpose has been at work in just one world of consistent physical law (though maybe with domains of different expressions of that law)” (Belief 9-10). Physicist Paul Davies, who by no means holds to a traditional view of religion, claims, without apology, that the divine argument is a clearly rational conclusion because “if one perseveres with the principle of sufficient reason and demands a rational explanation for nature, then we have no choice but to seek that explanation in something that is beyond or outside the physical world” (171). According to these scientists, science and theology need to establish an alliance in order to provide a sufficient reason for the fine-tuning of the universe.
The premise of this article is that a new opportunity exists for developing a complementary relationship between science and theology. The changing climate concerning the justification of universal rational systems and new discoveries in science that defy classical explanations of reality have opened the door to fruitful discussions that were never possible before. Recent criticisms of the Received View of science have led to alternative analyses of theory development and question whether there are adequate criteria or empirical evidence for adjudicating rival theories (Bernstein 22). Rather, as Frederick Suppe stresses, science is actually done within existing Weltanschauungen which determine “which questions are worth investigating and what sorts of answers are adequate” (126). At the same time, emerging novel scientific theories concerning the nature of the classical understandings of reality have led to conclusions that in some cases seem to turn science on its head. New theories such as special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos, and recent emergentist “top-down” explanations of causality seem to defy simple, empirical descriptions of the universe and traditional rational arguments. These changes, of course, beg questions from theologians about the possibility of divine activity within such a novel universe. This article will, therefore, discuss the nature of religious explanation and its justification and whether there are any connections to the emerging paradigms in science.
Alternatives to the Received View of Science: A Contextualist Shift
Until the early sixties, what has been called the Received View of science was the primary, formal approach to science or at least the philosophy of science although there were several versions of the Received View beginning with the work of Ernest Mach and ending with the views of Carl Hempel, Rudolf Carnap, and Ernest Nagel. This view was strongly influenced by positivism, represented by the Vienna Circle, and the mathematical logic of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Alfred Whitehead, culminating in the penultimate work of Russell and Whitehead, the Principia Mathematica. While there are variations among advocates based on various stages of the Received View, there was a canonical formulation upon which most, if not all, agreed in the final version (Suppes 50). These principles attempted to relate theory and explanation to observable empirical evidence by using the formal language of logic. These formal statements provided clarity and rigor to the process of relating theory to phenomena and the connection between the explanans (the explanation) and the explanandum (the thing to be explained) based on a logico-mathematical or empirical concepts. The focus of the Received View was on the criteria of confirmation and acceptability of the evidence and the support it gives to a particular hypothesis (Hempel 33). Support comes not only on the basis of inductive-evidential testing but also on the strength of the more inclusive theory which has evidential support providing broad support “from above” by way of deductive logic. The Received View is a tight-knit reductionistic model based on observation and rigorous logic.
This model or method is meant to be applicable to all sciences, including the more esoteric social and behavioral sciences. Ernest Nagel attempted to apply this model to the social sciences through the development of formal, general laws even though he recognized the unique problems of controlled inquiry in the subject matter (450). The simplicity and precision of the Received View had a profound effect not only on the sciences but also on the public at large by the perception of science as the sacred holder of “the complete true story of the world.” Philip Kitcher depicts this attitude as the “Legend” in which science and scientists were celebrated as having “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the world” (3). At the end of the 1950s, however, according to Kitcher, Legend’s luster would begin to dim. Alternative approaches began to emerge, represented in the publication of Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1970. While Kuhn’s work created rather noisy response, it would seem that many of his controversial ideas had already been anticipated by a number of others.
Although a number of philosophers of science, such as Stephen Toulmin, Paul Feyerabend, Norman Hanson, Imre Lakatos, and Karl Popper, were voicing similar concerns about the Received View, they were also critical of Kuhn’s ideas about the nature of scientific progress. Kuhn’s controversial theory about the nature of scientific revolutions, however, offered a forum for identifying other issues which helped to clarify the analysis and use of theories of science. Those most fiercely critical of Kuhn, such as Karl Popper, essentially agreed with him on the lack of formal criteria for justifying differences in theories or paradigms and that all science is theory-laden. As Richard Bernstein argues, many of the disagreements among these critics seem like “differences of emphasis rather than absolute cleavages” (22). There is more common ground than disagreement. All of them, perhaps with the exception of Popper, advocated post-empiricist philosophy and criticized foundationalism.
According to Bernstein, these alternative philosophies of science are calling into question the idea that there is some over-arching or absolute framework for theory choice, thus taking a step toward a postmodern understanding of rationality (23). Kuhn describes the selection of paradigms more like a “gestalt shift” rather than a critical, rational process. When a new paradigm is adopted and there is a change in worldview, scientists “adopt new instruments and look in new places.” Not only that, but “during revolutions scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before” (Kuhn 111). Norwood R. Hanson came to similar conclusions in his discussion of perceptual gestalts. He discredits the Received View’s emphasis on neutral observation by stressing that observation is always theory-laden. Hanson uses the example of Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe viewing the sun at dawn (5-8). Kepler understood the sun to be fixed while the earth revolved around it, and Tycho understood the earth to be fixed with the sun revolving around it. The question is whether they see the same thing when they see the dawn. The issue is not whether the world they see is different, but whether the intepretations they impose on it based on their theories are different. “Physical theories provide patterns within which data appear intelligible. They constitute a ‘conceptual Gestalt.’ A theory is not pieced together from observed phenomena; it is rather what makes it possible to observe phenomena as being of a certain sort, and as related to other phenomena” (Hanson 90). Seeing in science, according to Hanson, is “seeing that,” a conceptual organization provided by the theory of what is being seen.
Stephen Toulmin was a student of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and in many ways his understanding of scientific theory reflects this background. He explains scientific theory as a means of forecasting or predicting particular data accurately. Its value is in its use; it is “a craft or technology, an application of science rather than the kernel of science itself” (Forsight 36). Science assumes through laws of nature that certain patterns are expected, and theories provide an ideal of the world that predicts that certain things will happen (Philosophy 63). In this sense, theories represent data and laws, and regularities offer a framework like a picture or metaphor that allow the scientist to draw inferences about the world. Theories are ordered in a hierarchical manner in terms of ideals, laws, and hypotheses, and they are stratified, not on the basis of deduction, but on the basis of meaning (Suppes 130). In the adoption of theories there is a language shift in which terms used in common language or even the language of science become new terms because of the context of the theory (Philosophy 13). There is a problem in popularizing new discoveries in science because the layman has difficult time understanding from within the paradigm. According to Toulmin, as with Hanson, the meaning of terms is theory-dependent and it is necessary to inhabit the paradigm in order to truly understand it.
Falling in line with Toulmin and Hanson, Paul Feyerabend also emphasized the theory-laden nature of scientific data including observational statements about data. He was, perhaps, the most radical of the alternative theorists because of his view of science as “an anarchist enterprise” (5). Feyerabend’s criticism of the Received View focused primarily on the advancement of science and the two covering laws of scientific theorizing: the consistency condition and the condition of meaning invariance (Suppes 172). Both of these concepts are based on the idea of theory reduction, which is that even though theories may change over time and broaden out, the particular or individual concepts used are relatively consistent across theories because they are based on observation language; scientists incorporate this language into newer theories (Nagel 570-575); therefore, new hypotheses agree with accepted theories. Feyerbend argues, however, that new theories do not eliminate old theories because of the facts; “it eliminates it because it disagrees with another theory” (25). Words and concepts are always part of a theoretical system and cannot be isolated from their context. Feyerabend advocates the proliferation of new theories because uniformity tends to impair the critical work of science: “Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge” (32). It is interesting that Feyerabend makes a passionate case for the critical value of novel, alternative theories while at the same time arguing that theories are incommensurable. This assumes that some either neutral or common language exists for making such a comparison, and the argument that meaning is based on theory makes critique extremely difficult. This is a problem for Kuhn and many of the alternative theorists.1
Closely related to the problem of theory analysis and the justification of theories is the problem of progress in science and the nature of scientific change. Karl Popper, like the other alternative theorists, is critical of the Received View of science, but his interest is in refuting the principle of verification and replacing it with his own principle of falsification (Logic 17-20). This provides a normative framework for evaluating scientific progress through the use of sound methodological practices. He is leery of the tendency to immunize theories (the myth of the framework) in the manner of many of the alternative theorists (Blaug 139). He believes this to be a relativistic framework that does not stand up to criticism. Science experiences a continuing process of change through conjecture and refutations based on predictable falsification (Popper, “Normal Science” 55-56).
Kuhn’s primary emphasis in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is on revolution. Revolution is something that occurs in the context of normal science or an accepted paradigm, the ruling dogma over a period of time that guides most scientists as they ask questions and solve puzzles in the process of the scientific enterprise (35). While Kuhn’s use of the term paradigm to describe this ruling dogma is confusing at points in his book, the crucial understanding is similar to Weltanschauung, a set of values, methods and beliefs shared by the scientific community. Scientific revolutions occur when there is a shift or “sharp break” in the direction of this set of beliefs based on anomalies in the relationship between theories and data which leads to the proliferation of theories and controversies over the puzzle-solving process (Kuhn 74-75). This ultimately leads to new paradigms which are not the result of a rational logical process but are more like a “conversion experience” resulting in a “gestalt shift” drastically different from the previous paradigm. Science does not progress on a cumulative basis by incorporating the previous paradigm; it is incommensurable with the previous generation and asks questions, interprets the data, and solves its puzzles from a completely different perspective.
Imre Lakatos was critical of the foundationalist methodology of the Received View but was also critical of Kuhn’s understanding of scientific progress. He argued that a scientific theory is linked to a whole cluster of theories that make up a “research project.” A research project evolves through various adjustments to its auxiliary theories and hypotheses. No single experiment can either save or kill a theory; it can be rescued either by “some auxiliary hypothesis or a suitable reinterpretation of its terms” (116). The validity of a research project, then, depends on the standards for the appraisal of its progress. Does the problem shift or adjustment lead to novel facts that corroborate its content? A research project is progressive “if each new theory has some excess empirical content over its predecessor, that is, if it predicts some novel, hitherto unexpected fact…. It is empirically progressive if some of this excess empirical content is also corroborated, that is, if each new theory leads us to the actual discovery of some new fact” (Lakatos 118). For Lakatos, a scientific research project is shown to be either progressive or degenerating over time. In some cases it may evolve to new hypotheses; in other cases it may degenerate depending on its ability to predict and corroborate novel facts. This seems to be a more sophisticated description of scientific change than Kuhn’s and provides an empirical framework to account for this change. While Lakatos disagrees with Kuhn on the nature of scientific progress, he does seem to agree with Kuhn’s view of incommensurability by insisting on a “hard core” of hypotheses in each research project which is irrefutable by the methodology of its protagonists (Blaug 144).
How does this shift towards contextualism in scientific development open up the conversation in the area of theological explanation? Theologian J. Wentzel van Huyssteen believes that Kuhn’s work has led to the broadening of the concept of rationality that has been held captive by positivistic models (Theology 61). This expansion provides new opportunities for theology to stake a claim different from the traditional response of theology to the rigid boundaries of scientism. Kuhn’s emphasis on the socio-historical context for the development of scientific paradigms offers a framework for discussions on the origins of traditional theological models. For van Huyssteen, this implies that persistent but often futile efforts of some theologians to cross over the boundary into the realm of formal science can be, at least, provisionally abandoned for a more productive discussion of the nature of rationality itself (Theology 62). The importance of the theory-laden nature of paradigms is appropriately transferable to theology and offers incentives for theology to critique past conceptual models, while completely abandoning them, and to consider new models that may be more adequate and credible.
The danger of this alternative conceptualization, which is acknowledged by Kuhn and others, is the temptation of certain models to become immunized against critique. This was the concern of Karl Popper and, more recently, the concern of theologian Wolfhardt Pannenberg who criticizes efforts by theologians engaged in the “ghettoization of Christianity” (39-41). This is most problematic in authoritative theological traditions which become “vested, surreptitiously and subtly, with a cloak of seemingly infallible, revelatory authority” (van Huyssteen, Theology 65).
With this concern in mind, van Huysteen believes it is necessary to move beyond the Kuhnian model for a new model that is both rationally and contextually valid. He therefore opts for a form of “critical realism” advocated by a number of scientists and theologians including Ernan McMullin, Arthur Peacocke, Ian Barbour, Sally McFague, and Janet Martin Soskice. He adopts this approach because, as he states, “No systematic theologian, given the universal claims of theology’s central thematics, can ever be reconciled to an esoteric conceptual model that provides, in ghetto fashion, its own intratheological criteria for truth” (Theology 144). While recognizing that human knowledge is always socially contextualized, it also insists on the necessity of both scientific and theological paradigms to refer to the real world. Critical realism, therefore, attempts to find middle ground between positivism and a totally contextualist relativism. It acknowledges the metaphorical nature of even scientific theories. It also acknowledges that they at best “approximate truth,” but must, at least, provide a credible approximation of reality.2 According to van Huyssteen, metaphors in both science and theology are critical because they provide an underlying structure for language across theories (157). Since they are always tentative, when there is a paradigm shift there is still continuity and the meanings are still linked through metaphor even though the context has changed as exemplified by the use of the word mass in classical physics and in relativistic physics. This is a much more restricted view of realism but offers important possibilities for the epistemological status of both theology and science.
Theologian and philosopher Nancy Murphy adopts a positive view of the relationship between theology and science using the research program model of Imre Lakatos. She attempts to make the case that theology and science, at least potentially, are methodologically indistinguishable and so may interact as theology-and-science hybrids. Lakatos, for example, “recognized that metaphysical views of reality often provide the hard core of scientific research programs” (Theology 199). There is therefore no reason why theological theories cannot be included as an auxiliary hypothesis in scientific research programs in the same way that Wolfhardt Pannenberg, for instance, incorporates scientific hypotheses in his theology. Based on these considerations, Murphy argues that a “nonfoundationalist approach to theology guided by current philosophy of science is indeed possible” (Theology 206). The subject matter for theology, of course, is different from science because it is assessing the warranted assertions of Christian claims. Theology, therefore, must see itself as only one science among many but nonetheless a legitimate science that may critically interact with other sciences.
Murphy is skeptical of the critical realist interpretation of theology. It is philosophically problematic because there is no way to know reality except through ordinary human ways of knowing and because it is unclear how critical realism solves the problem of how to give an account of the way theology and science interact with each other (Theology 198). According to Murphy, this approach seems to advocate a complementary, two-worlds view of reality. It is interesting that while van Huyssteen welcomes the addition of Murphy’s work to the growing literature on theology and science, he is critical of her approach because “it lacks a well-developed theory of experience” (Essays 84). According to him, Murphy’s adherence to the contextualist, Lakatosian approach does not provide transcontextual criteria for justifying truth claims or realist assumptions in theological reflection. As with Kuhn, Murphy believes that a theological paradigm can only be adjudicated from within the communal consensus of a particular research framework. This may be acceptable for theologians but not for most scientists who are skeptical of theological claims. Murphy is therefore subject to Karl Popper’s and Wolfhardt Pannenberg’s concerns about insulating theological theories from critique.
These two interesting approaches to the relationship between science and theology are the direct result of the shift in the assessment of scientific theorizing. They provide new possibilities for dialogue between science and theology. In particular, they offer a new place for theological reflection in the previously impenetrable and rigid structures of scientific theory.
New Discoveries in Science: Understanding the Causal Joint
One of the major aspirations of scientific theory in the past was to develop rules and practices that would ensure objectively grounded knowledge of the real world: “[P]roper research should bend itself toward true portrayals of what is there” (Gergen 89). As has already been discussed, a contextualist shift in the analysis of theories and the underdetermination of scientific theory in the explanation of phenomena has brought this objective certainty into question. Perhaps even more intriguing are the astounding new discoveries in science which challenge the indubitable scientific assumptions concerning deterministic causality and reductionistic explanations of what is there. These new theories seem to defy the predictable and credible understanding of the universe that science has attempted to portray in the past. Instead, at times, as Gary Zukav emphasizes, they seem to be almost nonsensical in nature. However, Zukav explains, “Nonsense is nonsense only when we have not yet found that point of view from which it makes sense” (117).
While there are many new theories that may have a bearing on this discussion, such as quantum cosmology and the special and general theories of relativity, for the sake of time and space (no pun intended), two significant theories will be discussed because they seem to suggest a causal joint that leaves room for explanations in which divine activity could contribute to and make sense of the physical and biological world. These novel theories include the following: (1) Chaos theory which seems to introduce a level of indeterminism into the macrophysical world as a result of small changes in initial conditions that have effects that are unpredictable and large scale. (2) Quantum theory which seems to demonstrate that nature itself is indeterminate at the subatomic level (it is ontologically indeterminate according to the Copenhagen interpretation). These two theories, in particular, have offered opportunities for discussion of divine activity.
The concept of chaos was popularized by the film Jurassic Park and the national bestseller Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick. Its fertile ideas have crossed over the lines of disciplines because of its global applications in areas as broad as the behavior of weather systems, airplanes in flight, the behavior of cars on the expressway, and the behavior of dripping faucets (Gleick 5). Perhaps its most prolific articulation is in the work of Ilya Prigogine whose work on dissipative structures arising out of nonlinear processes in nonequilibrium won him the Nobel Prize in 1977. The theory cuts across the Laplacian, machine model of closed systems and stresses the importance of randomness, chance, and disequilibrium. The key idea in chaos theory is that order can develop spontaneously out of disorder and chaos through a process of “self-organization.” This occurs because all physical systems have subsystems which are constantly changing. Often a small fluctuation, a “bifurcation point,” in a subsystem is strong enough that it breaks down the existing system and moves toward a new, dynamic level of order that Prigogine and Stengers call a dissipative structure:
We now know that far from equilibrium, new types of structures may originate spontaneously. In far-from-equilibrium conditions we may have transformation from disorder, from thermal chaos, into order. New dynamic states of matter may originate, states that reflect the interaction of given system with its surroundings. We have called these new structures dissipative structures to emphasize the constructive role of dissipative processes in their formation. (Order 12)
Prigogine and Stengers emphasize the unexpected character of this kind of behavior. They also emphasize that it occurs far more often than might be expected in many different kinds of systems. This is not to deny the validity of closed, linear systems which occur under near equilibrium conditions. Such systems are repetitive and deterministic in their behavior. These systems may be described in a classical, Newtonian way and operate on the basis of predictable laws. It is only in far-from-equilibrium conditions that dissipative structures are likely to form. Prigogine and Stengers recognize the place for both chance and necessity; they recognize that any valid explanation of the universe must allow for systems of order and chaos.
Chaos theory stresses the importance of initial conditions in the process of order out of chaos. Certain initial conditions are extremely sensitive to fluctuations that may have far-reaching effects as has been expressed in the so-called butterfly effect in which the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can have effects on events across the globe. This concept grew out of the work in weather forecasting in which it was discovered that even with the development of sophisticated computer models for predicting the weather, small fluctuations in the weather led to uncertainties that multiply, “cascading upwards through a chain of turbulent features, from dust devils and squalls up to continent size eddies that only satellites can see” (Gleick 20). It is the amplification of these initial conditions that cause unpredictable and novel behaviors in macro-systems.
An important consequence is that it necessitates changes in the scientific method. The classical approach of making predictions and testing them or verifying them through empirical data is not effective in chaotic systems. As James P. Crutchfield and others indicate, this precipitates a real challenge to the reductionistic approach of breaking systems down and studying each piece since complicated behavior may be the result of the nonlinear action of only a few parts (47). So the complexity of the system cannot be explained simply as the sum of its parts. John Polkinghorne has developed this idea in terms of a “top-down” explanation of chaotic systems. Top-down causality, for Polkinghorne, is a possible way to explain the “causal joint” between divine activity and the inherently deterministic nature of the natural order. The unpredictability of chaos allows for “gaps” within which other forms of causality can be at work. As he states, “Because of the unisolability of chaotic systems, this new agency will have a holistic top-down character. It will be concerned with formation of dynamic pattern, rather than with transactions of energy” (Polkinghorne, “Metaphysics” 154). Here Polkinghorne advocates not an interventionist model but that agency interacts in terms of active information in which God, in a sense, signals that nonlocal, causal influences may be active in the universe. The small fluctuations which occur in far-from-equilibrium conditions are not a sign of God’s interaction with the “infinitesimal details of initial conditions”; these small triggers are “diagnostic” of the need to understand what is happening in holistic terms and “of their being open to top-down causality through the input of active information” (“Metaphysics” 154). This is best explained in terms of physicist Neils Bohr’s concept of complementarity which is a way of conceptualizing apparently irreconcilable characteristics in a simple reconciling account. Top-down causality is not an explanation of how divine agency breaks into or works against the natural order but works alongside and continuously guides the universe in a direction that includes novel events.
Even though chaos theory indicates that some systems are affected by the extreme sensitivity of initial boundary conditions, it is important to understand that even these chaotic conditions ineluctably move toward the organization of systems which are deterministic like other dynamical systems. Mathematical analysis which introduces characteristics of chaotic behavior into the equation shows that there are many logistic maps that display no chaotic behavior (Russell, “Introduction” 16). While chaotic systems may be shown to be initially random, they are “temporarily predictable” within a certain period of time. So, it would seem that chaos theory only provides limited warrant for arguments on the openness of the physical world. It does place constraints on human knowledge and its ability to predict events based on a mechanistic model. As Wesley J. Wildmon and Robert J. Russell stress, the best that chaos theory can offer is that it “highlights an epistemic limit in the macro-world of dynamical systems, tethering the deterministic hypothesis even as it advances it” (“Chaos: A Mathematical Introduction” 83).3
While chaos theory is constrained by the ultimate determinism of dynamic systems, quantum theory, it is in principle indeterministic, at least according to the majority of elementary particle physicists. Although there are varying interpretations as to why this is the case, it cannot be explained in terms of some underlying hidden variable that will ultimately explain events in some deterministic way. Neils Bohr, one of the founders of quantum physics, emphasizes that this is the very nature of quantum mechanics: “[I]n quantum mechanics, we are not dealing with an arbitrary renunciation of a more detailed analysis of atomic phenomena, but with a recognition that such an analysis is in principle excluded” (62). The outcome of this principle has had a more profound effect on physics and science in general than anything preceding, including the theory of relativity.
The basic idea behind quantum theory began with the work of Max Planck who, in his study of black body radiation, proposed that the emission and absorption of radiant energy occurs in the form of discrete packets which he called “quanta.” Later Einstein confirmed this theory by explaining the puzzling behavior of the photoelectric effect. When electrons were bombarded with radiation at high frequency, electrons would bob around like a particle in a strong ocean wave. When the frequency of light dropped below a critical level, the activity of electrons subsided. Einstein explained this by proposing that light is made of particles that would crash into electrons at certain frequency levels. So Einstein demonstrated that light is made of particles which were called “photons.” The astounding nature of this discovery was that one of the great achievements of the nineteenth century was “to establish the indubitable wave-like character of light” (Polkinghorne, Quantum 7). This discovery did not disqualify the theory that light is wave-like; rather, it confirmed that light has both wave-like qualities and particle-like qualities. Later Paul Dirac would demonstrate that when light is measured in a wave-like way it would show wave-like behavior and when measured in a particle-like way it would show particle-like behavior (Polkinghorne, Quantum 7).
Perhaps the most astonishing interpretation of subatomic behavior would come from the so-called Copenhagen school of physics in the 1920s which would bring into question the nature of reality as it was understood in a classical sense. Werner Heisenberg developed a theory called the Uncertainty Principle which proposed that in the subatomic world it is impossible to know the position and momentum of a particle with absolute certainty. The more the scientist focuses on one, the less is known about the other. When the physicist tries to locate a particle at a certain point, the optimal measurement that is possible is a probability rather than a prediction. Lincoln Barnett explains Heisenberg’s presupposition that this outcome is not a symptom of man’s immature science but an ultimate barrier of nature:
Heisenberg presupposed that the imaginary microscope used by his imaginary physicist is optically capable of magnifying by a hundred billion diameters—i.e, enough to bring an object the size of an electron within the range of human visibility. But now a further difficulty is encountered. For inasmuch as an electron is smaller than a light wave, the physicist can “illuminate” his subject only by using radiation of shorter wave length. Even x-rays are useless. The electron can be rendered visible only by the high-frequency gamma rays of radium. But the photoelectric effect, it will be recalled, showed that photons of ordinary light exert a violent force on electrons; and x-rays knock them about even more roughly. Hence the impact of a still more potent gamma ray would prove disastrous. (23-24)
The import of this proposal is that not only is it impossible to locate electrons with certainty but the very process of measuring the location changes the outcome.
As Werner Heisenberg explained, “[W]hat we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning” (58). This changes the whole relationship between the observer and the observed and seems to undermine the idea of a universally causal matrix of reality. Neils Bohr concludes:
Indeed the finite interaction between object and measuring agencies conditioned by the very existence of the quantum of actions entails— because of the impossibility of controlling the reaction of the object
on the measuring instruments, if these are to serve their purpose—the necessity of a final renunciation of the classical ideal of causality and a radical revision of our attitude towards the problem of physical reality. (60)
If Heisenberg’s and Bohr’s conclusions are correct, subsequent research seems only to have confirmed them: explanatory gaps are left open for the discussion of a theory of divine activity that does not undermine the natural order. This does not mean that the theologian may simply interject explanations at the quantum level without considering macro-systems as described in chaos theory. What has developed as a result of these explanatory gaps is a new understanding of God’s activity that is a “tertium quid” between the traditional idea of God directly intervening to change events and a post-Newtonian model of God acting indirectly without any further influence (Clayton 216). This allows theologians to take scientific results seriously while confirming a traditional understanding of God’s action in the world.
Nancy Murphy is critical of John Polkinghorne’s argument for God’s action based on the unpredictability of chaotic systems. She believes this approach is fallacious and unnecessary if we begin with the hypothesis that God works at the quantum level. The study of chaotic systems only demonstrates the unpredictability of future states based on initial conditions and not that there is a genuine indeterminancy (Murphy, “Divine” 327-28). While the investigation of causation and divine activity must begin either at the top or the bottom, or both, the accumulation of research in the area of quantum indeterminancy gives primacy to bottom-up causation. This does not mean that Murphy rejects “top-down” arguments of causation, but that “bottom-up” arguments based on quantum indeterminancy is a more plausible location to discuss divine activity.
The peculiarities of the behavior of particles at the quantum level make it difficult to determine exactly when something will happen. This leads Murphy to raise a question about what is really happening at the quantum level: “Is the when: (1) completely random and undetermined; is it (2) internally determined by the entity itself; is it (3) externally determined by the entity’s relations to something else in the physical system; or finally (4) is it determined by God?” (“Divine” 341).
As a result of Bell’s Theorem in which hidden-variable models were shown to be inconsistent with the predictions of quantum mechanics, most physicists would agree that variables 3 and 4 should be eliminated. Murphy argues that between randomness and the action of God, the better option is divine determination, “that God is the hidden variable” (342). This explanation of divine activity does not infer that God acts in every quantum event but that he activates events in particular instances. It is important for Murphy that created entities exist in their own right. “God’s action is thus limited by or constrained by the characteristic limitations of the entities with which he cooperates” (“Divine” 342). This follows traditional theology in which there is a clear distinction between God and what he has created.
Murphy’s theory on the relationship between divine activity and the natural order is very robust. She insists that any theory about this relationship do justice to the Christian tradition and its key doctrines. Essential to the presuppositions of a theory of divine action is the ability to make a distinction between special divine acts and others: “So we need at least to be able to distinguish between God’s acts and the actions of sinful creatures; ideally we ought to be able to make sense of recognizing certain historical events as actions of God that are especially revelatory of God’s character, intentions, and providence” (“Divine” 331). Murphy’s commitment to both the Christian tradition and the scientific enterprise is compelling, and her efforts to develop an alternative explanation for causality makes room for fruitful interaction between theology and science.
Understanding God’s Action in Light of Changes in Science: Concluding Remarks
While the traditional way of thinking about God’s action in the world was largely abandoned in contemporary theology, there has been a renewed effort to give an account of the way He acts particularly in light of chaos theory and quantum mechanics. A truly Christian understanding of God cannot ignore the importance of God’s interaction with the world he has created. As William Ahlston remarks:
It is a truism that divine action is at the heart of the Christian tradition, and other theistic traditions. The Christian God is, preeminently, a God Who Acts. Nor is this action confined to such wholesale endeavors as the creation and conservation of the universe. God is portrayed as active in particular ways at particular times and places. (41)
This revived interest in divine activity in the light of modern science has been reflected in an increase of interactions between scientists and theologians. An example of this interaction was a series of conferences sponsored by the Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley, California. Scholars from cross-disciplinary expertise in science, philosophy, and theology met to explore the implications of the new science and the theological issues surrounding the topic of divine activity. The output of these conferences has been significant and has contributed to important advancements in the dialogue between theology and science.4 The work of the theologian-scientists led by biochemist Arthur Peacocke, Warden Emeritus of the Society of Ordained Scientists, has been prolific. Peacocke’s monumental work Theology for a Scientific Age has provided a valuable contribution to the discussions on emergentist theory and “top-down” explanations of causality. Others, including physicists John Polkinghorne and Paul Davies, have moved the conversation forward so that the question of divine activity can no longer simply be dismissed as obscurantist or pre-scientific. Some contributors, such as theologian-philosopher Keith Ward at Oxford, have found a more public forum for engaging skeptical and outspoken scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Peter Atkins. Ward’s primary focus is to show that “[c]ontrary to what has sometimes been said, there is some sort of ‘natural fit’ between the scientific world view and mainstream Christian beliefs, which does make Christian faith a plausible, though not provable, religious view in a scientific age” (11).
As the discussion has evolved, a number of concerns have emerged. One troubling concern is the tendency to constrain God’s activity in a way that the theology, at times, borders on deism. Scientist-theologians who strongly emphasize a kind of metaphysical naturalism, such as Willem Drees in his Beyond the Big Bang, and, to some extent, Arthur Peacocke, seem to allow only minimal involvement by God. Theologians, such as Thomas F. Tracy, have insisted that there needs to be a broader theological and metaphysical framework for reality as a whole. In reflecting on the ways that God can act particularly in relation to creation, Tracy suggests five possibilities: (1) God acts directly in every event to sustain the existence of each entity that has a part in it. (2) God can act directly to determine various events which occur by chance on the finite level. (3) God acts indirectly through causal chains that extend from God’s initiating activity. (4) God acts indirectly in and through the free acts of persons whose choices have been shaped by the rest of God’s activity in the world (including God’s interaction with those persons). (5) God can also act directly to bring about events that exceed the natural powers of creatures, events which not only are undetermined on the finite level, but also fall outside the prevailing patterns and regular structures of the natural order (319). The first four suggestions allow God to interact without disrupting the natural order, but the fifth suggests that God acts, at times, against the structures and regularities of his own creation which some theologians and many scientists will find problematic. Tracy recognizes that this strategy for explaining the activity of God within the natural order has both gains and vulnerabilities (323). There are obvious empirical risks, and modern theologians have been reluctant to engage science at this level. This strategy, however, seems preferable to one of disengagement. Without the risk of proposing such explanations, the mutually beneficial clarifications of the new dialogue between science and theology would be lost to both.
Although this discussion has only been a brief foray into the relationship between science and theology, hopefully there is an awareness of the importance of the changes in science for a new level of dialogue between the two. The shift towards contextualism in the analysis of theories allows for the introduction of theological paradigms which may serve, at least, as auxiliary hypotheses to scientific research traditions to gain a broader understanding of the physical world. The astounding new discoveries explicated in chaos theory and quantum mechanics also invite discourse on alternative causal explanations that include the option of divine activity. It is unfortunate that time and space does not permit discussion of some of the other interesting and extraordinary theories such as quantum cosmology, special and general relativity, and string theory, which offer equally productive interactions. These topics have been discussed in some detail in other works, some of which have been included in this article. The dialogue is both challenging and valuable and encourages theologians and scientists to search beyond their own particular discipline in order to discover a more profound explanation for the universe. Since the God of the Christian faith is the creator of all things, the interaction between science and theology offers the opportunity for a deeper understanding of the one whom we worship.
Notes
1 W. H. Newton-Smith argues that, expressed in universal form, the idea that theories are incommensurable is implausible. He believes this suggests that one could never have rationally justifiable grounds for holding any belief. Kuhn’s thesis rests on the idea of a “radical meaning variance” between paradigms, but Newton-Smith stresses that the problem with this view is that it pays too little attention to the notion of reference. Following Hilary Putnam’s concept of physical magnitudes and based on causal realism, Newton-Smith argues that “terms for physical magnitudes which are discovered through their effects are introduced into the language as terms for the physical magnitude responsible for certain effects” (164). For instance, if one considers the history of the use of the term electricity there is no description of the term common to all users. “However, if all that they mean by ‘electricity’ is just ‘that magnitude responsible for certain (specified) effects’ and if either they agree on the effects in question or agree that the effects in question are whatever effects the original introducer of the term had in mind, we believing, as we do, in the existence of a physical magnitude responsible for the effects in question, will be able to give a charitable construal of their attempts to refer” (164). Most scientists in explaining what they mean by electricity do so by reference to phenomena produced by electrical charge. So the theory of causal realism indicates that the scheme to determine reference does so by specifying the reference as that which causes a certain phenomenon in certain ways. There may be variance of meaning between paradigms, but so long as scientists from different paradigms agree on what causes the phenomenon, their interpretation of the terms will maintain “verisimilitude.”
2 In Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (1982), Sallie McFague stresses that while metaphoric truth is not related to reality in a positivistic sense, this does not mean it is not describing the world. A metaphor is a way of relating two dissimilar objects or events and using a better known object or event to explain a lesser known. Similarly, Janet Martin Soskice, in her Metaphor and Religious Language (2002), emphasizes that metaphors are “clearly and straightforwardly referential under the right circumstances” (97). She argues that metaphors in both science and theology are referential and Christian theism, in particular, has been undeniably realist in its use of metaphorical models.
3 Physicist David Bohm rejects the classical deterministic explanation of the universe. He argues rather for the general worldview that “chance and necessary causal connections as two sides of every real natural process” (Causality and Chance 141). Because there are an unlimited number of entities in the nature, there is no system that can account for all of these things. It will always leave out a number of factors which are the result of random factors. Chance is therefore a necessary aspect of any explanation of the universe. This is why a deterministic account will only be a one-sided treatment of the process of nature. Bohm believes that chance and necessity are related to each other as part of an inseparable whole. He compares this process to the functioning of a hologram where “in each region of space, the order of a whole illuminated structure is ‘enfolded’ and ‘carried’ in the movement of light” (Wholeness 190). The reality of the universe is explained in terms of “holomovement” in which all structures connect with each other. This process does not “conform to any particular order” nor is it “bounded by any particular measure” (Wholeness 191). Although this explanation of reality seems to have clear metaphysical implications, his religious leanings are in the direction of Eastern mysticism.
4 Beginning in the early 1990s, a series of conferences were sponsored by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) in Berkeley, California, and by the Vatican Observatory housed in the Papal Palace in Castel Gandalfo, Italy, that grew out of the initiative of Pope John Paul II who called for an interdisciplinary collaboration of scholars to seek a “concord” between faith and science. A group of twenty scholars, with backgrounds in physics, cosmology, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, philosophical and systematic theology, history of theology, and history of science met for a series of five conferences during the 1990s. Each of these conferences culminated with a scholarly publication by selected conference members on the overarching topic “Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action.” The following significant and scholarly publications are the result of that series of conferences: Russell, Robert J., Murphy, Nancy, and C. J. Isham, eds. Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Activity (1993); Russell, Robert J., Nancy Murphy, and Arthur Peacocke, eds. Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Activity (1995); Russell, Robert J., William R. Stoeger, and Francisco J. Ayala, eds. Evolutionary and Molecular Biology (1998); Russell, Robert J., Nancy Murphy, Theo C. Meyering, and Michael R. Arbib, eds. Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Activity (1999); Russell, Robert J., Philip Clayton, Wegter-McNelly, and John Polkinghorne, eds. Quantum Mechanics: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (2001).
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C. CLARK TRIPLETT <triplett@mobap.edu> is Executive Dean of Graduate Studies & External Compliance and Professor of Psychology & Human Services at Missouri Baptist University. He earned an A.A. from Hannibal-LaGrange College, a B.A. from Southwest Baptist College, an M.Div. from Covenant Theological Seminary, an M.S.Ed. from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, and a Ph.D. from Saint Louis University. He also studied at Concordia Theological Seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, and the Harvard Institutes of Higher Education.
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