Tom McLeish

Faith and Wisdom in Science

(1)‘Science and Religion’: Narrative and History.

(2)Biblical Wisdom for Christian Thinking on Science

(3)A Theology of Science and Consequences

York Minster LecturesJuly 2015

Where we are going ….• Science needs (desperately) a deep cultural narrative

• Current perception that ‘Science is Modern’ is a harm

• Mine wisdom books, especially Job rather than

Genesis for Biblical sources

• From “Theology and Science” to

Theology of Science.

• Reappraisal of Science culturally,

anthropologically, theologically.

• The Church can embrace Science

What is Science?

100m

10-1m

10-2m

10-3m

10-4m

10-5m

10-6m

10-7m

10-8m

10-9m

What is Science?Atomic hypothesis:All things are made of atoms, little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.

Richard Feynmann

Peptide 1: K24 - organic solvent

did this at only 1% in water

Lys-Leu-Glu-Ala-Leu-Tyr-Val-Leu-Gly-Phe-Phe-Gly-Phe-Phe- Thr-Leu-Gly-Ile-Met-Leu-Ser-Tyr-Ile-Arg- + +

Hydrophobic

They must have formed ‘polymers’...

Flexible -sheet ribbonstape

tape

100nm 200nmP11-II K24P11-I 50nm

With increased concentration they go onself-assembling..

tape

ribbon fibril fibre

ribbon

fibril

fibre

Application: these structures resemble “amyloids”

C. Dobson and A. Hill (Oxford)

What is Science?….

Science and Technology are the key to improving our qualityof life and the competitiveness of the UK.UK White paper 1993

Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is onlyone valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.Georges Braque

Of course in science there are things that are open to doubt and things need to be discussed. But among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know.Richard Dawkins

High-pitched narratives….In questions of science the authority of a thousand is notworth the humble reasoning of a single individual.Galileo Galilei

Science is always wrong. It never solves a problem without creating ten more.George Bernard Shaw

Religion without Science is blind; Science without Religion is lame.Albert Einstein

Like priests in a former age, [scientists] seem to guard the key to knowledge, to have access to transcendent truths which the rest of us could never hope to understand. Many people feel that what they do is cut off from everyday life, that it is irrelevant and rather frightening, a form of magic.Angela Tilby

Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine Unweave a rainbow.

John Keats in Lamia

The Poet’s View?….

What is Science? (ontology)

• A Unique path to knowledge (epistemology) about the Universe?

• A cultural and human activity of the imagination and logic?

• An threat to human imagination and art?

• A cause of pain and difficulty?

• A social community of practice?

What’s in a name?

“Science”

- scio – ‘I know’

“Natural Philosophy”

– philo-sophia – ‘I love wisdom’

Ways of Acquiring Knowledge

• Sense

• Reason

• Testimony

• Memory

• Revelation

Aut

horit

y hi

erar

chy? Science?

Religion?

‘Two books?’

Historical Eras – Evolving Narratives

• Ancient world of Hellenism and Hebraism• Late Antiquity• Islamic science and commentary• Medieval Scholasticism• Renaissance• Early Modern enlightenment• Modern• Post Modern

Ret

reat

of G

od?

Late Antiquity

[Paul] had been at Athens, and had in his interviews (with its philosophers) become acquainted with that human wisdom which pretends to know the truth, whilst it only corrupts it, and is itself divided into its own manifold heresies, by the variety of its mutually repugnant sects. What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? what between heretics and Christians?

On the Prescription of Heretics

YET – used Stoic arguments

Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240 AD)

“It is by an abuse of language that a jar is said to be "empty"; for when it is emptyof any liquid it is none the less, even in this state, full, in the eyes of the experienced. A proof of this is that a jar when put into a pool of water is not immediately filled,but at first floats on the surface, because the air it contains helps to buoy up its roundedsides; till at last the hand of the drawer of the water forces it down to the bottom, and, when there, it takes in water by its neck; during which process it is shown not to have been empty even before the water came; for there is the spectacle of a sort of combat going on in the neck between the two elements, the water being forced by its weight into the interior, and therefore streaming in; the imprisoned air on the other hand being straitened for room by the gush of the water along the neck, and so rushing in the contrary direction; thus the water is checked by the strong current of air, and gurglesand bubbles against it.”

Gregory of Nyssa, “On the Soul and the Resurrection”,translation from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol V,Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Calvin College (1999).

Late Antiquity using Science Theologically

• Aristotelian translation movement– Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126-1198)

Constantinople

Sicily

Spain

Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

Islamic science and commentary

Medieval ScholasticismFormam primam corporalem, quam quidam corporeitatem vocant, lucemesse arbitror. Lux enim per se in omnem partem se ipsam diffundit, ita ut apuncto lucis sphaera lucis quamvis magna subito generetur, nisi obsistatumbrosum. Corporeitas vero est, quam de necessitate consequiturextensio materiae secundum tres dimensiones, cum tamen utraque,corporeitas scilicet et materia, sit substantia in se ipsa simplex, omnicarens dimensione …

This is not principally about light…It’s about the “stability of matter”… A very real problem with atomism not solved until quantum theory

De luce – On Light, Robert Grosseteste

A Medieval Big Bang Cosmogeny

Robert Grosseteste

De Luce (c.1225)“Light… at the beginning of time, extended matter (which it could not leave), drawing it out along with itself into a mass the size of the world-machine”

•Light extends matter down to a fundamental limit of rarefaction (actually a ratio of L/M)

•When extended to the limit, matter becomes “perfected” and re-radiates lumen

RenaissanceSome years ago word reached me concerning your proficiency, of which everybody constantly spoke. At that time I began to have a very high regard for you... For I had learned that you had not merely mastered the discoveries of the ancient astronomers uncommonly well but had also formulated a new cosmology. In it you maintain that the earth moves; that the sun occupies the lowest, and thus the central, place in the universe... Therefore with the utmost earnestness I entreat you, most learned sir, unless I inconvenience you, to communicate this discovery of yours to scholars, and at the earliest possible moment to send me your writings on the sphere of the universe together with the tables and whatever else you have that is relevant to this subject ...

Cardinal Nikolaus von Schönberg, Archbishop of Capua, 1536

“God [is] the author of the universe, and the free establisher of the laws of motion.”

–Physicist and chemist Robert Boyle,

“I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.”–Sir Isaac Newton

Early Modern ‘enlightenment’

Robert Brown, botanist1829

Michael Faraday, chemist1825

“… by enabling the mind to apply the natural power through law, [science] conveys the gifts of God to man.

Modern ‘enlightenment’

Late ModernAndrew WhiteA History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896),

John William DraperHistory of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874),

John Clement Whitcomb, Henry Madison Morris (1961)

“Those who have magnified more recent controversies about the relations of science and religion, and who have projected them back into historical time, simply perpetuate a historical myth. The myth of a perennial conflict between science and religion is one to which no historian of science would subscribe.”

–Former Oxford University Professor of Science and Religion Peter Harrison.

Science replaces God as a historical narrative after the enlightenment?

The Pioneers of Quantum Mechanics

“Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.”

Max Planck,

“Those who say that the study of science makes a man an atheist must be rather silly.”

Max Born,

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”

Werner Heisenberg

“The New Atheists”There still remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos,..manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism …that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression… that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking

Christopher Hitchens

Do more research …. My task was to demonstrate that there was enough reason to question the tradition of faith so that you could not in good conscience turn your back on the available or discoverable relevant facts..

Daniel Dennett

Geometries of Relationship

1 2

3

Geometries of Relationship

4 5

6

7

Geometries of Relationship

• Conflict• Independence• Dialogue • Integration

• Coherence• Complementarity

When Science Meets Religion (2000) Ian Barbour

Concluding Remarks

• Science is at the heart of and part of a Christian worldview

• There are many different framings of the relationship of Science and Religion – be aware!

• There are many ‘convenient untruths’ on the history of Science and Religion

• Removing the false opposition of Science and Faith is going to be important.