A NEW SCIENCE/RELIGION PARADIGM The third aspect of the New Science/Social Paradigm I’d like to consider today
is more amorphous and far more sensitive than the two I’ve suggested so far. It is
the melding of science and religion. Perhaps in no time since Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of thdoor of
the Castle church at Wittenburg (1517), or Calvin published his Institutes (1534) has
religion been in such spiritual chaos. No one set out the serious concern of this age
of religious chaos better than did Fritz Shumacher in “Guide to the Perplexed.”
Other scholars of the times like Gregory Bateson, Buckminster Fuller, Margaret Mead
and others had a clear but unproclaimed religious character to their works.
Schumacher’s was the first, most profound, and most open declaration of the age
of spiritual turmoil. The religious chaos of the 1960s and ‘70s was most clearly and dramatically
proclaimed by the beads, incense, granny dresses, long hair and horned rimmed
glasses of the hippies. It was also declared by movements such as T.M., est, Hari
Krishna, the search for Eastern religions, the return of paganism, shamanism and
Wiccan. It was expressed in the Broadway musicals Hair, and Jesus Christ
Superstar, and in the attempt to escape from social hills with psychedelic drugs.
The concept of “New Age” started out to be, more like Shumaker’s “Small is
Beautiful,” a critique and correction of the excesses of the Industrial Age. It ended
up being identified, particularly by its critics, and the press, as being an off beat
and occult religious movement, more likely to end up with the Jonestown and the
more recent UFO induced suicides or other strange behaviors than in any serious
revival of a deeper sense of spirituality. Schumacher in “Guide to the Perplexed” took the high road and recognized
that the meandering search for meaning of the hippie generation was a deeper and
more profound expression of the age than was being recognized by mainstream
society. In “Small is Beautiful” Schumacher had been concerned with what we do. In
“Guide to the Perplexed” he was concerned with why we do it. He recognized two
kinds of science. One was “knowledge for manipulation,” the other “knowledge for
understanding.” The former led to techniques and technologies for the satisfaction
of the lower visible level of human wants. The later led to the higher values,
meaning and purpose for life. As he said:
“It may conceivably be possible to live without churches; but it is not possible to live
without religion, that is, without systematic work to keep in contact with, and
develop toward, Higher Levels than those of ordinary life. ... Everywhere in the
modern world there are experiments in new life-styles...and it is sometimes
tolerated even in polite society to mention God.” The Evolution of God Belief in powers beyond the human level have been with us since humans first
became conscious of themselves and the world into which they were born. Stories
of creation, and speculation on the higher power have filled the human mind, and
were the rocks on which cultures were built in every part of the world. Throughout history humanity’s understanding of that great power that created
and controls the universe has grown, like the understanding of the physical cosmos
and of biological life, through many transitions. The evolution of our understanding
of the Christian God is the one most familiar to us. The first God of the Bible was a fierce and vengeful god to be feared. He was
one of many gods (or baals) each of whom ruled over a limited people in a limited
territory. The God of Abraham could command human sacrifice. Jacob wrestled all
night face to face with his God. By the time of Isaiah, God had grown to be the
creator of the world, the greatest among all gods. Jeremiah taught, God was not in
the Temple but in the heart of humans. He had created the world for human use.
The god of Moses lived on a Mountain in the Sinai desert from which he handed
down the ethical rules for his chosen people, the Jews. With the teachings of Jesus,
god took off his demeanor of wrath and punishment to become an all loving god
promising eternal life for his people who did not sin. 12 With Paul there was one all
powerful Christian god for all people. To Augustine the universe was a Chain-of-
Being with humans near the top, and a hierarchy down through women, children,
and lesser animals. Vastly above man sat God, with the Chain-of-Being filed with
angels and other demigods. For Saint Thomas Aquinas, God was a omnipresent
spiritual form more than a human like being. His existence was as discernible
through reason as through revelation. The view of God as creator of the universe that was to be ruled by man, was
amplified by the Greek philosophers who first conceived of the idea that the
universe was an ordered unity, and that man had the capability to understand it. To
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle the ordered and purposeful universe was obviously for
human use. All plants and animals were in a natural hierarchy with man at the top.
The Roman Empire, Mediaeval Church, and European Monarchs, continued and
expanded the idea that humans (more correctly ‘man’) was the caretaker for all
creation. The Dichotomy Between Science and Religions This view of man’s dominion over the Earth prevailed until the time of Bacon
and Descartes who had little respect for the non-human world, but divided human
life into two realms, the physical and the spiritual. They did not challenge the
concept that the purpose of the universe was the use of humans. But, did contend
that humans were created with the power to understand and dominate that
universe. With the founding of economic theory on the principles of self-interest
and survival-of-the-fittest, the material side of life became dominant. In the past
200 years mastery of the external world has become the single most powerful
driving force of humanity. A belief in God has remained as separate from the
material world, as the 2000+ years in the evolution of God has reached to the edge
of chaos. This dichotomy between science and religion was established when the
mediaeval Christian clerics refused to look through Galileo’s telescope. For them,
the scriptures had revealed that there could be no moons around Jupiter. It was not
fear of knowledge that held their hands. It was fear of social dissolution. The moral
certainty of the Mediaeval Church was based on man being at the center of the
spiritual universe. This in turn rested on man’s home, the Earth, being the center of
the physical universe. It was feared that if the Earth were proven to not be at the
center of the universe, the whole fabric of spiritual and social adherence could
disintegrate. The Galileo compromise, later clarified by Descartian dualism, was that
scientific knowledge should be developed to aid man in his understanding and
domination of the Earth. That is, in creating technology. Religion should dominate
the realm of the deeper meaning of life and the moral codes which create harmony
among the people of the Earth. Science would not be recognized as a process for
enlightening humans as to their place in the universe. This bifurcation was operable as long as the development of technologies was
beneficial to humanity. That is, before the challenge of the excessive use of natural
resources, the pollution of air, water and soil, the threat of global warming, the
discovery of thinning of the protective ozone layer, increased health risks due to
toxic chemicals, the loss of jobs brought on by labor saving automation and foreign
trade, biotechnology threatened to privatize all life, automobiles and highway
separated citizens from one another, and, in general, technology became our master
rather than our slave. These unanticipated consequences of technology have
spurred the creation of technology and environmental assessment programs by the
government. They also initiated a deep reassessment of the value and use of
science as well as technology. God and Gaia Part of the reassessment of science has been lin conert with the reassessment
of religion in a holistic revaluation of the place of knowledge in society. A new
search for meaning and spirituality emerged from the peace, human rights,
feminist, and ecological movements of the 1960’s. The search for meaning was
intensified by the bold adventures into “New Age” cults and fancies, the deep
searches through Eastern Religions, and the unfettered acceptance of questionable
pseudo sciences. However, it was brought to fruition, with some deep scholarly
theological redefinition’s of deep religious and scientific tenets. Pope John Paul II, in acknowledging that homosexuality is a phenomena of
nature, in his apology for the Church’s condemnation of Galileo, in his acceptance
of evolution as a valid scientific theory, and in his admission if the Church’s error in
failing to opposse to the Holocaust, has made the Catholic Church seem to
recognize it own fallibility, and to see science as a joint venture in the search for
knoweldge of the cosmos and humanity’s place in it. Fr. Thomas Berry has been one of the leaders of this movement. He holds that
our modern society’s creation myth is the scientific story of cosmic evolution.13 No
creation myth could produce more awe, wonder, and mystery than the revelation of
how the universe, the planets and life emerged from the Big Bang. Other
theologians like Bernard Lonegran S.J. and Laurent Leduc have gone a step further.
They suggest that religion, like science, is a search for the truth not the last
immutable word. Theologians like those in the Institute for Theological Encounter
with Science and Technology (ITEST) see theology as accepting the scientific view of
nature, but acting as a sort of watchdog for recognizing that there is a bigger
picture that we can not completely understand nor appreciate from a natural
viewpoint. From the scientific end there is a growing humility. Science accepts justifiable
condemnation for the technologies derived from it, and their detrimental affect on
society and the environment. In addition, the certainty that surrounded Newtonian
Mechanics and Darwinian Evolution was taken to extremes by many disciplines and
by some scientists. As Alfred Whitehead warned. the success of physics in
explaining and predicting one set of phenomena led many so called scholars to
apply the methods of physics beyond their sphere of relevance, in what he called
“misplaced concreteness.” That is, building mathematical structures on uncertain
premises. Both the limits of and the fallibility of science are now emphasized,
giving more room for a rational religious speculation. A New Age of Science At the same time, the advent of quantum and relativity theories, and even
more in the new sciences of Gaia, Chaos and Complexity, it is being recognized that
science is relevant, to use Schumacher’s words, as “knowledge for understanding.”
Today, science is not just as a base for new technologies; but science reveals what
little reasonably certain factual knowledge we know about the cosmos and cosmic
evolution. This limited knowledge is relevant to humanity’s place in the universe. It
implies rules to live by if humanity is to continue to exist. A new age of science is
dawning. We made one mention of this in our discussion of learning above. That is the
scientific fact implicit in the Gaia Hypothesis that evrything is dependent on
everything else. That is, that humans belong to Gaia . We “belong” to Gaia not just
as parts of it, but “belonging” is a proto values for our lives. Belonging implies both
being subject to and being responsible for one another and for the Earth. Beyond that, as Gregory Bateson points out in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, a
living organism can continue to exist only if it meets three biological principles. 1)
Health, the ability to exist within its environment, 2) Competence, the ability to draw
sustenance from its environment, and 3) adaptive flexibility, the ability to change as
its environment changes. These principles are as applicable to social systems as
they are to biological systems. They instruct us as to how we must live if humanity
is to sustain itself. Tom Ellis states the ethical implication of the Gaian theory in a
new categorical imperative: “Make all decision based on whatever promotes the
health, competence and adaptive flexibility of oneself and of all the larger system of
which one is a part.”14 Science joins with religion in uncovering the code of
conduct necessary for human existence. This melding of science and religion follows Spinoza’s belief that God is nature
and Einstein’s concept that a religion is feeling of cosmic awe, wonder and mystery
which comes with the deep concentrated study of what is, science. It surpasses
human understanding. It is ‘feeling’ the ultimate reality. God, in this sense, cannot
be reduced to human characteristics. God, so defined, is pure spirit invisible to
humans. God is beyond the materialism and foibles of human frailties. For humans
to quibble over His attributes is to diminish His grandeur. You just can’t use the
word God and describe it. It is a state of being rather than a conscious attribute. It
transcends definition. The new sciences of Chaos, Complexity and Gaia provide a new world view,
that humanity is an integral, and equal, part of a self-organizing cosmos. Each part
of, the cosmos as a whole, is equally sacred and to be revered. The Gaian
paradigm, that all there is -- is webs of being, suggests a new concept of God-as-
cosmos, and Science-as-revelation. Humanity may well be on the verge of a new age of science and a new age of
religion. A unified search for fundamental knowledge, which may save it from the
apocalypse by which it is threatened,
(2267 words on Religion) Conclusion These three brief examinations only hint of the holistic and comprehensive
cultural transition in the offing. They were not meant to be accurate prediction of
the future. A central theme of chaos and complexity theories are that self-
organization cannot be fully guided by human intervention, the best we can do is to
examine possible option and prepare for any of them to happen. The emerging New
Scientific/Social Paradigm radically changes the way we will look at all aspects of our
culture in the millennium ahead. The future of economics, health, transportation,
habitat or all other social institutions could as well be taken as examples examples.
Or we might have examined the lifestyles we will live if this Gaian Paradigm become
universal. in the decades ahead Earth citizens may well look back at the society in
which we now live as not far removed from our cave dwelling ancestors.
Technophobes can point out a myriad of technological possibilities now on the shelf
awaiting development and exploitation. Highly respected scientists, like Freeman
Dyson in Imagined Worlds, speak of radio telepathy, designed biomechanical
intelligent beings, bioengineered biomes in space, and other wonders we now read
of in science fiction. The coming millennium, will first have to solve the social, economic, health,
education, ecological and other problems which beset today’s world. Without
solution, the current world problematique dooms humanity to a degraded existence
reminiscent of H.G. Wells The Wars of the Worlds. In Gaia, Complexity, and Chaos theories we see the opening of an opportunity
to choose between a number of possible scenarios. The coming of the 3rd
millennium is a chance to set that direction. See Part 1
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