Is nature all there is? John Haught examines this question and in doing so addresses a fundamental issue in the dialogue of science with religion. The belief that nature is all there is and that no overall purpose exists in the universe is known broadly as 'naturalism'. Naturalism, in this context, denies the existence of any realities distinct from the natural world and human culture. Since the rise of science in the modern world has had so much influence (...) on naturalism's intellectual acceptance, the author focuses on 'scientific' naturalism and the way in which its defenders are now attempting to put a distance between contemporary thought and humanity's religious traditions. Haught seeks to provide a reasonable, scientifically informed alternative to naturalism. His approach will provide the basis for lively discussion among students, scholars, scientists, theologians and intellectually curious people in general. (shrink)

This essay is based on a lecture delivered at the 2002 IRAS Star Island conference, the theme of which was “Is Nature Enough? The Thirst for Transcendence.” I had been asked to represent the position of those who would answer No to the question. I thought it would stimulate discussion if I presented my side of the debate in a somewhat provocative manner rather than use a more ponderous approach that would argue each point in a meticulous and protracted fashion. (...) Here I lay out a theological position that finds naturalism wanting in three ways: in terms of human spiritual needs, in terms of the mind's need for deep explanation, and in terms of the perennial human search for truth. Again, the style of presentation, like that of the original lecture, prohibits the kind of philosophical development that an adequate answer to each of the issues requires. The purpose is that of evoking discussion on a most important question. (shrink)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin challenged theology to reach for an understanding of God that would take into account the reality of evolution. Paul Tillich's notion of New Being goes a long way toward meeting this challenge, and a theology of evolution can gain a great deal from Tillich's religious thought. But Teilhard would still wonder whether the philosophical notion of being, even when qualified by the adjective new, is itself adequate to contextualize evolution theologically. To Teilhard a theology attuned to (...) a post–Darwinian world requires nothing less than a revolution in our understanding of what is ultimately real. It is doubtful that Tillich's rather classical theological system is radical enough to accommodate this requirement. For Teilhard, on the other hand, a metaphysics grounded in the biblical vision, wherein God is understood as the future on which the world rests as its sole support, can provide a more suitable setting for evolutionary theology. (shrink)

In A Third Window Robert Ulanowicz exposes the explanatory weaknesses of both classical and statistical methods in scientific inquiry. His book, however, does much more than that. While being completely grounded in empirical science, it also outlines a worldview, or a metaphysics, that renders intelligible the fact of chance and emergent novelty. Ulanowicz establishes his position by comparing his third window onto nature with two others conventional scientific approaches. The purpose of this essay is to point out the value of (...) Ulanowicz’s approach for improving the quality of conversation between science and theology. (shrink)

Robert Russell's theological work has been a helpful stimulus to the task of understanding the meaning of divine action and providence in the age of science. He relates God's direct action "fundamentally" to the hidden domain of quantum events, and his theology of nature deserves careful attention. It is questionable, however, whether the term fundamental as applied to quantum events by physical science may be taken over by theology without more careful qualification than Russell offers.

Evolutionary biology contributes much to our present understanding of life, and it promises also to deepen our understanding of human intelligence, ethics, and even religion. For some scientific thinkers, however, Darwin's science seems so impressive that it now supplants theology altogether by providing the ultimate explanation of all manifestations of life, not only biologically but also metaphysically. By focusing on human intelligence as an emergent aspect of nature this essay examines the question of whether theology can still have an explanatory (...) role to play alongside biology in attempts to understand mind. (shrink)

Evolutionary biology has considerably altered our understanding of life, and it now promises to enhance our understanding of human existence by providing new insights into the meaning of intelligence, ethical aspiration and religious life. For some scientific thinkers, especially those who espouse a physicalist worldview, Darwin’s science seems so impressive that it now replaces theology by providing the deepest available explanation of all manifestations of life, including human intelligence. By focusing on human intelligence this essay asks whether a theological perspective (...) on the universe can still have an illuminating role to play alongside of biology (and other scientific perspectives) in contemporary attempts to understand human intelligence. (shrink)

Ten tekst przedstawia trzy różne sposoby, w jakie ludzie, którzy mieli kontakt z nauką, odpowiadają na następujące pytania: „Czy nauka jest zgodna z wiarą religijną?” oraz „Czy nauka nie wyklucza istnienia osobowego Boga?”. Pierwsza odpowiedź zakłada, że nauki przyrodnicze i wiara religijna wykluczają się wzajemnie. To jest sytuacja konfliktu. Jej przedstawiciele należą do dwóch głównych podgrup: sceptyków, którzy wierzą, że nauki przyrodnicze uczyniły wszystkie twierdzenia religijne niewiarygodnymi, oraz ludzi wiary, którzy odmawiają przyjęcia pewnych naukowych idei, takich jak kosmologia Wielkiego Wybuchu (...) i ewolucja biologiczna. W obecnym tekście konflikt dotyczy tylko naukowych sceptyków, którzy twierdzą, że metody i odkrycia naukowe zdezaktualizowały wiarę religijną i teologię. Drugi typ odpowiedzi na wymienione pytania utrzymuje, że nauka i wiara dotyczą różnych poziomów lub wymiarów rzeczywistości. Zgodnie z tym podejściem, nauka i teologia stawiają zupełnie inne rodzaje pytań, dlatego nie można ich traktować jako konkurencyjnych obszarów. W stanowisku kontrastu podkreśla się, że nie może być prawdziwego konfliktu między twierdzeniami nauk przyrodniczych a twierdzeniami wiary i teologii. Wiara i nauka nie rywalizują o jakiś wspólny cel, więc nie mogą wchodzić ze sobą w konflikt. Trzecim stanowiskiem jest konwergencja. Można je również nazwać „współbrzmieniem”, „współpracą”, „kontaktem” lub „konwersacją”. To stanowisko zgadza się z tezą „kontrastu”, według którego wiara religijna i nauki przyrodnicze są różnymi sposobami rozumienia świata, ale argumentuje zarazem, że te dwa obszary nieuchronnie oddziałują na siebie. Konwergencja promuje tę interakcję. Celem zwolenników konwergencji jest osiągnięcie syntezy, w której zarówno nauka, jak i wiara zachowują swoją tożsamość, a jednocześnie pozostają w ścisłym związku ze sobą we wspólnym dążeniu do inteligibilności i prawdy. Konwergencja zakłada, że odkrycia naukowe mają znaczenie dla wiary, innymi słowy, odkrycia naukowe mogą znacząco wpłynąć na to, jak myślimy o Bogu i sensie naszego życia. Konwergencja zakłada, że nauka i wiara, o ile nie są ze sobą mylone, mogą razem prowadzić do bogatszego spojrzenia na rzeczywistość. (shrink)

Evolutionary biology has considerably altered our understanding of life, and it now promises to enhance our understanding of human existence by providing new insights into the meaning of intelligence, ethical aspiration and religious life. For some scientific thinkers, especially those who espouse a physicalist worldview, Darwin’s science seems so impressive that it now replaces theology by providing the deepest available explanation of all manifestations of life, including human intelligence. By focusing on human intelligence this essay asks whether a theological perspective (...) on the universe can still have an illuminating role to play alongside of biology (and other scientific perspectives) in contemporary attempts to understand human intelligence. (shrink)

The theme of compassion is prominent in the work of Christopher Southgate. This scientist and theologian is deeply affected by Charles Darwin's nineteenth century disclosure of the long, previously unknown, history of life's suffering. Southgate is also aware of the many unsuccessful attempts by Christian theologians to make sense of it all. Here I build on Southgate's work. I note, first, that both the suffering of life and the protest against it by compassionate human beings are integral parts of a (...) single cosmic drama; second, that the drama is still far from finished; and, third, that the suffering of innocent life remains unintelligible and unredeemed apart from faith's anticipation of a fulfillment that awaits the entire cosmic drama. (shrink)

Accession Number: ATLA0001712270; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 697-712.; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 711-712.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.

Has Darwinian science made natural theology obsolete, as many Christian scholars now believe? In this article, the author assumes that natural theology does not take place in a religious vacuum but instead borrows its sense of god from this or that specific faith tradition. Its task is not to arrive at an understanding of the divine mystery different from that of systematic or doctrinal theology. As the author shall argue here, however, the empirical grounding essential to natural theology must be (...) considerably more comprehensive and more profound than that provided by the natural sciences, mainly because the latter usually leave out any mention of the most striking of all natural phenomena – the human mind and its mysterious operations.The author maintains that an exclusively Darwinian narrative cannot fully explain why your mind is restless for truth or why you should trust your mind. The point of natural theology is to ask whether nature as a whole is intelligible apart from the reality of God. The author’s point is that an empirical survey of nature that restricts itself to following the modern scientific method’s habitual exclusion of thought from its survey of nature cannot succeed in making nature intelligible.Contribution: This article argues that evolutionary explanations alone are not enough to account for all that is happening in human understanding and knowing. In the light of evolutionary biology, we must note that even human intelligence, which formerly seemed to elevate our species to a perch above nature, now appears to be an unexceptional product of chance, deep time and natural selection. ‘Thought’, the name we may give to the most splendid of all evolutionary outcomes, is taken to be a product of impersonal natural selection and so also are our moral instincts. (shrink)

Although Michael Polanyi's model of science and his construal of the nature of the real are usually thought to be congenial to religion and although Polanyi himself says that “the stage on which we thus resume our full intellectual powers is borrowed from the Christian scheme of Fall and Redemption” (Polanyi 1958, 324), theologians have given little attention to the model of God he presents. The metaphysical and theological vision unfolded in part 4 of Personal Knowledge is a thoughtful alternative (...) to materialist versions of neo‐Darwinism and provides a platform for revisiting four long‐standing controversies at the interface of science and religion: whether life and mind can be completely specified in terms of physical analysis, whether nature can be adequately understood without appeal to final causes, whether natural selection adequately explains life's diverse forms, and whether knowledge can be fully objectified. Through an exploration of Polanyi's contribution to these discussions, we undertake to show not only that his treatment of God as a cosmic field is strikingly original but also that in reinstating activity as a metaphysical category, he reconstructs our understanding of our creaturely hope and calling. (shrink)

Evolutionary biology has considerably altered our understanding of life, and it now promises to enhance our understanding of human existence by providing new insights into the meaning of intelligence, ethical aspiration and religious life. For some scientific thinkers, especially those who espouse a physicalist worldview, Darwin’s science seems so impressive that it now replaces theology by providing the deepest available explanation of all manifestations of life, including human intelligence. By focusing on human intelligence this essay asks whether a theological perspective (...) on the universe can still have an illuminating role to play alongside of biology in contemporary attempts to understand human intelligence. (shrink)

Brings the thought and theology of Teilhard de Chardin into conversation with other significant religious thinkers, philosophers, and scientists.

Gur general vision of the world will undoubtedly affect our environmental ethics. Scientific materialism is the “general vision” that undergirds many scholarly and popular presentations of science today. It is questionable whether this materialist metaphysics can consistently sustain an environmental concern. If scientists influenced by the materialistic outlook, nonetheless, happen to be environmentalists, itis in spite of and not because of their materialist philosophies of nature. What we need, therefore, is a cosmological vision that is nlore consistently supportive of an (...) environmental ethic. Religious visions are often ambiguous in their attitude toward the natural environment. Alfred North Whitehead and his followers weave modem science, philosophical sophistication and religious cosmology into a metaphysical vision fully and consistently supportive of a vigorous environmental ethic. (shrink)

Gur general vision of the world will undoubtedly affect our environmental ethics. Scientific materialism is the “general vision” that undergirds many scholarly and popular presentations of science today. It is questionable whether this materialist metaphysics can consistently sustain an environmental concern. If scientists influenced by the materialistic outlook, nonetheless, happen to be environmentalists, itis in spite of and not because of their materialist philosophies of nature. What we need, therefore, is a cosmological vision that is nlore consistently supportive of an (...) environmental ethic. Religious visions are often ambiguous in their attitude toward the natural environment. Alfred North Whitehead and his followers weave modem science, philosophical sophistication and religious cosmology into a metaphysical vision fully and consistently supportive of a vigorous environmental ethic. (shrink)

Recent evolutionary interpretations of religion can be illuminating. However, by failing to take into account what Polanyi calls the “logic of achievement” they end up attributing to impersonal segments of DNA the personal striving that underlies religious existence.

Le cosmos a-t-il un sens? Cette question ne peut être abandonnée aux seuls scientifiques, même s’il importe d’enregistrer leurs avancées dans la formulation de propositions. La vision scientifique de l’univers a mis à mal le modèle hiérarchique traditionnel porté par les religions, en imposant l’idée d’une continuité entre les êtres. Il en résulte un «pessimisme cosmique» où la vie est expliquée à partir de l’inerte et le tout est dénué de finalité. Contre ce réductionnisme, le présent article avance des considérations (...) susceptibles de réenchanter le monde post-darwinien. (shrink)

Accession Number: ATLA0001788502; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 246-264.; Language(s): English; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.

I gratefully acknowledge and respond here to four reviews of my recent book, Cosmology from Alpha to Omega. Nancey Murphy stresses the importance of showing consistency between Christian theology and natural science through a detailed examination of my recent model of their creative interaction. She suggests how this model can be enhanced by adopting Alasdair MacIntyre's understanding of tradition in order to adjudicate between competing ways of incorporating science into a wider worldview. She urges the inclusion of ethics in my (...) model and predicts that this would successfully challenge the competing naturalist tradition in contemporary society. John F. Haught weighs the alternatives of viewing divine action as objective versus subjective and of divine action at one level in nature or at all levels. He asks whether physics is fundamental to nature, arguing instead that metaphysics should be considered as fundamental. Michael Ruse assesses occasional versus universal divine action, the problems raised to divine action when it is related to quantum mechanics, and the way these relations exacerbate the challenge of natural theodicy. As an alternative he suggests viewing God as outside time and acting through unbroken natural law. Willem B. Drees discusses my use of the bridge metaphor for the relation between theology and science, the implications when science is inspired by theology, the role of contingency and necessity in the anthropic principle/many-worlds debate, and the challenge of cosmology to eschatology with the ensuing problem of theodicy. (shrink)

Although the study of reasons plays an important role in both epistemology and moral philosophy, little attention has been devoted to the question of how, exactly, reasons interact to support the actions or conclusions they do. In this book, John F. Horty attempts to answer this question by providing a precise, concrete account of reasons and their interaction, based on the logic of default reasoning. The book begins with an intuitive, accessible introduction to default logic itself, and then argues (...) that this logic can be adapted to serve as a foundation for a concrete theory of reasons. Horty then shows that the resulting theory helps to explain how the interplay among reasons can determine what we ought to do by developing two different deontic logics, capturing two different intuitions about moral conflicts.In the central part of the book, Horty elaborates the basic theory to account for reasoning about the strength of our own reasons, and also about the related concepts of undercutting defeaters and exclusionary reasons. The theory is illustrated with an application to particularist arguments concerning the role of principles in moral theory. The book concludes by introducing a pair of issues new to the philosophical literature: the problem of determining the epistemic status of conclusions supported by separate but conflicting reasons, and the problem of drawing conclusions from sets of reasons that can vary arbitrarily in strength, or importance. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of a fallacy we will call bothsiderism, which is to mistake disagreement on an issue for evidence that either a compromise on, suspension of judgment regarding, or continued discussion of the issue is in order. Our view is that this is a fallacy of a unique and heretofore untheorized type, a fallacy of meta-argumentation. The paper develops as follows. After a brief introduction, we examine a recent bothsiderist case in American politics. We use this as (...) a pivot point to survey the theoretical literature on the fallacy. The most prominent theory is that bothsiderism is a case of dialogue-shifting. This view fails, we maintain, to explain how bothsiderism might be persuasive. We argue, rather, bothsiderism is a kind of meta-argumentative fallacy. (shrink)

Free speech fallacies are errors of meta-argument. One commits a free speech fallacy when one argues that since there are apparent restrictions on one’s rights of free expression, procedural rules of critical exchange have been broken, and consequently, one’s preferred view is dialectically better off than it may otherwise seem. Free speech fallacies are meta-argumentative, since they occur at the level of assessing the dialectical situation in terms of norms of argument and in terms of meta-evidential principles of interpreting how (...) and why people follow (or fail to follow) argumentative rules. Our plan here is to begin with a brief explanation of meta-argument and meta-argumentative fallacy. We will then turn to the variety of forms of the free speech fallacy, which we will explain as meta-argumentatively erroneous. (shrink)

Arguments are weakly meta-argumentative when they call attention to themselves and purport to be successful as arguments. Arguments are strongly metaargumentative when they take arguments (themselves or other arguments) as objects for evaluation, clarification, or improvement and explicitly use concepts of argument analysis for the task. The ambitious meta-argumentation thesis is that all argumentation is weakly argumentative. The modest meta-argumentation thesis is that there are unique instances of strongly meta-argumentative argument. Here, we show how the two theses are connected and (...) both are plausible. (shrink)

Three forms of the straw man fallacy are posed: the straw, weak, and hollow man. Additionally, there can be non-fallacious cases of any of these species of straw man arguments.

The straw man fallacy consists in inappropriately constructing or selecting weak versions of the opposition’s arguments. We will survey the three forms of straw men recognized in the literature, the straw, weak, and hollow man. We will then make the case that there are examples of inappropriately reconstructing stronger versions of the opposition’s arguments. Such cases we will call iron man fallacies. The difference between appropriate and inappropriate iron manning clarifies the limits of the virtue of open-mindedness.

The authors argue that the time is ripe for national and corporate leaders to move consciously towards the development of global ethics. This papers presents a model of global ethics, a rationale for the development of global ethics, and the implications of the model for research and practice.

With precision and profundity born of 30 years of devoted study, John Boyle offers an essential introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas on Scripture, shedding helpful light on the goals, methods, and commitments that animate the Angelic Doctor's engagement with the sacred page. Because the genius of St. Thomas's approach to the Bible lies not so much in its novelty but rather in the fidelity and clarity with which he recapitulates the riches of the preceding interpretive Tradition, this initiation into (...) St. Thomas's vision of Scripture is itself an orientation to the Church's vision of Scripture, from the Fathers through and beyond the Middle Ages. St. Thomas's embeddedness within the Church's Tradition and his own historical context is integral to his approach to Scripture, yet it sets him at some distance from modern readers, for whom his interpretive vision may seem perplexing or even impenetrable. In this Primer, Boyle first provides an acclimation to this medieval context through a survey and explanation of pertinent technical terminology used by St. Thomas and characteristic of the scholastic theology of the time. With an eye to the medieval practice of considering Scripture according to the fourfold division of causes, Boyle builds on this initial foundation by exploring in turn St. Thomas's accounts of the end or use of Scripture (final cause), its divine and human authorship (efficient cause), its order and division (material cause), and its literary styles or genres (formal cause). Drawing on writings from across St. Thomas's corpus, but especially his work On the Commendation and Division of Sacred Scripture and the prologues to his biblical commentaries, Boyle masterfully elucidates both the hermeneutical principles and deep wisdom of the Angelic Doctor's approach to Scripture, imparting invaluable guidance not only for reading and understanding St. Thomas and other great masters of the Tradition, but also-and ultimately-for understanding Scripture in light of this Tradition and reading it with greater benefit and joy. (shrink)

As transnational interactions increase, cross-cultural conflict concerning ethical issues is inevitable. This article presents a model for assisting decision makers in selecting appropriate strategies for addressing cross-cultural ethical conflict. A theoretical framework for the model is developed based on the literature on international business ethics and on conflict resolution. The model is illustrated through several case examples. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

This casebook features ten distinctive and provocative essays in addition to a generous sampling of Ellison's comments on the novel. A number of the latter are from letters never before published; also published here for the first time is Part II of Ellison's "Working Notes on Invisible Man," an undated exposition of his authorial intentions, probably written in 1946 or 1947. The ten essays are a selection of the most perceptive and comprehensive essays written on Invisible Man during the last (...) thirty-five years, including an essay by Kenneth Burke, which began as a letter to Ellison about the novel, written before its publication in 1952. Also among the essays is Larry Neal's "Ellison's Zoot Suit," in which he finds the novel an exemplary enactment in fiction of the "black aesthetic." The essays explore topics of narrative form, classical and vernacular points of reference, and the relationship between the themes of love and politics. Taken together with Ellison's "Working Notes" and later commentary on the novel, these essays account for the continuing appeal of Invisible Man more than fifty years after its publication. An editor's introduction and a full bibliography accompany the essays, selections from Ellison's writings, and informal statements on his novel. The volume offers a rich variety of interpretations of Invisible Man for students and scholars of Ellison. (shrink)