God and Gravity: A Philip Clayton Reader on Science and Theology

Preface

When I enrolled in Regent University’s Renewal Studies PhD program in 2006, I was a typical right-wing fundamentalist. Amos Yong, one of my professors at Regent, however, pushed me to become what it was that I previously despised: what I referred to at the time somewhat jokingly—yet somewhat seriously as well—as a flaming liberal. Indeed, through his leadership, I faced my aversions to Process philosophy and liberal Christianity.

Yong orchestrated a doctoral Science and Spirit seminar in the summer of 2007, sponsored and funded by the Templeton Foundation. It was attended by only a handful of select students but headlined by numerous top-notch academics and a stellar reading list. One of the speakers at that conference was Philip Clayton. The preparatory reading for this seminar included Clayton’s seminal text entitled Mind & Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness (2004). It was my first intellectual interaction with Clayton, if I am not mistaken. Fortunately in retrospect, I went well beyond the required reading for the course. It was a tumultuous intellectual time for me, based in part on my consumption of Claytonian texts. Indeed, a whole panoply of new horizons opened up to me by feeding upon his writings. I got enamored with his God and Contemporary Science (1997); was enlightened by his and Peacocke’s In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World (2004); and was energized by his and Paul Davies’ The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion (2006). All of these made my supplementary reading list, and in short order I was a card-toting Panentheistic Emergentist.

From my current perspective and not at all intentionally as I wrote, the concepts of panentheism and emergence have formed the basis of my writings over the past decade, due in no small part to the exposure to Clayton in the summer of 2007. Yong also setup a one-on-one meeting of about thirty minutes between Clayton and me during one of the final days of the seminar. I treasured that occasion with Clayton at the time—and continue to treasure it today too—and in fact remember ruminating on my first-hand access to a mover-and-shaker within the science and religion conversation. I thought I had truly arrived. Little did I know at that time that I would have innumerable further meetings with Clayton in the ensuing years as I study under him at Claremont School of Theology. If the ensuing decade is as profitable to me as the past decade has been, Clayton will have proverbially recreated himself. I do not say that lightly.

In Germany, a person’s doctoral mentor is referred to as his doktorvater. If one looks at the constitutive parts of this compound German word, one will discover it is made up of two very expressive terms when individually translated: doctor and father, both of which are instructive for additional cogitation. Perhaps only a true father can have a larger impact on a man than his doktorvater. In determining to study under a particular person, in Lamarckian fashion, a doctoral student can greatly enhance—or even direct—his own subsequent evolution and development.

I take joy in knowing that I will forever be linked with a man who is not only an intellectual giant, but also a certifiably good person. Clayton knows that he is brilliant. But he is also comfortable with that fact. As such, he has a profound peace about him, which is a characteristic wanting in many academics.

Jesus the Christ once gave the command to go forth and make disciples; all teachers, in a sense, make disciples of themselves in the education of those who follow them. Perhaps those Germans have it right after all: a person’s doctoral advisor becomes a supplementary father. If so, I have good genes.

Editorial Introduction

Einstein once said that science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind. Philip Clayton, a prominent philosopher in the science and religion dialogue, would entirely agree with that assessment. While not a full-bore process theologian himself, Clayton definitely exhibits strong characteristics of process philosophy thinking in his theologizing. While profiting from process theology, Clayton does not go all the way with them—especially regarding the implications of it to the Godhead. Before getting into Clayton’s contributions to the theology and science dialogue, it is perhaps wise to identify and minimally explain the common typology for the relationship between science and theology, as developed and promoted by Ian Barbour in the late twentieth century (cf. Religion in an Age of Science). Barbour therein identifies four main positions regarding the relationship between science and religion:

1. There is conflict because of a performed commitment to either scientific materialism (e.g., Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan) or biblical literalism (creationists).

Creationists maintain that the universe is only thousands of years old, when there is overwhelming evidence of its great antiquity. On the other side, Carl Sagan said The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Scientific materialists are those with a dogmatic bent toward the idea of reductionism and the notion that science can explain everything in life, be it philosophically-related information or information derived from one of the hard sciences (cf. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker). Creationists are typically those who argue for a strictly literal interpretation of the book of Genesis and are known colloquially by their advocation of a literal six days of creation and the verity of the Flood (cf. Henry Morris’s many monographs on Genesis and flood theology).

2. There should be an independence between the two because of a preformed commitment to either contrasting methods (e.g., Willem Drees; Stephen Jay Gould) or differing languages of discourse (Ludwig Wittgenstein; William H. Chalker recently).

The independence model appeals to many scientists and theologians because it gives them freedom to believe and think what they like in their respective fields; however, this strength of the model can also be considered its main weakness, for it compartmentalizes reality. In Science and Faith, William H. Chalker stipulates that any perceived conflict within the theology and science dialog is due to a fundamental misunderstanding, for science seeks utility in its search for knowledge, whereas theology seeks for ultimate purposes in its search for knowledge. According to Chalker, both science and theology have their proper realms—and the two are not to interface. As a result, there is the possibility to have theological truth, as well as scientific truth, even if the two are apparently contradictory (as the theological truth is concerned with the ultimate purpose characterized in the assertion, whereas scientific truth is concerned with the utility and actuality of the assertion).

Chalker therefore suggests that apparent conflict arises only when we discuss science in terms of ultimate purposes (i.e., theology’s proper rubric), and/or discuss theology in terms of utility (i.e., science’s proper rubric). He argues that conflict only occurs when science speaks of ultimate purposes (i.e., religion’s domain), or when religion speaks of utility (i.e., science’s domain). In arguing against this approach, Barbour writes, "We do not experience life as neatly divided into separate compartments; we experience it in wholeness and interconnectedness before we develop particular disciplines to study different aspects of it."¹

3. Some dialogue is possible about methodological parallels (e.g., scientist/theologians Alister McGrath, John Polkinghorne, Christopher B. Kaiser, and theologian Hans Küng).

The dialogue model finds support from scholars who realize that scientific study is not as objective as once thought. Both science and theology involve personal judgment, and both deal with data that is theory laden. Barbour himself favors this dialogue approach to science and theology, especially because of its multi-level approach to reality. Scientist/theologian Alister McGrath argues that any methodological parallels between science and theology should not imply that we have to make either field of study subservient to the other, but that we should expect to find similar complexities of concepts and even paradoxes in both. Nature, according to McGrath, is to be seen as an open secret² in that it is a publicly accessed entity, although it is only truly understood from the standpoint of Christian faith. As such, McGrath affirms the notion that the empirical is a legitimate means of discovering and encountering the divine. Indeed, McGrath’s approach to natural theology holds that nature reinforces an existing belief in God retroactively through consonance between observation and theory.

Similarly, scientist/theologian Christopher B. Kaiser, Toward a Theology of Scientific Endeavour, notes that theological discourse will be necessarily challenged and illuminated by interaction with the scientific endeavor. In view of such, the work of scientists can be seen as a stimulus rather than a threat to theological discourse. Kaiser posits that a thick natural science leads to a thick description of God, humanity, history, and nature itself. He highlights the fact that theology is embedded not only within one’s life and work, but also within the scientific endeavor itself.

In arguing for an idea related to dialogue, ecumenical Catholic theologian Hans Küng, in The Beginning of All Things, notes that science and theology may seem to clash and be exclusive, but they are in fact consonant with one another. Küng avers that the confrontational model for the relationship is out of date, and he also rejects the integrationist model. Küng asserts that postmodern people in our era should attempt to see the book of nature, so to speak, and the book of God as fully complementary. Küng’s depiction of the relationship rejects all absolutizing. Moreover, Küng’s belief in the Bible does not trump science, for if scientific knowledge is certain and contradicts what the Bible says, that means a new interpretation of the Bible is due. Küng notes that philosophical thought today cannot simply start from above, but instead must start from below, informed by human experience of phenomena.

4. The integration position can take the form of a theology of nature (e.g., scientist/theologian Arthur Peacocke, theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg) or a systematic synthesis (e.g., process theologians Philip Clayton, John Haught and John Cobb).

This model is sometimes called the mutual support model, for it highlights the idea that the perfection and variety in nature gives us evidence of God’s power and handiwork. Process theologian John B. Cobb thinks the assertion of an independence and/or conflict model is a myth. Cobb argues for a thorough integration of the two disciplines. Similarly, Lutheran theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg concludes that there is no reason for assuming a fundamental conflict between science and theology. Christian theologians should feel confident in using the science of our day to retell the story of God’s creation of the world.

In fact, since the introduction and acceptance of Big Bang cosmology, Pannenberg claims, the Christian doctrine of a creation of the world by God is much more in consonance with scientific cosmology than before. Moreover, he argues that the element of contingency and novelty in the course of natural processes is open to the belief in continuing creation, which may be advocated by viewing God as Spirit that permeates the world in a correlate manner to field theory. Further, with regard to science, Christian theologians should feel confident in using the science of our day to retell the story of God’s creation of the world like the Old Testament accounts of the creation used the Babylonian knowledge about the natural world. Pannenberg argues that any sort of bridge model needs to be replaced by a model for the relation between the two pictured as joint. He thinks that theology in this dialogue must take account of science, past revelation contextualized, and world religious perspectives, as well as not being premature to declare consonances between the two.

Clayton’s Contributions

Since 1989, Clayton has been publishing material in the science and theology dialogue. In that timeframe, he has become an adherent to what I refer to as panentheistic emergentism. Indeed, it was in that year that he published Explanation from Physics to Theology. Seemingly, within this early text by Clayton, he is an advocate of the dialogue position with respect to the relationship between science and religion, evidenced by his affinity toward Ernst Mayr (a noted biologist). Therein, Clayton uses Mayr’s The Growth of Biological Thought (1980) rather extensively. Within this text, Clayton makes note of how Mayr characterizes the concept of emergence. It seems apparent that Clayton’s interactions with Mayr caused him to begin ruminating on the idea of emergence more so.

In 1997, Clayton published God and Contemporary Science,³ which solidified his bona fides in theology and science. Indeed, in this book, theologian and philosopher Clayton tackles two of the most urgent questions that shape the constructive dialogue between theology, philosophy, and the natural sciences: how to conceive of God’s relation to, and God’s agency in, the world as understood by science. As such, Clayton’s goal is to examine the doctrines of God, of God’s relation to the world, and of God’s activity in the world (6). How can one take scientific results seriously and still engage in theological inquiry, Clayton asks (6)? Clayton defends the theses that metaphysical and theological issues are raised by the methods and conclusions of science (7). This endeavor may require revisions to dearly held theological conclusions, but theologians must be intellectually honest with the data (8). Although evolution may be compatible with theology in terms of divine purpose, it does not follow that evolution gives credence to notions of such a purpose (8). Theology equals metaphysics, for science is the organized study of specific data. Science is law-like, predictable, quantifiable, and falsifiable. Two of the most important questions today in theology are God’s relation to the world, and his mode of activity (if at all) within it (9).

Finite/infinite is a qualitative distinction, as is contingent/necessary. Finite space is contained within absolute space, much like the world is contained within God, but is not God, as per se (panentheism) (90). The Israelite understanding of humanity is radically monistic and holistic, composed of a single entity with numerous aspects (97), so that the tripartite division of body, soul, and spirit is vacuous. Since humans are imago dei, it is natural to assert that the Spirit works in and through the natural and material world. However, panentheism is better able, Clayton notes (119), to address the problem of divine agency in our contemporary scientific and philosophical context. The question of how to conceive of divine agency in the world is central to the book. Theologically, there are only two possibilities: either a) God does not intervene (because, as everything is perfect, there is no need to do so) or b) God does intervene directly in the world (190). Alternative a) is theologically inadequate because it leads to deism. Alternative b) is inadequate as well because it seems to suggest a divine repairman who is trying to fix all sorts of errors in the created world. Clayton then goes on to distinguish three kinds of divine intervention:

1) general conservation or sustaining (not at odds with natural science, because trans-empirical),

2) psychological interventions (miracles), and

3) physical interventions in the natural world.

The latter kind raises the toughest problem, for if we are to have a full theory, theology must give an account of where the causal joint is at which God’s action directly impacts on the world (192). Without such a theory, theologians would fail to make sense of their own views. They would also fail in their apologetic task for on any strong naturalist reading divine agency in the world is physically impossible. Deism characterizes creation as self-sufficient, whereas immanentism characterizes creation as deficient.

In the final chapter of God and Contemporary Science, Clayton develops the so-called panentheist analogy between the relation of God’s body and mind and that between a human person’s body and mind. I think he is right in insisting that talk about divine agency must be analogous to the language of human agency. Some theists have criticized the analogy for being far too weak to bear the burden of providing a guiding framework for a doctrine of God (260). The analogy is not meant to found anything but to enable us to talk about the human mind as dependent on the world in a different sense than the divine mind. Since Clayton explicates the difference (by appeal to the dipolarity of the divine nature) quite well, I think the analogy holds its own. Underlying the analogy is a particular view of the body–mind relation, called weak supervenience, a view Clayton prefers to the many philosophical accounts of the body–mind relation on offer (substance dualism, epiphenomenalism, eliminative materialism, functionalism, the dual aspect theory). Reinforcing it with the doctrine of emergence and with the notion of levels of emergence, the result is emergentist supervenience.

With these ideas having been thought-through for well-nigh fifteen years, Clayton published Mind & Emergence in 2004. Within it, he offers a cogent defense of the idea of emergence being a viable option, especially in view of the waning explanatory capacity of physicalism and dualism, its main competitors. It would be wise to now speak of physicalism and dualism shortly, in order to have the backdrop of what Clayton is arguing against, and thus also to have the basis of what he is arguing for in Mind & Emergence. Physicalism argues that, in the well-known words of Carl Sagan, nature is all there is, was, or will be; as such, this view is completely reductionistic, meaning that each larger entity is directly explicable to its component part(s); one could typify this thinking by the quasi-popular thought of Richard Dawkins, who says that human bodies are merely replicators that exist solely for the promulgation of the genes that in part compose them (Blind Watchmaker). Dualism, having a basis in gnostic thought and Neoplatonism, argues, briefly, that there two realities: God and not-God (physical or spiritual). In dualist thought, God, the supreme entity that is spiritual in nature, interacts at his leisure within the physical world. Clayton, as intimated earlier, denies the plausibility and explanatory capacity of both physicalism and dualism.

Before offering his own definition of emergence, Clayton first recounts the classification of emergence theories within the twentieth century: strong and weak. The strong emergentist position can be labeled ontological emergence, whereas the weak emergentist position could be aptly labeled as epistemological emergence. Strong emergentists postulate that evolution produces ontologically distinct levels of organ/isms which are characterized by their own distinct regularities and causal forces. In opposition, weak emergentists maintain that as new patterns emerge the causal processes remain those that are fundamental to known physics. A property of an organ/ism is weakly emergent if it is reducible to its intrinsic qualities, so that weakly emergent properties are novel only at the level of description (epistemologically). This contrasts with strongly emergent organ/isms in which the cause is neither reducible to any intrinsic causal capacity of the parts nor to any relation between the component parts.

Clayton notes that in the 1990s strong emergence theories resurfaced with great vigor through the rediscovered writings of Michael Polanyi. Whereas I agree with Clayton’s critique of Polanyi in that Polanyi went too far in reference to finalistic causes in biology, I would like to suggest that instead of the organ/isms being guided by the potentialities that are open to it, that they are instead lured by the potentialities that are open to it; this concept of lure instead of guide would entail the Spirit to be ever-before the evolutionary advancement of organs/isms, wooing them toward their eschatological fulfillment in Christ.⁴ Perhaps God (the Spirit) only exercise[d] a continual creative pull towards conscious life while being unable to determine with certainty that life would emerge.⁵

Clayton contends that emergence is the view that evolution in the natural world is marked by the natural production of entities through occurrences that are novel, unpredictable, and non-reducible to what conditions underlie them. The component parts are necessary for the emergence of the property, as the emergent property is dependent upon it; however, it is not reducible to it. Clayton delineates eight characteristics of this strong emergence, of which I will adapt five for my own purposes now and in the future: 1) monism, 2) hierarchical complexity, 3) multivariate paths of emergence, 4) recognizable patterns across levels of emergence, and 5) downward causation.

Clayton demonstrates his further thinking about science and theology in other texts, especially with reference to how God could interact with a world that science describes—quite accurately—as autonomous and self-causative. It was during this timeframe that Clayton edited a volume with Arthur Peacocke, entitled In Whom We Live, Move, and Have Our Being. This text presents the philosophical case for the notion of panentheism—in short, the notion that God contains the world (and by extension everything in the world) but that he is also greater than the world at the same time (think of concentric circles: the smaller is contained within the larger, yet the smaller is entirely complete in and of itself). The panentheistic position developed therein allows for the relationality of the Godhead to the world, as the world is entirely contained within God. Moreover, as a result of this panentheistic relationship, God could perhaps influence the development of evolution in non-interventitive ways. One could argue that with the relationship of the world and God clarified, Clayton could then better approach the topic that had interested him for the previous decade: emergence.

Modern advances in scientific study reveal a vastly more complicated world than the reductionist program of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries ever envisioned. In the book entitled The Re-Emergence of Emergence, Philip Clayton and Paul Davies contend that emergence is a viable option in contrast to the waning explanatory power of physicalism and dualism, its competitors. No longer can one seek to explain all things as being merely reducible to their physical entities or microphysical causes (i.e., physicalism), as physicalism is inconsistent with standard research theories and practices within biology. Although substance dualism was probably the dominant metaphysical view in Western history from Aristotle to Kant, one cannot continue to seek to explain all things as being composed of bipartite construction of physical components and spiritual components. Emergence is, in brief, the view that novel and unpredictable occurrences are naturally produced in nature, and that said novel structures, organs, and organisms are not reducible to their component parts.

It seems that panentheism and emergence are the opposite sides of the same proverbial coin, so to speak, regarding Clayton’s metaphysics and cosmology. Panentheism attributes all regularity within the world, according to Clayton, to divine intention. It corrects the popular caricature of God as a detached, remotely interested entity; it does this by radicalizing the immanence of God within nature. Clayton argues that his panentheistic perspective allows for him to assert that God energizes and sustains the world from within.

While I have above employed the fourfold typology of Barbour in delineating Clayton’s thoughts because it is better known, I will note that a typology based on Mikael Stenmark’s work may better locate Clayton’s position. Indeed, in his book How to Relate Science and Religion,⁶ Stenmark denigrates the positions of scientific and religious expansionists, as well scientific and religious restrictionists in dialogue directly with the biological sciences. In a counter proposal, Stenmark avers a construction of the theology and science dialogue that he titles a multidimensional model. Said multidimensional model entails four different levels, consisting of 1) a social dimension, 2) a teleological dimension, 3) an epistemic dimension, and 4) a theoretical dimension (xvi–xviii).

Stenmark notes that both science and religion are social practices, and that therefore we should attempt to understand the socially pertinent structure of each. In fact, Stenmark challenges the popular notion that whereas theology is based upon prior authority, science is based upon strict empirical evidence. In so doing, he establishes the notion that both science and religion rely upon prior authority in nearly equitable terms (cf. 19–20). Moreover, Stenmark acknowledges that both science and religion are teleologically governed by the goals of its practitioners in that science attempts to be predictive, whereas theology attempts to be existential (29). Science, then, attempts to understand the causes of things, whereas theology attempts to understand the meanings of things. However, both theology and science aim at truth (31). I affirm that the goals of both science and religion are practical and epistemic (cf. his discussion on 33–35). In addition, I contend that the goals and practices of science and religion are of different kinds (36). Stenmark contends that the goals of science and academic theology are similar in that they both attempt to address collective epistemic goals, personal epistemic goals, collective practical goals, and personal practical goals (43–44). Disagreement about the goals of both religion and science leads to problems about how to achieve these goals as well. So then, teleological distortion leads to methodological distortion, which in turn leads to epistemic distortion.

Third, Stenmark notes that both science and religion have epistemic objectives, and that these epistemic objectives need to be analyzed in order to appropriately engage in discourse between the two. Epistemology, in relation to theology and science, is the attempt to understand how belief originates and is regulated within the two disciplines, and what, if any, value said discovery has in relation to humanity’s other concerns (cf. 52). Although science is generally considered the paradigm of rationality, both science and religion are descriptive and normative. It is unfortunate that religion has been caricatured as being inferior to science regarding its internal cohesion, comprehensiveness, fruitfulness, and explanatory power. Whereas science (and more so scientism) adheres to a strict empirically-based evidentialism, it is posited that religion does not. In contrast, many untested hypotheses (though they are called theories) in science, particularly evolutionary biology, are based upon little, if any, hard evidence, and are the conjecture of human minds instead (cf. 57). However, if one would follow this line of thinking to its logical conclusion, Stenmark notes, people would be proverbially frozen in fear, for people do not have the time to analyze every single presupposition with which they act in everyday life (cf. 92–93).

Moreover, Stenmark acknowledges that contrary to scientism, and in affirmation of Philip Clayton, the Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) often adds credence to religious postulations over and above scientific ones (cf. 61). In a tragic observation, Stenmark states that [contrary to popular perception] scientists seem never to reject a theory no matter how many anomalies there are unless they have a better theory to put in its place (68). Must religious believers treat their belief in God as a hypothesis? Stenmark emphatically states no, because for many of them this belief is directly experientially grounded (78). So then, religious rationality resembles everyday rationality more than scientific rationality does (cf. 103). Indeed, one is logically founded to continue to believe that which they do until there is a specific and special reason to no longer do so (104). Moreover, we should require stronger reasons for giving up something we believe which has greater depth of concern in our belief-world than for giving up something which plays a more peripheral role (106). It must be noted that theological/religious rationality is a different breed of animal than is scientific rationality, for the former is an agent-rationality, whereas the latter is a spectator-rationality (111).

A belief in religion is rational insomuch as it is justified and has explanatory power. So then, religion exhibits a rationality that overlaps with and is informed by scientific rationality (114). There are, according to Stenmark, several different reasons for conflict concerning the relation between rationality in science and rationality in religion/theology: 1) There are conflicting concepts of rationality, 2) there are different epistemic norms for religion/theology and science, 3) there are different ideas of the applicability of those epistemic norms in reference to rationality, and 4) there are different types of evidence accepted between religion/theology and science (116–17).

The fourth dimension of the multidimensional model posited by Stenmark concerns the subject matter of both science and religion, and therefore is referred to as the theoretical dimension. Stenmark asks if theology/religion and the natural sciences have the same, overlapping (i.e., similar), or completely different subject matters (137)? It appears apparent that Clayton—and I as well!—would support the notion that theology/religion and the natural sciences have overlapping subject matters.

Whereas evolutionary biology alone cannot establish that the universe and humans are not here for a reason, evolutionary theory in conjunction with an extra-scientific or a philosophical claim can undermine religious belief (163). Viewed in this way, Stenmark notes that God could have conscious, sentient, free, and self-aware beings in mind when he created the cosmos (through the kenosis of the Spirit into creation, I might add). This development of such species was God’s goal, Stenmark states, and not necessarily the human species as per se. It seems to be compatible with theism, Stenmark posits in view of this analogy, that our existence is due to chance (166). With this assertion by Stenmark, I am immediately drawn (much like him) to what has been referred to as Molinism, or the middle-knowledge theory of divine foreknowledge.

Stenmark’s overall contention throughout said book is that everything one can learn in one area of life from another area of life that can improve cognitive discourse could—and should—be taken into consideration by rational people. Thus, there should not be an a priori exclusion of epistemologies or methodologies between science and religion. In contrast, there should be an explicit overlap between the two (xvii). He concludes that there are in actuality five different perspectives of the relationship between science and theology, which I will modify to seven: 1) the monistic conflict view; 2) the monistic harmony view; 3) the integrationist contact view; 4) the contact dialogue view; 5) the independence view; 6) the complete scientific expansionist view; and 7) the complete religious expansionist view (cf. 259). Clayton would be a sort of ideological expansionist, for he defends a modified form of process theology, thus making him posit an overlapping of the domains of theology and science, in what I have above dubbed the integrationist contact view. Of these seven categories, I would affirm the integrationist contact view (or overlapping) and posit that Clayton would affirm it as well. Clayton would agree with Sweet and Feist (Religion & the Challenges of Science), who contend that science maturates religious belief; moreover, the dialogue between science and religion should be one marked by an open-ended compatibility wherein the theological positions therein advocated are open to be revisited, revised, or even reformulated entirely, which is infinitely stronger than Barbour’s dialogue position.

Preliminary conclusions

In the contemporary dialogue between theology and the natural sciences it has become clear that the pursuit of truth in either discipline requires the candid acknowledgment of one’s cultural context and, as far as possible, the identification of one’s presuppositions. From a postmodern perspective, I argue that a mutual integration position would be the most fruitful for the relation between science and theology. Within An Abrahamic Theology for Science, for example, Kenneth Vaux advocates an Abrahamic theology as the dynamic paradigm for science and technology and argues for its continuing importance for both a pertinent and humane science. Vaux demonstrates a historical correlation between an Abrahamic theological tradition (monotheism) and the rise of science. Vaux’s thesis is simple: that theology has grounded, founded, prompted, and promoted science in the past years.

Richard Feist and William Sweet, in Religion and the Challenges of Science, seek to answer the question of whether science poses a challenge to religion and religious belief. More specifically, one will find in Sweet and Feist’s book the suggestion that religion and science do not offer conflicting truth claims per se, and that science can contribute to a maturity of belief to religion. However, this proto-compatibility, as it were, can only be attained by adhering to what Sweet refers to as an open-ended compatibility, wherein both the claims of science and religion are open to be revisited, revised, and reinterpreted. Clayton would seemingly agree with this position of Feist and Sweet. Similarly, in The Big Questions in Science and Religion, Neoplatonist theologian Keith Ward seeks to answer the question of whether religious beliefs can survive in the scientific age. Is there something in religious beliefs of great importance, even if the way they are expressed will have to change given new scientific context? Ward assumes that the scientific account of reality is essentially correct, much like Clayton himself, though subject to revision. Ward notes that virtually all of science has had to be rethought in the twenty-first century, which has carried with it important implications for philosophy and religion. Religious beliefs, Ward asserts, cannot remain pre-modern in a (post)modern society, or they will fail to answer the questions of the day, a posit that Clayton would undeniably also aver. The question is then raised, can theological beliefs survive at all in a scientific age? Ward contends that they can survive, and in fact thrive, as long as they are modified, a contention with which Clayton would agree.

Overview of this Reader’s contents

With the space that remains in this introductory chapter, I would like to give a brief overview of this Reader’s contents. I will categorize the entailments of this brief overview with reference to the book’s general parts, while indicating the reading number of the topic under discussion. Part I, which is entitled Science and Religion, is composed of seven distinct readings. We encounter Clayton’s first public title—Explanation from Physics to Theology: An Essay in Rationality and Religion—and we see that among the various functions of religious belief is explanation. Following standard usage, Clayton uses the term explanans for the account that does the explaining and explanandum for the thing to be explained. He begins reading #1 with the general hypothesis that explanations are answers to why-questions. If someone is asked to explain an action that she has performed, she will tell why she performed it, listing as explanans her reasons, her intentions, or the external forces that constrained her. Or, in order to explain the fact or explanandum, someone will give an account of why he did so, referring to various laws if applicable. Clayton offers herein four central necessary conditions that serve to guide the discussion: 1) external reference; 2) truth; 3) validity; and 4) rationality.

In reading #2, we find Clayton’s Systematic Theology and Postmodernism, as found within God and Contemporary Science. In this reading, Clayton explores the postmodern shift in systematic theology. He notes, in part, that the scandal of particularity is past. Why? Because the lofty aspirations of metaphysical reason are now passe. So then, the claims of reason to universal validity and its claim to be able to derive important truths from reason alone are now under severe challenge. Diversity is now the name of the game; multiple perspectives are the bottom line; every person and cultural group has his, her, or its particular perspective; and we rejoice in the differences between them all. There is no longer a scandal of particularity in a postmodern age because it is precisely particularity that is being celebrated by postmodern thought. Theology now faces opportunities it has not known in previous centuries. But along with these new opportunities, we must rethink, and re-present, what it means to make religious truth claims. For there is one particular move that is stigmatized in this contemporary climate: to claim that one’s particularity has universal significance.

Reading #3 also comes from God and Contemporary Science, entitled Creation and Cosmology: What Theologians Can and Cannot Learn from Scientific Cosmology. The writings of many recent cosmologists give rise to the strong impression that science is now being used as a metaphor for conveying religious beliefs about spirituality and the rightful place of humanity within the cosmos. At one extreme we find a sort of natural theology: thinkers who argue that science leads to theology. Others hold that contemporary physics supports one particular religious viewpoint. Unfortunately, they disagree as to what it is. The next group of thinkers maintains that science by itself amounts to a sort of religious perspective. Others hold that science supports multiple religious perspectives. More metaphysically skeptical are those who find spirituality in or implied by science and its results while resisting making any truth claims on this basis. More skeptical still are the advocates of science and theology as two distinct activities that have nothing to do with each other. Finally, others hold that theology is a pure construct, and naturalism represents the best truth we have about the world.

Reading #4 comes from In Quest of Freedom: The Emergence of Spirit, and is entitled On Religion: A Speech to Its Scientifically Cultured Despisers. How do we respond to the despisers today? What do we say? Inwardness precedes the external world and trumps all other concerns; imagination reveals reason’s foibles; passion is a prerequisite; and feeling is the vehicle to the deepest insights. All of these faculties and experiences together point toward the interconnection, or the unity, of all things. This cannot be a theology of measured restraint, but rather only through one of joyful exuberance. However, when one limits the scope of religion, one loses it altogether. We want to anatomize religion, to give it a specific location—above all, to subsume it under some specific category (to make it psychological, or historical, or anthropological, or ethical, or aesthetic, or metaphysical). But such boundary-drawing is self-refuting. Indeed, to claim to know that there is no metaphysical knowledge is itself to make a metaphysical claim. However, religion cannot compete with science on the level of knowledge claims.

The fifth reading comes from Religion and Science: The Basics, and is entitled The Basic Question: Science or Religion, or Science and Religion. Should we talk about "science and religion, or should it be science versus religion"? At first blush, theism and naturalism appear to be incompatible positions. Naturalists affirm that all that exists is the universe (or multiverse) and the objects within it, whereas theists claim that something transcends the universe. Naturalists generally use science as their primary standard for what humans know, whereas theists defend other ways of knowing as well, such as intuition or religious experience. Instead of black and white connections, we find a world of complex interconnections, of similarities and differences, of shared partnerships and sometimes conflicting projects.

Reading #6, Science and the World’s Religions, is also found within Religion and Science and seeks to bring to light the very different kinds of concern regarding science that are raised across the world’s religious traditions. Whereas most readers in the West will implicitly have Christianity in mind when they begin reading a text on religion and science, there is a particular group of recurring topics that tends to set the agenda for debates about Christianity and science: an initial creation out of nothing by God; the purpose or directionality to evolution; human uniqueness and the existence of the soul; the question of miracles; the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ; the possibility of divine revelation; and the Christian concern with signs of the eschaton. It turns out that radically different concerns arise when religions other than Christianity enter into dialogue with science. Clayton begins with Judaism, in order to show how vastly different from Christianity are the concerns of historical Jewish thought and of contemporary Jewish thinkers. He then moves on to Islam and two of the major Eastern traditions: Hinduism and Buddhism.

Reading #7 focuses upon The Future of Science and Religion, and is similarly found within Religion and Science: The Basics. Contrary to the reports of its impending demise, there has been a resurgence of religious commitment around the world. Religion, then, it appears, is not going away. It as obvious that science is not going away either. That means we have to find some way to deal with the relationship between these two great cultural forces. What are the possible outcomes? It could be that religion is just evil, so that, no matter how long it stays around, it should be opposed. Or perhaps modern science is just wrong. The religions (or major movements within them) may evolve in directions that become increasingly hostile to science. On a more positive level, one can also imagine establishing a (more or less) permanent truce between these two systems of thought. On the other hand, maybe the boundaries won’t turn out to be so sharp after all. This essay explores all of these possible outcomes, but determines that as we delve more deeply into the issues, we find more and more reasons to wonder whether matters can really be reduced to a single either/or decision.

The first reading of Part II, reading #8, is entitled The Context for Modern Thought about God, and it is found within The Problem of God in Modern Thought. The context for treating the question of God today must be skepticism. Propositional language about God can no longer pass as unproblematic. The history of reflection in this area is littered with skeletons, or it is immensely difficult to discern which are the skeletons and which the living, progressing models. Even theologians today have grown squeamish of the God’s eye point of view, and there are many reasons that the very idea of such a point of view is confused. There is no guarantee that theology pursued in the twenty-first century will finally converge on the results or the methods of traditional theology. Perhaps this theology pursued from below will diverge further and further from the traditional language of a transcendent being; perhaps it will come to be subsumed by metaphysics in some sense; or perhaps new and interesting analogies between the theological and metaphysical projects will emerge. Time will tell.

The ninth reading, The Personality of God and the Limits of Philosophy, is likewise found within The Problem of God in Modern Thought. The final corollary of the move from (Spinozistic) infinite object to subject, in addition to freedom, is the personality of God—in however a minimal or attenuated sense. There are two clear conditions that the doctrine of God must satisfy:

1) God as our infinite source cannot be less than we are; God must at least have abilities comparable to ours, even though, as greater, they will be different; and

2) there must be a free decision to create.

Freedom is the quality of a being with a certain degree of self-awareness and with the attribute of will. God must be conceived as a subject with this degree of self-awareness and will, and thus we speak of God not as it but as person. Clayton points out that, arguably, the question of divine agency is one of the least well-articulated challenges facing theism today. Clayton suggests a correction of theological method away from the use of theistic language as merely fictitious and more in the direction of criticizable systematic proposals.

Reading #10 is found within Philip Clayton and Jeffrey Schloss, Evolution and Ethics: Human Morality in Biological and Religious Perspective and covers Biology and Purpose: Altruism, Morality, and Human Nature in Evolutionary Perspectives. Herein, we find that those who pursue the more moderate approach to morality argue that the adequacy of strictly biological explanations of human behavior renders religious explanations unnecessary. A second strategy sometimes pursued is to functionalize the treatment of human behavior and human moral beliefs, so that no place remains for the kind of truth claims that religious believers typically make. In cases of genuine conflict, the disagreements are more often philosophical than directly scientific or religious based on human nature, its embodiedness, its temporality, its contingency, its sense of self, the inner world, self-deception, sociality, culture, or freedom. In the end, Clayton suggests that the picture yielded by combining biological and religious perspectives on human morality is richer than the picture produced by either one of these perspectives alone.

Reading #11—Reason for Doubt—is the first of three readings in succession to come from Philip Clayton and Steven Knapp’s, The Predicament of Belief: Science, Philosophy, and Faith. It notes that at the same time that we recognize the depth and power of the ancient traditions, our explorations of these questions today must take place in light of new challenges. Contemporary grounds for doubting the traditional answers are serious enough that one may well wonder whether the questions can be answered at all and, indeed, whether it is even still meaningful to pose them, at least in the manner in which they were formulated by the great traditions of faith and reflection. In responding to these worries, we take as our starting point the claims embodied in one traditional way of answering questions about what is ultimately the case, the one known as Christian. All three of the Abrahamic traditions are often said to fit that description. One of them, however—the Christian one—is unusual in the amount of weight it places on a single, brief episode, about which it makes perhaps the most extraordinary claims of any of these three traditions. Modernity (not to mention postmodernity!) is often taken to have changed the nature of human thought and human culture so radically that ancient beliefs are no longer viable, simply because they belong to a pre-modern era. But Clayton believes these worries are mistaken, and this reading explains why.

The reading entitled The Ultimate Reality, as found within Clayton and Knapp’s, The Predicament of Belief, constitutes reading #12. To many contemporary ears, the talk of the ultimate reality can sound suspiciously metaphysical. After all, we live in an age dominated by science and empirical methods for acquiring knowledge. Haven’t scientifically testable theories about the world now replaced metaphysical speculations of this sort, rendering them therefore obsolete? Metaphysical reflections are indeed suspect when they compete head-to-head with scientific explanations of matters that lend themselves to scientific investigation. Still, Clayton contends that it is a mistake to think that science therefore becomes the authority for all questions. Even within normal science, new questions arise at the borders of each domain of inquiry. The success of natural science is not the only reason, however, that some reject altogether the idea of asking questions about the nature of the ultimate reality, which this reading makes explicit.

The thirteenth reading is entitled Doubt and Belief, and is likewise found within Clayton and Knapp, The Predicament of Belief. How do we assess our beliefs in life? The goal of doing so is to develop a position that might be embraced by those who want their most important beliefs to be rational—to be based, that is, on what they have reason to think is actually true. To say that reasons can be better or worse is to imply, however, that there is a basis for comparing them. And since that basis cannot be the direct observation of reality itself, what can it be? Unfortunately, there is no way to check if one’s beliefs are likely to be true by comparing them directly with the reality they are tracking. There is no way of stepping outside one’s beliefs to see which ones correspond to the way things really are. The best an agent can do is to make