VII. Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Twindividuality

6. Bilateral World Religions and Science

Murata, Sachiko. The Tao of Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. This important synthesis of Taosim and Islam by a professor of religious studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the wife of William Chittick was first noted in A Rosetta Cosmos.

Nesteruk, Alexei. Light from the East: Theology, Science, and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. In a quite thoughtful, well-written volume of its kind, the Russian-British, University of Portsmouth, philosopher physicist explains how, in contrast to mechanical Greek and western schools, this ancient heritage can bring vital perspectives on a numinous universe and our participatory purpose. In this 21st century view, “humanity is the hypostasis of the universe” whence human beings emerge from and epitomize a cosmic milieu and logos source. In regard, this legacy and scenario is an example of the Eastern “cosmist” vision whence an ordained, incomplete genesis is to be carried forth by human “co-creators.” See also a decade later arXiv his A Participatory Universe of J. A. Wheeler as an Intentional Correlate of Embodied Subjects and an Example of Purposiveness in Physics (search).

Nesteruk, Alexei. Universe, Incarnation, and Humanity. Participatio. Vol. 4, 2013. This is the Journal of the Thomas Torrance Theological Fellowship, the paper is available on the author’s University of Portsmouth website. Thomas Torrance (1913-2007) was a prominent, innovative Scottish theologian and author. We note this along with AN’s other papers because, as the quotes cite, it offers a rarest vision of an awesome significance for infinitesimal human persons with regard to the infinite cosmos by way of our, intended, transformative ability to think through and achieve its consciously perceived witness and description.

If one tries to articulate the grandeur of the world in terms of typical sizes, putting atoms, molecules, DNAs, etc. together with mega-objects like planets, stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and even the whole universe, then human beings find themselves in a somewhat strange situation because the inhabited planet Earth occupies a tiny portion of the space of the volume of the visible universe. (224) The paradox which is present here arises when one realizes that the very representation of the universe as a whole, and all particular objects in the universe organized against a spatial grid, are the products of human intellectual activity. The paradox is obvious: the finite, even insignificant embodied human agencies in the vast universe articulate the entire universe from a point-like position in space and time. Humanity actualizes in knowledge the totality of the universe as its intentional correlate and this manifests a fundamentally non-local essence of the human presence, being a quality and a mode of being which transcends the finitude of its corporeality, as well as all particular objects and laws associated with it. (225)

Panikkar, Raimundo. The Unknown Christ of Hinduism. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1981. Riamundo comes from a Spanish Catholic family on one side and a Hindu family on the other to make him especially astute in relating these traditions.

The differences between the two religions, however, are very often complementary. To put it succinctly, if Hinduism claims to be the religion of truth, Christianity claims to be the truth of religion. Hinduism is ready to absorb any authentic religious truth; Christianity is ready to embrace any authentic religious value.

Paranjpe, Anand. Self and Identity in Modern Psychology and Indian Thought. New York: Plenum, 1998. The West is occupied with a self-actualization of Becoming while for Eastern, Hindu wisdom, self-realization of Being is preferred. An obvious middle path respecting both traditions can join these complements.

Patt-Shamir, Galia. To Broaden the Way: A Confucian-Jewish Dialogue. Latham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Presently at Tel-Aviv University, the author took her doctorate with Tu Weiming at Harvard. A novel and lucidly accomplished comparison of east and west via Abrahamic Judaism and Chinese Confucianism. By so doing their affinities of quest and test, encounter with mystery, a learning path, imbued tasks of self and society, and our human exemplar can be discerned. Again a complementarity of autonomy and togetherness, diaspora and presence, search and rescue abides. Our western way can be glimpsed via Franz Kafka and Jorge Borges as a labyrinthine journey to find an elusive code and message, a definitive principle that likewise resides at the heart of Asian wisdom.

In her attempt to animate the old in order to attain the new, she identifies Dao and Halakah both as ways of dynamic unfolding and of creative transformation. (x) Yet, the forms of life they envision are radically different. In the Judaic tradition, “the ultimate, community, and person are separation, disharmony, and being tested,” whereas in the Confucian tradition, “the ultimate, community, and person are unification, harmony, and self-reflexivity.” (xi) (Tu Weiming)

Peacocke, Arthur. Paths from Science to God. Oxford: Oneworld, 2001. In this work quantum physics, chaotic systems, the anthropic principle and so on are considered in a search for ways that God might interact with the world.

Peacocke, Arthur. The Challenge and Stimulus of the Epic of Evolution to Theology. Dick, Steven, ed. Many Worlds. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2000. The British biochemist, theologian and author finds the gathering story of a progressive evolution to augur for a sacramental, Christ-centered future earth and universe.

Hence his imperative “Follow me” constitutes a call for the transformation of humanity into a new kind of human being and becoming. What happened to Jesus, it was thought, could happen to all. (113)

Peters, Ted and Gaymon Bennett, eds. Bridging Science and Religion. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. One of the more comprehensive and incisive collections that sets aside the old “warfare” metaphor by way of discerning bridges and interfaces between theology and discovered evidence. The tacit metaphor, as the Hess paper above elaborates, is to revive the tradition of natural law and the book of nature as a second scripture.

Peters, Ted and Martinez Hewlett. Evolution from Creation to New Creation. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003. A theologian and a scientist attempt to sort out the many facets of comparing and integrating traditional religious and modern cosmological worldviews. A working metaphor is the convergence with Renaissance roots of the Two Books of scripture and nature. In so doing, a spectrum of approaches stretches from Theism: scientific creationism and intelligent design ID to a wide midrange of Theistic Evolution as an innately developing cosmic genesis to an Atheism of materialist theories. The authors provide a good summary of the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Philip Hefner, Ursula Goodenough, John Haught, Kenneth Miller and others, along with the ID school.

Peters, Ted, ed. Science and Theology: The New Consonance. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. An array of authorities such as Nancey Murphy, Paul Davies, Philip Hefner, Robert Russell, Francisco Ayala, and John Haught, attempt to clear the ground for an imperative reconvergence.

Picoli, S. and R. Mendes. Universal Features in the Growth Dynamics of Religious Activities. Physical Review E. 77/036105, 2008. As lately found everywhere else in nature and society, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Brazil, physicists find human spiritual encounters and groupings to similarly manifest such ubiquitous features. The second quote is a good synopsis for this dual evident discovery of a common code. Search Picoli for more from this group.

We quantify and analyze the growth dynamics of a religious group in 140 countries for a 47-year period (1959–2005). We find that (i) the distribution of annual logarithmic growth rates exhibits the same functional form for distinct size scales and (ii) the standard deviation of growth rates scales with size as a power law. Both findings hold for distinct measures of religious activity. These results are in surprising agreement with those found in the study of economic activities and scientific research, suggesting that religious activities are governed by universal growth mechanisms. (Abstract, 036105)

Concepts and methods from statistical physics have been applied in the study of systems in a wide variety of fields, from genetics and physiology to social sciences. This approach has been shown to give useful information regarding the underlying processes responsible for the observed behavior. It has been contributing to reveal similarities between phenomena and processes in different research areas, suggesting the existence of universal mechanisms which can give rise to general laws independent of the particular details of the systems. (036105)

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