John F. Haught

Search of a God for Evolution: Paul Tillich and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin challenged theology to reach for an understanding of God that would take into account the reality of evolution. Paul Tillichs notion of New Being goes a long way toward meeting this challenge, and a theology of evolution can gain a great deal from Tillichs 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 Tillichs 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.

Polanyi's Finalism

Although Michael Polanyis 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 lifes diverse forms, and whether knowledge can be fully objectified. Through an exploration of Polanyis 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.

Science, self, and immortality

The following considers the concept of scientific naturalism in relation to life after death and contrasts three alternative perspectives on immortality of the soul, including naturalistic fatalism, otherworldly optimism, and long‐suffering hope.

The pursuit of immortality: from the ego to the soul.

Moderated by Lisa Miller from Newsweek, evolutionary biologist Kenneth Miller (Brown University) and theologians John Haught (Georgetown University) and Nancey Murphy (Fuller Theological Seminary) discuss the questions Are we immortal? Do our souls exist beyond our bodies? and What scientific evidence is there for mystical experience? from a cultural, historical, and scientific perspective. The following is an edited transcript of the discussion that occurred March 23, 2011, 7:00–8:15 PM, at the New York Academy of Sciences in New York City.

In Praise of Imperfection

I appreciate the openness of Francisco Ayala’s understanding of evolution to theological interpretation. Of course, it is not his objective as a scientist to develop a theology of evolution, but unlike many other contemporary well-known evolutionary scientists he avoids the temptation to transform his profound understanding of evolutionary biology into an all-explanatory metaphysical system antithetical to theology. He is especially sensitive to the limits of science, and does not overburden it with the task of providing ultimate explanations. In his latest book, he provides a crisp summary and development of positions he has long held regarding the explanatory scope and limitations of the idea of natural selection. The following are some reflections by a Christian theologian on Ayala’s proposal that Darwin’s ideas are a ‘‘gift’’ to discussions of science and religion. If theology is to be seen as intellectually plausible, as I am sure Ayala would agree, it should meet head-on the complex of ideas associated with contemporary biological understandings of life. It must not settle for heavily edited versions of evolutionary theory that leave out what may seem at first to be religiously troubling aspects of the Darwinian picture of life. For example, the creativity of natural selection may seem initially to challenge belief in a personal God who creates and influences the universe. To some scientists and religious believers, the creativity of evolution renders the concept of divine creation, as it applies to life, unnecessary. Unlike many other biologists, Ayala is fully aware of the classic theological distinction between secondary (natural) causes on the one hand, and primary (divine) causation on the other. Appropriately, he sees no competition between them. Natural selection’s prodigious creativity is in no sense a diminishment of divine creativity, but an expression thereof. In the real world, as Ayala knows, science inevitably has theological implications, but it never speaks about divine action. Science does place limits on what one can plausibly say about God, but unlike the recent proposal by Richard Dawkins that science can decide the question of God’s existence, Ayala respects the traditional methodological constraints within which science works. And yet, the evolutionary character of life, if we take it seriously, must inevitably have implications for our understanding of God and of divine action in the world. In my view, reflection on evolution has already begun to reshape the character of some contemporary theology. Here I can give only a brief sketch of Theology and Science, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2008

Can Religion be Reconciled with Science

The central issue in science and religion is whether we can any longer plausibly think of the cosmos as purposeful. Instead of using the term “purpose” we could also speak here about the “point” of the universe in order to enter a conversation initiated by Steven Weinberg’s (1977) oft-cited remark that the more comprehensible the universe becomes to physics the more “pointless” it also seems to be. Religions, at least for the most part, have taught us that the universe is permeated by a principle of order or “rightness.” In biblical circles, for example, the universe is the expression of a divine “Wisdom” or an eternal Logos, and in Eastern religious thought nature is deeply connected to ultimate principles known as Rta, Dharma or the Tao. The cosmos, in these traditional teachings, is more than just blind and meaningless commotion. It is the expression of a transcendent Meaning (Haught, 2000).

Book Review: Experience, Explanation and FaithExperience, Explanation and Faith. By O'HearAnthony. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984. Pp. xiii + 266.

and is bound to provoke discussion and debate. My questions include: Is a reflective equilibrium really so different from and more trustworthy than most contemporary uses of correlation, especially when the latter are explicitly hermeneutical? Does F. accept the American critique of foundationalism without argument? Does this critique in fact become F.s own foundation, and is it not vulnerable to the danger he points to in correlation models, that a nonreligious perspective may dominate the religious interpretation? Is his analysis of transcendental theology as a priori, ahistorical, and circular completely accurate? Or, given the hermeneutical circularity of all theology, is the circle of transcendental theology necessarily a vicious circle? And is not F.s hermeneutic reconstruction as incorrigibly circular as the many contemporary perspectives he criticizes? F. has given us much to discuss and debate in this work, not only about the subject matter of Jesus and the Church but about theology as a discipline.