HISTORY AND HOPE
In anything we do, our notion of the broader context, including the process of human history, affects our sense of meaning and value in the task at hand. If our philosophy of living includes a concept of history that integrates scientific realism with spiritual idealism, our action will gain in cosmic vigor.
A powerful aid to progressive living is a vision of human history as a positive, evolutionary process. Human history is best conceived as an adventure that, however long and rugged it may be, surely leads to a wonderful planetary civilization. The discipline of history as a scientific study cannot prove this idea; indeed much information supports dire predictions for the coming century. Nevertheless history and hope can walk hand in hand.
Ideas of historical progress and personal growth and historical progress fit into the larger vision of cosmic evolution as narrated in astronomy, geology, and biology. Combining all these levels of coordinated evolution suggests the thought that all this progress is by design, that there is a divine purpose encompassing all the things and beings spread out in time and space. A robust concept of evolution gives encouragement that the long struggles we experience as mortals upon this earth are part of a grand plan including humankind as a whole and ourselves as individuals. We may hope that our best efforts to envision ourselves and the universe from an all-embracing cosmic perspective is not merely a flight of imagination but a reach of creature mind that is encouraged and stimulated by the Creator. Nevertheless, it takes philosophic effort to harmonize scientific and religious perspectives.
This chapter will present a positive concept of history, give an application of the evolutionary perspective to the problem of fear, sketch a notion of religious evolution, and argue for the likelihood of a spiritual renaissance.
Sustaining faith in historical progress
One strategy for harmonizing science and religion is to uphold a vision of progress in a field where that vision is easily lost. As we hear more and more of the world's problems--overpopulation and pollution and war and poverty and violence and racism and sexism--we need more and more to hear a new vision of progress. There is no question that the problems the planet faces are serious, and the twenty-first century could be worse than the twentieth if moral and spiritual development does not catch up with material development; but danger does not refute hope. Having occasion to teaching eighteenth and nineteenth century views of historical progress, I have seen energy and hope enter minds that have seem never to have previously entertained the idea that this planet is evolving from barbarism to a wonderful destiny. It has been like seeing water come to the desert. Without that vision, it is easy to turn from teamwork on problems to the pursuit of self-interest.
Prophets have proclaimed that the destiny of our planet is to enjoy economic equality, social justice, political peace, ecologically sustainable practices, and the worldwide worship of one God. Whether that ideal civilization is seen as being brought about by evolution, revolution, revelation, or some combination of these, human history is, in this perspective, a drama of evolution from primitive material and cultural conditions to an advanced, worldwide civilization.
A survey of the past five thousand years gives evidence of considerable progress, even though we are now in a dangerous period and should hardly consider ourselves advanced. Many current conditions call the very idea of progress into question in the minds of many people. The vision can be hard to sustain today, since despite the many progressive individuals, groups, and trends in evidence, there may be numbered as many disturbing trends that compel our attention. Whether civilization is progressing or declining on the whole, is, moreover, hard to discern in the present. But if one is prepared to affirm progress as a scientific hypothesis, a philosophic idea, or a religious conviction, then the confusing medley of contemporary planetary history takes on a new aspect. There is the sense that however deep our declines have been, sooner or later we will emerge into a clear march forward, thanks to some combination of factors of evolution, revolution, or revelation. When the conditions are right, forward steps can occur with surprising speed, as the world witnessed in the peaceful transitions to democratic regimes in central Europe.
Why should we not regard human history as a drama of evolution from primitive material and cultural conditions to an advanced, worldwide civilization? Why should we not dream of a world of enduring peace, where morality prevails and violence is rare, where women enjoy equality with men, where disease and mental illness have largely been conquered, where education and religious freedom are universal, where all able-bodied adults work at decent jobs, where the brotherhood of man (siblinghood of humankind) becomes a reality? The view of history that supports this hope looks back five thousand years and more. It emphasizes the tremendous advances in science and technology, developments in philosophy and the arts, education and religion, social, economic, and political organizations, and the fact that universal humanitarian and ecological concerns have many voices today and successful projects world. There are many progressive individuals, groups, and trends.
Alcoholics Anonymous publishes a chart of the U-shaped curve of the downward movement of a person with alcoholism and the gradual path upward. Many steps along the path are noted: early symptoms, advanced symptoms, loss of job, loss of family, and then comes the bottom, where people finally realize they need help. Then the slow process of regaining effectiveness and self-respect lifts them up and restores them to normal opportunities. In addition to its primary function, the diagram does two things. First, it suggests that it is not necessary to go to the depths of degradation before turning to better ways. Second, it is a symbol for segments of planetary history.
If one is prepared to affirm progress as a scientific hypothesis, a philosophic idea, or a religious conviction, then the confusing medley of contemporary planetary history takes on a new aspect. There is the sense that however deep our decline has been, sooner or later we will emerge into a clear march forward. When the conditions are right, forward steps can occur with surprising speed, as the world witnessed in the peaceful transition to democratic regimes in central and eastern Europe.
History is like a decathlon, a competition between progressive and opposing forces. In any event, over a particular span of decades, it is unclear which side will win. In each generation genuine victories and losses are possible, and strenuous efforts are needed in the face of uncertainty. In an age where the popular media stay in business by publishing bad news, it is hard to tell when the many progressive individuals and groups gain the upper hand in history. Faith, however, is not in doubt about the eventual winner.
Faith affirms the unseen presence of the divine governance of the long drawn out process of evolution where imperfect, free human beings are permitted to learn lessons by experience. If faith is comforted by the promise that "all things work together for good," it also participates in the historical work necessary for such outcomes to be realized. For example, after the atrocities of the Hitler period, it requires historical memory and work to rehabilitate those who continue to suffer and to put into practice the lessons of history.
During the early 1980s, when the world seemed on the brink of nuclear war, children old enough to sense the danger were less gripped by fear if their parents were actively working to make the world a better place. By the end of the decade, sudden and peaceful transitions of government, though they did not remove the danger of war, significantly altered the landscape. It takes hope to act progressively, and religious faith is the most widespread source of hope.
Hindu poet and educator Rabindranath Tagore proposed an idea of how religion shapes history. His essay, "A Vision of India's History," portrays two poles of leadership in India. Conservative Brahmins at their best, with their metaphysical genius, uphold the deep root of the society. Liberal Kshatrias at their best, with their warmth of love, generate waves of brotherhood permeating caste boundaries. Tagore's point is that each function has its role to play in history, and each has appropriately taken the lead in one generation or another. This idea of history as a perpetual process of reconciling the forces of conservative preservation and liberal expansion promotes tolerance. Tagore does not satisfy the needs of today's philosophy of political evolution, however, since he does not inquire about which liberties should be regarded as basic and what rights are to be sought in a sequenced agenda for the future. Nevertheless, one of his poems, written during the early days of the Indian movement for national independence, shows how religion illuminates a struggle for liberation.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Tagore's spirituality thus stabilized his interpretation of history and destiny, even as his vision of history sustained his ceaseless adventures in personal growth, poetic expression, and education.
Transforming fear: a test case
A broad concept of evolution illumines personal problems in daily living. Using an integrated concept of evolution, we can try to see whatever we are dealing with in terms of its origin, history, and destiny.
Consider, for example, the problem of fear. Fear enslaves human beings. It distorts perception, hobbles thinking, spoils happiness, breeds hate, handcuffs the spirit, weakens character, and even kills. Invited to list situations that call for courage, some groups include almost everything that they find even slightly challenging. What is there to fear? The forces of nature, the unknown, the unexpected, pain, affliction, death, social disapproval, conflict, critical examination, spiritually probing conversation, persecution, the enmity of the world--any of these can trigger the fear and feeling of helplessness whose ultimate form is a sense of personality isolation--isolation as a mortal on this earth and isolation as a human being living in a seemingly indifferent universe.
Fear takes origin in the Creator's provision for the safety of evolving animal life. Because animals must be alert to survive, they have strong emotional and motor responses to the perception of danger.
A look at the evolutionary past shows several benefits of fear. Needing to protect ourselves stimulated keen attention to the environment. Needing to predict and control natural events stimulated the development of science. Needing to make provision for the future stimulated the accumulation of capital. Needing to join for defense against common dangers drove us together into society. Needing insurance against bad luck and retaliation by the ghosts of ancestors who would punish our deviation from established customs stimulated the development of primitive religion. Fear has kept society from changing too fast, conserving progress. Evolution gave us fear as a stimulus to develop the very remedies that are destined to make fear obsolete.
Fear continues to be needed today. Many drivers obey traffic laws, not because of respect for law expressing the community's right to safeguard the common good, but because of fear of being caught or getting into an accident. Only ethical mature beings can safely cast off fear.
Present-day society shows that in some respects we have not progressed. Tales of the fierce fighters and keen hunters of thousands of years ago hint at the price we have paid for a civilization oriented to safety and comfort. Today courage is rare. Some people, of course, are naturally more fearful than others. A former gang member reported that courage has declined among gang members; they used to fight with fists and knives, but now they use guns. Varieties of fear and emotions based on fear are common: modesty, obsequiousness, vacillation, despair.
Of course the present scene is complex, and there are signs that many people are moving beyond fear. One recently popular slogan was "No fear." It was worn more as an advertisement on a T-shirt than as a symbol like the gesture of assurance given in countless statues of the Buddha. The slogan is intimidating: insofar as the social order based on fear, that social order is vulnerable to those who discard fear. Those who step beyond fear cannot be coerced, as nonviolent protesters and criminals know. Training in martial arts is popular. Oppressed groups are more bold than in earlier generations.
One psychiatrist said that the only known cure for fear is faith, and many people look to religion as a refuge. Religion, however, has long played on fear. An historian might view religion as having evolved its relation to the spirit world from fear through dread and awe and honor and respect to love. The magic formulas, the holy books, the sacred leaders, the powerful rituals, the priestly hierarchies--all have been part of the array of techniques designed to bring security and assurance to the believer. The fear of the Lord has been the beginning of wisdom, but it is not the end of wisdom. The encouragement, "Fear not," is known to millions of people of various religions. Countless believers have taken heart upon hearing that "God is love" and experiencing "the love of God that casts out all fear." "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever." "We created man. We know the prompting of his soul. We are closer to him than the vein of his neck." Believers learn not to dwell on the things that increase their anxiety but to gain the peace of a mind stayed on God. Their wholehearted decisions enable the spirit to deliver them from fear.
Thus the destiny of fear is to be transformed into prudent alertness and a stimulus for a courageous and loving response. Scientific understanding and the love of God help us achieve that destiny.
Lessons from evolutionary religion
Facing the challenges of contemporary civilization, some people wonder whether it is wise to turn to religion as a resource. After all, religion has been reactionary as well as progressive, has sponsored cruelty as well as kindness. It might seem as though religion in itself is neither harmful or beneficial; rather it is morality that we should be concerned with, since it is morality that makes the difference between good and bad religion. If there is no morally progressive movement inherent in religion, why should people involve themselves, participate, and try to help tradition grow? An adequate concept of evolution gives an important part of the answer to this question.
How can we lucidly and scientifically face the facts of the varied history of religion and at the same time affirm religion as crucial to the hope of planetary progress?
One strategy for harmonizing science and religion is to learn from scientific critique but retain a sense of proportion. If religionists claim that revelation has broken into history in a particular person, book, or divine action, they must also acknowledge that most of the history of religion is an evolutionary story. The historical record brims with stories of superstition, fear, paternalism, institutional authoritarianism, and inter-group antagonism. Surveying the evolution of religion, one finds that the most advanced concepts of God and divine values have, to put it mildly, not been universally available since the beginning. Religion has been used to console the poor and comfort the wealthy without calling gross inequalities into question. When stubbornness and malice masquerade as piety and obedience to a higher will, religion conspires with war, oppression, cruelty, sexism, racism, hypocrisy, intolerance, opposition to education, and persecution of prophetic voices. Religious excitement has bred fanaticism, and institutions of religion turned to fortresses of ossified ritual and obsolete dogma.
Two responses are in order. The more common observation is that sobering scientific critique must be welcomed. The failings of religious tradition express human tendencies from which no one is free. The sad things that we members of the human family have done to one another have not ceased in the present day. The most sincere and progressive religionist is not immune to error. Knowing such facts guards against excessive trust in religious leaders, blindness to our own misdeeds, and naivete about the quality of even those groups organized to pursue great ideals.
Criticisms that carry some insight can be used as cautions. For example, a wide-ranging Freudian critique of the ideal of universal love, love for every neighbor one encounters, can be used to generate a list of reminders. Make sure that you are receiving an adequate supply of love if you want to give love to others. Maintain self-respect. Do not expect to become emotionally involved in the life of every person you meet. Do not neglect your duties as a family member, friend, co-worker, neighbor, and citizen. Whatever attractions you may find in a person, make sure to base your relationship on loving that person as a child of God. Make sure that you have a psychologically sound technique for acknowledging and rechanneling aggression. With strangers, let trust develop gradually. Remember that what you can reasonably expect of yourself is less than your ideal of perfection.
The second response to sweeping critiques of religion is to observe that the stories of error, ugliness, and evil do not express true religion. Real religion, the religion of love and service, has no scandalous past of which to repent. The scandal is that it has been so little practiced. But real religion has not been inactive in history. History, psychology, sociology, and other disciplines report religion's beneficial effects, bringing comfort to individuals, undergirding morality, reinforcing the family, providing common values in society, inspiring the arts, and motivating humanitarian service. Religious pressure led to the abolition of slavery and to the founding of hospitals and diverse charities. Have the major tyrants of the twentieth century been religious men? Religion restrains the powerful from attacking their neighbors. The very human values of dignity and peace and freedom and social service that activate humanists are a common religious heritage. Real religion, therefore, must not let itself be put on the defensive by the legitimate critique of what people have done in the name of religion.
Psychological tests showed that people who participated in religion for extrinsic reasons such as the desire for material success or social acceptance were no more likely than non-religionists to perform altruistic actions. Extrinsic religion, in other words, did not motivate service. Psychologists then examined what they dubbed intrinsic religion, religion that was cherished as inherently worthwhile; and they were surprised to find that there was little evidence of greater altruism in this group. But when psychologists hit upon a new category and studied those for whom religion is a continuing adventure, a voyage of growth in values, they found a marked positive difference in the readiness for altruism.
In sum, religion, too, can be regarded as in terms of origin, history and destiny. Religion originates in the Creator's provision for the creature's evolving awareness our common Source. Religion has evolved from the ages of ghost fear and superstition and countless burdensome duties to an experience of loving love whose destiny is to promote spiritual adventure for all humankind.
The dawning spiritual renaissance
A religious believer, looking at the contemporary scene, could predict a planetary spiritual renaissance--a world-wide quickening of faith and spirituality--for a number of reasons. The argument can be simply sketched:
1. Overall, there is no standing still--we either move backward or forward.
2. We cannot move forward without a spiritual renaissance.
3. God will not let humanity destroy itself.
4. People with vision will cooperate.
5. Therefore, there will be a spiritual renaissance, and the sooner we join to facilitate it, the more suffering we will prevent.
Now let's flesh out some explanation for some of these points.
I remember the summer day long ago on a family trip when we drove south from Canada through Maine. We saw rivers so full of logs that the logs didn't seem to be moving downstream at all. That image has become for me a metaphor for the intertwined set of problems in our contemporary world. We need a spiritual renaissance to break up the logjam of interlocked ecological, biological, medical, social, economic, and political problems. Get hold of one issue, and you get entangled in others. Medical researchers develop desperately needed drugs, but they are not affordable to most of the people who need them. Good ideas emerge to protect the environment, but they are very expensive. Courageous politicians propose a far-seeing policy, but the people refuse to support it. Limited progress can be made with a particular project in any of these areas, but progress on particular projects is limited by problems in connected areas. The only way to break up the logjam is with a spiritual renaissance that transforms people's willingness to do what needs to be done.
Advances in science and technology have elevated our material condition and given us vastly more power than we know how to use well. Even as we hear the news that the human genome has been completely mapped, we wonder to what uses the emerging knowledge will be put. Competition and money drive the development of tools that we lack the wisdom to use. The developers of new technologies hope that others will use them ethically. One nation designs guidelines, while scientists in another nation are plunging ahead at full speed on whatever project they like. Many humanists and religionists cry "Nazi" at the very mention of eugenics or accuse scientists of playing God, while some countries are beginning to face population problems honestly, and have the capacity to move beyond crude solutions.
The World Commission on Environment and Development of the United Nations published a 1987 book titled Our Common Future. The statistics documented depressing trends. Nevertheless, for every staggering problem the authors told at least one good story. Somewhere in the world a group of people are working on the problem very well. I quickly formed the conviction that, even though we always need new ideas for solving problems, we already have many wonderful ideas that just need to be put into practice. What we need most of all is leadership and teamwork. A spiritual renaissance will empower leaders and facilitate cooperation. What are the major obstacles to cooperation? Selfishness, laziness, greed, nationalism, desire for power, hedonism--just those factors that a spiritual awakening will transform.
God will not abandon us. No matter how dangerous the planetary situation may be, we will not despair. Even though we continue to spoil our natural environment, there will come a limit. God will not permit us to destroy ourselves as a species. God has always known that giving freedom to finite material beings carries the risk of ages of abuse of freedom. The powers of goodness are far greater than we see or suspect.
This assurance, of course, does not excuse complacency. World War II is an everlasting reminder of how far we human beings are permitted to go into the depths of destructiveness. It is even thinkable that civilization may break down much further than is already evident in the corruption, organized crime, authoritarian nationalism, materialistic hedonism, influence of money on politics, commercialism, mindless sex, and cheap entertainment that fills such a high proportion of popular media today. We may have to learn very hard lessons about integrated living. It may that the centers of integrated living will not be such comfortable spots as one sees in much of San Francisco Bay area but places where luxury is hardly to be found, where students hunger to learn, where families stay committed, where the rosy puff of unrealistic religion yields to hardy teachings, where the eternal God is discovered anew.
It seems to me altogether reasonable to predict that by the end of the next millenium we will have enjoyed a planetary spiritual renaissance and that world civilization will have advanced closer to our destiny far beyond what we presently observe. I could not predict the timing and combination of superhuman and human initiatives. Religious conservatives, realizing the essential role of divine action, sometimes make too little progress the truth they have already been given, while liberals, appreciating the importance of progressive human effort, sometimes neglect to connect with higher power and wisdom. Each century, each decade, has a task to accomplish in the mosaic of the future. And each individual can join with others, informally and formally, to strengthen the network that will ready the planet for a large forward step. I believe that when the network of loving and progressive-thinking individuals is ready, then the fuse will be lit from the superhuman side, new religious leadership will emerge, and the spiritual renaissance will be underway. At least this is how I see things. More conversation about such ideas would arise if education would pay more attention to the future.
Working for that better day gives perspective on the apparently trivial matters of daily living. Through imagination and faith, we can be citizens of that future, ambassadors of that better day, as we walk our present paths. We can wake up in the morning not only with a sense of immediate agenda, but also with a sense of being part of an age of intense pressures, rapid change, great risk, and great opportunity.
Fortunately, no one has to become an activist on each of the world's problems. We can live in a general sensitivity to a broad range of planetary issues while devoting ourselves to the special projects that have our name on them.
Conclusion
We have glimpsed the benefits of a positive philosophy of history for a personal philosophy of living. Any problem--fear, for example--can be illumined through a conception of evolution that envisions divine origins, biological and human history, and a destiny for our planet in an advanced civilization. The same sequence also provides a context for understanding religion. A look at planetary needs today and at our destiny enables religionists to infer the likelihood of a planetary spiritual renaissance to break up the log-jam of current social, economic, and political problems.
These chapters have repeatedly sought to harvest gains for an expanded concept of truth. Of course the philosophic articulation of truth differs, due to the liveliness of spirit, the complexity of the realm of concepts, and the formative influences of culture and personal experience. Plato, Lao-Tzu, Tagore, Whitehead, and others, many of whom left no writings behind them at all, have reached higher consciousness. They assure students of the way that the quest is not in vain.
A concept of evolution that uses philosophy to coordinates science with religion contributes to the fullness of the concept of truth. A vision of the eternal is linked with an interpretation of the temporal. Outside their integration, the vision of the eternal decays into static dogma and the temporal flux becomes meaningless. When eternal spirit is conceived as purposeful, the dynamism of the divine dawns in thought. When the dramas of time are undertaken as struggles toward a new statement of eternal pattern, the energies of biologic life join with the energies of spiritual life in what may truly be called living. Religion staggers our concept by telling us that this life is a person. Philosophy interprets that life so as to make it understandable how people who do not know this person clearly may nevertheless experience the life of truth. Those who join a reasonable grasp of science and philosophy with spiritual faith can experience truth in the full sense of the word.
CHAPTER
TEN
COSMOLOGY
AND ETERNAL LIFE
Those who commit to developing their physical, intellectual, and spiritual potentials reach the threshold of the ultimate frontier. Religion promises eternal life. If that life is worthy of the God in whose name the offer is made, if that life is worthy of our hope, our faith, and our striving, then that life must be at least as full, vigorous, rich, challenging, and rewarding as the life we now enjoy.
Sadly, the prospect of eternal life attracts abuse from many modern thinkers. Since death alone quickens our attention and makes life interesting, they charge, eternal life could only be a hell of boredom. Only a denial of death could sustain such hope. Cosmology, moreover, assures us that the universe will eventually become uninhabitable.
To a religionist who has tasted a relationship with God, however, the sour portraits of the eternal adventure seem like a denial of life. Boredom could hardly be the fate of a finite being in the expanding and colossal home of an infinite and good God and in society with innumerable personalities, each a treasure and a mystery forever. If our poor imagination stops with pink clouds and stratospheric society sessions, we need to be nourished by better visions.
If religious faith would inspire responsible thinking, however, it must not only overcome the psychological obstacles to its own affirmations. It must also deal with the pictures of universe destiny based on scientific information and speculation.
To speak of truth, cosmic truth, seems a bold gesture where faith and science do not apparently harmonize. In history and cosmology, for example, our present situation in space and time and the present state of human knowledge render the choice between a science-centered and a religious philosophy particularly urgent. A sophisticated presentation of facts in a direction antagonistic to faith generates a powerful psychological momentum. Waves of persuasion wash over the bow of the ship of the mind of the average listener who receives the presentation openly. Again and again must philosophy comment on the explicit and implied inferences and issue reminders of the interpretive choices to be made. A philosophy of living provisioned with an integrated and robust conception of evolution gives powerful leverage for victorious problem solving in daily life.
Relations between science and religion
In an orchestra, harmony arises only if each instrument plays its own part and they play together. Science and religion pertain to different dimensions of reality, and the appropriate methods for each, though analogous, are not the same. The first strategy for harmony between science and religion is to recognize that they are different kinds of inquiry into different kinds of reality. Thus science and religion may be kept from making pronouncements about the other's territory. Science observes the outer world of things, and leads the mind towards the invisible realm of subatomic processes and mathematical law. Religion takes mind to the inner world of supreme values where thought gives way to worship. Science makes statements about the body; religion about the soul and spirit and the person as a whole. Material fact and spiritual truth do not contradict each other, even though scientific theory and religious dogma may clash. Science advances by controlled experiment, religion by personal experience. One can go far in either scientific or religious development with little or no involvement in the other realm.
Drawing a distinction between science and faith is a philosophical move that can burst the bubble of a personal problem. A nuclear physicist reported having trouble with his faith, since he had read in the Bible that God simply said, "Let there be light, and there was light." As a scientist, however, he knew how light is produced by atomic reactions in the sun. This man was a professor of physics and a sincere believer, but he had not begun to think philosophically about the relation between the two. He was delighted to begin to distinguish science as an intellectual grasp of the mechanics of creation from faith as a personal relation to God as the ultimate Source of all energy and personality.
Despite the fact that science and religion may be explored in relative isolation from each other, sometimes it helps to consider them together. A one-sided philosophy will stumble on issues that a balanced philosophy can handle. For example, the question arises about whether a person who believes in a universe of law must reject reports of miracles. Extraordinary events, however, need not be classified as a violation of universe law, as two commonplace examples indicate. Suppose we begin with the law of gravity that tells us that every body near the earth tends to fall towards the earth's center. We see an arrow flying up. Is this a violation of the law of gravity? Of course not; it is merely the coming into play of an additional principle, the law of inertial motion. Consider another case. A man stands up. His rising is determined neither by gravity nor by any outside force. His decision has determined his bodily motion. Here a higher principle is in operation, whose effects in the material realm are very familiar, however little understood they may be. So-called miracles, therefore, may be the result of the operation of higher physical laws or the result of action on a supermaterial level. Neither case violates the established laws of nature. It is not easy to know which laws operate in a given event, and it is not easy to know which "miracle" reports to take seriously, but it is easy for philosophy to point out a way to harmonize science and religion on this topic.
One strategy for harmonizing science and religion is to gather data that seem especially friendly to the hypothesis of creative design. The most common examples today are presented in talk of the apparent "fine-tuning" of various physical constants necessary for life. For example, a slight change in the balance between the weak nuclear force and other forces would make it impossible for either hydrogen or the heavier elements to form. The slightest change in the gravitational constant would either make the forces that cause matter to disperse are so strong as to prevent stars from forming or else make gravity too strong for galaxies to spread out at all. The process of energy production in stars depends on a precise feature in the element beryllium. The characteristics of water, features of the atmosphere such as the ozone layer, the biochemical wonders of the organism--all these encourage a sense of creative design.
Religious philosophy, however, is sharpened by dialogue with naturalistic interpretations of science. Since modern science banished purpose from its explanations, many thinkers regard the concept of purpose in nature as merely a human projection. Although the balance of reason, I believe, favors the religious affirmation of universe purpose, dialogue reminders one that facts that may seem to indicate design do not prove the existence of a Designer. Nevertheless, if the existence of God can neither be proved nor disproved, it is understandable that a theist accumulates evidence for universe design while a naturalist selects "self-organizing systems" to describe. A religionist can reply that the mechanisms of the Creator are so well designed that they seem to operate automatically.
Another strategy for harmonizing science and religion is for specialists in each field to keep up with developments in the other field that may have legitimate implications for their own. Dialogue arises since both science and religion say or imply things about nature, about what it means to be a human being, and about God. Talk of God as Creator implies momentous ideas about nature and humankind, suggesting limits to scientific knowledge. Although science has little or nothing to say about God, the kind of First Cause or universe Source indicated by science is a God of energy, pattern, law, order, process, evolution, diversity, totality, and pervasive activity. Thus the religious concept of the personality of God needs to expand to keep up with the implications of science. The concept of an eternal and infinite God, once a theological luxury, is now a necessity. Theologians have also begun to discuss an evolving phase of Deity. Such developments make it all the more imperative for religion to sustain its conception of divine personality. Otherwise, many people will lose the sense of a universe of purpose, a friendly universe, with mysterious and delightful intimations of destiny, a universe in which the individual human being is recognized as infinitely valuable to the Creator Parent.
Science and religion limit each other. Science stands guard against fanaticism, challenges religious delusions, and prunes outmoded ideas of nature from traditional religious accounts of creation. Religion reminds us that scientific controversies are not the ultimate issues in our lives. An eighteenth-century Shinto thinker, Motoori Norinaga, wrote, "Is the earth suspended in the sky or attached to something else? In either instance it is a wondrous thing." And wrote the nineteenth-century Christian theologian John Henry Newman, "You must be above your knowledge not under it, or it will oppress you; and the more you have of it the greater will be the load."
The principle of harmony
In the most emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually satisfying cosmological visions I have read, there seems to be a common principle operating. Though it is expressed in different ways by different thinkers, there is a common way to bridge the gap between the realm of nature and the realm of mind and spirit. For thousands of years philosophers and religionists have been familiar with the concept of the universe as the handiwork of a purposive Creator. The proclamation that God formed the earth to be inhabited has been joined by a conception in which mechanical and mathematical accounts of physical, secondary causes nest within the wider framework of divine, primary causation. On this model, after a material account of a process has been given, thinkers can consider creative design. Mechanical and teleological (purposive) accounts go hand in hand.
The principle of harmony may be simply stated: Science describes material processes that philosophy may interpret as serving divine purposes. I believe that this principle is the main key for harmonizing the emerging interdiscipline of science, philosophy, and religion. The advantage to the philosophy of living is considerable. This principle helps human beings feel at home in the universe. Human beings are part of nature, and if nature is itself a domain of the outworking of divine purpose, then we are part of a process that is going somewhere wonderful.
For science, to regard the universe as the creation of God is at most a hypothesis, for philosophy a concept for the mind, for religion a feeling of soul, a confidence that guides inquiry, and a way of experiencing nature. The philosophy of living point is twofold. First, in the face of earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and droughts, it remains possible to place local disasters in a broader perspective. Second, one can look for creative design in any phenomenon.
The principle of harmony is a key to enhance a person's sense of participating in the Creator's purpose on every level, from the universe at large, through biological evolution and human history to personal development.
The eternal adventure
Imagine a boy who goes out riding his bicycle one day and meets an older boy. The two get along wonderfully well; they spend the day together having a lot of fun. But then, when it becomes time for the younger one to return home in the evening, the older one says, "So long, I won't be seeing you any more." Such a statement would be surprising, strange, counter-intuitive, inconsistent with the momentum of the friendship that has already begun to flourish.
It is like that, I propose, in our relationship with God. Although it is conceivable that our relationship would end with death, it would be surprising, strange, counter-intuitive, and inconsistent with the momentum of the friendship that has already begun to flourish. For someone living in the consciousness of the family of God, the natural expectation is that our life of relationship will go forward.
It is the experience of God's love that awakens confidence in eternal life. That experience both engages us in a whole-personality way and it is an experience that does not have any obvious dependency on our body and its end. The experience suggests that, however much we may be in need of a body in the life to come, a vehicle of personality expression, the particular body that we currently occupy is not essential to our progressive relationship with God. Each person is given a free choice whether to accept or reject being a son or daughter of God. No one is forced into the eternal adventure with its blessings and demands for growth. There comes a parting of the ways and a time to decide, forever and finally, whether or not to follow the way of life.
Consideration of eternal makes it clear that there is a priority among the truths of the spirit. The faith realization of membership in the family of God is the gateway to the eternal adventure. The satisfactions of those family relationships are enjoyed now; they are confirmed in present experience. To try to lure someone into a faith commitment by a portrayal of the glories of the life to come and the alternative of dying unto eternal non-being is counterproductive. Reversing the sequence of truth appeals to information that not everyone can reasonably be expected to acknowledge. It amounts to an appeal to power, since it is up for God to decide who advances and who dies in his or her sins. The religious message comes across as a threat to those who decline the gift of faith. Hasty presentations of rewards and punishments try absurdly to motivate faith by self-interest and devalue the present in favor of a future whose details cannot be confirmed in ordinary human experience. Information about higher realms stimulates hope and imagination; it can also generate a potentially dangerous and exclusive sense of group identity. But the basis of faith is the present and abiding relationship to God.
It is not surprising, then, how many great religious teachers have primarily focused on the essentials of the love of God and the love of neighbor, rather than on presenting a fuller picture of higher things. There is a division of labor in the presentation of truth, and it is clear what comes first and what comes second. Yes, we are members in a universal family, but our first task is the actualization of the family of God among humankind. If we aspire to ascend as citizens in the eternal universe, we must care supremely that our brothers and sisters share in that adventure and enjoy the abundant life on earth for which our life was intended.
There are intriguing rumors or revelations. Not only are near-death experiences widely reported in which passage through a dark tunnel leads to a meeting with a touchingly compassionate angel. There have been reports by people from many religious traditions who have had visions of the heavenly realms. They tell of the vivid presence of divinity, the majestic beauty of natural and architectural forms, and of enthralling activities that human language can hardly express.
Nevertheless, the main ideas in these reports and visions seem to include the following. These realms are open to us and our fuller destiny is accomplished there. The realms are higher than the earth not only, in some sense, cosmologically, but also in the divinity of the persons and their activities. The demands and expectations are greater. These realms are multiple, and, again, some are higher than others. Thus there is a continuous adventure of growth that enables us to ascend as citizens in this magnificent universe.
If one is open to crediting these ideas that express the most cherished hope of humankind, one might draw the following suggestions for a philosophy of living. For a person of faith, death is not a terminus to be feared, but a transition. There will be no conscious lapse of time between falling asleep in death and awakening to the next life. The ongoing adventure, however, is one of continuing character growth. If everyone awoke in perfection of character, there would be little incentive to make as much progress as possible on earth. Rather, one picks up where one left off, albeit a quantum leap ahead in terms of the mind-body system that one has to work with. But the continuity of soul and spirit and personality are such that, on the whole, it is better to emphasize continuity rather than discontinuity in the process of growth. Any details one might find worthy of belief about the heavenly realms lend enhanced meaning to one's earthly activities, which evolve to reflect the patterns on high.
To be sure, it is appropriate to sift the alleged reports of heavenly realms through one's most mature sense of truth and beauty and goodness. There is no reason to suppose that every dream, for example, that symbolizes the next life is genuinely revelatory. Nor should we automatically assume that when revelation is given to a mortal the person has received that revelation without distortion.
The more we know of God the less we can imagine that heaven is the boring place of popular imagery. It cannot be an artificial society of effete, denatured, semi-real, illumined vapors. We ought to be able to conceive a life to come that is more real, not less real, than our own.
Is hope of eternal life a denial of death or skepticism a denial of life? What quickens our response to the words of the twelfth-century Japanese preacher?
A long way away is Paradise
I've heard them say.
But it can be reached
By those who want to go.
The very idea of cosmology
An atheistic philosopher, predicting the sun's expanding into a red giant stage that would make life impossible on earth tens of millions of years hence, proclaimed the glories of human science, art, and ethics. Human beings, he assured the reader, arose by accident, and death is the last word on everything we are and do, but how wondrous is life during the years we have! If an atheist can be that joyous using a cosmology that bleak, surely it must be possible for other cosmologies to sustain joy more reliably.
Building a cosmology, a conception of the universe as a whole, on rapidly changing scientific theories is risky. It is tempting to play the skeptic, to make fun of the entire enterprise. It is worthwhile, nonetheless, to develop a cosmology, a window through which a glimmer of higher significance may shine on experience of nature. When the cosmology has to be revised, fine. The question is not whether to operate with a conception of the universe but what sort of conception to use. Any presentation of facts is organized according to some framework. Although our framework is limited, we need one to function.
Relying on science alone for a conception of the universe, however, leaves too many important questions unanswered, for example, about the place of mind and spirit in the universe. Whether the concept of a friendly universe is a mere psychological projection, a defense mechanism, the child of mortal fears and hopes, is a question that involves more than science. Modern materialists view nature as a realm where chance and necessity prevail. Human ignorance and impotence are featured in some versions; in others human scientific knowledge is lauded as our one triumph, the bold reach of consciousness that dares to face its own cosmic insignificance. With consummate secular faith, the materialist looks into the starry darkness and asserts that only wishful thinking can posit anything friendly as the source of what we see and who we are.
Science can only speculate about the origin and destiny of the cosmos, and it must use philosophy to interpret the meaning of its findings. The full development of cosmological thought brings in the sciences of humankind as well as natural and biological sciences, and it also gives consideration to religion as a source of ideas. Cosmology properly belongs to the emerging interdiscipline of science, philosophy, and religion. The role of philosophy here is to mediate the relations between science and religion. The previous chapters have shown that religious philosophy is a viable option, consistent with intellectual responsibility. This chapter shows how to extend that philosophy into cosmology. Since a philosophy of living needs to be responsive to ongoing theoretical developments in various fields, it needs strategies for integrating science and religion.
Cosmology and the possibility of eternal life
Perhaps the ultimate cosmological question for a philosophy of living is whether the universe ultimately upholds or destroys life. From the perspective of many religions, the present value of life is related to hope for survival after death. So much of what we do is for some reason; our motives intrinsically relate to the future. The idea is not that we must always envision a reward to motivate us, nor that intrinsic value is not to be found in the present. But if we cease to feel that we have a meaningful future, life becomes empty. Without the survival of values, what motivation is there to live for values? Whether extinction is soon or remote is of no philosophic significance. Nor is it great consolation to contribute to future generations if they are all marching into the same pit of unending death. To be sure, many religious teachings today do without a vision of eternal life, but my suggestion is that they sell their devotees short, and I will use the term "religion" to refer to the majority that do hope for life beyond this world.
The world's religions have widely taught that the individual, whose growth toward perfection is hardly complete in this lifetime, has the opportunity to fulfill a destiny beyond this life; that one may ascend to attain perfection, continuing the adventure after death in heaven. While religious pictures of the next life are often vague and differ in such detail as they offer, they often forecast an experience of exquisite material beauty, satisfying intellectual activity, enthralling artistry, and unspeakable spiritual glory. The trivial cartoons of heaven are incommensurate with our native appetite for adventure and with the grandeur of the universe we behold. The goal cannot be a boring, static state with nothing to do except play pink harps on fluffy clouds in stratospheric society sessions. Even if we can hardly imagine how goals will activate us in such a postulated condition of perfection, we may be sure that no perfection worth the divine and human striving would be such a tedious waste of time and eternity.
Since cosmology has a far higher proportion of speculation than any other scientific discipline, science cannot speak with authority about the origin and destiny of the universe, and the opportunity for cooperation between scientists and religionists is great. When a majority of scientific cosmologists hold views incompatible with a teaching essential to religion, religion should not hesitate to propose alternatives, even if scientific support for those alternatives is presently wanting. This strategy rejects current theory, emphasizes the incompleteness of current science and awaits or suggests alternate hypotheses in order to show that scientific fact, if not current theory, leaves room for the religious hypothesis. Presumably the only ones attracted to these minority scientific hypotheses are those with religious motivation. Beliefs have costs, however, and among these are epistemological costs. In other words, how much currently acceptable thinking must one reject in order to hold on to a cherished conviction?
While religion promises eternal life, popular astronomy often portrays a universe of birth, evolution, and cataclysmic death. Current science teaches, for example, that the sun, the energy source of material life as we know it, came into being and will pass away. The birth, growth to maturity, old age, and death (including the dramatic red giant stage) of stars is charted. Theoretically, the last stage of extreme stellar collapse is the black hole, in which gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. The life expectancy of our own sun is finite. Tens of millions of years hence, the earth is due to be engulfed in the flame of the terminal burst of our sun. If we can generalize what we think we know, then every star in the universe has the same fate.
One scientific prediction of the death of the universe relies on the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the idea of entropy, disorder. In energy reactions, some energy is always reduced to heat. Heat is the simplest, most rudimentary, most "degraded" or disorganized form of energy--molecules randomly bumping against other molecules. On account of this loss, no engine can be 100% efficient; no engine will run by itself forever. Ever and again new energy inputs are necessary in order to maintain it. The inputs always exceed the desired outputs. One cannot translate the chemical energy of petroleum into the kinetic energy of a moving vehicle without some energy being wasted in heating up the engine block, etc. Another example of entropy is that, when an egg is broken, the shell is reduced to smaller pieces. The previous order is replaced by fragmentation. Each fragment, of course, may be said to have its own order, which can then be further reduced, and so on. Even organisms, it is sometimes argued, take more energy from the environment than they embody in their own highly ordered ("negentropic") structures and activities. The cosmological extension of this idea states that after enough energy transactions have occurred, the universe will eventually run down, and the final state of energy organization in the universe will be the random bumping of molecules. One theologian embraced this vision and found therein support for a kind of mysticism. One can envision the "heat death" of the universe, in its cold and vast silence, as the physical analogue of the mystic state--an eternal night in which no phenomena arise at all.
This cosmological pessimism, however, assumes that the universe is a closed system--with no sustaining infusion of energy or mind-guided organization. But what if the universe is open? What if an infinite Creator functioning as Source and Center continuously nourishes the creation with energy, never depleted? If that energy does in fact pour forth, and if there is, in addition, intelligent management of these energies, then we can put aside the nightmare of cosmic disintegration.
Another scenario of the death of the universe imagines that after the Big Bang comes a Big Crunch. If there is enough matter to overcome the expansion of the universe, the universe will eventually collapse, destroying everything in the fiery heat preparatory to another cycle of expansion.
If there is no good religious reason to trust the promise of eternal life, then there is no reason to work to harmonize astronomical prediction with religious promise. But if faith is well founded on this topic, it would be sad indeed to let current physical hypotheses cheat us of a significant source of joy and purpose. How can harmony be found?
First, a religionist can simply reaffirm the truth of faith. The inner source of confidence about eternal life is the experience of a relationship with God with no temporal limits on it. The great religious teachers have not tried to persuade our minds by proving that the promise of eternal life is cosmologically plausible. Spiritual faith does not need explanations. In the face of scientific uncertainty, faith is a surety for which there is no substitute. The power of trust in truth motivates religious philosophy.
Alternatively, a religionist may simply affirm that God knows how to make good on his promises, however obscure their fulfillment may be. One option is to deny the relevance of physical catastrophes altogether. If it is in the divine plan to recycle a portion of the natural universe, why should God's children of faith be disturbed? Or if eternal life is essentially spiritual, perhaps we have no need of bodies or of material spheres on which to live. Or if we need them, God will provide; even if we have to move around the universe to newly habitable spheres, that could somehow be arranged.
Another strategy is to look harder at astronomy. Note how brief, cosmically speaking, is the time during which we have been gathering scientific information about the universe. Science-based cosmology makes great leaps of inference on the basis of remote and partial contact with its objects. Consider the data basic to the theory of the life cycle of stars. We observe different stars with different proportions of chemicals. We form an idea of the physics of stellar energy production. Then we estimate the age of the star. A certain thread of reasoning leads us to generalize this scheme to as much as possible of what we see. But this may not be true of all stars, and not everything in the sky is a star. Most of the mass in the universe may be invisible. Data, furthermore, that give rise to one cosmology can be interpreted in many ways. The birth and death of theories occurs on a cycle of decades. One could wait for friendlier theories to emerge from the rapidly growing base of information we are getting about the universe.
One more response is possible--to suggest a new cosmology. One may hypothesize that the universe is evolving towards permanent maturity. Might not observation some day record organized energies evolving not to destruction but to stability? Will we ever find that destruction awaits only that which does not achieve cosmic integration? Consider that there are non-stellar sources of energy. Who understands, for example, the small region in the constellation of Sagittarius from which a quarter of our galaxy's energy comes? Not everything may be subject to a life cycle. There may be currently unsuspected techniques for upholding stellar life.
The twentieth century has seen a series of scientific cosmologies become popular. First was the steady state hypothesis, that the present dimensions of the universe are relatively constant. One version of this view claimed that new energy-matter is being created in the universe. The second view, "big-bang" cosmology, is based upon interpretations of "red-shift" data that suggest that our universe is expanding. This rate of expansion has been estimated; and assuming that the expansion is the most important clue for cosmology, scientists calculated it back in time, despite the fact that the laws of physics become meaningless close to the imagined origin at time zero.
A third option has been glimpsed. The idea that the universe is rotating was proposed by Paul Birch of the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratory at the University of Manchester in Jodrell Bank, England (Nature, July 29, 1982). Radio sources in the sky have an elliptical shape, and thus a major axis, the "axis of elongation," can be discerned. These sources typically have magnetic fields which also have an axis between the magnetic north and south poles. But the two axes do not line up together; in one half of the sky the magnetic axis is rotated to the right from the axis of elongation; in the other half of the sky the magnetic axis is rotated to the left. Why the apparent change in magnetic orientations?
If the universe were rotating, the movement of radio sources would affect the orientation of their magnetic fields. This effect of rotation may be grossly compared to an automobile turning a corner. Centrifugal force causes the car to lean: the direction of the car determined by the tires is different from the tangent that the car's momentum gives it at that moment. Suppose you are standing on a sidewalk looking at cars swirl counterclockwise around a traffic circle; the cars on your left appear to be leaning to the left, and the cars on the right appear to be leaning to the right as they go around the circle.
The Milky Way and neighboring galaxies are in motion toward the Hydra-Centarus supercluster of galaxies, which all appear to be responding to the gravity of an colossal, invisible Great Attractor. The field equations describing the universe in the most general mathematical way have rotating solutions. All these data are consistent with a rotating universe.
Rotating universe cosmology complements religion in two main ways. The scientific hypothesis of an eternally stable cosmic Center parallels the religious sense of an eternally dependable universal Source. And the new cosmology makes it easier to conceive that the realms of change in which we find ourselves are evolving toward permanent stability, undergoing limited expansion and contraction as they swing endlessly around the center.
Conclusion
Inquiry into cosmic truth is many-faceted, since philosophy is needed to harmonize science and religion. Of the many choice points in the construction of a cosmology, the main decision is whether to combine faith in divine purpose with emerging scientific accounts of fact, cause, and evolution.
The many strategies which help harmonize science and religion may be summarized simply. Distinguish science and religion, and do not confuse their methods and proper regions of inquiry. When their specialists comment on different facets of a common theme, each should be open to learning from the other. When conflicts occur between widely accepted scientific views and important religious teachings, the situation calls for a decision regarding priorities.
Like every phase of the adventure
into truth, cosmology--and the associated disciplines of biology, history, and
psychology--need to be revised as new discoveries are made.
A well-formed concept of cosmic evolution, however, provides essential
meaning and value for a philosophy of living.
Cosmology enhances the joy of participating in the evolution of a
friendly universe.
PART
I SUMMARY: LIVING IN TRUTH
The philosophy of the previous chapters integrates science and religion. Again and again there have been reminders of alternatives, difficulties, and choices to be made. Scientific facts never contradict religion, though scientific theories may. Philosophy plays a crucial role, keeping open the potential for harmony and integration. Science-centered and humanistic philosophies remain options. Nevertheless those who move forward in faith gain access to a thrilling concept of evolution, a meaningful use of the powers of the mind, and a spiritual horizon promising a cosmic future and a superb destiny for humankind on this planet. Our quest for truth has moved from looking at facts scientifically to seeking wisdom philosophically to faith-realizing the presence and activity of a divinely wonderful Person.
How can we go from impersonal and philosophic truth to personal and spiritual truth? Four thoughts bridge the gap.
1. Truth is what is to be realized at any given moment--fact, meaning, or value.
2. Even if the truth we realize is unchanging and eternal, the needs of the moment change. Therefore what is to be realized changes, and truth moves with a dynamic quality.
3. The way truth ministers to our needs discloses its personal source. Living truth is an ongoing revelation, a gift of God to the soul. Truth turns our lives around.
4. The voyage in truth begins with the question about what the truth is and culminates in the joy of knowing who the truth is.
On every level--science, philosophy, and religion--there is beauty in realizing truth. In any situation, the fullest grasp of evolutionary context, philosophic breadth, or spiritual truth brings joy. Truth is alive, always moving, since what we need to realize changes with our changing circumstances and inner conditions. God is not only the source of truth but also the very life of truth.
As the sun, the source of light, is the brightest object we can see, the divine, the source of truth, is the most wondrous truth we can know--and our knowing is personal. These chapters offer definite and clear expressions of truth, but the truths of spiritual experience can never be imprisoned in a dogma or creed. A dogma is one person's rendering, and even if the dogma were a perfect transcription of something revealed, it wouldn't necessarily be what a particular person most needs at a given moment. Even if it were relevant, the idea might just sit on the page as a flat statement assertion until the spirit lights it up. When I showed my dad a sentence that transformed my life, he said, "It doesn't do anything for me." Of course there is no magic in words on a page. The thrill comes when the word symbols reach through the intellect to our higher spiritual regions. In a moment like that, the original, spiritual, communicative intention is fulfilled. The circuit is completed between the truth giver and the truth receiver. Words on a page can be turned into a creed. A creed conveys the spirit of authority, not adventure. A creed says, "Believe these things, and you'll be OK. These are the essentials of religion. This is The Truth." A creed addresses the mind, not the whole person. A creed wants to make people's thinking uniform, but truth liberates the individual.
Truth, pursued to its height, becomes the truth of the personality relationship between the Creator and his creatures. The pursuit of truth, in other words, culminates in the realization of the God of love. The love of God--the love that God has for us and the love we give in return--is the highest beauty we can feel. Touching divine beauty gives the ideal introduction to beauty in our world. Whenever we turn to beauty in nature and the arts, in the background the love of God will still radiate, leading us silently and gradually.
The love of God sows the seeds of goodness. Experiencing the goodness of God motivates us to participate in that goodness, to take part in the projects of God, to seek and find and choose and do the will of God, to live as a member of the universal family.