Spiritual Evolution: Scientists Discuss Their Beliefs.

John Marks Templeton and Kenneth Seeman Giniger, eds. New York: K. S. Giniger Company, Inc. (in association with the Templeton Foundation Press), 1998. 136pp. $19.95 (cloth).

Spiritual Evolution is a collection of reflective personal essays from "distinguished figures in the world of science, each known to be a believer in a Divine Being" (vii). The ten contributors to this small volume represent the respondents to an invitation that was extended rather broadly but failed to "find any fundamentalist or non Christian scientists to participate" (viii). The ten that did show up are all for the most part, important thinkers in the emerging discipline of science and religion, and this book certainly contains an interesting and eclectic cross section of different, even contradictory, ideas about the nature of religion and science, and how the two should relate to each other.

The essays are idiosyncratic and deeply personal in places, but several interesting common themes and points of tension emerged. Three of the respondents - John Polkinghorne, Arthur Peacocke, and Russell Stannard - are high-church Anglicans brought up in a tradition they found sufficiently broad to contain both their questions about science and religion and the route they ended up following as they pursued answers to their questions. Despite active and distinguished careers in the physical sciences, all three trained for various clerical positions in the Church of England; Polkinghorne even spent a few years as a parish priest. Their reflections on science and religion indicate a deep appreciation for the historic Christian faith, coupled to a confidence that the Christian faith is dynamic and can evolve to encompass the emerging insights of science. Peacocke even suggests that a theology that fails to do this "will confine itself to an intellectual and cultural ghetto" (109).

Biologist Charles Birch and medical scientist Larry Dossey were both raised in conservative evangelical traditions and testify to deep personal conflicts as they found the religion of their childhood no match for the challenge of the science they were learning. Birch, who won the 1990 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, was eventually drawn into process theology through conversations and even collaborations with major theologians like Hartshorne, Tillich, and Cobb. Dossey writes of "terrible struggles" (27) growing up in the Bible Belt, followed by a migration into agnosticism, and finally the embrace of an ambiguous "spartan" religion summarized by the Dalai Lama: "My religion is kindness" (37). Astronomer Jocelyn Burnell is a Quaker, "sure there is a God with relevance to us today" (23), who encounters this God in her Quaker fellowship; nevertheless, Burnell likes her religion "baggage free" (23), with no need for miracles, resurrections, or even a creator God. Birch and Dossey, like Burnell, are ambivalent and even hostile to the historic creeds. Birch goes so far as to say that "subscription to creeds is a danger to the integrity of conscience" (14). This is in interesting contrast to Polkinghorne, who has great appreciation for the creeds and even based his Gifford lectures on the Nicene Creed.

The two Catholic contributors are philosopher of science Stanley Jaki, who won the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1987, and Peter Hodgson, head of the Nuclear Physics Theoretical Group at Oxford. Their essays are highly polemical, aggressively apologetic for Roman Catholicism, and lack the openness that characterizes the rest of the group. Hodgson argues for the "objective reality" of morality (57) and offers a strong criticism of contemporary theologians who would "reopen questions that have been definitively settled" (59). He defends the papacy and accuses the medical profession of murdering "innocent children by the million" (60). Jaki's essay, more than twice as long as any other, is amazingly critical of a wide cross section of major intellectual figures and institutions: Neils Bohr is described as "pathetic" (71); Laplace was a "consummate chameleon" (73); Herbert Spencer "spun philosophical fairy tales" (74); Luther and Calvin were "mystery mongers" (79); Nehru made a "laughing stock of himself" (79); modern universities breed "a subspecies best called spineless vertebrates" (87). Jaki's essay is also the "heaviest" one in the book, laden with numerous references to his remarkable body of published material; in fact, in contrast with the other essays in this volume, very little of Jaki's essay describes his own spiritual journey. Most of it is a bibliographic essay on the importance of his writings, described variously as "very important" (76), possessing "excellent style" (84), "powerful" (82), "on every page an impressive scholarship" (81). Jaki is, of course, one of this century's great scholars in the field of science and religion, but unfortunately he decided to use this essay to make sure the reader understands just how great he is.

Near the beginning of his essay, astronomer and historian of science Owen Gingerich comments: "The history of science landscape is dotted with scholars who are attempting to come to terms with their early religious environments" (42). Gingerich then provides a winsome account of how he rose from humble Mennonite beginnings to become a major scholar at Harvard University, first in astronomy and then in the history of science. Still active in the Mennonite fellowship, he is comfortable affirming that his path was guided by God. Of particular interest is his account of the challenges he faced as a Christian teaching at Harvard and how he once, with some trepidation, had students write a paper on the topic: "Is there a conflict between science and the idea of a personal God?" (47) Gingerich's essay ends with what looks like a plea to the Templeton Foundation to provide funding for a television series he wants to do on science and religion.

The last essay in the book is a short four-page piece by physicist-philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker, who won the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1989 and has spent his life in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Von Weizsacker rebelled against the church of his youth and is now an ecumenist whose most profound religious experience was "at the grave of the Hindu Holy man, Ramana Maharshi" (134).

Spiritual Evolution is an immensely enjoyable book. The essays are, for the most part, short, personal, and well-written. All of the contributors are figures of stature, and the essays report interactions with many of the greatest ideas and intellectual figures of this century. While it would be hard to find a common creed to which all the contributors could give assent, it is encouraging that all of them are firmly committed to belief in a God who matters, who cares, and who can be encountered.

KARL GIBERSON

References

John Polkinghorne, The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994.