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Theology and Science: At the Frontiers
By W. Jim Neidhardt

Over the past few years, there has appeared a unique, twelve-volume series, Theology and Science at the Frontiers of Knowledge,¹ co-sponsored by the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey and the Templeton Foundation and edited by Thomas F. Torrance. One way to understand the significance of this series is to ask, Why would Torrance, a significant theologian in the Reformed tradition, have assumed the editorship of this series, since it required that he make the substantial commitment to acquire understanding of another discipline, namely, natural science? Since the early fifties, Torrance has been a pioneer in understanding the relationship between Christian theology and natural science. All of his efforts are guided by the recognition that the early Christian church not only communicated the gospel to the Graeco-Roman world but also transformed the prevailing cultural mindset. This allowed the unitary outlook of Judeo-Christian thought to take deep root and grow from within the culture, making possible the eventual rise of modern empirical, theoretical science. As it was then, so it can be today. The gospel's creating, reconciling, and redeeming power can transform the whole interpretive framework of the present culture. Thus, by assuming the editorship of this series, Torrance affirms that such transforming healing again can take place when theologians and scientists, reconciled in friendship, recognize basic interconnections existing between the structures of theological and scientific knowledge.

W. Jim Neidhardt was Associate Professor of Physics at New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. He authored (with James E. Loder) The Knight's Move: The Relational Logic of the Spirit in Theology and Science (1992).

¹ Theology and Science at the Frontiers of Knowledge, General Editor, Thomas F. Torrance. (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press). Volume 1: Thomas F. Torrance, Reality and Scientific Theology. (1985), 206 pp.; volume 2: Harold P. Nebelsick, Circles of God: Theology and Science from the Greeks to Copernicus. (1985), 284 pp.; volume 3: Iain Paul, Science and Theology in Einstein's Perspective. (1986), 107 pp.; volume 4: Alexander Thomson, Tradition and Authority in Science and Theology. (1987), 116 pp.; volume 5: Ralph G. Mitchell, Einstein and Christ: A New Approach to the Defense of the Christian Religion. (1987), 231 pp.; volume 6: William G. Pollard, Transcendence and Providence: Reflections of a Physicist and Priest. (1987), 269 pp.; volume 7: Victor H. Fiddes, Science and the Gospel (1987), 113 pp.; volume 8: Carver T. Yu, Being and Relation: A Theological Critique of Western Dualism and Individualism. (1987), 239 pp.; volume 9: John C. Puddefoot, Logic and Affirmation: Perspectives in Mathematics and Theology. (1987), 212 pp.; volume 10: W. P. Carvin, Creation and Scientific Explanation. (1988), 106 pp.; volume 11: E. J. Ambrose, The Mirror of Creation. (1990), 238 pp.; volume 12: Russell Stannard, Grounds for Reasonable Belief. (1989), 361 pp.

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I

Pivotal to the goal and character of this series is Torrance's conviction that developments in the natural and human sciences have worked together to create a fundamental shift in human knowledge, pressing toward a unitary view of the one created world.² The universe being disclosed through scientific inquiry is dynamic, multi-leveled, and open-textured, the richer, more intangible order of the higher levels explaining and revealing the tacit meaning in the lower levels. This conception of the universe makes genuine dialogue between science and theology possible. Through such dialogue, which is the goal of this series,

"...divisive splits become healed, constructive syntheses emerge, being and doing become conjoined, an integration of form takes place in the sciences and the arts, the natural and the spiritual dimensions overlap, while knowledge of God and of his creation go hand in hand and bear constructively on one another.... Today it is no longer philosophy but the physical and natural sciences which set the pace in human culture through their astonishing revelation of the rational structures that pervade and underlie all created reality. At the same time, as our science presses its inquiries to the very boundaries of being, in macrophysical and microphysical dimensions alike, there is being brought to light a hidden traffic between theological and scientific ideas ... where theology and science are found to have deep mutual relations, and increasingly cry out for each other ...."³

Consonant with its integrative goal, this series is directed toward the development of a proper natural theology. In the very first volume, Torrance suggests that theologians concerned about natural theology can profitably build upon and modify Karl Barth's christocentric theology of creation. Indeed, Barth's famous "Nein" was actually directed against a natural theology developed independently of God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ. As Barth's doctrine of creation suggests, what is really needed is a natural theology explicitly understood as an integral component of Christian theology. This dependent perspective of natural theology does not perceive God's revelation in Christ as a necessary condition for a scientific understanding of the physical universe, God's good creation, but allows us, rather, to make statements about God on the basis of scientific investigation of the universe. Accordingly, Torrance envisions this series as one means of contributing to the development of this proper kind of natural

² "A unitary understanding of physical phenomena enjoys such an inner simplicity that it can master enormous complexity by means of a few carefully chosen words or equations. This inner simplicity is the goal and content of truly creative science, including theology. E = mc2 or Jesus is Lord (probably the first Christian creed) are very "simple" statements, but unpacking their intellectual and life-transforming content-with that content's ability to master awesome complexity-requires a life of dedicated work by scientist and theologian alike." W. Jim Neidhardt, "Thomas F. Torrance's Integration on Judeo-Christian Theology and Natural Science: Some Key Themes," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 41/2 (June, 1989), pp. 87-88.
³ Torrance, Reality and Scientific Theology, pp. ix-x.

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theology, one that is not an "independent antecedent conceptual system but ... integrated with positive or revealed theology in the interface between Christian theology and natural science."⁴

The books in this series are written by theologians, by scientists, and by some who are both scientists and theologians. There is a truly ecumenical cast to the authorship. The majority of the authors are in the Reformed tradition, but Anglican, Methodist, and Roman Catholics are also included. As Torrance comments, "While they [the authors] differ in training, outlook, religious persuasion, and nationality, they are all passionately committed to the struggle for unified understanding of the one created universe and the healing of our split cuIture."⁵ All of the authors are well qualified to write with respect to their disciplines-science, theology, or both. Many have made sacrifices in terms of their own scientific or theological careers by devoting the necessary time to document their unique insights concerning the striking, unifying epistemological connections between natural science and Judeo-Christian theology. Our deeply fragmented culture needs to comprehend, to absorb, and to put to good use their healing insights.

The authors are to be commended for their interdisciplinary efforts to restore wholeness to an overly specialized, technique-dominated society. The series is intended to be accessible to educated lay people and working pastors (Barth's lovely term) alike, and the editor's intentions are fulfilled in that,

...many difficult questions are explored and discussed, and the ground needs to be cleared of often deep-rooted misconceptions, but the results are designed to be presented without technical detail or complex argumentation, so that they can have their full measure of impact upon the contemporary world.⁶

II

Each volume, in context, emphasizes that, throughout the entire history of the church, theologians have learned to live with and not to ignore disclosure events that are counterintuitive in character, that is, contrary to everyday, common sense experience. These counterintuitive disclosures, centered on God's self-revelation as revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, have initiated the development of equally counterintuitive concepts, a classic example being the Chalcedonian integration of divine and human natures in the person of Jesus Christ, preserving a tension that (as worked out by later theologians) creatively redefines both divinity and humanity.

Recently, natural science has also confronted disclosures that are equally counterintuitive. Some key examples are the wave/particle dual character of light and matter; increases in mass, time dilations,

⁴ Ibid, p. xiv.
⁵ Ibid, p. x.
⁶ Ibid., p. x.

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and energy-mass transformations associated with elementary particles travelling at speeds close to that of light; the possible existence of cosmological (large scale) structures where the laws of physics break down (such as black holes); and the unique "fitness" of the universe as a home for intelligent life (see vols. 3, 6-7, 10-12). Faced with such counterintuitivity, modern scientists, like early theologians, have learned to live creatively with it and to develop appropriate conceptual tools and language to describe it, often of a highly abstract, mathematical character. Thus, a major thematic focus of this series is the deeply personal, faith-motivated, intellectual struggle that occurs when creative scientists and theologians approach the frontiers of knowledge of each discipline. Theologians and scientists alike have come to recognize that there are unique and truly counterintuitive disclosure events associated with their disciplines. Such revelatory events cannot be ignored in formulating a comprehensive explanatory structure, but they also cannot be adequately grasped by the conceptual tools of ordinary human experience, even when such tools are pressed to their very limits. New formulations must be developed and comprehensively tested by the character of these counterintuitive disclosures. Such creative activity requires patience, courage, and the ability to live with intellectual and existential tension on the part of theologians and scientists alike. Thus, a theme common to the series (developed in a different way by each author) is the affirmation that an attitude immersed in hope, faith, and love of God and God's good creation is essential to both the scientific and theological communities. Without such an attitude, they cannot persevere creatively in making sense of the radical character of central aspects of their respective disciplines.

A second common theme of the series, one closely allied with the counterintuitive character of theological and scientific knowledge, is the role differentiated relationality plays in both disciplines (see vols. 1, 8, and 12). Theologians in every age have struggled to develop qualitative, dynamic-differentiated (asymmetric) forms of relationality in order better to understand the dual natures of Jesus Christ, the trinitarian unity in a community of love this revelation points to, and the distinctive covenant that God has established with all creation (including God's chosen people).

Distinct, perichoretic concepts were developed to make sense of the unique relationships associated with Christology and the persons of the triune God. On the basis of trinitarian relationality, grounded in mutual, self-giving love, Torrance suggests models of the church and society, stressing a community of individuals integrally linked together by means of creaturely love. Carver Yu, the author of volume 8, reinforces this suggestion by carefully explicating the biblical notion of the covenant, that is, God sustaining a creation in which being is always in relation to others and, supremely, to God.

It is of some significance that modern physics, classical and quantum, has developed conceptual instruments for describing particles in

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their interactions that are relational in character. The fields, introduced by the physicist, are quantitative, space-filling forms of dynamic-differentiated, unitary relationality; they are an integral component of elementary particles in their interactions. It is also interesting to note that, just as the specific relationality binding individuals together in true community (the concrete particularities of mutual trust and respect that unite persons in a lasting friendship) becomes part of what a person actually is, so, analogously in field physics, the relationality of interaction between particles which the field represents is an intrinsic aspect of a particle's being (see vols. 1 and 12).

A different kind of relationality is intrinsic both to the epistemological dilemma that early church theologians faced in developing a precise Christology and to the quite similar epistemological problem physicists confronted in resolving the wave and particle behaviors of light. As Russell Starnnard suggests (see vol. 12), both epistemological dilemmas are a consequence of human language being pressed to its very limits: Two essential aspects of the phenomenon commonly are to be understood in mutually exclusive contexts and, yet, both aspects are required to provide comprehensive knowledge of the phenomenon. The Chalcedonian formulation of Christology and Niels Bohr's principle of complementarity are structurally similar responses to deep, epistemological puzzles. Both the theological and the scientific solutions suggest a unity of opposites whose relationality affirms that both aspects are required for a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon, and neither aspect can be explained only in terms of the other's mutually exclusive language context.

These analogies between the epistemologies of theology and natural science have heuristic, analogical implications for the human sciences as well. Accordingly, the series would be strengthened if volumes were added by theologically astute practitioners of the human sciences. They should constructively criticize these analogical implications, clarifying the similarities and dissimilarities and, thereby, sharpening the understanding of the character both of genuine personhood and of a truly humane society. True personhood and a good society are, of course, integrally interrelated in the Christian framework, and detailed analyses of this kind can do so much to counter the relativism and individualism of current psychological and social perspectives.

A third integrative theme suggests that modern science increasingly discloses an open-textured universe that can always manifest itself in still unexpected ways. The distinguished scientist-philosopher Michael Polanyi points out reality's open character: "...[I]f we have grasped a true and deep-seated aspect of reality, then its future manifestations will be unexpected confirmations of our present knowledge of it" (emphasis mine). This open-textured universe, very different from what prior, deterministic science disclosed, is far more compatible with a theological insistence that God's love toward the creation is one of utter faithfulness and complete freedom (see vols. 4 and 7). Modern

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science is unveiling a multi-leveled universe, each level characterized by a non-reducible, surprisingly time-dependent uniqueness, sustained through regular patterning, that is, able to be described by lawful regularities. Indeed, it is increasingly recognized that the natural sciences, physical and biological, now share with theology a historical dimension that cannot be ignored (the universe, galaxies, stars, planets, living forms, atoms, nuclei, and possibly even elementary particles have a history). Each level of the universe, including the universe as a whole, is characterized by unique forms of what Torrance calls contingent order-regularity of patterns interwoven with genuine spontaneity to form a "seamless fabric." Such forms of contingent order are characterized by relative autonomy, functional integrity, and, surprisingly, a gapless economy. These latter characteristics of the multi-leveled, contingent intelligibility of (created) reality are fully compatible with a theology stressing God's covenantal care of the creation through ongoing, freely-derived interaction, not arbitrary intervention. The authors of this series argue that such contingent intelligibility, in its surprising intertwining of spontaneity and non-necessitarian lawfulness, is not explainable on its own terms, but points beyond itself and, in turn, becomes fully comprehensible only in terms of a transcendent intelligibility that provides it with wholeness, purpose, and meaning. Note that such plausibility arguments for God's existence do not depend upon gaps in current scientific understanding but, rather, upon the remarkable intelligibility of reality suggested by that understanding (see vols. 6-7, 10-11). (It is interesting to note that E. J. Ambrose takes his fellow biologists to task for their overreliance on chance as an explanatory concept; for some scientists chance is a new "God of the gaps.") Particular volumes emphasize modern science's unexpected disclosure that fully lawful descriptions of reality do preclude utterly unique, singular events-the origin of the universe as a massive, space-time singularity; the behavior of quantum "objects;" possibly the origin of life; and the chaotic behavior of completely deterministic systems (see vols. 6-7, 10-12), to cite a few examples. It is regrettable that the series does not adequately address the very exciting new science of chaos theory, where physical systems fully describable by deterministic laws can, nevertheless, under certain conditions, exhibit unpredictable behavior. Chaos science might provide theologians with conceptual tools that, when suitably modified, might have explanatory value heuristically in reconciling the utter faithfulness of God to the perfect freedom intrinsic to God's acts.

Two other integrative themes play a prominent role in many of the volumes. Significantly, both scientists and theologians require, at essential stages in their creative work, participation in the life of their respective communities. Scientists and theologians alike are guided, nurtured, and motivated by the deeply-held traditions of their respective disciplines. Such community involvement always takes place in the context of active engagement with the opportunities and challenges

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associated with each discipline. This community participation in formal and informal contexts is an essential component of the whole-person development into maturity of scientists and theologians alike, one that cannot be overstressed (see vols. 4 and 9).

Moreover, as a number of the authors suggest, both scientific and theological knowledge are characterized by a bipolar-relational structure: Explicit, formal formulations are discovered and shaped in the context of an informal background of presuppositions, concepts, and facts, of which the practitioner is only tacitly aware. As Michael Polanyi discovered over his long, creative career in science: "We know far more than we can tell." Note that the tacit, informal component of scientific and theological knowledge is often discovered only through ongoing participation in the life and work of the respective communities (see vols. 4 and 9). Last, recognizing that all forms of knowledge seeking require personal participation and that all forms of knowledge have a tacit component is essential to the practice of scientific and theological education.

III

This series deserves a place in any library where readers are seriously concerned with the restorative implications Christian theology could have for our fragmented, scientific-technological culture. The series represents a visionary attempt to explore areas of dialogue at the frontiers of the theology-science interface. It is visionary in its insistence that the interaction of theological and scientific knowledge results in the sort of transformation and convergence where the integrity of each discipline is preserved. In these volumes, both theological and scientific reflections are taken seriously; each is acknowledged to have its own distinctive integrity, and neither is "forced to fit" with a current interpretation of the other. Nevertheless, there is a freshness in these volumes, due to the fact that they represent dialogue between theologians and scientists where philosophical analysis plays a mediating, rather than a primary, role in the discussion. As in other series of this nature, there is some unevenness in quality, both in content and style; crucial historical, philosophical, and theological issues could have been discussed in more depth by some authors. Each volume, however, has genuinely creative insights relevant to the theology-science dialogue. These insights, even if not fully explicated by the authors, can be further developed into mature conceptual instruments capable of restoring a sense of wholeness to our badly fragmented culture.