TEILHARD RELIGION AND  SCIENCE SOCIETY

A METANEXUS LOCAL SOCIETY AT LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY

Initial Report, 2006

This little book does no more than recapitulate the eternal lesson of the Church in the

words of a man who, because he believes himself to feel deeply in tune with his own

times, has sought to teach how to see God everywhere, to see him in all that is most

hidden, most solid, and most ultimate in the world. These pages put forward no more than

a practical attitude - or, more exactly perhaps, a way of teaching how to see.

-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu

The rise of modern science in the late sixteenth/early seventeenth century, based

on principles of empirical testing coupled with inductive reasoning and its predictive

powers, fueled the advances of individualism started in the Renaissance. At the same

time, the fledgling Society of Jesus, with many of its members involved in the practice of

this new science, was asked to help in the defense of the Catholic faith in the counterreformation

effort. These two forces met over the work of Galileo, a devout Catholic,

yet a most capable advocate of this new approach to science.

At stake, many felt, was the path to truth. The new knowledge Galileo found by using his

"spyglass" and its reporting in the Starry Messanger caused a radical shift in our

worldview. Such a change in worldview was not easily reconciled with the teachings of

the church. A tension developed, especially given the outcome of the Galileo affair. And

 this tension would continue to grow in the minds of many as science gathered further

knowledge through the works of such notables as Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, each

causing us again to significantly revise our worldview.

The context within the Catholic Church vis a vis the scientific advances of the nineteenth

and early twentieth century continued to be problematic with the publication of Pius IX’s

Syllabus of Errors (1864) and then Pope St. Pius X’s condemnation of Modernism in

Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907). The divide between Catholics and scientists seemed

cemented in stone.

In the early twentieth century a Jesuit priest began to understand the Ignatian dictum to

“see God in all things” as literally applicable to scientific inquiry. His theological

understanding of evolution became a flashpoint—too theological for scientists, too

embracing of science for those in the church. Yet for many, it became instead a bridge,

an important moment of rapprochement. Teilhard’s invitation was to understand reality

through a new way of seeing.

We, as a society, take seriously Teilhard de Chardin’s philosophical and theological

premise of seeing God in all things. We believe by following this tenet, we will affirm the

inter-religious and interdisciplinary types of scholarship that we intend to pursue in our

dialogues and events. The science and religion discussion is dependent upon open

scholarship that is free to pursue all forms of knowledge.

 Certainly, our conversations will be influenced by the years of scholarship and insight

provided by leaders in the Science and Religion dialogue such as Ian Barbour, Arthur

Peacocke, John Polkinghorne, Paul Davies, Charles Townes, Robert Russell, William

Stoeger, S. J., John Haught, Nancey Murphy, and Ted Peters to name a few. Hopefully,

our discussions will build upon and extend their pioneering work. In addition, our

discussions will reflect an inter-religious orientation. Current program ideas include

interactions between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Islam, for example, offers a

particularly strong legacy of science and religion scholarship. Muslim contributions to

philosophy, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, mathematics and geography have been long

established, and a conversation in the context of modern/post-modern science and

religion would be a rich and informative enterprise. This would also provide an

interesting counterpoint to other intended conversations around the history of Catholic

Christianity and issues of science and religion.

Certainly, we also welcome representatives from other traditions interested in this

discussion. Some of our conversation partners might be practitioners of New Thought

religions, such as Religious Science and the Unity School of Christianity, who affirm a

pantheistic, dynamic cosmology that is composed not of solid, dull matter, but responsive

energy that reacts to the directives of our thought. Many New Thought followers are

already eager to engage with quantum physicists on these ideas. Moreover, these ideas

have found a niche within a small popular audience who are gaining various levels of

understanding of quantum physics from Deepak Chopra and the film, What the Bleep Do

We Know?

 Our society will be able to provide a forum where lay people and scholars may interact

on issues of science and religion not as scholar and student, but as individuals seeking to

find meaning and purpose in their lives through a discussion of science and religion,

through a process by which they find God in all things.

As a Society, we would like to explore a variety of issues in our first year. Advances in

science and technology tend to change our worldview. This change is brought about

partly by forcing us to reevaluate our answers to questions or to ask new questions in the

theological and religious realm. This is especially true when considering their

implications on our ethics and morals.

Advances in physics and chemistry in the fields of cosmology, quantum mechanics,

chaos theory, complexity and emergent properties stretch us as a society to find the

relatedness of the science being discovered to theological and religious questions—in

what ways are the how questions related to the why questions of purpose and meaning?

Questions concerning the nature of creation, creatio ex nihilo vs creatio continua, the

eschatology of the Universe, determinism and free will, and reductionism will be

considered. Here we will find a wealth of information from writings, including those of

our society’s namesake, Teilhard.

Neuroscience is another topic we want to explore. We propose to examine the state of

research on brain functioning. We want to examine current research on the brain-mind

question. What does the research imply about questions of consciousness and what it

means to be human? Is their a connection between the workings of the brain and

religious practices? We would like to attend to the philosophical debates on what is

implicit (part of our genetic inheritance) and explicit (learned) in the way the brain

functions vis a vis religion. Related are questions of artificial intelligence and the nature

of consciousness. Do humans have a special place in the Universe by virtue of the level

of their ability to process and relate, or is this an issue of complexity threatened by the

developments in artificial intelligence?

Another topic concerns “End of Life Issues.” As illustrated in the recent national

discussion surrounding the Schiavo case, bioethicists and religious authorities have

defined and redefined the concept of “extraordinary means” of sustaining life over the

last 30 years. This presentation maps the contours of the shifting definitions and provides

context for the current debate about when life ends. In addition, other bioethical

questions, such as gene therapy in the medical field and genetic engineering in the field

of biotechnology, are in the forefront as well. Also, we would like to explore ethical

issues surrounding the use of animals (and plants) in science. We are happy to have the

interest, support, and expertise of our Bioethics Institute faculty and staff here at LMU

joining this society to discuss such issues current in biology and medicine.

Finally, many avenues are being explored with regard to the connection between mind

and body, especially with regard to its potential toward healing. Our society would like

Teilhard Society Initial Report, 2006 6

to examine such holistic approaches as the connections between Yoga and the health

Sciences.

Finally, as the year progresses and the Society matures, we will discern whether our

approach for the coming years will be to continue this broad based sampling of the

interface of Science and Religion or to restrict our conversations to particular topics by

year or by semester.