relda,
>>can science and religion be successfully remarried?<<
Maybe, but only as an asymmetric, “unequal rights” marriage. Martin Rees is right when he does not see how theological insights could help him with his physics, whereas I think that theology that ignores contemporary “scientific insights” makes sense only as a study of the history of ideas.

Teilhard’s vision, as insipiring as it is, is only one possible world-view that is compatible with both science and Christian theology, conceived at a time when evolution (Darwinian as well as that of the universe) was still a novelty, and the impact of relativity and quantum physics on our understanding of physical reality, was perhaps not yet fully appreciated. Nevertheless, I agree, that just the possibility of such new interpretations of Christian theology represents a breakthrough, the implications of which are still not fully worked out.

On the other hand, I think the physicist-theologian John Polkinghorne has also a point when, from the vantage point of more contemporary cosmology, he says: “The bleak prognosis puts in question any notion of evolutionary optimism, of a satisfactory fulfilment solely within the confines of the unfolding of present physical process. ... An ultimate hope will have to rest in an ultimate reality, that is to say, in the eternal God himself, and not in his creation.” (The Faith of a Physicist, Fortress 1996, p. 162).

Dan,

Obviously you’re not going to answer my question, so I’ll save it for another time.

I’m disappointed I didn’t get a response, however, your reaction was (for me) as revealing as it was unexpected.

One the surface, it was just an ad hominem - attacking me rather than dealing with the issue. But what I found interesting was that to dodge the issue, you used exactly the same tactic that well-known Creationists use when they’re threatened by someone - like Darwin - to bring what they say in question. You quoted me, without showing the full context of what I was saying (ignoring also that I had substantiated my claims with the examples), in order to discredit me.

Although I didn’t get a response, all-in-all it was still productive because we’ve been able to witness first-hand, this tactic in action.

<<The Big Bang is not a fact. And many healthy minded astronomers are now challenging its semi-established status.>>

Actually, it is a fact; and “Fully established” would be a more accurate term for its status.

All observations fit the theory perfectly and nothing yet has contradicted it in the slightest. Red shifts show us that the universe is still expanding, and we have a good idea of the rate at which it is expanding too. Calculations based on the current rate of expansion, and the rate at which it is slowing, show us that everything in the universe would have been at one point 14 billion years ago.

Scientists speculate that there’s a continual cycle of expanding and collapsing that would take about 80-100 billion years.

<<You [Grim] talk about scientifically minded atheists. Can you name any of these from the 16th to 18th Centuries, when the Western world really got its ball rolling in scientific thinking?>>

This is problematic as there wouldn’t have been as many Atheists around at that time and even those who were Atheists wouldn’t have been likely to mention it. It’s reasonable to assume also, that the majority of Deists back then would have been Atheists today had they known what we now know.

George,
I think Martin Rees is certainly correct, and I think contemporary science is rapidly moving towards the non-historical idea of a world without beginning or end. Might this not be a stronger indicator of truth, rather than the anti-world idea that has historically underpinned some of the major religions? For instance, in 1650, the noted Biblical scholar, Archbishop James Ussher calculated that the creation of the world took place on Oct. 23rd, 4004 BCE, and that the end of the world would occur at noon on Oct 23rd., 1997. That became standard Catechetical teaching in many parts of the Christian world up to about 1960. Other religions also have their parallels. However, a mind-shift happened in the early 1900s with Einstein's theories of Relativity and the formulation of the Quantum Theory. It was no longer the Earth that engaged the searching mind but the universe at large, now so complex and mysterious that talk about its beginning or end seemed short-sighted and even irrelevant.

I should perhaps add here, the real issue is neither discovery nor study, but POWER–the feeling or ‘right’ to be in control, absolute control, is still the driving force behind a good deal of religious dogmatism. and also behind (unfortunately) a great deal of modern science as well. The fundamentalist creationism movement and its rejection of evolution is certainly about ‘control’, and is a good example of the “asymmetric marriage” you describe.

It is perhaps more an anthropocentric fascination that Christian theologians exhibit strong concern about the notion of creatio ex nihilo (i.e.creation from nothing). They wish to retain this belief in order to safeguard divine initiative, and presumably their understanding of divine power. Today, we understand the primordial nothingness as a substratum of seething creativity. Perhaps, for God, the notion of a beginning-point is of no significance. Chardin has merely provided, through science, an insight -no perfect visionary has ever existed; but challenging and inspiring is the proposal that we are creation becoming aware of itself. Our unique vocation and contribution to creation is perhaps to enhance consciousness through an evolving process.

Actually, AJ, the only universally accepted 'fact' is that the Universe is expanding. There are a number of competing theories to account not only for the expansion, but the observed apparent acceleration of the expansion.
Some form of Big Bang is still the favourite, but there are still a lot of questions; dark matter and energy, distant super novae more dim than they 'should' be...

Actually, AJ, the only universally accepted 'fact' is that the Universe is expanding.

On that. I have a personal theory that the universe is not so much expanding as spiraling, as are Galaxies & solar systems & so on down the line. Sort of fractual expansion.

Maybe what we see as our universe is just part of something even bigger.

Maybe that's what GOD is. Maybe what we are, is a miniscule part (atom/quark) of a greater whole. Maybe that's too big a picture to get our heads around.

relda,
Thanks for the interesting, as usual, comment.

>>contemporary science is rapidly moving towards the non-historical idea of a world without beginning or end<<
I think it is not “rapidly moving” but at least since Einstein physics has firmly rejected Kant’s a priori categories of space and time: space-time without matter does not make sense the same as matter without space-time. I do not think any contemporary philosopher of science - theist or atheist - thinks otherwise. “Creatio ex nihilo” is a historical phrase from theology, which I think has its historical justification but has nothing to do with what today we understand science is about.

Another thing is that our brains cannot work outside time, so we have to project time also onto concepts that by their very nature exist beyond time. For instance, a student will better understand what a continuous function is when I say “f(x) goes to f(a) as x goes to a”, although - as I used to tell my students - “x has no legs so it cannot go”, see also the very term “variable”; similarly with our understanding of the Divine. Anthropomorhism in our models of the Divine is unavoidable for similar reasons.

I think you interpreted my “asymmetry” in a way I did not mean it. Science and philosophy of science are needed for (parts of) contemporary theology but not vice-versa, because before you make statements about Ultimate reality you should make sure you do not contradict what is universally known and accepted about physical reality that science makes verifiable (falsifiable) statements about. Perhaps this is not unlike that fact that you cannot make deep statements about the structure of the material world (cosmology, nuclear physics) without properly understanding the mathematics needed, whereas you do not need any physics to study the corresponding, or any other, pure mathematics on its own (which is different from needing practical exmaples to learn or better understand your pure mathematics). Thus this understanding of mine of the asymmetric relation between science and theology is unrelated to POWER, “being in absolute control”, “religious dogmatism”, etc