God Seen by Science - UPCO

GOD SEEN BY SCIENCE: 

ANTHROPIC EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE

A CONTRIBUTION OF SOPHIA-IBERIA TO THE 

METANEXUS CONFERENCE 2008 

GOD SEEN BY SCIENCE: 

ANTHROPIC EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE 

CHRISTINE HELLER DEL RIEGO (EDITOR) 

Manuel G. Doncel 

Javier Monserrat 

Ignacio Núñez de Castro 

Agustín Udías 

CÁTEDRA DE CIENCIA, 

TECNOLOGÍA Y RELIGIÓN

This book has been published by the Cátedra of Science, Technology and 

Religion in collaboration with the Program of Science, Technology and Social 

Ethics of the Engineering School ICAI of the Universidad Pontificia Comillas 

during the preparation of the centenary of its creation (1909-2009). The 

Program of Science, Tecnology and Social Ethics is supported by: 

Printed by the Universidad Pontificia Comillas 

Alberto Aguilera, 23 

28015 Madrid, Spain 

ISBN 978-84-8468-235-6

CONTENTS 

PROLOGUE 

BY CHRISTINE HELLER DEL RIEGO 

Why the anthropic principle? / 1 

PART I: INTRODUCTION 

BY AGUSTÍN UDÍAS 

Introduction to the Relationship 

between Science and Religion / 5 

PART II: TEILHARD DE CHARDIN 

BY AGUSTÍN UDÍAS 

Teilhard de Chardin and the Current Dialogue 

between Science and Religion / 45 

BY IGNACIO NÚÑEZ DE CASTRO 

The Bio-Philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin / 61 

BY MANUEL G. DONCEL 

Creation in Evolution: Philosophical 

and Theological Perspective / 79 

PART III: BARBOUR, PEACOCKE AND POLKINGHORNE 

BY JAVIER MONSERRAT 

Science and Religion in Ian G. Barbour / 93 

Science, Biochemistry 

and Panentheism in Arthur Peacocke / 115 

John Polkinghorne, Science 

and Religion from theoretical physics / 131 

PART IV: CONCLUSION 

BY MANUEL G. DONCEL 

The Kenosis of the Creator / 157 

PART V: SOPHIA-IBERIA IN EUROPE / 173 

MATTER /177 

UNIVERSE / 185 

LIFE / 191 

MAN AND NEUROLOGY / 199 

FORMAL SCIENCES: / 207 

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY / 215

Why the anthropic principle? 

PROLOGUE 


CHRISTINE HELLER DEL RIEGO 

UNIVERSIDAD PONTIFICIA COMILLAS, MADRID 

The history of life on Earth is estimated in 50 billion species, of which only around 50 million 

are still alive today. Why consider the anthropic principle? If man has been evolutionarily 

possible, we must postulate, within a general evolutionary paradigm, that the ontology of 

primordial matter already had certain anthropic properties which made the organization of an 

anthropic universe possible. But how long will Homo Sapiens survive? Species either die 

outright, like dinosaurs, or they evolve into something different (“transformed out of 

existence”). As Denis Edwards puts it: “the loss of biodiversity is a theological issue”, 

especially when the extinction of other species is caused by human beings. Will man be able 

to control the environment and stop his own extinction or will we continue to evolve and 

eventually become something else? 

The Sophia Iberia Project is searching for the anthropic roots of human evolution. The 

reflection on the anthropic properties, which make the emergence of the human being from 

matter possible, is essential in order to correctly understand human nature, including the 

nature and the functional use of reason. However, we consider that the grand metaphysical 

questions of humanity and the questions on the final meaning of life remain open, in the new 

scientific image of the world. Therefore, Sophia-Iberia would like to go beyond the purely 

scientific by addressing the ideological, philosophical and theological problems from the 

point of view of science. 

The content of this book is an introduction to the general themes of the science-religion 

dialogue from the perspective of the Sophia-Iberia Project. The essays can be grouped as 

follows into four parts: I - A systematic historical introduction to the science-religion 

dialogue, written by Prof. Agustín Udías. II – Three essays on the teilhardian interpretation of 

the evolutionary process, written by Professors Agustín Udías, Ignacio Núñez de Castro and 

Manuel G. Doncel. III - Three essays that present and discuss the work of three great masters 

of the science and religion debate: Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne, 

written by Prof. Javier Monserrat. IV - A conclusion by Prof. Manuel G. Doncel reflecting on 

the notion of the kenosis of a God Creator in nature. 

In order to present the description and the open questions of the Sophia-Iberia Project, six 

framework documents (Matter; Universe; Life; Man and Neurology; Formal Sciences; 

Philosophy and Theology) were written to help instigate the reflection on human evolution, 

that through science – which presents a universe in constant evolution that produced the 

human being – leads to the big questions that connect to metaphysics and theology. These 

documents were introduced during our Academic Conference, “Human Evolution: in search 

of our anthropic roots”, that took place in September 2007 in Madrid and are included here in 

Part V of this volume to stimulate interest and better understand the endeavour of the Sophia- 

Iberia Project. 

God Seen by Science: Anthropic Evolution of the Universe 1


The introducción of A. Udías is not merely a history of the science-religion dialogue, but also 

a systematic analysis of its nature. Udías tells us that “Science, a term which we use here in its 

restricted sense as natural science, and religion are, undoubtedly, the two grand visions of the 

world. Although there are other visions, such as the artistic, these two have an extension and 

force which places them as the two most important ways of looking at the world. Science 

attempts to understand the nature of the material world which surrounds us, how it came 

about, how we know it and the laws which govern it. Religion seeks the meaning of life and 

the world, it transcends the material and puts man in contact with what lies beyond, the 

numinous, the mysterious, in short, with the mystery of God”. “Therefore, it is of much 

interest to study the relationships between these two grand visions of the world. The 

interaction between them goes back to the very origins of science in the first great 

civilisations and especially to the beginning of modern science in the XVI century. However, 

the explicit issue of the relationship between both originated in the XIX century. As we will 

see in detail, at that time people began to reflect on the relationship between science and 

religion and began to propose opinions on these. Opposing postures which were apologetic in 

both senses were frequent at the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX century”. 

An exceptional protagonist and pioneer of the science-religion discussion in the Catholic 

Church was, without any doubt, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The development of his thoughts 

begins in the 1930’s and represent values that connect to the center of interest of Sophia- 

Iberia: the study of mankind in the dynamic evolutionary process of the cosmos and the first 

grand attempt to construct a “theology of science”; that is, an attempt to reformulate Christian 

theology from the new anthropology of modern science. For many jesuit scientists Teilhard 

has been over the last years a role model, although that does not imply that they ignore that 

Teilhard died in 1955 and that many of his intuitions probably need a critical reformulation. 

The article of A. Udías studies Teilhard from a point of view of his influence in the sciencereligion 

debate. In the next essay, I. Núñez de Castro offers a systematic exposition of the biophilosophy 

of Teilhard, followed by the essay of M. García Doncel who explains how the 

evolutionary ideas of Teilhard were extended by other relevant authors of the Catholic 

community. Karl Rahner reformulated his theology under the influence of teilhardian thought; 

but it was Karl Schmitz-Moormann who conceived a new developmental synthesis of 

Teilhard from the idea of a “cosmos created for freedom”. Finally, in the synthesis offered by 

Doncel, the interpretation of evolution in Christian theology would have encountered 

continuity in the vision of the “evolutionary cosmos” that has been recently proposed by 

Denis Edwards. The three articles of this set present the fertility of the evolutionary thought of 

Teilhard and some of its ramifications in the current Christian theology. 

The three essays of J. Monserrat also present a unified ensemble and complement the classical 

teilhardian perspective. Apart from Teilhard, in the last 30 years of the XX century, a series of 

important authors have been recognized as modern “maestros” in the reflection of science 

projected on Christian theology. Amongst others, three scholars of renowned prestige are: Ian 

Barbour, Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne. Monserrat presents and discusses the work 

of these three grand authors, offering a synthesis of their thoughts that can be useful as a 

systematic introduction of them. These three articles, apart from their expositionary content, 

an indepth discussion from a precise point of view: the theology offer of kenosis. Science 

reveals a world where it is realistic to talk about God as creator. But it also reveals an 

enigmatic universe where God is not required and it is possible to construct an interpretation 

without God. A God that does not impose His presence in the world is a God that creates the 

cosmos as a scenario for human freedom. 

2 

God Seen by Science: Anthropic Evolution of the Universe


The logic of the essays collected in this volume can very well lead us to conclude that the 

“theology of kenosis” is the “theology of science” that permits a description of the scientifictheological 

reflections at the beginning of the XXI century. That is why this book concludes 

with a text written by M. G. Doncel about the kenosis of the Creator. Doncel tells us that 

“Beyond these time-space elements of the kenosis of the Creator, the anthropic elements are 

related to human beings –or in general to free and responsible creatures. Without a doubt, the 

most radical of this kenosis is the acceptation that such creatures do not correspond to his 

loving plan, but that they reject Him as God, in other words, the permission of sin. Such 

permission appears a necessary condition in order that a true created freedom can exist”. 

The aim of this book was to offer the participants of the Metanexus Conference 2008 a series 

of essays and documents prepared by members of Sophia-Iberia. It was conceived as a 

collection of introductory lectures on the field of transcendent reflections: the image of the 

numinous, of God, of the theological, of the diverse religious traditions, of the Christian 

theology … that can be constructed from an anthropology based on the results of modern 

science. 

The basic reading material that is compiled here can be completed with the essays presented 

in the first two volumes of the series “Ciencia, Filosofía y Religión” of the Journal 

PENSAMIENTO. Many questions remain unanswered along with challenging fields of 

research that should continue to be developped to create a new culture in which reflection on 

science allows us to know what we can freely expect in the future of the enigmatic 

metaphysical dimension of the universe. 


Introduction to the Relationship between Science and Religion 

PART I: INTRODUCTION 

Introduction to the Relationship 

between Science and Religion 

AGUSTÍN UDÍAS 

UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE, MADRID 

1. Two visions of the world 

Science, a term which we use here in its restricted sense as natural science, and religion 

are, undoubtedly, the two grand visions of the world. 

Although there are other visions, such as the artistic, these two have an extension 

and force which places them as the two most important ways of looking at the world. 

Science attempts to understand the nature of the material world which surrounds us, 

how it came about, how we know it and the laws which govern it. Religion seeks the 

meaning of life and the world, it transcends the material and puts man in contact with 

what lies beyond, the numinous, the mysterious, in short, with the mystery of God. 

No one can doubt the importance of science and its practical consequences for the 

lives of men. The lives of modern men are progressively more influenced by science 

and its applied side, technology, and is the vision which most impresses. It is difficult 

for man today to conceive of the world without the progress which technology puts 

within his reach, which provide him with possibilities unknown before and which 

penetrate all aspects of his life. To mention only a few, there is transport and 

communications which have transformed the Earth into a global village. The speed and 

facility of transport have meant that intercontinental travel is today a normal experience. 

The rapid extension of the mobile telephone, even in underdeveloped countries, the PC 

and access to the Internet are essential instruments in today’s world. In addition, there is 

the enormous progress made by medicine which has extended life expectancy to levels 

never achieved before. Behind technology is science which contains the basis which 

makes the functioning of all this progress possible. Science, especially, provides man 

with an image of the universe, knowledge of the structure of matter, of the mechanisms 

of life, of what man himself is, in short, of the reality that surrounds us. Terms which 

were unknown until a few years ago, such as nuclear power, quarks, the big-bang, 

DNA and the genome, have become familiar to us, although most persons have only a 

confused idea of what they mean. Today we cannot doubt the primacy of science and 

technology in the lives of men. We live in a culture which has a profound dependence 

on technology for its functioning and well-being and on science for its understanding of 

reality. 

Religion whose roots go back to the first vestiges we have of primitive man and 

which plays a determining role in the first cultures, today continues to be an important 

factor in the lives of men. Structured in the different religious traditions and forming 

communities united by shared beliefs and rites, religions continue to offer man another 

vision of the world, which is not limited to the scope of the purely natural, but rather 

opens up to transcendent realities, man can enter into contact with. On the horizon, 

recognised by different names depending on the traditions, is the reality of God, 

recognised as the source of religious experience. Despite the secularising tendencies, 

which we will speak of below, in the more developed countries and those which are 



most influenced by the technical scientific phenomenon, religion continues to be a 

living force which cannot be ignored. 

Faced with these two visions of the world, it should not surprise us that, in 1925, 

the North American philosopher Alfred N. Whitehead mentioned that, “when one 

considers what religion represents for humanity and what science is, it is not an 

exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends on the decision this 

generation takes regarding the relation between these. Here we have the two general, 

strongest forces which influence man and which seem to place themselves against each 

other, the force of our religious intuitions and the force of our impulse to make precise 

observations and logical deductions” 1 . After more than 80 years have passed since 

Whitehead wrote those words, the problem continues to be alive and the relationship 

between the two grand visions of the world continue to be a preoccupation. Edward O. 

Wilson, biologist and creator of socio-biology, stated in a recent interview that, “science 

and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. I beg the religious 

persons…to leave aside their differences with materialist lay persons and scientists like 

me, and join us to save the planet” 2 . Wilson recognises the force of science and religion 

and the need for them to unite to save nature threatened by man himself. 

Therefore, it is of much interest to study the relationships between these two grand 

visions of the world. The interaction between them goes back to the very origins of 

science in the first great civilisations and especially to the beginning of modern science 

in the 16th century. However, the explicit issue of the relationship between both 

originated in the 19th century. As we will see in detail, at that time people began to 

reflect on the relationship between science and religion and began to propose opinions 

on these. Opposing postures which were apologetic in both senses were frequent at the 

end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20 th century. After the Second World War, new 

more conciliatory attitudes began to extend, at the same time as this matter became an 

academic discipline with specific courses in many universities, especially in the Anglo- 

American environment. The Templeton Foundation, whose centre is in Philadelphia, 

has awarded 1000 of these courses each year since 1995. This Foundation was 

established by the financier John Templeton in 1987 and dedicates all its endeavours to 

encouraging activities related to the dialogue between science and religion. Since 1972, 

Templeton has granted a special award to the most outstanding personalities who have 

distinguished themselves in the progress of research or discovery concerning spiritual 

realities and the dialogue between science and religion. The monetary allocation of this 

award is greater than that of the Nobel Prize. One of the most active centres in the study 

of the relationship between science and religion is the “Center for Theology and the 

Natural Sciences” (CTNS), founded in 1981 in the multi-confessional school of 

Theology “Graduate Theological Union” in Berkeley, California. The CTNS organises 

courses and seminars every year in several parts of the world on subjects related to the 

dialogue between science and religion and has been publishing the Theology and 

Science journal since 2003. The oldest journal dealing with this subject and the most 

prestigious is, Zygon, published in Chicago, by several organisations, especially the 

“Institute on Religion in an Age of Science” (IRAS) founded in 1954. Among more 

than 50 organisations throughout the world dedicated to this subject due to its proximity 

and importance is the “European Society for the Study of Science and Theology” 

(ESSSAT), which holds biannual meetings from 1986. 2. Three focuses 

1 

Alfred N. Whitehead, 1925. Science and the Modern World. New York: The Free Press, 181-182. 

2 Interview made to Edward O. Wilson. El País, Sunday June 11, 2006. 

6 



The relationship between science and religion can be focused from several points of 

view. The most important among these can be grouped into three, the historical, the 

epistemological and the sociological. 

Religion and science are cultural phenomenons which have been present throughout 

history. Sometimes there is the danger of supposing that science begins with modern 

science of the Renaissance, and we forget the previous developments. This is a serious 

error as the birth of modern science cannot be understood without the previous scientific 

developments. Going back to the dawn of science in ancient times we can find 

interactions with religion. Of special interest is the relationship between Christianity and 

science, as modern science begins precisely in Western Christianity. This relationship 

begins with the first Christian authors of the third century and continues to our days. 

Sometimes erroneous conclusions on this relationship are simplified and presented 

when its passage through time is not taken into account. The historical focus is, 

therefore, essential if we are to achieve a correct vision of the problem. 

Religion and science constitute forms to approach reality, that is to say, forms of 

knowledge with their distinct peculiarities. Therefore, it is important to study the 

different natures of each of these and the relationship which can be established between 

scientific and religious knowledge. This reflection belongs to the field of philosophy. 

Philosophical reflection and specifically epistemological reflection are essential for 

understanding the relationship between science and religion as forms of knowledge. 

Faith and religious experience form the foundation of religious knowledge which is 

formalised in theology, while scientific knowledge is formed by the formal framework 

of laws and theories, related to an empirical base of experiments and observations. To 

clearly establish the nature and the limits of these types of knowledge is fundamental if 

we are to correctly establish the relationship between both. 

Religion and science are also social phenomena. Their sociological aspects are, 

therefore, very important for knowing the relationship between them. This aspect is less 

well known and is rarely taken into account. Science and religion form two complex 

social systems which group individual and collective experiences and which have their 

norms and standards of conduct which give rise to the formation of communities with 

their own types of knowledge and languages. Both communities interconnect with 

society in general through codes of acceptance, prestige, etc and, therefore, contact each 

other. The assertion of positions of social influences has led, at times, to confrontations 

between them. The regulatory incidence of religion on the conduct which leads to 

ethical proposals interacts with the practice of science, which cannot ignore the ethical 

problems which might arise regarding science. The growing preoccupation of society 

concerning ethical problems related to science today opens up new field for 

relationships with religious thought. 

3. Presupposition for interaction 

Before briefly analysing what is understood by science and religion, we must take some 

previous considerations into account. In the first place, let us consider what we 

understand by experience. This is a very general concept which groups together diverse 

types of interaction of the person with reality and the other persons surrounding him. 

Experiences occur at different levels. There is a level which we can call daily 

experience, which constitutes the least developed and reflective level of our daily 

contacts with the reality in which we live. This experience is often taken for granted, 

and is full of automatic reactions so that it remains at the non-reflective level. At this 

level, we accept the reality of our environment with no critical reactions. If we turn this 



daily experience into a reflective experience our lives would become a martyrdom. The 

experience of our relationship with other persons has a special character within this first 

level. In this regard, when we leave the first level, a special personal relationship in 

which we recognise the other is established with the person we know with a knowledge 

which is different from daily realities in which persons might be present, but we do not 

communicate with them personally. These types of experiences imply the recognition of 

a communication in which we are known and know and in which mutual emotional 

relationships are established. Beyond these two types of experiences there are a variety 

of more reflective experiences which include different types of activities, for example, 

the artistic, in the fields of literature, music, painting or sculpture. Listening to good 

music or looking at a beautiful painting are special types of experiences. Again the same 

can be said of the study of any subject. 

With regard to the subject in question, we must speak of the religious experience 

and the scientific experience. These are two types of very different experiences which 

must be borne in mind. The religious experience has many different forms, depending 

on the levels and the religious traditions the person participates in. In general, one can 

speak of faith as an essential component of this experience, as we shall see below. 

Recognising this experiential level of religion is very important if we want to establish 

its relationship with science correctly. On the other hand, scientific experience is related 

to the practice of science, in the empirical aspect of observations and experiments or in 

the more formal aspect of theoretical developments involved in its desire to understand 

natural phenomena. A new discovery is an unrepeatable experience of the understanding 

of an aspect of nature for the scientist. 

The human group which participates in the same type of experience forms a 

community. From this point of view, we can speak of the religious community and the 

scientific community. Here the sociological aspects we spoke of before come into play. 

Belonging to a community entails the acceptance of a number of presuppositions which 

are normative and standards of conduct. The communities are subdivided into smaller, 

specific communities, as, for example, in the case of religion, are the different religious 

traditions and the different churches within the Christian community. Within the 

scientific community are the different sciences, such as physics, chemistry, biology, etc 

and within each of these, other communities with more restricted specialities. In religion 

and in science, the communities are subdivided into smaller groups with more specific 

aims such as theoretical physics or Benedictine monks. We will see later how, in these 

social aspects, there are more similarities among the scientific and religious 

communities than is generally thought. One person can belong to several communities 

and sub-communities and, specifically, can participate in both the scientific and the 

religious community. 

The form of communication of the experiences within a community determines the 

language of each one of these. Each community develops its own language adapted to 

the type of experience it wants to communicate. Specialization in a type of specific 

experiences leads to the development of languages which are progressively less 

understandable outside the community. This creates a difficulty in communication 

between different communities. It is well known that there is a difficulty to establish 

points of view which are truly interdisciplinary and even the less demanding multidisciplinary. 

In our case, the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of religious and scientific 

languages and the difficulty which might exist as regards establishing a dialogue 

between them. We must be aware of the linguistic barriers which must be overcome in 

order to establish a true relationship between science and religion. 

8 



4. Science and technology 

It is advisable to establish some basic ideas on what constitutes science and what 

constitutes religion. It is not easy to define science. In 1998 the American Physical 

Society proposed achieving a definition of science which most scientists would agree to. 

After several formulations the project was abandoned due to the lack of agreement. The 

definition which was most acceptable defined science as , “a disciplined search in order 

to understand nature in all its aspects ... requiring an open and complete exchange of 

ideas and data ... and an attitude of scepticism regarding its own results”. Stress was laid 

on the fact that the results must be capable of being reproduced, modified or falsified by 

independent observers and, finally, that the scientists value other complementary points 

of view and methods to understand nature, but if the alternatives can be called scientific, 

they must comply with the principles proposed 3 . The proposal was due to the 

preoccupation of the scientists concerning the attention given to many proposals by the 

public, such as astrology and paranormal phenomena, which should be termed pseudoscience. 

According to John Ziman, a physicist and philosopher of science, science can be 

defined as a human activity directed at the organised knowledge of nature, based on 

observation and experiment and expressed in laws and theories, through an unequivocal 

public language (ideally mathematical), guaranteed by the controls of the scientific 

community 4 . In this definition, stress is laid on the dynamic character of science and its 

two most important components which are the empirical basis of observations and 

experiments and the formal framework of laws and theories. Science is characterised as 

public knowledge and it endeavours to achieve an unequivocal formal language, 

unbound by cultural contexts and whose ultimate ideal is mathematical language. 

Similar to this definition is the one given recently by V. V. Raman which defines it as: a 

collective intellectual effort of the human mind in order to understand the aspects of the 

world as a perceived reality in terms of conceptual categories with the aid of 

mathematical analysis and a crafted instrumentation 5 . These two definitions are only a 

sample of the many which have been proposed, and their presentation at this point is 

aimed only at making a first approach to its difference with religion. From the point of 

view of the practice of science, the distinction proposed by Ziman between “academic 

science” and “industrial science” can help 6 . The former refers to the science practised in 

universities and research centres and corresponds to what is sometimes called “pure 

science” or “fundamental science”, with characteristics focused on the search for 

knowledge of the world around us. The latter is science directed or sponsored by 

industry with more specific objectives which are more related to technology and is 

sometimes called “applied science”. The practice of science which we know today is a 

relatively recent phenomenon, which has been developed since the end of the 18th and 

the beginning of the 19th century, especially with the reformation of the European 

universities and the industrial revolution. Previous to this time, science was practised by 

individuals, with only some institutions, such as the Royal Society of London, created 

in 1642 or the Académie de Sciences of Paris in 1666. Ziman insists that, until the 

1950s, these two types of science were clearly differentiated, but today, science has new 

3 C. Macilwain, 1998. Physicists seek a definition of science. Nature 392, 849. 

4 J. Ziman, 1978. La credibilidad de la science. Madrid: Alianza, especially 13-25. 

5 

V.V. Raman, 2004. Science and Religion: some demarcation criteria. Zygon 36, 541-556. 

6 

J. Ziman, 2000. Real Science. What it is and what it means. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 



characteristics where this difference is being deleted and he calls the new science “postacademic”. 

Related to science is technology which can be defined as the application of 

scientific knowledge to the resolution of practical problems, related to the needs of 

individuals and society in several areas (healthcare, transport, communications, 

production of energy, weapons, etc.). Behind technology, there is always scientific 

knowledge which it is based on. The separation of these components is becoming more 

and more difficult today. The scientific projects which are today termed big science, for 

example, the space programme or the large particle accelerators, involve a large number 

of scientists and engineers where the scientific and the technological part are closely 

united. The growing combination of the two leads us to consider them to be a single 

phenomenon called “technoscience”. This combination of science and technology 

corresponds in a way to what Ziman has called the post-academic era of science. 

5. Characteristics of science 

With the sole objective of clarifying the relationship between science and religion it is 

important to propose some of the characteristics of science. In the first place, we find 

experimentation, that is to say, the reference to experiments and observations. Without 

this reference it is not possible to speak of a proposition as scientific. The logical 

positivists, involved in establishing the criteria which separate scientific knowledge 

from what is not scientific, proposed the verifiability in experience as criteria. Although 

it was later seen that this criteria cannot be made in the strict form, the empirical basis 

of science is an essential component. Scientific knowledge must always be related to 

observations and experiments, although this relationship is not always easy to establish. 

The second component is formalization, that is to say, the inclusion of 

observational components within a formal framework of laws and theories. This formal 

framework constitutes the nucleus of science. When we speak of scientific knowledge, 

we refer to the laws and theories which explain or describe the conduct of nature. This 

formal framework must be expressed with unequivocal language, unbound by cultural 

or social limitations. The ideal language is mathematical due to the level of 

formalisation and its independence from other conditioners. A mathematical equation 

means the same for any person of any culture. The process of mathematisation of 

science, however, limits the aspects of nature to be considered in science to those which 

are somehow susceptible to measurement. This limitation must be taken into account. 

A third important component of science is publicity. Observations, experiments 

and scientific languages must be public, recognisable and repeatable by all. The 

repeatability of the experiments is a necessary condition if they are to be considered as 

scientific. The results of an experiment or an observation which cannot be repeated and 

verified by other researchers cannot be considered to be part of science. This component 

is very related to what is called “scientific objectivity”. This is a complex problem, as 

we will see below, however, we must say that we cannot naively consider “objectivity” 

as an absolute correspondence with reality. Objectivity in science must be understood to 

be the property of inter-subjective or co-participated knowledge which is guaranteed by 

the scientific community. This is how the concepts of validity or truth must also be 

understood (the latter must be employed with extreme care) as these are finally based on 

the acceptance of the scientific community under controls in reference always to 

empirical data 7 . Although it is a little surprising, the scientific community is really the 

7 

10 

The critique of Ziman is very enlightening in this matter which he calls scientific objectivity (Ziman, 



ultimate guarantor of the reliability of science. However, we can “trust” in the results of 

science for the security offered by the controls which are imposed by the scientific 

community. 

A final component which must be considered is the relationship between scientific 

knowledge and reality. This is a complicated, difficult problem involving a range of 

positions which go from naïve realism to pure instrumentalism. The former sustains that 

the propositions of science directly correspond to reality and the latter that these are 

mere instruments which make it possible to describe phenomena. Throughout history, 

the analysis of scientific knowledge has led to many intermediary critical attitudes. This 

problem is also very important as regards establishing the relationships between science 

and religion. In a way, both refer and relate though in different ways to the real world in 

which we live. 

6. Classification of the sciences 

In accordance with the fundamental nature of the subjects dealt with, the sciences can 

be classified as follows: physics – chemistry – biology – psychology – sociology. The 

first three form the natural sciences and the last two the human sciences, as the subject 

of study of these is man and the relationships between men. Geology and geography and 

other sciences related to these, such as geophysics, meteorology and oceanography are 

applications of physics, chemistry and biology to the phenomena of the earth. 

Astronomy and astrophysics can be considered as applications of physics to 

cosmological phenomena and the nature of stars. Medicine can be considered to be an 

application of biology to human pathology and is astride science and technology. The 

sciences directly related to technology constitute the branches of engineering. 

Mathematics constitutes the ideal formal language of all the sciences. Physics is the 

most mathematised science and its theories must always be presented in mathematical 

form; therefore, it only deals with quantifiable components of nature. Other sciences 

have not yet achieved this level of mathematisation and they involve many qualitative 

and descriptive components. That all sciences must finally reach a total level of 

mathematisation, as in physics, is a debatable problem. Also under discussion is 

whether all the phenomena of nature, including those regarding man and human affairs 

can be treated mathematically. 

The separation between the different sciences is somewhat artificial and today there 

are intermediate sciences between two, such as biochemistry and chemistry-physics. In 

the classification we have given, the content of the phenomena dealt with in each 

science is more complex than the content of the preceding one. Therefore, each science 

is based on the preceding one although it is not quite reduced to this. For example, 

although biology is based on chemistry, its study of living beings is not totally reduced 

to the principles of chemistry, nor to those of physics. Physics deals with the most 

elementary particles of the constitution of matter and the forces operating between 

them, thus, it is at the base of all other sciences. However, it cannot be said that the 

other sciences only apply physical principles to progressively more complex 

phenomena. Each science has its own principles, and, although there is a language 

common to all the sciences, each one has also its own language. Thus, the sciences 

which deal with man, such as psychology and sociologic are based on their own 

2000). 



principles. The proposal that the principles of each science are based totally on those of 

the preceding science is known as “reductionism”. 

7. Religion and theology 

Just as we have found it difficult to propose a definition of science, the same problem 

exists with the definition of religion. Given the extreme complexity and variety of the 

religious phenomenon, it is not easy to find a definition which takes in all its common 

components. Sometimes, in order to apply it to movements which somehow participate 

in the characteristics of religion, but are not considered as such totally, the term 

“religiosity” is used. In this regard, as we shall see below, today we speak of “natural 

religiosity”. Both religion and religiosity, generally, can be considered to be systems of 

beliefs generating a meaning of life and values which guide personal and social conduct, 

which are generally expressed in rites and which may found communities. We have 

included in this description, rather than a definition, several components which appear 

in the majority of religions or religiosities. In the first place, we include faith or belief 

which supposes the acceptance of a reality which is not strictly demonstrated rationally, 

although it may be rational. We mean that the basics of religion cannot be strictly 

demonstrated although there are signs which move us to accepting it. The objective of 

religion is not to explain the functioning of the world and its material structure, but to 

discover the meaning of existence of the world and of man. The provision of principles 

to guide human conduct is also proper to religion and religiosity. For the person who 

adheres to a religion this implies a conduct in life. This is another aspect which 

differentiates religion from science, which in itself does not imply any type of principles 

as regards the conduct of scientists. 

In the area of religion we can distinguish religion, properly speaking, as what 

maintains the acceptance of a reality (God), above the material, transcendent or 

immanent, who man can relate to and is structured in religious traditions which create 

communities of life. More diffusely, we can consider as religious those attitudes which 

affect the vision of the universe and the relationships between men and which, in some 

cases, suppose a certain acceptance of the presence of the numinous or mysterious. 

Today we also speak of a natural or naturalist religiosity, which does not imply the 

presence of mystery and includes only the purely natural. Related to religion and 

religiosity is the use today of the term spirituality, whose meaning is not very precise 

and is sometimes contradictory, and commences from the interior and mystical 

dimension of the person and human experience. In general, spirituality is related to 

religions, thus we speak of Christian or Buddhist spirituality, but spirituality can also be 

referred to attitudes based on the acceptance of cosmic forces or a universal mind, 

which transcend the limits of a strictly materialist interpretation. However, it is also 

possible to speak of a naturalist spirituality, which does not entail the presence of the 

numinous, but accepts a spiritual dimension of reality which can be contained in the 

purely natural. 

Theology constitutes the structured formulation of religious thought. Although the 

term itself, according to its Greek roots, means science or discourse (logos) concerning 

God (Theos), more generally it can be applied to any formalisation of religion or 

religiosity, even though this does not involve a clear idea of divinity. In the 11 th century, 

St. Anselm of Canterbury defined Christian theology as the faith which seeks to 

understand (fides quaerens intellectum). This concise definition, often cited today, 

connects the two parts of the theological task, faith which is the basis of the religious 

attitude and understanding which represents the search for a reason to clarify this. 

12 



Although theology, in the strict sense, is traditionally referred to Christian thought, the 

term can also be applied to other religious traditions and one can speak of an Islamic 

and Hindu theologies. The similarity of the theological task and the scientific task has 

led some authors to consider the relationship of science and theology rather than the 

relationship with religion. 

8. Levels of religiosity 

The phenomena of religion and religiosity are very complex, and this can be appreciated 

in the high number of different religions and the divisions among each of these. Besides 

the religions, which are clearly definable as such, there are personal attitudes which are 

not linked to any religious communities and which we can group under the term of 

religiosities. All of these are difficult to classify. Simply, and possibly in a simplistic 

manner, it is possible to establish a gradation in religiosity in accord with a greater 

presence of acceptance of the idea of God and His action in the world in the following 

five degrees: 

Naturalist: There is no reality beyond the natural which can be materialist or 

spiritualist. 

Of mystery: Accept the existence of an unachievable mystery which manifests 

itself in nature with no personal character. 

Pantheist: God is identified with all reality. There is no separation of God and the 

world. 

Deist: The existence of a transcendent God, creator and designer, but he does not 

intervene in the world. 

Theist: God is creator and provident with a personal character and intervenes in 

the world and relates with man. 

Besides these positions, the negative positions of atheism and agnosticism which 

explicitly deny the idea of divinity or the possibility to know divinity must be taken into 

consideration. 

8.1. Naturalist religiosity 

Naturalist religiosity is a relatively recent current whose major presence is in North 

America and is acquiring a growing importance. This involves the attempt to generate 

attitudes, traditionally linked to religion, such as the search for meaning, a reverential 

sentiment regarding life, contact with the totality of reality, recognition of human 

confraternity, respect for nature, etc., from the sole acceptance of the reality of the 

sensitive world. This religiosity may have a materialist character if only the existence 

of matter is admitted, or spiritualist if spiritual realities are accepted, but with no 

connection with anything supernatural. It involves the search for the meaning of reality 

from pure naturalness, with the acceptance of the finiteness of all that is natural (the 

death of the individual, of humanity, of the universe) and the proposal of a purely 

natural ethic. In some tendencies, stress is laid on a sense of reverence for nature, as 

expressed by the astrophysicist Carl Sagan. This attitude is present in some ecologist 

movements. Sometimes laicism also has naturalist religiosity characteristics and people 

speak of a “sacred laicism” (sacré laicité). 

Although there are many tendencies in this religiosity, the following principles can 

be proposed as being basic to them. The first is that only the world of nature is real, that 

is to say, all reality is reduced to the purely natural, and it is not possible to speak of any 

kind of transcendence. The second, nature is necessary in itself, that is to say, it does not 



require any reason beyond itself to explain its origin, its existence, or ontological 

foundation. From these two principles it follows that nature, as a whole, can be totally 

understood without having to propose any other reality on which it depends, nor any 

other finality beyond itself. Therefore, in nature, as regards each event which takes 

place in it there are only natural reasons. Naturalism implies a materialist or physical 

vision of reality although some versions accept spiritual realities, only accepted as 

aspects of nature. 

8.2. Religion of mystery 

Under this heading we understand the attitudes of some scientists who see the presence 

of a sense of the mysterious in the rationality of the universe, inexplicable by science. 

This type of religiosity is differentiated from the previous one as it accepts the presence 

of something mysterious, not understandable by science and beyond the purely natural, 

which is sensed and revealed in the order of the universe. This type of religiosity is 

described by Albert Einstein when he says, “The most beautiful and most profound 

experience which a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. This is the founding 

principle of religion, as it is of all scientific and artistic undertakings”; he later stated, 

“Feeling that, behind each thing we can experiment, there is something our minds 

cannot understand and whose beauty and sublimity only reaches us indirectly like a 

weak reflection, this is religiosity. In this sense, I am religious” and also, “Below all the 

relationships discernible, there is something subtle, intangible, inexplicable. The 

veneration of this force beyond all we can understand is my religion.” 8 These words of 

Einstein show us this type of religiosity, which is also found in other scientists and is 

founded in the acknowledgement of a mystery which can be discovered in the Universe, 

beyond our understanding, which is not identified with the world itself, but does not 

have the characteristics of a personal, creator God. 

8.3. Pantheism, deism and theism 

These three types of religious positions have in common the fact that they accept an 

idea of God, as a being understood in some way as the root of the world. The two basic 

ideas which must be taken into account are the immanence and transcendence of God, 

which appear to a greater or lesser extent in each religious tradition. Immanence 

describes the presence of God in the world and transcendence his being beyond it. In 

pantheism, which has many versions, stress is laid on immanence to achieve 

identification of God with the world and the world with God. The relationship between 

the world and God is, therefore, that of identification. The grand religious traditions of 

the East such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism are strongly pantheist. At the 

opposite end is the idea of a totally transcendent God, separated from the world that has 

been created by Him. Both deism and theism affirm the existence of a transcendent, 

creator God, the difference between them is that, for the former, once God created the 

world, he no longer intervenes in it. The world functions like a machine, to which God 

has given its laws and which he leaves to function by itself. This mentality was in vogue 

during the 18 th and 19 th centuries among the authors of the Enlightenment and is often 

related to a deterministic mentality derived in part from Newtonian physics. Theism 

sustains a creator, provident God, who acts in the world and is both transcendent and 

immanent. The problem this poses as regards science is how the action of God in the 

8 

A. Einstein, Ciencia y Religion, in K. Wilber, 1987. Cuestiones cuánticas. Barcelona: Kairós, 161- 

170. 

14 



world must be understood without violating the laws of its functioning. The three 

traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are theist religions. The emphasis on the 

immanent or transcendent character of God has also consequences regarding the 

relationships between science and religion. 

8.4. Atheism and agnosticism 

The two negative attitudes to the religious vision are formed by atheism and 

agnosticism. The former implies the explicit negation of God and any recourse to any 

type of supernatural reality 9 . Atheism is present in what we have called naturalist 

religiosity, but is more frequent in the absence of all religiosity. A distinction is 

normally made between theoretical and practical atheism. The latter is confused with 

the attitude of indifference as regards all religious values in practical life. The former 

which implies a positive position against any idea of God, sometimes involves also 

aggressive attitudes against all religious thought. It is also possible to distinguish several 

currents in theoretical atheism. Among these is what we can call scientific atheism, 

which can also be called scientific materialism, which extends the non consideration of 

God in the scientific explanation of nature, to the negation of God in all other areas of 

reality. Another type of atheism, sometimes called moral, is based on the existence of 

evil as incompatible with the existence of God. The scandal of evil becomes the 

decisive argument against the existence of a God, who must be both goodness and 

power. The apparent contradiction between the existence of God and the freedom of 

man is the basis of humanist atheism. If God exists, it argues, freedom of man can only 

be illusory. In practice this atheism leads to the proposal that it is necessary to destroy 

religion so that man can be capable of thinking and acting with no mirages. In this view 

Marx denounced religion as the opium of the people. In the same line of thought, Freud 

denounced religion as a sedative in a world in which man is subject to too much 

suffering and deceptions. 

Agnosticism, a word invented by Thomas Huxley, the propagator of the 

evolutionist doctrine of Darwin, sustains that it is impossible that man can know the 

existence or nature of any transcendent reality. Agnisticism does not establish an 

explicit negation of God, it remains in the attitude which defends that nothing can be 

known about God, not even His existence. For the agnostic the existence or nonexistence 

of God can never be established and the most reasonable attitude is not to opt 

for one or other in this question. This position, which withdraws from both the 

acceptance of God’s existence and the explicit negation of God, is frequently found in 

scientific environments. 

8.5. The grand religious traditions 

In the first place, we should recognize the generality and majority character of religion 

in the world and the richness and variety of its expressions. In fact, according to the 

Encyclopaedia Britannica (2000), in the world 85% of people acknowledge that they 

are religious, while only 15% are non-religious or atheists. At global level the main 

religious traditions group together the following figures, in millions and in percentages 

of the total religious population, Christianity 1974 millions, 33%; Islam 1155 millions, 

20%, Hinduism 799 millions, 13%, Buddhism 356 millions, 6%, Taoism 382 millions, 

6%. In Europe considering the total number of inhabitants, Christianity accounts for 

559 million, 77%, Islam 31 million, 4% and the number of those who declare that they 

are not religious amount to 130 million, 18%. These figures respond to statistics which 

9 

H. Küng, 1979. ¿Existe Dios? Madrid: Cristiandad, 269-463. 



count religious persons as those who declare themselves as such, regardless of how they 

practice their religions. This should be taken into account when judging certain statistics 

on the religions which often reflect the positions taken up by those who implement these 

and interpret them. Here it is sufficient to say that, despite the secularised tendencies of 

the modern world, religion continues to be a majority phenomena. Among the plurality 

of religious forms there follows a brief description of what we consider to be the most 

important religious traditions 10 . 

What is today called Hinduism is the sum of a number of traditional religious 

beliefs in India formed throughout a long tradition and related with each other 11 . More 

than a religion properly speaking it is a range or gro of religions. The essential line in all 

of these is the belief in the presence of the divinity in all beings. The most ancient 

tradition is the pre-Vedic religions about the 20 th century B.C. With the migrations to 

India from the northwest of the Aryan peoples, new religions were introduced which 

were written down in the books called Rig Vedas. The Vedic religion has a background 

of culture to nature personified in many gods in a certain hierarchy, with the god Varuna 

at the summit as a universal presence. The second elaboration of Hinduism religious 

thought is contained in the Upanishad, written about the 7 th century B.C. The central 

idea of the vision of the Upanishad is the concept of Brahma. This idea was already 

present in the Vedas as a mysterious force and is now converted into the supreme, 

infinite, impersonal reality present in the entire universe and which constitutes the 

reality and identity of all of these. Religious thought gyrates around a monist 

conception. Brahma, and only he, is the ultimate reality, thus, ultimately everything is 

one. The sensitive world is appearance and deceit. The road to purification consists of 

shedding deceit and appearances and reaching the contemplation of the only being 

Brahma, as only Brahma is and nothing else is. The ego, consciousness or the individual 

soul, ends up also being identified with Brahma, the universal consciousness. Brahma, 

therefore, is the ultimate principle which is discovered in the depth of reality and the 

individual consciousness what reveals a person in his known depth and both are 

identified. Regarding the problem in question, it is important to remember the 

pantheism and radical monism of Hinduism in which all reality is identified with 

Brahma. The universal and the particular are identified, just as unity and multiplicity, 

the micro-cosmos and the macro-cosmos. There is only one ineffable reality, which 

cannot be known or expressed, in which the difference between being and non-being 

disappears. All is one and all is divine and eternal, and time is an illusion. From this 

there arises a cyclical conception of time with unlimited duration. Hinduism has not 

extended beyond India and it is a religion which is strongly linked to the culture and 

history of this country. 

Contrary to Hinduism, where it arose in the 6 th century B.C., Buddhism is a 

historical religion with a founder, The Indian Prince Siddartha Gautama or Sakyamuni, 

who began to preach in the Ganges basin around 525 B.C. 12 Gautama reacted against 

the excessive formalism of Hinduism, and was especially preoccupied by the problem 

of suffering and pain. He was illuminated and became Buddha (the illuminated one) and 

10 

11 

12 

T. P. Burke, 2004. The Major Religions. London: Blackwell. P. Poupard (ed.), 1987. Diccionario de 

las religiones. Barcelona: Herder. J. Delumeau (ed.), 1995. El hecho religioso. Enciclopedia de las 

grandes religiones. Madrid: Alianza. M. Eliade, 1978-1980, Historia de las creencias y de las ideas 

religiosas. 4 Vols. Madrid: Cristiandad. 

L. Renou (ed.). 1962. Hinduism. New York: George Braziller, 

R. A. Gard (ed.), 1961. Buddhism. New York: George Braziller, 

16 



dedicated himself to extending his message as a way to overcome suffering. The 

original veneration of Buddha as the master became latern object of cult. While 

Hinduism was limited to the peoples of India, the new message of Buddha soon crossed 

the frontiers of India and extended throughout the East, while it practically disappeared 

in India itself. Buddhism has a universalistic vocation and has become known and 

extended in the West since the 19 th century. The central idea of Buddhism is that, faced 

with the universality of suffering, it is necessary to seek to overcome it through interior 

illumination. Therefore, it is a primarily experiential religion or philosophy which has to 

do with existence itself. The root of suffering lies in desire which arises from the ego 

and has a chain of causes, therefore, in order to extinguish suffering, it is necessary to 

extinguish all desire. The extinction of all desire, through knowledge and interior 

liberation, leads to Nirvana, a state of complete passivity, and through this, man 

becomes a Buddha or illuminated. In Buddhism there is no divinity, nor ultimate reality, 

but only a way to interior illumination which leads to an identification with nothingness 

in the perfection of Nirvana. Therefore, it separates from Vedic pantheism and denies 

all essential reality of things of the exterior world. Within the complexity of the 

traditions of Buddhism, there are two main streams or ways, Theravada or Hinayana 

(small way) and Mahayana (grand way). The first spread through Sri Lanka, Thailand 

and Indochina and the second through China, Japan and Korea. 

The traditional Chinese religions go back to the 15 th century B.C. during the Shang 

dynasty and later up to the V century B.C. with the Chou dynasty. Their characteristics 

are very different from the religions of the Semitic or Indian environments. They have a 

strong civic character and are a mixture of philosophy and religion based on the 

structure of the family and the state. One of their characteristics is the importance given 

to the forefathers who become protecting spirits after they die. The origin of the 

religious tradition known as Taoism is linked to the legendary figure of the master 

Laotse (Lao tzu) around the VI century B.C. Its doctrine is framed in the philosophicalreligious 

tradition and there is no clear idea of the divinity. The fundamental idea is 

constituted by the Tao, the way or supreme principle, the origin of all, which is in itself 

the indescribable, a mixture of being and non-being. Unlike other traditions such as 

Buddhism, Taoism has a strong cosmological component. In its vision of the world, 

everything is developed from the Tao, through the action of contraries (ying and yang: 

night and day, masculine and feminine, etc) which represent cosmic energies. 

Everything finally returns to its starting point, in an eternal return in which time is 

cyclical. The Tao represents the authentic real, existing by itself, animated by 

autonomous movement it is a route which moves. As a norm for living, the Tao entails 

abandonment to the impulse which the natural movement exercises over us, simply 

living the mystery which surrounds us. The Tao is in itself the indefinable. It proposes 

solidarity between man, society, nature, the universe. The rhythm of life must be 

adapted to nature, thus, the importance of the calendar and astronomy with the influence 

of the stars. In religious practice it proposes the cult of Heaven, forefathers and family 

and social piety. 

While Taoism stresses nature and its rhythms, the doctrine contained in the writings 

of Confucius (Kung fu tsu) (551-479) B.C. form an ethic or a philosophy of individual 

and social conduct. Confucius had the noble ambition to give the country order and 

peace. His doctrine, therefore, is focused on human relationships, individual-familysociety, 

bases of ethics and politics. The development of the person is at the root of 

family order and social order. One recurring concept is that of humanity or goodness, 

the basis of perfect virtue which implies overcoming oneself and exercising goodness 



towards others, beginning with those closest to us, the family, then the people and the 

State in broader and broader circles. He insists on reverence for parents and the elderly 

and teaches that family ethics is the basis of social and political ethics. Confucius 

teaches that being human is, in itself, a social task. The ultimate finality of his doctrine 

is to achieve political stability and universal peace. The doctrine of Confucius and his 

interpreters became the classical doctrine the Chinese civil servants had to know by 

heart and today it has a strong influence in the countries of the Far East. 

The last three religions we will deal with are theist religions with the transcendent 

figure of a single God (strict monotheism), with a personal character, separated from 

the world, which has been created by him, and in which he acts, establishing a special 

relationship with men which constitutes their salvation. This conception of the creator 

God makes its relationship with science similar, as the three religions acknowledge that 

the world was created. The three also have sacred books (the Jewish Bible, the Christian 

Bible and the Koran) which contain the revelation of God and whose texts, interpreted 

literally as regards natural phenomena, have led to some confrontations with science. 

The three, Judaism, Christianity and Islamism have a common stem, from where they 

have differentiated. This common stem is formed by Judaism, whose most ancient 

origins go back to the tribal religions from which, little by little, a religious unity was 

created in the people of Israel 13 . The formation of the people of Israel places the bases 

of Holy Scripture, the Bible, made up of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the 

Bible, or the Law (Torah), which contains the covenant of God with the people of Israel 

and the laws which the people must obey. After a slow process, the faith of Israel 

evolved into an absolute monotheism (only Yahweh is God) with the rejection of 

idolatry (images of God cannot be made). One key component is that of the alliance 

between God and Israel, conditioned by compliance with the Law. The Scriptures 

(Bible) were composed throughout centuries from the first traditions, around the 9 th 

century B. C. up to the last books in the first century B.C. and they are made up of the 

books which contain the Law, the teachings of the prophets, the Psalms, the books 

relating the history of Israel and the books of wisdom. One characteristic note of 

Judaism is its conception of the history of the people of Israel as history of salvation. 

God is not only the creator of heaven and earth, but is also the God who freed the 

people from slavery in Egypt and guides it throughout time. Its conception of a 

personal, transcendent God who creates the real world and is separate from it and its 

conception of time as linear, Judaism separates from the pantheist conceptions and the 

cyclical times of the eastern religious traditions. 

Christianity arose within the Jewish tradition in the I century and is centred on the 

figure of Jesus of Nazareth 14 . The centre of his preaching is the coming of the kingdom 

of God, the conception of God as the Father and the love of fellow men, as the 

commandment equal to the love of God. Compliance with the Law and the precepts of 

an external piety are considered insufficient as regards a religion which must be 

founded on love. After only three years of preaching, rejected by the religious 

authorities, Jesus was handed over to the Roman authorities who crucified Him. After 

His death, the disciples experienced his resurrection and proclaimed Him Lord and 

Messiah (Christ), the Son of God. The experience of the recognition of Jesus as the Son 

13 

14 

A. Hertzberg (ed.), 1962. Judaism. New York: George Braziller. H. Küng, 

1991. El Judaísmo. Pasado, presente y futuro. Madrid: Trotta 

F. Gogarten, 1977. ¿Qué es el Christianity? Barcelona: Herder; J. Feiner y L. Vischer (eds.), 1977. 

Nuevo libro de la fe cristiana. Barcelona: Herder 

18 



of God, led to a transformation of the very conception of the God of the Jewish tradition 

as now the mystery of the Trinity is recognised, that is to say, the existence of three 

persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in a single God. 

Although Jesus’ first disciples were Jews, Christianity soon opened up to the 

Gentiles and became universal. Soon Christian communities spread throughout the 

Roman Empire. The life of Jesus is told in the four gospels, written between the years 

60 and 100 to which were added the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of some of 

these and, especially, Saint Paul. These writings were added to the Jewish Bible (Old 

Testament) and are called the New Testament. The spread of Christianity was not easy 

and soon found opposition in the Roman Empire until the year 320, when it was 

recognised by Constantine, and in 392 became the official religion of the Empire by an 

edict of Theodosius. During almost four centuries, Christianity interacted with the 

Greek and Roman cultures, especially, with Greek philosophy and science. This would 

give a special characteristic to its relationship with science. 

After the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, Christianity was the religion adopted by 

the western kingdoms which arose after the invasions of the barbarians. During all the 

Middle Ages, the Church had a strong social and cultural influence. The unity of 

Christianity was broken first with the definitive separation of the Orthodox Church in 

the East in 1054. In the West the main division occurred with the Protestant 

Reformation of Luther in 1517 (Evangelical Church), the reformation of Calvin in 1536 

(Reformed Church) and in England with Henry VIII in 1534 (Anglican Church) which 

separated from communion with the Catholic Church. Other protestant denominations 

and sects were created during the 17 th and 19 th centuries (Presbyterian, Pentecostal, 

Quaker, Mormons, etc). From the beginning, missionary work was considered to be a 

necessity and Christianity spread throughout Asia, Africa, America and Oceania. 

Currently Christianity is divided into several churches or denominations in which, 

although they all recognise as their foundation the faith in Jesus Christ, the Lord, the 

doctrine regarding many points has become diversified. However, the desire to find the 

unity lost remains. 

The religion of Islam arose in Arabia and is based on the preaching of Mahomet 

(570-632). Mahomet began to have religious experiences which marked him deeply and 

made him see himself as the receiver of a new, definitive revelation of God 15 . In these 

experiences Mahomet received a new religious message which constituted him as the 

prophet entrusted with spreading these experiences. The preaching of Mahomet is 

included in the Koran, considered to have been revealed by God through the archangel 

Gabriel to Mahomet, and its text was established about 640. Its contents include 

elements of the traditional Arab religions and of the traditions of Judaism and 

Christianity. 

Islam can be considered to be a project of religion and civilisation in which 

religious and social norms are established. From the religious point of view, Islamism is 

based on trusting submission (Islam) of man before God, quite a simple credo with an 

absolute monotheism in the style of Abraham, which Mahomet separated from its 

subsequent Jewish and Christian developments. The proclamation of faith is synthesised 

in: there is only one God (Allah) and Mahomet is his prophet. Above all, the Muslim is 

a person submitted to God who follows the example of the great prophets. With regard 

to the relationship between God and the world, Islamism receives the Jewish-Christian 

tradition of a transcendent, creator God. Besides its religious character, Islam entails a 

social and political organisation, with a code of conduct and laws. Islam spread rapidly, 

15 

J. A. Williams (ed.), 1962. Islam. New York: George Braziller, 



sometimes through trade and sometimes through the force of arms, throughout the 

Middle East, Anatolia, North Africa and Spain and later Iran, Afghanistan and India 

(Pakistan and Bangladesh), East Africa and South-East Asia (Indonesia). At the present 

time, Islam extends along a strip which goes from the west coast of North Africa to 

Indonesia. 

9. Magic 

Magic is a word of Persian origin which means science or wisdom, it is an ancestral 

practice related to religion and science. Despite the progress of the rational explanation 

of the world by science and the purification of religious experience, magic is a 

phenomenon which subsists and is present in all cultures. It can be said that it is based 

on the conviction that there is a “force” in nature which can be captured through 

shrewdness and skill for the benefit or to the detriment of men 16 . Magic is an ancestral 

phenomenon which is present in all the ancient cultures. Today we find it in the 

practices of primitive peoples and also in modern man in which it may represent a never 

lost component of a pre-rational mentality related to a mythical consciousness which 

has never been quite eliminated by intellectual consciousness. This strange inhabitant of 

the human depths is related to the irrational functions of sensation and intuition. It is 

related to the possibility of acquiring powers through certain occult practices only 

known by certain initiated persons. This is a very universal phenomenon since, as Hegel 

said, magic appears in all peoples and in all the eras. 

The relationship between magic and religion is complex, although magic must not 

be considered as a previous, more primitive stage of religion. In fact, all religions 

coexist with magic tendencies 17 . One important component of magic, which is also 

present in religion, is the symbol. Magic exploits the ambivalence of the symbols and 

absolutises them, by transferring the reality of the meaning to the symbol. The image 

becomes a reality and acquires characteristics of the marvellous. This perversion of the 

meaning of the symbol which provides it with magical components must be purified by 

the true religious feeling. Judaism, as is seen in the Old Testament (Deut. 18, 9-14; Lev 

19, 26; 20, 6), strongly opposed magic, as did Christianity from its beginnings (Acts 8, 

9-25). From St. Justin to St. Augustine, the first Christian authors despise magic as a 

manifestation of the evil spirit which deceives and is deceived. Despite all, certain 

tendencies towards magic have always persisted at popular level. 

Magic also has a relationship with science and technology. From ancient times in 

Egypt and Mesopotamia, the practice of astronomy was mixed with religious and magic 

components. The ancient Chaldeans magicians, who flourished in the first century B.C. 

spread the practice of astrology throughout the Roman Empire. At popular level this 

practice still exists. It should be remembered that Kepler supplemented his scant salary 

as Imperial Mathematician with the practice of horoscopy. Science which has presented 

a purely rational image of the world has not managed to exorcise all the magical 

components. In popular environments technology, whose scientific bases are not 

understood, has a certain magical aspect. The relationship which we have seen between 

magic and the acquisition of powers gives a certain magical component to technology. 

In a way, technology has become the magician of our times. 

10. Preliminary considerations 

16 

17 

20 

P. Saintyves, 1914. La force magique. París. Ver en Poupard (1987) Magia. 

M. Eliade, 1983. Imágenes y símbolos. Madrid: Taurus. 



Up to now, we have attempted to present a brief view of the complex phenomena of 

science and religion, before dealing with the problem of the relationships which can be 

established between them. When we speak of science and of religion, it should be borne 

in mind that, in both cases, the realities they take in are very broad and include a great 

variety of meanings. This necessarily affects the relationship between the two. 

Although, as we have seen, there are, of course, common components, their complexity 

must not be forgotten. Considering the personal attitudes which we have called 

religiosities and the religious traditions which we have mentioned, in general, its 

relationship with science will be conditioned by their understanding of the relationship 

between divinity and the world. 

In the case of naturalist religiosity, its rejection of all supernatural reality restricts 

its conception to the purely natural, and, therefore, it assumes that the world is the only 

reality. Regarding the purely materialist currents, it is not necessary to search beyond 

the material world and, therefore, not beyond the image of it provided by science. This 

attitude assumes science as the only source of knowledge of the world. The difficulty of 

this attitude is how to base attitudes regarding the search for meaning or reverence for 

nature itself. Spiritualist naturalism adds the difficulty of explaining what is understood 

by the spiritual dimension and how to integrate this into the world known by science 

which cannot include this dimension. What we have called the religiosity of the 

mystery, starts precisely from the world known by science, in which something beyond 

what science can explain is discovered. This inexplicable factor present in reality is, as 

Einstein said, the base of this type of religiosity. In the thought of some scientists, such 

as the great physicists Heisenberg and Schrödinger, there are certain attitudes of this 

type. In these cases, science provides the way to this type of religiosity, when beyond 

science something is glimpsed which belongs to the realm of mystery. 

As concerns religions properly speaking, the relationship between the divinity and 

the world can be described with the two concepts of immanence and transcendence. The 

former refers to the presence of God in the world and the latter to His separation from it. 

The religions which stress the immanence of God can lead to a true pantheism or 

monism, in which all reality is one thing, as we have seen in the case of the eastern 

traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. The theist tradition, which begins in 

ancient Judaism and was assumed by Christianity and Islamism, holds that there is a 

personal, transcendent God who created the world which is thus separate from Him, 

although his presence in the world is not denied. 

The immanence type religious currents, such as the Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist 

traditions which we have stressed, at first sight appear to have little relationship with 

science, as they identify all reality with the divinity. The world which appears to the 

senses is only the appearance of an underlying reality which cannot be understood 

(Brahma or Tao). Moreover, the cyclical concept of time, in which nothing really new 

can happen and which engenders certain pessimism regarding the meaning of any 

human enterprise, adds a negative component to the possibility of the progress of 

science. Stanley Jaki who examines the classical cultures of India and China holds this 

opinion as regard their relationship with science 18 . However, Fritjof Capra finds a 

parallelism between the principles of Hinduism and Taoism and modern quantumrelativist 

physics 19 . According to him, the theories and models of modern physics lead 

18 

19 

S. L. Jaki, 1986. Science and Creation, From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe. Edinburgh: 

Scottish Academy Press. 

F. Capra, 1987. El Tao de la física. Una exploración de los paralelos entre la física moderna y el 

misticismo Oriental, 2ª edición. Madrid: Luís Carcamo. 



to a vision of the world which is internally consistent and is in perfect harmony with the 

visions of oriental mysticism. The physicist and the mystic reach the same intuition of 

the essential unity of all things, one starts from the external world and the other from the 

internal. To do so, some properties of the physics of subatomic phenomena are taken 

such as non-locality and intertwining, which are interpreted as an approximation to the 

concept of unity of the oriental mystique. 

The tradition of a creator God separate from the world commences with the 

narration of Genesis in the Jewish tradition which is accepted by Christianity and 

Islamism. Its opening sentence, “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth”, 

indicates the transcendence of God who is not identified with the world which He freely 

creates. This statement leads to a process of secularisation of the world, which, 

therefore, can be observed and studied in itself, leaving aside the confusion between 

world and divinity. This confusion was also present in the western tradition in the 

cosmogonic myths. This demythologisation of the world is a necessary step for it to be 

studied rationally. This process is achieved by another way in ancient Greece. From the 

6 th century B.C. the Greek philosophers of nature addressed the question of how to 

explain what the world is from pure reason and thus laid the foundations of the 

scientific explanation 20 . The union of these two currents of secularisation of the world 

occurs in Christianity, where the Christian authors of the 3 rd to 5 th centuries used science 

and Greek philosophy to explain the story of creation. Later, in the Middle Ages this 

current led to the separation of theology based on revelation and philosophy based on 

reason. The recognition in medieval Christian thought of natural philosophy (today 

called science) as an autonomous field of knowledge regarding nature, contributed to 

the development of science in the West. 

In conclusion, the religious and scientific visions of the world, although different, 

they have points of contact and have historically interacted throughout time. This could 

not be otherwise as they are visions of the same man and the same world. When science 

speaks of the origin of the universe, of life and of man, these are questions about which 

religion also has its answers to. Are the two visions incompatible? Which do we pay 

attention to? Do they invalidate each other? Can the explanations of science finally 

make the intuitions of religion unnecessary? Sometimes there is an impression that 

scientific progress is conceived as a threat to religion. As if each step forward by 

science constitutes a regression of religion. We will now try to shed light on these 

questions, by considering the relationship between science and religion from different 

points of view. 

11. Science and ideology 

We have seen how science and religion make up two ways of approaching reality and 

they have a strong presence in society. As they coexist in the same society and often in 

the same person, we must now address the type of relationship we can establish between 

them. One previous question to be considered is the role played by ideologies as regards 

this problem. The very term ideology can have several meanings and is sometimes used 

with negative connotations. In general, ideologies can be considered to be systems of 

beliefs and values which a group of individuals hold, sometimes for very diverse 

reasons, and that they can sometimes be related to structures of power. Here we will 

take a more neutral meaning, considering ideologies, in general, as conceptual systems 

20 

C. F. von Weizsäcker, 1968. La Importancia de la science. Barcelona: Labor. 

22 



which provide a totalising vision of reality, which serve to give meaning to life, create a 

global framework of references and justify personal and social conduct 21 . A very 

generalised propensity of ideologies is to make values and social schemes absolute 

when these are normally considered to be relative and contingent. In these cases, a 

partial vision becomes a horizon which takes in the totality of reality, and this vision is 

made absolute so that all others are excluded or considered to be false. This creates 

intransigent attitudes and the acceptance of its basic assertions without discussion, as 

truths which cannot be appealed against. Thus, in some points ideologies approximate to 

the characteristics of religion, except for the absence of any reference to a supernatural 

reality. In this regard, ideologies can, on occasions substitute the functions of religion. 

Examples of this are the ideologies imposed in totalitarian countries, where there is also 

a link between ideology and structure of power, as is the case of communism and 

Nazism. On the other hand, a religion unbound from its basis of the experience of 

religious faith can become an ideology. Seen from the outside, without accepting this 

link, religions are sometimes erroneously considered to be ideologies. 

We can now analyse whether science can be considered to be an ideology or 

whether ideologies can be created from science. In the first place, it must be made clear 

that science, neither as knowledge nor as an activity is in itself an ideology and is, 

moreover, independent of any ideology. In fact, science as knowledge does not attempt 

to give a totalising vision of reality, but, as we have seen, it limits its field of knowledge 

to aspects of reality which can be subject to its methodology. This always entails that its 

assertions must be backed up by observations and experiments reproducible by all, and 

must be directed at providing rational knowledge of nature and its functioning. This can 

be said of any one of the sciences and all of them together. More restrictively science is 

limited to the measurable and quantifiable aspects of nature, preferably those which can 

be processed through mathematical language. These limitations are basically the root of 

its efficacy. On the other hand, science does not in any way seek to give meaning to life. 

That is not its role, which is to discover the functioning of material nature. The question 

of meaning is not a part of its approach. Neither does science attempt to create values 

which serve as guides to conduct. Even more, for its survival the very practice of 

science requires the acceptance of certain standards of conduct which science cannot 

give to itself. Neither physics nor biology, in themselves, can serve to give values or 

provide norms of conduct. Just as science is not an ideology, it does not require a 

specific ideology to function. Scientists with different ideologies can equally be good 

scientists. 

Science is, then, not an ideology, nor can it be presented as the basis of an ideology 

which necessarily is deduced from it. There are ideologies which pretend to have a 

scientific character and are presented as based on science and sometimes want to be 

confused with science. These ideologies are known by the generic name of “scientism”. 

Often, especially, when an attempt is made to oppose science and religion, in fact, an 

ideology is being talked about, not science itself. Thus, one should begin by clearly 

distinguishing them from science itself. For example, when Richard Dawkins states, “I 

want to persuade the reader not only that the Darwinist world-view is true, but is the 

only known theory which can, in principle, resolve the mysteries of our existence”, he 

21 

This is the sense in of Evandro Agazzi, 1996, El bien, el mal y la science. Las dimensiones éticas de la 

empresa científico-tecnológica. Madrid: Tecnos, Chapter V, La ideología científico-tecnológica. 106- 

128. 



is in fact referring to an ideology not to science 22 . On speaking of a “world-view” and 

pretending to “resolve the mysteries of our existence”, the Darwinism he is speaking of 

stops being a scientific theory and becomes an ideology. Here, as in so many other 

cases, a clear distinction should be made between what belongs to the field of science 

and what belongs to the field of ideologies. The acceptance of the scientific theory of 

biological evolution does not entail the need to have to accept any ideology which may 

quite often be constructed on the theory. One characteristic of these types of ideologies 

is to pretend to extend the scope of the scientific explanation to all of reality, without 

accepting any other type of knowledge. In many cases, an unjustified step is taken here 

with the assertion, “this takes place”, which belongs to the field of science, to “only this 

takes place”, which is an unjustified generalisation of the scientific explanation to all 

areas of reality. That is to say, as in the case of the materialist ideology, it is postulated 

that there is only the reality which is known by science. 

12. Relationships between science and religion 

The existence of the two visions of the world, that of science and that of religion, leads 

to the consideration of what type of relationship can be established between them. A 

classification, which has become classical, is the proposal made by Ian Barbour, which 

groups the possible relationships into four categories: conflict, independence, dialogue 

and integration 23 . A fifth category can be added: complementariness, which would be 

located between dialogue and integration. This category was recently proposed by the 

theologian Hans Küng 24 . Although other classifications can be established we will 

follow this one which makes it possible to follow the relationship between science and 

religion from the most negative form, conflict, to the most positive, some type of 

integration of both. On dealing with this subject, it is important to remember that all the 

aspects of science and religion must be taken into account, not only the cognitive 

aspects. Outstanding among these is the historical aspect as, throughout time, the 

relationship may have varied from one type to another. It must be acknowledged that 

the relationship is complex and some aspects of the categories may be present with 

greater or lesser intensity in some epochs than in others. Neither are the categories pure 

and there may be relationships where aspects of several of these are mixed together. 

Also these categories must not necessarily be considered as excluding each other but 

each represents a way of relationship present. In this first approximation, the 

importance is to delimit the possible ways in which science and religion have interacted 

with each other and the proposals put forward to support one or other type of 

relationship. 

13. Conflict 

The sometimes generalised opinion that the relationship between science and religion is 

and has always been one of inevitable conflict is not infrequent nowadays. Science and 

religion are considered to be two opposing visions of the world, which can only crash 

against each other. Not only this, each of them denies the validity of the other. 

Furthermore, today it is held that only the vision of science can be true, therefore, the 

22 

23 

24 

24 

Richard Dawkins, 1989, The Blind Watchmaker. New York: Norton. Preface, 

I. Barbour presented this classification in: Ways of Relating Science and Theology, in R. J. Russell, 

W. R. Stoeger, G. V. Coyne (eds.), 1988, Physics, Philosophy and Theology. A Common Quest for 

Understanding. Vatican City: Vatican Observatory, 21-48. This is further developed in Barbour, 2004. 

Religion y ciencia. Madrid: Trotta, 133-181. 

Hans Küng, 2005, Der Anfang aller Dinge. Naturwissenschaft und Religion Munich: Piper. 



vision of religion must little by little disappear. From this point of view, the progress of 

science always entails a regression of religion. In order to support this position, a biased 

interpretation of history is often made always with the same cases of Galileo and 

Darwin. 

Although this position is taken back to the origins of modern science indicating that 

from its very beginning science itself can only be in conflict with religion, in fact, it 

began in the 19 th century, though it does have some roots in the 18 th century. One 

example of the first attitudes of this type is that of Ernest Renan, the author of the 

famous life of Jesus which caused much stir, who said in 1848 that the real world which 

science reveals to us is much more superior to the fanatical world of religion created by 

the imagination, and finished by saying that the modern task will not be completely 

carried out until the belief in the supernatural, in any form, is destroyed. For him, the 

break between religion and science seemed to be definitive 25 . Two books published at 

the end of the 19 th century contributed, in a special way, to spreading this attitude. The 

first was published in 1874 by John W. Draper (1811-1882), born in England and 

Professor of Chemistry at New York University 26 . in his work Draper dedicates his 

most furious attacks against the Catholic Church of which he says, that the antagonism 

between religion and science of which we are witnesses is the continuation of the 

struggle which began when Christianity began to achieve political power and concludes 

that, Catholic Christianity and science are absolutely incompatible, as recognised by 

their respective supporters, they cannot exist together, one should cede to the other and 

humanity must choose, both cannot be conserved 27 . The work of Andrew D. White 

(1832-1918), Professor of History and the first President of Cornell University in the 

United States, published in 1896, was also widely diffused 28 . It does not ferociously 

attack religion like the work of Draper, but, although it was not the author’s intention, it 

also served to propagate the idea that human progress requires the victory of science 

over religion. In the introduction, White says that in all of modern history the 

interference with science in a supposed interest of religion, however careful this 

interference has been, has had the most terrible bad result for both religion and science. 

Despite the good intentions of the author, his book together with that of Draper’s 

represents the posture which maintains the inevitable conflict between science and 

religion. 

The defence against these attacks were sometimes equally belligerent, such as that 

of the French polemist Denis Frayssinous who in 1825 criticised the scientists of his 

time as manufacturers of worlds which fix and unfix the universe capriciously and it 

seems to have been they who presided over creation 29 . During this time, in 1891, Leo 

XIII, on the occasion of the establishment of the Vatican Observatory, mentioned these 

opinions and called attention to those who calumniate the Church as a friend of 

obscurantism, generator of ignorance and enemy of science and progress and stated that 

the inauguration of the Observatory clearly shows that the Church and its pastors are not 

opposed to the true, sound science, but embraces, encourages and promotes it with the 

utmost dedication 30 . In 1976, Paul VI recognised that this misunderstanding between 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

G. Minois, 1991. L’Église et la science. Histoire d’un malentendu.”. 2. De Galilée à Jean Paul II. 

Paris: Fayard, 205. 

J. W. Draper, 1874. History of the Conflict between Religion and Science. New York: Appleton. 

Draper (1987), LXIV and 305. 

Andrew D. White, 1896. A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. London: 

Appleton. 

Denis Frayssinous, 1821. Défense du christianisme. Paris. 

Leo XIII, 1891, Motu propio, Ut mysticam. Reproduced in Sabino Maffeo, 2001, La Specola 



scientific thought and Christian religious thought shakes our mental security and is the 

big problem of our time. He assured everyone that the religious mentality has nothing 

against scientific progress, rather it favours this and integrates it objectively and 

subjectively with its cult of the total truth 31 . 

After the Second World War, there was a change in these positions. On the one 

hand, scientific euphoria, which had favoured the idea of conflict and war between 

science and religion as inevitable, began to wane. Robert Oppenheimer, who had 

directed the construction of the atom bomb, stated that with this bomb science had lost 

its innocence. Preoccupation also began regarding the deterioration of the environment 

due to technological applications and the dangers in the applications of genetic 

engineering. The unlimited admiration of science has been changed into a certain 

suspicion due to the dangers of some of its consequences. On the other hand, the new 

historical studies have shown that many of the arguments used by Draper and White do 

not have a serious historical basis. As shown by John H. Brooke, the relationships 

between science and religion throughout history have been complex and cannot be 

reduced to those of continual conflict 32 . A number of historical studies in recent years 

have dealt with delicate subjects such as the epochs of Galileo and Darwin and have 

quite clearly shown that neither conflict, nor harmony alone reflect the complex 

relationships between science and religion. The idea of conflict, then, as the only type of 

relationship must be abandoned as, throughout history, the interactions have been both 

positive and negative 33 . Despite everything, the perception of the conflict between 

science and religion continues and we can see it repeated, even today, especially at 

popular level. We do not deny that there have been negative interactions, but these must 

be seen in their historical contexts which involve numerous factors, and must not be 

considered in a simplistic fashion as examples of a supposed inevitable conflict which 

arises from the very essence of both. 

As an example, we can see three cases of positive interaction between religion and 

science, which in themselves serve to show that it is not possible to speak of conflict 

and war as the only forms of relationship. In order not to restrict ourselves to 

Christianity, we can begin by the promotion of science by Islam, especially, from the 8 th 

to 13 th centuries. In the 8 th century, at the dawn of Islam, astronomy and mathematics, 

especially, but also medicine and the natural sciences, flourished in Arab culture, 

boosted by the translation of the Greek scientific texts to Arabic. These sciences were 

considered to be useful, for example, in order to establish the dates and times of the 

rituals and as an expression of praise of God the creator and service to man (medicine). 

It was not only using Greek science, there was also a true development of new ideas, 

such as algebra and the decimal system, not developed in Greece, where the Arab 

authors incorporated ideas from the Indian mathematicians and added the progress made 

in astronomic observations. The Middle Ages is used as an example of the opposition 

of Christianity to science, and attributing to Christianity the abandonment of Greek 

science. The situation was in fact very different. The Western part of the Roman Empire 

scarcely knew Greek and Greek science in this epoch was not translated into Latin. In 

the High Middle Ages there was only available the scarce scientific knowledge 

31 

32 

33 

26 

Vaticana. Nove Papi, una missione. Vatican City: Specola Vaticana. 297-301. 

Pablo VI, General Audience on June 2, 1976. 

John H. Brooke, 1991, Science and Religion. Some Historical Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press. 

A clear presentation of the subject in the case of Christianity can be found in David C. Lindberg and 

Ronald L. Numbers (eds.), 1986. God and Nature. Historical Essays on the Encounter between 

Christianity and Science. Berkeley: University of California Press. Introduction 1-18. 



transmitted by Latin authors. The Church began and promoted the foundation of the 

universities in which natural philosophy was an important discipline and in the 12 th to 

14 th centuries, it encouraged the translations of the Greek scientific texts to Latin, 

making their subsequent use by the creators of modern science possible 34 . A third 

example is the development of experimental science in England in the 17 th and 18 th 

centuries which was encouraged by the Protestant movement which saw in science a 

way to give glory to God and to contribute to the welfare of man. The influence of 

Protestant piety is present in many of the English scientists of this epoch, such as Robert 

Boyle, Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton. 

13.1. Attitudes generating conflict 

Although the relationship of conflict cannot be generalised as the only one possible 

between science and religion, one can find attitudes in both which may lead to and have, 

in fact, led to conflicts 35 . Within the area of religion we find the fundamentalist attitude 

which can take on different forms. One of these is biblical literalism in Christianity 

which literally interprets the texts of the Bible as regards natural phenomena, giving 

these a scientific character. One example is the literal interpretation of the texts on 

creation in Genesis. This mentality was at the basis of the conflicts with Galileo and 

Darwin, with the opposition between the literal sense of some texts of the Bible and 

modern cosmology and the theory of evolution. In modern times, this mentality in the 

United States has led to presenting a scientific theory called “creationism” through 

conservative Protestant currents, this sustains the independent creation of each species 

of animals and plants, as related in the first chapter of Genesis, and considers that the 

age of the world is approximately 6000 years, which go against the current results 

regarding biological evolution and the age of the cosmos. The discussion has reached 

the area of education in some American States in which it was proposed that this 

doctrine be explained in classes of biology instead of or together with the theory of 

evolution. Finally, Courts have rejected this pretension. These attitudes confuse the 

religious message of the Bible with its historical and literary expression, which depends 

on the cultural components at the time of the composition of each of its books. This 

attitude leads to an undue intromission of religion in the field of science. 

Just as there is a religious fundamentalism, although it is less spoken of, there is 

what we can call a scientific fundamentalism which turns science into a totalising 

ideology with a materialist vision, beyond which there are no other perspectives, nor 

another truth. Therefore, it is not a question of science itself, but rather an ideological 

vision which pretend to be based on science, as the only interpretation possible. For this 

type of fundamentalism only science is the source of true knowledge of the world and 

the only one which establishes its meaning. In consequence, the attitudes and values 

which govern human conduct must also be based on science. In the name of science, 

this attitude pretends to deny religion any relevance as there would be no place for it. In 

some cases there are even attempts to explicitly supplant religion with an ideology and 

even a religiosity based on science. Attitudes of this type are not infrequent in scientific 

environments, where the ideological aspects become blurred and are concealed and 

presented as if they were science itself. In fact, this is also an undue intromission, where 

science is used to attack and supplant religion. 

34 

35 

Edward Grant, 1996. The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages, their Religious, 

Institutional and Intellectual Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Barbour (2004) 135-145, refers to scientific materialism and biblical liberalism. 



Another source of conflict lies in the social consequences of science and religion. 

These conflicts arise from the struggle for influence and social power in which some 

groups use the support of progress in science in order to supplant the position 

traditionally occupied by religion. In Europe the birth of modern science in the 16 th and 

17 th centuries took place in a society in which the ecclesiastical establishment enjoyed 

enormous social influence inherited from the medieval tradition. Groups contrary to this 

situation took advantage of the scientific establishment and its rapid ascent in prestige 

and popularity in order to use its support to confront the influence of religion. Opposed 

to the social attitudes of the religious establishment, which at times were excessively 

conservative, were those which proposed radical social reforms and sought support for 

it in the prestige of science. As the social prestige of scientists grew, these replaced the 

ecclesiastics in popular influence and politics. Although the scientists were not the 

creators of this movement, they were often, consciously or unconsciously dragged into 

this undeclared conflict. The modern secularising tendencies in society are also 

supported by the influence of science in order to minimise or even eliminate the social 

influence of religion. Sometimes science is presented as substitute for religion where the 

scientists appear as the new priests, the possessors and dispensers of the only true 

knowledge. 

The situation today has changed as the enormous prestige of science has socially 

overcome that of the religious instances. With this situation this type of conflict has 

diminished, as religion is no longer considered to be an important enemy to defeat. 

Reminiscences of the past conflicts arise in the suspicions and sensitivities of scientists 

regarding the criticisms presented from religious sectors of the possible negative 

consequences of their work in the field of ethics. It is not strange that science today is 

presented as the only sector which does not admit criticism and against which there are 

no possible appeals. In some cases, it can be said that a certain scientific dogmatism has 

substituted religious dogmatism. These attitudes, which in fact defend the areas of 

influence of science, become sources of conflict which are rationalised by defending the 

incompatibility between science and religion. In spite of all, these types of conflicts can 

have a positive side. Through them religion is obliged to recognise that it has too often 

adopted roles which have approximated it to political power. These roles have been 

justified by the weight of tradition, with no critical analysis of the damage which they 

have sometimes caused. Unfortunately, these situations of influence and power are 

difficult to abandon on one’s own initiative, nor are their negative consequences easily 

recognised. Only when religion has shed these, does it recognise that they were a 

serious obstacle to its true mission rather than a help. In fact, if religion wants to 

conserve its critical force as regards all the abuses of power, which sometimes use 

apparently scientific arguments as justifications, it must first shed itself all power. 

Religion must not exercise its influence from a position of power but from the appeal to 

the conscience of man and the recourse to an ultimate transcendent instance. 

14. Independence 

As we have seen, if the conflicts between science and religion arise from the undue 

incursion of one into the field of the other, the solution to the problem can be sought in 

manifesting the independence of both. It must be accepted that religion and science are 

two types of knowledge and languages regarding reality, independent of each other, 

each one is valid within its own environment. There should be no conflict between them 

as these arise when the independence is not recognised. Science must not meddle with 

the environment of the religious, nor must religion meddle with the scientific 

28 



environment. In addition, history teaches us that both intromissions have led to bad 

consequences and have been sources of conflict. There are many arguments in favour of 

this attitude of mutual independence. In the first place, there is the need to recognise the 

autonomy of the sciences in their terrain and that of religion and theology in theirs. This 

separation is due not only to the desire to avoid unnecessary conflict, but to the desire to 

be loyal to the distinctive characters of each one and their validity in each terrain. 

The recognition of independence between science and religion already existed in 

the medieval formulation of the two books: the Book of Nature and the Book of 

Revelation. These were recognized as two different books, but having the same author, 

God, could not contradict each other. Among the formulations of this principle, we can 

cite that of Francis Bacon who said that the Book of the Word of God and the Book of 

the Works of God represent two types of knowledge that must not be mixed or 

confused. Galileo insisted on the same in his letter to the Grand Duchess of Loraine, 

saying that “in discussions on natural problems, one should not begin with the authority 

of the written texts, but with sensitive experiences...the natural effects which sensitive 

experience places before our eyes...cannot be condemned by quotations from 

Scripture” 36 . The recognition of the mutual autonomy of science and religion is included 

in the document on “The Church in the modern world” of the Vatican Council II 37 . This 

document states that “many of our contemporaries seem to fear that, due to an excessive 

link between human activity and religion, the autonomy of man, society and science is 

hindered”. After stating that this demand for autonomy is absolutely legitimate, it 

concludes that “if methodical research in all the fields of knowledge is carried out in an 

authentically scientific fashion and in accordance with the moral standards, it will never, 

in fact, be contrary to faith, because the secular realities and those of the faith originate 

in the same God”. However, it remembers the conflicts this lack of recognition has led 

to, specifically, as regards the case of Galileo, and states that, “as concerns this, certain 

attitudes should be deplored as they do not understand well the sense of the legitimate 

autonomy of science, Among Christians themselves there have sometimes been 

attitudes followed by bitter polemics, which led many to establish an opposition 

between science and faith” 38 . According to the Council, the recognition of mutual 

autonomy and independence is, therefore, the first step to establishing correct 

relationships between science and faith. John Paul II, in a document on science and 

religion in 1988, supported this position stating, “Science and religion must preserve 

their autonomy and peculiarity. Each has its own principles and ways of acting” 39 . The 

Board of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States reached a similar 

conclusion in 1981 concerning the debate on creationism and stated that religion and 

science are separate, excluding fields of human thought, and their joint presentation in 

the same context gives rise to the fact that both scientific theories and religious beliefs 

are mistakenly understood 40 . 

36 

Galileo Galilei, 1987. Carta a Cristina de Lorena. Madrid: Alianza, 70. 

37 

Concilio Vaticano II, Constituciones. Decretos. Declaraciones. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores 

Cristianos, 1965. Constitución pastoral sobre la Iglesia en el mundo actual (Gaudium et Spes), 209- 

365. 

38 

Gaudium et Spes, No. 36 (256-257). 

39 “Message of His Holiness Pope John Paul II” in R. J. Russell, W. R. Stoeger, G. V. Coyne (eds.), 

1988, Physics, Philosophy and Theology. A Common Quest for Understanding. Vatican City: Vatican 

Observatory. The message and a number of comments on this in: R. J. Russell, W. R. Stoeger y G. V. 

Coyne, John Paul II on Science and Religion. Reflections on the New View from Rome. Vatican City: 

Vatican Observatory Publications, 1990. 

40 

Frank Press, 1984. Science and Creationism: A view from the National Academy of Sciences. 



Barbour goes over the arguments, deduced from the Protestant, theological 

movements of neo-orthodox faithism, religious existentialism and linguistic analysis, in 

favour of considering science and religion as independent and autonomous forms of life 

and thought, with no relationship between them 41 . To sum up, according to the 

Protestant neo-orthodox movement and its main proponent the German theologian Karl 

Barth, religion is based on faith as a relation of man to God who is revealed in history, 

not in nature. For Christianity, God can only be known insofar as He is revealed in 

Christ and is confessed in faith. Therefore, the contrast between science and religion 

becomes stronger, as the former is based on observation and on human reason, while the 

second is based on divine revelation. Another current which also defends the separation 

between the two is existentialism. According to Barbour, this involves the contrast 

between the realms of personal conscience and that of non-personal objects. For the 

religious existentialists God is found in immediacy and personal participation, which 

characterises the subject relationships of the I-you type and not the object making, I-It 

analysis, proper to scientific knowledge. The third current of linguistic analysis 

considers science and religion to be two distinct languages which are independent from 

each other. Barbour concludes his analysis of these three currents stating that they 

understand science and religion to be forms of life and thought which are autonomous 

and independent. 

Recently, the palaeontologist, Stephen Jay Gould formulated the postulate of the 

total independence of science and religion with the term “non-overlapping magisterial” 

and the acronym NOMA 42 . For Gould science involves documenting the factual 

character of the natural world, what the world is made of and developing theories which 

coordinate and explain these facts and how they function, while religion moves in the 

field of human objectives, the human sense of reality and ethical values, subjects which 

the factual domain of science can enlighten but never resolve. From this point of view, 

Gould does not see how the two can be unified or synthesised in an explicatory scheme 

or common analysis and understands that they must not undergo any conflict 43 . 

Therefore, in his words, they are teachings which do not overlap. There must be a 

respectful concordat between them. Although he proposes mutual independence as the 

only relationship possible and desirable, he accepts that both must be open to dialogue 

which rejects irenism, which syncretism and the posture of the politically correct, which 

avoids any discussion, may lead to. This posture approaches the one held by the 

physicist Max Planck, the father of quantum mechanics, who said, “Science and religion 

are two parallel ways which only join in the infinite”. 

As Barbour acknowledges, if science and religion were totally independent, all risk 

of conflict would be avoided, however, this should not exclude the possibility of a 

constructive dialogue and mutual enrichment 44 . In addition, he wishes to maintain 

science and religion totally separated, with no interaction between them, is completely 

impossible, as shown by history. Throughout history, both religion and science are 

components of a broader process which we can designate as culture, which also includes 

art in all its manifestations, personal relationships and other manifestations. Among 

these there can only be continual interaction. Although the very autonomy of each of 

41 

42 

43 

44 

30 

Washington: National Academy Press, 6. 

Barbour (1988) 27-33 y Barbour (2004) 146-154. 

Steven J. Gould, 1999, Rocks of Ages. Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York: 

Ballentine Publ. 

Gould (1999), 4-5. 

Barbour (2004), 154. 



these cultural manifestations must be respected, their interaction and mutual dialogue 

must also be accepted. 

15. Dialogue 

As we have seen, respecting each other’s autonomy, absolute independence is neither 

realistic nor sufficient, and, throughout history, science and religion have interacted in 

many ways. Basically, both are visions of the same reality and cannot ignore each other. 

In many cases, one person participates in both and cannot maintain a schizophrenic 

attitude, dividing his mind into two watertight compartments. If the relationship of a 

continual and inevitable conflict does not represent the real situation, absolute 

independence is not recommendable either. Therefore, it is necessary to propose a 

relationship of dialogue 45 . Dialogue involves communication, an exchange of 

information between the two. Religious reflection (theology) must take into account the 

vision of the world offered by science as, in all religions, there is always a consideration 

of the relationship between the world and the divinity. Part of the essence of all 

religions is the expression of the relationship between the world and God, and between 

man and nature, through its rituals and symbols, and this puts man in contact with the 

problems of the origin of the universe and of life. In the three monotheist religions, 

Judaism, Islamism and Christianity, God is the creator of the world, which depends 

totally on Him. In them the contemplation of the world, as emerging from the hands of 

God, and which includes the manifestation of His presence, is an important component. 

On speaking about creation, the questions about what this world which God has created 

is like, and which we know through science, undoubtedly, are also important for 

theology. In the 13 th century Saint Thomas Aquinas stated that the error regarding the 

nature of creatures leads to a false idea of God and this can separate the minds of men 

from God 46 . Therefore, theology cannot be totally indifferent to the images of the world 

which sciences create. In fact, throughout history, mutual influence has always existed. 

For example, the religious vision of the world has assumed the cosmological 

conceptions in force in each epoch. The narration of creation in Genesis reflects the 

cosmological image of the world present in the culture of the Middle East, at the time of 

its composition, and, later the Fathers of the Church assumed the geocentric model of 

the Greek astronomy. 

If it can be said that a certain dialogue has always existed, this must become more 

explicit and intense today. Barbour proposes that the field of this dialogue be the limit 

or frontier questions put forward by scientist, but whose answers elude their 

methodology. Examples of these are the origin and destiny of the universe and man, the 

future of humanity and the ethical questions about scientific practice. For him, the 

methodological differences between science and religion must be attenuated by what he 

calls methodological parallelisms. From these the supposed objectivity of science and 

the subjectivity of religion must be refined, and it must be recognised that even from the 

methodological point of view there are points of contact between them. For Barbour, 

other fields in which it is possible to have and there must be dialogue between science 

and religion are the emergence of a spirituality focused on nature, or the aspects of an 

ethical and religious nature arising from scientific work. This dialogue is also referred to 

45 

46 

Barbour (2004), 154-170. 

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles 2, 3, 6: “Nam error circa creaturas redundant in falsam 

de Deo sententiam et hominum mentes a Deo abducit in quem fides diriget nititur, dum ipsas 

quibusdam aliis causis supponit.” 



by John Paul II, in the document mentioned above, when he states that, “simple 

neutrality is no longer acceptable. Today we have an unprecedented opportunity for a 

common interactive relationship in which each discipline maintains its integrity and, 

however, is radically open to the discoveries and intuitions of the other”... ”The 

problem is urgent” he adds and compares the situation regarding the contributions of 

current science with the incorporation of Aristotelian philosophy to theology by Saint 

Thomas Aquinas commenting that, “Can we not expect that contemporary sciences and 

the forms of human knowledge, give vigour and form to those areas of theology which 

have to do with the relationship of nature, humanity and God? ”; he finishes by saying, 

“Science can purify religion of error and superstition, religion can purify science of 

idolatry and false absolutes” 47 . 

In order to understand this dialogue well, it should be understood that it is not quite 

symmetrical. While scientific knowledge of nature is important by itself in theological 

work, science as knowledge of nature does not depend on religious intuitions, although 

some scientists may be moved by these. In a sense, it can be said that science, in each 

epoch of its development, gives an image of the world, which is as complete as possible, 

within its own methodology, and it is not the job of religion to fill in these gaps which 

remain and which will be filled by science in the future. In this sense, religion does not 

contribute anything to science as knowledge within its own methodology. As rightly 

stated by John Paul II, what religion contributes to science is to free this from being an 

absolute, that is to say, from the danger of becoming an ideology, which pretends to 

have all the answers to the questions which man has regarding his relationship with the 

world, himself and his destiny. While the knowledge of the sciences concerning nature 

and man himself must be taken into account in theological reflection. In fact, the image 

of the world offered by the sciences has always been present in theological thought. 

Clinging to an image which was already being rejected by science was a source of 

conflict, such as the resistance to the acceptance of the heliocentric nature of the solar 

system and the theory of evolution. It was the lack of dialogue which led to the religious 

authorities to take decisions which were later regretted. This “intense dialogue with 

contemporary science” which is so necessary is missed by John Paul II in those engaged 

in the theological teaching and research. Science in itself can ignore theology, but 

theology cannot ignore science. The dialogue must be opened by both parties, but it 

does not have the same characteristics in both directions. 

Despite the fact that it is quite clear that there is a need for dialogue between 

science and religion, reality reveals that, in practice, this is not easy to carry out. In the 

19 th century and up to the middle of the 20 th century, the absence of a true dialogue from 

the religious side was manifested in the apologetic postures. In many cases, these were a 

justified defence from the attacks of philosophical positions which used science as an 

argument against religion. These attitudes on both sides did little to encourage dialogue. 

As from the middle of the 20 th century, the situation changed due to new focuses on the 

nature of scientific knowledge and the task of theology. As acknowledged by John 

Polkinghorne, who had been a theoretical physicist for 25 years and was then ordained 

as a priest of the Anglican Church, in this dialogue there have been an abundance of 

scientists, among whom were himself and the aforementioned Ian Barbour, a physicistchemist 

and Arthur Peacocke, a bio-chemist and Anglican priest, as compared with the 

theologians 48 . These three authors are considered to be the great pioneers in this 

47 

48 

32 

Juan Pablo II, (1988) Message, 24, 25. 

John Polkinghorne, 1998. Belief in God in an Age of Science. New Haven: Yale University Press. 



dialogue. Among the theologians whose absence he regrets, Polkinghorne cites the 

Protestants Thomas Torrance and Wolfhart Pannenberg. In the catholic area, uniting the 

scientific and the theological perspective, we can cite Michel Heller, physicist and 

professor of the Theological Institute of Cracow, William Stoeger, astronomer of the 

Vatican Observatory, Mariano Artigas, professor of the University of Navarre and 

Dennis Edwards, Australian theologian. Polkinghorne proposes a number of lines of 

dialogue with a greater participation of theologians and members of other religious 

traditions, besides Christianity, a serious discussion on ethical problems, the recognition 

in philosophy of forms of thinking from experience similar to that of science, the 

acceptance of holistic and relational points of view, which can be correlated with those 

of theology, and attitudes of critical realism as regards scientific and theological 

knowledge. Polkinghorne concludes by saying that, science and theology participate in 

the same finality which attracts the attention of those who have the intellectual integrity 

and the desire to understand. Within their forms and domains, these are involved in the 

search for truth and this is sufficient to guarantee that a fruitful dialogue will continue 

between them 49 . 

16. Complementariness 

Another way of looking at the relationship between science and religion which entails 

something more than dialogue, or which makes the consequences of dialogue more 

explicit, is what we can define as “complementariness”. This relationship was recently 

proposed by the theologian Hans Küng, although it can be found in other authors 50 . This 

idea was already proposed in 1925 by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, the pioneer of 

the application of quantum mechanics to atomic models, who considered that it was 

possible to understand religion and science as two complementary descriptions of 

reality. Bohr defended that, in physics there are complementary descriptions of one 

phenomenon, such as those of wave and particle, and he added that atomic physics 

teaches us that we must think more subtly about reality than up to now 51 . Under the 

term complementariness we understand that the two visions of reality which are offered 

by religion and science are not only not mutually exclusive, but complement each other. 

Conflict should not be established between them nor should they be kept totally apart 

from each other. Küng also defends that the integration of the two must not be sought, 

where the theologians adapt dogmas to the results of science, nor should scientists use 

religion for their theses. Küng defends a model of complementariness of criticalconstructive 

interaction where the sphere of each of these is conserved, illegitimate coparticipations 

are avoided and all attempts at absolutisation are abandoned by both. 

Thus, complementariness affirms that the two, together with other human visions, 

such as the artistic and ethical, are necessary to capture reality in all its richness. The 

difference between the relationship of dialogue and complementariness consists in the 

fact that the former only affirms that there must be a relationship between the two in 

which they communicate, while complementariness also affirms that neither of these is 

a complete vision of all reality and that each of them is complemented with the other. 

Therefore, complementariness entails that the visions of reality will not be complete if 

49 

50 

51 

Cap. 4. The continuing dialogue between science and religion. 77-100 

Polkinghorne (1998) 99-100. 

Küng (2005) Instead of confrontation or integration he proposes a complementary model, 57-58. 

Werner Heisenberg, Erste Gespräche über das Verhältnis von Naturwissenschaft und Religion. In 

Hans-Peter Dürr (ed.) (1988) Physik und Traszendenzs. Die grosssen Physiker unseres Jahrhunderts 

über ihre Begegnung mit dem Wunderbare. Bern: Scherz, 305-306. 



the others are not included. The ways in which they can complete each other are of a 

different natures. This relationship can be illustrated with the famous words of Einstein: 

“Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind” 52 . This can be 

interpreted that religion should be enlightened by knowledge of the world provided by 

the sciences, and that scientific work must be boosted by religious feeling. In one case, 

results presented by science must be taken into account in the theological formulations, 

and in the other the practice of science must take into account the ethical and moral 

intuitions proceeding from religious thought. However, these are only some of the many 

ways in which science and religion are complemented in order to create a more 

complete vision of reality. The vision of science, which is often reductionist, can be 

completed with the perspectives of totality and opening up to the transcendence 

provided by the religious intuitions, in turn, religious thought can be enriched by the 

progress made in our knowledge of natural phenomena. However, science and religion 

are not the only perspectives which man has of reality, there are others, such as the 

artistic or the ethical, and all of these contribute to an understanding of reality, without 

opposing each other and with a mutual enrichment. One example of mutual enrichment 

lies in the relationship between the religious and the artistic vision. Religion serves as 

an inspiration for many works of the plastic art, poetry and music, and artistic 

productions and these are often the vehicle for religious inspiration. The poetry of the 

mystical authors and the feelings reflected in the oriental icons are only two examples of 

this relationship of complementariness between religion and art. In another area an 

analogous relationship of religion and science can be proposed. 

17. Integration 

The last type of relationship between science and religion proposed by Barbour is what 

he terms integration, although this term might not always be the most suitable one 53 . 

This category includes the proposals which defend a more direct relationship between 

the two, and which propose that it is possible to achieve a certain integration or 

continuity between the content of religion or theology and science. Therefore, this goes 

beyond dialogue and complementariness which we have explained above. In this model 

it is more precise to speak specifically of the relationship between theology and science 

as this is a question of proposals which start from one of the two and are integrated into 

the other. In the previous relationships, the positions were quite uniform, in this 

relationship there is a wide variety of positions. Here it is important also to consider the 

role played by philosophy which must be distinguished from that of science. In some 

cases, a philosophical reflection on reality takes on components of scientific knowledge 

and interacts with theology. Although it is difficult to classify the different approaches, 

Barbour, distinguishes three types of integration: natural theology natural, the theology 

of nature and systematic synthesis. 

Given the diversity of proposals with different characteristics, we now consider two 

large categories, the first goes from the scientific or philosophical knowledge of nature 

to a consideration of God and the second starts from a religious posture and integrates 

the contributions of science. This division may seem a little artificial and some 

proposals are difficult to classify in one group or another. Among the many proposals 

52 

53 

Albert Einstein, Science y religion. En K. Wiber (ed.), 1984. Cuestiones cuánticas. Escritos místicos 

de los físicos más famosos del mundo. Barcelona: Kairós, 161-170. 

Barbour (2004), 170-181. 

34 



which can be found in recent literature, we have chosen some, and have no pretensions 

to include them all. In the limited space available it is not possible to present even the 

most important lines of thought. We only give examples which illustrate the types of 

integration proposed. 

17.1. From the knowledge of the nature to God 

The oldest proposal concerning the rational knowledge of God, which starts from the 

knowledge of the natural world, is that of natural theology in its classical meaning. 

Natural theology is generally understood to be a rational knowledge, independent of that 

contributed by religious faith, which approaches the existence of God and His 

relationship with the world and maintains that it can say something about Him. In it 

there is a way from philosophy which leads to the knowledge of God. This way is 

already found in the Greek philosophers, especially Plato and Aristotle. As we shall see 

in Christian tradition the possibility of this rational way to God has been proposed since 

the writing of the Fathers of the Church. Among the most famous formulations are the 

ontological argument of St. Anselm of Canterbury and the five ways to rationally 

approach God of St. Thomas Aquinas, which have sometimes been interpreted as true 

proofs of His existence. It is important to emphasise that this is not scientific knowledge 

in the modern sense, but rather philosophical and more specifically metaphysical. It is 

necessary to begin with the validity of the knowledge of being and it is the 

interpretation of the meaning of being that decides whether God can be known, in what 

aspects and how, taking into account that the image of God in natural theology is not 

yet the God of faith 54 . The possibility of this type of natural theology has been 

maintained until our days with some variants among authors in Catholic tradition. John 

Paul II insisted on its current relevance when he stated, “There is a way which man, if 

he wishes, can take and this with the capacity of reason to go beyond the contingent 

towards the infinite” 55 . This natural theology today can include also components of the 

natural sciences. 

Natural theology acquired another aspect in the authors of the Anglo-Saxon 

tradition beginning in the 17 th century, who defended that, from the scientific 

knowledge of nature, it is possible to find signs of the existence of a creator God. The 

starting point is now the world known by science, from where the way to the existence 

and action of God in it is discovered. This type of argumentation was fashionable 

among the Protestant English authors of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19 th 

century. Among these we can cite the work of William Paley, Natural Theology (1804), 

in which he insists on the unity, design and finality, found in nature, which are a proof 

of the existence and action of God in the world and that of Thomas Paine, Age of 

Reason (1807), which insists that nature known by science teaches us the divine laws 

present in nature and reveals the goodness of the Creator. Some of these authors even 

say that of the two ways to reach God, revelation and nature, the latter is clearer and 

more secure. The main argument used is that of the design, which these authors say can 

be found in the natural world known through science, that is to say, the admirable 

adaptation of the organs for their functioning, which indicate a creator God who has 

made them with this finality. This type of reasoning based on finality was deeply shaken 

and had problems in recovering from the Darwinian proposal of evolution, which denies 

54 

55 

Klaus Riesenhuber, 1976. Teología natural en Sacramentum Mundi, vol. 6, 599-610. 

Juan Pablo II, 1998. Fe y razón. Carta encíclica “Fides et ratio”. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores 

Cristianos, 44. 



any finality in nature, and where there is only a mechanism of chance and adaptation. 

We may conclude that science, alone, cannot find a design in nature and, in itself, is not 

a way to find God. A modern proposal which we can include within this last current is 

what is known as the “intelligent design”. The defenders of this proposal, present 

especially, in the united States, propose that the biological evolution, which we know 

has taken place on earth, cannot be explained only by the mechanisms of chance and the 

adaptation of Darwinist theories and, therefore, it is necessary to accept that this reveals 

the presence of an intelligent designer who has directed the process. In order not to 

appear too religious, the proposal does not speak explicitly of God, but of an “intelligent 

designer”. The defenders of this doctrine attempt to demonstrate with specific details of 

biological evolution that current science does not seem to adequately explain the need to 

accept a finality in the evolutionary process. In other words, the detailed study of the 

process of biological evolution indicates directionality and intelligent programming. 

The difficulty of this proposal is that it is presented erroneously as an alternative 

scientific theory to that of evolution and its proponents pretend that it should be 

explained in public schools together with the theory of evolution. The proposal starts 

from scientific knowledge of nature and, pretending not to leave it, try to show that 

purely scientific evidences require the recognition of finality and a designer. The way 

followed, however, is not valid as God cannot be reached through the deficiencies of the 

scientific explanation, within itself. This would be the often refuted “God of the gaps”, 

which science itself in time always renders unnecessary. Recognising a finality and 

design in nature belongs to another level of knowledge, not to scientific knowledge, that 

is to say to philosophical or theological knowledge. 

One proposal which we can include here, in part, is the thought of the French Jesuit 

palaeontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He begins by calling attention to the role of 

science in human evolution as the true motor of progress, and from the scientific vision 

of the world, which presents us with its evolutionary nature, he reaches the conclusion 

that evolution must be convergent and find its culmination in what he calls the Omega 

Point 56 . According to him, this conclusion is reached logically led by the integral 

application to man of the experimental laws of evolution. He starts from the need to 

accept that the total study of the human phenomenon involves determined requirements 

and methods which go beyond those commonly employed by science. As he himself 

admits, his approach is not that of science in the strict sense, but that of a 

phenomenology, or generalised physics or “hyper-physics”, in which all aspects of 

reality must be taken into account. Therefore, not only the external face of the world, 

the subject of natural sciences, must be taken into account, but also what he calls its 

internal face. In this way, Teilhard thinks that the evolution of matter, always towards 

more complexity, in fact, entails evolution towards the consciousness which is linked to 

the interiority of things. For him, the biological process does not take place by pure 

chance, but it is necessary to recognise a direction in this, which marks the way of 

evolution of inert matter to life and consciousness. Projected towards the future by a 

process of human convergence, this culminates in the Omega Point, which, as it has the 

qualities of being personal and personalising is identified with God. Although in this 

way Teilhard does not invoke religion at all, he does recognise that he would not have 

dared to present this hypothesis without having lived it in his conscience as a believer. 

In the end, as he says, “religion and science are two conjugated faces or phases of the 

56 

36 

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1955. Le phénomèn humain. Paris: Seuil. 



same complete act of knowledge, the only one which can take in the past and the future 

of evolution in order to contemplate them, measure them and finish them” 57 . 

Philosophical reflection, in its search for the meaning and explanation of reality, 

can find support in the images contributed by science in order to go back to the 

consideration of a creator God. To do so, the nature of scientific knowledge and its 

limitations should be taken into account. For example, the enigma that man can 

rationally grasp the keys of the universe can lead to the discovery of an ultimate 

principle, which explains his rationality, or, otherwise, the combination of a world 

which is both contingent and intelligible can lead to the hypothesis of a necessary and 

rational God. The results of science thus become a starting point for the problem of 

God. The physicist Paul Davies dedicates a long discussion to this problem without 

reaching a clear conclusion, and only admits that by themselves, the ontological and 

cosmological arguments are only indicators of the existence of a necessary being. This 

being remains obscure and abstract. He asks that if a similar being exists, can we say 

anything about its nature supported by an examination of the physical universe? 58 It is 

significant that, at the end of the book, he states that, the essence of his book has been to 

follow the retrospective footprints of scientific rationality, as much as possible, in order 

to seek the ultimate answers to the mystery of existence and he finishes with the 

question, if it is possible to hold that the ultimate objective of this search is more than a 

chimera. 59 Thus, at the end of the way, Davies can only put forward questions for which 

science itself has no answers, and he does not find these answers in philosophy or 

theology either. 

Another perspective in which a more positive conclusion is reached is that taken by 

Frank Tipler, a theoretical physicist, in his direct route from science, and more 

specifically from physics, to God, which he calls the “Omega Point theory”. By this he 

means a theory which is scientifically verifiable and which proposes the existence of an 

omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God, who, in a far off future, will resurrect 

everyone so that we may live eternally” 60 . Curiously he holds a totally reductionist and 

materialist point of view and at no time appeals to faith. He confesses that the route of 

physics of necessity leads to finding God. Thus, he advocates the unification of science 

and religion and states that theology must be considered to be a branch of physics; not 

only this, but it must become a branch of physics if it is to survive. For him theology is 

only a physical cosmology, based on the suspicion that life, taken as whole, is 

immortal 61 . We cannot explain here how Tipler develops his thought and how he arrived 

at the need for the existence of a Point Omega in the universe. It is sufficient to present 

it as a system in which acontinuity is established in which the proposal of a God is 

reached through science. Naturally many of his proposals are very controversial, such as 

defining life as information conserved through natural selection and his model of God 

(Point Omega) which is evolving in its immanent character and is eternally incomplete 

in its transcendence and is, “from the quantum point of view, an omnipresent, invisible 

field which guides and gives rise to every being and which is finally Personalised” 62 . 

57 

58 

59 

60 

61 

62 

Teilhard (1955), 316-317. 

Paul Davies, 1993. La mente de Dios. La base científica para un mundo racional. Madrid: McGraw 

Hill, 184. 

Davies (1993), 217. 

Frank J. Tipler, 1994. La física de la inmortalidad. Cosmología contemporánea: Dios y la 

resurrección de los muertos. Madrid: Alianza, 33. 

Tipler (1994), 17, 43, 50. 

Tipler (1994) 178, 212, 245. 



Along the same lines is the proposal of Diarmuid O’Murchu who calls it “quantum 

theology” and seeks to “dismantle the exclusivity of religious theology and open it up to 

everyone who is prepared to take part with the experience of the universe lived as a 

quantum reality” 63 . The starting point for O’Murchu is the mystery and the meaning 

inherent in quantum theory which goes beyond the purely scientific implications in 

order to affect the comprehension of life at each level of existence. According to this 

approach from the quantum vision of the universe, many of our concepts must be 

revised, such as, our image of God, who for quantum theology is described as “a creator 

energy, which includes and exceeds the attributes given by traditional theology and 

works through movement, rhythm and structures within the nature of life itself”. 

Another approach which we can include within this category is the one deriving 

from the philosophy of process. This philosophy was proposed by Whitehead under the 

joint influence of scientific and religious thought 64 . In it he develops a philosophical 

synthesis based on the idea of considering the essence of reality as a process, that is to 

say, as a sequence of changes. Reality is a dynamic network of interrelated events for 

which nature is both order and change, stability and novelty, a structure of processes in 

evolution. Reality is precisely the process itself. God is taken into consideration as the 

principle for the concretion of the processes. He is not concrete, but is the foundation of 

all concrete actuality. He is the source of all stability and novelty, of order and change 

and participates in both. God changes with the process itself and is both transcendent 

and immanent. Divine reality appears as the ontological basis of the cosmic process; it 

is not the process, but is the creator of the process. A synthesis between the philosophy 

of the process and Christian theology has led some authors such as Charles Hatshorne 

and John Cobb to what is known as the “theology of process” 65 . Certain aspects of the 

philosophy of process, especially as regards the relationship between God and the world 

are incorporated into the works of Barbour and with more nuances in the work of 

Peacocke 66 . 

As has been seen in the examples we have presented, the approaches are very 

varied and it is difficult to group them in one category. They have in common the fact 

that in them a start is made for scientific and/or philosophical knowledge in order to 

reach the idea of divinity and its relationship with the world. In all these there are a 

certain number of presuppositions of a philosophical nature, which are not always 

explicitly presented. In some cases, it is assumed that science and religion contribute 

jointly to making a coherent vision of the world possible, from an all embracing type of 

metaphysics. Philosophical reflection appears as a meeting point of science and religion. 

In some cases, some type of metaphysics is proposed as the guide to search for a set of 

general categories, with which it is possible to interpret different types of experiences, 

especially those deriving from science and religion. These proposals start from the 

acceptance of philosophical or metaphysical principles which are employed to make the 

synthesis of science and religion. Other proposals which start directly from the natural 

sciences are even more problematic as within these it is not allowed this type of 

63 

64 

65 

66 

Diarmuid O’Murchu, 1997. Quantum Theology. New York: Crossroad, 49-51. 

Alfred N. Whitehead, 1925. Science and the Modern World. New York: MacMillan; 1929. Process 

and Reality. New York. 

John Cobb y Donald Griffin, 1976. Process Theology: An Introduction. Philadelphia: Westminster 

Press. Charles Hartshorne, 1948. Divine Relativity. New Haven: Yale University Press. 

A summary of these two authors can be found in Javier Montserrat , 2004. Ciencia y philosophy del 

proceso y Dios en Ian G. Barbour. Pensamiento, 60, 33-66; 2005. Ciencia, bioquímica y panenteísmo 

en Arthur Peacocke. Pensamiento, 61, 59-76. 

38 



reflection. However, we must remember that the frontier between philosophy and 

science is somewhat blurred and we cannot prevent scientists entering the field of 

philosophical and even theological considerations, either to affirm or deny the existence 

of God. It is not always clear at what level the discussion is carried on and sometimes 

the frontier between the two is crossed without recognising it. Sometimes scientific 

arguments are provided in order to support postures which, in fact, are philosophical or 

even theological. One example can be found in the popular book of Stephen Hawking of 

which Carl Sagan states in its prologue that this is also a book about God ... or perhaps 

the absence of God. The word God fills these pages ... And this makes the conclusion of 

his efforts unexpected, at least up to now: a universe with no special edge, with no 

beginning and no end and with no place for a creator 67 . Just as the authors we have cited 

begin from the knowledge of the world through science to arrive somehow at God, here 

an attempt is made to arrive at the negation of God. Hawking seems not to realise that 

from the scientific image of the universe, regardless of what this may be, God cannot be 

affirmed or denied. The same can be said about the negation of God in the works of 

Richard Dawkins starting from the principles of biological evolution 68 . Another type of 

reasoning is required and this is lacking in these and other similar works. This same 

precaution must also be taken into account as regards some of the attempts which we 

have presented in which a consideration about God can be reached from the scientific 

knowledge of the world. 

17.2. From religious faith to knowledge of nature and science 

Another approach to this problem is the one which begins from a religious position, 

assumed within a specific tradition, and from this a vision of nature and science is taken 

so that the sciences are allowed to influence the religious formulations. Barbour groups 

these postures with the term “theology of nature” 69 . A start is made from the verification 

that the vision which we have of nature, which is conditioned by our scientific 

knowledge, can condition our thought on the relationship of God with it. Today science 

presents nature to us as the result of a cosmic and biological evolution involving laws 

and chance. This image can influence our way of thinking, both about the relationship 

of nature with God and also that of man with nature. Within the theology of nature, 

Barbour presents several questions which are all related to the doctrine of creation. 

Some of them are the following: man’s stewardship of nature, which defines the attitude 

of man as regards to nature, as not that of a master, but that of an administrator; a 

sacramental vision of nature which recognises that the sacred becomes present in it; and 

the presence of the Holy Spirit in nature which serves as a link between the action of 

God as creator and redeemer. According to Barbour, these points of view on nature also 

offer an interesting basis for environmental ethics. 

For Arthur Peacocke the scientific knowledge of nature entails a substantial 

challenge to Christian theology, which takes the created world and its nature seriously. 

For him, the character of the natural world and man himself, known through science, 

have enormous theological importance. What nature is and what God is are intertwined 

questions which cannot be dealt with separately. Thus, it is necessary to reformulate the 

traditional religious beliefs from the interaction with current science 70 . For him the 

67 

68 

69 

70 

Stephen Hawking, 1988. Historia del tiempo. Del big bang a los agujeros negros. Barcelona: Crítica, 

14. 

Richard Dawkins, 2006. The God Delusion. New York: Bantam. 

Barbour (2004) 173-178. 

Arthur Peacocke, 1996. Theology for a Scientific Age. London: SCM Press. 1-23. 



relationship between science and theology must be considered from the perspective of 

the critical realism of both disciplines, and they should be seen as two interactive 

approaches to reality. The theology which starts from the experience of God must take 

the critical-realist perspective of the sciences regarding man and nature seriously as it 

holds that God Himself has given the world the type of being it has and that this reveals 

in certain aspects the nature and the objectives of God. Theology, for Peacocke, must 

be, at least, in “consonance” with the scientific perspectives of the natural world. This 

author insists that, on contemplating the action of God in the world, both his 

transcendent and immanent characters must be taken into account as both are important 

for understanding the role of theology and the relationship with science 71 . 

The thought of John Polkinghorne also belongs to this category as it starts from 

within the Christian tradition 72 . Although we saw part of his thought when we spoke of 

the dialogue between religion and science, in reality, this author goes beyond dialogue, 

as, for him, faith in God today offers a way to find meaning in the broader group of 

human experiences and to unify the many aspects of our encounter with reality. For 

him, only faith in God can provide a total meaning to the world and the best explanation 

of the wide variety of religious and human experiences. Polkinghorne takes an attitude 

of critical realism as regards both science and theology, that is to say, both contribute 

knowledge which has to do with reality, and therefore, there can be no contradiction 

between them. For example, in Christian tradition God acts in the world and in a way 

scientific knowledge of the world cannot absolutely exclude divine action. 

In the previous section we saw the thought of Teilhard as a way which went from 

knowledge of the evolutionary development of the universe, life and man to the 

recognition of its convergence in a divine Omega Point. Teilhard does not finish his 

thought here, but starting from the Christian faith he establishes a new interpretation in 

which the Christ of the faith appears as the Omega Point of evolution. This idea, which 

entails a reformulation of the role of Christ, taking into account the evolutionary vision 

of the universe presented by the sciences, is developed by Teilhard especially in his 

later writings 73 . In this proposal, the contribution of science to the evolutionary 

character of the universe leads to a new interpretation of the mystery of the Christ of 

faith and also the vision of the Christian faith also enlightens the image of the world 

contributed by science. 

Other proposals which can be included here are those recently put forward under 

the name of “theology of science”. I believe this term appears for the first time in the 

work of Michael Heller, who presents it in analogy with the well established philosophy 

of science. For him, the theology of science constitutes an authentic theological 

reflection on the sciences: their existence, their bases, their methods and results 74 . Heller 

recognises the difficulty of defining a science which still does not exist, but he situates it 

within the movement in Catholic theology initiated with the Vatican Council II on the 

theology of earthly values. As an approximation he proposes that the theology of 

science is an integral part of theology and would study the consequences of the fact that 

71 

72 

73 

74 

40 

Peacocke (1996) 19-23. 

Polkinghorne (1998), 1-24, 2000, Faith, Science and Understanding, New Haven: Yale University 

Press. 2005, Exploring Reality. The Intertwining of Science and Religion. New Haven: Yale 

University Press. A summary of his thought can be found in Javier Montserrat, 2005. John 

Polkinghorne, Science y religion desde la física teórica. Pensamiento, 231, 363-393. 

For example in Teilhard (1955) 324-332 and more developed in : Le Christ évoluteur (1942) and in: 

Le Coeur de la matiere (1950) (Oeuvres, 10, 163-176 and 13, 50-74. Paris: Éditions du Seuil). 

Michael Heller, 1996. The New Physics and a New Theology. Ciudad del Vaticano: Vatican 

Observatory Publications, 95-103. 



the natural sciences explore the world created by God. It has to do with the philosophy 

of science, but it goes beyond this, as it contemplates the world known by science as 

created by God, a point of view not accessible to science itself. According to Heller its 

purpose is, therefore, a reflection on the sciences in the light of the creation and is 

presented as a way of thinking science from a Christian perspective. The proposal of a 

theology of science has spread with a variety of meanings, for Richard Kirby it is based 

on the Christian doctrine of creation, redemption and sanctification from the mystery of 

the Trinity 75 , while for Donald Lococo it is based on the presupposition of the unity in 

science and in theology with the concept of the Logos, as the rational basis of being, 

necessary in both 76 . For José Antonio Jáuregui, the theology of science arises 

spontaneously from the inevitable question on God, which ends up also being asked 

from science, either to affirm or deny His existence. Commenting on the excursions of 

modern scientists, such as Hawking, into this matter Jáuregui comments, “These 

modern or fashionable scientists have given birth to a new academic creature, the 

Theology of Science. I applaud his daring” 77 . The meaning given by Jáuregui is 

different from that of the authors mentioned above. The very term is ambiguous and I 

believe that its content is not quite clear. If what is meant is a theological reflection on 

nature known through science, that is to say, on the content of science, it would be more 

pertinent to speak of a theology of nature, as above. A theological reflection on science 

itself, that is to say, its methodology and practice is more problematic. Just as a 

philosophy of science which investigates the type of knowledge which is scientific is 

pertinent, it is not clear in what aspect a theology of science can contribute, other than 

the theology of nature. 

18. Conclusions 

From the ideas explained we see that several types of relationship can be established 

between science and religion. We must admit that they do not exclude one another and 

some can be present at some times with preference to other. The relationship of conflict 

cannot be made as the only one since it does not correspond to the nature of these two 

visions of the world, nor does it represent the complex, historical relationships which 

have existed between them. Although there have been times of conflict, these have not 

been constant throughout history and many factors alien to religion and science were 

involved. The relationship of mutual independence, although it is part of a correct 

consideration of the different realms and types of knowledge present in religion and 

science, it cannot be taken to the extreme of denying all other relationships between 

them. It is true that religion is not science and science is not religion, but, while 

respecting their mutual autonomy, there must be relationships which enrich both of 

them. In fact, historically, this has happened on many occasions. Dialogue and 

complementariness are the two models which are proposed in order to understand how 

they have in fact interacted at times in the past and especially how they must interact in 

the future, as the influence of science becomes stronger in culture and in society and in 

the conception which man has of the world and himself. Dialogue recognises the need 

for mutual enrichment which they can contribute to each other. As was mentioned 

above, complementariness adds to the dialogue the wareness of the incapacity of each 

75 

76 

77 

Richard Kirby, 1993. Toward a Theology of Science. Window Quarterly, 3. 1-20 

Donald Lococo, 2002. Toward a Theology of Science. Toronto: Novales. 

José Antonio Jáuregui, 1992. Dios, hoy, en la ciencia, en la cultura, en la sociedad y en la vida del 

Hombre. Oviedo: Nobel, 25-81 



one alone to achieve a complete vision of the world and how both can help each other 

instead of being a hindrance. Other visions of the world, such as the artistic and ethical, 

must also cooperate in this task. The recognition of the need to complete our vision of 

the world, which is not provided by either in isolation, must open up ways of positive 

interaction between them. 

The two categories into which we have divided the possibility of more integration 

between religion and science offer more problematic proposals. In both ways, from 

science to religion and from religion to science, certain continuity between the two is 

proposed, which is not present in the relationships of dialogue and complementariness. 

As we have seen, the role of philosophy now appears as an intermediate field, as well as 

explicit theological reflection as a vehicle for the relationship with science. We have 

presented some examples of the many proposals made within each group. Within the 

first group, it is important to begin by rejecting all more or less concealed attempts to 

base the way to God from the gaps in the scientific explanation, that is to say the so 

called “God of the gaps”, which the progress of science will render unnecessary in the 

future. This does not mean that the scientific explanation is accepted as a complete 

explanation of reality. Also an important element to be taken into account at all times is 

from which epistemology of science we start off. Finally, the way of reason to God 

necessarily entails the acceptance of metaphysics, as without this the way would be 

closed. It should be borne in mind that from science alone, enclosed in its own 

methodology, only entities related to experience can arrive (through experiments and 

observations), therefore, it is no possible to open to the consideration of anything 

transcendent. 

The second group of proposals takes the opposite direction and starts from the 

religious faith lived in a specific tradition, from where the results of science are seen, 

and an attempt is made to integrate them. Its difference with dialogue lies in the fact that 

an endeavour is made to reformulate some aspects of faith, taking into account the new 

visions of the world provided by the sciences. Above all, this has to do with the 

relationships between God, man and the world. For example, how must creation be 

understood today considering the new cosmological theories, and how the presence and 

action of God in the world must be understood, without breaking the laws which He has 

imposed on it. Other examples are how the theological vision of man must be 

understood, taking into account his position in biological evolution, which affects the 

Christian doctrine of original sin and the Incarnation. In addition, this may involve 

reinterpreting nature known by science within a theological vision which discovers 

vestiges of God in nature, especially in the religions which accept a creator God. This 

line of thought leads to what we have called a theology of nature, which also has 

consequences for the relationship of man with nature. However, the formulation of 

theology of science does not seem to us to be right, science is an instrument for 

knowing nature which has its own rules, and theological reflection has little to say about 

these. 

It should be understood that, as regards these ways to integrate science and 

theology, which we have examined, their mutual autonomy must be respected at all 

times. Science must continue to be science and religion must continue to be religion, 

with no attempts to convert one into the other. This does not mean that elements of one 

cannot be integrated into the other, especially those involving the scientific vision of the 

world in theological thought, always taking into account, that science is always 

provisional and subject to continual revisions throughout time. What we have called 

theology of nature is part of theology not of science. It may also be useful to the 

42 



scientist and enlighten him in the practice of science that he may acquire a religious 

feeling of veneration of God in nature. The Psalmist exclaimed, “The heavens proclaim 

of the glory of God”. This feeling of discovery of the mark of God in nature has been 

present in many of the great scientists, such as the physicists Kepler, Newton, Lord 

Kelvin, Maxwell and Plank. 


Teilhard de Chardin 

PART II: TEILHARD DE CHARDIN 

Teilhard de Chardin and the Current Dialogue between Science 

and Religion 

AGUSTÍN UDÍAS 

UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE, MADRID 

In the writings of Teilhard de Chardin we can find many points of interest for the 

dialogue between science and religion. In this work I have selected three of these: his 

conception of science, matter and human evolution. The first is focused on his great 

respect for science and its role in human history. Science for him represents the line 

along which evolution progresses at human level. Science surpasses its specific function 

and also prepares man to find the deepest, most hidden meanings of reality. This 

conception of science may serve as a starting point in the dialogue between science and 

religion as it recognises the potentialities of science to be interpreted in religious terms. 

The second is his conception of matter which surpasses all duality of matter and spirit. 

Matter for Teilhard has an internal dynamism which leads it towards the spirit through 

the process of cosmic evolution. The third is his conception of human evolution which 

situates it within cosmic evolution. In it human consciousness progresses in the line of a 

progressive increase in unity until it converges in the Omega Point, where it finds its 

definitive perfection. 

Introduction 

In 2005 we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Teilhard de Chardin, an 

occasion to re-examine his thought. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), a Jesuit 

priest, geologist and palaeontologist developed an original system of thought parallel to 

his scientific career which can be situated at the frontier of science, philosophy, 

theology and mysticism. During his life the ecclesiastical authorities prohibited the 

publication of the majority of his non-scientific works, although some essays were 

published in journals and other in private copies circulated among friends and admirers. 

Despite the efforts of the author to achieve the authorisation of the two extensive works 

Le phénomène humain (The Human Phenomenon) and Le Milieu divin (The Divine 

Milieu), these were not published during his lifetime. After his death in 1955, when the 

writings of Teilhard began to be published, they caused an enormous impact and were 

translated into many languages. The publication of all his works was a slow process. In 

the original French version, the first volume of the works of Teilhard were published in 

1955 and the last in 1976. Other writings, letters and personal notes were published 

from that time on 1 .In this article the references to his writings are given according to the 

1 

The complete works in French are published in 13 volumes by Éditions de Seuil, Paris: I. Le 

phénomène humain (1955); II. L’Apparition de l’Homme (1956); III, La Vision de passé (1957); IV. 

Le Milieu divin (1957); V. L’Avenir de l’Homme (1959); VI. L’Énergie humain (1962); VII. 

L’Activation de la énergie (1963); VIII. La Place de l’homme dans la nature (1963); IX. Science et 

Christ (1965); X. Comment je crois (1969); XI. Les Directions de l’avenir (1973); XII. Écrits du 

temps de la guerre (1916-1919) (1976); XIII. Le Coeur de la matière (1976). His letter have been 

published by several publishers in 10 volumes, some of the more interesting are: Lettres d’Égypte 

(Aubier-Montagne, 1963); Lettres de Hasting et de Paris (1908-1914) (Aubier-Montagne, 1965); 

Genèse de un pensée, Lettres (1914-1919) (Grasset, 1961); Lettres intimes à Auguste Valensin, Bruno 

God Seen by Science: Anthropic Evolution of the Uuniverse 45


French edition of his complete works, the title of the essay and its translation, the 

volume of the work and the pages. As Teilhard assigned a special significance to some 

terms and created many neologisms, some of these are also given in their original 

French. 

The profound interest aroused everywhere by the ideas of Teilhard can be measured 

by the number of publications about these ideas, between 1956 and 1980 more than 

3,000 books and articles were published in several countries 2 . Teilhard’s thought has 

been and continues to be the subject of many studies, which analyse it in its scientific, 

philosophical and theological aspects 3 . More recently, growing interest has been 

aroused as regards the mystical aspects of his work so that he is beginning to be 

considered to be one of the most important mystics of the twentieth century 4 . During the 

years they were being composed, from 1916 to 1955, the writings of Teilhard were 

considered with suspicion in ecclesiastical environments, especially due to his 

incorporation of evolution into Christian thought and his ideas on the origin of man, 

original sin and the role of Christ in an evolving world, even after their publication, they 

were prohibited in seminaries. Teilhard himself was aware of the novelty of his thought 

and his confrontation with some aspects of traditional Catholic doctrine. However, 

despite all the difficulties, he was always loyal to the Church and to the Society of 

Jesus, and was convinced of his own orthodoxy 5 . With the changes provoked by the 

Vatican Council II, this attitude began to change and in some documents of the Council 

there are signs of the thought of Teilhard although these are not cited explicitly 6 . As 

from 1980, the interest in Teilhard seems to have lapsed, although there has recently 

been a certain awakening. In the new dialogue between science and religion, which 

originated around the 1970s, the work of Teilhard is scarcely cited. One explanation 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

46 

de Solages, Henri de Lubac (Aubier-Montagne, 1974); Lettres de voyage (1923-1955) (Grasset, 

1961); Lettres inédits à l’abbé Gaudefroy et à l’abbé Breuil (Rocher, 1988). In addition, part of his 

diary has been published, Journal, tome 1 (1915-1919) (Fayard, 1975), the notes from his retreats, 

Notes de retraites (1919-1954) (Seuil, 2003) and other short texts such as Hymne de l’Univers (Seuil, 

1961). Volumes I to VII y XII were published in Spanish between 1957 and 1966 (Taurus, Madrid) 

and in 2001 volume XIII (Sal Terrae, Santander). Taurus has also published four volumes of letters: 

Cartas de viaje (1957); Nuevas cartas de viaje (1960); Génesis de un pensamiento (1963) and Cartas 

de Egipto (1967) and Desclée de Brouwer (Bilbao) Cartas íntimas de Teilhard de Chardin (1974). 

Recently El Medio Divino (Alianza, Madrid, 1989) and El Himno del Universe (Trotta, Madrid, 

1996) were published again. 

A more extensive bibliography of books and articles on Teilhard can be found in Polgar, L., 1990. 

Bibliographie sur l’histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus (1901-1980), Vol. I-IV. Archivum Historicum 

Societatis Jesu, Rome.(volume III, 359-563). 

Among these are the following: Crespy, P. 1961. La pensée théologique de Teilhard de Chardin, 

Éditions Universitaires, Paris ; De Lubac, H. 1962. La pensée religieuse du Père Pierre Teilhard de 

Chardin. Aubier, Paris; Rideau, E. 1965. La pensée du Père Teilhard de Chardin, Éditions du Seuil, 

Paris ; Chauchard, P. 1965. La pensée scientifique de Teilhard, Éditions Universitaires, Paris. 

Some works which deal with the mysticism of Teilhard are: the first classic, C. F. Mooney, 1968. 

Teilhard de Chardin and the Mystery of Christ. Doubleday-Image, Garden City, N.Y. and the more 

recent by T. M. King, 1988. The Way of the Christian Mystics: Teilhard de Chardin. Michael Glazier, 

Wilmington and E. de la Héronnière, 2003. Teilhard de Chardin, une mystique de la traversée. Albin 

Michel, Paris. 

During a retreat in 1951, he presented the basis of his orthodoxy in the form, “Man as an arrow, the 

resurrected historical Christ at the head, Catholicism as the axis of panconvergence; in this triple sign, 

Why can’t it be recognised that my course is orthodox or “orthodrome”?” (Notes de retraites, 322). 

“Orthodrome” is a neologism created by Teilhard to refer to his course or straight trajectory. 

In particular, these are found in the document on the Church in the World, Gaudium et Spes. This 

values human effort in the world, the role of science and technology in human progress and the work 

of men. 

God Seen by Science: Anthropic Evolution of the Uuniverse


may be the preponderance of authors from the Anglo-American tradition in this 

dialogue 7 in which the ideas of Teilhard have not penetrated so much. However, many 

points of undoubted interest for this dialogue can be found in his writings. In this work 

some of these ideas are grouped around his conceptions on science, matter and human 

evolution. 

Before entering into the theme proposed, it will help to briefly present the main 

stages of the life and thought of Teilhard. A written autobiographical testimony in 1950 

tells us how his thought went back to intuitions he had had since his childhood and 

which matured during his lifetime 8 . His interest for the natural sciences and especially 

for geology was soon awakened from the time of his secondary schooling. After he 

entered the Society of Jesus, he maintained this interest and between 1905 and 1908 he 

was professor of science at the Jesuit College in Cairo, where he began to carry out 

work in geology. This was also his first contact with the East which always had a 

special attraction for him, together with a certain persistent pantheistic temptation 

coming from oriental thought. After he had studied theology and then geology, Teilhard 

was called up in 1914 and went through the experience of war as a stretcher bearer at 

the front. This was one of the strongest experiences in his life which he interpreted as a 

“baptism of the real”. In one of his first writings in 1916 appear the germs of many of 

the themes which would be repeated throughout his lifetime and his vital attitude 

reflected in the first lines of the introduction to this essay: “I write these lines due to the 

exuberance of life and the necessity to live, in order to express a passionate vision of the 

Earth and to seek a solution to the doubts of my action; because I love the Universe, its 

energies, its secrets, its hopes and because I am also dedicated to God, the sole Origin, 

the sole Exit, the sole End”. This passionate love for God and the Earth will be constant 

up to the time of his death. In this same introduction there is a call to the Christian to 

recognise this “cosmic awakening” and “to discover the divine Ideal in the marrow of 

the most material and terrestrial objects and to penetrate the beatifying value and the 

eternal hope of holy Evolution” 9 . The acceptance of the evolutionary character of the 

universe, of life and of its integration in his religious and Christian vision will always be 

at the centre of his thought. The 20 essays written during wartime (1916-1919) already 

contain most of the basic intuitions of his thought, on which he would work during the 

rest of his life. 

Once he finished his degree in natural sciences in Paris in 1919, he began teaching 

geology at the Institut Catholique, but he soon had to interrupt this. In 1923 Teilhard 

made his first trip to China, where he worked in geology in the north of China and in 

Mongolia. From the time of this first trip, his life remained linked to geological and 

palaeontological work in China. As from 1939, acknowledged in scientific circles, he 

travelled to France and the United States and carried out field work in China, Kashmir, 

Java, Burma and South Africa, progressively linking his work to studies on the origin of 

man. At the same time, he continually produced philosophical and religious thought 

which culminated in the drafting of two fundamental texts: The Human Phenomenon 

between 1938 and 1940 and The Divine Milieu between 1926 and 1927 revised in 1932. 

The first includes his thought, which we can call philosophical, although he considered 

7 

8 

9 

Three of the most representative authors in the modern dialogue between science and religion are Ian 

Barbour, John Polkinghorne and Arthur Peacocke. Their more representative works are: I. G. Babour, 

1990. Religion in an Age of Science. SCM Press, London; J. Polkinghorne, 2000. Faith, Science and 

Understanding. Yale University Press, London. A. Peacocke, 1993. Theology for a Scientific Age. 

SCM Press, London. 

Le Coeur de la Matière (The Heart of the Matter), XIII, 19-92. 

La vie cosmique (The Cosmic Life), XII, 5. 



it to be scientific reflection, on physics and “hyperphysics” in the manner of the Ancient 

Greek philosophers, not physics in the modern sense of the word. Thus, he develped a 

global vision (Weltanschaung) of all the evolution of the universe, including the 

evolution of man, taking the data provided by the sciences as the starting point. At the 

end of the work, he added considerations on the Christian phenomenon, and how it must 

be interpreted from new perspectives. The second is a book of a purely religious nature, 

in which he presents a new focus on ascetic and Christian mystical themes, coherent 

with his evolutionary vision of the world. Throughout his life, which involved 

enormous activity giving lectures and talks, the total number of essays he left on 

different subjects, beyond those of strictly scientific character, and content in the 13 

volumes of his complete works amount to 243, the last written in March 1955, only one 

month before his death 10 . 

The religious meaning of science 

The first consideration we find in the work of Teilhard, which today can help in the 

dialogue between science and religion, is found in his great esteem for science and the 

role he assigns to it in the evolution of humanity. In fact, for him science is more than a 

body of knowledge on nature, in his own words, it deals with Le gran affaire du Monde 

(The grand business of the world), and he refers to it as “a vital, human function, as vital 

as nutrition and reproduction”. This might seem exaggerated to us, but later we will see 

how he justifies this. Teilhard goes even further and adds that we must “believe” in 

scientific research, which, if followed by faith, constitutes the source of a unique, 

human-Christian mysticism which can contribute to creating a true, human unanimity 11 . 

This integration of scientific research with the religious feeling, which Teilhard 

considered to be necessary, for him is a consequence of a unitary vision in which the 

universe is “crossed” (traversée) by the presence of God. In a short essay written shortly 

before his death Teilhard leaves us his last opinion on what the sciences meant for 

him 12 . In this essay he insists, firstly, on the confirmation of the fact that scientific 

research has become quantitatively and qualitatively the main form of human activity. If 

this was true at the time Teilhard was writing, it is much truer today when we live in a 

culture which is strongly influenced by science and technology. Not only is the life of 

man today profoundly influenced at all levels by the progress of technology, but the 

conception of the universe and of man is based on the knowledge contributed by 

science. In some way, as sensed by Teilhard, it can be said that science has become the 

basis of human life. Writing on the problems which young Jesuit students dedicated to 

the sciences might find, Teilhard refers explicitly to the conflict between science and 

religion and states that a solution to this problem requires another approach to the 

Christian message in the light of science, especially by incorporating the ideas of 

cosmic evolution. He concludes the essay by pointing out how scientific researchers at 

the present time can be considered to be the leading patrols of a society which 

progresses towards new forms of adoration. This consideration of scientific research as 

a form of adoration is often repeated in several of his essays and can only be understood 

through a consideration of scientific activity within the evolutionary scheme, as we shall 

see below, in which God appears as the engine and finality of evolution and of his 

10 

11 

12 

48 

The complete list of his essays contained in the 13 volumes of his complete works are in XIII (Index 

bibliographique général) 225- 236. This also contains a chronological list of his essays from 1913 to 

1955 (Chronologie général des oeuvres), XIII, 237-246. 

Sur le valeur religieuse de la recherche (On the Religious Value of Research) IX, 258-263. 

Recherche, travail et adoration (Investigation, Work and Adoration), IX, 281-289. 



conception of the presence of God in the world. Thus, we may think that Teilhard 

considered science with optimism, as the true engine of human progress. Even more, 

science constitutes, for him, not only the source of knowledge and understanding 

regarding the universe, but also it opens up to deeper forms of understanding reality, so 

that it can be said that it has in itself a really religious character. From his point of view, 

this can only be understood by the fact that science has a broader character than it is 

normally considered to have. For him, science is not limited to the knowledge of the 

structure and functioning of the material world, but extends beyond what we normally 

consider to be its limits, in order to extend to all aspects of reality in which the spiritual 

dimension and transcendence enter. 

In order to understand Teilhard’s position regarding science, we must consider this 

in the context of his vision of human evolution and this as part of total cosmic 

evolution. Although this will be explained more at length in the next section, it is now 

sufficient to advance that for Teilhard the universe is in a state of cosmic evolution and 

human evolution is an integral part of this. For him, a central part of human evolution is 

made up precisely by scientific work. Thus, science for him represents the line whereby 

evolution progresses at human level. As the main characteristic of the evolutionary 

vision of Teilhard is that of its convergence towards its ultimate perfection through the 

spirit in what he calls the Omega Point, which he identifies with God, as will be seen 

below in more detail, all movement in the direction of convergence of the universe 

acquires in itself a religious character sense due to its relationship with the axis of 

convergence of the universe, in fact, acquires a mystical character 13 . In other words, in a 

universe in which all is finally directed to convergence through the spirit towards God, 

we must acknowledge a profound meaning of “sanctity” and “communion” in science 

itself 14 . With these words: sanctity and communion, Teilhard expresses the same idea as 

he refers to the religious and mystical character of science, that is to say, related to the 

evolutionary, convergent process towards God. In a real sense, for Teilhard scientific 

work, which consisted of developing ours consciousness of the world through 

knowledge, is also converted into something which can be called a priestly operation as 

it consists of a contribution to the progress of the world which is ultimately oriented 

towards God 15 . For him this is the ultimate reason for religious and mystical meaning of 

science. Scientific effort leads to progress through the action of men in a universe in 

which God Himself comes to meet us and in Him is our ultimate end. For Teilhard, 

therefore, the opposition between science and religion no longer makes sense. 

Teilhard took another step in the search for the understanding of the meaning of 

science and its relationship with religion, and introduced the role of Christ in a 

convergent world from Christian faith 16 . It must be remembered that, when Teilhard 

considers what he calls the “Christian phenomenon”, he identifies Jesus Christ as the 

Omega Point of evolution which is already present in the world. Thus, he discovers that, 

through the Incarnation of Christ, the very Pole of the convergence of the universe 

became present in the true heart of matter in order to attract all the movement of 

evolution and lead it towards its consummation For him, consequently, Christ is not an 

alien in the world, but the true centre of its convergence. Towards and through Christ, 

the Light and the Life of the world, through human work and effort carries out the 

13 

14 

15 

16 

La mystique de la science (The Mystique of Science), VI, 202. 

La mystique de la science, VI, 222. 

La mystique de la science, VI, 202. 

This is developed in the epilogue with the title “Le phénomène chrétien” in Le Phénomène humain 

(The human Phenomenon), I, 324-332. 



universal convergence through the spirit 17 . Through his cosmic vision of the role played 

by Christ in evolution and which we will deal with in the next two sections, Teilhard 

justifies his religious vision of science. He conceived his life’s work as an effort to bring 

Christ to the centre of the universe and lead the universe towards Christ (“universalise” 

Christ and “Christify” the universe) 18 . 

Teilhard’s understanding of the role of science and the role assigned by Christian 

faith to Christ, and which he interprets in the context of the process of evolution, is 

fundamental to understanding his position concerning the religious character of science. 

In this regard, science not only doesn’t opposes religion, but is in a way a preparation 

for it. In fact, science prepares man to find the deep, hidden meaning of reality, which 

for Teilhard is founded on the convergence of all evolution finally towards God. Once 

we accept that our universe is a universe in convergence towards its union with God, 

through the continual increase of consciousness, scientific work itself acquires a 

religious meaning. At a lecture on the relationship between science and religion, 

Teilhard distinguished between the method of science and the method of religion which 

he classified respectively as that of analysis and that of synthesis. With these two terms, 

analysis and synthesis, he expressed the distinction between scientific and religious 

knowledge. Therefore, for him there is no confusion between the two. Taking his mage 

of the universe into account, we can understand that for him, these two forms of 

knowledge do not exclude nor do they oppose each other. Thus, he states that, “Science 

with its analysis must not worry us in our faith. On the contrary, it must help us to 

understand and appreciate God” 19 . On speaking about the conflicts between science and 

religion, Teilhard concluded that these are not opposed, but, in away, they complement 

each other. Science in its desire to reach the ultimate truth of the universe finally meets 

with religious thought. “After two centuries of passionate struggle, neither science nor 

faith have been able to discredit each other. On the contrary, it has become evident that 

neither of the two can develop normally without the other …. Neither as regards 

impulse nor results, can science reach its true limits unless it becomes tinged with 

mysticism and becomes loaded with faith …. Religion and science are two features or 

phases of the same complete act of knowing” 20 . “A science loaded with faith” is 

precisely the title of the chapter dedicated to Teilhard by Henderson 21 . In this chapter 

Henderson develops Teilhard’s proposal to unite science and theology in a passionate 

search for God, whose presence must be acknowledged in both. On introducing the 

Christian mystery of the Incarnation of God through Christ in the universe, Teilhard 

went even further and concluded that, “Consequently, opposing science to Christ, or 

separating them as two domains which are strange to each other, are vain and unjust. 

Science by itself cannot discover Christ, but Christ complies with the desires which 

arise in our hearts in the school of science” 22 . In one of his first essays, in 1916, 

Teilhard had spoken of the “sacred fire of research” and had stated that, “it can never 

be said of religion that its influence has made men lazier, shyer, less human … that its 

dogmas risk withering the interest in the world, limiting the progress of the horizon of 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

50 

Science et Christ ou analyse et synthèse (Science and Christ or Analysis and Synthesis), IX, 61. 

Notes de retraites, 202. 

Science et Christ ou analyse et synthèse, IX, 61. 

Le phénomène humain, I, 316-317. 

Henderson, C.P. 1986. God and Science. The Death and Rebirth of Theism. John Knox Press, New 

York. 

Science et Christ ou analyse et synthèse, IX, 62. 



research and the sphere of energies” 23 . Teilhard was fully convinced that science and 

religion must walk together. 

Accustomed as we are to the well known solution of keeping science and religion 

separate with no interaction between them, we may think that Teilhard’s proposal is 

both unreal and absurd. Isn’t science in itself atheistic, that is to say doesn’t it dispense 

with all transcendent aspects of reality? How can it, then, become a way to God? In fact 

the solution which considers science and religion as two independent and autonomous 

domains has served as a good solution to prevent the conflicts of the past 24 . However, 

even accepting this mutual separation and autonomy, it is also recognised that it cannot 

be permitted that they totally ignore each other; a fruitful dialogue between them is 

obviously necessary. Even a proponent of the complete independence of science and 

religion like Stephen Gould, a scathing critic of Teilhard, agrees with the need for a 

certain dialogue between them 25 . Today there is a strong conviction that theology 

cannot progress in isolation from the increase in the knowledge of the natural world 

provided by science. This is not new, medieval theologians were already aware of the 

need for a correct knowledge of the world for theology 26 . However, science cannot be 

totally isolated from the source of inspiration and the ethical demands which arise in 

religion. Although the necessary autonomy of science and religion must never be 

forgotten, mutual interaction will always benefit both and is very necessary 27 . As 

regards his integrating proposals of continuity between science and religion, it may 

seem to us that perhaps Teilhard has gone too far, but we can only accept that his ideas 

open up ways along which we must dare to walk. 

The spiritual dimension of matter 

The ideological position called “scientific materialism” is recognised as the most 

serious source of confrontations between science and religion 28 . Scientific materialism 

is founded on two principles: the first, matter (including energy) is the fundamental 

reality of the universe and the second, science, which studies matter, is the only valid 

knowledge. The former is an assertion of a metaphysical nature and the latter is of an 

epistemological nature based on the former. If all that exists is matter, the only possible 

knowledge of reality is that of science, which studies precisely the nature and processes 

of matter. Consequently, for scientific materialism, the only reality is matter known 

through science. Materialism always implies a certain reductionism, that is to say, the 

affirmation that all knowledge of any system, however complex this may be, can be 

reduced to its simplest components. Thus, at least, in principle, everything could be 

explained in terms of the simplest components of matter, that is to say, the elementary 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

La maitrise du Monde et le Règne de Dieu (The Domination of the World and the Kingdom of God), 

XII, 83. 

On the relationships between science and religion and, specifically, mutual separation, see I. G. 

Barbour, 1990. Religion in an Age of Science. SCM Press, London. 

Steven Gould proposes a mutual independence of science and religion under the formulation of nonoverlapping 

magisteria. For him, science deals with the world and its functioning and religion deals 

with meaning and morality. However, at the end of his work, he accepts the possibility of dialogue 

between them. Gould, S. T., 1999. Rocks of Ages. Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. 

Ballentine, New York, 221-222. 

Thomas Aquinas stated that a false idea of the world leads to a false idea of God and may separate 

men from Him, Summa contra Gentiles lib.2, cap.3, 6. 

This mutual need for dialogue between science and religion is affirmed by the majority of the authors 

who deal with these subjects and can be found in the works of Barbour, Peacocke and Polkinghorne 

cited. 

Barbour, 1990, 7-9. 



particles and their interactions. Following this line, the sciences can be classified, from 

the minor to the major complexity of their subject matter, into: physics, chemistry, 

biology, psychology and sociology. Physics which deals with the most elementary 

particles of matter, their interactions and the forces of nature, could, in principle, 

explain all phenomena. We have said, in principle, as in practice it does not happen this 

way and each science starts from its own principles in order to explain the conduct of 

the systems which are progressively more complex. However, materialism does not 

exclude the idea that, in a complex system, might appear (“emerge”) some qualities not 

contained in its isolated components, but which continue to be at the strict material 

level. Consequently, for scientific materialism there is no reality apart from matter and, 

therefore, the consideration of any other reality, such as in spiritualism or animism, 

must be rejected as having no grounds. These ideas are very extended nowadays, as 

Barbour says, “The fact that scientific materialism has its origin in certain scientific 

ideas confers considerable influence on it in an age which respects science so much”. In 

the dialogue with this mentality, the ideas of Teilhard on matter can help very much. 

Teilhard began by rejecting all matter-spirit dualism and presents a concept of matter 

which includes in itself a spiritual dimension. Let us briefly examine his argumentation. 

Teilhard tried to understand the nature of matter, not from the starting point of its most 

elementary particles, but from the evidence of consciousness in man. That is to say, 

instead of trying to understand human consciousness from the constituents of nature, 

that is to say, from its biology or chemistry, as many neurobiologists attempt to do 

today, he tried to understand matter from the fact of the presence of consciousness in the 

material being which is man. In fact, if man is a self-conscious, material being, this 

quality of consciousness, clearly and explicitly present in man, for Teilhard has, in some 

way, to be present in all matter. A quality, such as self-consciousness, cannot appear as 

something totally new in man, without in a certain, even primitive way, already being 

present in the other beings. This led him to propose that there is an “interior” (dedans) 

of matter, besides its “exterior” (dehors), whose nature and functioning is the subject of 

the experimental sciences 29 . The interior of matter is linked to complexity (complexité), 

in such a away that, when complexity is increased, the degree of interiority is also 

increased. In turn, complexity is related to another characteristic of matter which he 

calls “centricity” (centréité), and both are related to consciousness. Centricity 

constitutes the capacity of integration of the components of a system in a unity, which 

could be called, “centred”, of a progressively greater order as more components are 

grouped together. On speaking of complexity, he observes the grouping of many 

components in each new unit, and on doing so with centricity, emphasis is placed on the 

fact that each new unit is centred on itself, grouping all the components which form it. 

The more components which make up a unit, the greater the centricity. For Teilhard, 

therefore, complexity centricity, interiority and consciousness are joined together so that 

an increase of the first also involves an increase in the last. That is to say, the degree of 

consciousness increases as the degree of complexity and centricity increases. This 

linking of interiority, complexity, centricity and consciousness is fundamental in 

Teilhard’s thought and is founded on the fact that consciousness clearly appears in man, 

whose brain is the most complex. 

Two types of energy also correspond to this dual character of matter (interior y 

exterior): a “tangencial” (tangentielle) energy, which corresponds to the physical energy 

with which things interact at their own level and another “radial” (radiale) energy, 

which is responsible for the convergence of the evolution of matter along the line of 

29 Le phénomène humain, I, 49-64. 

52 



greater complexity and greater consciousness. These two types of energy are, in reality, 

the two components of a sole, fundamental energy. Teilhard also calls radial energy 

spiritual energy as, for him, consciousness and spirituality are identified. Therefore, in 

Teilhard we have the identification of interiority, complexity, centricity, consciousness 

and spirituality in matter as dimensions, which increase throughout the evolutionary 

process due to the action of radial energy. These concepts of matter and energy are 

deduced for Teilhard from his vision of cosmic evolution which continuously proceeds 

from the elementary particles of the primitive universe up to the appearance of 

conscious, free man on Earth. 

In conclusion, for Teilhard matter, therefore, has an internal dynamism, which 

includes the spiritual dimension. It is a fact of observation that evolution proceeds along 

a line of greater complexity, with the appearance of progressively more complex 

systems. The most primitive universe was formed only of the most elementary particles 

(quarks and leptons) and later the simplest atoms of hydrogen and helium were formed. 

From these, in the interior of the stars, the other atoms were synthesised and then 

molecules were formed, from the simples to the most complex organic compounds. 

When the complexity of these compounds reached a certain degree, life appeared in the 

simplest form of unicellular bacteria. With the appearance of life on Earth the formation 

of a layer with new characteristics was formed, which Teilhard calls the “biosphere” 

(Biosphère). He also uses the word “emergence” in order to describe the appearance of 

this new condition of matter 30 . Once life had appeared, it developed towards 

progressively more complex forms, from unicellular animals to mammals and within 

these the primates, in which the brain acquired greater development as regards 

complexity. As we said above, this increase in complexity has a corresponding increase 

in consciousness and consequently a greater degree of spirituality. When beings evolve 

from inert matter to life and later towards greater degrees of consciousness, their 

spiritual dimension grows as they grow along a line of greater complexity. A new step is 

taken with the appearance of man in which consciousness is clearly developed. Just as 

the appearance of life created the biosphere, the appearance of consciousness developed 

in man created a new wrapping for the Earth, which Teilhard calls the “noosphere” 

(Noosphère) 31 . Thus, inn order to ensure the continuity of evolution, consciousness, 

which is present completely in man, must also in a certain primitive way be present in 

all material beings. With this continuity of evolution, Teilhard does not deny the 

existence of a discontinuity between life and inert matter and between man and the other 

animals, which he refers to as “discontinuity with continuity”. The appearance of the 

biosphere and the noosphere are two cases of the process of emergence, which form a 

discontinuity in continuity, with the appearance of life in the former and consciousness 

in the latter 32 . 

In one of his studies on the forms of matter, Teilhard drew up a type of hierarchy of 

forms in matter in which he distinguishes seven degree or levels, in accordance with 

their position in the ascending movement towards spirit 33 . Teilhard speaks of a formal 

or specific matter, at the lowest level, and a total or elative universal matter, at a higher 

level ad finally liberated or resurrected matter at the highest level of all. This last form 

of matter is linked to the situation of matter after the convergence of the universe takes 

30 

31 

32 

33 

Le phénomène humain, I, 77-92 (The Appearance of Life). 

Noosfera (Noosphere) “This word designates the thinking layer formed by the establishment of the 

human zoological group, above (and in discontinuity) with the Biosphere"”. La structure phylétique 

du groupe humain (ThePhyletic Structure of the Human Group), II, 191. 


Le noms de la matière (The Names of Matter), XII, 449-464. 



place in the Omega Point. These levels can be considered to be steps in the process of 

the spiritualization of matter or in another way, of the growth of the spiritual dimension 

within matter itself. At the lowest level is the most primitive matter and at the highest 

the matter with the highest degree of spiritualization. However, he recognises that, in 

reality, there are two basic movements or processes in the evolution of matter, that is to 

say, one downwards in the direction of the most primitive matter and another upwards 

in the direction of the spirit, that is to say, materialisation and spiritualization 

(matérialisation et spiritualisation) which are strongly linked with the two features or 

dimensions (material and spiritual) of the same material reality. The former leads to 

disgregation and towards the multiple, an increase in the “material” dimension of 

matter. In this process the complex systems disintegrate into their elementary parts, 

losing complexity and centricity, and, therefore, level of consciousness. The latter tends 

towards unification and towards oneness growing in complexity and centricity. The 

systems integrate a growing number of components in a unit and these bring with them 

a greater level of consciousness and constitute an increase in the spiritual dimension. 

Behind this conception is what Teilhard calls “the spiritual power of matter”, which 

permits matter itself to become the matrix of the spirit 34 . In this way, he asserts that 

matter is the matrix of the spirit and the spirit is, in turn, a superior state of matter 35 . It 

can be said that, for Teilhard matter itself has an interior dynamism which makes it 

evolve towards progressively higher levels of its spiritual dimension, up to the explicit 

appearance of consciousness and spirit in man. 

This evolutionary movement of matter towards the spirit does not end in man as, 

through the human spirit, the evolution of matter continues until its final realisation in 

convergence, as was seen already, at a common convergent point, the Omega Point. The 

convergence of the evolutionary cosmic movement is an essential component in the 

thought of Teilhard. For him an evolution which does not converge does not make 

sense 36 . In the convergence in the Omega Point the final perfection of all evolution is 

realised. This convergence is realised through the noosphere (human evolution), as we 

will see later. Matter itself which initiates its evolutionary movement in the origin of the 

universe does not achieve its completion until its convergence in Point Omega, through 

the evolution of its spiritual dimension in man. We will speak more extensively of this 

in the following section. For the Greek philosophers, especially those of the platonic 

school, matter and spirit were two totally distinct realities. In man the spirit (nous) is 

enclosed in his body (soma) and, therefore, matter was considered to be an obstacle to 

overcome in the development of the spirit. This type of thought is the source of matterspirit 

dualism (body-soul, and in modern times brain-mind) present in several forms in a 

large part of Western thought. In this type of thought, the big difficulty lies in 

explaining the interaction between the two components, spirit and matter. On giving 

matter the power to progress towards the spirit, Teilhard proposes to overcome this 

dualism. He finishes his considerations on matter with a poetical and mystical “Hymn to 

Matter”, in which matter is greeted at the beginning as “sterile land, hard rock which 

only cedes to violence … Dangerous matter, violent sea, untameable passion which 

devours and enchains”, however, he later addresses it as “the powerful Matter, 

irresistible evolution, reality always being born … which obliges us to always chase 

something farther the Truth”, and finally as “Divine environment full of creative power, 

34 

35 

36 

54 

La puissance spirituelle de la matière (The Spiritual Power of Matter), XII, 467-478. 

Le coeur de la matière, XIII, 45. Le phénomène spirituel (The Spiritual Phenomenon), VI, 117-139. 

Le phénomène humain, I, 286-293 (The convergence of the personal and the Point Omega). 



ocean shaken by the Spirit, clay worked and animated by the Word Incarnate” 37 . We see 

here three states of matter: the first is full of the potentialities of inert matter which are 

still undefined, the second is developing the evolutionary movement of life towards the 

spirit and the last, inspired by Christian faith, as a vehicle for the creator power of God 

(which is identified with then the Omega Point) and is related to the mystery of the 

Incarnation of Christ (the Word). Thus, the proposal of scientific materialism in which 

matter is the only reality, which constitutes the seed of atheism, may be overcome, by 

showing the internal dynamism towards the spirit of matter itself, in the general scheme 

of a convergent evolution in which the ultimate final is God Himself. 

From Teilhard’s point of view, the nature of matter known by science is incomplete 

in itself as it cannot explain its evolution towards greater complexity and consciousness, 

which encounters its complete expression in man. The reductionist scheme of science, 

which begins with the simplest components in order to explain the nature of the more 

complex systems exclusively in their terms, does not quite explain the emergence of life 

and consciousness. Today, from several points of view, more “holistic” approaches (a 

word derived from the Greek holos: whole) are proposed, in which the consideration of 

the nature of a system as a whole influences the understanding of its more simple parts 

and it is recognised that the whole is more than just the simple sum of its parts. Teilhard 

follows this type of approach, when he considers that life and consciousness illuminate 

the very nature of matter. Thus, he does not introduce a dualist principle in order to 

explain consciousness (spirit), but, on the contrary, he places the capacity to evolve 

towards the spirit in matter itself. Consciousness is for him, in fact, a dimension of 

matter which is linked to its complexity. When matter becomes more and more complex 

and, therefore, also more centred (units which integrate more components), 

progressively greater levels of consciousness appear. At the same time, consciousness 

constitutes what we can call the spiritual dimension which in some way is already 

present, in accordance with its level of complexity, in all material beings. In 

conclusion, for Teilhard, matter and spirit are not two opposing or distinct realities, but 

two dimensions of the same reality. This conception of the matter-spirit reality cannot 

be understood outside the idea of the existence of evolution towards a greater 

consciousness or spiritual dimension, and finally towards a common point of 

convergence, attracted by the super-conscious and super-spiritual Point Omega towards 

which it tends. This final point is the most problematic one, but it is essential for the 

understanding of the complete structure of Teilhard’s thought. All the potentialities of 

matter finally depend on the total dynamic structure of reality, which can only reach its 

perfection through its union in the Omega Point. The existence of this Point Omega, 

which is both attractor and centre of convergence, is what gives consistency to all the 

evolutionary process in the direction of a greater spiritual dimension. 

Current science confirms that in evolution there is a process in time towards 

systems which are more and more complex, but it does not acknowledge any 

directionality in this. It is only a fact that the simple can only evolve towards the 

complex and complexity, as this provides an advantage against the environment and 

ensures survival. In this Darwinian scheme, life and consciousness have no special 

significance; they are simply states in a continual process, governed only by chance and 

the laws of nature. The scientific analysis begins with the consideration of the simplest 

components and from these an attempt is made to explain the more complex systems 

which appear, without acknowledging that anything new might emerge in the process. 

This analysis comes up against man’s experience of his own consciousness and 

37 

Le coeur de la matière, XIII, 75-91. 



freedom, which cannot be explained satisfactorily within the reductionist scheme. 

Teilhard takes precisely the contrary route, that is to say, starting from the existence of 

consciousness or the spiritual dimension in man, he investigates the nature of matter in 

whose evolution this arose. The sciences provide him with the basic data on the 

evolutionary cosmic process, which has taken place in time from the most elementary 

particles up to man. Teilhard seeks a meaning in this process, recognising in it a 

directionality and, finally, the need for convergence. Only thus is he assured of the 

meaning of all the evolution of the universe. The other possible alternative would be to 

renounce finding any meaning in this 38 . 

Human convergence 

The third aspect of Teilhard’s thought which can help in the dialogue between science 

and religion is his conception of human evolution. As we have seen, Teilhard considers 

cosmic evolution as a consequence of an intrinsic dynamism of nature, which is 

developed from the simplest material particles, through the living beings (biosphere), to 

the conscious dimension of man (noosphere), throughout the increase in complexity and 

interiority or spirituality. For Teilhard evolution does not stop with human 

consciousness, but must go on, through human evolution. At this level, there are two 

possibilities. In the first each conscious component (men) could seek his perfecting in 

his own individuality or in a group. This would constitute a movement of disgregación 

which would finally lead to the disappearance of the human group. In the second all the 

conscious components (men) collaborate in a grand unification, as the only way 

possible to overcome the individual and collective forces of dispersion. In his own 

word, this involves carrying out “a gigantic psycho-biological operation, a type of 

mega-synthesis or super-structuring” in which all the thinking components of the Earth 

intervene. This mega-synthesis is carried out moved by radial energy, following the line 

of the main axis of evolution, in order to construct an interior totalisation of the world in 

the unanimous construction of the “Spirit of the Earth” (Esprit de la Terre). This last is 

a term dear to the heart of Teilhard in order to express the interior urgency which moves 

men towards the achievement of the longed for human unification. Another important 

characteristic of this unification process is the “personalisation” carried out through an 

internal deepening of consciousness regarding itself. The point of convergence in which 

the unification of the noosphere is realised and where it finds its culmination and, as we 

have seen, Teilhard calls the Omega Point, must be “hyper-personal” 39 . This personal 

and transcendent Point Omega is not only a passive focus towards which all evolution 

tends, but is an active pole which attracts everything to unification with it, and Teilhard 

identifies it with God 40 . The final convergence of the universe, which, as was mentioned 

above, constitutes an essential point in Teilhard’s thought, therefore, it is realised at 

noosphere level, that is to say, through human evolution, by a unifying movement, 

attracted by the personal and transcendent Omega Point. 

This final stage of cosmic evolution in the noosphere takes place through what 

Teilhard calls the “human collecting” (la collectivation humaine) or “socialisation”. 

What he understood by these terms is the subject of many of his essays, some of which 

are included in volume V of his works, under the title L’avenir de l’homme (The Future 

38 

39 

40 

56 

One posture of this type is that of the theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize Winner Steven Weinberg 

who stated that, “The more the Universe seems understandable, the less sense it seems to make”. Los 

tres primeros minutos del universo, Alianza, Madrid, 2000, 132. 





of Man). In these essays he recognises that his idea of the noosphere and of spiritual 

evolution are often difficult to understand. For him, at human level, evolution is linked 

to his idea of progress, conceived as the form in which human evolution is realised. The 

future of humanity, in fact, may finally tend towards a convergent unity or towards a 

divergent plurality. That is to say, humanity progresses either towards a certain unity or 

disgregate into a multiplicity. This double direction corresponds, at human level, to the 

double direction already found in the evolution of the spiritualisation and 

materialisation of matter. The former always means progress and the latter regression. 

In the way forward of human evolution, a previous state is the creation of a unified 

science and final objectives accepted by all. As was seen above, science for Teilhard 

corresponds to the human effort in the line of its convergent evolution, therefore, in 

order to achieve true progress, unity of method and objectives must be found in it. 

However, in order to avoid falling into divergent plurality, which always threatens the 

process of evolution at human level, and to ensure the convergent movement, these two 

components are not sufficient. There must be an attraction by "Someone", a “Centre of 

attraction” which carries out the final unification of all consciousness by a certain 

attractive force 41 . 

This is a difficult point and Teilhard was aware of this as man is free and, therefore, 

progress at human level is not an automatic and necessary movement. There are many 

ways possible for humanity to take in its evolution and not all of these lead to the 

expected end. Teilhard reduces these fundamentally to two: “evolution of plurality” and 

“evolution of the unit”. The former leads to divergence and disgregación, in which the 

constituent components tend to oppose each other, moved by what he calls a “mystique 

of separation”. This movement leads to individualism, both of individuals and of 

groups. Signs of this tendency can be found today in the growth of particularisms and 

nationalisms, which seek their satisfaction in the progress of the interests of individuals 

or groups in opposition to the interests of others. This introduces a component of 

disgregation and finally death into the evolution at the conscious human level. The only 

alternative for this is to achieve a true unification through what he calls “a universal 

socialisation”. This is what he calls the “grand option” 42 . Here humanity decides that the 

only route to follow is to work in the line which potentiates the convergent unity of all, 

as an aspiration which is universally accepted and participated in. On calling it “option”, 

Teilhard stresses that it is not something which happens of necessity, but implies a free 

decision by men. This is a process which, of necessity, will be slow and which we still 

can only glimpse. However, certain movements in which there are some characteristics, 

which tend towards a global unification above the forces which disgregate and separate, 

may indicate that humanity is beginning to move in this direction. 

For Teilhard the convergence of the noosphere is an irresistible process, although it 

implies human freedom, both at planetary and at cosmic level. The general process of 

evolution has two phases for him: one necessary or automatic which acts on inert matter 

and on life through biological evolution, and a second which is free at human level 43 . 

The force behind this second phase of the process of evolution, which must be carried 

out by man in freedom and which Teilhard calls “planetisation”, for him, can only be 

that of “love”. On first sight, this may seem strange and requires a clarification. In 

order to understand it, we must begin by understanding the general meaning which 

41 

Réflexion sur le progrès (Reflection on Progress), V, 85-106. 

42 

La grande option (The Grand Choice), V, 57-80. 

43 Un grand événement qui se dessine: la planétisation Humain (A Grand Event Specified: Human 

Planetisation), V, 159-175. 



Teilhard gives to the term “love” as “mutual internal affinity” (affinité mutuelle 

interne). In other words, according to Teilhard, “love is, by definition, the word we use 

to designate the attractions of a personal nature”. In this sense, “love” corresponds, at 

human level, to the continuation of what he has called the “radial energy”, that is to say, 

the energy which has always been the pulling power in all process of evolution from the 

first synthesis of inanimate matter and is responsible for evolution towards systems with 

greater complexity, integrating more complex components into progressively more 

complex units. At human level, that is to say, on dealing with persons, radial energy 

takes the form of what we call love as love is a uniting process and the only force which 

can carry out a personal union, without denying the individuality of the persons who 

make this up 44 . In his own words, “Only a union which is carried out by love and in 

love has the physical property not only to differentiate but also to personalise the 

components it organises”. His conception of human evolution is, therefore, dynamic and 

can be described as a tendency towards unity, moved by the impetus of love, in which 

the personality of those who are united is not lost. For Teilhard this conception is 

reinforced by the evidence provided by the natural and the social sciences. The former 

show a convergent movement in the evolution of the universe and living beings which 

results in man and the latter a movement of progress in humanity always tending 

towards some type of unity. 

In this context Teilhard introduces the role of religion and specifically the role of 

Christian faith, as a force which works in the same direction as human convergence. In 

fact, for him Christianity must become the “religion of the future” (la religion 

del’avenir) revealing what he calls the “human meaning” (Sens Humain), which 

Teilhard recognises is really implicit in it. As he conceives it “human meaning” is the 

motor force which gives impulse to all men towards their ultimate realisation in unity. 

For the Christian this realisation in unity takes place in the union of all men in Christ, 

forming a single body. Therefore, the aspiration towards the unity of men of 

Christianity coincides with what human progress proposes. This convergence between 

the Christian and the human meaning leads Teilhard to state that, “The light of Christ is 

not eclipsed by the brilliance of the ideas of the future, research and progress, rather His 

light occupies the centre which maintains his fire”. Following this line of thought, he 

concludes by saying that Christ is the only one who can save the human aspirations of 

our time 45 . 

In an epilogue to The Human Phenomenon, entitled “The Christian Phenomenon” 

(Le phénomène chrétien), Teilhard presents a Christian interpretation of all the 

evolution in which the Omega Point, towards which all evolution converges, is 

identified with the figure of Christ 46 . Thus, the universe in its movement of convergence 

at human level tends towards an ultimate unity which Christian faith recognises can 

only be implemented in the union of men with Christ. Christ Himself is, therefore, the 

presence of the Point Omega in human history, and helps its consummation to be 

carried out in definitive unity with Him. In this interpretation, the cosmogenesis of 

evolution becomes what Teilhard calls a “Christgenesis”, on identifying the pole of 

convergence of all evolution with Christ Incarnate. The unity of men and the unity of all 

the universe in Christ through men constitutes what he calls the “Total Christ” or 

“Cosmic Christ”. The process whereby the universe is developed is identified with that 

whereby the Total Christ is formed. These ideas are expressed more completely in one 

44 

L’énergie humain (La energía humana), VI, 180-192. 

45 

Le sense humain (El sentido humano), XI, 21-44. 

46 

Le phénomène humain, I, 324-332 (The Christian Phenomenon). 

58 



of his last essays, written in March 1955, only one month before his death and which 

can be considered to be his spiritual testament 47 . However, this idea is already present in 

his first essay written in 1916, In which, for the first time, he uses the term “Cosmic 

Christ” and asserts that Christ has a cosmic body extended throughout the universe 48 . 

This cosmic body of Christ is the Christian version of unity towards which evolution 

tends. Teilhard’s insistence on the requirement of the presence of Christ in a universe in 

convergence may lead to some misunderstandings. For Teilhard this requirement must 

unite the total freedom of the Incarnation with a quasi-necessity as the universe cannot 

achieve its convergence and the unity towards which it tends without the mediation of 

the Man-God. This consideration of the convenience of the incarnation of Christ, even 

in the absence of sin, that is to say, coherent with the infinite love of God for man and 

with the aspiration of man towards God, is not new in Catholic theology 49 . God giving 

Himself to the created spirit, in Christ through the Incarnation, is the freest act of the 

transcendent love of god and also the culmination of the evolutionary ascension of the 

spirit in the world. For Teilhard the role of Christ is really central to all the movement of 

cosmic evolution 50 . 

The modern phenomenon of globalisation, which tends to erased the differences 

between peoples although still imperfect and incipient and be seen as something which 

participates in this convergent movement of the noosphere and can be interpreted as a 

sign, however weak this might be, of the human convergence postulated by Teilhard. 

Similar signs can be discovered in many phenomena which begin to gain strength in our 

times and which are the bases for globalisation, such as the increase in the world of 

communications at global level, the speed of transport which shortens the distances 

between peoples, the generalised preoccupation with international problems and the 

desire for international organisms such as the United Nations to play a progressively 

greater role. Television, for example, brings us the images of any event from all over the 

world, and projects the proximity of countries. These signs have led to the designation 

of our current world as the “global village” 51 . However, we should not ignore the fact 

that modern times are also witness to numerous, divergent movements, such as the 

imbalances between rich and poor countries, extremist nationalism, religious 

fundamentalism, violence, wars and terrorism. In the light of these negative signs, one 

might wonder if there really are reasonable grounds for the optimism of Teilhard. We 

would have to weigh up the present positive and negative signs, in order to evaluate 

which are the strongest, although it should be acknowledged that we are still very far 

from appreciating clear signs of human convergence. This distance should not lead us to 

lose hope that the processes of convergence will finally be imposed. We must not 

forget that Teilhard developed his vision during the period of the two world wars, and 

47 Le Christique (The Christical), XIII, 93-117. 

48 La vie cosmique (The Cosmic Life), XII, 67. 

49 

Among the theologians who defended this opinion were Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, Francisco 

Suárez and Francisco de Sales. Fray Luis de León also gives this opinion: “All this universe, so big 

and so beautiful, was made by God in order t make His Son a man, and to bring to light this unique 

and divined fruit, Christ.” Fray Luis de León, De los nombres de Christ, Apostolado de la Prensa, 

Madrid, 1941, 63. 

50 

Le Christique, 3. L’Univers Christifié (The Christified Universe), XIII, 105-111. The central place of 

Christ in Teilhard’ thought is treated in: G. Martelet, 2005. Teilhard de Chardin, prophète d’un Christ 

toujours plus grand, Lessius, Brussels. 

51 The term global village was first used by Marshal McLuhan in 1964. “Today after more than a century 

of electrical technology, we have extended our central nervous system in a global embrace, abolishing 

time and space as concerns our planet … time has stopped, space has vanished, we now live in a 

global village”.(Understanding media, Mentor, New York). 



the subsequent tragic division of the cold war period. Despite all, these negative signs 

did not cool his optimism and he was able to see the coming of future unity with hope. 

Today we need some of his optimism in order to be able to see, through the many dark 

signs, the light at the end of the tunnel which shines as hope for the future of humanity. 

Conclusion 

Accustomed as we are to the usual solution of keeping science and religion separate 

with no interaction between them, the proposals of Teilhard may seem hardly realistic. 

However, there is a growing conviction that science and religion cannot continue to 

ignore each other, or there will be negative effects for both and fruitful dialogue 

between them is necessary. Religion, or rather theology cannot progress in isolation 

from the continual growth of knowledge on the natural world which science continues 

to produce and science cannot be cut off from the source of inspiration provided by 

religion. In the present dialogue between science and religion, the thought of Teilhard 

de Chardin can provide us with many intuitions which can be of much assistance. We 

have very briefly examined three aspects: the importance he gives to the sciences as the 

main component of human effort which in themselves acquires a religious character, his 

open concept of matter which includes the spiritual dimension and the convergence of 

the process of evolution through the unity of humanity. Although Teilhard directed his 

proposal at all men of good will and starts from what science reveals to us today on our 

universe in evolution, in his work he makes a synthesis with religious thought. In fact, 

God is at present on the horizon of both science and religion, and indicates with this that 

a convergence between the two is possible. Thus, he insists on the need for religious 

thought to accept the image of the universe in evolution presented by modern science. 

This may imply serious changes in some formulations of religious thought, but these are 

necessary in order to keep the dialogue between science and religion open. We have 

seen two of the proposals of Teilhard which could have repercussions on religious 

thought such as his new concept of matter which includes the spiritual dimension and 

convergence in God of evolution at human level through a process of unification. This 

last point especially opens up dialogue with Christian faith on the role of Christ in an 

evolutionary world. 

60 



The Bio-Philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin 

IGNACIO NÚÑEZ DE CASTRO 

UNIVERSIDAD DE MÁLAGA 

The scientist Teilhard de Chardin was a philosopher, malgré lui. However, his Bio- 

Philosophy has not been studied to any length. Three days before his death, Teilhard 

summed up his credo: Cosmos = Cosmo Genesis = Biogenesis = Anthropogenesis = 

Christ-genesis. These are his grand intuitions which he endeavoured to clarify in his 

writings. Life on Earth is a property of organised matter and entails a pre-biological 

chemical evolution. The elementary grain of life is the cell, and the atom is the 

elementary grain of matter. The first simple organisms (prokaryotes) tended to join 

together forming more complex cells (eukaryotes) by symbiosis. These cells form 

aggregates of growing complexity due to internal tension or elementary movements of 

life: reproduction, multiplication, renovation, conjugation association and directed 

activity. As there is an attraction of masses, there is a gravity of complexity, which 

defines an ascending line from bacteria to man called: deep orthogenesis. In all reality 

there is an interior or conscience, growing in complexity, consequently biogenesis leads 

to anthropogenesis. 

On April 10, 1955 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin died in New York. A few persons were 

present at the burial in the Cemetery of the Jesuit Fathers. His tombstone among those 

of his companions reads, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S. J.; Natus 1 Maii 1881; Ingressus 

19 Martii 1899; Obiit 10 Aprilis 1955. 

On the 13 th of March, 1955, at a dinner in the French Consulate in New York Pierre 

Teilhard de Chardin said: “I would like to die on Easter Sunday”, and the remark was 

recorded by one of his nephews who was there at the time 1 . Teilhard de Chardin, who 

acknowledged that he was a son of the Earth, and had travelled the long road of the 

Human Phenomenon and the Divine Environment like a son of Heaven 2 , who ended up 

saying, “The Earth can seize me with its gigantic arms. (…) I am no longer perturbed by 

the charms of the Earth since, for me, it was made beyond itself, the body of He who is 

and He who will come” 3 . Death for Teilhard was the culminating moment of life. His 

words can lead us to how he lived the moment of his death, “Death is responsible for 

carrying out the opening required as far as the very depths of ourselves. It will make us 

experiment the expected disassociation. It will place us in the organic state required for 

the divine Fire to penetrate us. Thus its awful power to decompose and dissolve is 

placed at the service of the most sublime operation of Life” 4 . 

In the work of Teilhard, Life hypostatised and always written with a capital letter. 

Teilhard de Chardin was not an experimental biologist, he was a palaeontologist, as is 

stressed by Leandro Sequeiros in the same Journal on Thought. However, as he himself 

wrote in his short treatise on maturity, which he finished in Paris in January 1950, the 

1 

2 

3 

4 

The phrase was noted down by one of his nephews. It is mentioned in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. 

Imágenes y Palabras. Translation by JESÚS AGUIRRE (Taurus Ediciones, Madrid, 1966) 214. 

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, P., Hymne de l’Univers (Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1961) 24. He was very 

fond of this expression and we also find it in his work Como yo creo (Taurus, Madrid, 1970) 105: “By 

education and intellectual training, I belong to the sons of Heaven. However, by temperament and 

professional studies, I am a son of the Earth”. 

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, P., El medio Divino (2ª Edición, Taurus, Madrid, 1962) 185. From now 

on this work will be cited as MD. 

MD, 89. 



human zoological group, “Man is a part of Life, and (this is the thesis sustained 

throughout the thesis) is even the most characteristic part, the most polar, the most alive 

of Life” 5 . For Teilhard it was impossible to investigate the past in order to open 

ourselves up to the future without studying “the place Life occupies in the universe” 6 . 

Thus, Teilhard, who was not a biologist by profession, did not wish to become involved 

in Metabiology, much less in Metaphysics, but he did endeavour to make a 

Hyperphysics, and, despite himself, he constructed a Natural Philosophy of Life 7 . On 

the fiftieth anniversary of his death, when the biotechnological revolution, which 

Teilhard did not live to see, has occurred, 8 these pages attempt to develop the essential 

points of the Biophilosophy of Teilhard. 

The grand intuitions of Teilhard de Chardin: Cosmos = Cosmogenesis 

Fifty years after his death, we still have his grand intuitions. On April 7, 1955, three 

days before he died, he left a hand written notebook on the desk in his office, the last 

page of his diary. It contains a poly-equation which has the force of a last testament 

which has the title, “What I believe”. 

Cosmos = Cosmogenesis = Biogenesis = Anthropogenesis = Christogenesis 9 

The grand hypothesis of Teilhard was, “if possible to extend bridge or at least a 

plan of a bridge between Biology and Physics”, 10 this was conceived in the trenches of 

the First World War and finished in his manuscript of the Human Phenomenon written 

in Peking between June 1938 and June 1940 11 . It is interesting to observe how 

Teilhard’s thought progressed and matured, although not in a progressive linear sense, 

but in depth as the grand intuitions are already outlined in his youth. The autobiography 

of the thought of Teilhard de Chardin is written honestly and sincerely in his work The 

Heart of the Matter. In 1917 Teilhard wrote, “The history of my interior life is the 

history of this search oriented towards realities which are progressively more universal 

and perfect. Basically, my deep natural tendency has remained firm since I have known 

myself” 12 

We said above that Teilhard was a Philosopher of Biology, but a philosopher 

malgré lui, several times he confessed, “I am neither a philosopher nor a theologian, but 

5 

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, P., El grupo zoológico humano (5ª Edición, Taurus, Madrid, 1967) 21. 

From now on it will be cited as GZH. 

6 

GZH, Ibidem 

7 

The Philosophy of Life has been considered to be a part of Natural Philosophy. Michael Ruse very 

clearly defines what we understand by Philosophy of Life, “In conclusion, there are many things 

which the Philosophy of Life should be. A philosophy must discover, explain and possibly resolve 

problems in theoretical biology and its methodology. It must be able to communicate its results to 

other philosophers, scientists and especially biologists. It must show the consequences biological 

phenomena and theories have for other sciences and for philosophy or the consequences other 

sciences have for biology and even for philosophy”. RUSE, M., David Hull through two Decades in 

What the Philosophy of Biology is”. RUSE, M., David Hull through two decades en What the 

Philosophy of Biology is, RUSE, M., Ed. (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1989) 1. 

8 

NÚÑEZ DE CASTRO, I., Respeto a la vida humana y su integridad personal: V Congreso Nacional 

de Reales Academias de Medicina (Sucesores de Nogués, Murcia, 1989) 85-93. 

9 “Last page in the diary”, TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, PIERRE, El corazón de la materia (Sal Térrea, 

Santander, 2002) 108-109. COLOMER, E., Teilhard de Chardin: Evolución y cristianismo. En 

CRUSAFONT, M., MELÉNDEZ, B. y AGUIRRE, E., La Evolución (Biblioteca de Autores 

Cristianos, Madrid, 1966) 889. 

10 

GZH, 21. 

11 

FH, 361. 

12 

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, P. El corazón de la materia, p. 18. 

62 



a student of the phenomenon, a Physicist in the old sense of the Greeks” 13 . The first 

thing that stands out in his testament is the repetition of the suffix genesis 14 , as if he 

wanted to state the essence of his thought in one word, everything is a process, a 

becoming in continual evolution and projected forward, focused on man (noogenesis), 

but in the last instance attracted by Omega, the God who is forward 15 . Projected has a 

double meaning: designed and thrown, thrown forward to the future and designed from 

the past. 

In his book “Does God Exist? Hans Küng has shown the similarity of the thought 

of Alfred N. Whitehead and Teilhard de Chardin, “like Teilhard in Theology, in 

Philosophy Whitehead endeavours to maintain a close connection with the thought of 

the modern natural sciences. He also understands all nature as a gigantic process in 

which an infinite number minimum units (…) enters into an active relationship with 

others, and all of these are developed together in small processes which are equally 

infinite in number” 16 . 

In his book “Does God Exist? Hans Küng has shown the similarity of the thought 

of Alfred N. Whitehead and Teilhard de Chardin, “like Teilhard in Theology, in 

Philosophy Whitehead endeavours to maintain a close connection with the thought of 

the modern natural sciences. He also understands all nature as a gigantic process in 

which an infinite number minimum units (…) enters into an active relationship with 

others, and all of these are developed together in small processes which are equally 

infinite in number” 17 . The hypothesis of Teilhard matured and was revealed almost 

simultaneously with the hypothesis of two other great scientists John B. S. Haldane 18 

and Alexander I. Oparin 19 in cultural and social areas which were very distant from the 

world of Teilhard. In 1929 Haldane proposed that the appearance of life on Earth had 

occurred at the same time as the formation of the planets. Haldane was one of the first 

scientists to put forward the hypothesis that the presence of a reduction atmosphere was 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

Cited by COLOMER, E., op. cit., 863. see also: CUÉNOT, C., Teilhard de Chardin, (Éditions de 

Seuil, Paris, 1963) 117. 

In Teilhard the term genesis means the oriented process of general converging nature, “In the 

discussions, I believe that is sometimes a confusion between ‘evolution’ (in the generic sense) and 

‘genesis’. Evolution may be indefinite or periodic or quolibet (abstractly speaking) … Genesis is an 

evolution directed towards a point of consummation; in this, ‘fixedness’ is synthesised with 

movement”. (Letter from Teilhard to T. V. Fleming, S. J. New York, May 18, 1954, in The Heythrop 

Journal, January 1965, p. 42) in CUÉNOT, C., Nuevo léxico de Teilhard de Chardin (Taurus, Madrid, 

1970) 140. 

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, P., El Dios de la Evolución, en Como yo creo (Taurus, Madrid, 1970) 

263-270. 

KÜNG, H., ¿Existe Dios? Respuesta al Problema de Dios en nuestro tiempo (Ediciones Cristiandad, 

Madrid, 1979) 249-250. The underlining is ours. 

FH, 73. Pre-life is defined by CUÉNOT as, “The evolutionary phase which precedes and prepares the 

emergence of life, in which matter, insofar as vital and spiritual power is concerned, is still not 

actualised. A notion which emphasises the continual transitions between the structures of inorganic 

matter and those of organised matter, while not negating the discontinuous threshold of the emergence 

of life” CUÉNOT, C., Nuevo léxico de Teilhard de Chardin, p. 244. 

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane a British Biologist born in Oxford, he held the Chair of Biochemistry 

and Biometrics at University College London, in 1930 he joined the Communist Party. His writings 

are tinged with Marxism which he considered to be the most scientific philosophical system. Due to 

the attacks on Lysenko he abandoned the party and its ideology. Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada 

Europeo Americana, Suplemento Anual 1963-1964 (Espasa-Calpe, Madrid-Barcelona, 1968) 271. 

Alexander I. Oparin was one of the fathers of Biology in the Soviet Union. Oparinism was considered 

almost up to our days as the sole paradigm to explain the origin of life on planet Earth. Today there 

are alternative paradigms. Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo Americana, Suplemento Anual 

1977-1978 (Espasa-Calpe, Madrid-Barcelona, 1968) 162. 



necessary for the evolution of life from non-living organic matter until, according to 

Haldane “the primitive oceans acquired the consistency of a hot diluted broth” 20 . 

Haldane’s ideas appeared in 1929 in the Rationalist Annual, but there was no reaction. 

Haldane belonged to the circle of pro-Marxist British intellectuals and, at this time, 

Teilhard de Chardin was in China 21 . The question whether Teilhard knew of Haldane’ 

thought when he wrote the Human Phenomenon is answered by Pierre in a clarifying 

note, “These pages were written a long time ago, and I was surprised to discover the 

same substance in a few masterly lines, recently written by J. B. S. Haldane, “In what 

we call Matter we find no evident trace of thought or life,” stated the grand English 

Biochemist, “(…) If the modern perspectives of science are correct, we can expect to 

find these throughout all the universe at least in a rudimentary forma” 22 . 

Some years previously the Soviet biochemist Oparin had published a short paper in 

Russian (1924) with his hypothesis regarding the caldo de cultivo or primeval soup. The 

work was not published in English and French until 1936 23 . The first Spanish edition of 

The Origin and Evolution of Life was translated from the French edition in 1967 24 . Was 

there crossed information as regards the hypotheses of the three scientists, Teilhard, 

Haldane and Oparin? It is on record that Teilhard knew of the work of Haldane as we 

mentioned above. In an interview made to Oparin by the ABC newspaper at the 

Congress of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies in Madrid on April 

1969, he stated that he did not know the work of Teilhard de Chardin. There is no 

record of Teilhard knowing the contributions of Oparin. Teilhard cites few authors in 

his philosophical and theological essays. However, we can say that the three researchers 

independently and almost simultaneously reached the same hypothesis that pre-life is a 

stage of life and, therefore, the appearance of the components of living organisms 

supposes a pre-biological chemical evolution. 

From the beginning of The Human Phenomenon, Teilhard de Chardin gave a clear 

explanation of what his methodology would be. Teilhard did not deviate from the purest 

phenomenological method; the philosopher, despite himself, accepted the correct 

phenomenological attitude involving only seeing 25 . “These pages represent an effort to 

see and make persons see what man is and demands if he is placed entirely and up to the 

end, within the area of appearances” 26 . However, for man to discover himself 

completely he needs a number of meanings and the history of the Spirit is the discovery 

of these meanings: the meaning of the immensity of space, the meaning of depth, the 

meaning of numbers, the meaning of proportion, the meaning of quality or innovation, 

20 

DIKERSON, R. E., La evolución química y el origen de la vida, Investigación y Ciencia, Sientific 

American (Noviembre, 1978) 75. 

21 

“Chronology established by MARIE-LOUISE AUBOUX” in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Imágenes y 

Palabras, op. cit., pages 216-222. 

22 

FH, 73-74. 

23 

OPARIN, A. I., The Origin of Life (Dover, New York, 1936). 

24 

OPARIN, A., El Origen y la evolución de la vida (Editorial Curie, Buenos Aires, 1968). See 

also: ORÓ, J., Origen y evolución de la vida en Nuestros orígenes: el Universo, la Vida, el 

Hombre, Editor FERNÁNDEZ-RAÑADA, A. (Fundación Ramón Areces, Madrid, 1991) 

169-199. 

25 “The phenomenological method is a special procedure of knowledge. Essentially it consists of an 

intellectual vision based on an intuition. This intuition refers to what is given; the principal rule of 

phenomenology states, ‘towards things themselves, understanding ‘things’ to be ‘the given’. Above 

all, this requires a triple elimination or ‘reduction’, called epoché”. BOCHENSKI, I. M., Los métodos 

del pensamiento (14ª Edición, Ediciones Rialp, Madrid, 1981) 40. FAESSLER, M., Genèse et 

structure de la phenomenologie teilhardienne, Études Teilhardiennes, 4/5 (1971-1972) 19-89. 

26 

FH, 43. 

64 



which can arrive without breaking the physical unity of the world, the meaning of 

movement capable of perceiving the irresistible developments concealed in the greatest 

slowness, the meaning of the organic which discloses the structural interrelationships 

and unity. 27 This new sensitivity which Teilhard demands in order to be able to see all 

the phenomena has been the one which certain detractors of his work and methodology 

have failed to grasp. 

The cosmos, in the process of Cosmogenesis, is seen by Teilhard as a system, a 

totum and a quantum 28 . The concept of system involves interrelationships within a set 

which is closed within itself, with capacity for self- regulation and autonomy. The 

system constitutes a structurally terminated group, different from a star or a crystal, in 

which the set is accidentally delimited, where there is “no trace of a limited unit related 

to itself” 29 , a trical repetition of units, however varied and numerous are the axes of 

their layout. Thus, Teilhard de Chardin considers all the cosmos as a block, “looking 

around us as far as we can see, the universe is sustained by the fact that it is a set” 30 . 

This universe is a totality (totum) weaved as “a single piece, following a single, same 

procedure, but it is never repeated from end to end” 31 . For this totality to be constituted 

and maintained there must be a continual interaction between all the components. “This 

is because of the Totality, as it exists, must be expressed in a global capacity for action, 

whose resulting partial element we find in each one of us. Thus, we are led to seek and 

conceive a dynamic measurement of the world” 32 . This dynamic nature is what Teilhard 

calls the Quantum.“Quantum which does not fully acquire meaning until we try to 

define it in relation to a specific natural movement, that is to say, in Duration” 33 . Thus, 

for Teilhard de Chardin “each component of the Cosmos is positively interwoven with 

the rest thanks to the mysterious phenomenon of ‘composition’ (…) It is impossible to 

break up this network, impossible to isolate a single piece without if becoming frayed a 

and it comes apart at the ends” 34 . The frame of the universe is the universe itself. A 

farme which is much more than the simple superimposition of articulated relationships. 

For Teilhard, life, that thin film which constitutes the Biosphere 35 of one of the planets 

of the solar system, (“so ridiculously located, in the space of an instant, on a sideral 

particle!” 36 ) is a quality which is inherent to matter and not an epiphenomenon. “life is 

not a curious anomaly, flourishing sporadically on Matter, Life is a privileged 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 

32 

33 

34 

35 

36 

FH, 45-46. 

FH, 58. 

GZH, 24. 

FH, 58. 

FH, 59. 

FH, 60. 

FH, 61. Further on Teilhard explained what he understood by organic duration or time, “What 

constitutes and classifies a man as ‘modern’ is the fact that he has been able to be sensitive to 

perception of space, time and also of duration, in other words of biological space-time and, 

consequently, it also involves being incapable of perceiving anything different in any way, nothing, 

beginning with himself”. FH, 266. 

FH, 58. 

GZH, 46. The Biosphere is defined by C. Cuénot as, ”the area of non-reflective life which is located 

between the spheres of the inorganic (lithosphere, hydrosphere …) and the psychic sphere 

(noosphere). This zone is the seat of perfectly determined physical properties and which constitute a 

common power for organic development (not to be confused with the sense of Suess and Vernadsky, 

which designates a purely local area, with no combined structure and no specific properties” 

CUÉNOT, C., Nuevo léxico de Teilhard de Chardin, p. 68. 

GZH, 22. 



exaggeration of a universal cosmic property; Life is not an epiphenomenon but the very 

essence of the phenomenon” 37 . 

Life the material effect of complexity 

For Teilhard de Chardin life “for scientific experience, is none other than a specific 

effect (the specific effect of Matter which has become complex: a coextensive property 

in itself of the entire cosmic Matter, but only apprehensible by our vision wherever (…) 

the complexity surpasses a certain critical value” 38 . Life for Teilhard is not an 

inexplicable anomaly, it is the rationally expected creation of cosmic involution or 

rolling up. Many scientists contemporaries of or subsequent to Teilhard de Chardin, 

believers and agnostics, have chosen to conceive life in cosmic terms as a grand 

exception 39 . Perhaps one of the most severe critics of Teilhard was his compatriot 

Jacques Monod, a Molecular Biologist and Nobel Prize-winner in his work Chance and 

Necessity. For Monod the principle of objectivity, that is to say, not being able to 

conceive anything in nature in terms of a project, forces him to state that, ”man finally 

knows that he is alone in the indifferent immensity of the Universe where he has 

emerged by chance. Neither his destiny nor his duty are written anywhere. He must 

choose between the Kingdom and darkness” 40 . In his book Monod accuses tacha 

Teilhard de Chardin as an animist and states that, “the biological philosophy of Teilhard 

de Chardin would not deserve a passing look if it were not for the success he has had 

among thousands of scientists” 41 . Monod’s position is also counter to that of the winner 

of the Nobel Prize for Medicine Christian de Duve for whom the essential components 

for the formation of the first living beings on the Earth could have come from space and 

he postulated the existence of planetary systems similar to that of the earth where life 

could have emerged 42 . 

In the Anglo-Saxon environment we also find strong reactions to Teilhard’s thought 

on life. At the time, the disproportionate, unjust and harsh recensión to the English 

edition of The Human Phenomenon of the English Nobel Prize-winner Peter Medawar 

was much commented on 43 . The criticism of Medawar contrasts with the position 

regarding the work of Teilhard of the grand geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, an 

enthusiastic reader of Teilhard’s works as can be seen in his correspondence with John 

Greene. For Dobzhansky, Teilhard de Chardin did not want to construct his cosmo- 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 

42 

43 

66 

Ibidem 

GZH, 27-28. 

In this respect, the quotation of JEANS, J. is interesting, “What can life be reduced to? An evident 

accidental decadence in a world which, in no case, was made for it. (…) The universe is indifferent 

(even hostile) to any type of life”. Quoted by KENNEY, W. H. El Fenómeno humano de Teilhard de 

Chardin. Guía para el lector (Sal Térrea, Santander, 1973) 77. 

MONOD, J., Le hasard et la nécessité. Essai sur la philosophie naturelle de la biologie moderne 

(Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1970) 225. 

MONOD, J., op. cit. 49. 

DE DUVE, C., Construire une cellule: essai sur la nature et l'origine de la vie (Inter-Editions, De Boeck- 

Wesmael, Paris-Bruxelles, 1990) 

“I will show that most of the book has no meaning. It is adorned with a variety of metaphysical 

concepts and the author’s dishonesty can be excused by the fact that by deceiving others he has 

undergone great suffering on deceiving himself”. Medawar himself in an autobiographical 

conversation on his life in science, confessed that he was indignant with poor Teilhard de Chardin. 

MEDAWAR, P., La amenaza y la gloria. Reflexiones sobre la ciencia y los científicos, Compilation 

by PYKE, D. (Gedisa Editorial, Barcelona, 1993) 26. The complete recensión of Medawar can be 

found at: 

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Medawar/phenomenon-of-man.html 



vision based solely on science. Dobzhansky stated that the work of Teilhard is science, 

metaphysics and theology, and, although Medawar does not mention this, poetry 44 . 

We mentioned above that for Teilhard life is born from complexity, “I will constantly 

repeat throughout these pages that Life is offered experimentally to science as a material 

effect of complexity” 45 and elsewhere he points out that, “a more complete observation 

of the movements of the world would oblige us (…) to discover that if things are 

sustained this is only due to the force of complexity” 46 . We can ask ourselves what 

Teilhard understands by complexity or, as he mentions on other occasions “axis of 

complexities”? 

In the first place, complexity is not a simple aggregation of ordered components, 

nor is it the simple geometrical undefined repetition of units, as is a crystal for example. 

For Teilhard the world is not specially constructed on two infinites (remembering the 

infinites of Pascal: the infinitely big and the infinitely small), but on three infinites. To 

the minute and the immense should be added the immensely complicated 47 . “Biology is 

only the Physics of the biggest complex” 48 . 

Teilhard de Chardin stated that complexity is the result of the combination or “as I 

understand it here, the complexity of an organised heterogeneity and, therefore, 

centred” 49 . Heterogeneity is one of the fundamental characteristics of the cosmos: 

“woven in a single piece and following the same single procedure, but which is never 

repeated from one point to another, the Frame of the Universe corresponds to a single 

model: it structurally constitutes a whole” 50 . Unity-diversity is one of the antinomies of 

life 51 , as apparently unity and diversity can be predicated of life. Life in its origin 

(monophylism) is one because all living organisms have the same biochemical 

components: the four bases of the nucleic acids, the twenty same protein genetic amino 

acids and the same genetic code, as well as the metabolic chains which are essentially 

the same. However, life is also marvellously different in all its manifestations of the 

great variety of living beings, which at times is so surprising. Teilhard proposes a grand 

solution to this antinomy: life constitutes a single Biota 52 : “Testing profusion, 

constructive ingeniousness, indifference as regards all that is not future and totality. 

Life, due to its elementary mechanisms rises thanks to these three vectors and thanks 

also to a fourth which covers all: global unity, (…) since “considered as a totality living 

substance extended over the Earth and, from the first studies of evolution, drew the lines 

of a single gigantic organism” 53 . This unique gigantic organism, which Teilhard’s 

44 

NÚÑEZ DE CASTRO, I., Evolución y sentido en la correspondencia de Theodosius Dobzhansky, en 

La Nueva Alianza de las Ciencias y la Filosofía, BLANCH, A. Ed., (Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 

Madrid, 2001) 109-114. The correspondence was published by GREENE, J., and RUSE, M., On the 

Nature of the Evolutionary Process: The Correspondence between Theodosius Dobzhansky and John 

C. Greene, Biology and Philosophy, 11 (1996) 445-491. 

45 

GZH, 23. 

46 

FH, 57 

47 

GZH, 27 

48 

GZH, 28. 

49 


50 

FH, 59. 

51 NÚÑEZ DE CASTRO, I., Categorías del discurso biológico en Evolucionismo y cultura, DOU, A., 

Ed., (Mensajero, Bilbao, 1983) 17-55. 

52 

Biota: defined by Teilhard himself, “I understand this to be a vertical grouping whose components are 

related by birth and are sustained and completed mutually in their efforts to subsist and propagate”. 

FH, 151. 

53 

FH, 137. 



disciple Crusafont Pairó has called the phyletic continuum 54 , materialises in time in the 

innumerable manifestations of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. 

The cell: the unit of life 

Teilhard de Chardin stated that there is only one structural model, a model which is 

never repeated in its external materialisation due to diversity. What is this model at 

physical and structural levels? The model at physical level is the cell 55 . Life properly 

speaking began when the first cell began to exist. “For a century, the more Science 

concentrates its efforts on this chemically and structurally complex unit, the more 

evident it becomes that behind it is concealed the secret a knowledge of which would 

establish the link of union, sensed, but still not verified, between the two worlds of 

Physics and Biology. The cell, the natural grain of life, just as the atom is the natural 

grain of unorganised Matter” 56 . Teilhard accused the cytologists and histologists of 

having frozen the cell for study 57 . “We have worked very much on its differences, that 

is to say, everything which makes up Descriptive Biology: Microbiology, Zoology, 

Botany, it is advisable that our research converge towards the origins, that is to say, to 

the roots set in the unorganised, if we want to point out the true essence of its 

innovation. (…) Let us try to see what it becomes if we observe it and treat it as we 

must, as something prepared a long time ago and profusely, that is to say, as something 

born” 58 . For Teilhard the cell is where the frame of the universe appears with all its 

features: system, totum and quantum. Undoubtedly, the cell supposes an ulterior step of 

complexity and, consequently, a superior grain of interiority, that is to say, 

consciousness 59 . 

Teilhard himself formulated this procedure which at structural level is never 

repeated and is the law of complexity-consciousness of Teilhard 60 . This law was 

formulated by Teilhard de Chardin as a phenomenological guide for the better 

understanding of the vital phenomenon. The term consciousness is used by Teilhard 

54 

55 

56 

57 

58 

59 

60 

68 

“However, above this defense of the independence of systems, there is such proteicity of these in the 

phyletic continuum that the machine becomes blurred in its individualisation to become a complex in 

continual transformation” CRUSAFONT PAIRÓ, M., El fenómeno vital (Editorial Labor, Barcelona, 

1972) 81-82. 

The cellular theory proposed by T. Schwann in his treatise in 1839 on microscopic research into the 

coincidence in the structure of animals and plants continues to be valid and has been confirmed in all 

living organisms. See: RADL, E. M., Historia de las ideas biológicas. Desde Lamarck y Cuvier, 

Tomo 2, (Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1988) 66-70. Consult: ALBARRACÍN TEULÓN, A., La teoría 

celular. Historia de un paradigma (Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1983). 

FH, 99. 

Modern Cellular Biology fused with Molecular Biology and Bio-Computing, disciplines which 

Teilhard did not know of, would have kindled his innate enthusiasm. 

FH, 101. 

It should be pointed out that for Teilhard de Chardin the frame of the universe is a dual frame: “the 

specific being in which the cosmos is constituted and which is not confused with matter as an 

‘interior’ (consciousness) represents the same as an ‘exterior’ (matter). The spirit-matter is what 

constitutes the evolutionary frame of the universe, whose unity is not broken up by molecularisation 

or thresholds”. CUÉNOT, C., Nuevo léxico de Teilhard de Chardin, p. 288. this is the formulation of 

the law of complexity-consciousness, which is universal for Teilhard. In other words, “coextensive 

with its exterior there is an interior to things”. FH, 73. 

“In the following I must constantly refer (…) to the cosmic axis of physical ordering and psychic 

interiorisation, manifested by this deep derivation or orthogenisis (…). I will call this the complexityconsciousness 

axis”. CUÉNOT, C., Nuevo léxico de Teilhard de Chardin, p. 78. Below we will refer 

to Teilhard’s concept of “deep orthogenisis”. 



without taking its etymology into account and designates any form of psychism from 

the most elementary to the most elevated form, reflective consciousness. 

“Consciousness, that is to say, what is inside and can be experimentally obtained or (by 

infinitesimal) is unobtainable from pre-living and living corpuscles” 61 . For Teilhard de 

Chardin it is possible to measure the degree of psychism or consciousness. Every being 

in the universe has its centre of convergence. Thus, “Life is apparently none other than 

the privileged exaggeration of a fundamental cosmic derivation (…) which can be 

called ‘law of complexity-consciousness’ and can be expressed as follows: abandoned 

to itself for a long period of time, under the prolonged universal game of probabilities, 

Matter shows that it has the property of entering into groups which are progressively 

more complex and, at the same time, consciousness increases so that this dual combined 

movement of psychic roll up and psychic interiorisation (or focusing) continues, 

accelerates and is thrust forward as far as possible once initiated” 62 . 

It is “in the cell, which has such oneness, uniformity and complicatedness, where 

the Frame of the Universe appears with its features, although the cell is now in an 

ulterior step of complexity and, consequently, simultaneously (if the hypothesis that 

guides us throughout these pages is true) to a higher level of interiority, that is to say, 

consciousness” 63 . We should remember that the features of the Frame of the Universe 

are system, totum and quantum. The appearance of the first cell supposes a decisive step 

in the process of consciousness on the Earth 64 . For Teilhard de Chardin the appearance 

of life in cellular form did not suppose an absolute commencement, but rather, as he put 

it a metamorphosis. How did this come about? For Teilhard the answer is once again in 

the external structural organisation of the cellular components and in the internal 

appearance of a new type of activity 65 . 

Asked whether life appeared once or in points throughout the planet at the same time, 

Teilhard replied that we do not know but “this matters little” since “taking as a whole, 

the Biosphere would only represent a simple branch within and above other less 

progressive or less fortunate proliferations of pre-life” 66 . 

The process of evolution: orthogenesis 

Teilhard de Chardin believed that, in the process of evolution of life, there are two 

critical points: la biogenesis (the origin of life properly speaking, the point of 

vitalisation or, as he liked to say, phyletisation 67 ) and anthropogenesis, or point of 

hominization or the appearance of reflection 68 . Between these two critical points lies all 

the evolutionary process. The process which Teilhard believed could be explained by “a 

61 GZH, 37. 

62 CUÉNOT, C., Nuevo léxico de Teilhard de Chardin, p. 165. 

63 FH, 109 

64 Ibidem 

65 “The external realisation of an essentially new corpuscular grouping which enables a more flexible and 

better focused organisation of an unlimited number of substances considered as particular in all the 

levels of magnitudes; and, simultaneously, the internal appearance of a new type of activity and 

conscious determination; through this dual and radical metamorphosis, as regards what is specifically 

original, we can now reasonably define the critical transition of the molecule to the cell, the step of 

Life”. FH, 111-112. 

66 

FH, 118. 

67 

Filetización in the lexicon of Teilhard means the process for the formation of the phylum. “The 

phylum is a “living ray. The line of lines. (…) Above all the phylum is a collective reality. (…) The 

phylum is also somewhat polymorphic and elastic”. FH, 140. 

68 

GZH, 29. 



constant perennial current of interiorising complexification” 69 . “Independently of all 

scientific interpretations (and even less finalist) for us, the Universe is as if it were 

‘weighed down’ with Complexity, it falls on progressively more perfected forms of 

disposition” 70 . In a clarification note, Teilhard de Chardin, who was not prone to 

provide notes and citations, wrote in his original and peculiar style, full of metaphors, 

that, “There is perhaps a secret relationship between the Newtonian gravity of 

condensation (which engendered the stars) and the ‘gravity of complexification’ (which 

engendered Life)” and he adds “in any case, both only function jointly” 71 , , and he 

repeats the idea of the commensurability of the evolution of matter and the appearance 

of life (Cosmogenesis = Biogenesis). 

For Teilhard complexity was the engine of evolution, and this was in a way similar to 

the élan vital of Bergson 72 . “Complexity cannot be developed in the interior of each 

corpuscle without correlatively entailing in rapid succession an interlinking of 

relationships, a delicate perpetually mobile balance between neighbouring 

corpuscles” 73 . We should note here that the current theory of the appearance of 

eukaryotic organisms (unicellular or multi-cellular organisms whose cells have a well 

defined nucleus), in a way, confirms the hypothesis of Teilhard that a symbiosis of 

prokaryotic organisms (unicellular with no defined nucleus) is the origin of eukaryotic 

organisms. This is the hypothesis put forward by Teilhard de Chardin in 1950: 

“however granular and discontinuous the layer of vitalised Matter might have appeared 

in its beginnings, since this elementary phase, a network of deep affinities and attraction 

(destined to progressively affirm themselves) united and tended to progressively bring 

this innumerable multitude of particles with their load of germinal power closer, in a 

broad symbiosis” 74 . The Biologist Lynn Margulis recently stressed the explanation of 

the appearance of eukaryotic organisms through a symbiosis among prokaryotes. The 

biological transition between bacteria and cells with nuclei is one of the more critical 

steps in all the history of evolution and it is so sudden that it cannot be explained by 

gradual changes through time. “The division between bacteria and the new cells is really 

the most spectacular in all of biology. Vegetables, animals, fungi and protists are based 

on the nuclear design of the cell, a distinction which reflects the common inheritance of 

these organisms” 75 . Lynn Margulis describes these new cells thus, “they appear to have 

been bacterial confederations. They cooperated with each other and centralised the 

functions forming a new type of cellular government. The newcomers had a 

progressively more centralised organisation and their cellular organelles became joined 

in a new biological unit” 76 . 

69 

70 

71 

72 

73 

74 

75 

76 

70 

GZH, 36. 

Ibidem 

GZH, 37. 

According to H. BERGSON, “evolutionism is not explained by mechanical factors as the Darwinians 

or Neo-Darwinians pretend. It is necessary to resort to a cause in the psychological order, as proposed 

by Neo-Lamarckians. It starts with an original impulse (the original élan of life)”. Entry of the élan 

vital in FERRATER MORA, J., Diccionario de Filosofía (Editorial Ariel, Barcelona, 1994) 984. For a 

study on Bergson and finality, consult GILSON, E., De Aristóteles a Darwin (y vuelta) EUNSA, 

Pamplona, 1976) 207-236. 

GZH, 46. 

GZH, 47. 

MARGULIS L. and SAGAN D., Microcosmos. Cuatro mil años de evolución desde nuestros 

ancestros microbianos (2ª Edición, Tusquets Editores, Barcelona, 2001) 131-132. 

Ibidem, 133. 



This symbiosis of the units of life, firstly among bacteria and then among 

differentiated cells, seen synchronically (taxonomic classification) or diachronically 

(history of the appearance in the past, the point which most interested Teilhard de 

Chardin, as palaeontologist), will explain the Tree of Life. It is curious to observe how 

Teilhard was not concerned about the explanation of the mechanisms which can explain 

the evolutionary fact. Interested in seeing the phenomenon of life and al the 

phenomenon, the fundamental preoccupation of Teilhard was to see in the evolutionary 

process “whether, behind its apparent disorder, there is a concealed a principal axis of 

growth and management, as well as a general polarisation towards progressively more 

complexity and consciousness” 77 , the fundamental law of the thought of Teilhard. 

Further on, he asks. “Does the Tree of Life, even when it is studied before the 

appearance of Man, enable us to see a true ‘guide’ in its destiny, or is it only divided 

towards its summit in a branching of rival forms?” 78 

In the extensive work of Teilhard de Chardin we will find the answer in 

orthogenesis 79 . The term orthogenesis was proposed by Gustav Heinrich T. Eimer in 

1888 in order to designate the evolution which takes place in a determined sense 80 . 

Claude Cuénot distinguishes two senses of the term orthogenesis in the work of 

Teilhard de Chardin. Firstly, in the biological sense, “Series of small anatomical and 

psychic mutations oriented in the same direction and which are added to, thus 

constituting a phenomenon of continual growth in the same direction”. Secondly, in the 

phenomenological sense, “fundamental derivation, following which the Frame of the 

Universe behaves before our eyes as being displaced towards progressively more 

complex corpuscular states as regards their material ordering and, psychically, more 

and more interiorised; a derivation which is manifested in the superior human beings 

through cephalisation, and in man through the appearance of reflection” 81 . Teilhard de 

Chardin accepted the term and used it throughout his writings, although, according to 

him, “the word is excellent and must be conserved, however, it has been misused, like 

evolution and socialism” 82 . In the Human Phenomenon he defends the use of the term, 

“without orthogenesis there would only be extensibility: with orthogenesis there is an 

invincible ascension of Life” 83 . In the same context “on the contrary, my firmest 

conviction is that the word be essential and irreplaceable as regards marking and 

affirming the manifest property which living Matter possesses” 84 . Property, in the terms 

of Teilhard is only the constant growth of centre-complexity. This ascent of centrecomplexity 

which is anatomically manifested in cerebration was called deep 

77 

78 

79 

80 

81 

82 

83 

84 

GZH, 47. The underlining is ours. 

GZH, 52. 

“Starting from Life, on the contrary, (and perhaps due to the astounding ascending complexity of the 

buildings to be assembled), the construction efforts are divided and extended both in space and time. 

On the one hand, thanks to the surprising ‘trick’ of reproduction, the corpuscle is transformed into 

population, multiplying the effects of attempts and opportunities. On the other hand, this is 

simultaneously stretched in chains, in accordance with which the possible growth can be tested, 

brought and assimilated, one by one, with a continually renewed flexibility. The complexification, 

which was individual in pre-life became linear; this simple change started up all the branching 

complications of the genesis of the species”.TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, P., La aparición del 

Hombre (Taurus, Madrid, 1958) 301. From now on this will be cited as AH. 

BERGSON, H., Memoria y Vida. Textos escogidos por Pilles Deleuze (Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 

1977) 97. 


TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Letter of March 16, 1952, cited by CUÉNOT, C., Nuevo léxico de 

Teilhard de Chardin, p. 206. 

FH, 133. 

Ibidem 



orthogenesis by Teilhard de Chardin 85 , and this forces any Matter toward the most 

complicated and the most complex 86 . 

Teilhard is aware that the term orthogenesis has been much discussed by biologists. 

The correspondence between T. Dobzhansky and J. Greene cited above is an example of 

this. Teilhard distinguished between passive orthogenesis or ortho-selection and active 

orthogenesis or ortho-election. Once the evolution of man arrives, “from man and in 

man, simple evolution gradually tends to become self-evolution” 87 . 

In the thought of Teilhard, therefore, pure chance has no meaning. Chance, the 

fortuitous encounter of elementary determinisms which imitates the act intended. The 

solution for Teilhard lay in the testing. “The fundamental technique of Testing, the 

specific invincible weapon of all multitudes in expansion” 88 . Testing in which the law of 

large numbers and the finality towards an intended goal are combined; this is what 

Teilhard de Chardin originally called directed Chance, “fill all in order to test all. Test 

all in order to fill it all”. 89 

Regarding the diversity of living beings 

We saw above that, according to Teilhard de Chardin, the symbiosis between the 

elementary grains of life would explain the exuberant branching of the Tree of Life as 

can be appreciated in a synchronic cross section at the present time, or as Palaeontology 

shows us through the fossil registry which has come down to us. According to Teilhard: 

“it is impossible to order this enormous complex phenomenon without first analysing 

the procedures imagined by Life in order to make progress in each of its components 

considered in isolation” 90 . Once more Teilhard personified life and did so subject to the 

invention of the elementary movements which lead to the explosion of forms of living 

organisms, which are sometimes fascinating. Teilhard was aware of this hypostatization 

and exclaimed, “Life, more real than lives” 91 . The elementary movements or 

procedures used by life to achieve this immense variety would be, according to 

Teilhard: 

a) Reproduction 

b) Multiplication 

c) Renovation 

d) Conjugation 

e) Association 

f) Directed additivity. 

85 

86 

87 

88 

89 

90 

91 

72 

CUÉNOT: it is defined as “derives from complexity-consciousness which is manifested at the level 

of life by systems which are progressively more complex, towards a maximum cerebration” Nuevo 

léxico de Teilhard de Chardin, p. 207. 

“We insisted before on the general orthogenesis of corpusculisation, on the ‘deep orthogenesis’ which 

we said led all Matter towards the more complicated and more conscious. In the case of living 

substances, a second derivation (a sub-derivation) which is already outlined: the orthogenesis of the 

species, oriented in accordance with a number of incredible diverse directions, towards the most 

highly differentiated, under all its forms”. AH, 304. 

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, P., Nota sobre la realidad actual y el significado evolutivo de una 

ortogénesis humana en La visión del pasado (Taurus, Madrid, 1958) 327-336. From now on this will 

be cited as VP. 

FH, 135. 

Ibidem. 

FH, 127. 

FH, 136. 



a) Reproduction is the procedure for ensuring the permanence of the unstable in the 

case of the vast molecular buildings which living beings are composed of. “In 

itself, cellular division seems to be provoked by the simple need the living 

particle has to find a remedy to its molecular fragility and to the difficulties 

related too the continuity of its growths” 92 . When reproduction becomes sexual, 

a new source of heterogeneity appears: “what at the beginning is only chance, or 

a means of survival, is immediately transformed and used as an instrument of 

progress and re-conquest” 93 . 

b) Undefined self-duplication of the living particles (of the DNA and RNA nucleic 

acids, in today’s language) Teilhard de Chardin stated that it seemed to know no 

other limits “than the amount of Matter offered for its functioning” (…) Life has 

a force for expansion as invincible as that of a body which is dilated or 

evaporated” 94 . Nothing can detain this expansive force. There is nothing big 

enough to extinguish this constructive and devouring fire. The acceptance of this 

multiplying power led the English biologist Richard Dawkins to state that life 

has no other meaning than that the chains of DNA continually and impulsively 

duplicate themselves. Organisms are only the machines of this gene factory. The 

very title of his well known work The Selfish Gene, a title which was well 

chosen by Dawkins for his purpose, is the negation of any type of finality in the 

happenings of life. “Its preservation, the preservation of the gene, is the ultimate 

reason for its existence” 95 . It is interesting to note how the same biological fact, 

multiplication, can lead to such opposing ultimate conclusions as those of 

Teilhard de Chardin and Dawkins, which tells us that the final part of the 

reasoning, starting from the same data, depends, to a large extent, on previous 

presuppositions which are sometimes fundamental options for positioning as 

regards human existence. 

c) In the opinion of Teilhard renovation leads to ‘pluralisation’ bot as regards form 

and number. Genetic mutation is the mechanism whereby this ‘irisación’ is 

produced in an undefined range of tonalities. We must bear in mind that, at the 

end of the thirties in the XX century, Teilhard de Chardin could only speak of 

his accurate intuitions. Teilhard died two years after J. Watson and F. Crick 96 

published the structure of the double helix of DNA. The biological discoveries 

which followed on at a vertiginous rate from the fifties to the seventies, occurred 

after the death of Teilhard de Chardin, and these included: the confirmation of 

the semi-conservative duplication of DNA by Meselson and Stahl (1958), the 

isolation of the polinucleótido fosforilasa (S. Ochoa, 1955), the deciphering of 

the genetic code (Ochoa, Nirenberg and Khorana, 1961-1965), the hypothesis of 

92 

93 

94 

95 

96 

FH, 128. 

Ibidem 

FH, 129. 

DAWKINS, R., El gen egoísta (Editorial Labor, Barcelona, 1979) 42. 

GIRALDO, R., 50 años del descubrimiento de la doble hélice del DNA, Razón y Fe, 248 (2003) 185- 

195. Three articles in the journal Nature can be said to be the starting point of the new revolution: 

WATSON, J. D. and CRICK, F. H. C., A structure for deoxyribonucleic acid, Nature 171, (1953) 

737-738; WILKINS, M. H. F. et al., Molecular structure of deoxypentose nucleic acids, Nature 171 

(1953) 738-740; y FRANKLIN, R. E. and GOSLING, R. G. Molecular configuration in sodium 

thymonucleate, Nature 171 (1953) 740-741. Facsimile copies of the three articles can be found in 

Nature 421 (2003) 397-401. 



the messenger RNA (Jacob and Monod, 1961) and the mechanisms for the 

synthesis of proteins 97 , etc., obviously could not be known by Teilhard. 

d) Teilhard de Chardin also sensed the significance that sexual reproduction 

(conjugation) had for the variability of living beings and consequently for 

evolution as an exchange of information. “Instead of irradiating from each centre 

in the process of division, since then, the radios of Life began to anastomosate 

exchanging and varying their respective riches” 98 . 

e) We referred above to the intuition Teilhard had concerning the role of symbiosis 

(one of the many forms of association): from the colony soldered in bacteria, 

passing through the cell of cells (eukaryotic cell), the associations of hypercomplex 

units, up to the human societies. “We restrict ourselves here to pointing 

out that Association, considered in all its levels, is not, among the animate 

beings, a sporadic or accidental phenomenon. On the contrary, it represents one 

of the most universal most constant mechanisms and, therefore, one of the most 

significant used by Life for its expansion” 99 . 

f) Finally, according to Teilhard de Chardin, Life has achieved the grand recourse 

involved in being able to ascend to progressively more complex levels through 

the factor of additivity. “In a more general and deeper manner, the enabling 

renovations by each reproduction do more than just replace; they unite their 

additions to each other which is growing in a determined sense. Dispositions 

which are increased or organs which are adjusted or superimposed. 

Diversification here, growing specialisation there of the terms which constitute 

the same genealogical line” 100 . 

The new rationality sensed by Teilhard de Chardin 

We pointed out above that the force of his discourse made Teilhard de Chardin to 

hypostatise life, which has led some critics to accuse him of being panpsychist or 

animist. Teilhard conferred subjectivity and, we could say, almost personality on a 

quality which is life as we appreciate life in living organisms, which are those which 

really exist. Thus, Teilhard de Chardin speaks of profusion, ingeniousness and 

indifference attributed to life, to finish up stating “Life more real than lives” 101 . This 

phrase understood in its rawness and taken out of context, in a purely biologicist 

reading, could be the basis for a social totalitarianism which is as far as possible alien to 

the thought of Teilhard. 

It should also be noted that, in order to understand the thought of Teilhard de 

Chardin, we must overcome the barrier of his language 102 . What Teilhard de Chardin 

97 

NÚÑEZ DE CASTRO, I., El Proyecto Genoma humano. Discurso bioquímico y discurso 

antropológico en La Fe interpelada. Jornadas de estudio y diálogo entre Profesores Universitarios 

(Universidad Pontifica Comillas, Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Colegio Español San José de 

Roma, Departamento de Publicaciones, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid, 1993) 29-48. 

98 

FH, 131. 

99 

FH, 132. 

100 FH, 133. 

101 FH, 134-137. 

102 Despite the fact that Teilhard knew when he had to use a purely scientific discourse, when he used 

poetry in his endeavour ‘to see the interior’ of things, he sometimes used a language which 

disconcerted some. In this respect, Henri de Lubac stated, “Father Teilhard has taken care not to 

confuse the literary genres and the disciplines of knowledge, however, like all the spirits who have 

something new to say, he had his own way to distinguish and unite these. Particularly in the Human 

Phenomenon, as he was perfectly aware of the mirages which the reader of these types of writings 

74 



means is that his fundamental intuition that we must understand the cosmos as a system, 

as a totum, as unit, which is always becoming. It is not easy to arrive at the basis of the 

thought of Teilhard starting from what Henryk Skolimowsky called “positivist 

rationality” 103 , nor from scholastic rationality 104 , which explains why he often did not 

satisfy scientists (we nave remarked on the harsh criticisms made by Medawar and 

Monod) and some philosophers and theologians. 

It is curious to note that Teilhard himself was aware of this change of rationality 

and, consequently, of discourse which is required for a global understanding of his 

thought. The key lies in the change in the conception of static reality in a pyramid 

hierarchy to a reality becoming, in continual change, in evolution. The change in the 

concept of substance as an underlying support (sub-stare, to be below) for the tissue of 

reality to the concept of process. (Above we saw the parallelism of Alfred N. Whitehead 

and Teilhard de Chardin which Hans Küng drew our attention to). Thus, for Teilhard de 

Chardin the concept of evolution transcends the purely biological discourse 105 and “the 

particular expression in the case of life, of the law which conditions all our knowledge 

of the sensitive: in the domain of matter can be understood unless under the forms of 

series and sets” 106 . 

As Ludwig von Bertalanffy stated in his Preface to the revised edition of his 

General Theory of Systems, this new rationality, “in comparison with the analytical 

procedure of classical science, with the resolution into components and linear or 

unidirectional causality as the basic category, research into organised totalities with 

many variables requires new categories of interaction, transaction, organization, 

teleology, etc., and this leads to many problems for epistemology and the mathematical 

models and techniques” 107 , and further on, “One way or another we are forced to face 

up to complexities as ‘totalities’ or ‘systems’ in all the fields of knowledge. This entails 

a fundamental reorientation of scientific thought” 108 . This new rationality supposes a 

holistic focus of all the realities; remember the totum which Teilhard de Chardin had 

sensed. In systemic thought any component of the set has a relationship with all the 

structural or functional components of this set. In addition, all the system is in continual 

relation with other systems organised hierarchically. This rationality acts through 

approximations, using constellations of concepts loaded with meaning, where the 

univocity is rarely achieved. There are nuances among the concepts, which Edgar Morin 

called interactive loops 109 . Therefore, there is a semantic opening, a conceptual 

could be a victim of, and he doubled his explanations in order to dissipate these”. DE LUBAC, H., El 

pensamiento religioso de Teilhard de Chardin (Taurus, Madrid, 1967) 121. 

103 SKOLIMOWSKY, H., Problemas de racionalidad en Biología, en Estudios sobre filosofía de la 

Biología, AYALA, F. J. y DOBZHANSKY, T. Eds. (Ariel, Barcelona, 1983) 267-291. 

104 In this regard, Eustaquio Guerrero asks, “Why is it difficult? (….) 3.- Because there is an abundance 

of ambiguities of thought and expression, as we will show below, and it is not easy to find the true 

meaning intended by the author; some attributed one meaning and others another”. GUERRERO, E., 

Teilhard de Chardin. Aspectos fundamentales de su obra (Studium Ediciones, Madrid, 1969) 17. 

105 “In our universe experimentally, everything is born, everything is established and grows, in successive 

phases, everything, including the Everything. This is its essence, what we see today and apparently 

forever in the World around us”. (..) Now, more and more, all Nuclear Physics, all Astral Physics, all 

Chemistry are now in a way ‘evolutionary’. As almost so are the History of Civilization and the 

History of Ideas”. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, P., Evolución de la idea de evolución in VP, 324. 

106 TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, P., Planteamiento actual del problema del transformismo in VP, 40. 

107 VON BERTALANFFY, L., Teoría general de lo sistemas (Fondo de cultura económica, Madrid, 

1976) xvi. 

108 VON BERTALANFFY, L., op. cit. 3. 

109 La Méthode by Edgar Morin (even its spelling) is continually sprinkled with these loops of terms and 

concepts: “Ecological thought has placed the idea of chain and the idea of cycle at the centre of things, 



complementariness in the construction of current scientific thought 110 . In his work La 

trama de la vida, F. Capra rightly and clearly stated that, “The grand shock for science 

in the XX century was the verification that the systems cannot be understood through 

analysis. The properties of the parts are not intrinsic properties, but can be understood 

within a greater set. Consequently, the relation between the parts and the whole has 

been inverted. In the systemic approach the properties of the parts can only be 

understood from the organisation of the set, therefore, systemic thought is not 

concentrated on the basic components, but on the essential principles of 

organisation” 111 . Understanding the work of Teilhard de Chardin is only possible if we 

start from the presuppositions of this systemic and evolutionary rationality. With this 

focus the stumbling block of his language can be overcome and the reader can even 

enjoy the rhythm and poetry of Teilhard’s prose. 

Conclusions 

These pages written in grateful memory of Teilhard de Chardin, on the fiftieth 

anniversary of his death, are only intended to clarify the first part of his intellectual 

testament: Cosmos = Cosmogenesis = Biogenesis. Much has been written about 

Teilhard de Chardin, but perhaps little has been written on his grand Biophilosophical 

intuitions. After the analysis we have made, we have arrived at the following 

conclusions: 

1. In his writings, Teilhard did not intend to make a Metabiology and much less 

Metaphysics. 

2. He wanted to apply the purest phenomenological method, thus, his insistence on 

seeing the phenomenon, all the phenomenon. 

3. Perhaps he managed to best transmit his Natural Philosophy of life in his least 

known work, The Human Zoological Group, a work written in his mature years; 

the manuscript is date January 10, 1950 in Paris. He also wanted to become 

involved in Phenomenology. (“The following pages do not pretend to provide an 

exhaustive definition of Man. They only wish to establish the ‘phenomenal’ 

appearance of Man” 112 ). A synthetic work, whose language is more sober than The 

Human Phenomenon, in which his fundamental intuitions are expressed more 

sharply and clearly. 

4. In his most well known work The Human Phenomenon the fundamental lines of his 

thought on life can be sensed, however, his poetic language, which is often profuse, 

impairs clarity but makes it more suggestive. His discourse is very far from the 

characteristics demanded of the scientific language of positivist rationality: 

syntactic rigour, the elimination of polysemy and the preference for assertive uses 

which are empirically verifiable 113 . His style is full of metaphors, in which the 

frontiers of logic are blurred, and this explains why it thrills many and leads others 

but it has still not been acknowledged that the union of the concept of cycle (ecological) and of chain 

(trófica) constitute the concept of loop (eco-organiser)”. MORIN, E., La Méthode. 2 La vie de la Vie 

(Éditions de Seuil, Paris, 1980) 29. 

110 NÚÑEZ DE CASTRO, I., ¿Puede darse algún sentido en las ciencias biológicas? In El sentido del 

hombre en el Universo, BLANCH, A., Ed. (Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid, 1999) 37-60. 

111 CAPRA, F., La trama de la vida. Una nueva perspectiva de los sistemas vivos (Editorial Anagrama, 

Barcelona, 1998) 49. It should be pointed out that, despite the similarities in the thought of F. Capra 

and Teilhard de Chardin, the latter is not cited in the work of Capra. 

112 GZH, 13. 

113 GÓMEZ CAFFARENA, J., El lenguaje simbólico y su verdad en Lenguajes científico, mítico y 

religioso, DOU, A., Ed., (Biblioteca Fomento Social, Mensajero, Bilbao, 1980) 245. 

76 



to scorn it. In order to understand the thought of Teilhard, it is necessary to start 

from the presuppositions of a systemic rationality and accept the richness of his 

innovative language. 

5. The intuitions of Teilhard regarding Biophilosophy were the following: 

• Life is not an epiphenomenon but a universal quality of organised matter. 

• The appearance of life supposes a pre-biological chemical evolution, pre-life. 

• The cell is the elementary grain of life. 

• The first prokaryote organisms tended to unite and become interlinked 

forming more complex cells through symbiosis: the eukaryotes 

• This organised matter tends to be multiplied and differentiated indefinitely, 

forming the tree of life. 

• This growth has an internal phenomenological guide: the law of complexityconsciousness. 

• Just as we speak of Newtonian gravity in Physics, there is a gravity of 

complexity. 

• This centre-complexity (the interior of living organisms) defines an 

ascending line of complexity from bacteria to man called deep orthogenesis. 

• Life, like all our knowledge of what is sensitive, can only be understood 

under the form of series and sets. 

6. Consequently, biogenesis leads us to the noogenesis or anthropogenesis 114 . The 

detailed study of the thought of Teilhard de Chardin as regards this point surpasses 

the limits which we proposed on studying the Biophilosophy of Teilhard de 

Chardin. 

114 During the war, the intuition of the Noosphere took a stronger hold on the thought of Teilhard de 

Chardin,“I repeat that it was undoubtedly the experience of war which led me to become aware of this 

gift, or power –still relatively rare -, to perceive the reality and organicity of collective magnitudes 

without seeing them, and I have developed this a s one more of my senses” (…) Now he had no 

difficulty in understanding, in a way intuitively, the organic unity of the living membrane spread like a 

film of the illuminated surface of the star which carries us, and little by little becomes more individual 

and outstanding like a luminous aura around the protoplasmic plaque, before me there arose a final 

wrapping, a wrapping which was no longer only conscious but thinking.” TEILHARD DE 

CHARDIN, P., The Heart of Matter, p. 35. It was after the first trip to China in 1927, that Teilhard by 

symmetry with the Biosphere of Suess spoke for the first time of the Noosphere, an expression which 

proved to be fortunate from this time on. 



78 



Creation in Evolution: Philosophical and Theological 

Perspective 1 

MANUEL G. DONCEL 

UNIVERSITAT AUTÒNOMA, BARCELONA 

Introduction 

In this second part of this presentation-debate “Cosmology and theology: sense or 

senselessness of creation”, we present the weighty idea of this sense through modern 

conceptions of some Catholic theologians that have seriously reflected on creation and 

evolution. We differentiate two perspectives in these conceptions: a philosophical 

perspective, which allows us to familiarize ourselves with them and shed light on this 

sense, and a second theological perspective that delves into the Trinitarian theology of 

creation. We will talk specifically about the conception of Karl Rahner on “active selftranscendence”, 

of the conceptions of Karl Schmitz-Moormann on the metaphysics of 

the union and on the “creative call” of the Trinitarian God, and those of Denis Edwards 

on the role proper of the creative Spirit in this relational and emerging universe. 

We assume the cosmological evolution presented in the first part by Professor Luis 

Joaquín Boya, which goes up to the formation of the planets with biotic materials like 

Earth, and even the subsequent biological evolution at least on this Earth, up to the 

formation of human beings. For purposes of illustration we can compile this 

evolutionary process in the following synoptic table of cosmic and biological events. 

Starting with big-bang, at 

are formed 

1 micro-second: protons and neutrons 

1 second: electrons 

3 minutes: helium nucleus 

380,000 years: neutral atoms 

200,000,000 years: stars, bio-elements 

350,000,000 years: free bio-elements 

700,000,000 years: 2nd generation stars 

9,100,000,000 years: the Earth 

From now, at are formed 

4,600,000,000 years: the Earth 

?.?00,000,000 years: organic synthesis 

3,800,000,000 years: “prokaryotic” cells 

1,400,000,000 years: “eukaryotic” cells 

700,000,000 years: multi-cellular organisms 

500,000,000 years: first vertebrates 

200,000,000 years: first mammals 

1 

The original Spanish version of this work was presented as a paper on 23 September 2007 at the 

annual meeting of the Asociación Internacional José de Acosta (ASINJA), and will appear as such in 

the minutes of this meeting: LYDIA FEITO (ed.), El conflicto de racionalidades, Minutes of the 

meetings of the ASINJA, vol. XXXIV, Madrid: Publicaciones de la Universidad Pontificia de 

Comillas (UPCO). 



60,000,000 years: first primates 

6,000,000 years: first hominids 

2,000,000 years: genus Homo 

200,000 years: Homo sapiens 

17,000 years: cave paintings 

10,000 years: Neolithic villages 

6,000 years: ancient cultures 

4,000 years: patriarchs of Israel 

2,000 years: Jesus Christ 

Cosmic and biological human events 

We have to read this table as that of our own milestone events: The formation of our 

protons and electrons is from the first second of the big-bang, and that of our complex 

atoms starting from the dust of stars, from hundreds of millions of years later. The 

formation of our eukaryotic cells is more than a thousand millions of years old and that 

of the multi-cellular organisms, vertebrates and mammals like our own, hundreds of 

millions of years old. Our order of primates, our genus of Homo go back millions of 

years while our species, Homo sapiens, has existed for hundreds of thousands and our 

culture and our Judeo-Christian religions has been around for only a few thousand 

years. 

1. Philosophical perspective 

We will introduce below this perspective of the conceptions of Karl Schmitz-Moormann 

and Denis Edwards in their reflections on the totality of evolution, which are profoundly 

influenced by those of Teilhard de Chardin and Karl Rahner respectively. They 

insinuated to us the sense of evolution and prepare their subsequent theological 

conceptions. 

1.1 Metaphysics of the union and united totalities 

This is a metaphysics of the “becoming”, more than one of and follows the known 

equation of Teilhard de Chardin: 

Or in English: 

Plus esse = plus a pluribus uniri. 

To be more = to be more united from more elements. 

The great German biologist and Catholic theologian Karl Schmitz-Moormann, 

grounding himself in Teilhardian metaphysics has introduced the basic concept of 

“united totality” or “uni-totality”. 2 In the process of progressive evolution, uni-totality 

is a set of elements possessing a special unity due to which it reaches as a whole a new 

2 

80 

In 1.1 and 1.2 we follow chap. 2 of the Spanish version of his book SCHMITZ-MOORMANN 2005: see 

here p. 83. The German version SCHMITZ-MOORMANN 1997a, p. 42, introduces his neologism: “Ein- 

Ganzheit”, literally “uni-totality”. It is too bad that this basic term has been watered down in the 

English version; thus in this passage it appears translated simply as “union”: SCHMITZ-MOORMANN 

1997b, p. 43. 



level of enrichment of being, that was lacking in its parts. These uni-totalities are open 

to being perfected in their set of elements and in their unity, and even to serve as 

elements for the formation of higher level uni-totalities. 

In our table of cosmic and biological events we have seen successive uni-totalities 

appear that are formed by others of inferior level. Thus, for example, the proton or 

neutron is formed by three quarks; the atomic nucleus by certain group of protons and 

neutrons and the atom by one of these nuclei together with its shell of electrons. The 

molecules are formed by atoms (or ions) and the macro-molecules are usually 

considered as a combination of molecules (or radical molecules). We consider the cell 

as formed by a complex system of molecules and macro-molecules in transformation 

and the organism by another complex system of cells. Humans are organisms endowed 

with reflex conscience and personality, which form human groups of a family or social 

nature. 

But more important that the elements that form these successive uni-totalities are 

the various types of responsible bonds of the various levels of unities. 

1.2 Types of bonds and levels of unity 

At the physical level, the three quarks that form a proton or a neutron are strongly 

united by the interaction called “strong nuclear interaction”. And the protons and 

neutrons that form the atomic nucleus are strongly united to each other by this same 

type of interaction. On the other hand, the nucleus and the electronic shell that form an 

atom are united to each other by “electromagnetic interaction”. 3 In the quantum theory 

of fields, these electromagnetic interactions and strong nuclear interactions are 

described as an interchange of “intermediate virtual bosons”: respectively virtual 

photons and the so called “gluons”––with a not very philological hybrid term, but which 

clearly expresses the job of these virtual particles: to bind by adhesion. 

At the chemical level, atoms (or their ions) are joined to molecules through 

chemical connections, which are of various types: ionic, covalent, hydrogen. The first is 

the simple exchange of virtual photons between opposite charged ions and the others 

involve quantum sharing of the electron of an atom with that of the next atom. Through 

this same type of links molecules are joined (or radical molecules) in order to form 

macromolecules. 

At the biological level, the types of bonds that form the union of living being are 

much more complicated and largely ignored. The union of the simplest cell has to be 

described as that of a very complex system of organic molecules and macromolecules 

enclosed within a permeable membrane and in continual chemical transformation 

through reactions, which are catalyzed also through organic molecules and 

macromolecules. They achieve certain dynamic equilibriums in a quasi-chaotic regimen 

that allow the assimilation of food and the reproduction of an analogous whole. The 

union of the most simple of animal organisms has to be described in its turn as that of a 

very complex system of diversified cells enclosed within a certain permeable 

membrane, structured in interrelated tissues and organs by a complex nervous system, 

which allows communication by the group with the outside environment, its feeding and 

sexual reproduction through very complex embryonic process. 

3 

This interaction basically consists in the attraction between the positive nucleus and each one of the 

negative electrons and is much weaker than the strong interaction. It is for this reason that, in order for 

neutral atoms to exist, hundreds of thousands of years has to go by from the big-bang, so that the 

initial huge temperatures are mitigated by the expansion and their thermal energy does not exceed that 

of the energy of the electromagnetic bond. 



At the psychological level, which awakens in the primates and is made clear in 

humans, the union is achieved through a sophistication of the nervous system and its 

central organ, the brain. In human beings with their self-conscious reflection and their 

personality, this union reaches a supreme degree while forming uni-totalities of a new 

level of beings, called spiritual beings, which are characterized by being self-present to 

themselves. Their same development demands interpersonal relationships with other 

human beings and they spontaneously form family and social groups, which in turn are 

uni-totalities with interpersonal bonds. Interpersonal love is notable among them for its 

unifying strength. 

Therefore, let us summarise this progressive evolution of the uni-totalities, from 

those with a negligible level of union up to those with a higher level: from those joined 

by an exchange of intermediate bosons, up to those joined by interpersonal love. 

1.3 Qualitative Parameters of Evolution 

This union, which the equation of Teilhard directly relates with the enrichment of the 

being, is not the only index of evolutionary progress through the successive unitotalities. 

Schmitz-Moormann puts together and elaborates on three “qualitative 

parameters” of evolution: conscience, information and freedom. 4 

Conscience is a parameter upon which Teilhard speculated seriously, starting with 

his original “law of conscious-complexity” in 1925. 5 The correlation between the two 

concepts in the evolutionary progression led him to conceive of them as two facets of 

the same reality: the complexity as the external facet (“le dehors des choses”) and 

conscience as the internal (“le dedans des choses”). This obliged him to project an 

elemental conscience to the atom and the molecule, proportional to its elemental 

complexity. Schmitz-Moormann does not feel obliged to use this terminology and gives 

only to living beings at a sensitivity and psychological level the increasing conscience–– 

manifested by basic functions like learning and memory––, and to the human being 

even the reflex conscience––by which “we know that we know”. Introspection is our 

immediate experience, which is contrasted with analysis of complexity––for example, 

the functional complexity of the brain fulfilled by neurological science––and that, 

following Teilhard, we have to uphold as belonging to the complete human 

“phenomenon”. 

From a transcendent vision, we have to understand this pre-history and history of 

our conscience as the universal progress towards a search for consciousness. So that the 

human being “capax Dei” (since even the Neanderthals left religious signs) represents a 

response, given in name of the universe to the loving self-giving of the Creator. 

The two last qualitative parameters are of post-Teilhardian mentality and have been 

worked out by Schmitz-Moormann. 6 The information also appears increasing at the 

evolutionary progress. It is poor at a physical-chemical level, since there it consists only 

in some atomic or molecular structure. 7 But at the biological level it is very rich, which 

has been made very clear with the discovery of the gnome of each species archived in 

the double helix of its DNA. It is written there in the language of its four nucleotides (A, 

4 

5 

6 

7 

82 

His study forms chapters 3, 4 and 5, respectively, of SCHMITZ-MOORMANN 2005. 

SCHMITZ-MOORMANN 1992b defends the Teilhardian concept of evolutionary complexity and 

distinguishes it from other quantitative conceptions. 

See SCHMITZ-MOORMANN 1992a and 1987, respectively on information and freedom. 

Right-handed and left-handed characters can be considered “informative memory” at the molecular 

level of some compounds, which frequently are “informatively transmitted” to subsequently formed 

molecules. 



T, C and G) and arranged for its preservation, reproduction and reading, in order of its 

translation to the language of the twenty amino acids that make up the right proteins for 

embryological development. And it is ready, above all, for supplying slight mutations 

through sexual reproduction, which are the basis of Darwinian evolution. But even more 

powerful and faster to operate is the information from the higher animals, endowed with 

a more or less developed brain. It is responsible for a new evolution and adaptation to 

the environment. 8 The same life of the organism depends on the transmission of 

information inside of it (the death of a human organism, for example, corresponds to a 

flat brain scan and not to the death of its organs, which can still be transplanted). 

Information, in comparison to its supporting material, has an increasing spiritual 

character and in human beings it uses symbolism of an abstract language. We can 

reconceptualize our “spiritual soul” as the totality of our personal information, created 

individually with the support of the divine action. But as humans we create, archive and 

transmit information on the Earth in the form of a communitarian culture (libraries, 

Internet…). Homo sapiens is defined as a “symbiosis of gnome and culture”. It thus has 

a certain analogy with the “omniscient” God, who we can conceive of as the 

“informative Totality”. 

Finally, a fourth parameter of progressive evolution is that of freedom, which I 

specifically told you about in my paper last year. 9 Let us quickly recall some of its 

characteristics. It is not easy to find traces of this freedom at the atomic or molecular 

level. 10 At the Darwinian biological level we saw how the progressive or regressive 

evolution of the species is related to a certain interaction between “freedom” and 

limiting structures of the mutations. But traces of “quasi-freedom” appear in the higher 

animals, which in reality do not answer to the model of “Buridan’s donkey” motivated 

exclusively according to what used to be thought of as innate instincts and sensory 

perceptions, but which is actually significantly influenced by the of the autonomous 

“state of mind” of the animal, as modern ethology is discovering. And at the human 

level, despite all the so-called physical and psychological determinisms, the existence of 

free acts turns out to be undeniable, as our introspection, our legal code with its concept 

of “responsibility” and those martyred for freely keeping their faith testify. 

Finally, let us recall how this evolution, even human freedom, involve much 

physical evil and the appearance of moral evil or sin. According to the phrase of 

Schmitz-Moormann, evil is the price of freedom. In a transcendent vision, this assumes 

great interest on the part of the Creator by the formation of free human beings 

(responsible and capable of love). In a Christian vision, it assumes a kenosis or loving 

self-annihilation from the Creator. 

1.4 Interrelationality, integrity and emergence 

Denis Edwards, for theological reasons that we will see in the second part, is interested 

in these three characteristics that modern sciences describe in our universe. 11 It is true 

8 

9 

10 

11 

See my paper from last year in: DONCEL 2007b, pp. 174-176. 

See ibid, pp. 170-173. 

It does not appear that the indetermination of some physical magnitudes of a quantum system, even 

when it is in a well determined state, must be interpreted as “freedom”. Longitudinally polarized 

electrons (polarized in the direction of their movement), when horizontally crossing a vertical 

polarization analyser will give, with 50% probability, some upward and some downward 

measurements of vertical polarization. But more than a choice of electron, this appears to be owed to 

the influence of the polarization meter (the Stern-Gerlach apparatus), which disturbs the state of the 

electron in one way or another. 

See EDWARDS 2004 or 2008 (Spanish version in preparation), chap. 9. he compares them with that 



that he does not use the terminology of uni-totality, bond of union and growth in the 

being, but he makes analogous assertions that whole entities are formed by their 

relationality, and evolve with the emergence of new entities, which are irreducuble to 

those from which they originate. Let us expound on them in their own order. 12 

As described by modern science, the universe is totally interrelated, especially in 

our terrestrial world as biology, sociology and ecology is finding out. The relationships 

characterize reality. Each entity appears formed by two groups of relationships: the 

interrelationships between their components, and those that relate the entity with a 

broader context. Edwards gathers from William Stoeger the important concept of 

“constitutive relationships” as that which “makes a thing be what it is, endowing it with 

a definite unit of structure and behaviour, persistence, and consistency of action” (what 

an Aristotelian would call “substantial form” that determines “nature”). Stoeger 

describes them as “all of those connections, relationships, and interactions which either 

incorporate its lower-level components into that more complex whole, relate that 

complex whole to higher-level unities in such a way as to contribute essentially to its 

character, or maintain its connection with the Ground of its being and existence. 

Depending on the levels of organization involved, these constitutive relationships may 

be physical, metaphysical, biological, or social in character”. 13 They thus categorize our 

world hierarchically in a “nested organization”: wholes that are more and more complex 

and belong to successive levels of unity, like atom, molecule, cell, organism, 

population…, which practically coincide with the uni-totalities of Schmitz-Moormann. 

These successive individual entities, which are not mere accumulation of 

components but are bound by constituent relationships, have their own integrity, their 

identity and their own degree of self-direction. Edwards again picks up on Stoeger’s 

main points: such entities form a new whole with attributes and functions that are 

irreducible to that of its parts, with “mereological irreducibility”, although it can have 

“causal reducibility”. Stoeger defines mereological irreducibility (from the Greek 

méros, méreos, part) as that which has a whole “if the constitutive relationships among 

its components, or with other systems or objects outside itself, render its properties, 

behaviour, or function essentially different from that of its components, and endow it 

with functional unity and integrity…”. 14 And he defines a system as causally reducible 

“if the higher-level causes within it... are determined solely by those operating at more 

foundamental levels”, 15 without external factors originating from its own level or 

descending from higher levels being required. An example of both definitions is the 

water molecule, mereologically irreducible by its properties being basically different 

from those of its hydrogen and oxygen components, but causally reducible by being 

explicable––within a “molecular dynamic”. An individual entity is, therefore, given by 

a “pattern of constitutive relationships”, without its relational character being opposed 

to the individual substantivity of the entity, but establishing it. 

In the evolutionary process, there is emergence when, by the incorporation of new 

components or by the intervention of new constituent relationships, something new 

appears, whose properties are mereologically irreducible to those of its components. 

12 

13 

14 

15 

84 

which Colin E. Gunton calls “open transcendentals”: ibid, note 12. 

Ibid, paragraph 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3, respectively on interrelationality, integrity and emergence. 

STOEGER 1999, pp. 136 y 137. 

Ibid, pp. 140-141. Stoeger illustrates this unity and integrity, adding here: “so that some of the 

characteristics of its components are no longer manifest separately, apart from the whole in which 

they now reside”. And cites the neutrons of the atomic nucleus as an example, where they are stable 

but while separated they have a half-life of about 10 minutes. 

Ibid, p. 141. 



These emergent properties can sometimes be predicted (for example, when causal 

reducibility is given, as in the synthesis of water) other times it cannot (for example, 

when top-down causality intervenes, like the development of an embryo, where the 

maternal uterus can have an unpredictable influence). Examples of emergent 

phenomenon of cosmic or biological character are: atoms, galaxies, stars, planets; 

bacteria, eukaryotic cells, multi-cellular organisms, mammals, and the human brain. All 

these come of out of the previous as something essentially new, apparently by virtue of 

the laws of nature, but emerge as something essentially new. Many of these emergences 

require that the cosmologic constants that figure in the laws of nature are adjusted with 

great precision, or they have, as they say, very precise “fine tuning”. For example, for 

galaxies to be formed––and stars and planets can be formed inside of them––in the 

space homogeneously disseminated with atoms, a precise balance between gravity and 

expansive force, and a precise level of irregularity in the thermal homogeneity of the 

primordial universe are required; and for enough carbon and oxygen to be produced by 

nuclear fusion in the heart of the stars––and as a consequence living organisms can be 

formed––, a very precise value for the constant of the nuclear strong interaction is 

required. The so-called “weak anthropic principle” poses the question of the origin of 

these precise laws, which are preconditions to the emergence of humans. 

2. Theological perspective 

In this second theological part, we start from the revelation, such as we formulated it, 

from the origins of the Christian community in our profession of the faith: “We believe 

in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth”. But, since the 

current sciences set out that the universe originated through a process of cosmic-bioevolution, 

what is culturally reasonable is that we talk about a “creation in evolution”. 

This Christian language is as old as the idea of evolution. Already in the time of Darwin 

and his basic work On the Origin of the Species through natural selection… (1859), two 

English Christian intellectuals, Charles Kingsley and Frederic Temple, coined a phrase 

that summarises how believers should think about an evolving world. They said that 

God could have given existence to a world already completed; but the Creator preferred 

to do something wiser: to give existence to a world endowed with such fecundity, that 

the creatures would be capable of “making themselves”, actualizing the potentialities 

given by God through the evolutionary exploration. 

We will show the profound insights of recent theologians on this “creation in 

evolution”, however, first we will point out what certain anti-evolutionist positions say, 

which are presented under the claim of being scientific, but actually seem weak to us 

from the scientific point of view and much more from the theological one. 

2.1 “Creationism” and “theory of intelligent design” 

The so-called “creationists” advocate a fixed creation, basing it on a fundamentalist 

reading of Genesis. They use old scientific arguments––like the lack of transition 

forms––to negate all true evolution, all transformation of a species into others. But, in 

their biblical fundamentalism, they understand by “species” the ten “classes”––we could 

say––of living beings created by God at the beginning, as the Bible says (Gen 1,11-26): 

vegetation, seed plants and fruit trees; sea monsters, other swimming creatures and 

winged birds; wild animals, cattle, creeping things and humans. Such creationism does 

not show great scientific or theological richness and today it is practically abandoned. 

The “theory of intelligent design”, tries to modernize this creationism. It admits 

evolution as a transition between species classified by Linnaeus. However, it maintains 



that these transformations frequently assume an “irreducible complexity”––for example, 

the appearance of flagellum in bacteria or eyes in fish––, which is unexplainable in the 

Darwinian theory of mutations and natural selection. And it maintains that to overcome 

the “irreducible complexity” of these transformations requires a supernatural 

“intelligent designer”––from which it is not explicitly stated that it is God, although its 

followers usually presuppose it implicitly. It claims, therefore, to provide an apologetic 

argument for the existence of God. But we note that such a “God of the gaps” is 

continually in danger of being eliminated with each scientific step forward. 

This theory is scientifically weak as soon as this supernatural designer exempts the 

scientists from doing their work, that of looking for the possibility of such transitions at 

a natural level––perhaps discovering the reducibility of the “irreducible”, or a new non- 

Darwinian evolutionary mechanism that explains the transition. 16 However, above all, 

this theory turns out to be scientifically inadmissible, by making God directly 

responsible for, as an example, defects in our eyes (originally the eyes of primitive 

fishes, but consequently those of the succeeding ones by simple evolution, or being 

object of a new intelligent design, our eyes included). God would turn out to be an 

imperfect designer; and extending the argument, God could be made responsible for all 

physical evils. 

2.2 Theologians of evolutionary creation 

The traditional conception considered an initial instantaneous creation and a subsequent 

conservation, as corresponds to the fixed conception of the world and Aristotelian 

concept of causality. The evolutionary conception introduces the idea of “continual 

creation” and studies the divine creative action and its respect for the natural 

evolutionary action. Current theology develops the Trinitarian character of this action 

and the Spirit’s role in it. 

We base ourselves on the insights of three Catholic theologians that reflect on this 

evolutionary creation. Let us begin by enumerating the three insights of these 

theologians, by indicating their primary sources and chronology: 

– 

Karl Rahner introduces his insight into “active self-transcendence” in his 

collaborative (with Paul Overhage) work of 1961: Das Problem der 

Hominisation. 17 

– Karl Schmitz-Moormann introduces his insight of “the creative call of the tri-une 

God”, in his work of 1997: Theology of Creation in the Evolutionary World. 18 

– Denis Edwards introduces his insight of “the interrelating Spirit as a Source of 

the new in an emergent universe” in his work Breath of Life, 2004. 19 

2.3 Karl Rahner and “active self-trancendence” 

Karl Rahner SJ elaborates his reflections from a Thomist philosophy and from his 

transcendental metaphysics. But he creates them concerned with the problematic 

16 

17 

18 

19 

86 

The appearance of the flagellum in bacteria could perhaps be explained as a process of 

“symbiogenesis” starting from a bacterium without flagellum and another micro-organism with 

flagellum. On such processes, see MARGULIS 2002, chap. 3 (UK edition 1999). 

See the reference of the original document of Rahner in German (Spanish version 1973), in RAHNER 

1961. See a modern Spanish presentation of the document, in its most original context and subsequent 

dissemination and discussion, in DONCEL 2007a. 

See the German and English versions in his book, SCHMITZ-MOORMANN 1997a and 1997b, and the 

Spanish version: SCHMITZ-MOORMANN 2005. 

See the English version of his last book, EDWARDS 2004, Spanish version: EDWARDS 2008. 



metaphysics of evolution (that the plus is created from the minus!), which were first 

passed on to him by his collaboration with his Dutch anthropological colleague Paul 

Overhage SJ and his participation in dialogs with scientists in the Görres-Gesellschaft, 

and later reading of the works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ. His conviction is that 

this evolutionary conception requires a new theological-philosophical reflection, distinct 

from the one inspired in Aristotle. Thus, this cannot receive the cosmovisional impact of 

evolution (at the most his acute biological observation could have detected 

transformations like that of the larva-nymph-butterfly, which shows a certain progress, 

but a progress enclosed in the ontogenetic development of a species, not in the 

progressive advance of the species). 

According to Rahner, we would have to start by correcting the Aristotelian focus on 

causality, which takes transient causality as a prototype. For example, the one of a 

statue through the four causes: the material (the block of marble), the formal (putting 

the point of the chisel to it), the efficient (the sculptor) and the final (what it tries to do, 

perhaps to recall the model). We would have to substitute this prototype with the one of 

the immanent causality, whose example is more obvious, inspired by its transcendental 

metaphysics, is that of a human being that conceives an idea (an idea that now seems 

like a simple quality of the human being, but subsequently could be independent of him 

in a writing, and even by published). Here we see a clear enrichment of being: “the 

human being with the idea is more than the human being (even much more, if the idea is 

ingenious)”. And this plus of being requires its philosophical explanation. Such a plus is 

explained philosophically by the same capacity of the human being, stimulated by the 

action of God in the creatures that Rahner calls divine “transcendental action” and 

describes as the ordinary action of the Creator that maintains the creatures in their being 

and their own activities (according to the laws of nature). A “categorical action” is not 

required for it, which immediately creates the idea (so then the idea would not be 

human, it would be divine!) 

Rahner strictly applies such reflections on making or becoming a created being 

from Thomist metaphysics (working out the classic concepts of “deduction from the 

form”, “conservation” and “concourse”) and from his transcendental metaphysics (in 

which the spirit in its cognitive movement comes out of itself, moved by the “horizon” 

of transcendence and objectifying its concrete knowledge, returns subjectifying itself as 

spirit, which is “self-conscious of itself”). And he formulates his general insight 

formula from which in all created causation is considered “self-surmounting”, or “active 

self-transcendence”, supported by the simple transcendental action of God. 20 

This insight is generalised in his basic theological-evolutionary thesis: The “active 

self-transcendence”––supported by the “divine transcendental action”––is enough to 

explain all the progress of biological evolution, including that of hominization. 21 This 

application to the singular case of the emergence of the spirit requires a preliminary 

statement: Even if the spirit distinguishes itself from matter, there is a “kinship” 

between the two, founded in transcendental metaphysics (for which matter is “frozen 

spirit”) and theologically in the relationship showed between them in creation, 

Incarnation and eschatology. 22 

Rahner concludes with a theological interpretation: the Christian tradition calls 

“creation of the human soul” this transcendental action that supports hominization in 

20 

21 

22 

See in DONCEL 2007a, pp. 610-617 the Rahnerian presentation of the concept of “active selftranscendence” 

and ibid pp. 624-634 the subsequent diffusion and discussion of it. 

Ibid, pp. 617-618. 

Ibid, pp. 608-610. 



order to thus emphasize the importance of this singular moment as the origin of the 

spiritual human being, “capax Dei”. However, according to him, it would be possible to 

extend such terminology, applying it to other moments in the evolutionary process, as 

for example, the creation of cellular life or sensory life… 23 

2.4 Karl Schmitz-Moormann and the “creative call” 

Karl Schmitz-Moormann is, as we have seen, an ardent follower of the Teilhardian 

metaphysics of the union, in which his universal concept of “uni-totality” is introduced, 

which in its metaphysics of becoming plays the role of what others call “entity” or 

“being”. To elaborate his theology, 24 he will have to use this same concept as 

transcendental and applying it analogously to God, as the supreme and absolute uni- 

Totality. He notes with emphasis that this would not be possible in the theological 

conception of an absolute monotheism, without converting this unique God into a factor 

of the universal process that would necessarily be joined with creature, within acertain 

pantheism. 25 But in our Christian theology, we can describe the tri-une God, with our 

inadequate language of the analogy, as a uni-Totality of three Persons, joined by the 

most sublime bond of interpersonal love. This bond is that which the theologians 

describe as a group of relationships (called “Perichoresis”) that constitute divine 

Persons. For this conception, all created uni-totality (whether it has a ternary character 

or not) represents a “vestige” of the tri-une Creator and, if it reaches the interpersonal 

level and is joined by love, represents a true “image” of Him. 

On the other hand, Schmitz-Moormann considers that the cosmo-bio evolution is 

realized in a unique continual creation (that has primordial creation and conservation 

and subsequent concourses without continuity solutions). Analyzing this evolutionary 

process, he admires the “patience” of the omnipresent Creator that, far from imposing 

the bonds on the elements to form the appropriate uni-totalities, is limited to inviting 

them to what they themselves are joined according to their laws. In human language we 

would say that he respects them and tries to persuade them by love. Schmitz-Moormann 

considers––and here is his most profound and beautiful theological insight––that God 

continually originates through a “creative call” (eternal in itself, although developed in 

time). But that this “call” is not formulated as a “fiat lux”, but as a “come to me” on a 

ontological level, a “come closer to my wealth of being”, which successively invites 

nothingness and while being created––always in becoming––to form “uni-totalities” 

ever more perfect, more similar to his supreme “uni-Totality” of Trinitarian God. In this 

way we see the vestiges and images of God in which we form the universe as the result 

of this invitation and to bring ourselves closer and to participate in the divine uni- 

Totality. This living call that forms our creation is at the same time the force that starts 

the process of evolution of everything, but without disturbing or completing its 

scientific description in anything. So the theology responds to another level of questions 

about the universe and its relationship to God. 26 

Schmitz-Moormann, following the other two of his qualitative parameters of 

evolution, sees divine creation not only under this aspect that he calls “Creatio 

appellata” or “called Creation”, but also under those of: 

23 

24 

25 

Ibid, p. 618. 

His most strictly theological text is the last chapter of his book “God, Creator of the Evolving 

Universe”, SCHMITZ-MOORMANN 1997b, cap. 6. 

Note that thus procedural philosophy requires it from A.N. Whitehead: ibid, pp. 129. 

26 On this creative call, see ibid, pp. 121-125. 

88 



– «Creatio informata» or “informed Creation”, endowed with progressive increase 

in information, which in this way starts making the universe more spiritual and more 

like “supreme Information”. God can pass on information, by “top down” causality (as 

our mind transmits it on our body). Although it will not be this the ordinary way of 

making the universe evolve, so God realizes his providence (grace, answer to prayer, 

sacraments), being able to respect all physical laws. 

– «Creatio libera» in other words “free Creation”, respectful of the autonomy of the 

world (tolerating physical evil) and human freedom (tolerating sin). With regard to the 

old theological discussion about predestination and freedom, Schmitz-Moormann 

remarks that in the development of evolution signs do not appear that God predestines 

the processes but, as we saw, signs do appear of how much He values the formation of 

an authentic freedom (tolerating evil). And that is explained, since only free beings are 

responsible and therefore can be capable of love. And God launches with love his 

creative call, waiting for with infinite patience interpersonal love that comes to love 

Him through the loving humanity. 

2.5 Denis Edwards and the interrelating spirit 

Denis Edwards also considers the cosmo-bio-evolution of his universe (relational, 

integrated and emergent) as realized in a continual Trinitarian creation. But the original 

thing about it is the two insights that emphasize the role of the creative Spirit in this. 27 

So, although––according to the more classical tradition––it would be considered that 

creation as an action of God ad extra (outside of Him) is common to the three Persons, 

he powerfully argues––against a false interpretation of this tradition––that the three can 

have their own and different role within this common action. 28 The Holy Spirit is in the 

Trinity, the “ecstasy” that comes out of It towards that of the non-divine and realizes in 

it the divine immanence. As Edwards emphasizes, this is without excluding the role of 

the Father and his Word, so this Breath with which God breathes into life (Gn 2,7) 

always accompanies his Word. 29 

The first insight of Edwards is inspired by Rahner and is a basic insight into the 

“active self-transcendence” of the created causes, supported by the divine 

“transcendental action” in order to explain the emergence of the new. His insight 

consists in seeing this divine action as proper and distinctive from the Spirit, which is 

giver of life (gr. “dsoopoión”) and of fullness of being, and the divine immanence in 

the heart of each creature. As Edwards formulates it, “The Spirit of God is the Source of 

the new in an emergent universe”. 30 This divine role, which is not replacing the created 

causes but enabling and empowering them in order that they can cause the new, is 

expressed graphically by Edwards with the feminine figure of the midwife who helps 

the mother to give birth, (but does not replace her!). This empowering help is enough to 

explain the true evolutionary emergence, the production of new entities with totally 

irreducible properties to their components. 

Edwards deepens this explanation of the emergence with a second insight inspired 

by Teilhardian metaphysics of the union and modern relational ontology. Because the 

relational conception of the universe that scientists discover (patterns of constitutive 

27 

28 

29 

30 

These insights, already touched on in EDWARDS 1999 (or its Spanish version of 2006), chap. 5, have 

been fully developed in EDWARDS 2004 (or its Spanish version of 2008). 

He advocates it through four rigorous arguments in EDWARDS 2004, chap. 8, section 2. 

On “ecstasy” of the Spirit, see ibid, p. 197. On the relationship of the Breath and the Word, see ibid, 

pp. 91-96 and 148-157. 

Ibid, p. 48. 



relationships, instead of substantial forms) corresponds to the relational conception of 

God that theologians find (pericoretic koinonia of Persons defined by relationships, 

instead of God as the actus purus). 31 Thus, oriental theology conceives God as a 

communion of Persons and the Western advocates that its essence coincides with his 

relationships. Both then present a God as essentially relational, which suggests a 

“relational ontology”. As J. Zizioulas emphatically states: “It is the communion which 

makes things be: nothing exists without it, not even God”. And the Spirit is this 

communion (“koinonia”), this union between the divine Persons and between the 

people of the whole human community united by love. And if, according to Thomas 

Aquinas, the creation is a relationship between the Creator and each creature, such a 

relationship corresponds to the Spirit. 32 So that, in the current relational ontology, we 

have to conceive of the creative Spirit as that which empowers and gives consistency to 

creation by establishing the relationship between the infinite relational koinonia of the 

tri-une God and the limited pattern of constitutive relationships that form each created 

entity. 

Conclusion 

Far from rejecting evolution with the creationists and the followers of intelligent design, 

serious Christian theologians go into the theology of creation from an evolutionary 

perspective. Thus we have confirmed it with the insight of Karl Rahner on “active selftranscendence”, 

theologically enriched by that of Karl Schmitz-Moormann on the 

“creative call” of the Trinity and by those of Denis Edwards on the creator Spirit’s role 

in the emergence of the new and in the loving relational union of creation. Let us add 

that this relational union of the Holy Spirit is that which starts preparing the universe for 

the new creation. So that, at the end of time, when the Trinitarian God “shall be all in 

all” love will triumph (from the creatio ex amore). And then it will be seen that, at the 

end of this evolution, “all was good” (Gn 1), as God saw it from the beginning of the 

old creation. 

Bibliography 

DONCEL SJ, MANUEL G, 2007a: “Teología de la evolución (I): La autotrascendencia 

activa: Karl Rahner 1961”, Pensamiento 63 (special series: Ciencia, Filosofía y 

Religión, nº 1), 583-604. 

––, 2007b: “La Creación Evolutiva de la libertad”, en: LYDIA FEITO (ed.), Nuevas 

perspectivas científicas y filosóficas sobre el ser humano, Minutes of the 

meetings of ASINJA, vol. XXXIII, Madrid: Publicaciones de la UPCO; pp. 167- 

176. 

EDWARDS, DENIS, 1999: The God of Evolution: A Trinitarian Theology; New 

Cork/Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press. 

––, 2004: Breath of Life: A Theology of the Creator Spirit; New Cork: Orbis Books. 

––, 2006: El Dios de la evolución: Una teología trinitaria; Santander: Sa Térrea. 

––, 2008:Aliento de Vida: Una teología del Espíritu creador; Estela (Navarra): 

Editorial Verbo Divino (Colección «Teología y ciencias»). 

31 

32 

90 

Ibid, chap. 9, section 1, presents in parallel the relational conception of science and theology. 

Against the opinion of Thomas Aquinas, Edwards and the modern theologians consider this 

relationship real, not only on the part of the creature but also on the part of the kenotic Creator. On the 

creator relationship, ibid pp. 48 and 141-142. Edwards describes this relationship of the Spirit with all 

creatures as a loving relationship, of a loyal companion: ibid, pp. 112 and 114. 



MARGULIS, LYNN, 2002: Planeta simbiótico: Un nuevo punto de vista sobre la 

evolución; Madrid: Debate. 

RAHNER, KARL, 1961: “Die Hominisation als theologische Frage”, en: PAUL OVERHAGE 

& KARL RAHNER, Das Problem der Hominisation (Quaestiones Disputatae 7), 

Freiburg in Br: Herder; pp. 13-90. Spanish translation: “La hominización en 

cuanto cuestión teológica”, en: P. O & K. R., El problema de la hominización, 

Madrid: Cristiandad, 1973; pp. 23-84. 

SCHMITZ-MOORMANN, KARL, 1987: “On the Evolution of Human Freedom”Zygon 4, 

pp. 443-458. 

––, 1992a: «The Evolution of Information», en: CH WASSERMANN et al. (eds), The 

Science and Theology of Information; Genova: Labor et Fides; pp. 172-182. 

––, 1992b: “The Concept of Complexity Seen in the Light of the Evolution of 

Complexes”, en: G.V. COYNE et al. (eds.), Origins, Time & Complexity, Part II; 

Genova: Labor et Fides; pp. 236-241. 

––, 1997a: Materia-Leben-Geist: Evolution als Schöpfung Gottes; Mainz: Mathias- 

Grünewald-Verl. 

––, 1997b: Theology of Creation in an Evolutionary World, Cleveland: The Pilgrim 

Press. 

––, 2006: Teología de la creación de un mundo en evolución; Estella (Navarra): 

Editorial Verbo Divino (Colección «Teología y ciencias»). 

STOEGER SJ, WILLIAM R., 1999: “The Mind-Brain Problem, the Laws of Nature, and 

Constitutive Relationships”, en: ROBERT J. RUSSELL et al. (eds.), Neuroscience and the 

Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action; Vatican Observatory Publications / 

CTNS Berkeley. 


Barbour, Peacocke and Polkinghorne 

PART III: BARBOUR, PEACOCKE AND POLKINGHORNE 

Science and religion in Ian G. Barbour 

JAVIER MONSERRAT 

UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA, MADRID 

This article sets out and discusses the ideas of Ian G. Barbour surrounding the 

relationship between scientific and religious models. The article however does not 

include Barbour’s studies on the impact of technology in the world of religious ideas. 

Barbour finishes up with the process philosophy/theology inspired by Whitehead. The 

main focus of this article centres on the problems with interpreting process philosophy 

and above all, the means of understanding divine kenosis and God’s true self-limitation 

in relation to the world. The author defends the idea that God’s plausibility from a 

scientific point of view does not depend on the explanation of the process (which is 

independent and sufficient), but rather on the essential foundation of the universe's 

being (which establishes the transcendental idea of God as an essential being). Hence, 

the plausible God is not an "ontologically" limited God, but a God that creates freedom 

in an independent and enigmatic world. God’s true kenosis is his renunciation of the 

enforcement of his presence on the world because of reason (epistemological kenosis, 

i.e., in relation to human knowledge). 

In the last 30 years, a significant group of authors in the Anglo-Saxon cultural field 

have made relevant contributions to the positive criticism of religion from a scientific 

point of view. Their work has undoubtedly been added to by certain institutions devoted 

to encouraging science-religion dialogue. I am talking about the Center for Theology 

and Natural Sciences in Berkeley (CTNS), the Templeton Foundation, or the European 

Society for Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT), as well as important journals, 

such as Zygon (Chicago), which has been published since 1960 1 . 

Within this field, three authors immediately stand out: Ian G. Barbour, Templeton 

prize in 1999; Arthur Peacocke, Templeton prize in 2001 and John Polkinghorne, 

Templeton prize in 2002. Other authors are now joining the ranks of this group of 

thinkers who, from a positive criticism point of view, are concerned with the sciencereligion 

dialogue: Stanley L. Jaki, Philip Heffner, John Brooke, Michael Heller, etc. 

This article will deal with the works of Ian G. Barbour, the most classic author. 

Barbour’s pioneering works in the '60s and '70s helped create the climate for sciencereligion 

dialogue in America, as has been achieved at the end of the century. During 

these 40 years of work, Barbour has touched on almost all fields that are somehow 

linked to this dialogue and has acted as a guide for others working in the field. In 

1 

CTNS publishes the journal: Theology and Science, Berkeley. The Templeton Foundation regularly 

published the informative journal Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology. ESSSAT 

does not publish a journal, but it has a collection of books with the minutes from its biannual 

congresses. As well as Zygon, other specialised journals about science/religion include: Journal of 

Interdisciplinary Studies; Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Journal of the American 

Scientific Affiliation; Science and Christian Belief; Ultimate Reality and Meaning; The Journal of 

Faith and Science Exchange; Science & Spirit. 



October 2003, the Berkeley CTNS organised a congress in tribute to Barbour on his 

eightieth birthday. 

1. Barbour: personality and intellectual style 

In 1996, Barbour was still professor emeritus in the department of religion at Carleton 

College, Northfield. However, his main academic training is in theoretical physics. In 

1950, he was awarded a PhD in physics from Chicago University and in 1956, he was 

also awarded a PhD in theology from Yale. Although he has worked at a number of 

universities, his academic life has always centred on Carleton College, where he soon 

focussed on departments specialising in religion; some of these were created 

specifically to accommodate and give weight to his work. In addition, he has also been 

on the editorial board of important and influential journals in his field, including 

Process Studies and Zygon. By 1996, he had published 12 books and around 44 

significant articles 2 . 

Barbour's work can only be understood within the framework of his Christian 

beliefs. His education in physics could have led him towards industry or a professorship 

in theoretical physics. In fact, his leaning towards philosophical and religious studies 

could have been seen as a "second rate" career path. We are undoubtedly dealing with a 

deeply-felt vocation, which, according to his own statements, we should attribute to 

committed belief. It is worth making a few introductory comments in order to outline 

the direction of his intellectual style. 

1) Barbour has never aimed to construct any kind of “demonstrative” form of 

apologetics in the old Catholic style (in the same way as other Christian faiths also tried 

to do). By placing himself in the liberal protestant camp, in principle it is easier for him 

to admit, as he has repeatedly done, that science does not enforce a religious-theist view 

of the universe. If it is not enforced, it is because it must be accepted that science is able 

to construct and in fact does construct, a congruent non religious-theist interpretation. 

2) However, according to the positive criticism of religion provided by Barbour, 

religion does not only not conflict with science, but there is also a high level of 

congruence between the two. But this description of congruence also leads us to discern 

that religion –or, if you will, religious hypotheses– are highly “plausible". This 

plausibility resulting from the congruence between science and religion does not lead to 

a "domineering" religious-theist view, because of the necessary force of reason, as it 

does not remove the possible scientific construction of an alternative agnostic or 

atheistic interpretation. 

3) Barbour does not therefore provide any kind of traditional “list" of the "tests” 

that “prove” the existence of God. The scientific verisimilitude of a religious-theist 

view emerges as a corollary from his analysis of congruence. Barbour states that 

“scientific models” and “religious models” can be integrated and are congruent (much 

2 

His basic bibliography is as follows: Christianity and the Scientist, NY: Association Press, 1960; 

Issues in Science and Religion, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1966; Ed., Science and Religion: 

New Perspectives on the Dialogue, NY: Harper & Row; Science and Secularity: The Ethics of 

Technology, NY: Harper & Row, 1970; Myths, Models and Paradigms (MMAP), NY: Harper & Row, 

1974; Technology, Environment and Human Values, NY: Praeger, 1980; Religion in an Age of 

Science, Gifford Lectures for 1989-90, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990; Ethics on an Age of 

Science, Gifford Lectures for 1990-91, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1993; Religion and Science 

(RAS), San Francisco: Harper, 1997; When Science Meets Religion (WSMR), San Francisco: Harper, 

2000; God´s Power: a Process View, in: Polkinghorne, John, The Work of Love (TWOL). Creation as 

Kenosis, 1-20. The works in capital letters will be quoted in brackets. 

94 



stronger than just not conflicting). We are talking about congruence that firstly refers to 

the image of reality contained in science and religion. And secondly, a way of accessing 

and analysing experience that allows science and religion to construct, each in its own 

way, this image of reality. 

4) In this search for congruence using the presentation of both scientific and 

religious models, Barbour has demonstrated encyclopaedic intellectual style. This 

means that he has not restricted himself to one field, but rather he has searched for a 

broad perspective: theoretical physics and cosmology, biology, neurology and human 

science, psychology, computer science, technology and ecology. In terms of religion, he 

has likewise referred to models that have emerged within different Christian faiths, 

including scholasticism and the Catholic tradition, as well as religions such as 

Buddhism and also modern fields in theology, such as feminism. Barbour respects all 

faiths and aims to keep himself abreast of new discoveries, theories and authors. His 

works often respectfully and carefully summarise the thoughts of other authors from the 

fields of cosmology, ecology, cognitive psychology, or any other ideological stance. 

5) Barbour’s works are therefore an excellent means of collecting information. He 

emphasises how others view the relationship between scientific and religious models; he 

doesn't mix in his opinions with the opinions of other authors. In order to develop his 

analysis and to organise the opinions he has reviewed, Barbour has proposed a 

methodology for classifying the different ways of linking scientific/religious models: 

those who think that there is a conflict between the two (an insurmountable conflict), 

independence (they deal with parallel issues that are not necessarily linked), possible 

dialogue (there are topics that are open to a link between science and religion), or 

integration (reconcilable congruence). They are what he calls "ways of linking science 

and religion”. This analytical system is repeated in many of Barbour’s works, which 

always end with his own opinion along the lines of the possible dialogue option, whilst 

leaning strongly towards congruent integration. 

6) Finally, although Barbour’s own intellectual style tends to be objective and 

encyclopaedic, it is worth mentioning that his personal opinions are strongly influenced 

by process philosophy /theology and process theism. This philosophical/scientific model 

has emerged from ideas by Alfred North Whitehead and provides a dynamic view of the 

universe and a God who is very involved in this universal dynamism. Barbour believes 

that Whitehead’s model is suitable for understanding how the image of the universe in 

science highlights the idea of God and makes it congruent. However, the connection 

between Barbour and Whitehead is not “scholastic” and even less passionate. It is a cold 

connection, dispassionate, balanced and critical. Barbour accepts Whitehead’s ideas in a 

qualified way and always with honesty and intellectual interest, which is very much in 

line with Barbour's general style. Further on we shall look at process philosophy. 

7) The congruence analysis (integration) and plausibility in Barbour’s work lead, 

from a religious point of view, to the establishment of a requirement: that religion 

develops new models enlightened by the image of the world, of life and of man in 

science. This requirement affects all religions, including Buddhism and Christianity. 

From a Christian point of view, it should lead to a new “natural theology” or “theology 

of nature”, generally speaking, a new “theology of science”. Likewise, given the ability 

of science to unify and converge in the contemporary world, this reference to science, 

from each religion's point of view, would enable continuous dialogue and understanding 

between the different religious models. It would be a kind of inter-religious 

ecumenicalism potentially driven by science. 



2. The epistemological context: scientific and religious models 

Barbour has a very clearly defined way of thinking that is constantly repeated –and even 

reiterated– throughout his works. On the one hand, he states that in human societies, 

there are a large variety of religions whose practice is governed by certain religious 

models. They are based on certain experiences (religious) and they aim to provide 

"meaning" or congruence in the universe: to do this, they construct "models" that 

contain images or symbolic or conceptual descriptions about the metaphysical content 

that makes up reality and which can help to explain these experiences. Thus, the 

existence of God as a belief for example is an essential element when explaining aspects 

of religious experience. 

On the other hand however, Barbour also speaks of the social existence of scientific 

models. Using a rigorous methodology (scientific epistemology, theory of science), 

these models aim to produce knowledge about reality based on fact, on experience. 

They provide a scientific image of the world, of life and of man. It is true that science 

aims to construct a terminal view of the empirical world and doesn’t want to be 

“metaphysics”. But it is no less true that in current modern culture, science cannot 

become metaphysics by ignoring the results generated by science. 

It is also easy to state that, given their very nature, religious and scientific models 

should come into contact with each other and question each other. This should be done 

from two perspectives. Firstly, reference-based questioning on the type of experience – 

religious and scientific– that gives meaning to both models. Secondly, questioning of 

the idea of reality contained in both. The “ways of linking” both models lead to an 

interpretative pluralism that Barbour aims to verify and describe (this relates to his 

previously mentioned encyclopaedic nature). These “ways of linking” are, as already 

mentioned, the establishing of a) conflict, b) independence, c) dialogue and d) 

integration. 

Reference epistemology. Both scientific and religious models, as well as the "ways 

of linking" them are "knowledge". The assessment of one thing or another depends 

therefore on a set of epistemological criteria that tell us what is knowledge, how 

knowledge links to experience, how knowledge is demonstrated, how it is expressed in 

language, in symbols, in cultural myths and stories or in science itself. Barbour 

establishes therefore a set of epistemological criteria that give logical meaning to his 

analysis: this means that the criteria allow us to understand why Barbour analyses facts 

in a certain way, and the scientific theories and pluralist opinions in the views on “ways 

of linking” science and religion. There is no doubt that Barbour positions himself 

amongst the most modern styles of epistemological thinking: now that he has overcome 

“positivist objectivism" and his ideas of establishing "science's objective truth", he 

accepts the general Popperian framework (Popper), which is also open to 

complementary clarifications arising in post-Popperiansm; for example and very clearly, 

Thomas S- Kuhn’s contributions surrounding the dynamics of the paradigmatic 

transformation of science (MMAP, 92ff, 171). 

For Barbour, knowledge is both ordinary knowledge of culture and scientific 

knowledge; an interpretative construct, a hypothesis. The ordinary/scientific systems of 

knowledge are systems containing hypotheses that cannot claim to be an adequate 

description of the world, nor an absolute or definitive truth. They are provisional 

systems that are subject to continuous criticism and review. Knowledge is subject to an 

96 



inevitable historical dimension. But this transformation should not prevent us from 

understanding that our knowledge “represents reality in some way”. it represents a 

tentative, although reviewable, approach to which we shouldn’t forget to attribute some 

success in describing “what the world is like”. This is what Barbour calls “critical 

realism”, which as we understand it, is a simple reworking of Popper’s classic “critical 

rationalism” (RAS, 117-20). By throwing himself fully into this critical realism (where 

he coincides with Peacocke and Polkinghorne), Barbour has distanced himself from the 

epistemological functionalism defended by Bohr and the Copenhagen school, which 

presents science merely as useful conceptual frameworks, which should not be given an 

ultimate or representative ontological nature that allows us to imagine how reality 

actually is (RAS, 87-88). 

Note that if we had to accept a functionalist idea of science, then it would not make 

sense for science to question religious models and there would be no sense in talking 

about "ways of linking". At the end of the day, science would not then aim to describe 

the real world, rather only to propose formal systems that would allow action to be 

taken in a world of empirical facts with technological intentions. Instrumentalism 

therefore tends to understand the science-religion link as “independence” (WSMT, 

74ff). 

Scientific and religious models. Barbour emphasises the similarities in the kind of 

knowledge between scientific and religious models. His analysis is based on studying 

the genetic-epistemological structure of both. The differences are more degree-based 

than relating to their intrinsic quality. The lines of argument relating to this way of 

understanding are found in Popperian epistemology. 

The structure of science is based on observation and empirical data. This data 

encourages speculative thought that constructs models and analogies (and even 

metaphors) that lead to an idea of what is real, expressed through concepts and theories. 

In turn, these concepts and theories inspire new models, new theories and new 

observations (MMAP, 29ff). The structure of religion is very similar. It is based on 

religious, individual and social experience, which includes stories and rituals. In turn, 

experience activates religious imagination, which produces models and analogies (as 

well as parables, symbols, myths and metaphors) that lead to the end formulation of 

concepts and beliefs (belief systems). These systems influence new religious 

experiences that continue to take place, leading to new models, new beliefs and new 

types of experience (MMAP, 49ff). 

As a result, both science and religion are based on experience. Popperian 

epistemology allows us to understand how subjectivity is involved in both scientific and 

religious experience; both take on levels of objectivity in social consensus. But science, 

with its specific methods of analysing experience (e.g. quantification), does not 

represent the only possible way of accessing the content of experiences open to human 

beings. In addition, the need for positivist verification, coined by Popper as 

“falsifiability criteria”, does not imply the possibility of drawing an insuperable line 

between science and religion either, as there is much content in science that is not 

falsifiable. Neither are there insuperable qualitative differences between scientific 

models of interpretation (precise language systems) and religious models of 

interpretation (myths, analogies, stories, symbols and concepts). Religious models are 

vaguer and more resistant to falsification; Barbour however insists that there are huge 

structural similarities and that the differences are basically degree-based. Both lead to a 



variety of models in science and religion and they are subject to internal comparisons, 

both in the past and in the present (MMAP, 171 ff). 

Criteriology in view of interpretative pluralism. Barbour is aware that the 

interpretative nature of knowledge makes a range of models inevitable: in science and in 

religion (in the past and in the present). Barbour does not usually produce historical 

studies however, except with some exceptions (RAS, part one). One is therefore obliged 

to take sides among the variety of models, both in science and religion. But his attitude 

is not to discuss different models in order to “refute” them, leaving him with his 

preferred scientific and religious model. He discusses the existing pluralism, but also his 

preferred choice of model. In other words, the scientific model that he believes to be 

correct and the religious model that he also believes to be correct. If they are, in effect, 

"correct”, then once proposed, social consensus should support them. Once they are 

established, one can enter into an analysis of the “way of linking” both models. It would 

be useless to compare an inadequate scientific model with an inadequate religious 

model. In terms of pluralism amongst the “ways of linking” (conflict, parallelism, 

dialogue and integration), Barbour also realises that aligning oneself with one side or 

the other can be seen as “interpretative”. He discusses existing opinions and does not try 

to refute them. But he also explains the arguments that positively influence his personal 

preference towards dialogue and integration, hoping that they will triumph as a result of 

their own worth. 

Is the notion of non-contradictoriness good enough? Barbour adopts a noncontradictoriness 

approach to his analysis of scientific/religious models and, one step 

further, towards congruence; he also finishes up with the positive verisimilitude of 

religious models. But within the protestant tradition, Barbour does not directly make 

efforts to provide positive arguments that give meaning and sense to religion: in other 

words, arguments supporting the view that God really exists. The issue is not about 

searching for absolute arguments, metaphysical, physical or moral certainties based on 

scientific reason; but it is about searching for a clear and organised explanation of the 

reasons that - both in natural reason and in scientific reason- at least consider the 

verisimilitude or congruent probability that God exists. 

Negative criticism of religion states that there are no "scientific reasons”: Marxism, 

psychoanalysis, positivism, critical rationalism, analytical philosophy and scientific 

criticism in general, etc. This criticism has led to half the scientists declaring themselves 

atheists (according to the well-known article in Nature, mentioned by Barbour 

himself 3 ), etc. It is not good enough to state that God does not conflict with the image of 

the world in science; or even to state that God is congruent with this image and easy to 

integrate. The existence of God can only be asserted if there are positive arguments 

(facts, reasons, theories or lines of argument that are ultimately empirically based) that 

enable us to think that God is real. Man is functionally linked to the world via 

knowledge and there is only meaning in living in accordance with elements that have 

some positive degree of cognitive verisimilitude: living on the fringes of reason is 

immoral (e.g. the critical rationalism of Hans Albert) 

This creates differences in interpretation. For religion’s negative critics, man is 

morally linked to an awareness of reality through knowledge (ultimately through 

3 

Cfer. Larson, E.J., Witham, L., Scientists Are still Keeping the Feith, Nature 386 (3 Apr. 1997) 435- 

36. 

98 



reason). It is therefore not moral to live in accordance with something without cognitive 

verisimilitude (positive). It would be to “alienate”, to be incoherent with the natural 

truth of man. But given that the existence of religion is a social fact (religious 

experience), then negative criticism creates "alienation theories" to explain why men 

strive to "alienate themselves" because of religion and without reason (existential, 

psychoanalytical, linguistic, social alienation, etc.). 

Humans who have had a religious experience don’t seem to experience it on the 

fringes of objective reality: the real world seems to give meaning and sense to religion 

in a positive way. Religious people seem to sense that religion is based positively on the 

real world. They do not feel “alienated” when faced with the rational possibilities of the 

objective world, which is based only on a "radical voluntarism" on the fringes of reason. 

This is how it is in Christianity and in Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, as well as in 

many other natural religions. Even if there were no positive lines of argument, religious 

experience has an intrinsic, supernatural or mystic strength, a mysterious contact with 

the noumenon reality of what is transcendent, which leads to vital enrichment. 

Barbour mentions the rational lines of argument for speaking of God; but he 

mentions them in a secondary role in the context of his discussion. His analysis is 

directly centred on the study of congruence and the possible integration of scientific and 

religious models. However, it is important to note that we are able to speak about God, 

or not. But if we speak using a rational reference to his possible existence, it is because 

we have positive lines of argument. This line of argument also determines what kind of 

reality we believe in and what we can say about it. And this is how logic is introduced 

into our rational language about God. If we speak about God, we cannot do it in any old 

way, rather in line with the basic logic that allows us to introduce the idea as a possible 

reality. It is only justifiable to speak of God within the logic of our language about God. 

We shall refer to these ideas further on, when we assess other aspects of Barbour's ideas 

and process philosophy and theology. 

3. Cosmology and creation 

Science has created complex models and theories about nature, origin and the future 

development of the universe. This is the entirety of objective reality; we cannot include 

it all in our immediate experience, but this allows us to recreate, both hypothetically and 

in a qualified way, its current nature, its origin, its temporary history and its possible 

future. From religious experience, religion has also created models that lead to basic 

concepts and beliefs about the universe created by a divine-like essential being: a 

personal God who creates the world out of free choice (i.e., at least from a Christian 

point of view, although there are other religious models about the God-world 

relationship). Barbour thinks that scientific models about the universe open up lines of 

dialogue with religious models about God the creator. Furthermore, both models are 

congruent in many areas and religion can integrate them harmoniously into its system of 

beliefs. In doing this, religious models shall progress dynamically and there shall be 

theological development from science, resulting in a “theology of science”: a vision of 

the image of God the creator from the point of view of scientific models. 

Conflict and independence. From a religious point of view, radical, biblical 

fundamentalism would be a direct attack on science. But scientific cosmology also 

offers an image of the universe without God, sometimes with a clear atheist militancy 

that implies going beyond the limits of science into philosophy. Barbour presents 

Hoyle’s classic theory of the “stationary state” and the attempts to provide the universe 

with “absolute sufficiency” using the big bang theory. The explanation of the universe’s 



origins from quantum oscillations in a physical vacuum could be linked to the existence 

of multiple universes; ours would coincidentally respond to the conditions required for 

life. These infinite “bubble universes” would today represent a conceptual physical 

framework suitable for considering a universe without God, in conflict with religious 

models. 

Barbour comments that Weinberg qualifies an old opinion: science doesn’t show 

us that the universe is meaningless, but only that the universe in itself doesn't suggest 

meaning of any kind (Dreams of a final Theory, NY: Pantheon, 1992, 255). Theists, 

continues Barbour, could therefore reply that if finality is not excluded by science, 

cosmic history could perhaps be coherently interpreted as an expression of divine 

finality. A cosmic process that generates intelligent people is what we would expect if 

God were intelligent and personal. The conflict is therefore not really between science 

and religion, but rather between alternative basic beliefs, the materialist and the theist. 

For Barbour, chance and necessity can be understood within a theist context (WSMR, 

45). 

Barbour comments that Weinberg insists that there are no positive lines of 

argument in God's favour. Barbour assumes however that Weinberg does not establish 

contradictoriness . The religious model is possible (even though there are no definite 

arguments in favour of it): science is congruent with religious models and can be 

integrated into them. 

Some people separate scientific analysis of the universe (its appearance, temporary 

evolution and future development) from the descriptions of creation in religious 

contexts. These descriptions do not aim to present knowledge about the universe’s 

physical processes; they are just stories about salvation, religious experiences and 

meetings with God. There would be no sense in relating science and religion. Each 

person concentrates on their own interpretation, independently and in parallel to others 

(WSMR, 50ff). 

Dialogue and integration. There are two main aspects: the intelligibility of the 

cosmos and its contingency. There is dialogue, because two problems with difficult 

scientific solutions are proposed in science: the rational intelligibility of the universe 

and its sufficiency or contingency. They are problems, because science cannot find the 

real causes of the universe’s rationality or sufficiency/stability. As a result and in 

dialogue with religion, the theist hypothesis appears: rational design and God as the 

universe’s ontological foundation. This is the hypothesis put forward by religious 

creation models. 

For science, the intelligibility and rational order of the universe (including chance, 

chaos, probability and statistics) are most fully expressed in the link between physical 

order and the essential order of the mathematical world. This order establishes the 

intelligibility produced in the human mind. What is the cause of this defined and 

mathematical order? The laws of nature? But, how can we explain why nature has such 

surprising laws? Barbour, quoting Polkinghorne, takes over the religious contribution: 

the common foundation of intelligibility, both in the world and in our minds, is divine 

reason. For this reason the theist can intricately explain intelligibility verified by science 

(WSMR, 54). 

In terms of contingence, in addition we can verify a universe that exists, but which 

may not exist. Its real properties do not reveal any content that enables us to understand 

it as a universe that necessarily has to exist. This is seen in its limited conditions, its 

frontiers in space and time, as well as the contingency of its establishing laws or the 

100 



events generated within. Religion also contributes the idea of absolute divinity to this 

contingent world of science, which would be the final support or foundation of the 

unstable universe. 

For theists, science can be co-ordinated using religious models. The physical 

image of a surprisingly intelligible world and a contingent world searching for necessity 

(absoluteness) is taken on and integrated into the model of God as original creator of 

intelligibleness and ontological necessity. The same happens with the set of scientific 

observations formulated by theists as the anthropic principle. The world is made in such 

a way that it appears to lead to the appearance of man. The models of God as creator 

answer the questions that science is unable to answer: thus the religious model becomes 

congruent, it integrates itself into science and makes the existence of God verisimilar. 

The religious model, which complements science, also presents humanity as the 

universe’s ultimate goal. These are verisimilar lines of argument, although they do not 

“demonstrate” or enforce theism with overbearing need (RAS, 130ff). 

Metaphysical need or absolute explanation? In the discussion about cosmologycreation 

issues, Barbour easily accepts the contingency-necessity concepts that, at the 

end of the day, come from the Greek-scholastic approach (Saint Thomas’ third way). In 

effect, he seems to be influenced by an analysis that is very similar to Catholic 

philosophy/theology. We don’t believe that things are quite so clear. Science accepts 

that the real world is how it is, responding to the mathematical equations that describe 

it. But science doesn’t understand why the world has to exist: there is no connotation of 

“necessity" in existence. Good. Barbour’s quote from Stephen Hawking responds to this 

(WSMR, 55). We don't understand why the world exists, or rather why it doesn't exist. 

Scholastics believe that if we refer to God, we understand that it is he who “necessarily” 

exists. It is us who attribute need. But the problem of necessity, in my opinion, is 

scientifically and philosophically speaking impossible to resolve. If we consider the 

concept of God in himself and we ask ourselves why God exists and why rather he does 

not exist, the following cannot be justified: because the necessity for a God exists, 

sweeping us up in the ancestral logic of the Anselmian line of argument. Why does 

something exist rather than nothing? My belief is that we cannot answer this and even 

less so with scientific logic. Later on we shall refer to Whitehead’s ideas on the 

irrationality of the divine. 

In our opinion, discussing Barbour's thoughts, the alternative to the metaphysical 

belief in contingency/need is therefore the facticity route (of facts); it is undoubtedly the 

route followed by science. We suppose that the world is real and exists in time. It is a 

fact from where we start and which conditions us. As a result, reason aims to reach the 

ultimate grounds upon which the existence of the real world is established: it aims to 

understand the absolute system in which things exist, its consistency and real stability. 

From the experience of something real, reason implies that what is real and exists is 

based on and firmly established upon an “absolute”. If this absolute is God (theism) or a 

pure world without God (atheism), or we are unable to know what it is (agnosticism), it 

should be deduced using knowledge of the world of facts. If this absolute (God or a pure 

world) is necessary, we shall never know it, not in the case of God nor in the case of a 

pure world. The concept of God, from the world, is not constructed as “necessary” (this 

is scholastic), rather as absolute: like he who has sufficiency in existence, the absolute 

(freed from) of external references to maintain its own stable and consistent reality. If 

we attribute an intrinsic necessity to this absolute, whether it is God or a pure world, 

meaning that it is real because it was given an ontological necessity in some way, it can 



only be confirmed as a vague “conjecture”. In any case, it is something that reason can 

attribute to God or to the pure world (according to who has previously been attributed 

with “absoluteness”). Wittgenstein would perhaps think that necessity is an issue better 

left alone, as it is inaccessible and unnecessary for the human treatment of the question 

of God. 

4. The quantum world 

Quantum mechanics has raised different interpretations. Therefore, each way of 

understanding the quantum world presents its own profile in terms of linking it with 

religious models. The “way of linking” scientific and religious models largely depends 

on the interpretation. Barbour classifies these ways of understanding quantum 

indeterminacy: epistemological (indeterminacy because of human ignorance: Einstein, 

Plank, Bohm), functionalist (indeterminacy because of conceptual and experimental 

limitations: Bohr, agnosticism about real indeterminacy) and ontological (real 

indeterminacy by nature). According to the “critical realism” of his epistemology, 

Barbour, and also Polkinghorne and Peacocke, choose the ontological interpretation (the 

same as Heisenberg). Quantum indeterminacy is a real process that takes place in the 

microphysical world: particles and microphysical-quantum states develop in flexible 

environments open to future states (described by quantum equations), but only one will 

be taken on in the end (collapse of the wave function). As we can see, Barbour’s ideas 

depend on there truly being real indeterminacy in the quantum world (WSME, 67ff). 

Conflict and independence. Two opposing interpretations lead to a conflict with 

religious models. The first is the deterministic interpretation. A completely deterministic 

world in Newtonian mechanics would not help the understanding of divine action in the 

world. If the quantum world was also a completely determined world (in line with 

Einstein and Bohm's "hidden variables"), divine action would be much more difficult. 

The second interpretation –quantum chance– has led some, such as Monod, to present a 

microphysical world in conflict with the idea of God: God cannot play any role in the 

world, because the world is generated by pure chance. This is what happens as a result 

of chance quantum fluctuations in the “physical vacuum” causing multiple universes to 

be generated, or infinite quantum universes to be opened up, as speculated by Everett 

(WSMR, 70ff). 

Let’s look at independence. The classical stance of the Copenhagen school leads 

to this “way of linking” scientific and religious models. If the conceptual framework of 

quantum science –as happens with the principle of corpuscle-wave complementarity– 

tells us nothing about reality in itself, but should be understood in the functionalist or 

instrumental sense, then it is clear that science only creates systems for dominating the 

world without cognitive pretensions, and it is for this reason that it is completely 

independent from religious models. If religious models were also functionalist or 

instrumentalist constructs, as some believe, which could be applied to a better personal 

and social life in the existential sense, then it is clear and more reasonable that quantum 

science and religion would run in parallel worlds. Neither science nor religion are 

concerned with reality (WSMR, 74ff). 

Dialogue and integration. Eugene Wigner or John Wheeler’s ideas about a 

“universe created by an observer” (the observer creates the collapse of the “wave 

function” in defined values and thus the “observed universe” is created) have been used 

by some to suggest a dialogue with religion, using the idea that quantum mechanics 

102 



make the world less materialist and closer to the spiritual world. Barbour quite rightly 

and discreetly departs from this line of dialogue. Barbour is not happy either with the 

idea of presenting the holism of the quantum world (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen 

experiment, the John Bell and the Aspect experiment) as a way of discussing the 

existence of a holistic backdrop that goes beyond immediate empirical reality and which 

could connect with the basic world of divinity. He looks at Fritjof Capra's, David 

Bohm's and Richard Jones' attempts to link the quantum world with systems of eastern 

religious thought coldly and with reservations. Quantum indeterminacy would also be a 

way of opening up lines of dialogue with religion insofar as enabling explanatory 

models to be found about the way of carrying out divine action in the world. He values 

William Pollard's and Robert Russell's stance (he prefers the latter insofar as it would 

enable selective divine action to be co-ordinated with natural processes as a result of 

pure chance), but Barbour –admitting that uncertainty could facilitate an understanding 

of divine action in the world– places his personal opinions within process 

philosophy/theology. Within this framework, he integrates the quantum image of the 

world in religious models (WSMR, 78-89). 

5. Continuous evolution and creation 

Conflict and independence. According to Barbour’s analysis, two ways of 

understanding life and its temporary evolutionary process lead to reports of conflict in 

the “way of linking" science and religion. The first of these is the American 

fundamentalist movement of the "science of creation"; creationism essentially rejects or 

limits the scope of evolution (Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe). The second is 

evolutionary materialism, which finishes with the existence of a pure universe without 

design where there is no possibility of relating to God. This is the well-known line of 

analysis connected to Richard Dawkins (disciple of Wilson’s sociobiology), which 

considers the views of the belligerent Daniel Dennett (WSMR, 93ff; RAS, 243-44, 256- 

57). In addition, Dennett links his purely blind evolutionism and radical neo-Darwinism 

to the computational and robotic interpretations of psychism. 

For other authors, both science and religion, particularly in terms of its 

understanding of life, represent realms of knowledge that are absolutely independent 

and which can only be linked through a lack of rigor; each has its own objectives and 

methods and both are independently competent in their own fields. These considerations 

link to the old "double truth" theory. Stephen Jay Gould, so-called neo-orthodoxy and 

Stephen Toulmin represent qualified examples of this point of view. For neo-orthodoxy, 

the theological assertion of creation is not a doctrine about a physical process; rather it 

is an assertion of the dependence of God, the basic goodwill and order of the world 

(WSMR, 99ff). Those who tackle this issue from the classic Thomistic doctrine of the 

first cause and second causes are close to this idea of independence. God, first and basic 

cause, the ultimate ontological foundation of everything, acts in the world via second 

causes. This opens up two levels or perspectives of analysis: religion refers to the first 

cause, God. Science refers to the explanatory linking of second causes with others, 

without God having to appear in this chain in an incidental "fire-fighting" role. William 

Stoeger and Howard Van Till represent two modern versions of this point of view 

(WSMR, 102-3). 

Dialogue and integration. Barbour considers three realms of evolutionary science 

whose results indicate a possible dialogue with religion that could provide useful 

explanatory ideas, although he obviously uses his own models. Firstly, the physical- 



biological fact of the complexity and self-organising nature of the evolutionary process. 

The universe reveals, in effect, some surprising processes of order creation, both 

physical and biological. It is an order surrounded by turbulence and chaotic processes, 

by describable states, both in terms of statistics and probability, but which ends up 

generating the emergence of order in high levels (Ilya Prigogine). Stuart Kauffman has 

demonstrated the self-organising biological hierarchy that leads to a continuous process 

of the emergence of new systemic properties. Secondly, we today realise the importance 

of information in this self-organising process. Biological systems work around an 

embryonic process, because they contain coded information. Evolution can be 

understood as an “ontogenesis of information” (Susan Oyama) located in genetic acids. 

But DNA is only a part of the organic-cybernetic system aimed at achieving, storing, 

updating and using information. Feeling and perception are, for example, further 

elements in this process that finally leads to the symbolic transfer of information 

between humans. Thirdly and finally, another significant biological realm leads to 

dialogue with religion: the hierarchy of biological levels and the emergence in them of 

top down causation. There is also bottom up biological causation. Pyschism for 

example, demonstrates top down causation over muscular control in a holistic and 

integral way. Michael Polanyi and Donald Campbell have gone into great detail about 

these concepts (WSMR, 104ff). 

These realms clearly indicate the idea of God that appears in religious models. 

God as a designer of the cosmic-biological hyper-complexity; God as communicator of 

information (this includes ideas by Polkinghorne); God as top down causation that 

controls the universe from a higher level, in the same way as an organism holistically 

controls from higher hierarchical levels (according to Peacocke’s ideas). 

All of this leads to the view of those who think that scientific models representing 

evolutionary dynamism guide us to congruently integrate them into religious models 

representing "continuous creation". God appears as the designer of the evolutionary 

process towards self-organising complexity and the communicator of information and 

information structures required for this. The scientific difficulties in understanding the 

deep causes that have created biological order (Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe) 

are open to the answer of a divine design that acts and uses chance and natural 

evolutionary dynamism from itself (along the lines of Stoeger and Van Till's second 

causes). Finally, top down causation allows us to understand divine action over the 

physical and biological order from the higher order of its ontology (Peacocke). God 

would appear as a Being involved in the universe’s evolutionary dynamism which, as a 

first cause, is the higher level that supports a process of “continuous creation” (WSMR, 

111ff). But the best constructed view of integration, according to Barbour, is that which 

leads to the idea of nature/God in process philosophy/theology. 

Scientific and theist lines of argument. On issues of astrophysical-creation, in both 

the quantum and evolutionary world, Barbour presents analyses that are the same as 

what other authors consider to be verisimilar “lines of argument”, at least when 

considering that the image of science makes the existence of a divine personal being 

possible. However, his ideas are not provided as lines of argument (which implicitly 

they are), rather as a congruence analysis leading to dialogue and the integration of 

models. Barbour does not consider to the same extent the issue of how the congruence 

(line of argument) of God in science relates to the congruence (line of argument) with 

which natural man understands that declaring God as real is possible, and in congruence 

with the scope of his experience. 

104 



6. Genetics, neuroscience and human nature 

Conflict and independence. One way of understanding the idea of man in current human 

sciences (neuroscience, genetics, psychology, computer science, etc.) leads to a conflict 

between scientific and religious models insofar as it is presented as mechanistic, robotic 

and formalistic. Human beings’ basic responsibility and freedom are questioned when 

faced with neural or genetic determinism; it is understandable that these focuses conflict 

with religious models based on an idea of a free person who is responsible for their 

actions. Francis Crick's reductionist materialism (not well interpreted by Barbour as I 

understand it) and that of Daniel Dennett present a neural, robotic determinism (also 

computational in Dennett) that specifically excludes all possible encounters with 

religious models. Edward O. Wilson’s and Michael Ruse’s sociobiology also leads to a 

reductionist determinism, argued from a genetic point of view, which is not compatible 

with religious models (WSMR, 122ff). We believe that Barbour does not have a correct 

view of Michael Ruse's thoughts (about his closeness to the religious element). 

Those that defend dual body/spirit approaches also favour independence between 

scientific and religious models. Sciences only study the body, the soul is immaterial and 

due to its own nature, inaccessible to scientific research. Barbour studies how dual 

approaches are introduced into Christianity from Greek thinking up until the formation 

of the idea of a “soul” as the “body’s form” in Saint Thomas, with a distinction between 

the “sensitive soul” (animals) and the "rational soul” (humans). Only the latter of these 

is immortal because of its own nature. Barbour reminds us that in one of his statements 

in 1996 4 , John Paul II commented that evolution is more than a hypothesis; but he also 

declared however that every human soul has been created directly by God 5 (WSMT, 

128-132). Other theologians think that the body/soul language in religious contexts 

refers to messages of salvation and not to descriptions about man’s' physical and 

biological make up. It would be an independent language, which could not be linked to 

science (WSMT, 132ff). 

Dialogue and integration. Barbour indicates three basic lines upon which the 

modern idea of man opens itself up to dialogue with religion. The first of these is 

neuroscience with the idea of biopsychic unity (he quotes Antonio R. Damasio in this 

context). The second is social anthropology, which expands on the individual unity of 

man towards a social framework built on the principles of natural order. And the third 

line involves how computational studies, understood as a “weak metaphor”, contribute 

and will continue to contribute to this natural image of a “neural I" holistically 

integrated into the field of a “social I” (WSMR, 135-141). 

It is clear that for Barbour, the lines of dialogue –in terms of human nature– from 

science towards religion can only be integrated into a theological perspective from 

certain religious models about man. The dual model for example, is not suitable for this 

process of integration. The most suitable religious model for integrating with “man’s 

scientific model” is however the psychosomatic unity model within a monist and 

emergent context, which Barbour subscribes to for two reasons: because it is much 

4 

5 

Cfer. Pope’s message to the Academy of Science on Evolution, 5 December 1996. 

If we need to state the evolutionary process, with the psychic animal-human evolution involved in it, it 

is worth thinking that through the evolutionary process, man acquired a psychic maturity suitable for 

being the object of divine appeal, both specific and personal. This intervention by God as the Spirit, 

specific and direct, in the “spirit” of man, would have been the final element in God’s plan to install 

man fully in his natural and super-natural state. 



closer to biblical thought and because of its congruence with scientific evidence 

(WSMR, 134-135, 129-130). In support of this integrative line of study, Barbour quotes 

Philip Hefner, who understands man as nature “created as co-creator” in a dynamic and 

continuous process. He also quotes Ronald Cole-Turner, who has reflected on the 

genetic aspects of this creative dynamism. He also believes the ideas of Owen Flanagan 

and David Chalmers to be worthy of consideration (a positive assessment that we do not 

share) with a view to overcoming Crick’s and Dennett's reductionist opinions through 

"two-fold" monism (WSMR, 143-46). In addition, and in the same way as with 

previous analysis, all of this leads to the interpretative framework of process 

philosophy/theology. Let’s take a look at this now. 

7. The science/religion framework of integration: process philosophy and theology 

Both science and religion generate different models of interpretation that have 

developed throughout history. Due to their own nature, some models, both in science 

and religion, will tend to understand the "way of linking" science and religion either 

through conflict, independence, dialogue or integration. Not all scientific and religious 

models have the same potential for dialogue and integration. Obviously Barbour signs 

up to the line of argument in favour of those scientific and religious models that best 

support dialogue, ultimately leading to integration. For Barbour, the most suitable 

scientific philosophy for integrating with religious, and Christian, models is 

Whitehead's process philosophy. This is a scientific model that is congruent with current 

science, which leads to a reinterpretation of religious models, thus giving rise to process 

theology with a specific Christian version. Barbour’s own stance –or if you will, his 

global view about the “way of linking” science and religion– is expressed in the 

integration part of process philosophy/theology. 

7.1. Whitehead and process philosophy 

Sir Alfred North Whitehead was one of the great English intellectuals around the first 

half of the 20 th century. He died in 1947 in Boston; he had opted for retirement from the 

University of Harvard where he had worked since 1924. Although he was an eminent 

physicist and mathematician (he published Principia Mathematica with Russell from 

1910 to 1913), he developed a complex physical-metaphysical ontology that was full of 

new and original terms, producing a strong hermetic effect in the reader. However if we 

break the rigidity and impenetrable appearance of this hermetism, we discover an 

enriching description of reality, congruent with the world of modern science and, at the 

same time, open to the philosophical idea of divinity 6 . 

Basic process ontology. Whitehead aims to understand the ontology of reality. He 

doesn’t start by verifying stable objects or entities, but rather with a reference to the 

“event” (his terminology varies: event, actual occasion, etc). The event arises and 

occurs in the field of reality: it is the start itself of the establishing of reality. But the 

event is fluid, a temporary occurrence (it is not an atom or particle; a closed and stable 

entity). Events should be understood more as “fields” than as points in a broken and 

metric space (PAR, 18ff, 61ff). A dynamic event involves what is called "prehension”, 

which is the source of the establishing of actual entities (prehensions produce the 

relationship between one event and another and between one entity and another). The 

6 

Cfer. Whitehead, A.N., Process and Reality (PAR), Ed. D. Ray Griffin, D. W. Sherburne, NY: The 

Free Press; Science and the Modern World (SAMW), NY McMillan, 1948. 

106 



organisation of events by prehensions produces the real world, the world of objects that 

we know in all its variety. The shape and nature of prehensions derives from the variety 

of actual entities in the universe: each entity has two moments, the internal and the 

external (PAR, 219ff). All entities, even the most simple (particles and atoms) have an 

internal element that is developed through the hierarchy of beings, cells and organisms, 

up until the higher human conscience. Feelings start from prehensions (PAR, 110ff). 

Disintegrated plants or rocks for example, have no internal element however. Thus the 

universe is a system, a co-ordination of structures that are integrated using a hierarchy, 

which has been generated as a "temporary state" of the universal process of change and 

transformation essentially based on the flow of fundamental events. The universe and its 

objects are not substance, they are a process (PAR, 208). For this reason, actual entities 

(let’s say the structures that are a process and are temporarily stable) remain 

temporarily, but not the fundamental events that are pure process, pure flow (even 

though the structures fill in their exact space). It is a Heraclites-based line of thought, 

although it links in to the current scientific view of the microphysical world. 

Process and divinity. This evolutionary world characterised by process that is 

always open needs the reference of a basic foundation that generates it: this need for a 

foundation is what he calls the “ontological principle”. Divine reality thus appears as the 

ontological foundation of the cosmic process. In theory, many process dynamics could 

be generated from divine ontology; the theory of eternal objects reveals the creative 

possibilities. But among these possibilities, God is limited through a specific productive 

path: God is eternal, different from the world, but he is the cause, the “primordial 

nature” of the world’s limitation and realisation. But the “consequent nature of God” 

now depends on the creation undertaken and God prehends actual entities generated in 

the world’s continuous process and is open to emerging innovations. God has put the 

process in motion so that it can continue by itself, a self-shaping, self-creating process. 

In this way, God is open to whatever the process itself does with him. This God is 

affected by the world’s process; God is dynamic and open to the innovation that he 

himself has established and which in some ways also limits him. God therefore has two 

natures; one is timeless and the other is radically interwoven in time. It seems that 

Whitehead understood that the world has always co-existed with God, although not in 

the pantheistic sense. Whitehead’s God is not the creator of the universe (PAR, 31ff; 

SAMW, 249-276). 

7.2. Whitehead in Barbour’s harmony of science and religion 

Whitehead believed that dialogue and conciliation between science and religion was 

essential for the progress of humanity. But this could only be achieved if religion 

progressed in the same theological manner of understanding religion; i.e., religious 

experience is present in different ways in religious traditions (SAMW, 259ff). His 

process philosophy was precisely a conceptual framework of the world provided by 

science that allowed religion to re-address itself in its own terms within modern culture. 

Barbour has tried to use this conceptual framework to formulate his option of 

integration of scientific and religious models. 

Creation, microphysical emergence and the universe. The reference to God in 

Whitehead’s framework allows us to understand how the structure of fluid events arises 

from the backdrop of divinity with a dynamic that converges in prehensions that 

generate a complex network of related entities in a continuous process of 

transformation. This is the process of creation from where a microphysical world 



emerges as a specific design in which God has limited himself, providing a possibility 

in the world of eternal objects. God has designed the process of interaction so that the 

process can be self-generating. This is what Barbour calls the self-creation of each 

entity, an evolutionary process that is always open and where chance, necessity, large 

numbers, chaos, statistics and probability all play a specific role (Hefner, Peacocke). 

God influences the world, but he doesn't determine it. The world has self-creative 

freedom because of its own process dynamic. But at the same time, God underlies the 

same process and can control quantum events and their indeterminacy. The act of 

creation, opting for self-creation in the world of possibilities, can also be understood as 

an act of communicating germinal information, a determining factor in the evolutionary 

process (the self-limiting choice in the world of possible objects). Top down causation 

also allows divine control of the process from inside and through the precise control of 

establishing basic events, as well as the propagation of its consequences throughout the 

system. Likewise, the idea of reality as an organic process in Whitehead’s process 

philosophy, in line with Peacocke, Philip Clayton and Grace Jantzen, leads us to think 

of the universe's unity with God along the lines of Panentheism (God as the world’s 

ontological-living foundation, but without confusing God with it). 

Life, evolution, neurons and human psychism. Whitehead’s quantum idea states that 

an organism is a system of inter-related temporary events, like interactive fields (not 

isolated points of material). It is a process-based interactive network with bottom up and 

top down causality. Evolution is thus the development of the internal environments that 

Whitehead attributes to all events generated, in turn, in the primordial field of divinity 

as the ontological principle. The psychological processes of sensation, perception, 

conscience, memory, knowledge, etc. are prehensions generated by higher levels of 

internal organisation. Reality is not like this, within the process framework, it is not a 

permanent substance and even less two independent types of reality: there is only one 

kind of event that shows itself in two different ways, or phases; the external and the 

internal (here he connects with Flanagan and Chalmers). Inside, we have psychic 

experience that is already contained as potential for what is real, even from its most 

germinal parts (particles). This is what Barbour, along the lines of the process 

philosophy put forward by David Griffin, calls "panexperientialism” (better than 

"panpsychism”). The conscience, man's own kind of internal psychic, in its precise 

point on the hierarchy of life levels, depends on the organic system or network that 

connects the microphysical events that make us up (WSMR, 115ff). The brain, the 

neuronal system, is fundamental if the internal element is to emerge. For Whitehead, 

and probably following the ideas of William James, the I is a functional stream of 

consciousness, a dynamic state within the system, which is continuously changing. 

Identity in time is achieved using memory, which updates the past into the present using 

imaginative functions that anticipate the future (WSMR, 146ff). Science leads to this 

idea of man, congruent with process philosophy and also, in Barbour’s opinion, with the 

Christian tradition, which in the Bible presents a monist-vitalist idea of man. The 

immortality of human beings is not life after death generated by an intrinsically 

immortal Platonic-Aristotelian “soul”, but rather as Saint Paul believes, the re-creation 

by God in a new eschatological dimension, the resurrection of the flesh by God the 

creator after death (Peacocke, Polkinghorne and the majority of those who work on the 

science/religion dialogue also share this belief). 

God as the foundation of process. All knowledge starts from the world and is verified 

by science not as a stable substance, but as a dynamic process. Following Whitehead 

108 



and carrying on his ideas, process philosophy has introduced a set of classic topics 

referring to the idea of God that characterises it. The first topic is the world's rational 

reference to God; Whitehead said that God was as fundamental to his system as the 

Motionless Motor was to Aristotle. For the ontological principle, the world’s process 

chain needs to refer to a germinal or fundamental backdrop. The second topic is the 

ontological relationship between God and the world. The world, the process of 

systematic events, is born from God; it is generated "in" God; there is no ex nihilo 

creation. For this reason, God and the world form a unit; the world is at the ontological 

heart of God. This is Whiteheadian Panentheism. God is transcendent, he does not form 

part of the world, rather the world is produced in him; he is eternal and is outside time 

in his primordial nature, as time is a part of the process. The third topic is creation. God 

and the world are eternal. God does not create the world from nothing. God is not in 

himself the process, but he is the creator of the process. He is the designer of the 

process. A creative design and act that is not temporary, rather it extends throughout 

time; it is continuous creation. When tackling this “creation”, God chose one of the 

possible processes, but he could have created a different process. The fourth topic is 

creation for freedom: the design gives birth to a process that develops dynamically by 

itself. A process is created so that it is co-creator of itself (taking continuous creation as 

the foundation). In the case of man, this means that he has been created for freedom, to 

be co-creator of himself. The fifth topic is creation as God's self-limitation. By choosing 

one possible world from many, God limited himself to the defining of a process that 

develops dynamically by itself; through the world's ontological freedom let's say. In 

some ways, God has limited himself to process ontology and freedom, including human 

freedom. The sixth topic is divine action in the world. God is active –he is not a deist 

God– and is involved in the world’s processes through his continuous intervention. God 

is limited by the eternal world and must intervene to redirect it or to inspire religious 

experience in the "internal" human element. The idea of the universe as an organism 

allows us to understand how God deals with the “internal" element of everything and 

how he controls it with top down causation. The seventh topic is divine passion: God is 

involved in the world’s dynamic adventure; somehow, the consequent nature of God 

takes on the world's life. God goes through and suffers from evil and human suffering; 

or, in the same way, he rejoices in what is good. Let’s remember Whitehead’s much 

talked about sentence (PAR, 532): God is the great companion, the fellow-sufferer who 

understands. Finally, let’s highlight the eighth topic as the relationship between God 

and man, always based on freedom, a personal appeal to a God who uses persuasion 

rather than coercion. A relationship with God that leads to salvation where man is recreated 

in the divine life. 

Process philosophy, a rational construct? These classic topics in process philosophy, 

which are present in Whitehead’s work, are not sufficiently clear, or conceptually 

precise, but rather they are presented in a secret key that has given rise to confusing 

reinterpretations and even radical stances through the works of a large number of 

authors who align themselves with the school of process philosophy/theology. We must 

always differentiate between different authors, but very often, the way of dealing with 

topics such as God's transcendence, his nature, his relationship with the world, his 

omnipotency, his creative freedom, the world's relationship with the divine life, 

God/world unity in the formulation of Panentheism, divine self-limitation in nature, the 

world’s control and the limits of divine action, the problem of evil and suffering, the 

interpretation of personal immortality, creation, etc., leads to radical stances that sow 

deeply-rooted doubts and upon which important dogmatic content or the beliefs of 



different churches within the Christian tradition are built. We must point out in this 

essay on Barbour that his opinion is always moderate, he never includes radical 

opinions by other process philosophy authors, he always criticises these radical opinions 

and even Whitehead’s own ideas when they are confused or bordering on theologically 

risky areas and he always outlines a reinterpretation of "process" that is congruent with 

the main principles of Christianity (RAS, 325ff). 

In my opinion, process philosophy needs to receive logical criticism that allows us to 

judge what is meaningful and which declarations are not congruent with reason, 

whether it be natural or scientific-philosophical. For me, it is crucial to understand that 

God is not obvious and if speak about Him, we should do so with clear foundations. 

Argumentative logic that enables us to speak of God should establish the propositions 

that we can meaningfully make in relation to Him. Likewise, it is interesting to 

remember that for Whitehead, God is the foundation of rationality built from the world; 

this must be understood in order to make the world ontologically and rationally 

consistent. God establishes worldly rationality, but it is “irrational" in itself (SAMW, 

256-57). 

This form of Whiteheadian speech, which has scandalised many, should, in my 

opinion, be interpreted as the idea that our reason cannot "rationalise" nor understand 

God; we cannot, as stated before, believe that we understand his intrinsic essence and 

say as such that he is responsible for “necessity” (see the final part of section 3 of this 

article). Our concept of God can only be justified from a rational point of view that is 

argued from the world: the nature of God must be congruent with the line of argument 

that, from the world, enables us to think that he is real. For example, if God exists 

because the world needs a foundation, then it makes no sense to think that God is "part 

of the world": he must be transcendent, absolute and free with absolute creative power 

and omnipotence that allow him to establish the world. If divine essence is “irrational" 

(for us it is not subject to rational analysis from the world), this means that we do not 

know what divine ontology itself is like; it is therefore difficult for us to know how the 

world is generated in God or how God acts in the world. To say that God is 

transcendent, personal and a creator, is fundamental; it would be very interesting to 

consider his possible quantum activity or his status as "communicator of information" 

for example, but this is of no more value than very vague conjectures are. A poor God 

who doesn’t create, but organises the world, like the Platonic Demiurge, who hardly 

knows what to do with the material that is there and nobody knows where he has come 

from, would hardly be taken seriously today by the world of science. 

If process philosophy grasped, as we believe Barbour does, the logical force of our 

natural language about God and, in particular, the founding image of God as 

transcendent, absolute, free, omnipotent and creative, we could avoid reinterpretations 

of Whitehead that do nothing but dangerously marginalise him on the edge of Christian 

orthodoxy. 

7.3. Christian process theology: self-limitation and kenosis 

Christian process theology: Whitehead’s process philosophy contains Christian 

observations in the strictest sense; but they are barely even intuitive notes. However, a 

group of thinkers soon began to reinterpret Christian theology inspired by Whitehead. 

Charles Hartshorne developed a bipolar theism: God is eternal, but temporarily involved 

in the world’s process. He clearly confirms God’s sovereignty over nature, but the 

relationship between nature and God should be understood in the same way as in 

Panentheism, where the world isn’t separated from God (theism), nor does it identify it 

110 



with God (pantheism). God’s internal action leads to a human response evoked through 

persuasion, not through coercion. God has opened up beings’ self-creation, he has 

established freedom and has accepted an order where the risk of evil can be assumed. 

For Hartshorne, process philosophy is the most suitable conceptual framework for 

understanding God within the Christian tradition. John Cobb and David Griffin have 

also rethought the Christian tradition in light of process philosophy. God is a creativeresponsive 

love: he is the source of creation as self-creation and, at the same time, 

temporary and subject to his own creation. God calls all men in all religious traditions to 

be continuously active in nature, through religious, individual and communal 

experience, as well as through Christ’s work. Christ is God’s supreme act: through 

Him, the finest plans for God’s love are expressed. Christ is the incarnation of Logos, 

the divine universal source of creation and order. For Christ, God appeals to man 

through persuasion, not through coercion. (WSMR, 174ff). 

Self-limitation and kenosis. The Christian interpretation of process philosophy has 

linked the idea of divine self-limitation with the Pauline theology of kenosis. God is not 

the creator of an eternal world, but he has made the world through evolution. God has 

limited himself to choosing a specific creative possibility, leaving this option to develop 

itself as self-creation in an independent process and leaving man as a free being, whom 

he does not coerce. This leads to the understanding that God has acted kenotically, 

whereby he has emptied out (or self-limited) his divine omnipotence. In connection 

with this idea, many process theologians have tried to find an answer to the problem of 

"evil" and human suffering: God’s self-limiting design makes him powerless against 

evil, it is the fellow-sufferer who understands. John Hick has described God's manner of 

self-limitation as a way of explaining divinity when faced with suffering. God is 

conditioned by an eternal world that does not believe due to natural laws of process 

created within its own dynamic, due to human freedom and due to accepting the morally 

educational nature, in the religious sense, of suffering. God limits himself in his creative 

design and for this reason, he suffers at the hands of evil and experiences suffering. 

W.H. Vanstone states that true love is always accompanied by vulnerability, always 

takes on the risk of being rejected and God has taken on this risk. It responds to the 

design of his creative acts, where he has self-limited his divine omnipotence. In a world 

that develops by itself, there is no pre-established plan, it all depends on self-creating 

freedom and the choices made. Divine action improvises alongside historical events. 

There is obviously evil throughout history and God accompanies us and shares in the 

dramatic nature of suffering. Vanstone expands on the classic topic of kenosis, which he 

understands as divine self-limitation: God leaves his omnipotence to one side and "takes 

the form of a servant" (Phil. 2.17). Due to divine action throughout nature and the acts 

of Christ, God persuades us to accept this self-limited and kenotic love. Authors such as 

Brian Hebblethwaite, Keith Ward and Paul Fiddes develop similar ideas, indicating one 

of the classic topics in process theology: God has limited himself in creation, as 

expressed through the Christian theology of kenosis, demonstrating to the world trueontological 

limitation of divine omnipotence against evil and suffering (RAS, 293ff). 

Barbour and kenotic self-limitation. Barbour highlights five reasons that lead him to 

question the traditional understanding of divine omnipotence: the integrity of nature in 

science and in theology; the problem of evil and suffering; the reality of human 

freedom; the Christian understanding of the cross and, finally, feminist criticism of 

patriarchal models of God. For these reasons, many theologians speak about selflimitation 

or kenosis in the creation of the world. Barbour explains that process theology 



believes that the limitation of God’s power should not be understood as voluntary selflimitation, 

as if retaining omnipotence was an option that God decided to reject. The 

integrity of nature with its independent laws and self-creating development, speaks, in 

effect, of divine self-limitation. Likewise, the existence of suffering and evil in general, 

as it seems to be difficult to accept that God would not get rid of them if he could. 

Human freedom also shows unmistakably that God is powerless when faced with the 

free decisions of man and of history. It is therefore difficult to accept that God can see 

the future and one can speak of divine omniscience. The Christian theology of kenosis 

also demonstrates a clear self-limiting creator design. The cross tells us that God acted 

kenotically both in the creation and in incarnation. Finally, in terms of feminist 

theology, patriarchal models (masculine) of God have led to omnipotency prevailing, as 

it is how feminine sensitivity to love highlights the model of self-sacrifice, i.e., the 

theology of kenotic self-limitation because of love (TWOL, 1-11). 

Barbour states that process thinking stands out for believing that limitations in 

knowledge and in divine power arise more often due to metaphysical necessity than due 

to voluntary self-limitation (TWOL, 12). In some way, they are imposed by an eternal 

world whose nature is not completely created by God (from “nothing”). If God’s nature 

is love and creativity, it wouldn't be consistent to say that God has chosen not to be 

loving and creative. God would be moved by necessity, by his own being to generate a 

world that accepts his kenosis, making a self-creating reality where God is self-limited. 

But despite this necessary self-limitation, divine action in nature and in the internal 

human element continues to lead to nature suffering for good and for salvation. In 

Barbour’s opinion, process thinking, centred on kenotic self-limitation, must however 

also interpret the doctrine of resurrection. How is life after death understood in process 

theology? The answer is not clear. Some process theologians, such as John Cobb and 

Marjorie Suchocki are perhaps excessively speculative in their doctrine on immortality. 

Barbour is convinced that the Christian tradition cannot be interpreted well using 

process theology if a “theology of glory” is not added to the “theology of the cross”. 

Ontological kenosis? The idea that creation is produced “in” God and that God is the 

essential foundation of the universe, involved in continuous creation that should be 

understood as organicistic vitalism in the top down causation and Panentheist style of 

Peacocke, probably expresses the Christian tradition better than the unchanging 

Scholastic or Deist God. The God in the Bible is a God who is close to us and 

sympathises with us. The idea that, in creation and in Christ, God has kenotically 

alienated himself also perfectly takes on the Christian tradition. In this “emptying” 

(kenosis), God has "donated” himself to creation and to human freedom. According to 

our idea of God, if God is love, then we can take the founded conjecture that, in effect, 

his own nature moved him to create as a donation of himself. 

However, how can this kenosis be understood? The Whiteheadian scientificmetaphysical 

doctrine and its pursuit of process philosophy/theology follows the line of 

understanding that we are dealing with real-ontological self-limitation that leads to a 

drastic limitation of omnipotence and divine omniscience. In contrast, God is freed of 

the responsibility of suffering, because he has no power to see into the future and avoid 

it. Making statements about God in reference to his “ontology” (his way of being real), 

assumes that obvious risks will be taken on that can be described in Whiteheadian 

terms: if God in himself is “irrational” (if we are unable to analyse him in himself with 

our reason), how can we speculate about the “process ontology” in which God creates 

the universe? How can we make suppositions about the degree to which creation self- 

112 



limits or not, really and ontologically, and the power or knowledge that God has over 

what he has created? 

As Whitehead admits, the rational line of argument about God is put forward from a 

world that, for the ontological principle, requires a foundation. In terms of traditional 

Christian theology, it is thought that God exists because the world needs a “foundation”: 

and in order for God to be a “foundation”, he must be thought of as transcendent, 

absolute, omnipotent and omniscient, etc. God is only attributed properties in relation to 

his nature and if he didn't have them, he couldn't be the universe's "foundation". 

But speculation about divine essence itself and its ontological links with creation 

must be done with great care (Whitehead says that divine essence is “irrational”, 

unthinkable). According to Whitehead, God does not create or "establish” the world (as 

the world is eternal like God himself): God only produces (with limitations) the order 

created by the world. Whitehead’s idea of God depends then on how God should be to 

establish order in the world. 

This Whiteheadian way of thinking falters, as it seems to establish the existence of 

God in the need for the process itself (from the order and perfection of the process) and 

not in the need for a “radical foundation of the universe” (as the world is eternal). 

Nowadays, science describes an independent world where the process is explained 

sufficiently as time evolves. The important issues that science enables do not relate to 

the “process” (second causes), but to the “universe’s foundation” as a whole (first 

causes of the universe’s consistency and design). 

The “theology of the cross” and the “theology of glory” have alternative 

explanations. I shall mention here the explanation that I have defended personally for 

many years 7 . When creating, God has not limited himself really or ontologically: his 

power and his science remain intact (within their range, as we do not understand divine 

essence). His omnipotence and omniscience probably contain a vision of the future that 

includes chaotic, probabilistic and statistical processes that form a part of the created 

world. But God has designed creation as a self-consistent, evolutionary process that 

does not overcome man due to his presence; he does not overcome through “coercion”. 

The issue of hidden divinity, its distance and its silence, is classic in theology and in 

Christian myth without it implying ontological self-limitation. Therefore, God has given 

the world an epistemological structure (i.e. from the possibilities within human 

knowledge), which can, if considered by man, leave open the possibility of a worldly 

interpretation; the pure world without God, and, at the same time, leave open the 

possibility of a theist or religious interpretation. 

The real God has reached self-kenosis in nature when creating the enigmatic world 

that establishes freedom for man. The world created is independent, but enigmatic in 

terms of its ultimate metaphysical foundation (or "first”, depending on how it is 

interpreted). But freely religious man renounces his independence in the world (inverse 

kenosis) in order to open himself up to the hope of a liberating God. When faced with 

God's kenotic silence, real man debates two crucial questions: a) Is this hidden, distant 

and silent God real? and b) If this God is real, does this God desire eschatological 

liberation of human history? 

These two questions have been answered in the Mystery of Christ. In the mystery 

of the cross (showing and realisation of kenotic God before human freedom) and in the 

7 

Cfer. Monserrat, J., Existencia, Mundanidad, Cristianismo, CSIC, Madrid, 1974; the same ideas in 

literary form can be seen in: Monserrat, X., Dédalo. La revolución americana del siglo XXI, 

Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid 2002. 



mystery of the resurrection (showing and realisation of the God from the eschatological 

freedom expected in Christ). When faced with suffering, a Christian does not reject his 

hope in God as a personal saviour, as do the Buddhists. The Christian, supported by the 

mystery of Christ, responds confidently to the call from God to accept suffering and to 

overcome it in the hope of a divine plan for future eschatological freedom. The 

Christian carries his cross, accepting his own “kenosis” by renouncing his own 

independence before God. 

8. Ian G. Barbour: a summary fulfilled 

Barbour has therefore been a pioneer in his field. In some ways, he has been one of the 

main authors whose work has driven current interest in analysing the “way of linking” 

science, philosophy and theology; mainly in the America. He has moved in a field that 

borders different disciplines, such as pure science, the philosophy of science, 

philosophy, phenomenology and philosophy of religion, as well as in different 

theological frameworks, mainly Christianity. His analysis shows objectivity, balance, 

clarity of ideas and the wisdom of each of his opinions. He has chosen process 

philosophy/theology as his interpretative conceptual framework, but in a qualified way, 

always aiming to interpret his concepts in congruence with the Christian tradition in the 

different churches. Barbour has taken on process theology and he has tried to overcome 

it. In our discussion on process thinking, we have highlighted certain parts of process 

theology that make their coherence with the Christian tradition difficult. Barbour has 

tried hard to find harmony between process thinking and the Christian tradition. 

Barbour’s interpretative model (and his view of process philosophy and 

theology) provides –together with the most questionable aspects– a deep reflection that 

has understood that the image of the world in science tells us of a world where God 

does not assert himself. He indicates that the theology of the future must be developed 

on the understanding that the Christian God is a kenotic God, the God who creates 

freedom; a God who does not coerce us, but persuades us through love in a world where 

one does not have to be religious. 

114 



SCIENCE, BIOCHEMISTRY AND PANENTHEISM 

IN ARTHUR PEACOCKE 



This article presents and discusses the corpus of doctrine produced by Arthur Peacocke 

on the idea of God, and Christian theology, which today must be construed from the 

scientific image of the world, especially the scientific image of life, evolution and the 

human being. After presenting the biochemical origins of his thought, all his work on 

science/religion and their epistemological presupposition, we sketch the form in which 

Peacocke understands the nature of the world described today by the basic results of 

science (What’s There and What’s going on). This is a universe which, and first of all 

the philosophers, have attempted to give ultimate intelligibility to. God appears on the 

horizon as a possible factor of intelligibility which makes it possible to understand the 

fundamental features of a possible action of God in the world. This leads to the 

classical emergentist, panentheist vision of Peacocke and to his discussion with the 

philosophy of process. Finally, we present his way of understanding the theology of 

kenosis from science and we discuss the scope and signification of his point of view. 

Today Arthur Peacocke, together with Barbour and Polkinghorne, is one of the 

three great masters in the study of the science/religion connection; especially as regards 

Christian theology. The three have been awarded the Templeton Prize for their 

combined work: Barbour in 1999, Peacocke in 2001 and Polkinghorne in 2002; in 2000 

it was the scientist Freeman J. Dyson and before that, among others, Paul Davis in 1995, 

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker in 1989 and Stanley L. Jaki in 1987. Barbour, Peacocke 

and Polkinghorne constitute a fundamental, harmonic and congruent trio for the 

understanding of the current projection of science (or the philosophy of science) as 

regards religion in general, and Christian theology in particular 1 . 

The three authors have a positive approach, in which the scientific image of the 

world, of life and man can be integrated or is assumable by the religious models and by 

Christian theology. For the three authors today the scientific image of reality must be a 

basic presupposition for accessing the understanding (we could also say the 

hermeneutics) of religion and Christian theology, in consonance with the dominant 

modern culture in the West. This theology-from-science should be the most appropriate 

access today in order to establish the basic parameters of a theodicy, or natural theology, 

which might lead to a hermeneutics of religious models and Christian theology in 

consonance with the sensitivities of our times. 

1. Arthur Peacocke: God from the horizon of biochemistry 

Barbour and Polkinghorne are physicists, Peacocke is a biologist and biochemist. His 

perspective is more proximate to the world of life and this explains his insistence on a 

pan-en-theist vision: The image of a universe in which God appears as an essential, 

1 

Polkinghorne himself has studied the relationship between the three: Polkinghorne, J., Scientists as 

Theologians. A Comparison of the Writings of Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne, 

London: SPCK, 1996. In a previous article in Pensamiento I have already presented and discussed the 

work of Barbour: Monserrat, J., Ciencia, filosofía del proceso y Dios en Ian Barbour, in: Pensamiento 

60 (2004) 33-66. A forthcoming article will also refer to the work of Polkinghorne. 



transcendent and immanent foundation, in which we all “live, move and are”, in perfect 

consonance with Pauline thought, always presenting the most ancient Christian 

tradition, and even in the deepest mystical tradition in all religions. The scientific image 

of the world, understood by Peacocke, leads us to read this religiously as a unitary and 

monist manifestation of the Life of the Divinity in which all that is real is ontologically 

submerged, founding our lives, our actions and our being. The pan-en-theism would 

thus be a very appropriate concept in order to speak of the transcendent/immanent God 

of the Christian tradition, as may be enlightened by the scientific image of the world. 

Our intention is to present, comment on and discuss some of the most important topics 

of Arthur Peacocke. 

Intellectual evolution. Arthur Peacocke was born in Watford, near London, in 

1924. His family was Anglican but did not practice and as a child he did not have any 

curiosity for religion. At university he was agnostic and sceptical due to the 

conservative Anglican Church at the time. However, he tells us that a sermon of 

William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, gave him a glimpse of the fact that 

Christianity might be intellectually defensible. In 1941 he entered Exeter College 

Oxford where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry, the Bachelor of Science and 

the Doctor of Philosophy, so that in 1948 was able to become a Lecturer in Chemistry at 

the university of Birmingham. However, little by little there awoke in Peacocke an 

interest for theology (a search for God congruent with reason): in 1960 he received a 

diploma in theology and in 1971 a Bachelor of Divinity in the University of 

Birmingham. In 1952 when the discovery of DNA was announced, Peacocke was doing 

research in the Virus Laboratory of the University of California in Berkeley, but 

together with his colleagues at Birmingham he also intervened in the studies which led 

to the knowledge of the spatial ordering of the DNA molecules. Since 1959 he has 

continued his research as a Physical Biochemist at Oxford. 

At the beginning of the sixties he culminated his approximation to the Church of 

England, and became a Lay Reader in 1961. Ten years later in 1971, he was ordained a 

priest, although he continued his scientific work. Peacocke was already married and had 

two children. In the seventies he began to publish on science and religion. His first book 

in this area was Science and the Christian Experiment which received the Lecomte de 

Noüy Prize, in 1973, at the time he was a full-time researcher in physical-chemistry of 

proteins and DNA at Oxford. In 1973 he also became Dean of Clare College 

Cambridge, and this new occupation left him more time to definitively undertake his 

writings on science and religion. In 1985 Peacocke founded the Ian Ramsey Centre for 

the Interdisciplinary Study of Religious Beliefs in Relation to the Sciences in Oxford. He 

also promoted the U.K. Science and Religion Forum and the foundation of the 

European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT), which recently held 

its biennial congres in Barcelona from the 1-6 of April 2004, it is associated to the 

Universal Forum of Cultures 2 . He also founded the Society of Ordained Scientists. 

The work of Peacocke on science/religion. We only refer to the most important 

publications. Science and the Christian Experiment (1971) was his first work. In this 

work he begins by comparing the experimental task of science and theology itself, and 

later presents the new perspectives opened up by science in the description of the 

process of cosmic and biological evolution. He addresses a revision of the task of 

theology from these new perspectives of science: God and the cosmos; man, evolution 

2 

Aspects of his biography can be seen in Research News in Science and Religion, May 2001, p. 26, or 

in the first chapter of: From DNA to Dean (see note 3). 

116 



and Christ; matter in the theological and scientific perspective, etc. Creation and the 

World of Science (1979, cited as CWS) was his first grand systematic book which 

brought him international renown. The essay presented a description of the state of 

scientific cosmology and for the first time introduced an in depth reflection on the 

“anthropic principle”: the God of the religions is glimpsed as a possible foundation for 

the consistency of the universe and of the intelligibility of its physical/biological design. 

At the same time he also introduced the biochemical perspective of chance and the 

random changes in DNA, conceiving ways to understand the creative action of God in 

consonance with the biological world of chance. The text also discussed the theories of 

the “selfish gene” of Dawkins and of the socio-biology of Wilson in order to support a 

humanist idea of man, in consonance with the Christian idea of the Incarnation. 

Intimations of Reality: Critical Realism in Science and Religion (1984, cited as IOR) 

presented, let’s say, the first explanation dedicated to the epistemology of Peacocke. 

This dealt with critical realism, also defended by Barbour and Polkinghorne. Both 

science and religion attempted to refer to the same reality through metaphors, images 

and models. Thus, the challenge of making the scientific models congruent with the 

religious ones. God and the New Biology (1986) was a work dedicated to an in depth 

discussion on reductionist biologism in the line of Dawkins, Wilson, and even Francis 

H.C. Crick who considered that biology “is only physics and chemistry”. For Peacocke 

biology, even within a unitary and monist vision of the universe, required an 

understanding of life as an emergent reality with qualitative levels not reducible to the 

physical/biological mechanism of the inorganic world. 

With Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming, Natural, Human and 

Divine (1993, cited as TSA) we reach his fundamental work, as is commonly 

acknowledged. The way in which divine action can be conceived in the world in the 

light of the theories of chaos, chance and quantum mechanics was the subject of 

polemic and discussion. The work offered the vision of Peacocke on divine action in the 

world in consonance with the new scientific perspectives. The original aspect and the 

one proper to his focus was to conceive that just as in complex systems the “whole” can 

affect the conduct of its parts (as happens in the biological systems and in man), the 

immersion of the universe in God and His acting presence in each of its parts can also 

be conceived in this way. In any case, the book also offered the required revision of 

many of the traditional ideas of God in philosophy and theology, in the light of the idea 

of human and divine being and becoming, propitiated by the new perspectives of 

science. God and Science: A Quest for Christian Credibility (1996) is a book directed at 

the general public in which Peacocke attempts to offer a vision of God accessible to 

those who are open to religion from the world of science. From DNA to Dean. 

Reflections and Explorations of a Priest-Scientist (1996) is also an autographical work 

of divulgation which joins together a set of brief texts read in different contexts. 

However, his latest book is more important, Paths from Science to God: forging a New 

Theology for a Scientific Age (2001), also published more briefly with the sub-title The 

End of All Our Exploring (cited as PSG). This book is like a final testament where 

Peacocke again insists on his grand ideas: the need that the modern idea of God be 

reformulated from the world of science; the similarity between the form of reasoning of 

science and of theology, always a posteriori and dependent on the phenomenic 

evidence; the need to overcome the classical anthropological dualism of classical 

theology, moving towards emergentism founded on the “humanist” idea of man made 



possible by science; the need to think of God in way coherent with his continued divine 

action in the world in the framework of his pan-en-theist scheme, referred to above 3 . 

2. His epistemological focus 

Critical realism. Like Barbour and Polkinghorne, Peacocke has always defended a 

flexible “critical realism” flexible in science and in theology. His basic explanation is in 

his 1984 work, but there are continual references in almost all his books. In the sciences 

knowledge is always constructed from experience, which are the data or empirical base. 

Knowledge is always a construct produced by the reason which, although it is supported 

by facts, on occasions hypotheses and speculations are established regarding a world 

which is not immediately accessible to experience. Science considers that its constructs 

say something about the real world, even though these are only metaphors, images or 

models: science is realist. Its hypotheses, although they can always be revised and must 

be continually subjected to criticism, point to the real and probably manage to know 

this. This critical realism is entirely congruent with modern Popperian or Post- 

Popperian scientific epistemology. Science verifies the empirical world in the facts, but 

seeks its intelligibility through critical realism. Intelligibility is knowing why things are 

as they are, why they appear in their being and in their becoming; in short, what are the 

causes of this reality (IOR, passim; TSA, 11-18). 

Religion and religious experience. For Peacocke, as for Barbour, religions are a 

fact, whose real existence cannot be doubted. However, these are founded on religious 

experience, which is individual and integrated into religious communities. In 

Christianity integrated into the communities of faith in the past, up to the community of 

Israel in the Old Testament and the primitive Christian community described in the New 

Testament, theology seeks to present the faith contained in religious experience, as well 

as making it intelligible and expressing its meaning. Seeking intelligibility is knowing 

why the religious experience is as it is, how it must be understood and what its causes 

are in the whole of the reality in which we live. For Peacocke the religious experience 

seeks something which science does not (due to the pure objectivity of the latter): 

meaning. Theology seeks to understand how religious experience integrates man 

congruently in the reality of the universe, providing his personal life with a value and a 

hope of final fulfilment. 

The religious experience, therefore, can be the subject of phenomenological 

description. It is living an experience of God, for example, described in the mysticism 

of many religions. The subject feels immersed in God and near to Him in his interior 

(the Augustinian intimior intimo meo): is the experience of the immanence and 

transcendence of God present in the Pauline, “in God we live, we move and we are”, 

repeatedly cited by Peacocke. Nevertheless, when Christian theology and philosophy 

seek intelligibility, of necessity they must use reason. However, this has depended on 

each historical epoch and could not be otherwise: on the Greek philosophy of Plato and 

of Aristotle, on the scholastic systems, on Descartes, on Kant, on Hegel… These models 

3 

Cf. Science and the Christian Experiment, London: Oxford University Press, 1971; Creation and the 

World of Science, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, cited as CWS; Intimations of Reality: Critical 

Realism in Science and Religion, Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, cited as 

IOR; God and the New Biology, London: Dent 1984; Theology for a Scientific Age. Being and 

Becoming, Natural, Human, and Divine, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993, cited as TSA; God and 

Science: A Quest for Christian Credibility, London: SCM Press, 1996; From DNA to Dean. 

Reflexions and Explorations of a Priest-Scientist, Norwich, UK: Canterbury Press, 1996; Paths from 

Science to God. The End of all our Exploring, Oxford: Oneworld, 2001, cited as PSG. 

118 



of rational intelligibility have led to a reading or interpretation of the religious 

experience: a reading, however, which might be more or less correct, or even imprecise 

and erroneous. These analyses of intelligibility by epochs, which, by their very nature, 

are variable, cannot be confused with the religious models which contain living reality 

and the religious experience which constitutes the essence of religion. 

Intelligibility of God in the era of science. The whole of the intellectual work of 

Peacocke is founded on a declaration of basic principles, shared with Barbour, 

Polkinghorne and many others (and by me): which the rational construct of the universe, 

life and man towards a current understanding of the religious experience organised in 

science (subjected, naturally, to philosophical problematisation as science has no reason 

to put forward certain ultimate, anthropological or metaphysical questions from its own 

methodology). Peacocke insists on accessing the intelligibility of the religious 

experience in theology from science today, which is also especially necessary for 

Christianity due to historical and sociological reasons: through the critical questioning 

of religion from enlightenment by science and through the generalised influence of 

science in the Western culture of our days (CWS, 7-37; TSA, 1-23). Not to follow this 

route would equate to enclosing knowledge and rational language about God, and the 

religious experience, in deficient discourse and anachronisms which are unintelligible 

for society today. In his discourse at the reception of the Templeton Prize on March 8, 

2001, Peacocke said that, “science is the global language and the heritage of our culture, 

and for the believers of all religions the time has come to commit themselves creatively 

to the universal perspective offered by the sciences” 4 . 

Science, assumed by the religious models, leads to understanding the immanence 

of the divinity in the ontology of the world, as we shall see in the pan-en-theism of 

Peacocke. The experience of the world is certainly an implicit experience of the being 

of the Divinity. However, it is an experience of the Deus absconditus, as the world, as 

science makes us see, can be described as purely mundane and autonomous, without 

God. The scientific image of the world leads us to understand that the God who is 

revealed in the religious experience is the Deus absconditus, the hidden God who does 

not impose Himself, the Christian God of Grace in the Spirit, the God of freedom. In 

short, the God who is not manifested to us in the Christological kenosis of the mystery 

of his Death and Resurrection. Natural experience is not eo ipso religious (because it 

can be mundane), but it is the possible religious experience, freely assumed, which 

reveals the experience of the world as experience of God. To our understanding, this is 

very important and depends on the intelligibility of God oriented by the scientific image 

of the world (see the final section of this paper). 

Scientific and religious models. In order to understand their relationship (very 

similar to the one considered by Barbour), we must make some comments. 1) For 

4 

The same was said in his fundamental work in 1993: “The turbulent history of the relationship of 

science and theology is witness to the impossibility of the theological search for an inalterable refuge, 

protected from the sciences of its time, in the event that theology pretends to be believable. Theology 

has been more creative and durable when it has responded more positively to the challenges of is time, 

as when the Cappadocian Fathers used Greek philosophy to express the categories of Christian 

theology and when St. Thomas Aquinas addressed and brilliantly used the resources of Aristotelian 

philosophy, at the time intellectually superior, in order to reformulate the theology in a way which has 

lasted for centuries. In this same spirit we must undertake the way to conform a contemporary 

expression of the Christian experience of God in terms –metaphors, models, analogies and symbolswhich 

can be believable and usable by Western humanity which is today deeply and irreversibly 

influenced by science, as, in fact, it should be” (TSC, 7). 



Peacocke it is established that science can construct a purely mundane, natural or 

autonomous description of the universe, of life and of man, without God, although this 

may only be a possible hypothesis, compatible with the persistence of the ultimate 

enigma of the universe and with many gaps concerning intelligibility proper to this 

same natural hypothesis. 2) Nevertheless, the science/religion relationship does not 

consist of the apologetic approach involving tests and demonstrations of the existence of 

God, as in the ancient theodicy and in natural theology. 3) The fact that religion, 

however, seeks its intelligibility through philosophy and theology means that this 

scientific image of the world (although it can have a mundane reading) it should be 

assumed congruently by the idea of God, the foundation and creator of the religions. 

That is to say, the world of science could also be compatible with the idea of the God of 

the religions. 4) Much of the analytical and argumentative efforts of Peacocke have 

been directed precisely at showing that science does not exclude the possibility of 

conceiving the existence of a God congruent with the universe: thus, his analysis of 

the possibility of conceiving divine action in a universe of chance, of chaos, of quantum 

indeterminacy, or the pan-en-theist doctrine as the conceptual framework close to 

science in order to understand the immanence/transcendence of God. 5) However, 

Peacocke’s point of view goes even beyond this: although a mundane description of the 

universe, without God, is possible, he considers that, notwithstanding this, the 

hypothesis of intelligibility founded on God would probably be the best of the possible 

explanations: where its ontological foundation and its profound rationality would find 

more satisfactory causal explanations. 

3. The image of the real in science 

This theology-from-science we refer to cannot be undertaken without taking the 

scientific image of the world into account. In the work of Peacocke there is a basic 

corpus of purely descriptive information: what science says about the universe today, on 

life, on man. In order to draw up a complete chart of this presentation, we should 

investigate all his works where information is sometimes repeated, but where new 

remarks can also be found, and these have not been mentioned before. In his 

fundamental work, the presentation distinguishes a static image of reality (the being of 

reality) and a dynamic image (the becoming of reality) (TSA, 25-84; also CWS, 50-73). 

The being of reality (What’s There). The revision of Peacocke records that a 

macroscopic approximation has been historically constructed from Newtonian classical 

mechanics, which is still acceptable in determined circumstances. His basic concepts of 

matter, energy and its location in absolute time and space (which some might 

inappropriately relate to his apriority) have been surpassed in essence by the relativist 

vision of Einstein. Clasical time, which is homogeneous, independent of objects and 

events which have happened in it, absolute, inert, infinite, continuous, has also been 

surpassed by the relativity of Einstein. The causal actions can never be transmitted at a 

speed greater than that of light. The irreversibility of time has been debated and 

Hawking has stressed the increase of entropy in the universe and the progressive 

dissipation of order; living beings can only be present in the expansive phase in which 

we now find ourselves. For Hawking the thermodynamic, psychological and 

cosmological arrow of time seems to point in the same direction. However, the line of 

time is today framed by science in a reference to the big bang which would give, at 

least, its direction at the cosmic moment we are at. The being of this universe, located in 

a line of time, is also today described by the deepening of our idea of the constituent 

matter, beyond classical mechanics. Since Einstein, we have known of the convertibility 

120 



of matter and energy, at the same time as corpuscular matter has been reconciled with 

its wave character. From this corpuscular-wave perspective of quantum mechanics, the 

complexity of the mathematical models which describe matter now makes doubt the 

scope of our representations and highlights the persistence of the profound enigma of 

the ultimate nature of the world (TSA, 29-35). 

Scientific observation of the objective being of the real confirms the enormous 

diversity of structures and entities, but, at the same time, it also confirms its very simple 

constituent unity: the energy generated in the big bang has produced a hierarchy of 

levels of being which includes from particles to atoms, molecules, macromolecules, 

sub-cellular organs, cells, multi-cellular functional organisms, living holistic organisms, 

populations of living organisms, ecosystems and biosphere. These levels are integrated 

with each other like Russian dolls in a monistic framework in which all the real 

responds to the same fundamental laws of matter. Fundamental laws of matter which, in 

the end, are supported by those of the four basic interactions, which the physicists 

endeavour to unify in a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) and even in a total unification. 

Peacocke rejects that this unity of the real imposes reductonism on science as the 

structures generated from the simplicity of matter have produced emergent levels of 

being from reality which are the basis for deferent epistemologies and explanatory 

approaches proper to each of the sciences (i.e. physics and biology). These emergent 

levels are produced by the extremely complex propensity of matter towards a growing 

interconnection and its organisation in holistic totalities (TSA, 36-43). 

The becoming of reality (What’s going on). The universe thus constituted 

structurally is subject to a continuous becoming. It has reached its present state by 

becoming since the big bang and is in route to the future through a becoming which is 

not yet closed. The explanation of the past, of the present and of the future in science in 

order to describe the form of this cosmic becoming, is constructed from the notion of 

predictability founded on the notion of causality. The new and the future emerge within 

chains of cause and effect which establish the line of becoming and permit predictability 

in the physical-biological-human history of the universe. Due to this, Peacocke analyses 

the predictability-causality binomial in several contexts of physical interaction (TSA, 46 

et seq.). However, the most interesting thing is his analysis of top-down (downward) 

causation which already points to establishing his rejection of reductionism and also his 

argumentation of the intelligibility of the universe through the hypothesis of divine panentheism. 

This causality is the one exercised systemically by the whole over its parts, 

just as psychism controls and determines the inferior physical-chemical-biological 

processes of the organism through a descendent superior causality. These “all emergent” 

processes determine the qualitatively deferent levels of reality which are the grounds for 

the rejection of reductionsim, without denying the monism and simplicity of reality in 

its origin from the elementary physical world (TSA, 53-55). 

Therefore, within the conceptual framework of predictability and causality 

producing emergent levels of complexity, Peacocke addresses the pure verification of 

the evolutionary becoming of life. Science describes how things have arrived up to here, 

but the future is open and it is not possible to anticipate a determinist biological 

prediction. From the biochemistry of life, the chemistry of proteins and the genetics of 

DNA, Peacocke’s speciality as a scientist, he presents the conformation of the 

evolutionary process, partly understandable as a process for the organisation of the flow 

of information, but also in coherence with his emergent-holistic form of understanding 

top down causation without falling into reductionism. Evolution which has a propensity 

for increased complexity towards the increase of order, the coordination of chance and 



necessity as the cause of creative progress, or the final indeterminacy of the process, 

are not in contradiction with the laws of physics or the role of entropy in the 

thermodynamics of the universe (TSA, 55-65). 

Ontologically supported at these evolutionary levels of complexity, Peacocke 

assumed the birth of sensitivity as systemic and emergent factor, essentially united to 

life, although perhaps accessed from inferior mechanisms. Nevertheless, we do not 

believe that, in his analysis of the psychobiophysical problem, Peacocke has managed to 

touch on all its depth possible today. In the nineties the ideas of Penrose on, what we 

might call, quantum neurology, were already circulating together with many other 

discussions on this, and these were not mentioned by Peacocke. In our view, at least 

only as a hypothesis, these ideas would have enriched his analysis. Man appears in the 

growing process of the levels of consciousness (he cites Teilhard, although he does not 

fully share his simple complexity-consciousness co-relationship). According to 

Peacocke, the human brain enables a new analysis of the environment, a deepening into 

the skill for processing information and a general development of human sensitivity as 

regards pain, our own vulnerability and the experience of one’s own being and of the 

world (TSA, 69-71). 

Science also confirms the emergence of the human being in the continuity of the 

evolutionary process. In homo sapiens we discover many perfected characteristics 

already present in the superior mammals. However, his description requires new, nonreductive, 

autonomous concepts which account for their specific peculiarity, their 

emergent level of being: the conjunction of those specific characters are what permits us 

to speak of the human person according to Peacocke. Within the framework of 

evolutionary epistemology Peacocke describes the development of the human mind in 

the direction of visual and sensitive images, towards abstract thought and language. 

Abstract thought is united to the functional emergence of the consciousness of “subject” 

and of an object known world. The human being, supported by the neuronal functions, 

can be represented in the past, the complexity of the present and foresee, and even 

design the future. Thus, the human subject can transcend himself, exit his immediate 

animal necessities, and rationally access the ultimate questions and the feeling of the 

numinous (TSA, 73-74). This self-image is formed from infancy and leads to the 

representation of the other, making the human being intellectually social. With his 

reason man constructs several possibilities of action and moves by freely though 

rationally and humanly from among these. Human conduct is thus intentional, and is 

directed by the superior functions of its psychism. Thus, the human person has created 

culture from its evolutionary roots (as is understood in the framework of the analysis of 

Konrad Lorenz, cited by Peacocke). 

As we understand it, the presentation of Peacocke is correct, but again he fails to 

arrive at the ultimate levels of profundity which could have enriched his thought: a 

broader discussion with the current theories on mind, either from the serial or 

connectionist, mechanistic-computational paradigm, enriched, for example, by authors 

such as Edelman and others. Aknowledge of the theory of biological hyperformalisation 

of Zubiri would also have helped him to explain the causes of reason in 

the evolutionary process much more congruently (TSA, 73-77). 

However, this evolutionary cosmic becoming and the possibilities opened up to it 

in this situation for life, have a limitation in time: Peacocke is inclined to accept that 

science foresees the future extinction of life and the energetic dissolution of the 

universe, exhausted by the entropic process (TSA, 69-71). However, the deployment of 

the evolutionary becoming shows a complex, rational design, an intelligibility, an 

122 



objective rationality, which has always astounded science, and even a rational quasidesign 

of the properties of the universe to make life possible, and even the life of the 

human being as a person, as shown by the arguments of the “anthropic principle” (TSA, 

77-80, CWS, 67 et.seq.). 

4. The intelligibility of the universe in God 

The objective universe described by science as a unitary system (monist), from the 

energy of the big bang up to the self-conscious consciousness of man which questions 

himself and the universe, is factually there. And this puts forward the question of its 

intelligibility to human reason –science and theology. This does not mean responding to 

questions such as, “Why does the world exist?”, which, although it may make sense to 

pose these (Peacocke does not admit that they are meaningless as does analytical 

philosophy), however, they are probably unanswerable. To seek intelligibility is to start 

from what exists, from the universe, from life, from man, and we ask ourselves up to 

where we can, without rejecting the questions which lie on the edge, but founding these 

on facts, on the world rationally described by science, how everything can have an 

explanation, ultimate causes which give the universe a congruent meaning and provide 

the cosmic becoming with a meaning which enriches human existence. Science, still lost 

today in an enigmatic universe, seeks intellectual intelligibility (to know from the 

foundations and, from there, a congruent meaning); it may be possible that science must 

go beyond itself and even enter an environment of philosophical reflection concerning 

its results. However, theology is not content with this and also seeks from existential 

urgency to repose by finding a sense in the dynamics of the universe (TSA, 87-90). 

Peacocke admits that the philosophy constructed from science can provide the 

universe with autonomous, agnostic or atheistic intelligibility without God. 

Nevertheless, his efforts are directed at showing that this same universe described by 

science (although not necessarily theist) is also enlightened by congruence and 

intelligibility from the idea of God present in the religious models, and especially from 

Christianity. The reality of God is presented even for him as the “best explanation” of 

the universe (TSA, 90, 99). To reason this idea of God from science must be understood 

as the current way to reach intelligibility (the Anselmian fides quaerens intellectum) of 

the religious experience, as we pointed out above. 

The God of the philosophers. As opposed to the rationalist tradition in the analysis 

of the divine essence, Peacocke tends more towards the position of the English 

philosopher Richard Swinburne. For Swinburne the argumentation regarding God is a 

posteriori: the empirical experience of the facts, the objective world, and also human 

self-experience, offer the evidence which lead to the probability of the existence of a 

divine being. Nevertheless, Swinburne thinks in accordance with our arguments for 

considering his existence: He must have the properties which permit Him to be the 

foundation of the world (personality, eternity, freedom, omnipotence, omniscience, 

creator…). However, as regards the assertion “God exists” and the question, “Is He also 

necessary?”, the response of Swinburne, according to Peacocke is that, “the essence of 

God is eternal; A God who is in essence the personal foundation of being exists (which 

includes being eternal) is the pure inexplicable fact, a final term of the explanation of 

what things are like” (TSA, 92-91). Swinburne understands this as a factually necessary 

existence and not as a logically necessary existence. Peacocke believes that the 

intelligibility of God from science is also a rationality constructed a posteriori from the 

empirical world. This analytical rationality, that of the only theodicy possible today, 

must be what leads to the hermeneutics of religious experience. This a posteriori 



approach has been habitual in the history of scholastic philosophy. Do not forget that St. 

Thomas rejected the Anselmian proof of the existence of God and the rationalist 

approach (e.g. Descartes) and the transcendental Thomist orientation connected to 

Kantian apriorism have been and continue to be a very sectorial position in scholastic 

tradition considered globally. 

God as a factor of ultimate intelligibility. For Peacocke an intelligibility without 

God is possible, but God offers the universe a better intelligibility. This involves 

arguing it by exercising a reason which analyses the facts in order to finally understand 

the intelligibility of the world in God and the nature of the religious experience. This 

rationality is today founded on the image of the world in science. The being and the 

becoming of the universe, including life and man, are there (I believe that, from an 

approach of Zubiri, it would be better to say that, the reality and the being of its reactualization 

in time are there). However, it is necessary to see how this being and 

becoming are, in fact, presented: just as science describes with methodological 

precision. Therefore, today it is not possible to address direct speculation on the being 

and becoming of the real, of the world, or on the being of man, his knowledge and his 

experience, without the rational mediation of science. Thus, in the scientific framework, 

Peacocke addresses its analysis of the real and its analysis of the being and the 

becoming of God. 

The divine being makes the universe essentially intelligible as the Ground of 

Being. The universe is there and its existence must have a sufficient explanation. “Its 

existence requires an explanation of some kind, in the sense that, with these specific 

properties, it might not have existed” (TSA, 101). The universe, described by science, is 

so problematic and mysterious that it s justified to apply the traditional concept of 

contingency to it. It is very problematic that, as it is so, its existence can be made 

intelligible. The idea of God is thus constructed from reality as a factor of intelligibility 

for the foundation of being. God must be conceived in such a way that he can be the 

foundation of being. Remembering Swinburne, He can be thought of as eternal (or even 

necessary, in the sense that it would not be congruent to think that He might cease to be 

real and to exist, from the time that we consider Him to be foundation of the real). 

However, this is a question of a factually necessary existence, not of a logically 

necessary existence (in the sense of St. Anselm, Descartes or even, with nuances, 

Hegel). 

Thus, the foundation-of-being God conceivable from science as a factor of 

intelligibility should be transcendent (CWS, 204), immanent, one, with unfathonable 

ontological richness, be supremely rational, the foundation and reliable preserver of the 

constitution of the universe, continual creator and cause of rational order (anthropic 

principle) of the universe, personal and with intentional actions. Another God would not 

make the universe intelligible: in order to be the foundation, this must be so. The 

enigma of the consistency and stability of the universe, of its constructive rationality, of 

the physical and biological order, as well as the emergence and meaning of the human 

person in Him, according to Peacocke, make God the best hypothesis for the 

intelligibility of the ultimate foundation of being (TSA, 101-113). 

However, this God must also be understood with a divine becoming in consonance 

with the biblical God (although different from the immutable God of scholastic 

tradition) who certainly enriches the natural idea of God. This is a God who is 

interactive with the world, who is happy with creation, who continues to act as creator 

in the world within the framework of the necessity of the laws, established by Him, and 

by chance (TSA, 115-121, CWS, 86-110). He is a God who seems to have voluntarily 

124 



self-limited His omnipotence (e.g. in human freedom) and his divine omniscience (e.g. 

He has created a world in which the chaotic ontology of many systems cannot be known 

specifically). He is a vulnerable God, a Love which is Self-emptying, Self-giving, a 

suffering God in the life of human beings. He tells us this echoing the theology of J. 

Moltmann, C. Hartshorne, W.H. Vanstone and Paul Fiddes- (TSA, 123-127). However, 

the logic which leads to conceiving the divine becoming from the world also leads us to 

restate the conception of time, basically the mystery of time, both in relationship to the 

universe and in its projection to a Divinity who is the foundation of being (TSA, 128- 

134). 

The divine action in the world. The hypothesis of God in His being and in His 

becoming, as a factor of intelligibility obliges us to admit a continuous divine action in 

the world. However, the world is as it is and as science describes it to us: with the 

necessity, the probability, the determinism and the indeterminacy of the classical 

macrophysical and the quantum microphysical events, with the chance-necessity of 

evolutionary biology, with the chaotic fluctuations, with the diverse forms of interaction 

and causality which regulate the form of appearance, evolution and end of the physicalbiological 

states. Therefore, if divine action were unconceivable, absolutely incongruent 

and impossible in a world described in this way by science, then the hypothesis of God 

would not be a good factor of fundamental intelligibility for the universe. Thus, the 

work of Peacocke has been directed at explaining that the scientific idea of the world is 

not contradictory with divine action, but makes it possible to conjecture congruent 

forms of making this compatible with the natural, factual order. In this context, 

Peacocke studies the essential action of God on the world, creation and His subsequent 

intervention action without altering created nature. This is congruent with an open 

world, in some aspects which are determined and in others undetermined, with a 

quantum world, a world of chance, a world with organised causality in systems and 

where there is a top down causality manifest in the biological world. This permits 

several intelligible models of the interaction between God and the world, congruent 

with our idea of God and the scientific evidence of how the world is constructed 

(created) factually. In part, Peacocke has contributed to understanding how God could 

work in the world through physical and biological chance, and through chaotic 

processes and quantum indeterminacy (TSA, 135-183). All these reflections clearly do 

not involve knowing the divine essence but only showing that the hypothesis of the 

God-foundation who acts in the world is not contradictory with our scientific image of 

the world. 

Panentheism and emergentism. Peacocke’s model for finding answers congruent 

in each case with the intelligibility of the world in God is pan-en-theism. The 

foundation –God should be understood as a being ontologically united to the world. 

God would be the ultimate foundation and origin of all creation, of the universe. In God 

we live, move and are: everything is participation in the divine being which breathes life 

as the ultimate depth of all vestige of creation. This God is Spirit (the ontological 

planning of our psychic experience without limits) and from there arise all forms of 

created beings (CWS, 205-210). The organization of matter thus leads to the emergence 

of levels of consciousness which point to the spiritual being of God. Thus, human 

psychism, open to the rational questioning of the meaning of life, seamy be the fullest 

emergence of the spiritual and divine ontology of the universe (TSA, 189-254). As 

human psychism takes in his own body and causally controls this, we can thus 

conjecture that God takes in all reality and acts on it from its interior with a top down 

causality, which is distinct, much more perfect and effective than in living essences. It 



is not said, therefore, that God has organism, or a nervous system, like living beings. 

His unknown, ontological essence must be different in order to take in the universe in its 

profundity and act on it. The living being is only an image which aims us at the unitary, 

mysterious and much more perfect ontology of God. This immanent and transcendent 

God, who breathes life as the ontological foundation of everything, responds to the panen-theist 

model (CWS, 207, 238-243; TSA, 158, 371-72; PST, 57-58, 110-114, 138- 

143). For Peacocke this is a model which is congruent with the Christian and Patristic 

tradition (TSA, 185); and is also, in our opinion, congruent with the model of Teilhard 

de Chardin, who is continually present in his work (and he acknowledges this with 

numerous mentions). 

Process philosophy and theology. Peacocke tries to dialogue, in fact, with the 

philosophy/theology of process and concurs with many of its positions, but always with 

certain nuances. The God who makes the world intelligible and the biblical–Christian 

God are not impassive, immutable Gods, but are committed to life in the world and are 

close to human life, to the history of the world. The God of Peacocke would also be, in 

a certain sense, the great companion, the fellow-sufferer who understands, (Whitehead, 

Process and Reality, Free Press, 532). We do not believe that this transcendent and 

personal God, although He is also immanent, closely committed to the process of the 

world and in the dramatic aspect of human life in its pan-en-theist framework, can be 

objectionable for Catholic orthodoxy. Another aspect, however, is the divine 

omnipotence and omniscience, whose real limitation in the world –in part in order to 

save the impotence of God as regards human suffering and evil, freeing it from 

responsibility– has been understood radically in the philosophy/theology of process. In 

this sense, Peacocke is very precise, and this would not be objected to by Catholic 

orthodoxy. He admits a certain self-limitation of God in His creator work, both as 

regards omnipotence (e.g. as concerns human freedom) and divine omniscience (e.g. as 

concerns the chaotic movements, chance, specifically unforeseeable, but only by 

statistics and probability). However, this divine, situational self-limitation is always 

voluntary, it responds to a divine will to create in a defined way, it takes chance into 

account, and maintains an ultimate, absolute control over all that is created (TSA, 115- 

127; CWS, 140-141, 213, 239-240) 5 . 

5. God, kenosis, Christianity 

Peacocke endeavours to show how the relationship of God with the world, understood 

as kenotic, can only be adequately enlightened and extended from the results of science: 

kenotic by the offering of self, by self-limitation and vulnerability assumed by God in 

the created evolutionary process (CNL, 21-22) 6 . What is the evolutionary process 

revealed by? Undoubtedly we will discover decisive lines in this in order to understand 

the nature of the creator plan of God. 

5 

6 

In my article cited above (see note 1) I have discussed the so called philosophy/theology of process 

and its presence in the work of Barbour more fully. Even seeking always to avoid the more conflictive 

aspects of the philosophy of process (such as admitting a real-ontological self-limitation of divine 

omnipotence -omniscience in the factic process of the world), Barbour is much more proximate to this 

than Peacocke. 

Cf. Peacocke, A., “The Cost of New Life”, in: Polkinghorne, J., The Work of Love. Creation as 

Kenosis, London: SPCK, 2002, pages 21-42. We cite this article as CNL. We consider that this article 

of Peacocke is very important and goes beyond the content of his fundamental works, such as CWS, 

TSA and PTG. What is said here by Peacocke basically concurs with the thesis I have defended in my 

book Existencia, Mundanidad, Cristianismo (1974), also referred to more fully in my article on 

Barbour cited above (see note 1). 

126 



Creation is continual and testifies to the emergence of numerous forms of life. 

This has to do with an immense process of self-organisation which, within the monist 

continuity, makes new forms of real being emerge (CNL, 22-23). Although God is the 

creator –Deus semper creator in the creatio continua– He has constructed His work as a 

natural process: which is explained as evolutionarily and automatically generated in 

time from itself. Within this autonomy (without reference to the stop gap God) natural 

selection plays a relevant role in natural selection (Darwin, Dawkins), the selforganising 

principles (Stuart Kaufmann) or the theories of complexity (Ian Stewart), in 

progressively holistic conceptions. However, the essential keys continue to be chance 

and necessity, understood from a biological point of view from the genetic-mutational 

logic of DNA. The creator plan is a design which already has ab initio the autonomy of 

the process, as well as the role which it will play in a naturalistic, autonomous design, 

which includes a foreseeing of the framework of action produced by chance, 

probability, statistics and even chaos, in the final result of the process. Thus, God 

creator has assumed risk as regards a creation with autonomous design –including the 

specific limitation of omniscience as regards the specific unforeseeable nature of 

chaotic processes– (CNL, 24-25). However, the evolutionary process also presents 

significant tendencies which form part of the same design assumed by God, although 

these can also be understood naturalistically. Peacocke believes that evolution makes it 

possible to apply the Popperian concept of propensity which, in a way, points to the 

direction which will culminate in homo sapiens (CNL, 26-29). These propensities of 

evolutionary-matter created in a natural design, contributing to adaptive efficacy, are: 

complexity, processing skills and the registration of information by the nervous system, 

pain and suffering (sensitivity), self-consciousness and language (CNL, 29-34). Pain 

and suffering understood by Peacocke refer to the propensity to the holistic growth of 

sensitivity in the material systems. However, all, including the emergence of selfconsciousness, 

language and integral human psychism, is also presented in the creator 

design as a natural, autonomous process which does nit require a special intervention of 

God (CNL, 33-34) 7 . This natural, evolutionary design, as chosen by God, is dynamic 

and is realised at the cost of pain, suffering, struggle and death in which the factual 

becomes old and must give way to the emergent new (CNL, 34-35). 

Nevertheless, was this the only route for a design of creation? This is an 

unanswerable metaphysical question. However, we see that, through the autonomy of 

creation, an apt framework has been constituted for the free action of the self-conscious 

being (CNL, 37). In the history of the cosmos man emerges with pain and suffering, but 

we can also speak “analogically” of suffering in God, Peacocke states, and this suffering 

is an identification and participation in the suffering of the world (CNL, 37). This is a 

world which is born with birth pangs. God “creates a space” within Himself, but distinct 

from Himself because He is created with autonomy (zimzum), explains Peacocke, 

referring to the concept used by Moltmann 8 . The cost of this autonomy has been 

7 

8 

Peacocke refers to a scientific perspective in which the appearance of man and the properties of his 

psychism are prone to a natural explanation, with no divine intervention. However, this would not 

exclude that, at a certain time in the history of humanity, natural man has been the subject of a special 

intervention of God as Spirit, in the interior of the human spirit, which culminates his introduction into 

the supernatural order established in the plan of God through grace. This would be accepted by 

Peacocke without question. 

Cf. Moltmann, J., El Dios crucificado, Salamanca: Sígueme, 1975; Trinidad y Reino de God, 

Salamanca: Sígueme, 1983; Dios en la Creación, Salamanca: Sígueme, 1987. Peacocke refers to the 

collaboration of Moltmann himself in The Work of Love. Th cabalistic concept of zimzum speculates 

on the ontological vacuum created within God Himself in order to create something autonomous 



suffering. “Perhaps we can dares to say that there is a creative and self-donation selfemptying 

(a kenosis) of God, a participation in the suffering of the divine creatures, in 

the same evolutionary creation processes of the world” (CNL, 38). In Christianity we 

know that this kenosis is born from Love and makes communion of God with free 

persons capable of love possible. In this autonomous world, however, humanity can 

ignore the divine presence and can reject it: and, undoubtedly, this is also projected on 

the divine suffering by the drama of the creator process (CNL, 39). 

This paradoxical human nature has led to the hurtful disconcertedness regarding 

history and the multiple scenarios of evil, many of which are produced by the human 

will. Does God continue to be intelligible in this scenario of indignity? What were his 

intentions in the creation of an autonomous world? God designed a natural, autonomous 

world, where free persons emerged, with self-determination and with the possibility of 

ignoring God –enclosed in a natural, mundane world. God accepted this risk in the 

design of creation. However, we must understand that God freely accepted this selfvulnerability 

in history for the greater benefit of the emergence of free persons. 

Peacocke says that, “Perhaps this is what the author of the Apocalypse meant when he 

described Christ, seeing Him then present before God as the Lamb bled since the 

foundation of the world” (CNL, 41). 

The conjecture that God could have achieved the kenosis of His divinity in 

creation for the benefit of human freedom, is reinforced and openly revealed if God has 

truly expressed Himself in Jesus, the Christ, taken to the supreme vulnerability and 

suffering before the world, until His tragic abandonment to death on the cross 9 . For 

believers, Christ is the ultimate guarantee of the Love of God as self-donation in 

creation. “God, acting in his divine creativity, is self-limiting, vulnerable, totally selfemptying, 

self–donation, that is to say, supreme Love by creative action” (CNL, 41). “If 

God was present in Jesus, the Christ, being one with Him, then we must conclude that 

God also suffered in Him and with Him in His passion and death. The God Jesus 

obeyed and manifested in His life and death is, therefore, certainly a crucified God, and 

the cry of dereliction can also be seen as an expression of the very anguish of God in 

creation” (CNL, 42). This suffering “is concentrated in intensity and transparency in 

Jesus, the Christ, to such an extent that it reveals this as an expression of the perennial 

relationship of God with creation” (CNL, 42). 

Conclusion 

9 

within his own ontological reality. 

The Pauline concept of kenosis applied to Christ is here extended to God, on the understanding that 

Christ is God and in his kenosis he manifests the plan of God in creation, understood as self-emptying 

in the constitution of a space (the zimzum mentioned above) or autonomous world in His divine 

interior which will also permit the human freedom to deny God. We note that the unification of 

nature, monism and emergentism of Teilhard de Chardin, as well as his mystical-poetic vision of the 

presence of God/Christ in the Cosmos, have quite a few points of contact with the panentheism of 

Peacocke. On occasions there are discussions as to whether Teilhard considerers the culmination of 

humanity in the Point Omega as a logical-philosophical-scientific necessity or a free human option. 

Reading Teilhard from Peacocke would lead to choosing the latter: human freedom can deny God and 

construct a natural, autonomous intelligibility as regards God; but human freedom can also construct a 

religious intelligibility, understanding the fundamental, divine ontology of the panentheist universe, 

and then carry out a Teilhardian reading of history towards the Point Omega enlightened by the 

kenotic sacrifice of Christ. This Teilhardian reading of Peacocke (in accordance with our 

interpretation as Peacocke has not done so, as far as we know) would be, as we understand it, the only 

one possible from the current scientific image of reality. In our opinion, this could lead to an updating 

of Teilhard’s thought. 

128 



Peacocke has described from science what reason today permits us to say on the real 

being of the universe and the real being of man. The universe is intelligible as it is 

mundane, autonomous, without God. Man was formed evolutionarily a posteriori 

within this universe, he forms a natural part of it. Man is free, and God does not impose 

Himself on man, because man can construct a purely mundane intelligibility of himself 

in the universe. This autonomous world, with all the divine self-limitations voluntarily 

accepted as regards its design, is the cost of the new life in freedom. However, man can 

understand the theist intelligibility of the universe: but the God who then appears is the 

God who assumes the kenosis of Himself in creation. When man is submerged in the 

religious experience, this is not lived in terms of the theocentric ontology of 

scholasticism or transcendental apriorism, which is also theocentric, but in Christian 

terms: the God who is near is lived as the Deus absconditus who is manifested in the 

mystery of Christ, death and resurrection, which is the mystery of the God of freedom. 

This is when the experience of the world, transfigured by the religious experience in 

Christ, is transformed into religious experience, experience of the very ontology of God, 

within the pan-en-theist framework suggested by Peacocke. 



John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion from Theoretical 

Physics 



This article presents, comments on, and discusses the thought of John 

Polkinghorne. After a biographical sketch of his person and a presentation of his 

contribution to the science/religion dialogue from the viewpoint of theoretical physics, 

the article analyses his epistemology, his evaluation of some ideas of classical 

metaphysics, his analysis of the likeliness of the creative fundamentality of God, the 

coherence of the evolutionary, living, and human world with the idea of God, as well as 

the likeliness of divine action in the world from the viewpoint of quantum mechanics 

and the dynamics of chaos, and ends with the concept and dimensions of kenotic 

creation. The article, in its course, discusses topics such as Polkinghorne’s view of 

panentheism, double-aspect dualism, emergentism, divine action, active information, 

kenotic creation, and so forth. 

Together with I. Barbour and A. Peacoke undoubtedly John Charlton 

Polkinghorne is one of the main referential authors in the dialogue between science and 

religion. Like Barbour (physicist) and Peaccke (biochemist) Polkinghorne is also a 

professional scientist who has dedicated much of his life to mathematical physics, 

quantum mechanics and theoretical physics. Thus, his focus on the treatment of 

metaphysical, religious and theological questions has been biased by physics and 

quantum references, as he himself has repeatedly pointed out. We will have occasion to 

explain in what sense his writings are biased below. In 2002 he received the Templeton 

Price for all his work as had Barbour and Peacocke 1 . 

His focus is apparently more traditional: just as Barbour is delicately balanced in a 

critical dialogue with the process philosophy and theology, and Peacocke moves 

strongly towards an innovative evolutionary biologism framed in panentheism, 

Polkinghorne consciously moves in a more classical, more physical framework, which 

is closer to traditional Christian orthodoxy from his position in the Church of England. 

He moves farther away from the philosophy/theology of process than Barbour, and even 

more than Peacoke, while admitting some of its principles, as well as those of the 

panentheism contributed by Peacocke. We will comment on this below. 

As regards philosophy, there is no doubt that Polkinghorne has contributed 

rigorous studies for metaphysics of science. Insofar as his reflections are directed from 

science to the intelligibility of God, of the religious, of the theological, his thought 

moves within the framework of natural discourse which can be integrated into 

philosophical theodicy. However, although he always views things from the scientific 

critical-rational perspective of a bottom up thinker, he frequently reflects on the 

philosophy of religion, and it is often Polkinghorne the believer, the theologian, who 

talks with no complexes from the perspective of the theology of science made possible 

by the exercise of scientific-philosophical reason. We will especially note the scientific- 

1 

The reader may also be interested in previously reading another two articles published by me: 

Monserrat, J., Science, philosophy del proceso y Dios en I. Barbour, in: Pensamiento 60 (2004) 33-66; 

Monserrat, J., Science, bioquímica y panenteismo en Arthur Peacocke, in: Pensamiento 61 (2005) 59- 

76. 



philosophical aspects, but we will not just present his thought globally, but will 

comment on and discuss some of his most important approaches. 

1. John Polkinghorne his work as a whole 

1) His personality: the scientist and the believer. Polkinghorne was born in 1930 

in a town in Somerset, England, into an Anglican family which regularly attended 

religious services, in a family atmosphere of deep, committed faith. Although his faith 

matured with the passing of the years, he never stopped practising and feeling the faith 

received from his parents. He first studied mathematics at Cambridge, however, this 

encouraged him to continue his studies in theoretical physics, and he graduated in 

quantum theory of fields and in particle physics. He married in 1955 and in 1958 he was 

lecturer in mathematical physics at Cambridge. A decade later he became a professor, 

also of mathematical physics. During these years, his work enabled him to follow the 

birth of the theory of quarks and the progress in particle physics, while his work became 

oriented to creating mathematical models for the description of the movement of 

particles under relativist conditions. His scientific publications and his work directing 

postgraduates led to him being selected to be a member of the Royal Society in 1974. In 

1979 he participated in a broad research group and was the oldest member of the team. 

At that time he had spent 25 years dedicated to science and felt that it was time for a 

change in his life. 

In 1979 Polkinghorne left his post as professor at Cambridge and, with the support 

of his wife, he began to study theology. His initial idea was to dedicate himself to 

pastoral service in the Church of England and worked in this for four years. However, 

his extensive intellectual preparation continued to weigh on him, and led to a new 

intellectual job in the interdisciplinary field of science and religion, and a return to 

university work. He was first called to occupy the deanship of Trinity Hall and after 

three years he was appointed President of Queens College at Cambridge University, a 

post he held until he retired in 1996. However, since then he has continued his work as 

lecturer and writer. In 2002 he received the Templeton Prize for his career, but 

especially for his contributions over the last twenty years as scientist, philosopher and 

theologian 2 . 

2) His work in science and religion. Polkinghorne has acknowledged that his 

books are always brief. Perhaps, he says, this is due to the scientific habit of not losing 

oneself in words and going to the fundamental: quickly say what has to be said and 

finish. However, although they are brief, there are now about twenty books, apart from 

others as editor or collaborator, and numerous articles and lectures. It is true that he 

often repeats the same ideas (as do Barbour and Peacocke), but as a whole they make up 

a grand corpus of thought not only of a rigorous scientist who speaks from first hand 

and is also a profound philosopher and theologian. We do not know whether a logical 

ordering of the content has been carried out, but this would undoubtedly help to 

evaluate it. Limited by the conditioning of space, in this article we will provide a 

systematic sketch to frame our comments and discussions 3 . In this introductory review 

of his work we will group these in blocks in order to aid their identification. 

2 

3 

On his biography: Science and Theology News, April 2002, 1, 20; Polkinghorne, J., “The Life and 

Works of a Bottom Up Thinker”, in: Zygon, 35-4 (2000) 955-62. 

Polkinghorne is definitely not a systematic thinker. Only Science and Theology is a systematic 

scholarly treatise, but it is not very profound. His ideas are disperse, he repeats himself, his ideas are 

not systematised and are mixed together (that is to say, if he speaks of the big bang, for example, in 

the same piece of writing, he can easily pass on to make theological allusions, refer to panentheism, or 

132 



1) There are five works which are scientific. The first is The Particle Play (1979) 

where he presents the basic concepts of particle physics. The Quantum World (1984) on 

quantum mechanics in what we will call “intelligible” terms; has been his most sold 

book. Rochester Roundabout (1989) contains his personal memories where he 

reconstructs the conceptual world of his time as professor and researcher at Cambridge. 

Beyond Science (1996) also contains certain cultural comments on physics, 

complemented by his personal memories of eminent scientists (Dirac, Salam, Gell- 

Mann and Hawking). Although it addresses some results of science in cosmology and 

anthropology, the central part is on epistemology, the ethics of scientific work and its 

cultural contribution to society. Finally, Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction 

(2002) is a new conceptual presentation of quantum mechanics which complements the 

one of 1984 very well 4 . These are reference works for basic concepts. 

2) A book apart is The Way the World Is (1983). It records the arguments which 

led him to leave his Chair and his vision of science and faith; it is directed at his 

colleagues in an atmosphere of farewell, surprise and curiosity of many. It is a 

committed book and is also autobiographical (chapters 1 and 3), on the rational meaning 

of Christian cosmovision and his commitment to this. This first book led on to a trilogy 

of three short books, which were complementary. One World (1986) part of an analysis 

of the post-enlightenment culture as the origin of the misunderstanding of science and 

theology. However, these coincide in a single world they must speak about and become 

mutually enriched with their perspectives. Science and Creation (1988) presents the 

scientific image of the universe, stressing its order and constructive rationality and then 

opens up to natural theology and Christianity with the enriching contribution of the idea 

of a creator God in order to understand the deep nature of reality. Science and 

Providence (1989) introduces his favourite subject: the possibility and nature of divine 

action in the world. Can the fundamental God creator of the universe, whose ontology 

makes reality understandable in profundity act in the world under the sign of his 

providence over our lives? Science not only enables us to think of God as a fundamental 

explanation of the world, but also in the possibility of his active presence in the world 

and in our lives 5 . 

3) The following work is an epistemological reaffirmation in the philosophical 

task of theology, seeking its roots in the rational discourse of science. Reason and 

Reality (1991), he develops the connection of reason with reality and from reality (in the 

sense of one world) with science and with theology. Reason and reality are joined 

essentially to science, philosophy and theology. The Gifford Lectures of Polkinghorne 

are made up of The Faith of a Physicist (1994) in the United States, also published in 

England as Science and Christian Belief (1994). The book has a very significant subtitle: 

Theological reflections of a bottom up thinker. This book is his most substantial 

and important work. It is conceived as a search for rational intelligibility, undertaken by 

a bottom up thinker, in order to understand the deep significance of the Nicene Creed. 

Perhaps his approach may lead us to think that it is a theological essay, and in part it is 

4 

5 

other things). This systematic and logical ordering of his thought is a result of our efforts. Obviously 

we have made a selection of themes as we cannot allude to all the nuances explained by an author in 

over twenty books. 

Cf. The Particle Play, W.H. Freeman 1979; The Quantum World, Princeton University Press 1984; 

Rochester Roundabout, Longman/W.H. Freeman 1989; Beyond Science, Cambridge University Press 

1996; Quantum Theory. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press 2002. 

Cf. The Way the World Is. The Christian Perspective of a Scientist, Triangle 1983; One World. The 

Interaction of Science and Theology, SPCK 1986; Science and Creation. The Search for 

Understanding, SPCK 1988; Science and Providence. God’s Interaction with the World, SPCK 1989. 



in its final chapters. However, the propositions of the Nicene Creed permit broad and 

deep disquisitions on epistemological, scientific and philosophical subjects connected to 

theology. The question which makes us understand his approach is proposed by 

Polkinghorne himself: What evidence, which are the subject of rational scientific 

discourse, persuade us that the Nicene Creed speaks of the truth? 6 . 

4) The works which culminate with The Faith of a Physicist are independent but 

have unity and complementariness: published as a single treatise they would have 

internal consistency; although some repetitions would be eliminated. In a new stage, 

Scientists as Theologians (1996) compares the work of Barbour and Peacocke with his 

own, as regards the coincidences and the differences. It is an important book for stating 

precisely where the thought of Polkinghorne is located exactly. Quarks, Chaos and 

Christianity (1994) is another work of divulgation on some topics already developed: 

quarks (quantum indeterminacy), chaos (metaphysical indeterminacy) and Christianity 

(possible in a world which permits human action and divine action). This book is one of 

Polkinghornes favourites. Serious Talk. Science and Religion in Dialogue (1996) 

divulges some topics from previous works. Searching for Truth. A Scientist looks at the 

Bible (1996) is a book of meditation, apart from his scientific works. Belief in God in 

an Age of Science (1998) responds to the Terry Lectures at Yale. It is deep, repeats 

topics, but it permits us to achieve an in depth analysis of his epistemology and 

coincidence of science and theology in the vision of the same reality. It contributes 

important, new ideas and nuances for the understanding of Polkinghorne. Science and 

Theology. An Introduction (1998) responds to the written ordering of the course he gave 

in the General Theological Seminary of New York. It is his most useful, systematic and 

ordered work, although it is not personal or creative Faith, Science and Understanding 

(2000) is a deep, mature book where he presents some of his most characteristic topics 

with precision and rigour: biological design, critical realism, quantum cosmology and 

anthropic principle, panentheism, dual aspect monism, the theory of chaos, nature and 

temporality of divine action, as well as a brief reference to creative kenosis. Faith in 

the Living God (2001) is a book on a dialogue with the theologian Michael Welker and, 

finally The God of Hope and the End of the World (2002) deals with the credibility of 

human destiny beyond death with a preferably theological approach, although there are 

allusions to science, and this helps to clarify the personal survival of man in the 

scatological 7 . 

5) One final chapter on the works of Polkinghorne are the collective works 

published by him, his collaboration in other works published by several authors and his 

articles in journals. Published by him are The Work of Love. Creation as Kenosis 

(2002), an important work which synthesises the way in which authors such as Barbour, 

Peacocke, Polkinghorne, Ellis, Moltmann, among others, integrate the concept of 

kenosis into the theology of; and also The End of the World and the End of God (2000) 

which refers to the scatological events as regards the end of the universe from a 

6 

7 

Cf. Reason and Reality. The Relationship between Science and Theology, Trinity Press International, 

Philadelphia 1991; Science and Christian Belief. Theological Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker, 

SPCK 1994. 

Cf. Scientists as Theologians, A comparison of the writings of Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke and 

John Polkinghorne, SPCK 1996; Quarks, Chaos and Christianity. Questions to Science and Religion, 

Triangle 1994; Serious Talk. Science and Religion in Dialogue, SCM Press LTD 1995; Searching for 

Thruth. A Scientist Looks at the Bible, The Bible Reading Fellowship 1996; Belief in God in an Age of 

Science, Yale University Press 1998; Science and Theology. An Introduction, SPCK/Fortress Press 

1998 (there is a Spanish translation published by Sal Terrae); Faith, Science and Understanding, 

SPCK 2000; The God of Hope and the End of the World, SPCK 2002. 

134 



scientific perspective and scatological destiny from a theological perspective. His 

contributions to the series published by the Vatican Observatory are important as well 

as the CTNS of Berkeley: The Laws of Nature and the Laws of Physics, in volume 1, 

The Metaphysics of Divine Action, in volume 2, and Physical Process, Quantum Events, 

and Divine Agency, in volume 5. Also: A revived natural theology, in the Second 

ESSSAT Congress; Beyond the Big Bang, in a book published by Fraser Watts; Chaos 

Theory and Divine Action, in the treatise published by Richardson and Wildman. As 

regards his collaboration in journals we must stress the content in Zygon, especially the 

December 2000 edition with 64 pages dedicated to Polkinghorne, including three 

important articles of his: The Nature of Physical Reality, Science and Theology in the 

Twenty-First Century, and The Life and Works of a Bottom-Up Thinker 8 . 

Outstanding among these works, in which many subjects are recurrent and 

repeated, is the set of topics of the fundamental interweaving of Polkinghorne’s thought. 

We offer a personal, systematic synthesis which also enables us to make comments, 

evaluations and discussions. We cite the works mentioned through abbreviations which 

appear as footnotes 9 . 

2. Basic epistemology: What does being a “bottom up thinker” mean? 

In order to study the science and religion with a critical-scientific focus one must know 

what science, religion and theology are (the last is the discourse constructed on 

religion). Whatever is said depends on a basic epistemological discourse in the two 

perspectives, scientific and theological. Undoubtedly, this discourse must remain well 

established. 

1) Scientific rationality. His idea of science responds to the principles of 

Popperian epistemology (SaT, 14) with nuances from the contributions of post-Popper 

authors such as Kuhn (SaT, 11) and Lakatos (SCB, 47). Science starts from empirical 

8 

9 

Cf: The Work of Love. Creation as Kenosis, SPCK 2001; The End of the World and the Ends of God, 

Trinity Press International 2000; “The Laws of Nature and the Laws of Physics”, in: Russell, R.J., 

Murphy, N., Isham, C.J., (Eds.), Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature. Scientific Perspectives 

on Divine Action, Vatican Observatory/CTNS Berkeley 1999; “The Metaphysics of Divine Action”, 

in: Russell, R.J., Murphy, N., Peacocke, Arthur (Eds.), Chaos and Complexity. Scientific Perspectives 

on Divine Action, Vatican Observatory/CTNS Berkeley 1997; “Physical Process, Quantum Events and 

Divine Agency”, in: Russell, R.J. et alia (Eds.), Quantum Mechanics. Scientific Perspectives on 

Divine Action, Vatican Observatory/CTNS Berkeley 2001; “A Revived Natural Theology”, in: 

Fennema, J., Paul, L. (Eds.), Science and Religion. One World, Changing Perspectives on Reality, 

University of Twente/Kluver Academic Publishers 1990; “Beyond the Big Bang”, in: Watts, Fraser 

(Ed.), Theology and Science in Conversation, SPCK 1998; “Chaos Theory and Divine Action”, in: 

Mark Richardson, W., Wildman, W.J. (Eds.), Religion and Science. History, Method, Dialogue, 

Routledge 1996. The articles cited from Zygon are: “The Life and Works of a Bottom Up Thinker”; 

“The Nature of Physical Reality”; “Science and Theology in the Twenty-First Century”, all are in 

Zygon, 35 (2000) 927 et seq.. 

The following are the abbreviations used in this article in alphabetical order; in parenthesis we stare 

the note in which the full citation is found. BS, Beyond Science (4); BBB, Beyond the Big Bang (8); 

BGAS, Belief in God in an Age of Science (7); FSU, Faith, Science and Understanding (7); GHEW, 

The God of Hope and the End of the World (7); LWBT, Life and Works of a Bottom Up Thinker (8); 

LNLP, The Laws of Nature and the Laws of Physics (8); TNPR, The Nature of Physical Reality (8); 

OW, One World (5); PQDA, Physical Process, Quantum Events and Divine Agency (8); RAR, Reason 

and Reality (6); RNST, quotations from the journal: Research News on Science and Theology; RNT, A 

Revived Natural Theology (8); SAC, Science and Creation (5); SAP, Science and Providence (5); 

SaT, Science and Theology (7); SAT, Scientists as Theologians (7); SCB, Science and Christian Belief 

(6); STTC, Science and Theology in the Twenty-First Century (8); ST, Serious Talk (7); TMDA, The 

Metaphysics of Divine Action (8); TWWI, The Way the World Is (5). 



facts and makes an idea of reality; that is to say, it produces knowledge founded on 

facts. However, scientific knowledge is always an approximation; it is a false popular 

idea that science is certain knowledge with no fissures. It is always provisory, in the 

sense of Popperian falsability or of the Khunian scientific revolutions; he also cites 

Michael Polanyi –especially his work Personal Knowledge (RAR, 7; SaT, 15; ON, 12)– 

in order to insist on the fact that science is even a personal commitment, in the sense of 

Paul Riqueur when he says: “we must know in order to arrive at faith, but we need faith 

to arrive at knowledge” 10 . Science is thus a constant and open, interactive balance 

between the empirical and theory, modulated by personal commitment. However, in the 

end, science is open to surprise, to counter-inductive consequences as regards ordinary 

life, as in quantum mechanics where the facts and their empirical evidence end up 

drastically imposing themselves however strange they may be. His idea of science is 

strongly presented in sections Rational Enquiry and Rational discourse, in his work 

Reason and Reality (RAR, 4-19, 20-33). But it is a recurrent subject in other writings 

(SaT, 9-16; BGAS, 25 et seq.; OW, 6 et seq.). 

2) A “bottom up thinker”. Feeling that he is a scientist in a framework which is in 

accord with modern epistemology, Polkinghorne sees himself as a bottom up thinker. 

This self-description is undoubtedly intentional (SCB, 4; SaT, 1ss; LWBT, 955 et seq.). 

It has the undeniable background of the English empiricist tradition, which is general 

today in scientists, although with the Popperian and post-Poppperian nuances. The 

scientific (and also the human) is always founded on facts, to be submerged in the 

factual world, in reality, with no a priori presuppositions. Modern science explains man, 

the genesis of his psychism and of his knowledge, as the evolutionary final of an a 

posteriori process of insertion of organisms into the environment. Everything which can 

be thought and known thus has a bottom up genesis, from below, from the facts. The a 

priori or transcendental is not considered. The construction of theories, physical or 

metaphysical explanations are always attempts to explain the facts, to explain how these 

are possible as they are imposed on the scientific community. In this sense, he speaks of 

universe-assisted logic in science (RAR, 1). Thus, Polkinghorne’s insistence on his 

connatural scientific attitude as regards philosophical, metaphysical and theological 

assertions: find the empirical evidence –and the rigorous, rational constructions deriving 

from these– which make them likely and gives sense as describers of reality. The 

congruency of theology with the world of facts is, in short, the congruency between 

science, religious metaphysics and theology which an attempt is being made to 

investigate. This is the sense of the question which describes the scientific attitude, 

What is the evidence which permits us to think that things are thus? (LWBT, 958) What 

is the evidence which permits us to sense the likelihood that things are as religious 

metaphysics, natural theology or theology state? 11 . 

3) Critical realism. If science is always provisory interpretation in the Popperian 

and post-Popperian sense, What do we really know about reality? Polkinghorne answers 

this substantial question with his epistemology of critical realism, shared by Barbour, 

Peacocke and others (SAT, 11-25). This epistemology is realist: science produces 

knowledge which with probability correctly describe what the physical world in reality; 

realism, he tells us citing McMullin, is in part an empirical thesis of science (RAR, 6). 

10 Cf. Polanyi, M., Personal Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1958; Ricoeur, P., The Symbolism of 

Evil, Beacon Press 1975, 351. 

11 

In “The Life and Works of a Bottom Up Thinker”, Zygon, 35 (2000) 958, states that, “The belief that 

the question, “Is it reasonable?” is not to be answered in a priori terms but by asking the further 

question, “What is the evidence that makes you think it might be the case?”. 

136 



If science did not have this realism, our impressive technological adaptation to the 

world would be impossible today. In order to explain our ordinary lives, we must admit 

that we know something of the objective world. Thus, he opposes classical positivism 

(as the pure, formal, mathematical structuring of phenomena) and the School of 

Copenhagen (its formal-mathematical, functionalist utilitarianism, denying the scientific 

connections with the re, profound, physical ontology of the world) (SaT, 28, PQDA, 

183). However, this epistemology is also critical as well as realist: science is open in 

the Popperian sense to criticise already acquired knowledge, to revise its concepts, 

linguistic formulations, theories or mathematical formalisms, in order to promote 

progress towards the true reality. For critical realism, man knows reality, but not in an 

absolute, closed, definitive and irreversible way. It is clear that for Polkinghorne, as for 

Barbour and Peacocke, if science were only a set of concepts and mathematical 

formalisms useful for experimenting, dealing with nature, intervening in and predicting 

results, then it could say little to theology as this refers to the deep ontology of reality. 

Only in the framework of critical realism is the connection or consonance between 

science and theology understood (SaT, cap 1). 

4) Theological rationality: critical realism in theology. Like science, religion is 

also founded on facts. For Polkinghorne, as for Barbour and Peacocke, the religious 

experience is an unquestionable, empirical fact (RAR, 4). The religions are born and are 

constituted as a religious experience shared in a community (thus, they are also a 

posteriori). Atheistic thought has tried, in its own way, to explain the religious fact. 

However, the theology of each religion appears with the pretension to reflect on, found 

and explain the collective experience of this religion. Its logic is thus a communityassisted 

logic (the logic of science was a universe-assisted logic: RAR, 1). The insertion 

of Christianity into the Greek and Latin rational culture led to theology framing the 

Christian religion in the exercise of reason. Polkinghorne is aware that, since the Fathers 

of the Church, Christianity has made many attempts, conditioned culturally, in order to 

provide itself with rationality and since modern times require that a effort be made to 

address congruency with science, a rationality which is in conformity with a 

determining scientific culture (SAT, 1 et seq.). This coming and going from the 

religious experience to one or other system presents theological rationality as a 

discursive process similar to the critical realism of science itself: it is a theological 

reason which connects with reality, but not absolutely and definitively, but in an open, 

critical and perfectable manner (BGAS, 101-124). 

5) Models, metaphors, symbols, in science and theology. Polkinghorne discusses 

epistemological concepts such as model, metaphor and symbol in the exercise of 

scientific and theological rationality. For Barbour, especially, but also for Peacocke, the 

science-religion dialogue is conceived in terms of scientific and religious models. From 

theoretical physics it is possible to discuss these terms: the models are only utilitarian 

illustrations of the theories; metaphors and symbols hardly fit in physics (besides 

anecdotic uses such as “taste” or “colour” for certain properties of quarks). He thinks 

that it is the theories as complex, high density conceptual systems which should focus 

attention on analysis and comparison of the systems of scientific rationality and 

theology (SAT, 18-24, completed in: RAR, 21-33 and SaT, chap 1). 

6) Science-theology interaction: intelligibility between science and theology. What 

is the evidence that things are effectively thus? (LWBT, 958; RNST, April 2002, 20). 

What does the scientific evidence state about the theological image of reality? Barbour 

would respond with his heuristic proposal of the four forms of science-religion 

interaction: conflict, independence, dialogue and integration, and opted for the last two. 



Polkinghorne, however, proposes to replace these last two categories with those of 

consonance and assimilation: the first would be acceptable in the sense of consilience 

(of Wilson) between one and the other; the second would be discarded as sciencetheology 

assimilation lacks sense in either of the two possible directions (SaT, 20-22). 

However, science-theology consonance produces a dual direction mutual intelligibility. 

Theology finds a factor of intelligibility for the religious fact in science: decisive 

aspects of natural and divine ontology, of the creation, of divine action, of 

anthropology, etc. (this would be a theology enlightened by science). However, 

science also finds an important factor of intelligibility in religion (theology): the 

scientific description of the universe finds in theology a possible response which would 

confer ultimate intelligibility to the physical world. Polkinghorne, like Barbour and 

Peacocke, thinks that theology is the best proposal of intelligibility of the universe. Its 

origin, its rational design, its anthropic principle, etc., have the best proposal of ultimate 

intelligibility in the idea of God who is the necessary and creator basis in theology 

(BGAS, 101 et seq.). 

7) Atheistic intelligibility and religious motivation. That theology is the best 

proposal of intelligibility does not mean that it is the only one. Evidently, there are other 

which, we believe, will also appear to be the “best” to those who defend them (there is 

“no objective judge” who says “from above” which intelligibility is the best). 

Polkinghorne has no doubts in recognising that there are atheistic or agnostic proposals 

of intelligibility which have achieved substantial presence in society; this admission is 

contextually present, let us say passim, in all his works. His reflection as a bottom up 

thinker does not offer incontrovertible arguments –apologetic proofs– in favour of the 

religious, but only intuitions of likelihood (insightful, satisfying insight) which are not 

necessarily imposed, but are accepted through personal, scientific commitment, in the 

sense of Polanyi mentioned above (RNST, April 2002, 20; July-August 2003, 22) 12 . 

However, for the believer these intuitions may be valid as arguments –he uses this word 

repeatedly– for motivated belief (FSU, 27 et seq.; RNST, July-August 2003, 22). 

Consilience between science and theology is thus one more among the components –not 

the only nor the most important one– which can contribute, although not necessarily, to 

the motivated religiosity of the believer. 

3. Metaphysical evaluation from science 

What scientific evidence lends support to the evaluation of rational constructs of 

classical metaphysics? There is no systematic treatment of metaphysics in 

Polkinghorne. However, we do find dense, select passages in which he evaluates certain 

philosophical constructs, as a bottom up thinker, and these have had a decisive influence 

although they are not theology. Thus, the concept of God or the question of 

fundamentality and necessity. 

1) Necessity of existence as regards God and the universe. We comment on some 

paragraphs of his Gifford Lectures (SCB, 55 et seq.) in order to explain his approach to 

the question and our personal evaluation with precision. 

12 “It is not the case that atheists are stupid (far from it), but that they explain less than theists can” 

(NRST, april 2002, 20). “I do support a sort of modest, insightful natural theology, which doesn’t say, 

“look, you’re stupid if you don’t believe these arguments that God exists”, but rather says, “look, we 

can make the world more intelligible if we see it in divine terms than we would if we just saw it 

atheistically”. And that, I think, is based largely from the sort of insights that physics gives us” 

(NRST, July-August 2003, 22). 

138 



“On several occasions I have spoken of the aseity of God, that His essence 

implies His existence, in such a way that His nature is that of a being which necessarily 

exists, with no need for explanation in terms of an exterior reality”. 

He establishes two different connotations of divinity: having existence which is 

attributed necessity and having sufficient, absolute existence. These two metaphysical 

notions, necessity and absoluteness or sufficiency, are related although they are not the 

same. We will return to this. 

“The concepts of necessity can be presented in a variety of forms. The most direct 

manner is as the ultimate response to the big question of Leibniz, Why does something 

exist rather than nothing? Each explanatory chain must have a starting point which is 

necessary for this, in the sense of being what is not explained, and without its 

supposition it would be impossible to compose any explanation at all. Intellectually it is 

true that nothing can come from nothing. God can play this fundamental role for the 

believer, but for the atheist it would be natural to follow Hume and take the existence of 

the physical world, with its intrinsic properties, as the basis of the explanation” (SCB, 

55). 

Once the big question of Leibniz is posed, the response would be, Is there 

something real which remains in its reality because, in the end, it depends on something 

absolute and necessary? In which sense? In the sense of being unexplained: without 

postulating a necessary self-sufficient basis (which already exists and is imposed 

factually) it would be impossible to construct explanatory chains founded on existing 

reality. This tells us that God could be the foundation of the (necessary) real for the 

believer; but, for the atheist, the basis of the explanatory chain could be the physical 

world (to which, therefore, necessity must be attributed). Polkinghorne does not 

understand the question of Leibniz as formulated in the case that nothing exists (rather 

he understands it from the factual case that something does already exist, the universe 

and all its content). In the case of nothing, he states with metaphysical common sense, 

nothing can come. He is alien to this approach, founded empirically in what is given, in 

the scientific bottom up, saying that nothing would be impossible because it is necessary 

that something exists and this something necessary can only be God. That is to say, 

from existing, factual reality it makes sense to postulate self-sufficiency (absoluteness) 

and the consequent necessity; but from the case of nothing it is not justified to demand 

existence, and even less so, provide it eo ipso with the ontological properties of the 

divinity (copying Wittgenstein, we would say, that “as regards nothing” it is better to be 

silent). Below, we will analyse the ontological argument. However, it is also possible 

that the unexplained (absolute) foundation, which is therefore necessary for existing 

reality is situated in the pure physical world. Let us see this. 

“In order to approach the last explanation (that of the necessary foundation in the 

pure physical world) it should be postulated that matter is in some way sufficiently selfexplanatory. 

… Today there is a tendency among some theoretical physicists to believe 

that there is a single Theory of Everything a TOE, as they happily put it) whose 

discovery is just round the corner and will explain why the world exists” (SCB, 56). 

Besides presenting the opinion who believe that the self-sufficient foundation is 

found first in the physical world, and, secondly, it is also necessary, he discusses this 

(see the paragraph translated from SCB). This is a logical discussion as, from science, 

his point of view consists precisely in the evidence of the likelihood of the idea of God 

and the theological. However, we are interested in stressing one thing: that 

Polkinghorne acknowledges the fact and admits the legitimacy that science, starting 

from the factual world, of the universe-assisted logic, ops to attribute self-explanatory 



sufficiency to the pure physical world and, therefore, necessity. The fact that he 

discusses this option to the benefit of his own which has a theist character does not 

mean that he does not admit its feasibility and legitimacy; an attitude which is in 

consonance with his aforementioned epistemological presuppositions. 

From the scientific logic of a bottom up thinker, Polkinghorne positively values 

the metaphysical reference to the self-sufficient, absolute foundation, as to the necessity 

attributed to this. However, the logic of science starts from the factualness of the real 

existence of the universe (not cases like nothingness). The basic question is the selfsufficient 

absolute foundation of the real universe, already existing: for some the pure 

physical world has this self-sufficient foundation and necessity (although this may not 

be finally known, possibly by a TOE, how and why the universe has this necessityfundamentality; 

that is to say, the explanation why it exists and why it remains in 

existence necessarily). However, others see God as a hypothesis of necessary 

fundamentality which is more likely and has greater explanatory force. The 

metaphysical concepts of fundamentality and necessity are pertinent in the logic of the 

facts: science seeks the stable consistency of the system (absolute self-sufficient 

foundation) beyond the lack of meaning of appearing from nothing or disappearing from 

existence (necessity). However, these are not concepts which can be exclusively and 

automatically attributed to God as they can also be attributed to the pure physical world. 

One or other attribution depends on a bottom up argumentation from the facts: for 

scientific reasoning, but also for natural reasoning. The a posteriori argumentation 

which, for Polkinghorne, is open to all the real evidence –religious, aesthetic, social 

experiences …-, not included in science, but by other disciplines of knowledge. 

2) The ontological argument from science. The ontological argument presented by 

Polkinghorne in his Gifford Lectures is also of interest. It evaluates a subject of classical 

metaphysics discussed, but from the perspective of a bottom up thinker. He also states: 

“The strongest sense as regards divine necessity would be the requirement that 

once the implication of the concept of God is understood and that which states that 

“noting more perfect can be conceived”, it is understood that such a being should exist 

in any possible world. Naturally, this was the shocking affirmation of St. Anselm in his 

ontological argument, presented in the Proslogion. The debate on the validity of this 

argument has continued down the centuries. A scientist can only feel uncomfortable 

when attributing such powers to an unassisted reason (that is to say, which functions 

apart from the facts, in the sense that it is not a universe-assisted logic). If we cannot 

even prove the consistency of arithmetic, it is too much to expect that it easier to deal 

with the existence of God. I do not doubt that the maximally perfect being of St Anselm, 

if he exists (the italics are those of Polkinghorne), will necessarily exist and will not 

ontologically depend on any other thing (absolute, self-sufficient), however, the 

question is whether such a being is actually instantiated. There is something deeply 

satisfactory in the idea of God as the keystone of the arch of being, but it is difficult to 

believe that this is a question which can be established by a logical attitude. Charles 

Hartshorne is a notable defender of the ontological argument and tells us that, “God is 

the only individual understandable a priori”, but this does not seem to be the same as 

saying that He is the only individual whose non-existence is inconceivable a priori. God 

is ontologically necessary, but not logically necessary” (SCB, 57). The brackets are 

ours. 

The question is whether God exists or not. Considering that this exists will depend 

on the exercise of reason regarding the empirical facts (in part the facts described by 

science, although not only this). If the universe leads to establishing the anchoring of the 

140 



founding self-sufficiency in the divinity, the divinity will be necessary: necessaryfoundation 

of the factually existing reality. God will be ontologically necessary for an 

already existing universe. However, if we move in the case of nothingness, God would 

not be logically necessary: in other words, as regards nothingness, his non–existence 

would not be a priori inconceivable; as would the non-existence of a pure world. 

Therefore, if the question of Leibniz (Why does something exist and not nothing?) it is 

situated in the context of nothingness (and not in the context of the already existing real 

universe), supported by pure logic, we cannot say through universe-unassisted logic that 

the correct response is “because the existence of God is logically necessary”. 

This metaphysical evaluation from science is not because from it there derive 

important consequences. If the self-sufficient foundation and attributable necessity were 

metaphysical concepts exclusively referable to God, the metaphysical reflection would 

also, in principle, exclude the possibility of a purely natural or worldly description of 

the universe without God, atheistic or agnostic. The metaphysical reason correctly 

exercised, apart from science, would install man by imposition in a theo-centric horizon 

which is only possible to reject by rebelling against the evidence of metaphysical 

reason. If the metaphysical reason were thus, a priori, with the only exit involving theocentrism, 

we should admit this. However, the metaphysical reason is not like this: it is 

not constructed from the logic of nothingness, but from the logic of the empirical facts, 

the factual universe. Even St. Thomas thought in this way, who rejected the argument of 

St. Anselm, and the scholastic argument in general; but for St. Thomas and for 

scholasticism, the discourse on the facts did not permit the hypothesis of a universe 

without God, self-sufficient and necessary. This is confirmed by the bottom up 

evaluation of Polkinghorne in its extreme suggestive form. Peacocke also thinks in a 

similar way, and this is also our personal position. 

4. The real universe and the problem of foundation 

Traditional metaphysics started effectively from the verification of an existing reality 

and extracted the consequences of the existing factuality. From the factuality of the real 

being, and from the general abstraction of the notion of reality and being, the 

metaphysical reason can extract certain inferences. It may not be possible to say, a 

priori, that a divine being must, of necessity, exist. However, it may tell us that the real 

being, if it exists, must have a consistent foundation, in itself or in others, absolute, and 

is also not contingent (it may cease to exist), but necessary. From the interior of a real 

existing universe, our metaphysical reason infers a self-sufficient, absolute and 

ultimately necessary foundation. These are basic metaphysical principles for 

understanding how knowledge in general and even science functions. Copying the 

thought of Polkinghorne we would say that ontology models epistemology and, 

inversely, epistemology models ontology (SAT, 14). 

However, the general, abstract, metaphysical inferences are only guideline criteria 

for knowing the real factual universe. That is to say, in order to orientate towards the 

sufficient, necessary foundation which it must have. This foundation and necessity are 

not predetermined by abstract metaphysics: they depend on the specific characteristics 

of the universe which must be described a posteriori. This is an a posteriori 

argumentation which is open and unlimited as regards the factual universe. The sciences 

have contributed important results in physics, cosmology, biology, neurology, 

psychology, etc. However, science does not take in all the reality of experience 

(religious, aesthetic and social experiences, history, culture and human life in all its 

breadth and manifestations). However, Polkinghorne restricts himself, as a bottom up 



thinker, to the scientific evidence which make the idea of God, the theist positions and, 

especially, Christian theology likely as possible factors of intelligibility of the universe. 

1) The nature of physical reality. If we look for scientific evidence in the sense 

described, the analysis should be founded on the objective scientific presentation of the 

nature of physical reality. In his work, we often find chapters, almost always with the 

same title: nature of physical reality (this is seen in: BS, 3-22; in his two divulgation 

treatises on quantum mechanics; in TWWI, 7-18; OW, 26-42; SAC, 69-82; RAR, 49- 

58; ST, 17-32; SaT, 25-48). This basic, objective description covers the common 

topics, known by everyone but insisting on those points which will be more relevant as 

regards connecting science with religion. At the same time, its presentation of the 

scientific results discusses other opinions, making precisions as regards the biased 

presentations of other authors which attribute security to simple hypotheses or personal 

interpretation positions (for example, in the discussion on quantum vacuum and its 

repercussion on cosmology). Perhaps in Science and Theology, his most systematic 

work as it is a treatise, although we call it “scholarly”, it has the most systematic 

presentation of the scientific topics established as presuppositions: quantum theory, with 

the superposition of states, problems of measurement and epistemological 

interpretation, probabilistic-statistical knowledge, quantum worlds, uncertainty, 

complementariness, the non-localisation of quantum effects, EPR effects, etc. Observe 

that cosmologies are today constructed on the quantum idea of matter and are quantum 

cosmologies, and refer to the quantum vacuum, analyses its signification and also puts 

forward the theoretical sense of language regarding multiple universes, as well as all 

that we can say on the origin and end of the universe. He insists on the presentation and 

analysis of the scientific data which support the anthropic principle; as well as the 

evolutionary character of the universe, with the role of chance and necessity in the 

transition of states, the theory of chaos and the explanation of how order is produced 

from chaos, the general complexity of the physical systems, as well as time in the 

physical universe, the problem of its reversibility–irreversibility, the arrow of time and 

simultaneous events, as well as the theory of relativity. Finally, he supports the real 

physical existence of temporalisation as an essential factor to describe the actions of 

beings in the universe as compared with an atemporary static universe (SaT, 25-49). 

The real existence of the physical universe described by science involves problems 

which point to God and the theological as hypotheses (intuitions of likelihood) which 

will make it intelligible: these are, above all, the problem of self-sufficiency consisting 

(the problem of foundation) of its intelligibility and the anthropic design of its physical 

architecture. Polkinghorne considers that the theist hypothesis would give the world 

more inteligibility as regards these problems; but he does not deny the feasibility of 

other hypotheses oriented towards atheism or agnosticism. 

2) The problem of self-sufficiency founded on the universe. If the universe really 

exists it can be expected that, due to the metaphysical reason, this is sufficient: that it be 

a self-sufficient foundation in itself and presents a permanent consistency in time 

without breaking up (we said that necessity can be attributed to this universe). If the 

universe described by science does not appear to present appropriate ontological 

characteristics and properties for its stability and consistency in time, cosmology is then 

faced with the problem of the sufficiency or foundation of the universe. If the universe 

is real, sufficiency must exist; if it does not seem to have it in itself (as it is in fact real), 

then, where must sufficiency be located? This is precisely the problem of fundamental 

self-sufficiency of the universe. For Polkinghorne science objectively describes two 

142 



directions: the past and the future. As regards the past, it reconstructs, depending on the 

data of the current universe, the previous states covered, up to the first moment of the 

origin and existence of the universe, the big bang; with no speculation, pure science 

cannot “scientifically” conceive a previous state. As regards the future, science is 

directed towards a growing universe in dispersion which will end up disappearing. 

Where is the sufficiency of a universe with a precise origin, apparently destined to an 

inevitable end? With regard to these evidences and theoretical constructs, theism is 

presented as a likely intuition which would provide the universe with the required selfsufficient 

and necessary foundation: divine reality (SAC, 51 et seq.; GHEW, 3 et seq.; 

SCB, 52 et seq., 71 et seq.). 

Evidently there are other speculative hypotheses to provide the universe with selfsufficiency 

(the theist hypothesis is also speculative). Polkinghorne respects the 

legitimacy and feasibility of these non-theist proposals although he tries to show its 

immaturity, its weak points and the lack of empirical proof (obviously, the atheists do 

not think in this way), in order to stress the simplicity and greater explanatory force of 

the theist hypothesis. We stated above that he was sceptical as regards a Theory of 

Everything (TOE) which, as some expect, would make it possible to explain the nature 

of matter, the why of the existence of the universe and the origin of its intelligible, 

ordered construct. In addition, he criticises the feasibility of conceiving an oscillating 

universe in the style of Hawking, the quantum worlds of Everett, or the multiple 

universes generated from the fluctuations of the quantum vacuum, in the lien of the 

speculations of Guth as the quantum vacuum is not nothingness and presents dense 

physical-geometric properties (SAC, 59-60). 

3) The problem of order, cosmic rationality, anthropic design. These three topics 

of the physical description occupy a substantial part of the interest of Polkinghorne. The 

universe presents an evident order which can be produced even from within chaotic 

processes (SAC, 34 et seq.; SaT, 41-43). Cosmic rationality or intelligibility makes the 

world marvellously rationally transparent and the abstract mathematical constructs of 

reason are found later surprisingly implemented in the real physical world (RNT, 89). 

The universe is as it is, but nothing prevents it from having been slightly different. 

However, its values are finely adjusted to make the chemistry of carbon, life and even 

human life possible. This anthropic design of the universe has made it possible to 

construct the concept of anthropic principle as a more surprising component of its 

rational design (FSU, 85-89; SaT, 36-39). Why has the universe been able to produce 

this order in its interior, this cosmic rationality, this anthropic design? Those who 

defend an atheist or agnostic theory of the universe argue in order to show that the same 

intrinsic properties of matter would produce the characteristics of its design. However, 

Polkinghorne considers that theism is the theoretical hypotheses, which offers the 

ordered, rational, anthropically designed world a greater and fuller intelligibility. 

4) Conclusion: a God who is the necessary and creator foundation. The universe 

could perhaps be the self-sufficient and necessary foundation of itself. However, the 

immediate consequence of its scientific description is, undoubtedly, the immense 

problematism and insecurity generated in the decision to attribute it self-sufficient and 

necessary ground of being which metaphysical reason postulates. Theism appears on the 

horizon as theoretical proposal with the strongest explanatory force for understanding 

that the universe is as it is and where its necessary grounds lie. For theism, God is not 

only the foundation of being in absolute and necessary sufficiency, but He explains the 

order, rationality and anthropic design of the universe. Since God, as the explanatory 

principle which does not form part of the universe (this constitutes the scientific 



explicandum), is transcendent, the existence of the universe requires postulating a 

creator action (SAC, 51 et seq.; SCB, 71 et seq.). A creator action which would be 

produced from the only presupposition of the real ontology of God, who Himself would 

open up an ontological area in order to construct the world (he states this citing the well 

known ideas of Moltmann on the zim-zum). Therefore, not producing the world from 

something pre-existing and other than God would thus be creatio ex nihilo (SCB, 76). 

Moreover, the evolutionary and dynamic nature of the universe, in the divine 

ontological depths, would make it necessary to understand the creator action as a creatio 

continua which Polkinghorne will relate to his way of understanding the divine action in 

the world and which we will analyse below (SCB, 75 et seq.). This scientific evidence 

leading to the likely intuition that perhaps the theological idea of a God who is 

necessary and creator is correct, constitutes the essential base for consonance between 

science and religion: although God is a transcendent mystery, it is possible to think of 

the existence of a real, transcendent being, who by analogy is considered to be the 

personal, omnipotent-creator, necessary and self-sufficient foundation of the universe. 

5. A universe producing life, consciousness, humanity 

The universe has produced life, consciousness, humanity. These are empirical facts 

which science knows and tries to explain in an interdisciplinary fashion and reaching 

certain provisory conclusions; explanatory tendencies which do not conceal the existing 

enigmas. Polkinghorne, citing Nagel, considers the possibility of an integrated theory of 

reality (which will take centuries to happen); if the problem of consciousness were 

resolved, this would alter our perception of the universe more radically than anything 

else before (SCB, 21). However, religion and theology also speak of life, consciousness, 

humanity. So, does the scientific evidence in this field, though provisory and tentative, 

also permit a likely intuition of theological affirmations? 

1) Evolution. Polkinghorne includes the ordinary description of the evolutionary 

process of the universe since the big bang. For thousands of millions of years there was 

only the evolution of the physical universe in the terms described by modern 

cosmology. And life began: as regards its origin modern biology also offers a complex 

theory, not always shared, concerning the circumstances, events and physical 

interactions leading to the birth of life. There are no doubts that evolution occurred and 

that life, consciousness and humanity have been generated from the physical world. 

However, the explanation of how this was possible and which causal factors contributed 

to it are still discussible. Polkinghorne mentions the two fundamental problems. First, 

the problem of the time necessary to generate the portentous deployment of life in all its 

varieties, by chance and necessity in the genetic codifications. Like others (among them 

Fred Hoyle 13 ), he thinks that there is not enough time. Second, an even more 

fundamental problem, Why do organisms become more and more complex with time? 

The evolutionary direction of growing complexity is the optimistic arrow of time, in the 

expression of Paul Davis 14 . The knowledge of the laws of organisation of matter in 

organisms leads us to think that life should tend to stabilise in much more rudimentary 

forms. What has produced this surprising impulse towards complexity? For 

Polkinghorne, together with John Maynard Smith, these two problems are infinitely 

greater if we focus on the evolutionary process of the biological brain up to man, and 

13 

14 

Cf. Hoyle, Fred, El Universe Inteligente, Grijalbo Barcelona 1989. 

Cf. Davis, Paul, The Cosmic Blueprint, Heineman 1987, 20; Spanish translation in Pirámide, with the 

title Proyecto Cósmico. 

144 



the specific evolution of man. His critical observations point undoubtedly to checking 

new explanatory problems in evolution which would also become ineligible from the 

supposition of divine rational design, the creatio continua and the forms of divine action 

in the universe (SCB, 16 et seq.). 

2) The consciousness: dual aspect monism. The appearance of consciousness in 

the superior animals and in man is an evolutionary fact. He points out that 

consciousness and rationality are not the same. He addresses the problem of 

consciousness; however, we have not found a pertinent analysis of the origin of human 

rationality in his work (chapter 2 of SCB, Knowledge, is more about scientific 

epistemology). Consciousness is the foundation of human life, but the signs of 

transcendence, freedom and spirituality present in man have hindered its explanation, 

both in philosophy and in science. He refers critically to the dualist theories on 

consciousness: Cartesianism, to Gabriel Daly and John Eccles, radically distancing 

himself from these. Polkinghorne’s own position is formulated in terms of a dual aspect 

monism which he considers to be the best synthesis of what is said by biological science 

and neurology. In the world there is only a single sub-stratum (not two irreducible 

realities, the physical and the mental), however, it may present itself in two different 

states: what a physicist would call material and mental states. In certain circumstances 

matter would be related with itself in a certain manner and the mental state would not 

occur: it would be in a material phase; but in other conditions matter would interact 

producing a mental, sensitive or conscious state at levels of greater complexity. This 

proposal, like that of Thomas Nagel, describes the problem rather than resolving it. The 

only positive thing is to establish monism as regards dualism: but the problem consists 

of how and why these two material and mental phases arise from the nature of physical 

reality (SCB, 21 et seq.; FSU,95-99). He provides no clarifying ideas. 

3) Emergentism. Although he prefers to speak of dual aspect monism and avoids 

the term emergentism (although not always: see LNLP 429432), it is inevitable to 

situate his evolutionism and his biological monism in an emergentist theory, similar to 

that held by Barbour and Peacocke. Both the physical phase of organised matter and is 

sensitive-conscious-mental state were formed in an evolutionary way in the universe. 

The mental phase, obviously, from the appearance of life; although it can also be asked 

whether the nature of inorganic matter already contained the ontological germ of the 

subsequent mental phase. Thus, his position must be interpreted as a defence of dual 

aspect monism and of the evolutionary genesis of both phases by emergence from the 

nature of the physical world. However, he does not dare to hypothesise on a deeper 

explanation of the emergence of the mental from the physical. Thus, he criticises the 

panpsychism of Whitehead as being inappropriate (SCB, 22-23), the set of 

explained/implied universe concepts in David Bohm (for us easily harmonised with his 

dual aspect monism: SCB, 23-24), or the attempts of Penrose to achieve an explanation 

of consciousness from quantum mechanics (SCB, 20-21). Perhaps Polkinghorne has not 

been able to evaluate, or has not dared to evaluate, such suggestive proposals as those of 

Hameroff-Penrose. He is so reserved that he establishes emergentism, but does not 

venture into any hypotheses on how the ontology of the physical world could produce 

the emergence of consciousness. He even seems to be annoyed with those who attempt 

this. On the other hand, (Barbour and Peacocke are not like this) he often refers to the 

EPR phenomena as a proof of the holistic character of physical reality, and even 

considers them to be determining content of the physics of the XXI century and its 

relationship with theology (STTC, 943). However, he cannot sense what all this might 

mean in relation to the nature of psychism. 



We do not find references to the evolutionary origin of rational knowledge. 

However, in all his monist and evolutionary-emergentist thought, a posteriori, we must 

also understand a naturalist explanation: knowledge would arise in the evolutionary 

development of the psychic activities. Therefore, in a posteriori interaction of 

consciousness with reality through the senses. Polkinghorne, like Barbour and 

Peacocke, stands apart from Cartesian rationalism, Kantian apriorisms or transcendental 

perspectives, which are still so frequent today in German influenced Catholic 

philosophy/theology. 

4) The human soul. The scientific image of man is very different from what was 

said in classical anthropology and psychology in previous centuries. But new evidence 

permits us to re-interpret theology in order to supply it with a new intelligibility. There 

is a brief, very clear text which can replace our synthesis. 

“Top pretend that the understanding of human nature in the new millennium will 

be in psychosomatic terms is not, therefore, to capitulate in any way before a crass 

reductionist physicalism. The matter of our bodies by itself cannot have permanent 

significance as regards what a person signifies, because this matter is in continual 

change due to wear and tear, food and drink. We have very few atoms in our bodies 

which were there five years ago. What remains is the dynamic pattern in development in 

which these atoms are ordered. The soul –the real me– is the pattern carrier of almost 

infinite, complex information constituted by the matter of the body. In short, the soul is 

the form of the body (we note that this is in the sense explained, not in the Aristotelian 

sense). Obviously the pattern will break up in death, but it seems to me that it is a 

perfectly coherent hope that God remembers the pattern that I am, maintaining it in the 

divine spirit, in order to construct it then in an act of resurrection. The context of this 

sublime act of re-incarnation will be the new creation, a scatological kingdom 

inaugurated in the seminal event of the resurrection of Christ. In other words, Christian 

hope is not for survival, as if it were the expression of intrinsic human immortality, but 

the resurrection, the expression of the eternal fidelity of God” (STTC, 951; also in: 

SCB, chap. 9). 

This understanding of the soul in scientific perspective, we add, is compatible with 

the theological admission of the fact that, after the course of evolution leading to the 

psychosomatic and neurological maturity of man, until it makes it capable of divine 

appeal, The Spirit of God breathes his supernatural and mystical presence into the 

human spirit, and the creation of the human soul in the theological sense terminates in 

this way. Thus, the natural process would be completed by the specific, divine appeal 

present in all men, the existential constituent of the exclusive, supernatural dimension of 

every human being. 

5) Immanence as opposed to panentheism. Polkinghorne recognises the growing 

trend of many of his colleagues involved in the science-religion dialogue to accept and 

use the concept of panentheism as an appropriate descriptor of the relationship of God 

with the world (SAT, 32-33). Opposed to the classical theodicy which presents an 

immutable, impassive and distant God, or opposed to pantheism which identifies God 

with the processes of the world, panentheism is more precise as it insists on the presence 

of the divinity in all creation, while maintaining His transcendence and ontological nonidentification 

with the world as such. Against this generalised tendency, propitiated by 

Whitehead, the philosophy/theology of process, Barbour and Peacocke, Polkinghorne 

does not like the concepts of panentheism if these are analysed with precision. He fully 

admits the Pauline idea that in God we move, exist and are, he prefers to continue to use 

146 



the traditional concepts of divine omnipresence and immanence (and better if these are 

interpreted in accord with orthodox theology which distinguishes between divine 

essence and powers or energies: FSU, 92, 95). His criticism of the panentheism of the 

process lies in the fact that it does not sufficiently explain the nature of divine action, in 

such a way that the believer can trust it. Furthermore, terms such as “the presence of 

God penetrates all the universe”, “the universe is part of God”, “the world does not 

exhaust the being of God”, etc. do not seem appropriate to him. Nor does he like the 

organic simile that God takes in the universe like a living being takes in its body, feels it 

and intervenes in it. His criticisms are repeated in different places. As regards the recent 

panentheistic proposals of Philip Clayton, he criticises his concept of omnipresence 

considering space as an attribute of God; his argument regarding the impossibility of 

considering the world as something other which limits God; his explanation of causality 

by organic analogy, in danger of falling into a corporalisation of the being of God; 

finally, his panentheism to conceive the close relationship of the creator with humanity, 

which could also be done within the classical concept of immanence (FSU, 92-93). For 

Polkinghorne pantheism would perhaps be an appropriate concept for describing the 

final scatological relationship of God with humanity (SAT, 55). 

For the theist, human reason, in our opinion, the most immediate (although also 

analogical) is the existence of God as the necessary, personal, transcendent and creatoromnipotent 

foundation. However, speaking of the divine essence, of its ontology, and its 

relationships with the world is diffuse and imprecise. However, in order not to fall into 

an apophatic, negative philosophy/theology and not say anything, we must admit that 

the language on God makes sense, is rational; but it is only suggestive, improper, 

approximate, analogical… Classical concepts such as omnipresence and immanence are 

thus diffuse and criticisable by apophatic thought (Why not panentheism?). It is true 

that certain concepts of panentheism (e.g. in the theology of process or in some 

considerations of Clayton) are easily criticised. However, in his criticisms of 

panentheism Polkinghorne seems susceptible and seeks to split hairs. Criticising 

Whitehead and Barbour can be explained, but criticising Peacocke seems excessive. It is 

evident that Peacocke does not attribute a body to God, nor does he consider God to be 

an organism. In our opinion, together with other similes, analogies and suggestions, to 

say that God takes in the universe like a living being takes in its own body, although 

with a different, unknown and ritualistic divine ontology, represents an image which is 

Christian orthodox and enriches the traditional concepts of omnipresence and 

immanence. 

6. A comfortable universe for human and divine action 

1) The problem. Religion is founded on free, human actions and on the experience of 

human action in the world. The biblical God is not the God of deism, but a God who 

acts in the world, He acts as spirit in man, He responds to his prayers and intervenes in 

his favour (e.g. in his powerful interventions in the exodus of Israel or in the miracles of 

Jesus). Now, if the world were physically constructed as a strictly mechanist and 

determinist system, any future state would be fixed by the previous ones: in this 

clockwork universe any alteration of the process already determined could significantly 

damage the stability of the system (this would happen, for example, if a planet in the 

gravitational, mechanical world of Newton left its stipulated orbit, it would produce 

foreseeable gravitational chaos). Everything happens with necessity and interventions 

alien to the system do not make sense, such as human free will or divine action, which 

could alter its causal concatenations. If the image of science were this mechanical and 



determinist universe (it was at one time), then it would not make the religious 

pretension of human freedom likely (human action) nor divine intervention in the world 

(divine action). Is this so? To a great extent, the reflection of Polkinghorne has been 

oriented towards showing that it is not so: modern science, on the contrary, today 

presents an open universe which makes human action and divine intervention likely 

(SAP, 1-17, 36ss; SAT, cap. 5). Polkinghorne does not now refer to the fundamental 

action of creation, or creatio continua, whose intuition of likelihood, were argued 

previously. It is now a question of the personal interventions of God in human history. 

Modern science presents two ways to establish an open and to a great extent 

undetermined universe: quantum mechanics and chaotic processes. It is possible to find 

reasons to make human and divine action likely in these two ways. 

2) Quantum mechanics. The new quantum physics, in fact, introduced 

indeterminacy as an explanatory fact of the microphysical phenomena; thus, the need 

for predictions founded on probability and statistics (SaT, chap. 2). In Polkinghorne’s 

opinion, for the majority of physicists this is not a question of cognitive indeterminacy 

(epistemological), but really ontological (TMDA, 148). Therefore, God could in some 

unknown way “determine” the quantum indeterminacies in order to act in the world 

without altering the constructive design which He Himself has provided (ontologically 

open). Writers such as George Ellis, Pollard, Nancey Murphy, Thomas Tracy, Robert 

Russell and even William Stoeger have insisted much on this line of thought 15 . 

However, after admitting that it is in fact a pertinent and suggestive line of thought, 

Polkinghorne insists that our knowledge of the quantum world is not yet sufficient for 

defined conclusions to be reached. He considers the quantum reflection cautiously and 

proposes two basic difficulties. The first is that quantum mechanics speaks of 

indeterminacy only when measures are carried out from the macro-physical world; but 

while these are not carried out in the quantum world, there is a determinist continuity in 

accordance with the equation of Schoedinger. This enables us to enter the second 

difficulty: a convincing explanation of how the quantum world projects its effects on the 

macro-physical world has not yet been proposed. This leads to the discussion today on 

the problem of measurement in quantum mechanics. Polkinghorne takes up a position 

in this regard (the density matrix, the Neo-Copenhagen interpretation, the proposal of 

G. Ghirardi, A. Rimini and Tullio Weber, with the nuances of Penrose through quantum 

gravity, the conception of Bohm, or the reference to the role of consciousness in the 

collapse of the wave function: PQDA, 183-185). It may be supposed that the 

indeterminate quantum effects could be the micro-physical detonator of certain chaotic 

processes whose effects would finally be amplified on a macro-physical world. 

Nevertheless, today there are not yet any appropriate studies on quantum chaos to help 

us understand precisely what this might be. In conclusion: for Polkinghorne it is clear 

that quantum mechanics opens up an ontological perspective of reflection on the 

flexibility, opening, and indeterminacy of the physical world. Undoubtedly, this favours 

the possibility of human and divine action, without breaking up the internal, functional 

design of the universe. However, today quantum theory continues to be obscure and 

does not permit well constructed hypotheses on how both could be generated from the 

quantum world (TMDA, 152-153; FSU, 105 et. seq.; SAT, 34-35). 

15 

Cf. Ellis, George F.R., “Ordinary and Extraordinary Divine Action: The Nexus of Intervention”; 

Murphy, N., “Divine Action”; Tracy, Thomas F., “Particular Providence and the God of the Gaps”; 

Stoeger, W., “Describing God’s Action in the World in Light of Scientific Knowledge of Reality”, 

articles contained in: Russell. R., et alia (Eds.), Chaos and Complexity. Perspectives on Divine Action, 

Vatican Observatory/CTNS Berkeley 1997. 

148 



3) Chaotic processes. The determinist equations of the classical theory of chaos 

must only be understood as approximations for certain systems absolutely isolated from 

the environment. However, this is not the situation of real systems in opening up to 

multi-form effects of the environment (PQDA, 189). Their exquisite sensitivity makes 

them intrinsically unpredictable and unique in character. Their future evolution depends 

on imponderable factors and tends towards a range of undetermined future possibilities: 

for a chaotic system its strange attractor represents the global chart of possibilities 

which could contain the future movement of the system: not everything is possible, but 

a wide range of future states are possible and may occur and may fit into nature without 

deconstructing its design (thus it is open and undetermined). Evolution by chaotic 

processes produces a nature with open, oscillating states: he calls this the envelop of 

possibility: LNLP, 435) or intrinsic gaps: LNLP, 438). These indeterminacy bubbles (as 

I like to call them) constitute an open nature: the surface of the earth thus permits the 

construction of many possible states (e.g. lifting or lowering one’s arms) without 

altering its created functional design (non determinist). Polkinghorne offers an 

interpretation of the theory of chaos which is not only epistemic, but also ontological 

(LNLP, 433): chaos is essential for understanding the open, flexible undetermined 

ontology of macro-physical nature (LNLP, 432-435; TMDA, 153-154; FSU, 99 et. seq). 

It is a sign of the open and integrated nature of the physical world. Open because 

bottom up causality does not determine a closed future. However, this is also integrated 

because this open world offers the possibility that other causal principles might act in it: 

for example, top down causality, of a holistic character, which is proper to living beings 

and man. Therefore, psychism generates free, open and undetermined decisions with a 

framework of oscillation, which orientate the conduct of the living being. Top down 

psychic causation is holistic and different from bottom up causation described by 

physics; but the generation of open processes – or indeterminacy bubbles – by the 

dynamics of chaos make the appearance of top down causation possible (TMDA, 153). 

Human action on the environment is oscillating, it does not follow a necessary pattern, 

and, in one way or another, it remakes the structures of the environment: but these 

events, as well as many others which might take place, do not entail tension in the open 

nature which already contains them in the range of possibility of the indeterminacy 

bubble (in the strange attractor) created on the surface of the earth. 

4) Active information. Polkinghorne takes inspiration from the experience of 

human action in order to understand the form in which divine action occurs in the world 

(TMDA, 437). Human action, therefore, divine action will be explained through the 

concept of active information. Psychism is, on the one hand, information; but this 

means the active reorganisation of a certain pattern, a certain structure, which produces 

effects in the physical world: for example, once a type of food is known, the will to 

obtain this alters the neuronal patterns which lead to the action involved in obtaining it. 

Therefore, human action is active information. It establishes a parallel between this 

active information and dual aspect monism: mental (information) and physical (active). 

Divine action could be conceived in a similar way, also as active information, although 

at a superior, deeper ontological level. God in a superior form (analogical and 

ritualistic) is also information and should be attributed the active capacity to transform 

a certain real pattern, without altering the functional balance of the natural, open 

system: either by the communication of information (as in mystical experiences), or by 

a possible direct restructuring of a certain physical structure (as in a possible miracle in 

which the abnormal structure of a cancer is transformed into a healthy structure). This 

suggests that this influence in the transformation of a pattern could occur through a flow 



of energy, or through a flow of information. The truth is that we do not yet understand 

this. Nevertheless, it should be maintained that the influence of the holistic instance 

(human psyche or God) would have the effect of reorganising the physical energies 

already present in the structures constituting the physical world, still without being in a 

source of energy exterior to the system itself (PQDA, 187); this happens clearly in 

human action (as when the volition energetically activates the reorganisation of 

neuronal patterns) and postulates that something like this must take place in divine 

action (PQDA, 187; TMDA, 154; LNLP, 434-435; FSU, 96-97, 123-125; BGAS, 62-63, 

66-67, 93-94). However, He also admits the possibility of divine action as the “cause 

among causes” which is not only information, but also energy (KCDA, 105). 

To conclude, I put forward some remarks. The holism defended by Peacocke is 

very different from what is proposed by Polkinghorne. The active information only 

explains the divine actions of a singular nature, but the holistic presence of God in the 

physical world would respond to the divine omnipresence and immanence. Peacocke 

has a similar concept of active information, but he gives it more force through his 

philosophical panentheism, which Polkinghorne does not adhere to due to the caution 

explained above. However, although the reorganisation of a pattern is produced within 

the possibilities opened by an indeterminacy bubble in a chaotic world, its seems 

evident that restructuring, properly speaking, should be generated in a micro-physical 

dimension: thus, the need, felt by Polkinghorne himself, to soon achieve physics of 

quantum chaos in order to make an explanation of divine action in the micro-physical 

quantum environment intelligible. Finally, for Polkinghorne, what is said about human 

and divine action, especially the latter, is pure conjecture, as wee do not know what the 

ontology of the world nor the ontology of God are like, nor how divine action could 

take place in these. However, although it is pure conjecture, his speculation shows us a 

physical world which includes human freedom and could also include the free ritualistic 

action of God on the world (at least as these conjectures propose). 

7. Process philosophy and theodicy 

1) Philosophy/theology of process. Polkinghorne considers the high value of the 

contributions of Whitehead, but he distances himself from his physical, psychical and 

philosophical appreciations, which are essential for the philosophy of process. His most 

basic criticism refers to the discontinuous conception presented by the concept of event: 

physics subsequent to 1924, when Whitehead abandoned theoretical physics, in fact, 

admits the discontinuity of particles, but in its formulas there is also a glimpse of a 

world which is in part continuous (fields, waves, etc). His criticism of panpsychism is 

also decisive. Citing the interpretation of David Griffin, he remembers that as regards 

the philosophy of process, the difference between the proton and the psyche is only one 

of degree: and this way of thinking can only be classified as panpsychist, despite the 

effort to contribute nuances to the thought of Whitehead. In the same line, he also 

rejects the panentheism of Whitehead and the philosophy of process in general (as he 

had rejected the suitability of this concept in his discussion with Peacocke). He 

especially rejects the process concept of the lure, the specific impulse of God so that the 

evolutionary process goes in the proper direction (SCB, 22-23; SAT, 27-28). From a 

conceptual point of view, therefore, Polkinghorne is very distant from the philosophy of 

process. However, he is closer as regards the limitation to omnipotence and divine 

omniscience. As regards the latter, he is very radical: God chose to create a world 

which is made through indeterminist and chaotic processes, whose ontology doe not 

permit a knowledge of the precise, specific results (although it does permit knowledge 

150 



of the statistical probabilistic tendencies of the group). He rejects the Augustinian idea 

of a God outside time who knows what happens in time as a whole (SCB, 59; 65-66). 

God cannot know what ontologically cannot be known (SAP, 79-80). As concerns 

omnipotence, he is more moderate than with the philosophy of process, but, in any case, 

he believes God cannot be made responsible for evil. Citing Keith Ward, he says that it 

s better too deny that God can act in all, than have to make Him responsible for 

arbitrariness or manipulation (SCB, 83, 79-87). 

2) Natural theology, theodicy. The problem of evil, in the last resort, has led to the 

theology of process denying divine omnipotence. Polkinghorne believes that God is 

omnipotent, but has limited himself voluntarily when designing a universe in 

accordance with two principles: the free-process defence and the free-will defence. 

These principles are oriented to creating a world where human freedom is possible: a 

nature which is co-creator of itself and a free man co-creator of himself. Then, within 

this design, appear physical evil and moral evil, but the divine plan to maintain this 

design points to a superior good, as shown by the Christian theology of suffering. 

Divine action can also intervene in the processes of the world, without altering its 

autonomous nature or human freedom. He also rejects the classical and scholastic ideas 

on divine immutability, impassiveness and intemporality, in order to approach the God 

of the theology of process. Although God is the necessary foundation, transcending the 

world and eternal, He is involved in temporary history and accompanies man in his 

suffering as is seen in the Bible (SCB, 81-85, 42-46; SaT, chap. 5; RNT, 87et.seq.). 

8. A kenotic plan in creation 

The theological concept and theme of kenosis is not an original contribution of 

Polkinghorne. He acknowledges his gratitude to the work of other theologians of the 

XX century who led him to understand the importance of the fact that creation is always 

wrapped round a kenosis 16 . Besides the concept of Pauline kenosis (Phil 2, 1-11) 

applied to the divine self-limitation of the Word incarnated in the person of Christ, 

modern theology has extended this concept to refer to a kenosis of God in creation 

(KCDA, 92; also in: FSU, 125-126). In the text cited in the note, we confirm how he 

understands this creative kenosis: a divine self-limitation which permits creatures to be 

themselves and make themselves; and this “making themselves” is what constitutes the 

essential nature of an evolutionary world. The same idea, though somewhat more 

precise, is in his masterpiece of 1994: creation wraps the risk of the existence of the 

other, it is a voluntary kenosis of God generated in the logic of the Love which requires 

the freedom of the person loved (SCB, 81). Later he also adds the idea that, through 

kenotic creation, God has made Himself vulnerable to the creatures (FSU, 126). 

Nevertheless, apart from these slight anthropological notes consequent to kenosis (an 

evolutionary world which permits man to be himself, make himself, be free as regards a 

“vulnerable” God), the reflection on kenosis has focused on its ontological nature. For 

this, he has applied the scientific image of the world in order to find those intuitions of 

likelihood orienting dimensions for the Christian understanding of the kenosis of the 

divinity in creation. The synthesis of his thought is found in his contribution to the 

work, published by himself in 2001, The Work of Love, where he studies the 

relationship between kenosis and divine action (KCDA, 90-106). 

16 

“I am also grateful to a number of 20th-century theologians who have emphasized the concept that 

creation involves a kenosis, o divine self-limitation, as God permits creatures to be themselves and to 

make themselves, the latter phrase encapsulating the theological understanding of the nature of an 

evolutionary world” (Research News, April 2002, 20). 



1) Kenosis and divine action. In philosophy and in theology, God is the necessary 

foundation, the omnipotent creator of the universe. Christian faith also has the 

experience of an omnipotent God to whom it can appeal. However, the kenotic love of 

God in creation seems to suppose a self-limitation to divine omnipotence. How and in 

what sense? What must the compensated balance between kenotic creation (emphasised 

by the philosophy of process) and divine action (emphasised by the notion of 

omnipotence in classical theology) be? (KCDA, 90-92). 

2) Factors involved. The examination of this balance must take into account two 

factors arising from within the philosophical-theological reflection, as well as others 

generated from within science. It must first take into account the philosophicaltheological 

reflection movement of which, in modern times, has applied the kenotic 

ideas to the creator act, from Moltmann to Vanstone, or the philosophy/theology of 

process. Secondly, it must also take traditional theodicy into account together with its 

perplexities regarding the problem of divine love/omnipotence, especially as regards the 

problem of physical evil and moral evil. Thirdly, it must take into account, from within 

science, the image of an evolutionary world, developed in time from its own laws, its 

causal nexus and functional autonomy: this evolutionary conception has imposed the 

need to speak of creatio continua on theist positions, as well as a greater real presence 

of God in the creator time. The Creator has made nature co-creator of itself (he states 

citing the created co-creators of Philip Hefner 17 ), not according to a predetermined 

script, but in search of its own way in historical, cosmological, living and human time. 

This form of creation is already kenotic and presents us with a God who is not directly 

responsible for all that happens: death and tragedy are the price of an evolutionary 

world which makes itself (free-process defence and free-will defence). Moreover, the 

creatio continua within the contingencies of an evolutionary world obliges us to follow 

the creator presence of God throughout the process: creating must not be conceived as a 

specific act but as a continual action in process. Fourthly, it must finally take into 

account the form in which science today presents the causal nexus between the events 

given in the world: The existence of indeterminacy in the micro-physical environment 

of quantum mechanics and in the macro-physics of the dynamics of chaos. Considering 

all this in the terms explained above (see section 6) there are intuitions of likelihood 

regarding conceiving divine action with no need to arbitrarily break up the order of the 

world or alter the kenotic plan of creation (KCDA, 92-101). 

3) A compensated balance between kenosis and omnipotence. If we take into 

account the factors presented, it is possible to find this equilibrated balance. To do so, 

Polkinghorne distinguishes four forms of kenosis and offers a pertinent interpretation of 

these. There is a kenosis of omnipotence when God freely creates an evolutionary 

cosmos which makes itself autonomously: God is the necessary and continuous creator 

foundation who freely assumes respect for the autonomous order and process of the 

world, and deliberately self-limits Himself in order to create a causal space for free 

creatures. God permits physical evil and moral evil because his plan is to respect the 

autonomy of the process and human freedom: in the mysterious plan of God tragedy and 

death are the price of freedom for a new life. There is also a kenosis of simple divine 

eternity insofar as this same evolutionary, open and undetermined world where the 

future is not necessarily predetermined and made, obliges the transcendent and eternal 

God to really become involved in temporality and in a creatio and providentia continua. 

The kenosis of omniscience is thus a consequence of the form of creation which God has 

17 Cf. Hefner, P.J., The Human Factor, Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1993, passim. 

152 



freely chosen: God knows all that can be known, but He cannot know what 

ontologically cannot be known (e.g. the future dependent on indeterminist, quantum or 

chaotic processes). He does not accept the Augustinian divine omniscience as 

knowledge of history totum simul (at the same time, from above and outside time). 

Finally, according to Polkinghorne, God has also assumed the kenosis of the divine 

causal state. He wanted a co-creator autonomous world from Himself, thus, the divine 

action, respecting autonomy, has assumed to do so as cause among causes. This action 

would perhaps be exercised not only by information but also by energy (see section 6,4, 

also: KCDA, 105). However, in any case, the presence of the power of God in history 

would also be kenotic, it would be undetected within the autonomy of the mundane 

process, and would respect the general kenotic design of creation. God would know the 

tendencies of the evolutionary process, he could stipulate its guidelines and intervene 

with His providence in one way or another, without breaking His autonomy. God could 

conduct history even within his kenosis of omnipotence and omniscience in a 

autonomous, open, undetermined world, with a future which is not pre-designed and 

decided. 

9. Polkinghorne or the scientific likelihood of divine action 

In conclusion, we say that this ontological focus of kenosis in Polkinghorne responds to 

the ontological orientation of the process philosophy and theology. However, in our 

opinion, already sketched out in my articles on Barbour and Peacocke (see note 1), the 

basic inference accessible to human and scientific reason from within the world is that 

God, if He exists, has carried out an epistemological kenosis in creation: the world has 

been created in such a way that it can be described by human reason and science as a 

“mundane” world, without God, as “pure world”. In other words: the possible God (who 

has left the door of a pure world without God open) is a concealed God who does not 

impose His presence on human knowledge. Thus, man can orientate his life apart from 

God who has become vulnerable as regards human freedom. These ideas are 

germinating in the anthropological notes ewe mentioned above, but which are scarcely 

developed by Polkinghorne (who centres on his ontological focus of kenosis) 18 . 

Human reason always proceeds bottom up, as with Polkinghorne. The facticity of 

an existing universe moves to seek its sufficient foundation, the absolute dimension in 

which to understand its reality. Theism (not atheism) attributes the sufficient foundation 

of the real to a God, consequently necessity must be predicated of Him (see section 3). 

However, God the creator foundation is only a factor of intelligibility if He is 

transcendent, personal, and omnipotent (all powerful to create the world only from his 

own divine reality and ex nihilo of any exterior reality). Therefore, in our opinion, 

omnipotence belongs to the pack of basic concepts which must be attributed to God so 

that his fundamental, necessary and creator existence might make sense. God could 

have created an evolutionary, autonomous world, making itself towards an open, not 

pre-determined future, through quantum and chaotic indeterminateness, only as a 

strategic decision directed at creating the appropriate environment for human freedom 

(for an epistemological kenosis): however, the radical omnipotence of God will remain 

intact. So, divine self-limitation in its omnipotence would only be deliberately tactical 

and would respond to the will to respect the autonomy of the process (free-process 

18 

My personal point of view can be found in: Existencia, Mundanidad, Cristianismo, Consejo Superior 

de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid 1974. A short summary of my ideas can be seen in the article 

cited on Ian Barbour (note 1). 



defence, physical evil) and the autonomy of human freedom (free-will defence, moral 

evil). This way of understanding self-limitation in the divine omnipotence is compatible 

with the attribution to God of a radical omnipotence and with both classical Catholic 

and Protestant theological orthodoxy. We believe that this is exactly the point of view of 

Polkinghorne which manifestly distances him from the process philosophy and 

theology. 

The self-limitation of the divine omniscience proposed by Polkinghorne is more 

problematic. It seems acceptable that God, on creating this evolutionary world whose 

autonomy he respects and maintains by creatio continua, has accepted that 

indeterminist, quantum or chaotic processes take place in it, and their ontology does not 

enable us to know these in detail: He tells us that God cannot know what ontologically 

cannot be known. However, God would know the tendencies in the broadness of 

possibilities of the grand attractor and could act in order to direct the final results in 

accordance with His plans; this would be one of the dimensions of the creatio continua. 

The knowledge of the future of history, also open and dependent on human decisions 

but also on divine action on the world and on persons, could perhaps be anticipated in 

the Divine Mind in an unknown form, both as regards the individual and the general 

tendencies of history, founding His providence from his superior intelligence and 

knowledge of the intervening factors, and this does not entail any reduction of real 

freedom in human beings. 

It also seems admissible that God, on creating, has self-limited Himself to 

depending on an autonomous creation which is carried out in time. The eternal God has 

assumed the kenosis of his implication in time and in the circumstances of human, 

personal and collective life. The Christian orthodoxy of the divine eternity is compatible 

with the kenotic ontology of His action in time, as can be seen in each page of the Bible. 

The divine impassibility, atemporality or immutability are not essential concepts of the 

Christian idea of God, but are philosophical contributions which can be overcome and, 

of course, can be refined. The kenotic self-limitation to work in the world as a cause 

among causes is also a manifestation of the humility of God: KCDA, 106, in 

concordance with His kenotic design. God respects the autonomy of the world and his 

action on it will be discrete and imperceptible, but real and possible in an open, 

indeterminate world. 

It only makes sense to think of the existence of God if we attribute a number of 

concepts to Him which, although they are human, we think these must be assumed by 

analogy: self-sufficient and necessary fundamentality, personality, transcendence, 

creation and omnipotence. However, to speculate on the form and scope of divine selflimitation 

in creation is very risky because, in accordance with the principles of an 

apophatic philosophy, we do not know the essential ontology of God nor that of the 

created world (only the small approximation of current science). However, although the 

relationship of God with the world is a mystery, Polkinghorne has contributed to the 

intuitions of likelihood which permit us to perceive from science that things can be as 

theism, religion and theology say. It is possible to explain the world without God as 

atheism does. However, God is a likely hypothesis for the necessary foundation of the 

universe, as regards the problem posed by finding the reason for its consistency and 

intelligibility. The living universe described by science is also congruent with the image 

of man in religion. In addition, science enables us today to open up conjectures 

concerning the possible divine action in the world without distorting or altering the 

nature of created order. Moreover, although God is the necessary foundation, the nature 

of his creator work in the world makes it possible to consider it as kenotic creation in 

154 



the dimensions explained. Creation in the end oriented to creating the natural 

environment of the freedom of history and the greatness of man. 


The Kenosis of the Creator 

PART IV: CONCLUSION 

The Kenosis of the Creator 1 

MANUEL G. DONCEL 

UNIVERSITAT AUTÒNOMA, BARCELONA 

Introduction 

Among the important theological ideas in the theology-sciences dialog, is that of 

“kenosis” or loving “self-restriction” of the Creator towards its creatures. Being 

relatively recent in Christian theology, it brings us a new image of God and his 

relationship with creation, while at the same time biblically and existentially profound. 2 

We start with the biblical foundation of “kenosis” in Phil 2, 6-11, traditionally 

attributed to the Incarnation of Christ and we will see how, inspired by the Jewish idea 

of “zimzum”, this concept is now applied in Christian theology to the Creation and even 

to the intra-Trinitarian life of God (§2). We will then analyse four elements that are 

usually distinguished in this kenosis by relating them with our time and space 

(omnipresent and “temporal” God), and with our human freedom and the autonomy of 

the processes of the universe (God tolerating sin and physical evil) (§3). Finally, we 

will introduce the interim character of this kenosis, which has to end in the 

eschatological moment with the epiphanic “self-derestriction” of God in a “new 

creation”, in which there will be no evil, nor will our laws of nature apply (§4). 

However, conscious of the fact that this new theological concept of divine kenosis 

modifies our traditional philosophical conception about God and its relation with 

creation, we put forward a brief synthesis of this traditional conception and the 

difficulties that they suggest today (§1). 

1 

2 

The original version in Spanish of this work was published in: Manuel G. Doncel, El diálogo 

teología-ciencias hoy: II Perspectivas científica y teológica (The theology-sciences dialog today: II 

Scientific and theological perspectivas), Cuadernos “Institut de Teologia Fonamental” n. 40, chapter 

8; Edición Cristianismo i Justicia, Barcelona 2003. 

The subject of the kenosis of God is seriously introduced by Hans Urs von Balthasar in his Mysterium 

Paschale, especially in his section “The ‘Kenosis’ and the new image of God”, (BALTHASAR 1969, 

§1.4); the historical introduction of the subject is there presented along with the then recent 

bibliography on its biblical and dogmatic aspects. 

The book of the old trilogy of Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God has been crucial to its 

acceptance in the Christian theology; the chapter “The ‘Crucified God’ ” in particular develops this 

theme in all its theological and metaphysical rigor (MOLTMANN 1972, cap. 6, English translation 

pp.200-290). This work brought about an interesting discussion (WELKER 1979). In his newer 

“pentalogy”, Moltmann occasionally touches on the subject in connection with primordial or 

eschatological times in the world (MOLTMANN 1980, “God’s Self-Limitation”, English translation pp. 

108-111; MOLTMANN 1985, “Creation out of Nothing”, English translation pp. 86-93; MOLTMANN 

1989, “The Primordial and the Eschatological Moment”, English translation pp. 328-330; 

MOLTMANN 1991, “The Vision of the World in God”, English translation pp 211-213; MOLTMANN 

1995, “The Fulfilment of Time”, English translation pp. 292-295). 

In the recent theological-scientific dialog, the subject constantly comes up, and has been especially 

dealt with in connection with the evolutionary vision (PEACOCKE 1993), with the problem of physical 

evil (POLKINGHORNE 1996) and the moral character of the universe (MURPHY & ELLIS 1997). A 

suggestive collection of eleven works on “Creation as kenosis” is POLKINGHORNE (ed.) 2001. 



1. Concept of God: from immutable actuality to a faithful interpersonality 

The conceptual creation of our new Christian tradition about God and about creation 

reached a peak in the formulations of Saint Thomas of Aquinas, which were basically 

collected in his “Summa Theologiae” (1265-1273). It uses the conceptual paradigm of 

the Aristotelian philosophy (fourth century BC.), which was fully discovered at the 

time. The basic principle of this Aristotelian paradigm, which claimed to explain both 

the being and its change, is hylemorphism. Let’s recall its central ideas. Aristotle 

assumes that all “substance” (all true being) consists of a material element (Gr. "hyle" or 

matter), which is indeterminate and receives all its determination from the substantial 

form (“morphé”) and from other accidental forms. To become more perfect consists 

therefore in “actually” receiving a perfective form, which previously was only 

“potentially” possessed. So that we had to conceive of God, as the necessary Being (by 

virtue of his “aseity”) who possesses all the perfections at the highest level, as “pure 

actuality”, in Latin as “actus purus”. Consequently we also had to conceive of him as 

absolutely immutable, since any change would demand––before or after––an 

imperfection in Him. 3 

A later consequence of this conception of Aquinas today seems shocking to us. The 

Christian concept of “creation” establishes a clear ontological relationship of the 

creatures with respect to God, which constitutes them in their contingent existence. But 

according to Saint Thomas, the inverse relation of God with respect to his creatures does 

not really exist in God, but is a pure “relation of reason” imagined by us, from our 

relationship with Him. 4 Thus, it is inevitable to state that, in Saint Thomas’s conception 

of God as “actus purus”, being necessarily immutable and impassive (since putting in 

God a real relationship would assume introducing change and imperfection in Him). 

But such a traditional conception, in which it turns out very difficult to talk about the 

kenosis of God, today appears overcome, both in the theology-science dialog as well as 

most of Christian theology. 5 

There are many theologians today who insist that the basic metaphor for talking 

about God cannot continue being the actus purus, but rather the proper metaphor of our 

tri-une God: “persons-in-communion”. And they see these persons in real relation 

3 

4 

5 

THOMAS, Summa Theologiae, Prima (pars): q(uæstio) 2, a(rticulus) 3 (in prima via: no “ab alio”; in 

tertia via: “per se” necessary); q. 3, a. 1-2 (about “purus actus”); q. 9, a. 1-2 (about God’s own 

immutability). 

Ibid, Prima: q. 13, a. 7 (“in God there is no real relation of Him to the creatures, but only relation of 

reason, so far as they are referred to Him”); q. 28, a.1 (“real relations among divine persons”), and q. 

45, a. 3, ad 1 (“the relation to the creature in God is not real”). 

This subject of kenosis appears in RUSSELL et al. 1993 in Polkinghorne (p. 447), and commented on 

by Russell (p. 28). In RUSSELL et al. 1995 it is Australian theologian Denis Edwards, who attacks 

with rigor the concept of “actus purus” and the relationship of reason to the creatures, lamenting that 

this Aristotelian philosophy eliminated change and feelings from biblical God (pp. 164-166); William 

Stoeger S.J. mentions the idea of kenosis (p. 254), and George Ellis elaborates on it, including in his 

moral context (pp. 381, 391-393). In RUSSELL et al. 1998 the Catholic theologian John Haught treats 

it in relation to pain in Darwinian evolution (pp. 393-418), and Charles Birch (p. 247) and Ian Barbour 

(pp. 439-440) in the context of the Process Theology. 

This Process Theology, inspired by the philosophical work of WHITEHEAD 1929, has a classical 

literature (HARTSHORNE 1964, COBB 1965, PARMENTIER 1969, BROWN et al. (eds.) 1971), and invites 

to a philosophical revolution against the concept of an immutable and impassive God (FELT S.J. 1971, 

ROBERTSON 1971). The debate occasioned by the publication of The Crucified God (MOLTMANN 

1972, WELKER 1979) demanded serious treatment of these metaphysical problems. The dominant 

attitude was of acceptation of a new landscape (to see the reflection would be FIDDES 1988), but the 

expansion of the Thomasian framework also fits by introducing in God “intentional and true” relations 

and changes although they are not properly “real” (CLARKE 1994). 

158 



with our world. The Australian Catholic theologian Denis Edwards firmly advocates 

those ideas while developing crucial themes of the kenosis of the Creator: 6 

DENIS EDWARDS, “The Trinity’s Interaction with Creatures” (1995) 

And since the Basic metaphor for the trinitarian God, I have been arguing, is not 

actus purus, but persons-in-communion, then this view of God removes the force of 

the theological argument that the one who is pure act cannot suffer. The trinitarian 

God is now understood as the one in whom self-possession and self-giving, freedom 

and vulnerability. Exist in a way beyond comprehension. 

This suggests, in contrast with Aquinas, that God must be understood as having a 

real relationship with the world. ··· In the relational metaphysics used here, I believe 

that it is possible and essential to affirm both (1) that creation is a free act of God’s 

love, and (2) that through this freely chosen love, God enters into a real relationship 

with creation, which means that God freely accepts the limitation and vulnerability of 

such relationship (Phil 2, 6-11). 

Let us look at a third problem of our conceptual tradition, this time theological- 

Augustinian. We have to use our “Trinitarian model” of divine action, as Moltmann 

advises us. 7 But our formulation of the mystery of the Trinity––one nature in three 

persons––, does not usually recognize Trinitarian aspects in the creative action, as the 

old adage of San Augustine (354-430) expresses it: “The external acts of the Trinity are 

one” (“Opera Trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt”). 8 According to this, creation had to be 

conceived as a global action of divine nature, which we apply only “by appropriation” to 

the person of the Father. As Edwards considers, the Trinitarian tradition of Hugo of 

Saint Victor and Saint Bonaventure allows us today to adopt a more balanced 

theological position: 9 

DENIS EDWARDS, “Creation is the Action of the Whole Trinity” (1995) 

Contemporary theology has recovered the understanding that we must attribute a 

proper role of the Trinitarian persons in the salvific missions of the Word and the 

Holy Spirit. 10 This needs to be extended to include a properly Trinitarian notion of 

creation. This does not deny the unity of the divine action in creation, but points to 

distinctions proper to the persons within this common action. It suggests that the 

universe is the self-expression of the Trinitarian God: the Fountain Fullness is the 

Source of the existence of each creature; the Divine Wisdom is the Exemplar for the 

unique identity of each creature; the Spirit is the immanent Presence of God in all 

creatures and the Bond of Love who brings all things into unity. 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

RUSSELL et al. 1995, pp. 165-166; the full title of the paragraph is: “1.5 The Trinity’s Interaction with 

Creatures is Characterized by the Vulnerability and Liberating Power of Love which Respects Human 

Freedom and Natural Processes”. 

See ibid, p. 208. 

Cf. THOMAS, Summa Theologiae, Prima, q. 45, a. 6. 

RUSSELL et al. 1995, pp. 163-164. Edwards studies these Trinitarian traditions, ibid, pp. 158-163. 

Edwards refers here to the various works of the “new Trinitarianism”, KARL RAHNER 1960. In it the 

now famous “Rahner’s rule” is introduced: “The economic Trinity [that of the salvific story] is the 

immanent, and reciprocally”. 



Thus, inspired by this tradition of Saint Bonaventure, within this common creative 

action, we will attribute roles to each one of the divine persons. Edwards next sets out 

up to three reasons to support this attribution: (1) these characteristics of the three 

persons are precisely those that intervene in the creative action, (2) the biblical texts 

underscore creation in and through Christ–– the incarnated Logos/Wisdom––and 

suggest a proper implication of the Spirit, and (3) the intimate theological connection 

between creation and redemption extends to the former the missions of the Logos and 

the Spirit in history of the later. 11 

From this perspective of internal and even external interpersonal divine life, which 

we must conceive as overflowing with dynamism and mutual realization, it seems very 

difficult today to imagine an “immutable" and “impassive” God. Obviously, we 

exclude all mutation and passion by the creatures, which would make Him dependent on 

them. But it seems conceivable to us that God of his own free will wants to take an 

interest in, and is open to, the realities, events and decisions of his creatures, even if they 

become vulnerative to his divine reality. This is especially so when the Bible and the 

liturgy exhorts us to invoke the “compassion” of a “merciful and gracious God, slow to 

anger and most loving and true” (Ps 86, 15; 103, 8; 145, 8). It does not seem easy to 

combine impassibility with “compassion”; nor immutability with this “mercifulness”, 

which requires another decision after that of justice, and brings God to “overlook the 

sins of men that they may repent” (Wis 11, 23). It is the repeated story, in which God 

“may repent” and holds back the punishment that He “had planned to inflict upon them” 

(Jer 26, 3; in particular, on the worshippers of the calf Ex 33, 12-17 and the Ninivites 

Jon 3, 10). 

I believe that, from this perspective of the interpersonal God, we have to 

reinterpret his immutability as “fidelity”. Thus, as the “merciful and gracious God, 

slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity” (Ex 34, 5-6) is revealed: fidelity to 

Himself, to his promise, his call and his grace. It is not a simple ethical virtue, but rather 

something that constitutes his essence. Like John seems to define that “God is love” (1 

Jn 4, 8 and 16), 12 Paul insists that “God is faithful” (gr. pistós: 1 Cor 1, 9 y 10, 13; 1 

Thes 5, 24; cf. Rom 11, 29 and 2 Cor 1, 18). And a brief Pauline hymn assures us that 

Christ always “remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself” (2 Tm 2, 13; cf. Heb 2, 17 

and 3, 2). Like a pale reflection of this fidelity, the Creator has given us laws that 

govern his creation. 13 

2. The Christian idea of “kenosis” in Incarnation and Creation 

The term “kenosis” as “self-emptying” is clearly Christological. It is founded on an 

11 

12 

13 

The recent CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH dedicates a section to “The Creation of the 

Holy Trinity, which concludes with this: “§292 The Old Testament suggests and the New Covenant 

reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit, inseparably one with that of the Father. This 

creative co-operation is clearly affirmed in the Church's rule of “There exists but one God. . . he is the 

Father, God, the Creator, the author, the giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his 

Word and by his Wisdom”, “by the Son and the Spirit” who, so to speak, are “his hands” (S. Ireneus, 

Haer. 2.30.9 and 4.20.1). 

The CATECHISM sees this “fidelity” included in the meaning of “Yahweh”, the name of God: «§211 

The divine name “I am” or “He is” [= “Yahweh”] expresses the fidelity of God…» «§214 God, “He 

that is”, is revealed to Israel as he that is “rich in kindness and fidelity” (Ex 34, 6). These two terms 

express in a condensed way the richness of the divine name. In all his works God shows his 

benevolence, his goodness, his grace, and his love, but also his reliability, his constancy, his fidelity, 

his truth.» 

The CATECHISM also sees this fidelity as a guarantee of the laws of creation (§346). 

160 



important biblical text, which seems to represent a liturgical hymn preserved by Saint 

Paul in his letter to the Philippians (a letter written from Ephesus in 56 AD). We 

transcribe it in its entirety: 14 

Hymn to Jesus Christ humbled and exalted (Phil 2, 6-11) 

6 Who [Christ Jesus], though he was in the form of God, 

did not regard equality with God 

something to be grasped. 

7 Rather, he emptied himself, [heautón ekénosen] 

taking the form of a slave, 

coming in human likeness; 

and found human in appearance, 

8 he humbled himself, 

becoming obedient to death, . 

9 Because of this, God greatly exalted him 

and bestowed on him the name, 

that is above every name. 

10 That at the name of Jesus 

every knee should bend 

of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 

11 and every tongue confess [Is 45,23] 

that Jesus Christ is Lord [Kyrios Iesûs Christós] 

in the glory of God the Father. 

The allusion to the cross that we transcribe between angled parentheses,< >, seems 

to be an addition from Paul. We highlight –by separating them– the two verses of the 

hymn, which introduces respectively, the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus Christ. In 

the first we underline the double humiliation of his self-emptying and his obedience 

including death. This “he emptied”, in Greek “ekénosen” forms the biblical base of our 

term “kenosis”. 15 In the verse on exaltation we have transcribed in cursive a verse of the 

second Isaiah (sixth century AD.) attributed to God (Yahweh), to which is added in this 

Christological attribution of the hymn a beautiful cosmic allusion: “of those in heaven 

and on earth and under the earth”. 

Nineteenth century Lutheran and Anglican schools of thought reflected on the 

“kenotic theology” in the traditional framework of the person of Christ with his two 

natures, divine and human. The kenosis is attributed to an incarnated Christ, in his 

human nature (and only by the so-called “communicatio idiómatum” could it be 

attributed to the divine). Thus, the work of Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God 

14 

15 

The now classic “critical analysis” of this text is KÄSEMANN 1950; Spanish translation of 1978, 

pp. 71-121. More recently is HOFIUS 1976. Even more recent studies claim to see in his older 

readings a hymn to a “definitive Adam” (see §9.2), which would not presuppose the preexistence and 

the incarnation of Christ; thus DUNN 1980, cap. 4. This idea, important for the development of 

Christology, seems secondary here with respect to the biblical basis of the term “kenosis”. 

A biblical parallel is the Pauline expression “for your sake he [our Lord Jesus Christ] became poor 

although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8, 9). 



(1972), introduced a novel perspective on this idea. 

But the application of this Christian concept of the kenosis to God Creator, was 

certainly inspired by an old reflection from the Jewish tradition. Its idea of the Creator’s 

zimzum, or self-restriction to “give space” to creation, has its origin in the Cabbala or 

the “Secret Tradition” of medieval Jewish mysticism (Girona, thirteenth century), but 

was worked out in the sixteenth century by the great Cabbalist mystic Isaac Luria 

(1534-1572, in Safed, a little city in Galilee). It has come to us indirectly through the 

writings of his disciples. Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), a great scholar of the 

conceptual and mystic Jewish tradition, has researched in detail this school of Luria and 

in particular the genesis and even the subsequent evolution of its conception of zimzum. 

16 Let us see how he concisely introduces it in relation to the philosophical problem of 

the creation “ex nihilo” (“out of nothing”): 17 

GERSHOM SCHOLEM, “Creation of nothing and God’s self-limitation” (1956) 

If God represents the full being, then by his very nature he does not permit any 

nothingness. Where would this nothingness be, there would have to be God. More 

rightly we will have to ask ourselves, how can things exist that are not God 

himself? This approach leads to Isaac Luria, the most important of the late 

cabbalists, and his disciples to the idea of zimzum. The Hebrew word zimzum 

literally means “contraction”. It attempts to express a concentration of the divine 

being in itself, a descent to its own depths, a self-limitation of the essence in itself; 

self-limitation that, according to this theory, is the only one that allows description 

of the contents of a possible creation of nothing. Only there, where God pulls back 

“from himself to himself” (as the common formulation of many of the cabbalists 

says), He can make something that is not the same divine essence and being. In 

this sense an act is given by which God renounces something of himself, even if it 

is only of a point of himself. This “point” of the divine being, to which this act of 

self-renunciation refers would be the true primordial mystic space of all creation 

and all the world’s processes . The cabbalists encompass a new important symbol 

––that would have to represent a central role in the history of thought of the later 

Jewish mystics––the possible content of which can mean “creation out of 

nothing”. The nothing appears in an act of self-limitation of the divine essence 

that, instead of working outwards in its first act, rather withdraws on itself. This is 

the act in which this nothing is produced. 

Such ideas of the Jewish tradition today are a common heritage between Jews and 

Christians. Jürgen Moltmann fully presents them in his work God in Creation, 

repeatedly alluding to the previous text of Scholem. But Moltmann presents them in his 

Christian and Trinitarian context, starting by a comparison between the creative action 

of God “ad extra” (“outward”) and his intra-Trinitarian actions (“ad intra”, “inward”): 18 

16 

17 

18 

SCHOLEM 1954, with Spanish translation from 1996, “Séptima conferencia: Yitshac Luria y su 

escuela”, pp. 269-311. 

SCHOLEM 1956, pp. 115-116, or in the Spanish translation of 1998, pp. 71-72. 

MOLTMANN 1985, pp. 86-87 of the English translation. MOLTMANN 1980, pp. 109-110 Of the English 

translation already presents zimzum, in the context of “God’s self-limitation”. 

162 



JÜRGEN MOLTMANN, “Creation out of nothing” (1985) 

Ever since Augustine, Christian theology has called God’s work of creation 

an act of God outwards: operatio Dei ad extra ··· No one has even asked the 

critical question: can the omnipotent [and omnipresent] God have an “outward” 

aspect at all? If we assume an extra Deum, does this not set God a limit? ··· 

However, there is in fact one possible way of conceiving an extra Deum. But 

it is only the assumption of a self-limitation by God himself preceding his creation 

which can be reconciled with God’s divinity without contradiction. In order to 

create a world “outside” himself, the infinite God must have made room 

beforehand for a finitude in himself. It is only a withdrawal by God into himself 

that can free the space into which God can act creatively. The nihil for his creatio 

ex nihilo only comes into being because––and in as far as––the omnipotent and 

omnipresent God withdraws his presence and restricts his power. 

It was Isaac Luria who first of all developed these ideas in his doctrine of 

zimsum. Zimsum means concentration and contraction, and signifies a withdrawing 

of oneself into oneself. Luria was taking up the ancient Jewish doctrine of the 

Shekinah, according to which the infinite God can so contract his presence that he 

dwells in the temple. But Luria applied it to God and creation. The existence of a 

world outside God is made possible by an inversion of God. This set free a kind 

of “mystical primordial space” into which God––issuing out of himself––can 

enter and in which he can manifest himself. “Where God withdraws himself from 

himself to himself, he can call something forth which is not divine essence or 

divine being.” The Creator is not an “unmoved mover” of the universe. On the 

contrary, creation is preceded by his self-movement on God’s part, a movement 

which allows creation the space for its own being. God withdraws into himself in 

order to go out of himself. He “creates” the preconditions for the existence of his 

creation by withdrawing his presence and his power, “In the self-limitation of the 

divine Being which, instead of acting outwardly in its initial act, turns inwards 

towards itself, nothingness emerges. Here we have an act in which nothingness is 

called forth.” It is the affirmative force of God’s self-negation which becomes the 

creative force in creation and salvation. 

The cabbalistic doctrine of the self-limitation of God has also found a place in 

Christian theology. Nicholas of Cusa, J.G. Hamann, Friedrich Oetinger, F.W.J. 

Schelling, A. von Oettingen, Emil Brunner and others all saw that when God 

permitted creation, this was the first act in the divine self-humiliation which 

reached its profoundest point in the cross of Christ. 

Moltmann continues with interesting reflections on “nothing” as not being of the 

creature, of the creation and even of the Creator, and on the root of this annihilation of 

God, which he finds in God’s “creative love” and relates to the hymn to the 

Philippians. 19 

In the dialog with the scientists, Moltmann introduces these ideas with great 

preciseness in the context of the “models of the God-world relationship”. With regards 

to the Creation and the Incarnation he alludes to the self-limiting of the “zimzum” in 

order to explain that “the eternal and omnipresent God self-limits himself in such a way 

that God can inhabit the finite and temporal creation and drive it from within 

19 

On the different levels of kenosis of the Creator, see, CRONIN 1992. On the theology of the vulnerable 

God, see PLACHER 1994. 



without destroying it,··· towards its eternalization and divinization ”. 20 

3. Kenotic elements: created space, time, freedom and autonomy 

Let us start by reflecting on the cosmic kenotic elements, the entrance of God in our 

space and time, in the scope of our history. We have already seen that the mystical 

Lurian image of the self-restriction of God, more than spatial is ontological. But a 

traditional attribute of God is his “omnipresence” or “presence everywhere”. This relates 

God with our created space, in the contingent supposition of God deciding to create it. 21 

And we philosophically conceive this space as “extended” (with parts out of parts) and 

today scientifically as “expanding”. This seems to require that God freely accept, in his 

simplistic reality, the impact of this “partialization” and “expansion”. In addition, this 

presence of God, which we conceive as dynamic (as first keeper in created being and 

causing) does not betray the divine dignity and glory by respecting the created 

autonomy. 

Analogously, God’s own “eternity” is related to our created time, both if we 

scientifically conceive of a “block-universe” (as the space-time concept of special 

relativity suggests) as well as if we conceive of a “self-created universe” (as cosmology 

and even quantum unpredictability suggests). Today theologians are talking about a 

certain “temporality of God” (perhaps better “in God” 22 ). As William Alston 

philosophically argues, if human freedom is taken seriously, it seems that God should 

direct history through successive decisions in time. 23 John R. Lucas thus argues from 

theology in favour of this temporality: 24 

JOHN R. LUCAS, “The temporality of God” (1993) 

If we believe that when Jesus prayed “Abba”, the Father heard his prayer and 

answered it, we must date the hearing and the answering to the same time as Jesus 

praying and receiving the answer. Even if we can make sense of the God of the 

Deists, we cannot, if we accept man’s free will, think that such a Deity spoke by 

the prophets, was the Father of Jesus, could communicate with us, or take action 

in the light of what we had freely decided to do. 

Of course, however, Lucas also emphasized that, having been co-created with the world, 

“time depends on God, not God on time”. 25 

In his article “The Trinity In and Beyond Time”, Ted Peters, Lutheran theologian 

from the CTNS (Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences), searches for the 

theological roots of this temporality. He shows that the “immanent eternal Trinity 

includes relationality and dynamism.” But he emphasizes that it is in his historical 

manifestation, the so-called “salvific-economic Trinity”––that is, in the incarnation of 

the Logos in Jesus Christ, and in the effusion of the Spirit on humanity and over the 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

RUSSELL et al. 1995, pp. 206f, §1.5. 

This contradicts the Newtonian concept of “absolute space” that Clarke assumes in order that God can 

be omnipresent. 

Gustave Martelet SJ, private communication. 

RUSSELL et al. 1993, p.185. 

Ibid, p. 236. 

Ibid, pp. 236f. 

164 



world––where we have to search for divine temporality: 26 

TED PETERS, “The Trinity In and Beyond Time” (1993) 

God enters the world in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, taking unto the 

Godself the limitations of temporal and spatial finitude. God becomes one 

physical being among others, subject to the same laws of physics and biology that 

govern the rest of creatures. Then, as Spirit, God continues to influence the 

course of events within history ··· and has power to transform this world ··· at the 

end of the age ··· 

Beyond these time-space elements of the kenosis of the Creator, the anthropic 

elements are related to human beings––or in general to free and responsible creatures. 

Without a doubt, the most radical of this kenosis is the acceptation that such creatures 

do not correspond to his loving plan, but that they reject Him as God, in other words, 

the permission of sin. Such permission appears a necessary condition in order that a 

true created freedom can exist. 

To back up the relative freedom and independence of the human being William 

Stoeger gives metaphysical motivation of this self-limitation of God in the following 

manner: The “divine concourse” is a necessary condition for all action of a created 

agent; but it is not enough, because “this is undoubtedly an aspect of divine kenosis (or 

self-emptying) and hiddenness in created reality––that God withholds his/her 

capability of being the sufficient condition of particular effects.” 27 

As Denis Edwards explains, the interpersonal relationship of God with creation is 

that of the lover, whose “real freedom is the freedom to enter into love, to risk oneself 

with another”, in the risk of it not being reciprocated. This forms the supreme kind of 

“self-giving in vulnerability”, and is included in the relationship of the Trinitarian God 

with human persons: 28 

DENIS EDWARDS, “The Trinity’s Interaction with Creatures” (1995) 

In response to the concerns of classical theology it can be said, first, that 

when God is seen in terms of persons-in-mutual-love the ideal of freedom is not 

one of isolation and self-sufficiency. Real freedom is the freedom to enter into 

love, to risk oneself with another, to enter into love in openness to the other. This 

kind of freedom demands both self-possession and self-giving in vulnerability. 

And there is every reason to assume that the Trinitarian God is supreme in 

26 

27 

28 

Ibid, pp. 263-264. This incarnation argument of divine temporality is debatable: It is not God himself 

but his humanity that is “a physical being among others”, and we have to keep the Chalcedonian 

“inconfuse”, not only the “indivise” (Josep Vives SJ, private comment). 

RUSSELL et al. 1995, p. 254. Let us say, by specifically presenting it, that God needs the “fiat” of 

Mary, as mankind’s response to his salvation plan. 

RUSSELL et al. 1995, p. 165. HANS URS VON BALTHASAR emphasizes the self-emptying as belonging 

to all living relationships and in particular of the eternal living relationship that the persons of the 

Holy Trinity experience (the Father cedes ontological space to the Son, in his living relationship with 

Him). We note, however, that this emptying belonging to the relationship between the divine persons 

is gratifying. It does not have the character of “vulnerability” (“hurtful”) belonging to the relationship 

with the creatures due to his indigence (physical and moral limitation). The free decision of creating 

temporarily transforms the character of this eternal kenosis. 



personal freedom, and free beyond comprehension to enter into the vulnerability 

of loving communion. This assumption is verified in a staggering way in the love 

revealed in the cross of Jesus. 

Another element of the kenosis is related to the divine respect for autonomous 

processes of our infra-personal universe. John Polkinghorne, drawing parallels between 

free will and the autonomous processes, has forcefully expressed this self-limitation of 

God, while giving autonomy to the whole of the universe so that this can “make 

itself”: 29 JOHN POLKINGHORNE, “Divine action” (1993) 

It is an important insight of theology that in the act of creation, freedom is 

given to the whole cosmos to be and to make itself. I have made this the basis of 

a free-process defense in relation to physical evil (disease and disaster), which 

parallels the free-will defense in relation to moral evil (the erroneous and sinful 

choices of humankind). God neither wills the act of a murderer nor the incidence 

of a cancer, but allows both to happen in a world which God has endowed with 

the ability to be itself. 

This element of the kenosis consists, therefore, in allowing physical evil by respecting 

the world order that He himself gave to it––designed by his Logos and necessary for a 

personal-responsible development. 30 

As I already indicated in the philosophical question of Darwinian evolution and 

pain, his most radical response has to be theological. It obliges us to profess that God 

suffers with the pain of creation. John Haught, theologian from Georgetown 

(Washington D.C.), develops this idea in its broad context: 31 

JOHN F. HAUGHT, “Darwin’s Gift to Theology” (1998) 

The modern anguish over God’s absence the enormous scale of suffering and 

sorrow in our century, and the widespread destruction of Earth’s life-systems ··· 

have compelled theology to bring before us with unprecedented intensity the 

image of God as self-empting, or kenotic, love. ··· Recent scientific clarifications 

of the nature of evolution now encourage us to bring this image of God even more 

sharply into focus. It is in this sense that evolution may prove to be not so much a 

danger as a gift to theology. 

At the very center of Christian faith lies a trust that in the passion and 

crucifixion of Jesus we are presented with the mystery of a vulnerable God who 

pours the divine selfhood into the world in an act of complete self-abandonment. 

The image has led some theologians even to speak provocatively of the 

“powerlessness” of God. ··· Edward Schillebeeckx, on the other hand, has 

29 

30 

31 

RUSSELL et al. 1993, pp. 445-446, §5(1). As can be seen in the text, Polkinghorne talks about free 

will and “free” processes. I believe it is more didactic to keep the authentic sense, personal, of 

“freedom”, and talk about “autonomous” processes. 

Cf. George F.R. Ellis in his “Theology of the Anthropic Principle”, ibídem, p. 387f, §6.2. 

RUSSELL et al. 1998, pp. 396-398. 

166 



proposed that we speak not of divine weakness and powerlessness, but rather of 

the “defenselessness” or “vulnerability” of God. ··· [Since God] shows itself as 

power of love ··· 

What does the image of this humble God contribute to our new knowledge of 

evolution? ··· The ways of nature take on a distinctively new significance when we 

view them in light of the defenselessness of God. ··· A theology of evolution must 

make central the idea of a self-empting God who opposes the domineering kind of 

power that religion often projects onto the divine. The same loving selfwithdrawal 

of God that in Moltmann’s portrayal makes creation initially possible 

(creatio originalis) also allows for the ongoing creation (creatio continua) of the 

world through evolution. 

4. Eschaton as end of the divine kenosis and the laws of nature 

In the Christian conception, our world will not last forever, there will be an “end of 

time”, an “eschaton”. 32 The divine plan on creation––once death and judgment are 

overcome––is the indescribable, epiphanic and personal presence of God himself (“we 

will see him face to face"). Our hope is to follow the Christ. Who was resurrected and 

raised to the right of the Father. It is to enter as He, with a glorious body and an 

interpersonal context, in this epiphanic presence of God, who “may be all in all” (1 Co 

15, 28). 33 

This traditional doctrine covers new cosmic force, while relating it to the modern 

idea of kenosis of the Creator. Thus, Jürgen Moltmann, especially in his recent book on 

Eschatology, develops the idea that the kenosis of the Creator is not forever, but that it 

is also temporal. Because to the primordial moment of “self-restriction” of the 

Creator––to leave to the imminent creation “metaphysical play”, “time-space” and 

“autonomy-freedom"––will correspond “after” the end of time, a eschatological 

moment of divine “self-derestriction”. Such self-derestriction coincides with the 

glorification of humanity and of the entire cosmos. We transcribe this important text by 

Moltmann below: 34 

JÜRGEN MOLTMANN, “The Fulfilment of Time” (1995) 

The eschatological moment itself must be thought of, beyond the end and 

consummation of creation-in-the-beginning and therefore as the exit from time 

into eternity. It corresponds to the primordial moment, which we described at the 

beginning of this section. The end of time is the converse of time’s beginning. 

Just as the primordial moment springs from God’s creative resolve and from 

divine self-restriction [German “Selbstverschränkung”] on which God determined 

in that resolve, so the eschatological moment will spring from the resolve to 

redeem and the “derestriction” [German “Selbstentschränkung”] of God 

32 

33 

34 

From the Greek “éschatos”, meaning “definitive, final”. 

In this biblical phrase we can see the definition of the correct eschatological “pan-en-thesim” 

(epiphanic presence of God in all aspects of all creatures). This must not be confused with “pantheism” 

(all things are God, there is no transcendence of God over creatures) no matter how much 

some texts of the Eastern liturgy speak of “divinization” of the creatures. See also Col 3, 11, where 

the phrase is applied to Christ. 

J. MOLTMANN, Der kommende Got, 1995, p. 323; English translation: The Coming of God, 1996, p. 

294. This “self-derestriction” is already indicated in MOLTMANN 1989, cap. 7, §3.2. 



determined upon in that. God does not de-restrict himself in order to annihilate 

his creation, and to put himself in its place and its time; his purpose is to dwell in 

his creation, and in it to be “all in all”. 

The primordial time and the primordial space of creation will end when 

creation becomes the temple for God’s eternal Shekinah [personal presence]. The 

temporal creation will then become an eternal creation, because all created beings 

will participate in God’s eternity. The spatial creation will then become an 

omnipresent creation, because all created beings will participate in God’s 

omnipresence. Creation’s departure from time into the aeon of glory comes about 

through the annihilation of death and the raising of the dead. Once death is no 

more, there will be no more time of transience nor the time of futurity. “Death is 

swallowed up in victory”, the victory of the life that is eternal because it has an 

indestructible share in the divine life. 

Let us analyse in Moltmann's text what will generally imply this divine selfderestriction 

for each one of the kenotic elements that we have been considering. Time 

will end, remaining for the creatures this mark of eternity that we call “aevum”. 35 Space 

will disappear upon the creatures being wrapped in the epiphanic presence of God. 

There will now be no physical evil––there will be no death!––in that glorious 

consummation of the universe. There cannot even be sin, with humans having been 

consecrated in their choice of grace and good, a choice consummated in their previous 

death. 

The book of Revelations alludes, in its symbolic language, to the disappearance 

of our time 36 and our space: “the former heaven and the former earth”. The 

suppression of evil is especially emphasized with the image: “the sea was not more” 

(making an allusion to the biblical sea of the evil Leviathan and sea monsters). There 

will be neither moral evil or sin, nor physical evil––in particular there will be no death. 

We transcribe the beginning paragraph of this important eschatological chapter, the last 

of our Bible: 37 The New Heaven and the New Earth (Rv 21, 1-4) 

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth [Is 65, 17]. The former heaven and 

the former earth had passed away, and the sea was not more. 2 I also saw the holy 

city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride 

adorned for her husband. 3 I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, 

God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be 

his people [Ez 37, 27] and He, God-with-them, [Is 8, 8] will be their God. 4 He will 

wipe every tear from their eyes, [Is 25,8] and there shall be no more death or 

mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away. 

35 Denis Edwards, without using the same terminology and being directly inspired by Karl Rahner, tries to 

describe by analogy through specific human experiences this “time” of the “eternal life”, which 

subsumes our actual time in its final and definitive reality. And he concludes: “For Rahner, eternity 

is not an infinitely long mode of time, but it is the mode of the spiritual freedom which has been 

exercised in time, and has become definitive in death.” EDWARDS 1991, pp. 91s. 

36 

Absence of the sun and moon that mark the day and night and only the presence of the clarity of God 

that reigns “forever and ever” (Rv 22, 5); He being “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the 

end” (Rv 21, 6 and 22, 13). 

37 

In the context of the restorative action of the Holy Spirit, we will study (in chap. 10) the interpersonal 

character and cosmic character of this new creation. 

168 



This eschatological step of the old world into the new is called by Paul the new 

creation (2 Cor 5, 17; cf. Gal 6, 15). He suggests rapture (“creation”), but a profound 

relationship with the old creation remains, a relationship about all through life bonds, 

both personal and interpersonal. 

I like to emphasize that in this new creation we also should not look for our laws of 

nature. This is because these are also temporal laws, designed for the formation and 

conservation of this world. And in the same way that they cannot be in effect “before” 

the big-bang––when neither space, time, matter-energy or anything existed––, they 

cannot be “after” the eschatological moment of the new creation either. If they 

continued to be in effect, death and evil would continue to exist. 38 

On the other hand, the Bible contains an abundant amount of apocalyptic literature, 

which the gospels even have Jesus saying. Among them it is said to us, for example: 

“the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from 

heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken” (Mt 24, 29, citing in part Is 

13,10). By inspiring us in the last phrase and using an anachronistic Newtonian 

language, we could say that, more than mere changes in the boundary conditions of the 

cosmos––that for our new current astrophysical conceptions seem trivial––, it is a much 

more profound change in the enunciate and conceptualization of the same laws. 

We are destined to rise up, like the proto-eschatological Christ, with a “body” that 

Paul calls “spiritual” (Gr. “sôma pneumaticós”, 1Co 15,44-46). And certainly we do 

not have to trust in our natural laws, but directly in God's living Faithfulness, from 

which, as John Polkinghorne beautifully says, these current laws of nature are a pale 

reflection. Let us conclude by collecting, in his own words, the central ideas of this new 

creation and its relationship with the old: 39 

JOHN POLKINGHORNE, “Eschatology” (1996) 

··· We are driven back to God alone as the basis of final hope, so that our own and 

the universe’s destiny awaits a transforming act of divine redemption. In 

Christian thought this is expressed in terms of a new creation (2 Cor 5, 17), a new 

heaven and a new earth (Rv 21, 1-4). The resurrection of Christ within history is 

then understood as the anticipation of this great event lying beyond history, the 

seed from which eschatological fulfillment will eventually blossom for all (1 Cor 

15, 20-28). ··· 

··· The new creation is not a second attempt by God at what he had first tried 

to do in the old creation. It is a different kind of divine action altogether, and the 

difference may be summarized by saying that, the first creation was ex nihilo [out 

of nothing] while the new creation will be ex vetere [out of the old (creation)]. In 

other words, the old creation is God’s bringing into being a universe which is free 

to exist “on its own”, in the ontological space made available to it by the divine 

kenotic act of allowing the existence of something wholly other; the new creation 

is the divine redemption of the old. ··· [As] Gabriel Daly says, ··· “The new 

creation is what the Spirit of God does to the first creation”. 

38 

39 

This temporality of the laws should not frighten us, nor even if we believe that they are designed by 

the divine Logos. They fulfill their mission of establishing this world, of created life and 

interpersonality. Other very valuable realities, like faith and theological hope that save us have been 

designed by Him, and according to Paul, only “love never fails” (1 Cor 13, 8). 

Polkinghorne 1996, pp.166f. 



According to Polkinghorne, therefore, there is a profound discontinuity between our 

world and this new “creation”. But there is also a profound continuity while being about 

creation “ex vetere” that consists in the divine redemption of the old. It grants a value of 

eschatological eternity to the serious decisions of our existence and our history. 

Like by developing Daly's phrase at the end of this text by Polkinghorne, it is worth 

it to explain that such new creation is the work of the revitalizing Spirit. It is the one 

that will maintain the continuity of our life in the transition from death, as he maintained 

that of Jesus from the cross to the resurrection. And He is who is beginning to manage 

the restoration of the universe, at an interpersonal and cosmic level in order to be able to 

one day give birth to this new creation. 40 

Bibliography 

BALTHASAR, HANS URS VON 1969: Mysterium Paschale; Spanish translation of 1971, 

“El Misterio Pascual”, en Mysterium Salutis, Ediciones Cristiandad, Madrid, 

pp.143-331. 

BROWN D., R. JAMES & G. REEVES (eds.) 1971: Process Philosophy and Christian 

Thought, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis. 

CLARKE S.J., W. NORRIS 1994: Explorations in Metaphysics: Being–God–Person, 

University of Notre Dame Press. 

COBB, JOHN 1965: A Christian Natural Theology Based on the Thought of Whitehead, 

Westminster, Philadelphia. 

CRONIN, KEVIN M. 1992: Kenosis: Emptying Self and the Path of Christian Service, 

Element, Rockport Mass. 

DUNN, JAMES D.G. 1980: Christology in the Making, SCM Press, London. 

EDWARDS, DENIS 1991: Jesus and the Cosmos, Paulist Press, New York. 

FELT S.J. JAMES 1971: “Invitation to a Philosophic Revolution”, New Scholasticism 45, 

87-109. 

FIDDES, PAUL S. 1988: The Creative Suffering of God, Claredon Press, Oxford. 

HARTSHORNE, CHARLES 1964: Divine Relativity, Yale University Press, New Haven. 

HOFIUS, O. 1976: Der Christushymnus Phil 2,6-11. Untersuchungen zur Gestalt und 

Aussage eines urchristlichen Psalms, Tübingen. 

KÄSEMANN, ERNST 1950: “Kritische Analyse von Phil 2,5-11”; Spanish translation of 

1978, “Análisis crítico de Flp 2,5-11”, en ID., Ensayos exegéticos, Ed. 

Sígueme, Salamanca. 

MOLTMANN, JÜRGEN 1972: Der gekreuzigte Gott; English translation of 1974, The 

Crucified God: The Cross of Christ As the Foundation and Criticism of 

Christian Theology, Harper & Row, New York. 

–––– 1980: Trinität und Reich Gottes; English translation of 1993, The Trinity and the 

Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, Fortress Press, Minneapolis. 

–––– 1985: Gott in der Schöfung; English translation of 1993, God in Creation: A New 

Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, Fortress Press, Minneapolis. 

–––– 1989: Der Weg Jesuchristi; English translation of 1993, The Way of Jesus Christ: 

Christology in Messianic Dimensions, Fortress Press, Minneapolis. 

–––– 1991: Der Geist des Lebens; English translation of 1992, The Spirit of Life: A 

Universal Affirmation, Fortress Press, Minneapolis. 

–––– 1995: Der kommende Got; English translation of 1996: The Coming of God, 

40 

In particular, we will dedicate section 4 of chapter 10 to this subject. 

170 



Fortress Press, Minneapolis. 

MURPHY, NANCY & GEORGE F.R. ELLIS 1997: On the Moral Nature of the Universe, 

Fortress Press, Minneapolis. 

PARMENTIER, ALIX 1969: La philosophie de Whitehead et le problème de Dieu, 

Beauchesne, Paris. 

PEACOCKE, ARTHUR 1993, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming: 

Natural, Divine, and Human, Fortress Press, Minneapolis. 

PLACHER, WILLIAM C. 1994: Narratives of a Vulnerable Gog: Christ, Theology, and 

Scripture, Knox Press, Louisville Kentucky. 

POLKINGHORNE, JOHN C. 1996: The Faith of a Physicist, Fortress Press, Minneapolis. 

–––– (ed.) 2001: The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis, Eerdmans, Cambridge U.K. 

RAHNER, KARL 1960: “Bemerkungen zum dogmatischen Tractat ‘De Trinitate’ ”, 

Schriften zur Theologie, IV, pp. 103-133; English translation updated in: 

RAHNER 1970. 

–––– 1970: The Trinity, Herder & Herder, New York. 

ROBERTSON J.C. 1971: “Does God Change?”, Ecumenist 9, 61. 

RUSSELL, ROBERT J., NANCEY MURPHY & C.J. ISHAM (eds.) 1993: Quantum 

Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, 

Vatican Observatory and CTNS Berkeley. 

––––, –––– & ARTHUR R. PEACOCKE 1995: Chaos and Complexity: Scientific 

Perspectives on Divine Action, Vatican Observatory and CTNS Berkeley. 

––––, WILLIAM R. STOEGER & FRANCISCO J. AYALA 1998: Evolutionary and molecular 

Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, Vatican Observatory and 

CTNS Berkeley. 

SCHOLEM, GERSHOM 1954: Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, New York; Spanish 

translation: Las grandes tendencias de la mística judía, Ediciones Siruela, 

Madrid 1996. 

–––– 1956: “Schöpfung aus nichts und Selbsverschränkung Gottes”, Eranos-Jahrbuch 

1956, Band 25, pp. 87-119; Spanish translation: ID., Conceptos básicos del 

judaísmo, Trotta, Madrid 1998, pp. 47-74. 

THOMAS AQUINATIS ST., Summa Theologiae, B.A.C., Madrid 1955. 

TIPLER, FRANK J. 1994, The Physics of Immortality, Doubleday, New York; Spanish 

translation, La física de la inmortalidad, Alianza, 1998. 

WELKER, MICHAEL (ed.) 1979: Diskussion: Jürgen Moltmann, Der gekreuzigte Gott, 

Kaiser Verlag, München. 

WHITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH 1929: Process and Reality, MacMillan, New York. 


Sophia-Iberia 

SOPHIA-IBERIA 

The Sophia-Iberia in Europe (SI) project on Human Evolution aims to create a 

platform, in which questions are raised and suggested that will give rise to open and 

participatory reflection over the next few years. The purpose is to consolidate a 

multidisciplinary network of scholars and scientists, Sophia-Iberia, in the Iberian 

Peninsula with strong links to similar European organisations. 

A short description of the SI project will be given below, and further information can be 

consulted on our website at: www.upcomillas.es/sophiaiberia. 

Theme 

The general theme of the SI project is human evolution, oriented to issues which relate 

the results of science – in accordance with its methodology – with philosophy and 

theology. The project was created by the Cátedra of Science, Technology and Religion, 

whose members are aware that the meaning of life and the ultimate metaphysical truth 

of the universe always present great concern throughout the history of humanity. 

Man seeks meaning and authenticity in his existence and must use reason in this search. 

The fact is that today the reason which seeks meaning cannot be exercised if it is not in 

accordance with the results of the most rigorous exercise of reason which we call 

science. 

We find that the history of humanity provides us with a wealth of ideological, cultural 

and religious cosmo-visions. Christianity has reached us through a number of Churches 

which have different theologies within a basic Christian unity. We also have access to 

the results of scientific research which today provides us with the most rigorous image 

of physical matter and the universe, life and its evolutionary development, the 

appearance of man and the emergence of reason. 

The theme of the SI project, deals more precisely with presenting the image of matter, 

the universe, life and man in their evolutionary unity from a strictly scientific image. 

This involves studying human evolution from its anthropic roots. 

The SI intends to create an area of critical and constructive reflection on the grand 

ideological, philosophical and theological traditions, from the perspective of the new 

image of the world provided by the sciences. It should be pointed out that the SI also 

assumes the expectations of those who believe that, today, science offers a basis for the 

humanistic convergence of men and a basis for mutual recognition and convergence of 

the different cultural, religious and theological traditions, within the framework of a 

critical, non-dogmatic evaluation of the knowledge. This leads to respect and tolerance 

to the diversity of interpretations of the world and the configuration of the meaning of 

life. 

The organisers of SI seek these objectives from a personal and institutional commitment 

with Christian and Catholic tradition and consider that its personal and institutional 

search is essentially united to the opening up of dialogue, to the participation of thought, 

and the evaluation and appreciation of the values ‘of the other’, within the framework of 

tolerance. 


Sophia-Iberia 

Activities of the SI project 

The manner in which the SI project will create an atmosphere of international reflection, 

is to order and analyse the proposals for thought in progress today and understand the 

anthropic principle which may open up for human evolution, described in an inter- and 

multidisciplinary manner through ideologies, philosophy and theology. 

The first activity of the SI project was its Academic Conference on “Human Evolution: 

in search of our anthropic roots” that took place at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas 

on September 5-8, 2007. More than 90 participants - nearly a third of them Jesuits - 

from the European Union, the United States, Russia and India met in Madrid to debate 

the very complex and interdisciplinary theme of human evolution. 

The program of the conference was divided in five sessions, each one on an 

evolutionary moment: matter and universe, life, man and neurology, formal sciences 

and theological reflections. Framework documents for each evolutionary moment were 

prepared and are included below. The organization of the conference was such that it 

granted the same amount of time to debate as to that allocated to the speakers’ 

presentations and the reply of the discussants. All of the discussants were members of 

the Association of Jesuits in Science and their tenth meeting of the European chapter 

(EJS) was held after the conference. The videos of the conference and the framework 

documents can be found on our website. 

A web-based workshop is open to facilitate dialogue on the themes presented and 

debated during the Academic Conference. Furthermore, a book will be edited including 

the themes, interests and questions raised during all of these interactions. In this sense, 

it is still possible to contribute to this endeavour by submitting your essay until January 

2009. Contributions should be in English, and will be first published on our website as 

part of the web-based workshop and those that are accepted will be included in the final 

publication of the book. 

Without a doubt, the most significant undertaking will be the Web-Based Academic 

Seminars. These will invite an important group of scholars and scientists to first debate 

relevant aspects of the topic in a restricted manner. In the next stage, the topics will be 

opened to the general public on the web site, for open discussion. 

The themes of the Academic Seminars of the SI project are on the: 

a) "Evolutionary genesis, ontology and functional nature of reason". The 

anthropological problem of the nature and emergence of human reason will be 

addressed. The scientific explanations for the emergence of reason and its 

functional nature are essential for understanding the products created by the 

human mind, including science, philosophy and theology. 

b) “Physical reality and psychic reality within a unitary universe”. The problem of 

the emergence of awareness-consciousness from the primordial physical world is 

addressed. The psychical world emerged in the living beings. However, the 

classical problem of sensitivity-consciousness continues to be obscure and must 

be illuminated from philosophical reflections and speculations, founded on 

scientific-phenomenological evidence. 

174 


Sophia-Iberia 

Sophia-Iberia sincerely hopes that the participants of the Metanexus Conference 2008 in 

Madrid will be interested in and contribute to these Academic Seminars and other 

activities of SI that will be announced on our web site. 

The success of the SI project over the next few years as well as the long term 

perspective of a permanent SI network will depend, to a large extent, on the degree of 

participation and the quality of the scientific-philosophical proposals made by its 

members. The dissemination of the contributions that we collect will be published on 

our web-site and be given a response within the framework of the project. We are 

looking forward to your valuable contributions. 


Sophia-Iberia: on Matter 

MATTER: “THE ONTOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION” 

In principle, the image of science starts from a monist principle and from an emergentist 

principle. That is to say, all that has been produced within the universe through its 

evolution in time is derived from the nature of matter and its ontological possibilities. 

The reference to matter as the primordial cause confers on science its explanatory unity. 

This explanation will be constructed, taking the following into account: 

a) the experience of everything which has been produced factually by evolution 

(including human phenomenology); 

b) the models of matter proposed (in other words, the knowledge of matter 

proposed by science). 

The problem of the explanatory breadth of the idea of matter proposed consists of the 

fact that not every idea of mater makes it possible to congruently explain what 

constitutes our experience of the evolutionary result, for example, the explanatory 

problems concerning reductionism. 

The themes proposed for reflection in this session of the workshop are organised in 

three periods: 

1) the problem of the explanatory breadth of the idea of matter; 

2) the presentation and discussion of the different models of matter in science and 

3) the selection of the anthropic profiles or properties present in the idea of matter 

in modern science. 

Three types of anthropic properties ontologically anticipate the human world: the 

tendency towards the organisation of a stable, determined space-time world of 

differences; the tendency to maintain and constitute the unitary physical environments 

or holistic states; the tendency to organise a world which produces environments of 

indeterminacy in quantum physics and in the classical micro-physics, within the basic 

stability. 

With regard to the ontology of matter, therefore, we find ourselves in the first state in 

which the nature and sense of the emergence and development of human evolution is 

anthropically anticipated. Matter, its models and the scope of its anthropic properties are 

the first theme for reflection in order to access knowledge of human evolution. 

Objectives, criteria and methods 

1. Matter and universe evolutionally move together: the universe is born as an 

evolutionary organisation of matter which responds to the real ontology of this 

matter. The knowledge of matter and the universe is almost inseparable. In the 

workshop, it was decided to first reflect on the universe, but in the conviction that 

these are themes which are inseparable in many senses. 

2. We ask what the image of matter in present day science is. We refer to the first 

evolutionary state selected (see: D-I) in order to understand the scientific image of 

human evolution. Our intention is also that this image takes us forward to 

responding to the final question on the theology which this scientific image of 

human evolution leads to, if it leads to a theology at all. 



3. The first response to the question on matter is the usual work hypothesis which 

seems to constitute a generalised expectation of science: matter is the ontological 

principle which produces the universe (and all its content, including life and man). 

Ontological means that the reality and being of matter, with its variety of properties, 

is the potential principle of evolution of the universe, life and man. Due to this 

expectation, we say that science in principle moves in a supposed, hypothetical 

monist principle. 

4. The scientific image of matter in the monist principle must also be complemented 

with another principle: matter is the principle of emergence of a substantial variety 

of forms of reality and of their evolutionary production in the universe, in life and in 

man. Therefore, the emergentist principle is formulated in the hypothetical case of 

its harmony with the monist principle. 

5. The emergentist principle makes it possible to understand obvious scientific 

reasoning. a) What are verified ontologically are the facts which arise in the 

universe and their factuality cannot be placed in doubt. b) Therefore, in accordance 

with the suppositions of the monist principle and of the emergentist principle, matter 

must be the potential principle of what is produced in the universe. c) If our image 

of matter does not make it possible to understand it as a potential principle of these 

facts, then only one of these two alternatives can be accepted: our image of matter is 

incorrect, or we must negate the monist principle (in other words, besides matter, 

there must be other ontological principles which contribute to explaining the nature 

of certain facts occurring in the universe, such as life or man, which are not 

explicable by the monist approach). 

6. The supposition that matter must have the properties required to make man possible 

is expressed in the form of a new anthropic principle. This principle formulates the 

evidence that man is a fact produced from matter and, therefore, matter must be 

attributed to the properties required and sufficient for this. This is a “weak” 

formulation of an anthropic principle which does not suppose a philosophical thesis 

on a probable or not probable intelligent design. 

The idea of matter 

and the problem of its explanatory breadth 

7. We have said that science moves within the hypothesis that the universe is explained 

from a primordial sub-stratum from which everything is produced. This sub-stratum 

is given the name “matter”. However, this supposition does not include a precise 

idea or knowledge of this sub-stratum or, in other words, of what matter in itself is. 

In fact, the ideas on matter have varied throughout history, but especially in the 

evolution of physics in the last 150 years. 

8. Consequently, the explanatory capacity of matter (to explain all the factual 

phenomena of the universe which, supposedly, should have been produced from 

matter) obviously depends on the idea of matter which is proposed. The scientific 

explanation is that the explanatory capacity is total (no phenomena produced in the 

universe can be excluded). If this were only partial, the reasoning explained in point 

4 would be applied, or the supposed idea of matter should be rejected, or the monist 

and emergentist principles would be rejected. 

9. From a historical perspective, we see that science has not always had (and does not 

have at the present time) this pretension to offer a total explanation. The classical 

mechanics of Newton, for example, intended to show an idea of matter which might 

explain “the physical world of immediate phenomenal experience”. This continues 

to be the approach of quite a number of present day systems of physics. 



10. On occasions, an idea of matter is constructed based on the pure, external, physical 

world, but, it also attempts to have a total explanatory capacity (the physical world, 

but also life and man in his psychic, phenomenological aspects). In order to have a 

total explanation, the idea of matter as a supposition to explain the totality of 

phenomena is forced and overvalued. This “explanatory violence” is known in the 

history of the philosophy of science as reductionism. 

11. Occasionally scientists and philosophers have renounced a total explanation in 

accordance with monist and emergentist principles. In this case, they have 

postulated the existence of two explanatory causal principles (co-principles), which 

are ontologically different insofar as they cannot be equated (one could not have 

generated the other through evolution). History shows the two types of dualism 

which most influenced western thought: first the Platonic-Aristotelian-Scholastic 

dualism (except for nuances) and the Cartesian dualism. Dualism breaks the 

explanatory unity of the universe. 

12. Consequently, the study of the primordial evolutionary state, matter from the focus 

of human evolution (the proposed focus of the workshop) supposes that attention is 

given to two complementary themes. First, the different ontological models of 

matter since each present different explanatory capacities. Second, the relevant 

evolutionary profiles which must be valued in the models of matter in order to 

understand in which sense the evolutionary state of matter has an anthropic design, a 

nature which makes it explicable a radice why and how the subsequent evolution of 

matter could make man possible. 

Not any idea of matter would have been anthropic (for example, it is doubtful 

whether the “reductionist image” is). However, the fact that man (and previous life) 

exist obliges us to have an anthropic idea, if we wish to maintain the unitary monist 

congruence as regards the explanation of the world. The criteria for selecting one or 

other evolutionary profiles in matter in order to pre-judge its anthropic potentiality, 

has already been explained in D-I (see: Human evolution as a phenomenological 

explicandum, D-I, No. 6-8). Knowing the properties of human evolution at the 

present time through phenomenology, in fact, provides us with a heuristic criterion 

in order to select features of the anthropic ontology of matter. 

13. Below we refer to these two themes: first, the models of matter; second, the relevant 

evolutionary profiles in the ontology of matter as regards human evolution. 

Ontological models of matter 

14. Throughout history, the ontological idea of matter has responded to differentiated 

models which lead to several consequent analyses of the evolutionary profiles which 

link with human evolution. 

a. Matter in classical mechanics: the corpuscular model. Classical mechanics 

predicts the physical evolution of a system from determinist laws when certain 

initial conditions are supposed. Are physical laws determinists in themselves? Is 

it necessary to know all the initial conditions to predict its evolution? How can 

the precision of its predictions be explained? How would determinism be seen 

from the quantum idea of fermionic matter? What role does determinism play in 

creating a stable, differentiated world, apt for life (differentiation and 

inheritance)? Mathematical discontinuity and classical mechanics. 

b. Radiation in classical mechanics: field models. The field effects of matter 

provoked a re-definition of classical physics in terms of classical electrodynamic 

and gravitational fields. Is classical determinism compatible with 



classical determinism with the number of degrees of freedom of the continuous 

fields? Is determinism compatible with relativity? 

c. Quantum model: unity-duality corpuscle-wave. The Newtonian thesis of 

corpuscles and the wave antithesis of Huygens were synthesised with the 

quantum principle of wave-corpuscle. Is this a dualist principle? On the 

contrary, is there a monist synthesis of different emergent properties of matter? 

What does this say about the continuity of matter? 

d. Mechanical-quantum matter: ontological models. The physics of elementary 

particles has scrutinised matter as far as sub-nuclear atomic levels dominated by 

quantum fields. What is understood by fundamental particle? Is there an ultimate 

material sub-stratum? Is it possible to conceive matter without interaction? What 

is the final ontology of space-time? Is it ether, the energy field, the quantum 

vacuum …? What is the ontology of “indeterminism” in quantum physics? Can 

quantum states produce indeterminate events? 

e. Mechanical-quantum matter: the Copenhagen model. Niels Bohr created an 

epistemology of quantum theory with no possibility of interpreting physics 

beyond the experimental result at a given time. Is an epiphenomenon everything 

which is not measured? Should research be carried out in accordance with the 

advice to shut up and calculate? Is the quantum physics of Copenhagen 

complete? 

f. Holistic matter in classical and quantum models. The gedankenexperiment of 

Einstein versus the Copenhagen model opened up new theoretical research into a 

non-local physical reality, which is the basis of the current teleportation 

technology. How is this non-local physical nature explained as fields? How can 

this contribute to understanding quantum coherence between quantum fields at a 

distance? 

g. Matter in the scale of Planck. At energy 10 25 eV, matter loses all its definition in 

favour of a dynamic energy field. Space – time itself becomes indefinite. There 

are only quantum fluctuations of energy. Is it possible to maintain determinism 

at this level? How does corpuscular matter emerge? What produces the stability 

of matter? 

h. Speculation on matter: the Higgs, super-strings and multiple dimensions. 

Beyond the efficient but incomplete Standard Model, the theoreticians of 

particles search for a new model of matter. Is the field of Higgs the fundamental 

physical component? Is our material universe a three-dimensional bubble in a 

multi-dimensional space? Will the Large Hadron Collider detect a super-string? 

15. Not all these models have the same support in empirical evidence. In a way, they are 

complementary as regards empirical aspects of reality. The fact that these models 

can be construed by the human mind (even when there is still a lack of empirical 

evidence, as occurs with string theory) shows the open and critical, hypothetical, not 

closed and absolute character of the idea of matter in scientific knowledge. 

Evolutionary profiles of matter as anthropic principles 

16. The criterion for giving prevalence to one or other of the profiles of matter depends 

on the previous phenomenological establishment of human evolution as the 

scientific explicandum (D-I, No. 6-8). As we said, this explicandum makes it 

possible for us to detect the profiles of matter which are relevant (significant) as 

regards human evolution. However, on studying the evolutionary state of matter at 

the present time, we can only select and describe those profiles which, in principle, 

might have anthropic value, as the germinal ontological principle of human 



evolution. Furthermore, the form in which they contribute to producing man must be 

analysed in other evolutionary periods (universe, life, man). It will be then that the 

potentiality of development is verified, or, “what the ontology of matter can give”. 

17. The main anthropic profiles are the following: 

a. Holism. The holistic phenomena of matter are verified from the birth of matter in 

the big bang until its current re-production in the appropriate physical 

conditions. Material holism tends to be placed in connection with the holism of 

psychic experience. Expressed negatively: an ontology of matter which is only 

discontinuous would render the psychic phenomena of “experiential continuity” 

strange. 

b. Difference-space. Even when matter is holistic under precise conditions, it has 

an ontology which makes it derive towards the material apparition of 

differentiated organisations (particles, atoms, molecules, objects …). These 

entities have a “place” (an ubi) and constitute distances between each other 

which permit a metric space. These properties are at the base of objectuality and 

difference, spatiality, which will enable the scenario of life and of man. 

c. Classical macroscopic structural organisation. The germinal ontology of matter, 

consequently, enables the structural organisation of a world which we call 

classical-macroscopic. Permanent structures create the order which will be 

perceived and adapted to by the living senses. 

d. Energy. Matter is born as the energy of the big bang and its organisational 

ontology permits the constant production of energy (e.g. in the sun). Material 

energy will make work, action and the adaptive movement of living beings and 

man possible. 

e. Determinacy. Matter is organised by responding to its ontological properties 

through precise and determined energetic interactions. Determinacy is the 

principle of order and security which makes life possible. 

f. Stability-legality. Matter creates a stable system determined by laws as a 

consequence of the determinist properties of material ontology. The determinist 

laws create the stability to support the form of the universe and the stability of 

biological inheritance. 

g. Change-time. In a balanced fashion, the ontology of matter creates an energetic 

system of changes and the transformation its states which create a time system 

(evolutionary) which makes space a space-time. This seems to connect with the 

temporal history of human life as an ontological material base. 

h. Indeterminacy. Determinist ontology of matter permits environments of 

indeterminacy in a balanced fashion where future states which evolve in 

energetic change and which can occur or not occur. These “ontological loops of 

indeterminacy” would offer the ontological possibility for spontaneous selfdetermination 

of life, and man in order to choose their “own evolution routes”. 

i. Chaotic interaction. The chaotic interaction of matter opens up a new 

perspective in order to insist on an indeterminist model of matter which offers 

the image of ontology for “living indeterminacy”. 

j. Probability. The evolutionary states generated from material interactions open 

up a probabilistic future which is configured within a framework of determinacy. 

Material systems tending towards probabilities or “propensities” are more 

congruent with the subsequent evolution of life. 

k. Creativity. According to this, the theory of matter shows us its energetic change 

of state in time as a creative process (in the sense of the configuration of 

possibilities which are not necessary in time). Living beings could have 

appropriated this creative ontology of matter. 



18. As a whole, the models of matter in science (see above: No. 13) present these 

profiles, but not necessarily, nor in the same form, in all of these. Therefore, the 

study of matter from an anthropic perspective must involve an in depth contribution 

and valuation of the models. 

Discussion 

Reductionist models 

Do the reductionist models make sense? Do they have epistemological justification as 

regards the construction of an image of matter? Does this necessary inter-disciplinary 

factor of science make it necessary to construct models of matter valued from a global 

phenomenology of the universe and its variety of content? – History and analysis of 

reductionist science and its current presence and epistemological valuation or criteria. 

Anthropic models 

Is it epistemologically justified to demand that science construct explanations which are 

“anthropically” congruent in its different stages? What role has the anthropic played in 

the history of the physics of matter? Which authors have contributed to an “anthropic 

science” (Bergson, Whitehead, Teilhard, etc.)? Which hypotheses have they proposed? 

Is our proposal of anthropic profiles in the physics of matter correct? Must it be added 

to? Does it have alternatives? 

Corpuscularity 

Corpuscularity and reductionism. To what point is corpuscularity admissible in physics? 

Corpuscularity and discontinuity. Is corpuscularity-discontinuity “anthropic”? Its role in 

the evolutionary formation of the classical macroscopic world of differences. A physics 

balanced between corpuscularity-discontinuity and the field-waveness-continuity. 

Holism 

The history of holistic ideas in the physics of matter. Holism in classical mechanics. 

Material matter in the idea of radiation in the XIX century. Holistic phenomena in 

quantum mechanics. Holistic phenomena in current physics. The anthropic character of 

holistic phenomena. 

Determinacy-indeterminacy 

The ontological properties of matter lead to a balance between determinacy and 

indeterminacy. Why is the ontology of matter determinist? Why does a determinist 

system produce environments of indeterminacy? Can determinacy and indeterminacy be 

harmonised? Which type of ontology, epistemological or ontological? The balance 

between determinacy –indeterminacy as an anthropic property of matter. Is determinacy 

reductionist? 



Continuity-discontinuity 

There are models of matter which lead to discontinuity; others support continuity. 

Conceptual problems (mathematical, scientific, philosophical) concerning continuitydiscontinuity. 

Their relationship with holism of matter and the theory of fields. 

Stability-change -energy 

Matter produces stable beings from resources of energy united to matter from the big 

bang, which are subjected to change. These material principles seem to play a very 

important role in the organised form of then universe and in the conditions which make 

life possible. In what sense does this matter prefigure an anthropic universe? 

Difference-objectivity-subjectivity 

In some way, matter has produced a world of differences and this is the basis for beings 

becoming subjects and objects for each other. How and why did matter create a world of 

difference which prefigures the world of subjects and objects which will make life 

possible? Could the world have been different? Could a material world be possible with 

no outlines, like undifferentiated plasma? 


Sophia-Iberia: on the Universe 

THE UNIVERSE: “THE EVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION OF AN 

ANTHROPIC WORLD” 

There seems to be no doubt that the matter we know (the matter which in fact produced 

our universe) is anthropic matter which has made the existence of man possible. If this 

matter is a special derivation of a more primordial matter which could also have derived 

towards other forms of more primordial matter which could also have derived towards 

other forms of matter which were not anthropic, we do not know this; although we can 

speculate on this in string theory. In any case, science describes how matter has 

produced our universe as it organises itself in accordance with its ontological properties. 

The universe is an evolutionary product of the organisation of matter. How has this 

evolution been produced? What is the origin of matter? What states have constituted its 

organisation? What are the structural properties of the universe as the resulting system? 

What future evolution can be foreseen? These questions, and other more precise 

questions, have been answered by the so called “universe models”, or cosmological 

theories. All of these endeavours to respond to the empirical evidence which can be 

registered today, but which always entail more ambitious theoretical speculation. In 

some models the evidence is even minimum and speculation predominates. However, 

the universe, considered as a whole, has in fact some anthropic properties deriving from 

the ontological properties of the matter which produced this. Nevertheless, it is in the 

factual universe where science verifies how the pieces of the building (matter) have 

been organised in the form of a surprising scenario for human life. 

Not all material organisation in our universe is anthropic (e.g. the surface of Mercury or 

of Jupiter), but the Earth is. A solid, stable world where man can live his life; an open 

world where man can choose options; a world of holistic fields where man can feel his 

life as he integrates into the totality of the universe. In the universe we find the second 

state in which the emergence of the nature and the sense of human evolution are 

anthropically anticipated. 


1. The universe is the result of the evolutionary organisation of matter from 

primordial energy. It responds to the nature and the laws of matter which are 

manifest precisely in the form which the universe acquires. In the same way, if 

matter is the supposed origin of all that appears in the universe, this must have 

anthropic properties (which make man possible). In addition, the universe must 

reflect these anthropic properties of matter and constitute new cosmic properties 

in it and these are also of an anthropic nature. 

2. If man is to be possible in evolution, the universe must be constituted as a 

human environment: as a place which receives the possible natural emergence 

and human action in order to make history. The universe must be a “habitat”, 

first for life and then for man. Thus, it is possible to make a study of the 

universe (and of matter) apart from human reality. This study leaves aside the 

knowledge of the structural properties of the universe which “makes it human”, 

habitable by man, the appropriate scenario to construct human history. However, 

it is also possible to study the universe from an “anthropic” perspective. It is 

from this perspective that the workshop studies the universe. 



3. To say that the universe is “anthropic” is a response to the use of this term in the 

sense explained above: if the universe produces man in fact, this is because it 

has the properties which make this possible. This “weak” anthropic principle 

does not involve any thesis on its causes; or as regards the so called intelligent 

design. 

4. Consequently, the “anthropical” study of the universe entails two stages. First, 

verify the image of the universe in science. Second, analyse the anthropic 

properties manifested by this image. The first step involves the study of the 

models of universe which have been proposed until now. This reveals that, 

although the facts and the empirical evidence are unquestionable and are 

accepted by all, however, their interpretation in a cosmological theory may vary. 

The facts are unarguable, but their integration in a global theory can be argued. 

The second step involves the study of the anthropic properties of the universe. 

There are two related perspectives: one is phenomenological and the other is 

speculative. Phenomenology makes it possible for us to objectively describe (by the 

phenomenological method) the properties which, in fact, organised matter has 

evolutionarily derived in the form of universe. Speculation allows us to study how these 

phenomenological properties are explained within the theoretical models of the 

universe. It would be possible that several speculative models might explain this. 

However, a model which cannot do so would be difficult to admit. It is not a question of 

admitting that the conceived universe should of necessity produce anthropic properties; 

in fact, our universe has not produced these in many areas (e.g. on the planet Jupiter or 

on stars). The question simply concerns the ontological possibility of producing these. 

Models of the universe 

5. The speculative theories on the universe are, of necessity, joined to the theories 

on matter. At the same time, these depend on experimental, observational and 

empirical evidence, registered up to now by scientific investigation. These are 

numerous and are recorded in the treatise of cosmology and astrophysics, which 

we refer to. 

However, these are also theoretical “speculation”. This is constructed in such a 

way that it is congruent with the known evidence; it is obvious that if this were 

not so, it would not be admissible. However, what is established by these 

speculative theories are referred to times and states of the universe which are 

beyond the current possibilities of observation. The evidence could involve 

congruence (ad hoc hypotheses) with many speculative theories which cannot be 

harmonised. Thus, if a speculative theory is to be considered acceptable, it must 

always have direct empirical evidence that its affirmations are being carried out 

in reality. 

6. Bearing in mind that, on occasions, the following are exclusive, but on other 

occasions may be harmonised, we mention the following models of universe: 

a. The big bang model: this entails that the universe originated some 15,000 

million years ago with a great explosion and has been expanding since that 

time. Its uncertain future evolution involves a triple scenario: limited 

expansion (closed universe), unlimited (open universe) and the intermediate 

186 



case between both (flat universe). As regards the past, this includes the 

question on the state of things previous to the big bang. 

b. The model of stationary state: this is based on the hypothesis (Perfect 

Cosmological Principle) that the universe does not only present the same 

aspect from any point of observation (Cosmological Principle), but also at 

any point in time. This supposes that the reduction of the density of mass 

provoked by its expansion is compensated by a minimum rate of continual 

creation of matter. 

c. Oscillating model: this states that the evolution of the universe corresponds to 

an infinite series of oscillations between expansive states (big bang) and 

contractive states (big crunch): expansion followed by contraction, followed, 

again, by expansion, etc. 

d. Multiversal model: this maintains that, within the universe, there have been 

innumerable “sub-universes” which have been born from great explosions 

(big bangs). These are universes with full entity, in which the laws of physics 

might be very different from those we know. 

e. The energetic and dynamic model. In any case, any of the models of the 

universe entail a justification of the energy which permits its expansion, 

transformation. The dynamic conceptions of the universe must justify the 

source of energy which explains the “dynamics” of the “physis”. 

f. The negentropic model. The universe continually produces an increase of 

entropy or internal disorder. But it also produces an appearance of order: from 

matter germinating the organised universe to the creation of order (an atom is 

ordered matter). This negentropy (the creation of order) must be integrated 

into the models of the universe constructed by science, as is executed. 

g. The mechanical–determinist model (clockwork): this is based on the 

metaphor of the universe as a clock or clockwork mechanism functioning 

with laws which are perfectly determinist. This refers to the question whether 

this “clock” necessarily entails a “watchmaker” who starts it up and maintains 

it. 

h. The computational model: the universe is conceived as a storeroom and 

processor of information. The universe would be a quantum computer 

continually calculating its own dynamic evolution as reality develops. 

i. The chaotic model: this admits the evolution of the universe and the physical 

phenomena in accordance with laws which are perfectly determinist and 

which, nevertheless, give rise to chaotic conduct, which is impossible to 

predict due to a lack of inherent precision as regards the initial conditions. 

The problem arises regarding whether chaotic evolution includes real, 

ontological indeterminacy, or is only a sample of lack of knowledge of the 

initial conditions (epistemological indeterminacy). 

j. The probalistic-statistical model. Is it possible to offer the scientific view of 

the universe towards the future with determinist security? Do chaos and 

quantum mechanics compel us towards probabilistic and statistical future 

previsions? Should the models of universe take up a position with regard to 

these questions? 

k. The open, flexible, indeterminate or determinate model. In accordance with 

the above, the models of universe take up positions as regards an open or 

closed idea of the future which is related with the basic problems as 

determination and indeterminacy of the future. 



l. The standard cosmological model: the most elaborated model of the big bang. 

This includes the study of the synthesis of chemical particles and components 

from an initial soup of quarks, leptons and radiation, as well as the 

development of the grand structures of the universe (galaxies, cumuli, etc.) as 

a consequence of the lack of standardisation at the basis of the radiation of 

microwaves. 

m. The inflationary model: this is a refining of the model of the big bang which 

includes a mechanism of exponential growth (inflation) of the radius of the 

universe in a standard model. 

Evolutionary profiles of the universe 

as anthropic properties 

7. These are properties of phenomenological experience which relate to the models of 

universe offered by science. Occasionally, these are congruent with all or with some 

of these. On occasions these may also be incongruent. In any case, it is essential that 

the universe which makes man possible has anthropic properties, insofar as these are 

those which will permit the origin of life and man in the future. Perhaps other 

property systems will also permit man, but our system has a certain “anthropic” 

form which should be described. 

8. The following anthropic properties are selected: 

a. Material diversification. The universe is the result of the ontological properties 

of matter which enable the appearance of differences in the course of time due to 

their energetic interaction: the appearance of difference in the manifestation of 

states of matter, from the corpuscular to the holistic, passing through solid, 

gaseous, liquid, plasma states, which are connected in the field unity of the 

universe. This balanced diversity of states of matter will lie at the ontological 

base which will make it possible to achieve the balanced composition of life. 

b. Physical entities, objects, bodies. The universe is thus presented as the result of 

an infinite order of celestial bodies: stars, galaxies, planets, earth, objects and 

terrestrial material, etc. Among these bodies and the physical conditions which 

establish these, appear the living bodies and the human body. 

c. Measurable spatiality: ubiquitisness. The form acquired by the universe as an 

organisational state of the evolution of matter leads to the formation of bodies in 

a special environment which permits measurable distances, the differentiation of 

place and of the entity of physical bodies. 

d. Energy, dynamism, change. The universe is a process of change in the states of 

matter which is produced by the by the energetic ontology of this as described in 

the physical theory on the four natural forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, 

weak and strong nuclear). Living beings participate in this cosmic dynamism in 

order to adapt to the medium and to survive. 

e. Temporality. The energetic interactions which produce the change in the states 

of matter manifest in the universe are the foundation of the succession of states 

and temporality. A static “petrified” world would not be an anthropic world. 

f. Cause-effect interaction. The interaction of matter on matter, or bodies on 

bodies, within the space-time framework constructed in the universe is also the 

ontological possibility of a scenario which makes it possible for life and to 

interact with the medium in order to select the possibilities of its future. 

188 



g. Determinacy, stability. The ontology of matter shows a universe, as a result of 

its organisation, a stable physical order in which objects are maintained, last in 

the same conditions and able to address the construction of a history from 

identity. 

h. Indeterminacy, probability. Determination has not prevented the ontological 

properties of the material interactions producing a non-closed universe, but one 

which is open in its real evolution, which opens possibilities which may comply 

or may not comply, but do permit the opening of “real indeterminacy loops” 

with the possibilities of events which will no necessarily occur, but which could 

occur. 

i. Variability, oscillating conditions, randomness. Cosmic evolution has occurred 

variably, in such a way that, in different places, it has constituted oscillating 

conditions (none is identical to others), in which randomness has played an 

important role. One of these products was the Earth: with selective physical 

conditions of a high quality as regards its anthropic potentiality. 

j. Systemic, holism interconnection. Although it is differentiated, the universe is 

also a whole, a unitary system in complete interdependence. Nothing escapes 

this cosmic causal interaction. This is an interaction which is explained partly by 

the principles of classical mechanics and affects the classical macroscopic 

world, and is fused in the holistic phenomena deriving from quantum mechanics. 

This universe with physical, field phenomena of a holistic nature offers the 

ontological possibility to living beings to adapt to the environment with the 

support of the holistic nature of the universe. 

9. Consequently, matter evolved until it produces the universe that has been organised 

as celestial bodies which contain bodies in different space-time locations. At the 

same time as bodies appear, matter fills the universe in other holistic states diffused 

in space such as light or other environmental niches. The energetic processes 

explode everywhere, maintaining the initial energy which gave rise to the evolution 

of matter in the big bang. However, mater has been organised in accordance with its 

own ontology and a stable and permanent framework has appeared, which gives rise 

to the different celestial bodies with an enormous variability of environmental 

conditions. Thus, a space-time framework has been produced which is continual and 

discontinual. Determinist stability and interaction between matter is not absolute as 

environments in which the material states have appeared are indeterminate and 

probabilistic, open to events which could occur or not, depending on unforeseeable 

factors, which are sometimes chaotic, and arise within the universe itself. 

Discussion 

Matter and universe 

Matter and universe are ontologically related. Matter seems to be more primordial 

(anterior to the universe and its origin).However, science also tells us that matter is 

produced at the same time as it is expanded and the universe expands. How are the 

properties of matter related to those of the universe? How does the physics of matter 

shed light on cosmology and how does cosmology shed light on the idea of matter? Are 

the physics of matter and cosmology an indissoluble unity? How is this considered from 

string and super string theory? What ideas have the great authors (Einstein, Hoyle, 

Guth, Penrose …) contributed, and evaluate and show their contributions? 



Empirical evidence 

Theoretical speculation is necessary in Science that always has the control of empirical 

evidence. What is the current role in physics of matter and cosmology of the theoretical 

speculation and empirical evidence? What would the image of matter-universe be in 

accordance with pure empirical evidence? What role do mathematical formalisations 

play in order to construct the scientific image of matter-universe? Does the 

mathematical formalisation alter and falsify the empirical model of the physical world? 

Models of the universe 

Modern science has produced a large number of models of the universe which must be 

presented, valuated and interpreted from the idea of an anthropic universe. This 

discussion on models must make it possible to value the most probable and to consider 

their anthropic interpretation. In the models proposed and discussed where is the 

speculative and where is the empirical? Do the mathematical formalisations offer 

images of matter-universe which are useful and functional? Does their reality 

ontological reality communicate their reality? Does this falsify our knowledge of the 

world? 

Anthropic properties 

Is our universe anthropic? Are the models of universe discussed by science anthropic, 

and to what extent? What are the most relevant anthropic properties of matter-universe? 

Could the universe have been different? What forms of universe would make an 

anthropic universe impossible? 

190 


Sophia-Iberia: about Life 

LIFE: “AS THE PROXIMATE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE” 

In its evolution, matter organised as universe has produced “materials” which do not 

have the property of “life”. Everything seems to indicate that not all the forms of 

organisation of the matter in our universe have become real. However, it is a fact that 

life, although not necessarily so, has been produced and responds to the anthropic 

properties of matter-universe. 

Life is an “appropriation” of the possibilities given previously in the ontology of matteruniverse. 

Once life appears, this becomes the real environment where the subsequent 

emergence of human evolution is produced. Thus, life is the real, biological, physical 

environment which produces the new anthropic properties which will soon make man 

possible. Life is the bridge between matter-universe and human evolution. In order to 

select, understand and value the anthropic properties of life, we must scientifically know 

what life is. And this knowledge depends on the models of matter and the models of the 

universe, which are discussed and depend on previous epistemological discussions. 

What is “life” for science? Depending on previous epistemological options, a variety of 

models of life appears in biological science. In the same way as science on matteruniverse 

has derived from more reductionist-discontinuous conceptions to other more 

modern ones where stress is laid on holism-continuity, the classical reductionistdiscontinuous 

biology (today computational) seems to derive towards a more holisticquantum 

biology in modern times. Classical macroscopic neurology seems to derive 

towards a new type of quantum neurology. This gives rise to the big questions to be 

discussed within the area of philosophy of biology. 

A powerful, manifest trend appears in the new biological holism-quantum; however, 

this new trend is strongly combated by the remaining reductionism, or “politically 

correct” paradigm in certain sectors of current biology. Undoubtedly the new biology 

gives rise to an image of life where its anthropic properties are more manifest and 

congruent with the phenomenological evidence. 


7. The expectation of science is that matter already contains the anthropic principles 

which permit, cause and condition human nature. Along the same lines, the universe 

will develop the anthropic properties of matter and will constitute a grand anthropic 

scenario in itself as the environment which makes history possible. However, within 

the energy and cosmic dynamism of change and transformation, at a moment in 

time, a new type of physical entity emerges: life. Life is the first step towards the 

appropriation of the anthropic properties already present in the previous physical 

universe. When life was formed by transformation and continuity with the preceding 

universe, and “emergence” occurs. What is understood by “emergence”? 

8. The emergentist principle, understood from the fact of the emergence of life, means 

that: 

a. a reality other than matter does not emerge (the monist principle is maintained: 

see D-1, No. 2-3); 

b. what “emerges” is a new form of systemic or structural organisation of matter; 

God Seen by Science: Anthropic Evolution of the Uuniverse 

191


c. this new material organisation produces the “emergence” of a new form of real 

being, known as life and qualitatively irreducible to the previous materials; 

d. the emergent qualities do not surpass the ontology of matter, but are fused in a 

specific (optimum) use of these materials. 

9. Life as an anthropic principle means that it is the ontological origin of man. Life in 

itself constitutes new emergent entities evolutionarily and these will be the 

ontological principle (what establishes or causes the real production of subsequent 

effect) of the evolutionary generation of the human species. Thus, life contains 

emergent anthropic principles (in keeping with the monist principle). These act as 

gradual evolutionary bridges which go between the physical world and the human 

world, at the same time as they also gradually anticipate the psychic properties 

which will appear finally and fully in the human. Thus, life, while still not “human”, 

contains “anthropic principles” insofar as these make man evolutionarily possible. 

In this type of universe, if there had been no life, man would not have been possible. 

However, not any type of life, life without anthropic properties, would have made 

man impossible. 

10. The knowledge of human evolution involves knowing life as an evolutionary state 

which determines the subsequent process towards man. The anthropic principles of 

matter, the universe and life, together in systemic interaction, will determine the 

possibility and the real emergence of the human species. Therefore, the study of life 

from the viewpoint of its anthropic properties must be constructed from the image of 

life in science (in scientific biology). This entails three components which are 

related: 

a. The phenomenology of life as a scientific explicandum. Science is always 

explanation (explicans) of phenomena (explicandum). In biology the 

explicandum is the phenomena of life. However, the form to present this as a 

phenomenon which “must be explained by science” depends on certain scientific 

epistemologies. At the present time, we move in the most recent supposition 

which has already surpassed “objectivism positivist-behaviourism”. However, in 

fact, this has not yet been surpassed completely in all the biological theories 

which are still in force in certain areas. The current, more modern 

epistemological position considers that the human phenomenological experience 

(agreed to by inter-subjective dialogue) is a describable empirical fact which 

must be explained by science. From this perspective, and by extension, some 

phenomenological properties only noticed by man in himself (for example, 

sensitivity) can be attributed to life, at least to higher forms of life analogically. 

b. The “models of life” in biological science. It is evident that biology has 

proposed different “models of life” in recent centuries, that is to say, different 

explanations of its causal principles, of its ontology and of its nature, as well as 

of its functional organisation. Therefore, when we speak of “life” this is not 

always understood from the perspective of biological science. As we know, 

scientific theories are not absolute theories, but proposals of interpretive 

systems, often in dispute with each other. These interpretations are seen in the 

epistemological theory of current biology. 

c. The anthropic properties of life. It is evident that its knowledge and analysis 

depend both on the initial, biological explicandum (the phenomenon of life 

which we must explain) and on the “models of life” proposed by biology to 

explain it. The scientific models of “life” will make this possible or not, and will 

modulate the form for selecting and valuing the anthropic principles of life. 


192


Models of life in biology 

5. Therefore, according to what has been said, these models always entail an 

epistemology (or epistemological theory of biological science) which gives sense to 

its scientific positions. On changing the epistemological presuppositions, some of 

these models lose their logical, argumentative basis. 

a. The mechanicist-reductionist model. Life arises in complex, physical systems 

which are explained by the same mechanicist-determinist theories of matteruniverse. 

These are dynamic systems held in balance by complex cause-effect 

interactions as regards the internal and external environment. Thus, life is 

explicitly “reduced” to the real, existing mode of being of the physical world: 

the same real quality, but with a greater degree of complexity. This model 

always involves isolated, differentiated, fermionic matter: each entity (particle, 

atom, molecule, matter, object …) remains as an isolated entity, although 

involved in chains of cause and effect with the other entities of the cosmos. 

b. The teleonomic model. Life is a form of organisation of the physical world 

which responds to the same, basic, physical-chemical laws. However, in life a 

superior level of organisation was produced evolutionarily and this permitted the 

emergence of a form of real, existing being with a “quality” distinct from the 

physical world. Life is a mechanical-determinist system with telos: the finality 

of optimum self-maintenance in the environment. The scientific explanations of 

biology are in part reductionist and in part new as these are “teleonomic” (the 

logic of natural, dynamic self-organisation and its balance in the environment). 

c. The ethological-behavioural model. The “finality” (telos) which life is oriented 

towards is understood here as objective behaviour: this is the teleonomic 

principle. However, its explanatory context is finally teleonomic reductionism. 

From its physical-chemical-teleonomic causes, the explanation of objective 

behaviour (objectivism-behaviourism) is constructed. 

d. The ethological-phenomenological model. This model admits the basic 

supposition that behaviour is caused by internal, psychic processes which are 

interpreted by analogy with the phenomenological experience of human 

psychism. Thus, in life, an “experiential interiority” was produced (we should 

remember the pan-psychism of Whitehead) which in the higher animals 

produces sensations, perceptions, consciousness, memory, emotions, etc. These 

psychic processes have a causal influence on the production of behaviour and 

the mechanicist-determinist evolution of life is oriented to these. Therefore, in 

this model, it is not denied that the explanation of life is given largely through 

reductionist and teleonomic reasons; but there is something more, conscious 

psychism, which has a “descendent causality” which interferes and controls the 

physical-chemical processes. 

e. The Darwinist model. The formation of life (responding to any of the above 

models) arose evolutionarily in conformity with the processes of adaptation to 

the environment, selection and mutation, within the grand mass of events, 

considered in the perspective of the Darwinist theory. The neural Darwinism of 

Edelman would be applicable not only to man, but to the general origin of the 

living beings which selectively generate their nervous systems. 

f. The quantum-holistic model. This model links with the above models, especially 

with the ethological-phenomenological model. It would admit the reductionist, 

teleonomic and ethological models in a balanced way, but would add an 


193


essential contribution: the explanatory connection of experiential holism and 

living indeterminism with its possible physical support in the quantum-holistic 

phenomena of the matter/universe. In the biological systems of differentiated, 

macroscopic-classical (fermionic), niches of bosonic matter had been “lodged” 

and this would produce phenomena of corporal, quantum coherence and in 

connection with external environments of the physical world (e.g.. light). The 

ideas of Fröhlich, Hameroff, Penrose, Popp and others are along these lines. 

g. The vitalist model. As regards the above models, vitalism proposed that life is 

explained by a vital “principle” or “élan” which is not reducible to the physical 

world. The concept of these living “hypothetical speculations” would link up 

with certain dualist philosophies, with certain nuances, but today it has few 

followers. The dualist approaches still have followers in philosophicaltheological 

environments of the Christian, Platonic-Aristotelian traditions. 

Evolutionary profiles of life as anthropic properties 

6. In life, certain emergent innovations are produced which constitute a first step which 

indicates human emergence. The selection of these steps and their description 

depend on the models of life which are considered to be correct and are applied in 

scientific biology. A) It is a fact that these emergent states were produced: they are 

not speculation, but unquestionable, empirical facts. B) Their anthropic character is 

not speculation, but a simple connection between their nature described by science 

and the subsequent nature of the human fact which will emerge evolutionarily. 

Let us look at an example. It is a fact known by science that in the living animal 

world the first sensitive systems were formed. It is a fact that the human species 

presents specific sensitive systems. It is a fact established by science that the human 

species has been formed evolutionarily from the preceding living species. Therefore, 

“animal sensitivity” is an anthropic principle which announces the emergence of 

“human sensitivity”. Thus, we could argue about other properties of life as anthropic 

principles of the human species: the human body in all its morphological and 

physiological aspects, the human psychic system, human knowledge, etc. Thus, life 

is a first step in the gradual process which leads to man from the anthropic 

properties of matter-universe. 

7. The evolutionary moment of life contains a set of properties which act as a bridge 

between matter-universe and the emergence of man. These are anthropic properties 

insofar as they make man possible. The living beings are physical “objects” which 

have evolved by optimising properties of matter-universe until “living objects” were 

produced with emergent properties. We make a selection of these fundamental 

anthropic properties: not all of these are found in all the living beings, but they are 

found in all of life, including the non-human higher living beings. 

a. Stable objects with adaptation to the changing environment. The living is 

constructed as a physical world and receives the physical, mechanicaldeterminist 

stability, however, it adds an important specification: life is born as a 

dynamic and changing exchange with the environment. The stability of the 

physical world is relatively more static. The living is achieved by more dynamic 

physical-biological systems. The changing dynamism which will lead to man 

emerges in this property of life. 

b. Energetic objects in growth, development and death. The energy of the universe 

arises in the big bang. The living fuses in energy which leads to birth, growth- 


194


development and death (when the stable dynamic balance achieved during the 

living time is broken). Life achieves changing dynamism, but it does not manage 

to stabilise this, not even to the extent of the greater part of the physical states of 

differentiated matter. Man is pre-figured in the temporary, changing, dynamic 

balance of life. 

c. Objects with dynamic self-organisation. Life was possible because 

matter/universe enabled this through its ontology, it produced an evolution 

towards the birth of dynamic systems with self- organisation. Life is the 

evolutionary discovery of the laws of this dynamic self-organisation from birth 

(embryogenesis) until the dynamic changing adaptation as regards the 

environment. Man will be a qualified product of this dynamic self-organisation 

in balance. 

d. Objects with detection of information. A system which contains an enormous 

amount of information on matter and the universe, as environments to which life 

must adapt (selective Darwinism). The rules of self-organisation suppose 

“information” on the environment and, finally on the existing reality. It is 

information which makes the self-organisational design of life efficient and this 

is achieved from the more primitive processes where everything functions in 

accordance with mechanical-determinist reductionism. This effective 

information accumulated throughout life is an anthropic sign which announces 

that man will finally be possible. 

e. Objects with sensitivity-consciousness. Sensitivity-consciousness, which already 

emerges in the living world, has efficient causality in the adaptation to the 

environment and is thus understood in the models of life in force today. It is the 

living capacity to feel that points anthropically towards man. This seems to 

indicate that life must have arisen as pure mechanical-determinist systems of 

organisation (physical-chemical reductionism). However, at a certain time in 

evolution, “sensitivity” must have appeared and this faculty is extraordinarily 

effective as regards the adaptive survival in the environment. What was the 

“physical support” of this new emergence of “sensitivity”? The complex human 

“sensitivity-consciousness” will be the essential component of subsequent 

human psychism. 

f. Objects with knowledge and psychism. The same must be said of animal 

knowledge and the architectonic structure of their psychic systems. These are a 

development of sensitivity-consciousness and are also a premonitory sign which 

points anthropically to the proximate emergence of the human species. Man 

appears evolutionarily from the systems of knowledge and psychism already 

constructed in the preceding species of hominids. 

g. Objects with psychic subjectuality. Evolution not only caused systems of 

information (and afterwards “sensitivity”). Information and sensation are 

integrated with response automatisms (for example: the sensation of light which 

makes it possible to modulate movement). The perfection of unitary sensation of 

the body itself and the integration of the sensitive systems (consciousness) made 

the “passive subject” emerge little by little. The “subject” coordinates the 

information and generates adaptive responses of the animal as an “all”. The 

“animal subject” is thus an immediate precedent of the “human psychic subject”. 

h. Objects opened with holistic integration. The objective circumstances 

(biological-neurological structures and the objective behaviour in the 

environment) are sufficient indication in order to infer that “life” produced 


195


i. 

“holistic environment” of sensitivity in animals. We must infer that the animal 

“feels” its body as a unitary totality; the higher animal has visual images which 

install it in a field of external light which is felt “holistically”. Holism which is 

present in the phenomenological experience of subsequent human psychism 

must have begun to be produced in the preceding organisation of “life”. 

Discussion 

Reductionism 

The reductionist models today still have a wide influence on biology and neurology. 

What is the epistemology of reductionism? What image of “life” is offered by 

reductionism? What arguments continue to justify reductionism today? Can 

reductionism justify the phenomenology of human psychism? How can the 

argumentation of the great authors and researchers who have defended and continue to 

defend reductionism be valued? 

Automatisms 

Life began through mechanical-determinist organisation. Complex automatisms were 

fused and functioned apart from sensitivity-consciousness. However, animal behaviour 

seems to present oscillation, flexibility, certain indeterminacy. How are determinism 

(automatism, routines) and spontaneous self-determination related in “life”? Are the 

components to define the determinism-liberty problem which will arise as regards the 

human species already present in life? 

Information 

Living beings were formed as systems whose organisation supposes the accumulation of 

an enormous amount of information on the environment of the matter-universe to which 

they must adapt. How is this presence of information in living beings to be understood? 

Are computational models valid? How would this be understood from the neurological 

perspective? Is the animal distinguished from man in the differences in their information 

systems? 

Subjectuality 

The subject is an essential factor in the emergence of life. The higher animals have 

constituted a “psychic subject”. What factors explain the emergence and nature of the 

psychic subject? What is its role in behaviour? How is the “psychic subject” understood 

in the different “models of life”? Would there be sensitivity-consciousness and psychic 

experience of holistic environments (propioception and vision) if there was no subject 

capable of registering the “sensation”? 

Knowledge 

Knowledge appears in the animal world and is a prefiguring of human knowledge. What 

is animal knowledge? How does it depend on the more basic psychic processes? How 

did it arise evolutionarily? What role does memory play in the genesis of animal 

knowledge (Edelman)? How does animal knowledge function? What role does it have 

in behaviour? How are knowledge and instinct related? Is knowledge “proto-human” 

behaviour (Lorenz)? 


196


Holism 

Is holism present in the psychic self-experience of the animal? What empirical and 

theoretical evidence can be adduced? What physical structures of matter-universe and of 

the neurological structures of the animal would be the “physical-biological-neurological 

support” of the animal holistic experience? What significance does holism have for the 

traditional, reductionist model? Do the new holistic perspectives oblige us to rethink 

biology? How are holism and mechanicism-determinism coordinated? 


197

Sophia-Iberia: Man abd Neurology 

MAN AND NEUROLOGY: “THE MIND AS AN ANTHROPIC FACTOR SEEN 

FROM THE HUMAN SCIENCES” 

Man appears as a living physical reality in the evolution of the universe. Thus his 

scientific explanation depends on the physics of matter, cosmology and biology. 

However, something new appears in man and this produces all human specificity, 

whose causes must also be explained by science. This explanation would be the most 

specific and proper to the human sciences as human physics and biology are explained 

within the framework of physics and biology (including the psychic, holistic aspects 

shared with the living world). 

We refer to the emergence of the “specific” psychic activity of man, specifically 

with regard to his “rationality”. That is to say, the decisive anthropic property emerged 

in evolution and will make man definitively possible. Reason is the grand anthropic 

event of the evolution of matter-universe-life which transforms this into “human 

evolution”. What is reason? What are its causes, as these can be known by science? The 

“models of man” in the human sciences depend on the “models of matter-universe” and 

on the “models of life” in the physical and biological sciences. The “explanatory models 

of the emergence and nature of reason” depend on these. They are models which cannot 

be constructed without the interdisciplinary confluence of several sciences. 

Human paleoanthropology knows how the species homo arose from the hominids 

and now constructs hypotheses on the causes which could produce the hominization of 

knowledge and behaviour. However, its proposals must be valued from the in depth 

contribution of disciplines such as neurology, cognitive psychology, epistemology and 

philosophy (including physics and biology). This is the field of the current grand 

discussion on the “theory of mind”. 

Our proposal for discussion in this work document is to explain man with a holisticquantum 

biology approach, which goes beyond the reductionism-computational 

approach. In addition, it would be possible to make conjectures that the evolution of the 

nervous system towards neurological “hyperformalisation” would have situated the 

human species in the appropriate psychic conditions “to feel” the reality of a new form 

and “to represent” real things as “structures”. The process of analysis and synthesis of 

the human mind oriented towards representing an objective world of “structures” in 

order to survive in it would then have produced the emergence of reason and science. 


1. The study of human evolution is focused on its essential objective that explain the 

appearance of man as a “natural object” in the universe, the evolutionary 

constitution of his specific, psychic system, his “mind”, and the production of 

history. Man is explained as an evolutionary product of matter, of the universe and 

of life, but this supposes the appearance of a new level of emergence of ontological 

possibilities. With man, in fact appears a new mode of real being, irreducible to the 

others which had already arisen in evolution, but also situated in continuity with 

these. Therefore, when science explains man, it maintains the continuity of the 

evolutionary process and the emergence of new qualities, attributed to an effect 

caused by a new form of systemic structuring of the preceding biological organisms. 

These are the questions which the human sciences as a whole attempt to respond to 

in interdisciplinary collaboration and with physics, cosmology and biology. 



2. As in all sciences, the starting point of human sciences is the description of its 

explicandum. This is the current experience of the human reality, already constituted 

in history. We know by personal and social (intersubjective) experience what man is 

as a real fact constituted in history, or what, in fact, the terminal product of human 

evolution is. We have made a phenomenological approach to “human evolution as 

phenomenological explicandum” as an initial basis for all the sessions (see D-I, No. 

6-8). In this there appeared common phenomenological features, shared with the 

physical world of matter, with the universe and with life. However, specific risks 

were verified to be singular to the human being. Thus, the human sciences explain 

man in connection with the physics, cosmology and biology (common features); 

they also explain the specifically human by themselves, as is seen in the personal, 

inter-subjective, social and historical phenomenological experience (specific 

features). 

3. Common features. Man as a natural entity is an evolutionary consequence of 

preceding anthropic properties which are explained in accordance with the physical 

sciences (matter), cosmological (universe) and biological (life). Thus, the physics of 

matter and the conformation in the universe of our “terrestrial niche” explain the 

human reality insofar as it is a physical object among others. However, the basic, 

specific living properties of our biological body is explained by matter, the universe 

and life. All the anthropic properties stated previously in sessions 1 (matter), 2 

(universe) and 3 (life), represent several aspects of the human explained by physics, 

cosmology and biology. For example, the “holistic” experience of the senses has 

already been presented and explained (if this is the case) in the life sciences. The 

explanation of human, experiential holism would be a prolongation of the same 

explanation of living holism. 

4. Specific features. Specific features also appear in man and their explanation is the 

task of the human sciences. These explanations of the specifically human constitute 

the novelty and peculiarity of the human sciences in their relation with the 

interdisciplinary framework of science. More specifically: if “rationality” is the 

essential phenomenological feature of man, as regards preceding life, the 

explanation of rationality is an essential is an essential task of the human sciences. A 

scientific explanation, however, always involves knowing the causes (the causal 

system, cause system) which have produced the emergence of a real phenomenon: 

thus, here we endeavour to know the emergence of human reality from its causes. 

How and why the world of life ended up producing the world of human reason. 

Likewise, the human sciences should also address the explanation of all the other 

features of the specifically human way to be real: sensitivity, emotion, language, 

work, the history in its variety of content, etc. 

5. The human faculties: the production of history. Consequently, the basic human 

sciences explain the causes which have produced the evolutionary emergence of the 

specific human faculties (e.g. reason). In this session, we refer above all to the basic 

explanations. However, the human sciences also explain human history in all its 

facets. They explain society (sociology), work (economics), politics (political 

science), knowledge (culture, philosophy, science, technology), religions (theology), 

etc. In the fifth session, we refer to one of the most surprising products of the human 

faculties: the production of the formal sciences. In the sixth session we refer to the 

production of theology as the fundamental theme to which our study of human 

evolution refers. 

200 



6. Models in human sciences. Man must be explained in the human sciences. However, 

the explanation is not always constructed in the same way. There is a diversity of 

explanatory models in human sciences which dispute the suitability of their 

approaches. The offer of alternative options should not surprise us as this responds 

to the nature of science: one thing is the facts (whose essential aspects are not 

discussed), however, their interpretation is another matter. 

Thus, the study of human evolution cannot be carried out without knowing the 

variety of “models of man” in human sciences as the reference framework. Only 

with these is it possible to precisely specify the essential question of the human 

sciences: the explanation of the causal system which produced the emergence and 

the nature of human rationality. We refer to these two themes below. 

Human evolution 

From the “models of man” in human sciences 

7. It is evident that “models of man” is understood here as only a general approach to 

address the knowledge and explanation of the man in an evolutionary framework. 

In fact we are speaking of “models of mind”, mainly with regard to the neurological 

problem. These “approaches” can be complementary and, therefore, not exclusive. 

Their explanatory scope, however, does not always cover the same extension: some 

explanations may be deeper than others: that is to say, they go more to the 

explanatory root, permitting better constructed theories (although this all depends 

on the subjective, scientific appraisal which may tend towards one or other 

explanation). Therefore, here we propose the following selection of “explanatory 

models”. 

a. Philosophical models. In connection with philosophy we must verify some 

models which continue to have restricted areas of validity, although they attempt 

to concur with modern scientific evidence. These are, above all, the Platonic- 

Aristotelian–Scholastic models, with an inevitable dualist orientation (and those 

who defend this attempt to soften it as much as possible today). There are also 

the Kantian and Neo-Kantian models (which are explained from classical 

rationalism) in which reason is understood as a transcendental a priori nature 

(not arising from biological evolution) which explained the universality and 

functional necessity of the human mind. 

b. Emergentist models. The generalization of the evolutionary principles from the 

XIX century led to conceiving man (and his mind) as an evolutionary result. In 

order to maintain the ontological unity of evolution, simultaneously with the 

specific novelty of evolutionary products, the appearance of life and man should 

be seen as an “emergence” process (a real novelty within an ontologicalevolutionary 

continuity). At the present time, most of the theories of man are 

within a specific type of “emergentist” framework. 

c. Darwinist models. Darwinism not only introduced evolutionism in the XIX 

century, but also contributed an explanatory proposal of the form in which 

“emergence” of vital and new behavioural forms had been caused: the 

mechanisms of natural selection and adaptation completed later with the 

biochemical contributions to Neo-Darwinism. Along the same lines, there is the 

outstanding interpretation of Darwinism made by Gerald Edelman – the so 



called neural Darwinism – which explains how the nervous system is the result 

of massive processes and adaptive functional selection. 

d. Models of neural networks. Classical neurology explained the animal and human 

minds – and, therefore, human nature – through neuronal theory and the systems 

or networks of neural interaction. The stimulus or information connects with 

neural networks (engrams, canons, structures, patterns…) which, on being 

activated, produce psychic life as correlated (sensations or qualia). The psychic 

subject is born evolutionarily from the stimulus-response connection. Thus, the 

brain is organised in specialisation with a precise localisation, but integrated into 

an interactive architecture which permits holistic life coordinated with the living 

organisms as a totality directed unity. 

e. Ethological-palaeontological models. Within the framework of palaeontology, 

the palaeoanthropology has studied how the human species appears from the 

preceding evolution of the hominids (from the Australopithecus to Homo 

Ergaster or Erectus, Homo Heidelbergensis, Neanderthal or homo sapiens). A 

model of man appears conceived from the evolution of the species, in which 

there are certain outstanding causes which contributed to the emergent process 

which produces genus man: the lack of biological specialisation (Gehlen), work 

from the erect position, socialisation-language, the evolution of behaviour by 

adaptation (Riedl, Lorenz) from proto-human behaviour. These models are 

preferably historical and can be harmonised with the other models which offer 

more ontological and radical explanations of human nature. 

f. Mechanicist-computational or reductionist models. These models are the 

modern version of the classical mechanicist and determinist, reductionist 

explanations in the XIX century and part of the XX century. The model of the 

machine has been substituted by the model of the computer, which is much more 

complex and efficient. What evolution has produced are biological systems of 

computation which are more and more complex and perfect. The nervous system 

is a computation system, for some it is a “serial” and for others “connectionist” 

PDP, parallel distributed processing). Behaviour (human responses and 

activities in general, from perception to thought) is explained as the effect of 

underlying mechanical-computational processes. “Sensations” (and the 

conscious psychic life in general) are a marginal evolutionary effect 

(epiphenomenon) which human behaviour is not the cause of (logicalcomputational 

physicalism, identism, epiphenomenalism, computational 

functionalism). 

g. Quantum-holistic models. These consider that the previous models do not 

explain an essential aspect of the phenomenological, psychic experience of 

consciousness: the holistic sensation of propioception of one’s own body and the 

vision of the external field of reality. To achieve this, the classical neurology of 

neural networks is developed through quantum neurology which, from holistic, 

physical ontology, would explain how living beings and man have constructed 

their world of sensations by appropriating the holistic properties of matter 

universe. We refer to the contributions of Bohm, Hameroff, Penrose and Popp, 

among others. 

202 



The explanation of rationality 

10. The proposals to explain human rationality are constructed from the “models of 

man” already selected. These offer us an explanation of the causes which, given the 

previous set of anthropic properties, constituted from matter, the universe and life, 

have produced the emergence of reason as a new specific feature which makes it 

possible to understand the root of human innovation. We have made the following 

selection of explanatory approaches to reason. 

a) Philosophical explanations. Obviously the philosophical positions always imply 

an explanation of reason. This occurs in the Platonic-Aristotelian-Scholastic 

dualisms or in the rationalist and Kantian anthropologies. The problem of these 

models is their reconciliation with science, which is more monist and 

evolutionary (not a priori-transcendental). 

b) Evolutionary explanation … by non-specialisation. Within the emergentist 

model, the classical theory of biological non-specialisation (Gehlen) tells us that 

reason was a forced adaptive resource in the human species due to the biological 

error of the loss of biological specialisation. However, what neurological or 

ontological transformation in the human species made the emergence of reason 

possible? 

c) … from evolutionary palaeontology: work, socialisation, language. This 

explanation contributes three factors which probably contribute to the 

hominisation and emergence of reason. However, neither do these seem to be 

valid as a radical, “in depth” explanation of human reason. Work, socialisation, 

language seem to suppose that they are products made possible by reason, 

already constituted in human psychism. 

d) … from evolutionary ethology (Lorenz, Riedl). Physical evolution and the 

adaptive apparition of life is a morpho-ratio process of the accumulation of 

information on matter-universe. This process continues in animal behaviour up 

to proto-human behaviour: reason is thus the congruence of animal-human 

behaviour adapted congruent with the objective demands of matter-universe. 

Reason is a behaviour adapted with greater complexity which responds to the 

mechanisms arising in the functions of animal psychism. 

e) … from the representation-memory mechanisms (Edelman). The theory of 

Edelman on the origin of the psychic processes from memory (the remembered 

present) completes the ethological-evolutionary explanation with a theory on the 

origin of representation as “memory packs” in the animal mind which are related 

with each other and little by little produce the emergence of the logical 

functions. 

f) … from neural Darwinism (Edelman). Edelman formulated his theory of neural 

Darwinism from two aspects: the massive proliferation of neural tissue and the 

selection of adaptively effective “mapping”. This theory made it possible to 

explain the two most important components of phenomenological experience of 

consciousness: its unity (integration of the conscious ego) and its variability (the 

selection of adaptive options from among a massive offer of neural possibilities). 

Edelman thinks that this explanation is sufficient to explain unity (holism) and 

selection (indeterminacy, liberty), while quantum holism is unnecessary. For 

Edelman man is not a computer but selective dynamics can be simulated by 

appropriate computer designs. 



g) … from the theory of neural networks. Classical neurology of neural networks 

would explain how the sensitive registers in its own modules would commence 

to be “read”, through the expansion of the association brain. The front lobules 

began to construct representative packets for the memory (Edelman). This 

process of connection and analysis continued with the development of the front 

and pre-front areas where new tissues of neurons permitted the nascent 

complexity of the mind. Reason was a result of neuronal complexity for the 

inter-connection and analysis of all the modular registers and networks of the old 

and the modern brain. Man was not a computer, but functioned through psychic 

activity which emerged from the neural networks, supported by highly complex 

unconscious structures; however, this activity could be partially simulated in 

accordance with a “weak metaphor” of computation. 

h) … from the theory of biological hyper-formalisation (Zubiri). The theory of 

Zubiri is a hypothetical case which interprets what would have produced the 

growing complexity of the nervous system. The animal perceives forms 

(objects), but “it feels” them as stimuli and reacts through instinctive 

automatisms (signitive). The human animal would have evolved towards a 

nervous system which would enable feeling-perceiving through “hyperformalisation”. 

This “hyper-formalised feeling” makes the human contemplate 

the stimuli as “reality” (as something which is observed in itself). This 

contemplation of “reality” leads to the representation that reality is real as 

“structure” (as a unitary system of components). The psychic activity for reality 

as a structure would be the genesis of reason. Science would be the most 

rigorous form to analyse the real world and for it to be represented as 

“structure”. 

i) … from the genetic-evolutionary theory (Piaget). In the genetic psychology of 

Piaget we find a proposal similar to that of Zubiri: through movement and 

sensations, the child constructs his sensations and representation of a structural 

idea of his body and the objects which constitute the genesis of adult reason. He 

constructs a structural representation of reality. 

j) … from computational theory. The computational model also requires proposing 

an explanation of the evolutionary genesis of reason. This is only the selection of 

responses to the information of the medium through complex processing 

programs constructed in human neural evolution. The psychological reason 

(experimented as action directed and caused by the conscious ego would only be 

a marginal psychic epiphenomenon). 

k) … from neural determinism. Modern neurological investigation (from Libet) has 

verified evidence that the mind functions through neural determinism which 

would make liberty only an illusory phenomenon (epiphenomenal). This type of 

neurology would serve as support for the computational theorists of reason. It is 

clear that, if man were a robot and liberty an illusion, the idea of a society 

constructed on the evidence of moral responsibility. 

l) … from functionalism. This would consider that it is not possible to explain the 

causes of the human mind, given the current limitation of scientific knowledge. 

However, it would be possible to offer a functional theory of the mind (a 

description of its functioning). From this point of view, functionalism involves a 

number of options, including computational functionalism. 

m) … from the quantum-holistic neurology. This would be in congruence with 

many of the previous explanations of reason. However, it would add that the 

204 



holistic-indeterminist properties of matter-universe must be applied to the 

explanation of the holístic-indeterminist explanation of the psychic experience. 

The rational activity would be the exercise of the psychic activity founded on the 

holistic-indeterminist experience constructed evolutionarily in life and 

terminally in the human consciousness. The psychic spontaneity of the mind and 

reason would have their origins in the indeterminacy of the quantum states 

(quantum superimposition). 

11. The mind as an anthropic principle. The evolutionary appearance of the rational 

human mind is the most important anthropic factor. This reason, together with the 

other human faculties has produced history. The possession of a “rational mind” 

explains why the human phenomenological experience is evolutionary. However, 

what is the mind? What is its origin? The answers to these questions (the models of 

man and the explanations of reason which must be discussed) influence the way to 

understand the anthropic consequences of the mind and its projection on the human 

future. 

Discussion 

The epistemology of the human sciences 

The human sciences, especially psychology, anthropology, philosophy and neurology, 

must be constructed in accordance with a certain epistemology which has been 

discussed in recent years. Where do “behaviourism” and “methodological objectivism” 

stand in the human sciences today? How are the phenomenological facts considered in 

the epistemology of the human sciences? Which epistemological presuppositions are 

established in the cognitive sciences and in neurology? What epistemology is founded 

by the computational paradigm and by the emergentist paradigm in human sciences? 

What consequences do these epistemological approaches have on the way to understand 

the anthropic properties which are manifested in anthropology and neurology? 

The phenomenological explicandum 

What must anthropology and neurology explain? What are the phenomenological 

features which science must explain? Is the phenomenology proposed as a point of 

reference in these working drafts, correct? 

Are there alternatives? How would phenomenology be made with a computational 

approach? And with a dualist approach? How does phenomenology influence the 

valuation of the results of the human sciences? 

The models of man 

In current human sciences, there are several paradigms which disputed the correct 

scientific interpretation of man. How can we present and judge the content of these 

paradigms or “models of man”? What consequences do these have on the way to 

understand the anthropic principles which have made man possible? As regards the 

“models of man”, what are the empirical evidence and the facts and where do the 

discussible interpretations begin? 



The explanation of reason 

The explanation of the most essential distinctive feature of the human condition, reason, 

must be made from within the logic of “models of man” constructed by science. How 

are the proposals to explain the evolutionary origin of reason? How is this done within 

the “models of man”? What anthropic consequences does the explanation of reason 

have? 

Is the “explanation” of man science or philosophy? 

The explanation of man frequently mixes science and philosophy. What point does the 

purely scientific image of man reach? What does science contribute as unquestionable 

knowledge and what gaps does it leave open? What does philosophy contribute? How 

do science and philosophy complement each other in order to understand human 

evolution? In what sense does our scientific and philosophical explanation of man 

(especially the explanation of reason) have consequences as regards our form of 

understanding and valuing human discourse on God, la religion and theology? 

206 


Sophia-Iberia: Formal Sciences 

FORMAL SCIENCES: “AS AN ANTHROPIC PRODUCT OF HUMAN REASON” 

The emergence and stability of the rational mind in the human species produced history. 

Looking towards the future of human evolution, its possibilities must be foreseen 

through a prognosis founded on forecasts of the future of reason. In the past, an eminent 

product of reason was the creation of the so-called formal sciences. These were and will 

continue to be an instrument created by the mind in order to ponder on what the future 

might be. The formal sciences are the most effective “extension of the mind” in order to 

assess what the future of the human species might bring. 

The “expansion of the mind in formalisation” means that we must address exciting 

themes for discussion such as the re-ontologisation and re-functionalisation of the mind. 

What are the formal sciences? What are the causes which have produced formalisation 

and what does this consist of as a natural product of the mind? These questions must be 

answered scientifically within the framework of the current discussion on the nature of 

the natural mind (see: session four, D-4): the formal sciences are a product of the natural 

mind. The proposal in this framework document, which must be assessed and discussed, 

is that the formal sciences are “structural representations” constructed by the mind. 

They are products derived from the “structural” representative functioning of the 

natural mind in order to survive by adaptation to an objective world constructed as a 

“structure”; the world, in fact, is accessible to the senses and perception as “structure”. 

According to this, the formal sciences would have commenced by abstracting and 

imagining “structures” applicable to the cognitive organisation of a world of 

“structures”. Does the real world which is maintained as “structure” present absolute 

consistency and self-sufficiency in itself? Are the structures “imagined” by the human 

mind in the formal sciences absolutely consistent and self-sufficient in themselves? 

When the real structures of the world are known supported by the formal structures, 

can the human mind construct formalisations which are so consistent (or self-sufficient) 

that they make it possible to know, predict and control reality absolutely and selfsufficiently 

(that is to say, matter-universe-life-man)? These are the questions which 

human evolution presents and which involve us in what can be called the metaphysics 

of formal sciences, already noted in the theorem of Gödel. 


1. The formal sciences are a product of the natural human mind: more specifically of 

its evolutionary classification as rational. The “rational mind”, therefore, has 

produced the formal sciences and this shows one of its most surprising emergent 

manifestations (the human mind as a new psychic product which did not exist in 

preceding life and is qualitatively irreducible to this). 

By “formal sciences” we understand the fact that the rational mind “has imagined 

abstract forms”. a) Imagined: the formal sciences are constructs “created” by the 

human faculty to “imagine”; or, although they are viewable (for example with a 

paper and pencil, as has always been done in mathematics), this viewing responds to 

an internal imaginative and creative representation of the mind. b) Forms: what is 

imagined are “forms”, or “structures” or “systems”: that is to say, sets of “imagined 

objects” and the dynamic relationships between these in accordance with certain 

regulations. c) Abstracts: there are “imagined forms” searched for and conceived in 

themselves, “abstracting” (separating) from the real world. 



2. To say that the formal sciences are “abstract” does not signify that this has not been 

produced with applied objectives: that is to say, oriented to using these abstract, 

imagined forms for the knowledge of the real world. In fact, the formal sciences 

were born as a mathematics of immediate application in order to count and measure 

time and space (arithmetic and geometry). The idea of abstract formalisation arose 

little by little and is a modern contribution. This justifies considering them as 

“sciences” (even though they do not directly intend to obtain “knowledge”, but only 

“help to know”). In fact, science has always been “knowledge” of the real world; if 

the “formalisations” are at the service of “science”, they should also be considered 

to be “formal sciences”, as they conceive “forms” at the service of knowledge. They 

have been considered in this way and used in the history of science. 

3. The construction of a variety of “forms” has given rise to classes of formal sciences. 

These have multiplied in recent years. There has been a mathematical, arithmetical 

or geometric formalisation; a logical formalisation; a systemic formalisation; a 

linguistic formalisation; a computational formalisation, among others. The 

knowledge, control, and even construction, of real systems which are more and 

more complex mean that today new hyper-complex, formal systems are also 

necessary to give rise to new classes of formal sciences (the formalisations 

applicable to computation sciences, for example, were unknown a few years ago). 

4. Just as life, matter and the universe contain properties which we have classified as 

“anthropic” because they make possible and anticipate human emergence, as well as 

the current “human mind” presents properties which we can also consider to be 

“anthropic” insofar as they make possible and anticipate the man of the future. The 

mind of today, and especially its surprising formalising activity, enables us to gain 

an intuition and value human evolution beyond the present time. 

5. The formal sciences are a fact. They have a history which leads to our days and can 

be reconstructed with precision. At the present time the formal sciences have an 

unquestionable, objective presence, and even their possible future evolution can be 

studied. Thus, they constitute more empirical evidence in the phenomenological 

explicandum of human evolution. They are facts which have been produced by the 

human mind and, therefore, they are a evolutionary product of the natural human 

faculties which “must be explained”. The question is why the human mind has been 

able to “imagine” the formal sciences? 

6. The formal sciences pose the problem of their origin: they point to the knowledge of 

how and why they have been created by the human mind. That is to say, what the 

causes which produced them were. It is evident that explanatory theorisation on this 

depends on the idea of the human mind which has been established as a 

presupposition, as, in the end, the formal sciences are a product of the faculties of 

the natural human mind (this is the theme of the fourth session of the workshop on 

man-neurology). 

Consequently, the formal sciences as a real produced fact denote where human 

evolution has reached. These are, in fact, explicandum which must be known 

scientifically as a product of the human mind. However, they are also a product of 

the mind which, as we said, has an extraordinary anthropic value, which enables us 

to have an intuition of the future evolution of the human mind. In any case, both 

knowledge and the anthropic valuation of the human sciences depend on the theory 

which is previously established in order to explain the natural human mind; or, the 

theory of the causes which produce it, its nature and its natural functioning. 

208 



We refer to this below: firstly to the models of the causal origin of the formal 

sciences in the human mind, secondly to their anthropic valuation. 

7. The models respond to the inevitable supposition that formal science is a product of 

the natural human mind. Their differences arise from the way to understand how the 

human mind produces formal sciences. And this depends on the ontology of the 

presupposed mind (the idea of its causal origin, of its nature and of its functions: see 

the fourth session, D-4). According to this, we select the following models in order 

to explain the natural origin of the formal sciences. 

a. A priori, logicist, rationalist models. Formalisation would arise from the 

capacities contained in the human mind a priori. The mind would be 

“constructed factually” (separate from evolution) in such a way that it would 

impose the laws of logic, mathematics, language, etc. This is how the 

Scholastics, Kantians, Logicisms (perhaps that of Russell), rationalisms (perhaps 

that of Chomsky), etc. seem to think. 

b. Functionalist model. Functionalism does not propose theories related to the 

origin of the formal sciences, but describes the laws of the functioning of the 

mind which made it possible to create these and their results (or, the 

formalisations which the human mind has, in fact, constructed in history). The 

study of both factors can make it possible to propose functional theories 

(basically “descriptive”) on what the formal sciences are. 

c. Platonic-intuitive model. In accordance with the classical platonic essentialism, 

the formal forms or essences (e.g. mathematics) would be the fruit of the 

creating imagination carried out by the same mind through a “direct intuition”. 

Authors such as Whitehead or Penrose seem to have insisted on this form of 

understanding the origin of the formal sciences. 

d. Evolutionary models. As regards the three previous models, the evolutionary 

models consider that the mind is formed evolutionarily and, therefore, the formal 

sciences must also be a product which is in consonance with evolution. They do 

not have a “construct” state which is proper to an atemporary mind, but are a 

product of evolution in time within the biological framework through adaptive 

and a priori mechanisms. Perhaps the most probable is that the “rationalism” of 

Chomsky must be understood as evolutionary. 

e. Representative-neuronal models. As they have arisen from evolution, the formal 

sciences respond to the natural activity of the mind and, therefore, are the result 

of the functioning of the nervous system. Specifically, they are the result of the 

representative, cognitive, imaginative activity possible through the ordinary 

mechanisms of the neuronal networks. This means that, in the final analysis, the 

formal activity of the mind would be founded on an imagination connected to 

the sensitive systems. Even the formal-abstractive activity would be produced 

from sensitivity. 

f. Constructivist models. These would be the fruit of a free construction from the 

imagination which would not respond to conditioning separated from the 

creative process. Some conceptions of the origin of mathematics such as the 

constructivism of Brouwer would seem to respond to this case. 

g. Adaptive-a posteriori models. This would be a constructivism in which force is 

placed on an imaginative construction which depends on the a posteriori 

experience of an objective world to which the mind must adapt. The world is 

presented as “structure” (matter and universe are a construction which organises 

the differences in unitary systems). Thus, the human mind generalises the 



concept of structure from its experience of the structure of the world: 

conceiving the structures which make it possible to understand the real objective 

world and, at the same time, conceive other possible worlds imaginatively. 

h. The Piaget model (Piaget). This is a way to explain the origin of the formal 

sciences in accordance with the adaptive –a posteriori model. It has had 

considerable influence. 

i. The Zubirian modelo (Zubiri). This is also a version of the same adaptive-a 

priori model. The mind feels the “reality” which is presented to it a posteriori 

and notices that this is real as a “structure”. Thus, their capacity to imagine 

structures whether these respond or not to the real objective world. 

j. Epiphenomenalist computational models. As regards computationalism, the 

nervous system is a computer constructed biologically by evolution in order to 

process optimum adaptive responses. This natural, dynamic process understood 

as computational biological self-programming or connectionist networks (PDP) 

would produce an overabundance of formalisation (that is to say, more 

formalisations than those which, in fact, are being applied in order to react as 

regards the medium). Consciousness would be a marginal phenomenon 

(epiphenomenon) which would not intervene in causing the behaviour (as this 

would be an automatic result of the computation of the information or of the 

connectionist networks). According to this, on constructing the formal sciences, 

the epiphenomenal consciousness would verify the presence of the overabundant 

formal systems constructed in the mind by natural evolution. 

8. These models represent explanatory options of the natural mind which are 

sometimes exclusive and sometimes not. To be inclined towards one model or 

another supposes being situated in a direction which will value the anthropic power 

of the formalising capacity of the human mind. This will also influence the way to 

understand philosophical, metaphysical and religious-theological discourse. 

Anthropic valuation of the formal sciences 

9. The functional faculties of the human mind indicate future evolution tendencies. The 

formalising faculty of the mind and its products are perhaps where these 

evolutionary tendencies point with more impact. It is a question of “anthropic” 

tendencies because, from the current reality of the mind, these will make the “man 

of the future” possible as this will be a product of the possibilities of the mind itself. 

These are tendencies which are discussed insofar as the proposal and the valuation 

can be made in different ways. Today this discussion forms a substantial part of the 

philosophy of science and the philosophy of formal sciences. As a suggestion, we 

point out the following anthropic tendencies of the formal sciences. 

a. Imaginary list of possible forms. Through the formal sciences, the mind is open 

to an almost infinite “imaginary list” of possible forms and structures, which is 

both static and dynamic. Dynamic because it can imagine structures which 

change its form depending on the changing internal and external information or 

depending on the self-generation of change designed in the same form. They can 

be freely imagined or inspired in a real aspect (space, time, thought, language 

…). The generating dynamics of the forms and of the formal change can be 

produced by several designs; it can even be generated by machines. One of these 

designs is computational: when change is generated in series or in parallel, by 

computing operations which respond to the imagined dynamic design. The 

210 



future of human evolution will depend on the capacity to design and develop 

these forms, as well as the nature of this “growing imaginary list of forms” 

which will be placed at the service of human life. 

b. The design, register and synthesis of knowledge. Through dynamically acting 

forms and machines, complex human knowledge can be registered, recovered, 

manipulated and related. For example, through the existing calculation designs 

which we know as expert systems or “artificial intelligence” in general. 

c. The design of formalising technologies. Technology consists of systems of 

cause-effect interactions between material states, either in series, or in parallel, 

until they produce certain useful results. These specific technologies always 

respond to formal dynamic designs which serve to operate already created 

formal systems, e.g. la mathematics (in series or in PDP parallel). Interactions 

can even be designed between technologies and independent formal designs (e.g. 

computational and connectionist). The new formalisations which are created can 

inspire and boost the imaginative list of new physical, biological and 

neurological technologies required to “operate these”. 

d. The heuristic design of knowledge. The formalisations can automatically and 

creatively generate new knowledge. Thus, they will be heuristic systems: 

dynamic systems to seek and conceive new knowledge. There are formalisations 

which only organise and relate existing knowledge (before, points b and c: e.g. 

expert systems in medicine). But there are other really heuristic formalisations 

which open up, suggest and conceive new knowledge. Thus, the formalisations 

which conceive and suggest material states beyond the observable and 

predictable: the formalisations applied in string theory, or the simulations of 

atmospheric weather, the origin-evolution of our universe, and other possible 

formalisations. 

e. The heuristic design of technology. In addition, in the same way as there are 

heuristic formalisations in order to produce knowledge, it would also be possible 

to design formalisations oriented to heuristically producing new technological 

possibilities. New and unforeseen technological systems could be generated by 

dynamic heuristic formalisations designed to invent them. 

f. Extension of the mind. According to this, the formalisations are the grand means 

or instrument created by the mind for its own expansion. They have an 

extraordinary anthropic force in order to modulate the possibilities of the man of 

the future. Formalisation has enabled science to expand knowledge 

quantitatively and in an organised way, as well as increasing the rapidity and 

extension of the register, recuperation, technological handling, relation and 

production of knowledge. It has also permitted the extension of creativity by 

automating heuristics in knowledge and technology. 

g. Simulation of the mind. The “extension of the mind” in formalisation does not 

entail ontological mind-formalisation-machine (computer) identity, nor 

functional identity. The formalisations and the computing machines in which 

they are dynamically implemented are not “ontologically” equal to a living 

being with sensitivity and consciousness. Neither are they equal in their way of 

functioning in order to achieve results, nor are the formalisations of calculators 

functionally equal to a living being and its mental functions. However, it would 

be possible to use formal systems in order to “simulate” functions of the natural 

mind and implement these in a calculator (we refer only to the functional, not to 

ontology). Although it is an issue under discussion (remember the opinions of 



Penrose), everything seems to indicate that the mind will be increasingly more 

possible to simulate functionally (not ontologically), both as regards production 

and the heuristics of knowledge. 

h. Re-ontologisation of the mind. Therefore, the formalisations involve something 

like a re-ontologisation of the mind; or, in other words, the production of a new 

artificial mind, with a different ontology from the natural mind, although it will 

be designed and controlled by the natural mind. Nevertheless, where the reontologisation 

of the mind will reach is still a subject of discussion. Until now, it 

is a re-ontologisation which is different from the natural mind, although it can be 

coordinated with this (different as regards its hardware and as regards its 

software). If current hardware (calculators) is replaced by biological systems 

which implement formal dynamic systems, it would be a question of a re– 

ontologisation which is more similar to the human one. If possible, an 

ontological connection beyond the merely instrumental remains open. Moreover, 

matter-universe possesses holistic properties (which the physical-ontological 

support for sensation perhaps depends) and these could be technologically 

manipulated in order to construct “sensitive” hardware. These are speculative 

possibilities. This would pose questions on the possibility of connecting these 

new biological technologies to the sensitive biological hardware of living 

species. 

i. Re-funcionalisation of the mind. The formalisations also involve a refuncionalisation 

of the mind. The logic or software of the dynamic 

formalisations in themselves and the machines designed to generate their 

operative capacity (including their possible biological capacity), in fact, entail 

the appearance of new functional faculties, which are not in the natural mind, 

but are instrumental in boosting the objectives of the mind, and even perhaps, as 

stated before, ontologically and functionally connectable with the mind itself. 

With what has been sated up to now, we see how the functions of the natural 

mind used to operate mathematics have been o re-functionalised by computers 

(Turing’s machine) in order to operate mathematical more complex problems 

more rapidly. 

j. Absolutisation of the mind. The increasing growth of formalisation will augment 

the possibilities of domination and control of matter-universe-life-man to the 

same extent through the “extension of the mind”. Where will this domination 

reach? Will an absolutisation of the mind take place? If this is to take place, two 

conditions must be fulfilled: a) the availability of formal systems which are 

absolutely consistent in themselves, perfectly constructed, self-sufficient, 

consistent and closed; b) the knowledge of natural events (matter, universe, life, 

man) in order to make these correspond with these formal systems. To what 

extent is it speculative if nature could correspond with these absolute formal 

systems, the human mind would possess an absolute domination and control 

over reality? In any case, the theorem of Gödel, and other speculations on the 

metaphysics of the formal sciences pose questions on the possibility that the 

mind might create absolute formal systems, with a closed self-sufficient 

consistency. 

212 



Discussion 

Epistemology of the formal sciences 

The way to understand the formal sciences and their anthropic, orientating role in the 

future of human evolution depends on the epistemology of the formal sciences which is 

presupposed. What are the formal sciences? What role do they play in science? Are the 

epistemological principles presented correct? Do they connect with the scientificneurological 

image of the natural mind? Can alternatives be proposed? 

Classification and interdisciplinary nature of the formal sciences 

Today there is a growing variety of formal sciences and their numerous technical 

applications. What are these? How can their specific epistemologies be presented? What 

anthropic possibilities do they indicate for the future of the human species? 

Formal sciences and sciences of reality 

The formal sciences are not a purely “imaginary” world, they are something created by 

the mind “from” and “for” reality. How do the formal sciences arise from the natural 

mind? Are there alternatives to the proposals made in the work document? How do 

these connect and open up possibilities for the real sciences? What conditions does the 

form of the “structure of the matter-universe-life” establish so that the formal sciences 

may be “instrumental” or “useful” for the real sciences? 

Models of the natural origin of the formal functions of the mind 

A number of explanatory models have arisen in the work document. How are these to be 

valued? What arguments back these up and what criticisms are they subject too? Are 

there alternative models? 

Anthropic properties of the formal sciences 

The fact that the mind has created the formal sciences points toward important anthropic 

properties, insofar as they indicate where the human species might evolve towards. In 

the work document, we have listed some of these. How are these to be valued? What 

anthropic lines of evolution do they indicate? Are there alternatives? 

Natural ontology and artificial ontology of the mind 

The anthropic line of the re-ontologisation and re-funcionalisation of the mind gives rise 

to important speculative discussions. What new “instrumental” possibilities will appear 

for the “extension of the mind”? Will an “ontological-functional extension of the mind” 

be possible? Will a biological extension of the natural mind which makes a new 

ontology and a new functional software emerge be possible? How much of this is 

legitimate scientific speculation and how much is science-fiction? 



Metaphysics of the formal systems 

The ontological-functional growth and limits of formal sciences and their 

implementation technologies in machines or biological systems give a probable measure 

of the anthropic future of the human species. As well as a measure of the metaphysics or 

final knowledge-domination of the reality of matter-universe-life. What direction does 

the “metaphysics of the formal sciences” indicate? Do these “metaphysics” really exist? 

What do the speculation and interpretation of the theorem of Gödel contribute to this 

issue? 

214 


Sophia-Iberia: Philosophy and Theology 

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY: “WHAT ANTHROPIC HORIZONS DO 

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY OPEN UP FOR HUMAN EVOLUTION?” 

Science does not put any limits to its wish to know reality. However, the scientific 

method has limits which pose ultimate questions which cannot be answered by science 

alone. At this point, science naturally leads to scientific-philosophical reflection. 

However, not all the results of science have the same value as regards suggesting 

scientific-philosophical reflections. 

a. In the first place, we must make a list of scientific results which are projected 

towards metaphysics and theology; these are the results which can shed light on the 

ultimate metaphysical questions due to their nature. Science is based on the 

ascertainment of a real universe constructed as a system or structure. The 

expectation of science is that this system contains the self-sufficiency required to be 

real. 

b. From the results of science, scientific-philosophical reflection constructs three 

positions as regards metaphysics, which are, in fact, three positions concerning the 

problem of self-sufficiency of the universe, agnosticism, atheism and theism. 

c. Finally, science and philosophy are projected towards the theologies which the 

historical religions have constructed in order to give meaning to their beliefs. 

The theologies are dependent on systems of thought from the past and on the influence 

of other cultural periods. Is the current image of human evolution in science congruent 

with these theologies? What new approach or adaptation should this mean for the 

traditional theologies? Is it possible to continue to talk of God, religion, theology in the 

“era of science”? In what way? Can the “theology of science”, promoted by the 

religions and theologies, make a new dialogue and inter-religious and inter-theological 

ecumenical approximation possible? 


1. Science seeks to know reality and does not place limits on this objective. However, 

the method of science imposes certain limits; this occurs when the scientific method 

cannot state anything when faced with certain questions or in certain areas of reality 

which are open o reason. For example, the question, “What was there before the big 

bang?”, cannot be answered with a scientific hypothesis. The environment of “the 

ultimate”, the “absolute basis of existing reality” is not possible to know as the 

result of the normal application of the scientific method, at the present time. 

However, questions on and environments of reality beyond the reach of the 

scientific method can also be addressed legitimately by human reason in philosophy 

and, in relation to this, in theology. 

It is legitimate for the rational human species to ask how and why there is 

“system of reality” which we verify phenomenologically by our senses. These 

questions are not unfamiliar to science, although on many occasions they cannot be 

answered by its method (science is not only open to the “how” of things, but also to 

the “why”). This is the question on the absolute or ultimate (metaphysical) basis of 

reality: it is the grand question which philosophy has attempted to answer, as well 

as, at their own levels, the religions and their theologies (and also, at its level, 

science). In fact dependent on these questions are important vital questions and the 



sense of life, which are legitimately asked by man. History and culture prove this. 

Theism, atheism, agnosticism, religions are different forms of taking up a 

philosophical or metaphysical position faced with the ultimate, the absolute. 

Today, when our enlightened, scientific culture continues to ask these 

philosophical questions on the ultimate, the metaphysical, the answers which are 

constructed cannot ignore the results of science. Thus, it is possible to speak of a 

type of scientific-philosophical reflection (philosophy of the results of science) and 

its consequences as regards theology. Of course, philosophy is not reduced to 

science: it must also be founded on reflection on other facets of existence (art, 

history, ethics, emotions, human feelings, etc.). However, the image of the universe 

in science is an important, necessary reference –although not exclusive or unique– 

for current philosophical reflection. 

2. Scientific study on human evolution from its anthropic roots also leads reason to ask 

what philosophy leads to? How does the ultimate, absolute, metaphysical dimension 

of reality appear? What type of theology is possible from this scientific from this 

scientific image of human evolution? Moreover and as regards the special objectives 

of this workshop. What forecasts on human evolution do philosophy and theology 

lead to? Can our present in human history, explained by science, be a possible 

anthropic sign of a future religious “salvation” and survival “beyond death”? 

These questions are not strange or unnecessary for the scientific study of human 

evolution from its anthropic roots. Science seeks knowledge with no limits and, 

when it does not achieve this by its method alone, it appeals to philosophy in order 

to continue asking inevitable questions. Human evolution is produced from the 

anthropic properties of matter-universe-life, but human reason, assisted by its 

powerful capacity for formalisation, produces thought (hypotheses and conjectures) 

on its future. This complex, scientific, philosophical and theological thought makes 

it possible to glimpse signals from a possible future. Thus, philosophy and theology 

(starting from science) are, in fact, obscure anthropic signs (they do not have the 

security of science) because they reveal current forms of thought which might 

foreshadow a “new future of possibilities for humanity”. This was so in the past and 

the question is whether science today permits this to continue in the future. 

However, we do not mean that metaphysical, scientific-philosophical reflection 

“necessarily” leads to describing these “future” horizons for humanity only in the 

religious sense. The result of scientific-philosophical reason applied to the 

metaphysical may be agnosticism or atheism. In any case, the argumentation and the 

taking up of a personal position as regards theism, atheism, agnosticism or religion 

(and their theologies) must be constructed within the framework of reflection on 

human evolution. That is to say, asking from the present time, given human 

evolution and the nature of reason, which hypotheses and conjectures can be 

constructed in relation to the future of the human species. This is where the capacity 

for free, personal evaluation must provide the arguments in favour of theism, 

atheism, agnosticism and religions. Several “anthropic” hypotheses will appear: 

hypotheses on how, from the present, reason makes it possible to understand the 

future of man. This is precisely what this sixth session of the workshop deals with. 

3. Below we present a framework of ideas and suggestions which make it possible to 

think, deepen, evaluate, discuss and present alternatives, in relation to three main 

topics: 

a. Relevant scientific results. These are the most important results of the scientific 

image of human evolution which can be considered to be “relevant features or 

216 



content” in relation to a possible philosophical reflection and its connections 

with theology. That is to say, the results produced by science do not have the 

same meaning or capacity of suggestion for philosophy and theology: here we 

make a proposal of a list of the more outstanding results which seem “to 

suggest” inevitable lines of philosophical reflection. 

b. Relevant philosophical consequences. Which philosophical inferences permit the 

results of the scientific image of human evolution? We refer to the ultimate, the 

absolute, and the metaphysical. In short, it would be “to suggest” the response 

routes of philosophy to the question which science seems to impose on man. 

c. Relevant theological consequences. Along the same lines, the results of science 

and its consequences for philosophy must also lead to certain consequences for 

theological reflection from current culture: that is to say, the image of God in 

theology and whether this must be congruent with science and philosophy. 

Scientific results: profiles which point to philosophy 

4. Below we make a list of scientific results and the “profile” these present as regards 

the philosophical. The results are purely scientific; on reasoning that these results 

have a “profile” which is projected on philosophy is, evidently an interpretation. We 

note that, on occasions, we do not refer to results which are more or less “definitive” 

(although there is nothing “definitive” in science), but to trends in current science. 

The list is selective and interpretative. It is possible to value, perfect, enlarge, 

reduce, criticise and is susceptible to alternative proposals. However, it is a starting 

point for suggesting scientific-philosophical reflection. 

5. We establish the following results, trends, profiles: 

a. Scientific epistemology. All that we say about science belongs to an 

“epistemological” discourse. It is not possible to speak about science and 

evaluate its results, without an “epistemology of science”. Several 

epistemologies will lead to several ways of seeing science. This need for a 

fundamental epistemology within the framework of popperianism and postpopperianism. 

b. Causal systems and method. Science always attempts to know the causal 

systems of phenomena. Describing the phenomena (explicandum) and finding 

the causes which have really produced these (explicans). The explicandum is 

obtained by phenomenology. However, science aims at the knowledge of causes 

“without limits” (the “how” and the “why”). On occasions, its method does not 

permit it to construct precise “scientific” arguments regarding the ultimate 

questions. Thus, its connection with philosophy and theology. Science must not 

be confused with philosophy; but “philosophy from science” is possible. Today 

this connection seems to be acknowledged by all (theists, atheists, agnostics and 

religious), independently of the personal positions. 

c. Self-sufficient systems. Science attempts to causally know self-sufficient 

systems. Science seeks self-sufficient “causal systems”, causes which “explain” 

the phenomena with no need to appeal to other causes. It seeks “self-sufficient 

explanations (causal systems)”. This is the same as saying “absolutes”: causes 

sufficient to explain the real phenomena. Science seeks “structures” (systems of 

interdependent causes) which are self-sufficient. When the method of science 

does not permit hypotheses on these “self-sufficient causes” is when science 

connects with philosophy and, possibly (depending on opinions), with theology. 



All recognise this search for explanatory self-sufficiency; agnosticism considers 

that it is not possible ton achieve this (at the present time or under any 

circumstances), but it does not deny that human reason seeks this selfsufficiency. 

d. The monist principle. Science works in accordance with the monist principle. 

This is a logical tendency for human reason: the universe with all its content 

(phenomena) is ascertained and, in principle, its causes are sought within the 

same universe. Therefore, matter or the first causal substratum of the universe 

must be the causal principle of all that we observe. The supposition is that the 

evolutionary process has a “monist unity”. This supposition gives sense to this 

workshop as it seeks to find the anthropic roots in matter (D-1), in the universe 

(D-2), in life (D-3) and in the neurological configuration of the mind (D-4 y D- 

5). However, when science searches for self-sufficiency within the monist 

framework, problems may arise which connect with philosophy. 

e. The reductionism-dualism problem. The results of science have posed a 

traditional problem (today in the process of being overcome, but still present in 

many fields and authors): On the one hand, the “explanatory reduction” of all 

reality, including life, psyche and man, to a certain physical-chemical paradigm 

of science; on the other hand, the reaction as regards “reductionism” postulating 

a “dualist” explanation of reality (counter to the monist expectation). This 

problem is being overcome as science evolves towards a new “non reductionist” 

paradigm. The “psych-physical” problem has existed and continues to exist 

today in certain approaches of science. This result cannot be ignored. However, 

it is a fact that modern science is attempting to “holistically” integrate or 

complement non exclusive explanatory principles which have the advantage of 

important phenomenological evidence. 

f. The complementary nature of monism-emergentism. Science has an 

“emergentist” tendency, complementary to “monism”. The monist principle is 

maintained, but it is also admitted that a continual evolution of the monist 

substratum of the universe produces the emergence of entities which permit a 

“new form of real being”, which represents a “leap in the quality of existence”. 

Leaving apart emergences of a minor nature, today science ascertains three 

grand emergences: The emergence of the universe ordered from unformed 

matter, the emergence of life from matter-universe, the emergence of man from 

life. Each level of emergence has its own forms of causality which are “not 

reducible” to each other. Science today involves emergentism which does not 

deny, but assumes theism. 

g. Complementariness of differentiation-holism. Science today tends towards an 

idea of matter (of the universe, of life and of man) in which the differentiation is 

joined as a “complement” with “holism”. In evolution the properties of matter 

have made it possible to produce “differentiated entities” (planets, bodies, 

organisms, men …) and “holistic states” in which matter loses its differentiation 

and forms unitary, physical, field states. Quantum mechanics today explains 

how the differentiation which makes it possible to construct bodies is produced 

and how the constitution of holistic states of matter which still persist within the 

universe (and probably within living beings is produced. 

h. Complementariness of determinism-indeterminism. The tendency of science 

today is to complement “determination” with “indeterminacy”. The causal 

interaction between “physical entities (or biological) differentiated” tends to be 

218 



“determinist” (the preceding states or concurrent causes necessarily and 

inevitably produce certain effects, which some authors of the past explained 

through the model of “mechanicism”). This is the normal causality in the 

description of the world in classical mechanics. However, matter still not 

trapped in rigid, stable, differentiated structures (or, in more primitive states with 

more inclination to holism) presents an evolution to a great extent, but not 

totally, undetermined. The states of quantum superposition can, in fact, derive 

towards specific collapses. A particle has an unpredictable evolution within an 

oscillating range of probabilities or “propensities” (Popper), as explained in 

quantum mechanics. However, classical mechanics (statistical mechanics, chaos, 

complex systems …) today poses the problem of how to understand the 

“mechanical-classical” indeterminist evolution of the systems. Science today 

describes the world in a balanced fashion as a balance between determination 

and indeterminacy. 

i. The monist explanation of complexity. The enormous complexity of reality is a 

fact: physical complexity (matter-universe), biological complexity (life) and 

human complexity (neurology). How does science explain this? As seems to be 

logical, it attempts to do so by formulating certain hypotheses which conserve 

the “self-sufficiency” of the universe. The first explanation is the nature of 

matter itself: the complexity would be an ulterior consequence its ontological 

properties (today theoretically string and superstring theory point to this). The 

properties of self-organisation of matter (Stuart Kauffman) explain the 

microscopic order of matter and the macroscopic order of the universe. 

Moreover, the biological and neurological complexity are explained by 

Darwinism (from simplicity to complexity in short adaptive leaps in 

accumulated chains); but not only this, as we must also add the intrinsic 

properties of the self-organisation of matter (which are ascertained in biology in 

an extraordinary way). Science is at present moving towards an explanation of 

the causes which have produced the emergence of the complexity within the 

evolution of the universe. 

j. The monist explanation of life and psychism. Science shows a tendency towards 

the emergentist explanation of the “physical support” of psychism. The 

explanation is founded on the monist-emergentism, determinism-indeterminacy 

complementariness and on the explanatory theories of complexity. Life would 

be a balanced equilibrium between determined, stable organisms which occupy a 

defined place in space-time and the undetermined holistic fields which are the 

foundation of the universe of sensations, of consciousness and freedom. 

k. Problems concerning the “self-sufficient” image of science. Science, in fact, 

seeks, in principle, to construct knowledge of the universe, and all its content, in 

the form of a self-sufficient structural system. This is the initial expectation. This 

natural objective of human reason in science, however, is checked by certain 

problems which have been, and continue to be, the subject of discussion. 

i. The problem of the stable consistency of the universe. Science reaches its 

limits of knowledge as regards the problem of the consistency, stability and 

sufficiency of the universe. The expectation would be that reason would 

make it possible to know a consistent universe which is stable in time; that is 

to say, self-sufficient in itself (absolute) as regards its own reality. However, 

the results of science do not make understanding this self-sufficiency easy to 

understand. The problem was already raised in the “standard cosmological 



model” (the idea of the universe, in principle, non-speculative, based on 

empirical evidence). However, everything becomes complicated in the 

speculative discussion of the big bang, the stationary universe, the universe 

of plasma, the multiverse universes, the oscillating universe, the universe of 

Smolin, or the speculative universe arising from string theory. The 

consistent, self-sufficient stability of the universe is very far from being 

definitively solved. 

ii. The problem of the physical and biological orders. Science reaches its limits 

of knowledge concerning the problem of the causes which produce the 

physical and biological order. We have seen how science constructs theories 

to explain the evolutionary emergence of the physical and biological order: 

the natural properties of the ontology of matter towards self-organisation and 

the Darwinian key to the accumulative adaptive leaps. However, other ways 

to analyse and solve the problems have again raised the classical hypothesis 

of intelligent design. Without going into more detail, it is sufficient to 

ascertain the level of the current discussions to see that this problem is still 

very far from being solved. 

iii. The problem of the psycho-bio-physical ontology of matter. Science reaches 

its limits when faced with the problem of the real “ontology” of matter 

which permits a final, convincing psycho-bio-physical explanation. It is a 

fact that sensitivity-consciousness, psychism and human reason have been 

produced in the monist evolution of matter-universe. Differentiation and 

holism must originate in the ontology of matter. However, today when 

science seeks the ultimate ontological origins of matter (we are thinking of 

string theory, even though it is speculative), this refers to an ultimate 

foundation which is still strange and unexplained, and may be called 

“quantum vacuum”, “energy reserve”, “implicit order”, “geometry of space” 

…, from which a universe capable of constructing differences (bodies) and 

of opening up environments of holistic interaction would arise. The 

knowledge of the final ontology of the universe has not yet been solved 

definitively. 

Philosophical Consequences 

6. The results of science which we have just synthesised present problems which 

cannot be solved by the rigorous application of the scientific method. It is at this 

point that science is open to its connection with the type of reflection of philosophy; 

or rather, of the philosophy of science or scientific-philosophical reflection. As this 

is more imprecise and dependent on the evaluating freedom of each individual, the 

philosophy of science produces several opinions which are finally three: 

agnosticism, atheism and theism. 

It is true that these three positions are not assumed by individuals as a result of a 

pure scientific-philosophical analysis. Other factors influence this global taking up 

of a position: historical, cultural, existential, social, psychological, etc. However, the 

scientific-philosophical argumentation is important: it is decisive for certain 

intellectual minorities and influences society due to its presence in popular culture. 

Given the orientation of this workshop, we will not enter into a general discussion of 

agnosticism, atheism and theism. Broader studies are possible (including more 

220 



factors), but we focus only on the discussion of the scientific-philosophical 

argumentations. We begin with agnosticism. 

a. Agnosticism. This is the most immediate scientific-philosophical position which 

arises almost from the same data of the problem. Faced with the de facto 

impossibility that science might solve certain, ultimate, metaphysical questions, 

by its own methods and faced with the enormous complexity of the problems 

which scientific-philosophical reflection must answer, agnosticism declares its 

option not to answer or not to commit itself philosophically. Agnosticism does 

not know what to say regarding the ultimate form in which the universe is selfsufficient. 

b. Arguments in favour of agnosticism. A) This is a coherent position as regards a 

metaphysical problem which is difficult to solve. B) It is a way to keep within 

the strict limits of science, without risking the commitments of a philosophical 

nature. C) It respects both atheism and theism as it gives them a margin of 

probability (if it did not give this to both, it would no longer be agnosticism), 

therefore it is socially more comfortable. D) It maintains personal honesty 

because the sincere valuation of the difficulty of the problem morally justifies 

that the agnostic position be freely assumed as a result of an intellectual 

evaluating honesty. 

c. The atheist hypothesis. Atheism is an immediate position which responds to the 

general expectation of science: our consciousness testifies that we are in a 

universe which, in principle, can be attributed self-sufficiency. Atheism 

proposes arguments to understand this. These arguments must explain why the 

universe is self-sufficient as regards producing all that it contains. 

d. Arguments of atheist likelihood. 

i. A consistent, stable, self-sufficient universe. The universe must be founded 

on an environment which has always existed as, if at any time, it had not 

existed, it would be very difficult to understand how it came into existence. 

Moreover, its nature must be able to explain the physical properties which 

are ascertained bys science. The difficulties which the “standard 

cosmological model” poses for the self-sufficiency of the universe are 

overcome by atheism by alternative theories and by speculation: it criticises 

the big bang, the model of a stationary state, the universe of plasma, 

mutiverse universes in their different variants, the oscillating universe, string 

theory and multiverse universes, etc. 

ii. A universe which produces the physical, biological and human neurological 

order. The “anthropic” properties and the properties of order of the universe 

are explained in a self-sufficient manner: a) by chance within the immense 

masses of events (multi-verse); b) by the ontological properties of matter 

which lead to self-organisation; c) by the Darwinian logic of accumulative 

adaptation from the simple and its biochemical registration in the DNA (the 

classic “chance and necessity” of Jacques Monod). 

iii. Other arguments. Atheism is also founded on other reasons of a historical, 

existential, social order etc.. The so called “theories of alienation” attempt to 

explain why men – with no serious rational arguments to do so – have 

produced the belief in God and in religion. 

e. The theist hypothesis. This is the strangest position because, in principle, there is 

only immediate experience of the universe and not of God. However, socially it 

is the most obvious as humanity has always been almost totally theist. Theism 



intends not to remain apart from scientific reason and seeks reasons to consider 

that the universe does not show its self-sufficiency. Therefore, it constructs 

arguments in order to justify that self-sufficiency must be funded on a divine 

being. 

f. Arguments of theist likelihood. Throughout history, theism has constructed many 

arguments. In modern times it has also attempted to construct these from the 

image of matter-universe-life and from human evolution, as offered to us by 

science. 

i. The universe must be founded on the Divinity. The image of modern 

cosmology, especially the standard cosmological model, offers a vision of 

the universe in which its self-sufficiency seems difficult to understand. For 

theism the hypothesis of a creator Divinity is the most likely explanation on 

which to base the consistency, stability and sufficiency of the universe. 

ii. The physical and biological orders are produced from the creator design of 

God. At the present time, the theist authors continue to consider that the 

universe as a whole makes it possible to glimpse, that is to say, make 

“likely” or probable (but not “demonstrate”) that the universe, as a congruent 

scenario which leads to human freedom, might respond to a rational design 

of the Divinity. 

iii. The ontology of the universe makes divine ontology congruent. The new 

ontology of matter-universe-life which combines the differentiation with 

holism (together with the other complementary factors mentioned above.) 

permits the reductionism of mechanistic nature to be surpassed progressively 

in order to present an image of the ontology of God as the holistic foundation 

of the universe and from whom everything is born and produced, which is 

becoming more and more likely. Within this new holistic ontology, it would 

be necessary to include the surpassing of the dualisms and the logic of 

emergentisms, including the emergence of human psychism, reason and its 

special opening up to the Divinity. This new anthropology, which is 

congruent with religious tradition, with the ontology of the universe and with 

divine ontology, would contribute to making the hypothesis of the Divinity 

more likely. 

iv. Other arguments. Theism also presents other hi arguments of a historical, 

experiential, social type, etc., which we do not address in this workshop, 

which is focused on the scientific-philosophical argumentation. Outstanding 

among these are the “religious experience” which becomes more likely when 

it becomes congruent with the scientific-philosophical “likelihood” of the 

existence of the Divinity. 

g. Reality, being, events, sufficiency, self- sufficiency, absoluteness. What 

scientific-philosophical logic leads to the agnostic, atheist and theist hypotheses? 

This can only be the logic of natural reason (see: D-4). Human reason ascertains 

a reality which exists in space-time (which includes man) as facts (empirical 

evidence). The basic inference of reason (which provides knowledge and science 

with meaning) is that if something is existing reality it is because “it can exist” 

(interpreting the classical proposition, we can say, ex facto ad posse valet 

illatio). Therefore, in a way (and an attempt must be made to know this) the 

existing reality is installed in an environment of sufficiency or absoluteness 

(absoluteness = sufficiency in order to be real). Given that the universe is what is 

222 



immediately ascertained, the starting hypothesis for reason is that the universe 

must be self-sufficient. 

h. An enigmatic universe. One conclusion which we consider to be inevitable for 

current scientific-philosophical reflection is that we are in an extremely 

enigmatic universe. We postulated its self-sufficiency, but once we try to 

understand it in accordance with the facts and scientific theories, submitted to 

philosophical reflection, its self-sufficiency is difficult to understand. This is 

when agnosticism, atheism and theism appear as positions regarding the problem 

of self-sufficiency. This diversity of interpretations (since, in fact, they exist) 

shows the enigma of the universe. Modern epistemology leads us to understand 

this opening up to a diversity of ultimate hypotheses. 

i. Necessity. The theist philosophy poses the problem of necessity. However, 

scientific-philosophical reflection first seeks self-sufficiency. To do so, it can 

construct two obscure hypotheses: a pure world with no God (atheism) and a 

transcendent God (theism). One or the other must be true, but both are very 

obscure (theism probably more so). To either of these, if true, necessity must be 

attributed by “postulation” (if God or the universe ceased to exist in the past, 

present or future, their existence would have no explanation). However, some 

questions such as the following are questions with no scientific-philosophical 

response. Why does anything exist? Why does the universe exist or not exist? 

Why does God exist or not exist? The scientific-philosophical reason can only 

start from the facts, search for self-sufficiency and postulate the necessity of the 

universe or of God. 

j. Epistemology and limits of knowledge. The plurality of hypotheses must be 

understood in the light of the principles of modern epistemology: that is to say, 

positivism has been surmounted, in the light of popperianism and 

postpopperianism. This epistemology leads us: a) not to confuse the revisable, 

critical hypothesis with absolute, dogmatic truths, and b) to respect the 

feasibility of the alternative hypotheses and the free honesty of the interlocutor 

to follow them. Atheism and theism are defended by persons, who are, 

undoubtedly, highly prepared. The atheist is inclined towards atheism because 

he honestly and freely considers that this hypothesis is the most probable (its 

arguments convince him more). The theist considers that theism is more 

probable (he values its reasons more). However, it is useless for an atheist or a 

theist to go to a kind of objective, universal court which declares them to right 

from a position of absolute neutrality. This court does not exist. The only reality 

are the persons who are honestly inclined to one or other option precisely 

because they subjectively judge that this is the most probable for them. 

k. The silence of the possible Divinity. Scientific-philosophical reflection must 

admit that there are two possible hypotheses to understand the final sufficiency 

of the universe: a pure universe with no God and a creating Divinity. The 

religious hypothesis is arguable, but is not imposed with necessity as the 

alternative hypothesis with no God is possible. The social evidence shows this. 

There are atheists and theists. Thus, if there is a creator God, this God created an 

enigmatic world where reason is not imposed necessarily. Therefore, it can be 

said that the possible Divinity is in “silence” before the universe. 

l. An autonomous, self-creating universe. Scientific-philosophical reflection must 

take note that current theism admits that the universe is an autonomous, “selfcreating” 

process without reverberations. It is admitted that the ontology of 



matter, its physical and biological laws of self-organisation, the Darwinian 

principles, etc. are “sufficient” to explain all the states of the evolutionary 

process (the eyes, the immune system, the nervous system…). Today the 

arguments in favour of theism are not moving in search of a “God to fill the 

gaps” (as authors such as Behe and Demski and recent theory of intelligent 

design seem to do), but move in the search of God, the foundation for the 

sufficiency of the universe as a whole and for the perfect global design of an 

autonomous universe which is oriented towards making human freedom 

possible. 

m. Neutrality of the holistic ontology of the universe. Scientific-philosophical 

reflection must also take into account that the new holistic image of science is 

also compatible with the atheistic hypothesis. However, it is also certain that the 

holistic image does not only appear to explain animal and human psychism 

better, but it offers a reductionist image which makes the theist hypothesis more 

likely. Holism does not explain why matter has “consciousness” or, rather, does 

not have it. It is a fact that it must be admitted that matter is susceptible to 

producing consciousness and holism explains which field structures and which 

physical properties have enabled living beings to make consciousness useful. 

Holism seems to be compatible with atheism and theism. 

Theology of Science 

7. The religions formed in cultures have a long history, and, in this history, the 

theologies have been constructed. The theology of each religion has its own history 

where we discover a true evolution. It is logical that theologies with so many years 

of history and arising from dialogue with philosophical ideas and cultures from the 

past today ask about the form of understanding their religions – and, therefore, their 

theologies – from the point of view of science and modern culture. They would then 

become oriented towards the construction of a “theology of science”: an explanatory 

theology of religiosity from the current image of reality in science. This objective is 

the final aim of the Sophia-Iberia project in Europe: the metaphysical and 

theological reflection to which the image of human evolution seems to lead in 

science. 

8. This “rethinking” of theology from the image of science affects the different 

religions, including Christianity. Within Christianity, it also affects the Christian 

Churches and theological traditions. In each of these, similar questions and 

problems must be proposed. A) What results does scientific knowledge seem to 

impose at the present time (see D-6, paragraphs 4-5). B) What metaphysical 

inferences seem to be drawn from a scientific-philosophical reflection on these (see 

D-6, paragraph 6). C) In the light of these analyses (A y B), how must theology or 

theological tradition be examined critically? D) How must this theology or 

theological tradition be reformulated or readapted in order to enrich these from the 

current image of science? 

9. We now make a selection of several positions concerning the questions which 

occupy us. Is the scientific image of human evolution compatible with metaphysics 

and theology? What type of theology does it permit? How must the theologies and 

theological traditions be thought from the point of view of the challenge of science? 

Does the “theology of science” offer a “convergence zone” for dialogue and 

consensus between the theologies and theological traditions? 

224 



a. Agnosticism, atheism, a-theologies. As we have stated, it is possible, and some 

of society has done so, to consider that science does not permit the construction 

of metaphysics, and even theology. Reason does not permit probability to be 

attributed to the existence of God. In relation to this position, a field of analysis 

of authors, scientific arguments, philosophical and humanistic approaches, etc. 

is opened up. 

b. Classical Catholic theology. This is formed as from Scholasticism, inspired in 

Greek philosophy, and still defended today in sectors of Catholic theology. How 

must this be considered from the image of present day science? Is it possible to 

maintain Greek ontology today? How is “dualism” to be considered? How must 

the classical proofs of the existence of God be reformulated? How is “Theocentrism 

to be considered” (or the rational-existential evidence of God)? Is a 

non-religious hypothesis of the universe and man possible? 

c. Transcendental Catholic theology. This is the reinterpretation of Thomism from 

the transcendental philosophy of Kant. Is modern science understandable with 

Thomist ontology? Is it possible to defend the Kant type transcendental 

apriorism faced with the aposteriori-evolutionary paradigm of current science? 

Does apriorism not produce an excessively “religious centred” vision where 

secularism and atheism have difficulties fitting in? 

d. Teilhardian and neo teilhardian theology. Teilhard made the first proposal of a 

theology of science in the Catholic world. He assumed and presented a monist 

and holistic image of the universe in the Divinity. However, does his proposal 

not seem excessively “religious centred”? How do secularism and the a-religious 

interpretation of man fit into this? Is it possible to rethink Teilhard from 

neoteilhardian perspectives? 

e. Classical Reformation theology. This is the theology of the Christian Churches 

which arose from the Protestant Reformation: the Anglican Church, the 

Evangelical Church, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc. Its initial focus attempted to 

present pure faith from criticism of the Scholastic natural reason (Barth, Ebeling 

…). How can these theologies be revised and rethought from science and 

modern cultures? Authors such as Pannenberg, Moltmann and Hans Küng have 

contributed to presenting and discussing this question. 

f. The theology of process. This philosophy-theology arose from reflection on the 

philosophy of Whitehead and intends to be a “theology of science”: a revision of 

Christianity in the light of science and the modern world. Has it achieved this? Is 

the idea of a Platonic God, a non-creating Demiurge, which sustains and gives 

impulse to the universe coherent with science? Are its ideas on divine 

omnipotence and omniscience compatible with traditional Christian religiosity? 

Does the God of process have the properties required to be understood as the 

foundation of the sufficiency of the universe? Are there alternatives to its 

explanation of evil and suffering? 

g. Theology of Kenosis. Science offers us the possibility to understand the world 

without God and this seems to lead to the idea that God has not imposed his 

presence in reality. This appears in modern culture and has produced the 

renaissance of the traditional “theology of Kenosis” in Christianity. Throughout 

the second half of the XX century, a number of authors proposed a new theology 

of Kenosis (among which is the theology of process). What are these proposals? 



How do they assume and reformulate the traditional theology of Christianity? 

Are they in consonance with the image of man in science? 

h. Authors and schools. Authors such as Barbour, Peacocke, Polkinghorne, Ellis, 

Zubiri, among others, have proposed ideas for a theology of science which must 

be considered and discussed. 

i. Hindu theology. How is science projected onto Hindu theology? Does it offer 

new possibilities for dialogue and convergence with the theologies of other 

religions? 

j. Buddhist theology. How is science projected onto Buddhist theology? Does it 

offer new possibilities for dialogue and convergence with the theologies of other 

religions? 

k. Islamic theology. What roles do reason and science play in Islamic theology? 

How can science boost the progress of Islam? Can science contribute to the 

encounter of Islam with other religions? 

Discussion 

Scientific Results 

Is the list of scientific results which are projected onto scientific-philosophical reflection 

which leads to metaphysics and theology correct? Are there alternative proposals? Must 

the scientific results be interpreted differently? 

Philosophical Consequences 

Is the analysis proposed acceptable? What alternatives are there? Does science impose 

on us an enigmatic world which leaves several possibilities for scientific-philosophical 

possibilities open to the metaphysical? 

Theology of Science 

How can the forms of a-theology be valued and discussed? How can the How can 

traditional “theologies” be valued and discussed? What does the scientific image of man 

contribute to these? How must they be re-converted to a “theology of science” today? 

Can science help beliefs and non-beliefs to live together in an enlightened, tolerant and 

respectful fashion? Can science help ecumenical, inter-religious, inter-Christian and 

inter-theological dialogue? What congruent proposals does modern science does 

modern science lead us to in order to present the sense and meaning of theologies to 

society? What alternatives and proposals can be made in relation to these questions? 

226

God Seen by Science - UPCO - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Transform your PDFs into Flipbooks and boost your revenue!

God Seen by Science - UPCO - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Transform your PDFs into Flipbooks and boost your revenue!

Delete template?

Save as template ?