How might love shape scholarship?

The Global Faculty Initiative is a wonderful enterprise to stimulate the interaction of university scholarship with theology. They employ the following methodology.

"Theology Brief: a longer essay by a leading theologian on a key theme in Christian theology

Disciplinary Briefs & Disciplinary Notes: short essays by research scholars that explore connections between their scholarly specialty and a Theology Brief"

The most recent Theology Brief is by Oliver O'Donovan, The Sovereignty of Love.

Here is my response, a Disciplinary Brief, 

The Radicalness of Love—for the Natural Sciences and the Research University.

The link above gives a PDF of my full article.  It is also available on the GFI website.

Here is the beginning.

Love should be primary for a Christian scholar

I was both surprised and challenged by O’Donovan’s argument that love should be primary for a Christian scholar. My prior perspective was that universities are primarily about thinking. Integrity, both intellectual and moral, should be the main characteristic of Christian scholars. This includes integrating disciplinary knowledge with theology. However, I now see that love should subsume integrity, just a Jesus challenged us.

O’Donovan states: “Those for whom specialised knowledge constitutes their sphere of work thus face a challenging question: how may they love that one aspect of the world which they know very well, while focussing their love finally upon God and their neighbours?” This challenge of a dual focus must be related to the question: how does one resist the temptation to worship the creation not the Creator (Romans 1:18-25)? As I discuss below, modern physics is truly amazing and beautiful. This has led some theoretical physicists (for example, authors of popular books such as Sean Carroll, Paul Davies, and Frank Wilczek) to follow the example of Albert Einstein and be in awe of nature and our ability to understand it. Unfortunately, they either deny the existence of God or at least his personal nature.

Love for others is particularly challenging as it includes love for enemies. A scholar may encounter many enemies (both real and perceived): colleagues who oppose their ideas, anonymous reviewers who make unjustified criticisms, bureaucrats who frustrate, impede, and burden with dubious administrative requirements, and increasingly members of the public or politicians who make ill-informed criticisms of their work, its value, or its applications.  

The concern for love enlivened a liturgy (from Every Moment Holy) that I often pray before commencing work. Here are a few lines 

“May I learn to love learning, O Lord,

for the world is yours,

and all things in it speak

-each in their way – of you:

of your mind,

your designs,

your artistry,

your power,

your unfolding purpose.

All knowledge is your knowledge.

All wisdom your wisdom….

Let me be in this school, even is small ways,

a bearer of love and light and reconciliation;

which is to say, let me in humility be your child…” 

Counter-cultural dimensions to love in the academy

The love commands of Jesus were counter-cultural in the first century. His followers were largely from the lower echelons of society and faced opposition from both Roman imperial and Jewish religious leaders. Obedience could come at a high cost. The commands are also radically counter-cultural in universities today, as they are dominated by four values: money, marketing, management, and metrics. The social and institutional pressure to conform is immense. In his Disciplinary Brief, responding to O’Donovan, Ian Hutchinson suggests “humility seems the most difficult value in the academy.” Peter Harrison recently discussed how, following the characterisations of Max Weber, secularisation has led to disenchantment, diminishment of virtue, and being trapped in the “iron cage” of bureaucracy. 

Tom McLeish argued that Christian natural scientists need to adopt a contemplative stance in their work.  He argued that the book of Job

“urges us not to look on the natural world for signs of God, nor through it as a window onto some dim divine image, but to learn to look on nature with God’s eyes, aligning our servant gaze with, not at, the divine. The same searching look of creative power and insight, of love, with which God participates in his created nature is to be the direction, if only in image, of our participation also.”

This resonates with O’Donovan’s definition of love as “affective and directive attention to a good.”

Genesis, science, and Jesus

In a recent podcast episode entitled, The Chemists, John Dickson discussed the worldview that the opening chapter of Genesis presents and how that relates to science and ultimately Jesus. Here is what he said:

"One of the key differences between the ancient Pagan way of thinking of, say, the Egyptians or Babylonians, and the Hebrew or biblical worldview is on this question of the orderliness of nature. Pagan creation narratives tended to stress the random, haphazard nature of the physical world. The classic is the Babylonian Enuma Elish, read out loud to the population every Babylonian New Year’s Day in Babylon. It says physical world is an after-thought, fashioned out of wreckage of a war of gods. Tiamat and Apsu—the mum and dad of the gods—go to war against their kids for making too much noise. But mum and dad ended up losing to the young warrior god, Marduk, who fashions the universe out of the bits and pieces of the carnage. The story embodies the common pagan idea that creation is ‘haphazard’ & ‘tainted’: matter is ‘alien’ stuff—accidental, unpredictable, possessed.

If that was your perspective, and you read Genesis 1, you’d be immediately struck by all ways Genesis stresses the beauty, orderliness, and goodness of physical creation. Pagans thought of creation as a kind of ‘war’; but Genesis sees it as a ballet: calm, patterned, graceful. Each creative scene in Gen 1 has 4-fold pattern:

(1) commences with a simple command,

(2) tells of the fulfillment of the command,

(3) includes an elaboration of the command, and

(4) concludes with the day formula, “there was evening, there was morning.” 

The first paragraph sets up the pattern for the rest of the show:

[1. Command] And God said, “Let there be light,” and

 [2. Fulfillment] there was light. 

[3. Elaboration] God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”

[4. Day formula] And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. (Genesis 1:3–5)

And on it goes through the chapter like a carefully choreographed dance …

There’s a theological point being made here: the universe is not accidental; it’s the work of an orderly mind.  Then there’s the way the days correspond to each other like a canvas to a painting: days 1, 2, 3 are the canvas, days 4, 5, 6 are the painting. It’s hard to picture, so we’ll put an image in the show notes. But basically, day 1 is the canvas to day 4’s painting, Day 2 is the canvas to Day 5’s painting, and day 3 is the canvas to Day 6’s painting. So, On Day 1 ‘light’ itself is created; on Day 4 the actual ‘lights’ of the ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ are put in place. On Day 2 the ‘vault’ of the sky is created along with its counterpoint, the waters of the sea; and on Day 5 the sky is filled with birds and sea is filled with fish. On Day 3 the ‘land’ and ‘plants’ are created; on Day 6 animals and humans are created to walk on the land and enjoy the produce. This deliberately leaves Day 7 hanging, as a day of rest, to reflect on the newly filled canvas of creation.

Then there’s the very interesting comment repeated through the Genesis creation account that God made things “according to their kinds” and, what’s more, that God put certain creative powers in things so that they too could produce things according to their kinds. So, in Gen 1:11 we read:

“Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: [so the land becomes a co-creator with God] seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds …

The point begin made is that the genius of the Creator is imprinted into physical reality, into nature, so that acts with certain aims to produce certain outcomes that reflect God’s intention. There are tons of other ways Genesis makes this point, but the basic idea is that the creation isn’t accidental. It’s ordered and rational and is a functioning whole that acts according to certain rational principles.

It’s a remarkable departure from ancient pagan thinking. It’s true that the best Greek philosophers came to roughly the same conclusion centuries later. Aristotle, for example, (900 years after Moses) said the Forms of things exist within the things themselves. So he would say something like “the form of the oak tree is in the acorn. The form of the adult human is already in the foetus”. And so on. And so nature operates in orderly fashion, following the direction, we might say the equations, that are built into matter itself. All things act according to organising principle inherent in them, which Aristotle called the logos. Behind the logos, he insisted in Metaphysics Book 12 is the MIND, Unmoved Mover, the final cause of all motion and purpose. God!!

What the Jews had been saying for centuries … the Greeks declared by logical deduction. Nature operates according to the principles of rational genius, and the genius behind it all is the Mind of God. This is why John’s Gospel is so happy to employ the Greek philosophical word logos. I talked about this more in an Undeceptions single recently – can’t remember what it’s called – but the basic point is, John says:

“In the beginning was the logos and the logos was with God and the logos was God …”

And then he shocks us with:

“The logos became flesh and dwelt among us!”

In other words, the rational Genius of the creator – the same genius imprinted in creation – actually became a human being, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the logos. Jesus is the genius of creation. John wasn’t alone. Paul says something similar:

“In Jesus all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all things have been created through him and for him … and in him all things hold together.”

It’s right to think of Jesus as a first-century Galilean Jew, a historical figure we can investigate with the rules of historical enquiry. But from the beginning, from our earliest documents, Christians were saying much, much more about him. They were saying He is the genius by and through which creation came into being … and, what’s more, He is the ongoing principle that holds them all together in every moment. This is why the first modern scientists all saw their work as a kind of worship. Because when they understood the mathematics of planetary motion or the chemistry by which certain things happen, they are glimpsing the logos, who had a historical name, Jesus. "

Lectures on science and Christianity: part 2

 I have uploaded to YouTube part 2 of my lectures on Science, Christianity and Apologetics

Historical and Philosophical Perspectives

0. Overview of Part 2 

1. Do ancient religious texts contain modern scientific knowledge? 

2. The Christian origins of modern science 

3. Science and philosophy 

4. Some landmark historical conflicts between science and Christianity 

5. Science, Christianity, and mission in the context of colonialism

Talk on Science and Christianity

Tonight I am giving a talk, Science and Christianity, at UQ Focus, a local Christian group for international students. Here is the current version of my slides.

Below is the video I will show in the beginning.

Christian Platonism and Science

Recently the theology reading group we discussed A Christian Theology of Science: Reimagining a Theological Vision of Natural Knowledge by Paul Tyson. 

Paul is a former member of our group and so were happy he could join us to discuss his book. Here is one summary.

We have come to separate natural knowledge (science) from faith and moral beliefs (religion), leading to serious difficulties in integrating knowledge and meaning, facts and values, and immanence and transcendence.

At the root of these dissonances is the difficult relationship between a naturalistic philosophy that purports to be a scientific realism and the things that make us human: transcendence, faith, meaning, and purpose. This is the result of science displacing Christian theology as Western modernity's first truth discourse. However, Christian theology contains deep resources in its approach to knowledge and reality that have not been brought to the science and religion conversation since the late nineteenth century.

You can download the beginning of the book here.

I have a great interest in the subject of this book and it stimulated and challenged my thinking. 

Tyson builds on two important ideas from the historian Peter Harrison. In his book, Territories of Science and Religion, Harrison makes the case that "science" and "religion" are ill-defined entities and their definition and "territories" [the domain of their relevance and authority] have shifted over time. Second, in a 2006 article, Harrison, observes that in the late 19th century there was a "remarkable reversal" "from Christian theology interpreting the true meaning and validity of natural philosophy to science interpreting the true meaning and validity of Christian theology" (page 31).

In other words, "This is a profound shift from faith-based theocentric ontological foundationalism (TOF) to egocentric epistemological foundationalism (EEF)." (p. 32). 

Thankfully, there is a ten-page glossary at the back of the book so the reader can keep refreshing their memory of how the author defines different terms. This is important as terms such as truth, theory, quality, meaning, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding are used in the sense that Plato used them, not how a modern scientist or citizen might use such terms. For example, theory (theoria) is "A vision of meaning. An inescapably imaginative and interpretive act of the meaning-discerning mind" (p.120).

I appreciated the book for giving a gentle introduction to a range of philosophical concepts, particularly metaphysics and transcendence.

The heart of the book is chapter 7, which includes several helpful diagrams, such as the one below, based on Plato's metaphysics.

This is based on four distinct categories of awareness considered by Plato. Tyson translates these into wisdom, mathematics, belief, and perception.

The central claim of the book is that modern science as a "first truth cultural discourse" has made the line between rationalism and wisdom uncrossable. In other words, modern physics has reduced metaphysics to the unreal, the realm of speculation and fantasy. We cannot know the true essence of reality, the ground of being. We can only know existence. Tyson has a very different vision. He claims that the separation of metaphysics and physics is intellectually incoherent. He cannot accept the position of some Christian scientists, such as myself, that the methodological naturalism of science is not necessarily in tension with Christian theology. He wants to imagine that Christian theology can provide a vision of natural knowledge.

Today we are a long way from Plato who considered metaphysics as the basis of physics. That is, one starts with qualities such as the character of God and from that reason towards what one thinks the world is like. This led to Aristotelian physics, which was discredited by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. This is why scientists, Christians and non-Christians, are nervous about elevating Christian theology [a specific metaphysics] back to its pre-modern status as "the first truth discourse". It has a bad track record.

On the other hand, some atheist scientists claim physics determines metaphysics. In different words, the content of physical theories tells us what the world is really like. Science determines questions of meaning, purpose, values, and morality.

Update. (March 2024). Peter Harrison has written a helpful review of the book.

Remembering Tom McLeish

I was very sad to hear that Tom McLeish died of cancer at the end of February. He was an extraordinary person, scientist, and Christian. Tom can been characterised as a polymath or a "renaissance man". He modeled an integrated life, as a Christian, a scientist, and a member of a university community. He showed what universities should be about and can be about, in stark contrast to what they have become [fragmented, commercialised, and micro-managed]. 

A small measure of Tom's influence on me is that there are eight posts on my science blog about his work and another seven posts on this blog.

Tom's academic career is briefly sketched in an obituary from the University of York, where for the last few years he held a position, created for him, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the physics department. Tom was best known in the scientific community for his work on the theory of soft matter, for which he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. I highly recommend his Very Short Introduction on the subject. But the influence and recognition of his intellectual contributions go far beyond his work on soft matter. For example, after the publication of The Poetry and Music of Science: Comparing Creativity in Science and Art by Oxford University Press in 2019, the following year the journal Interdisciplinary Science Reviews devoted a whole issue to seven different reviews of the book, with a response from Tom. 

Tom was a trustee of the John Templeton Foundation and was very supportive of the IFES Logos and Cosmos Initiative that the foundation funded and I am very involved in. He gave me valuable advice about many elements of this program and spoke at several training workshops. Participants have benefitted significantly from his books and talks about theology and the sciences.

David Bentley Hart has written a moving tribute to Tom. It contains a beautiful description of Tom's final days trusting in Christ, written by his wife. Tom was a model to me in life and in death.  

My condolences to Tom's family, friends, and colleagues. He died much too young and will be sorely missed.

A theoretical physicist talks about his life journey

This is a wonderful video: funny, moving, and serious.

Shook: Dr. Ard Louis - Oxford University from Biblica on Vimeo.

IFES seminar on biblical theology and the sciences

I am giving a seminar on this topic at the IFES World Assembly in Johannesburg.
My slides are here.

Here are some of the recommended resources

videos

Science and Genesis, featuring John Polkinghorne, Alister McGrath, N.T. Wright, and others.

introductory books

Let there be science

Exploring Science and Belief by Michael Poole

Why study?

advanced books

Psychology through eyes of faith

Sociology through eyes of faith

Gods that Fail by Vinoth Ramachandra

courses and study guides

Test of Faith

Organisations

Faraday Institute for Science and Religion

Christians in science

BioLogos

Resources in French

Science and theology resources in French

Next weekend I am part of an IFES meeting in Francophone Africa where Christian academics will be discussing the relationship between science and theology. I have been tracking down useful resources in French. Here are some of them.

Science et Foi (is like a French version of Biologos, covering similar topics, includes videos and blog articles.

Réseau des scientifiques évangéliques (like a French version of Christians in Science in the UK)

Faraday Papers have been been translated into French.

Test of Faith video (dubbed in French)

Benno van den Toren and Klaas Borm recently completed a relevant research project.
Two of the papers they have produced are
 A Contribution to the debate on science and faith by Christian students from Abidjan

On the Value of Action and Participatory Research for Intercultural Theology: Reflections in the Light of a Research Project on “Science and Religion in French-Speaking Africa

Here are the slides (in French) for two talks I have given previously in France.
Un scientifique porte un regard sur la Bible

La science nous libère-t-elle de la religion?
[This one may be of less interest to people outside of France as it engages with The Pantheon, Victor Hugo, and Les Miserables].

I welcome other recommendations.

A balanced perspective on science and Christianity

The Australian TV show Compass recently had a good episode, Can a scientist believe?.
It was refreshingly balanced, featuring interviews with scientists who are atheists and scientists who are Christian. It also included some content from the COSAC conference that I was recently involved in.

Talk on Genesis 1-3

This morning I gave a talk on the first three chapters of Genesis to a women's group from my church. My wife introduced me! Here are the slides.

For background, I recommend comparing and contrasting Genesis with the Babylonian creation myth the Enuma Elish, which is nicely summarised in this short video.

Another helpful short video is Science and Genesis, featuring John Polkinghorne, Alister McGrath, N.T. Wright, and others.

I have found helpful the book How to Read Genesis  by Tremper Longman.
An excellent introductory book that puts my talk in context is Exploring Science and Belief by Michael Poole.

Developing a real Christian mind

This is a draft of my third devotional talk for the forthcoming conference on Science and Christianity.
It is based on Philippians 2:1-11.

In discussions about Christianity and Academia it is common to talk about “the Christian mind” and the “Christian world view” and “loving God with all your mind”. The titles of some influential books are The Christian Mind by Harry Blamires, and The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll,
All first-year students at Calvin College in the USA a required to take a course entitled “Developing a Christian Mind”. At Oxford, there is also an excellent initiative called "Developing a Christian Mind."

What does the Bible say about what it means to have “the mind of Christ”?
I find this passage from Paul's letter to the Philippians rather challenging.
Having the mind of Christ does not seem to be concerned with intellectual issues or a particular world-view but rather a personal attitude, particularly one of humility.
The passage begins.

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Here are some specific applications.

A commitment to unity.
It meets being “like-minded” with others who follow Jesus.
If my ideas and views are creating division in the church do I have the mind of Christ?

Put aside my selfish ambition.
It is not all about me: my views, my organisation, my career, my ministry, my achievements, my influence, my status,..

Why does division occur within churches and between churches?
Sometimes it appears to be about differences of belief, about doctrine, or practice.
Contentious issues include church government, baptism, the role of the Holy Spirit, gender roles, Biblical interpretation, support of political parties, music, liturgy, budgets, fund raising, …
The list is almost endless. On the one hand, these are important issues. On the other hand, we should humbly and critically ask how much does “selfish ambition and vain conceit” play a role when a new denomination or a new congregation or a new organisation starts?

Sometimes, the role of ambition can be explicit and blatant. Other times it is more subtle or sub-conscious. We should ask this of ourselves and of our leaders. Am I looking to my own interests or to the interests of others?
Am I primarily concerned with showing I am right?
Where does my identity come from? From my views or from Jesus?
Where does my community identity come from?
Do I value others (including their views) above myself?

What drives academic life? What drives science?
Is it a passion for truth? Unfortunately, too many scientists have big egos. The history of science is littered with brilliant people who were not willing to give up on their own ideas and theories, even when there was overwhelming evidence against them.

Max Planck was the founder of quantum theory. He is sometimes credited with saying “Science advances one funeral at a time”. He actually said

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Academic theologians and pastors are not immune from self-promotion and a reluctance to respect those with different views.

I should clarify and qualify what I am saying.
Being humble and having the mind of Christ does not mean discarding strong convictions. It does not mean unity at any cost.  It does not mean not being critical of other views. It does not mean not taking a stand for truth.
It does not mean that all views are equally valid.
What it does mean is being more humble about what I believe and how
I relate to others with different views. How open am I to changing my
views? It means abandoning self-promotion. It means trying to understand what is best for others and serving them.
It means following Jesus example of humility and service.

The best scientists are humble.
They are humble before nature. They are eager to learn, both from nature and from others.
They are willing to change their pre-conceptions and give up cherished ideas when confronted with convincing evidence or persuasive arguments.

What does this have to do with Science and Christianity?
This is an issue that divides churches.
There are a diverse range of perspectives. Some of them I strongly disagree with
them. However, that does not give me the right to ridicule those with different views.
We need to be humble. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

We like to exalt ourselves, our views, our organisations, our achievements, ...
But in the end, we will not be exalted.
Jesus will be. Our views and agendas will fall away.
Jesus is the name above every name.
Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

It is all about our downward mobility!

Latest talk on Science and the Bible

Tonight I am giving a talk on "Science and the Bible" to FOCUS, a Christian group for international students at UQ. I look forward to a lively Q&A session.

The slides for the talk are here.

Integrating Christian and academic lives

A wonderful little book, Why Study? Exploring the Face of God in the Academy has just been published by the Fellowship of Evangelical Students in Singapore (IFES).
In each chapter, a Christian academic describes their personal journey as they aim to integrate their Christian and academic lives. Fields covered include history, law, engineering, sociology, biology, ...
Most of the authors are from Asia.
I wrote one of the chapters,  Living as a follower of Jesus and a Physicist. I thank some friends who gave many constructive suggestions on a draft.

The target audience is Christian undergraduates who are beginning their studies.

I welcome any comments on my chapter, bearing in mind the target audience.

I hope this book will stimulate similar ventures from other parts of the world, and for different target audiences. For example, it would be great to see an African version and an Australian version. I would also like to see a version for non-Christian audiences and for faculty audiences.

A university president talks about Jesus and about mental health

Santa Ono is the President of the University of British Columbia and a distinguished medical researcher. He recently gave a fascinating and personal talk at a church in Vancouver. [You can listen here].
He recounts his upbringing in a secular home, coming to follow Jesus as a young adult, and his struggle with mental health issues that included two suicide attempts.
He ends with a passionate appeal for mental health issues to be addressed at all levels, from informal conversations to public policy, and particularly among university students.
The talk is worth listening to in full. Perhaps it starts a little slow, but Ono is a great story-teller, quite self-effacing, and at times humorous.

Christian academics talk about their research

Today I am looking forward to attending a Draft Day in Brisbane [organised by the Simeon Network] where Christian academics talk about issues related to their research.

Here are some talk titles.

"The success of the Victoria Institute and the failure of the metaphysical society"

"Considering the role of the church in population ageing"

 "How artificial intelligence may affect human decision-making"

"Justice and inequalities in cancer outcomes"

 "The 1958 Prisons Act: Queensland's missed opportunity in reform"

"The demotion of Pluto and the sociology of Science"

Here are some of the slides from my talk on "Engaging universities with the big questions"

Answering some good questions

I was asked by some friends some questions such as "Why do you believe in Science and in the Bible?". Here are some slides with my attempt at an answer.

Another question concerns the historical interaction of science with Christianity. This talk addresses some of that.

An excellent book on the theology of science

I have just finished reading the wonderful book Faith and Wisdom in Science by Tom McLeish. I think it may be one of the best (advanced) books about the relationship between science and theology.
Next monday night I will lead a discussion about the book at the monthly theology book club I am a part of.

Maybe the book partly resonates so much with me because like me, McLeish is both a theoretical condensed matter physicist and a Christian.

To get some of the flavour of the you can look at the associated blog which links to several reviews and a few videos where McLeish discusses the book.

The book is rich and highly original. Here are just a few ideas that I thought were particularly valuable.

Science should be be viewed as a richly human scholarly endeavour that should not be divorced from the humanities. Here he draws heavily on the classic book Real Presences by the literary critic George Steiner, who suggests

"Only art can go some way towards making accessible, towards waking into some measure of communicability, the sheer inhuman otherness of matter..."

McLeish takes this as a departure to explore that this is actually what science should really be about.

We should not think about "theology versus science" or "theology and science" but "a theology of science" and "a science of theology".

The book of Job, rather than Genesis, should be the starting point for a theology of science.

Science involves pain and love and worship. Science should be about "a meaningful reengagement  and reconciliation with nature".

Science today has lost this richness due to being instrumentalist and seen solely as a means of "wealth creation".

Drawing from a report about the safety of nanotechnology, McLeish considers several popular narratives for science, identified by the philosopher, Jean-Pierre Dupuy

1. Be careful what you wish for - the narrative of Desire
2. Pandora's Box - the narrative of Evil and Hope
3. Messing with Nature - the narrative of the Sacred
4. Kept in the Dark - the narrative of Alienation
5. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer - the narrative of Exploitation.

Science: what has love got to do with it?!

Science raises theological questions.
An important example is:
Why does science work?
This is not a question that science can answer. All it can say is that science works; and very well, often.

This week I realised there is another interesting question.
Why do scientists love what they do?
 It goes far beyond the joy of a successful businessman or plumber. There is sometimes something "religious" and "mystical" about scientists devotion and pleasure in their work. Furthermore, many young scientists are willing to work long hours, often with less financial reward and job security compared to other options available to them. Why do they do it?
Again, this is not a question that science can answer. But, theology does address.

Three different recent events brought this question to mind.

First, the atheist scientist Sean Carroll has just published a book The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself. He advocates a "religion" called poetic naturalism. A good critique of the book is by another atheist scientist Peter Woit. The relevant point here is that it highlights how even for atheist scientists there is something deeply religious about science.

Second, last week I saw the excellent movie, The Man Who Knew Infinity which nicely illustrates some of the joy and mystery of discovery in mathematics.

Finally, and most importantly I am finishing reading the wonderful book Faith and Wisdom in Science by Tom McLeish. He has a whole section entitled "Love" in the chapter, "A Theology of Science".
By "love" he means "the super-rational .... emotionally engaged delight in, and action to sustain the well being of another."
Love, pain, and perseverance cannot be separated.
"Above all it is a love that seeks to understand."
New scientific theories "need to loved into being".
He gives the example of the novel (and for long controversial) concept of reptation in polymers.

Science and the Bible talk

Tomorrow evening I am giving a talk at the FOCUS (Fellowship of Overseas University Students) group at University of Queensland.
Here is the current version of the slides. 
I am looking forward to a lively question and answer session after the talk.