Prof. Matt Stanley, NYU

1. Prof. Matt Stanley, NYU How to Be a Religious Scientist

2. How to be a religious scientist: lessons from history in thinking about God and nature Matthew Stanley Gallatin School of Individualized Study New York University

3. “check your brains at the church house door”

4. normative vs. descriptive approaches

6. “much concerning God…does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy"

7. [Laws of nature are] “nothing else but the will of God producing certain effects in a continued, regular, constant, and uniform manner.”

8. Close relationship between God and nature • Loose relationship between God and nature

9. James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) Arthur S. Eddington (1825-1895)

10. James Clerk Maxwell

16. Unity of nature • Everywhere • Everywhen • One set of laws • Unity in diversity

17. ‘[ “Are we to conclude that these various departments of nature in which analogous laws exist, have a real interdependence; or that their relation is only apparent and owing to the necessary conditions of human thought?”

18. “Perhaps the ‘book,’ as it has been called, of nature is regularly paged; if so, no doubt the introductory parts will explain those that follow, and the methods taught in the first chapters will be taken for granted and used as illustrations in the more advanced parts of the course; but if it is not a ‘book’ at all, but a magazine, nothing is more foolish to suppose that one part can throw light on another.”

19. “At the same time I think that each individual man should do all he can to impress his own mind with the extent, the order, and the unity of the universe, and should carry these ideas with him as he reads such passages as the 1st Chap. of the Ep. to Colossians… just as enlarged conceptions of the extent and unity of the world of life may be of service to us in reading Psalm viii.; Heb. ii. 6, etc.”

20. “uniformity, accuracy, symmetry, consistency, and continuity of plan”

21. “But I should be very sorry if an interpretation founded on a most conjectural scientific hypothesis were to get fastened to the text in Genesis, even if by so doing it got rid of the old statement of the commentators which has long ceased to be intelligible.”

22. “The rate of change of scientific hypothesis is naturally much more rapid than that of Biblical interpretations, so that if an interpretation is founded on such an hypothesis, it may help to keep the hypothesis above ground long after it ought to be buried and forgotten.”

23. “I think men of science as well as other men need to learn from Christ, and I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable of. But I think that the results which each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonise his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society.”

24. “Once we understand some science…we are prepared to see in Nature not a mere assemblage of wonders to excite our curiosity but a systematic museum designed to introduce us step by step into the fundamental principles which are displayed in the works of Creation.”

25. Is it not wonderful that man’s reason should be made a judge over God’s works, and should measure, and weigh, and calculate, and say at last ‘I understand I have discovered – It is right and true’…we see before us distinct physical truths to be discovered, and we are confident that these mysteries are an inheritance of knowledge, not revealed at once, lest we should become proud in knowledge, and despise patient inquiry…

26. but so arranged that, as each new truth is unraveled it becomes a clear, well-established addition to science, quite free from the mystery which must still remain, to show that every atom of creation is unfathomable in its perfection.

27. While we look down with awe into these unsearchable depths and treasure up with care what with our little line and plummet we can reach, we ought to admire the wisdom of Him who has arranged these mysteries that we find first that which we can understand at first and the rest in order so that it is possible for us to have an ever increasing stock of known truth concerning things whose nature is absolutely incomprehensible.

28. begin to understand the position of man as the appointed lord over the works of Creation and to comprehend the fundamental principles on which his dominion depends which are these – To know, to submit to, and to fulfil, the laws which the Author of the Universe has appointed. Attend to these laws and keep them, you succeed, break them, you fail and can do nothing.

29. And is not that one thing to learn something of the first principles of the works on nature, the rudiments of the creation so that we may no longer be oppressed with the magnitude of wonders, but rather confident that as we have recognized the operation of general principles in some instances, so in due time we shall discover more and more that the whole system of nature is disposed according to a wonderful order.

32. Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944)

33. 1895 Manchester Conference “Let us imagine someone trying to be at once a man of accurate scientific thought and a sincerely religious person. If he succeeds in being both, how admirable is the fusion. But if, on the other hand, he is either afraid to think or afraid to believe, he can no longer be happy with himself, not truly useful to his neighbor. He is trying to be two people, and he will not succeed in being either….”

34. “What I mean is that unless we are prepared to regard our spiritual and mental faculties as a part of the same Divine life within us, and entitled to an equally free expansion, we shall presently find one of them becoming the victim of the other. This theory of the detachment of science and religion from one another never has been a working theory of the universe; the two areas must overlap and blend, or we are lost.”

35. “practical mystic” Rufus Jones (1863-1948)

38. Peace Testimony “[Our pacifism] springs from our belief of the potentiality of the divine in all men- the Inner Light, as we call it, which is in every man, no matter how hidden or darkened it may be... Hatred and violence only feed the flame of evil…If this be true of personal relations, we believe it to be true equally of civic and international ones.”

39. “We have seen how engagements and relationships, which we all thought were “above all politics,” and safe to be respected even in time of war itself, have, nevertheless, been broken and tossed aside in a moment if Germany took the fancy that it could thereby benefit itself. Many of us do not see how, after such an exhibition, we can face the mockery of new understandings and undertakings with such a nation.”

40. “Some of the problems of our science can only be attacked by world-wide cooperation…the lines of latitude and longitude pay no regard to national boundaries. But, above all, there is the conviction that the pursuit of truth, whether in the minute structure of the atom or in the vast system of the stars, is a bond transcending human differences- to use it as a barrier fortifying national feuds is a degradation of the fair name of science.”

41. “The indictment of a nation takes an entirely different aspect when applied to the individuals composing it. Fortunately, most of us know fairly intimately some of the men with whom, it is suggested, we can no longer associate. Think, not of a symbolic German, but of your former friend Prof. X, for instance-call him Hun, pirate, baby-killer, and try to work up a little fury. The attempt breaks down ludicrously…The worship of force, love of empire, a narrow patriotism, and the perversion of science have brought the world to disaster.”

49. “All England has been talking about your theory…There is no mistaking the genuine enthusiasm in scientific circles... It is the best possible thing that could have happened for scientific relations between England and Germany. I do not anticipate rapid progress toward official reunion, but there is a big advance toward a more reasonable frame of mind among scientific men, and that is even more important than the renewal of formal associations.… one feels that things have turned out very fortunately in giving this object-lesson of the solidarity of German and British science even in time of war.”

50. “seeking”