Who is Working on Science and Religion? Changes in the Last 20 Years
Fraser Watts
The field of science and religion looks very different now from how it looked when ISSR was founded in 2002. For one thing, there is less interest in harmonising science and religion, or in defending religious convictions against scientific objections. Instead, there is increasing interest in the converging contributions of science and religion to challenges in human flourishing, such as ecology and the environmental crisis, about which ISSR is holding a conference in the summer. This shift is also flagged up in the title of this year’s Boyle Lecture, to be given by Antje Jackelén, “Science, Technology, Theology and Spirituality – A Necessary Partnership”?
Many of us have become more sceptical about the categories of “science” and “religion” themselves. I still think there are real differences between science and religion, but would now want to emphasise more strongly the diversity of the sciences, and the parallel diversity of religious and spiritual traditions. The boundary between science and religion is often blurred, and the intersection between them is complex.
There are also discernible changes in the kinds of people who are now working on science in religion, which is what I will focus on in this blog. For one thing, it is now far more common for young theologians to take a serious interest in science than was the case 20 years ago. There are now many rising stars in the theological world whose interests include central aspects of the interface between theology and science. That is a development about which those of us committed to science and religion can be very pleased.
Some senior theologians, though they have not conducted empirical scientific research, have immersed themselves deeply in issues of scientific theory, and made significant theoretical contributions, Philip Clayton and Niels Henrik Gregersen, for example. We have seen fine contributions to important metaphysical issues made from the standpoint of science-engaged theology, focused around principles of pervasive importance in the natural world, such as self-organisation and emergence.
There have also been changes in the way that science, and scientists, have contributed to work on science and religion. Twenty years ago, there were people who had made major contributions to science before turning their attention to theology. Obvious examples are John Polkinghorne, George Ellis, and Brain Heap. All were Fellows of the Royal Society, and all were Presidents of ISSR. We do not seem to have any younger Fellows in ISSR of comparable scientific distinction.
Nevertheless, there are still many people working in science and religion, perhaps an increasing number, who obtained a PhD in one of the sciences, and in some cases pursued a scientific career, before turning to theology. At Oxford, for example, Mark Harris, the Idreos Professor; Andrew Davison, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford; and Celia Deane-Drummond, Director of the Laudato Si Research Institute, all have a double background in science and theology. There are many other Fellows of ISSR who have a similar double background. There were not so many such people 20 years ago.
There has also been a broadening in the range of sciences from which those working on science and religion are drawn. For example, there has been an increase in the number of research-active computer scientists, environmental scientists and social scientists among ISSR Fellows. It is not just that there has been growing diversity in the sciences represented in ISSR, but some of the sciences that have come into ISSR in recent years have opened up new ways of relating science and religion.
For example, having Fellows with an interest in environmental science, as well as in the interface between theology and ecology, has helped us make the shift towards exploring how science and religion can each contribute to human flourishing. Similarly, having more people interested in both theology and computer science has also led to an exploration of a new set of questions in science-engaged theological anthropology.
In particular, there has been an increase in the number of Fellows who are research-active in the scientific study of religion, many of whom also have broad theological interests and commitments. At the same time, a growing number of theologians working on religious and spiritual life are choosing to engage with the scientific study of religion. From both directions, a very fruitful line of work is emerging that brings together the science and theology of religious life. In my own work I have always tried to combine empirical psychological study of religion with theological work that engages with psychology.
I believe that there are many important and fascinating issues about religion that arise when you bring theological and scientific perspectives on religion together. Bringing the two together invites clarification of the kind of claims being made by theologians, for example about the Christian church. Theological claims made about the church often sound as though they are empirical claims but, when set against empirical research about the church, it emerges that ecclesiological claims are not simply descriptive, but are using language in a different way.
The fruitfulness of the interface between theological reflection and scientific investigation of religious life has also been reflected in the policies of funding bodies, including the three Templeton Foundations. They now seem more willing to fund conceptual research in theology if it is conducted alongside empirical scientific research. For this pragmatic reason, it is sensible for ISSR to welcome and foster collaborations between theologians and scientists in the study of religious life.
Another development of growing significance is the scientific study of how the relationship between science and religion is approached and perceived. For example, social scientists are making us more aware of the interface between science and religion that exists in the media and the public sphere, which is often rather different from that to be found in academia. The “conflict” between science and religion still features in popular culture, but social scientists are also increasingly drawing attention to the quasi-religious approach to scientific topics in popular culture.
A gleam in the eye for the future, though so far there are only small beginnings, is how the cognitive sciences can illuminate the different kinds of cognitive processes to be found in science and religion, with science leaning heavily on what Iain McGilchrist calls left-brain thinking, while religion leans heavily on right-brain thinking. From this point of view, the problems that arise in coordinating science and religion can be seen as a particular example of the much broader human problem of coordinating different modes of human cognition. In these various ways, the increasingly wide range of sciences now involved in work on science and religion is opening up fresh ways of relating the two.
