Ecumenica Beyond Ecclesiology

Can Science and Theology Make Common Cause?

By Robert Tobias

When we consider what religion is for mankind and what science is, it is
no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the
the decision of this generation as to the relations between them. We have
here the two strongest general forces . . . which influence men, and they
seem to be set one against the otherthe force of religious intuitions, and
the force of our impulse to accurate observation and logical deduction.
DR. HAROLD SCHILLING, Professor of Physics at Pennsylvania State
University, began his book, Science and Religion, with this quotation from
Alfred North Whitehead. 1 When he was a young instructor in a mid-
western college, it was this sentence which sparked Dr. Schilling's interest in
the relation between science and theology. In a commencement address de-
livered in the spring, 1962, at Union Theological Seminary, New York, en-
titled " A Contemporary Macedonian Plea," he concluded with these remarks:
My plea as Macedonian is first that all of you come over and become acquainted
with our ways. They are not understood very well, though no doubt this is partly our
fault. Second, I plead that many of you become as expert about our land and devote
yourselves as assiduously to its problems as others of you have in the realm of politics
and statecraft, labor and business, and still others have in the arts.
Some of us belong to both the community of science and the community of Chris-
tian faith and have been trying to do what we could to hold science and religion to-
gether, to show the relevance of each to the other. It seems sad to us that in general,
contemporary theologians appear quite uninterested in this. Could it be that this
follows from their having divorced history so completely from nature that God seems
to act only in history, and that therefore the study of nature seems irrelevant theo-
logically? At any rate we are puzzled by this state of affairs. Moreover many
theologians talk as though only that area of human existence is real or significant
that is portrayed by the novelists, dramatists and artists, who by and large have not
yet discovered scienceexcept in its materialistic aspects. Quite unnoticed seems to
be the fact that, for better or for worse, a large and influential sector of mankind finds
science to be at the very core of its spiritual life. Can a theology of the nature of
man be completely adequate if it disregards that fact, and fails to take into account
those attributes of man that are revealed by the existence and remarkable, even though
only partial, success of science?2
1. Harold K. Schilling, Science and Religion (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1962).
2. Union Seminary Quarterly Review, XVIII (1963), 121.
* Robert Tobias is professor of ecumenical theology in Christian Theologi-
cal Seminary.
(202)
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesiology 203

From the scientific side interest is growing in this sometime no-man's

land between physics and metaphysics. The field is not yet defined, even
basic questions have not yet been clearly stated; but there is an openness of
approach and a growing body of literature by scientists which should excite
our response. None of us can be insensitive to the common ground of hu-
man urgency, to the implications for man's destiny in radiation, in space
travel, in medical and bio-chemical transformations of the normal patterns
of life and death.
Can science and theology make common cause? When this question
was raised with a physicist friend his immediate response was: "Common
cause against what, or for what?" Modern man has real difficulties in back-
ing far enough away from that question and from his immediate involve-
ment to deal with it dispassionately.
Where and why do science and theology make common cause? We are
not at this point interested in bygone battlesGenesis versus Darwin, turtle
shell versus bending space, scientism versus religionand not with super-
ficial synthesis. Discerning scientists and theologians seek clearer delinea-
tions, and not battle or synthesis at this level. As more theologian than
scientist I must confess an increasing humility in approaching this vast sub-
ject which may hold the future of a civilization in what is thought out and
done in the next ten years. Theologians have stuck with their own field,
somewhat content that therein they have "answers." In moving towards
dialogue with science we sense our inner uneasiness. Is science a threat to
us? Should we stay away? Perhaps this encounter with science is a real
test of our faith: is it faith or rationalism? In any case we are invited by
the scientists to join in the search. What follows is the beginning of an
extended response to that invitation.
I. Point of Departure for Theologians
Can science and theology make common cause? The theologian does
not begin with that question. To do so would be to philosophize, perhaps to
attempt some synthetic accommodation of one to the other, for human goals.
Christians have been claimed for the work of uniting all things in
Christ, things in heaven and things on earth (Ephesians 1:10). To them,
all things are subject to Christ: thrones, dominions, principalities, and
powers.
All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in
him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the
beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent.
For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile
to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of
his cross (Colossians 1:16-20).
204 Encounter

Creation is then more than the stage, the container, or arena of man's spir-
itual redemption. It is that reality which, together with him, is to be "set
free from its bondage to decay" (Romans 8:21). Its liberation, as also its
present bondage, derives not from within itself, but from him who subjected
it in hope. For the Christian:
The care of the earth, the realm of nature as a theater of grace, the ordering of the
thick, material procedures that make available to, or deprive man of bread and
peacethese are Christological obediences before they are practical necessities.3
If that is the ground of our involvement, certain presuppositions can be
stated a priori. The first concerns theology; namely, theology cannot limit
itself, nor can redemptive concern be limited to the "already redeemed," to
privatism of the soul, to intra-ecclesiastical life, to reflections about God as
though he were "other-worldish." It is also true that ecumenics can not deal
only with ecclesiastical unity. A concern for unity which limits itself to
churchly unity is either incestuous or narcissistic. Theou-logy will be con-
cerned about the whole creation/redemption.
Secondly, concerning the future of which God is Lord, it may be pre-
supposed that whereas negative effects of man's activities may be "pre-
dicted," our destiny is essentially not predictable. The future is promised
to us, not predictable by us.4
Thirdly, we cannot provide ultimate meaningby power, or manipu-
lation, or persuasion, or "evangelistic conversion"for one another or for
all together. Ultimate meaning is to be awaited as given, and it is given in
a context of mystery not unrelated to the unpredictable. It can only be re-
ceived by man, not achieved by false gods of optimism.
The fourth presupposition is that any syncretism of science and the-
ology is an impossibility, for theology is not fundamentally a search for
meaning based on universale, to be observed and verified. It is rather an
affirmation based on a particular act of God to a particular person, essen-
tially and providentially unprovable by the demands of the laboratory and
of consistency.
What do these presuppositions say about the relationship which theo-
logians may entertain towards scientists? Do they provide any context in
which theologians and scientists can make common cause? Is there even a
limited cause at which work in common can be done? Here we face the
problem of attempting too much or too little: too much if we assume that by
3. From an address by Joseph Sittler at the New Delhi Assembly of the World Council of
Churches.
4. In reply to the question "What is man's place in the universe?" astronomer Fred Hoyle
declared in his Nature of the Universe (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), p. 128, that "Per-
haps the most majestic feature of our whole existence is that while our intelligences are powerful
enough to penetrate deeply into the evolution of this quite incredible Universe, we still have not the
smallest clue to our own fate."
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesiology 205

common effort we shall find a formula so universal that all things will be
explained and comprehended; too little if we are intimidated by an un-
fortunate past history or a lack of courage and honesty to face the issues
and threats, and therefore the hope which we represent to one another. Dar-
ing too little, we may settle for "two-realms" solutions: "science deals with
facts, religion with values; science describes, religion appreciates; science
is concerned with how, religion with why; neither cancels nor opposes the
other." These are no solutions at all.
What, then, is the nature and the place of the estrangement in which we
begin? History gives us some clues here which need careful study.5 The
most we can do is to note some crucial transitions in the evolution of the
science/religion relationship. There are four, easily identifiable by per-
sons or ideas, which seem decisive: Thaes of Miltos; Aristotle and Aristar-
chus; Copernicus and Galileo; the Enlightenment and industrial revolution.
Each needs scrutiny from both religious and scientific perspectives.
Thaes of Miletos (seventh century, B.C.) has been described as the
founder of science. Against the superstitions of his day Thaes maintained
that the universe has order and meaning behind it, not disorder and chaos;
that the data of meaning lie in the things at man's reach, not in supranatural
powers. Man had only to dig out the meaning from the data. Religious
leaders of the day held that meaning was the concern of the gods, that the
gods had engaged them to interpret meaning through signs, witchcraft, and
oblations. To them Thaes' nature-centered concept was materialistic, anti-
spiritual, heretical. Thaes' exaltation of man and nature was an offense
against the gods who would surely send down punishment, and incidentally
safeguard their profession! Thaes' naturalism must be curbed, and for a
time it was. Nonetheless, Thaes' idea eventually won out and within two
centuries the forces of "religion" had to find some accommodation to it.
Man and his planet became the center of order and meaning.
The next major transition began, and might well have succeeded, in the
fourth century before Christ, but strangely miscarried. It was led by Aris-
totle and Aristarchus. Implicit in Aristotle's astronomy was the notion that
the earth was not the center of the universe. Aristarchus explicitly pro-
pounded a heliocentric explanation of the universe. Why was this "dis-
covery" effectively lost for two thousand years? This time it was the "sci-
entists" of the day rather than the religious leaders who objected, and Aris-
totle's concealment of what he thought to be true may be a clue as to why.
"Science" had just liberated men's minds, at least in part, from the mill-
stones of supra-natural religion and superstition, from a world view which
5. A. D. White's comprehensive though one-sided study, A History of Warfare of Science with
Theology, is now available in paperback (New York: Dover, 1896). A study of what had hap-
pened between science and religion since recorded history is still needed.
206 Encounter

assumed that events were controlled by extra-earthly gods, stars, and magic.
As Lucretius put it, science had liberated man from the terror of the gods.
To promote heliocentrism as a supra-earth centered theory could mean, at
the popular level, not the achievement of a new scientific plateau, but a step
backward into pre-Miletian supra-naturalism, and the deprecation of every
scientific achievement already made. Aristotle remained silent, Aristarchus'
theory was lost, and it took nearly two thousand years to recover or redis-
cover their position.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Copernicus and Galileo re-
introduced the idea that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the uni-
verse. It was an idea too "hot" to propound as fact so Copernicus presented
it as a hypothesis for speculation. Galileo insisted that it was fact, and was
forced to recant by the religious power of his day. Why? The forces of
religion which had long ago accepted Thaes' data-is-in-nature premise and
Aristotle's causal principle had constructed a "proof of God" based on
earthly evidence, "natural theology." The natural earth was the place of
proving God. And if proof of God depended on earthly evidence, any dis-
placement of the earth from centrality in the universe not only altered the
data, but altered the conclusion about God. So religious man now exalted
himself as the discoverer of God, and the earth as necessary place of that
discovery. Starting with the same foundation scientific man could build
thereon his assumptions that he not only could eventually discover and
understand, but finally master natural events. With such confidence, en-
quiring minds could not long be satisfied with either geocentric science or
geocentric theology. When natural theology did not keep pace with natural
science, what alternative, but to leave it behind?
In the nineteenth century with the development of instrumentation,
philosophical foundations for science were replaced by "scientific methods,"
the "Queen" was dethroned, and astronomy, the venerable bastion of the
theologians' and philosophers' scientific interest, was occupied by physicists.
Finally, in the context of the Enlightenment spirit and industrialization the
new scientific man was born. As natural man, the new concept admitted, he
was indeed a minuscule organism on a lesser planet of a small stellar system
in one of many galaxies. But as knowing and deciding being he was free
and able to comprehend and manipulate universal reality. The universe
could now move forward seriously in the process of creating itself.
Pertinent to this study here is the change in man's estimate of himself
in the course of three thousand years. Religiously he had shifted from
dependence on the supra-natural to dependence upon himself to give mean-
ing within a natural religion. Materially his sense of participation with
nature had given way largely to experimentation intended to use creation for
man's own good. Man in religion and science had become, in his own esti-
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesiology 207

mate, in very large measure the center and apex of as much of the universe
as he could master for his own purposes.
Critics from several quarters have sharp words for the inadequacies
and pretensions of the ensuing scientific worldview. Bertrand Russell de-
clared that:
The effect of science upon our view of man's place in the universe has been of two
opposite kinds; it has at once degraded and exalted him. It has degraded him from
the standpoint of contemplation, and exalted him from that of action. . . . What
matters to him about the world is what he can make of it. . . . In the pre-scientific
world, power was God's . . . and the power of prayer had recognized limits; it would
have been impious to ask too much. But the power of science has no known limits.
We were told that faith could remove mountains, but no one believed it; we are now
told that the atomic bomb can remove mountains, and everyone believes it.6
With John Dewey and Karl Marx, he went on to say, we take up that philoso-
phy which "works" in altering the world, and so we "make truth" by what,
according to our ideas of value, is effective. "And so, in this godless uni-
verse, we shall become gods."
Aldous Huxley delivers a similar punch in his Science, Liberty and
Peace:
The belief in all-round progress is based upon the wishful dream that one can
get something for nothing. Its underlying assumption is that gains in one field do
not have to be paid for by losses in other fields. For the ancient Greeks, hubris, or
overweening insolence, whether directed against the gods, or one's fellow men, or
nature, was sure to be followed sooner or later, in one way or another, by avenging
Nemesis. Unlike the Greeks, we of the twentieth century believe that we can be
insolent with impunity.
Because of the prestige of science as a source of power, and because of the
general neglect of philosophy, the popular Weltanschauung of our times contains a
large element of what may be called "nothing-but" thinking. Human beings, it is
more or less tacitly assumed, are nothing but bodies, animals, even machines; the
only really real elements of reality are matter and energy in their measurable aspects;
values are nothing but illusions that have somehow got themselves mixed up with our
experience of the world; mental happenings are nothing but epiphenomena, produced
by and entirely dependent upon physiology; spirituality is nothing but wish fulfill-
ment and misdirected sex; and so on. The political consequences of this "nothing-
but" philosophy are clearly apparent in that widespread indifference to the values of
human personality and human life, which are so characteristic of the present age.7
The scientist's non-scientific contemporary accepts scientists as those
"who practice the art of infallibility," who provide the true description of
the real world; 8 and the advertising world echoes their gloriai "It has been
scientifically proved."
6. The Impact of Science on Society (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953), pp. 12, 14, 15.
7. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1946), pp. 31-32, 36-37.
8. Anthony Standen, Science is a Sacred Cow (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1950), p. 13
if. and . L. Mascall, Christian Theology and Natural Science (London: Longmans, 1957), p. 9.
208 Encounter

For all this, Christians must accept a large share of responsibility. As-
suming that they had a closed system of propositions, fearful for the sys-
tem's preservation or their own against the burgeoning science of Science,
the forces of religion condemned Giordano Bruno to burning, Galileo to re-
cant, Teilhard de Chardin to lifetime oblivion so far as teaching and writing
were concerned. Too genteel perhaps to name us explicitly, the thrust of one
scientist nonetheless strikes home towards us.
On all matters where their passions are strongly engaged, men prize certitude
and fear knowledge. From certitude can come purpose and a feeling of strength. It
breeds courage and action, and is a ready means of ensuring that most desired of all
things, an increased sense of vitality. Only the man of strong convictions can be a
popular leader of mankind. For most men in most matters, whether it be the justice
of a war, the Tightness of a political creed, the guilt of a criminal, the wholesomeness
of apples, certitude, in the entire absence of adequate evidence, is easily arrived at
and passionately welcomed.
The scientific insistence on evidence, and the scientific absence of generosity in
drawing conclusions from evidence, are resented in these matters. The scientific atti-
tude, it is felt, with its promise of a long and very probably inconclusive investigation,
would merely dam up the emotions that are clamouring for an outlet.9
Now comes a new race of scientists, enquiring again at questions of
meaning, value, destinymen such as physicist William Pollard who hold
that the ultimate purpose of science is neither progress nor knowledge but
deepening "the awed and appreciative wonder with which we respond to the
work of God"10
Science alone cannot decide what is its task, not even what is the
"good," and certainly not what is God. Hence the Macedonian plea of
Schilling.11 For that matter theology by itself can not define what is world,
or man. In his World-View of Physics C. F. Von Weizscker points out that
"The physical view of the world is wrong not in what it asserts, but in what
it omits."12 How, then? Can these scientists and some theologians make
common cause? Surely neither science nor theology can ignore the other
without losing its integrity, and finally its life. So we turn now to suggest
some areas as promising ground for further conversation.

II. Areas for Further Conversation

The place to start is not with the most rigid contradictions nor simply
with where there is common agreement. Rather, where these are mixed,
there we may find leads to clearer methods, some clarification for ourselves
9. J. W. N. Sullivan, The Limitations of Science (New York: Mentor-Viking, 1961), p. 174.
10. "The Place of Science in Religion," The Christian Scholar, XXXVI (1953), 117.
11. "The science and community needs the help of other communities, . . . and not least of
the one devoted to divinity." "A Contemporary Macedonian Plea," Union Seminary Quarterly Re-
view, XVIII (1963), 116.
12. The World-View of Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), p. 28.
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesology 209

and each other as to what is world, man, science, and theology. Whether
the result will be the uniting of all things in Christ we need not ask. It is
he who calls us on the theological side to the task.
What are the areas most promising or most urgently demanding com-
mon enquiry? On the basis of some preliminary research it seems to me
that we can start with these three: the common recognition that there is some
kind of ultimate reality behind known reality; the assumptions about knowl-
edge and the knowing of those "realities" as process and participation; the
nature of man himself as he faces questions of ultimate responsibility and
destiny.
A similar division of areas is suggested by J. Robert Oppenheimer:13
metaphysics, epistemology, ethics. Further delineation of an agreed ground
for common work will eventually be desirable, but this should at least sug-
gest appropriate areas for beginning.
Reality Behind the Human Enterprise
Poet, philosopher, theologian, and scientist share these premises in
common: that there is some principle, structure, power, or person which
comprises all in one harmonious whole; that there is some inter-related or
common destiny; and that further knowledge of him or of it lies in store for
us. Aristotle's Formal Cause, Laplace's determinism, Heisenberg's prob-
abilities, or Einstein's relativities depend upon a reliable-reality-behind-
existence presupposition. Pierre Simon De Laplace, French astronomer and
mathematician, believed that background of ordering to be so precise that
events should some day be predictable:
Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which
nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings who compose it . . . it
would embrace in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the uni-
verse and those of the lightest atom; for it, nothing would be uncertain and the
future, as the past, would be present to its eyes.14
Here was the base also on which Einstein could propound his general theory
of relativity: all the phenomena of nature, all the laws of nature, are the
same for all systems that move uniformly relative to one another.15 Heisen-
berg and others since have discounted the idea that man can ever know and
predict cause-effect relationships in quite the precise way implied in Laplace,
13. "Thus we may well be cautious if we inquire as to whether there are direct connections,
and if so of what sort, between the truths that science uncovers and the way men think about
things in generaltheir metaphysicstheir ideas about what is real and what is primary; their
epistemologytheir understanding of what makes human knowledge; their ethicstheir ways of
thinking, talking, judging, and acting in human problems. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Science and
the Common Understanding (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), p. 5.
14. P. S. De Laplace, Philosophical Essays on Probability (New York: Dover, 1952).
15. Albert Einstein, Relativity, The Special and General Theory (Gloucester, Massachusetts:
Peter Smith Publishers).
210 Encounter

and prefer to speak in terms of "probabilities," but they have not given up
the idea of a universally ordered ground of existence, even of a determinis-
tic, though humanly unknowable, factor in it. It was after Heisenberg^
uncertainty principle was widely accepted that Sir James Jeans, British phys-
icist and astronomer, declared:
If, then, we wish to picture the happenings of nature as still governed by causal laws,
we must suppose that there is a substratum, lying beyond the phenomena and so also
beyond our access, in which the happenings in the phenomenal world are somehow
determined.16
Einstein's reaction to "uncertainty" was to assert that he could not believe
"that God plays dice with the world." While he recognized, with Max Planck,
that continuity did not reside in matter and energy, he nonetheless asserted
that: "A conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligi-
bility of the world, lies behind all scientific work of a high order."17
If it is commonly agreed that there is a universal order, a unified
reality-behind-existence, whether discerned and described in like manner or
not, one implication is that there can be no ultimate dualism between church
and world, whether one's approach is as scientist or theologian. Indeed, are
we not given a eucharist precisely to demonstrate how spirit and matter are
not finally separated?
There are further implications: one is of identification. What is that
universal ground? Is it a principle? a law? energy? light? love? the armonia
of the Greeks? being? Is it some identifiable composite of law, economy,
justice, prehension? To assume that there is such a ground means to seek
its identity. "Science," says mathematician J. Bronowski, "is nothing else
than the search to discover unity in the wild variety of nature. . . . Poetry,
painting, the arts are the same search, in Coleridge's phrase, for unity in
variety."18
Another implication is that any such universal, being internally con-
sistent, should be verifiable, if not, at sub-atomic dimensions, at least at
some dimension of universal human experience. "Science is interested in
repeatable events, reducible to general laws ; it has no interest in that which
is individual or unique, except as an instance of general laws."19 It has
been on this kind of premise, of a harmonious universal structure which is
discernible and verifiable, that one discipline has been able to develop a
system of natural law, another a system of natural theology.
But if there is a unified structure must it of necessity be intelligible?
Is it, or he discoverable? discernible? verifiable? By what process? To
16. Physics and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946), p. 141.
17. A. Einstein, The World As I See It (New York: Covici Friede, 1934).
18. J. Bronowski, Science and Human Values (Torchbook; New York: Harper & Brothers,
1959), p. 27.
19. Ian G. Barbour, Christianity and the Scientist (New York: Association Press, 1960), p. 64.
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesiology 211

what extent? Or would not discovery disturb the whole nature of the cos-
mos. Among both scientists and theologians there is divided opinion here,
reflecting something of the radical nature of the change of thought taking
place, the outcome of which is not yet clear. Bernard Meland summarizes
one aspect of that change in his recent book, The Realities of Faith: The
Revolution in Cultural Forms.
He indicates that the "Newtonian barriers to belief," that all-enveloping
naturalism presupposing orderliness in nature at every level, were completed
with the intimate correlation between science and industry in the nineteenth
century, and broken down in the twentieth century.
The revolution in physics can be said to have demolished these barriers of men-
talism and mechanization. In effect, it is as if a new critique of reason had been
written, not by one man, but through the collaboration of many . . . to determine the
status and possibilities of human enquiry. . . . The consequence seems to be, not the
abolishing of reason from these most profound areas of concern, nor the abandoning
of such inquiry, but a wholly new estimate of our human powers and facilities and
of the results we are able to achieve. . . . [Yet] the modern physicist points up a
radical discrepancy between what this world of sense can report, or that human rea-
son can describe, and the reality which underlies yet persistently evades observation.20
Among scientists, nonetheless, our premise is still substantiated that, in
the words of Hadamard, "although the truth is not yet known to us, it pre-
exists and inescapably imposes on us the path we must follow under penalty
of going astray." 21 While among theologians it is assumed that more is
knowable of him who is Truth than is now known. "For now we see in a
mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall under-
stand fully, even as I have been fully understood" (I Corinthians 13:12).
The prospect of ever arriving, in history or cumulatively, at an understand-
ing of the "whole," i.e., a situation of no ignorance, no mystery, no scandal,
no sin is precluded in theology in a way unparalleled in science. To this
we return later.
Another implication of our reality-behind-existence premise is purpo-
siveness. Here the western world, at least insofar as deity is recognized, has
depended particularly on Aristotle's Formal Cause linked with his Final
Cause. And even outside theistic circles when post-Newtonian physics dis-
lodged purposiveness as residing in God, Marx, and Spencer maintained a
strong insistence on purposiveness, though they placed its locus in matter
itself. Contemporary western physicists in the main hold this question open,
generally insisting that this is not a proper field of enquiry for them. Theo-
logians, observing the effect of the work of scientists on the destiny of crea-
20. Bernard Meland, The Realities of Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962),
pp. 155-56.
21. Jacques Hadamard, The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field (New York:
Dover, 1945), p. xii.
212 Encounter

tion, may insist upon re-opening the question of intention and purpose for
both its material and ideological import.
We have suggested that in their common recognition that there is a
"real" reality behind apparent reality science and theology share some gen-
eral assumptions: that there is universal harmony, consistency, and inter-
dependence among its parts; that there is a large measure of veriflability;
and that there is some measure of purposiveness. Questions must be im-
mediately raised, some of which have been put as though they were conclu-
sive fact. If the assumptions are true, is synthesis not then possible between
laboratory and altar, between physics and metaphysics? Through Aristotle
and his heirs (Thomas, Descartes, Hegel, Kant, Whitehead, Gittelsohn22) has
not man succeeded in putting unity, permanence, and eternity in the natural
order "where it belongs?" Are there not inevitables, of universally inter-
locking relation, and are they not predictable? In physics deterministic pre-
dictability has been questioned for two reasons: one, that man cannot meas-
ure simultaneously the momentum and the direction of sub-atomic particles,
which, still further, are disturbed by the instruments of observation; and,
two, within the quanta themselves are apparently undetermined deflections,
splits, and entropy. While human mediation has been questioned, physicists
seem not basically to have questioned the structure of reality behind it as
being possibly deterministic. What is needed, they imply, is a larger prin-
ciple, a formula large enough to embrace the whole. Recent thought from
several quarters suggests that such a formula may reside in the destiny to-
wards which creation moves, rather than the origin whence it comes.23 Crea-
tion move towards increased order and meaning, rather than proceeds from
order. Does this mean an inevitable determinism or fatalism? Science
alone might so imply. The factor of man, this unpredictable "disturber"
who breaches determinacy in the quanta, this creature who, as Luther de-
scribed him in his definition of sin, thinks and wills independently, is this
his role in creationto make it know its creatureliness? Is this Paul's
meaning, that creation has been "subjected to futility" lest in its harmonious,
cause-effect orderliness it forget its creator, or think itself to be God?
A third question: Is that deeper structure of reality necessarily har-
monious, rational, and essentially consistent, or might there of necessity be
irrationality and inconsistency also? This must be discussed more fully
later. Despite these questions, the common conclusion that there is a uni-
versally "real" seems inescapable. Even that philosophy which asserts that
22. Roland B. Gittelsohn, "Where Religion and Science Meet," Saturday Review, XLVI
(March 23, 1963), 23 ff.
23. See A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Social Science Bookstore, 1941) ;
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959) ;
and C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (New York: Macmillan, 1945).
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesiology 213

there is none cannot do so without in some sense standing on that ground

to do so.
Knowledge and Knowing
A second area for enquiry between science and theology is "knowledge,"
the dimension of man's relating to ultimate reality. What is the nature of
knowledge? How does man know? Here scientists show increasing con-
cern, and in surprising language. Is the mode of knowledge sensual, intui-
tive, or rational? Does it proceed by electronic or chemical stimulii? Does
it come by "hunches" or logical deduction? Here we suggest four proposi-
tions for further work together: that the "truth" which concerns knowledge
is hidden and evasive; that our knowing is not of an objective sort, but as
participant with reality; that in "participation," science and theology may
helpfully share common procedural requisites; that tentative conclusions,
whether compatible or contradictory, should be shared as stimulii of further
participation-exploration. We briefly consider each of these.
Truth as reality is hidden; it is not immediately available with absolute
clarity. Either to the scientist or to the believer what is presumed to be
truth must be somehow authenticated, and then only provisionally: "It is
of the nature of knowledge to be uncertain."24 This is the battle Aristotle
fought and lost to the Aristotelians. He preferred to call scientific work
"inquiries" and to avoid any assumption of finality in his conclusions. This
spirit his successors lost. This, declared one scientist, was the "real revolu-
tion" in science: not the change of content of scientific theories, but the
view of what a scientific theory is, i.e., descriptive, disjointed, incomplete,
and evolutionary. Thereafter science could not be satisfied with answers
which claim to be final, and scientists are skeptical of any "scientism" which
makes such claims. Thus science has been able in describing cosmic reality
to move from myths of Tiamat and Marduk to elephants, to hollow spheres,
to atoms, to quanta, opposing absolutism at each stage, for there is some
sense of an absolute beyond present human comprehension. It is for that
very reason that no cheap syncretism between science and theology which
requires blindness, hiding of data, preventing either science or theology
from being an entity worthy or capable of truth's revealing, is possible.
Methodologically, scientists and theologians are experimentors in that they
insist upon integrity of response to the lure of presumed reality, and there-
fore put their question to every idolatry or claimant of finality. They are
committed to the pursuit, to glimpses, intuitions, snatches of provisional
knowledge, to honest facing of questions, new data, and honest response.
This commitment, this passionate desire of knowing bestrays their lack
of objectivity, whether scientist or theologian, and for that one can be grate-
24. P. W. Bridgman, in The Nature of Physical Knowledge, ed. L. W. Friedrich (Blooming-
ton: Indiana University Press, 1960), p. 18.
214 Encounter

ful: "The daily striving [of the scientist] is dictated by no principle or

programme, but arises from an immediate personal need,"25 said Einstein.
In seeking knowledge of nature man is not objective; he participates in it
and in the process. The ancient Hebrews recognized knowledge as yadha 9
intercourse. Plato made it the long end of his divided line, lumping ex-
ternals such as mirages, matter, and principles together as the lesser end in
importance. Martin Buber names it "I-Thou," even material "things"
ranking not as "its" to be manipulated, controlled, exploited, but to be
known in encounter and participation. Teilhard de Chardin speaks of the
"love" of atoms, Whitehead calls it "prehension," Bernard Meland "ac-
quaintance." With their respective distinctions, they all point to a relation-
ship of involvement, mutuality, participation.
In the recognition of this mutuality lies a significant part of man's re-
demption. Eastern Orthodoxy, from its own deep sense of cosmic redemp-
tion, deals more profoundly with this whole area from a theological per-
spective than does occidental theology, and expresses a truth which we shall
either hear from our Orthodox brethren, or if not, perhaps from science.
The Orthodox
wonder also how far some of the so-called Low-Churchmen hold the conviction that
the lower creation is something inferior which does not deserve to be included in the
supreme act of communion between God and man, for "What is not assumed is not
redeemed." In all the mysteries of his condescension God approaches man from
below : and man must be ready to stoop to meet him.26
Early in the common endeavor of scientists and theologians care should
be given dispassionately to delineate some ground rules, both for the process
of knowing reality, and for the conversation. Some such attempts have been
made, but none yet is more than suggestive. Nor do I intend here to do more
than list in preliminary and summary fashion a number of apparent requi-
sites. All of the "rules" noted tend to revolve around the central quality of
integrity and openness, but there are nuances which should be explored
under several headings.
Respect and humility: "Sit down before fact like a little child," said
T. H. Huxley; "this is the lesson Christianity has taught us." No truth is
received if one assumes he already has it.
Integrity, with regard both to data and process : The substantive ques-
tion of the kinds of truth science27 and theology are after may be the first
topic needing attention once some ground rules of conversation are estab-
lished. Pre-judgment of categories must not pre-judge process.
25. Quoted in J. W. N. Sullivan, The Limitations of Science (New York: Mentor-Viking Press,
1933), p. 166.
26. Nicolas Zernov, The Chruch of the Eastern Christians (New York: Macmillan, 1947),
p. 100.
27. Cf. J. W. N. Sullivan, The Limitations of Science (New York: Mentor-Viking Press, 1933).
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesiology 215
Dogmatic prejudice, lying, falsification of facts, and data, and willful fallacious
reasoning are all out of harmony with the spirit of the sciences . . . The success of the
scientific method . . . is based entirely upon an absolute honesty of mind and love
of truth.28
Open-mindedness and open-endedness: Scientific men, says J. W. N.
Sullivan,29 believe that there is a final scientific truth about the universe to
which successive scientific theories ever more closely approximate. This is
as an article of faith. Science is still an adventure and all its "truths" are
provisional. Further truth must be sought and waited out. "Openness" is
both an individual and a community matter, whether for a Galileo or a
Jeremiah.
Concerns for universals: Whether in the words of Einstein's relativity
principle, or of Newton, or Galileo, or of Aristotle, the scientist presupposes
a comprehensive harmony in nature, a universal consistency at some depth,
and seeks to understand and explain nature in universal harmonies. Not
unlike theology, quantum physics works with particulars, seeks to explain in
universals: "its laws are for crowds and not for individuals."30 As do
physicists, theologians also seek universals to "break down the wall of con-
tradictions"31 which frequently blocks progress for the scientist and for the
theologian. In the context of universality, a certain simplicity is held in
high regard by both scientist and theologian, in science even as a validating
criterion, but there is a fundamental distinction between the "simplicity" of
science and the "childlikeness" of faith which has important relevance for
future conversations.
A communal endeavor: Scientific enquiry is a communal undertak-
ing; therefore the "society of scientists" must be democratic, based on hu-
man dignity and respect for individual contribution and personal value. In
theology we are dependent upon an appropriate inter-relationship between
particular revelation and communal authentication and proclamation. Be-
yond that is the controversial question within theology, and between theology
and science, as to whether and to what extent knowledge discerned in the
community process is cumulative and transmissible.
Declaration of findings: The fact that "discoveries" must be declared,
and provision therefore made for their declaration, is so obvious as to re-
quire no illustration. Whether, however, that declaration is to be regarded
as subjective and provisional (hypothesis, testimony), or as objectively
established fact-beyond-question (law, dogma) is a similar problem in both
28. Professor Hendren, University of Georgia, Athens, as quoted by A. Standen, Science Is a
Sacred Cow (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1960), p. 16.
29. The Limitations of Science (New York: Mentor-Viking Press, 1933), p. 162.
30. Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1942), p. 302.
31. Ibid., p. 207.
216 Encounter

science and theology. It should be clear from both sides that pressures to
"convert" which go beyond the declaration of new "knowledge" tend to cut
off both the "knower" and the community from a posture which allows for
further knowledge to be received and declared. "Rice Christians" who are
essentially unconvinced by Truth itself are doubtless no less a problem in
the scientific community than in the community of faith.
Built-in correctives: We have sketched some "rules" of procedure for
beginning conversations between science and theology, recognizing that to be
helpful such rules will need to be pertinent to each of the two fields in its
own inner workings as well as to the conversations between them. Fruitful
conversation will probably mean that each such conversation group will need
to begin by delineating its own rules. Thereafter, premature or false claims
of universality, or of simplicity, or of rationality, or of objectivity and
purity of motive, while bearing scrutiny, must find their corrective in the
exercise of some such procedural rules as those above.
Now, we may ask, where have these yearnings for truth, involvements
in knowing, and procedures of enquiry brought us? Not to the "kingdom"
of full knowledge, nor will they bring us to that state of knowledge or per-
fection. But they may bring us to ground of crucial importance for human
existence, of which three facets stand out: the first, a clearer recognition of
our own limitations, perhaps even to recognition of the external source of
all splendor?
Today there is a wide measure of agreementalmost unanimity, that the stream of
knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look
more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an
accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we
ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter . . . the
mind in which the atoms out of which our individual minds have grown and exist as
thoughts.82
The second consequence may be a deeper sense of the irrationalities of
existence, paradoxically, within the construct of armonia. Theology and
science present use with expanses beyond human ken. We discuss, yet what
man can conceive of time as beginning and ending, or of endless time? Who
can understand how, and yet we see chaos and disorder contributing to
orderly development? Suffering is not an unmixed bane. The acceptance
of "non-predictability" in quantum physics, the recognition that greater
knowledge discloses areas of ignorance still more vast, these provide no
sanguine hope that man will ever know-it-all, but may, says Bernard Meland,
encourage us towards "dimensional thinking," rather than neat "systems"
which claim finality.83
32. Sir James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe (New York: Macmillan, 1930), p. 158.
33. The Realities of Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962).
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesiology 217

The third result may be a fuller participation in the created order. One
of the effects of the combined force of Renaissance, Enlightenment, indus-
trialization, and Reformation has been so to objectify physical reality as to
desecrate it. Among scientists, philosophers, and theologians now comes a
new appreciation of our mutuality in and with the rest of creation. Man's
glory is not his "superior" location in space, says Harlow Shapley.
To be a participant [in the magnificent unfolding universe] is in itself a glory. With
our confreres on distant planets; with our fellow animals and plants . . .; with pro-
tons and atoms that make up the starswith all these we are associated in an ex-
istence and an evolution that inspires respect and deep reverence. We cannot escape
humility. And as groping philosophers and scientists we are thankful for the mys-
teries that still lie beyond our grasp.34
In these matters, E. L. Mascall speaks as both theologian and scientist:
If modern cosmologists have been clever enough to discover by general epistemo-
logica! principles what the detailed nature of a knowable universe must be, we can
only be grateful to them. Their success in this endeavor leaves it, however, an en-
tirely open question why such a universe should exist and should be experienced.
The reason may be, as the Kantians would hold, that in the act of experience we have
moulded the universe into an intelligible form in order to have something to know.
It may be, on the other hand, as certain biologists have suggested, that in the course
of evolution the human mind has had to adopt itself to an obstinately unsubjective
universe in order to survive. Or it may be that God has made us in his own image
as intelligent beings and has placed us in a world which is an adequate object of our
intelligence, in order that we should know the rest of his creatures as they are and
shall, in knowing them, know him. I do not see how epistemological considerations
can decide between these alternatives. All they can do is to tell us what an intelligent
universe is like. But why there is an intelligible universe at all and how it comes to
exist is entirely outside their scope, and must be determined in some other way if it
is to be determined at all. . . . The Christian, who believes that the world is God's
creation, will rejoice in humility as he contemplates the glory of Him who has
disposed all things in measure and number and weight.35

Man9s Doing and Destiny

We come now to our third area of enquiry. The first was the ultimacy
of reality behind appearance. The second was man's knowing relationship
to that ultimacy. Now we consider man as scientist and theologian as he
deals consciously with his own destiny, and the world's. This is the area of
relating knowing and doing under some idea of purpose. This is perhaps
the most confused and painful and urgent of all three areas.
After "knowledge," scientific or theological, after understanding new
depths and vistas, what then? Will man leave it at that for the joy of dis-
covering and knowing as some scientists insist? Is man so constructed that
34. H. Shapley, Of Stars and Men (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958).
35. Christian Theology and Natural Science (New York: Longman's, Green, and Co., 1956),
p. 131.
218 Encounter

his knowing and doing can be kept in two separate realms? Here scientist
and theologian are as contradictory as they are complementary. We should
pause long enough to clarify terms. We have suggested that the theologian
is one who first knows his own frailty, and then knows something of the
penertation of the Wholly Other towards him, but never knows him wholly.
The scientist is one who first seeks understanding of the universe, whose
data are provided for him, but never in their entirety. Both scientist and
theologian remind us, as against any pretensions of man to have achieved
finality, of the finitude of man's conclusions, that there is a requisite open-
endedness to all his conclusions. Therefore his existence must be charac-
terized by readiness to change, by commitment, by faith, by humility. Why
humility? Humility is the description of a posture in relation to the Ulti-
mate. The reason given for humility may be the central distinguishing mark
between the theologian and the non-theologian.
"The restoration of science," said Francis Bacon, "will take place by
a true humiliation of the spirit. We cannot command nature except by obey-
ing her." This we must recognize: the first temptation in the new-found
knowledges is to turn knowledge and nature to our, to man's utility. Man's
welfare is of all "ultimates" most ultimate. If it is necessary to be "humble"
to conquer, then by all means be humble.
There are two levels of battle here: the first has to do with utility and
the second with mystery. Should knowledge be aimed towards and validated
by utility? In the scientific fields is research to be undertaken primarily
in order to control and manipulate for man's purposes? Can there be hon-
est research when its findings must fit some frame of application? Or
would not pre-occupation with application disturb, if not pre-judge, distort,
and prevent any real "knowing" involvement? Such now is the pressure on
science, that it must be aimed at transforming. Huston Smith, professor of
philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, calls attention to the
passionate commitment of many of his colleagues (in scientific research) to
four goals: the production of new life, new minds, new men, and a new and
better world. "Clearly, here," reports Dean Schilling, "knowledge-with-
transformation is out in the open as a consciously pursued objective of sci-
entific endeavor."36
A similar problem is felt by the theologians. Is it the task of theology
to receive and codify revelation, which from that point onwards must be
only applied? Indeed, the pressures of institutionalized religion are such
that if pastors, missionaries, evangelists, and seminaries are not getting re-
sultsby which is meant statistical growththe validity of their work is
called into question. The deeper question for the theologian is whether, if
36. Harold K. Schilling, "A Contemporary Macedonian Plea," Union Seminary Quarterly Re-
view, XVIII (Jan., 1963), p. 119.
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesiology 219

the emphasis is placed on application, he does not thereby cut himself off
from the source of his "knowledge." If results are presumed to validate
our labors, is this not a denial of that gospel in which grace and forgiveness
and power from God send us proclaiming, whether results can be measured
statistically or not?
Here looms a far-reaching battle, not between scientist and theologian,
but between "discoverer" and "merchandizer," between "pure" science and
theology on the one hand, and scientific and religious technology on the
other. An important illustration of where the battle lines lie may be seen
in north Europe where research scientist, philosopher, and theologian are
joined in a common front against the pressures of industry, technology, and
trades schools which would teach students how to accomplish tasks without
asking ultimate questions of value and meaning. Theological seminaries in
this country may well ask themselves the question as to which side of that
battle line they are on, or whether they can find some third alternative.
Without pausing to document it, my impression after a survey of one hun-
dred twenty seminaries in this country is that we have slipped back into a
kind of scholasticism doctrinally and accommodation to denominational de-
mands institutionally which makes us look more like trade schools than com-
munities discerning God's continuing self-revelation.
I suggest a broad principle here for the pursuits of both science and
theology: that Truth's revealing takes precedence over application; that ap-
plication may be derived from but is not from human perspectives the pur-
pose of revealing; that accuracy in reporting the nature of the Truth re-
vealed becomes therefore of greater importance than its possible "useful-
ness," so that it is Truth itself which controls the process, not utility.
If scientific discovery is for application, then to what end? Who is to
decide, and how? This opens the second level of battle. In public debate
over the projected use of nuclear bombs Senator Anderson of the Joint Con-
gressional Committee on Atomic Energy attacked the Russians for making
bombs which would be "dirty"; ours would of course be clean! At this,
Punch of London quipped:
To call the H-bomb clean
Makes sound and sense divergent
Unless it's meant to mean
The Ultimate Detergent.
Even in the ancient world man's competence to make wise use of extra-
ordinary discovery was recognized as a serious problem. Leonardo da Vinci
suppressed his plans for a submarine, explaining:
This I do not divulge on account of the evil nature of men who would practice assas-
220 Encounter

sinations at the bottom of the sea by breaking ships in their lowest parts and sinking
them.87
In the more complex modern world where not only destruction by vio-
lence aimed at preservation has seem at stake, where decisions on such cru-
cial matters must be risked "in the dark," whose judgment is to prevail? In
June, 1945, two months before Hiroshima, social statesmen and concerned
scientists working on the bomb project met in Chicago and drafted the
Franck Report, desperately urging that the bomb not be used, but if used
should be dropped demonstratively in an uninhabited area. Another judg-
ment prevailed, and one hundred twenty thousand people died as immediate
consequence; the long range effects are not yet fully known. Concerned
scientists soon thereafter created their Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in hopes
of developing a powerful body of moral conscience and decision in such
matters, and notable figures such as Aldous Huxley called for a moratorium
on science because of its destructive prospects. Who was to decide? Hux-
ley considered it to be the job of society as a whole, not of scientists, to make
such crucial decisions. Yet what did that larger society do to Oppenheimer,
one of its morally sensitive scientists, but condemn him for his dissent from
social opinion in precisely these matters? Was Huxley right, that even so-
ciety was inadequate to decide such weighty matters?
Society as a whole has not proven itself, in hindsight, to be foolproof
in such matters, nor in a time when any man can know less than one discip-
line well will it do to establish clearer separations between disciplines for
appropriate assignment of decisions. Still more ominous would be the
prospect of creating one more discipline, e.g., Max Lerner's managerial elite,
as specialists in social decision taking. While it is no panacea, it becomes
increasingly apparent that decision-taking must draw on the competence and
commitment to accept consequences of every part of society, not just spe-
cialized parts.
I come now to the deeper level of the question of mystery, beyond using
reality for man's self-determined welfare, beyond the problem of who de-
cides and by what criteria when there is no experience or precedent. It is
the assertion at man's farthest outpost, that the Ultimate cannot be left
Ultimate.
The mountain is there; man must climb it. Why? Because it is there.
Is it not rather because man is man, and to be man is to test and conquer
the conquerable? "Because man can go into space, he must," space scientist
W. Von Braun told an Indiana University audience. Selective breeding by
human control is possible; then man must try it. Therefrom have we ob-
served genocide and attempts at a super-raceand even more atrocious con-
37. Quoted by Ian Barbour, Christianity and the Scientist (New York: Association Press,
1960), p. 20.
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesiology 221

sequences may be yet ahead. An inter-mediary specie, between man and

ape, is now conceivable; and the fascination that holds for us will leave us
no peace until someone produces its consequences. The Roman arena, the
Indianapolis "500" betray man's morbid curiosity and an ill-concealed pry-
ing at the finality of death. Potentiality, of all sorts, confronts uswho
can escape its fascination. Here, indeed, man tempts God, to know his
measure, and ours. This is the crucial point of man's existence, and he ap-
proaches it at his highest and deals with it at ultimate risk.
On this point there is deep concern, whether in exultation or in appre-
hension, among scientists. Dr. Otis W. Caldwell, late general secretary of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, declared that
"What science may do for men is not enough. This must become subord-
inate to what science may do to men"*8 Little wonder that German scientist
von Weizscker, a convinced Christian, should become anxious, not only
about the possible effects of man-sparked radiation, but as he contemplates
the possible long-range effects of artificial insemination, transplantations,
psychological manipulations, selective breeding, leucotomy, and lobotomy.
Disregarding for the moment the rest of creation, what is man capable of
doing to himself when he takes upon himself such a measure of control of
his destiny? How shall he know, when he is his own "god," when he is go-
ing too far? Possibly beyond any point of return? William Pollard,
nuclear physicist and Episcopal priest, regards our present technology
as a Promethean quest for human self-sufficiency, omnipotence, and complete mas-
tery over nature, a celebration of man's glory rather than God's. "No more terrible
affront to the Creator could be made by man than this all-out determination to seize
God's creation from Him and make himself sovereign within it."39
Is nature an alien order, to be exploited and plundered, with no "kin-
ship," no mutual enjoyment? Is this what it means for man to be set over
the works of God's hands and to have all things in subjection under his feet
(Hebrews 7 : 7 , 8 ) ?
The absurdity here is not that man tempts God. The absurdity is our
own nature. How shall we understand it? The absurdity isn't the mystery;
nor yet that we must probe ultimacy and cannot. Is it not rather that if we
can probe, and do not, it would make us somehow less than man?
As human beings whose very structure demands the discipline and integrity of honest
inquiry, we may not forsake this quest for intelligibility. Something seriously debili-
tating seizes our humanity when we do so. Something degrading infects our religious
sensibilities when we forego or forfeit the occasion to pursue this responsibility.40
38. Quoted by Anthony Standen, op. cit., p. 201.
39. See an Barbour, op. cit., p. 83.
40. Bernard Meland, The Realities of Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962),
p. 108.
222 Encounter

To give up probing is to give up being man. Yet, if we do probe, will

not the end result be our destruction? Still further, in that destruction, is it
not there that somehow is given knowledge and higher life? What is hidden,
we must seek; what is found, we perforce apply; and what we apply, eventu-
ally turns and destroys.
Adam and Eveall over again! So man now has to live with knowl-
edge, the knowledge that he has discovered a way to destroy life on earth.
This, says Karl Jaspers in The Future of Mankind, changes his whole bear-
ing and future. So we know our own creaturehood, not just through science,
nor even just through theology but in their vast reaches and their humiliation
together, which, for the wise, stops them short of human idolatry. This is
the "finished world" of which Bonhoeffer writes. It is here that man faces
mystery and knows it to be mystery; here he knows the Ultimate as unknow-
able; here he perceives that the Ultimate knows him and provides a security
within mystery, even his everlasting arms.
Whence then comes wisdom? And where is the place of understanding? It is hid
from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air. . . . God under-
stands the way to it, and he knows its place. . . . And He said to man, "Behold, the
fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding" (Job
28:20 ff.).
How very close our humiliation and our glory! Here we have no patent
answers. If we thought to have, it would simply mean pursue that one, too,
until every answer is exhausted, and we can only say, "God."
HI. Conclusion: Some Implications and Next Steps
It is clear that alongside this central question of ultimacy and con-
tingency there are many other urgent questions which bear investigation by
theologians and theological communities: implications of the likelihood of
rational beings on other planets, gaps in continuity as illustrated in sub-
atomic physics, areas of irrationality and paradox in man's relationship to
and in the universe. I pass over them here and make some suggestions for
immediate attention.
Under the claims of "all things united in Christ" it is the theologians
move next. The record of theologians has not been good, but men in science
have made overtures to "come over and help us." A declaration of willing-
ness and serious intent from theologians seems in order.
The next intellectual effort should include the reformulation of theo-
logical articulations and premises in modern language. If God's now-
occurring act is for us central, then this can be declared as for us constant,
with great liberty in exploring and describing the areas of implication into
which he, through whatever instruments, may lead us.
 Ecumenics Beyond Ecclesiology 223

Some able young men must be prepared as Joshuas and Labans, scouts
and bridgmen, who will know and know very well the disciplines of theology
and specific areas of natural science. This will take some calling, some
planning, some support, and intensive training, perhaps a new "religious
order." In the modern world of finer and finer specialization we must hold
to that prophetic word of Einstein not to pass over to others the responsibility
for the implications of our sciences on theirs, nor of theirs on ours.
Thelogical education will need to be characterized by theology-in-
dialogue. Critics have reminded us that as seminaries we have been all too
content to back under the shelter of denominational patrons and train "junior
executives" for their "branch offices." Students and professors are indeed
tempted to live apart from modern man's world. At the same time church
colleges and universities are criticized for becoming, through large grants
and donations, the agents of industry and government, not analysts of civili-
zation or prophets of the Lord. If so, it is a radical departure from their
being centers of intellectual competence brought together by the church to
analyze and speak to critical issues, and incidentally permitting "disciples"
to hang around and learn. Perhaps the time has come to put theology back
into the universitiesfor the sake of the Word, the Church, the university,
and theology, maintaining only practical "finishing" courses under denom-
inational auspices, much like the split pattern of university theological facul-
ties and preachers' seminaries in Germany. This will need bold and careful
examination.
Finally, the local parish is the place of proclamation, and its leadership
is not a pastoral solo. It is a university of proclamation, drawing together
the competence of every committed laymanphysicist, chemist, doctor, his-
torian, sociologist, psychologist, theologian, teacher, mother pastor, youth
in announcing the word of God upon its place of calling. When we have
some pastors concerned to see that happen, then some intelligent laymen
will take heart, some parishes will come alive. Some places in God's crea-
tion may indeed rejoice.
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the
creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who
subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to
decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans 8:19-21).
 ^ s
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