Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Nature of God and Man
Nature of God and Man
by
Sanborn C. Brown, PhD
Professor of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
—Prepared in the mid1960s for a discussion group of the Unitarian Universalist
Church, Lexington, Massachusetts.
The Nature of God and Man
I Introduction...............................................................1
II The Methodology of Science...................................9
III Cosmic Evolution and the Physical Sciences.......19
IV Evolution and the Biological Sciences..................29
V Social and Religious Evolution.............................37
VI God, Man and Immortality...................................45
VII Is a New Religion Necessary?...............................53
VIII Glossary...................................................................65
I Introduction
M
and defense of threats, which Rudolf
Otto termed the "tremendum." This is
a Latin word which translates as "the
an's search for the meaning and the source of terror." And the word is a
purpose of his life has been one of his particularly good one because of its
major concerns since he first strange vagueness which best conveys
developed as a thinking being, about the most terrifying part of our
100,000 years ago. In the beginning, predicament – and the essence of the
religion was an attempt to understand, terror within us and without us.
to accept, and in a way, hopefully to
control the phenomena of nature Irwin Goodenough wrote a most
which seemed pressing in about man remarkable book, The Psychology of
on every side – and one of the Religious Experience, and in it he has
common reactions of scientists before an interesting statement about religion
they get deeply committed to in terms of the “tremendum:”
wondering about religion is that this
fear which drove him to ancient "Man throws curtains between
religions surely has been dispelled in himself and the tremendum and
the modern age because of the better on them he projects accounts of
understanding of nature. how the world came into
existence, pictures of divine or
Actually, however, I think that what superhuman forces or beings that
our modern knowledge does is to control the universe and us, as
make it absolutely necessary for us to well as codes of ethics, behavior
reassess our understanding of religion and ritual which will bring him
and to try and develop a philosophy favor instead of catastrophe. So
and theology which is agreeable to our has every man protected himself
present knowledge of science. Now, of by his religions."
course, there is more to religion than
man's desire to understand himself, Now, for myself, I do not believe either
his origins, and his natural the concept of religion as an
environment. Man, of all the animals, explanation for man's place in the
has the mental power to anticipate universe or the image, graphic as it
coming agonies. He is inherently an may be, that religion is a curtain
anxious animal fearful of the threat, protecting us from coming face to face
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with the "tremendum." I do not think span of the 100,000 years that Homo
this gives religion the impelling Sapiens has been a thinking animal
necessity which I believe it has. roughly 1,000 culturally distinct
human communities can be
Perhaps the most spectacular recognized. Furthermore, a religion
development in recent history has changes in distinct entity about every
been the truly amazing rise of the 1,000 years. If we pursue the arithmetic
importance of science and the effect it we arrive at a figure of about 100,000
is having on every facet of human life. different religions produced by man
As science continues to heighten the since Neanderthal time.
dichotomy between the natural and
the supernatural, a gulf is widening What I would like to propose,
between modern man with his therefore, is based on our modern
increasing sophistication about the traditional religion. We should
nature of the world about him and the generate new concepts which are
traditional tenets of religion – many of perhaps more in tune with our present
which are based on obviously false day living than current religions. For
and disproven facts. example, I believe that our Christian
tradition needs some very basic
For years, liberal thinkers have been modification. I think if you tried to
trying to patch up the conflict, analyze what the basis of Christian
relegating outmoded theology to the religion is, one could sum it up by the
realm of symbolic representations, single word "love." In fact, we often
teaching their children and their hear from the Christian pulpit that
congregation the magic and poetry of God (and I will define this term in a
religious writings based on known little while) is love, in other words, the
fantasies and trying somehow to concept of brotherly love was the basic
reconcile the theology of primitive change that Jesus introduced when
man to 20th century insights. It is, in Christianity had its beginning.
my opinion, about time we stopped
this attempt to compromise the new However, from a scientific point of
with the old and start to work toward view, one sets up a framework and
developing a valid and inspiring then does an experiment to see how
theology for the modern world based the hypothesis upon which the
on our present state of knowledge. experiment is based fits the facts. We
all know the facts, unfortunately.
Now, of course this search is not new. Christendom has been at war almost
The anthropologists tell us that in the continuously since its rise to political
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power in the middle ages. Nazi organized effort by members of a
Germany was a Christian culture society to construct a more satisfying
which decimated the Jews. It is culture and he concludes that most
Christian United States that is this revitalization movements can be
evening bombing Viet Nam. characterized as religious. He points
out that all religions and religious
Now this is just an illustration of the productions, such as myth and rituals,
fact that if our current religion is come into existence as part of a
giving us a sufficient motivation to program or code of religious
practice its major tenets — then as a revitalizations, usually originating in
scientific experiment it appears to be a situations of social and cultural stress,
failure and a new set of hypotheses as efforts on the part of the stress
needs to be developed which laden to construct systems of dogma,
hopefully can have a more compelling myth, and ritual which will serve as
validity. guide to effective rescue.
I will not for a minute suppose that The essential theme of religion is the
what I will outline to you as a concept conflict between disorganization and
of a theology will be able to do this. organization. On the one hand, we
My only hope is that by discussions of universally observe and are distressed
this sort mankind, as a whole, can by disorganization in religious
develop a theology which does have systems. Metals rust and corrode —
an impelling validity for us as we are wood and cloth rot — people sicken
living. Let me remind you that the title and die — personality disintegrates —
of this discussion is "The Nature of social grief groups disunite and
God and Man," which implies the disband.
nature of religion.
On the other hand we universally
Let me talk about religion from a point labor at the contrary process of
of view of an anthropologist, and organization. Great effort is spent to
quote a statement or definition from prevent rust, corrosion, decay, rot,
Anthony Wallace in a paper given at sickness, death and disillusion. And,
the Institute on Religion in an Age of at least in local groups, they achieve
Science at Star Island in July of 1961. gains in organization or revitalization
as the most diverse creeds attempt to
He introduced into our vocabulary the solve the riddle of the relationship
general term "revitalization between life and death, organization
movement" to denote any conscious and disorganization, the ideas of souls,
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of God, of Nirvana, of spiritual misunderstood facets of the scientific
salvation and rebirth, of "progress" are method. For people who have not been
all formal solutions to the problem trained as scientists it worries them
which seems to be felt intimately by all that they can agree on a definition to
of us. argue about without agreeing on the
definition.
Religion may be said to be a process of
maximizing the quantity of organ However, this is a powerful advantage
ization in the matrix of perceived in the scientific analysis of a tentative
human experience. A direct expression hypothesis and it is the one I want to
of our organization instinct and if I use throughout this seminar. In other
may again turn to Wallace’s useful words, I am giving you full license to
term you will understand I am using completely disagree with the contents
religion in its most general meaning of of my definition but still to agree that
a "revitalization movement," whether when I use a word it will be as I define
it be a revealed religion like it.
Christianity, or a political faith like
communism. We regard these as I will write down the definition in
extreme, but both have identical each case so we will be sure we know
characteristics of man's apparently what we are talking about, and then
instinctive drive to develop a socio argue about it within that definition.
political religious order out of
disorder, integration out of The misunderstanding of this among
disintegration, and life out of death. the general public is quite amazing
sometimes and I am always tempted to
Now one of the characteristics of the tell a story on myself which involves
socalled scientific approach to precisely this. The definition of a word
understanding is to agree for the in one context may be quite different
purposes of a discussion and to a definition in another context.
argument on the definition of words to
be used within the framework of a A physicist who lectures to elementary
particular study. One does not have to physics courses is very used to
agree with the validity of the defining the word "work" as a force
definition to use it in discussing a times the distance in which the force
theoretical construct, but only agree to acts. Some years ago I was giving a
the same meaning of the word within lecture in freshman physics at M.I.T.
the context of the discussion. This is and I was talking about the term
probably one of the most “work.” On the lecture table there was
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a large weight which, in the I would define religion as that activity
engineering definition of mass, is by which man attempts to find his
called a slug. It weighed 32 lbs. And place in the universe, tries to develop
when it got to my definition of work I valid goals for himself and his fellow
carried the 32 lb. weight around at man within the framework of the
arms length telling the students that I forces which control his destiny.
was doing no work. According to the
definition, I was not. The thing that I am specifically not
saying here is the following: I do not
The next day when I was unable to mean by religion that elaborate super
pick up the chalk to write on the structure of myth and magic by which
blackboard because I had so strained primitive man tried to understand and
my back I was able to make quite a control the physical world. The
point with my students about the attempt to tie the laws of physics to
difference in definitions between the supernatural gods and demons has so
physical definition of work and what confused the development of religion
the normal public thinks work is. that many thinkers of every age have
often denied the validity of rational
We are going to do this in the process religious enterprise until they clearly
of this course. In this seminar I would differentiated between bad science and
like to develop a glossary of defined respectable theology.
terms, which we must agree on as to
meaning for the purpose of our What I really mean by this definition
discussion whether or not we have a of religion is that it is the activity of
personal commitment to its validity. I man to attempt to find his place in the
will have a personal commitment to it universe and try to develop valid goals
but you may not. for himself and his fellow man within
the forces (whatever they might be)
The first term I would like to define is which do control his destiny. The all
one that I have used a number of times pervading search of man to include
so far without definition and that is the sacred values with some notion of
the word theology. I would like to his destiny or meaning, what duties
define theology here as any critical and hopes they present, and what man
intellectual attempt to understand the must do for his part to cooperate with
beliefs and practices of a religious these natural forces is the basic activity
community. which religion often embraces.
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The doctrine of man’s long range grounded notions will correspond to
destiny requires a notion not only of the essential elements of the great
his fate tomorrow, but his fate in traditional systems of religious belief
eternity, a doctrine of the meaning when certain semantic translations,
fulness of life in the face not only of certain use of this dictionary which I
more immediate frustration of their would like to develop as we go along,
cherished goal but also in the face of are applied to the words we use. We
the absolutely certain death of his only will develop a tentative scheme, in
body. other words, for such scientifically
grounded religious beliefs throughout
The doctrine of the determinance of the course of this seminar.
man's destiny requires a recognition of
any pertinent realities outside of man What I will develop in this seminar is
as well as his own role. And the great my own belief that the sum total of
religions of the world have their beliefs everything in the universe, including
about God or a god or some reality or man, is the forces of nature.
realities whose power vastly
transcends man if they do not ordain Now nature has been a common word
all, and actually man not only is ruled used in many times. Let me pick out
and ruled completely by these rules two particular examples of what I
but he must somehow cooperate with mean just to put it into somebody
them to be saved or redeemed or to else’s words besides my own. Let me
have a life better now or sometime take T. H. Huxley who in 1872 in his
hereafter. Religions also have their book Science and Christian Tradition
beliefs about what it is man must do wrote:
for his part in the program of the
general salvation of mankind. “The term nature covers the
totality of that which is. I am
My belief is that we can describe these unable to perceive any
matters of religion in the language of justification for cutting the
contemporary science, and come up universe into half, one natural
with emotionally and motivationally and one supernatural.”
effective as well as realistic belief for
Or, let me take Santayana’s statement
renewing man’s sacred values in
in his Reason and Common Sense:
guiding his salvation.
“Nature is the sum total of things
potentially observable. Some
Moreover, I think we will be surprised
how closely these scientifically
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observed actually, others note that administration is not
interpolated hypothetically.” synonymous with administrator.
The latter term has connotations
Now, whenever you start worrying that are not necessarily ruled out
about the totality of nature, one must of consideration in connection
deal with words which cause a great with the former but they are
deal of trouble. To illustrate this definitely not applied when the
problem, let me quote from another former term is used in a scientific
book which I hope we can get as a context.
background book for this seminar. The
book is called Science Ponders “On the other hand, the
Religion, edited by Harlow Shapley theologian who truly believes
and published by Appleton Century in that God is spirit and not a
1960. This is a collection of statements material entity will find a
from various people. I would like to significant similarity between his
choose one from Kirtley Mather who 'god of law' and the scientist’s
is a retired geologist from Harvard. administration of the universe.”
He writes as follows — under a Now this statement of Kirtley Mather’s
chapter called The Administration of brings me to the last definition I want
the Universe: to take up tonight. That is the
definition of God.
“The rubric ‘Administration of
the Universe' may be used as You will notice that I believe in the
valid scientific designation. It scientific approach to words and if
simply asserts that there is there are useful words you use them.
something pertaining to the You may have to define them for the
universe which governs the purposes of your discussion but I
manifold operations under think it is silly not to use some
investigation and makes them perfectly good words like 'god.' So let
amenable to intellectual me define God.
comprehension.
My definition of God, for the purpose
“Nothing whatsoever is implied of this seminar, is an image of a
concerning the nature of that unitary system which ordains all that
something, what it may be is left was and is to be — omnipotent,
wide open for further study. omnipresent, eternal, and infinite,
Specifically, theologians should creator and sustainer of life and source
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of all values, goals, duties, and hopes “A more exact way of reporting
for that life. You will also discover that the human condition is to say
I believe this is also synonymous with that the cosmos has given to man
the term nature. his life and his powers to know
and cooperate with the laws of
Now as an added statement I would the cosmos such that man
like to read a statement which is in line becomes increasingly an
with the definition I have written incarnation of what the cosmos
down for God, which comes from a had decreed for successful and
book (which isn't yet published — and advancing life patterns.
I’m going to read from the
manuscript) by Ralph Burhoe who is a “In his power for life man shares
professor at the Meadville Theological with all other living forms certain
School in Chicago: powers to take from his
environment certain elements
"Man is completely, one might needed for his life or to reject
say absolutely, dependent upon lethal elements. In this process he
this reality — this reality being may, within limits, mold or
the reality of life. No human manipulate certain aspects of the
thought, feeling or action can environment to suit his needs.
take place apart from it. Such is
the faith of those who have “These are gifts of the cosmos to
contemplated those implications man, not powers that man himself
of the scientific world view. originated. In no case can man
advance his life by any means
“The socalled triumph and which the cosmos has not
dominance of man over nature implicitly sanctioned already. Any
and the doctrine of scientific infringements by man of the
knowledge now makes man more sacred rules of life can only lessen
than ever master of his own fate, his powers for life — for there is
is completely superficial and no power or capacity for life apart
erroneous. We cannot alter one from the incarnation of those
jot of the cosmic law — whether sacred conditions or patterns
it be the law of gravity or the which only the cosmos
amount of energy available to determines. It is only by the grace
support life on earth. of this cosmic reality which
incarnates its laws in the
genotype, the brain, and the
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culture of man, that man has any
power of life at all.
“Looked at in any depth, the
scientific picture of man is one of
complete dependence on the
cosmos, that man's role,
opportunity, duties, perquisites
and hopes in this scheme maybe
we shall discuss in the future.
But first it is important to recognize
that man is ultimately utterly
dependent for all he was, is and
may be, upon the cosmos.”
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II — The Methodology of Science and Theology
I
the framework of contemporary
knowledge.
define science as man's search for the The early beginnings of science were
organization of the universe. I would founded directly on ancient man’s
like to examine the methodology of search for some indication of rigid
science and see how it is employed in order. The early beginnings of science
building up the intellectual structure are tremendously impressive as
that we term scientific knowledge. The primitive man began to probe the
basic assumption that we must make if possibilities of an ordered universe. It
such a search is to have any meaning is worth turning back the pages of
whatever is that there exists an history and try to capture the immense
organization. And that there is a intellectual leaps that some keen
fundamental order and regularity to minds must have made, first, to
nature to be found for the searching. conceive of the concept of order, and
Science, as we know it, cannot exist in then to lay plans to prove such a
the face of the beliefs that the remarkable hypothesis.
operation of natural phenomena are
subject to fickle variation either from a If the sun were really a flaming
naturally occurring lack of order or chariot, guided by some god through
more anthropomorphized whim of the sky, then the god in human image
gods and demons. must surely be susceptible to human
failure. Some days he would sleep
Since the assumption of order is so longer than other days, some days in
basic, science could not develop as an his enthusiasm he would race across
intellectual framework until such basic the sky, and on the days when he had
assumptions were believed to be true a headache he would not have the
— and the acceptance of criteria of energy to use the whip on his horses.
credibility based on observational It all seems so completely logical.
predictability became a cornerstone in
the framework of scientific The passage of time is a difficult and
methodology. I define “criteria of sophisticated concept to consider. Yet
credibility” as acceptable tests of a the intellectual geniuses among the
given hypothesis to check its ancient Samaritans not only
agreement with known facts within recognized the importance of this
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concept, but they were brilliant knowledge. These three phases are
enough to devise experiments in typical of many branches of human
which they measured time in terms of endeavor.
space coordinates, building great
temple structures so precisely laid out Let me draw a couple of illustrations
in terms of the positions of the sun at outside of science. Take for example
the equinoxes that their measurements the study of language. Phase I consists
of the number of days in the year were of learning the words and grammar;
done to an accuracy of about 1%. Phase II, the application of this
learning to reading and writing— here
Before the dawn of written history, the we have the tools for communication
prehistorics conceived of order and and for acquiring further knowledge.
predictability in the universe, and But the real essence of the value of
invented methods to demonstrate language does not come until Phase III
these. Perhaps because of these where prose and poetry are brought to
origins, order and predictability came bear on the human character, our
to be regarded as a basic element in hopes, our aspirations, our loves, our
the scientific approach to knowledge. hates and the whole gamut of our
Now the intellectual discipline of emotions.
science is not unique in its operation.
To emphasize this point let me point Let me take another example from the
out its similarity to the acquisition of field of art. In Phase I, we must learn
knowledge in other fields. The to use the materials — the paints,
development of knowledge can be brush, chisel, canvas, metal, the stone.
differentiated into three phases: In Phase II, one learns to form the
drawing, to put the paint together to
Phase I, the acquiring of facts and express one’s art form in a unified
basic concepts; whole. However, we do not recognize
Phase II as real art. It is not until the
Phase II, the application of these facts human aspect or emotions are
and basic concepts for skills to extend transferred to the canvas or the bronze
the boundaries of the discipline; and that we reach Phase III and something
of real value has been contributed.
Phase III, the deep penetration into the
fundamentals which produce a basic Now science has the same three
understanding of the interrelationship phases, Phase I contains the collection
of knowledge and the facts which lead of facts, the laws and postulates, the
to further implications of this mathematical formulation and the
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array of basic building blocks which so the historical results of using the
often frighten the nonscientist. Phase concept of order and predictability as
II involves the application of this a basic argument for credibility led the
knowledge to the extension of ancients to the concept that self
knowledge and to the technologically consistency could serve as a basis for
useful devices which unfortunately the truth in the scientific sense. Anyone
layman often confuse with science who has studied the emergence and
itself. But not until Phase III does the decline of the formalism of Greek
scientist reach the appreciation of the logic, which was based on the self
understanding of nature, its unity and consistency of hypothesis and
its beauty, as well as its impact on lives conclusion, knows that this whole
and emotions of modern man. formalism has not proved generally
useful as an overall methodology in
One could ask the question whether I science.
am implying that the discipline of
science can basically be differentiated The necessity for change in the criteria
from that of art and language. The of credibility is an inherent feature of
answer is, of course, that there is a scientific methodology and an
difference. But the difference does not understanding of its operation is
lie in the mechanism of acquiring fundamental to an appreciation of
knowledge. But rather that the science.
characteristic which sets the scientific
discipline apart from other fields of Let me review the basic operation of
intellectual endeavors is its particular the scientific approach to gaining
set of criteria of credibility. A scientist knowledge. What one does is to collect
does not know what truth is, but he the basic facts in the field one wishes
has developed a remarkably successful to study, and to create a model. I am
attitude of mind which allows him to using model in the technical sense of
reach a consensus with his peers, to an intellectual framework constructed
test what is acceptable as an in agreement with the accepted facts,
explanation for natural phenomena which provide working hypotheses for
and what is unacceptable. understanding and implementation.
One of the real difficulties in following Now, what you do then is to invent a
the course of scientific development in model, an intellectual structure, of
the historical sense is that the agreed how facts may be used to explain the
criteria of credibility change as a observation. Furthermore, such a
science develops. For example, one of model may be used to predict further
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facts to be looked for which may not The important thing, however, is that
now be known. Often this is called the within the framework of the known
process for creating a hypothesis. But facts, the criteria of credibility were
my own feeling is that the term unable to decide the difference
hypothesis has come to be used in too between an unacceptable theory and
narrow a sense. To me, a model is the an acceptable one. And therefore both
whole picture, and the hypothesis is a were used. This is characteristic of the
guess in a particular area. search for knowledge in terms of
models which we create and then use
After a model has been put together, a in various ways.
scientist must test it in every way that Let me say again what I’ve just said
his imagination can suggest. I would about this criteria of credibility,
like to take as a single illustration one because I want you to realize that this
from the theory of heat. For years and is not characteristic only of the
years people believed that heat was a scientific approach to knowledge but
fluid which you could pour into a bar obviously also is applicable to
(of metal) and it expanded because it theology and religion. What makes a
took some space or it went from one model acceptable are the following:
place to the other because it flowed
down hill, not literally, but figuratively First, a model must agree with
speaking, from hot to cold. In fact, experimental facts to a sufficient
many of the words we still use when accuracy that an acceptable model
we talk of heat are based on this fluid may be differentiated from a
theory. unacceptable one. No agreement is
perfect since no model is perfect;
As time went on it became obvious disagreement may mean either an
there were some observations which imperfect model or an imperfect set of
could not be explained easily by a observations, and in general, one may
fluid theory of heat and an energy not know which is the case. In very
theory was postulated. For 200 years refined models which come from
both these theories were taught in theories which have been tested for a
universities because there was not long time the necessary accuracy for
enough data to separate one from the credibility may require great precision
other. Subsequently the fluid theory of whereas new models, ones that have
heat dropped out of sight and the just been thought up, very crude
energy theory of heat is the one we agreement may winnow the wheat
now use. from the chaff and open new vistas of
understanding.
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quality of being, a chronicle of real
It is true in physics at least that Nobel ethical development, the testimony of
prizes are more often won for a whole culture which has weathered
agreement between theory and an the “hell and high water” of history.
experiment within a factor of ten than
the highly precise agreement with It is a model by which to test the
refined models. This leads to the criteria of credibility in theology as
obvious conclusion that two different surely as the similar procedure in
models at the same time can explain science. It is also obvious to all of us
all the known facts. that there are other theological
models, testaments of other religions
Intellectual modelmaking as I have against which to validate the goals
described it for science is by no means which we live by and strive for which
unique, as I hope you realize, to these appear just as credible for large
disciplines. The search for truth in segments of mankind and yet whose
theology and religion can be cast in basic hypotheses are quite at variance
the same mold. In theology also we with the tenet of the Christian bible.
can set up a model and validate the Thus in theology, as in physics,
credibility of what we believe to be different acceptable models may be
true in terms of agreement or credible for different cultures
disvalidate the agreement with the simultaneously, and within the state of
model. knowledge of these cultures they are
equally valid.
Take the case within the Christian Now you could ask the question,
tradition of the authority of the bible. ”Where does one look for criteria of
We do not have to believe that the credibility for a theology?” I believe
bible is an accurate historical that these criteria are found in the
statement to appreciate that here is the success of the religious practices based
searching, the struggling, and the upon the theology in question. And by
thinking of approximately 2,000 years success I mean, how well does it
of people in the human race, provide us with valid goals and
represented and symbolized for our aspirations as well as a culturally
consideration — here is a testimony to viable medium for living with others.
a people who survived about as much
travail and anguish as any people It was to serve as an illustration of this
could be asked to submit to. But it was that I asked you to read Leviticus.
more than survival. It was survival Leviticus is an example of a religious
with a development of thought and model agreed to by the ancient
14
Hebrew nomadic tribes to guide their some of these, particularly in terms of
behavior in conformity with a your reading of Leviticus.
particular theological concept of a
jealous God regulating the behavior of You found that Leviticus was very
a chosen people. It outlines in great specific about mediums and wizards.
detail the laws, for example, of sexual “Do not turn to mediums and
behavior, what one can or cannot eat, wizards.” “A man or a woman who is
or even touch. a medium or a wizard shall be put to
death, they shall be stoned with
It also tells how to atone for stones.” And yet, if you remember the
transgression of the law, and the story of Saul in 1st Samuel when he
incredibly harsh punishment for those was in trouble fighting David he went
who really disobeyed the laws. But to the witch of Endor and assured her
more than that, it dictated how that if she could call up Samuel he
commerce shall be regulated, how to would relieve her of any fear of being
thresh and to reap and to breed cattle; stoned to death. In other words, he
it outlined requirements for medical was transgressing some of the specific
treatment of the sick, and how one was laws in Leviticus.
not to cut one’s hair or trim one’s
beard. Or we can take another one. You
remember that Leviticus said very
The integration between theology and specifically that “one must not uncover
religions on the one hand, and cultural one’s nakedness,” and if so it meant
evolution on the other, is in the expulsion from the tribe. Yet perhaps
direction that theologies grow out of you remember again the story about
cultures, not cultures out of theologies. how David when he was bringing the
So as the ancient Hebrew Bedouin ark into Jerusalem danced naked in
tribe became more agricultural and front of the ark and he got away with
started moving into cities and towns, it. True, Michel (the daughter of Saul
the rigid religious model given to us in — she was his first wife) was very
Leviticus began to change and many of angry at him, but otherwise nothing
the stories we teach our children in happened to him at all. It says in
school are the stories of the changing Leviticus, if a man commits adultery
models based essentially on the same with the wife of his neighbor, both the
theological model. The criteria of adulterer and the adulteress shall be
credibility were changing and the put to death. And yet we teach our
validity of the ancient religious model children about David and Bathsheba.
called into question. Let me illustrate Also it says in Leviticus that “he who
15
kills a man shall be put to death,” and nature, so should the theologians be
in the same story of David and constantly working on their models.
Bathsheba you remember that he sent If the methodology of science has any
Bathsheba’s husband into the forefront relevance to other intellectual
of the battle so that he would be killed disciplines, there is a keystone which
and so that he could have Bathsheba must be accepted as central. A model
for himself. is only good as long as it agrees with
all the known facts within the
The purpose for bringing this up is to accuracy of observation. When it no
give you illustrations of changing longer does this, it must be rejected
religious models when the criteria of without sentimentality and a more
credibility of an older model were no applicable one sought for.
longer culturally and/or intellectually
acceptable. In the overlapping This lack of attachment for no longer
generation both models were possible credible models is perhaps one of the
solutions just as in the case of the most misunderstood facets of the
theory of heat, the caloric theory and operation of science. When in 1958,
the energy theory were both models Yang and Lee received the Nobel prize
which as far as one could tell were for destroying one of the main
acceptable for some period of time. conservation laws of modern physics
the general public was amazed that
Having brought into focus the concept the physicists acclaimed the discovery
of model building, let me suggest that as a great step forward instead of
orthodox theology has constructed being defensive and alarmed that their
many models which, though passing ideas had been incorrect for so long.
the test of credibility when they were By contrast, in theology modelsolving
enunciated, have not kept pace with is not generally acceptable and I would
our knowledge in other fields. like to persuade you that it must be.
The strength of a viable theology, as With this as a jumping off place let me
well as a viable religion based upon it, point to a few details of the most
must surely lie in the recognition that productive tool which a scientist uses
model building is a dynamic and in evaluating his models of nature.
evolving intellectual enterprise. Just as One of the most important criteria for
scientists are constantly improving, a valid theory is that not only must it
updating, revising, and even rejecting agree with the data within the limits
their models in their search for clearer of observation, but it must predict
understanding of the operation of sensible results everywhere.
16
boundary value problem than was
This is known technically as a ever made considering the steady
boundary value problem. In most state.
comprehensive physical problems the
boundaries can be taken to be the Why not apply this method to
limits of zero and infinity. To illustrate theology. Here and now man, as he is
what I mean let me take a case from and as he has been since the dawn of
cosmology. recorded history, is in a steady state
The process going on in the stars, the and surely the theologists that have
source of their heat, what makes them tried to explain his goals and purposes
expand and contract and how they are have been many, but have lacked
constituted in detail can be explained anything like universal criteria of
in many ways. Since stars and galaxies credibility. The details of biological
are not subject to man’s evolution of man are common
experimentation and manipulation, for knowledge, but are our theological
many years cosmology was a highly theories valid for man as he first
speculative and, in the strict sense of emerged at time equals zero — or take
the word, unscientific, science. prime equal to infinity?
In the steady state, and in the here and The physicists and the biologists
now, there appeared to be no predict with considerable accuracy
acceptable criteria for the credibility of when our solar system will have
any particular model. As boundary cooled to a point in time when man
value problems came to be recognized will no longer be able to exist and he
more and more in the scientific world will vanish from the face of the earth.
as a powerful tool in suggesting ways Theology must define man’s goals and
to validate a theory, cosmologists purposes of his existence to cover that
turned to testing conflicting models by inevitable tragedy as well. Usually,
extrapolating time to zero and infinity. when we think of the heat death of the
universe, we say to ourselves “But that
The conditions for testing the details of is so many millions of years away that
stellar evolutionary theory to include it is unprofitable to spend our time
sensible criteria at both the birth and worrying about that when we have so
the death of a star or nebula has many more pressing problems of the
proved to be a powerful guide in present to solve first.”
sorting out the true from the false.
More progress has been made in this If you are saying that to yourself now,
area since it was reduced to a you have missed my point. Because
17
what I am trying to emphasize is that Let me now point to another example
the methodology of science tells us not which has a parallelism in theology
only that a solution is more likely to be and religion. Physics, of the 19th
valid by requiring consistency and century, concentrated on measuring
validity at the boundaries, but some of every physical parameter and quantity
the most difficult problems have only with ever increasing precision. In fact,
been tractable by worrying more about they concentrated so specifically on
the extremes in time than detailed measurements that the
concentrating on the present. reputation of the profession was
synonymous with the highest accuracy
Let us look at the boundary value in every detail in every particle
solutions and we may well make more measured. Really, not unlike the
progress toward a reliable theology for rigidity that you discovered by
the present. Now of course this is not a reading Leviticus. A 20th century
novel idea at all. Many of the older physicist, in contrast, finds more and
theologies concentrated attention on more that the interesting problems of
the creation or the last day of nature to be studied are statistically
judgment. In their time they were very random processes. The older methods
successful theological models. It of attention to every individual
would be hard to argue against the element is no longer not only
success of a religion based on a unprofitable but to deal with the
creation of man in God’s image and an details of each individual particle
ultimate retribution of all the trials might actually prevent the arrival at a
which beset a good man during his life solution.
as his soul received it’s reward for
goodness on the last day. If you think about statistically
fluctuating physical phenomena you
This model certainly gave men goals to again can start thinking that it is all
live by, which gave them not only very well for me to talk about atoms
courage and fortitude to “suffer the and electrons, for example, as
slings and arrows of outrageous statistically fluctuating. But when it
fortune” but to make them truly work comes to dealing with human
for the benefit of mankind. It was only individuals, the importance of the
after the credibility of such a model goals and purposes of each person is
was shaken by the accumulation of as important as the next and one
more knowledge that such a theology cannot reduce the dignity of man to
was discarded as inadequate. statistical fluctuation.
18
If you are thinking these thoughts, develop experimentally verifiable
then I have again failed to make myself models. Even fairly elementary
clear. Because the real lesson to be students of physics get very used to
learned from the example of physical dealing with psi functions, six
methodology of statistical fluctuation dimensional spaces, and probability
is that by dealing with the problem as density, all of which are literally
a whole, we understand better the impossible to conceive of in terms of a
nature of the individual…better even picture of anything.
than we do by concentrating on the
individual alone. One might be tempted to say that this
is not basically different from the
Let me again draw your attention to elementary theological student who is
the fact that precisely this concept is a sophisticated enough not to try to
proven methodology in the theology picture God, the soul, or the holy
upon which the reputation of ghost. But there is a great deal of
Communism is based. Here is a difference in the technique of
religion that is successfully embraced validating the usefulness of these
by millions of people for which it concepts between present day
supplies in a satisfying manner the theology and present day physics. The
goals, aspirations, values, and desires credibility of the theological model
for service to their fellow men. We built on these suggested abstractions
may firmly believe that the theological are really not called into question.
model is wrong, but it should not
prevent us from recognizing its Rather the religious person feels that
importance as an obviously applicable these concepts must be taken on faith.
method in this area of human They are the underlying bases upon
endeavors. which the entire structure is built.
Now of course the credibility of the
The last example I want to take up models in science rests basically on
here is the use of abstract concept as a faith, the faith of the scientist is that
tool for developing and verifying what is experimentally demonstrable
models. We all know that abstract is in fact true. But the scientist does
concepts are very much a part of the not take the abstractions on faith; he
arsenal of theological contemplation, uses the abstractions as a tool to
but there is a real difference between develop a model that can be tested. Let
abstract concepts to develop an me take a very simple example.
abstract theological construct and the
scientist’s use of abstract concepts to
19
It is quite literally impossible for The basic elements of primitive
anyone to picture sixdimensional religions were very real and
space. We live in a threedimensional discernible. For Moses, God was so
universe and even the science fiction much of a man that he could talk and
writers have difficulties argue with him. For Tutankhamen, life
conceptualizing a 4th dimension. Six after death was so physical that he
dimensions is a pure abstraction provided food and drink for himself in
which nobody tries to picture. his tomb. The Greek gods cohabited
Nevertheless, the elementary concept with mortals.
of pressure, the atmospheric pressure
of the air about us right here, is based These highly successful theological
on the model that the multitudes of models which violated none of the
molecules bombarding you from every knowledge of the day were not based
direction in fact causes the pressure on indescribable abstractions. The
which obeys certain rules depending generations of men who set their goals
on the temperature, the volume of the and validated their lives by living by
container and so on which when these models carried very clear and
calculated in the detail necessary to credible pictures in their minds of
pressurize an airplane or pressurize a God, Isis, and Zeus.
submarine uses a sixdimensional
space concept as the vehicle for the However, as the theological models of
calculation. The model is thus today have required modification in
constructed using this highly abstract the light of man's greater
concept as a tool for devising verifiable understanding of nature about him,
theories which may be tested for their theologians have tended to retreat
credibility. further and further into the realm of
abstraction, making it more and more
Now to turn to my main point, difficult for the common man to find
however, about abstract concepts for the basic tenets credible and being
which the human mind may be too required to take more and more on
limited to comprehend in any kind of a faith.
pictorial form, let me emphasize the
difference between their place in I think everybody will agree that really
theology and in science — a difference spectacular advances have crowned
I should point out which I find very the efforts of the scientific disciplines
distressing. in the last 50 100 years and many
people believe that this advance
coincides with a corresponding shift in
20
scientific methodology toward using forces in his living—that I feel they
highly abstract tools to validate very must be.
real physical hypotheses.
I feel strongly that the theologians
working to develop a dynamic
theology which can be validated by a
modern religious society should study
this methodological advance which
has proved so spectacularly successful
in the scientific world.
It is not enough to develop highly
abstract ideas of God, the soul, and
immortality. We should stop worrying
about what these concepts mean in the
physical world but use them to
develop a modern theology which can
be validated in the modern world and
in the modern idiom and in complete
agreement with modern knowledge.
Let me conclude by pointing out that
I’ve taken only three possible examples
from the methodology of science,
which could have their counterpart in
a new theology. I believe it is vitally
important that theology come face to
face with modern knowledge.
Scientific advances have put an
incredible strain on modern society
and as man searches for those ideals
and aspirations which are of ultimate
concern to himself, his knowledge of
the real world must be attuned to his
theology and his religious belief, if
these latter are to be the dynamic
21
III Cosmic Evolution and the Physical Sciences
W
order in the universe. One of the
fundamental laws of physics tells us
that the universe around us is
hat do I mean by a physical science? becoming more and more disordered,
The easy way would be just to more and more statistically random.
enumerate the various physical Entropy happens to be defined in such
sciences that would come to mind a way that an increase in entropy
when one thought of the term corresponds to a decrease in the order
astronomy, physics, chemistry, in the universe. The calculation of
mathematics, etc. But this does not entropy is at times complicated but the
really serve my purpose because of the concept, I think, is very simple. Let me
popular misconception of these illustrate by two examples.
sciences which has so confused science
with technology, pure science with If you examine a cigarette in detail, the
applied engineering, and intellectual probability is high that within the
exercise with practical utility, that you paper wrapper you will find tobacco.
may miss my entire point if I do not However, as you smoke it, what used
make a much more careful definition to be tobacco becomes smoke and
than just that enumeration. ashes. The smoke becomes randomly
distributed in the air and the ashes,
Crudely one could say that the more or less, randomly distributed
physical sciences are the fundamental about the smoker. The probability of
studies of dead matter, man’s attempt your finding a particle of your smoke
to understand the nature of the between your fingers after you have
inanimate world about him, smoked it is vanishingly small
particularly in contrast to the compared with your former chances of
biological sciences which are the study finding the tobacco in your cigarette
of living matter. However, I can be before you smoked it. The entropy, in
much more precise in this if you will other words, the disorder of the
allow me to introduce you to the system, has increased and your
physical concept of entropy. cigarette has become more random.
Entropy, which I define as a A second, and perhaps macabre,
quantitative measure of the disorder of example may make the concept of
a system, is really a measure of the entropy even clearer. Compare the
22
condition of your body now with what
it will be 100 years from now. Your Now as a way of clarifying this
body is now in a highly organized concept, let me compare the physical
state, an expert in anatomy knows just sciences with the biological sciences.
where to look to find your various The life process makes order out of
organs, veins, nerves, muscles, etc. disorder, randomly distributed cells
because you are a very orderly array of are formed into orderly arrays, more
cells. complicated structures are made out of
simpler ones, and man grows from a
One hundred years from now you will sperm and an ovum in apparent
have returned “dust to dust and ashes violation of the great principle of
to ashes” and your entropy will be physics, the Second Law of
greatly increased. Your organization Thermodynamics. Since, in this
will have disintegrated completely and biological development, entropy is
the chance of finding any order in decreasing, order is being produced.
your structure will be negligible
compared to what it is today. Actually, the energy necessary for life
and biological development comes
In every physical process that we from the sun whose entropy is
know of, entropy is always increasing, increasing with time. One can think of
the universe becomes more living organisms as feeding on the
disordered, and incidentally the physical world, decreasing their
ultimate death of the universe comes entropy at the expense of the
that much closer. Thus by the physical increasing entropy of the rest of the
sciences I mean those sciences which solar system so that the net entropy of
deal with processes in which the the whole system still increases, but
entropy is always increasing. the biological development is different
from the physical development in this
There is a fundamental law of physics regard.
which goes by the complicated title of
the Second Law of Thermodynamics, The consistency of the Second Law of
which says that in every physical Thermodynamics is maintained by the
model that we have so far been able to total increase of the entropy of the
construct in agreement with our universe, but life by itself is an isolated
observation, the entropy of every example of a decreasing entropy
closed system is always increasing. In system.
other words, the physical world is
getting more and more disordered.
23
Thus, within the framework of this atoms will gradually pull themselves
earth itself, the physical sciences deal together under the force of gravity. As
with increasing entropy systems and they fall together, they gradually
the life sciences deal with decreasing acquire speed and when they get into
entropy systems. If the universe as we dense regions of other hydrogen atoms
know it is running down, heading they collide and transmit their energy
inextricably to a fate of complete to other ones with which they collide.
disorder, how did it ever get started? This process is one in which the
gravitational energy is gradually
Cosmologists are making progress in changed into random heat energy and
applying our known physical laws to the gas as it collects in clusters due to
provide us with a picture of the the gravitational attraction becomes
phenomena which control the birth denser and hotter.
and the death of the universe. But our
model is far from complete at the There are three recognizable stages in
present time. the production of a star. As the
hydrogen atoms are brought together
Let me give you a brief discussion on by the gravitational force, eventually
the evolution of our galaxy; in other they will get close enough together so
words, in terms of the words I’ve been that the electron patterns around the
using before, the model of the creation hydrogen atoms will begin to interact.
of our universe.
When they interact, the energy is
You will discover that I can start this released in the form of light and we
discussion at any point and I would can see a visible star. The first stage in
like to start it considering space as an the production of matter is merely to
enormous cloud of hydrogen atoms, bring these hydrogen atoms together
hydrogen atoms moving around in a close enough so that their fields of
random fashion and occasionally force can interact and light is
colliding with other hydrogen atoms. produced.
One of the basic laws of physics is the But this is not the end of this attraction
law of gravity, which says that any between the hydrogen atoms. As they
material substance will attract any are pulled together they can get close
other material substance according to enough so that nuclear processes are
a very known and tested law. If we introduced and the heavy hydrogen
consider space to be bathed in a sea of atoms are fused together into helium
hydrogen atoms, these hydrogen atoms in precisely the same
24
phenomenon as occurs in the occurs, the gravitational forces
production of a hydrogen sun. between the nuclei take over again and
the star continues to collapse. Because
This produces enormous amounts of of the fact that these reactions are
energy—so much so that further taking place at the center of the star
gravitational collapse of the stars is and it is surrounded on the outside by
inhibited. Let me remind you that one cooler hydrogen gas, the star, as we
of the most productive experiments observe it in the heavens at the
which physicists have been able to do moment in this stage, is red.
(despite one’s fear of hydrogen bombs Astronomers call this the red giant
as military weapons) was to be able to stage of a star.
predict exactly the phenomenon that I
have been discussing as the origin of When the hydrogen is exhausted and
stars, to such an extent that they could the gravitational force starts to pull the
produce a hydrogen bomb and have it star together again, the temperature of
go off the first time they tried it the star rises remarkably to around 100
because the model which they had billion degrees. At this temperature
produced was accurate enough to the helium, which was formed by the
predict not only what elements needed hydrogen, starts burning. I should
to be in the reaction but all the details point out that we are unable to make a
of this really catastrophic event. helium bomb since the energy
necessary is very much larger than a
In the last 50 years we have developed hydrogen bomb and we cannot get
sufficiently accurate models to go from several hundred billions of degrees by
no nuclear reactions at all to a any method that we know.
hydrogen bomb. In the stars this
process takes several billions of years, The way we get the temperature for a
the reason being that the statistical hydrogen bomb is to explode an atom
chance of these things occurring is bomb inside it which is hot enough to
very small and therefore one has to set the reaction off, but a hydrogen
wait through a very long time before bomb is not hot enough to set off a
the chance encounter of the proper helium bomb, though the stars
elements are all available for such a succeed at this very successfully. The
reaction. helium starts burning and, in the
process of burning, it makes carbon,
In the process of fusion, the hydrogen and with the helium and the carbon
nuclei turn into helium. Eventually the mixed together, nuclearly speaking,
hydrogen is all exhausted. When this oxygen is formed.
25
produced in this catastrophic
Five or six or more helium nuclei will explosion.
burn together and make neon,
magnesium, silicon, sulfur, and as the Now let me go from galaxy formation
process goes on, the red giant stage of to something much closer to home —
the stellar evolution will make all the namely, our own sun. The sun, as it
elements which we know at present in was produced, started coalescing in
the periodic table. The process the gravitational field with the debris
continues until the helium is used up of an exploded white dwarf. As the
and the star collapses again because of main cloud condensed, small bits of
the gravitational force. This collapses the cloud were left behind in a
into what is known as a white dwarf statistically fluctuating hydrogen gas.
star—a violent rearrangement of the
matter in the star results in a Some particles would come together
tremendous catastrophic explosion and little clusters would be formed.
into what is called a supernova. These smaller clusters did not involve
so much matter as the sun, hence
Several supernova have been observed when they were compressed they were
in the history of man, and the fact that not compressed so much, because the
we have seen several of them is quite a matter was a smaller amount, and
remarkable thing. In the supernova, hence they never got as hot. These
because of the explosion that takes formed the planets as we know them
place, essentially everything collides which were cooled quite rapidly
with everything else with tremendous compared with the sun, condensed
energy and the rest of the heavy into solid rock, and became the planets
elements as we know them are as we now know them.
formed.
Let me now return to my definition of
The stellar material so formed is entropy. You will notice that when I
hurled into interstellar space, and a started, I started building up
"second generation” star starts to be universes, galaxies, out of statistically
formed in the same process as the first fluctuating hydrogen gas. From our
star except the second generation star limited knowledge of science, we do
is now contaminated with the debris not know how big a system is required
of the exploded supernova. Our solar for the Second Law of
system including our sun is such a Thermodynamics to be valid. But we
second generation star contaminated do know that once we have isolated
with all the elements that were the sun, as a system, disconnected
26
from the rest of the galaxy as far as its been presenting is the image of a
nuclear burning is concerned, the unitary system which ordains all that
Second Law of Thermodynamics is was, is, and is to be...the first part of
definitely in operation; we have my definition of God.
formed an isolated system in space
and the entropy will keep on Certainly forces which are capable of
increasing. both building up and destroying
universes, fall within the meaning of
Disorder will continue to be the basic the next word which I have in the
concept of the solar system. To put it definition: omnipotent.
another way, this means that the hot
part of the solar system will cool off, But fully as important as our ability to
and eventually it will all come to a develop a credible model of all that
uniform temperature and it will have was, is, and is to be in the physical
arrived at a condition of maximum universe is the homogeneity of
entropy. absolutely every detail. Perhaps not so
remarkable is the fact that the laws of
These processes are longterm gravity work just as specifically to hold
processes, they are so long term that you into your seat as they do to hold
when I give you the numbers it means the solar system together, to hold the
nothing to you whatever. This galaxy together; and in fact to draw the
unfortunately is a limitation of the hydrogen nuclei together which form
human mind which we can do nothing the galaxies in their original shape.
about. I will give you the numbers
anyway. As I say, perhaps this is not so
amazing, but what does seem fantastic
The life history of the first hydrogen to a physicist and to an astrophysicist
cloud was about 20 thousand million is that as far as we can observe all the
years. The explosion part is 10 billion elements which we know on the
years and the second generation star surface of the earth, which we
which includes our sun in our own manipulate in our laboratories, are
galaxy has an age of about 4.5 billion found in the furthest reaches of the
years. universes—not only are the elements
the same, but the isotopic abundances,
The question that really should be in the relative weight of the same
your mind is what has this to do with elements with slightly different
a theological model which I am nuclear arrangements are precisely the
discussing in this seminar. What I have same whether we observe the light
27
coming from the most distant star or Since we cannot postulate life in any
create the light in an electric arc in our other form than we know it, there may
own laboratory. There is, in fact, no be others but there are at least
indication that what we observe as the _________________________________
structure of matter in the farthest *Today, with better data from
reaches of space are different in any improved telescopes, particularly
detail than those that we see in our those orbiting in outer space,
laboratories or find on the surface of astronomers now believe the number
the earth. of galaxies exceeds 1 billion.
It is this extraordinary universality
which leads me to use the word
“omnipresent''… (everywhere
present)…in my definition of God.
Included in this universality of the
laws of nature is the almost certain
existence of life in other parts of the
universe. The statistical probability of
finding other forms of life by chance
encounter may be terribly small, but
you will have discovered by reading
Shapley’s book that it is reliably
estimated that there are about 100
million other galaxies.* By galaxy, I
mean an island universe (one of the
words that Shapley uses).
We are in a spiral nebula and we are
one little speck off on one side. There
are about 100 million other galaxies.*
Within our own galaxy there are about
one million planetary systems which
are capable of supporting life as we
know it.
28
one million planets which are capable every way. I do not expect you to
of supporting life as we know it. understand the theory and I will not
even present it to you, but the
Although the chance of finding a scientific community as a whole has
manlike animal living in other celestial agreed that this is a valid theory.
bodies may be extremely small, the
number of habitable worlds in the The theory is Einstein's general theory
known cosmic space may well be of of relativity. When Einstein applied
the billions. In the face of numbers like this highly mathematical general
these, the theory of probability tells us theory of relativity to a model of the
that we are almost certainly far from universe he found that to be consistent
unique. with this theory it was necessary to
postulate not only that space was
I think some of the most interesting curved but space also was bounded.
experiments that are being done by The universe, a collection of dust, rock,
physicists these days are attempts to stars, galaxies, and hydrogen nuclei
discover other intelligent messages in was spread out uniformly in a
the light or the radio waves which spherical volume, spherically
come to us from other galaxies. These symmetric and closed. It actually
experiments have not been successful turned out that his spherical
so far but this is, I am sure, a result of assumption was not necessary. It made
our own inability to think about how the mathematics easier, but as the
to do the right experiment. mathematicians have become more
sophisticated they have tried less
What I have been talking about so far symmetric solutions — the answer is
has been a boundary value problem the same, although the mathematics is
applied to the boundary at time equal much more difficult.
zero —I have been talking about the
origin of the universe up until now. When Einstein and his coworker at
What about the future? the time, Friedmann, first calculated
the details of this universe, they firmly
Here, I want to turn to one of the believed (and the astronomical data at
concepts that I talked about last time, the time seemed to show) that the
that is the use of highly abstract universe was in static equilibrium; that
concepts which lead to very real is, that the radius had a given value
predictions and which have seen and that it was staying still, however,
tested by very rigid criteria of their solutions as they set them up,
credibility and found to be correct in predicted a dynamic universe. It said
29
that the universe was either edges of the universe were going away
contracting or expanding; it certainly from us.
was not staying still. So sure was
Einstein and Friedmann that they had Einstein dropped his cosmological
made some kind of a mistake in their term, returning to the equations of
calculations, that they added what was relativity in their original form which
called for many years a “cosmological had been tested by three famous
term” in their mathematics, the only experiments which astronomers had
purpose of which was to fix up the carried out (the most spectacular of
theory to agree with the accepted which was to measure the bending of
astronomical evidence of a static light as it went by the sun).
universe.
If Einstein had had enough courage to
Now you all are familiar with the be sure of his original prediction, the
Doppler effect. If an automobile goes great discovery of Hubble would have
by you honking its horn, the pitch of turned out to be another proof of his
the horn seems to be going down theory. But as it was, he dropped this
when it passes, particularly noticeable cosmological term and was
nowadays when an airplane goes over embarrassed the rest or his life that he
your head, the sound of the airplane had not believed his own theory.
always lowers in pitch after it starts There is no doubt that, if one is to use
going away from you. This Doppler the accepted model of the theory of
effect allows you to calculate and to relativity, the universe is expanding.
measure the speed with which things Calculations based on the rate or
are receding or traveling toward you. expansion now, which incidentally is
If you don’t believe it, don’t get caught not constant but slowing down from
by a radar used by the police, that is its original rate, extrapolated back to
precisely how they tell how fast you time equal zero (in other words, when
are going. the universe began) give an age of 1010
years, thus is in agreement with other
The astronomer Hubble, after Einstein measurements of the age of the
and Friedmann had worked out their universe.
theory, showed that there was
irrefutable spectroscopic evidence that What the general theory of relativity
the light coming from distant stars was tells us, furthermore, is that the
shifted toward the red — which meant universe is an oscillating sphere which
that the universe was expanding, the expands and contracts with a
frequency so slow as to be
30
incomprehensible to our imagination Even if by then (and still we have some
but nevertheless goes through this billions of years to work on the
dynamic oscillation. problem) we are able to escape the
solar system and find some more
This sphere is bounded and, as far as congenial medium in which to live, the
our knowledge extends, there is basic expansion and contraction of the
nothing outside it. This we cannot universe predicted by the theory of
conceive of. Our whole concept of relativity will eventually make all life,
space must, in our human mind, have everywhere in the universe, absolutely
something outside a spherical impossible.
universe, but I suspect that this is our
fault, not the universe’s. You can quite properly ask the
question: "Am I bringing this up just
Nevertheless, we also know that this as an illustration of a boundary value
expanding stage, which we are now in, problem, or as a model which has
has already begun to slow down. been successfully tested by our best
Eventually, the gravitational forces criteria of credibility?” Now although
which are always acting to pull both of these things are true, it is not
together matter will overcome the for this reason at all, but rather for its
present expansive phase and the deep, theological implications. Let me
universe will start contracting. The point out that this theoretical
density of matter will gradually rise to prediction of general relativity has a
fantastic values, the temperature will direct consequence on our definition
go up, and up, and up, approaching of God. I have defined God as eternal.
the immense heat necessary to form
new universes, and the process will The curvature of space predicts with
start all over again. absolute certainty the annihilation of
What does this say about the all living organisms of all possible life.
possibility of life in twenty thousand It rules out therefore, in my opinion,
millennia from now? It will be any image of God which is a projection
absolutely and literally impossible. of human emotions; i.e., love, value,
You often read that the sun is running hope, or even life itself.
down, the Second Law of
Thermodynamics tells us that the These will all disappear when the
entropy is increasing, eventually the environment of the universe will be
sun will burn its hydrogen out and it sufficiently hostile in its contracting
will cool down. phase and therefore any image
involving any human projection is not
31
eternal. The laws of nature, however, of the inescapable law in the Old
are eternal, and they are also infinite, if Testament. It is a single integrated
by infinite you mean the furthest you system of reality and the law of its
can ever go in space or time. The laws operation creates and sustains all that
of nature are eternal even when all life is from everlasting to everlasting.
has been destroyed.
It is more like the deity portrayed in
Now perhaps one of the most religions where man must serve and
misunderstood facets of the God I obey, rather than like the ones which
have been defining is the apparent include JudeoChristian religion where
lack of the adjective “personal.” As a the deity is as man can imagine him,
characteristic of that definition, the and perhaps even manage him and
primitive human brain almost persuade him.
automatically projects its selfimage or
animistic characteristic on all it The only God that contemporary
perceives. Early men and their science allows is an immutable system
religions, as well as the belief of of reality, so superhuman in character
children, have this very definite that no human pressure of any kind
characteristic. can avail to change it. All that man can
do is to seek the law of this deity and
Even highly sophisticated theologians adapt and conform, or else cease to be.
and physicists may be thrown back
onto this inherent characteristic of the Yet, I often wish I were some kind of a
central nervous system, when a poet, to be able to show you what a
response is elicited largely from the scientist feels about his science. The
lower brain as happens under duress scientist, by the nature of his
and stress or even if you stub your toe. profession, revels in the closeness of
If you listen to what people say, it is a the stupendous vastness of the
very personal affront which they take unknown which most of us one way or
from the stone—they may even kick it another define as God. Perhaps few of
again which does little good to them you in this room have been able to
and certainly no harm to the stone. really experience the incredible
vastness of the heavens.
Yet, my personal response as a man to
these almost incredible laws of nature But imagine that you were with me
are as truly a satisfying religious when I was young, standing on a
experience as I can imagine. The moonlight night on the top of a
scientific cosmos is more like the God mountain which you never heard of,
32
called EinenSur. The Lebanon Andromeda is the only other one we
mountains 50 miles to the west acted can see with our naked eye, there are
as an impenetrable barrier for the millions of others. Together these
clouds from the Mediterranean. The nebula form a supergalaxy which we
nearest electric light is in Damascus, can describe as bounded, though the
80 miles to the southeast and shielded human mind cannot appreciate this,
from us by the foothills of Mt. and there is nothing outside. In these
Hermon. In the early 1920’s vast reaches of space, all physical laws
automobiles did not travel at night on are identical as we know them. Every
the dusty unpaved roads far to the element in the cosmic dust deviates
south, for a breakdown would surely not a bit from the elements that we
mean an unpleasant encounter with know. The law of gravitation attracts
roving bandits. universes as surely as it attracts us.
Stand with me on this isolated peak Our cosmic view of the supergalaxy
and look up. The stars are oppressive lets us realize that there are about 100
in their brilliance, the Milky Way is not million other galaxies, other universes
a dim band which in Lexington, beside our own, and that within our
Massachusetts, you sometimes confuse own universe there are about one
with weak northern lights, but a million planetary systems capable of
brilliant band of myriad dancing stars. supporting life as we know it.
Mars is like a great red beacon and the
Andromeda nebula a mysterious, ill Now if we come back from our view of
defined, shiny cloud which cannot the supergalaxy, back to the spiral
help but draw your thoughts out nebula of our universe, back to the
beyond the confines of the world. Our solar system whose very center of
solar system is an insignificant dot in existence is the sun, actually
the nebula we call our universe. All indetectably small on a cosmic scale,
the stars we see from this mountain of and finally back to our lonely
ours are in our universe, except the mountain top, we find ourselves so
Andromeda nebula. insignificantly minute in the cosmic
scale that we really cannot describe
The Milky Way, whose stars are so our smallness.
numerous that we cannot resolve them
into separate points of light, are the These are the thoughts which make
arms of the great spiral nebula in many scientists deeply religious. For
which we exist. Nor is our universe my own self, as I spend hours, days,
unique, for although the nebula in and years, in my laboratory, piecing
33
together the intricacies of one small
piece of research, adding one small bit
of knowledge to the great discipline
we call science—when the answers do
come, they show a fundamental
simplicity, order, and real beauty of
nature which at times becomes almost
overwhelming. My science and
religion become one, and my reverence
for nature is my reverence for God—
reverence for my own personal god,
because I am a person, because I am a
man thinking these thoughts.
34
IV Evolution and the Biological Sciences
L
(you might almost consider it as
drinking orderliness from its
environment) is intimately connected
ast week we talked about evolution with a selfreplicating mechanism, the
and the physical sciences, which I details of which I hope you learned
characterized as entropy increasing about in the reading which I assigned
systems. You will remember that I for this seminar.
defined entropy as the quantitative
measure of disorder of a system, and What I am saying is that the difference
the physical universe as one in which between the physical universe and the
the entropy is always increasing. That biological universe is that the physical
means the disorder in the universe is universe is always becoming more
always increasing. disordered. The biological systems are
becoming more ordered, but that is
Tonight I want to talk about evolution not a sufficient condition. It also has
and the biological sciences, which I the characteristic of being self
will characterize roughly as entropy replicating, that means it can
decreasing systems, that is, systems in reproduce itself. It is this concept
which the disorder of the system is which I want to dwell on for a little
becoming less, becoming more while, because I want to be sure that
ordered rather than more disordered. you understand what I mean. There
The characterization of life as an are actually two ways of producing
entropy decreasing system is a orderliness. One is called a statistical
necessary but not sufficient condition. mechanism which produces order
It is true that living organisms avoid fromdisorder. The second method is
decay by eating, drinking, or in the called the selfreplicating mechanism
case of plants, assimilating— what one which produces orderfromorder. Let
might call negative entropy. That is, me explain what I mean in more
they are continually drawing from detail.
their environment what is often
characterized as negentropy. the There is a perfectly standard method
opposite of entropy. An organism's in the physical world of producing
astonishing gift of concentrating a order from disorder statistically, when
stream of order into itself and thus things crystallize, for example. If you
escaping the decay into atomic chaos take water and you cool it down close
35
to the freezing point, before it freezes parental and sperm cells. This code
the atoms of the water (the hydrogen constitutes the genes and, depending
and oxygen atoms) start collecting upon the species, instructs the
statistically in places where they will developing tissues how to make a fly, a
freeze into the crystal when the cat, a dog or a person as the case may
temperature becomes sufficiently low. be. One of the greatest developments
That is a random process, but you can of the past decade has been the
study it by xray analysis and discover discovery of the chemical nature of the
that on the average the hydrogen genes and the nature of their codes.
atoms get into one position and the
oxygen atoms get into the other — so The code is contained in the pattern of
that before it freezes, the atoms are selfreplicating molecules of a
statistically situated in the condition of particular kind of ribonucleic acid
a crystal even though they are in which is called DNA for short. The
liquid. Any one atom is moving organization and chemical structure of
around at random but on the average the DNA molecules constitute the
they tend to collect along the blueprint of biological heredity. It
crystallographic axis which will be directs the orderfromorder
true of the frozen crystal when the characteristic of the particular entropy
temperature gets sufficiently low. This decreasing system that we call life. As
is what I mean when I talk about cells divide to form the embryo, the
orderfromdisorder. It is a statistical DNA molecules located in the
mechanism. chromosomes of the cell nucleus of the
fertilized egg also divides and are
The biological case is quite different. distributed ultimately to each of the
The biological case is one in which the thousands of trillions of cells that form
order of the final system is dictated by the body.
order of a controlling mechanism,
which I would like to discuss in some These DNA molecular structures are
detail. Each of us is what we are today templates or patterns. Through several
because of information passed on to us chemical steps, they are responsible
from preceding generations. The for the production of the thousands of
difference between a fly, a cat, a dog, different highly specific proteins of
and a man, and many individual which our tissues are composed. These
differences between individuals are include the hundreds of enzymes that
the result of information passed from regulate each cell’s metabolism, its
parent to offspring by a chemical code growth and life processes. Every single
of instructions in the nucleus of one of our human characteristics is
36
coded into the DNA molecule and is Biological evolution by natural
coded before we start to develop as selection is thus a very slow and
individuals. wasteful way of transmitting progress.
Again, I hope you read the first
The information contained in the chapter of Hawaii and got the feeling
chromosomes of a single human egg of the tremendous scope of time and
has been estimated (and I want just to waste of attempts which go into the
give you some kind of a picture of evolutionary process . It has taken over
this) as being equivalent to 1,000 two billion years to produce, from
printed volumes of books, each as simple viruslike structures, complex
large as the Encyclopedia Britannica. species including ourselves, that now
So much coded instruction, packed inherit the earth. For these species
into a space the millionth size of a pin here today, millions have perished in
head, is required for transmission from the course of environmental screening
parent to offspring to tell the next by natural selection.
generation how to make a person. We
share this same type of coded Let me return for a minute to the
information with all forms of plants boundary between orderfrom
and animals. disorder, which is like a crystal
freezing out, and orderfromorder, a
Mutations (which is a word I hope you human being produced by its growth
came across in your reading for this from the DNA coded molecule. The
week) are chance accidental changes in line between living and nonliving
the alphabet of the code. In the picture systems has become increasingly
of my volume of books, they are sort blurred in recent decades, with the
of typographical errors that are then discovery that viruses are nuclear
passed on from parent to offspring protein molecules some of which, like
and are inherited. Ninetynine percent the tobacco virus, can be made to cross
of all mutations are either lethal or the boundary between the statistical
deleterious to succeeding generations. and the selfreplicating mechanism
Less than one percent may confer an almost at will.
advantage to its possessor at a given
time and in a specific environment. It There is a long series of experiments
is such occasional rare beneficial carried out with the tobacco virus
mutations upon which progress in which I would like to talk about for
biological evolution depends. just a few minutes. It can take two
forms. It can be crystallized as a
simple chemical crystal, or, by taking
37
the crystal and putting it into a carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and
nutrient solution and keeping the hydrogen. Thus life, as we know it, is
temperature just right, it can be made possible only in the planets attached to
to turn into a virus. You can do it back the kind of second generation star that
and forth. When it is a virus, it is self we discussed last week. We saw last
replicating. It grows. It produces week that the necessary elements
offspring, and it is susceptible to (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen — those
temperature variations which will kill three) were developed during the
it if you heat it up too much and kill it decline of an earlier stellar generation
if you cool it down too much. — only hydrogen being available in a
first generation star. Thus we know
However, if you take this same virus, that life, as we know it, is restricted to
take away its nutrients, you can these second generation stars.
crystallize it into an ordinary crystal
which you can then heat to I might point out that, in theory, there
tremendous temperatures, you can is nothing wrong with postulating life
cool to as cold as you can get it, and as we do not know it. In other words,
nothing happens to it whatsoever. It is postulating life which is not made of
not selfreplicating, it can crystallize, these elements, does not require the
you can dissolve it, and recrystallize it kind of metabolic transformation that
and it behaves like an ordinary salt we find on Earth. But there is a serious
crystal. question with our present state of
knowledge that we would recognize
But still, after you have treated it as a life as we do not know it since the only
crystal, you can then put it back into definitions of life as we have them now
its living form and it behaves like a are in terms of the kind of life we find
virus. Perhaps it is not at all surprising on the surface of the earth, the kind of
that these boundary cases should be life that is restricted to the second
found. We are discussing a sort of generation stars.
continuous development of the
evolution of life, and eventually of It is only in cooler places in the
man, out of the primitive stuff of the universe that atomic nuclei can hold
universe, and it would be surprising if electrons so that they can form
we did not find some intermediate complete atoms. It is only after one has
forms. formed a complete atom, that it is
possible for atoms to combine with
Living organisms are composed others to form molecules. With
almost entirely of four elements: elementary particles, one is in the
38
realm of what physicists call the incomprehendingly long time scale
Heisenberg uncertainty principle, through which such statistical
which states that with such small encounters can occur, even
structures one cannot simultaneously exceedingly improbable events of the
specify both their location and their “oncetooccur” variety may become a
motion. virtual certainty given enough time to
wait.
This means to a physicist that
elementary particles have no definite Now there is a wide difference of
size or shape, and one does not know opinion as to what particular course in
where they are except statistically. On the development of life actually
the other hand, with molecules one happens. But here again there is near
enters the determinant world with unanimity on the essential points.
matter acquiring definite size and Virtually all biochemists agree that life
shape and positions. on Earth arose spontaneously from
nonliving matter and that it would
During the first billion years on this almost inevitably arise on sufficiently
planet, the molecules accumulated, similar young planets anywhere in the
interacted with one another, and universe. This confidence which the
eventually aggregated to give rise to biochemists have is based on their
the first living organisms. All complex chemical experience.
plants and animals have descended
from much simpler forms. Students of If atoms of hydrogen and oxygen come
the origin of life have amassed together under certain simple and
convincing evidence that life on Earth common conditions of energy they
began some two or three thousand always combine to form water.
million years ago from the chance Formation of more complex molecules
formation of large organic molecules require correspondingly more complex
— some of which, like those of circumstances, but it still seems to be
ribonucleic acid, were selfreplicating. comparatively simple in its chemistry.
If such an unlikely event as the In fact, this has been demonstrated in
spontaneous generation of such laboratories many times.
molecules occurred even once,
evolution by natural selection could If energies, such as would be available
send life down through the ages. on a young planet, are put into a
mixture of the simplest possible
Because of the tremendous variety in compounds of hydrogen, oxygen,
chance statistical encounters, and the carbon and nitrogen, such as also
39
could well occur on a young planet, mutations), and the struggle for
aminoacids and other building blocks existence which is the competitive
of essential complex organic molecular element. The outcome is called, as
are formed and have been formed in Darwin called it, the survival of the
the laboratory. fittest — a continuous elimination of
whatever functions are not well
Now the further synthesis of the adapted, permitting those that work
building blocks into the the best to go on.
macromolecule, especially nucleic
acids and proteins essential for life, Without going into the details of the
had not yet been accomplished under creation of man from a virus, I think
realistically primitive conditions we are quite sure that man was
although they had been accomplished produced as a natural outcome of the
under special conditions. Nevertheless operation of these natural processes.
it is reasonable to assume that these For this reason, I have included in my
steps too could occur, and that in the definition of God a new phrase
near future (actually in the laboratory) “creator and sustainer of life.''
we can make these as well as the basic
aminoacids which have so far been Actually, I am inclined to supplement
synthesized. my original definition that I gave at
the beginning by adding the words
There is nothing unnatural or “and death” so it will read “creator
supernatural about this formation of and sustainer of life and death” —
life. Its generation clearly falls within because I think one of the real
the field of biochemistry as we know it differences between my theological
today. Once having started, then we model and, for example, the Christian
know that it is an intrinsic property of model, is that in this model I am
living organisms to have the capacity presenting to you, death is a good
for passing on their particular forms thing.
and, in fact, having them change by
mutations in a direction which is I am going to talk about this in my last
called “optimization” of the organism. two seminars in considerable detail,
The mechanism of this process is but I want to set the stage for this by
called natural selection. It involves the pointing out that in normal theological
interplay of three factors — a models we talk about the “valley in
mechanism of inheritance, a the shadow of death.” We talk about
continuous production of random death as if it were an evil thing. The
inherited variations (which are the model based on natural selection will
40
tell us quite the opposite. Death is an of a living cell system starts to increase
essential part of the process of natural faster than it ever decreases.
selection. Evolution could not occur Let me explain what I mean.
without it, and we are created as If you start with human development,
humans because death occurs as part one finds that under the orderfrom
of our development. Thus death, as an order building of a human being from
evolutionary necessity, is one of the the original sperm and egg, the
important positive steps which this organism grows by feeding on the
theological model will postulate. entropy of the universe and becomes a
more and more ordered array of cells.
Now let me change what I find is a The number of cells which are in an
misconception about life and death. orderform in the human body when it
One often hears that death is is born is much greater than when it
inevitable to all living things. This is started from its DNA coding in the
false. Death is a relatively late beginning. This continues in mankind
invention even in the process of as he uses food as a way of decreasing
evolution. Right up to the portals of his entropy.
vertebrate life there is no need for
death. There are many organisms, Actually the organism can be said to
which include such organisms as sea be feeding on negative entropy and its
anemone, planaria, and many of the entropy continues to decrease.
single cell animals, which never need Eventually what happens, and this
to die. happens about between the ages of 25
and 35, the organism no longer
They can separate, they can form new decreases its entropy but gradually
offspring, and their living material increases its entropy, being more
continues on forever. Death comes into disordered every day.
the picture in association with sexual
reproduction, and in this mechanism When you eat you decrease your
as it has developed through the entropy. Between the times that you
evolutionary process, death for are eating and assimilating your food,
bisexual forms of life is necessary. But your entropy is increasing Eventually
it is not the antithesis of life. And there the organism gets to a point where
are many living things which never even feeding on negative entropy of
need to die. the universe can no longer sustain its
increasing entropy and death is the
Before I go on, let me define death. result. Death is a dissolution of the
Death is the point where the entropy orderly structure of the body, and can
41
be calculated on the basis of a fact that there are many different
discontinuous increase in the entropy definitions of death and to emphasize
content. that biological evolution is a necessary
but not sufficient condition for the
The definition of death that I have development of the nature of man, as
given you is a technical one for my we will see next week.
particular model. What I am saying is
that death is the point where your Having defined death, this brings up
body increases its entropy at a rate the problem of immortality. It is clear, I
faster than it is decreasing... in a think, from the discussion which I
remarkable way. It is a discontinuous have already given to you, that the
increase in your entropy. Your disorder models which I am presenting include
is so great that it is an obvious change immortality as one of its main tenets.
to everyone around you. Now actually We have in ourselves, and we pass on
you can define death another way if to our offspring, the coded
you like. You can, for example, define information which makes a human,
death as far as biological evolution is makes us as individuals with all our
concerned as the point when you are drives, images, personalities, and
no longer able to produce offspring; everything else. Not only that, we have
you are no longer able to pass your inherited this in an unbroken line from
DNA molecules on. the time life first started.
There are many animals that arrange Perhaps one of the most remarkable
for death as part of the sexual act. The things about human immortality in
praying mantis is a much studied case. terms of its germ plasm is the fact that
The male praying mantis can copulate the germ plasm is a very sensitive
after the female has eaten the upper group of cells of macromolecules,
part of his body away — his head and which must be kept at a constant
everything but the necessary organs. temperature. If you think about it, we
The salmon, in the process of getting have kept our germ plasms at a
ready for mating, has lost its ability to constant temperature ever since man
eat. As it goes up stream to mate it first evolved and had a temperature of
loses its alimentary canal; it no longer 98.8˚, and this has been going on
has a stomach; it no longer can through every generation since the
decrease its entropy by eating and lasts origin of mankind.
only long enough to reproduce. So, in
this respect, it is already dead. I only We all realize that we are made up of
bring this up as an illustration of the two parts. We have this immortal part,
42
which is our DNA molecules, the germ
plasms, and we have a very mortal
part which dies off very quickly in
terms of evolutionary time — and this
is called the soma. The soma, as
defined in the Oxford Collegiate
Dictionary, is all of any organism
except the germ cells (the egg and the
sperm cells), except the part that
contains his immortality.
Our genes never die, they are
immortal. They will keep going unless
all of us are annihilated, and thus we
are immortal. Now the genes are not
the only part of man that is immortal.
There is another type of evolution
which I will talk about next time, and I
will get back to this concept of the
immortality in subsequent
discussions, but surely the genes form
a part of what I will eventually define
as man's immortal soul.
43
V Social and Religious Evolution
T
climate may not be right for its
acceptance, and many ideas are
harmful and may be even lethal to the
here is an interesting analogy between individual and to society; for example,
the biological evolution by genes, and Nazism, Fascism, militant
the social evolution by ideas. This has communism, and other forms of
been pointed out by many people. chauvinistic nationalism in our time.
New ideas are analogous to new Just as many mutant genes may be
mutations of the genes. Henry Murray lethal for a species, so idenes, such as
has coined a term “idene” for social those that might produce a nuclear
evolution parallel to genes in war, could be lethal to the human race.
biological evolution.
One of the big differences between
The definition of an idene is: the biological and social evolution is in the
element which structures man’s operating time scale. In the case of
cultural heritage analogous to the social evolution, the impact of the
genes which structure biological idenes is measured in years, or at most
heritage. To dwell on the parallelism centuries, while in biological evolution
for a minute, most genetic mutations the time scale for viable mutant genes
are lethal and harmful and worthless to establish new forms is more nearly
Very few constitute the basis for measurable in millions of years. Social
advancing biological evolution by evolution is a very recent phenomenon
appearing at a time when the compared to time scales characteristic
environment happens to confer an of biological evolution, starting
advantage to the organism possessing roughly a million years ago with our
that particular mutant gene. hominoid ancestors, and accelerating
in the last hundred thousand years
There is environmental selectivity, not with the emergence of Homo Sapiens.
only to favor the exceptional viable
gene mutation producing biological The human cerebral cortex has
progress, but also social doubled in size in the last million
environmental selectivity to favor years. We have developed a bipedal
certain ideas contributing to social posture, the latter freeing our hands
progress. Like mutant genes, an idene for the purpose of manipulation so
can be before its time, the social that we could develop evolutionary
44
advantage accruing from weapons and The environmental testing of genes
tool making. The former, giving man and idenes must have stability and
the capacity to invent language and continuity to maintain stables species
symbolic communication. This gave and stable societies, to resist the effect
man an advantage over other animals, of lethal genes and lethal idenes. Since
in spite of his nakedness and we are well on our way to producing
helplessness, which made his an optimum biological environment
evolutionary progress very rapid which will minimize the evolutionary
indeed. mutation of our genes, the full
responsibility falls on the behavioral
Roughly ten thousand years ago, and social sciences to test the values
agriculture was discovered. Five we live by, and to be wise enough to
thousand years ago, the city state came do it in a time scale which is a million
into being. The whole history of times faster than the biological
invention is the core of the social evolution which produced us.
evolution. In the last three hundred
years, the accelerated developments Societies are built by ideas and, within
through science are a continuation of limits, the more new ideas to compete
this amazing social evolution which is with each other for social acceptance,
as much faster as biological evolution the more effective social evolution is
in its rate, as biological evolution is likely to be.
faster than cosmic evolution which I
talked about in the third lecture. Freedom of individuals to express and
develop many ideas is necessary for
To put it more dramatically, if we think progress in social evolution, just as
of a time scale for measuring life on many mutations must be screened by
earth as equal to one year instead of natural selection for the development
two billion years, then modern man of an improved or a new species of
has lived on the earth less than a plant or animal. While novelty in the
single hour, he has been civilized for form of mutations and new ideas is
about two minutes, has practiced necessary for biological and social
science for about one second and has progress, the environmentally tested
lived in the nuclear age for about genes and idenes must have stability
1/10th of a second. This lends a sense and continuity to maintain stable
of time urgency to the testing of species and stable societies to resist the
mutant idenes which was never effect of lethal genes and idenes.
present for mutant genes.
45
Now one must not go too far in
drawing the parallelism between The idenotype, that is the type of
biological and social evolution, behavior that is controlled by ideas, is
without taking care to emphasize that administered by the surrounding
the two are very closely intertwined society and provides a semi
since the roots of the idenes are, of independent reservoir of information
course, in the biological functions of for life, transmitted from generation to
the brain. generation by means only semi
independent of the genotype. Man is
One can think of idenes as patterns in the first creature in the evolution of life
the central nervous system, produced on earth to possess this kind of
by certain interactions of that heritage to any high degree. It is what
genetically operated system with a makes man unique among the species
particular cultural output which of life on the earth.
produces their characteristic behavior
patterns including those very complex The idenotype, like the genotype, is
fields of dynamic association which immortal. Each individual receives his
we call subjective experience or self or her heritage from it, and contributes
consciousness. Idenes are not in the his small increment to it. Actually, the
nervous system, but are the culturally idenotopic immortality is much more
structured presentations, or stimulus readily discernible than man's
patterns, which are presented to it. Yet contribution to the gene pool (I define
idenes are in the brain and its the gene pool as the sum total of our
behavior. genetic material). Some of us do not
contribute in any positive way to the
Our genes come already structured gene pool if we have no children. But it
from the outside, but become is hard to conceive of anyone who
incorporated within, to mold the does not make a specific impact on the
general structures and behaviors from idene pool.
within. In parallel with this, idenes
may consist of the customary patterns Let me emphasize that I only said that
of the language or the culture, together the immortality of idenes was “more
with the customary gestures and readily discernible,” not that it was
related signs that accompany these any more effective because, in genetic
linguistic patterns. The transmission of history, negative contributions to the
idenes and structuring and gene pool are just as important for the
restructuring of behavior that they future of the genotype as are positive
produce, are an extension of biology. contributions.
46
in the Eugenics Quarterly and part of
This is also an extension of my his statement is the following:
statement last week of the positive
nature of death. Whereas in biological “The diversity of the personality
evolution, death is important to clear would seem to be as great and
the way for more statistically variable surely more telling than the
organisms to be tried in the balance of diversity of skin colors or other
the survival of the fittest, it is not physical traits. and though the
absolutely required as long as the biological basis of both kinds of
organism is not competing for diversity is the same in principle, it
nourishment and space. However, is different enough in its outward
with the idenotype, this is different. manifestations that the difference
constitutes a genuine problem.”
The human brain has evolved; as we (Incidentally this problem is often
age we become less willing and less found, perhaps in your reading, as
able to entertain new ideas at the very the naturenurture problem). “The
time when our cultural evolution confusion which has beset this
makes us leaders in the society. This, problem for a long time has been
of course, provides one of the due in part to the problem having
important stabilizing influences on the been wrongly stated: Which human
society which allows it to function in a traits are due to heredity and which
responsible way. But it inhibits the fair to environment? No trait can arise
trial of idenotopic mutations and, unless the heredity of the organism
therefore, the evolutionary makes it possible and no heredity
development of societies as a whole is operates outside the environment.
necessarily served by the periodic A meaningful way is to ask what
removal of the leaders of the culture. part of the diversity observed in a
given calculation is conditioned by
Death in this respect is an important the genetic differences between
process in the cultural evolution. To persons composing the calculation
emphasize further the and what part is due to the
interdependence of the biological and upbringing, the education, and
social evolution. other environmental variables?
Let me quote at some length from a “Furthermore, the issue must be
paper by the noted biologist Theodore investigated and solved separately
Doszhansky of the Rockefeller for each function, trait, or
Institute in New York. He was writing characteristic that comes under
47
consideration. Suppose one collects the developmental processes
good data on the genetic and involved.
environmental components of the
observed diversity in intelligence “Mankind’s singular and singularly
quotients, or in the resistance to powerful adaptive instrument is
tuberculosis. It would not tell us culture. Culture is not inherited
anything about the diversity of through genes, it is acquired by
temperament, or the resistance to learning from other human beings.
cancer. The ability to learn and thus to
acquire a culture and to become a
“All too often forgotten, and yet a member of a society is, however,
most basic fact, is that the genes given by the genetic endowment
determine not traits or characters that is mankind’s distinctive
but the ways in which the organism biological aptitude. In a sense,
responds to the environment. One human genes have surrendered
inherits not the skin color and the their primacy in human evolution to
intelligence, but only genes which an entirely new nonbiological or
make the development of certain superorganic agent culture.
color and intelligence possible. However, it should not be forgotten
that this agent is dependent on the
“To state the same thing with a human genotype.”
slightly different emphasis, the gene
complement determines the path Now let me bring up one of the very
which the development of a person real dangers which are everpresent
will take, given the sequence of the both in biological and social evolution.
environment which this person This is a danger which is called “over
encounters in the process of living. specialization.” There is a law of
biological development formulated by
“Any developmental process, Edward Drinker Cope which states
whether physiological or that “the highly developed or
psychological, can be influenced or specialized types of one geological
modified by genetic as well as by period has not been parents of the
environmental variables. The types of succeeding periods. But the
realization of heredity is descent has been derived from the less
manageable within limits by specialized of preceding ages.” To put
physiological and social it in less formal language, it is the
engineering. What the limits are more adaptable and generally the
depends upon our understanding of smaller forms of life that are best able
48
to meet new conditions which destroy of its survival value in the face of
the already dominant and successful attacks from other cultures. Even the
type. The highly and narrowly visions of human brotherhood
adapted flourish, their proficiency characteristic of the great religions
may increase, their numbers may have too often been at least passively
grow, but their perfected adaptation so restricted to the members of a
necessary for their survival in general particular group. In extreme cases,
dooms their continued existence as salvation becomes tied to some
climates change, enemies perfect their specialized form of sacrifice and the
weapons, continental icefields Lord's work becomes identified with
advance. etc. It becomes the creatures obliterating those who prefer to
which have maintained generalized sacrifice in another way.
adaptability which survive and from
which evolve succeeding forms. Perhaps the crucial Darwinian
question for our time of crisis now is
Cope’s law has been amply whether or not man can broaden his
demonstrated as valid for biological culture, his concept of human
evolution, and should serve as brotherhood and tolerance for
something of a danger signal in variation, so that it becomes co
viewing part of our social and extensive with his gene pool. For,
religious evolution as we look around important though the evolution of
society as it is formed today. culture has been for the advancement
For example, the highly integrated of human welfare, it can only work
totalitarian societies may be with the biological stuff of which man
spectacularly successful for a while, is made.
but the rigid specialization of function
within the society entails too great an This, in turn, is all contained in the
atrophy of individual ability, and the few milligrams of genetic material
equally rigid overall structure spread throughout the entire human
prevents adaptation to change external race that we discussed last week. Until
conditions. this moment in history, the
composition of genetic material and its
Another more subtle danger in the development were entirely controlled
evolution of cultures is their tendency by the impersonal forces of natural
to specialize on meeting the desires of selection. But it now seems to stand, at
but a limited fraction of the human least in part, to the mercy of man
species. A specific culture has always himself
been cherished at least in part because
49
The specific idene, to return to Henry organization for worship where ritual,
Murray’s word, which centralized and myths, and dogmas are enacted and
organized the direction of social expounded to inspire revitalization
evolution is the acceptance of what and provide meaning and purpose for
could be called The Establishment, to life of the individual. But rather it is
use a word in current vogue. The the central establishment which
Establishment represents and acts for provides both leadership and a form
the will of the society and thereby for mankind to guide his evolutionary
guides social evolution. The direction both socially and
Establishment is really plural; in our biologically. Now I hope it is obvious
modern world it is bifurcated in its that I am using the term church not in
simplest form into the church and the any Christian connotation, but as a
state. name for the establishment which
guides religious enterprise.
Thus, to return to Wallace’s definition
which I gave you in the first lecture of One must realize also that since
revitalization movement, those religions are intimately interwoven
organized efforts by members of with the fabric of the culture in which
society to construct a more satisfying they arise and grow, there are very
culture, are polarized about, and many churches performing their
administered by, an Establishment. necessary guiding functions which can
be utterly different in their dogma and
The one which we must discuss a little mythology and still provide the
more is the church. The church is the necessary inspiration and goals for the
administrative unit which provides the social evolution of the species .
focus and catalyst for the religious
enterprise, and therefore those who Actually, of course, within any one
accept the responsibility for church culture such as our own, since there is
leadership in a very real sense are a tremendous variation in intellectual,
accepting the responsibility for emotional, and educational aptitudes
helping to guide the evolutionary and susceptibility, if the church is to
development, not only of our society perform its guiding function it must
but of our species as well. have real and basic meaning to the
tremendously wide statistical spread
Looking at the church in this inherent in Homo Sapiens as he has
perspective, it is in a much more evolved.
central position than the general
public image supports. It is not just an
50
With this view in mind one is led to the ministers , the priests, the
the unavoidable conclusion that the commissars , the swamis, the heiggs ,
religious establishment must take and the rabbis — will focus
many forms to be relevant to such a operational actions to lead their
variety of human temperaments as constituents in a direction that they
have resulted from our evolution. It feel right. The great unknown for the
must avoid, at all costs, the danger of future is whose ideas will guide our
overspecialization which I have destiny; and in what direction will we
mentioned to have a real meaning for be headed?
mankind as a whole.
Obviously, we are not going to answer
The church leaders, the leaders of the these questions in this seminar; on the
establishment, which have taken on other hand, an understanding of social
the job of guiding the values by which evolution and the forces which shape
we live, are those upon whose its direction surely is a first step for
shoulders the burden must fall, for all finding what directions these might
the development of methodology for be.
coping with the ever more rapid
evolution which has caught up with us
in the area of the social and behavioral
sciences. We have wrested from nature
that produced us in the evolutionary
process much of the further
development of our own species.
We have now come face to face with
the absolute necessity for developing a
meaning, a purpose, and a goal for our
social and behavioral evolution so as
to properly guide our biological
evolution, which means, incidentally,
our very existence on earth.
The church, as the socially evolved
establishment for guiding this area of
our behavior, will lead the way for our
future development; and the
professionals within the churches —
51
52
VI God, Man, and Immortality
I
scientific culture or cosmology forces
upon modern theologians as they
begin to feel disenchanted a half
n this chapter I want to revise and century battle to defend the sacred
draw together my view of the present core of Christianity by appeal to values
state of God, man and immortality, of myths and symbols arbitrarily
and in the next chapter I want to take a asserted to be true even when not
look at the future. grounded in scientific reality. But this
laudable integrity of admitting their
With the rise of our new cosmology in God to be dead is no more likely to
science, the attributes of a Christian preserve Christian faith than a
deity (and let me talk about this briefly declaration that the stars do not
since it is in the tradition in which my determine human destiny is likely to
ideas have been nurtured) appear preserve faith in astrology.
increasingly to be in conflict with the
newer notions of reality. In the past What we want and probably must
century, the Christian God was have is a firm conviction of what it is,
pronounced dead by the philosopher in fact, that does control our destiny.
Nietzsche, who seemed to represent When theologians cut themselves off,
an opinion shared by most of the or are by other elements of the culture
intellectual leaders of the culture. In cut off, from the credibility or reality
the past decade, Christian theologians of the critical entity of their raison
themselves began more openly to d’etre, then their theology becomes
declare that their God is dead and dead with the culture.
began to agree with the general
culture that what you might call “God I am taking the exactly reverse
talk” had best be abandoned as it direction from "God is dead" and I
carried no meaning to modern man. A assert that the contemporary sciences
similar fate seems to apply to all other are a new revelation of the
Gods or sacred realities of all cultures transcendent powers which are the
in the new light of science. ground of all being. The sciences tell
us that there are superhuman forces
The new "God is dead" movement which create man’s world and man.
seems to represent a new attempt at The best course for theologians is not
intellectual integrity which the to declare the death of God, but the
53
rebirth of God in a new form. Part of incredible myths. Theists became
the problem of theology today is the atheists. But atomists did not become
unwillingness of religionists to accept “tomists.”
new definitions.
The ability of the scientist to forget the
Let me give you an illustration from seeming logical contradictions of their
physics. The word atom means words or symbols lies in their capacity
unsplitable particles. The word was to define their symbols operationally
taken up in modern science over a rather than logically. For the scientific
century ago from the Greek science or community, the reality or meaning of
philosophy to denote hypothetical, an entity does not lie in its name but in
unsplitable particles of physics or its behavior or operation which links
chemistry which characterize the the name with an empirical experience
various kinds of substances or that we share.
elements of the material world. A few
decades ago it became apparent that Names or symbols have no inherent or
the unsplitable atomic particles were intrinsic meaning. In the 19th century
not unsplitable, but on the contrary the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach
they were quite splitable and not pioneered in clarifying this philosophy
atomic. of science which shows how the
models of science are tied to common
But physical scientists have no sensory elements of experience by
problem in declaring their continued statements that connect sensory
belief in atoms even though literally experience to a linguistic symbol in the
they are not now, in the light of new most correct way. This clarification of
scientific knowledge, “atoms.” the meaning of terms by operations
made it possible to weed out of the
They were able to use the word in both language the many ambiguities and
its earlier and its new meaning and irrelevancies that it otherwise would
did not have to declare that the atom contain. It made it possible for us to
was dead. Theologians as well as the communicate more precisely to one
general public, however, have had another what it is that we are talking
such a fixation on previous about.
connotations of a word, term, or
symbols that when some attributes of As a result, the scientific community
the entity no longer were credible, can attain a consensus, coherence, and
they had to declare the whole business integration between their statements
dead. Credible notions became and the world of universal human
54
experience far transcending that of any century A.D. up through Galileo and
other language. finally to Newton. It is an expression
of the attempt of people to define
To understand this point of view you words with sufficient clarity so that
should read P. W. Bridgeman’s book they can be used universally and have
Reflections of a Physicist. Bridgeman everybody understand what the word
has written for his whole life on what means.
we now call “operational analysis” and
he pioneered the link between sensory If you are not a physicist it will be
experience and words or symbols. difficult for you to read but it is worth
This book, a collection of his writings, looking at just to show how hard it is
is one you will find gives you a much to define terms even in the scientific
better picture of this way of looking at meaning of the term. Surely in
the meaning of words than any short theology this will be even more
statement that I might make. difficult. Nevertheless, this is what I
would like to try to do.
One thing one must be aware of is that
the attempt to derive precise meaning First, I would like to present to you an
of words is a very long and hard thing operational definition of God. The
to do. I believe that theologians have term "God” was thrown out of the
not yet begun to appreciate the book of sciences by the early
possibility of redefining many of their positivists because the theologians and
terms, and I would not expect in any metaphysicians involved in the
short length of time that new argument insisted in refusing to allow
definitions would be either accepted the term any tie to empirical
or understood. experience...any operational meaning,
and hence any meaning at all for the
Again, if I would suggest that you do language of science.
some more reading, let me draw to
your attention a more difficult book, The only way to get entry of the term
which is by Irwin Herbert. It is a book "God” into the world of contemporary
which is entitled Historical Roots of sciences is to show how it may be
the Principles of Conservation of defined operationally. If we establish
Energy. It is a study of the attempt to such a definition of God, there can be
define the single word “energy” in no atheists. That is, if we define some
physics starting with Aristotle going entity whether its name be God or
through Philo in the 3rd century B.C. Atom, in a way that we more or less
through Hero of Alexandria in the 1st universally know to which of their
55
experiences that term is properly tied, concepts I introduced in our second
then no one can deny it since one meeting—of discussing highly abstract
cannot deny one’s own experience. concepts without trying to visualize
any particular model—then as long as
Although in such a case there may be the operational definition is clear, it is
no atheists, it may be that theists will as much a waste of breath to discuss
no more be like the earlier concept of whether to refer to God as he, her, or
theists than the present concept of it, as it is to talk about the death of
atom is like an earlier one. Let me at God. I believe both of these things are
this point make an aside to those a waste of time.
particularly among you who might be
called militant Unitarians. I have tried What is significant in all this is that the
this experiment a number of times. I newer scientific concepts for verbal
tried it on you the other night and I formulations or symbolic systems do
now know which of you I would not so much deny or destroy the
define as a militant Unitarian. earlier ones as to build more validly
upon them. For most practical
The way you find this out is to refer to purposes of applied physics and
God with the pronoun Him, and then chemistry, the atom still possesses the
people will start jumping. If you attributes connoted by unsplitable. I
analyze this reaction it does not make expect that in an operationally derived
very much sense. You talk, for God this will also share in
example, of your country as “her” and discontinuity with earlier values of the
sing “My Country ‘Tiz of Thee,” you term as we clarify its meaning in
talk about death as “Him” and you accordance with scientific cosmology.
even sing a hymn “Death, Where Is
Thy Sting?” I have already indicated that the
scientific community will have no
Without trying to commit yourselves trouble with faith in a hypothesis
to anthropomorphic imagery, one can concerning an essentially integrated
just as well use the English pronoun as system of forces or powers far
any other way to refer to an transcending mankind and man’s
operational definition of an entity ordinary perceptions which is, in fact,
which I have defined as God. our most reasonable and validated
explanation of what brings all things
Here again, I think that if the general into being, which created the heavens
public will take the time to under and earth, which brought forth life
stand the scientific methodological upon the earth, sustains it, and lays
56
down requirements and possibilities at the definition which I have written
for its future. This conceptual system down, it will be valid for every
is the determiner of human and all definitional picture that you can
destiny. For the scientific community, imagine for God to be, in the light of
it is not a dead concept but a living our scientific knowledge.
and dynamic one.
Let me discuss some of the theological
Now theologians are quite aware of problems, however. First, what about
this picture of the cosmos, but they are prayer? I have defined prayer as the
loathe to admit it as the new model for revitalization activity of the
their Gods for various reasons, such as individual. Many theologians fear that
its nonhuman or impersonal character the scientific picture of reality does
which seems to rule out all sense in away with the credibility in the
ritual or petitionary prayer, effectiveness of prayer which has been
forgiveness, love, and redemption. a ritual and belief of religions for a
long time.
It seemingly does not operate to
sanction, in the human community at Now it is true that the effectiveness of
least, the rules of life that theologians petitionary prayer, asking private or
felt as essentially sacred in their collective favors from the deity,
tradition. It raises the problems with depends on the presumption that the
religious doctrines of man, his deity is anthropoid or has
freedom and responsibility, doctrines characteristics like human parents or
of good and evil, and the nature and kings. This I do not believe. But this
immortality of his soul. does not mean that I disregard or even
feel the less important, the idea of
Let us discuss the validity of these prayer.
interpretations. The scientific cosmos
is more like the God of the Old There is an everincreasing body of
Testament. As I pointed out before, it biochemical knowledge which points
is, according to my definition, a single, to a very real, physiological as well as
integrated system of reality and the psychological, benefit to prayer, as a
law of its operation creates and necessary stimulus to the biochemical
sustains all that is, and operates from reaction in the body for stress relief.
everlasting to everlasting. It is more
like the deity which man must serve It is somewhat similar to the
and obey than one which man can adrenaline reaction in the body at
manage. But I believe that if you look times of fear, in which tremendous
57
activity and strength can be suddenly worship as “prayer carried on as, and
given to the body as a result of the stimulated by, group activity.”. The
release of adrenaline. To talk about importance of worship is that it can
prayer, one must talk about two kinds stimulate an activity of group
of prayer. There is private prayer and dynamics which is technically called
social prayer. First let me define amplification. You can define
“social.” It is: “All those interactive amplification in many ways, but one
relations between individuals or way is to say that it is "the
groups in which needs are satisfied. It multiplication of effectiveness of a
is the process of interaction between function or activity.”
organisms during which they confer
survival benefits upon each other." We can see the importance of
amplification as soon as we consider
As I said, there are two kinds of prayer how, in the biological world, the brain
— the private prayer and the social directs the activities of an animal or a
prayer. Private prayer is, in my view, person. The brain is a small organism
the process of getting one's self in which receives information from the
order. Sometimes it is talking to senses and makes decisions that are
oneself. Sometimes it is talking to the amplified and carried through the
outside, talking, if you like, to the metabolizing pathways of the nerves
administration of the universe. until they are amplified again in the
muscles and serve as a trigger to
Those of you that have really prayed release the full physical powers of the
realize that you can do this without body in achieving what the brain
praying to anyone. You do not have to decided was needed.
have an anthropomorphic God to pray
to. You can wander through the Likewise, for society, the decision
meadow or through the woods, you making group in the society is
can get yourself in order by thinking frequently an individual or a small
your own thoughts and feeling that group which can often channel the
you are being revitalized by this entire power of a whole community or
process of putting yourself, if you like, society into one direction, sometimes
at the mercy of nature. with and sometimes without the full
consent of the individual.
The second kind of prayer is more
involved. The second kind of prayer, Amplification, as I am using it here, is
the social prayer, often goes by the a social type of chain reaction. The
term of worship, and I have defined chain reaction point of view gives us
58
an especially clear understanding of It is through the stimulus of worship
the relation between the role of the that society provides the mechanism
individual and the role of determinism of both negative and positive feed back
in history. A stabilized chain reaction and it is therefore one of the most
system has within its limits of stability important factors to provide a
a certain unstoppable character, a mechanism for both controlling,
certain inevitability, about its stabilizing and providing effective
operation. mutations for social and religious
evolution.
There is an inevitability of a different
kind in the explosion or decay of an This whole subject has been brought to
unstable chain reaction. We see this in the fore with the invention by Norbert
such social instances as the decline of Wiener of cybernetics. For those of
kings, or the rise of an industrial you, again, that would like to do some
revolution, or the growth of more reading, let me suggest that you
belligerence between competing read Norbert Wiener’s book, The
powers, or in the rise and fall of great Human Use of Human Beings. This is
religions. a book which has a subtitle
Cybernetics and Society, which, in my
There are two different kinds of chain opinion, is a discussion of the
reactions. One is represented in society operation of worship in the society, in
by selfstabilizing organizations and terms of how ideas are fed into society
selfstabilizing situations. These are and how society reacts to these ideas.
characterized by internal or external
(and I’m using a technical term now) How about such concepts within the
negative feed back. That is, they return theological sphere of discussion as the
to their previous equilibrium when dignity of man, good and evil, and
disturbed. finally, man’s immortal soul. These can
clearly be discussed within the
The second category is represented by framework of the theological model I
selfamplifying organizations or have seen presenting.
situations. These are characterized by
positive feed back, so that they run First, let me talk about the dignity of
away from equilibrium either in one man. Do we, for example, have a free
direction to the point of indefinite will to guide own behavior? The
growth or in the other direction to the answer here is, it depends on what
point or vanishing destruction. level you look at man. If you look at
him as individuals, and give us the
59
boundary value that we must behave specific that we will not, on the
as humans, then the answer is "Yes, we average, do anything which will
have free will.” On the other hand, on prevent us from living and from
the average, our behavior is totally helping the evolutionary process to
determined by the evolutionary forces develop.
that produced us.
This does not mean we cannot get on
This seeming contradiction is perhaps the top of a building and jump off.
made clearer if you will remember a People do so every day. But, on the
principle which I enunciated some average, humans do not, and if they
weeks ago, the Heisenberg uncertainty did, we would not survive as a race.
principle. The Heisenberg uncertainty Therefore, our individuality is truly at
principle says (in physics now) that our own mercy within our ability to
one cannot simultaneously specify react to the stimuli about us, but on
both the location and the motion of a the average our behavior is totally
body within certain very narrow determined by the evolutionary
limits. process which produced us.
The statement I made was that This brings me to another concept
elementary particles had, as far as a which theologians like to talk
physicist was concerned, no shape and about....that of good and evil. What is
they occupied no particular place good? In the model which I am
because if you tried to look at them too presenting to you, good is defined as
specifically you would not be able to that which has survival value in both
see that they were there. On the other biological and social evolution. Evil is
hand, that as you look at larger groups the reverse.
of particles, particularly large enough
to be molecules, then they behave as Lastly, let me talk about the soul. I
the laws of physics predicted they defined the soul as that which persists
should behave in terms of being able and evolves and remains in being even
to measure them both in time and in though the body disintegrates. I doubt
space. An individual person is if anybody could argue with this
something like this. definition...it seems to me agreeable to
most theological concepts of the soul
An individual has the statistical as well as the ordinary understanding
freedom to do what one will. On the of the word.
other hand, the evolutionary forces
which produced us make it very
60
The picture of man presented by the individual to another. My primary
sciences is a picture of an immortal suggestion is that the scientist offers us
program transcending the life of the a realistic conceptualization of both
individual’s four score or possibly five God and soul if we can wrench
score years by perhaps a billion times. ourselves away from the traditional
Anyone who thinks that the here and stereotype and formulate the
now of his existential feeling, the life of functional analogue in the very heart
his body from birth to death, is the of the language of the sciences.
beginning and the end is not
scientifically informed about his own To me, the concept of God and soul,
nature and his own inherent values. which I have been formulating, stands
Nor does a tale told by an idiot signify out as valid realities in the light of
nothing. sciences and as religiously and
motivationally relevant and quite
The picture of each individual, which analogous to the ancient religious
one may derive from the sciences, is formulations. I do not assert that these
one of an immortal reality that persists are the only or the best formulations,
and develops an even more marvelous but I find them presently credible,
pattern of increasing order from age to coherent and, to me, religiously
age in unbroken continuity for several moving.
billions of years.
To me, and I think for anyone who
The soul, as I have formulated it on the shares this perspective with me, the
basis of the scientific picture of life, is word salvation also becomes a
that which persists and evolves and meaningful term. What we must do to
remains in being even though the be saved in the light of the progress of
body disintegrates. In plant and modern science and theology is the
animal systems of life such an entity subject for my next chapter.
has been verified in the gene pool of
the species where is stored most of the I believe we have arrived at a point in
information which determines and evolution when we ourselves can
structures the behavior of successive control our own salvation as human
generations. beings and as the product of our
evolutionary processes. What we do
In man, a special culture has been with this ability is to me a grave
structured by previous generations concern, and it is for this reason I have
and is transmitted through non entitled my final talk "Is a New
biochemical media from one Religion Necessary?”
61
VII Is a New Religion Necessary?
H
uman destiny can be viewed in many
There is no doubt about the fact that if
we get into nuclear warfare the
destruction of human life and
perspectives, both longrange and property will assume catastrophic
shortrange. Do we mean by human proportions, and for many millions of
destiny, the destiny of the human race, people the explosion of nuclear
or do we mean civilization, or do we warheads will be terminal. However,
mean human culture? Is our time scale the real threat to the race will not be
historical, anthropological, or the initial annihilation but the clouds
geological? First, let me look at the of radioactive waste that will be swept
immediate destiny of the human race up into the high atmosphere and then
and its relation to what is uppermost rained down on us in subsequent
in many people’s minds —nuclear generations. I cannot see that this will
warfare. spell the doom of the human race.
It is, of course, impossible to be a It is a fact of present geography that if
prophet, and assuming this role leaves the war should start that people are
one open to error and also to ridicule. now contemplating, the bombs would
But I do believe that we are not going be distributed almost exclusively in the
to annihilate ourselves. If we are not northern temperate latitude. I think
wise enough, we may well destroy our you all may be familiar with the
present civilization and culture. But to general circulation of the atmosphere,
me it is the height of vanity to assume but let me review it for you.
that other civilizations and other Circulation begins at the equator
cultures cannot rise from any where solar radiation is most intense
shambles we create, to produce, and the air rises. The air cools
hopefully, a better and certainly gradually as it rises and eventually at a
equally satisfactory human high altitude some of the air heads
civilization. Actually, I do not think northward and some southward.
things are nearly that ominous. This Along the earth’s surface, winds move
belief is based on science and not on toward the equator and replace the
emotions. Let me share with you my rising air.
thoughts for a few minutes.
62
If the earth were not rotating, and if no miles of the surface of the earth for
complicating continental masses were Homo Sapiens to live and breed.
present, simple convection motion
would result; air would rise at the You have probably all seen maps
equator, sink near the poles, and move plotting the radioactive dust clouds as
horizontally between the two areas. they sweep around the earth and
notice that they circulate across lines
However, due to the earth’s rotation, of longitude and not latitude; they do
much of the air which rises at the not go north and south, but would
equator and starts northward or travel from east to west or west to east
southward is deflected eastward so depending on which side of the
that our winds in these latitudes slow equator they are detonated. If man
in an eastwest direction. The must hide for his survival in the polar
equatorial belt is characterized by sides of the Arctic and Antarctic circles
variable winds and calms and serves to await the decay of the folly of his
as a buffer between. Solid dust ancestors, he is clever enough to do so.
material produced in the northern
hemisphere will not mix readily with My own opinion is that I am painting
the air masses in the southern much too grim a picture. As far as my
hemisphere. Even if the northern biological and medical colleagues tell
hemispherians doom themselves to a me, radiation exposure produces no
radioactive rain, many, many millions new diseases over those which occur
of human beings in the southern naturally, although the incidence of
hemisphere are much less affected. them may be greatly changed. Our
success with biological and chemical
This is, of course, only a short range therapy has been so spectacular that I
argument based on the present can see no reason why, in the long run,
political struggle. If we are successful we cannot look forward to as
in avoiding conflict in this century, it is successful antidotes for the group of
obviously possible and in fact probable diseases generally lumped under the
that the dominant political centers of heading of "radiation sickness" as we
gravity will move south of the equator have for poliomyelitis and bubonic
in the future. On the assumption that plague.
they will be no wiser than we, and
find it expedient to fill their cyclones Great concern has been voiced in
with radioactive dust, although many quarters about the genetic
considerably more limited in extent, effects of radiation. Here again, in the
there will still be millions of square framework of the survival of the
63
human race, I do not believe that there but I am trying to look beyond it to the
is a real problem, even granting that future destiny of mankind.
there is a genetic effect. There are
many who claim that a person has to What I have just been discussing is a
receive more than a lethal dose before section which might be entitled T he
it can be proven statistically that there B omb
. It is a discussion of short range
has been a radiation effect on the destiny. Within the next few years,
person’s genes. perhaps the next century, we will
either resort to nuclear warfare or we
While I’m on this subject let me will find some other way of discussing
comment relative to the theory of our social and political problems. In
genetic degradation resulting from either case, I think mankind as an
civilization tampering with the animal will survive.
evolutionary elimination of
unsatisfactory mutations. I am rather In looking to his future as a boundary
convinced by those biologists who tell value problem, it is his future from the
us that there is nothing inherent in the origin of man to the present that I am
problem which rules out a yet to be discussing. I do believe that if we
discovered biochemical therapy of the stoop to settling our conflicts by
genes similar in principle to the many nuclear warfare our present
other controls that we now use on civilization and culture may well be
many other parts of the human destroyed. This may then result in a
organism. shift in our time scale From 1,000 to
10,000, perhaps 100,000 years,
The problems we are now creating for backwards. But eventually man will
ourselves, in a historical perspective, survive and will arrive at the same
are of only temporary concern, and origin in time as I am now going to
before I leave this discussion let me consider him to be.
remind you of the perspective with
which I am viewing human destiny. I Let us now look at the future
am trying to view it in the indefinite development: first, of the physical
future in an anthropological time sciences as it affects man’s own future.
scale, if you will. When I sound as if I One of the most significant directions
am dismissing, for example, all human which the practical application of
life in the northern temperate zones, it physical sciences is taking is in the
is not that I am unaware of the direction of environmental control.
unimaginable horror of such an event, There has been a consistent
64
progression of this development to a technological applications as the
larger and larger scale. geophysics of the atmosphere begins
to be understood.
It started with man’s early attempt at
individual temperature and humidity One of the real excitements of this age
control to cover his nakedness with is our first look at the earth from the
clothing. He then studied the basic outside. Although it seems to be an
principles of mechanics and applied unfortunate political necessity to tie
this knowledge to the construction of our socalled "space research" to
houses so that he would not have to be military expediencies, its longrange
restricted to naturally occurring caves advantages to mankind should ease
and caverns. He gained knowledge in our consciences. As a matter of fact,
the field we would now call chemistry we have made so little progress in our
and applied it to heating his house social and political evolution that I
with fire and controlling his local suspect that the first houses were built
agricultural environment with more for fortification against man’s
fertilizers so that he would not have to enemies, including other men, than
move on every few generations when with any conscious incentive toward
he had exhausted the nutrients of his environmental control.
soil.
For all our grumbling about the costs,
Today, we have our local temperature space research is here to stay, not
and humidity environment under because satellites can hover nuclear
control. The roof over our head and warheads, like Damoclesian swords
the furnace in the basement and the over the heads of wouldbe aggressors,
air conditioner in the window assure nor because they can provide
us of such a constant temperature that convenient communication links, but
we really have completely supplanted for a much bigger and longrange
the necessity of wearing clothes in our reason. Man is after controlling the
artificial environment. weather.
However, we are just beginning to Our most modern ability, which at the
realize that we can greatly enlarge the moment is only a glimpse of our earth
control of our environment to the from an external coordinate system,
entire globe. The painstaking, highly will develop in the future to a full
theoretical and at times abstruse scale ability to gather the facts about
sciences of thermo and fluid the weather and with this
dynamics are finding undreamed of fundamental knowledge will come the
65
technological development of weather
control. Hand in hand with our In connection with the problem of
control of the weather will come our moving, it is worthwhile considering
control of water, so that it will be whether man is really going to travel
perfectly possible, and in my own out into space or whether there are
opinion probable, that complete some recognizable boundary
climate control will be achieved, conditions within which his future
certainly in chosen areas of the globe activities must take place. Here again,
in which man has selected to flourish. since I am going to foretell the future, I
open myself not only to arguments but
It does not seem to me difficult to find to ridicule. But, hopefully, I also open
man’s aim in searching for the control the door for fruitful discussion.
of his environment. He is seeking, and
I believe he is finding, an optimum By traveling out into space, I do not
biological medium for the present mean visiting members or our own
human organism to live and breathe solar system. First of all, these are
and have its being. The evolutionary sufficiently local so that some of us
consequences of this are of primary here may well live to see it an
importance. But before I expand on accomplished fact, and secondly, it will
this let me continue to look into the have no real significance as far as the
future development of the physical destiny of man is concerned since
sciences under some such title as "The none of the planets can boast of a
Elimination of Onerous Activities"— hospitable biological medium in
and by these I mean specifically: which man can exist. It might well be
moving and thinking. important to man’s future if he could
find other planets sufficiently like the
The elimination of the necessity of earth so he himself could survive and
man moving himself has in principle hopefully compare his development
been already solved. True, there are with other creatures sufficiently close
technological problems which have to his own evolutionary development
not been solved to our satisfaction and to help him shape his own destiny.
these, in fact, may take some
generations to solve. But from a To do this he must travel outside the
theoretical point of view, man can solar system. Assuming he is lucky
accomplish all his physical works and enough to find suitable life on one of
move anywhere on the earth with no the first ten or dozen nearer stars, he
more effort than pushing buttons or must reach out a distance of about 20
speaking into a microphone. light years, that is a distance that it
66
would take light 20 years to traverse. A calculation of this effect comes out
Such a trip is inconceivable at with the result that if a rocket ship
presently known techniques by many, with sufficient power to fly very close
many orders of magnitude. But let us to the velocity of light were to take
examine the possibility from thirty years for the crew of the rocket
fundamental physical concepts rather ship to get to Orion and back, then the
than be bound by any technological elapsed time on earth (not for this
problems. rocket crew, but on earth) between
their departure and their return would
The basic problem is that of time. If we be about 3,000 years.
must travel distances of 20 to 100 light
years, we must achieve speeds close to Therefore, there is a question as to
the velocity of light, to be in any way whether going there and back would
practical for mankind. We must, be worthwhile, although certainly
therefore ask: Is it theoretically going there might be good for the
possible to accelerate a rocket ship to rocket crew.
say 1/5 the velocity of light? The
answer is "Yes." There really is a very interesting
problem when one looks to the future
If we achieve control of thermonuclear which lies in the area of artificial
fusion, for example, this kind of power intelligence. Can we devise computers
could get a rocket ship up to 1/5 the which will do our thinking for us?
velocity of light and, calculating the
possible accelerations and Here we must define three degrees of
decelerations, we could make the possibility. A solution is logically
round trip to the nearest star in about obtainable if it can be described free of
200 years. Of course, if you went contradiction. It is physically possible
slower than this it would take much if it does not violate any of the laws of
longer. physics. It is practicably possible if it
can actually be achieved by known
The obvious direction we should work techniques and materials.
for is to go faster, not slower. If we go
much faster, that is, if we go very close It is certainly logically and physically
to the velocity of light, a curious possible for a digital computer to do
relativistic effect takes place. any sort of information processing that
humans can do. By the technical term
The flow of time for the rocket crew "information processing" I mean what
becomes different from that on earth. might be termed "thinking.” Certainly
67
most of the thinking we normally do alarming rate as we try to build into it
falls into this category. anything approaching human
versatility. My own personal opinion is
A machine learns by being fed that long before we approach the
information in the form of a code, and totality of human intelligence in all its
it can operate on this information to ramifications, the parts of our thinking
draw conclusions and arrive at machine will begin wearing out faster
solutions which are both novel and than they can be replaced, the entropy
inventive. What is not clear at the of the system will increase faster than
moment is whether machines with the human tenders can compensate
artificial intelligence will be able to for. The device falls into practical
generalize or philosophize. This impossibility, not because each
appears to be a different kind of operation by itself is impossible, but
intellectual exercise from information that the integrated operation is too
processing, and one which we complex for an increasing entropy
understand so poorly at present that system to cope with.
little progress has been made even
theoretically in this direction. Let me define the term ”cybernation”
Therefore, standing at our origin of as the name which is given to our
time, the present, we cannot say devising of electronic and other
whether these areas of intelligence, the artifacts which have certain properties
ability to generalize and philosophize, of living systems. These systems are
can be duplicated by machines. negative feedback systems (that is, left
alone they will return to their
I have only discussed so far the logical equilibrium) with built in purposes
and physical possibility of artificial and powers to fulfill the duties
intelligence. There is, of course, the prescribed in those purposes.
practical possibility which must be
based on what can actually be We are already engaged in devising
achieved and here I must remind you cybernetic mechanisms that are
that I am discussing the physical capable of learning and advancing
sciences, characterized by increasing their own systems in part by their own
entropy, or in much simpler language, efforts. They can learn to play checkers
characterized by systems which and chess, at which they beat their
perpetually are wearing out. human makers at the game.
The fundamental complexity of an They can explore the moon, and they
intelligence machine increases at an are on probes which are wandering
68
into the far reaches of outer space produced by the sciences. Science has
doing our exploration for us. As a altered the restraints that have
matter of fact, they are much better operated in confining population size
adapted to this work than humans. by disease and starvation. And science
has opened the door to possibly better
It is quite clear that we have the ways of genetic selection than those
technological capacity already to that have prevailed in the past.
develop cybernetic systems to carry on
most of the work of supporting human Man has been made conscious of his
life as well as the life of the cybernetic own genetic process and is, so to
systems themselves. speak, asked to enter into the
conscious devising of better ways of
This means, that within a relatively developing the genotype. The system
few decades, it is theoretically possible of idenotopic information made
for us to put almost every one of us possible first by the human genotype
out of our present jobs, replacing has now come full circle and is
humans with a system of cybernetic charged with at least some partial
mechanisms which could leave us so supervision of the advancement of the
free from productive work of society genotype itself.
as to raise the very real question of the
value of our existence. This is one of the great and radically
new conditions which have emerged
As a matter of fact, we are already well in the history of evolving life on earth
on our way to doing this in the area in our time. The great concern of many
which used to be a human function, people arises from our inability to
namely, our memory, which is very predict the results of our tampering
much better done by a computer. Also with the evolutionary process which
man's correlation of facts is now done has produced us. The whole reason
better by cybernetic systems in routine that the evolutionary process was
function than man by himself. This successful in the past was that the
raises some very real questions about unfit did not survive.
the value of man as an individual in
society. We are becoming more and more
successful at changing this pattern,
The ancient religious doctrine of “be and as we do so more and more
fruitful and multiply” comes into geneticists are raising the question
considerable question under the new whether the human race may not have
environmental circumstances serious problems due to stopping the
69
process of purifying the genes which high end by 100%. Furthermore, there
have taken millions and millions of is every reason to suppose that various
years in the evolutionary control to other characteristics of individuals,
perfect. This actually lends urgency to such as their tendency toward
the realization that the intellectual adjustments, both psychological and
progress which has removed one emotional, have determinants of a
control must now face the vital genetic nature. As you are all aware,
problem of discovering or inventing we know enough now so that we
some other kind of heredity control. could, by artificial insemination,
produce a genetically "superior” group
Let me illustrate by an example. There of people which would improve the
is good evidence that the intelligence species.
of mankind is genetically determined
within certain broad limits; the so The deep freeze of human sperm has
called "IQ” can be modified and varied been demonstrated to be a workable
by conditioning up to a certain point, scheme in which the sperm can be
but only within limits which are fairly kept, as far as our experimental
well known. Most of the progress of evidence is now, forever. One can
mankind is due to exceptional imagine a sperm bank collecting
individuals who are exceedingly able sperm from particularly desirable
in various fields. men, and these could make their genes
available for guiding the evolutionary
There are relatively few people with process of future man, breeding
an IQ of 160 or over, and many of these attributes which society recognizes as
people have been those that have being good. This is practical; this has
made great contributions to society. It been tried in limited ways and we
is a statistical fact that if we could know it works. Man is now made
increase the IQ of the population at aware that he is responsible for the
large by 1.5% (that is, instead of having genetic health and conditions of his
the average IQ be 100, we could descendants, and this presents an
arrange to have the average IQ at 101.5) ethical problem of great magnitude.
we would thereby double the number
of people whose IQs are over 160. This It is clear that few parents would want
is a remarkable fact. to procreate if they knew in advance
that there was a high probability that a
By shifting the peak of our intelligence large fraction of their children would
distribution curve ever so little, we be either badly distorted or deficient in
could modify the distribution at the body and mind. But the solutions of
70
this problem are not as simple and starvation becomes the control to keep
obvious as many people have the size down.
suggested. Many genes that may give
rise to regrettable deficiencies at the However, there is a much more serious
same time may be responsible in other and as yet not understood problem
combinations for highly desirable and it is a consideration which very
advantages. few people have taken seriously—it is
the question: "What is the optimal
The problem is not only that of quality, population size for man?” For
but perhaps even more pressing at the example, the marvelous human
present time is the problem of cultures of Greece and Rome came
quantity. Here the problem is not so into flower with the world population
much the already understood problem much less than that in the United
of overpopulation, brought about by States at the present time.
the scientifically produced reduction
in death rate without a corresponding This raises the question of how many
reduction in the birth rate. Here the people we need for great advances in
fear is that the ceiling on the energy the genotype and the idenotype with
sources available on earth will hit the new understanding of the problem of
population boom in the head as the how to manage them. It may be that
number of heads hits the ceiling, even a smaller population is necessary
causing tragic problems of starvation now to produce all the variations
and social disorder. needed for an optimum genotype and
idenotype society.
But this ceiling is one that has been on
all populations in the past. Often these Besides the problem of food and other
populations have adapted in the past energy supplies per capita, we must
by letting starvation keep the really consider the problem of how
population within bounds of the much living space on the surface of
energy supplies. So this is really not a the earth per capita is optimal for man.
new threat. It might be mentioned that With the advances in cybernetics
some human societies, as well as making the need for large numbers of
societies of animals, have either people less important, it seems to me
through rules established in their that the central question is: "What is
idenotype or their genotype, limited the optimal size for the advancement
the size of the population before of human life?" Conceivably it could
arriving at the threshold where be much lower than our present world
population.
71
array. However, you cannot develop a
In any case the problem of the human religion without a theology upon
values of both the genotype and which it is based, and it is the theology
idenotype are obviously tied both to which must be firmly based on our
the absolute numbers of population modern scientific knowledge if it is to
size and to what we do in our be able to cope with the problems of
advertent or inadvertant roles in mankind, both at present and in the
seeking our own genotype and future.
idenotype.
It takes three steps. First, you have to
We have been raised up to a new level develop the theology. My own feeling
of responsibility for conscious is that the scientific theology has been
participation in our own natural developed, it has developed in the
selection. This is a task, indeed, on scientific culture of modern man. It is
which the theologians must stay in very little understood, but I think the
close contact with the sciences for a basic concepts have been illuminated
realistic view of modern and future and we can base our current thinking
man. on a theology based on modern
science.
This brings me now to the place,
essentially, where I began this seminar. The next step, and this has not yet
I began it essentially with a definition been started, is to develop a religious
of theology, and it is theology that I activity which is based on the theology
have been trying to discuss all this and made viable in modern cultural
time. Theology, you will remember, is terms.
the theoretical structure upon which
such things as religion are built. We The third step is a State administering
keep talking about religion when we religious policy in tune with the
want to be practical, when we want to modern theology.
apply the theory to the practice of
society. There is a very interesting article in the
November 19, 1966, issue of
Religion is the place where policy for The Saturday Review written by
society is formed. The State (the Emmanual Mesthene entitled “What
political organization which is the Modern Science Offers the Church.”
basis for civil government) is the Let me quote from it:
administrative structure which sets the
behavior of mankind into an orderly
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“Religion is in crisis today because “Are the churches also completely
it has largely lost its old role, and out of work? They have served
has yet to find a new one. After 20 throughout their history as man’s
centuries of doing man's work, the crutch. Is their history at an end
churches are now having to learn now that man can walk again?
to do God’s. In the era just before These are the questions, if I see
Christ, man gave up the hope of clearly, that animate the present
bliss in this world, saw values only theological debate and lead to the
in the next, and attributed power religious restlessness that we
only to God. They left their work observe.
undone.
“They moved the German
“The churches, if only by default at theologian, Bonhoeffer, to plead
first, sought to fill the void and do that man has come of age and must
men's work for them...their be recognized as having done so.
knowing, their building. their They led the English R. A.
ruling, and their moral judging. Buchanan to note that it takes men,
Opinions differ and disputes have not sheep, to change the world and
raged about how well or how ill warns that
they did, but there was never a
question of their relevance to man’s ‘if the clergy are going to treat
concern—for it was men’s concern their parishioners like sheep
that they made their own. they need not be surprised if
their number of parishioners
“The Churches were doing men’s continues to decline.'
work. Man’s renewed confidence in
himself means that he takes up his “It is the same questions and
own burden once again. That is worry they express that lead our
what is really new about our age. It clergymen to Alabama, our
means that the churches are out of theologians to shock us into
men’s work because man now thought by announcing that ‘God
chooses to do his own and has the is dead.’
knowledge and skill and the will to
do it. It is idle to tell him he cannot “The crisis of the church is in the
because he is ignorant, or weak, or fear of irrelevance borne of man's
a sinner—he just will not listen. new confidence in the power of his
tools. It is an agonizing crisis
because there is nothing so dead as
73
irrelevance which leaves not even a on science which I have been trying to
memory.” describe to you.
You will find that many people are Another very typical case of the way
turning to this theme of man’s concern things are out of tune with our
with his own future, guided by some understanding is the concept of asocial
basic principle which must be, in my behavior and the treatment of
opinion, based on a theology which is criminals.
in tune with our knowledge.
It has been known for a long time that
The reason the problem is serious is asocial sexual behavior can result from
because there are many things which abnormal prenatal hormone activity,
we now tend to do which basically are and yet when an individual is
out of tune with what is dictated by apprehended for asocial sexual
the state. behavior it is the police that are called,
not the doctor. The man is sent to jail,
Let me illustrate just a few of them to not to hospital.
point out the kinds of problems which
modern society in its formal structure The law assumes that his behavior is a
disapproves of, and yet the theology of result of miseducation, and yet science
science says a new light should can show in many cases it is a result of
certainly be shone on these problems. unbalance of his gonadal hormones.
Take the case of selective breeding and For over 100 years we have been very
artificial insemination—these could sure as scientists that the Negro is as
clearly be advantageous. We do this good a Homo Sapiens as any white.
for dogs, we do it for cattle, but we do Yet we are only just beginning, from
not do it for people—it is quite illegal! the point of view of the state, to even
We cannot now direct our genotypic recognize it. It probably will take some
evolution under any laws which generations before people really
modern civilized man is operating believe it.
under.
There is a danger that the political
Another example is the problem of structure of society may dictate a
euthanasia and the prolonging of the policy based on modern technology
life of the dying. In fact, the whole which will take into its hands these
attitude concerning death is one which kinds of things, do selective breeding,
is not in tune with the theology based do all the various other things I have
74
suggested can now be done, in a way
which we as individuals would not
think was advantageous.
This is the danger that a religion based
on a theology in tune with scientific
knowledge will not develop soon
enough to guide man's future
development in the direction we
would define as good.
I do believe that eventually it will
come, the evolutionary process seems
to be statistically valid even in this
kind of a development.
But I hope that people can see the
problems clearly enough to start this
development toward an understand
ing of the operation of society based
on its knowledge of the world about it
quickly, and as soon as possible—a
religion based on this new theology
will truly help us find our place in the
universe, will truly help us find valid
goals for ourselves and our society
within the framework of the natural
forces that control our destiny.
75
o
76
VIII Glossary
Amplification the multiplication of God an image of a unitary system
the effectiveness of a function or which ordains all that was, is, and
activity. A social chainreaction is to be; omnipotent, omnipresent,
with positive feedback. eternal, and infinite; creator and
sustainer of life. And the source of
Church the establishment which all values, goals, duties, and hopes
guides the religious enterprise. for that life.
Criteria of credibility acceptable tests Good that which has survival value
of a given hypothesis to check its in both biological and social
agreement with the known facts evolution.
within the framework of
contemporary knowledge. Heisenberg uncertainty principle: One
cannot simultaneously specify both
Cybernation man’s devising of the location and the motion or a
electronic and other artifacts, body within certain very narrow
which have certain properties of limits.
living systems.
Idene the element which structures
Death discontinuous increase of the man’s cultural heritage analogous
entropy of a body. to the genes which structure our
biological heritage,
Entropy a quantitative measure of the
disorder of a system — the natural Idenotype the type of behavior that is
tendency of things to approach the controlled by idenes.
chaotic state.
Life a selfreplicating, entropy
Gene pool the sum total of all the increasing system.
genetic material.
Model an intellectual framework
Genotype a type determined by the
constructed in agreement with the
genetic character common to a
accepted facts which provide a
group, hence a group of organisms
working hypotheses for
of such a type.
understanding and
implementation.
77
Prayer revitalization activity of the
individual.
Protoplasm the material which
contains the sperm cells.
Religion a revitalization movement
— that activity by which man
attempts to find his place in the
universe; tries to develop valid
goals for himself and his fellow
man within the framework of the
forces which control his destiny.
78
Science man’s search for the
organization of the universe.
Society that complex of
fundamentally cooperative
interactions or interrelations
which exist between and among
o
the members of a group.
Soul that which persists and remains
in being even though the body
disintegrates.
State the political organization which
is the basis of civil government.
Theology a critical intellectual
attempt to construct a theoretical
system consistent with the beliefs
and practices of a religious
community.
Worship prayer carried on as, and
stimulated by, group activity
79