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Summary: In the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., we call all men and women of Science and Religion to rise up in the pursuit of truth.

Preamble

Over the course of human history mankind brought forth on this planet, two chief systems for exploring Nature and Life, one of them is Religion and the other Science, both conceived for seeking truths, and both dedicated to the survival and advancement of mankind. We hold these truth to be both spiritually and scientifically approachable that all forms of existence are interconnected, that they possess certain fundamental and unalienable properties - that to describe this inter-connectedness and these properties, successive theories shall be constructed by us, deriving their explanatory and predictive powers from the approximations of laws of Nature and Life - that whenever any theory becomes inadequate of these ends, it is our duties to modify it or to abolish it, and to establish new ones, laying the foundation on such principles and organizing the structures in such forms, as to us shall seem most likely to reflect our understanding and knowledge of Nature and Life.

The Ongoing Struggle

We are now engaged in a great war over and within Science and Religion, testing whether they so conceived and so dedicated can be reconciled and advanced. We are also engaged in a silent struggle in Science, testing whether our yearning for truth and our love for mankind can conquer our own shortcomings – close-mindedness, arro- gance, hypocrisy, selfishness, rivalry, comer- cialism and intolerance of alternative views.

Call for Reflection

So, on this day and in this era, it is appropriate that we - scientists, theologians, all other learned scholars – both formally educated and self-learned – and indeed all who love truth and mankind - reflect on the status of Science and Religion and our own moralities and conducts with the great hope of advancing and unifying both so as to better serve the needs and desires of mankind in the new millennium and bring the same into a new era of unprecedented enlightenment and progress.

The Religious Age

Before the advent of Science, various types of Religion were the main sources of knowledge guiding mankind in their struggles of survival and understanding of Nature and Life. And some would say that for a long stretch of time in history mankind was in a dark age.

Scientific Revolutions

Five hundred years ago, a great polymath, jurist and astronomer Copernicus on whose and other giants’ shoulders we stand today, started the scientific revolution. His momentous work, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, came as a great beacon light to Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Maxwell and others who continued and completed the scientific revolution. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of the dark age. However, these great men themselves were all deeply religious. What they had helped mankind to free from was not religious faiths which we all are entitled to have as precious as liberty and as vital as air but erroneous religious dogmas. One hundred fifty years ago, a great naturalist Darwin and a great priest and scientist Mendel on whose paths modern biologists continue their work today, started the modern revolution in biological sciences. Their respective monumental work, On the Origin of Species and Experiments on Plant Hybridization, came as great guiding principles to modern biologists including Watson and Crick and countless others who continued and completed the revolution in biology. Darwin’s work also created an earthquake in Religion greatly shaking the already weakened ties between Science and Religion.

One hundred years ago, a great physicist Planck and another great physicist and Swiss patent clerk Einstein on whose shadow modern physicists stand today, started the modern revolution in physics. Einstein’s momentous work, Special Theory of Relativity, came as a shocking reckoning that there seems no place for spirituality in the universe. At the same time, Planck and Einstein’s respective monumental work on the quanta came as a great jumping board for the quantum leap of Bohr, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac and many others who continued and completed the quantum theory of the modern revolution in physics which seemed to revive spirituality as chance, chaos and probability.

Aftermath of the Revolutions

No doubt that Science has brought mankind unprecedented material wealth and pro- sperity. Yet, the very wealth and prosperity have displaced spirituality from many among us. The very revolutions have created a deep gulf between Science and Region as reflected by increased hostilities and seemingly irreconcilable differences between Science and Religion. The very same revo- lutions have also produced dogmas, arrogance and intolerance of alternative views in Science. On the other hand, it may be said that the enterprises of Religion seem to lack innovations and are unable to cope with or adapt to the new environments.

Thus, after all these revolutions, the modern human is not spiritually enlightened or free. After all the revolutions, the spiritual lives of many among us are sadly crippled by the manacles of mechanical view and the prisons of random chance and chaos. After all the revolutions, we live on a lonely island of stale spirituality in the midst of a vast ocean of material wealth. After all the revolutions, many among us are languishing in the corners of alternative sciences and find themselves scientifically in exiles on their own planet. Indeed, after all the revolutions, the moralities of many among us are degenerating, many among us become selfish, mean-spirited, non-collaborative and too commercial, and some among us even become hypocritical, untruthful and are driven by money, power and fame. So today we dramatize these depressing and shameful conditions.

A Promissory Note

In a sense, all men and women of Science and Religion need now make a promissory note to mankind. A note promises that all of us in Science and Religion shall rise above ourselves and shall work and struggle together for the survival and advancement of mankind, and that all truth-seeking men and women shall be guaranteed the rights of freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard in the pursuit of truth.

It may be said that today some among us in Science and Religion would have defaulted on this promissory note if made earlier. Instead of honoring these obligations, some among us would have given mankind a bad check, a check which would have come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the banks of Science and Religion would be bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there would be insufficient funds in the great vaults of Science and Religion. So all of us in Science and Religion should make good on the promissory note — a note that will in the long run give mankind the riches of knowledge and the security of truth.

Fierce Urgency

Let us remind ourselves the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of silence or to take the tranquilizing drug of innocence. Now is the time to make real progress in Science and Religion. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of mechanical and spiritless material world to the sunlit path of living universe. Now is the time to lift Science and Religion from the quick sands of arrogance, close mindedness, intolerance and hypocrisy to the solid rock of glorious path to truth. Now is the time to make freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard a reality for all truth-seeking men and women.

Warning

It would be fatal for the establishments of Science and Religion to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering heat of many truth-seeking men and women’s discontents will not pass until there is an invigorating atmosphere of freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard in Science and Religion. This is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that we needed to blow off steam and will soon be content will have a rude awakening if the establishments of Science and Religion return to their businesses as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in Science and Religion until all truth-seeking men and women are granted their rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will come to shake the establishments of Science and Religion until the bright day of freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard emerges.

Precaution

There is something else that we must say to all truth-seeking men and women who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the glorious path to truth. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard in the pursuit of truth by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into personal attacks or worse. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting negative forces with positive forces. The marvelous new rebel which shall engulf the establishments of Science and Religion must not lead us to a distrust of all scientists, theologians and priests in the establishments, for many of them, as evidenced by their silence, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their yearning for freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard is inextricably bound to ours. We cannot walk alone.

At this critical moment, we must also ask ourselves the soul searching question: Are we really for truth and the greater benefit of mankind or our self-interests? And do we want to go down in history as hypocrites or truth-seeking men and women? And so, as John F. Kennedy would urge: My fellow seekers of truth: ask not what mankind can do for you but what can you do for mankind.

Demand

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who ask, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as mankind is short-changed by hypocrisy and repression in the establishments of Science and Religion. We can never be satisfied, as long as our intellectual properties, cultivated and harvested with sweat, cannot gain entries into the journals and electronic archives of Science and Region guarded by the establishments. We can never be satisfied as long as young generations of men and women are stripped of their inquiring minds and robbed of their intellectual freedom by signs stating "Establishment Science Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a scientist outside the establishment cannot get his paper published in a peer-reviewed journal and a scientist in the establishment believes he has nothing for which to write. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until freedom and equality roll down like waters and opportunity to be heard like a mighty stream.

Creative Suffering

We are not unmindful that some among us have suffered great trials and tribulations. Some among us are still in the suffocating environment of suppression. Some among us have just left from areas where their quest for truth left them battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of establishment tactics. Some among us have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that un- earned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to your work, go back to your study, go back to your laboratory, go back to your seminary, go back to your place of worship, go back to the backwaters of alter- native science, go back to the forgotten paths of spirituality knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

We have a Dream

We say to you today, fellow scientists, priests, theologians and all truth-seeking men and women, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, we still have a dream in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. It is a dream deeply rooted in the pursuit of truth and the struggle for the survival and advancement of mankind. Let us remember that neither Science nor Religion is above truth.

We have a dream that one day the sacred enterprises of Science and Religion will rise up and live out the true meaning of their creed: spirit of collaboration, cooperation, honesty and tolerance in the pursuit of truth; and freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard for all truth-seeking men and women.

We have a dream that one day in the halls of Science and the towers of Religion scientists, priests and the theologians will be able to sit down together at the table of truth-hood.

We have a dream that one day even a fundamentalist church, sweltering with the heat of religious zeal, sweltering with the heat of anti-science, will be transformed into an oasis pursuing truth.

We have a dream that young generations will one day study in institutions where they will not only learned established sciences but also exposed to alternative scientific views and be judged not by their particular views but by the content of their character.

We have a dream today.

We have a dream that one day, all truth- seekers, men or women, will be treated equally by every institute – university, college, church, seminary or school - on every corner of Earth.

We have a dream today.

We have a dream as that of Martin Luther King, Jr. “that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the [truth] shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope. This is the faith that we go on in the pursuit of truth. With this faith as that of Martin Luther King, Jr. “we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of [Science and Religion] into a beautiful symphony of [truth-hood and scholar -hood].” With this faith we will be able to study together, to work together, to struggle together, to pray together, to stand up for truth and knowledge together, knowing that we will be truly free one day. This will be the day when everyone will be able to sing as Rumi “I am so tipsy here in this world, I have no tale to tell but tipsiness and rapture."

Let Freedom and Knowledge Ring

And if Science and Religion are sacred enterprises of truth this must become true. So let freedom and knowledge ring from the prestigious colleges of Harvard. Let freedom and knowledge ring from the mighty ivory campuses of Yale. Let freedom and knowledge ring from the advanced institutes of Princeton!

Let freedom and knowledge ring from the academic institutes of America!

Let freedom and knowledge ring from the academic institutes of Europe!

Let freedom and knowledge ring from the academic institutes of Asia!

Let freedom and knowledge ring from the academic institutes of Africa!

Let freedom and knowledge ring from the academic institutes of every nation!

Let freedom and knowledge ring from the journals of Science!

But not only that; let freedom and knowledge ring from the journals of Religion!

Let freedom and knowledge ring from every religious institutions of every nation. From every corner of Earth, let freedom and knowledge ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom and knowledge to ring, when we let them ring from every university, every school and every church, from every state and every country, we will be able to speed up that day when Religion and Science of mankind, by mankind, for mankind shall be unified and united.

Tribute and Resolve

And let us now pay tribute to those who have greatly contributed towards the advancement and reconciliation of Science and Religion. But, as Abraham Lincoln would declare, in a larger sense we cannot compose anything proper to honor those heroes. The brave men and women, living and dead, who struggled, have already done so, far above one’s poor power to add or detract. The world may be little notice what we say here, but it can never forget what they have done. It is for rest of us, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored we take increased devotion to the cause for which they have given their full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dedicated shall not have fought in vain, that Science and Religion of mankind, by mankind, for mankind shall have a new birth, and that mankind shall advance and shall not perish from the earth.

Acknowledgement: The layout of this Essay (Cyberspeech) “We Have a Dream” is based on Martin Luther King. Jr.’s speech known as “I Have a Dream.” The Essay is also fused with languages from the Declaration of Independence the chief drafter of which was Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It also contains a modified quote from John F. Kennedy.

JOSEPH MURRAY – NOBEL LAUREATE IN MEDICINE AND PHYSIOLOGY

Nobel Prize: Joseph E. Murray (born 1919) was granted the 1990 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for work that “proved to a doubting world that it was possible to transplant organs to save the lives of dying patients.” Murray was the first to perform kidney transplants. He is one of the founders of modern transplantology.

Nationality: American

Education: M.D., Harvard University, 1943

Occupation: Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School; chief plastic surgeon at Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston

1. In an interview for the National Catholic Register (December 1-7, 1996), Prof. Joseph Murray asserts that there is no conflict between religion and science:

“Is the Church inimical to science? Growing up as a Catholic and a scientist – I don’t see it. One truth is revealed truth, the other is scientific truth. If you really believe that creation is good, there can be no harm in studying science. The more we learn about creation – the way it emerged – it just adds to the glory of God. Personally, I’ve never seen a conflict.” (Murray, as cited in Meyer 1996).

2. “We’re just working with the tools God gave us. There’s no reason that science and religion have to operate in an adversarial relationship. Both come from the same source, the only source of truth – the Creator.” (Murray, as cited in Meyer 1996).

3. In his article “Murray: Surgeon with soul” (Harvard University Gazette, 4 October 2001), John Lenger wrote:

“To Murray, a doctor’s responsibility is to treat each patient as not just a set of symptoms, but as someone with a spirit that can be helped through medical procedures. The title of his autobiography, Surgery of the Soul (Boston Medical Library, 2001), stems from Murray’s spiritually based approach to medicine. Though he has in the past hesitated to talk publicly about his faith, for fear of being lumped in with the televangelist crowd, Murray is deeply religious. ‘Work is a prayer,’ he said, ‘and I start off every morning dedicating it to our Creator. Every day is a prayer – I feel that, and I feel that very strongly.’ ” (Murray, as cited in Lenger 2001).

4. “I think the important thing to realize is how little we know about anything – how flowers unfold, how butterflies migrate. We have to avoid the arrogance of persons on either side of the science-religion divide who feel that they have all the answers. We have to try to use our intellect with humility.” (Murray, as cited in Meyer 1996).

5. “There are a lot of moral problems that my Jesuit training has helped me with. In my own conscience, I’ve never had a conflict between my religious upbringing and my science.” (Murray, as cited in Meyer 1996).

ARTHUR SCHAWLOW – NOBEL LAUREATE IN PHYSICS

Nobel Prize: Arthur Schawlow (1921–1999) co-inventor of the laser, won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy and for his revolutionary work in the spectroscopic analysis of the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter. Schawlow and Charles Townes hold the original patent for the laser; they are the founders of laser science.

Nationality: American

Education: Ph.D. in physics, University of Toronto, Canada, 1949

Occupation: Researcher at Columbia University and Bell Telephone Laboratories, NJ; Professor of Physics at Stanford University

1. Arthur Schawlow described the relationship between religion and science in the following way:

“Religion is founded on faith. It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious. For me that means Protestant Christianity, to which I was introduced as a child and which has withstood the tests of a lifetime.

But the context of religion is a great background for doing science. In the words of Psalm 19, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork’. Thus scientific research is a worshipful act, in that it reveals more of the wonders of God’s creation.” (Schawlow, as cited in Margenau and Varghese, 1997, 105-106; and in Templeton 1994).

2. “We are fortunate to have the Bible, and especially the New Testament, which tells us so much about God in widely accessible human terms.” (Schawlow, as cited in Margenau and Varghese, 1997, 107).

3. “I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life.” (Schawlow, as cited in Margenau and Varghese, 1997, 107).

4. “There are enormously different cults and religious sects, and I think it’s not unreasonable, because I think God – if He’s as wonderful as we believe – is also very complex, and that different people have to see Him differently.

You can’t expect a peasant and a philosopher to have the same picture of God. I think God is big enough to cover them all, even for science writers – they can have their picture of God.” (Schawlow 1998, Chapter I, Part 5).

5. “The imitation of Jesus is the way to save your life, I think. Beyond that I don’t know.” (Schawlow, as cited in Brian 1995, 242).

6. “The world is just so wonderful that I can’t imagine it was just having come by pure chance.” (Schawlow 1998, Chapter I, Part 5).

WALTER KOHN – NOBEL LAUREATE IN CHEMISTRY

Nobel Prize: Walter Kohn (born 1923) won the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the development of the density functional theory, which fundamentally transformed scientists’ approach to the electronic structure of atoms and molecules.

Nationality: Austrian; later American citizen

Education: Ph.D. in physics, Harvard University, 1948

Occupation: Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego (1960-1979); Director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara (1979-1984); Professor of Physics at the UCSB, Santa Barbara (1984-1991); Professor Emeritus of Physics and Research Professor at the UCSB, Santa Barbara (1991-present).

1. In the interview, entitled “Dr. Walter Kohn: Science, Religion, and the Human Experience” (July 26, 2001), Dr. Kohn stated:

“I am Jewish and have a strong identification with Judaism. I would say I see myself as religious simultaneously in two ways. One is that I have found that religion, specifically the Jewish religion, has very much enriched my own life and is something that I have conveyed to my children and feel their lives also have been enriched by.

Secondly, I am very much of a scientist, and so I naturally have thought about religion also through the eyes of a scientist. When I do that, I see religion not denominationally, but in a more, let us say, deistic sense. I have been influenced in my thinking by the writings of Einstein who has made remarks to the effect that when he contemplated the world he sensed an underlying Force much greater than any human force. I feel very much the same. There is a sense of awe, a sense of reverence, and a sense of great mystery.” (Kohn 2001a).

2. To the question, “When you refer to yourself as a deist, I understand deism to mean the belief that some divine force set the universe in motion, but after that it’s basically a hands-off relationship. Is that what you mean by deism?” Dr. Kohn replied:

“It includes that. I see no reason to believe that every once in awhile the laws of nature, that as scientists we study, are suspended by divine intervention. But at the same time I do not see the universe as necessarily proceeding in a simple, totally predictable, mechanistic fashion. There continue to be very deep epistemological questions about the significance of sharp scientific laws like the laws of quantum mechanics and the laws that govern the nature of chaos. Both of these fields have irreversibly shaken the 18th and 19th centuries’ purely deterministic, mechanistic view of the world.

These are my reactions to your question as to how I see deism and your statement - to paraphrase what you said – that the world is set in motion by some divine force and now it runs on its own. I’m trying to say it’s not quite so simple. It’s incredible, one struggles for the right word. One feels awe and reverence for the world of experience and the world of science.

In any case there’s a sense of a world that to an amazing extent yields to our comprehension, but fundamentally remains incomprehensible. And because it is manifestly such a wonderful thing, it leads one – I follow here in Einstein’s footsteps – to sense some Force that can take responsibility and credit for it.” (Kohn 2001a).

3. To the question, “What do you think should be the relationship between science and religion?” Walter Kohn replied: “Mutual respect. They are complementary important parts of the human experience.” (Kohn 2002).

4. And to the inquiry, “What do you think about the existence of God?” Walter Kohn gave the following answer: “There are essential parts of the human experience about which science intrinsically has nothing to say. I associate them with an entity which I call God.” (Kohn 2002).

5. In his lecture Reflections of a Physicist after an Encounter with the Vatican and Pope John Paul II (April 20, 2001, University of California, Santa Barbara) Dr. Kohn said:

“Certainly science, especially physics and chemistry, is a very important part of my identity. But I also consider myself a religious person, and in two senses: one, based on my liberal Jewish upbringing which I have passed on to my children; the other, a kind of non-denominational deism which springs from my awe of the world of our experiences and is heightened by my identity as a scientist. It also includes a conviction that science alone is an insufficient guide to life, leaving many deep questions unanswered and needs unfulfilled.” (Kohn 2001b).

In their Article "Bridge between Science & Religion", Nadeem Haque & Mehran Banaei take "the route of intelligence, rather than that of chance" and suggest "that Qur’an can be used as a guide and motivator to dissolve the artificial boundary between the sacred and the profane, science and divinity, through a natural rapprochement based on the correlation between causality in nature and pristine revelation. Inevitably, such a rapprochement would further set the stage for transforming human thought towards a unitary understanding of the whole purpose of creation and man’s role within the vastness of cosmic order. In fact, anyone imbued with such an outlook would not be searching for a pristine revelation to act as a bridge between science and religion. That which is one, needs no bridge. Indeed, in this vein of reality, it can certainly be proclaimed that science is truly religion and religion truly science."

In his Essay entitled "Chance or Intelligence?", Nadeem Haque argues "that, if our answer to creation by chance is negative, there can only be a unique governing intelligence." He further suggest that this "vast singular intelligence must have created and developed all living and non-living things, as well as particles/energy and time itself."

In his Essay entitled "Did the Buddha Believe in God?", Nadeem Haque argues "that Buddha, contrary to being an atheist or a person who never answered or avoided answering the question of God’s existence, as some of the present day Buddhist sects and most Western and Eastern scholars portray, also believed in One God."

In their Essay entitled "Meaningless or Purposeful?", Nadeem Haque & Mehran Banaei "reflect as to whether there is a purpose behind the Big Bang, and ask such questions as: what role are we to play, if any, in the realm that has evolved afterwards? Did nature evolve from the Big Bang merely for subservience to Man?"

This issue also contain several poems written by Nadeem Haque under the title "The Magic of Existence."

Huping Hu & Maoxin Wu

November 28, 2011

ABDUS SALAM – NOBEL LAUREATE IN PHYSICS

Nobel Prize: Abdus Salam (1926-1996) was awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in electroweak theory, which explains the unity of the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism; this theory is the latest stage in the effort to provide a unified description of the four fundamental forces of nature.

Nationality: Pakistani

Education: Ph.D. in mathematics and physics, Cambridge University, 1952

Occupation: Professor of Theoretical Physics at London University and Punjab University (Pakistan); Director of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste (Italy) since 1964

1. Abdus Salam concludes his address ‘Poor as a Nation’ with the words: “Our society is inflicted with menaces like mountains. Try to remove them from your surroundings with patience. God will have mercy on you one day. Do not be afraid if your endeavours don’t bear fruit, but keep on doing your job and God will indeed bless your efforts.” (Salam 1990).

2. In an interview for the New Scientist (August 26, 1976) Abdus Salam says: “Every human being needs religion, as Jung has so firmly argued; this deeper religious feeling is one of the primary urges of mankind.” (Salam 1976).

3. In physics, Prof. Salam has mostly been involved with the problem of symmetries; he explains his interest in the following way:

“That may come from my Islamic heritage; for that is the way we consider the universe created by God, with ideas of beauty and symmetry and harmony, with regularity and without chaos.

We are trying to discover what the Lord thought; of course we miserably fail most of the time, but sometimes there is great satisfaction in seeing a little bit of the truth.” (Salam 1976; New Scientist).

4. In his article Science and Religion Prof. Salam wrote:

“Einstein was born into an Abrahamic faith; in his own view, he was deeply religious.

Now this sense of wonder leads most scientists to a Superior Being – der Alte, the Old One, as Einstein affectionately called the Deity – a Superior Intelligence, the Lord of all Creation and Natural Law.” (Salam, as cited in Lai and Kidwai 1989, 285).

WERNER HEISENBERG – NOBEL LAUREATE IN PHYSICS

Nobel Prize: Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen.” In 1927 Heisenberg published the famous principle of uncertainty (indeterminacy) that bears his name.

Nationality: German.

Education: Ph.D. in physics, University of Munich, Germany, 1923; Dr. Phil. Habil., University of Goettingen, Germany, 1924.

Occupation: Professor of Physics at the Universities of Copenhagen (Denmark), Leipzig, Berlin, Goettingen, and Munich.

1. “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” [“Der erste Trunk aus dem Becher der Naturwissenschaft macht atheistisch, aber auf dem Grund des Bechers wartet Gott.”] (Heisenberg, as cited in Hildebrand 1988, 10).

2. In his autobiographical article in the journal Truth, Henry Margenau (Professor Emeritus of Physics and Natural Philosophy at Yale University) pointed out: “I have said nothing about the years between 1936 and 1950. There were, however, a few experiences I cannot forget. One was my first meeting with Heisenberg, who came to America soon after the end of the Second World War. Our conversation was intimate and he impressed me by his deep religious conviction. He was a true Christian in every sense of that word.” (Margenau 1985, Vol. 1).

3. In his article Scientific and Religious Truth (1973) Heisenberg affirmed:

“In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly been claimed that scientific truth cannot be reconciled with the religious interpretation of the world. Although I am now convinced that scientific truth is unassailable in its own field, I have never found it possible to dismiss the content of religious thinking as simply part of an outmoded phase in the consciousness of mankind, a part we shall have to give up from now on. Thus in the course of my life I have repeatedly been compelled to ponder on the relationship of these two regions of thought, for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to which they point.” (Heisenberg 1974, 213).

4. “Where no guiding ideals are left to point the way, the scale of values disappears and with it the meaning of our deeds and sufferings, and at the end can lie only negation and despair.

Religion is therefore the foundation of ethics, and ethics the presupposition of life.” (Heisenberg 1974, 219).

5. Einstein believed in strict causality till the end of his life. In his last surviving letter to Einstein, Heisenberg writes that while in the new quantum mechanics Einstein’s beloved causality principle is baseless, “We can console ourselves that the good Lord God would know the position of the particles, and thus He could let the causality principle continue to have validity.” (Heisenberg, as cited in Holton 2000, vol. 53).

See also Heisenberg’s articles:

- Heisenberg, Werner. 1970. “Erste Gespraeche ueber das Verhaeltnis von Naturwissenschaft und Religion (1927).” Werner Trutwin, ed. Religion-Wissenschaft-Weltbild. Duesseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, pp. 23-31. (Theologisches Forum. Texte fuer den Religionsunterricht 4.)

- Heisenberg, Werner. 1973. “Naturwissenschaftliche und religioese Wahrheit.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24 Maerz, pp. 7-8. (Speech before the Catholic Academy of Bavaria, on acceptance of the Guardini Prize, 23 March 1973).

- Heisenberg, Werner. 1968. “Religion und Naturwissenschaft.” Bayer, Leverkusen. Sofort-Kongress-Dienst 24, 1-2.

- Heisenberg, Werner. 1969. “Kein Chaos, aus dem nicht wieder Ordnung wuerde. Drei Atomphysiker diskutieren ueber Positivismus, Metaphysik und Religion.” Die Zeit 24, No. 34, 29-30.

ERNST HAECKEL (1834-1919), German biologist, the most influential evolutionist in continental Europe

1. In his major philosophical work Monism as Connecting Religion and Science: The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science (1892) the pantheistic monist Ernst Haeckel wrote:

“The monistic idea of God, which alone is compatible with our present knowledge of nature, recognises the Divine spirit in all things.

God is everywhere. As Giordano Bruno has it: ‘There is one Spirit in all things, and no body is so small that it does not contain a part of the Divine substance whereby it is animated’.” (Haeckel 1895, 78).

2. “Of the various systems of pantheism which for long have given expression more or less clearly to the monistic conception of God, the most perfect is certainly that of Spinoza.” (Haeckel 1895, 79).

3. “Ever more clearly are we compelled by reflection to recognise that God is not to be placed over against the material world as an external being, but must be placed as a ‘Divine power’ or ‘moving Spirit’ within the cosmos itself.” (Haeckel 1895, 15).

4. “The charge of atheism which still continues to be levelled against our pantheism, and against the monism which lies at its root, no longer finds a response among the really educated classes of the present day.” (Haeckel 1895, 80-81).

5. “I conclude my monistic Confession of Faith with the words: ‘May God, the Spirit of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, be with us’.” (Haeckel 1895, 89).

WERNHER VON BRAUN (1912-1977), rocket engineer, founder of Astronautics

1. “The two most powerful forces shaping our civilization today are science and religion. Through science man strives to learn more of the mysteries of creation. Through religion he seeks to know the creator.

Neither operates independently. It is as difficult for me to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.

Far from being independent or opposing forces, science and religion are sisters. Both seek a better world. While science seeks control over the forces of nature around us, religion controls the forces of nature within us.” (von Braun 1963, 2).

2. “For me the idea of a creation is inconceivable without God. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be a divine intent behind it all.

Some evolutionists believe that the creation is the result of a random arrangement of atoms and molecules over billions of years. But when they consider the development of the human brain by random processes within a time span of less than a million years, they have to admit that this span is just not long enough. Or take the evolution of the eye in the animal world. What random process could possibly explain the simultaneous evolution of the eye’s optical system, the conductors of the optical signals from the eye to the brain, and the optical nerve center in the brain itself where the incoming light impulses are converted to an image the conscious mind can comprehend?” (von Braun, as cited in Hill 1976, xi).

3. In the foreword to the book From Goo to You by Way of the Zoo (1976), Wernher von Braun wrote about Jesus Christ:

“We should not be dismayed by the relative insignificance of our own planet in the vast universe as modern science now sees it. In fact God deliberately reduced Himself to the stature of humanity in order to visit the earth in person, because the cumulative effect over the centuries of millions of individuals choosing to please themselves rather than God had infected the whole planet. When God became a man Himself, the experience proved to be nothing short of pure agony. In man’s time-honored fashion, they would unleash the whole arsenal of weapons against Him: misrepresentation, slander, and accusation of treason. The stage was set for a situation without parallel in the history of the earth. God would visit creatures and they would nail Him to the cross!” (von Braun, as cited in Hill 1976, xi).

4. “Finite man cannot comprehend an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and infinite God. Any effort to visualize God, to reduce him to our comprehension, to describe him in our language, beggars his greatness.

I find it best through faith to accept God as an intelligent will, perfect in goodness, revealing himself in the world of experience more fully down through the ages, as man’s capacity for understanding grows.

For spiritual comfort I find assurance in the concept of the fatherhood of God. For ethical guidance I rely on the corollary concept of the brotherhood of man.

Scientists now believe that in nature, matter is never destroyed. Not even the tiniest particle can disappear without a trace. Nature does not know extinction – only transformation. Would God have less regard for his masterpiece of creation, the human soul?” (von Braun 1963, 2).

5. “Certainly there are those who argue that the universe evolved out of a random process, but what random process could produce the brain of a man or the system of the human eye?” (von Braun 1972).

JOHN ECCLES – NOBEL LAUREATE IN MEDICINE AND PHYSIOLOGY

Nobel Prize: Sir John Eccles (1903–1997) received the 1963 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for establishing the relationship between inhibition of nerve cells and repolarization of a cell’s membrane. Eccles’ other significant contributions were primarily in the area of brain research. Eccles is one of the greatest neurophysiologists of the XXth century; he is one of the founders of modern electrophysiology.

Nationality: Australian; later British and American resident

Education: M.A. and Ph.D., Oxford University, 1929

Occupation: Professor of Physiology at Oxford University, Australian National University (Canberra), State University of NY, etc.

1. In his article “Modern Biology and the Turn to Belief in God” that he wrote for the book, The Intellectuals Speak Out About God: A Handbook for the Christian Student in a Secular Society (1984), John Eccles came to the following conclusion:

“Science and religion are very much alike. Both are imaginative and creative aspects of the human mind. The appearance of a conflict is a result of ignorance.

We come to exist through a divine act. That divine guidance is a theme throughout our life; at our death the brain goes, but that divine guidance and love continues. Each of us is a unique, conscious being, a divine creation. It is the religious view. It is the only view consistent with all the evidence.” (Eccles 1984, 50).

2. In an interview published in the scientific anthology, The Voice of Genius (1995), Prof. Eccles stated:

“There is a fundamental mystery in my personal existence, transcending the biological account of the development of my body and my brain. That belief, of course, is in keeping with the religious concept of the soul and with its special creation by God.” (Eccles, as cited in Brian 1995, 371).

3. “I am constrained to attribute the uniqueness of the Self or Soul to a supernatural spiritual creation. To give the explanation in theological terms: each Soul is a new Divine creation which is implanted into the growing foetus at some time between conception and birth.” (Eccles 1991, 237).

4. In The Human Mystery, Eccles writes: “I believe that there is a Divine Providence operating over and above the materialist happenings of biological evolution.” (Eccles 1979, 235).

5. “If I consider reality as I experience it, the primary experience I have is of my own existence as a unique self-conscious being which I believe is God-created.” (Eccles, as cited in Margenau and Varghese 1997, 161).

6. Eccles described the so-called ‘promissory materialism’ thus:

“There has been a regrettable tendency of many scientists to claim that science is so powerful and all pervasive that in the not too distant future it will provide an explanation in principle for all phenomena in the world of nature, including man, even of human consciousness in all its manifestations. In our recent book (The Self and Its Brain, Popper and Eccles, 1977) Popper has labelled this claim as promissory materialism, which is extravagant and unfulfillable.

Yet on account of the high regard for science, it has great persuasive power with the intelligent laity because it is advocated unthinkingly by the great mass of scientists who have not critically evaluated the dangers of this false and arrogant claim.” (Eccles 1979, p. I).

7. With respect to ‘promissory materialism’, in his book How the Self Controls Its Brain (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1994), Eccles wrote:

“I regard this theory as being without foundation. The more we discover scientifically about the brain the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena and the more wonderful do the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a superstition held by dogmatic materialists. It has all the features of a Messianic prophecy, with the promise of a future freed of all problems - a kind of Nirvana for our unfortunate successors.” (Eccles 1994).

8. In his book Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self (London: Routledge, 1991), Eccles wrote:

“I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition.

We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.” (Eccles 1991, 241).

9. “Since materialist solutions fail to account for our experienced uniqueness, I am constrained to attribute the uniqueness of the self or soul to a supernatural spiritual creation.

This conclusion is of inestimable theological significance. It strongly reinforces our belief in the human soul and in its miraculous origin in a divine creation.” (Eccles 1994, 168).

10. “As a dualist I believe in the reality of the world of mind or spirit as well as in the reality of the material world. Furthermore I am a finalist in the sense of believing that there is some Design in the processes of biological evolution that has eventually led to us self-conscious beings with our unique individuality; and we are able to contemplate and we can attempt to understand the grandeur and wonder of nature.” (Eccles 1979, 9).

Eccles’ teacher, the Nobelist in neurophysiology Sir Charles Sherrington, too, is a dualist; Sherrington maintains that our nonmaterial mind is fundamentally different from our physical body. Sherrington believes in an almighty Deity and Natural Religion. (See Charles Sherrington, Man on His Nature. The Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology, Cambridge University Press, 1975, 59 and 293). There are many other Nobel scientists, who have explored thoroughly the mind-body problem, and who are staunch dualists: George Wald, Nevill Mott, M. Planck, E. Schroedinger, Brian D. Josephson, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, Roger Sperry, Albert Szent-Gyoergyi, Walter R. Hess, Henri Bergson, Alexis Carrel, etc. (See Margenau and Varghese 1997, ‘Cosmos, Bios, Theos’; see also Popper and Eccles 1977, The Self and Its Brain).

See the chapters on George Wald, Nevill Mott, M. Planck, and E. Schroedinger in this book.

11. In his article “Scientists in Search of the Soul” (Science Digest, 1982), the science writer John Gliedman pointed out:

“Eccles strongly defends the ancient religious belief that human beings consist of a mysterious compound of physical body and intangible spirit. Each of us embodies a nonmaterial thinking and perceiving self that ‘entered’ our physical brain sometime during embryological development or very early childhood, says the man who helped lay the cornerstones of modern neurophysiology. This ‘ghost in the machine’ is responsible for everything that makes us distinctly human: conscious self-awareness, free will, personal identity, creativity and even emotions such as love, fear, and hate. Our nonmaterial self controls its “liaison brain” the way a driver steers a car or a programmer directs a computer. Man’s ghostly spiritual presence, says Eccles, exerts just the whisper of a physical influence on the computerlike brain, enough to encourage some neurons to fire and others to remain silent. Boldly advancing what for most scientists is the greatest heresy of all, Eccles also asserts that our nonmaterial self survives the death of the physical brain.” (Gliedman 1982, 77).

12. “We can regard the death of the body and brain as dissolution of our dualist existence. Hopefully, the liberated soul will find another future of even deeper meaning and more entrancing experiences, perhaps in some renewed embodied existence in accord with traditional Christian teaching.” (Eccles 1991, 242).

13. “I do believe that we are the product of the creativity of what we call God. I hope that this life will lead to some future existence where my self or soul will have another existence, with another brain, or computer if you like. I don’t know how I got this one, it’s a pretty good one, and I’m grateful for it, but I do know as a realist that it will disappear.

But I think my conscious self or soul will come through.” (Eccles, as cited in Gilling and Brightwell, The Human Brain, 1982, 180).

14. In his book The Human Mystery, Sir John Eccles said: “The amazing success of the theory of evolution has protected it from significant critical evaluation in recent times. However it fails in a most important respect. It cannot account for the existence of each one of us as unique, self-conscious beings.” (Eccles 1979, 96).

15. Sir John Eccles maintains that the will of the human beings is free, and that’s why he denies the so-called physical determinism: “If physical determinism is true, then that is the end of all discussion or argument; everything is finished. There is no philosophy. All human persons are caught up in this inexorable web of circumstances and cannot break out of it. Everything that we think we are doing is an illusion.” (See Popper and Eccles, 1977, 546).

16. “With self-conscious purpose a person has a great challenge in choosing what life to live.

One can choose to live dedicated to the highest values, truth, love, and beauty, with gratitude for the divine gift of life with its wonderful opportunities of participating in human culture. One can do this in accord with opportunities. For example, one of the highest achievements is to create a human family living in a loving relationship. I was brought up religiously under such wonderful conditions, for which I can be eternally grateful. There are great opportunities in a life dedicated to education or science or art or to the care of the sick. Always one should try to be in a loving relationship with one’s associates. We are all fellow beings mysteriously living on this wonderful spaceship planet Earth that we should cherish devotedly, but not worship.” (Eccles, as cited in Templeton 1994, 131).

17. In his letter to Erika Erdmann (December 19, 1990), Eccles said:

“You refer to protection of our Earth as the most urgent goal at present. I disagree. It is to save mankind from materialist degradation. It comes in the media, in the consumer society, in overriding quest for power and money, in the degradation of our values (that used to be thought as based on love, truth, and beauty), and in the disintegration of the human family.” (Eccles 1990).

18. “I repudiate philosophies and political systems which recognize human beings as mere things with a material existence of value only as cogs in the great bureaucratic machine of the state, which thus becomes a slave state. The terrible and cynical slaveries depicted in Orwell’s ‘1984’ are engulfing more and more of our planet.

Is there yet time to rebuild a philosophy and a religion that can give us a renewed faith in this great spiritual adventure, which for each of us is a human life lived in freedom and dignity?” (Eccles 1979, 237).