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THOMAS H. HUXLEY (1825-1895), English biologist and evolutionist, famous as “Darwin’s bulldog”
1. In his article Science and Morals (1886), Huxley stated:
“The student of nature, who starts from the axiom of the universality of the law of causation, cannot refuse to admit an eternal existence; if he admits the conservation of energy, he cannot deny the possibility of an eternal energy; if he admits the existence of immaterial phenomena in the form of consciousness, he must admit the possibility, at any rate, of an eternal series of such phenomena; and, if his studies have not been barren of the best fruit of the investigation of nature, he will have enough sense to see that when Spinoza says, ‘Per Deum intelligo ens absolute infinitum, hoc est substantiam constantem infinitis attributis,’ the God so conceived is one that only a very great fool would deny, even in his heart. Physical science is as little Atheistic as it is Materialistic.” (Huxley 1893-94, Collected Essays, Vol. IX, p. 140).
2. “The more I know intimately of the lives of other men (to say nothing of my own), the more obvious it is to me that the wicked does not flourish nor is the righteous punished. But for this to be clear we must bear in mind what almost all forget, that the rewards of life are contingent upon obedience to the whole law – physical as well as moral – and that moral obedience will not atone for physical sin, or vice versa.
The ledger of the Almighty is strictly kept, and every one of us has the balance of his operations paid over to him at the end of every minute of his existence.” (Huxley 1903, Vol. I, Ch. 1.16).
"In a letter to Kingsley, Huxley said that he believed in 'the Divine Government' of the universe." (Goudge 1967, Vol. IV, p. 103).
3. In “On Providence” (An Apologetic Irenicon, 1892), Huxley wrote:
“If the doctrine of a Providence is to be taken as the expression, in a way ‘to be understanded of the people,’ of the total exclusion of chance from a place even in the most insignificant corner of Nature; if it means the strong conviction that the cosmic process is rational; and the faith that, throughout all duration, unbroken order has reigned in the universe – I not only accept it, but I am disposed to think it the most important of all truths. As it is of more consequence for a citizen to know the law than to be personally acquainted with the features of those who will surely carry it into effect, so this very positive doctrine of Providence, in the sense defined, seems to me far more important than all the theorems of speculative theology.” (Huxley 1903, Vol. III, Ch. 3.9; see also Coley & Hall 1980, 33).
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.
ERWIN SCHROEDINGER – NOBEL LAUREATE IN PHYSICS
Nobel Prize: Erwin Schroedinger (1887–1961) was granted the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory.” Schroedinger also contributed to the wave theory of matter and to other fundamentals of quantum mechanics. He is the founder of wave mechanics.
Nationality: Austrian
Education: Ph.D. in physics, University of Vienna, Austria, 1910
Occupation: Professor of Physics at the Universities of Stuttgart, Jena, Berlin, Zurich, Oxford, and Vienna
1. Schroedinger claims that science is a creative game with rules, which are designed by God himself:
“Science is a game – but a game with reality, a game with sharpened knives.
If a man cuts a picture carefully into 1000 pieces, you solve the puzzle when you reassemble the pieces into a picture; in the success or failure, both your intelligences compete.
In the presentation of a scientific problem, the other player is the good Lord. He has not only set the problem but also has devised the rules of the game – but they are not completely known, half of them are left for you to discover or to deduce.
The uncertainty is how many of the rules God himself has permanently ordained, and how many apparently are caused by your own mental inertia, while the solution generally becomes possible only through freedom from its limitations. This is perhaps the most exciting thing in the game.” (Schroedinger, as cited in Moore 1990, 348).
2. “I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity.
Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.” (Schroedinger 1954, 93).
3. Schroedinger emphatically denies the claim of some theists that the essence of science is atheistic:
“I shall quite briefly mention here the notorious atheism of science. The theists reproach it for this again and again. Unjustly. A personal God can not be encountered in a world picture that becomes accessible only at the price that everything personal is excluded from it.
We know that whenever God is experienced, it is an experience exactly as real as a direct sense impression, as real as one’s own personality. As such He must be missing from the space-time picture. ‘I do not meet with God in space and time’, so says the honest scientific thinker, and for that reason he is reproached by those in whose catechism it is nevertheless stated: ‘God is Spirit’.” (Schroedinger, as cited in Moore 1990, 379; see also Schroedinger’s Mind and Matter, Cambridge University Press, 1958, p. 68).
4. Schroedinger maintains that the human technical inventions have caused a deterioration in Nature:
“The grave error in a technically directed cultural drive is that it sees its highest goal in the possibility of achieving an alteration of Nature. It hopes to set itself in the place of God, so that it may force upon the divine will some petty conventions of its dust-born mind.” (Schroedinger, as cited in Moore 1990, 349).
5. In his book Nature and the Greeks Schroedinger states:
“Whence came I, whither go I? Science cannot tell us a word about why music delights us, of why and how an old song can move us to tears.
Science is reticent too when it is a question of the great Unity – the One of Parmenides – of which we all somehow form part, to which we belong. The most popular name for it in our time is God – with a capital ‘G’.
Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.” (Schroedinger 1954, 95-96).
6. Walter Moore (Professor Emeritus of Physical Chemistry at the University of Sydney, Australia) writes that Schroedinger’s best loved quotation from the Vedas is this:
“Who sees the Lord dwelling alike in all beings
Perishing not as they perish
He sees indeed. For, when he sees the Lord
Dwelling in everything, he harms not self by self.
This is the highest way.”
(Walter Moore, Schroedinger: Life and Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1990, 349).
Regarding this verse Schroedinger says: “These beautiful words need no commentary. Here mercy and goodness towards all living things (not merely fellow human beings) are glorified as the highest attainable goal – almost in the sense of Albert Schweitzer’s reverence for life.” (Schroedinger, as cited in Moore 1990, 349 and 477).
7. Schroedinger denies Materialism (i.e. the theory that matter is the only reality). Schroedinger affirms that human consciousness is absolutely different from the material bodily processes: “Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.” (Schroedinger 1984, 334).
8. “Now I shall not keep free of metaphysics, nor even of mysticism; they play a role in all that follows.
We living beings all belong to one another, we are all actually members or aspects of a single Being, which we may in western terminology call God, while in the Upanishads it is called Brahman.” (Schroedinger, as cited in Moore 1990, 477).
In his book Mind and Matter Schroedinger writes: “One thing can be claimed in favour of the mystical teaching of the ‘identity’ of all minds with each other and with the Supreme Mind – as against the fearful monadology of Leibniz. The doctrine of identity can claim that it is clinched by the empirical fact that consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular. Not only has none of us experienced more than one consciousness, but there is also no trace of circumstantial evidence of this ever happening anywhere in the world. If I say that there cannot be more than one consciousness in the same mind, this seems to be blunt tautology – we are quite unable to imagine the contrary.” (Schroedinger 1958).
9. The science writer Ken Wilber states: “My book Quantum Questions centered on the remarkable fact that virtually every one of the great pioneers of modern physics - men like Einstein, Schroedinger and Heisenberg - were spiritual mystics of one sort or another, an altogether extraordinary situation. The hardest of the sciences, physics, had run smack into the tenderest of religions, mysticism. Why? And what exactly was mysticism, anyway?
So I collected the writings of Einstein, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Louis de Broglie, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Sir Arthur Eddington, and Sir James Jeans. The scientific genius of these men is beyond dispute (all but two were Nobel laureates); what is so amazing, as I said, is that they all shared a profoundly spiritual or mystical worldview, which is perhaps the last thing one would expect from pioneering scientists.” (Wilber 1998, 16).
See Schroedinger’s books:
- My View of the World. Cambridge University Press, 1964.
- Mind and Matter. Cambridge University Press, 1958.
- What Is Life? New York: Doubleday, 1956.
9. ALBERT SCHWEITZER, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
In Reverence for Life Schweitzer stated: “To hope, to keep silent, and to work alone - that is what we must learn to do if we really want to labor in the true spirit. But what exactly does it involve, this plowing? The plowman does not pull the plow. He does not push it. He only directs it. That is just how events move in our lives. We can do nothing but guide them straight in the direction which leads to our Lord Jesus Christ, striving toward him in all we do and experience. Strive toward him, and the furrow will plow itself.” (Schweitzer 1969, 47).
10. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“If there is any place on earth where earthly distinctions vanish it is in the church, in the presence of God. The nearer the people get to the heart of Christ, the nearer they get to each other, irrespective of earthly conditions.” (Theodore Roosevelt, The Free Citizen, New York, The Macmillan Company, Hermann Hagedorn - editor, 1956, p. 31).
11. FREDERIK DE KLERK, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“Christians should forgive one another because this is the command of the Lord and the precondition that He sets for our own forgiveness.
Ultimately, however, in our relationship with God, our sins can be forgiven only through the sacrifice and intercession of His Son, Jesus Christ. This, in its deepest sense, is the meaning of forgiveness and reconciliation and it leads not necessarily to peace in this world, but to the peace that passes all understanding.” (de Klerk 1997).
12. JOHN R. MOTT, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“The Scriptures clearly teach that if men are to be saved they must be saved through Christ. He alone can deliver them from the power of sin and its penalty. His death made salvation possible.
The Word of God sets forth the conditions of salvation. God has chosen to have these conditions made known through human instruments. Christians have a duty to preach Christ to every creature. The burning question for every Christian then is: Shall hundreds of millions of people now living, who need Christ and are capable of receiving help from Him, pass away without having even the opportunity to know Him?” (Mott, as cited in DuBose 1979).
“It is our duty to evangelize the world because we owe all men the gospel.
What a crime against mankind to keep a knowledge of the mission of Christ from two thirds of the human race! It is our duty to evangelize the world in this generation because of the missionary command of Christ.” (John R. Mott 1944).
13. KIM DAE-JUNG, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“Love of God does not mean we must love Him first. Rather, He loved us first, creating the world and leaving it in our care, sending His only son to us to spread the gospel, and, finally, opening the way for us to deliver ourselves from sin through the crucifixion of His innocent son, Jesus. Through Jesus’ resurrection, God gave us hope for eternal life.” (Kim Dae-jung, Prison Writings, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).
14. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“We believe firmly in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
If one is truly devoted to the religion of Jesus he will seek to rid the earth of social evils. The gospel is social as well as personal.” (King, as cited in Oates 1982, 81-82).
15. JIMMY CARTER, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“Being born again is a new life, not of perfection but of striving, stretching, and searching - a life of intimacy with God through Holy Spirit. There must first be an emptying, and then a refilling. To the extent that we want to know, understand, and experience God, we can find all this in Jesus. It is a highly personal and subjective experience, possible only if we are searching for greater truths about ourselves and God.” (Carter 1998, 20-21).
16. SPINOZA, Dutch-Jewish philosopher, the chief exponent of modern rationalism Spinoza looked on Jesus Christ as a man of transcendent moral genius, standing out above Moses and the prophets. Spinoza looked on Jesus as a Son of God, but not as a God. In discussing the nature of prophetic vision he wrote: “I believe not that any man ever came to that singular height of perfection but Christ, to whom the ordinances of God that lead men to salvation were revealed, not in words or visions, but immediately: so that God manifested himself to the apostles by the mind of Christ, as formerly to Moses by means of a voice in the air. And therefore the voice of Christ may be called, like that which Moses heard, the voice of God. In this sense we may likewise say that the wisdom of God, that is, a wisdom above man’s, took man’s nature in Christ, and that Christ is the way of salvation.” (Spinoza, as cited in Frederick Pollock, Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy, Adamant Media Corporation, Boston, 2000, 352).
17. BLAISE PASCAL, founder of Hydrostatics and Hydrodynamics
“Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.” (Pascal 1910, No. 528).
“Without Jesus Christ man must be in vice and misery; with Jesus Christ man is free from vice and misery; in Him is all our virtue and all our happiness. Apart from Him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death, despair.” (Pascal 1910, No. 545-546).
