Omega Vol8 No1 June2009

OMEGA INDIAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION Vol.8 No.1 June 2009 S I S E H T N Y S N I S I H T U R T Institute of Science and Religion Little Flower Seminary, Aluva - 683 101, Kerala, India. Phone : 0484 2623437, 2626204 E-mail : [email protected] URL: www.lfseminary.org/htm/omega.htm Contents The Editorial 3 The Editorial Articles Is Explaining Religion Naturalistically Explaining Religion Away? The relation between science and religion has become a major Willem B. Drees 7 concern of contemporary intellectuals, especially, systematic theologians, philosophers of science, philosophers of religion, etc. There are many Ernst Cassirer and Susanne Langer on Meaning Conflation elements in this engagement; but, a significant aspect that interests us in in Symbolic Thought this volume is one that is concerned with the question of knowledge. It Paul Cortois 24 will not be an overstatement, I trust, if one announces that science- Dialogue between Psychology and Religion for an religion interrelations have enhanced the human rationality with a new Adequate Representation of the Human Self synthetic perspective: a science-religion perspective. An elastic Dolichan K. M. 49 epistemology is slowly emerging in the global academia. Focus of attention is increasingly getting shifted from own point of view to a view of Ever Approachable, Never Attainable: Scientific and different points. Academicians are gently pressed to re-envision their Philosophical Reflections on the Human Person epistemological enterprises more in terms of the common human Kuruvilla Pandikattu 63 dimensions of the issues at stake than in terms of their field-specific and Christianity and Modern Science in the West: An Overview domain-bound methods. The traditional domains of science and religion Nancey Murphy 81 are re-surveyed in light of new awareness gained in the course of a mutual fecundation between scientific and theological opinions. Soul- Ecosophical Readings of Buddhism: Lessons for Mankind talk, to cite just one example, is not only a usual item in the theological M. Ramakrishnan 102 circles but a hot issue in scientific field as well. Religion and Politics in Ancient India: Reflections on Arthasæaçstra The set of articles embodied in this volume is multi-disciplinary, Lenin C.C. 111 covering contributions from theology, philosophy, psychology, ecosophy, The Indian Epistemic Equilibrium: etc. Although embedded in different disciplines, all articles in this volume A Catalytic Paradigm for Global Science-Religion Dialogue seem to assume a science-religion perspective. While the first four Augustine Pamplany 124 articles presume a science-religion dialogue that is already underway, the remaining four engage in some ground-making researches in reference Review Article to particular religio-philosophical traditions. The Meaning of Life In the first article in this volume Willem B. Drees poses a very K. Babu Joseph 143 significant question in the field of science-religion dialogue: “Is Explaining Religion Naturalistically Explaining Religion Away?” First of all, Drees analyses the question rather thoroughly and in that light sub-divides his Two articles in this volume focus on the human reality: Dolichan work into a preliminary discussion on the phenomena of ‘explanation’ K. M’s “Dialogue between Psychology and Religion for an Adequate and ‘religion’ before he begins to explore the meaning of naturalistic Representation of the Human-self” and Kuruvilla Pandikattu’s “Ever explanation of religion. He argues that explanation need not always be Approachable, Never Attainable: Scientific and Philosophical Reflections eliminative and that it can be affirmative as well. What is explained is on the Human Person.” For an adequate understanding of human self, religion, not God. Religion, for him, is a human phenomenon; it has to do Dolichan K. M proposes a dialogue between modern psychology and with human belief in God. Now, the point is that religion explains itself in ancient religions. In his view, self-construal in psychology as well as in terms of what it believes in, namely divine revelation, whereas naturalistic religion is not comprehensive enough. Nevertheless, each of these approaches to the nature of human reality can be justified with the support explanation does it without any external reference to God. What makes of field-specific arguments. Indeed, there are no inner-disciplinary reasons the difference between the religious and the naturalist explanations of why psychology must be brought into dialogue with religions. From religion is the concept of explanation that underlies each of them. different methodical approaches (presently, psychology and religion) to Interpretations of religion quarrel among one another because interpreters the human reality, Dolichan, then, re-directs our attention to the reality lack concepts that are as comprehensive as the interpretaments. The of each individual person. When perceived from the angle of human complex, pervasive phenomenon of religion needs equally comprehensive person who experiences himself/herself as an integral whole, both the conceptual frames. Does any religion or any explanatory theory have psychological self-construal as an empirical self and the religious self- such comprehensive concepts in its stock? Perhaps, one needs to field construal as a transcendental self seem to be equally partial. Psychology them from the emerging field of science-religion. The second article in and religions may not need each other, but a human person needs them this volume takes us further in this line. If religious phenomenon was the both to understand him/her more holistically. In Kuruvilla Pandikattu’s topic of the previous essay, Paul Cortois, in his “Ernst Cassirer and view, human life is an ambiguous project; and hence in order to make Susanne Langer on Meaning Conflation in Symbolic Thought” addresses sense of human life, philosophers and theologians need to be informed the issues surrounding the effort to adequately explain meaningful cultural by and borrow metaphors from science. He examines scientific concepts phenomena. We often lack a unified view of our experience and culture. such as seven (colours), five (senses), three (dimensions), one (time), Philosophy of symbolism better interprets cultural experience than the and the zero, and suggests that these concepts point primarily to the analytical and the continental schools of thought do. As Cortois rightly ‘ever approachable and never attainable’ nature of the universe, and observes, Analytical studies require from its practitioners a great expertise analogously to the human nature. in technicalities, while Continental practice seems rather obscure due to The last four articles in this volume examine science-religion its frequent use of closed pseudo-technical jargons. Cortois’ commendable intersections in three different religio-cultural traditions. Nancey Murphy ambition is to bridge the two philosophical styles with a philosophy of deals with the western protestant Christianity; M. Ramakrishnan explores symbolism for which he turns first to Cassirer and Langer and then to the Buddhist philosophical tradition; and, Lenin C. C. and Augustine his own intuition to ‘the logic of participation’ or ‘meaning conflation.’ Pamplany the ancient Indian (Hindu) tradition. Murphy’s contribution in The formal pattern of meaning of our experience and the expressional this volume, “Christianity and Modern Science in the West: An Overview,” aspect of the same experience are in fact inclusive of each other. The is noteworthy in many respects: first of all, her elaborate overview of symbolic expression of our religious or cultural experience can neither the science-religion dialogue in the protestant Christianity in the West be objectified completely nor can its meaning be distinguished from that compliments George Coyne’s similar article (See, Omega, June 2008.) of the original experience. If meaning conflation is thus a fact, then on the current situation of the science-theology interactions in the western systematics in the field of philosophy and theology needs to develop new Catholic tradition; secondly, she makes a historical exposition of the origin categories. of the Western science; and finally, and more importantly, she identifies five major theological issues in the field of science-religion dialogue 4Omega June 2009 5 (divine action, evolution, concept of person, doctrine of creation, and Omega the problem of evil). As said at the beginning, in recent decades thinkers VIII (2009)1, 7-23 are compelled to redesign their epistemological engagements in terms of guiding issues common to all humans. By identifying and assessing some such issues from a synthetic perspective, Murphy has done a pioneering work in the emerging epistemological field. Ramakrishnan on his part offers a brief reconstructive hermeneutic of the basics of Buddhist philosophy. He argues that the ancient Buddhist texts are to be re-read with the contemporary environmental issues in mind, and he hopes that the Buddhist tradition which could once successfully re-direct the human Is Explaining Religion Naturalistically spirit to its cosmic abode can once again cure the ills caused by our alienation from the nature. In the next paper in the series, Lenin makes Explaining Religion Away? a critical survey of Kautilya’s Arthaúâstra with the place of religion in politics in view. Kautilya, in Lenin’s view, kept religion away from his 1 political theorizing, though he emphasized its role in the general

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