Faith and Wisdom in Science

FAITH AND WISDOM IN SCIENCE FAITH AND WISDOM IN SCIENCE Tom McLeish 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Tom McLeish 2014 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Scripture quotations [marked NIV] taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised. Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. “NIV” is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790. Translations from the Book of Job are by kind permission of David J. A. Clines, and are taken from his World Biblical Commentary (Thos Nelson (Zondervan), Volumes 17 (pub. 1989), 18a (pub. 2006) and 18b (pub. 2011)) First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2013953854 ISBN 978–0–19–870261–0 Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. To Julie, Katie, Nicholas, Max and Rosie Preface This book has had a long gestation, and I have many people to thank for encouragement, assistance and wisdom along the way. A kind invitation to deliver a keynote address to the 1993 Conference for the Diocese of Ripon, and subsequent discussions with both clergy and lay people in the urban and rural parishes of Yorkshire, first made it apparent to me that the church had need of a theology of science, rather than to stand merely a bewildered observer of a battle between theology and science. I am especially indebted to the clergy chapter of Ripon for their insights during a retreat devoted to the topic, and to Robin Gamble, Clive Man- sell and Matt Pritchard for opportunities to explore its potential role in apologetics and mission. I am grateful to Rolf Heuer of CERN and Rich- ard Burge of Wilton Park for the invitation to an extraordinary multi- faith conference on science and religion held under their auspices in 2012. Throughout the journey I have benefitted from the scholarship, critical thinking and unparalleled grasp of theology and science (not to mention friendship, and all those books) of Professor Wilson Poon of Edinburgh University. Some of the ideas presented here have been pre- viously experimented with in articles we have coauthored—they are referenced in footnotes to the text. During my time at the University of Leeds and subsequently, I benefitted greatly from discussions with Jacquie Stewart, Geoff Cantor, Greg Radick and Simon Robinson. The Leeds History and Philosophy of Science seminar series permitted, among other things, James Ginther to plant the seeds of my interest in Robert Grosseteste, since watered at the Durham Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies. I cannot imagine a more fertile environment than Durham Univer- sity for any project that requires interdisciplinary advice from gener- ous and scholarly theologians, scientists, sociologists, medievalists, anthropologists and human geographers. I am particularly indebted for comments, critical reading and discussion to: Sarah Banks, Alex Bentley, Richard Bower, Richard Briggs, Giles Gasper, Seth Kunin, Phil Macnaghten, Robert Song, Brian Tanner and David Wilkinson. Wel- coming the Durham meeting of the Society for Old Testament Studies gave me the opportunity to meet David Clines, who has generously permitted me to quote from his scholarly translation of Job. viii Preface Others who have helped shape the work, commented on the manu- script, encouraged and contributed in many important ways include Denis Alexander, Bill Bryson, Nancy Cartwright, Sarah Coakley, Simon Conway-Morris, Celia Deane-Drummond, Greti Dinkova-Bruun, Sarah Harris, John Hedley-Brooke, Shaun Henson, Terri Jordan, Rich- ard Kidd, Suneel Kunamaneni, Ron Larson, Neil Lewis, Chris Macosko, Julie McLeish, Sue McLeish, Terry Munro, Martin Nowak, Cecilia Panti, David Paton-Williams, Andrew Pinsent, John Polkinghorne, Juanita Rothman, John Pritchard, David Thompson, Faith Wallis, Bryan Wynne and Hannah Smithson. I am indebted to Sonke Adlung of Oxford Uni- versity Press for his patience in keeping the idea for the book ‘on file’ for longer than it deserved, and for his colleagues’ efficiency in bringing it to light. All remaining textual sins of commission and omission are very definitely mine. The book would not have been written without the patience and the gifts of support and encouragement of my wife Julie and our children, to whom it is thankfully dedicated. Durham Feast of St Thomas 2013 Contents Introduction 1 1. A Clamour of Voices 6 2. What’s in a Name? Stories of Natural Philosophy, Modern and Ancient 25 The Case of the Surprising Jelly 26 The Mystery of the Ever-Present Motion 36 Beneath the Surface of Solidity: the Bishop of Lincoln and Light 40 On the Nature of Things: Bede’s Science 47 At Macrina’s Bedside: Gregory of Nyssa and the Healing Reality of Mind 49 3. Creation, Curiosity and Pain: Natural Wisdom in the Old Testament 55 Wisdom’s Childhood: Proverbs 8 56 The Creative Word: Psalm 33 58 Dynamical Creation: Psalm 104 59 Creation and Correction: Jeremiah 62 Creation and Care: Later Isaiah 65 A Distant Hope and a Different Cosmos: Early Isaiah and Hosea 68 The Formal Tradition: Genesis 1 and 2 70 4. Order and Chaos: the Comet, the Storm and the Earthquake 75 The Comet 76 The Storm 85 The Earthquake 89 Order Out of Chaos 98 5. At the Summit: the Book of Job 102 The Book of Job: Theme, Story and Structure 106 Nature and Cosmos: a Nature Trail Through the Book of Job 111 x Contents 6. Creation and Reconciliation: the New Testament Creation Narratives 149 St Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Creation out of Joint and the Hope of Glory 151 St Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians: The Resurrected Future of Creation 156 St John’s Gospel: Information and Transformation 159 St John’s Revelation: Finally Taking Leave of Pain 162 7. A Theology of Science? 166 Linear History 172 Human Aptitude 173 Deep Wisdom 175 The Ambiguity of Problems and Pain 178 Order and Chaos 183 Questions 190 Love 196 A Theology of Science: Participation in Reconciliation 207 8. Mending Our Ways, Sharing Our Science and Figuring the Future 213 The Witness of Other Traditions 216 A Long Journey: the Timescales of Science 222 A Global Community of Practice 225 A Shared Science of Relationship and the Task of the Church 231 ‘Pure’, ‘Applied’ and the Healing of a Fragmented Academy 241 What We Do With the World: Narratives for Troubled Technologies 248 What We Do With the World: the Politics of Nature and a New Environmentalism 259 Personal Stories and Science Therapy? 264 Epilogue: a Parable for Science 268 Bibliography 271 Index of Biblical Passages 277 Index 278 Introduction Imagine a world, thankfully not our world, without any music. Well, in this sad, dull nightmare, something like music survives in a technical sense. There are, for example, experts in universities and conservatoires in this world who pursue at a professional level a rarefied academic subject called ‘sonology’ (the word ‘music’ went out of circulation about two centuries ago). Sonological research, according to government policy, is essential for the economic prosperity of the nation within an international community where sonological status is an important element in national prestige and trade negotiations. The skilled sonologists who carry it out would be the odd ones who excelled at high-school examinations in the difficult subject, and went on to teach it at higher level. They tended to become increasingly good at it by employing all the time in study and practice that their ‘normal’ colleagues spent playing sport and socialising. Oddly almost no members of parliament, or of the civil service—those responsible for government policy on sonology—actually studied it at a level beyond high-school themselves. In addition to teaching students, some sonologists pursue incompre- hensible research into the playing of a specialist instrument. Others pro- duce manuscripts in the undecipherable hieroglyphs (undecipherable to ordinary people, that is) of sonological notation. These, the experts assure us, encode real pieces of sonological composition that the highly trained experts’ ears can make sense of at the academic conferences at which the rare performances are given. Unskilled members of the public do not attend these performances. They do not have the technical background for it. There are some very good documentary programmes on television, however, that have a sig- nificant if small public following. These try to give some sense of what the compositions mean to the experts, explained in simple language and sometimes even playing the tune (when there is one), but leaving 2 Faith and Wisdom in Science out the difficult harmony and counterpoint.

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