Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions Anne L. C. Runehov, Lluis Oviedo Editors Nina P. Azari Founding Editor Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions With 61 Figures and 14 Tables Editors Anne L. C. Runehov Department of Systematic Theology Faculty of Theology, Copenhagen University Copenhagen, Denmark Lluis Oviedo Pontificia Universita Antonianum Roma, Italia ISBN 978-1-4020-8264-1 ISBN 978-1-4020-8265-8 (eBook) ISBN Bundle 978-1-4020-8266-5 (print and electronic bundle) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London Library of Congress Control Number: 2013930304 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 This work is subject to copyright. 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Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) “To all who love the God with a 1000 names and respect science” Preface Since the time of Ancient Greece science and religion have been closely related, at least epistemologically. For instance, as Bertrand Russell notes in Wisdom of the West (1959:13), perhaps the most important notion in Greek philosophy was the concept logos, meaning both word and measure. We believe there are few doubts that logos is one of the main concepts used in both contemporary theology and the sciences, including social and human sciences. In Religion and Science in Context, Willem B. Drees argues, “there is not only a need for serious study of ‘Religion and Science’, as an object to be studied, but also for serious reflection in ‘Religion and Science’” (2010: 150). Scientists and scholars taking the debate seriously face the following questions. Firstly, the question of how to relate scientific theories and findings to questions of faith, meaning and purpose as raised by religions and theology. Secondly, the question of how to relate empirical questions and answers to ethical and existential questions and answers. It was through questions and reflections such as these together with the quest for an adequate understanding of the world that does justice to what it means to be a human being embedded in oneself, the world, and for many, in God, that led to the emergence of the new discipline “Science and Theology”. As the name suggests, academics working in this field are interested in both science and religion in one way or another. They may belong to the academic field of the natural sciences, the social sciences, the human sciences, theology or religious studies. Science and Theology is ideally an intellectual venture that aims at informing scientists about the theological relevance of scientific research on religious phenomena as well as at informing theologians about the impact of scientific progress on religious hermeneutics. Seen as such, a specialization of the academic field of Science and Theology seems unavoidable. However, some esteemed voices have lately become concerned about some of the recent developments in this new discipline. There is some unease about the conse- quences of an excess of specialization, which would render this new field too “professional” and too far removed from the traditional interests and methods of scientific as well as theological communities. Another reason disciplines may distance themselves from the academic course of study of Science and Theology is the confusion with the academic programme called Theology of Science on the one hand and the programme of Scientific Studies of Religion on the other. vii viii Preface Nevertheless, in the last quarter century this new academic field has attracted scholars from a wide variety of disciplines. However, such enter- prises come with questions. For example, exactly which disciplines are attracted and what do these disciplines have to contribute to the debate? Hence, in order to describe accurately the shape and character of a possible relation between science and religion, it is important to clarify the identities of the suggested participants in that relationship. Nina Azari founded the Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. Her idea was to produce an encyclopedia that is complete and covers all currently self- identified distinctive academic disciplines and religious traditions, within and across a wide range of cultures worldwide. Furthermore, the idea was to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of how the Science and Religion discourse or dialogue has thus far been treated. The encyclopedia was meant to provide a starting point for new lines of inquiry and an invitation for fresh perspectives on the possibilities for engagement between and across sciences and religions. In addition, the idea was to make the current (self-)identities of the proposed participants within Science and Religion accessible to the academic community, in order for scholarship to proceed fruitfully in that field. She was successful in recruiting several of the editors listed in order to cover as many disciplines and traditions as possible. However, it soon became apparent that the project was too big to be handled by only one editor in chief. Hence, in 2008 Anne L.C. Runehov became the second editor in chief, with responsibility for the non-scientific sections while Azari would manage the scientific sections. Unfortunately, Azari retired from the project in the fall of 2010. At that point, Lluis Oviedo, being the editor for the section on anthro- pology, became the second editor in chief. While taking stock of the project thus far a troublesome imbalance was discovered between the amount of assigned and submitted entries in the different sections. We also realized that the guidelines needed to be revisited. Then we realized that we needed to change the direction of the scope of the encyclopedia in order to launch this wonderful ship. In this regard, we are very grateful to Springer, especially to Willemijn Arts, Anita Fei van der Linden and Harmen van Paradijs, for organizing an editorial board meeting in January 2011 in Amsterdam. At the time of the meeting, all sections represented different stages of develop- ment and different academic levels as well as different degrees of relevance, consistency and completeness. Needless to say we were forced to make some drastic changes. The meeting had several advantages. Firstly, all the editors from different disciplines got to know one another and became a devoted team working on different aspects of one encyclopedia. Secondly, divided into several groups, we could redirect and finalize the contexts of the different sections in order for the encyclopedia to meet the necessary criteria. Thirdly, we had a renewed working plan and could reinstall deadlines. Finally, when we left Amsterdam, we knew we were back on track and we had regained confidence that we would finish this important project. The next challenge came when we, the EiCs, had to perform the final proofreading of the entire encyclopedia. At such stage, we realized that we could have prevented yet another delay of the publication of the work, if we had been responsible for the whole process from the beginning and, Preface ix furthermore, had we known more about certain layout standards. The A–Z format, together with its extended cross-references, is indeed user-friendly. The problem was that the glossary terms, which originally provided addi- tional information to the entry in question, also were alphabetically ordered throughout the encyclopedia and were thereby taken out of their original context. The result was, besides glossaries losing their original sense, we ended up with double and triple explanations of one and the same term written by different authors. Also, we discovered that some authors had explained the term already within the main entry and provided the explanation separately as a glossary term. Hence, we had to reorganize the glossaries by removing some, gathering some into a short entry, and reentering some in the main text where we found it to be relevant. What we also realized even more clearly was that some of the questions concerning the disciplines’ or traditions’ self-iden- tification were redundant. More precisely, the questions concerned with identification as a science or a religion. Obviously, sciences are not religions and religions are not sciences. Hence, and in order not to postpone publication even more, we took the liberty to remove the clearly irrelevant answers to these questions. We sincerely hope that the result of our carefully performed final proofreading will be to the author’s satisfaction.