A Purpose For <I>Everything</I> return to religion-online 31 A Purpose For Everything by L. Charles Birch Charles Birch is a biologist specializing in genetics, and resides in Australia. He is joint winner of the 1990 International Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.. His teaching career includes Oxford, Columbia and the Universities of Chicago and Minnesota, as well as visiting professor of genetics at the University of California at Berkeley and professor of biology at the University of Sydney. Professor Birch has blazed new paths into the relationships between science and faith. Published by Twenty-third Publications, Mystic, Connecticut, 1990. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock. (ENTIRE BOOK) Birch holds that post-modern scientific materialism is insufficient to explain the world. He proposes an ecological model in which all entities, from protons to humans, are ultimately related. Only this, he says, can deal adequately with the post modern world. Introduction The reformation of modernism into postmodernism involves a radical transformation of science, religion and culture that constitutes a revolution even greater than the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. Chapter 1: Purpose in Human Life Future possibilities are real causes in our lives. If, as a society, we are to make a creative response to the overwhelming challenges of war, injustice and environmental destruction of our time, there need be agreement about purposes that are stronger than the differences that divide us. Chapter 2: Purpose in Nature The profound question evolution raises is why did atoms evolve to cells and to plants and to animals? Materialism (which itself is a metaphysic) provides no real answer to this question. The ecological model opens up a way to understanding this in terms of lure and response. In the ecological model we recognize in all entities some measure of responsiveness and freedom which we share. Chapter 3: Purpose in the Universe Materialism or mechanism does not explain the world. Rather, individual entities from protons to people are influenced, not only by their external relations, but are influenced, even constituted, by their internal relations with their environment. Internal relations have nothing to do with the laws of mechanics. The laws of mechanics have only to do with external relations. The ecological model of nature is a credible alternative to materialism and mechanism. http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showbook?item_id=2283 (1 of 2) [2/4/03 2:19:25 PM] A Purpose For <I>Everything</I> Chapter 4: A Cosmic Purpose A faith in a cosmic purpose that is credible in an age of science and that could lead to harmony between human beings and between them and the rest of nature is the challenge. Another way of putting it is to ask -- is there divine love at the heart of the universe? Chapter 5: Purpose and Progress How can a postmodern worldview illumine the momentous problems of our time: peace, justice and ecological sustainability? There is more to enlightenment than the knowledge that science, technology, economics and politics bring. This the Enlightenment failed to recognize. Chapter 6: Dismantling the Tower of Babel Religion in the postmodern world will become relevant only insofar as it can once again find dialogue with all the disciplines and help to transform their divided house into some sort of whole. Chapter 7: New Wine in New Bottles Divided disciplines must be brought together again. An affirmation of the presence of the future life is essential. Human life feeds on purpose, on the richness of life, upon the purposes we freely choose. 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Charles Birch Charles Birch is a biologist specializing in genetics, and resides in Australia. He is joint winner of the 1990 International Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.. His teaching career includes Oxford, Columbia and the Universities of Chicago and Minnesota, as well as visiting professor of genetics at the University of California at Berkeley and professor of biology at the University of Sydney. Professor Birch has blazed new paths into the relationships between science and faith. Published by Twenty-third Publications, Mystic, Connecticut, 1990. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock. Introduction In this phase of human history there is widespread conflict between our conception of ourselves and our conception of the world. We see ourselves as beings that are conscious, that are rational, have free will and are purposive. But we see the world as consisting of mindless, meaningless, totally determined physical bits and pieces that are non- purposive. A society that lives with this dichotomy is operating out of a profound error that is destroying much that is worthwhile both in ourselves and in the world. The general picture most of us have about the world is derived from Newton’s mechanics of the seventeenth century. The man in the street, whether he knows it or not, still lives in Newton’s world. A lot has changed since then, but the general picture for most of us hasn’t. In classical Newtonian mechanics, once the initial conditions and the force laws are given, everything is calculable for ever before and after. The system is governed completely by the laws of mechanics and of conservation of energy. It is totally determined. It has no freedom. By contrast, any human situation is quite different. Imagine a city street in which pedestrians and traffic are milling around. The flows of traffic and the movements of any pedestrian cannot be predicted using the laws of mechanics. If a pedestrian tries to cross the road against the traffic http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showchapter?chapter_id=2137 (1 of 10) [2/4/03 2:20:10 PM] A Purpose For <I>Everything</I> lights he may meet an oncoming vehicle; the driver applies brakes and there is an accident. Newton’s laws are no help at all in describing that system. The situation is utterly dependent upon the decision of the pedestrian to cross the street at the wrong time and the decision of the driver to try to stop his vehicle. Planets, solar systems, atoms and molecules seem helpless slaves to the forces that push them around. Human beings are also pushed around. But most of us recognize something else in ourselves -- some degree of freedom to choose what we do. Purposes determine a great deal about our lives. Although this example has a modern ring to it, there is nothing really new about the problem it presents, which is: How is it that freedom and purpose that determine so much about us arise in a world that seems to run entirely on mechanical laws? The issue of two kinds of cause, mechanical ones and purposive ones, was set before his fellow Athenians by Socrates in 399 BC. as he sat in prison contemplating his death. Today it is the central issue in the battle between science and religion. It is also the central issue in the relationship of modern human beings to their environment. Whether we are aware of it or not, most of the problems of the modern