From my friend Thomas Jay Oord's blog, who recently extolled the passing of Ian Barbour, a physicist-trained theologian who had studied under Enrico Fermi (the Fermi reactor in Chicago) and later taught at Yale, then Carleton, on the integration of science and religion using process theology. He taught and wrote on such subjects as the warrant for a dipolar God; a theology of nature vs. natural theology; divine self-limitation and free will; and, an open future vs. mechanism and determinism; among other subjects. Enjoy Tom's review!
R.E. Slater
January 12, 2013
*[...] brackets are mine
Godfather of Science and Religion Dies
http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/godfather_of_science_and_religion_dies/
by Thomas Jay Oord
January 1, 2013
My friend, Ian Barbour, died recently. He was 90 years old. Widely considered
a groundbreaking giant in the science-and-religion dialogue, Ian was especially
kind to me. I consider him the godfather of contemporary science and religion
scholarship.
Barbour's contributions to science and religion began in the 1950s. He earned
a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Chicago early in that decade. While a
Ph.D. student, he studied under Enrico Fermi, perhaps best known for designing
the world's first nuclear reactor.
After teaching physics at the undergraduate level, Barbour enrolled at Yale
Divinity School to study theology and ethics. Upon completing studies at Yale,
he moved to Carleton College (Minnesota) where he taught in both the religion
and physics departments. He remained a professor at Carleton throughout his
career, writing or editing sixteen books during his tenure.
I was first exposed to Barbour’s work as a graduate student, both at Nazarene
Theological Seminary and Claremont Graduate University. His books took science
and theology seriously. I read his classic, Issues in Science and
Religion (1966), which offered categories of thought still employed by many
working in science-and-theology research today.
I was first exposed to Barbour’s work as a graduate student, both at Nazarene
Theological Seminary and Claremont Graduate University. His books took science
and theology seriously. I read his classic, Issues in Science and
Religion (1966), which offered categories of thought still employed by many
working in science-and-theology research today.
After completing my Ph.D., I began teaching at Eastern Nazarene College and
was invited by Karl Giberson to write for the newspaper he edited and was
eventually called “Science and Theology News.” My first major story for the
newspaper was an interview of Ian Barbour, whom I called the “Godfather of the
Science and Religion Dialogue.”
More recent students of science and religion cut their teeth in Barbour’s
1989 Gifford Lectures presented in his book, Religion in an Age of
Science. At last count, this book and others Barbour wrote have been used
in 7,500 science-and-religion courses around the world. I have recommended it to
many of my own students.
Among influential ideas he proposed in Religion and the Age of Science
were four ways science and religion relate: 1) they conflict, 2) they are
independent of one another, 3) they are in dialogue, or 4) they can be
integrated. Ian was particularly interested in the possibility of the
integration relationship. Later in his career, Barbour remarked, "Although my
four-fold typology cannot account for all ways to talk about the relation
between science and religion, I believe it remains very valuable as a first-cut.
It is a pedagogical tool to begin to look at the science-and-religion
landscape."
In his book, When Science Meets Religion, Barbour contrasts natural
theology with his preferred view, what he calls a "theology of nature." Natural
theology attempts to prove or establish the existence of God using empirical
science. By contrast, says Barbour, "proponents of a theology of nature draw
extensively from a historic tradition and a worshipping community. But they are
willing to modify some traditional assertions in response to the findings of
science."
In 1999, the John Templeton Foundation awarded Barbour with the Templeton
Prize for Progress in Religion. Barbour gave a sizable portion of the award
money to the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences in Berkeley, California. I
attended a birthday party for Ian at the center soon after. Barbour told
participants that he affirms a theistic view of the world, while affirming
evolution, Big Bang cosmology, and most other major scientific ([evolutionary]) hypotheses. "The
theistic framework I endorse includes order, novelty, and chance," he said. "It
includes purpose, but in an open-ended design for life."
Barbour was one of the clearest representatives of process theology’s
contributions to the science and theology integration. Although not as well
known, his book, Nature, Human Nature, and God, was one of his best and
offered a strong integration of theology and science from a process
perspective.
I am particularly fond of his essay in a book edited by John
Polkinghorne, The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis. Barbour offers
five reasons Christians should reject a deterministic God and accept instead
that God's power has limits. “To say that the limitation of God’s power is a
metaphysical necessity rather than a voluntary self-limitation," he argues, "is
not to say that it is imposed by something outside God. This is not a Gnostic
or Manichean dualism in which recalcitrant matter restricts God’s effort.”
A festschrift in Barbour’s honor, Fifty Years in Science and Religion, offers a taste of Barbour's influence upon scholars of science
and religion. Edited by Robert Russell, the book's contributors are among the
leading voices at work in the field today. Barbour offers an autobiographical
“Personal Odyssey” in the festschrift, and I recommend it as guide to how Ian
saw his work contributing to the science-and-theology interface.
There is much more that I could say about Ian. He was especially kind to me,
in private correspondence and personal meetings as well as in public endeavors.
He was especially encouraging earlier in my career, and his encouragement
bolstered my confidence as a scholar.
For that and for his life in general, I am so very grateful. I will miss him.
- Tom
- Tom
Ethics in an Age of Technology: Gifford Lectures, Volume Two (The Gifford Lectures 1989-1991, Vol 2) by Ian G. Barbour (Dec 25, 1992)
Fifty Years In Science and Religion: Ian G. Barbour and His Legacy (Ashgate Science and Religion Series) by Robert John Russell (Aug 31, 2004)
