Michael Heller, 72, winner of this year’s prize. He says science and religion “are prerequisites of the decent existence.”
Posted on 03/14/2008 5:08:51 AM PDT by iowamark
The $1.6 million Templeton Prize, the richest award made to an individual by a philanthropic organization, was given Wednesday to Michael Heller, 72, a Roman Catholic priest, cosmologist and philosopher who has spent his life asking, and perhaps more impressively answering, questions like “Does the universe need to have a cause?”...
Much of Professor Heller’s career has been dedicated to reconciling the known scientific world with the unknowable dimensions of God.
In doing so, he has argued against a “God of the gaps” strategy for relating science and religion, a view that uses God to explain what science cannot.
Professor Heller said he believed, for example, that the religious objection to teaching evolution “is one of the greatest misunderstandings” because it “introduces a contradiction or opposition between God and chance.”
In a telephone interview, Professor Heller explained his affinity for the two fields: “I always wanted to do the most important things, and what can be more important than science and religion? Science gives us knowledge, and religion gives us meaning. Both are prerequisites of the decent existence.”
Professor Heller said he planned to use his prize to create a center for the study of science and theology at the Pontifical Academy of Theology, in Krakow, Poland, where he is a faculty member....
On returning years later to Poland, where Communist authorities sought to oppress intellectuals and priests, Professor Heller found shelter for his work in the Catholic Church. He was ordained at 23, but spent just one year ministering to a parish before he felt compelled to return to academia....
The prize will be officially awarded in London by Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in a private ceremony on May 7 at Buckingham Palace.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Mark for later read.
One really needn't work too hard to find clues as to why NYT finds it useful to run such a story.
Separately, let's distinguish, please, between "the theory of evolution" as a cause for the existence of life or species, and "evolution," which is synomymous with "adaptation," as a natural occurance manifested in existing life and species.
Yeah, do you think we're smart enough to make that distinction, academia? Do you, NYT? If I can do it, you can do it. If you want to.
Yes, but most evolutionists are NOT smart enough to made that distinction - or at least they pretend not to be.
LOL, I thought it was Priest-cosmetologist and I was picturing this priest cutting hair and doing nails and my gaydar went crazy. LOL
Interesting God/science article ping...
Good for him. The problem with the epoche has still not been worked out and more should give it a try.
Thanks for the ping!
It seems to me that the entire universe exists in a tension between that which does not change (God's Will and Word) and that which does (i.e., "chance"). Ultimately, God is not "of the gaps"; He is the foundation of everything that exists, the ultimate source of the order of the changeable things....
I'm thrilled that Professor Heller has been honored with the Templeton Prize.
Thanks so much for the ping to this excellent article TXnMA, and to Iowahawk for posting it!
Professor Heller agrees with you. It's made very clear in the article. Why the hostility?
'pretend' is the operative word, I think.
God explains everything.
Science being able to offer its own non-God explanations for things doesn't mean that they are correct explanations, nor that we don't need God any more, nor that He isn't what's behind everything any way.
Following that line of reasoning, when we are finally able to explain everything, then God will not be relevant because He's not needed anymore to explain what we don't understand.
God is far more than a handy catch-all excuse to explain what we don't understand. People who think that have a very warped and incomplete view of who God is and what He's about.
[ a tension between that which does not change (God’s Will and Word) and that which does (i.e., “chance”). Ultimately, God is not “of the gaps”; ]
Things that are thingly and things that are not thingly dancing with each other. Amazing how magnetism, heat, and light and even conductance morph into electricity and electricity morphs into them.. I suspect these other scientific variations of “dance” have been considered also..
Charleston, bob*, boogie, boogie down*, bunny hop, caper, careen, cavort, conga, flit*, foot it*, foxtrot, frolic, gambol, get down*, hoof it*, hop, hustle, jig, jitter*, jitterbug, jive*, jump, leap, one-step, prance, promenade, rhumba, rock, sambo, shimmy, skip, spin, step, strut, sway, swing, tango, tap, tread, trip, truck, twist, two-step, waltz, whirl
Amazing what “matter”(whatever that is) can do ain’t it..
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
Thanks for the ping! This is fascinating stuff!
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As a rule, the Templeton Prize winners are indeed deserving of the award, unlike the Nobel or the Pulitzer Prize winners, which have grown more and more politicized and perverse over the years.
The New York Times article doesn’t give a very clear explanation of his work, but that’s not really surprising. This is an area that the Times will never really understand.
Maybe we’ll read more about it in a future issue of First Things.
Yup. :^)
The short form of what I said is the universe is the offspring of the "tension" of spirit and matter. All things are composed of the relation between the two.
We are smitten by "the thingly things." We should not forget their Source -- that's the most important thing....
Thanks so much for writing, dear brother in Christ!
Why what hostility? Did you read my post?
interesting alright.
Thanks for the ping.
Smitten is the best word.. God is Spirit, the father, son and Holy Spirit and probably the seven spirits of God are Spirits also(Rev.).. Angels are spirits, Satan and minions are spirits and last of all WE are spirits.. Its a very spiritual place we live in.. For all I know plants and animals, even insects have some level of spiritual life.. maybe even microbes.. Hey how can you tell when a carrot dies?.. Are carrots alive?.. Oh! well.. nobody seems to know what life is.. Don't even ask what spirit/Spirit is?..
Darn you always present the hardest of questions/subjects.. The source of matter is probably spirit.. The question is which is the most tangible.. The worms eye view says matter.. but that could be WRONG..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Speaking of "chance"...
In my discussions with anti-evolutionists/ID adherents, I have often heard/seen them say, "God is a god of perfect, planned order; He does not do things randomly -- like the (eeevil) evolutionists claim things happen."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To them, I answer, "au contraire!
Random processes {or, as Keller says,"chance"} are some of His greatest and most vital creations!"
Without random processes, you would surely die.
Consider the air in the room where you are: its molecules are in continous, rapid, random motion.
The energy of their random movement, we call, "Heat". The velocity of their random movement, we call, "Temperature". Their random impact on surfaces we call, "Pressure".
If their random motion suddenly stopped, you would freeze instantly. (Temperature = "Absolute Zero".)
If they suddenly ceased their random motion and headed off in a single, "orderly" direction, the walls of your room would explode, and you would find yourself in the most vicious windstorm possible.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Indeed, randomness ("chance") makes our very existence possible. Aren't you thankful that God designed His Creation so randomly for us?
However, I object to the casual use of the word “random” unqualified by scientists when what they really mean is “unpredictable.”
A person cannot say something is random in the system when he doesn’t know what the system “is.”
The full extent of physical reality is both unknown and unknowable (dimensionality.) We, as observers, are also part of what is being observed – we cannot see “all that there is” all at once. We can never assure that something which we observe as “random” – and for which stochastic methods work – is in fact, a uniform distribution.
A random number is a number chosen as if by chance from some specified distribution such that selection of a large set of these numbers reproduces the underlying distribution. Almost always, such numbers are also required to be independent, so that there are no correlations between successive numbers. Computer-generated random numbers are sometimes called pseudorandom numbers, while the term "random" is reserved for the output of unpredictable physical processes. When used without qualification, the word "random" usually means "random with a uniform distribution."
Or to put it another way, the careless use of the term makes matters worse. It leaves many with the impression that whatever it is, is pure dumb, blind, happenstance with no first or final cause. No room for God there.
And pure, dumb, blind, happenstance truly is the worldview of Dawkins, Pinker, Singer, Lewontin et al who market atheism under the color of science. So for them, the obfuscation is an effective marketing tool. Therefore, I counter by stating:
If one were to extract a series of numbers of the extension of pi, it would appear to be "random" when it is fact highly determined.
By knowing what the system "is" - the extension of pi - one also knows the extracted series of numbers is not "random" at all.
A "random" event in nature is like that. We don't know what the system "is." What we really mean is that part we are observing is "unpredictable."
As far as we are able to measure, the behavior of the molecules in a volume of gas is predictably "random with a uniform distribution."
I submit that our God's use of such processes in His Creation was a brilliant way of establishing repeatable, self-controlling equilibria. You may not find the trustworthiness of the behavior of our atmosphere (despite the random motion of its individual molecules) to be worthy of admiration of Him who created it that way -- but I do.
Well Duuuugh.. LoL..
You say semantics I say pedegogy she says unpredictable..
BUZZ... shes more accurate.. When you dont know the full system you're teaching is random observation..
Ping
("The heavens proclaim the glory of God; the skies show forth His craftsmanship")?
There's no blasphemy in that.
Very good post. Your thoughts are poetic. Your Thesaurus, even, is poetic!
:o)
More importantly for us Christians, in a Spiritual sense, creating doubt in the minds of His little ones is a price no one can bear.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and [that] he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! - Matthew 18:6-7
And your following paragraph praising God for it is a beautiful testimony for any who might otherwise be offended by such observations.
If other scientists would qualify their statements as you have, there would be no risk to the spiritually young and less contention with the spiritually mature. But obfuscation benefits the atheist agenda of Dawkins et al. So I will not hold my breath that they will speak as clearly as you - and instead will continue to counter their "spin" with the mantra:
In science, chemistry for example, a random sample would be exactly like the next random sample, all the same and predictable to any degree you care to measure.
"As far as we are able to measure" is the operative clause here TXnMA. Alamo-Girl acknowledges this; you gloss right over it, seeming to suggest that the universe itself is somehow the product of Brownian motion. But this is the very point A-G gets to with her observation that we cannot know for certain what is "random" in a system if we don't know what the system "is."
The ability to "measure" is the ability to directly observe. This is the heart of "the observer problem": As spatio-temporally located parts of the system that we observe, we are never in a position to observe "all of it." We can only see from where we happen to stand. Thus we cannot know what the total system "is" on the basis of observation in principle. We therefore have no reason to conclude that "what is" can be reduced to what can be measured.
But if we assume that reduction, we foreclose the possibility that the randomness we perceive may be a physical process manifesting a higher-order cause that is not perceptible, detectable by sense perception.
Do we really want to reduce the universe (and human knowledge) to what sense perception can report? In effect, this is to say that Man, not God, is "the Measure" of all things. Or perhaps it's more correct to say that not Man, but his five sensory "windows" on the world, are the "measure" of reality.
It seems to me that the "randomness" that God uses as a tool in nature (so to speak) is indispensable to growth, change, development, evolution. Without it, the creation -- the universe -- would be wholly static. But this is not to say that randomness means "pure, blind chance," as Jacques Monod maintains (along with Dawkins, Pinker, Lewontin, Singer, et al.).
Ultimately, it seems to me that God's laws are guides to the system that operate on the random aspects of the system, in such a way as to constrain pure chance. Thus I think we need to see that the words "random" and "chance" are not synonyms, even though typically we speak of them as if they were.
Alamo-Girl is so right: We need to understand what "randomness" really means when we toss the word around in popular debates. In short, it seems to me before we start speaking about randomness and "chance," we ought to acknowledge that the observer problem is inextricably involved in whatever we say about the matter, and there is no single "privileged" human observer in the universe in a position to know the truth, because the sole observer of "all that there is" can only be God Himself.
In contrast, we humans see only partially, and "as if through a glass, darkly."
My two cents, FWIW.
As far as you care to measure.
Seemingly obvious, and yet it's the key to all these epistomological puzzles.
We think we are "aloof" as "observers," and yet we are always trying to mint coins out of imagined gold, or wondering why we can't stare into our own eyes.
Truly, it is important for everyone to understand the "observer problem" - but most especially, it is crucial for Christians to understand it. And convey it to others. As you said:
In contrast, we humans see only partially, and "as if through a glass, darkly."
Illusion. Nothing but parallax.
As we never will know any system in full, the best approach for most practical reasons is to assume randomness - and let the philosophers quibble about the difference between randomness and unpredictability....
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