Download Guideline 1: Rejection of two philosophical assumptions about

Theology from Creation to
New Creation
Overview
Copyright R. J. Russell 2005
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Key topics in theology
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Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name
Thy reign come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
Forgive us our debts as we forgive
our debtors
Lead us not into temptation,
Deliver us from evil
For thine is the Kingdom and the
Power and the Glory
Forever
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Creation of heaven and earth
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Eschatology: parousia
Divine action
Creation of heaven and earth
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Moral evil
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Eschatology: eternal life
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Key topics in theology and the challenge of
science
• Creation of heaven and earth
• Big Bang cosmology:
• Divine action
• Laws of nature / interventionist
divine action
• Moral evil
• ‘Fall without the Fall’ and
natural evil
• Eschatology: second coming,
resurrection and eternal life
• Big Bang cosmology:
– t=0
– ‘only earth’
– ‘freeze or fry’
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Meeting the challenge: Creative mutual interaction:
2005 Goshen Conference Lectures 1, 2, & 3
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Creation of heaven and earth:
Lecture1 --- Fri. night
– Assumptions underlying science:
Path 6
– t=0: Consonance, Path 1
Conflict, Path7
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‘Fall without the Fall’:
Lecture 2: Sat morning
– Natural and moral evil: Path 3
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Non-interventionist divine action
– CTNS/Vatican Observatory series
– Paths 3 and 4
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Eschatology: Lecture 3 NOW!
– Revise eschatology: Paths 3, 4
– New research in science: Paths 6,
7, 8
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Methodology of Creative Mutual Interaction
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Eschatology and Cosmology:
Guidelines for their Interaction
Lecture 3
Fifth Annual Goshen Conference
on
Science and Religion
Robert John Russell
The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences,
The Graduate Theological Union
Berkeley, California
March 20, 2005
Copyright R. J. Russell 2005
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Resurrection: key points
• The resurrection as transformation:
– The resurrection of Jesus: neither resuscitation (e.g., the
daughter of Jairus – Mk 5:22, Lazarus – Jn: 11:1) nor spiritual
escape but bodily transformation.
– Transformation means there are elements of continuity (e.g., it is
Jesus, he can be touched, he can eat) as well as discontinuity
(e.g., the modes of the appearances, his ascension) between
Jesus of Nazareth and the Risen Jesus.
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Resurrection: key points
• The relation between the resurrection of Christ and the general
resurrection of the dead at the end of the age: the logic of Paul, 1
Cor. 15: 12-20.
– “Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the
dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection
of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then
Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching
is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found
false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that
He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up --- if in fact the
dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not
risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in
your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ
have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are
of all men the most pitiable. But now Christ is risen from the
dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen
asleep. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be
made alive.”
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The challenges:
cosmology  eschatology
eschatology  cosmology
The challenge from cosmology to eschatology: If the
predictions of contemporary scientific cosmology come to
pass there will never be a general resurrection. Therefore
Christ has not been raised from the dead, and our hope is
in vain (1 Cor. 15).
The challenge from eschatology to cosmology: If it is true
that Jesus rose bodily from the dead, then the general
resurrection cannot be impossible. This must in turn mean
that the future of the universe will not be what scientific
cosmology predicts.
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Guideline 1: Meeting the challenge:
Reject our philosophical assumptions about
science
The challenge is not from science but from the
philosophical assumptions we bring to science:
Enlightenment / modernist assumptions
scientific predictions must come to pass
 the dead stay dead
analogy of history / analogy of nature
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cf. Hume, Rudolf Bultmann, John Dominic Crosson
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Guideline 1: Meeting the challenge: Reject our
philosophical assumptions about science
Instead assume that scientific laws describe the
regularities of nature. If these regularities are ultimately
due to the regular and faithful action of God as ongoing
Creator and if God chooses to act in a new way, then the
future will not be what science predicts!
Since God acted in a new way at Easter and promises to
continue to do so, then: the ‘freeze’ or ‘fry’ predictions for
the cosmological future do not hold.
“Resurrection is the first instance of a new law of the
new creation”
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Guideline 2:
Eschatology should embrace methodological naturalism and
thus physics, cosmology and biology regarding the past.
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Any eschatology which we might construct must be ‘scientific’ in
its description of the past history of the universe. It must be
constrained by methodological naturalism in its description of
the past and draw fully on physics, cosmology and evolutionary
biology.
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it should not claim that God should be part of the scientific
explanation of the processes and properties of nature
note: this guideline separates this proposal as sharply as
possible from ‘intelligent design’.
note: methodological naturalism does not carry entail
metaphysical naturalism (i.e., atheism).
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Guideline 3:
Metaphysical options are limited but not forced.
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These options include
physicalism (Nancey Murphy)
emergent monism (Arthur Peacocke)
dual-aspect monism (John Polkinghorne)
ontological emergence (Robert Russell)
panexperientialism (Whiteheadian metaphysics: Ian Barbour)
others
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They do not include metaphysical naturalism (atheism)
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Guideline 4:
Eschatology in light of the ‘resurrection of the body.’
‘Transformability’ and the formal conditions for its possibility
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Our starting point is based on the resurrection of Jesus: neither
resuscitation nor spiritual escape but bodily transformation.
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Transformation means there are elements of continuity as well
as discontinuity between Jesus of Nazareth and the Risen Jesus.
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Guideline 4:
Eschatology in light of the ‘resurrection of the body.’
‘Transformability’ and the formal conditions for its possibility
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 The new creation is not totally discontinuous with the
present creation --- a second ex nihilo. Nor does it evolve
continuously out of the old with all the laws of nature intact.
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Instead, God will transform the universe into the new creation ex
vetere (Polkinghorne).
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It follows that God must have created the universe such that it is
transformable by God’s action into the new creation. This means
that God must have created the universe with precisely those
characteristics which it needs in order to be transformable by God.
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Guideline 5:
Eschatology in light of the ‘resurrection of the body.’
The crucial role of science.
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Science can be of immense help to the theological task of
understanding something about that transformation if we can
find a way to identify these needed conditions, characteristics and
preconditions for transformation, i.e., these “elements of
continuity”.
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Science might also shed light on which conditions and
characteristics of the present creation we do not expect to be
continued into the new creation, i.e., the “elements of
discontinuity” between creation and new creation.
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Guideline 6: Continuity within discontinuity:
inverting the relationship.
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So far in theology and science, discontinuity has played a
secondary role within the underlying theme of continuity in
nature as suggested by the term “emergence”.
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Now I propose we ‘invert’ the relation: the elements of
‘continuity’ will be present, but within a more radical and
underlying ‘discontinuity’ as is denoted by the transformation of
the universe by a new act of God.
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Guideline 6: Continuity within discontinuity:
inverting the relationship.
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Discontinuity as fundamental signals the break with
naturalistic and reductionistic views such as “physical
eschatology.”
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Continuity, even if secondary, eliminates a “twoworlds” eschatology.
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Transformation eliminates ‘non-interventionist objective
special divine action’ since this works with the present
laws of nataure intact.
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Summarizing so far…
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An eschatology of new creation as the transformation
of the old creation parts company with:
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Intelligent Design
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Physical eschatology
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(which accepts reductionist metaphysical naturalism)
Two worlds eschatology
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(which challenges methodological naturalism)
(which overlooks the element of continuity in the
Resurrection)
Non-interventionist objective divine action
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(presupposes the laws of nature as they are)
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Guideline 7:
Theological reconceptualization of nature in
light of philosophical and scientific revisions.
A richer theological conception of nature both as creation
and as new creation might generate important revisions in
the philosophy of nature that currently underlies the natural
sciences.
The doctrine of creation bequeathed to the West the
assumption that the universe is contingent and rational, and this
formed the foundation for the methodology of science --empiricism, methodological naturalism.
Its additional assumptions that the universe is good, purposeful,
and that it includes ‘heaven and earth,’ were not taken up into
scientific methodology. Perhaps they should be…
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Guideline 8:
Theology as suggesting criteria of theory
choice between existing theories.
The theological views of research scientists might play a role
in selecting which theoretical programs to pursue among
those already ‘on the table.’
E.g., the variety of approaches to quantum gravity and quantum
cosmology.
For example, Hawking rejected Penrose’s ‘quantum
fluctuations’ model of the creation of the universe by explicit
analogy with Augustine’s rejecting God creating in time.
Hawking chose the ‘no boundary’ model of the creation of the
universe in analogy with Augustine’s model of God creating
time.
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Guideline 9:
Theology as suggesting new scientific research
programs
A revised eschatology might suggest new directions in the
construction of scientific research programs whose
motivation stems, at least in part, from theological interests.
Frey Hoyle, as an outspoken atheist cosmologist, created the
‘steady state’ cosmology, in which the universe has no
beginning in time, to challenge the reigning Big Bang
cosmology with its “t=0” in part because of the support for God
as the Creator drawn from “t=0”
Many of the developments in the construction of quantum
theory (1900-1930) reflect the philosophical and theological
presuppositions of their proponents, e.g., Einstein, Bohr,
Schroedinger, Planck, Heisenberg, etc..
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Theology and Science
in
Creative Mutual Interaction
• A. SRP –> TRP: RECONSTRUCTING CHRISTIAN
ESCHATOLOGY AS ‘TRANSFORMATION OF THE UNIVERSE’
• B. TRP  SRP: POTENTIAL RESEARCH PROGRAMS IN
SCIENCE IN LIGHT OF (RECONSTRUCTED) ESCHATOLOGY
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SRP  TRP: Insights from evolution
regarding theodicy for eschatology
From Augustine’s theodicy
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If in the new creation it will not be possible to
sin
In the new creation thermodynamic
processes will not occur (in so far as they
entail natural evil)
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TRP  SRP: Insights from eschatology for
thermodynamics
From Augustine’s theodicy
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Thermodynamics as a “universal contingent”
is itself a contingent characteristic of
creation (the universe)
Research topic in physics: Is
thermodynamics a fundamental theory like
quantum mechanics? How are general
relativity and thermodynamics related?
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SRP  TRP: Insights from evolution
regarding theodicy for eschatology
From the Schleiermacher/Hick theodicy
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Pre-human life must not be a ‘means/end’ to
humankind  each creature / species has
an eschatological future of its own
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TRP  SRP: Insights from eschatology for
physics
From the Schleiermacher/Hick theodicy
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Every moment of time is ‘connected’ to both
its ordinary physical future moment and to its
eschatological fulfillment
Research topic in physics: Is time more
complex (e.g., multidimensional,
topologically connected) than is normally
assumed in physics and cosmology?
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SRP  TRP: Eschatology reformulated in light of
time in physics
• First, the ‘theological ‘consensus’: Eternity is a richer concept of
temporality than timelessness or unending time. In essence,
eternity is the source of time as we know it, and of time as we will
know it in the new creation. Eternity is the fully temporal source and
goal of time.
• Karl Barth calls it ‘supratemporal.’
• Jurgen Moltmann calls it ‘the future of the future.’
• Ted Peters refers to the future as coming to us (adventus) and not
merely that which tomorrow brings (futurum).
• Wolfhart Pannenberg claims that God acts from eternity by reaching
back into time to redeem the world, particularly in the Resurrection
of Jesus (“prolepsis”).
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SRP  TRP: Eschatology reformulated in light of
time in physics
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From the ‘theological consensus’, five themes emerge:
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‘flowing time’ : each event has a “past/present/future structure”
leading to an “inhomogeneous temporal ontology”
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duration: each event has temporal thickness in nature as well as in
experience; events are not point-like present moments lacking an
intrinsic temporal structure
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co-presence of all events: distinct events in time are nevertheless
present to one another without destroying or subsuming their
distinctiveness
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global future: there is a single global future for all of creation so that
all creatures can be in community.
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prolepsis: the future is already present and active in the present
while remaining future, as exemplified by God’s act in raising Jesus
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SRP  TRP: Eschatology reformulated in light of
time in physics
Next, reformulate each of these themes in light of the
way physics interprets time. Areas in physics include:
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special relativity
general relativity
quantum mechanics
relativistic quantum mechanics
quantum field theory
thermodynamics
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TRP  SRP: SUGGESTIONS FOR RESEARCH
PROGRAMS IN SCIENCE
• 1) Which of these themes --- duration, flowing time, co-presence,
prolepsis, global future --- are already present in creation and thus
are elements of continuity in its transformation into the new
creation?
• 2) Which themes are not yet present in creation but instead
represent elements of discontinuity, emerging only in the new
creation?
• 3) And regarding the latter, does the universe at present include the
preconditions for the possibility of their coming to be in the new
creation?
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TRP  SRP: Five potential SRPs drawn from the
themes of “flowing time” and “duration”
• SRP 1: Can we construct a new interpretation of special
relativity which is consistent with “flowing time” but which
avoids these problems?
• SRP 2: Can we revise special relativity to support a
“flowing time” interpretation over a “block universe”
interpretation?
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TRP  SRP: Five potential SRPs drawn from
“flowing time” and “duration”
• SRP 3: Can we construct a new and more competitive
interpretation of quantum mechanics which more
definitively supports “flowing time.”
• SRP 4: Can we modify the formalism of quantum
mechanics which support “flowing time”, such as nonlinear or stochastic versions of the Schrödinger equation.
• SRP5: One might search for mathematical ways to represent time
as duration, such as set theory or quantized time, and then by
exploring their implications for research physics
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Conclusions:
Creative mutual interaction: a project underway with a long road
ahead…
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