For a number of centuries science and religion have competed over how to explain truth and reality. The debate often degenerates into a sparring between the two extremes--the fundamentalists on the religious side and the reductionists on the science side. The conservative right insists that the bibical creation story in mythical expression carries the imprimatur of God's authorship; the reductionistic scientists reject any truth claims that cannot be replicated in the laboratory.
This standoff is really unnecessary because it results from vulnerabe theology in the form of dualism and misguided science in the form of materialism. May I suggest it need not be this way. Mysticism has a long history in the West as well as the East. And today quantum science is constructing a new, more inclusive paradigm without the unresolved paradoxes of Newtonian and Darwinian science.
I have observed some movement toward a reconciling of differences between religion and science, and would like to submit a couple of theological/scientific definitions that I have found helpful, followed by a summarizing comment.
1. Dualist theology and materialist science both say that humans exist as beings who are not-God.
2. Mystics assert, and recent quantum scientists give place to, the idea that I am God-existing. As a manifestation of the non-physical, I am God showing up in my spot as one sample.
Comment:
Materialistic science handles the God issue by simply denying there is any reality other than what can be proven by its materialistic method of investigation. Dualistic theology explains God by splitting reality into two mutually exclusive parts. This, however, is a self-contradiction because reality by definition is all embracing. There cannot be two 50% realities (or any other ratio of 100). For me to say my existence is outside of God's own experience would be gratuitous solipsism. So what I am aware of in my physicality is but a limited or cramped perspective.
If we are God's creatures, the appropriate goal of all would be to glorify God. But dualism assumes the way to exalt God is to diminish man. The process of lopping off my self from the Original Essence actually reduces God; it sets loose a maverick, challenging essence. Dualism removes God from experiecing this world first hand, and presents God's incarnation as an unordinary way to reduce the divine into material form on earth, to find out what it is really like here through a proxy, of all things.
If dualism is right, God was hamstrung. If materialism is right, God is eliminated. Dualists say that it is presumptive for a wretch like me to stand intimately close to God. They concede that God forgives, which is more than we should expect considering our ugly sins. Of course God our creator forgives! But from the dualist perspective that comes across as patronizing, which implictly demeans God's creatures. From the monist perspective, on the other hand, forgiveness is a moot issue, a foregone conclusion, because God is the whole of consciousness. The hierarchy of quantum awareness is entangled, all the way down. I am God experiencing him/herself.
Quantum science opens a window to a landscape that elicits a less crippling hope than dualism provides and materialism precludes. There is healing for the distortion of dualism and denials of materialism. By correlating humans and God, the mystics and monists humbly elevate man and glorify God together. The Divine shines more brightly in the synchronistic connection of man/woman and God.
By comparison, dualism does not sound to me like a very soul satisfying option, and even investigative science is coming round, providing a sound, unparadoxical paradigm for enlightend self-knowledge. The passions of heart, soul, and mind sit comfortably in the laboratories of today's front-edge scientists. That we have the potential to see how this works, by connecting our God-given brains with our spiritually intuitive consciousness is the amazing part.
May God have mercy on us in our desperate grip on separation.
Doug Good
P. S. Some of my conservative friends will find my terminology eccentric, but I feel that, rather than undermining sound evangelical theology, I am stengthening some of its spongy spots. I first wrote a piece that was more specfic than these remarks, but was advised that it is too esoteric for public airing. If you are interested, let me know (I won't hold my breath.)
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