1. Introduction

It is widely accepted in historical terms that Western Christianity had the first, deep impact on natural sciences, which led later to the problem of relationship between science and religion as a cultural, academic and ecclesial issue. Arthur Peacocke, a leading scholar in the science and theology dialogue within the Anglican tradition, admits in his book Theology for a Scientific Age that the experience of Eastern Christianity in engagement with science was different.¹ The Orthodox theologian S. Harakas also argues, in one of the rare papers on the Orthodox perspective in science, that “Orthodox Christianity has a special approach to science”.² Despite the recognition of the “difference” of this experience, the meaning of this difference has not yet been fully articulated and investigated anywhere in the literature.

This book formulates in stages some aspects of the Orthodox approach to the problem of science and religion. In some ways, this attempt will be orientated toward a specific historical form of Orthodox religious experience as compared with Western Christianity. The “specialness” of the Orthodox experience in relationship with science and its difference from the Western forms of the dialogue between sci­ence and religion are ultimately determined by such essential theological underpinnings as the nature of theology, the nature of the human ability to know God, and the understanding of humankind’s place in the universe and role in the mediation between the world and God.

The evolving differences between the Western and the Eastern Christian approaches to the natural sciences themselves constitute a serious historical prob­lem: why the impact of Greek Classical culture with Christianity in Western Europe, which had been articulated by St. Augustine of Hippo and eight centuries later by Roger Bacon, has an absolutely different long-term effect on scientific development and the progress of technology when compared to eastern parts of Europe, where people’s ways of living and theologizing were for many centuries closer to the Greek Patristic tradition, and different from the Latin tradition, to which St. Augustine belonged.³ One mystery involves why, by the twelfth century, Greek Patristic thought and Byzantine theology, with their deeply cosmic dimensions, were nearly forgotten in Western Europe.⁴ This book does not pretend to be a complete historical research; it argues, nevertheless, that what was forgotten – that is, the so-called Greek Patristic synthesis, which forms the basis for all Orthodox theologizing – contains in itself the secret of that special attitude to science that Orthodox theology followed throughout the centuries.

One might argue that the specificity of the Orthodox attitude to science is shaped by historical and geographical factors, such as the detachment of the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire and Eastern European countries (which adopted Orthodoxy from Byzantium) from the West. With the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the fifteenth century, followed by the eclipse of Orthodoxy and its relationship with Western Christianity, the era of Enlightenment and technological revolutions was slow to influence Orthodox peoples, whereas discussions on science and religion in the West had by that time already become historical facts and subjects of textbooks.⁵ One can argue that this historical delay in part caused the gap between science and religion in the Orthodox world and that, as a result, the Orthodox experience of interaction with science is “belated” and “undeveloped.”

The liberation of the Balkans from Ottoman domination in the nineteenth cen­tury spurred the Orthodox revival in Greece and Eastern Europe. It coincided with a spiritual revival in Russia, where the first serious discussions on science and religion started in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Interestingly, however, the Russian prerevolutionary interest in science and religion never seriously dealt with questions of the natural sciences as such. Rather, science and religion were discussed in the context of the problem of faith and knowledge, which, as we understand it today, is a more gen­eral theological and philosophical problem than the dialogue between science and theology.⁶

Without saying too much about the seventy years following the revolution of 1917, it is clear that the problem of faith and knowledge was never discussed seri­ously, in any respect, in Soviet Russia. The atheistic formula and the idol of scientific progress substituted for religion on pages of journals and books excluded any con­structive and meaningful mediation between science and any theology (not only Orthodox theology). A serious attitude to the problem of science and religion in Russia has begun to develop only in the past decade, as shown by conferences in St. Petersburg and Moscow, some publications and translations of the modern Western monographs, and educational courses in Russian universities, which are taught by a few enthusiasts.

Such a historical and geografical “explanation” of the specifity of Orthodox experience with respect to science suffers from a lack of recognition that Orthodoxy, despite being “natural” in its historical motherland of Eastern Europe, is now a worldwide phenomenon. One can observe the growth of diasporic Orthodox churches in Western Europe, in the United States, and beyond. Orthodoxy becomes a part of the spiritual experience of people from historically non-Orthodox countries. Regardless, there is still no deep engagement between science and Orthodox faith in the pan-Orthodox world today; there are no discussions of science and the­ology within the Orthodox context even in the countries where these discussions are widespread in the Western theological tradition. In fact, Orthodox theology lacks any attempt to qualify and evaluate modern science and technology even in theological terms, to say nothing of the development of such topics as nature and its scientific knowledge in theological discourse. Members of the Orthodox clergy recognize this gap. For example, Metropolitan Paulos Mar Gregorios openly expresses his regret that an understanding of the place of humans in the cosmos remains undeveloped: “It is striking how little attention is given by Orthodox theologians to issues relating to the human role within the cosmos. Only a few articles have been devoted to topics such as creation, nature, and time.”⁷

Publications on science and theology in the Orthodox context amount to only three dozens of books and papers (a showing hardly to be compared with the hundreds of titles on science and religion written within Western Christianity).⁸ These include two books by P. Sherrard that have a strongly negative evaluation of modern science’s misuse in technological implications, two books on Orthodox bioethics, and some short researches on science and religion in general.⁹

Some contemporary Orthodox theologians briefly mention the issue of science and religion and indirectly indicate ways of approaching this problem. Examples from these theologians’ work will make it possible to examine the methodology of mediation between theology and science more thoroughly later in this book.

We start by recalling that Greek Patristic theology, which underlies all Orthodox thinking, contains a cosmic dimension; it is cosmic theology, for it is preoccupied not only with the reality of heavenly things and future events but also with the fate of the visible cosmos and of humans, as part of it, in the perspective of its ultimate transfiguration through the union with God, its creator. It is exactly this cosmic dimension in Orthodox theology that is often forgotten or ignored while evaluating its impact on the grandeur of modern scientific enterprise. Some contemporary Orthodox theologians have articulated this problem; the Romanian theologian Father Dumitru Staniloae, for example, appealed for the reconciliation of the views of Patristic theology in its cosmic dimension with modern science:

A theology which is concerned to emphasize the destiny of mankind and the meaning of history cannot avoid facing the world in which men actually live out their lives. Orthodox theology has therefore become – together with Western theology – a theology of the world, returning through this aspect to the tradition of the Eastern Fathers themselves who had a vision of the cosmos recapitulated in God. From this point of view the most important problem for the Orthodox theology of tomorrow will be to reconcile the cosmic vision of the Fathers with a vision which grows out of the results of the natural sciences… Theology today must remain open to embrace both humanity and the cosmos; it must take into account both the aspirations of all mankind and the results of modern science and technology.¹⁰

From this perspective, we can assert that the problem of mediation between Orthodox theology and modern science constitutes a challenge of creating a “new Patristic synthesis” of theology and science. In other words, there is no way for Orthodox theology to deal with the problems that science poses to modern civilization by disregarding the views about the cosmos, and the position of human beings in it, that have been developed by the Greek church fathers. To avoid “reinventing the bicycle” in theology, the Fathers’ views should not be neglected when creating an innovative philosophical understanding of theology and science. Without the expe­rience of the Fathers, the resulting synthesis would be outside the Orthodox tradition and thus would inevitably be incomplete and inadequate.

In addition, theology in the Orthodox context has never been considered solely an academic discipline, detached from the living experience of God in both personal worship and the liturgical life of ecclesial communities. If science is to be involved in relationship with theology, it inevitably must become an existential mode of humanity, whose existence in theological terms can be expressed as communion with God. Science, then, should be seen as a mode of communion with God. This would mean that theology and science are similar in that both are existential activities of human beings in their communion with God. The mediation between theology and science thus becomes their reinstatement to a similar status with respect to human existence as communion with God. This thought was expressed by Metropolitan J. Zizioulas of Pergamon in his book Being as Communion:

Science and theology for a long time seemed to be in search of different sorts of truth, as if there were not one truth in existence as a whole. This resulted from making truth subject to the dichotomy between the transcendent and the immanent, and in the final analysis from the fact that the “theological” truth and the “scientific” truth were both disconnected from the idea of communion, and were considered in terms of a subject-object framework which was simply the methodology of analytical research... If theology creatively uses the Greek patristic synthesis concerning truth and communion and applies it courageously to the sphere of the Church, the split between the Church and science can be overcome. The scientist who is a Church member will be able to recognize that he is carrying out a para-eucharistic work, and this may lead to the freeing of nature from its subjection beneath the hands of modern technological man.¹¹

Scientific research and activity, then, can be treated as religious experience. Any tension between theology and science disappears, for they both flourish from the same human experience of existence-communion. Science thus cannot be detached from theology; it is in the complex with theology that it can be properly understood and treated. Therefore, the communal (liturgical) dimension of Greek Patristic syn­thesis provides another methodological rule of mediation between theology and sci­ence, namely, that this mediation can never be detached from the experience of the living God in ecclesial communities. The mediation between theology and science itself acquires the features of ecclesial activity.

It is important to realize, however, that if science, by virtue of its genuine nature, is involved in theological discourse, then science can receive its qualification from a theological perspective in discursive terms. Namely, it is theology that can provide insights on the value and the meaning of science for human society. The funda­mental claim of modern theology, which is reminiscent of the ancient writings of Gregory the Theologian (Naziansus), is that science as such is incomplete and cannot provide knowledge of the essence of its objects. Sherrard is eager to articulate this point:

Modern science, based as it is on a rationality subordinated to non-spiritual categories, likewise can never attain a knowledge of anything in itself, no matter how much it concerns itself with experiment and observation or how far it carries its function of dissection and analysis. This is the situation to which modern science has been condemned and in which it continues to be trapped. It is compelled by its very premises to ignore in things those qualities that transcend their finite appearance and the reason’s capacity for logical analysis and deduction.¹²

Here we approach another important issue from Orthodox theological experi­ence: its fundamental apophaticism in questions concerned with the ultimate origin of created things and their meaning, which is rooted in a limited human capacity to reason about things that are sometimes beyond reasoning and are accessible only to the highest human faculty of faith and the direct cognition of things. Apophaticism in this context means freedom granted to church members to explore experientially their personal way of life in God. This implies that science as such needs to be complemented by a wider human vision of things, one generally expressed in metaphysical concerns as well as in religion. To deny this dimension and its importance for human life leads to atheism and an illusion of reaching truth through scientific “closures” of observations and measurements. The Greek Orthodox theologian C. Yannaras argues about this forcefully:

For the man who denies or rejects metaphysical question, who does not trust the experience of the personal revelation of God, the world – material reality – often becomes a refuge or an alibi for his flight from the problem of God. He invokes the certainties of physics in order to prove the propositions of metaphysics to be uncertain and untrustworthy. He takes refuge in the clarity of quantitative meas­urements in order to escape the difficulty of the qualitative challenges which verify life... Mythologized “science” is today the opium for the metaphysical enervation of the masses.¹³

It now becomes clear that for the proper understanding of its meaning and usage, science should be involved in metaphysical inquiry and theological discourse, thus being placed in the context of the general spiritual progress of humankind, which is not exhausted at all by scientific progress. It is here that Orthodox theology takes a different turn from the Western trend with respect to science, judging it from a reli­gious perspective but not simply employing science in order to illustrate established religious views. D. Staniloae argues this point:

While Western theology, which has only now abandoned the rationalist formulae of scholasticism under the pressure of the present intellectual revolution, seeks to explain the doctrines of the faith just as exhaustively by means of rationalist for­mulae of another kind, especially those based on the results of the natural sciences, Orthodox theology considers that these same scientific results have thrown even greater light upon the infinite mystery of the divine interpersonal life and upon the ineffable mystery of the human subject, as well as upon the personal relations which obtain among these human subjects and between them the God who transcends reason.¹⁴

Staniloae continues:

In its estimation of the role of scientific progress in the understanding of dogma Orthodox theology is in agreement with Western theology. What distinguishes it from the latter is the fact that it takes scientific progress into account only in so far as science makes a contribution to the progress of the human spirit, and only in so far as it deepens in man the experience of his own spiritual reality and of the supreme spiritual reality, neither of which can be reduced to the physical and chemical level.¹⁵

Orthodox theology asserts that reality, understood in a wide theological sense, is much wider than that which is known to human beings through their reason and sci­entific research. If human reason is subjected to this lure of all-embracing knowledge and disregards the human spiritual experience of contemplating realities that are above and beyond the visible and intellectual, it inevitably arrives at the idol of sci­entific progress, which can only know this reality “objectively” (that is, not from within its inward existence) and manipulate it technologically, so that humility in grasping the sense of existence is lost: “We have become so accustomed to the scientific-technological stance that we have lost the faculty of addressing reality as a whole, of seeing in it the source and sustainer of life, of responding to it with reverence and receptivity, and of surrendering ourselves to it in all-fulfilling love. We have lost the capacity to respond with our whole being to the being of the Wholly Other who presents himself to us through the created universe.”¹⁶

Apophaticism becomes a synonym of humility if one risks arguing about nature and life in ultimate terms. It is here that such words as wisdom and spirit reflect the true nature of knowledge, which leads inevitably to the maker and sustainer of all that exists. In no way, however, is science excluded from the human search for truth: it is simply concerned with the created order of things, which in some mysterious way contains the pointers to the Divine, the ground and truth of all creation. As Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia expressed this: “As creator God is always at the heart of each thing, maintaining it in being. On the level of scientific inquiry, we discern certain processes or sequences of cause and effect. On the level of spiritual vision, which does not contradict science, but looks beyond it, we discern everywhere the creative energies of God, upholding all that is, forming the innermost essence of all things. But while present everywhere in the world, God is not to be identified with the world.”¹⁷

If science, seen in a theological perspective, is destined to deepen the spiritual experience of humankind and to extend its immediate perception of reality beyond human senses and the visible, then the challenge becomes to develop a balanced language, accessible to both science and technology, that could cope with the difficulties of the ill-articulated entities that constitute religious experience of reality as a whole. This is a serious problem, and it is exactly that which this book attempts to review and develop. The task is enormously difficult, for it has to transcend any simple logic of either the naive reconciliation of science and theology or, alternatively, a brutal demarcation of each field with no hope of establishing any mediation. The danger of oversimplifying the relationship between science and theology is clearly seen from some comments by Philip Sherrard with which it is difficult to agree. Let us look carefully at another quotation from him:

Indeed, nearly all attempts to reconcile religion and science have been made by theologians, not by scientists (who appear to be more perceptive in this respect). What such a reconciliation generally involves is an attempt to adapt the principles of reli­gion – transcendent and immutable – to the latest findings of science, and so to make religion “reasonable” or in keeping with the “spirit of the age” by appearing “scientific.” Naturally, the particular scientific hypotheses in the name of which this adaptation is carried out are often discarded by scientists themselves by the time the theologians completed their task… There can be no greater disservice done to the Christian religion than to tie it up with scientific views which in their very nature are merely temporary. Far from religion and science mutually supporting each other it may be said that the more one is involved with science and its methods the more likely is one to become impervious to the experience of those realities which give religion its meaning.¹⁸

Certainly it is reasonable to argue that scientific development is in a state of infi­nite advance and that all its discoveries and theories have limited validity if seen from the “point of view of eternity.” This implies that all cataphatic claims of modern sci­ence for knowing ultimate truth and possessing the ultimate theory must be declined on the grounds of their a priori limited validity originating from sensory and mental boundaries implied in human scientific advance.¹⁹ However, it does not have to reject science from the equation in search for truth, for it supplies us with the human projection of truth in the created and contingent world, which is created by God. This observation suggests, rather, that religious truth has a different ontology, one that far transcends the expanding horizon of scientific knowledge. The Russian the­ologian V. Lossky has expressed this thought by saying that any properly scientific synthesis can easily be incorporated by theology.²⁰ It is true, however, that neither sci­ence nor religion should assimilate the other and adapt the other’s methods in its own approach to truth; at present, scientific enterprise, which is built on the ideal of rational knowledge, is deprived of taking into account such not easily articulated aspects of existence as human consciousness, the world of culture, and the sphere of human spiritual experience. This problem must not threaten the dialogue between science and theology; on the contrary, it must encourage modern thinkers to develop an intellectual context and its corresponding language that could operate with both physical realities and the realities of the spiritual life in God.²¹ This is a real challenge for scientists and theologians to be professionals in both fields, that is, to be rational with what concerns the realities of this age and, at the same time, to be mystical with what lies in the foundation of the visible world, which carries in itself the signs of the invisible and uncreated.

Bishop Basil (Osborne) of Sergievo refers to the figure of Dionysius Areopagite to illustrate the challenge of modern thinkers in talking on equal footing about nature and what lies beyond it in God:

Dionysius [the Areopagite] was able to speak, in his day, using a language about the real world that was common currency among educated people in his time. Theologians, today, find this very hard to do. We very much need to find a contem­porary language with which to speak about the world as we know it through science and then relate this to our spiritual concerns and to God. Our discourse... must revolve around three poles: God, man and nature. And if we cannot speak convincingly about nature, how are we going to speak convincingly about man who is part of nature? Indeed, how are we to speak convincingly about God?... We humans... need to commune with the world, to live with it at the level of the explicate, perceptual world. But for the integration of our whole being, we will also need to be able to do this at the level of the mind. Dionysius was able to do this, and has enabled many others to do so as well. A modern Dionysius, to produce the same effect, will have to possess a language about the material world... that opens out easily onto the world of the mind and of the spirit. Theologians themselves are unlikely to produce this necessary mode of speech, though they should certainly be invited to join others in assessing it.²²

It seems to be true that theologians need both to transcend their own “specialty” in order to acquire the language of science and that scientists should become theolo­gians in a nontrivial sense, that is, to not only generalize their theories to the level of philosophical limits but also acquire the mode of contemplation of the world, which leads them to the personal God, as well as makes it possible to express what is contemplated through new language. Can this synthesis be achieved? This book tries to provide some answers.

It is clear from the discussion here that the problem of the relationship between theology and science as seen in the perspective of the living Orthodox tradition escapes the simplistic models of interaction and classification schemes (such as whether science and theology are compatible, should assimilate each other, or are in a state of consonance) that are so popular in contemporary discussions in the West. The dialogue between theology and science demands the development of a theologico-scientific, intellectual (academic), and experiential (ecclesial) context that can be described in terms of reciprocity of science and theology without their assimilating each other. This book takes first steps toward this objective with no pretension to completing the enormous task.

The final point of this introduction is about Christ, for it is Christ, the incarnate Word-Logos of God, who is the alpha and omega of Christian theology. Science, being involved in Orthodox theological discourse, cannot avoid its encounter with Christ; from the influence of the Greek Fathers, nature, and scientific activity concerning it, cannot be seen outside Christ, through whom the meaning and purpose of all creation can be grasped. The incarnation of the Logos of God in the world as the establishment of the intelligibility of the world in its utter contingency – that is, the christological dimension of the dialogue between theology and science – recapitulates all the methodological pointers toward this dialogue, as indicated above. In this aspect, our approach to the dialogue between theology and science can be paralleled with the “theological science” of Thomas Torrance, who in many aspects attempts to employ the ideas of Patristic writers in order to argue that “neither the doctrine of creation nor the doctrine of the incarnation will allow theology to detach itself from, far less despise, natural or human science in which man is set by God to the task of exploring, and bringing to word, the order and harmony of the universe and all that takes place within it, for the universe is the sphere in which the believer glorifies and praises God the creator as well as the medium in and through which God makes himself known to man. Thus regarded science itself is part of man’s reli­gious duty, for it is part of his faithful response to the Creator and Sustainer of the Cosmos.”²³

It is through the hypostatic union of the Divine and the human that Christ recapitulated humankind and demonstrated to human beings that it is their duty to be in the center of being to mediate between the world and God and to praise the Creator through creation, by carrying out its cosmic liturgical function, which can include the mediation between theology and science.