At the present time, and especially in the United States, many are divided over the certainty of teachings from the sources of faith, particularly the monotheistic faiths and most particularly Christianity; and the sources of science, particularly the field of evolution as first promulgated in a systematic way by Charles Darwin. Some see an inconsistency, a permanent irreconcilability, or even a hostility between the teachings of faith and of science about the very nature of our existence. This divide is evidenced by many debates in our society, sometimes entering the political domain.

Through our dialog in Year One, we sought to become more informed about the theological and scientific issues pertaining to creation (as we understand creation from our perspective of a faith community) and evolution (as we understand theories and facts established by the scientific method). We dove deeply into this matter -- not to propagate any point of view, but rather to synthesize within our own minds and hearts an approach that encompasses the wisdom and revelation of faith and the knowledge and insights of science, to change the structure of the dialog from one of apparent contradiction to a tension where the truths of both faith and science may be understood, appreciated, and used. 

11 September 2005: Language, Issues, and History of the Creation/Evolution Dialog. Dr Jeffrey Pugh, Professor of Religious Studies, Elon University, Elon NC. How should we understand each key term used in the conflict “Evolution versus Creationism”? What issues define, shape and comprise this conflict? What key events or historical markers since the Renaissance have created the current conflict?

9 October 2005: Where Do We All Come From, According To Science? Dr. Jeffrey Coker, Asst. Prof. of Biology, Elon University. What evidence best supports a thoroughgoing Darwinism that would exclude the possibility of God? What evidence best supports an evolutionary process that allows “room” for God’s creative working?

13 November 2005: Where Do We All Come From? --The Theology Of It. Dan Reynolds, Ph.D. What evidence best supports a thoroughgoing Creationism allowing only minor variations in species? What evidence best supports a modified Creationism, with evolution planned and/or empowered by God?

8 January 2006: Theistic Evolution and Intelligent Design. Dr Mary Kathleen Cunningham, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, North Carolina State University. What are some of the concepts of God’s role in evolution, and what does one mean by Intelligent Design? 

12 February 2006: Implications: Public Education, Church/State, Academic Freedom  
Eleanor Enthoven Hasse, Ph.D., science consultant with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. See http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/science. Sally Bloom, M.A.; Carl Sigel, Ph.D. How do issues of fairness in public education & academic freedom impact this conflict here in Raleigh? How do issues of separation of Church and State factor into the discussion?

Books that were recommended reading for Year One:

Barbour, Ian G. When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners? San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2000.

Barbour, Ian G. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1997.

Behe, Michael. Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. New York:  Touchstone Books, 1998.

Gould, Stephen Jay. Rock of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York:  Ballantine, 1999.

Hartshorne, Charles. Omnipotence and other Theological Mistakes. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984. 

Haught, John F. Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution. Mahway, NJ: Paulist Press, 2001.

Haught, John F. God after Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000.

Haught, John F. Deeper than Darwin: The Prospect for Religion in the Age of Evolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003.

Hawking, Steven. A Brief History of Time. New York: Bantam Books, 1988.

Mellert, Robert B. What is Process Theology? New York: Paulist Press, 1975. Text available online. 

Mesle, C. Robert and Cobb, John B. Process Theology: a Basic Introduction. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1993.

Miller, Kenneth R. Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.

Numbers, Ronald L. Darwinism Comes to America. Cambridge: Harvard Press, 1988.

O'Leary, Denyse. By Design or By Chance? The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2004.

Peacocke, Arthur R. Evolution: The Disguised Friend of Faith? Oxford: OneWorld, 2004.

Polkinghorne, John. Belief in God in an Age of Science. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1998.

Pugh, Jeffrey C. Entertaining the Triune Mystery: God, Science, and the Space Between.  Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003.

Richardson, W. Mark, and Wesley J. Wildmans, eds. Religion and Science: History, Method, Dialogue. London: Routledge, 1996.

Scott, Eugenie C., Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. 

Suchocki, Marjorie and Bracken, Joseph A., eds. Trinity in Process: A Relational Theology of God. New York: Continuum, 1997.

Links that were useful in Year One:

Science & Theology News, a monthly newspaper. Unfortunately, it subsequently ceased publication, but more information may be found at www.dukespiritualityandhealth.org.

The Origin of Species, Darwin, 6th edition (online).

A Catechism of Creation - An Episcopal Understanding. In addition to the catechism, this website has links and bibliographical references to materials from many perspectives.

Also, if you like you may visit the Science & Religion Bookstore, with over 1000 titles pertaining to the intersection of science and religion.

February 12, 2006 was the first annual Evolution Sunday. Over 400 Christian churches from 49 states and a host of denominations came together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. For more information, click here.

A lexicon from Year One:

Actuality: A philosophical concept concerned with the development of processes and conceptions.  In social and natural processes, it refers to all the conditions for something, both essential and inessential coming together, and a thing going beyond being a potentiality and becoming a reality.

actus purus: A term employed in scholastic philosophy to express the absolute perfection of God.

Agnosticism: the belief (a) that we cannot have knowledge of God and (b) that it is impossible to prove that God exists or does not.

a fortiori: refers to having to accept something on the basis of even stronger and better evidence.

Analogical reasoning: Arguing by comparing the similarities between things: if two things are alike in many respects, it is probable that they will be alike in other respects.

Animism: Any of various primitive beliefs whereby natural phenomena and things animate and inanimate are held to possess an innate soul.

Anoetic: Referring to the states of sentience, such as pure emotions or sensations that have not yet come to full cognitive awareness.

Atemporal: Independent of time; timeless

Anthropic: Of or pertaining to man or the era of human life.

Anthropic Principle: The assertion that the physical constants of the early universe were delicately balanced or "fine-tuned" ; if they had even slightly different values, carbon-based life and our presence as intelligent observers would not have been possible.

Anthropomorphism: The attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to an inanimate object, animal or natural phenomenon.

Archetypal: An original model or type after which other things are patterned.

Aseity: The state of being of a thing that is utterly, completely, absolutely independent of other things; upon which all other things depend upon for their existence.

Atheism: the belief that gods do not, or God does not exist.

Atheistic evolution: Everything in the universe happened by chance; there is no God.

Baldwin effect: As organisms took new initiatives, genetic and then anatomic changes followed their actions.

Big bang: The singularity at the beginning of the universe.

Chaos: The disorganized, confused, formless, and undifferentiated state of primal matter before the presence of order in the universe.

Chaos Theory: The theory of nonlinear dynamic systems in which infinitesimal changes in initial conditions can result in very large changes in subsequent behavior.

Christology: The study of Christ's person and qualities.

Concrescence: The name given to the process that is any actual entity; it is the real internal constitution of a particular existent; it is the growing together of a many into the unity of a one.

Consonance: Agreement, harmony

Contingent: Refers to any statement that is not necessarily true, and is logically possible. In metaphysics, something that is liable to happen; it could happen or not depending on the circumstances.

Cosmology: A branch of philosophy dealing with the origin, processes and structure of the universe.

Cosmos: The universe regarded as an orderly, harmonious whole.

Cosmological constant: A mathematical device used by Einstein to give space-time an inbuilt tendency to expand.

Creationism: The view that the universe and its life forms were produced (and are being produced) by a supernatural agent.

Critical realism: The view that models and theories inadequately and selectively represent particular aspects of the world for specific purposes.

Darwinism: All life is explained by survival of the fittest of random mutations, acted on by the laws of nature.

Deduction: Reasoning from a general truth to a particular instance of that truth.

Deism: in general, the belief in the existence of God; a Creator who brought the world into being and then simply left it to it's own devices.

Determinism: The philosophical doctrine that every event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedents, such as physical, psychological, or environmental conditions, that are independent of the human will.

Dogma: a doctrine (belief, ideology, tenet, opinion) that has been formally and authoritatively proclaimed by a leader or by an institution such as a church.

Dualism: The view that the world consists of or is explicable as two fundamental entities, such as mind and matter; the belief that two Gods exist, one a force for good and the othe a force for evil, both vying for control of the universe.

Ecclesia: A church or congregation

Empiricism: The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge.

Epiphenomenon: A secondary phenomenon overlapping and resulting from another.

Epistemology: The division of philosophy that investigates the nature and origin of knowledge, speculative or critical philosophy; analysis of methods of inquiry and theories of knowledge. Epistemologists want to know what we mean when we say we know something.

Epistemological realism: The theory that universals exist in reality independent of our consciousness.  Universals exist in the external world even when not perceived.

Eschatology: The branch of theology that is concerned with the ultimate or last things, such as death, judgment, heaven, and hell.

Ethics: The study of moral and social behavior.

Evidentialism: The view that it is rational to accept a theory or belief, only if, and to the extent that, there are good reasons (or evidence) to think it is true [Stenmark].

Evocation: The act of calling forth or conjuring up.

Exclusion principle: The idea that two identical spin-1/2 particles cannot have (within the limits set by the uncertainty principle) both the same position and the same velocity.

Ex nihilo: Nothing comes out of nothing, or out of nothing, nothing can come, or nothing can be made out of nothing.

Existential: The vivid experience of the reality and varied dimensions of the present; based on experience, empirical.

Fideism:The doctrine that religious truth is founded on FAITH and not on reason of empirical evidence.

General relativity: Einstein's theory based on the idea that the laws of science should be the same for all observers, no matter how they are moving.  It explains the force of gravity in terms of the curvature of a four-dimensional space-time.

Grand unified theory: A theory that unifies the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces.

Greatnest according to Plotinus:  matter, vegetative life function, sensation, perception, pleasure/pain (emotions), images, concepts and opinions, logical faculty (formop), creative reason (vision-logic), soul/world soul (psychic), nous (intuitive mind), absolute one (Godhead).

Hegemony: predominance

Hermeneutic: The science and methodology of interpretation

Holism: The theory that there is a real, fundamental and irreducible difference between living and nonliving, between organic and inorganic, activity.  The parts of living wholes function differently within the whole from the way they do outside it.

Holo-: Indicates whole or a whole, or entirely.

Idealism: The action of envisioning things in an ideal form

Immanent: Indwelling, inherent, operating from within, being actually present in something.

Immaterial (according to Moreland): having no physical or material reality.

Incarnate: Invested with bodily nature and form.

Ineffable: Incapable of being expressed or communicated; indescribable.

Ineluctable: Not to be avoided or overcome, inevitable.

Intelligent Design: The concept that certain features of living organisms are “irreducibly complex”, too complex to believe that they could ever have developed through biological evolution.  Therefore, they can only be accounted for by the direct action of an Intelligent Designer.

inter alia: among other things

ipso facto: by the very fact or act

Kenosis: emptying.

Kenotic: A theology emphasizing God's voluntary self-limitation and vulnerability to suffering (rather than omnipotence and immutability).

Logical positivism: A philosophy asserting the primacy of observation in assessing the truth of statements of fact and holding that metaphysical and subjective arguments not based on observable data are meaningless, meaningful statements being either a priori and analytic or a posteriori and synthetic.

Macroevolution: Formation of new species.

Mantra: Hinduism  A sacred formula believed to embody the divinity invoked and to possess magical power.

Mental states: realities that exist as states of consciousness (e.g. thoughts, sensations, beliefs).

Metaphysics: The branch of philosophy that systematically investigates the first principles and problems of ultimate reality.

Metaphysical reductionism: The component parts of any system determine its behavior.

Microevolution: Small changes in existing species.

Modern: for philosophical purposes, the period of philosophy and general intellectual life following Descartes and his contemporaries. The broad characteristics of the period are often taken to include an emphasis on individualism, the intellect, the universality of judgment, and the consequence of adopting these features as starting points.

Modernity (according to Max Weber): the differentiation of cultural value spheres- art, morals and science (the beautiful, the good and the true). Modernity differentiated the realms of I, We and It.

Monism: A metaphysical system in which reality is conceived as a unified whole.

Narcissism: Excessive admiration of oneself.

Natural Theology: Arguments for the existence of God based on human reason and observation, including arguments starting from evidence of design in nature or in the process of nature (rather than from religious experience or revelation).

Naturalistic evolution: Only natural causes, arising from within the universe can explain changes over time There is no divine direction or purpose. Darwinism is the most widely known type of naturalistic evolution.

Neo-Darwinism: Evolutionary theory enhanced by knowledge of genetics. Evolutionary change is a product of random variations that were selected by the environment.

Neo-orthodoxy: God acts in human history, primarily in the person of Christ, rather than in the natural world. The doctrine of creation is not a theory about beginnings or about subsequent natural processes; it is an affirmation of dependence on God and the essential goodness and orderliness of the world.

Nexus: The bond, link or tie between existing members of a group, or series; a means of connection between things.

Nihilism: A doctrine that nothing exists, is knowable, or can be communicated; rejection of all distinctions in moral value, constituting a willingness to refute all previous theories of morality.

No boundary condition: The idea that the universe is finite but has no boundary (no imaginary time).

Noetic: Of, relating to, originating in, or apprehended by the intellect.

Nous: Mind, reason, the principle of divine reason.

Numinous experience:  Sense of some transcendent reality or presence that has powers associated with it such as awesomeness, the sublime, the terrifying, infinite power, grandeur. This reality is often called God.

Old earth creationism: The 6 days of creation were vast ages in which God worked.

Omnipotence: Having unlimited or universal power, authority or force; all powerful.

Omnitemporal: Something that exists (as itself) at all times; throughout eternity

Omniscient: Usually applied to God to indicate that God is all-knowing: that God has infinite knowledge.

Ontology: The branch of philosophy that deals with being or existence. Ontologists want to know what we mean when we say something exists

Otiose: Not required.

Panspermia: A theory that life was seeded from elsewhere in the universe.

Panentheism: The belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe so that every part of it exists in Him but (as against Pantheism) that His Being is more than, and is not exhausted by the universe. 

Pantheism: The doctrine identifying the Deity with the various workings and forces of nature; the belief that God is identical with the universe.

Physicalism: In metaphysics, the view that all reality is reducible to, or explainable in terms of, the physical (e.g., metal states are reducible to brain states)

Pluralism: The belief that no single explanatory system or view can account for all the phenomenon of life.

Polemical: Of or pertaining to a controversy, argument or refutation.

Positivism: A philosophical doctrine contending that sense perceptions are the only admissible basis of human knowledge and precise thought; a statement is meaningful if and only if it is,  at least in principle, empirically verifiable; scientific method is the only correct source of correct knowledge about reality.

Praxis: Doing an activity; usually refers to practical human conduct, including ethical and political activity.

Predicate: To assert or affirm something about something else; that which is affirmed or denied of a subject.

Property dualism: The view that ostensibly mental properties are genuinely mental and not physical properties.

prima facia: At first view, so far as appears on the surface, on the first appearance.

Providence: The care, guardianship, and control exercised by a deity; divine direction.

Psychosomatic: Of or pertaining to phenomena that are both physiological and psychological.

Quantum Theory: The theory first formulated in 1920s in which the properties of atoms and subatomic particles are represented by wave functions and mathematical operators that allow prediction of the probability but not the exact value of observable events.

Quark: A (charged) elementary particle that feels the strong force. Protons and neutrons are each composed of three quarks.

Realism: The attempt to see things as they are without idealization, speculation, or idolization.

Redemption: Salvation from sin through Christ's sacrifice.

Reductionism: In the philosophy of science, the belief that all fields of knowledge can be reduced to one type of methodology, or to one science, which encompasses principles applicable to all phenomena, in metaphysics, the belief that all things can be reduced to one kind of thing (substance, process, matter, God, form, idea) that is ultimate, necessary, and the most real.

Relativism: The theory that all truth is relative to the individual and to the time or place in which he acts.

Relativity  (1) Special Relativity, Einstein's theory relating measurements of time, space, and mass for objects moving uniformly with respect to the observer(a heory implying a space-time continuum and the equivalence of mass and energy), (2) General Relativity, his theory relating accelerated motion, gravitational force, and the curvature of space (leading to equations of which an expanding universe is one solution).

Religion: A tradition of shared rituals, stories, experiences, beliefs, and ethical norms in which life is viewed in a wider context of meaning; most (but not all) religious traditions have sacred texts or scriptures, and most express belief in a higher power transcending human life.

Revelation:  God's self disclosure in the natural world, scriptures, or historical events.

Scientism: The theory that investigational methods used in the natural sciences should be applied in all fields of inquiry.

Sentient: Having sense perception.

Singularity: A point in space-time at which the space-time curvature becomes infinite; .

Singularity theorem: Atheorem that shows that a singularity must exist under certain circumstances- in particular, that the universe must have started with a singularity.

Special relativity: Einstein's theory based on the idea that the laws of science should be the same for all observers, no matter how they are moving, in the absence of gravitational phenomena.

String theory: A theory in Physics in which particles are described as waves on strings.  Strings have length but no other dimensions.

Substance dualism: The view that a human consists of an immaterial substantial soul and a physical body that is not identical to the soul.

Tautology: Needless repetition of the same sense in different words, redundancy.

Teleology: Study of phenomena exibiting order, design, purposes, ends goals, tendencies, aims, and direction, and how these are achieved in a process of development. The teleological argument claims that evidence of design in the natural world or in the processes of nature implies the presence of an intelligent Designer.

Theism: Belief in divine things, gods, or a God; belief in one God but yet in some way immanent in the universe

Thesitic evolution: God created life through the process of evolution.

Theodicy: The discipline that attempts to justify the ways of God to humanity; the attempt to vindicate the goodness and justice of God in ordaining or allowing moral and natural evil and human suffering.

Theology: Critical reflections on the beliefs of a religious community in the contexts of its rituals, stories, experiences, and ethical norms.

Transcendent: superior, supreme, surpassing, exalted, of superlative quality; beyond what is given to our experience.

Transcendental(ism): Concerning the a priori basis of knowledge; minimizing the importance or denying the reality of sense experience; knowledge of reality is derived from intuitive sources rather than from objective experience.

Uncertainty principle: The principle, formulated by Heisenberg, that one can never be exactly sure of both the position and velocity of a particle; the more accurately one knows the one, the less accurately one knows the other.

Verisimilitude: Something that has the appearance of being true or real.

Vitalism: In general, the belief that the activities of living organizisms are due to a vital force or principle that is different from other physical forces in the universe.

Vitiate: To impair the value or quality of; make faulty or impure; to corrupt morally; debase; pervert.

Yoga: A Hindu discipline aimed at training the consciousness for a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility.

Young earth creationism: Life was created in 6 days; there is no evolution, or if there is, it is not an important force.