SCIENCE & RELIGION

June 1999
		Ian Barbour, a Carleton College professor emeritus, was awarded the 1999 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in recognition of efforts to create a dialogue between the worlds of science and religion. He answers your questions about his work.

Forum introduction Where does science end and religion begin? Can theologians embrace science? Can biblical literalists be brought into the discussion? Can scientific questions be reconciled with religious faith? How can religion and science be reconciled with other disciplines?     May 28, 1999 Elizabeth Farnsworth interviews 1999 Templeton Prize winner Ian Barbour. May 17, 1999 Prof. Barbour's Templeton Prize acceptance speech. Prof. Barbour's biography. A history of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.     The John Templeton Foundation Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences Carleton College Yale University Duke University Swarthmore College

Susan Thomas, Ph.D., of Mauldin, SC, asks: I very much appreciate the emphasis of the Templeton Award and the creativity of your work, Professor Barbour, but I wonder about the narrowness of a science/religion focus. Would we not learn much more and have more potential for achieving reconciliation of a meaningful sort if other forms of knowledge and ways of knowing were also included in your work and the work of the Center of Theology and Natural Sciences, e.g., history to better help us understand the context and ebb and flow of knowledge systems; political science to help us better understand power struggles among dominant and rising groups; geography and anthropology to help us better understand the evolution and instances of diversity; economics to help us better understand the process of ascendancy in human affairs; etc.? Thanks for your consideration of what would be involved in moving beyond this bipolar and more or less conflict determinative structure that abstracts two human knowledge bases from a more or less holistic world of knowledge systems. Prof. Barbour responds: Particularly in looking at ethical issues in the applications of science we need to draw from all of the disciplines you mention. In policy decisions concerning new technologies, from nuclear power to genetic engineering, we must examine the environmental, social, and economic impacts of new discoveries. Science can tell us what is possible but not what we should do. We must not expect religious traditions to provide easy answer to unprecedented and complex decisions, but rather to suggest fundamental values, such as human dignity, social justice, and the preservation of the created order, which we can bring to the public debate on policies and priorities. Even the discoveries of "pure" or fundamental science should indeed be viewed in an interdisciplinary context that includes many disciplines beyond science and religion. History and philosophy are particularly important. We must draw from the social sciences (including anthropology) in any discussion of human nature. But in my writing I give particular attention to religion and the natural sciences, partly because these are the two fields with which I am most familiar, and partly because I believe that these are the two most powerful influences on human life and the most crucial as we enter the new millenium.