WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.300 Well, ladies and gentlemen, good evening. 2 00:00:01.560 --> 00:00:03.960 We'll just wait a few moments before we start, 3 00:00:04.200 --> 00:00:06.180 because some people are still coming in. 4 00:00:06.340 --> 00:00:09.840 So my name is Paul Davies, and I have the honor and pleasure 5 00:00:09.840 --> 00:00:11.340 of chairing this evening's session, 6 00:00:11.520 --> 00:00:13.380 Has Science Abolished God? 7 00:00:14.300 --> 00:00:16.920 I have a few housekeeping remarks to make. 8 00:00:17.180 --> 00:00:20.460 The first thing is, I've switched off my mobile phone. 9 00:00:20.880 --> 00:00:21.520 Have you? 10 00:00:22.400 --> 00:00:22.880 OK. 11 00:00:24.340 --> 00:00:24.820 OK. 12 00:00:27.780 --> 00:00:31.120 Secondly, there's a little bit of confusion about when we start and end 13 00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:32.460 and whether there's a gap in the middle. 14 00:00:32.780 --> 00:00:38.580 It's been decided by the organizers that as there's no food and drink on sale 15 00:00:38.580 --> 00:00:42.900 and it's rather cold outside, we'll press on without an interval. 16 00:00:43.380 --> 00:00:46.220 So anyone who wishes to take that into account now 17 00:00:46.220 --> 00:00:50.660 and maybe step outside for a while are welcome to do so. 18 00:00:51.740 --> 00:00:54.520 We must vacate this hall by 10 o'clock. 19 00:00:54.820 --> 00:00:57.420 It may be we run out of steam by 9.45. 20 00:00:57.660 --> 00:01:01.300 We have the full two hours if we can sustain it 21 00:01:01.300 --> 00:01:03.120 and if the panelists here can sustain it. 22 00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:07.660 The way I intend to conduct the discussion this evening 23 00:01:07.660 --> 00:01:09.640 is I'll make a few introductory remarks, 24 00:01:09.940 --> 00:01:12.160 then I'll introduce our speakers, 25 00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:16.520 and then I'm going to sit down and ask them some questions 26 00:01:16.520 --> 00:01:19.940 and get some dialogue going here up on the stage. 27 00:01:20.500 --> 00:01:23.680 And in my experience, that normally takes about an hour 28 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:24.660 by the time... 29 00:01:24.820 --> 00:01:26.560 We've said a little bit. 30 00:01:27.220 --> 00:01:30.160 And then I would like to open the discussion to the floor, 31 00:01:30.300 --> 00:01:33.440 thus allowing plenty of time for people to ask questions. 32 00:01:33.800 --> 00:01:36.600 And there are two microphones, one down here. 33 00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:38.040 It's very hard for me to see with these lights. 34 00:01:38.140 --> 00:01:41.100 One down here somewhere and one up in the gallery. 35 00:01:41.380 --> 00:01:45.200 But when we finish our bit up here, 36 00:01:45.300 --> 00:01:47.260 I'll make some further announcements about that. 37 00:01:47.340 --> 00:01:49.140 I can see one microphone, in fact, over there. 38 00:01:50.160 --> 00:01:53.400 And, of course, it's important, as you know always on these occasions, 39 00:01:53.460 --> 00:01:54.800 that people do limit... 40 00:01:54.820 --> 00:01:56.860 limit their remarks to specific questions 41 00:01:56.860 --> 00:01:58.340 to one or more of the panelists 42 00:01:58.340 --> 00:02:02.140 and not to deliver monologues, lectures, 43 00:02:02.340 --> 00:02:03.520 and especially not sermons. 44 00:02:11.500 --> 00:02:12.840 Well, now to business. 45 00:02:13.540 --> 00:02:17.000 In a much-discussed conversation with Napoleon, 46 00:02:17.320 --> 00:02:19.820 the French physicist Pierre Laplace 47 00:02:19.820 --> 00:02:21.820 once explained the system of the universe 48 00:02:21.820 --> 00:02:24.800 according to the mechanics of Einstein, 49 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:25.160 Isaac Newton. 50 00:02:27.180 --> 00:02:28.600 And Napoleon said, 51 00:02:28.760 --> 00:02:30.760 but where does God fit into this scheme? 52 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:33.160 To which Laplace famously replied, 53 00:02:33.460 --> 00:02:35.200 I have no need of this hypothesis. 54 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:38.760 Well, 500 years ago, of course, 55 00:02:38.780 --> 00:02:41.320 it was widely supposed, at least in Christian Europe, 56 00:02:41.500 --> 00:02:44.920 that God was not just the creator of the physical world, 57 00:02:45.020 --> 00:02:46.620 but also a sort of cosmic supervisor, 58 00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:48.860 routinely acting in the world, 59 00:02:48.940 --> 00:02:51.720 moving matter around supernaturally. 60 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:54.520 The term, an act of God, 61 00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:56.900 for an earthquake or a lightning bolt, 62 00:02:57.040 --> 00:02:57.900 was made quite literally. 63 00:02:59.540 --> 00:03:00.880 When I was at Sunday school, 64 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:01.580 we used to sing, 65 00:03:01.740 --> 00:03:03.600 we plow the fields and scatter 66 00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:05.020 the good seed on the land, 67 00:03:05.580 --> 00:03:08.520 but it is fed in water by God's almighty hand. 68 00:03:09.740 --> 00:03:13.120 Well, then along came Copernicus, Galileo, 69 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:15.680 Newton, Darwin, Einstein, and the rest, 70 00:03:16.380 --> 00:03:18.720 and God was more or less put out of work. 71 00:03:19.720 --> 00:03:21.960 The condensation of atmospheric water vapor 72 00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:23.140 was perfectly adequate 73 00:03:23.900 --> 00:03:24.780 to accelerate, 74 00:03:24.800 --> 00:03:25.000 and it was not possible to explain 75 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:27.600 the watering of seeds without the hand of the almighty. 76 00:03:28.740 --> 00:03:29.960 And as science progressed, 77 00:03:30.100 --> 00:03:33.500 so God became ever smaller, 78 00:03:33.720 --> 00:03:35.840 or at least his domain shrank ever further. 79 00:03:36.200 --> 00:03:37.360 Of course, there were still gaps 80 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:40.300 in the scientific account in which God could hide, 81 00:03:40.480 --> 00:03:41.880 but with every new advance, 82 00:03:42.260 --> 00:03:44.760 science squeezed those gaps relentlessly. 83 00:03:45.140 --> 00:03:46.600 So that in our own age, 84 00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:49.360 it seems as if God has been displaced by science 85 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:51.720 from almost everywhere in space and time. 86 00:03:52.460 --> 00:03:54.780 It appears that scientists have named 87 00:03:54.780 --> 00:03:55.780 the entire dated 88 00:04:20.080 --> 00:04:26.060 the gaps, confined to the dark and dwindling corners of ignorance. Progressive theologians 89 00:04:26.060 --> 00:04:32.140 have embraced scientific discovery with enthusiasm as a means of uncovering the true wonder of the 90 00:04:32.140 --> 00:04:39.660 cosmos. More abstract notions of God, such as the ground of being or even being itself, that rest 91 00:04:39.660 --> 00:04:45.280 more comfortably alongside science, have been proposed. But where does this leave the God of 92 00:04:45.280 --> 00:04:51.220 popular religion, the personal God to whom people pray in the hope that he'll in some way intervene 93 00:04:51.220 --> 00:04:57.860 and put things right? In truth, most religious people are less concerned with using God as an 94 00:04:57.860 --> 00:05:03.820 explanation of the physical universe, more with the moral and spiritual dimension of religion. 95 00:05:04.100 --> 00:05:09.280 Indeed, many are content to focus on human spirituality alone and relegate the concept 96 00:05:09.280 --> 00:05:15.020 of God to a sort of metaphor. So is the traditional notion of God, 97 00:05:15.280 --> 00:05:21.160 then, the God of popular religion, now past its use by date? Has the time come to move on to new 98 00:05:21.160 --> 00:05:27.300 concepts of God and religion, or even to a fully post-religious society? Well, here to answer these 99 00:05:27.300 --> 00:05:33.040 momentous questions is a distinguished panel that bridges the science-religion divide, and I'll 100 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:41.840 introduce them to you from the far end to this end. So first is Owen Gingrich. He's most anxious 101 00:05:41.840 --> 00:05:44.700 to point out he has no relation to Newt. 102 00:05:45.540 --> 00:05:51.100 And in fact, it's spelled slightly differently. He's a distinguished astronomer at Harvard University, 103 00:05:51.740 --> 00:05:57.020 and in addition to his astronomical work, he's a scholar of scientific history, holding the post 104 00:05:57.020 --> 00:06:02.780 of research professor of the history of science. His interests very much include the crossover 105 00:06:02.780 --> 00:06:07.920 between science and religion. I discovered that he and I have a curious connection. I haven't 106 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:13.520 pointed this out to him yet, in us both having asteroids named after us. Let's hope they don't 107 00:06:13.520 --> 00:06:13.780 collide. 108 00:06:15.400 --> 00:06:22.360 Owen is also an avid observer of solar eclipses, and I do hope he'll be back in South Australia for next year's 2002 eclipse. 109 00:06:24.340 --> 00:06:32.840 Next is Margaret Wertheim. She'll be known to all former teenage girls in this hall because of her famous work 110 00:06:32.840 --> 00:06:37.300 presenting the ABC science series Catalyst, which is where I first met her. She interviewed me for Catalyst, 111 00:06:37.420 --> 00:06:43.500 she's probably forgotten. She's now an international media personality, having based herself in California for the 112 00:06:43.500 --> 00:06:44.260 last few years. 113 00:06:45.280 --> 00:06:51.600 Her book, Pythagoras's Trousers, ruffled some feathers by drawing a parallel between the physics community and the priesthood. 114 00:06:52.740 --> 00:06:59.140 As some of my best friends are physicists, priests, or sometimes both, I find this an illuminating and interesting comparison. 115 00:07:00.500 --> 00:07:09.940 Now, next to her, Jack Spong is a priest, in fact the Anglican Bishop of Newark in New Jersey, and he's been described as the theologian they love to hate. 116 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:15.260 Fearless in his championing of gay rights and the ordination of women, he's been described as the theologian they love to hate. 117 00:07:15.280 --> 00:07:20.700 In the book, he's also written provocative books with titles like Why Christianity Must Change or Die. 118 00:07:21.520 --> 00:07:28.680 He was once the sports editor of a national newspaper, and I'm delighted to have such a hard-hitter on side for tonight's debate. 119 00:07:31.200 --> 00:07:36.860 Rodney Brooks is director of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 120 00:07:37.180 --> 00:07:40.780 a professor of computer science, and an expert in robotics. 121 00:07:41.540 --> 00:07:45.260 As if that wasn't impressive enough, he's also distinguished in being an advocate. 122 00:07:45.280 --> 00:07:46.160 He's been a lay lad, no less. 123 00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:52.340 As far as I know, Rodney is the only roboticist to engage the services of a professional theologian, 124 00:07:52.380 --> 00:07:56.660 to study the nature of personhood and the ethics of the man-machine interface, 125 00:07:56.960 --> 00:07:59.860 so he's well-placed to engage in this evening's discussion. 126 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:07.320 And finally, to keep us on the straight and narrow, is Raymond Gator, who teaches moral philosophy at King's College London. 127 00:08:08.020 --> 00:08:14.100 This is an institution founded to counter the rebellious influence of the ungodly of Gower Street, 128 00:08:14.180 --> 00:08:15.240 as University College London is a place of the ungodly. 129 00:08:15.240 --> 00:08:15.260 The University College London is a place of the ungodly. 130 00:08:15.260 --> 00:08:19.920 University College London was then described on account of its irreverent approach to social and religious issues. 131 00:08:20.440 --> 00:08:24.520 Well, having myself been a student of the latter and a lecturer of the former, 132 00:08:24.660 --> 00:08:28.960 I think I'm correct in describing both colleges as pretty much ungodly these days. 133 00:08:31.520 --> 00:08:36.520 Raymond also spends half the year as professor of philosophy at the Australian Catholic University, 134 00:08:36.920 --> 00:08:39.440 which must lead to some taxing questions of his own. 135 00:08:41.140 --> 00:08:42.800 Anyway, enough of my opening remarks. 136 00:08:43.020 --> 00:08:44.640 I will now join the panelists. 137 00:08:45.260 --> 00:08:47.620 In the middle here, and we'll begin the discussion. 138 00:08:57.900 --> 00:09:05.680 Now, I'd like to start by asking Owen about something of the history of this whole debate, 139 00:09:05.940 --> 00:09:11.180 science-religion debate, and the impression that I've tried to create that religion, 140 00:09:11.300 --> 00:09:15.240 at least the Christian religion, has been a succession of retreats. 141 00:09:15.260 --> 00:09:16.420 in the face of scientific advance. 142 00:09:18.020 --> 00:09:23.300 Now, if we think of the foundation of modern science as being due to the work of such people as 143 00:09:24.460 --> 00:09:27.460 Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and their contemporaries, 144 00:09:27.580 --> 00:09:32.240 I think I'm right in saying that these people were not anti-religious or anti-God. 145 00:09:32.400 --> 00:09:34.020 They were deeply religious in their own way, 146 00:09:34.100 --> 00:09:36.680 and they saw their science not as an attack on God, 147 00:09:36.800 --> 00:09:39.540 but as a way of revealing God's handiwork in the universe. 148 00:09:39.820 --> 00:09:40.680 Have I got that right? 149 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:42.200 I think you have. 150 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:45.240 It seems to me that it's quite extraordinary, 151 00:09:45.260 --> 00:09:54.820 that science began, modern science, at a particular time that was very fruitful during the Renaissance, 152 00:09:55.620 --> 00:10:02.520 when Christianity was the cultural scene across Europe where this was happening, 153 00:10:02.620 --> 00:10:06.900 and it provided a very fertile ground for the growth of modern science. 154 00:10:07.260 --> 00:10:12.940 Nicholas Copernicus was a canon in a cathedral in the northernmost diocese in Poland. 155 00:10:14.520 --> 00:10:18.860 Kepler was trained as a Lutheran theologian. 156 00:10:19.580 --> 00:10:29.220 He wrote back to his teacher at Tübingen after he was a teacher of astronomy and mathematics in Graz. 157 00:10:29.300 --> 00:10:29.680 He said, 158 00:10:29.700 --> 00:10:31.400 For a long time I was restless. 159 00:10:31.500 --> 00:10:33.980 I wanted to be a theologian. 160 00:10:34.740 --> 00:10:39.460 And now, however, see how God is being praised through my work. 161 00:10:41.180 --> 00:10:42.920 Galileo was a staunch Catholic. 162 00:10:42.940 --> 00:10:50.460 Although he, like Kepler, suffered a great deal from their chosen church, 163 00:10:50.880 --> 00:10:55.360 Galileo was very much trying to persuade the Catholic hierarchy 164 00:10:55.360 --> 00:11:01.880 not to adopt a specific geocentric cosmology, but to remain open. 165 00:11:02.740 --> 00:11:06.900 And he sort of misplayed his hand in part on that. 166 00:11:06.980 --> 00:11:12.600 But he was also a victim of a lot of change that was taking place in the world, 167 00:11:12.600 --> 00:11:15.900 in the way in which Scripture was being interpreted. 168 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:24.140 The Catholic hierarchy in Rome did not like an amateur theologian getting mixed up in this 169 00:11:24.140 --> 00:11:28.020 when they were already fighting a battle against the Protestants north of the Alps. 170 00:11:28.100 --> 00:11:29.840 That was part of the problem. 171 00:11:30.500 --> 00:11:35.160 Isaac Newton was, of course, again in a situation 172 00:11:35.160 --> 00:11:39.560 where he was probably writing more words on theology 173 00:11:39.560 --> 00:11:42.420 than in all of his science put together. 174 00:11:42.600 --> 00:11:46.800 But an interesting change was taking place during this time. 175 00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:51.640 And that was that so many explanations prior to this time 176 00:11:51.640 --> 00:11:56.200 were done by Aristotle's idea of a final cause, 177 00:11:56.540 --> 00:12:00.780 the ultimate reason, teleology as we would call it. 178 00:12:00.920 --> 00:12:04.720 And this was changed to an investigation of nature 179 00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:08.760 that was looking for the more immediate kind of causes. 180 00:12:09.020 --> 00:12:10.900 And in doing that, 181 00:12:10.900 --> 00:12:15.060 the causes were then not mentioning the deity. 182 00:12:15.460 --> 00:12:18.840 So that at that famous occasion, Paul, that you mentioned 183 00:12:18.840 --> 00:12:20.900 of Laplace and Napoleon, 184 00:12:21.280 --> 00:12:24.820 he went there with the astronomer William Herschel from England, 185 00:12:24.920 --> 00:12:28.720 who was sort of a visiting fireman at that moment 186 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:31.780 and was taken in to see Napoleon. 187 00:12:31.980 --> 00:12:34.920 And that's how the incident was recorded. 188 00:12:35.240 --> 00:12:39.280 And when Laplace said he had no need for that hypothesis, 189 00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:40.880 he was representing the idea that, you know, that the causes of the death of the Pope, 190 00:12:40.880 --> 00:12:41.180 that the cause of the death of the Pope, 191 00:12:41.180 --> 00:12:41.960 were representing modern science. 192 00:12:42.180 --> 00:12:45.580 Because modern scientific explanations 193 00:12:46.540 --> 00:12:50.260 don't call on God as part of the mechanism, 194 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:54.860 even though the final cause, the teleological cause, 195 00:12:54.980 --> 00:12:58.860 may still be just as present as it was then. 196 00:12:59.060 --> 00:13:02.520 It just isn't called forth so obviously. 197 00:13:02.980 --> 00:13:04.900 But then, of course, I must put a footnote 198 00:13:04.900 --> 00:13:07.520 that Laplace was a flaming atheist. 199 00:13:08.100 --> 00:13:08.440 Yes. 200 00:13:09.220 --> 00:13:10.860 So where did it... 201 00:13:10.860 --> 00:13:13.120 Where did it all go wrong, really, for the church? 202 00:13:13.500 --> 00:13:17.420 And, of course, I'm fully aware of the fact that this discussion this evening 203 00:13:17.420 --> 00:13:19.540 is going to be very much dominated by Christian theology, 204 00:13:19.820 --> 00:13:22.980 but after all, science came out of Christian-dominated Europe, 205 00:13:23.620 --> 00:13:27.240 and the church took the brunt of these developments. 206 00:13:27.680 --> 00:13:31.340 So why do we now have the impression of this retreat, 207 00:13:32.040 --> 00:13:35.080 that religion retreats in the face of scientific advance? 208 00:13:35.460 --> 00:13:39.700 Well, it's not that science is anti-God or atheistic. 209 00:13:39.700 --> 00:13:43.680 It is just sort of neutral in its explanations. 210 00:13:44.500 --> 00:13:52.140 So that necessarily makes people not think in the same kind of terms. 211 00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:56.900 Many people are very uncomfortable at the idea of having scientific explanations, 212 00:13:57.120 --> 00:14:02.080 such as evolution, that don't require the guiding hand of God. 213 00:14:02.300 --> 00:14:06.020 But this is just the way in which science works 214 00:14:06.020 --> 00:14:08.140 and forges its explanations. 215 00:14:08.700 --> 00:14:09.680 But there's a really... 216 00:14:09.700 --> 00:14:12.720 There's an issue here, which I hope to take up with Jack in a moment, 217 00:14:13.400 --> 00:14:16.060 about the supernatural and about the... 218 00:14:16.700 --> 00:14:20.140 In my opening remarks, the God who will intervene specifically 219 00:14:20.140 --> 00:14:24.060 in the affairs of the world, hurling thunderbolts, for example. 220 00:14:24.760 --> 00:14:27.340 Scientists would feel very uncomfortable with the notion of 221 00:14:27.340 --> 00:14:30.640 that type of direct intervention, would they not? 222 00:14:31.400 --> 00:14:34.460 I think that's true, but on the other hand, 223 00:14:34.460 --> 00:14:38.800 there's nothing about science that rules out this possibility. 224 00:14:39.700 --> 00:14:43.580 It's just that science doesn't see it that way 225 00:14:43.580 --> 00:14:45.080 and use that kind of explanation. 226 00:14:46.660 --> 00:14:50.600 So, coming back to the idea of the supernatural explanation of things, 227 00:14:51.720 --> 00:14:54.680 many people will still seek out those gaps. 228 00:14:55.500 --> 00:14:57.860 And in my experience, it's the origin of things 229 00:14:57.860 --> 00:15:00.680 that they normally find most puzzling. 230 00:15:00.760 --> 00:15:05.140 The origin, for example, of our species, Homo sapiens, 231 00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:07.880 or the origin of consciousness, the origin of life. 232 00:15:08.260 --> 00:15:09.680 And the granddaddy of them all, the granddaddy of them all, 233 00:15:09.700 --> 00:15:12.040 the origin of the universe as a whole. 234 00:15:12.280 --> 00:15:17.520 That's the place where they would like to see God acting, prodding matter, 235 00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:21.780 moving atoms about, specifically intervening in the world. 236 00:15:21.920 --> 00:15:25.800 There are a lot of people that still feel that that's the appropriate place to look for God. 237 00:15:25.880 --> 00:15:26.520 Do you agree with that? 238 00:15:26.680 --> 00:15:33.420 Well, I think that creation is not God sitting up there on some platform, 239 00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:35.360 simply pushing the on button. 240 00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:39.680 It is the kind of planning, the design, the way God is working, 241 00:15:39.680 --> 00:15:41.640 the design, the fact that everything works. 242 00:15:42.360 --> 00:15:42.940 Right. 243 00:15:43.100 --> 00:15:45.920 So, and I will come back to that point in a moment, 244 00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:49.200 but I'd like to bring Margaret Wertheim in. 245 00:15:51.060 --> 00:15:56.140 Now, I think opinion polls show, typically in a town like Adelaide, 246 00:15:56.160 --> 00:16:02.620 that something like 5% of the population would follow regular religious worship. 247 00:16:02.900 --> 00:16:07.940 So this is certainly, I think we could describe as a post-religious society. 248 00:16:08.520 --> 00:16:09.560 You live in California. 249 00:16:09.560 --> 00:16:10.940 It's a totally different scene. 250 00:16:11.180 --> 00:16:14.420 And I'm sure if you went to Saudi Arabia, they wouldn't be having this debate on, 251 00:16:14.460 --> 00:16:15.620 has science abolished God? 252 00:16:15.820 --> 00:16:18.100 God has certainly not been abolished in Saudi Arabia. 253 00:16:18.820 --> 00:16:20.200 And maybe not in California. 254 00:16:20.820 --> 00:16:22.320 Are we asking the wrong question? 255 00:16:22.380 --> 00:16:24.780 Is this just something that's relevant to South Australia? 256 00:16:25.080 --> 00:16:28.200 Or is it a legitimate question for the world as a whole? 257 00:16:28.980 --> 00:16:31.940 Well, I think it is a legitimate question for the world as a whole. 258 00:16:32.480 --> 00:16:38.560 But it's also the case that in many parts of the world, as you say, not just California, 259 00:16:38.560 --> 00:16:42.060 but I think the whole of America to a large degree, 260 00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:45.800 and of course the Islamic nations remain extremely religious, 261 00:16:45.900 --> 00:16:49.600 and many other, Hindu religion of course is alive and well, 262 00:16:49.680 --> 00:16:55.520 and we see in China now, and in post-Perestroika Russia, the USSR, 263 00:16:55.640 --> 00:17:00.400 there is actually a rise of religion, not a diminishment of it. 264 00:17:00.680 --> 00:17:08.400 And so I think it raises the question, why hasn't religion disappeared as many people at the beginning of the 20th century, 265 00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:10.500 believed it would with the rise of science? 266 00:17:10.900 --> 00:17:15.300 And I think that one of the reasons for this is that, for better or worse, 267 00:17:15.340 --> 00:17:17.260 I'm making no value judgment about it, 268 00:17:17.300 --> 00:17:27.580 but I think it appears to be the case that many people find a purely materialistic account of reality incomplete and unsatisfactory. 269 00:17:27.780 --> 00:17:33.720 And I think that one of the things that is sometimes perhaps forgotten in the discussions of science and religion 270 00:17:33.720 --> 00:17:36.740 is that certainly in Christianity, 271 00:17:36.740 --> 00:17:39.020 and I suspect this is true of most religions, 272 00:17:39.040 --> 00:17:40.540 but it is certainly the case in Christianity, 273 00:17:40.780 --> 00:17:46.980 that the primary function of religion was not to say how did God create the universe, 274 00:17:47.280 --> 00:17:53.860 but to give an account of human beings as psychological, spiritual beings within a wider context, 275 00:17:54.180 --> 00:17:59.000 and that in fact God as creator was always secondary to God as redeemer. 276 00:17:59.140 --> 00:18:04.360 And in the age of science, we've tended to focus on the role of God as creator of the material world, 277 00:18:04.420 --> 00:18:06.080 and kind of forget about, 278 00:18:06.080 --> 00:18:12.860 the spiritual and what I would call the psychological account of man that religion gave. 279 00:18:13.180 --> 00:18:20.380 And I think that many people are feeling that that dimension has really been left out of the scientific account of the world, 280 00:18:20.420 --> 00:18:25.940 and they want that, and they're turning to religion to try to find something which they feel very deeply 281 00:18:25.940 --> 00:18:29.060 as sort of not being supplied by the scientific accounts. 282 00:18:29.500 --> 00:18:34.420 So we physicists will often use the word God, sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally, 283 00:18:34.620 --> 00:18:36.060 in terms of the grand scheme of things. 284 00:18:36.080 --> 00:18:38.940 The grand architect of the universe, the designer of the laws, 285 00:18:39.080 --> 00:18:42.160 something rather grandiose and abstract of that sort, 286 00:18:43.580 --> 00:18:48.500 but would almost never make reference to what we might call the spiritual dimension. 287 00:18:48.920 --> 00:18:55.400 But I think my impression is that most people's concern with religion is much more with that personal spiritual side. 288 00:18:55.980 --> 00:18:57.860 Do we need God for that at all, though? 289 00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:00.860 Can we not be spiritual beings in a godless universe? 290 00:19:01.900 --> 00:19:04.200 I personally believe that we can, 291 00:19:04.320 --> 00:19:05.640 but I think that many, 292 00:19:06.080 --> 00:19:07.440 I think that in a way, 293 00:19:08.380 --> 00:19:14.420 that often takes a fairly thoughtful account of religion. 294 00:19:14.660 --> 00:19:16.840 And it seems to me that a lot of people, 295 00:19:17.620 --> 00:19:19.720 particularly in America I see this, 296 00:19:20.960 --> 00:19:26.680 are wanting an account of themselves as spiritual beings, 297 00:19:27.560 --> 00:19:30.800 and they're not necessarily highly academically trained. 298 00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:33.560 And so they are actually searching for, 299 00:19:33.780 --> 00:19:35.080 I don't want to use the word fundamentalist, 300 00:19:35.320 --> 00:19:36.800 because that seems to be putting down, 301 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:41.660 but they are looking for a fairly easy to grasp concept. 302 00:19:42.060 --> 00:19:43.900 And that's not to put that down, 303 00:19:44.020 --> 00:19:46.620 because they live in a complicated, complex world, 304 00:19:46.760 --> 00:19:49.480 where they have many other things pressing on their time, 305 00:19:49.580 --> 00:19:55.000 and they don't necessarily have the intellectual training 306 00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:57.260 to grasp much more complicated, 307 00:19:57.500 --> 00:20:00.580 or more complicated and perhaps more abstract ideas. 308 00:20:01.180 --> 00:20:02.340 And after all, 309 00:20:02.380 --> 00:20:04.820 the notion of some form of God, 310 00:20:04.820 --> 00:20:05.400 or gods, 311 00:20:05.860 --> 00:20:11.080 is not necessarily an intellectually bad one either. 312 00:20:11.280 --> 00:20:12.180 It is very comforting. 313 00:20:12.540 --> 00:20:16.940 And I think that people are looking for some kind of spiritual comfort, 314 00:20:17.180 --> 00:20:19.600 as well as an intellectually satisfying thing. 315 00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:22.440 And we forget that spiritual comfort 316 00:20:22.440 --> 00:20:25.940 is actually one of the main things that religion has provided. 317 00:20:26.080 --> 00:20:29.780 It wasn't primarily meant to be an intellectually satisfying, 318 00:20:30.120 --> 00:20:32.040 abstractified concept. 319 00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:34.720 Do you think scientists should feel concerned, 320 00:20:35.980 --> 00:20:36.940 guilty possibly, 321 00:20:37.500 --> 00:20:39.500 about having, in some ways, 322 00:20:39.520 --> 00:20:42.140 neglected people's genuine spiritual needs? 323 00:20:44.120 --> 00:20:46.300 Because many people look to scientists 324 00:20:46.300 --> 00:20:48.560 because they think they understand the world, 325 00:20:48.600 --> 00:20:50.100 and that they're going to have the answers for everything, 326 00:20:50.220 --> 00:20:50.980 which of course they don't. 327 00:20:51.520 --> 00:20:54.120 But do you think scientists have some sort of responsibility 328 00:20:54.120 --> 00:20:56.400 to address these genuine spiritual concerns, 329 00:20:56.620 --> 00:21:00.700 even in a society where God might have been placed on one side, 330 00:21:00.840 --> 00:21:02.640 where people still have a spiritual hunger, 331 00:21:02.820 --> 00:21:04.800 although the theology may have gone out the window, 332 00:21:04.820 --> 00:21:07.540 they've still got these genuine spiritual needs. 333 00:21:07.680 --> 00:21:10.300 Should we as scientists be concerned about that 334 00:21:10.300 --> 00:21:11.800 and addressing those issues? 335 00:21:12.080 --> 00:21:15.100 I don't think it is the job of scientists to do that. 336 00:21:15.760 --> 00:21:18.880 I think it is the job, my own view, 337 00:21:18.920 --> 00:21:22.560 is why should we be looking to scientists to tell us about God? 338 00:21:22.860 --> 00:21:24.280 It always amuses me. 339 00:21:24.340 --> 00:21:26.160 For instance, I was in London about a year ago, 340 00:21:26.280 --> 00:21:29.080 and Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins 341 00:21:29.740 --> 00:21:33.300 were there having a discussion about the soul. 342 00:21:33.560 --> 00:21:34.800 And 2,000 people were there. 343 00:21:34.800 --> 00:21:35.780 And 2,000 people turned up, 344 00:21:35.780 --> 00:21:38.000 and they turned away thousands of other people at the door. 345 00:21:38.060 --> 00:21:39.420 They could have sold 10,000 tickets. 346 00:21:39.540 --> 00:21:41.620 And I'm thinking, why does anyone want... 347 00:21:41.620 --> 00:21:44.880 Why are we listening to Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins, 348 00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:47.200 who are both people who have said they don't believe in the soul talk? 349 00:21:47.240 --> 00:21:49.040 Why don't we listen to a theologian? 350 00:21:49.160 --> 00:21:50.160 Why don't we? 351 00:21:50.280 --> 00:21:53.460 We get someone like Jack Spong here. 352 00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:56.500 Why is it that we're listening to physicists about God? 353 00:21:56.620 --> 00:21:58.900 It doesn't seem to me that we should be expecting physicists 354 00:21:58.900 --> 00:22:00.040 to provide that role. 355 00:22:00.280 --> 00:22:02.720 There are people, theologian priests, 356 00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:08.540 for whom it is their job and their training to talk about this. 357 00:22:08.600 --> 00:22:11.000 I don't think we should be expecting scientists to provide that role. 358 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:14.780 I've always figured if you want a scientist to engage in theology, 359 00:22:14.900 --> 00:22:16.360 a physicist is the person to go to. 360 00:22:16.540 --> 00:22:17.280 And the reason is... 361 00:22:17.820 --> 00:22:18.280 Why? 362 00:22:19.880 --> 00:22:21.340 The reason is... 363 00:22:21.340 --> 00:22:23.280 You see, if a biologist gets stuck, 364 00:22:23.340 --> 00:22:25.320 they'll sometimes turn to a chemist for enlightenment. 365 00:22:25.460 --> 00:22:27.420 And a chemist gets stuck, they sometimes turn to a physicist. 366 00:22:27.920 --> 00:22:30.220 Physicists get stuck, there's nowhere to go but theology. 367 00:22:30.900 --> 00:22:31.360 So... 368 00:22:31.360 --> 00:22:37.380 So let me bring Jack in as our professional theologian here. 369 00:22:39.160 --> 00:22:42.060 So we've had a little bit of discussion of this God of the gaps, 370 00:22:42.220 --> 00:22:46.440 and I think most scientists feel a bit uneasy about a God 371 00:22:46.440 --> 00:22:49.060 who might, as it were, trample all over their beautiful laws 372 00:22:49.060 --> 00:22:51.800 and intervene in the affairs of the world, 373 00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:54.400 although many of them are comfortable to think about God 374 00:22:54.400 --> 00:22:56.080 as the grand architect of the universe 375 00:22:56.080 --> 00:22:59.500 and something more abstract like the ground of being. 376 00:23:00.320 --> 00:23:01.340 And I've always... 377 00:23:01.340 --> 00:23:04.260 in my own mind, thought of the need for a rational ground 378 00:23:04.260 --> 00:23:07.260 in which the laws, these beautiful laws we study, 379 00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:09.160 these mathematical laws of physics should be rooted, 380 00:23:09.320 --> 00:23:10.820 that they shouldn't exist reasonlessly. 381 00:23:11.660 --> 00:23:13.600 That's my own personal spin on this. 382 00:23:13.700 --> 00:23:15.840 But within the church, 383 00:23:16.360 --> 00:23:18.240 you see, you don't often hear this sort of talk 384 00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:20.060 coming across the pulpit on a Sunday. 385 00:23:21.340 --> 00:23:25.740 How many of your colleagues, your fellow ministers of religion, 386 00:23:27.740 --> 00:23:30.900 would still cling to the God of the gaps idea? 387 00:23:30.900 --> 00:23:33.580 Would still say, but you scientists are very clever, 388 00:23:33.660 --> 00:23:35.700 but you still can't explain this, that, or the other. 389 00:23:35.760 --> 00:23:36.980 We need God for that. 390 00:23:37.420 --> 00:23:41.600 I think it would depend on whether you're speaking to them publicly or privately. 391 00:23:41.820 --> 00:23:43.500 Right. That's a very good point. 392 00:23:44.440 --> 00:23:46.640 And I find that rather... 393 00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:51.260 Our discussion so far, we've used a particular definition of God, 394 00:23:51.400 --> 00:23:53.160 which we've been upfront about. 395 00:23:53.260 --> 00:23:56.480 God is a being, supernatural in power, 396 00:23:56.680 --> 00:23:59.040 existing somewhere outside of this world, 397 00:23:59.100 --> 00:24:00.800 who periodically invades the world, 398 00:24:00.900 --> 00:24:02.720 to accomplish some sort of divine purpose. 399 00:24:02.820 --> 00:24:04.340 And that's the traditional understanding. 400 00:24:04.940 --> 00:24:07.360 It's not the universal understanding of God. 401 00:24:07.760 --> 00:24:10.680