Van Huyssteen J.W. (editor) Encyclopedia of Science and Religion

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SPIRITUALITY AND THE PRACTICE OF SCIENCE

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JENSINE ANDRESEN

SPIRITUALITY AND THE

PRACTICE OF SCIENCE

The notion of spirituality pertains to the practice of

science in two ways. First, the spiritual character of

scientists sometimes informs the ways in which

they conduct scientific research. Indeed, some sci-

entists like the astronomer Johannes Kepler

(1571–1630) regarded their scientific research as a

type of spiritual discipline. Second, for practition-

ers of the human sciences the recognition of a spir-

itual dimension in the people they study can have

implications for how they work. It is also plausible

to posit a relationship between these two points.

Scientists who acknowledge a spiritual dimension

in their own experience are probably more in-

clined to regard spirituality as a relevant feature of

the people they study. Likewise, scientists with no

spiritual inclinations are probably less attentive to

what others call the spiritual aspects of life.

The psychologists William James (1842–1910)

and Sigmund Freud (1856–1958) respectively illus-

trate these tendencies. Religious experience figured

prominently in James’s corpus of psychological

writings as it did in his own personal life. Freud

professed no religious commitments himself and

sought to explain religion in others with reductive

appeals to ideas such as wish fulfillment and ob-

sessional neurosis. The Augustinian monk Gregor

Mendel (1822–1884) is an exception to the pattern

of religious scientists attending to spiritual aspects

of their subject matter because he formulated gen-

eral principles of inheritance without speculation

about applications to spiritual traits in human be-

ings. Charles Darwin (1809–1882) is a partial ex-

ception to the pattern of nonreligious scientists

having little sense for the spiritual dimensions of

what they study. Even though he eventually lost his

religious faith, he retained until his death a sense of

wonder at the complexity and beauty of nature’s

ways, including evolution by natural selection.

In contemporary Western culture spirituality is

an ambiguous and vague notion. Part of its ambi-

guity arises because many people using the term

insist upon defining it in their own way for their

own purposes. Part of its vagueness occurs because

it is often defined by what it is not (e.g., religion)

and in relation to terms in well-known dichotomies

(e.g., spirit versus matter). Given the focus here on

the practice of science, spirituality will be identified

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with reference not to the ontological dualism of

classical Greek philosophy (e.g., spirit versus mat-

ter), but to the phenomenological differentiation of

whole and part. Most scientists think that spiritual-

ity loses relevance to the practice of science insofar

as it presupposes aspects of archaic worldviews.

The spirituality of human experience is con-

ceived as having outer and inner aspects. Facing

outward, human existence is spiritual insofar as one

engages reality as a maximally inclusive whole and

makes the cosmos an intentional object of thought

and feeling. Facing inward, life has a spiritual di-

mension to the extent that it is apprehended as a

project of a person’s most enduring and vital self

and is structured by experiences of sudden self-

transformation and subsequent gradual develop-

ment. These two formulations need not be rigidly

separated. Their integration is well expressed in

first-century

C.E. Roman writer Seneca’s dramatic

ideal: Toti se inserens mundo (“Plunging oneself

into the whole world”; Epistulae ad Lucilius, 66.6).

Considered as a whole, the spiritual dimension of

human life is the embodied task of realizing one’s

truest self in the context of reality apprehended as

a cosmic whole, of attaining an optimal relationship

between what one truly is and everything that is.

The human relationship to the whole of reality

has been variously expressed. In The Republic

(532b) Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.E.) attributed to

philosophers a supramental apprehension (dialek-

tos or dialectic) of goodness itself. In 1984, the

biologist Edward O. Wilson coined the word bio-

philia to mean “an innate tendency to focus on life

and lifelike processes” (p. 1). In mystic and natu-

ralistic idioms respectively these phrases identify a

relationship with the world that is facilitated by

scientific knowledge but that is rife with wider

meanings. These two thinkers hold that whether

people attain this relationship has momentous con-

sequences: Wise government is at stake for Plato

and biological diversity for Wilson.

The Spirituality of scientists

The practical implications of the spirituality of sci-

entists are consequent to characteristic metaphysi-

cal and methodological principles. Three are of

special importance: holism, realism, and determin-

ism. The Greek notion of kosmos (cosmos) as a lim-

ited, ordered whole provides the basic concept that

Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy elaborated

into a doctrine of metaphysical holism. Noting that

diverse phenomena such as the movements of

heavenly bodies, the harmonies of musical octaves,

and the shapes of physical objects can be described

with mathematical concepts, the Pythagoreans

posited an underlying unitary numerical principal

(arithmos or number). According to Aristotle

(384–322

B.C.E.), some Pythagoreans gave such

great priority to one numerical archetype—the

decad—that they posited the “counter-earth” in

order to instantiate it (Metaphysics 985b 22). When

added to sun, moon, and the seven planets observ-

able to the naked eye, the counter-earth became

the tenth heavenly body. Practices like this have

discredited naïvely metaphysical versions of holism,

but the viewpoint survives in more modest method-

ological forms such as an aversion to descriptive

forms of reductionism. Freud’s reduction of reli-

gious phenomena to psychological factors is a

prominent form of such reductionism.

Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Prin-

cipia Mathematic (Mathematical principles of natu-

ral philosophy) of 1687 proposed mathematical

principles that govern “the system of the world.” In

a famous scholium in this work Newton set forth

the absolute framework of space and time that is

the precondition for the system. Although

renowned for his aversion to speculative hypothe-

ses (hypotheses non fingo) Newton offered no in-

ductive argument for this absolute framework but,

as in the case of the universal law of gravitation, he

appealed informally to the will of God as an ulti-

mate cause. Newton is typical of seventeenth-cen-

tury scientists whose dual inheritance of Greek ra-

tionalism and biblical theism combined to give

them great confidence that the world is real and or-

derly and that its order is knowable by human be-

ings. Scientists whose spirituality posits reality as

God’s creation tend to find social constructionism

uncongenial. For instance, ways of understanding

religion similar to Peter Berger’s and Thomas Luck-

mann’s The Social Construction of Reality (1966)

allow religion parity with other socially constructed

phenomena but diminish its capacity to evoke awe

and devotion. Sociological studies report higher

levels of communal worship and private prayer

among persons who identify themselves as tradi-

tionally religious than among more liberal religious

persons and more diffusely spiritual respondents.

Many Western scientists have seen God’s pres-

ence in providential care as well as in aboriginal

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creativity. Albert Einstein (1879–1955) is preeminent

among such scientists in the twentieth century.

Physicist Niels Bohr (1885–1951) said that Einstein

once expressed reservations about a probabilistic

interpretation of quantum mechanics by declining

to consider “whether God plays dice with the uni-

verse.” Einstein’s commitment to deterministic ex-

planations motivated him to seek an interpretation

of quantum mechanics more compatible with his

way of thinking than Bohr’s idea of complementar-

ity and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. In a like

fashion Einstein’s good friend Kurt Gödel (1906–

1978)—a mathematical Platonist—was not ready to

allow his own limitative theorems to be the final

word in mathematical logic; he preferred to think

that more powerful axioms would one day be

forthcoming. Spirituality sometimes motivates sci-

entists to seek systems of thought more synthetic

than those with which their colleagues are satisfied.

As the spirituality of contemporary scientists

becomes less closely tied to classical philosophy

and biblical theism, the commitment to traditional

varieties of realism and determinism has waned.

Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics (1975) is an ex-

ample of this new sensibility and is notable for its

embrace of both a metaphysical and methodologi-

cal holism. Capra finds resources in Asian mystical

traditions for a nonmaterialistic sort of realism and

a nondeterministic conception of causality. Femi-

nist thinkers have also offered alternatives to sci-

entific worldviews emphasizing the domination

and control of nature and the divorce of intellect

from emotion and other noncognitive traits. Some

feminist reinterpretations of scientific practice draw

upon the experience of women scientists. For

instance, Evelyn Fox Keller has clearly been influ-

enced by the mystical elements in the character

and practice of the biologist Barbara McClintock.

Many contemporary ecofeminists are inspired by

the spiritual approach to nature evident in the life

and work of Rachel Carson (1907–1964).

The practice of science in understanding

spirituality

Efforts of social scientists to attain scientific stand-

ing for their disciplines have proceeded along two

different trajectories. The French positivist tradition

of Auguste Comte (1798–1857) and Emile Durk-

heim (1858–1917) de-emphasized individual expe-

rience in favor of scientifically accessible features

of human groups, and Durkheim pioneered the

development of quantitative techniques for identi-

fying regularities in social phenomena. In this con-

text religion and spirituality are treated as epiphe-

nomena that can be accounted for by more readily

observable social, economic, and psychological

factors. The German hermeneutic tradition of Max

Weber (1864—1920) and Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–

1911) gave more prominence to the scientist’s in-

tuitive understanding (Verstehen) of subjects who

presumably share basic attributes and habits of val-

uations with their interpreters. For Weber a socio-

logical law is “a statistical regularity that corre-

sponds to an intelligible intended meaning”

(quoted in Winch, p. 113). Efforts to understand re-

ligion and spirituality are paradigmatic of the chal-

lenge facing the social sciences (Geistwissen-

shaften) as Weber and Dilthey understand them.

Religious phenomena such as God and salvation

are not publicly observable and so must be appre-

hended by intuitive understanding.

The hermeneutic principle stating that any cul-

tural artifact, such as a literary text or an architec-

tural structure, should be interpreted in the context

of the whole to which it belongs invokes the

whole/part differentiation constitutive of the idea

of spirituality described above. The most inclusive

whole in which such understanding takes is often

given spiritual meaning. The American philoso-

pher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) did this

with his novel ideas of abduction and musement.

Abduction is a variety of inference (complement-

ing induction and deduction) that consists of

engendering and adopting a good explanatory hy-

pothesis for a given phenomenon. It involves dis-

covery more than justification. Musement occurs

when people allow the powers of observation and

reflection the liberty of “pure play.” Peirce claimed

that when musement is genuinely experienced it

spontaneously gives rise to the “God-hypothesis”

as the most basic hypothesis of human thought

and the widest horizon in which human under-

standing occurs. Peirce was also a logician who ad-

vocated the view that scientific laws in both the

natural and social sciences are ineluctably social

and probabilistic. As with Capra’s appeal to Asian

mysticism, Peirce illustrates a spiritual sensibility

that is scientific in a way that departs from classical

realism and determinism.

Spirituality plays a role in the practice of sci-

ence not only with regard to how statistical regu-

larities are interpreted, but also with regard to how

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and why data is collected and analyzed. Efforts of

epidemiologists, sociologists, and psychologists to

understand the impact of various aspects of reli-

giousness and spirituality on health outcomes il-

lustrate the way in which studying spiritual subject

matter influences scientific practice. For most of

the twentieth century, epidemiologists were so dis-

inclined to study the relationship between religion

and health that one researcher, David Larson, de-

scribed religion as the “forgotten variable.” This

same epidemiologist documented the high fre-

quency with which religious phenomena illus-

trated psychopathologies in a recent version of the

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disor-

ders (DSM). Through the efforts of epidemiologists

like Larson who acknowledge a spiritual dimen-

sion in both themselves and the people they study,

epidemiological research into the relationships be-

tween religiousness and health is now funded and

reviewed by agencies of the National Institutes of

Health. Newer editions of the DSM have sought to

provide a more empirical treatment of religion as

factor related to mental health. In these specific

ways the practice of epidemiology as a research

activity has changed.

The results reported by epidemiologists about

relationships between religion and health have

also begun to inform clinical medicine and public

health. Efforts toward “holistic medicine” predate

the research of epidemiologists. For instance, the

introduction of chiropractic techniques by Daniel

David Palmer in the late nineteenth century were

motivated by a conviction that health was depend-

ent upon a free flow of “an intelligent force . . .

usually known as spirit.” Misplaced vertebrae im-

pede the flow of spirit and so should be realigned.

Chiropractic techniques are exemplary of spiritu-

ally motivated but demonstrably effective practices

that have gradually been acknowledged by med-

ical professionals, even when they reject the causal

explanations underlying them. Meditation prac-

tices—often described more neutrally as relaxation

or biofeedback techniques—have gained similar

acceptance and for them epidemiological studies

have provided empirical evaluations.

Public health practitioners have found that in-

terventions addressed to communities, such as reg-

ular cancer screening and increased physical activ-

ity, are sometimes more effective at promoting

healthy lifestyles than similar ones addressed to in-

dividuals. Results from epidemiological studies also

show that religious people tend to have healthier

lifestyles, with, for example, less use of tobacco

and alcohol and more social support. Noting these

points public health practitioners have started to

work with religious communities, and especially

with urban African-American churches, in order to

implement disease prevention programs of various

sorts. Seeing religious communities as potential

partners rather than as ideological opponents is a

major shift in public health policy and portends a

productive change in public health practice.

Conclusion

In an influential 1948 World Health Organization

document, health was defined as “a state of com-

plete physical, mental, and social well-being and

not merely as the absence of disease or infirmity.”

Some epidemiologists now advocate that spiritual

well-being should be included in such comprehen-

sive definitions. People, they contend, are never

entirely free of disease or infirmity and so part of

good health is the ability to cope with adversity.

Religiousness has been shown to be associated

with quicker recoveries from conditions like acute

cardiovascular disease. It has also been shown to

be associated with higher levels of life satisfaction

and lower levels of pain in conditions like cancer,

for which religion and psychosocial factors gener-

ally are less associated with quicker recoveries or

longer survival. In conclusion, the impact of spiri-

tuality on the practice of science is most positive

when it helps scientists be agents for achieving and

understanding human well-being in its fullest sense

and amidst the widest range of circumstances.

See also ARISTOTLE; DARWIN, CHARLES; ECOFEMINISM;

INSTEIN, ALBERT; FEMINISMS AND SCIENCE;

EWTON, ISAAC

Bibliography

Berger, Peter L., and Luckmann, Thomas. The Social Con-

struction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of

Knowledge. New York: Doubleday, 1966.

Capra, Fritjof. The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the

Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysti-

cism. New York: Random House, 1975.

Darwin, Charles. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin:

1809–1882. New York: Norton, 1958.

Einstein, Albert. Ideas and Opinions. New York: Bonanza

Books, 1954.

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Keller, Evelyn Fox. A Feeling for the Organism: The Life

and Work of Barbara McClintock. New York: W.H.

Freeman, 1983.

Koenig, Harold G.; McCullough, Michael E.; and Larson,

David B. Handbook of Religion and Health. New

York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Peirce, Charles Sanders. “A Neglected Argument for the

Reality of God.” In The Collected Papers of Charles

Sanders Peirce, eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul

Weiss. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,

1960.

Van Ness, Peter H. ed. Spirituality and the Secular Quest,

Vol. 22: World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of

the Religious Quest. New York: Crossroad, 1996.

Weber, Max. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpre-

tative Sociology (1922), trans. Ephraim Fischoff.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1984.

Winch, Peter. The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation

to Philosophy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,

1958.

PETER VAN NESS

STEADY STAT E THEORY

The Steady State Theory of the universe was put

forward in 1948 by cosmologists Hermann Bondi

(b. 1919) and Thomas Gold (b. 1920), who were

later joined by Fred Hoyle (1915–2001). The theory

was an alternative to the standard Big Bang cos-

mology of the day, which suggested that the uni-

verse has a finite age. Motivated openly by philo-

sophical implications of a non-eternal universe,

Bondi, Gold, and Hoyle sought to discover whether

an alternate explanation for the astronomical ob-

servations that produced the Big Bang theory was

possible. The theory proposed the continuous cre-

ation of new matter in the empty spaces of ex-

panding space-time. The idea of continuous cre-

ation was argued to be less problematic than the

dramatic singularity of the Big Bang, which the

Steady State Theory could avoid.

The theory was largely abandoned after the

discovery by Arno Penzias (b. 1933) and Robert

Wilson (b. 1936) in 1965 of the microwave back-

ground radiation in the universe, which showed

that the universe was much denser in the distant

past, contrary to the predictions of the Steady State

Theory. While the theory never gained widespread

support it played an important role in the history

of modern science. It helped to tentatively confirm

the status of standard Big Bang cosmology, it

showed the importance and necessity of seeking

alternate theories, and it demonstrated that philo-

sophical and even theological views can be signif-

icant sources of inspiration for scientific theories.

See also BIG BANG THEORY; CREATIO CONTINUA

MARK WORTHING

STEM CELL RESEARCH

Few topics in science and religion have been as

hotly contested in recent years as stem cell re-

search, largely because it involves the fate of, dis-

position of, and research on the human embryo.

There are two basic types of stem cell research—

that involving adult cells (AS cells) and that involv-

ing human embryonic cells (ESCs or hES cells);

only the latter is a source of controversy. In both

cases, research is still at the early stages regarding

the programming and uses of these cells, and there

is comparatively little data about the efficacy of AS

and hES cells for human therapies. That is why

most scientists agree that, in the United States, gov-

ernment funding should be widely available for re-

search on both types of stem cells, an issue that

has been contested in the U.S. Congress.

Stem cells are unspecialized and so are able to

renew indefinitely; they also have the capacity to

differentiate into specialized cells. In humans,

these cells are found in some adult organs, in

blood, and in bone marrow (Mezey et al. 2000;

Bjornson et al.1999); in the inner cell mass of the

human embryo at the blastocyst stage (five to six

days after fertilization) (Thomson et al. 1998); on

the gonadal ridge of aborted or miscarried fetuses

(Shamblott et al. 1998); and in the placenta and

umbilical cord (hematopoetic stem cells).

Because stem cells have the capacity to regen-

erate, particularly ESCs, they have ushered in the

era of “regenerative medicine,” signaling that, in

theory, these cells can be used to regenerate

human tissues and cells, and ultimately increase

quality of life and the human life span. Embryonic

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stem cells are the progenitor cells for the human

body and at their earliest stage (the blastocyst

stage) they are completely undifferentiated and

can give rise to any cell type in the human body

(totipotent, pluripotent, and multipotent are all

terms that have been used to describe this phe-

nomenon). At this stage the cells have not yet re-

ceived their “marching orders” for what they will

become; therefore, scientists have been experi-

menting with controlling the programming of ESCs

in culture in order to direct their ends (controlled

differentiation) to specialized cells such as blood,

skin, and nerve cells.

In order to extract these embryonic stem cells,

scientists must collapse the trophectoderm that sur-

rounds the blastocyst in order to get the stem cells

from the inner cell mass (ICM) where they reside

within the blastocyst or pre-embryo. Such a tech-

nique destroys the pre-embryo and renders it inca-

pable of implantation in the uteran wall. This is the

crux of the ethical problem for those who oppose

embryonic stem cell research.

Studies in 2001 and 2002 indicate the potential

for primate parthenotes to form embryonic stem

cells and to develop a variety of differentiated cell

types in culture (Cibelli et al. 2001; Holden 2002).

Parthenotes are embryos that grow from unfertil-

ized eggs (chemically tricked into fertilizing and

retaining the full choromosomal complement) that

are, so far as is known, incapable of becoming vi-

able fetuses in primates and humans. Thus, scien-

tists hope that this may prove to be an ethically un-

controversial way to obtain stem cells, allowing

researchers to avoid therapeutic cloning as means

to this end.

The ethical and religious issues surrounding

stem cell research concern not so much the thera-

peutic ends of the research (cures for Parkinson’s

disease, juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease,

heart disease, and a host of other degenerative

diseases); rather, the controversy surrounds the

status of the human embryo and points to larger

issues about what it means to be human and

when life begins.

The Roman Catholic Church and conservative

Protestant churches have made the strongest op-

position to embryonic stem cell research of all re-

ligious traditions in the United States. The Catholic

position is that life begins at conception; thus the

human embryo is accorded the full rights and dig-

nity of a human person from the very moment that

the sperm penetrates the egg. Therefore, it is a

grave sin to destroy any human embryo since the

act constitutes destruction of life itself, a respon-

sibility belonging only to God. Moreover, the

Catholic Church has opposed the creation of

human embryos for research purposes (therapeutic

cloning, for example) for two reasons: To do so

would be to treat human life as a mere means to

an end, which is a violation of human dignity and

the sanctity of life; and embryos ought only to be

created in conjunction with the conjugal act of love

within the context of marriage (natural law).

(Donum Vitae 1987). It is important to note, how-

ever, that there are a variety of dissenting Catholic

positions on this issue.

Conservative Protestant churches such as the

Southern Baptist Convention and fundamentalist

independent Christian churches have tended to

join the Catholic protest against ESC research and

have emphasized prioritizing AS research as an ac-

ceptable means to the end of regenerative thera-

pies. The rationale for such opposition does not

emphasize a natural law approach to ethics and

emphasizes instead a biblical approach. An argu-

ment that the Christian tradition has a mandate to

protect the weakest and most vulnerable members

of society (the embryo in this case) is advanced by

Lutheran theologian Gilbert Meilaender in his

essay “Some Protestant Reflections” (2001).

On the other hand, mainline Protestant de-

nominations (United Church of Christ, Episcopal,

Presbyterian, Methodist) tend to be supportive of

all stem cell research so long as the human embryo

is treated with respect. In 2001, the General Con-

vention of the Presbyterian Church voted to en-

dorse embryonic stem cell research. Mainline

Protestantism has focused on the great amount of

good that can come of this research and on con-

cerns of distributive justice to ensure that the poor

will receive the benefits of stem cell research

equally with the rich. Moreover, most mainline

Protestants (and many Catholics) support using ex-

cess embryos for stem cell research. These em-

bryos have been frozen in fertility clinics and

would be thawed and discarded eventually if they

were not put to what many believe is a good

end—human healing. One Lutheran theologian

who supports ESC research, in contrast to Meilaen-

der’s argument, is Ted Peters (Peters 2001).

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Although there are three main branches of Ju-

daism (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform), and

it is sometimes difficult to find agreement on

bioethical issues, in this case most Jewish scholars

are supportive of all stem cell research. This is due,

primarily, to the fact that Judaism professes a

strong mandate from God to heal and to reduce

human suffering. Moreover, in Jewish law the em-

bryo has no moral standing outside the womb; a

developing embryo in laboratory culture is morally

neutral until implantation. Therefore, the ends of

all stem cell research appear to be morally coher-

ent with Jewish ethics (Dorff).

Islam is also a diverse religious tradition. How-

ever, in general, Islam would be in favor of all

forms of stem cell research since there appear to

be no “recent rulings in Islamic bioethics regarding

the moral status of the blastocyst from which the

stem cells are isolated” (Sachedina). Islamic schol-

ars have found that the Qurhan’s focus is primarily

on the developing fetus in the womb. Islam shares

with Judaism a concern with human healing; thus,

if ESCs hold real (not just speculative) potential for

therapeutic healing, there would be no objection

to proceeding with such research.

See also BIOTECHNOLOGY; CHRISTIANITY, ROMAN

CATHOLIC, ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION;

LONING; DNA; GENE PATENTING; GENE THERAPY;

ENETIC ENGINEERING; GENETICS; JUDAISM; ISLAM

Bibliography

Bjornson, Christopher R. R., et al. “Turning Brain into

Blood: a Hematopoietic Fate Adopted by Adult

Neural Stem Cells In Vivo.” Science 283 (1999): 534–7.

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human Primates.” Science 295 (2002): 819.

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Doerflinger, Richard. “Destructive Stem-Cell Research on

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Replies to Certain Questions of the Day.” Washington,

D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1987.

Dorff, Elliot N. “Stem Cell Research: A Jewish Perspec-

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Farley, Margaret A. “Roman Catholic Views on research

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Holland, Suzanne; Lebacqz, Karen; and Zoloth, Laurie,

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Meilaender, Gilbert. “Some Protestant Reflections.” In The

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ing Neuronal Antigens Generated In Vivo from Bone

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STRING THEORY

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SUZANNE HOLLAND

STRING THEORY

String theory, also called superstring theory, is,

generally speaking, any physico-mathematical

framework that describes fundamental physical re-

ality in terms of superstrings Strings in this context

should not be confused with cosmic strings, which

are one-dimensional (string-like) regions of cosmic

extent containing vacuum energy different from

that of the true vacuum. The superstrings of string

theory, in contrast, are extremely tiny loops, or

possibly segments, that have been suggested as the

most fundamental of all physical entities, and as

the source of all other fields and particles.

Before the 1980s, the most fundamental enti-

ties were most often considered to be particles,

which are zero-dimensional objects, but it has be-

come clear that particle models do not provide a

rich and flexible enough basis for fundamental

quantum field theories; strings are much more suit-

able. More specifically, string theory provides

promising candidates for an adequate quantum

theory of gravity and, at the same time, for theories

of the total unification of all four fundamental

physical interactions (gravity, electromagnetism,

and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Grand

Unified Theory (GUT) will provide unification of

the three nongravitational interactions.

Quantum mechanics (along with its extension

to quantum field theory) and Albert Einstein’s

(1879–1955) theory of gravitation are two impor-

tant pillars of contemporary physics. And yet, as

they are presently formulated, they are deeply in-

compatible with one another. As of 2002, con-

structing a complete and adequate quantum theory

of gravity has evaded the best efforts of theoreti-

cians. Exciting and surprising work on superstrings

since about 1984, however, has moved science

much closer to achieving quantization of the grav-

itational field, thus resolving and healing this in-

compatibility. It is already clear that the leading

string theory candidates yield general relativity as

their low-energy limit. Essentially, this means that

string theory, if successful, will become not only

the quantum theory of gravity, but also the quan-

tum theory of space and time, with crucial appli-

cations to early-universe cosmology.

It also appears likely that some version of

string theory will at the same time unify all four

fundamental physical interactions, including grav-

ity, thus bringing to successful completion the

much heralded quest for unification that motivated

the physicist James Clark Maxwell (1831–1879),

Einstein, and so many others. In order to accom-

plish this unification, the strings must manifest su-

persymmetry—they must be superstrings. Consider

that all fundamental particles have either half-

integral spin (



, . . . ) or integral spin (0, 1, 2,

. . . ). The half-integral spin particles are called

fermions, and constitute the building blocks of

matter; protons, neutrons, electrons, and quarks

are all fermions. The integral spin particles are

called bosons, and are the force-carriers between

the fermions, mediating the electromagnetic, grav-

itational, and strong and weak interactions. Pho-

tons, W massive bosons, Z massive bosons, gluons,

and gravitons are the bosons that mediate the elec-

tromagnetic, weak, strong, and gravitational inter-

actions, respectively.

Fermions and bosons satisfy different statistics

and symmetries, and have to be treated differently

in standard quantum field theory. The first seri-

ously considered string theories—studied for pur-

poses other than those for which newer super-

string theories are studied—were bosonic strings,

which only incorporated the symmetries and sta-

tistics of bosons. Obviously, if a theory is going to

unify all particles and fields, it will have to incor-

porate the symmetries of both fermions and

bosons within the same framework; it will have be

supersymmetric, and the strings will therefore have

be superstrings.

Where would the superstring description of re-

ality be needed? Certainly, it would provide a de-

tailed and physically complete explanation of all

the characteristics and parameters of material real-

ity, including their deep interconnections and their

origins in the vibrations and interactions of the fun-

damental superstrings. It would, at the same time,

provide an adequate description of material reality

at temperatures higher than $1032 K, where the

general relativistic description of space, time, and

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SUFFERING

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mass-energy breaks down. There was a time in the

very early universe, immediately after the Big

Bang, when those temperatures obtained and dur-

ing which the physics of the universe was that of a

single unified fully quantitized superforce. This era

is referred to as the Planck era, after the German

theoretical physicist Max Planck (1858–1947). In

fact, it is only in such terms that the Big Bang itself,

as well as the emergence or origin of space, time,

and matter, can really be characterized.

Superstring theories resolve a number of diffi-

cult anomalies and divergences in quantum the-

ory. But they also lead to some features that are, at

first sight, puzzling. One of these is that they al-

most always require higher dimensions—for ex-

ample ten or twenty-six—rather than the three

spatial dimensions and one time dimension that

characterize the low-energy world. How then can

these superstring theories be reconciled with real-

ity as we know it? The answer is straightforward

but surprising. At very high energies or tempera-

tures, such as immediately after the Big Bang, re-

ality will be ten dimensional or twenty-six dimen-

sional, as described by superstring theory. But, as

the universe exits the Planck era, and enters the

classical domain where gravity is adequately de-

scribed by Einstein’s general relativity and is no

longer unified with the other interactions, the extra

dimensions compactify (curl up into infinitesimal

knots) leaving only the four-dimensional space-

time with which we are familiar. Of course, if this

is true, scientists should find some evidence of

these extra curled-up dimensions. Such relics of

the supersymmetric past would constitute power-

ful confirmation of superstring theories. This is an

active area of research.

Relevance to theology

The relevance of string theory for the relationship

between science and theology is clear, particularly

in light of its applications to very early universe

cosmology. First, a fully adequate string theory

would give a complete unification and explanation

of the laws of nature at the level of physics. In so

doing, it would fill out the description of one of

the most fundamental and pervasive sets of rela-

tionships through which God creatively acts in the

universe. Secondly, it would give a much better

description of the physics of the earliest phase of

the universe’s evolution, doing away with the ini-

tial singularity and helping scientists to speak more

precisely about the origin of space and time, of all

the laws of physics, and possibly of mass-energy.

This would certainly help to delineate the limits of

scientific explanation more compellingly. It is ex-

tremely unlikely, for instance, that the ultimately

successful string theory will entail the existence of

a unique universe or that it will explain why there

is something rather than absolutely nothing, or that

it will account for why there is this type of order,

as specified by the string theory, rather than some

other order. A clear appreciation of such limita-

tions would enhance the understanding of the in-

teractions, possible and desirable, between religion

and science.

See also COSMOLOGY; GRAND UNIFIED THEORY;

RAVITATION; PHYSICS, QUANTUM; SUPERSTRINGS

Bibliography

Davies, Paul. “The New Physics: A Synthesis.” In The New

Physics, ed. Paul Davies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge

University Press, 1989.

Green, Michael B; Schwarz, John H.; and Witten, Edward.

Superstring Theory, Vol. 1. Cambridge, UK, and New

York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Greene, Brian. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden

Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory.

New York and London: Norton, 1999.

Kaku, Michio. Introduction to Superstrings and M-Theory,

2nd edition. New York, Berlin, and Heidelberg, Ger-

many: Springer-Verlag, 1998.

Polchinski, Joseph. String Theory, volume 1. Cambridge,

UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Salam, Abdus. “Overview of Particle Physics.” In The New

Physics, ed. Paul Davies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge

University Press, 1989.

WILLIAM R. STOEGER

SUBJECTIVITY

See CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES; EPISTEMOLOGY

UFFERING

See E

VIL AND SUFFERING

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SUPERNATURALISM

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SUPERNATURALISM

The meaning and the history of the word supernat-

ural depends entirely upon the order that it seems

to supersede: the natural. The French Jesuit theolo-

gian Henri de Lubac (1896–1991), in his erudite and

controversial book Surnatural (1946), provides a

significant history of the transmission of the word.

He informs us that it was only in the ninth century,

with Carolingian translations of Pseudo-Dionysius

(c. fifth century

C.E.) and John Scotus Eriugena (c.

810–877), that the Latin word supernaturalis en-

tered theology. Even then its usage was rare until

the middle of the thirteenth century, and it did not

come into standard use until after the Council of

Trent in the middle of the sixteenth century.

History of the word and the concept in

the West

The reason for the hesitancy of its use prior to the

dawning years of modernity, before the rise of the

secular as a domain distinct from the sacred and

the physical as distinct from the metaphysical, was

an older semantic resonance associated with the

word natural. The early Christian fathers, in

speaking of the difference between Adam’s fallen

state of sin and carnality and the salvation wrought

in Christ, interpreted Adam and Eve’s previous

nakedness as the “natural” state. The “natural” was

the human condition without sin; the pristine state

in which was manifested the untarnished image of

God. Such a natural condition was to be re-

deemed, not superseded. Even in the late sixteenth

century, when the English poet and courtier Sir

Philip Sidney (1554–1586), came to write his fa-

mous Defence of Poesie, the point could be made

that poetry’s efficacy lay in being able to transmute

this corruptible world back into its pristine and ide-

alized naturalness. The “supernatural” then arrives

late in the cultural history of the West.

Early cosmology certainly conceived of realms,

powers, and principalities beyond the mundane.

The ancient Greeks had their notion of the heav-

ens (ouranios) and even of a place above the

heavens (uperouranios) from which the gods de-

scended. Derived in part from Plato’s Timaeus and

Aristotle’s Physics, the ultraheaven, and its syn-

onym the hypercelestial (uperkosmios), announced

a cosmological, epistemological, ethical, aesthetic,

and ontological hierarchy. Everyday experience

was mythologized as one traversed the lines be-

tween the visible and the invisible, the sensuous

and the intelligible, the body and the soul. Such

was the veneration for the ancients and for an-

cient knowledge (which was believed to be closer

to the truth because nearer in time to Adam and

Eve’s experience in Eden), that this cosmology re-

mained in place throughout Christendom until the

maps of the universe were redrawn in the seven-

teenth century.

In the New Testament, the writer of the Gospel

of John has Jesus speaking of the need to be born

from above (anothen). In his first Letter to the

Corinthian, in a series of distinctions between the

body, soul, and spirit, Paul (himself experiencing a

translation to the third heaven) writes of the celes-

tial man (anthropos ex ouranou) whose image hu-

mans bear. This usage seemed to have sanctioned

the adoption of the term, and its cosmological as-

sociations, by the early Greek fathers (particularly

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215) and Origen (c.

185–254)). The celestial and hypercosmic as realms

of the spiritual and divine became spheres occu-

pied by Christ, the Spirit, and God himself. The

term was translated directly into Latin, for we find

Tertullian (c. 155–220) writing about Christ as su-

percelestial in De carnis resurrectione. Other Latin

writers used supermundialis or supermundanus

similarly. As with the ancient Greeks, the orders of

existence differed in the celestial realms, and so

Origen, and later Augustine of Hippo (354–430),

described angels as having a supercelestial nature

(phusis). Gradually, discussions begin to appear of

the celestial essence (uperousios, uperousiotes) and

descriptions of the Trinity as the super-essential.

These words are translated in Latin as supersub-

stantialis and superessentialis. But it still remains

significant that supernaturalis arrives much later,

only to become the most common word of all.

What is different about supernaturalis is that it

more explicitly defines a nature, powers, and do-

minions that are unearthly. There had, of course,

been the dualistic myths of the Zoroastrians and,

later, Gnostics, that had separated the forces in the

world above from those operating in the sublunar

realm. But despite the dualistic cosmology, the

transit between the above and the below consti-

tuted a continuum. With supernaturalis a distinc-

tion was being made such that, by the seventeenth

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