Science & Religion: Anthologies and Journal Articles

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 94

Open Access
Aesthetics of nature and the sacred
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2005) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Thoemmes Continuum Publishers, publisher
Confronting nature one experiences the archetypes of the world. A living landscape couples dynamism with antiquity and demands an order of aesthetic interpretation that one is unlikely to find in art and its artifacts. A visit to wildlands contributes to the human sense of place in space and time, of duration, antiquity, continuity, to the human mystery of being the sole aesthetician in a kaleidoscopic universe. One encounters "the types and symbols of Eternity" (Wordsworth). We reach the sense of the sublime. When beauty transforms into the sublime, the aesthetic is elevated into the numinous. Perhaps the supernatural is gone, but the natural can be supercharged with mystery. If anything at all on Earth is sacred, it must be this enthralling creativity that characterizes our home planet. Here an appropriate aesthetics becomes spiritually demanding.
Open Access
Biblical wilderness--midbar, arabah and eremos
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author
Words translated as "wilderness" occur nearly 300 times in the Bible. A formative Hebrew memory is the years of "wandering in the wilderness," mixing experience of wild landscape, of searching for a promised land, and of encounter with God. There is a psychology as well as a geography of wilderness, a theology gained in the wilderness. Jesus is baptized by John and then is driven by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days. The Devil is there, but so is the Spirit. This records a search for solitude, for self-discovery, for divine presence, but the natural environment is the needed ambiance.
Open Access
Biodiversity and sprirt: looking for hallowed ground? Earth is it
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2000) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, publisher
Epilogue, one-page essay in a theme issue on Science, Religion, and the Stewardship of Earth. Science and religion join in respect for life on Earth, the wonderland planet. Earth is a jewel in space, and humans have a responsibility to care for life on Earth. Science does not banish the sacred. If any holy ground exists, any land of promise, Earth is it.
Open Access
Care on Earth: generating informed concern
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Cambridge University Press, publisher
Generating beings that can care requires much complexity. DNA is best interpreted as a cybernetic process that selects for caring. In spontaneous wild nature, the processes that generate such concern have locally a narrow focus, self-survival of the organism. More inclusively, these processes generate ecosystemic networks in which life is elaborated in richness in biodiversity and biocomplexity, elaborated forms of caring. In humans, this focus is exceeded with more inclusive forms of caring. Such wider vision requires a complex brain that can, with a theory of mind, evaluate others with concern for their integrity. Humans, alone on the planet, can take a transcending overview of the whole--and care for life on Earth. The sciences trace the evolution of such escalating concern, but more complete explanations requires metaphysical and theological perspectives.
Open Access
Caring for nature: what science and economics can't teach us but religion can
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2006) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; White Horse Press, publisher
Neither ecologists nor economists can teach us what we most need to know about nature: how to value it. The Hebrew prophets claimed that there can be no intelligent human ecology except as people learn to use land justly and charitably. Lands do not flow with milk and honey for all unless and until justice rolls down like waters. What kind of planet ought we humans wish to have? One we resourcefully manage for our benefits? Or one we hold in loving care? Science and economics can't teach us that; perhaps religion and ethics can.
Open Access
Celestial aesthetics: over our heads and/or in our heads
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Taylor & Francis, publisher
Looking at the night sky, we may seem cosmic dwarfs, overwhelmed with a sense of otherness, abyss. But humans alone enjoy such celestial awe. We can move to a sense of the beholder's celestial ancestry and ongoing relatedness in "our cosmic habitat." That account joins aesthetics with mathematics, finds dramatic interrelationships gathered under "the anthropic principle," and considers meteorological aesthetics. The wonder is as much this Homo sapiens with mind enough to search the universe. What is out there is inseparably linked with what is down here. We are at home in the universe. The glory is both over our heads and in our heads.
Open Access
Commissioned longer critical review of Ian Barbour's Religion in an age of science; metaphysics in an era of history
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1992) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Joint Publication Board of Zygon, publisher
Ian Barbour's Religion in an Age of Science is a welcome systematic, theoretical overview of the relations between science and religion, Gifford lectures culminating his long career with a balanced and insightful appraisal. The hallmarks are critical realism, holism, and process thought. Barbour makes more investment in process philosophy than in his previous works. This invites further inquiry about the adequacy of a highly general process metaphysics in dealing with our particular, deeply historical world.
Open Access
Community: ecological and ecumenical
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1973) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Iliff Theological Seminary (Denver), publisher
The era of ecology brings a vision of one world environmentally. The ecumenical movement hopes for a community and dialogue of faiths. Both have a common etymological root in the Greek word "oikos," household. These two contemporary concerns, one in science, one in religion, offer the possibility of a more comprehensive sense of community. In the Bible, the earliest sin is ecological, humans despise their garden earth, and the sin of brother against brother follows. Our charge is to live on earth and keep it. Keeping Eden requires that we be our brothers's keeper.
Open Access
Consciousness, environmental ethics and science-religion dialogue
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Bhaktivedanta Institute, publisher
Neuroscience has made enormous advances, so we have got accounts of how the cells work. However, we are far from a good theory that suggests how conscious experience appears along with under all molecular activity. A lot of psychologists see behaviorism as too incomplete, or partial. It is a big question whether the mind is a result of brain functions or it is just a perceiver. Vedantic tradition proclaim that mind and soul exist as a separate elements in nature. This could be an interesting field of research for modern scientists. This has implications to who we are and to our ethics in relation to other beings and environment.
Open Access
Creation and resurrection
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Journal for Preachers, publisher
Resurrection would be less surprising than a miracle we know has already happened: being created in the first place. Almost anything can happen in a world in which what we see around us has actually managed to happen. The creation has never yet proved simpler or less mysterious than we thought. To have faith in resurrection is not, in this view, to be naive but rather to be realistic.
Open Access
Creation: order and chance in physics and biology
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1990-04-19) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, speaker; Dean, Charles, speaker; Crombie, Bob, speaker
The relations between physics and theology are surprisingly cordial at present; the relations between biology and theology are more difficult. A key to understanding the interrelations of all three: physics, biology, and religion lies in examining the concept of order and disorder. Astrophysics and nuclear physics are describing a universe "fine-tuned" for life, although physics has also found a universe with indeterminacy in it. Meanwhile evolutionary biology and molecular biology seem to be discovering that the history of life is a random walk with much struggle and chance, driven by selfish genes, although they have also found that in this random walk order is built up over the millennia across a negentropic upslope, attaining in Earth's natural history the most complex and highly ordered phenomena known in the universe, such as ecosystems, organisms, and, most of all, the human mind. Holmes Rolston lecture "Creation: Order and Chance in Physics and Biology" was the 15th Henry Harrell Memorial Lecture in Religion presented at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee on April 19, 1990.
Open Access
Creative genesis: escalating naturalism and beyond
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Mohr Siebeck, publisher
Does a plausible worldview need some explanations that exceed the natural? Hard naturalisms insist not, but softer, or more open naturalisms find that natural processes can produce ever more complex results - moving from matter to life to mind - in a superb natural history. This invites a religious naturalism, and challenges it. Repeatedly the critical junctures require analysis pressing beyond merely scientific explanations: whether such narrative history is self-explanatory, whether each stage is sufficient for the next when more emerges out of less, what account to give of the creative genesis found in cybernetic genetics, the rise of caring, surprising serendipity, the opening up of new possibility space. Even scientific rationality depends on non-empirical logic, particularly in mathematics. Thoughtful persons are the most remarkable result arising out of natural history. If there is no supernature, at least nature is super. Further still, the intensity of personal experience suggests the Presence of transcending divine Logos, in, with, and under nature.
Open Access
Critical notice in science and religion
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author
Critical notice of citations of Rolston's published materials in science and religion.
Open Access
Divine presence-causal, cybernetic, caring, cruciform: from information to incarnation
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Fortress Press, publisher
The divine Spirit, breathed into matter, is the giver of life, the deepest secret of the evolutionary natural history. The most sophisticated such animation is embodied in Homo sapiens. One might begin with a claim of pervasive divine "inspiration" and end with the word "incarnation." "Incarnate" means "in flesh," and God is unable to be incarnate in stars or trees, without flesh. Higher, blooded, fleshed animals show little evidence of having spiritual experiences. Struggle and suffering, and life renewed in the midst of its death and perishing are central themes in Christianity. Natural history too is "cruciform." But the divine is fully incarnate only when love is taken at the pitch in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This reveals the omnipresence of divine grace, the destiny of life on Earth.
Open Access
Does nature need to be redeemed?
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1994) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Joint Publication Board of Zygon, publisher
In the light of evolutionary biology, the biblical idea that nature fell with the coming of human sin is incredible. Biblical writers, classical theologians, and contemporary biologists are ambivalent about nature, finding in natural history both a remarkable genesis of life and also much travail and suffering. Earth is a land of promise, and there is the conservation, or redemption, of life in the midst of its perpetual perishing. Life is perennially a struggling through to something higher. In that sense even natural history is cruciform, though human sinfulness introduces novel tragedy. Humans now threaten creation; nature is at more peril than ever before.
Open Access
Dominion
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Berkshire Publishing Group, publisher
That humans have dominion over the Earth, a claim of Abrahamic faiths, has been interpreted as the cause of the contemporary ecological crisis. Other interpretations emphasize that stewardship of the Earth is included in the idea of appropriate dominion. Humans may choose to be conquerors, gardeners, developers, trustees, or caretakers.
Open Access
Ecology: a primer for Christian ethics
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Villanova University, publisher
"Ecology" is, etymologically, the logic of living creatures' homes. Christian ethicists find the word related to "ecumenical," with roots in the Greek "oikos," the inhabited world. There are both problems and opportunities when Christian ethicists look toward ecological science and wonder what (use) to make of it. Success depends on coupling prescriptive values with an environmental science that is descriptively accurate and operationally competent.
Open Access
Ecosystems, food, agriculture, and ethics
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Springer Science and Business Media, publisher
Humans live in towns and are civilized, but by nature too are residents on landscapes, rural. An ecology lies in the background of culture, providing ecosystem services. Some dimensions of health pervade both wild and agricultural nature. Humans in recent times have dramatically transformed and degraded landscapes, a huge ecological footprint. Humans now are entering an Anthropocene Epoch, escalating industrial agriculture, in both developed and developing nations, hoping for and threatening global sustainable development. A wiser goal might be a sustainable biosphere, the ultimate unit of survival.
Open Access
Environmental ethics
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2003) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Blackwell Publishing, publisher
Environmental ethics is theory and practice about appropriate concern for, values in, and duties regarding the natural world. By classical accounts, ethics is people relating to people in justice and love. Environmental ethics starts with human concerns for a quality environment, and some think this shapes the ethic from start to finish. Others hold that, beyond interhuman concerns, values are at stake when humans relate to animals, plants, species, and ecosystems. According to their vision, humans ought to find nature sometimes morally considerable in itself, and this turns ethics in new directions.
Open Access
Environmental ethics and religion/science
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
What to make of who we are, where we are, what we ought to do? These perennial questions are familiar enough; what is recently extraordinary is how the science-religion dialogue re-frames these old questions with an on Earth dimension. What to make of Earth, the home planet? Earth is proving to be a remarkable planet and humans have deep roots in and entwined destinies with this wonderland Earth. Simultaneously, however, humans are remarkable on this remarkable planet, a wonder on wonderland Earth. The foreboding challenge is that these spectacular humans, the sole moral agents on Earth, now jeopardize both themselves and their planet. Science and religion are equally needed, and strained, to bring salvation (to use a religious term), to keep life on Earth sustainable (to use a more secular, scientific term).