Abstract
This book has made quite a splash on the science and religion scene. As theoretical physicist, Fellow of the Royal Society, and leading member of the Institute of Physics, Tom McLeish has an impeccable scientific pedigree, and is easily a match for those others who broadcast the all-conquering truth claims of science. In fact, McLeish has a refreshing take on such ‘scientism’: ‘Good science is arguably about being false in a constructive way that takes us nearer the truth, rather than capturing truth in some timeless way.’ (p. 167). Hence, McLeish spends much of the book building a more tentative and human view of science than that which prevails in the popular zeitgeist, a view that is more sensitive to the many unresolved philosophical and ethical debates around the doing and the meaning of science, and (importantly) a view that revels in its aesthetic wonder and novelty. Wisdom is a key feature of McLeish’s interests here, a feature that is profoundly lacking in much scientific discourse, if for no other reason than that it is not in the nature of science to reflect on its own deeper meaning. Writing, for instance, of science’s impotence to solve the world’s problems of hunger and preventable disease when there is no political will to do so, McLeish says, ‘Although science has delivered the knowledge to solve these problems, the wisdom to use it does not seem to come with the package’ (p. 7).
Where then is wisdom to be found? In light of McLeish’s view of science, it comes as no surprise to find that the humanities feature prominently. McLeish paints his portrait of science in search of wisdom by incorporating a wide palette of colours that include literature, social sciences, music, history, and theology. Indeed, it is this latter ‘humanities subject’—the Queen of the sciences—that comes in for the greatest attention beyond the pure natural sciences in McLeish’s book, especially in his extended treatment of the biblical resources needed to build a theology of science. Such a theology, McLeish believes, will allow us to see the natural sciences within the wider context of a search for wisdom (both ancient and modern, human and divine). Moreover, such a theology has the potential to heal human relationships both within culture (e.g. the science and religion wars), and with the natural world.
McLeish’s book is complex and wide-ranging, proceeding less by the establishment of an over-arching thesis, and more by a gradual unfolding of purpose and conviction. One catches glimpses of McLeish’s vision slowly, by following him down the many avenues that relate to his diverse interests in the meaning of science. As a result, this book is difficult to categorise, although its prominent treatment of science in relationship with religion means that the book will inevitably be seen to fall into the ever-expanding genre of constructive ‘science and religion’ treatments. McLeish is not one to peddle the standard views on ‘science and religion’ though—a strength, I feel. For McLeish is convinced that the habit of the previous generation of scholars in the field —whereby science and theology were seen to relate in terms of monolithic typologies (such as ‘conflict’, or ‘independence’)—cannot be sustained. The whole problem with the ‘science and religion’ dialogue, McLeish thinks, is neither ‘science’ nor ‘religion’, but ‘and’. Better to replace ‘and’ with ‘of’, and work towards a theology of science, because then science finds its place naturally within ‘the larger theological narrative of creation, pain, and healing’ (p. 170), and is able to speak meaningfully of categories that are currently meaningless to it: pre-eminently, value and purpose.
Key to McLeish’s search for wisdom is his exposition of biblical passages that relate to nature. Here, he develops a kind of scriptural natural theology, with the book of Job as its centrepiece. McLeish’s point is that heretofore the science and religion dialogue has tended to focus on Genesis 1-3, and has overlooked the rich resources elsewhere in the Bible. McLeish describes how scientists are inevitably drawn to God’s questions for Job in chapters 38-41. It is not that the questions are ‘scientific’ in our modern sense of the word, but that they reflect a deep curiosity concerning the natural world, along with considerable observational skills, and a capacity for wonder. This ancient story of Job’s search for wisdom in the face of trial strikes a chord with the modern scientist: ‘science also emerges from an ancient longing, and from an older narrative of our complex relationship with the natural world. Its primary creative grammar is the question, rather than the answer. Its primary energy is imagination rather than fact. Its primary experience is more typically trial than triumph’ (p. 102). Like modern science, Job’s view of nature is restless and searching, but, unlike modern science, Job’s view of nature recognises a wider context where reconciliation between humans, nature, and God is urgent. This point takes McLeish to the New Testament, where he finds further resources, especially Paul’s terminology of the ‘ministry of reconciliation’. To McLeish, this suggests that a natural science that is properly constituted within its own theology should be able to mend broken relationships, especially between humans and nature: ‘Science becomes, within a Christian theology, the grounded outworking of the “ministry of reconciliation” between humankind and the world’ (p. 209).
This chapter (‘A Theology of Science?’) is, I feel, the strongest part of the book, working to reconstrue ‘science and religion’ by pulling down the boundaries around science to reveal it nestling in a complex landscape of relating. I find that questions surrounding McLeish’s vision still arise, though. His naturalistic Bible readings neglect the bigger pictures of the text, even of Job, and insofar as McLeish’s theology of science is a theology of reconciliation, he does not unpack it clearly. There are hints of an ecotheology being developed, but McLeish does not follow it through, and this reader was left wondering what exactly it is that needs reconciling, by what means, and by whom. For comparison, Paul’s own view of reconciliation is firmly centred on Christ; Paul possessed the ‘ministry of reconciliation’ insofar as he represented Christ’s mission of healing, redemption and atonement. But in McLeish’s ministry of reconciliation, Christ is noticeable by his absence; instead it appears to be the scientists themselves who do the work of atonement. McLeish’s theology of science therefore works on anthropological rather than Christological grounds, and it is unclear how its reconciling force relates to traditional Christian models of reconciliation, except by loose analogy. From that point of view, McLeish’s theology of science looks like an old-fashioned natural theology. Many such natural theologies operate within the ‘science and religion’ world, heavily descriptive and passive, and with little of the active and imperative. But McLeish’s great strength is that he has begun to develop an imperative context for science: science can no longer be ‘value-free’ after you have read McLeish. However, without a Christology and an eschatology, his imperative vision currently lacks theological content. But what a promising start. True to McLeish’s insistence on the tentative nature of science, I am sure that this is the beginning of a rich project, rather than its final word.