© 1995 Meredith Sprunger
© 1995 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
There are signs that the historic conflict between science and religion may be changing. An article in the November, 1994 issue of Omni entitled “Science and Religion: Blurring the Boundaries” by Margaret Wertheim describes a growing body of theologians and scientists for whom religious faith and scientific reason are not incompatible. Robert Russell, who is both a scientist and a theologian, in 1981 founded the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences which is located at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. CTNS has received National Institutes of Health funding to examine the theological implications of the Human Genome Project. The Center, in addition to its academic activities, offers public lectures and provides training and guidance for Christian ministers of all denominations. Dr. Russell points out that no contemporary religion can afford to ignore science without becoming an anachronism. Modern science can provide “scope and insight for faith.”
The November 14,199+ issue of The Wall Street Journal reviewed Of Pandas and People by Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis. The book attempts to bridge the gap between evolutionists and creationists by presenting an “intelligentdesign theory” of the origin of humankind. Critics see it as disguised creationism but the authors deny this accusation, affirming that both creation and evolution are involved in human origin.
Students of The Urantia Book will recognize how relevant and insightful The Urantia Book is in integrating these contemporary problems between science and religion. The authors describe the work of the Life Carriers in creating life on our planet and relate the evolutionary development of life forms, closely paralleling the scientific picture, culminating in the appearance of human beings. The book also presages contemporary developments like the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in its superb integration of science, philosophy, and religion.
We are currently going through a time of questioning and debate regarding the nature of reality which Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions points out characterizes the period just before the emergence of a new paradigm in the understanding of the universe in which we live. Frank J. Tipler’s book, The Physics of Inmortality, Doubleday, 1994, makes an interesting contribution to this paradigm shift. Dr. Tipler is not only a scholarly physicist, he displays a remarkable knowledge of the history of science, philosophy, and theology. His Omega Point Theory presents an empirical argument for the existence of an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God and the future resurrection of ev ery human being who ever lived. Tipler also advances answers to a host of theological-religious questions and declares that theology’ is a branch of physics.
The Omega Point Theory reduces everythingabout human beings-life, mind, personality, and soul-to physical descriptions. Dr. Tipler’s extensive and astute scientific argument reminds one of the observation that God is “the most inescapable of all presences, the most real of all facts.” (UB 102:7.10) Throughout the intellectual history of Western Civilization a great many of the most balanced and insightful philosophers and scientists have asserted that there are more facts and reasons to postulate an intelligent First Cause at the ground of reality than random chance.
For those contemporary people who accept only empirical evidence for what is real, The Physics of Immortality may significantly influence their view of human life and destiny. The book has received a wide-spread readership in Europe. Although Dr. Tipler contributes considerable wisdom to humankind’s search for reality, his basic error, in my judgment, is his assumption that the human mind has access to only one form of reality: physical phenomena. But, surprisingly, he arrives at conclusions which undergird the basic truth affirmations of the major religions of the world. These truths, however, are viewed in a quite different context.
All of these developments add to the growing evidence that we are in the throes of a major shift in the understanding of reality. I believe the capstone of this new paradigm will be the spiritual universe picture presented in The Urantia Book.