The Templeton Prize 2013: Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Catholics have good reason to take an interest in the award of the Templeton Prize. The first recipient of the award in 1973 was Mother Teresa, and a number of other Catholics feature among the list of subsequent recipients. A striking number of scientists also feature among prize winners, of particular interest to Catholics being Frs Stanley Jaki and Michael Heller; the relationship between different branches of science and ethical or religious considerations is a recurring theme in the award of the prize.

The purpose of the prize is fully outlined here, and summarised as follows:

The Templeton Prize honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works. Established in 1972 by the late Sir John Templeton, the Prize aims, in his words, to identify "entrepreneurs of the spirit"—outstanding individuals who have devoted their talents to expanding our vision of human purpose and ultimate reality. The Prize celebrates no particular faith tradition or notion of God, but rather the quest for progress in humanity’s efforts to comprehend the many and diverse manifestations of the Divine.

The title of the prize is now "the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities". The prize tries to draw attention to the idea that progress in spiritual information and spiritual discoveries is just as feasible as progress in medicine, science and cosmology. In fact, spiritual progress may be more important than all of these other areas. Therefore, the name of the Prize was changed to inspire greater attention to research or discoveries of a spiritual nature. Spiritual realities refer to matters of the soul that are universal and apply in all cultures and to all peoples. Examples would include subjects like love, purpose, infinity, prayer, and thanksgiving. These realities are non-material, transcendent or metaphysical areas about which many people have intuitive perceptions. The inspiration behind the prize is the idea that all people have a spiritual dimension to their lives, and it seeks to celebrate progress in this dimension.

The 2013 recipient of the Templeton Prize is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Quite rightly it appears to me, it is Archbishop Tutu's work with the Truth and Reconciliation commission in post-apartheid South Africa that is at the heart of the reasons for the award. This bears witness to spiritual values of truth, forgiveness and reconciliation and the way in which these values can overcome the temptation for revenge.

While I think there is undoubtedly grounds to justify the award to Archbishop Tutu, and the nature of the award is such that one might not always agree with everything advocated by recipients, Catholics might nevertheless welcome the award with a certain caution. A video on the Templeton Prize website shows Archbishop Tutu arguing that it is only through relationship that we become human, defining humanity only through this relationship with others. This is at best a partial perspective, at worst a seriously flawed conflation of a  potentiality that defines human nature with the actual act of that potentiality.

More significantly, Archbishop Tutu's advocacy of abortion and contraception - see report here from May 2012, and there are others - would put his outlook at odds with a Catholic point of view. Archbishop Tutu is also reported to be a supporter of gay marriage (here). From a Catholic point of view, it is possible to recognise the extent to which Archbishop Tutu has borne witness to spiritual values, and that in a manner that has an international impact justifying an award of the Templeton Prize; but there will also be a recognition that he holds a significantly flawed view of the wider spiritual values of the human person.

[Any verification or otherwise of the views attributed to Archbishop Tutu received as comments will be published - my own sources are secondary.]

The first moment of creation (or, it must be true, I heard it on the BBC)

It was quite interesting this morning listening to BBC Radio 4 news reports of the "big experiment" at CERN. Well, actually I think they have switched on the accelerator and started the circulation of their hadrons - the collision of the two beams is coming up later in the week.

(Scientists) will attempt to re-create the situation that existed in the split seconds just after the creation of the universe.

This particular quotation is interesting because it illustrates the willingness to refer to the creation of the universe. The question, though, is: what exactly does this mean? What do the BBC news department mean by it, and what are their listeners understanding by it?

For an orthodox Christian, creation refers to the bringing into existence of the material of the universe; creation, in the sense of the first moment of creation, refers to the bringing into existence of that universe from nothing "in the beginning", at a particular moment in time. It also indicates the sustaining of the universe in its existence so that it does not cease existing at any moment. An orthodox Christian will also recognise that this act of creation requires a being who is himself outside of the universe - noticing that the material of the universe does not have the power of bringing into existence, though it does contain intrinsic laws of development and progression. [Christians would also recognise the creation of spiritual beings (angels), though this is less relevant to a discussion of the visible universe; the creation of man as a composite material/spiritual being would also be included in such an understanding of creation.]

Most people's practical understanding is probably less clear than this, amounting to some sense of the "beginning of the universe", without specifically noticing the question of bringing into existence from nothing and without noticing the aspect of sustaining. It is probably more a sense of a particularly important moment of change or forming, than of bringing into existence.

(Scientists) will try to re-create the conditions just after the big bang that created the universe...

.... the big bang that led to the creation of the universe ....

These quotations - also from Radio 4 news bulletins this morning - demonstrate that the use of the word creation has not had a clear meaning today. At one level, it is possible to comment that this is just a carelessness in the use of language on the part of the script writer of the news bulletins. However, there is a clear trend, certainly within popular science writing and I believe amongst scientists themselves, that considers the universe to be in some way self-explaining. This is I think the intention of those scientists who have written, as scientists, about the anthropic principle; I think some Christians have been a bit incautious in employing the anthropic principle in support of the argument that the material universe was created for the coming of man, given that this is a bit at odds with the intentions of many of the scientists writing about it. An account which views the big bang as creating the universe is completely consistent with this notion of a self-explaining universe, carrying with it a certain carelessness in the real meaning of the word creation.

I recall reading, I think amongst the myriad works of Stanley Jaki (sorry, I haven't been able to find a good link about him - and it is time for my dinner!), a certain caution about identifying the moment of the big bang with the moment of creation. I think his point was that, strictly speaking, what the science could tell us about was the history and principles of the development of the universe over time, extrapolated backwards to a particular moment of "beginning" in the process that we are now able to study that is identified as a big bang. It did not rule out, as science, the possibility that another form of rationality with its own history existed before that which we now are not able to study. It is possible to be too ready to bring together the theological notion of creation and the scientific notion of creation/the big bang.

But it has been rather fun to see that word creation in use, albeit somewhat badly ... It perhaps prompts us to be clear about our own understanding and use of the word.

Richard Feynman: part 2

As promised about a week ago, here is the second part of my reflection on the thought of physicist Richard Feynman. This post has been given an added relevance by the announcement during the past week of the award of the Templeton Prize to Fr Michael Heller, a Catholic priest, philosopher and physicist. Fr Heller's statement made on receiving the prize can be found on the Templeton Prize website at http://www.templetonprize.org/pdfs/heller_statement.pdf

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In Chapter 1 of his book The Character of Physical Law, Feynman presents the law of Gravitation as an example of Physical Law, and draws out from it a description of what a physical law is. At the end of the chapter, he gives a summary of his conclusions, saying that what he has presented about the law of Gravitation is also true about all other physical laws. I have added emphases to make clearer the separate points that Feynman makes:

"First, it is mathematical in its expression; the others are that way too. Second, it is not exact; Einstein had to modify it, and we know it is not quite right yet, because we have still to put the quantum theory in. That is the same with all our other laws - they are not exact. There is always an edge of mystery, always a place where we have some fiddling around to do yet. This may or may not be a property of Nature, but it certainly is common to all laws as we know them today. It may be only a lack of knowledge.

"But the most impressive fact is that gravity is simple. It is simple to state the principles completely ... It is simple, and therefore it is beautiful. ... It is complicated in its actions, but the basic pattern or system beneath the whole thing is simple. This is common to all our laws; they all turn out to be simple things, although complex in their actual actions.

"Finally comes the universality of the gravitational law, and the fact that it extends over such enormous distances that Newton, in his mind, worrying about the solar system, was able to predict what would happen in an experiment [in a laboratory]... Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organisation of the entire tapestry."

It should be noted that, when Feynman says that laws are inexact he is not saying that they are wrong or incorrect; rather he is saying that they are open to, and indeed at certain points need, the greater precision that comes with furtherance of scientific knowledge. The word inexact has been well chosen here.

In Chapter 2 of The Character of Physical Law, Feynman considers further the relationship between mathematics and physical laws. One point that Feynman makes in this chapter is that the mathematician deals just with "theory" (my choice of words here, not Feynman's) or language that is mathematics, whereas the physicist has to make a connection between "theory" or language and a "real world". Again, I include some emphases of my own, which will be referred to below:

"Mathematicians are only dealing with the structure of reasoning, and they do not really care what they are talking about. They do not even need to know what they are talking about, or, as they themselves say, whether what they say is true."

A mathematician will represent a quantity by "x", and, after that, it is not critical to him or her exactly what "x" represents.

"In other words, mathematicians prepare abstract reasoning ready to be used if you have a set of axioms about the real world. But the physicist has meaning to all his phrases....(In) physics you have to have an understanding of the connection of words with the real world. It is necessary at the end to translate what you have figured out into English, into the world, into the blocks of copper and glass that you are going to do the experiments with."

Feynman also points out the possibility that, what is the same thing in the "real world" of physics, can be expressed by different forms in the language of mathematics. So, the law of Gravitation can equally well be expressed as a formula describing the force between two objects at a distance or as a formula describing a potential field in which a number expresses a gravitational property of each point in space. These different formulations might be exactly equivalent scientifically, but Feynman suggests that they can be very different "psychologically" (Feynman's choice of word). This is because when you are trying to find out new laws, or see how the laws apply in new situations, one formulation might turn out to be much more useful to the physicist than another. He also refers to the idea of a kind of scientific intuition, or the use of models and pictures of reality, that can be used to arrive at a new physical law. These can help, he says, but the bottom line is that, the greatest discoveries then

"abstract away from the model and the model never does any good".

Feynman continues:

"This shows again that mathematics is a deep way of expressing nature, and any attempt to express nature in philosophical principles, or in seat-of-the-pants mechanical feelings, is not an efficient way."

In concluding his chapter, Feyman writes:

"To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature .... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language [ie mathematics] that she speaks in. She offers her information only in one form; we are not so unhumble as to demand that she change before we pay any attention."

Feynman has deliberately, to use an expression I used in part 1, allowed the physics to speak for itself. However, now look at the emphases/emphases highlighted above and compare them to the philosophical expression of S L Jaki in his book Cosmos and Creator p.54:

"First, the material entities observed by science must be real, that is, existing independently of the observer ...Second, the material entities must have a coherent rationality. They must be governed by laws which can be formulated in a quantitative framework, and they must have a validity which transcends the limits of any particular time or location ...Third, those entities, because they are governed by consistent laws, must form a coherent whole, that is, must be subject to a consistent interaction ... Fourth, the form in which that coherent wholeness, or universe, does exist, cannot be considered .. a necessary from of existence. It is only one among countless others that are conceiveable. As to the question why such a universe does in fact exist, science has no answer....

"These four features of the universe are indispensable ... for making science possible."

So, I want to suggest, Feynman comes very close to offering what a philosopher might consider the necessary metaphysical conditions, that is, the necessary understanding of the way the world really is, for a self sustaining scientific enterprise just by letting the nature of the study of physics speak for itself ...