Overview

Building on its unique strengths in multidisciplinary research and the success of its recent Templeton Research Lectures series, the University of California, Santa Barbara is proud to sponsor, with the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation, an innovative three-year scholarly effort that focuses on a key unresolved issue central to both science and religion: multiple visions of biophysical and human nature.

Nature is a much-abused word today, conjuring up images of untrammeled wilderness far removed from both scientific research and religious institutions. Yet visions of both external (biophysical) and internal (human) nature have been at the heart of theories of science and religion running from Thomas Aquinas to Isaac Newton, and continuing in notable contemporaries such as Ian Barbour (1997), John Polkinghorne (1991), and Holmes Rolston (1999). In addition to strong scientific interest in external and internal nature, questions of human nature are found in all major religious traditions (Ward 1998), and concerns regarding biophysical nature have emerged in many religions as well (Tucker and Grim 2001).

Recent scholarship on biophysical and human nature may have major implications for our understanding of science, religion, and their relationship; but it needs to be synthesized and systematically applied to science and religion alike. There are obstacles to be overcome, as visions of nature have both united and divided science and religion. In its reference to the biophysical world, nature has been invoked by scientists to reject religious or "supernaturalistic" explanation, but it also serves as a common sacred ground for theologians and scientists oriented toward ecospirituality. In its reference to human nature, the concept has been used to explain everything from the theological doctrine of sin to the biological basis of religion. Nature plays a central role in policy concerns of our time, yet still unites and divides science and religion: consider, for instance, the 1991 joint statement signed by leading scientists and religious leaders declaring their common concern for environmental protection, versus the ongoing dispute—with significant scientific and religious dimensions—over human cloning.

Genuine progress in science and religion thus depends on reenvisioning biophysical and human nature, in a manner based on the best available scholarship and with careful consideration for scientific and theological dimensions. Ultimately, science and religion both attend to the same ultimate reality, the same biophysical and human nature. By working toward synthesis of contemporary visions of nature, New Visions of Nature, Science and Religion aims to provide an important metaphysical meeting ground for these two great traditions.

Barbour, Ian G. 1997. Religion and science: Historical and contemporary issues. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
Polkinghorne, J. C. 1991. Reason and reality: The relationship between science and theology. London: SPCK.
Rolston, Holmes. 1999. Genes, genesis, and God: Values and their origins in natural and human history. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Tucker, Mary Evelyn, and John A. Grim. 2001. Introduction: The emerging alliance of world religions and ecology. Daedalus: Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 130 (4):1-22.
Ward, Keith. 1998. Religion and human nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.