The Seminar

The University of Freiburg is organizing a seminar this summer semester entitled Which Truths Can We Build Upon? Physics and Theology in Discourse.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Buchleitner, a physicist, is in charge. Other lecturers are theologians Prof. Dr. Helmut Hoping, Dr. Matthias Huber, and Prof. Dr. Magnus Striet.

Yesterday, theologian and priest Matthias Huber, who also has a degree in physics, introduced the seminar with a lecture titled Critical Realism - Models and Theories - Explaining versus Understanding (Science - Humanities).

©Matthias Huber

In his first slide, Dr. Huber showed various possibilities when science and theology meet. There is the conflict model, the independence model, the dialog/convergence/consonance model, and finally, the integration model.

©Matthias Huber

Photos of the protagonists of the above models can be seen in the picture above.

Dr. Huber started his lecture proper by citing Horst W. Beck, who shed light on the incompatibility of religious statements and earth history: "The task is, of course, no less than to create an alternative cosmology, biology, geology based on salvation history [...]. Anyone who takes the judgment of God about the biblically and extra-biblically attested Flood catastrophe seriously must rewrite geology (1979)." 

Karl Rahner sees no areas of friction since "theology and science cannot in principle come into conflict with each other because both differ from the outset in their subject matter and method (1983)." 

 Finally, Rudolf Mosis goes so far as to say that natural sciences and theology ultimately do not interfere with each other at all: "The natural scientist can discover whatever he wants with his observations; he can build whatever hypotheses and theories he wants on them: it is always only about 'nature,' never about 'salvation.' So, faith cannot be affected by all this. After that, natural scientists and theologians would perhaps live in separate houses as good, or at least compatible, neighbors. Men/women would greet each other in a friendly manner. But there would be nothing left to argue about and nothing to talk about: We would simply have nothing more to say to each other." 

These citations were an excellent introduction to the topic. But then the lecturer showed a slide whose content made me stop my hooves from pawing.

©Matthias Huber

The above table made it clear to me that natural science - and here I mean physics as in the seminar's title - is objective. Still, theology must be viewed from a subjective angle.

 In physics, the interplay between theory and experiment is fruitful. Non obstat that theorists tend to forge hypotheses, such as string theory, that still need to be supported by any experiment.

Physics is not free of induction. For example, the fluctuations in the energy field after the Big Bang, which led to the formation of galaxies in the cooling phase of our Universe, are hypothetically transferred to the state before the Big Bang. According to this hypothesis, fluctuations in the primordial energy field triggered the Big Bang. This, however, means that several Big Bangs are possible, and with them, the existence of other universes.

In the early days of physics, personal influence on experimental results may have existed. In the meantime, however, every experimental result is verified by independent parallel measurements.

What is a "truthful representation of reality?" When the tool describing phenomena in physics is mathematics how true and how real is mathematics?

The starting point of theology is a subjective personal experience of God. People wrote the holy books as a result of their interpreted experience. After the Jew Saul had his faith experience with the Lord outside Damascus, the first written testimony of the Christian faith is found in St. Paul's letters.

New experiences of God caused a split in Christianity between Catholic and Protestant theology. Islam, too, with its Sunnis and Shiites, is not free of man-made divisions, without forgetting the deep shades between orthodox, reformed, and liberal Jews.

©Matthias Huber

Dr. Huber closed his lecture with a slide stressing the consonance between science and theology.

I shall mention only three points from the following discussion:

In 1957, when Red Baron attended a lecture on theoretical mechanics in Göttingen, the lecturer referred to the teleology of mechanical processes. Still, physics is not goal-oriented in the philosophical sense.

The measurement of the Higgs (© Prof. Karl Jakobs)

The comparison between the concealment of God and the Higgs boson is absurd because the latter leaves its trace in measurements.

God does not change the past. Does God exist in our time frame?

An excited Red Baron left the seminar wanting more.

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