Greetings, WesleyNexus Colleagues:
On September 7, 2023, Dr. Ursula Goodenough will present this month’s IRAS webinar. A self-proclaimed “religious naturalist”, Dr Goodenough has been engaged in science and religion discussions for decades. I suspect that most Christians have not heard of religious naturalists and if they have, they might view this perspective with both doubt and apprehension. This month, we highlight Ursula Goodenough’s ongoing contribution to the science and religion discussion by focusing a number of articles and videos on the religious naturalists. In addition, we have included entries critical of this position. By presenting multiple points of view, we hope that your will find you learned something new.
Contents:
September Reflection by Maynard Moore
IRAS Webinar: Taking Nature to Heart: The Religious Naturalist Orientation with Ursula Goodenough
Religious Naturalism and Naturalizing Morality by Ursula Goodenough
Christian Naturalism
“The Perspective of Religious Naturalism”
Mordecai M. Kaplan and Process Theology: Metaphysical and Pragmatic Perspectives by William E. Kaufman
Inside Our Awakening Universe: What’s Really Going on? | John F. Haught
David Bentley Hart- a physicalist picture of reality is likely false.
Is God a “Person”? With Philip Clayton
Whitehead & Teilhard: Convergences, Divergences, and Integration
From ChatGPT: Religious Naturalism and Wesleyan Understanding of Grace
Thanks continue to go out to our generous contributors. We encourage you to share comments, articles and insights that will help us all weather these difficult times.
Blessings,
Rick Barr, Maynard Moore and the rest of the WesleyNexus team
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September Reflection by Maynard Moore
The beginning of meteorological Fall – September 1. It feels like the beginning of the year. For several weeks now, we have seen celebrations on TV of the opening of schools across the region. Even when we don’t have a family member in school or college, somehow we get a sense of “new beginnings.” Those in Jewish congregations the world over will be celebrating Rosh Hashanah next week… and greeting each other with “Happy New Year,” and reciting the Kiddush, blessing over wine. Other cultures have their own traditions: on the new year, Buddhist temples strike their gongs 108 times, indicating the 108 temptations a person must overcome to achieve Nirvana. In Greece, a Saint Basil’s cake is baked with a silver or gold coin inside so that the finder might enjoy luck and prosperity during the coming year. In Denmark, one can observe families smashing old plates and dishes, in order to prepare for new relationships secured by dining customs. Arbitrarily, it was a decision of Julius Caesar in 45 bce that established January 1, the first new moon following the vernal equinox, as the beginning of the new calendar. Whatever the date, whether Spring or Fall, people in every culture seem to feel a need to bury old habits and “turn over a new leaf.” That is certainly amplified in our culture when school begins each Fall, when each of us will have to initiate new habits following Labor Day. This includes those of us who call ourselves Methodists, as out worship calendars are re-established after the summer doldrums. And perhaps it is important for us to remember that the initial proclamation in 1908 originating our Social Principles was focused on labor justice; calling for a minimum wage for all workers, and calling for one day a week “off” as a holiday, and calling for the institutionalization of child labor laws across the country. It might seem strange that in the Northern hemisphere a new year can be celebrated in the Fall when “the world” is preparing for the long, dreary months of winter, but then, the Global South is right now witnessing the birth of a glorious Spring. Perhaps a new year is calling for us to expand our consciousness, to leave behind our parochialism, and consider anew what it means to be an inhabitant of this fragile planet.
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IRAS Webinar: Taking Nature to Heart: The Religious Naturalist Orientation with Ursula Goodenough
September 7, 2023, at 4 PM Central time, 5 PM Eastern time
Presentation Overview:
Throughout the ages, religious traditions center themselves on a Large Story, a Mythos, transmitted in writings or in oral accounts, that tell How Things Are and Which Things Matter. These stories are embellished via art, ritual, and ceremony, and they serve, in Loyal Rue’s phrase, to educate the social emotions that humans have inherited from our primate lineage. Scientific inquiry has generated what Rue has called Everybody’s Story, the 13.8 billion year history of our evolving universe, planet, and living beings. A “vanilla” naturalist takes this story to mind. A religious naturalist also takes this story to heart, exploring its religious potential along spiritual and moral trajectories. I will develop these trajectories along the lines taken in my new book, The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Emerged and Evolved www.sacreddepthsofnature.com, and describe the Religious Naturalist Association www.religious-naturalist-association.org, which seeks to introduce this orientation to others.
About the September 7th presenter:
Ursula Goodenough is Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University who retired to Martha’s Vineyard in 2017. She taught cell biology and evolution and engaged in research that focused on the sexual cycle of the green soil alga Chlamydomonas, on ciliary motility, and on algal biofuel precursors. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Microbiology Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and served as president of the American Society for Cell Biology. She and many others are developing what is called a religious naturalist orientation https://religious-naturalist-association.org and a new edition of her book, The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Emerged and Evolved (Oxford University Press) http://sacreddepthsofnature.com, describes her understandings of this orientation. She has five children and nine grandchildren.
Registration: https://starisland-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DpCKAB46QhCvAVI_jVIF6g#/registration
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Religious Naturalism and Naturalizing Morality by Ursula Goodenough
Abstract. I first offer some reflections on the term “religious naturalism.” I then outline how moral thought might be configured in the context of religious naturalism. It is proposed that the goal of morality is to generate a flourishing community, and that humans negotiate their social interactions using moral capacities that are cultivated in the context of culture. Six such capacities are considered: strategic reciprocity, humaneness, fair-mindedness, courage, reverence, and mindfulness. Moral capacities are contrasted with moral susceptibilities, fueled by self-interest and brought to the fore in times of stress and humiliation.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/233197254.pdf
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Christian Naturalism
Just as naturalistic streams are arising in Judaism, Buddhism, and in other traditions, Christianity has emerging naturalistic versions as well.
Christian Naturalism can take many forms. Some, like Thomas Jefferson, view Jesus primarily as a moral teacher and as a guide for living, but deny any supernatural claims and aspects (Jefferson even created a bible with all of the supernatural elements removed). Projects like the Jesus Seminar, have provided clearer understanding of the ethical teachings of the historical Jesus, removed from the mythology.
Naturalistic Christians have a different take on God, salvation, the ‘Christ’, and many other Christian concepts that do not personify or rely on supernatural claims, but make sense within a naturalistic worldview. This is not seen as re-imagining or co-opting of Christianity, so much as it is seen as a continual evolution of revelation, always moving into greater alignment with truth/reality while maintaining the wisdom streams and traditions of its heritage.
Https://www.snsociety.org/christian-naturalism/
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“The Perspective of Religious Naturalism”
This free webinar was presented on Jan 26th, 11am- 12noon ET
Presented by the Temple of Understanding
ECO JUSTICE FOR ALL Dialogue Series
Dialogue with Ursula Goodenough, Professor of Biology Emerita, Washington University
and Carol Wayne White, Interim Director of the Griot Center (2022-23) and Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Bucknell University
Moderated by Mary Evelyn Tucker, Co-founder and Co-director, Forum on Religion and Ecology, Yale University
Https://youtu.be/jpmzyUr73vw?si=jYMVZ7ZpyqsPgpQw
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Mordecai M. Kaplan and Process Theology: Metaphysical and Pragmatic Perspectives by William E. Kaufman
Both Mordecai Kaplan and Whitehead see the coherence of the idea of a non-absolute God within the framework of religious naturalism as a theological and philosophical concept. Thus, they steer a middle course between unreflective supernaturalism and reductive naturalism.
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Both Kaplan and Whitehead would agree that the traditional theistic hypothesis — namely, the idea that a benevolent and omnipotent Deity is in control of the universe — generates unrealistic expectations in terms of human evils. As John B. Cobb has suggested, we should not be surprised when bad things happen. This is the way things often do happen. But when we see good things happen, we ought to be open to asking the question: “Must there not be something at work other than narrow and brutal self-interest and absolutization of one’s own group? Can we not call that God?” (PETM 175)
If Whitehead and Kaplan have demonstrated anything, it is that the question, “What shall we call God?” must be open and subject to revision and inquiry. The meaning of the word “God” must itself be in process, consequent on new human insights into we live.
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Inside Our Awakening Universe: What’s Really Going on? | John F. Haught
Scientists now know that the universe is a story still unfolding. From the perspective of physics the cosmos may look like a process of heat exchanges and energy transformations, but if we look deep inside we see that the universe has also given rise, at least on Earth, to beings eager to understand where they came from, where they are going, and what they should be doing with their lives. From this “inside” perspective, then, the universe is a story of awakening. But how are we to read the story? Is its awakening a mere fluke destined for an eternal sleep? This lecture examines three distinct ways of answering these questions, and in doing so offers a new understanding of the spiritual life.
John F. Haught (Ph. D. Catholic University, 1970) is Distinguished Research Professor, Georgetown University, Washington DC. He was formerly Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University (1970-2005) and Chair (1990-95). His area of specialization is systematic theology, with a particular interest in issues pertaining to science, cosmology, evolution, ecology, and religion.
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David Bentley Hart- a physicalist picture of reality is likely false.
David Bentley Hart is an American Orthodox Christian philosophical theologian, cultural commentator and polemicist.
Engaging heavily with classical, medieval and continental European philosophical systems as well as with Dharmic, biblical and patristic texts, Hart’s works have addressed topics ranging from ontology and comparative mythology to theological aesthetics and existentialism.
Https://youtu.be/Y2mCYlURKOY?si=pzLWBINMIPeLRbVc
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Is God a “Person”? With Philip Clayton
If ‘Does God exist?’ is the first question, ‘Is God a Person?’ should be the second. Only a ‘person’ has awareness, knowledge, beliefs, intents, goals, relationships. An impersonal force or principle has none of these. If hope counts, God exists and God is a person. But that’s absurd: hope counts for nothing. Could God, the ‘Ground of Being’, be a person?
Https://closertotruth.com/video/claph-009/?referrer=8323
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Whitehead & Teilhard: Convergences, Divergences, and Integration
September 21 @ 8:00 am – September 23 @ 5:00 pm PDT
Whitehead & Teilhard: Convergences, Divergences and Integration
September 21@8:00 am – September 23 @ 5:00 pm PDT
The respective work of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881-1955) continue to inspire distinctive trajectories in modern process philosophy and theology. Although contemporaries for a time, both men were unable to benefit from each other’s vast visions of reality. Yet a shared indebtedness to Bergson’s temporal metaphysics and a commitment to incorporate new advances of the sciences—evolutionary biology and quantum and relativity theory in particular—would stimulate deeply resonant vectors in their thought. Nevertheless, Whitehead and Teilhard continue to be studied largely independent of each other’s contributions. The time has come to fill this scholarly lacuna with deliberate efforts aimed at creative mutual transformation. What results when Whitehead and Teilhard meet? What do they each offer the other such that a mutual deepening might take place? This conference draws together Whitehead and Teilhard scholars to advance the possibilities and relevance of process philosophy and theology through an integrative encounter between these two foundational figures.
The Inn at Villanova University
Co-sponsored by The Center for Process Studies, Center for Christogenesis and Connelly Chair of Villanova University.
General Admission: $130 (Student: $65)
Virtual Admission: $100 (Student: $50)
(All admission includes access to video recordings.)
Https: //christogenesis.salsalabs.org/whitehead-teilhard-conference/index.html
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From ChatGPT: Religious Naturalism and Wesleyan Understanding of Grace
How does “religious naturalism” understand grace?
Religious naturalism is a philosophical and theological perspective that combines religious sensibilities with a naturalistic worldview. It seeks to find meaning, inspiration, and a sense of the sacred within the natural world and human experiences, without relying on supernatural explanations. Within the framework of religious naturalism, the understanding of grace can take on a unique and nuanced perspective:
Naturalistic Explanation: Religious naturalism seeks to explain phenomena using naturalistic principles rather than invoking supernatural intervention. Therefore, the concept of grace within religious naturalism would not involve a supernatural deity bestowing divine favor on individuals.
Recognition of Beauty and Awe: In religious naturalism, grace might be associated with the awe-inspiring beauty and complexity of the natural world. Experiencing the wonders of the universe, the intricacies of life, and the interconnectedness of all things could be seen as moments of grace.
Embracing the Transcendent: Religious naturalism acknowledges that individuals can experience a sense of the transcendent within the natural world. Grace might be understood as those moments when one feels connected to something greater than themselves, whether it’s the cosmos, the environment, or the collective human experience.
Ethical and Moral Awakening: Grace in religious naturalism could also be linked to ethical and moral awakening. It might involve moments of insight and transformation that lead individuals to a heightened sense of responsibility for the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants.
Inner Transformation and Growth: Grace within religious naturalism could refer to inner transformation and personal growth that arise from contemplation, mindfulness, and the pursuit of understanding one’s place within the cosmos. This growth might involve a deeper appreciation of life and a commitment to nurturing relationships with others and the environment.
Harmony with Nature: Grace could be associated with finding harmony with the natural world and recognizing one’s interconnectedness with all living beings. It might involve cultivating a sense of reverence for life and a desire to live in balance with the environment.
Scientific Wonder: Religious naturalists often celebrate the insights of science as a way to understand the natural world more deeply. Grace might be experienced through moments of scientific wonder, where the beauty and complexity of natural processes evoke a sense of awe and reverence.
Community and Shared Experience: Grace in religious naturalism could also be found in communal experiences where individuals come together to appreciate the natural world, share insights, and collectively cultivate a sense of wonder and gratitude.
It’s important to note that religious naturalism is a diverse perspective, and individuals who identify as religious naturalists may interpret and experience grace in various ways. Overall, the concept of grace in religious naturalism is rooted in a deep appreciation for the natural world, a recognition of the interconnectedness of all life, and a desire to cultivate a meaningful and ethical existence within the context of a naturalistic worldview.
How does wesleyan theology understand grace?
Wesleyan theology, often associated with the teachings of John Wesley and the Methodist tradition, places a significant emphasis on the concept of grace. Grace, in Wesleyan theology, refers to the unmerited and undeserved favor of God towards humanity. It is central to understanding salvation, personal transformation, and the Christian life. Wesleyan theology distinguishes between several aspects of grace:
Prevenient Grace: This is often considered the foundational form of grace in Wesleyan theology. Prevenient grace is the grace that comes before, preparing and enabling individuals to respond to God’s invitation to salvation. It’s the idea that God’s grace is at work in all people, even before they consciously turn to God. This grace counteracts the effects of sin, allowing individuals to have the ability to choose God.
Justifying Grace: Justifying grace, also known as “conversion” or “new birth,” is the moment when a person responds to God’s prevenient grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It’s the point at which a person is reconciled to God, their sins are forgiven, and they are declared righteous in God’s sight. This is not based on any merit or works of the individual but solely on the grace of God.
Sanctifying Grace: After justification, the process of sanctification begins. Sanctifying grace is the ongoing work of God’s grace in a believer’s life to transform them into the likeness of Christ. It’s the process of becoming more holy and Christlike over time. Wesley taught that sanctification is a gradual process and involves a partnership between God’s grace and the believer’s response and cooperation.
Means of Grace: Wesleyan theology also emphasizes the “means of grace,” which are spiritual practices and disciplines that believers engage in to grow in their relationship with God and experience His grace more deeply. These means of grace include prayer, reading and studying Scripture, participating in the sacraments (such as baptism and communion), worship, fasting, and acts of mercy and service.
Persevering Grace: Wesleyans believe in the possibility of falling away from faith, but they also believe in the assurance of God’s persevering grace. This grace sustains believers throughout their lives, helping them to continue in their journey of faith even in times of doubt or difficulty.
Overall, in Wesleyan theology, grace is seen as the central theme of God’s interaction with humanity. It’s the source of salvation, the catalyst for transformation, and the empowering force for living a life of faith and discipleship. Grace is not only God’s unmerited favor but also the means through which God actively works to restore and renew individuals and the world.