Van Huyssteen J.W. (editor) Encyclopedia of Science and Religion

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HISTORICAL CRITICISM

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Tyndal, had argued (though not consistently) for

the “plain meaning.”

Evolution of historical criticism

Early landmarks in the rise of historical criticism

can be found in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan

(1651), with the implication that the Bible was not

the word of God but rather contained the record of

some men who had been inspired by God, and

with doubts about the Mosaic authorship of the

Pentateuch. Similarly, Baruch Spinoza, in the Trac-

tatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), discussed the lit-

erary incoherencies, the historical contradictions,

and chronological difficulties in Genesis. Spinoza

was followed by the French oratorian Richard

Simon (1638–1712), who noted the double ac-

counts of some events in the Pentateuch and sug-

gested a diversity in authorship, as well as the late

origin of the present form of the Old Testament

(i.e., only after the Exile). Simon is thus sometimes

hailed as the true founder of historical criticism.

Application to the Old Testament. The full de-

velopment of such criticism, however, came in the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Because the

early application was mainly to the Hebrew scrip-

tures, it was thus less threatening to Christian sen-

sitivities. That criticism did not actually function

much in the early adjustments to scientific (espe-

cially geological) views of the age of the world—

for example, the notion popularized by James

Ussher (1581–1656), the Irish Archbishop of Ar-

magh, that creation had occurred in 4004

B.C.E.,

was easily abandoned by reinterpretation of the

“days” of creation in the Genesis story. Yet histori-

cal criticism did raise serious questions about the

reliability of the Old Testament chronology. And

the uniformitarianism of the new geology of James

Hutton in the eighteenth century and Charles

Lyell (especially Lyell’s Principles of Geology,

1830–1833) in the nineteenth century gradually re-

placed the popular catastrophism as a theory for

the development of the earth. Equally important

was reinterpretation of the nature of the Old Tes-

tament writings in general. For example, Johann

Gottfried von Herder’s The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry

(1782–1783) and History of the Education of Hu-

manity (1774), reflected both the Enlightenment

critique of religious authority and the newly

emerging Romantic movement. This was both par-

allel to and in protest against the Enlightenment

(and especially Kantian) emphasis on the sole au-

thority of the moral in religion.

Analysis of the sources and development of

the Old Testament writings can be said to culmi-

nate in the Graf-Wellhausen theory (1876–1877) of

the composition of the Hexateuch (the first six

books of the Old Testament), which came to dom-

inance by the end of the nineteenth century. To

the basic distinction between the names for God in

the J ( Jahvist) and E (Elohim) sources were added

the D (for Deuteronomic) and P (for Priestly)

sources. Thus the famous JEDP documentary hy-

pothesis, with subcategories in each (for some

scholars).

It is of special interest that the biblical critical

analysis played little or no role in Friedrich

Schleiermacher’s contention in Der Christliche

Glaube (The Christian faith, 1821) that the Genesis

stories of the creation and fall had no proper place

in the Christian doctrines of creation and sin be-

cause those doctrines had properly to be derived

strictly from the fundamental experience of utter

dependence on God. Thus, for example, the con-

troversy over whether creation is eternal or tem-

poral has no bearing on the content of the feeling

of utter dependence and is therefore a matter of in-

difference. On the other hand, it is plain that the

scientific view of the world, or Nature, as a system

of interconnected causality is crucial, and it is this

which must go back to the divine causality as an

explanation of the feeling of utter dependence.

Thus cosmology is given over to the scientific view

of things, yet the integrity of the religious affirma-

tion is preserved, in what Schleiermacher in the

second of his famous letters 1829 to his friend

Friedrich Luecke called “an eternal covenant be-

tween the living Christian faith and a free, inde-

pendent scientific inquiry, so that faith does not

hinder science and science does not exclude faith”

(p. 64). This statement has sometimes been hailed

as the precursor of a fundamental dichotomy be-

tween the interests of theology and those of natu-

ral science that frequently appeared in the nine-

teenth and twentieth centuries.

Application to the New Testament. The appli-

cation of the historical-critical method to the life of

Jesus really began with German philosopher Her-

mann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768), some of

whose writings were published by Gothold

Ephraim Lessing in the Wolfenbuettel Fragments

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(1777–1778). This became the center of violent

controversy with David Friedrich Strauss’s The Life

of Jesus, Critically Examined (1835). For both of

these authors, of course, it was clear that certain

events could not have happened in the way they

were described in the gospels, because those ac-

counts contravene scientific explanation. Strauss

lists this as the first of his “negative” criteria for

identifying the nonhistorical account; along with

either internal inconsistency or contradiction to

other accounts, a narrative can be “irreconcilable

with the known and universal laws which govern

the course of events” (p. 88). In this way, a scien-

tific view is presupposed by historical criticism.

Closely related to this kind of argument was

the rejection of the favorite traditional arguments

from miracle and prophecy. The latter was partly a

product of biblical criticism, with the recognition

that the so-called prophecies in the Old Testament

were properly to be understood in relation to cur-

rent events rather than, for example, to the ap-

pearance of Jesus. The rejection of the argument

from miracle was classically expressed in David

Hume’s critique in section ten of An Enquiry Con-

cerning Human Understanding (1748). The argu-

ment here was not strictly a denial of the possibil-

ity of miracle, as a violation of the laws of nature,

but was a devastating attack on the evidential

value of such claims. Assumed here, but only in a

general way, is the view of natural science as the

primary explanatory category.

The historical-critical trajectory with respect to

the New Testament continued particularly through

varying analyses of the relations of the synoptic

gospels, with the most widely accepted view that

Luke and Matthew were dependent on Mark and

that John was of much less value as an historical

account. A culmination of this process was the

judgment by the end of the nineteenth century that

it was impossible to write a genuine biography of

Jesus, for, as one fairly conservative thinker, Martin

Kaehler, put it in 1892, we have “only a vast field

strewn with the fragments of various traditions” (p.

49) out of which no sure account of the life of

Jesus can come.

The most extreme case of the separation of sci-

ence and theology was doubtless found in the

work of the German liberal Protestant theologian

Wilhelm Herrmann (1846–1922). Not only was nat-

ural scientific study irrelevant to the interests of re-

ligion, though within their limits the methods and

results of science were “unassailable.” Even meta-

physics had to be rejected. So also “historical sci-

ence,” while it could serve the purposes of elimi-

nating “false props” for faith, could have no

positive value at all for the certainty or “full assur-

ance” that faith requires.

See also SCRIPTURAL INTERPRETATION

Bibliography

Harrisville, Roy A., and Sundberg,Walter. The Bible in

Modern Culture: Theology and Historical-Critical

Method from Spinoza to Kasemann. Grand Rapids,

Mich.: Eerdmans,1995.

Hermann, Wilhelm. The Communion of the Christian With

God (1892), ed. Robert T. Voelkel. Philadelphia:

Fortress Press, 1971.

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan (1651), ed. C. B. Macpherson.

New York: Penguin, 1982.

Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Under-

standing (1748). A Critical Edition, ed. Tom L.

Beauchamp. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Kaehler, Martin. The So-called Historical Jesus and the His-

toric Biblical Christ, trans. Carl E. Braaten. Philadel-

phia: Fortress Press, 1964.

Schleiermacher, Freidrich. The Christian Faith (1821),

trans. H.R. Mackintosh and J.S. Stewart. Edinburgh,

UK: T&T Clark, 1948.

Schleiermacher, Friedrich. On the Glaubenslehre (1821-

1822), trans. James Duke and Francis Fiorenza. At-

lanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1981.

Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus

(1906), trans. William Montgomery. New York:

Macmillan, 1961.

Spinoza, Baruch de. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670),

trans. Samuel Shirley. Leiden, Netherlands, and New

York: E. J. Brill, 1991.

Strauss, David Friedrich. The Life of Jesus Critically Exam-

ined, ed. Peter C. Hodgson and trans. George Eliot.

Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972.

CLAUDE WELCH

HOLISM

Holism is any attitude toward explanation that

places emphasis on the importance of a whole sys-

tem as against that of its individual parts. Holism is

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thus an epistemological term, reflecting a particular

approach to explanation. The term was first used

in English by South African statesman and author

Jan Christiaan Smuts in 1926. Its roots within West-

ern philosophy, however, go back to the German

thinker George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

(1770–1831), with his insistence that “the truth is

the whole.”

The concept of holism is important to three

areas of the science-religion debate: (1) in the phi-

losophy of science, where it is in particular tension

with falsificationism; (2) in considerations of cau-

sation, including divine action, where holism is in

tension with reductionism; and (3) in ecological

thinking, where it is in tension with dualism and

anthropocentrism.

Holism in the philosophy of science rests on

an insight initially developed by Pierre Duhem

(1861–1916), and refined by W. V. O. Quine

(1908–2000), to the effect that scientific theories

face the bar of experience as a whole, as a com-

plex web of interrelated postulates and hypothe-

ses. When an experimental result conflicts with

current theory, proponents of the theory have a

wide choice as to which elements to re-evaluate,

not only altering the hypothesis being tested, but

rejecting the result as an artifact, rejecting the ap-

paratus as inappropriate, questioning the mathe-

matical framework used to draw inferences from

the result, or altering other hypotheses to fit the

data. This runs counter to Karl Popper’s proposal

that science unfolds by a process of empirical fal-

sification of discrete hypotheses.

Holism in the debate about causation

In discussions of holism and causation it is neces-

sary to mention an important result in quantum

theory, as well as a wider debate as to whether sys-

tems in any way cause the behaviour of their parts.

Quantum holism.

It is a remarkable feature of the mathematical

framework of quantum mechanics that all the ele-

ments of an interacting system must be considered

together. The wave function of all the components

of a quantum system is collapsed by contact with

an act of measurement, which gives rise to a defi-

nite behavior in all the particles concerned, be they

electrons, photons, or some other particle. Thus,

measurement of an electron’s spin could simulta-

neously determine the spin of another electron

with which it had once been paired, even if the

second particle were on the other side of the uni-

verse. However, the EPR Paradox proposed by Al-

bert Einstein and colleagues in the 1930s chal-

lenged this view. The experimental vindication of

the predicted quantum result by physicist Alain As-

pect in 1982 confirmed that reality must be viewed

as more interconnected than classical science

would have supposed. The Aspect result has given

rise to highly speculative proposals, including ex-

planations for telepathy. The precise implications

of nonlocal interactions between quantum parti-

cles remain unclear.

Whole-part causation.

Can the behavior of individual elements of a sys-

tem be influenced by the character of the larger

system of which they are a part? That the answer to

this is “yes” can be demonstrated in quite simple

chemical systems, such as the Bénard cell, where

coordinated geometric structures form when a liq-

uid is heated in a certain way. A commonsense

view of conscious agency might suggest that this

sort of causation is also present when a person de-

cides to move his arm. Donald T. Campbell and

Roger W. Sperry developed the concept of top-

down causation to describe instances in which

larger wholes constrain the behavior of their com-

ponents. This remains a contentious area of de-

bate, especially in the study of the mind-brain re-

lationship, where it focuses on the question as to

what is doing the causing, other than the compo-

nent neurons of the brain.

However, few thinkers would not concede that

complex entities such as the cell, the multicellular

organism, and the ecosystem, do have to be de-

scribed in terms of emergent properties, types of

explanation not necessary for lower levels of com-

plexity. For example, molecules such as hormones

are sent round the human body as “messengers,”

reflecting the state of the body as a whole. These

messages change the state of molecules within the

cells they reach. Moreover, the science of chaos

emphasises that the behavior of many important

types of systems, from the weather to the human

heart, is exquisitely sensitive to the boundary con-

ditions of the system. These considerations limit

the effectiveness of scientific reductions, efforts to

describe complex phenomena in terms of their

component parts. The attempt to effect such re-

ductions is essential to scientific methodology, but

the experience of science is that explanations in

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terms of the functioning of larger wholes remain

indispensable.

Two words of caution are in order in develop-

ing holistic accounts of causation. First, the previ-

ous paragraph simply states that description in

terms of wholes influencing parts is a necessary

explanatory device within scientific epistemology.

It does not, however, establish an ontology of effi-

cient causes of the sort to which the physics of

forces lays claim. Second, sensitivity to initial con-

ditions shows how important the overall environ-

ment is to chaotic systems; even a tropical rainfor-

est is a whole within larger wholes.

John Polkinghorne and Arthur Peacocke have

taken a lead in proposing that top-down causation

can function as an analogy for the activity of God

within the created order. Polkinghorne has focused

on the mathematics of chaos as indicative of the

flexibility and openness of creation to the input of

divine information. In response to criticism that the

equations of chaos are fundamentally deterministic,

he speculates whether they may only be approxi-

mations to a more holistic account of reality. Pea-

cocke’s emphasis is, rather, on (1) the hierarchy of

emergent properties of the universe and (2) that as-

sertion that interaction between God and human

minds is the highest known level of that hierarchy.

Peacocke’s terminology for the sort of physical cau-

sation to which divine action might be analogous

has shifted from whole-part causation, to whole-

part constraint, and finally to whole-part influence.

The words of caution above show the difficul-

ties of the analogy. There is no model for how

wholes can be causally effective, other than

through the causal interactions of their compo-

nents, and there are no wholes in the cosmos that

are not themselves wholes-within-environments.

Models of divine agency that stress whole-part cau-

sation do no more than indicate that two analogies

may be somewhat helpful: the analogy of human

mind-in-body conscious agency, and the analogy

of God as the environment of the world.

Holism in ecological thinking

Discussions of holism in ecology draw on Ameri-

can naturalist Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Al-

manac (1949), in which he emphasizes the impor-

tance of the overall health of the biotic community.

These discussions also draw on the insistence of

Norwegian philosopher and ecologist Arne Naess

as to the need for a “deep-ecological” attention to

the whole network of relationships in an ecosys-

tem. These emphases marked an ethical shift away

from a focus on the interests of humans (anthro-

pocentrism), and towards a sense that humans are

no more than one part of the natural world. This

sense is thus in tension with any dualistic view of

humans that values only the status of their souls.

The understanding of the relation between hu-

mans and the nonhuman world is a major interface

between scientific exploration of ecosystems and

religious and ethical perspectives. The deep-eco-

logical emphasis on the moral status of whole sys-

tems serves as a provocative corrective to the as-

sumption that environmental problems can be best

resolved by hierarchical, technocratic thinking.

However, such holism raises an important question

in environmental ethics: Is the whole system—be it

the Brazilian rainforest or the total biosphere of

the planet—the overriding locus of value, to which

other values, such as the aspirations of individual

humans, should be sacrificed? At their most radical

such views smack of “ecofascism,” and are them-

selves reductive of the complexity of biological

systems. An alternative view is that of Holmes Rol-

ston III, who asserts that the system is valuable be-

cause it is the protective matrix within which other

sorts of value can be exchanged. Duties to a whole

ecosystem, as Don Marietta insists, supplement,

rather than supplant, duties to humans and other

living things.

Holism is an important ingredient in a network

of philosophical and physical explanations; it be-

comes weakened when its adherents neglect the

importance of causative and evaluative explana-

tions in terms of the components of systems.

See also BOUNDARY CONDITIONS; CHAOS THEORY;

OWNWARD CAUSATION; ECOLOGY; EPR PARADOX;

IERARCHY; PHYSICS, QUANTUM

Bibliography

Clayton, Philip. God and Contemporary Science. Edin-

burgh, Scottland: Edinburgh University Press,

1997.

Marietta, Don E. For People and the Planet: Holism and

Humanism in Environmental Ethics. Philadelphia:

Temple University Press, 1994.

Polkinghorne, John. Belief in God in an Age of Science.

New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998.

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Rolston, Holmes, III. Conserving Natural Value. New

York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

Russell, Robert John; Murphy, Nancey; Meyering, Theo C.;

Arbib, Michael A., eds. Neuroscience and the Person:

Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. Vatican City

and Berkely, Calif.: Vatican Observatory and Center

for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1999.

Sessions, George, ed. Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First

Century. Boston, Mass.: Shambhala, 1995.

Smuts, Jan Christiaan. Holism and Evolution. New York:

Macmillan, 1926.

Southgate, Christopher, ed. God, Humanity, and the Cos-

mos: A Textbook in Science and Religion. Edinburgh,

UK, and Harrisburg, Pa.: T&T Clark and Trinity Press

International, 1999.

CHRISTOPHER SOUTHGATE

HOLY SPIRIT

The term Holy Spirit occurs in only two historically

late texts in the Old Testament (Isa. 63:10.11; Ps.

51:13), but much can nonetheless be deduced

about the term. God’s spirit (ruah Yahweh) is the

“wind,” the breath of life, which proceeds from

and will return to Yahweh. It determines life spans

(Gen. 6:3; Ps. 104:29–30; Job 33:4) and tames nat-

ural forces (Ex. 15:8). Psalm 33:6 (“by the word of

the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host

by the breath of his mouth”), uses it synonymously

with word (dabar), which Genesis uses to explain

how God created the world.

God’s spirit is not just a life-giving power. Job

32:8 includes the assertion, “But truly it is the spirit

[ruah] in a mortal, the breath [neshamah] of the

Almighty, that makes for understanding.” God’s

spirit leads to wisdom and imparts exceptional

qualities. To tackle a threatening famine, for in-

stance, Pharaoh looked for someone “in whom is

the spirit of God” (Gen. 41:38). The spirit of God

can also endow “ability, intelligence, and knowl-

edge in every kind of craft” (Ex. 31:3). Only the

spirit of God leads to right living and fulfillment of

the will of God (Ps. 51:10–10).

The New Testament retains the Old Testament

notion that the spirit of God can perform unusual

deeds and is an eschatological sign (Matt. 12:28).

Similar to the creation of the world, God now gen-

erates a new creation through the spirit (pneuma:

Matt 1:18; Luke 1:35). While Matthew and Mark

seldom mentioned the Holy Spirit, Luke believed

that the presence of the spirit characterizes the

time of the church. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit

filled the disciples (Acts 2:4), and all who are bap-

tized receive the Holy Spirit. Through the identifi-

cation of God with the spirit, the latter assumes a

cosmological function for John: “God is spirit, and

those who worship him must worship in spirit and

truth” ( John 4:24). The spirit is also the life em-

powering factor: “It is the spirit that gives life, the

flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to

you are spirit and life” ( John 6:63). Paul, too, iden-

tified Jesus Christ with the spirit and wrote: “Now

the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the

Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). Unlike

Gnosticism, the spiritual and the physical are not

opposites but are unified because of Christ’s resur-

rection (1 Cor. 15:44).

The Church Fathers saw a unity between the

logos (word) that became flesh, the pneuma

(spirit), and the sophia (wisdom) of God. The

Council of Constantinople (381

C.E.) clarified the

function of the Holy Spirit. It asserted that Jesus

Christ “was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the

Virgin Mary” and referred to the Holy Spirit as “the

Lord and life-giver, Who proceeds from the Fa-

ther, Who is worshiped and glorified together with

the Father and the Son, Who has spoke through

the prophets” (Leith, p.33). While the spirit is still

seen as the life-giver, the main accent is on soteri-

ology, an emphasis that intensified in the Refor-

mation. From that time until the twentieth century,

little reflection has been given to the spirit’s activ-

ity in the world.

Two well-known twentieth-century theolo-

gians who have articulated a doctrine of the Holy

Spirit in relation to contemporary science are the

French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-

1955) and Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928– ). In The

Divine Milieu (1960), Teilhard clarified his evolu-

tionary concept of life: “The same beam of light

which christian spirituality, rightly and fully under-

stood, directs upon the Cross to humanize it (with-

out veiling it) is reflected on matter so as to spiri-

tualize it” (p. 105). Matter generally drifts toward

spirit, and one day “the whole divinizible sub-

stance of matter will have passed into the souls of

men; all the chosen dynamisms will have been re-

covered; and then our world will be ready for the

Parousia” (p. 110). The goal of the creative process

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is the spiritualization and divinization of all matter

and its reception into the christosphere. According

to Teilhard, the spirit is not independent of matter

but elevates and moves it toward God.

Wolfhart Pannenberg regards the spirit “as the

marvelous depth of life out of which all life origi-

nates” (1973, p. 106). Pannenberg understands the

spirit as active in the self-transcendence of life, and

he has used the field theories developed by

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) and his successors to

understand the spirit’s activity in the world. Ac-

cording to Pannenberg, these field theories “claim

a priority of the whole over the parts. This is of

theological significance because God has to be

conceived as the unifying ground of the whole

universe if God is to be conceived as creator and

redeemer of the world. The field concept could be

used in theology to make the effective presence of

God in every single phenomenon intelligible”

(1988, p. 12).

Pannenberg sees the Stoic doctrine of the di-

vine pneuma as a direct predecessor of the field

theory that “was conceived as a most subtle matter

which penetrates everything and holds the cosmos

together by the powerful tension between its dif-

ferent parts, thus accounting for their cohesiveness

as well as for the different movements and qualities

of things” (1988, p. 13). Just as patristic theology re-

jected the Stoic notion that pneuma is a material el-

ement, modern field theorists, such as Albert Ein-

stein in his first paper on special relativity of 1905,

rejected ether, a hypothetical substance, as being

necessary for the expansion of electromagnetic

waves within the field. However, since the 1970s,

quantum field theory of the vacuum has once again

raised the idea of an ether, as has string theory.

Pannenberg contends that “since the field con-

cept as such corresponds to the old concept of

pneuma and was derived from it in the history of

thought, theologians should also consider it obvi-

ous to relate the field concept of modern physics to

the Christian doctrine of the dynamic presence of

the divine Spirit in all of creation” (1988, p. 13).

Field theory becomes Pannenberg’s paradigm to

show God’s activity through the Holy Spirit. Pan-

nenberg knows that there is a difference between

how physics and theology perceive the world. Nev-

ertheless he develops the doctrine of the Holy Spirit

using field theory, although neither God nor the

Holy Spirit can be conceived as a field in any sense

known to physics. Here Pannenberg has been

strongly challenged. It remains interesting that

modern physics reflects what the Old Testament as-

serted in speaking of the ruah (spirit) of Yahweh.

See also CHRISTIANITY; FIELD THEORIES; PNEUMATOLOGY;

PIRIT

Bibliography

Horn, Friedrich W. “Holy Spirit.” In The Anchor Bible Dic-

tionary, ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Dou-

bleday, 1992.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Gegenwart Gottes: Predigten. Mu-

nich: Claudius, 1973.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. “The Doctrine of Creation and

Modern Science.” Zygon 23 (1988): 3–21.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Systematic Theology, 3 vols. Grand

Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Divine Milieu. New York:

Harper Torchbooks, 1960.

Torrance, Thomas F. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangeli-

cal Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. Edin-

burgh, UK: T&T Clark, 1988.

Worthing, Mark W. God, Creation, and Contemporary

Physics. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1996.

HANS SCHWARZ

HOPE

The word hope refers to a concept, emotion, atti-

tude of mind, and object of expectation that is ex-

pressed in different ways in different cultures. Its

meaning develops in association with other no-

tions, as in the cluster of faith, hope, and love. It

may be focused on one central object—hope in

God, or much less definite—sometimes people

may half-hope for things. Such reflection is a

human activity; rabbits do not reflect much on

what they will do when they retire.

In order to survey the shape of hope an ele-

ment of systematization is necessary. This will be

invariably selective. Surveys of the Christian doc-

trine of hope have to try to avoid finding harmony

in a tradition where there are significant elements

of dissonance. There is a risk of assimilating too

easily notions of hope in non-Christian sources

with Christian paradigms. Linguistic usage, even in

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distinctive discourses, is rarely monolithic. Gener-

alizations about the Greek view of hope, or what-

ever, are liable to be limited in their usefulness,

and may easily obscure the balance of overlap and

diversity in particular usage.

Reflections on hope

With these reservations, the tradition of theological

reflection on hope may be instructive. Reflection

upon possible futures, in optimistic anticipation, in

trepidation, in trust, in resignation, does not always

occur in a religious context. But it is an activity de-

scribed and assessed as centrally important in major

world religions. God is the source and the object of

hope, of a positive future for the created order.

Prophets are seen as sources of hope. Their return

in various forms is anticipated as the expected ful-

filment of hope. Transformation of the present

world order, of the religious community, and of the

self, as a physical or spiritual entity or both, as part

of this process, is the content of hope. How this

transformation is to be achieved is differently envis-

aged, from the cave paintings of Neolithic times to

modern images of virtual reality. Hope is the anti-

dote to despair, a widespread and damaging aspect

of human life. The transformation may be encour-

aged by appropriately empathic human activity,

from human sacrifice to psychotherapy.

The ancient Mediterranean world produced a

huge variety of reflection on hope, sacred and sec-

ular, from the Greek poet Pindar (c. 520–438

B.C.E.)

to Roman statesman and orator Cicero (106–43

B.C.E.) and beyond through the Church Fathers.

These variations were accessibly documented by

Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) in his standard arti-

cle on hope in Gerhard Kittel’s Theological Dictio-

nary of the New Testament, which emphasized the

different usages, and in Geoffrey Lampe’s A Pa-

tristic Greek Lexicon (1961). Drawing on an early

monograph by Hans Georg Gadamer (1900–2002),

Bultmann illustrated from Plato the twin aspects of

objective hope and subjective expectation in

human reflection on existence, reflection that is es-

sential to give people something to live for. Hope

is associated with love, for it is drawn towards the

good and the beautiful. In a religious context, as in

the Mysteries, hope may be sustained by the prom-

ise of eternal life. Plato was aware that hope may

be dangerous and deceptive. Hence perhaps the

turn by the Stoic philosophers to an avoidance of

hope—if one does not hope for too much, one

will not suffer disappointment.

Hope in the Hebrew Bible and, following this

tradition, in the New Testament is centered upon

God and the promise of God for the future of the

people of God. In the Psalms a secure hope is

based on God; any other basis is a false security. In

the New Testament, especially in the Pauline writ-

ings, there is patient trust in God, in the expecta-

tion of the unfolding of God’s future. In 1 Corinthi-

ans 13 hope is bound up with faith and love. The

resurrection of Jesus Christ becomes the corner-

stone of hope. The New Testament is everywhere

colored by the overarching hope in eschatological

expectation of the coming of the Kingdom. This

foundation of hope on the presence of God—past,

present, and to come—is taken up in the Fathers

and in the theologies of the medieval, Reformation,

and modern periods, reshaped according to the

cultural imagination of the period (classically in the

tradition of the three theological virtues of faith,

hope, and love). Augustine of Hippo (354–430

C.E.) reflects the dialectic between hope and mem-

ory. For Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274), hope is

not simply the fruit of experience but hope in God

is a learned habit of will. Not to hope is sinful.

Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509–

1564) both interpret the gospel as promise, though

this promise is of course firmly based on past and

present action by God.

Notions of eschatological hope tended to be

replaced in modern Western thought by ideas of

progress and evolution. There is a unique amal-

gam of eschatological hope, apocalyptic imagery,

and Enlightenment progress in Karl Marx

(1818–1883) whose work was classically taken up

by the mid-twentieth century philosopher Ernst

Bloch in his massive The Principle of Hope

(1952–1959). Bloch in turn famously inspired Jür-

gen Moltmann to write his Theology of Hope

(1964), which sparked off a rediscovery of the im-

portance of hope and a reorientation towards the

future in theology. The turn to eschatology, and

the thought of the determination of the present by

the future, continues to be developed by Wolfhart

Pannenberg and others.

For Luther hope was basically individual hope.

Moltmann stressed the social and political dimen-

sions, providing an important stimulus for a theol-

ogy of liberation or emancipation, and for a new

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turn to the future as a focus for theology. This con-

tinues to be developed as a liberation of the op-

pressed through the freedom of the gospel, and

through black, gay, feminist, and other theologies.

A theology of the Holy Spirit understands the fu-

ture as a future of Christlikeness.

Science and the theology of hope

What does theology of hope have to do with the

dialogue between science and religion? Hope has

objective as well as subjective dimensions. The fu-

ture of the physical universe is certainly relevant to

one strand of the complex thread of Christian

hope. Exploration of divine action in relation to

human life, through the natural sciences from cos-

mology to neuroscience, is seminal to grounds for

hope. Hope is more than wishful thinking or blind

optimism despite unpleasant facts. It is the hope of

love, of corporate participation in the life of God.

A great deal of Christian theology has been de-

voted to engagement with the past and with the

sense of tradition. Doctrines of creation have been

especially past-oriented. Faith believes that the fu-

ture of tradition may be much longer, and much

more exciting, than its past. Creation points for-

ward to new creation, to the unfolding of the di-

vine purpose for the cosmos. Here the concept of

hope is central. The future is not to be feared, for

it is God’s future. This is in turn a challenge to be

open to new ideas and ready to revise existing par-

adigms. Hope suggests humility in the face of an

unfolding mystery, an openness to surprise, and

willingness to accept risk. Hope rests on the past

fulfilment of God’s promise for humanity and is re-

solved to look forward with confidence.

See also ESCHATOLOGY; HOLY SPIRIT; LIBERATION;

IBERATION THEOLOGY; PLATO; PROGRESS;

HOMAS AQUINAS

Bibliography

Bloch, Ernest. The Principle of Hope (1952-1959), trans.

Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight. Cam-

bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995.

Bultmann, Rudolf. “Hope.” In Theological Dictionary of

the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey

W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1967.

Kittel, Gerhard, ed. Theological Dictionary of the New Tes-

tament, trans. Geoffret W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids,

Mich.: Eerdmans, 1964–1976 .

Moltmann, Jürgen. Theology of Hope: On the Ground and

the Implications of a Christian Eschatology. London:

SCM Press, 1964.

Newlands, George. Generosity and the Christian Future.

London: SPCK, 1997.

Watts, Fraser. “Subjective and Objective Hope.” In The

End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and

Theology on Eschatology, eds. John Polkinghorne and

Michael Welker. Philadelphia, Pa.: Trinity Press Inter-

national, 2000.

GEORGE NEWLANDS

HUMAN ECOLOGY

Human ecology is the interaction between humans

and their environment, particularly the living

ecosystems on which human life depends. An

ecosystem is all the living organisms in a habitat,

such as the fish and algae in a pond or the trees

and earthworms in a forest, and the physical fac-

tors that support and affect them, such as sunlight

and precipitation. Humans collect or grow food

and fuel resources from Earth’s ecosystems and are

part of the Earth’s food chains, where plants fix en-

ergy via photosynthesis, then animal herbivores

consume the plants, and animal predators con-

sume the herbivores. In the wake of global indus-

trialization and a great increase in human popula-

tion size, people are having an ever greater impact

on the function and structure of the Earth’s ecosys-

tems. Humans are clearing much of the world’s

forest land, damming many of the world’s rivers,

and managing a majority of the Earth’s most pro-

ductive soils for agriculture.

Although science and engineering can develop

new technologies that damage the environment,

scientific research can conversely provide new en-

vironmentally friendly technologies for controlling

pollution, collecting energy, and improving crop

yields. Scientists studying ecosystems guide human

interactions with the environment by documenting

and monitoring human-initiated disturbances that

result from, for example, the harvesting of timber,

the catching of fish, or the building of cities, and

they test new methods of restoring damaged

ecosystems.

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The world’s religions also encourage human

respect and care for ecosystems by providing ex-

planations for natural phenomena and by discour-

aging destructive human activities and attitudes.

The myths of Pacific Northwest Indians, for exam-

ple, describe the cycle of salmon returning from

the sea to spawn in rivers. The First Fish ceremony,

held at the beginning of the salmon runs, tem-

porarily halts all salmon harvest, thereby allowing

some fish to escape and lay their eggs. Religious

rituals or teachings can guide planting times and

soil-conserving fallow on farm fields. Some Christ-

ian and Jewish farmers follow biblical instructions

to provide a Sabbath year for the land to allow the

soil to recover from crops. Islamic law provides

guidance in managing wells, irrigation, and grazing

lands. Religion may also protect the environment

by discouraging greed and waste, and by encour-

aging respect for all creatures. The Jewish law

found in the Torah, for example, prohibits wanton

destruction of natural features, such as trees. Bud-

dhists carefully replace insects and worms dis-

turbed by plowing agricultural fields.

Religions may also designate ecosystems or

species as sacred or provide them with special sta-

tus, thus reducing over-harvest and conserving

ecosystem components, such as predators. Native

Hawaiian religion, for example, identifies some

large sharks as family deities, thereby prohibiting

their capture. Australian aborigines learn to respect

plants and animals by adopting them as clan

totems. Christian Ethiopian monks allow wildlife to

remain undisturbed on their monastic grounds.

Many religions identify scared trees or groves that

may not be cut, or holy springs or rivers that may

not be polluted.

Although they are frequently portrayed as op-

posites, both science and religion guide human en-

vironmental decision-making by identifying the

best management alternatives, and encouraging

human respect for, care of, and right relationship

with the Earth’s ecosystems.

See also BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY; CHRISTIANITY,

ISTORY OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION; ECOFEMINISM;

COLOGY, ETHICS OF; ECOLOGY, RELIGIOUS AND

PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS; ECOLOGY, SCIENCE OF;

COTHEOLOGY; ISLAM, CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN

SCIENCE AND RELIGION; JUDAISM, CONTEMPORARY

ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Bibliography

Cooper, David E., and Palmer, Joy A. Spirit of the Environ-

ment: Religion, Value, and Environmental Concern.

London: Routledge, 1998.

Kinsley, David. Ecology and Religion: Ecological Spiritual-

ity in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Upper Saddle River,

N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995.

SUSAN POWERS BRATTON

HUMAN GENOME PROJECT

The worldwide effort, originally named the

Human Genome Initiative but later known as the

Human Genome Project or HGP, began in 1987

and was celebrated as complete in 2001. When

begun, HGP was dubbed “big science” comparable

to placing human beings on the moon. It was in-

ternational in scope, involving numerous laborato-

ries and associations of scientists around the world

and receiving public funding in the United States

of $200 million per year with a scheduled fifteen

year timeline. The U.S. Department of Energy

(DOE) began funding the project in 1987, followed

by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1990.

History and goals

The scientific goal was to map the genes and se-

quence human DNA. Mapping would eventually

reveal the position and spacing of the then pre-

dicted one hundred thousand genes in each of the

human body’s cells; sequencing would determine

the order of the four base pairs—the A (adenine),

T (thymine), G (guanine), and C (cytosine) nu-

cleotides—that compose the DNA molecule. The

primary motive was that which drives all basic sci-

ence, namely, the need to know. The secondary

motive was perhaps even more important, namely,

to identify the four thousand or so genes that were

suspected to be responsible for inherited diseases

and prepare the way for treatment through genetic

therapy. This would benefit society, HGP architects

thought, because a library of DNA knowledge

would jump start medical research on many fronts.

Many early prophecies found their fulfillment.

Some did not.

What was not anticipated was the competition

between the private sector and the public sector. J.

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Craig Venter (b. 1946) led the private sector effort.

While on a grant from NIH, Venter applied for

nearly three thousand patents on Expressed Se-

quence Tags (ESTs). The ESTs located genes but

stopped short of identifying gene function. A furor

developed when researchers working with gov-

ernment money applied for patents on data that

merely reports knowledge of what already exists

in nature—knowledge of existing DNA se-

quences—and this led to the 1992 resignation of

James Watson (b. 1928) from the directorship of

NIH’s National Center for Human Genome Re-

search (NCHGR). Watson, who along with Francis

Crick (b. 1916) is famed for his discovery of the

double helix structure of DNA, was the first to

head the NCHGR

Venter then established The Institute for Ge-

nomic Research (TIGR) and began using Applied

Biosystems automatic sequencers twenty-four

hours per day to speed up nucleotide sequencing

and the locating of ESTs. By 1998 Venter had es-

tablished Celera Genomics with sequencing capac-

ity fifty times greater than TIGR, and by June 17,

2000, he concluded a ninety percent complete ac-

count of the human genome. It was published in

the February 16, 2001, issue of Science.

Francis Collins (b. 1950) took over NCHGR

leadership from Watson and found himself driving

the public sector effort, racing with Venter toward

the mapping finish line. Collins drew twenty labo-

ratories worldwide with hundreds of researchers

into the International Human Genome Sequencing

Consortium, which he directed from his Washington

office. Collins repudiated patenting of raw genomic

data and sought to place DNA data into the public

domain as rapidly as possible so as to prevent pri-

vate patenting. His philosophy was that the human

genome is the common property of the whole

human race. The public project finished almost si-

multaneously with the private, and the ninety per-

cent complete Collins map appeared one day prior

to Venter’s on February 15, 2001, in Nature.

Human DNA, as it turns out, is largely junk—

that is, 98.6 percent does not code for proteins.

Half of the junk DNA consists of repeated se-

quences of various types, most of which are para-

sitic elements inherited from our distant evolu-

tionary past. Only 1.1 percent to 1.4 percent

constitute sequences that code for proteins that

function as genes.

Of dramatic interest is the number of genes in

the human genome. At the time of the announce-

ment, Collins estimated there are 31,000 protein-

encoding genes; he could actually list 22,000. Ven-

ter could provide a list of 26,000, to which he

added an estimate of 10,000 additional possibili-

ties. For round numbers, the estimate in 2001 stood

at 30,000 human genes.

This is philosophically significant, because

when the project began in 1987 the anticipated

number of genes was 100,000. It was further as-

sumed that human complexity was lodged in the

number of genes: the greater the number of genes,

the greater the complexity. So, confusion appeared

when, nearing the completion of HGP, scientists

could find only a third of the anticipated number.

Confusion was enhanced when the human

genome was compared to a yeast cell with 6,000

genes, a fly with 13,000 genes, a worm with 26,000

genes, and a rice cell with 50,000 genes. On the

basis of the previous assumption, a grain of rice

should be more complex than Albert Einstein.

With the near completion of HGP, no longer

could human uniqueness, complexity, or even dis-

tinctiveness be lodged in the number of genes.

Collins began to speculate that perhaps what is

distinctively human could be found not in the

genes themselves but in the multiple proteins and

the complexity of protein production. Culturally,

DNA began to lose some of its magic, some of its

association with human essence.

The theology and ethics of HGP

At the outset, HGP scientists anticipated ethical and

public policy concerns; they were acutely aware

that their research would have an impact on soci-

ety and were willing to share responsibility for it.

When in 1987 James Watson counseled the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services to ap-

propriate the funds for what would become HGP,

he recommended that three percent of the budget

be allotted to study the ethical, legal, and social im-

plications of genome research. Watson insisted that

society learn to use genetic information only in

beneficial ways; if necessary, the government

should pass laws at both the federal and state lev-

els to prevent invasions of privacy and discrimina-

tion on genetic grounds. Moral controversy broke

out repeatedly during the near decade and a half

of research.

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