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

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the fourth century, Basil, the Bishop of Caesarea

established one of the earliest hospitals based

upon the good Samaritan story in the Bible. This

building was resurrected in present-day Turkey

among almshouses and leper colonies. For the

next thousand years, the church would build and

staff most hospitals throughout the western world.

Many early physicians, especially those in Europe

during the Middle Ages and in the New England

colonies of the United States during the seven-

teenth and eighteenth centuries, were also mem-

bers of the clergy. In Europe, licenses to practice

medicine were in fact controlled by the church and

church-sponsored universities.

Similarly, the profession of nursing was to

emerge out of the Christian church in the 1600s

and 1700s with the Daughters of Charity of St. Vin-

cent de Paul, an order of Catholic sisters devoted

to the care of the sick. The Daughters of Charity

also established the first nursing profession in the

United States in Emmitsville, Maryland, in the early

1800s, modeled after nursing in France. Florence

Nightingale (1788–1849), after receiving a “calling”

from God, would later receive nurses training from

the Daughters of Charity and the Protestant dea-

conesses (started up by Lutherans in Germany).

After the Crimean War, Nightingale applied what

she learned to a secular setting. Interestingly,

though, up until the early 1900s, most hospitals in

Europe and the United States continued to be

staffed by nurses who were primarily from reli-

gious orders.

Beginning in the fifteenth century, the profes-

sion of medicine began to split away from the

church, and the state took over the role of admin-

istering licenses to practice medicine. That separa-

tion would continue to widen until the early 1800s

when it was nearly complete. For the last two hun-

dred years, religion and medicine have been di-

vided into separate healing disciplines, with very

little overlap and very little communication be-

tween the two. However, since about the mid-

1990s, especially in the United States, there has

been active dialogue about bringing religion and

medicine together once again. This movement has

been highly controversial and has met with con-

siderable resistance. A growing volume of research

showing a connection between religion and health,

however, has been breaking down the resistance.

Although the history reviewed above applies

primarily to the Christian church, there has been

similar interest in health and healing running

through nearly all the major world religious tradi-

tions, including Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism,

Islam, and Chinese religions. Space does not allow

for an adequate discussion of historical connec-

tions with medicine for each of these traditions, al-

though resources that do so include Lawrence Sul-

livan’s Healing and Restoring: Health and

Medicine in the World’s Religious Traditions (1989)

and Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in

the Western Religious Traditions (1998) by Ronald

Numbers and Darrel Amundsen.

Research on religion and health

The recent trend towards integration of religion

and medicine has been stirred primarily by medical

research demonstrating intimate and often com-

plex relationships between religion and health.

First, many patients indicate that religious beliefs

and practices help them to cope with the stress of

medical illness. In some areas of the United States,

nearly ninety percent of hospitalized patients re-

port that they use religious beliefs to at least a

moderate degree to help them to cope. Nearly fifty

percent of this group indicate that religion is the

most important factor that enables them to cope

with medical conditions and the stress they cause.

Over one hundred studies have now documented

the high prevalence of religious coping among

persons with a variety of diseases ranging from di-

abetes, kidney disease, heart disease, cancer,

arthritis, and cystic fibrosis, to more general condi-

tions such as chronic pain.

There is also research demonstrating that per-

sons who are religious end up coping better with

physical health problems and disabling conditions.

Of nearly one hundred studies conducted during

the twentieth century on the relationship between

religion and emotional well-being (happiness, life

satisfaction, optimism, and hope), nearly eighty

percent find that the religious person experiences

significantly greater well-being. This is particularly

true when populations of medically ill subjects

have been studied. The religious are less likely to

become depressed or anxious, and if they do de-

velop these mental conditions, they recover more

quickly. Suicide is less common among the more

religious, as is marital dissatisfaction and divorce,

and alcohol and drug use. Nearly 850 studies have

now examined these associations, with between

two-thirds and three-quarters of these finding that

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the religious person tends to be healthier and bet-

ter able to cope with illness.

Of course, a number of studies also report that

religion can be associated with worse mental

health, more depression, and greater anxiety. This

is particularly true for practitioners of religions that

are repressive, controlling, and do not emphasize

caring for self and others in a responsible way. Re-

ligion can be used to justify hatred, aggression,

prejudice, and social exclusion. It may induce ex-

cessive guilt in situations where guilt is not

healthy. Religion may also be used to replace pro-

fessional psychiatric care for serious mental or

emotional problems that require medication and

biological therapies. In all of these ways, religion

may do a disservice to mental health. In most

cases, however, the emotional benefits of religious

faith tend to outweigh the negative effects.

There is also a growing volume of research

suggesting that religious belief and practices are re-

lated to healthier lifestyles, better overall physical

health, and longer survival. Studies demonstrate

stronger immune functioning among religious per-

sons who are older, who are HIV positive or have

AIDS, or have breast cancer. Death rates from

coronary artery disease are lower among the more

religious, even when health behaviors, diet, and

social factors are taken into account. The same ap-

plies to mortality from all causes. Since 1990, over

a dozen careful studies have demonstrated that the

religious person lives longer than the person who

is less religiously involved. In these studies, reli-

gion is measured by frequency of church atten-

dance, private prayer and scripture study, medita-

tion, and religious coping. Studies have not

demonstrated that the broader aspect of religion

called spirituality is associated with greater

longevity. Spirituality is a broad concept, making it

difficult to measure, whereas religious beliefs,

practices, and commitment can be more easily as-

sessed and quantified.

Why does religious belief and practice correlate

with and predict greater physical health? The an-

swer may lie in the mind-body relationship. There

is growing evidence suggesting that emotions influ-

ence physiological processes. Psychological stress,

anxiety, and depression have been related to im-

pairments in immune functioning, delayed wound

healing, and increased risk for cardiovascular

morbidity. If religious beliefs and practices reduce

emotional stress, counter anxiety, and prevent or

facilitate recovery from depression, then religion

may help to neutralize the health-impairing effects

that these negative emotions have on physical

health, and do so through known biological path-

ways. Mainstream scientists in the field of psy-

choneuroimmunology are beginning to explore

these connections more seriously.

Since about 1980, people have become in-

creasingly disillusioned with medical care that re-

lies solely on high technology and focuses on the

biology of disease, while neglecting the care of

the whole person. That disillusionment has caused

many patients to express a desire to have their

spiritual and emotional needs met, as well as their

physical needs. Between one-third and two-thirds

of patients consistently indicate that they wish

their physicians to address religious or spiritual

needs in addition to medical needs, particularly

when they experience serious medical problems

or terminal illness.

Furthermore, there is research indicating that

religious and spiritual beliefs impact medical deci-

sion making and may even affect compliance with

medical treatment, making it essential for physi-

cians to know about these beliefs. Some patients

may use religion instead of traditional medical care

to treat their illnesses. For example, they may de-

cide to pray for their illnesses and stop taking their

medications. There is also research showing that

certain types of negative religious beliefs may ad-

versely affect physical health and recovery from

medical illness. Patients who feel punished or de-

serted by God, who question God’s power and

love, or who feel abandoned by their spiritual

community, experience greater mortality and

worse mental health outcomes.

Application to medical practice

The growing body of research on religion and

health suggests at least the following four applica-

tions to medical practice in the West. First, in light

of this research, some have argued that physicians

should consider taking a spiritual history on pa-

tients with serious, terminal, or chronic medical ill-

ness. In the United States, only about one in ten

physicians consistently addresses spiritual issues

by taking a religious history, despite suggestions

by a consensus panel of the American College of

Physicians and American Society of Internal Medi-

cine that such a history can be obtained by asking

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a few simple questions. Such questions include the

following:

(1) Are religious beliefs a sense of comfort or a

source of stress for the patient?

(2) Is the patient a member of a spiritual com-

munity and is this a source of support for

the patient?

(3) Does the patient have any religious belief

that may influence medical decisions or con-

flict with medical care?

(4) There any religious or spiritual needs present

that need addressing?

Taking a spiritual history should be done in ad-

dition to (not instead of) competently and com-

pletely addressing the medical issues for which the

patient seeks help from the physician. Thus, a spir-

itual history is most appropriate when there is more

time in the schedule, such as during a new patient

evaluation or during a hospital admission workup.

Second, if spiritual needs are identified when

the spiritual history is taken, then the research sug-

gests that addressing those needs should improve

the health and coping capacity of the patient. This

can be done in a couple of ways. The patient can

be referred to a trained clergyperson or chaplain.

Chaplains in the United States are required to un-

dergo extensive training that prepares them to ad-

dress such issues in the medical setting. Before a

chaplain is certified in the Association of Profes-

sional Chaplains, he or she must complete four

years of college, three years of divinity school, one

to four years of clinical pastoral education, and

must take written and oral examinations. Thus,

chaplains are skilled professionals with much to

offer in this area. Sometimes, however, patients do

not wish to speak with a chaplain or clergyperson.

In that case, if the patient already has a trusting re-

lationship with the physician, then the physician

may need to be prepared to address such issues,

even if this involves only listening and showing re-

spect and concern. Nearly two-thirds of the med-

ical schools in the United States have elective or

required courses on religion, spirituality, and med-

icine. In these courses, medical students are trained

to take a spiritual history and to address spiritual is-

sues in a sensitive and appropriate manner.

Third, in addition to taking a spiritual history

and, if necessary, addressing spiritual issues, the

physician may choose to support healthy religious

beliefs or practices that the patient finds helpful in

coping with illness. Physicians should not pre-

scribe religion for patients who are not interested

in religion. There may be benefits, however, in

physicians learning about the religious beliefs and

practices of their patients and supporting those be-

liefs that the patient finds helpful and that do not

conflict with medical care. Even when religious be-

liefs conflict with medical care, the patient is likely

to profit when the physician tries to understand

those beliefs and keep open lines of communica-

tion about religious issues with the patient. By way

of supporting religious practice, some physicians

have decided to pray with their patients. This ac-

tivity is highly controversial in the medical setting.

Conditions for its appropriateness include that:

(1) A spiritual history has been taken and the

physician knows about the religious back-

ground of the patient.

(2) Religion is important to the patient and is

used in coping.

(3) The religious background of the patient and

the physician are similar.

(4) Either the patient asks the physician to pray

(i.e., patient initiates the prayer) or, if the

physician initiates it, the physician is certain

that the patient would appreciate this activity.

(5) The situation calls for prayer (i.e., a difficult,

uncontrollable, or stressful situation, severe

medical condition, or terminal illness).

Under such circumstances, it may be helpful

for a physician and patient to engage in prayer to-

gether, enhancing the doctor-patient relationship

by increasing trust.

Finally, the research suggests that new social

arrangements for medical care may prove benefi-

cial. For example, physicians might develop a

communication network with local clergy, both to

facilitate a referral base and to allow physicians to

assess the community resources that are available

to the patient. Religious communities often already

provide volunteers to assist with homemaker serv-

ices, rides to the doctor, respite for exhausted fam-

ily members caring for the patient, and emotional

support to the patient and the patient’s family. Re-

ligious communities may also monitor the patient

to ensure that the medical regimen is being fol-

lowed and that medical problems are detected

early and treatment is obtained promptly. Such a

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system works especially well when volunteers are

appropriately trained and coordinated by a parish

or congregational nurse—a registered nurse who is

a member of and works professionally as a nurse

within the congregation. A parish nurse can coor-

dinate health programs within the congregation

that involve screening for high blood pressure, di-

abetes, depression, and other diseases. A parish

nurse can also provide spiritual care, communicate

with physicians and nurses within the formal

healthcare setting about the health condition of

members of the congregation, train and mobilize

volunteers within the religious community to meet

the needs of sick members, and provide health ed-

ucation to keep healthy members well.

Religion and Western medicine are indeed

coming closer and closer together. The research

suggests that this is a positive trend—good for the

health of patients and for the maintenance of the

health of the community. It is also arguably good

for the profession of medicine in the West, which is

truest to its most basic aims when its practices sup-

port the health of the patients in every dimension.

See also MIND-BODY THEORIES; PLACEBO EFFECT;

PIRITUALITY AND HEALTH; SPIRITUALITY AND

FAITH HEALING

Bibliography

Carson, Verna Benner, and Koenig, Harold G. Parish

Nursing: Stories of Service and Care. Radnor, Pa.:

Templeton Foundation Press, 2002.

Koenig, Harold G. “Religion, Spirituality and Medicine:

Application to Clinical Practice.” Journal of the Amer-

ican Medical Association 284 (2000): 1708.

Koenig, Harold G; McCullough, Michael E.; and Larson,

David B. Handbook of Religion and Health. New

York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Koenig, Harold G. Spirituality in Patient Care: Why, How,

When, and What. Radnor, Pa.: Templeton Foundation

Press, 2002.

Koenig, Harold G., and Cohen, Harvey J. The Link Be-

tween Religion and Health: Psychoneuroimmunology

and the Faith Factor. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2002.

Lo, Bernard; Quill, Timothy; and Tulsky, James. “Dis-

cussing Palliative Care with Patients.” Annals of Inter-

nal Medicine 130 (1999): 744–749.

Mueller, Paul S.; Plevak, David J.; and Rummans, Teresa

A. “Religious Involvement, Spirituality, and Medicine:

Implications for Clinical Practice.” Mayo Clinic Pro-

ceedings 76 (2001): 1225–1235.

Numbers, Ronald L., and Amundsen, Darrel W., eds. Car-

ing and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western

Religious Traditions. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1998.

Sloan, Richrd P.; Bagiella, Emilia.; and Powell, T. “Reli-

gion, Spirituality, and Medicine.” The Lancet 353

(1999): 664–667.

Sloan, Richard P.; Bagiella, Emilia; VandeCreek, Larry.; et

al. “Should Physicians Prescribe Religious Activities?”

New England Journal of Medicine 342 (2000):

1913–1916.

Sullivan, Lawrence E. Healing and Restoring: Health and

Medicine in the World’s Religious Traditions. New

York: Macmillan, 1989.

HAROLD G. KOENIG

MEDITATION

Meditation, from the Latin word meditari (to med-

itate), means deep or continued reflection and is

often seen as preparatory to contemplation, a state

of direct spiritual or intuitive seeing. Meditation is

found in all religious traditions but varies as to

method, focus, and religious objectives. Practices

range from the apophatic, an emptying procedure

to clear consciousness (via negativa), to the cat-

aphatic, where a specific image, idea, or deity is

kept in mental focus (via positiva). Apophatic prac-

tices tend to be more cognitive and intellectual

(mind), whereas cataphatic practices are more

emotional and devotional (heart). Meditation is the

focus of scientific research to determine the neu-

rophysiological conditions productive of medita-

tive awareness.

See also PRAYER AND MEDITATION; SPIRITUALITY

ERNEST SIMMONS

MEMES

The term meme was coined by British biologist

Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene

to describe a “unit of culture” (p. 203). Examples

given are “tunes, ideas, catch-phrases and … the

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idea of God.” These entities might, he said, act in-

dependently as “replicators,” like genes, thus de-

termining the state of culture entirely by natural se-

lection among themselves. Critics point out that, if

taken seriously, this is a highly reductive and fatal-

istic doctrine, claiming that memes, rather than

human beings, control cultural development. But

the suggestion is obscure. Many would argue that

elements of culture are not independent entities,

nor are units the same as replicators.

See also GENETICS; SOCIOBIOLOGY

Bibliography

Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 1976.

MARY MIDGLEY

MENDEL,GREGOR

Although some leading scientists in the late nine-

teenth century considered religion to be an im-

pediment to progress in science, the life of the

monk Gregor Mendel serves as an important

counter-example. The fact that a monk initiated

one of the greatest advances in biology demon-

strates the poverty of the notion of there being a

perpetual war between science and religion. In

Mendel’s case, rather than hindering science, reli-

gious institutions promoted scientific knowledge,

experimentation, and progress.

Early life and influences

On July 22, 1822, Mendel was born in the village of

Heinzendorf (now Hyncice) in northern Moravia

(in the present-day Czech Republic), a part of the

Austrian Empire that was culturally German.

Mendel was originally named Johann, but took the

name Gregor in 1843 upon entering the Augustin-

ian order of the Roman Catholic Church. His father

was a peasant farmer with a keen interest in im-

proving agriculture. A priest in his community, Fa-

ther Schreiber, used his knowledge of fruit trees to

help his parishioners practically. He studied the

latest techniques for improving fruit yields, prac-

ticed artificial fertilization, and distributed grafts to

community members, including the Mendel family.

Mendel’s intellectual abilities were recognized

early in his life, and his family sent him to school

first in Leipnik (Lipnik) and then to Gymnasium in

Troppau (Opava). After graduating from Gymna-

sium, he attended a two-year course of study at the

Philosophical Institute in Olmütz (Olomouc),

which was interrupted for a year due to illness. He

graduated from the Philosophical Institute in 1843,

having studied religion, philosophy, ethics, mathe-

matics, and physics, in order to prepare for further

studies in natural science at a university. While in

Olmütz, Mendel had grave financial difficulties be-

cause his father was incapacitated from work as a

result of an injury, and Mendel had difficulty find-

ing tutoring jobs. His poverty probably brought on

his illness and caused him continual travail.

Upon the recommendation of one of his teach-

ers, Mendel entered the Augustinian monastery in

Brno in 1843. He had begun contemplating enter-

ing the Catholic priesthood about three years ear-

lier, but it is not known how seriously or deeply he

felt a religious calling. Mendel’s own account of

entering the monastery emphasized his need to es-

cape from poverty rather than an inner religious

motivation. Mendel also knew that the monastery

in Brno would be a hospitable environment for

pursuing studies in the natural sciences.

Indeed, the Brno monastery, under the leader-

ship of Abbott F. C. Napp, attracted a number of

talented men interested in science. Napp himself

studied horticulture and wrote a manual about im-

proving plant varieties. He set up a nursery in the

monastery where new plant varieties could be de-

veloped. Thus, the monastery provided a very pro-

pitious environment for the young Mendel, who

was encouraged to teach science in nearby

schools. The monastery also allowed him to attend

the University of Vienna from 1851 to 1853 to

study natural science so he could pass the exam to

qualify him to teach in a Gymnasium. Mendel

never passed this exam, however.

Although the monastery was a stimulating

place for the study of natural science, the religious

training and exercise in the Brno monastery seems

to have been perfunctory. The bishop of Brno crit-

icized Napp and the monastery for devoting so

much attention to science, while neglecting the

spiritual dimension of monastic life. Shortly after

Mendel arrived, a monk there was stripped of his

authority to teach because he was accused of in-

troducing Hegelian and pantheistic doctrines into

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his scientific writings. Napp tried to defend this

monk, but to no avail. Mendel never challenged

the Catholic Church or its teachings, but his ener-

gies were clearly devoted more to scientific pur-

suits than to religious ones.

Experiments with peas

From 1854 to 1863 Mendel carried out his pea ex-

periments, which later became famous for laying

the groundwork for the modern science of genet-

ics. Because Mendel relied on statistics to analyze

the results of his work, his background in physics

and mathematics provided him insight in develop-

ing these experiments. To perform his experi-

ments, Mendel selected twenty-two varieties of pea

plants that bred true (i.e., each was a pure variety

that, when crossed with its own variety, always

had offspring with the same traits as the parents).

Each variety was crossed with another with which

it differed in an obvious way, such as seed color,

pod shape, position of flowers, or length of stem.

For example, he crossed one pea variety that had

round seeds with another variety that had angular

seeds. In the first generation hybrids Mendel ob-

served that all the offspring had the trait of only

one of the parent varieties. The hybrid, between

peas with round seeds and those with angular

seeds produced all round seeds in the first genera-

tion. Mendel called the trait that appeared in the

first generation the dominant trait. This demon-

strated that hereditary characters did not blend, as

many scientists of the time supposed they did, but

rather they were discrete factors.

Mendel continued his experiment by self-fertil-

izing the first generation hybrids. He discovered

that both original traits reemerged in a ratio ap-

proximating three (for the dominant trait) to one

(for the recessive trait). In the case of the round

and angular seeds, Mendel’s actual data showed

5474 round seeds and 1850 angular seeds in the

second generation. Mendel concluded from his ex-

periments that each plant had two hereditary char-

acters. Each parent would pass only one of its

characters on to its offspring. These characters seg-

regate randomly, leading to the ratios Mendel

found. This explanation is known as Mendel’s Law

of Independent Assortment.

Mendel published the results of his pea exper-

iments in 1866 in the Proceedings of the Natural

Science Society of Brno, but even though some

botanists cited his work subsequently, none recog-

nized the full significance of his experiments be-

fore 1900. Mendel even corresponded with Karl

Nägeli (1817–1891), a prominent botanist, but de-

spite his interest in Mendel’s work, Nägeli never re-

alized how important it was. When Mendel died

on January 6, 1884, he was almost unknown,

though he did express confidence late in his life

that his work would be recognized in the future.

Historians still debate the significance of bio-

logical evolution for Mendel’s work. Charles Dar-

win (1809–1882) had not yet published his theory

of evolution when Mendel began his experiments,

but Mendel was already conversant with Charles

Lyell’s (1797–1875) uniformitarian geology, which

had been a formative influence on Darwin. Mendel

also studied botany at the University of Vienna

under Franz Unger (1800–1870), who embraced a

pre-Darwinian evolutionary theory. Mendel was

thus fully aware of debates about biological varia-

tion and speciation, and he may have hoped that

his hybridization experiments would shed light on

the evolutionary process.

The rediscovery of Mendel’s work in 1900 by

three different scientists—Hugo de Vries, Carl Cor-

rens, and Erich von Tschermak—occurred in the

context of debates over evolution. Biological evo-

lution was widely accepted by European scientists

by 1900, but scientists did not have a satisfactory

explanation as to how variation occurs or what the

mechanisms of heredity are. Mendelian genetics

provided new insights about heredity, but also

posed new problems for evolutionary theory. De

Vries argued that Mendelian genetics provided

support for discontinuous variation rather than

Darwinian gradualism. On the basis of his misin-

terpretation of primrose hybridization experiments

he thought that mutations—the sudden emergence

of new characters—drove the evolutionary proc-

ess. These new characters were then passed on in

Mendelian fashion. Other scientists opposed de

Vries’s mutation theory and continued arguing for

gradual variations. The dispute over gradualism

versus discontinuous variation was only settled in

the 1930s and 1940s with the integration, known as

the neo-Darwinian synthesis, of Darwinian natural

selection theory with Mendelian genetics.

Implications for religion

The religious implications of Mendel’s theory were

minimal, so no significant religious opposition to

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Mendelian genetics arose. However, in the early

twentieth century, many eugenics proponents

began using Mendelian genetics to promote various

programs to control human heredity, including ster-

ilization, birth control, incarceration, and regulation

of marriage certificates. The Roman Catholic

Church and some conservative Protestants opposed

eugenics, but they did not criticize Mendelian ge-

netics. Rather they rejected eugenics as a misuse of

genetics.

Probably the most significant connection be-

tween Mendelian genetics and religion was the use

of Mendelian genetics by creationists. Many cre-

ationists hailed Mendel’s theory of heredity as a

proof for biological stasis. The variations that

Mendel (and de Vries) observed only involved the

reshuffling of hereditary characters (genes) that

were already present, not the introduction of new

traits. They rejected the neo-Darwinian synthesis,

which argued that micro-mutations could accumu-

late to produce speciation.

Mendel’s life and the reception of his ideas

demonstrates the way that religious communities

and individuals in nineteenth and early twentieth-

century Europe often nurtured scientific discovery.

They were not only open to new scientific ideas,

but in some cases actively cultivated them.

See also CREATION SCIENCE; EUGENICS; EVOLUTION;

ENETICS

Bibliography

Bowler, Peter J. The Mendelian Revolution: The Emer-

gence of Hereditarian Concepts in Modern Science

and Society. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Univer-

sity Press, 1989.

Callender, L. A. “Gregor Mendel: An Opponent of Descent

with Modification.” History of Science 26 (1988): 41–75.

Iltis, Hugo. Life of Mendel. New York: Hafner, 1966.

Olby, Robert. Origins of Mendelism, 2nd edition. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Orel, Vitezslav. Gregor Mendel: The First Geneticist, trans.

Stephen Finn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Orel, Vitezslav. Mendel, trans. Stephen Finn. Oxford: Ox-

ford University Press, 1984.

Stern, Curt, and, Sherwood, Eva R. The Origin of Genetics:

A Mendel Source Book. San Francisco: W. H. Free-

man, 1966.

Wallace, Bruce. The Search for the Gene. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor-

nell University Press, 1992.

RICHARD C. WEIKART

METAPHOR

The word metaphor (from the Greek metaphor,

meaning “transfer”) is an important language ele-

ment in both science and religion. Since the time

of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, it has

been understood that something strange happens

in the process of creating a metaphor. Metaphors

change the ways people understand things.

Common definitions of the terms metaphor,

simile, and analogy are not discrete; they refer

generally to the substitution of one thing for an-

other. Authors sometimes use one term to refer to

all three. For example, in his Imagery in Scientific

Thought (1987), Arthur I. Miller makes heavy use

of the concept of analogy but uses the terms

metaphor and metaphorical, perhaps preferring

the complexity, inscrutability, and sophistication of

the term metaphor over the more mundane, even

pedestrian, character of analogy. Among cognitive

scientists, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson ex-

plore implied analogy as a window into the oper-

ations of thought calling it metaphor in Metaphors

We Live By (1980).

Metaphors, however, are less widely found in

science and religion, the composite interdiscipli-

nary field of academic study. When metaphor is

found in science and religion (the composite field

of academic study), the relevant analysis is episte-

mological rather than aesthetic. That is not to say

that the celebrated transfer of meaning, which

metaphor is traditionally understood as effecting, is

not of importance in the literature of science and

religion. It is to observe merely that the linguistic

object called a metaphor is of less importance than

the cognitive process that brings about the transfer

that creates new meaning. Accordingly, this entry

will emphasize the process—metaphoric process—

that brings about the changes in meanings that are

found when science and religion are taken to be

related and interacting cognitive fields of meaning.

Metaphor and analogy

An important first step is to distinguish metaphoric

process from the making of analogies—the business

of comparing two things that have similar charac-

teristics. When one of two such things is under-

stood and the other is not, one’s overall under-

standing can be improved by making an analogy.

One could say, for example, “Theology in religion is

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analogous to theoretical physics in natural science.”

Here one is making an analogy between a compo-

nent of religious scholarship and a component of

research in natural science. For those who know

some of the theoretical laws of physics, the charac-

ter and role of theology in its domain is clarified; the

reverse occurs for those who read or write theol-

ogy. We are here asserting an analogical relation-

ship between a known and an unknown, in which

the analogical statement advances understanding by

comparing an unknown element with a element

previously known. Analogical process dominates

much of formal instruction. Metaphoric process is

significantly different; it occurs infrequently in the

field of science and religion taken together.

Metaphoric process presupposes two different

phenomena (X and Y), each well understood

within their respective field of meanings. A discov-

ery then occurs, a gestalt-like realization that the

different phenomena are the same. The effect of

the discovery is to establish a host of new rela-

tionships between ancillary phenomena in the two

fields, ancillary phenomena closely related with

the original phenomena. Events (discoveries) of

this kind serve to knit together the fabric of dis-

parate disciplines, but not by making compromises

in which one “side” must relinquish some point to

gain some other. Rather, the disparate views are

held together and resolved into a higher view-

point, to use an expression of Bernard Lonergan’s,

much as binocular vision resolves two different flat

images into a single three-dimensional view.

Many scholars, including Mary Hesse, Nelson

Goodman, Paul Ricoeur, and Earl MacCormac, ad-

dress the problem of understanding the

metaphoric process in terms of an implied model

of thought. For Hesse there is a “network of mean-

ings”; Goodman spoke in terms of “worldmaking”;

Ricoeur referred to “shift in the logical distance”;

and MacCormac made use of what he called “a

computational metaphor for cognition.”

Metaphorical processes

Janet Martin Soskice has pointed out that religious

metaphors retain their tension long after other

kinds of metaphors have lost theirs. One of the

most startling and perennially productive religious

metaphors is the assertion in John’s Epistle that

“God is love” (1 John 4:8). The equation of God

and love involves equating the field of traditional

attributes associated with God, such as superlative

potency and intelligence, with the field of meanings

associated with love, here understood as human re-

lationality at is best, including vulnerability.

In science, Isaac Newton (1642–1727) used

metaphoric process by equating the mechanics of

the heavens with the mechanics of earthly objects,

thus generating a higher viewpoint that had a pro-

found effect on people’s lives. The “laws of the

heavens” had been developed earlier by Johannes

Kepler (1571–1630). These laws described, in

quantitative terms, the motion of the planets (the

“wandering” heavenly bodies) around the sun. Me-

chanical “laws of the of the world” (on the surface

of Earth) were given by Galileo Galilei (1564–

1642), who could, for example, calculate the mo-

tion of a projectile or the rate of fall of an object as

it fell toward the ground. Subsequently Newton, in

the famous falling apple allegory, realized that

Galileo’s laws of falling applied to the moon as

well as to terrestrial objects, and, with that meta-

phoric act, caused the laws of Earth to become the

laws of heaven—quite a reversal. The general laws

of mechanics followed, and the resulting ability to

analyze mechanisms and predict mechanical be-

havior reliably can be understood as having re-

shaped one world of meanings to create a new

world of meanings, one that dominated science

and technology for over two hundred years.

Other examples of metaphoric statements can

be found. Examples in physics include: heat is mo-

tion (Benjamin Thompson, James Prescott Joule);

light is particulate as well as undulatory (Albert

Einstein); energy is particulate (Max Planck, Niels

Bohr, Einstein); and mass is undulatory as well as

particulate (Louis de Broglie). Examples in religion

include: in the midst of life we are in death (Paul);

an individual’s ultimate concern is that person’s

god (Paul Tillich); the “natural” state of existence

for human beings is to be graced (Karl Rahner);

and Christ is sophia and logos (Elizabeth Johnson).

Possible examples in science and religion include:

evil is entropic degradation and personal relativis-

tic time is the time of the second coming of Christ.

The discovery that two persons from different

disciplines are talking about the same thing is not

uncommon in closely related fields and can be

highly profitable. The exchange interactions of

quantum physics were found to correspond to the

molecular bonds of chemistry, and chemical

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physics was born. It remains to be seen whether

productive instances can be found in disciplines

separated by as much cognitive space as natural

science and religion. The hope for science and re-

ligion as a valuable academic discipline in its own

right depends on such possibilities and on the

metaphoric process that can knit them together.