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

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PHYSICS,QUANTUM

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of the theory of relativity, causal influences cannot

travel faster than light, and in particular, events in

one region of space cannot influence events in

other regions of space if the influence would have

to travel faster than light to get from one region to

the other in time to influence the event.

However, the matter is not so simple as a di-

rect contradiction between quantum theory and

relativity. The best arguments for the absence of

faster-than-light influences in relativity are based

on the fact that faster-than-light communication—

more specifically, transfer of information—can lead

to causal paradoxes. But in the situations to which

Bell’s theorem applies, the purported faster-than-

light influences cannot be exploited to enable

faster-than-light communication. This result is at-

tributable to the indeterministic nature of standard

quantum theory. In de Broglie and Bohm’s deter-

ministic hidden-variable theory, one could exploit

knowledge of the values of the hidden variables to

send faster-than-light signals; however, such

knowledge is, in Bohm’s theory, physically impos-

sible in principle.

Other areas of research. There are of course

many other areas of research in the interpretation

of quantum theory. These include traditional areas

of concern, such as the classical limit of quantum

theory. How do the nonclassical predictions of

quantum theory become (roughly) equivalent to

the (roughly accurate) predictions of classical me-

chanics in some appropriate limit? How is this limit

defined? In general, what is the relationship be-

tween classical and quantum theory? Other areas

of research arise from work in quantum theory it-

self, perhaps the most notable being the work in

quantum computation. It appears that a quantum

computer could perform computations in qualita-

tively faster time than a classical computer. Apart

from obvious practical considerations, the possi-

bility of quantum computers raises questions about

traditional conceptions of computation, and possi-

bly, thereby, about traditional philosophical uses

of those conceptions, especially concerning the

analogies often drawn between human thought

and computation.

Applications to religious thought

Quantum theory was the concern of numerous re-

ligious thinkers during the twentieth century. Given

the obviously provisional status of the theory, not

to mention the extremely uncertain state of its in-

terpretation, one must proceed with great caution

here, but we can at least note some areas of reli-

gious thought to which quantum theory, or its in-

terpretation, has often been taken to be relevant.

Perhaps the most obvious is the issue of

whether the world is ultimately deterministic or

not. Several thinkers, including such scientists as

Isaac Newton (1642–1727) and Pierre-Simon

Laplace (1749–1827), have seen important ties to

religious thought. In the case of classical mechan-

ics, Newton had good reason to believe that his

theory did not completely determine the phenom-

ena, whereas Laplace (who played a key role in

patching up the areas where Newton saw the the-

ory to fail) had good reason to think that the the-

ory did completely and deterministically describe

the world. Newton thus saw room for God’s action

in the world; Laplace did not.

In the case of quantum theory the situation is

considerably more difficult because there exist

both indeterministic and deterministic interpreta-

tions of the theory, each of which is empirically ad-

equate. Indeed, they are empirically equivalent.

Those who, for various reasons, have adopted one

or the other interpretation, though, have gone on

to investigate the consequences for religious

thought. Some, for example, see in quantum inde-

terminism an explanation of the possibility of

human free will. Others have suggested that quan-

tum indeterminism leaves an important role for

God in the universe, namely, as the source of the

agreement between actual relative frequencies and

the probabilistic predictions of quantum theory.

Other thinkers have seen similarities between

aspects of quantum theory and Eastern religions,

notably various strains of Buddhism and Daoism.

Fritjof Capra (1939– ), who is perhaps most famous

in this regard, has drawn analogies between issues

that arise from the measurement problem and

quantum nonlocality and what he takes to be East-

ern commitments to the “connectedness” of all

things. Other thinkers have seen in the interpretive

problems of quantum theory evidence of a limita-

tion in science’s ability to provide a comprehen-

sive understanding of the world, thus making

room for other, perhaps religious, modes of un-

derstanding. Still others, drawing on views such as

Wigner’s (according to which conscious observa-

tion plays a crucial role in making the world de-

terminate), see in quantum theory a justification of

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what they take to be traditional religious views

about the role of conscious beings in the world.

Others, including Capra, see affinities between

wave-particle duality, or more generally, the dual-

ity implicit in the Uncertainty Principle, and vari-

ous purportedly Eastern views about duality (for

example, the Taoist doctrine of yin and yang, or

the Buddhist use of koans).

Finally, quantum cosmology has provided some

with material for speculation. One must be extraor-

dinarily careful here because there is, at present, no

satisfactory theory of quantum gravity, much less of

quantum cosmology. Nonetheless, a couple of

(largely negative) points can be made. First, it is

clear that the standard Big Bang theory will have to

be modified, somehow or other, in light of quantum

theory. Hence, the considerable discussion to date

of the religious consequences of the Big Bang the-

ory will also need to be reevaluated. Second, due to

considerations that arise from the time-energy Un-

certainty Principle, even a satisfactory quantum cos-

mology is unlikely to address what happened in the

early universe prior to the Planck time (approxi-

mately 10

–43

seconds) because quantum theory itself

holds that units of time less than the Planck time are

(perhaps) meaningless. Some have seen here a fun-

damental limit in scientific analysis, a limit that is im-

plied by the science itself. Of course, others see an

opportunity for a successor theory.

This situation is, in fact, indicative of the state

of quantum theory as a whole. While it is an em-

pirically successful theory, its interpretations, and

hence any consequences it might have for religious

thought, remain matters of speculation.

See also COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATION; EPR PARADOX;

EISENBERG’S UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE;

NDETERMINISM;LOCALITY;MANY-WORLDS

HYPOTHESIS;PHASE SPACE;PLANCK TIME;

UANTUM COSMOLOGIES;QUANTUM FIELD THEORY;

CHRÖDINGER’S CAT;WAV E-PARTICLE DUALITY

Bibliography

Bohm, David. Quantum Theory. New York: Dover, 1989.

Gribbin, John. In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat: Quantum

Physics and Reality. New York: Bantam, 1984.

Heisenberg, Werner. Physical Principles of the Quantum

Theory. New York: Dover, 1930.

Shankar, Ramamurti. Principles of Quantum Mechanics.

New York: Plenum, 1994.

W. MICHAEL DICKSON

PLACEBO EFFECT

Although the term placebo effect might appear log-

ically to refer to “the effect produced by a

placebo,” that definition is not in fact the one most

commonly used. It would be more accurate to de-

fine the placebo effect as “the mind-body interac-

tion triggered by medical treatment, historically

discovered as a result of placebo use.” That is,

medical science may first have learned about the

potential impact of the patient’s mental state on

healing by observing the effects of placebos

(“dummy” or “sham” therapies thought to be lack-

ing in any ingredients capable of producing bodily

changes by chemical or physical means). If pa-

tients’ bodies and symptoms were altered in im-

pressive ways after the administration of placebos,

the absence of any chemical explanation for the

change suggested that it could only be by means

of the patients’ minds that such changes occurred.

Once this basic observation is made, one may go

on to divorce the patients’ mental state from the

use of dummy or sham remedies. Virtually any as-

pect of the encounter with a physician or other

health worker could stimulate the requisite mental

state, whether that state is one of expecting that

one will get better, feeling trust in the caregiver, or

whatever the precise psychological mechanism

may be. It is in keeping with most modern usage

to define placebo effect as “a change in a person’s

health status attributable to the symbolic or emo-

tional impact of a healing intervention.”

History

Ancient Greek medicine and the humoral medi-

cine of the Middle Ages and Renaissance simply

took for granted that words had the power to both

cause or cure disease and that the mind and the

body were constantly interacting to determine the

individual’s state of health. The earliest known ref-

erence to deliberate use of a placebo appears in a

1580 essay by Montaigne (1533–1592) describing a

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hypochondriac who was cured by an enema ad-

ministered with great fanfare but without any sub-

stance actually being injected into the body. It is al-

most certain, however, that the use of placebos in

medicine antedates this essay, probably by many

centuries.

Medical science underwent a more materialis-

tic turn and began to ignore the mind during the

nineteenth century, but even then, citations ap-

peared in the medical literature testifying to the

power of placebos, and to the imagination gener-

ally, to alter disease. Placebos were frequently ad-

ministered in the nineteenth century, in part be-

cause the profession lacked more effective

medicines for most diseases.

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was one of the

first to use a single-blind technique in experiments

on the power of mesmerism (hypnosis) conducted

in 1785. Franklin was able to show by concealing

the hypnotist behind a curtain that subjects’ reac-

tions were based on what they thought was hap-

pening and not on what was actually happening.

Medicine increasingly demanded a blind technique

when investigating “unconventional” or “quack”

remedies in the nineteenth century but resisted the

idea that conventional medical drugs and other

remedies ought to be subjected to the same meth-

ods. After World War II, medical scientists became

more aware of the potential for bias to skew re-

search results if either the subject of the experi-

ment, or the physician observing the experiment,

knew who was receiving the “true” medicine, so

the double-blind design, with neither party know-

ing which subject got the study medication and

which got the placebo, gradually was adopted as

the standard of valid research. Thus, precisely

when placebos were less often used in medical

practice (because so many powerful new drugs

were available), placebos began to be used much

more often as a research tool.

Modern medical ethics demands frank disclo-

sure to the patient of the nature of any treatment

administered. This, in most cases, rules out the de-

ceptive use of placebos in therapy. But ethics does

not rule out the attempt to elicit a placebo effect by

creating a positive emotional environment during

interaction with the patient. After largely dismissing

the mind for many decades as largely unimportant

and resistant to scientific study, modern medical

science has developed a renewed interest in un-

derstanding the mechanisms by which the placebo

effect might work. In 2001, the U.S. National Insti-

tutes of Health announced a new research pro-

gram specifically aimed at understanding the

mechanisms of the placebo effect and helping

practicing physicians to enhance the effect.

Scientific understanding

Two psychological mechanisms appear to con-

tribute to the placebo effect: expectancy (believing

that a positive bodily change will occur) and con-

ditioning (being in circumstances that, in the past,

produced a positive bodily change). Evidence is

accumulating that expectancy of pain relief can

produce the release of endorphins, naturally occur-

ring morphine-like chemicals in the brain that pro-

duce analgesia. In one study, when patients in pain

following surgery were given a visible injection of

a narcotic painkiller into their intravenous tubing,

they experienced twice as much pain relief as

when the same drug was given by hidden injection

and the patient was unaware of receiving the drug.

When naloxone, a drug that antagonizes the effects

of endorphins, is administered to patients in the

same manner, the placebo effect can be reversed.

Modern brain imaging techniques promise to

expand the understanding of the mechanisms of

the placebo effect. Using positron emission tomog-

raphy (PET) scanning, for instance, patients expe-

riencing a placebo effect in Parkinson’s disease

were shown to be manufacturing more dopamine

in their brains, indicating that the placebo effect in

Parkinson’s may work by the same biochemical

mechanism as the standard drug therapy.

Amidst new findings on how the placebo ef-

fect works, some skeptics continue to question

whether the effect even exists. A systematic review

of 114 randomized double-blind clinical trials

(Hróbjartsson and Gøtzsche, 2001) concluded that

there is no good evidence that administering

placebos in the context of scientific trials produces

any significant change in the subjects. (The authors

did not intend their findings to address whether

the placebo effect might exist in actual medical

practice.) The methods used in this review have

been challenged by placebo-effect advocates. Re-

gardless, an important lesson from skeptical re-

search such as this is that there are many mimics

whose effects must be carefully separated from

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true placebo effects. Perhaps the most common

mimic is the natural history of the illness, or the

body’s inherent healing powers. Many older stud-

ies that are quoted as confirming a powerful

placebo effect in fact failed to distinguish between

the patient’s getting better because the illness was

self-limited and the body’s defenses were capable

of eliminating it (as is the case with most common

viral illnesses) and improvement that truly de-

pended on the patient’s mental or emotional state.

Implications for religion

Placebo effects may be of greatest interest in one

category of so-called complementary and alterna-

tive medicine (CAM): methods of healing that rely

particularly on religious faith or religious practices.

Religiously-based healing might be thought, by

believers, to occur in one of two ways. In what

one might call the natural route, faith, prayer, or

other religious practices may be seen as stimulat-

ing the same chemical and physical processes in

the human body as would be produced by any

other system of medicine or healing. In what one

might term the supernatural route, faith or prayer

comes directly from a divine source and does not

depend solely upon processes that science can

measure or understand.

In religious healing by the natural route, the

placebo effect could account for some and per-

haps all of the healing observed. Faith and prayer

may produce positive expectancies, and religious

ritual may be a powerful source of psychological

conditioning. So long as one believes that the

human mind is part of the natural world, molded

by the same creator who is responsible for any

other healing modality, it seems logical that one

would seek to harness the powers of the mind as

part of whatever healing occurs. On this under-

standing the placebo effect becomes simply one

means by which faith can heal.

In religious healing by the supernatural route,

it might appear by contrast that if one could show

that a placebo effect were occurring, that would

exclude the possibility of the postulated healing ef-

fect. This seems particularly true for studies of in-

tercessory prayer, in which believers claim that pa-

tients can be healed when people pray for them

unbeknownst to the patients themselves. By defi-

nition, no emotional or mental effect can be gen-

erated if the subjects are completely unaware of

the intervention. Therefore, to claim that the re-

sults of intercessory prayer are a placebo effect

would be the same as denying that intercessory

prayer works.

Another important implication of the placebo

effect for religious healing is shared with other

types of CAM: the design of appropriate compari-

son groups to conduct reliable research. What

counts as adequate evidence that any form of

CAM, including religious or faith healing, works?

Some scientists reject all CAM out of hand as based

on superstition and quackery, but more careful sci-

entists are willing to accept CAM insofar as it can

be shown to be effective in rigorous scientific stud-

ies. The question then arises as to what counts as

adequate scientific “rigor” given the subject matter

under study.

One way to approach this concern is to view

science as a highly systematic way to show with a

high level of probability that one explanation is

the correct explanation for the phenomenon in

which we are interested. Showing this requires that

we consider all other plausible explanations and

find ways to exclude them, so that we are left with

only one explanation that appears to be correct.

This is what it means in general terms to have a

controlled study. It follows from this analysis that

having a placebo or sham-treatment control group

is one good way to eliminate several plausible ex-

planations for healing. A placebo control group

can eliminate the placebo effect, the natural course

of illness, and a number of chance statistical asso-

ciations as reasons why the subjects receiving the

healing intervention got better. Because the

placebo control is useful for many study purposes,

it is tempting to assume that the only valid scien-

tific study is one with a placebo control, but this

would be mistaken. Depending on the question

being investigated and which alternative explana-

tions are most plausible, there may be other scien-

tific methods to exclude the alternative explana-

tions with a high degree of reliability. In many

possible studies of religious healing, the usual

methods to assure scientific rigor will simply not

be possible. It is hard, for example, to imagine a

population of both believers and nonbelievers

agreeing to be assigned randomly to receive real or

sham faith-healing.

See also MEDICINE; MIND-BODY THEORIES;

PIRITUALITY AND HEALTH

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Bibliography

Amanzio, Martina; Pollo, A.; Maggi, G.; and Benedetti,

Fabrizio. “Response Variability to Analgesics: A Role

for Non-specific Activation of Endogenous Opioids.”

Pain 90 (2001): 205–215.

Brody, Howard, with Brody, Daralyn. The Placebo

Response: How You Can Release the Body’s

Inner Pharmacy for Better Health. New York:

HarperCollins, 2000.

Brody, Howard. “The Placebo Effect: Implications for the

Study and Practice of Complementary and Alternative

Medicine.” In The Role of Complementary and Alter-

native Medicine: Accommodating Pluralism, ed.

Daniel Callahan. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Uni-

versity Press, 2002.

De la Fuente-Fernandez, Raúl; Ruth, Thomas J.; Sosi,

Vesna; et al. “Expectation and Dopamine Release:

Mechanism of the Placebo Effect in Parkinson’s Dis-

ease.” Science 293 (2001): 1164–1166.

Guess, Harry A.; Kleinman, Arthur; Kusek, John W.; and

Engel, Linda W., eds. The Science of the Placebo: To-

ward an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda. London:

BMJ Books, 2002.

Hróbjartsson, Asbjørn, and Gøtzsche, Peter. “Is the

Placebo Powerless? An Analysis of Clinical Trials

Comparing Placebo with No Treatment.” New Eng-

land Journal of Medicine 344 (2001): 1594–1602.

HOWARD BRODY

PLANCK TIME

The Planck time is a unit of time that is defined by

three of the fundamental constants of nature: Isaac

Newton’s constant of gravitation, G; the velocity of

light in vacuum, c; and Max Planck’s constant, h.

These constants may be combined in one and only

one way to give a quantity that has the dimensions

of a time:

PLANCK

= (Gh/c

)

1/2

= 1.3 × 10

−43

This unit of time exists independently of all

human standards of time measurement. It is de-

fined by the gravitational, relativistic, and quantum

aspects of the universe. The universe can be said

to be “old” in the well defined sense that it is about

Planck times in age (about thirteen billion

years). The Planck time has cosmological signifi-

cance. It marks the time before which the entire

universe displays wave-particle duality. In order to

understand events earlier than the Planck time,

quantum cosmology is required. The Planck time

was first identified by German theoretical physicist

Max Planck (1858–1947) in 1899, although the idea

of a natural unit of time based on the fundamental

constants G, c, and e (the charge on the electron)

was first presented by Irish physicist George John-

stone Stoney (1826–1911) in 1881.

See also AGE OF THE UNIVERSE; COSMOLOGY, PHYSICAL

ASPECTS; PHYSICS, QUANTUM

Bibliography

Barrow, John. The Constants of Nature. London: Jonathan

Cape, 2002.

JOHN D. BARROW

PLATO

In his written dialogues, Plato developed accounts

of knowledge, reality, humanity, society, good-

ness, God, and beauty. Usually, when people

speak of Platonism, they are referring to his theory

of Forms, accompanied by a doctrine of the im-

mortality of the soul and values that transcend

power, prestige, and pleasure. Western thought has

developed either by following and adapting his ac-

counts or by reacting to them, either directly or in-

directly through, most notably, Aristotle, Plotinus,

Philo, and Augustine. The theory of Forms estab-

lished the most basic concept of science as it came

to be practiced in Europe, namely, that science

aims to discover objective principles, in other

words, “Forms.” Plato’s doctrine of the immortality

of the soul and values that transcend the material

world have reinforced and shaped systematic

thinking within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Life and times

Plato (428–347

B.C.E.) was born in Athens to a rich

and politically powerful family. Instead of taking his

place in the ruling class, he became a philosopher.

He founded the Academy and invented a new form

of literature, the dramatic dialogue. His dialogues,

featuring the philosopher Socrates (469–399

B.C.E.),

have profoundly shaped history, in a way compa-

rable to the writings of Paul about Jesus.

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Plato chose philosophy because he fell under

the spell of Socrates as a young man while wit-

nessing the horrors of political life in his time and

city. At the time of Plato’s birth, Athens, a city-state

in Greece, was the world’s first democracy, invent-

ing such wonders as trial by jury, as well as some

of the greatest sculpture, architecture, and drama

of any age. But during this time of extraordinary

human achievement, the wisest man of all, as con-

firmed by a religious oracle, was one who pro-

fessed to have no wisdom at all: Socrates. Socrates

would closely question people who professed to

know politics, religion, or any deep wisdom about

life, and he would show that their pretenses to wis-

dom were false. Socrates would also use his chains

of questions to lead anyone who would speak with

him to agree human excellence was exclusively a

matter of wisdom, and that the search for wisdom

was the best way to spend one’s life.

Plato was fascinated by Socrates and joined

other young men in spending time in his com-

pany. At the same time Plato observed how dema-

gogues led Athens to prolong its Peloponnesian

War (431–404

B.C.E.) against Sparta, a war that

ended in utter defeat for Athens. The Spartans in-

stalled an antidemocratic government that in-

cluded members of Plato’s family. This govern-

ment ruled murderously, but briefly, until a

citizens’ armed rebellion restored the democracy,

although Athens’s empire and military preemi-

nence were gone forever. Under this same democ-

racy, just a couple of years later (399

B.C.E.), a re-

ligiously conservative prosecutor brought Socrates

to trial on charges of atheism, heresy, and corrupt-

ing the young. The jury found Socrates guilty and

sentenced him to death. It is no wonder that Plato

became disillusioned with a life aimed at political

rule, and decided instead to devote his life to de-

veloping Socrates’s ideas.

Plato spent his time in private conversations

with friends about Socrates’ ideas, honoring his

memory by continuing to seek wisdom. Some of

these friends were Pythagoreans. Pythagoras lived

about a hundred years before Plato in Greek

colonies in the south of Italy. According to reports,

Pythagoras had supernatural powers and formed a

religious school of followers. He believed that

human souls are reincarnated in animal and

human bodies. Pythagoras also was aware of the

mathematical structure of musical harmony and

believed that numbers provide the explanation of

all the order in the universe. Plato traveled to

southern Italy a couple of times in his life, at least

in part because of his interest in Pythagoras. In his

written dialogues, Plato developed Pythagorean as

well as Socratic ideas. Plato also followed Pythago-

ras in forming a school, which became known as

the Academy.

Work

Next to nothing is known of the way the Academy

was run, but a great deal is known about Plato’s

writings, since all of his dialogues have survived.

The dialogues present at least three different theo-

retical systems, probably from Plato’s early, mid-

dle, and late periods, though any such dating is

speculative and controversial. The early dialogues

focus on ethical issues, and usually end with the

speakers admitting their ignorance. For example,

in the Laches the question is “What is courage?” in

the Euthyphro “What is reverence?” in the

Charmides “What is moderation?” in the Lysis

“What is a friend?” and in the Protagoras “How are

the virtues alike?” Though the arguments are in-

conclusive, they give an account of virtue as purely

a matter of intellect, which is contrary to the wide-

spread belief, then and now, that virtue requires

proper desires or a good will in addition to techni-

cal know-how.

The middle and late dialogues end with the

speakers reaching positive conclusions that are not

limited to ethics. In the middle dialogues, such as

the Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, and Republic,

Plato uses arguments to prove, as well as myths

and metaphors to embellish, an account of the soul

as having three parts: reason, which aims at truth;

emotion, which seeks social values such as pres-

tige; and desire, which aims at material satisfaction.

This soul is immortal and destined to enjoy the

beauty of divine objects that are not seen with the

senses but understood, in much the way one un-

derstands mathematics with the intellect. It is the

nature of these souls to be constantly reincarnated

into various human and animal bodies. The proc-

ess of reincarnation disorients the soul and makes

it believe that sense objects are the only realities.

Proper reflection on human crafts and sciences, as

reflected in the use of language, enables human

souls to recognize ultimate reality. The crucial turn-

ing point comes when one realizes that all well-

made or beautiful or good objects share the same

qualities or structure or Form. For example, it is

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not by sensory perception of particular beds that

an expert carpenter or engineer designs and builds

a bed, but by an intellectual recognition of what

function beds are meant to perform. When the

soul recognizes the reality of the Forms, and turns

away from the senses towards such intellectual,

math-like reasoning, it begins its path towards sal-

vation. The soul achieves salvation by recognizing

that the realm of Forms, not the material world, is

true reality, so that one’s desires for bodily and so-

cial goods cease to attach the soul to the material

world, with the result that, at death, the soul is not

drawn back into another body but ascends to the

realm of the gods, if only for a limited time.

In the Timaeus, perhaps his most influential

contribution to the dialogue between science and

religion, Plato extends this account to general cos-

mology, explaining the design in the visible world

by referring to a divine craftworker who fashioned

the whole (by referring to Formal reality, of

course) and insured its proper function by making

it a living thing with a soul. Plato begins the tradi-

tion of perfect-being theology, which argues that

God must be perfect, hence good, unchanging,

eternal, and so on. In the later dialogues, begin-

ning with the Parmenides, Plato raises problems

with his theory of Forms, leading him not to aban-

don it but to abandon his middle period confi-

dence that the Forms are simple enough that

human minds can unmistakably know them with-

out possibility of error.

Influence

Plato’s influence on science and religion is proba-

bly greater than any other single person’s. He lived

at a time when there was no sharp distinction be-

tween the methods of religion and of science, and

he was early enough in the history of western civ-

ilization to cast his shadow over the development

of western science and religion. His influence on

science is largely through Aristotle, who accepted

with modifications Plato’s view that the world can

be explained in terms of form and matter and tele-

ology, that is, the function objects are designed to

perform. These categories dominated, and perhaps

stifled, scientific thinking until the scientific revo-

lution of the 1600s, when mathematical advances

allowed scientists to try to explain the laws of na-

ture in purely mechanistic terms (of particles push-

ing and pulling particles). Even in that revolution,

Plato’s influence continued. For instance, Galileo

Galilei (1564–1642) used Plato’s method of writing

dialogues in the great debate between Ptolemaic

and Copernican world systems to challenge the

weight of religious authority by appeal to the light

of reason.

Plato’s influence on religion is even more pro-

found. Philo (c. 20

B.C.E.–c. 50 C.E.) attempted to

explain Jewish religion in Platonist terms and set a

model that would be followed by Christians. In the

three centuries after the death of Jesus, Christians

had to choose between different interpretations of

their faith as found in their sacred writings. As they

worked to establish a biblical canon and creeds,

they found themselves engaging in discussions

shaped by Plato’s and Aristotle’s metaphysical and

theological ideas. Some of these early writers, such

as Tertullian (c. 160–c. 225), deplored any attempt

to produce a platonic Christianity. Others, such as

Origen (c. 185–c. 254), used platonic reasoning to

defend the faith in a manner that would be fol-

lowed by Augustine of Hippo (354–430), who in

turn influenced all later Christian theology. Christ-

ian apologists appealed to platonic arguments to

show that God exists and is perfectly good, that

God designed the world, and that human beings

have immortal souls. Then they supplemented

these arguments with revelations from scripture.

While critics of Christianity’s Hellenization con-

tinue to this day, orthodox Christianity remains in

the mold of perfect-being theology, and apologists

continue to use platonic arguments.

See also ARISTOTLE; AUGUSTINE; CHRISTIANITY; GALILEO

GALILEI; IDEALISM; JUDAISM; SOUL; TELEOLOGY

Bibliography

Burtt, Edwin A. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern

Physical Science. London: Routledge and Kegan

Paul, 1932.

Cantor, Norman F. The Civilization of the Middle Ages.

New York: HarperCollins, 1993.

Cooper, John M. Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis, Ind.:

Hackett, 1997.

Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1. New

York: Doubleday, 1962.

De Santillana, Giorgio. The Origins of Scientific Thought.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.

Guthrie, W. K. C. A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. 5.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

Hare, R. M. Plato. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 1982.

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Irwin, Terrence. Classical Thought. Oxford and New York:

Oxford University Press, 1989.

Kenny, Anthony, ed. The Oxford History of Western Phi-

losophy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University

Press, 1994.

Livingstone, R. W. The Legacy of Greece. Oxford: Claren-

don Press, 1921.

Lovejoy, Arthur O. The Great Chain of Being. Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1933.

Nietmann, William F. The Unmaking of God. Lanham, Md.:

University Press of America, 1994.

Russell, Bertrand. Wisdom of the West. New York: Crescent

Books, 1959.

Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind. New

York: Harmony Books, 1991.

GEORGE H. RUDEBUSCH

PLAYING GOD

The phrase “playing God” is not a theological term;

rather, it derives from secular culture and functions

as a naturalistic proscription against scientific or

technological interventions into nature. It functions

as a warning that manipulation of natural proc-

esses may precipitate a disaster, one ironically trig-

gered by human action but uncontrollable by

human remedy. The commandment against play-

ing God appears most frequently at the intersec-

tion where new developments in genetic research

meet public policy.

The phrase “playing God” carries at least three

overlapping meanings. The first refers to the sense

of awe rising from new discoveries into the depths

of life. Natural mysteries are being revealed, and

scientists, who are the revealers, sense that hu-

mans are on the threshold of acquiring God-like

powers, especially in matters of life and death.

The second meaning of “playing God” sup-

poses that scientists are substituting themselves for

God. Like Prometheus, scientists are said to be

overstepping finite limits; out of pride or hubris

they are risking a backlash from nature. This leads

critics to prescribe a new commandment: Thou

shalt not play God. This commandment relies on

the Bible: “pride goes before destruction” (Prov.

16:18). “Playing God” means confusing knowledge

with the wisdom one needs to decide how to use

knowledge. In the battle between science and so-

ciety, critics point to the deterioration of the ecos-

phere as an example of the consequences of un-

wise employment of science and technology.

In the field of genetics, the phrase “playing

God” refers to the sacralization of DNA, manifest in

moral injunctions against altering human DNA, es-

pecially altering the germline that could influence

future generations. The sacralization of what evo-

lution has created appears also in the opposition to

genetically modified foods (GMFs), wherein what

is natural is presumed to better for health than

what is technologically modified.

Even though it is a secular phrase, the three

meanings of “playing God” prompt theologians to

ask questions about the relationship between the

divine creator and the human creature. Unlike a

naturalism that treats nature itself as sacred and in-

violable, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theists hold

that God as creator and lover of all things is alone

sacred. Natural life, important as it is, is not ulti-

mate. The creator, not the creation, is sacred.

See also GENE THERAPY; GENETIC DETERMINISM;

ENETIC ENGINEERING; GENETICS; HUMAN

GENOME PROJECT

Bibliography

Dutney, Andrew. Playing God: Ethics and Faith. San Fran-

cisco: HarperCollins, 2001.

Peters, Ted. Playing God? Genetic Determinism and

Human Freedom. London and New York: Routledge,

1997.

Rifkin, Jeremy, and Howard, Ted. Who Should Play God?

The Artificial Creation of Life and What It Means for

the Future of the Human Race. New York: Dell, 1977.

TED PETERS

PLURALISM

The term pluralism is applied to philosophical po-

sitions emphasizing diversity and multiplicity over

homogeneity and unity. The word first appeared in

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the work of Christian Wolff (1679–1754) and was

later popularized by William James (1842–1910).

Ontological pluralism

Just as one can distinguish substantival monism

(everything is explicable in terms of one thing)

from attributive monism (everything is explicable

in terms of one kind of thing), so can one discrim-

inate substantival pluralism (everything is explica-

ble in terms of a multiplicity of substances) from

attributive pluralism (everything is explicable in

terms of a multiplicity of kinds). Sometimes sub-

stantival pluralism is called weak pluralism, and at-

tributive pluralism is called strong pluralism.

Opposing the monistic metaphysics of Par-

menides’ Eleatic School, ancient proponents of plu-

ralism include Empedocles (495–435

B.C.E.), who

held that everything is comprised of four elements

(earth, air, fire, and water); Anaxagoras (500–428

B.C.E.), who asserted that all things are made of up

of bits of every thing; and the atomists Leucippus

(fl. 450–420

B.C.E.) and Democritus (460–370

B.C.E.), who asserted that all things are constituted

by indivisible particles configured in different ways.

Aristotle (384–322

B.C.E.) and Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz (1646–1716

C.E.) can also be considered

pluralists, the first because of his claim that reality

is ultimately comprised of individual substances,

the second because of his view that reality is made

up of an infinite number of elemental monads hav-

ing the fundamental attribute of perception.

Like substantival and attributive monism, sub-

stantival and attributive pluralism are logically inde-

pendent. Because Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) held

that there is one substance with an infinity of attrib-

utes, he is a substantival monist and an attributive

pluralist. Alternately, because Leibniz claimed that

all monads have the same attributes, he is an at-

tributive monist and a substantival pluralist.

In A Pluralistic Universe (1909), William James

links pluralism and monism to the acceptance or re-

jection of the doctrine of internal relations. Accord-

ingly, pluralism “means . . . that the sundry parts of

reality may be externally related” (p. 274). While

the pluralist believes that things are what they are

apart from their relationship with other things, the

monist claims that each thing is what it is only be-

cause of its relationship with other things—and ul-

timately with the whole containing them.

Cognitive pluralism

While the Western philosophical and theological

tradition has generally sought fundamental unity in

ontology, truth, and meaning, recent thinking has

soundly criticized this project. Among the complex

reasons for this is the contemporary rejection of

the correspondence theory of truth. If one cannot

justifiably speak of a determinate contour of the

world apart from human awareness, conception,

and language about that world, then it seems there

can be no “mirroring” of the world in representa-

tion and language, no ultimate criteria by which to

adjudicate conflicting interpretations of reality. Ac-

cordingly, all that remains are perspectival inter-

pretations based upon discipline-specific assump-

tions about rationality and truth. Thus cognitive

pluralism arises, a situation owing much of its

popular development to the later Ludwig Wittgen-

stein, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Richard

Rorty, and the French postmodernists.

Jean-Francois Lyotard describes such a plural-

ism in his work, The Postmodern Condition (1984).

Over and against modernity’s universalizing rea-

son and discourse, he points to the existence of

various epistemic social practices and to the multi-

plicity of linguistic signifiers, discourse genres, and

narratives. Because the assumptions underlying

scientific activity are not self-evident, scientific dis-

course is controlled by various meta-prescriptive

rules. Since such rules are locally assumed, there

can be no universally applicable, rational dis-

course. Accordingly, postmodernism privileges an-

tirealism over realism, perspectival epistemology

over neutral epistemic and transcendental stand-

points, pragmatic truth over the correspondence

theory, and local narratives over overarching meta-

narratives. Cognitive pluralism rejects any founda-

tionalist claim that knowledge is ultimately deriv-

able from indubitable propositions or experiences;

it recognizes a diversity of cognitive styles, patterns

of rationality, and sensibilities, and it assumes that

different sets of justified beliefs can exist alongside

each other.

Other pluralisms

One can also identify ethical pluralism, discourse

pluralism, and explanatory pluralism. Ethical plu-

ralism claims that there are a number of incom-

mensurable perspectives on the good or just soci-

ety. (It can also mean the existence of a plurality of

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self-justifying, fundamental moral principles.) Dis-

course pluralism affirms the legitimacy of various

kinds of discourse in speaking about a region of

being. It holds that there can be irreducible levels

of description, yet denies that each description

refers to entities having metaphysical existence

(e.g., possible worlds, numbers, mental states,

etc.). Finally, explanatory pluralism asserts that ex-

planations at different levels of description (e.g.,

psychology and neuroscience) can profitably be

offered in the absence of reduction and without

claiming the mutual metaphysical existence of the

events and entities referred to in each (e.g., Carte-

sian dualism).

Pluralism, science, and theology

Is genuine dialogue between postmodern science

and theology possible, or does the pluralism and

localization of postmodern discourse produce epis-

temological incommensurability? Are there only

isolated local narratives whose “truths” cannot be

interrelated? Many in the theology-science dis-

cussion deny this radical claim. Wentzel van

Huyssteen suggests that evolutionary epistemology

reveals the biological roots of all rationality and

thus provides a suitable basis for postfoundation-

alist rationality. Niels Gregersen attempts to fit cog-

nitive pluralism into a common framework of ra-

tionality by using Nicholas Rescher’s pragmatist

coherence theory. Gregersen claims that coherence

is the critical norm for all types of knowledge and

that it provides a middle way between modernity’s

critical realism and the radical pluralism espoused

by many postmodernists.

Explanatory pluralism is also important in the

science-theology discussion. Accordingly, events

within a common domain having both a physical

and theological description can have both a phys-

ical and theological explanation. One can, how-

ever, question the coherence of explanatory plu-

ralism, citing what Jaegwon Kim has called the

“Principle of Explanatory Exclusion”: There cannot

be two complete and independent explanations of

the same event.

Finally, one might ask if and how ontological

pluralism, either in its substantival or attributive

forms, is more conducive than monism for con-

ceiving how God might act within the universe.