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

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REDUCTIONISM

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otherwise explainable in terms of the theories and

laws of the lower levels; and the third an ontologi-

cal strategy holding that reality is ultimately com-

prised of nothing but simple components (e.g.,

quarks, strings) organized in particular ways.

This “nothing but” relation can be understood

as reduction’s defining characteristic: M reduces to

P if and only if M is nothing but P. Accordingly, one

can distinguish ontological, property, semantic, the-

oretical, and causal reduction. Ontological reduc-

tion claims that upper-level entities and events are

nothing but complex configurations of lower-level

entities and events; property reduction asserts that

the instantiation of every upper-level property is

nothing but the instantiation of a particular lower-

level property; semantic reduction declares that the

meaning of statements in the reduced theory is

nothing but the meaning of statements in the re-

ducing theory; theoretic reduction claims that laws

of the reduced theory are nothing but the laws of

the reducing theory; and causal reduction asserts

that the causal powers of upper-level entities are

nothing but the causal powers exhibited by their

lower-level physical realizers.

Property reduction and causal reduction are of

particular interest in the science-theology discus-

sion. One can hold that while only physical partic-

ulars exist, property dualism nonetheless obtains

because higher-level properties are not reducible

to, and thus not coextensive with, any specific

lower-level properties. Some in the science-

theology discussion believe such a nonreductive

physicalism of emergent mental properties can

protect religious discourse and experience from re-

duction or elimination.

Causal reduction is extremely important for the

question of the ontological status of putative emer-

gent entities and properties. If entities at the upper-

levels wholly inherit their causal powers from the

lower-levels, and if ontological status only pertains

to causally efficacious entities, then it seems that

emergent phenomena are not fully real. The ques-

tion of the causal status of emergent properties is at

the heart of the controversy about downward

causality. Some in the science-theology discussion

suggest that the emergent itself can effect the causal

distribution at the lower-levels, not just the lower-

level realizers of that emergent, (e.g., conscious-

ness itself is causally efficacious.) But if particular

lower-level actualizations are sufficient for the in-

stantiation of an emergent property, then it seems

that these actualizations are also sufficient for the

effects this emergent property is said to cause.

Conclusion

Many in the science-theology discussion wish to

provide an account of emergent phenomenon that

does not presuppose reductive explanation. Unfor-

tunately, even in the absence of the straightforward

reduction of the emergent, the admission of its

physical realization seems to accomplish much of

what reduction initially sought, for the causal loop

still gets closed at the lowest physical levels. It

seems that the “something more” of the emergent

may be “nothing more” when it comes to the issue

of causal reduction. This is not a result that would

cheer many in the science-theology conversation.

See also BEHAVIORISM; CAUSALITY, PRIMARY AND

SECONDARY; CAUSATION; DOWNWARD

CAUSATION; MATERIALISM; NATURALISM;

HYSICALISM, REDUCTIVE AND NONREDUCTIVE;

UPERVIENIENCE

Bibliography

Beckermann, Ansgar; Flohr, Hans; and Kim, Jaegwon, eds.

Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of

Nonreductive Physicalism. Berlin and New York:

Walter de Gruyter, 1992.

Bielfeldt, Dennis. “How Does the Mental Matter?” Center

for Theology and Natural Science Bulletin 19, no. 4

(2000): 11-21.

Charles, David, and Lennon, Kathleen, eds. Reduction,

Explanation, and Realism. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1993.

Kim Jaegwon. Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philo-

sophical Essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1993.

Kim, Jaegwon. Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the

Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation. Cam-

bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999.

Murphy, Nancey. “Supervenience and the Nonreducibility

of Ethics to Biology.” In Evolutionary and Molecular

Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. eds.

Robert John Russell, William Stoeger, and Francisco

Ayala. Vatican City and Berkeley, Calif.: Vatican Ob-

servatory Publications and the Center for Theology

and the Natural Sciences, 1998.

Murphy Nancey. “Physicalism Without Reduction: Toward

a Scientifically, Philosophically, and Theologically

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Sound Portrait of Human Nature.” Zygon 34 (1999):

551-572.

Nagel, Ernest. The Structure of Science: Problems in the

Logic of Scientific Explanation. New York: Harcourt,

1961.

Peacocke, Arthur. “Reductionism: A Review of the Episte-

mological Issues and Their Relevance to Biology and

the Problem of Consciousness.” Zygon 11, no. 4

(1976): 307–334.

DENNIS BIELFELDT

REDUCTIVE PHYSICALISM

See PHYSICALISM, REDUCTIVE AND NONREDUCTIVE

REINCARNATION

Reincarnation or samsara is the beginningless

cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The rebirth idea

follows from the traditional Yoga psychology con-

cept of karma,the memory trace or “seed” laid

down in the unconscious by each freely chosen ac-

tion or thought, which is stored until the opportu-

nity arises for it to sprout forth as an impulse to do

a similar action or thought again. The unconscious

contains all the karmic seeds laid down during this

life and from all previous lives. The presence of

such karmas and their impulse to sprout is the

cause of one’s rebirth. Removal of karma from

one’s unconscious by spiritual discipline (Yoga) re-

sults in release (moksa) from rebirth. Originating

from Hinduism, this idea was adopted by Jainism

and Buddhism in India, and is also found in Pla-

tonic thought.

See also HINDUISM; KARMA; LIFE AFTER DEATH

HAROLD COWARD

RELATIVITY

See GRAVITATION; RELATIVITY, GENERAL THEORY OF;

ELATIVITY, SPECIAL THEORY OF

RELATIVITY,GENERAL

THEORY OF

Albert Einstein radically reshaped the understand-

ing of gravity through his proposal of the General

Theory of Relativity in 1916. The problem he tack-

led was to create a theory of gravity that was con-

sistent with his Special Relativity Theory, including

its radical transformation of the understanding of

space and time measurements through the intro-

duction of a unified concept of space-time. Special

relativity is based on the invariance of the laws of

physics under any constant change of velocity, and

hence the equivalence from a physical viewpoint

of all uniformly moving (non-accelerating) ob-

servers. General relativity extended these ideas to

a special class of accelerating observers.

Einstein’s insights

Einstein’s first brilliant insight was that, in conse-

quence of Galileo Galilei’s (1564–1642) discovery in

the seventeenth century that all falling bodies near

the Earth accelerate at the same rate, any uniform

gravitational field can be transformed away (i.e.

made to vanish) by changing to a suitably acceler-

ating reference frame; indeed for any observer in

free fall, gravity effectively ceases to exist. We have

seen this in films of astronauts in free fall, where

gravity does not seem to act (objects float freely in

the air), even though they are in spacecraft that are

relatively close to the surface of the Earth, where

the gravitational field is strong enough to make the

spacecraft move in a circular orbit.

Thus, from a physical viewpoint, inertial and

gravitational effects are indistinguishable; this is

Einstein’s Principle of Equivalence. There is no in-

variant gravitational force, in analogy to the elec-

tromagnetic force, but rather effective gravitational

forces are felt by observers in consequence of their

choice of reference frame. One consequence is the

prediction of the phenomenon of gravitational

redshift (a shifting of light toward the red end of

the spectrum as a result of a gravitational field

rather than a relative velocity). This has been veri-

fied by high accuracy measurements on Earth.

Einstein’s second major insight (building on

previous work by others, particularly German

mathematician Georg Friedrich Riemann [1826–

1866]) was that the principle of equivalence could

be made compatible both with experimental

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evidence concerning gravity and with the special

theory of relativity by embracing the idea that

space-time is curved. Freely falling objects and

light rays move on geodesics in curved space-time,

that is, curves whose space-time direction is un-

changing (these curves are the closest that one can

get to a straight line in a curved space-time). When

projected into surfaces of constant time, these

paths can appear highly curved; indeed, the nearly

circular motion of the Earth around the sun is the

result of the Earth moving in an undeviating direc-

tion in the curved space-time around the sun. A

consequence is the prediction of the bending of

light by a gravitational field, which was verified in

a famous experiment in 1917, when bending of

light by the sun was measured during a solar

eclipse. This bending leads to gravitational lensing

of distant objects (quasi-stellar objects and galax-

ies) by nearer galaxies and cluster of galaxies, re-

sulting in distorted images and multiple images.

Einstein’s third major insight was that the space-

time curvature is determined by the matter in it.

This is a major revolution in our understanding of

the nature of geometry. Previously, the geometry of

space (and space-time) had been assumed to be

fixed and invariant, a purely mathematical construct.

Einstein’s proposal meant that space-time geometry

varies according to the matter present; consequently

geometry became a branch of physics. Einstein

spent many years pondering the nature of this rela-

tion, and eventually completed his theory by pro-

posing his gravitational field equations, which relate

the stress-energy tensor of the matter present to

space-time curvature. (A tensor is a physical quan-

tity that has many components that, taken together,

characterize its nature. The physical energy tensor

combines in one quantity the energy density, quan-

tum density, isotropic pressure, and anisotropic

pressures characterizing a fluid. These quantities

combine in different ways when different reference

frames are used.) This theory can predict the motion

of planets around the sun more accurately than

Newtonian theory can, explaining in particular the

anomalous precession of the perihelion of the

planet Mercury. Indeed Einstein’s theory has been

tested with high precision in the solar system and

has passed all observational tests with flying colors.

Predictions of the theory

The General Theory of Relativity also predicts rad-

ically new phenomena. Firstly, black holes are

predicted to result at the end-point of the lives of

massive stars when they have burnt all their nu-

clear fuel. Black holes are objects where the grav-

itational field is so strong that light cannot escape;

a radially outgoing light ray will be halted and will

fall back in to the center. Consequently an outside

observer receives no light or radiation from the in-

terior and cannot observe what is going on there.

The gravitational field at the center will become so

strong that a space-time singularity occurs. It is be-

lieved that black holes have been detected through

the X-ray emissions associated with hot dust falling

in across the event horizon, which is the surface

bounding the black hole region. Any object cross-

ing the event horizon to the interior cannot then

escape; it is doomed to fall into the singularity. It is

now believed that black holes exist at the center of

many galaxies, including our own, and provide the

power sources for incredibly luminous quasi-stellar

objects. Secondly, gravitational waves will be gen-

erated by the motion of astronomical objects such

as binary pulsars. It is difficult to detect them di-

rectly because they are extremely weak, but they

have been indirectly detected because of their ef-

fect on the orbits of a binary pulsar (Russell Hulse

and Joseph Taylor were awarded the 1993 Nobel

Prize in physics for this observation). A new gen-

eration of gravitational wave observatories are

being constructed, and it is hoped they will detect

gravitational waves within the next ten years.

A problem with the theory is that it predicts

that under many conditions (e.g., at the start of the

universe, and at the end of gravitational collapse to

form a black hole), space-time singularities will

occur. Scientists still do not properly understand

this phenomenon, but presumably it means that

they will have to take the effect of quantum theory

on gravity into account in some suitable general-

ization of general relativity, which is a purely clas-

sical theory. Additionally, general relativity in prin-

ciple allows a variety of causal violations to occur

(e.g., you can travel through space-time in such a

way as to talk to your grandfather when he was

ten years old). There is considerable debate on

how to regard this feature.

The Einstein equations are extraordinarily

unique, but they do allow the possibility of a cos-

mological constant (effectively, a very weak long-

range repulsive force). This has been the subject of

dispute ever since Einstein included it in his equa-

tions in 1917 in order to allow a static universe

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solution. He abandoned it when the expansion of

the universe became generally accepted, but it

keeps recurring in various forms, for example in

the inflationary universe idea. There is good ob-

servational evidence that the recent expansion of

the universe is dominated by a cosmological con-

stant, however the physical origin of this universal

repulsive force is unexplained. From the viewpoint

of quantum field theory, its existence is highly

problematic.

See also BLACK HOLE; COSMOLOGY; EINSTEIN, ALBERT;

RAVITATION; INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE THEORY;

ELATIVITY, SPECIAL THEORY OF; SPACE AND TIME

Bibliography

Begelman, Mitchell C., and Rees, Martin J. Gravity’s Fatal

Attraction. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1996.

D’Inverno, Ray. Introducing Einstein’s Relativity. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1996.

Ellis, George F. R., and Williams, Ruth M. Flat and Curved

Space-times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Hawking, Stephen W., and Ellis, George F. R. The Large-

scale Structure of Spacetime. Cambridge, UK: Cam-

bridge University Press, 1973.

Misner, Charles W.; Thorne, Kip S.; and Wheeler, John A.

Gravitation. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1973.

Thorne, Kip S. Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s

Outrageous Legacy. New York: Norton, 1994.

Wald, Robert M. General Relativity. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1984.

GEORGE F. R. ELLIS

RELATIVITY,SPECIAL THEORY

The Special Theory of Relativity describes the way

in which an observer’s experience of time and

space is interrelated, while the General Theory of

Relativity addresses the interrelationships among

mass, space, gravity, and motion. Motivated by his

concerns about problematic features of electro-

magneticism—especially the relationship between

electric and magnetic fields—Albert Einstein

(1879–1955) proposed the Special Theory of Rela-

tivity in 1905. However, since most of the charac-

ter and consequences of Special Relativity can be

more easily developed in the arena of kinematics

(the description of motion), this entry will focus on

the ways in which motion influences the outcome

of measurements regarding space and time.

Inertial reference frames

The term reference frame ordinarily refers to a co-

ordinate system (like the Cartesian system with

three mutually perpendicular axes labeled x, y,

and z) in which the location and motion of an ob-

ject can be conveniently described, along with a

set of synchronized clocks with which to deter-

mine the time at any location in that coordinate

system. Given such a reference frame, one can

specify the coordinates of any event E by stating its

location (x, y, z) and the time (t) of its occurrence

in the notation: E (x, y, z, t).

Of all possible reference frames, Special Rela-

tivity is concerned only with inertial reference

frames—reference frames in which Newton’s First

Law (sometimes alled the Law of Inertia) holds. It

can be shown that any reference frame that moves

with constant velocity (constant speed and direc-

tion) relative to an inertial frame is also an inertial

reference frame.

Postulates

Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity proceeds

from two fundamental postulates regarding the re-

sults of comparing the observations of physical

phenomena (sets of events) by observers in two or

more inertial reference frames. These two postu-

lates may be stated as follows: (1) The speed of

light is the same in all inertial reference frames, in-

dependent of the motion of the source; and (2) The

form of all physical laws (not only those pertaining

to mechanics) is the same in all inertial reference

frames. The first postulate represents a break from

the common expectation that the speed of light rel-

ative to its source would be fixed, as would be the

case for a bullet fired from a gun. The second pos-

tulate represents a significant extension of the clas-

sical principle of relativity that applied only to the

laws of mechanics.

Predictions

From these two postulates a number of fascinating

predictions can be deduced.

The relativity of simultaneity. The Lorentz

transformation, named after Dutch physicist

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Hendrik Anton Lorentz (1853–1928), is a set of

equations that allows the calculation of event co-

ordinates in one reference frame from the coordi-

nates of the same event in another frame. Suppose

that in reference frame S an observer notes two

events that occur at different locations, but at the

same time. The S observer says that these two

events occurred simultaneously. Then consider an-

other reference frame S′ that is moving at a con-

stant velocity relative to S. Applying the Lorentz

transformation to the event coordinates in S to ob-

tain the coordinates for the same two events in S′

leads to a remarkable result. Observers in S′ would

say that these two events occurred at different

times. That is, events that appear simultaneous in

one inertial reference frame would not be ob-

served as simultaneous in any other inertial frame.

The amount of time separation would depend on

the relative speed of the two frames. Simultaneity

is not absolute, but is dependent on the observer’s

reference frame. In other words, there is no uni-

versal time on which all observers can agree.

Length contraction. Consider a meter stick ori-

ented parallel to the x axis of a references frame S

that is moving at speed v along that same x axis.

Let S′ now be a reference frame attached to the

meter stick. An observer in S′ affirms that the

length of this stick, at rest in S′, is one meter. Now

suppose that an observer in S wishes to measure

the length of the stick that he observes to be mov-

ing at speed v. This must be done by noting the lo-

cations of the two ends of the stick simultaneously

in S and calculating the distance between these two

locations. Doing so, however, would lead to the in-

teresting result that, as measured in S, the length of

the meter stick is less than one meter. This is the

phenomenon called length contraction. The meas-

ured length of a moving object is contracted in the

direction of its motion. Dimensions perpendicular

to the direction of motion are not affected.

Time dilation. Using the same notation for ref-

erence frames S and S′, consider a clock that is at

rest in S′. Relative to any observer at rest in S, that

S′ clock is moving at speed v. As it moves, it passes

numerous S clocks that are distributed throughout

reference frame S. Suppose that the S′ clock was

synchronized to display exactly the same time as

one particular S clock at the instant the S′ clock

passed it. Now suppose that at some later time, the

display of the S′ clock is compared with a second

S clock as it passes it. Once again, applying the

Lorentz transformation to predict the coordinates

of this second clock-passing event leads to a sur-

prising result: The S′ clock will lag behind the sec-

ond S clock. A moving clock (the S′ clock is mov-

ing relative to reference frame S) records less

elapsed time than do stationary S clocks. This is the

phenomenon called time dilation. Numerous em-

pirical tests have affirmed this peculiar effect.

There is a symmetry that must be acknowl-

edged in regard to the time dilation phenomenon.

Comparing equivalent observations by observers

in two different reference frames, each would say

(with justification) that the clocks of the other were

running slowly. That symmetry has led some per-

sons to question the idea of twins with differing

motion histories actually achieving different ages.

The standard scenario for the so-called twin para-

dox posits a pair of twins with a keen interest in

testing relativity theory. While one of the twins

stays at home, the other takes off in a rocket and

travels at a substantial fraction of the speed of light

for a few years, as measured on his own calendar

watch, and then turns around to reverse the trip.

Upon reunion with his twin, how will the age of

the traveler compare with the stay-at-home sibling?

From the viewpoint of the homebody, the trav-

eler’s clocks have been running slowly for most of

the trip, both outbound and inbound (the direction

of travel is irrelevant). So, it would seem that at the

reunion, the traveler would be younger than his

homebound twin. However, what about looking at

things from the standpoint of the traveler? Would it

not be the case that the homebody’s clocks were

running slowly so that the homebody would be

the younger sibling at reunion? That’s the usual

presentation of the twin paradox—conflicting con-

clusions flowing from the symmetry of the time di-

lation phenomenon.

It turns out, however, that there is no actual

paradox, no conflicting predictions. The traveler re-

ally is the younger at reunion. There was no effec-

tive symmetry in the motion histories of the twins.

One stayed in a single reference frame the entire

time; the other accelerated from one frame to an-

other several times. The amount of time elapsed

between the twins’ separation and reunion events

will be different for each as a consequence of dif-

fering histories of motion. Strange, perhaps, but ap-

parently true.

The mass-energy relationship. If there is one

mathematical relationship that best characterizes

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the popular conception of special relativity it

would have to be the equation E = mc

;, where E

represents energy, m represents mass, and c is the

speed of light. But what does this familiar equation

actually signify? In very general terms it signifies

that mass is one particular form of energy and that

it could, given suitable circumstances, be trans-

formed into other forms of energy. Nuclear reac-

tors, for example, provide the circumstances for a

controlled transformation of some of the mass-en-

ergy of selected radioactive nuclei into heat, which

is then used to drive conventional electrical energy

generators. In a similar way, a coal-fired power

plant accomplishes the same transformation of

mass-energy into heat by means of chemical rather

than nuclear reactions.

There is more, however, in the familiar E =

. The mass, m, that appears in this equation is

the relativistic mass, whose value depends on the

speed of the object under consideration. In fact, as

an object’s speed, v, approaches the speed of light,

the value of its relativistic mass approaches infinity.

In effect, that means that it would require an infi-

nite amount of energy to accelerate an object to

the speed of light. With only finite amounts of en-

ergy available, the speed of small objects (such as

atomic constituents) can be increased (in a particle

accelerator device) to a value approaching the

speed of light, but never equaling or exceeding it.

Nothing having mass can be given a speed relative

to a local observer that is equal to or greater than

the speed of light. This is a speed limit that is en-

forced not by legal decree, but by the very nature

of the universe itself—specifically the relationships

among space, time, motion, and energy.

This speed limit applies only in a localized re-

gion of space. If one is considering the motion of

extremely distant objects, say billions of light-years

away, another factor must be included—the ex-

pansion of space itself. In the language of General

Relativity, space is not merely a nothing in which

things may be placed, but a specific something

that has properties and is able to act and be acted

upon. One of the things that cosmic space is

doing, apparently, is expanding. Distant galaxies

are observed to be receding from the Earth be-

cause the space between them and the Earth is ex-

panding. The motion of distant galaxies that can be

attributed to this spatial expansion phenomenon is

not restricted by the speed of light limitation just

discussed.

Implications for religious thought

The theory of relativity must be clearly distin-

guished from what is ordinarily denoted by the

word relativism. Moral relativism, for instance, pre-

sumes that there are no universal standards of right

and wrong behavior. Likewise, epistemic relativism

presumes that there are no observer-independent

standards for objective knowledge. As noted

above, however, the special theory of relativity en-

tails no denial of standards for comparing the ob-

servations of various observers. On the contrary,

relativity theory specifies those standards with great

clarity. Relativistic mechanics differs from classical

mechanics not by abandoning standards, but by of-

fering a specific and new set of standards that bring

predictions and observations into agreement.

Another feature of Special Relativity theory that

suggests an application to religious thought is its

demonstration of the fact that common sense

sometimes needs to be corrected. Most people

have common sense notions of space and time that

function perfectly well as they go about their daily

routines of life. People use these notions as they

plan their travels from place to place and as they

proceed throughout the course of a day. These

common sense notions include the following:

(1) All impartial observers should agree on the

time interval between two events.

(2) All impartial observers should agree on the

distance between two points.

(3) Things can always be made to go faster.

(4) Twins remain equal in age no matter what

they do.

However, each of these expectations turns out

to be incorrect, and concepts of space and time

must be modified in order to comprehend what

careful observations and measurements have

revealed.

The origin of such shortcomings in common

sense notions of space and time is easy to identify:

These notions are based on limited experience.

Until physicists performed observations and meas-

urements on particles moving at speeds approach-

ing the speed of light, the shortcomings of human

concepts of space and time could not be detected.

Extending human experience with space, time,

and motion into new speed regimes revealed those

shortcomings and inspired modifications of the

sort proposed by Lorentz and Einstein. The lesson

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is evident: Epistemic dogmatism (I have the com-

plete and final understanding of X) must often be

replaced with epistemic humility (what I now think

I know may someday need to be modified in re-

sponse to an expansion of experience). This is not

to despair and claim no knowledge whatsoever.

This is rather to remain open to correction, even

while celebrating the knowledge of the day. On

these matters theology and science enjoy full

agreement.

See also EINSTEIN, ALBERT; RELATIVITY, GENERAL

THEORY OF; SPACE AND TIME

Bibliography

Adams, Steve. Relativity: An Introduction to Space-time

Physics. London: Taylor and Francis, 1997.

Eisntein, Albert. The Meaning of Relativity (1921). Prince-

ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966.

Harrison, Edward R. Cosmology: The Science of the Uni-

verse, 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University

Press, 2000.

McFarland, Ernie. Einstein’s Special Relativity: Discover It

for Yourself. Toronto: Trifolium, 1998.

Mermin, N. David. Space and Time in Special Relativity.

Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1989.

Moore, Thomas A. A Traveler’s Guide to Spacetime. New

York: McGraw Hill, 1995.

Rindler, Wolfgang. Introduction to Special Relativity, 2nd

edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.

Taylor, Edwin F., and Wheeler, John A. Spacetime Physics:

Introduction to Special Relativity, 2nd edition. San

Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1992.

HOWARD J. VAN TILL

RELIGION AND VALUES,

RIGINS OF

The word value expresses worth in a broad

generic sense, but this usage only dates to about

from the mid-nineteenth century. The classical

meaning of value was more limited, referring to

goods, excellence, riches, benefits, utilities. The

word value occurs in the Bible almost always

translating Hebrew and Greek economic terms re-

ferring to price. The word religion includes the

Latin root liga (also in ligament and obligation),

which means binding, here intensified by the pre-

fix re-. Hence, religion is that to which one is most

deeply bound. “The essence of religion,” claims

Harald Höffding, “consists in the conviction that

value will be preserved” (p. 14). If one finds a

world in which value is given and persists over

time, one has a religious assignment. A central

function of religion is the conservation of funda-

mental values. Frederick Ferré defines religion:

“One’s religion . . . is one’s way of valuing most in-

tensively and most comprehensively” (p. 11).

Genesis of value in natural history

A frequent claim is that science deals with causes,

religion with values. That is an overstatement: Sci-

entists evaluate better and worse science; theolo-

gians ask whether divine agency can be detected

in natural history. Nevertheless, natural science is a

systematic study of causes in nature; religion is a

life-orienting inquiry into meanings of life in the

world. But these crisscross.

In the course of natural history, “mere” causes

(operating in rocks, winds, waters) generate life,

events of deepening significance (DNA molecules

coding for adapted fit). Where once there was mat-

ter, energy, and where these remain, there appears

information, symbolically encoded, and life. Sig-

nals emerge. A rock conserves no identity. An oak

tree, by contrast, conserves a metabolism and an

anatomy over time. Organisms are self-maintaining

systems. There is a new state of matter, neither liq-

uid nor gaseous nor solid, but vital.

Speciation generates biodiversity; some species

become increasingly animated with neural evolu-

tion, evolving felt experience. Homo sapiens de-

velops capacities for religious experience. Out of

physical precedents there appear biological, then

psychological, then spiritual consequences. Matter

gives birth to spirit.

Religion valuing abundant life

Religions arise to rejoice in, wonder over, protect,

reform, and regenerate, that is, to save this gift of

life, to which humans are intensely bound. The life

“information,” in contrast to matter and energy, is

not inevitably conserved, but rather is inevitably

lost in death, unless life is regenerated. If anything

is of abiding value on Earth, surely it is the life in-

carnate in human beings. From the dawn of reli-

gious impulses in the only animal capable of such

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reflection, this vitality has been experienced as sa-

cred. Such experience has often been fragmentary

and confused, as has every other form of knowl-

edge that humans have struggled to gain, but at its

core the insight developed that religion was about

life in its abundance.

Classical monotheism claims—to take the He-

brew form of it—that the divine Spirit or Wind

(Greek: pneuma) breathes the breath of life into

earth and animates it to generate swarms of living

beings (Gen. 2.7). Eastern forms can be signifi-

cantly different: maya spun over Brahman, or

samsara over sunyata, but they too detect the sa-

cred in, with, and under the profuse phenomena.

Some have opposed as seemingly too self-centered

the idea that religions are about fertility. But the

fertility hypothesis is quite right in this respect: Hu-

mans reside on a fertile Earth.

In that sense, the fact that religious conviction

cherishes and conserves this fertility is no reason to

think religion suspect; to the contrary, it is reason

to think it profound. Perhaps the animal in which

such faith emerges, Homo sapiens, is coping now

because it is detecting that there is a divine will for

life to continue. At this point, we pass from sup-

posing that biology can explain religion (as a sur-

vival myth) to needing religion to explain biology

(how to evaluate this genesis in natural history).

Earthen fecundity is hard fact and difficult to ex-

plain without some sort of generative principles

before which many persons incline to become

religious.

Biological value and a value-free nature?

The question of value in biology is paradoxical,

both in biological science and in biological phe-

nomena in nature. On the one hand, science thinks

of itself as being value-free and as describing a

natural world that also is value-free. There is no

value without an experiencing valuer, just as there

are no thoughts without a thinker, no targets with-

out an aimer. Valuing is “felt preferring” by human

choosers. Values can be instrumental or intrinsic;

domains of value are economic, moral, legal, aes-

thetic (including etiquette), cognitive (including

science), and religious. Human kinship with the

higher animals does extend some of these values

to those sentient enough to suffer pains and pleas-

ures. But an event that involves no felt preferences

cannot be an event of value or disvalue. Such na-

ture just is, devoid of dimensions of value.

Values are, in the usual psychological account,

deeply felt and considered, bringing humans back

into the main focus. Milton Rokeach defines value:

“I consider a value to be a type of belief, centrally

located within one’s belief system, about how one

ought or ought not to behave, or about some end-

state of existence worth or not worth obtaining” (p.

124). Values have to be thought about, chosen

from among options, persistently held, and they

have to satisfy felt preferences. Such values are at

the roots of religion.

But this is not adequate biologically. Indeed,

by this account, there are no values present in any

plants, nor in most animals, which are incapable of

such capacities. The paradox arises now, however,

because value of another sort is perfused through

biology: survival value. An organism lives success-

fully on the basis of adaptive traits, even if the or-

ganism is not a sentient valuer.

So it seems biology is not value-free at all for it

is difficult to dissociate the idea of value from nat-

ural selection. Every organism has a good-of-its-

kind; it defends its own kind as a good kind. A

genome encodes what has been discovered to be

of value to that form of life. Despite value-free sci-

ence, value generated and conserved is the first

fact of natural history.

Turning to more systematic trends in evolu-

tionary history, biologists are often divided over

whether this generation of diversity and complex-

ity is inevitable, probable, contingent, or mixedly

all three. Biologists since Charles Darwin (1809–

1882) generally dislike the idea of progress or tele-

ology in evolutionary history, though most biolo-

gists acknowledge that the evolving Earth did re-

sult in increases of both diversity and complexity.

Many hold that some systemic tendencies best ex-

plain this, even if Darwinism is uncertain about

such directions of development.

Within this perspective, humans are not so

much lighting up value in an otherwise valueless

world as they are psychologically joining an ongo-

ing natural history in which there is value wher-

ever there is positive creativity.

Religions and survival value

Humans evolve with unique traits, especially their

dispositions to behave ethically and to be religious.

Continuing with Darwinian biology, the only read-

ily available explanation is that these traits convey

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greater survival value. Most biologists favor the

idea of selection at the individual level; if they are

right, both ethical action and religious practice

must increase the reproductive fitness of individu-

als who embody these values. But individuals live

in communities—intimately in family, where re-

productive success is critical, locally in tribes, and

regionally in states. Those tribes whose people

share religious values usually out-compete other

tribes. Religion is reciprocating self-interest, en-

larged and enlightened into communities as more

fundamental survival units. This account has prece-

dents in the thought of sociologist Émile Durkheim

(1858–1917).

Advocates of religion will welcome the sur-

vival value of religious beliefs and ethical prac-

tices. Abraham was promised numerous descen-

dants, and they became a great nation; the

commandments were given to keep Israel,

through love and justice, inhabiting the promised

land for many generations. But advocates of reli-

gion will also resist the idea that religion is noth-

ing but a coping myth, discounting any truth

value. Rather, as noted above, the Earth has been

perennially prolific. Religion repeatedly arises to

encounter this heritage and to insure life’s regen-

eration. Such regeneration includes not only bio-

logical survival but requires redemption, the repair

of a brokenness in human life. Such salvation is of

everlasting value.

This has involved families, tribes, peoples, and

nations. The major world faiths, however, have

also become universal, evangelizing unrelated oth-

ers. This proves difficult to explain under the bio-

logical account, since such missionary concern

conveys no preferential survival advantage on the

proselytizers. Rather others are more altruistically

valued, a conviction also recently enshrined in uni-

versal human rights.

At the metaphysical level, it will be claimed,

science neither describes nor evaluates the full

genesis of value adequately. Religion is about the

finding, creating, saving, and redeeming of such

persisting sacred value in the world. In this sense,

whatever the quarrels between religion and biol-

ogy, there is nothing ungodly about a world in

which values persist in the midst of their perpetual

perishing, or one in which such values, through re-

ligious activity, become widely shared. That is as

near as earthlings can come to an ultimate con-

cern; that is where, on Earth, the ultimate might be

incarnate.