2005 CONFERENCE REPORT
Einstein, God and Time
Conference held in conjunction with the Ian Ramsey Centre at the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford,
12-15 September, 2005
As part of the celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's revolutionary 1905 papers on special relativity and quantum mechanics, the "EINSTEIN, GOD and TIME" conference drew internationally renowned speakers to the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford, UK, to look at relevant themes in the interface of science, philosophy, and theology. With approximately 150 people in attendance, the eight major lectures were augmented by 25 shorter papers, giving participants the opportunity for detailed and varied discussion. The conference was co-hosted by the Ian Ramsey Centre, The Science and Religion Forum and the University of Oxford, Department of Physics. This occasion also marked the 30th Anniversary of the Science and Religion Forum as well as presenting an ideal setting for the celebration of the 80th birthday of Revd Dr Arthur Peacocke, who has contributed greatly to the study of relations between science and religion and who was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 2001. What follows are some memorable snippets and summaries from the conference.
Prof. Jürgen Moltmann, professor emeritus of Systematic Theology at the University of Tubingen, gave the Ian Ramsey Lecture, challenging the packed lecture theatre to consider "When God and Time Meet: the Resurrection of the Body." Moltmann pronounced the hope that Biblical scripture promise about when the God of life meets time and bodily resurrection into a new life occurs. He addressed such questions as, "What age shall we be in the resurrection?", "Is there gender in heaven?", and "When will this happen?" Moltmann stated that it is immediately upon death that we will have a newly-constituted, resurrected life as part of a new creation. As Jesus said to the thief on the cross, "Today, you will be with me in eternity." Moltmann noted that Christianity is about embodied, lived life - a life of love and hope. Thus, it is life in the body that must be lived and this life can be resurrected through the experience of Christ's resurrection and the re-birth, or new life, that is already present through the Holy Spirit. In Christ, God manifested himself in flesh to redeem life. The resurrection of the Lordship of Jesus gives over to the God of the living and the dead. While death may be seen as the end of life, life can also be seen as the end of death. It is here that God's goal for our lives will be fulfilled. He sees that at this point, "We will participate in the living God."
At this conference, the Gowland Lecture was initiated in recognition of the contribution of Revd Bill Gowland, a Methodist minister who founded the Christ and the Cosmos Initiative (CCI) to help all Christians gain an understanding of the universe in an age of science. Over the last year, the CCI has merged with the Science and Religion Forum and the lecture remains a memorial to this heritage. The First Gowland Lecture was given by Prof. Russell Stannard, emeritus professor of Physics at the Open University, who presented a lucid, concise introduction to Einstein for the non-specialist, literally "Einstein for the Terrified". By use of illustrations and images from common-day perception, Stannard explored some of the surprising implications of Einstein's theory of special relativity. He described how it is we live in a world where ironing can be done faster upstairs then downstairs, where you can lose weight if you just stand still, and where you will live longer if you keep moving. For example, just as there is a loss of information when looking head on at a pen (a two-dimensional perception), he argued, there is a loss of information between three-dimensional perception and four-dimensional space-time. It is only through the dilation of time and matter, as a result of different movements through space, that we see that there is another dimension, time, to the paths of all objects.
Prof. John Hedley Brooke, who holds The Andreas Idreos professorship in Science and Religion at Oxford, presented a historical view of the physicist, philosopher, and, yes, even religious Albert Einstein in a lecture entitled "If I were God...: Einstein and Religion". Brooke unpacked a complex picture of Einstein whose physical contributions seem to raise issues for Christian theology and views of God, but whose own personal religion was deeply connected with the practice, and limits, of science. The paradoxical, or perhaps even contradictory, nature of Einstein's views is revealed in his statement, "I am a deeply religious unbeliever." Einstein's understanding of God resists the categories many have tried to put on it. He was emphatically not an atheist, nor straightforwardly a pantheist, but still rejected the idea of a personal God. Brooke described Einstein as "his own man with his own God."
In looking at the implications of the general relativity for theology, Dr. Antje Jackelén of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and director of Zygon distinguished between theological eschatology and scientific cosmology but observed that they can have reciprocal relationships with the other. Theological eschatology deals with the meaning of the universe and the end of evil, while scientific cosmology is interested in the maximization or culmination of information. A scientific perspective can be shown to have deficits when contrasted with theology as well as vice versa. By holding theological eschatology and scientific cosmology in juxtaposition, Jackelén articulated a meaningful approach toward a dialogue between science and religion. While eschatology cannot do without the faith in the promise given by revelation, cosmology helps to purify theological eschatology from anthropocentric narrowsightedness. Einstein's contribution to cosmology by way of general relativity helps to bring out the interconnectness of humanity with the rest of creation as well as the dialectic between the "already and not yet" seen in the Christian faith of Biblical scripture. General relativity captures the flux and tension between the already and not yet as well as the potentiality of the future of the past, the future of the present, and the future of the future in the promises of God and the Divine initiative of a new creation.
Dr. Harvey Brown, lecturer in Philosophy of Physics at Oxford, asked what it was that Einstein really contributed with the theories of special and general relativity. He notes that Poincaré anticipated Einstein's relativity principle and, with Lorentz, had almost all of Einstein's equations. But it was Einstein that took the slowing down of the oscillation of electrons - the radiation of light from a light source - as a result of speed and generalized it to every object in space-time coming up with universal time dilation. Brown argued that while Einstein developed his theory of time dilation through imagining an ideal clock, his understanding of an ideal clock was not well-developed. Further, a complete explanation of quantum mechanics can only be made from quantum mechanics; the mechanics that describe these constitutions. Yet quantum mechanics gives trouble to the notion of an ideal clock. Brown then went on to make a case of how it was possible to get time dilation from mechanics. Time is just movement and all movement is connected to a path. Physics and mechanics do not say any point is important but look at what there is in the universe as a whole. And both distance and time are path-dependent. Brown observed that while "we have a feeling of 'now' today, the day before and the day before, this is not significant to physics."
Prof. Chris Isham from the department of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College, London addressed the challenges of quantum cosmology. Isham brought out the tension between an instrumentalist physics that sees measurement to bring a physical quantity 'into being' and a quantum cosmology that requires a cosmic observer without measurement. In the desire to have a realist interpretation, without exact measurement, Isham proposed a contextualised logic, where a truth value is dependent upon the context in which it is considered. Isham, along with Jeremy Butterfield, has proposed that Topos logic can allow for such a contextualisation by making context an object and, thus, giving propositions that are only "partly true" or "partly equal" under a string of measurements (in a context) and, thus, multi-varied. As he stated, "the truth values are all 'later' contexts in which the propositions are definitely true." This would allow for a non-instrumentalist quantum cosmology about reality itself.
Dr. John Polkinghorne, former president of Queens' College and professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Cambridge, in his talk "Space, Time, and Causality", commenced by observing that, while "our thinking is constrained by empirical knowledge", it is "not determined by it". What is determined requires metaphysical thought and belief. But Polkinghorne maintained that reality is real enough that we can account for scientific as well as moral and ethical reality. It is from this standpoint of being a realist about what it is that science can tell us, but being firmly committed to the reality of experience as well, then Polkinghorne launched into his discussion about Space, Time, Causation. About space, he noted that there is a lot we do not know, and about the flow of time he observed that mathematical physics has no way to register, but Polkinghorne stated that experience of temporality should be taken seriously. He observed, "you have to believe that mathematics and the physical sciences is all of reality to claim then that because it escapes mathematical representation it does not exist." Finally, Polkinghorne sees causality as being about the nature of the relationship between events and that this can occur within a block universe. He stated, "Causality is a matter of metaphysical decision". But for Polkinghorne, science describes the experiential world we inhabit and, therefore, the experience of temporality and of agency are irreducible. In conclusion, he looked at the coming together of matter in unique ways and in the forming of new behaviors as a sign that science is going to have to change the way it thinks about reality. What happens at the macro-level we inhabit is as real as what happens at the micro-level of physical analysis.
The Conference Banquet was held on September 14 in honour of the Revd Dr Arthur Peacocke's 80th birthday. In tribute to Peacocke, Brooke said his "achievements are legion and legendary" and applauded Peacocke's "signal contribution" both to the Science and Religion Forum - which he served almost without interruption from 1972 to 2001 as its chairman, Vice-President, and President - and to the Ian Ramsey Centre which he directed for the larger part of its history. The evening address was given by the Revd Dr Kenneth B Wilson, OBE who in expressing gratitude for Peacocke's leadership in the field of science and religion observed that he had been "at the right place at the right time" giving "the right word for the right moment". In response to these signs of appreciation, Peacocke stated, it is a "great uplift for me to see so many people interested in the areas for which I have struggled."
The final day of the conference commenced with a dialogue and discussion led by Isham and Polkinghorne on 'Can God Know the Future?' which highlighted where exactly they differed and where it was they agreed. Polkinghorne held that God does not know the future but is opening up possibilities and potentialities in his faithfulness to fulfil his promises. Isham responded that the idea of progression and the future is illusory, but that God, in his sympathy, experiences all that happens, including our illusions.
The conference concluded with a Plenary Session where the speakers entertained discussion and debate over the many topics the conference addressed. Questions were asked by the speakers and participants alike, with topics ranging from our ability to distinguish mental time from real time to whether determinism is applicable to space-time. The result was a rare inter- and multi-disciplinary discussion with experts engaging and integrating diverse topics and fields, encapsulating the character of this extraordinary conference.
Report by Jason Runyan and Justin Walker
