Regaining Sanity for the Earth

– Tom Uytterhoeven –

I’ve been reading Klaus Nürnberger‘s book “Regaining Sanity for the Earth” to write a review for the ESSSAT Newsletter. The book has some interesting proposals about the relation between science and religion.

• Science and religion need each other to pursue their ends: religion needs science to be relevant, science needs religion to be responsible.
• Through the interaction between science and religion we can find new solutions to the challenges our planet faces.
• The interaction between science and religion is in fact an interaction between science and faith. ‘Faith’ points to a basic trust, transcending any particular tradition:

„When speaking of the kind of faith needed by science, I do not refer to a particular conviction, creed, or theology. Faith is trust. To be more precise, it is self-entrustment to what is deemed the foundation, source, driving force, overriding purpose, value, or destiny of reality. Let me call this assumed supra-structure ‚the transcendent’ because it is no part of immanent reality, but its assumed precondition and valid direction.” (p. 16)

I wonder whether such a definition of religion manages to capture what is at stake for a member of any particular tradition. At the same time, it does seem to offer possibilities for broadening the religion-science debate to become a debate about metaphysical worldviews.