Religion & Science: Some Views of Friends (Quakers)
by Stephen Brock, Albuquerque, NM -- Fall 2000

Religion & Science:  Some Views of Friends
by Steve Brock, Albuquerque Meeting
Article appearing in Friends Bulletin, Jan. 2002

I am among those Friends who have long engaged in Quaker practice, without giving much attention to “belief.” Suffice it to say, I have been attending Quaker meetings for worship (of the liberal-unprogrammed variety) for more than thirty years and until recently, if the name Robert Barclay’ had been expressed in my presence, I would have wondered if he was related to Charles Barclay, the retired professional basketball player. The ardent historian Keith Hopkins offers some solace to me in this regard. He concludes his recent study of the early Christian church by observing that in the first centuries CE [Common or Christian Era] only a few elites were engaged in sophisticated theological arguments regarding rival versions of Christianity. “For most (of the folks who were Christians), being Christian may have mattered even more than believing.”2
Therefore, I am somewhat surprised that my experience of the last year has led me to conclude that liberal Friends will more likely assure the continuation of our society if we supplement our emphasis on being Quaker with greater attention to theological questions to which we have been mostly inattentive in the recent past.
What was that experience and how did it lead to this conclusion?
For the summer of 1999, I organized a nine-hour study group on the subject of “Science & Religion” at the Intermountain Yearly Meeting in Durango, Colorado for no other reason than a fledgling interest in the subject born of conversations with a member of my local meeting. In preparation for the conversations at Durango, we agreed to read Ian Barbour’s Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. In addition, I searched the literature for Quaker authors who have written about science and spirituality and prepared an annotated bibliography, which is available upon request.
Of the 41 articles and books that comprise the annotated bibliography “Religion & Science: Some Views of Friends,” I was able to acquire 30 of them. In order to encapsulate this range of Quaker thought, I will report on them as reflections on four theological themes:
1) the relationship between “spirit” and “matter”
2) ways of certain knowing,
3) images of God in Nature, and
4) the comparability of the scientists’ work and the Quakers’ practice.

Spirit & Matter
Regarding our first theme, the readings suggest a continuity of views among Friends from the earliest times to the modern day. Coudert tells us that the Quaker kabbalists of the middle 1600s (Anne Conway, Mercury van Helmont & George Keith) followed the ideas of Paracelsus in believing that matter was spirit at the more “congealed” end of a continuum—because God, who was Spirit, must have created the heavens and the earth out of spirit, since, after all, there could have been no “stuff” to make heaven and earth before God created it.3 It was this kind of issue with which early Friends, along with other Christians of their time, were constantly engaged; these were questions central to their lives. For the many, the depiction of creation and nature in the Hebrew Bible was understood to be an accurate rendering of historical reality and they felt compelled to relate this history to their contemporary world.
Along the same lines, in an expression of modern scientific understanding of “matter,” Rufus Jones in 1931 refuted the radical materialism of the nineteenth century philosophy with the remark: “The old ‘ball’ theory of matter has gone dead...matter turns out to be a complicated form of structural, concentrated energy in action.”
Arthur Eddington—the Quaker physicist best known for his work that provided empirical evidence in favor of Einstein’s theory of relativity (and a contemporary of Jones)—observed that “science is no longer disposed to identify reality with concreteness.”5 Both men subscribed to the view which Rufus Jones expressed in 1948: “Every new advance in the range of our knowledge makes it more certain that mind, spirit, and not matter [qua concrete] is ultimate”6 In fact, Eddington spent the last years of his life writing a text (published posthumously as Fundamental Theory) to give the scientific argument for the primacy of “spirit,” elucidating his view that “we interpret observed relationships as laws of nature, because of the structures of our minds”7 —and he wasn’t referring to the organ of the brain. (Both Jones and Eddington believed in a personal God.)

On certain knowledge
Many Quaker writers make the case for the certainty of the knowledge of the Light within. For instance, David Rust quotes Sylvanius P. Thompson—that scientific man and sincere Friend of the late 19th century: “Illumination of the divine life within the soul, the Christ within, the witness of the Spirit is a fact that science can neither explain or investigate.”8 Rufus Jones, along with other of the Quaker writers on science and religion, recollect Kant’s position: “Two things, he [Kant] used to say, filled him with unutterable awe, the stars above him and the moral law within him. “9
Kant was as certain of the inner compass as he was certain of the information of the world around him brought by his senses. Arthur Eddington makes the case for the “eye of the body” and the “eye of the soul” as equally important means by which we have access to reality.10
These ideas, like Brinton’s “validated mystical experience,”11 can be understood as expressing a Quaker gnostic* orientation toward illumination through self-reflection that has ancient origins and is reflective of a neoplatonic notion that only through intuition do we come to a full contact with reality for which the senses give only a limited grasp. This gnostic view was characteristic of scientifically oriented Friends of Fox’s day who were interested in medical practice. They subscribed to a variety of mystical schools of thought with an “emphasis on divine illumination as the source of medical learning.”12 And, in more general terms, early Quakers emphatically distinguished their religion from other Christian religions of the 17th century. The most famous Quaker theologian and contemporary of Fox, Robert Barclay, wrote:

When Christians are learned in all other methods of obtaining knowledge [of God]—whether it be the letter of the scriptures, the traditions of the church, or the works of creation and providence—and are able to produce strong and undeniable arguments from these sources, but remain altogether ignorant of the inward and unmediated revelations of God’s Spirit, they ought not to be considered Christians.13

Images of God
Barclay’s second proposition defined Quakerism by giving emphasis to the Spirit as the means by which God is revealed: 14

....divine inward revelations are considered by us to be absolutely necessary for the building up of true faith. But, this does not mean that they can, or ever do, contradict the outward testimony of the scriptures, or proper and sound judgement.
This being the case, what have Quakers learned of God through this direct and unmediated revelation of the Spirit? And, more specifically to our interest here in Science & Religion, what is revealed of God’s relationship to nature?
Barclay makes clear that it is the God of the Christian scriptures that early Friends were waiting upon as they gathered in worshipful anticipation of the Spirit.
These Friends conceived God as “an all-powerful fatherly being, who created the world at the beginning of time, steers the world through its course according to his own chosen purpose and faithfully helps those who turn to him for help.”15
This depiction of God, called the “Magnus” image by Miles, is regarded as metaphorical by both him and Rex Ambler and reflects the view that, as Ambler concludes: “It (God) is after all only a word.”17
This post-modern view of God as “only a word would” have been quite foreign to earlier Friends like Graceanna Lewis (a 19th century Quaker naturalist) who looked to understand God by reading the book of nature. Graceanna gave public lectures aimed at religious people who were struggling with Darwin’s ideas, trying to tie in the development of the animal kingdom with God’s foreordained design of the universe.18
Brinton and Jones, in a later period, also made use of “evolution” in a way which tilts it toward a developmental model from primitive to higher life forms. Jones posits an upward pull by the Word (Logos) as follows:

Creation develops not by bringing about uniformity but by creating diversity which then requires a greater degree of integration. These integrated organic wholes then respond to the upward pull of the divine Logos to form an integrated whole on a higher level. 19

The inward and unmediated revelation of God has lead Friends to an earth-friendly position. Brown’s mysticism, for example, transformed her civic motivation for care of the earth into a religious motivation, adopting a pantheistic view of nature as God’s body.20 Kelley depicts the ecological orientation of Friends as resulting from a transforming of theology. As Kelley sees it, in Fox’s generation Quakers shared the Puritan hierarchical view of God’s dominion over people and people’s dominion over the beasts of the field and the creeping thing. Then,

Quaker theology led from mysticism to...a renunciation of fleshly snares, a cultivation of Christian humility, and eventually to an emergent doctrine of custodianship in the gentle husbanding of the earth’s...fragile life.21

The writers who discuss the effects of Quakerism on William Bartram’s naturalistic studies which were published as Travels (1791) point to an intriguing question about Quaker theology.22 Both Ambler and Miles (above) have observed that language about the divine is always metaphorical since language about the divine can only point inadequately to that to which it refers. Clarke goes further, asserting that Quaker’s have maintained a self-conscious apophatic** theological tradition:

…an attitude of mind which refuses to form concepts of God. Such an attitude utterly excludes all abstract and purely intellectual theology which would adapt the mysteries of the wisdom of God to human ways of thought. It is an existential attitude which involves the whole man [sic]: there is no theology apart from experience...23

I think that Clarke’s claim for a Quaker apophatic tradition results from a misreading of Quaker history. Why is it, as the historian Cooper points out, “...that Quakers are not given to speculation about God?” 24 The theology-aversive attitude of modern liberal Friends seems more likely to have developed from a drift of opinion rather from a conscious orientation regarding theology. The short description of that drift might look something like this: early Friends shared an assumption with other Christians, that scripture offered an accurate history of God’s relationship with all of creation. Over time, science and historical research raised questions about the warrant of scripture as history and has suggested the need for a theological re-thinking of the nature of God and of the relation of the Divine to nature. For many Liberal Friend’s, there is no sense of urgency in this call to “re-think,” since they are not aware that they are inheritors of a religion whose first theologian Barclay used biblical arguments to show the primacy of the authority of Spirit, of direct and unmediated revelation, while giving detailed arguments for the importance of the authority of scripture and reasoned judgment.
In brief, those for whom the distinctive feature of Quakerism (personal experience of the divine) has become its only feature, will find it inconsequential that “...the progress of science may greatly clarify our ideas about what kind of God we have a right to expect to find in the universe...It will help us to eliminate child-minded and primitive conceptions of God.”25

The compatibility of science and Quaker practice
By far the most frequently addressed theme is that of the compatibility of science with Quaker practice. It comes in many forms. From Eddington it takes the form of his affirming that the search for the truth is the aim of both.26 Stated in negative terms: “there is a real connection between this (Quaker) dislike of a lie and the scientific impulse.”27 Regarding the search for the truth, Sutton and Lonsdale both remind us of the query: “Are you loyal to the truth and do you keep your mind open to new light, from whatever quarter it may arise?” 28
In addition to the shared aim of truth-seeking, both science and theology use models,30 and Quakers have an openness to unexpected results. A belief in continuing revelation suggests that “nothing is fixed, nothing is static” and the authority of personal experience permits a low level of tension between science and religion compared with that in other religions.”31 (This may be evidence of a kind of benefit of an underdeveloped theology in liberal Quakerism.) Others find a correspondence between the scientific and spiritual creativity33 and between the scientists’ sense of awe in the presence of nature and the Quaker’s spiritual reverence for nature.34
Given the nature of the kinship between science and Quaker practices, it was not surprising to read Sutton’s assertion that; “On the whole, Quakers (as scientists) have been experimentalist and indifferent as theoreticians.”35 Such a generalization is in keeping with the largely unconvincing assertion of Bames that the “practical competence of Quakers....(was)...largely responsible for laying the foundations of modern science and the Industrial Revolution.” 36

A Personal Observation
“Many things may contribute to the furtherance of a work without being the essential thing that makes the work go on” (Barclay’s Apology, p.23)
The “work” that concerns me is that which is necessary to foster a vigorous, sustainable, Quaker faith and practice as we experience it in the liberal tradition. It is also work needed for articulating a vision of our religion to folks of other religious persuasions, or none at all – a vision that distinguishes it beyond our affirmation of “that of God in everyone.”
What is the compass of such a vision? Barbour, in our time, tells us that while all theological visioning starts with historical revelation and personal experience, “it must also include a theology of nature that does not disparage or neglect the natural order.”37 Likewise, Barclay, in Fox’s time—after arguing for the primacy of inward and unmediated revelations of God’s Spirit—also recommends applying “proper and sound judgment” along with attending to the “letters of scripture, the traditions of the church, (and), the works of creation.” So, our contemporary vision will continue to give precedence to the authority of our direct experience of the Divine – “the essential thing that makes the work go on.” But, we are well advised to supplemented this essential thing with many things which may “contribute to the furtherance of the work” - knowledge of the Bible and other texts which illuminate our experientially-validated and scriptural-based belief in the Light, or Christ, within each of us, attention to our historical roots, and a more highly developed conception of the relationship of the Divine to Nature.
Such a Quaker vision would stand in marked contrast to the Christian perspective that dominates the present scene, one which gives precedence to the authority of sacred text and church tradition over that of direct experiencing of God. Such a vision – a more fully developed theology of liberal Quakerism – would propose an attractive alternative to the current version of Christianity that offers both an outdated Magnus image of God—the God of the televangelists – as well as to the Biblical view of creation/nature which is incredible to those seeking “the kind of God [which modern science leads us to believe] we have a right to expect to find in the universe [one which will]... eliminate child-minded and primitive conceptions of God.”
I am grateful to those Friends whose writings on science and religion are mentioned here, apologizing for any misrepresentation of their views that results from the limits of my understanding, and to the Western Friends who are continuing the conversation these writers have prompted. p

Notes
1. Freiday, Dean, ed. Barclay’s Apology in Modern English. Newberg: OR: The Barclay Press, 1967. (The “Apology” represents the theological justification for Quakerism presented by a contemporary of George Fox.)
2. Hopkins, Keith. A World Full of Gods: The Strange Triumph of Christianity. New York: The Free Press, 1999.
3.Coudert, Allison P. The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century: The Life and Thought of Francis Mercury van Helmont (1614-1698). Boston: Brill, 1999.
4. Jones, Rufus. Pathways to the Reality of God. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1931, 83-84.
5. Eddington, Arthur S. Science and the Unseen World. London, New York: Macmillan Co, 1929, 50.
6. Jones, Rufus. A Call to What is Vital. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949, 138.
7. Batten, Alan H. “‘A Most Rare Vision’: Eddington’s Thinking on the Relation Between Science and Religion.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 1994: 35, 249 ff.
8. Rust, David Murray. “Scientific Man and Sincere Friend: Sylvanius P. Thompson.” Friends Quarterly, 1974: 18:7: 289-306.
9. Jones, 235.
10. Eddington, Arthur S. Science and the Unseen World. London, New York: Macmillan Co., 1929: 49.
11. Brinton, Howard H. Evolution and the Inward Light: Where Science and Religion Meet. Pamphlet #173: Wallingford, PA, 1973: 26.
12. Elmer, Peter. Medicine, Science, and the Quakers: The “Puritanism-science” debate reconsidered. Journal of the Friends Historical Society 54, 1981: 286 (see also, Courdert, 1999).
13. Freiday: 22
14. Freiday: 4 and 15.
15. Ambler, Rex. End of Words: Issues in Contemporary Quaker Theology. London: Quaker Home Service, 1994: 5.
16. Miles, T. R. Speaking of God: Theism. Atheism and the Magnus Image. York England: Sessions of York, 1998.
17. Miles: 25.
18. Bonta, Marcia. “Graceanna Lewis: Portrait of a Quaker naturalist.” Quaker History 74(l), 1985: 36-37.
19. Brinton: 21.and Jones (1931).
20. Brown, Judith. God’s Spirit in Nature. Pamphlet #336, Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications, 1998.
21. Kelley, Donald B. “The evolution of Quaker theology and the unfolding of a distinctive Quaker ecological perspective in 18th-century America.” Pennsylvania History, 1985, 52: 247.
22. Clarke, Larry R. “The Quaker background of William Bartram’s view of nature.” Journal of the History of Ideas. 46(3), 1985: 435-448. See also Silver, Bruce, and Clarke on the “Quaker background of William Bartram’s approach to nature.” Journal of the History of Ideas. 1986: 47(3): 507-510.
23. Clarke: 439.
24. Cooper, Wilmer A. A Living Faith: An Historical Study of Quaker Beliefs. Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, 1990;
25. Jones: 52.
26. Burnell, S. Jocelyn. (1985) “Our Most Distinguished Astrophysicist” Living in the Light Volume 2, Leonard S. Kenworthy, ed. Philadelphia: FGC: 22-35.
27. Lonsdale, Kathleen: 175.
25. Sutton, Richard. Quaker Scientists, 13th Ward Lecture, Guilford College, North Carolina, 19 October, 1962.
29. Lonsdale, Kathleen. “Science.” The Quaker Approach to Contemporary Problems. John Kavanaugh, ed. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
30. Rust, David Murray. God in the Universe: Twentieth-Centurv Quakers Look at Science and Technology. Woodbrooke Occasional Papers 3. London, Friends Home Service Committee.
31. Burnell, S. Jocelyn. “Quiet Path, Quiet Pool” from Spiritual Evolution: Scientists Discuss Their Beliefs. John Marks Templeton and Kenneth Seeman Giniger, eds. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 1998: e19.
32. Lonsdale, Kathleen. The Christian Life Lived Experientiallv. James Hough, ed. London, Friends Home Service Committee, 1976.
33. Schwab, Calvin W. Quakerism and Science. Pendle Hill Pamphlet 343,: Wallingford, PA, 1999.
34. Court, Donald. (1965) “A Scientific Age and a Declining Church: What Has a Friend to Say.” The Friend September 24, 1965.
35. Sutton, Richard. Quaker Scientists, 13th Ward Lecture, Guilford College, North Carolina, 19 October, 1962.
36. Bames, Kenneth C. From Chaos to Creation. York England: Sessions of York, 1993.
37. Barbour, Ian. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997.
 

Quaker related bibliography

Notes: A caution is suggested regarding the annotations which appear here. You will probably learn as much about Brock-as-reader as you will about the texts. The texts for which there is no annotation have been unobtainable to date.
"QUIP" stands for Quakers United In Publishing, an Internet access which permits searches for works of Quaker publishers. "Eureka" is an academic search engine.
1. Ambler, Rex. (1994) End of Words: Issues in Contemporary Quaker Theology. London: Quaker Home Service. (QUIP reference)
Taking his cue from a quotation of Isaac Pennington "The end of words is to bring men to a knowledge of things beyond what words can utter", Ambler reworks a series of talks he gave in the summer of 1992 at Woodbrooke touching on contemporary issues in Quaker theology.
In the section "Interpreting the historical Jesus" Ambler observes that Friends have transformed the biblical "...cosmic drama of salvation, spanning human history, into an individual drama of experience, The great external events of God’s history with men and women as told in the Bible, were internalized. The creation of humans in innocence, the fall of humans into sin and despair, the appearance of Christ as prophet and savior, the liberation from sin and evil, and the hope of glory in the kingdom of God - all these great events were now to be experienced within human beings."(p.19) He concludes this topic by suggesting: "We can, on the one hand, appreciate much more fully the human experience of Jesus who, as Fox liked to say, was inspired by the same spirit that moves us, only more so. On the other hand we are free to see the image of Christ as a symbol of our own profound experience..."
In the section "Images of God", he reflects: "There is no doubt that the word ‘God’ represents what we as Quakers are after, even if some of us are not at all happy with the use of the word."(p.22)
The basic image of God, in the west, is the image of an all-powerful fatherly being, who created the world at the beginning of time, steers the world through its course according to his own chosen purpose and faithfully helps those who turn to him for help. As a father is to an ancient tribe, so God is to the world. But this idea has been seriously challenged in the last few hundred years as human beings have learnt to take control of the world themselves. The sons have rebelled against the father, and more recently the daughters have too.... This is a metaphor, of course, but I think it touches the deeper level of changes that have taken place since the rise of modern science and modern democracy, which has so deeply affected religion (p.23)
Ambler concludes: "God is part of the story we tell about ourselves in order to convey something of the depth and mystery and creative power that we experience among ourselves and that we are hoping to trust and act upon in the conduct of our lives. God is a metaphor for the kind of reality that cannot be talked about directly and literally, certainly not in scientific language, or in rational philosophy either. But it is not a metaphor that we absolutely need for experiencing and responding to the reality it is supposed to be referring to. It is after all only a word."(p.25)
2. Barnes, Kenneth C. (1993) From Chaos to Creation. York England: Sessions of York. (QUIP reference)
On page 50 of the 51 page booklet, Barnes tells us that he "submitted the draft of this essay to much-loved friends for objective criticism. The general thought was that it comprised widely different interests too loosely connected together." They were correct, but rather than edit, he offers a justification regarding the limits of "certainty" in the "musings of philosophers" which may satisfy some readers.
One of his "musings" (which isn’t developed fully) is his reading of chaos-theory which points to any system’s "sensitive dependence on initial conditions." In systems which are characterized by an unstable initial condition, the influence of a small variable in the system can be highly influential in effecting a new order; an effect much larger than it would have in a stable system. He then applies this notion to social conditions of George Fox’s England, to account for the large effect on the society of the founding of the Religious Society of Friends. The "...seeds of Quakerism were everywhere, waiting for the moment of chaotic challenge -- and a new order."(p.17).
He goes on to make the claim that the "practical competence of Quakers... (was) ...largely responsible for laying the foundations of modern science and the Industrial Revolution" (p.18). He then extracts many facts from Arthur Raistrick’s (1950) Quakers in Science and Industry to justify his claim "...that a burst of coherent and intrepid activity can emerge from a condition of chaos; and it did happen that the innovative emergence of Quakerism closely parallel (sic.) the development of modern science both in time and nature" (p.36) Barnes suggests that two strands in Quaker history are independent; "...the tendency of Quakers to gaze into the mirror of their own spirituality..." and "...material contributions to the nation’s prosperity..." (p. 18).
3. Batten, Alan H. (1994) "A Most Rare Vision: Eddington’s Thinking on the Relation Between Science and Religion." Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 35, pp. 249 ff.
I am grateful to Batten for this review article which provides an informed assessment of Eddington’s attempt to uncover the "truth" to which both science and religion pointed. As Eddington (who was a world renowned Quaker astronomer early in the 20th century) said: "You will understand the true spirit of neither science nor religion unless seeking is placed in the forefront."(p.251)
In trying to put into words, the "mystical" experience with which he was familiar, Eddington suggested that in it "...it would be that our minds are not apart from the world...our deeper feelings are not of ourselves alone,..."(p.252) On page 253, Batten puts Eddington’s "project" into perspective:
Reality, Eddington maintained, was inscrutable, and ultimately spiritual in nature. If this be granted, it follows that both the everyday and the scientific descriptions are in some sense the creation of spirit (or mind) and this is the source of Eddington’s belief that the laws of nature, and particularly the fundamental constants (or dimensionless ratios of them) could be found non-empirically by studying the way the mind works....
We learn about the objects around us through our senses and by reasoning from past experience. We recognize that our senses can deceive us and that our reasoning is fallible, so like Eddington , we accept that the objects around us may not be, in all respects, what they appear. In scientific study, we refine our senses by using carefully calibrated instruments, and our reasoning by applying mathematics. Most scientists are satisfied that in so doing they have removed the obvious sources of illusion and errors: many deny reality to anything that cannot be studied in those ways. Eddington, however, stressed that by using instruments all observational facts were reduced to pointer reading, and that to translate these into objective properties always required inference - sometimes a very long train of it. He further maintained that analysis of pointer readings, and the relations between them, depended on the structure of our minds [here, Batten points to the analogy that Barbour quoted] Just as a fisherman with a coarse net might come to believe that a law of nature set a minimum size for fish, so we interpret observed relationships as laws of nature, because of the structure of our minds. ...Eddington wrote:
....all of the laws of nature that are usually classed as fundamental can be foreseen wholly from epistemological considerations. They correspond to a priori knowledge, and are therefore wholly subjective. (p. 253)
The detailed working out of these ideas, as far as Eddington could complete it before his death, is in the posthumous book Fundamental Theory (1946), but the vast majority of scientists has not accepted his reasoning.
4. Benfey, Theodor. Friends and the World of Nature. 15,20; Anthony Benezet to Samuel Allison, 25th Day, 2nd Month, 1767, Allison Papers, 968, Box 6, Number 41, Haverford Quaker Collection, Haverford College, Haverford, PA. (referenced in Kelley)
5. Bonta, Marcia. (1985) "Graceanna Lewis: Portrait of a Quaker naturalist." Quaker History 74(1):27-40. (Eureka reference)
Thwarted in her attempts to join the academic ranks, Graceanna (1821-1912)came to "accept her role...as a popularizer of natural history. Her lectures and the charts she designed to illustrate them appealed strongly to non-scientists, particularly her efforts to tie in the development of the animal kingdom with God’s foreordained design of the Universe. While her belief in God’s purpose in creating man was ‘to multiply beings attuned to the Divine Nature, destined to an immortal existence in the midst of his everlasting harmonies,’appealing to the common, religious, people of the day who were still struggling to fit Darwin’s ideas into a religious context..."(p.36-37).
In her paper "Science for Women" Lewis expressed the view that "there is an appointment by nature for a special work, and there must be a loss in the sum total of human welfare if the work be either left undone or transferred to other hands"(p.35)
Bonta sums up: "Graceanna Lewis, Quaker spinster and all-around naturalist, had lived a vital, productive life according to her religious beliefs, and she remained convinced until the end that ‘a reasonable acquaintance with the object of nature may be a fitting preparation for our advancement in eternity’."(p.40)
6. Brain, W. Russell. (1944) Man, Society and Religion : An essay in bridge-building. London, Published for the Woodbrooke Extension Committee by George Allen and Unwin. (Referenced in Clark & Elkinton)
7. Brinton, Howard H. (1973) Evolution and the Inward Light: Where Science and Religion Meet. Pamphlet #173, Walingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications. (QUIP reference)
Taking their cue from Christ's description of His followers, the early Quakers considered themselves to be in the world but not part of it. Brinton says they were adopting an ethical code committed to bringing into existence the Kingdom of Heaven, a code which was dangerous for them and thought to be, at minimum, impractical. "This essay is intended to show that in the long run it is practical, for if the Christ spirit, which is exhibited most clearly in Jesus of Nazareth, is the Creator, then reconciliation is God's method of creation and marks the survival of the fittest throughout all life."(p.9).
Brinton's mention of science is quite limited and his contribution is really more in giving the reader an idea of the biblical bases of the early Quaker cosmology (John's gospel and the epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians ). He does treat "evolution" in a way which tilts it toward a developmental model from primitive to higher life forms and offers a conception of creation as the process of reconciliation of pre-existants rather than an act of bringing-into-existence. The image he returns to often is that of an upward pull by the Word (Logos) to wit: "Creation develops not by bringing about uniformity but by creating diversity which then requires a greater degree of integration. These integrated organic wholes then respond to the upward pull of the divine Logos to form an integrated whole on a higher level."(p.21) He goes on to describe how the single human cell contains the plan for the whole, while the "first cell in history contained God's Logos, or plan of creation, which ... was - and still is - an active creative power, the Christ Spirit."
After a rather off-hand argument about materialism in science, a materialism which is contradicted by "validated mystical experience", Brinton says that in Jesus "the word became flesh in him completely, but it also becomes flesh to some extent in every human being." (P.26) Here he returns to a theme which he mentioned earlier and which gave me great comfort: "To be 'perfect' in the Quaker sense meant to live up to one's measure of the Light, however small it might be." (p. 9)
He begins his "conclusion" with an "either or" construction, pitting Logos philosophy against scientific materialism and makes the obvious choice. He then makes scads of diverse observations (as he has throughout) in the service of some points that may be related somewhere in his consciousness... but remain illusive to me.
8. Brown, Judith. (1998) God's Spirit in Nature. Pamphlet #336, Walingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications. (QUIP reference)
Ruminations by a dedicated gardener whose care for the earth has come to be spirit-led where once it resulted from a civic mindedness are summed up: "So the love of nature, the seeing nature as God’s body and all creatures in nature as equal, sets up whole realms of questions...mysteries. Life is richer for the mysteries."(p. 28) One of the mysteries she ponders is the meld of order and beauty along with destructive chaos in nature -- in God’s body.
9. Burnell S. Jocelyn. (2000) "Knowing Experimentally: Quakerism in a Scientific Age. " Friends Bulletin. 71:8:3-5. (Full text at http:members.aol.com/friendsbul/Friendsbulletin.html)
In this brief presentation, Burnell recasts some of her ideas on the compatibility of Quaker practice with the scientific orientation (see next entry) as well at touching on the "problem of suffering" which was the subject of her Pendle Hill Pamphlet, Broken for Life. On the issue of God’s relation to human suffering, she finds no really satisfying explanation but she "likes to think God grieves with us when we grieve and suffers along side of us when we suffer." (p.3)
10. Burnell, S. Jocelyn. (1998) Quiet Path, Quiet Pool, In John Marks Templeton and Kenneth Seeman Giniger (Eds.) Spiritual Evolution: Scientists Discuss Their Beliefs. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press. (H. Selter’s book)
The astronomer and Clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting finds a parallel between the scientist's attitude toward experimentation, with its openness to unexpected results, and a Quaker process like that which is undertaken to periodically revise a Faith & Practice, a process based on Friends belief in continuing revelation implying "that nothing is fixed, nothing is static"(p.19).
The emphasis given to the authority of personal religious experience for Friends, makes it possible for her to avoid a tension between science and religion felt in some denominations because, as she says, "my denomination allows me to draw my own boundaries.."(p.22). She seems to feel quite comfortable in leaving only partially reconciled her understanding of cosmology and her beliefs about the deity ("We articulate and explain our innermost experiences in a framework and language. Mine happens to be broadly Christian because Christianity is where I started, by accident of birth."( p.21). For example, her theology doesn't rely on such "proofs" of the existence of God such as the scientific finding that "Life can only exist in the universe if the values of a number of physical constants are simultaneously set with narrow bands..therefore there must be a God who set it all up...."(p.23).
11. Burnell, S. Jocelyn. (1985) "Our Most Distinguished Astrophysicist" In Leonard S. Kenworthy (Ed.) Living in the Light Volume 2. pp.22-35, Philadelphia: FGC.
The title makes reference to the sentiment of his fellow scientists at the time of Eddington’s death. This brief biography of Eddington does not give any special insight into his vision of the relationship between science and religion other than quoting "You will understand the true spirit neither of science nor of religion unless seeking is placed in the forefront" and "If we claim that the experience which comes to us in our silent meetings is one of the precious elements that make up the fulness of life, I do not see how science can gainsay us." So "seeking" is key, and there are limits to what science can ascertain.
12. Clark, Robert A. and Elkinton, J. Russell. (1978) The Quaker Heritage in Medicine. Pacific Grove CA: The Boxwood Press.
Clark and Elkinton chronicle the work of early Friends who were physicians in psychiatry and in medicine "who had a deep religious faith in the power of the indwelling God" (p.35) which directed their work with the spiritual and physical needs of patients. They conclude with a look to the future whose great dilemma will (here they quote) "require the recognition that love - in the largest sense of its mystical power - and all the consequences that flow from it, is a necessary ingredient of the whole man and of the abundant life" (they offer no citation for this quotation) (p.73) It can be inferred that it is the experientially validated "truth" of God as Love that links science and religion in the work of these practitioners)
13. Clarke, Larry R. (1985) "The Quaker background of William Bartram's view of nature." Journal of the History of Ideas, 46(3): 435-448. (Eureka reference)
In an exchange of articles with Silver (see below), Clarke argues for the prominence of Bartram’s Quaker affiliation as influencing his view of nature and of God. Clarke wants to show that in contrast to his contemporaries (those Deists like Shaftesbury who "built his philosophy upon the idea of nature as a grand creating and regulating system" [p. 436]), Bartram’s "religious and moral observations arise from his examination and contemplation of the phenomenon of nature."(p.436). This orientation was made possible by the negative or "apophatic" theology of Quakers. Clarke traces this apophatic approach to Dionysius the Areopagite whose theology was described by Lossy:
Apophaticism is not necessarily a theology of ecstasy. It is, above all, an attitude of mind which refuses to form concepts about God. Such an attitude utterly excludes all abstract and purely intellectual theology which would adapt the mysteries of the wisdom of God to human ways of thought. It is an existential attitude which involves the whole man (sic): there is no theology apart from experience, it is necessary to change, to become a new man (sic). (p.439)
So, Bartram as Quaker, was not drawn to examine nature in light of any particular "positive" construction of the attributes of the deity. "The value of an apophatic approach to theology is that it allows one to grasp truth intuitively and at the same time to avoid absolutizing the products of one’s own mind"(p.447) In addition, Clarke argues, the Quakers had a more positive attitude toward nature than did contemporaneous Protestants, believing that "man (sic) could come to an experiential knowledge of God through nature" (p.440) pointing to George Fox’s "opening" as describe in his Journal. For Friends, scientific study "had the virtues of being useful, of exercising the mental powers, and, by revealing God’s plan in the natural world, of promoting a reverent frame of mind" (p.442)
From these Quaker orientations, Clarke argues (and Silver disagrees) that Bartram experienced God and nature in the same manner "directly, not through a web of concepts."
Either Clarke or Silver is correct about the influences on Bartram, but we are grateful to both for informing us about the history of Quakers and the relationship of science and religion.
14. Collier, Howard E. (1953) "Health and Healing." In John Kavanaugh (Ed.) The Quaker Approach to Contemporary Problems. (Ed.)New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. (referenced in Clark & Elkinton)
Developing what becomes a tone of voice one often associates with physician-certainty (a quality once described by fellow-physician Jung as "overcompensated doubt"), Collier begins:
Two simple but profound insights lie at the heart of Quakerism and produce the special characteristics of the typical Quaker approach to my problem ("health and healing"), namely: the affirmation of the unity of all life experience: and the affirmation that the experimental way is the only royal road to a knowledge of truth, right, conduct. To the Quaker, the distinctions between natural and supernatural, secular and sacred, are differences of quality and of degree, and are not absolute differences of kind or nature. (P.183)
From these propositions, Collier goes on to demonstrate that in care for the ill, being "experimental" takes the physician (qua scientist-healer) into the breath of the lived experience of illness: (the physical, the psychological, the spiritual). As he points out: "As Ambrose Pare once said; ‘I dressed his wound, but God healed him.’ No one who has not learned this ancient truth can ever become a healer."(p.191).
15. Coudert, Allison P. (1999) "The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century: The Life and Thought of Francis Mercury van Helmont (1614-1698)"  Boston: Brill which contains a revised version of her (1992) chapter "Henry More, the Kabbalah, and the Quakers" in Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England 1640-1700, (eds) Richard Kroll, Richard Ashcraft, and Perez Zagorin. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. (Eureka reference)
Van Helmont...studied alchemy, chemistry and medicine...and was arrested and imprisoned by the Inquisition. Although born a Catholic, he became the most famous (or infamous) Christian Kabbalist of the seventeenth century. Even more shockingly (from both a religious and social perspective) he converted to Quakerism for a short period on the mistaken assumption that the Quakers would accept his kabbalistic belief in universal salvation (through the transmigration of souls over a thousand year period).
Van Helmont, who interacted such important figures as John Locke, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, George Fox, William Penn, Henry More, and Anne Conway (Coudert devotes an entire chapter to "Anne Conway: Kabbalist and Quaker"), subscribed to what has been termed "the third component of western culture," which along side Greek rationality and biblical faith played an important part in shaping the western intellect.
This third component claimed the middle ground between pure rationality and doctrinal faith, emphasizing the importance of gnosis or the inner enlightenment that comes from true self knowledge. This current has surfaced periodically in western history, becoming especially strong during the Renaissance with the emergence of the synthesis of Neoplatonic, Hermetic, and kabbalistic philosophy characterizing Renaissance occultism....which helped to lay the groundwork for the Enlightenment.
16. Court, Donald. (1965) "A Scientific Age and a Declining Church: What Has a Friend to Say". The Friend (September 24). (reference in Clark and Elkinton)
"Acceptance of a changing yet dependable universe [revealed in science]...is the first foundation of my faith" (p.1141). So begins this biologist/physician’s response to the question posed in the title of his article. "Reverence for life...is the second foundation of my faith" based on his appreciation of the evolutionary dynamics by which "in time matter evolved life." Along with the reverence for life in general comes a particular reverence for humanity, learning to understand the darker side of persons as well as "our conscious reason" (p.1142).
After affirming another dimension to human nature -- the spiritual -- he goes on to describe his belief in God, as both personal and as the more abstract "whole" deserving of reverence and the role of Jesus in his faith. This is the Jesus as presented in Brinton (my claim not his) with an emphasis on Jesus as having been what Court calls, by analogy, "a highly developed example of the species..." (P.1142) or in Brinton’s terms a human being who possessed a full measure of the Christ-spirit; a spirit that resides in some measure in each of us.
The rest of the piece is devoted to his enumerating the ways in which his participation in the Religious Society of Friends supports and enhances his worshipful reverence for "the universe, for life and for man" (p.1143).
17. Dowell, Harold. (1990) Christianity on an Evolutionary Perspective. Quaker Universalist Group. (QUIP reference)
18. Eddington, Arthur S. (1929) Science and the Unseen World. London, New York: Macmillan Co. (Referenced in Clark & Elkinton)
By tracing the distance that is traveled from the stimulus of any of the senses to the "site" where an interpretation is rendered by the mind to register the particular reality of the sensual world, Eddington gives us to understand that the world of scientific observation is no more self-evident than is the direct human experience of the unseen world in mystical experiencing. "What I...attempt [in this lecture] to dispel is the feeling that in using the eye of the body or the eye of the soul, and incorporating what is thereby revealed in our conception of reality, we are doing something irrational and disobeying the leading of truth which as scientists we are pledged to serve."(p.49) This attitude can rest, in part, on the understanding that "science is no longer disposed to identify reality with concreteness."(p.50).
On his view of the relationship between science and religion, he says; "It is probably true that the recent changes of scientific thought remove some of the obstacles to a reconciliation of religion with science; but this must be carefully distinguished from any proposal to base religion on scientific discovery. For my own part I am wholly opposed to any such attempt. We have learnt that the exploration of the external world by the methods of physical science leads not to a concrete reality but to a shadow world of symbols [mathematics], beneath which those methods are unadapted for penetrating...Reasoning leads us from premises to conclusions; it cannot start without premises."(p.73)
Eddington finds the idea of a Personal God more attractive than the kind of abstract God of creation (ground of being) because; "Force, energy, dimension [terms describing the Abstract God] belong to the world of symbols; it is out of such conceptions that we have built up the external world of physics. What other conceptions have we? After exhausting physical methods we returned to the inmost recesses of consciousness, to the voice that proclaims our personality; and from there we entered on a new outlook. We have to build our spiritual world out of symbols taken from our own personality, as we build the scientific world out of the symbols of the mathematician."(p.82).
He finds a correspondence between the science and religion when the "spirit of seeking" is manifest. He, as have other Quakers who have approached this topic, makes it clear that the "findings" of religion "tarnish rapidly except it be preserved with an ever-renewed spirit of seeking"(p.88) Science and religious seeking are harmonious, Science is not compatible with religious creeds. He concludes by reminding us of the prefix to the 1656 Advices of the Society of Friends. "These things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by; but that all with a measure of light, which is pure and holy, may be guided; and so in the light walking and abiding, these things may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not in the letter; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." (p.90).
19. Eddington, Arthur S. (1928) The Nature of the Physical World. New York: The Macmillan Company.
20. Elmer, Peter. (1981) Medicine, Science, and the Quakers: The "Puritanism-science" debate reconsidered. Journal of the Friends Historical Society 54: 265-286. (Eureka reference)
Elmer reminds us that the connection between the rise of Quakerism and that of the "utilitarian natural philosophy of Francis Bacon" (p.265)-- a connection celebrated in an impressionistic fashion in some other texts I have annotated here - is part of the larger historical question of the role of Puritanism in the development of Science. While many historians have suggested an enthusiasm of Quakers for the kind of science-of-direct-observation of the Baconian sort, Elmer sets out to show that the Quakers were eclectic in their attitudes and subscribed to a variety of more mystical schools of thought with an "emphasis upon divine illumination as the source of medical learning" (p.286). The mystical sciences (as I think about what Elmer says) were in line with the cabalistic outlook in which "reason" is appreciated as an important means for understanding reality, but it is a means inferior to that understanding derived from divine inspiration. "...Quaker attachment to these ideas was probably reinforced by the eirenic implications of the hermetic approach to the study of nature which Frances Yates [historian] has described as ‘the effort to avoid doctrinal differences, to turn from them to the exploration of nature in a religious spirit’."(p.281)
By looking specifically at medical practice and the competition between the Galenic and Helmontian medical theories of that period, Elmer concludes that mainstream puritan physicians were antagonistic to both religious tolerance and scientific innovation. By implication Elmer suggests the more cogent relationship between the non-doctrinal religious views of Friends and scientific innovation with an optimistic, mystical cast.
21. Evans, David S. (1998) The Eddington Enigma: A Personal Memoir. Xlibris Corporation Publisher.
This self-published book, written by a physicist who knew Eddington slightly from Evan’s days as a graduate student, is often embarrassingly self referential. For example, "My hopes of publication were, perhaps, impaired, all unknowing to both of us, by the publication by my good friend, Alan H. Batten (see above)..."(p.11). The enigma to which the title refers, asks why it was that so celebrated a figure as Eddington should be so ignored in subsequent generations.
While he doesn’t come close to an answer that I can discern, he does summarize the concluding list of issues from Eddington’s The Nature of the Physical World which seemed to Eddington to deserve philosophical consideration:
(1) The symbolic nature of the entities of physics is generally recognized: and the scheme of physics is now formulated in such a way as to make it almost self-evident that it [entities] is a partial aspect of something wider.
(2) Strict causality is abandoned in the material world... This relieves the former necessity of supposing that mind is subject to deterministic law or alternatively, that it can suspend deterministic law in the material world.
(3) Recognizing that the physical world is entirely abstract and without ‘actuality’, apart from its linkage to consciousness we restore consciousness to the fundamental position.
(4) The sanction of correlating a ‘real’ physical world to certain feelings of which we are conscious, does not seem to differ in any essential respect from the sanction for correlating a spiritual domain to another side of our personality (p.127-128).
22. Gould, Lisa L. (1999) Caring for Creation: Reflections on the Biblical Basis of Earthcare. Friends Committee on Unity of Nature.( QUIP reference)
Having agreed to give a series of talks on the subject, Gould resisted the inclination or the "urge to do what would have been, for me, the easy route: the academic approach"(p.1) which would have entailed reading what "real Bible scholars have to say on the subject"(p.2). Instead she read the Bible for a year, centering down and seeking the Light. The result is commentary along the these thematic lines: "celebration", "humility", "connections", "right relationship", and "stewardship". I wonder what would have resulted from the "easy route?" Why was I not surprised to find - among these jottings - a stereotypical expression of the Native American life in balance nature?
23. Hemming, James. (1987) Century of Surprises. Leicester, Eng. : Quaker Universalist Group. (QUIP reference)
24. Jones, Rufus. (1949) A Call to What is Vital. New York: The Macmillan Company. (referenced in Sutton)
Jones was prompted to write this, his final book, by the request of a weighty Friend who was concerned that scientifically-oriented college students of the day were disenchanted with religion by the perceived irrationality of traditional renderings.
By asserting that persons are "endowed with a transcendent spirit...furnished with a capacity for communion with an ultimate Divine Reality" (p.40) and by pointing to St. Paul's admonition to his churches to (in Jones' words) "have an instinct for what is vital."(p.126) Jones argues that a Christian spirituality can be developed to celebrate eternal truths which are "freshly apprehended" and which do not contradict the unfolding findings of science. While much of Vital takes a dualistic stance (e.g. the body is the result of a completed evolution, and now the development of the spirit has its moment); a stance which would suggest separate domains for science and religion, Jones suggests an ultimate melding of the two: Every new advance in the range of our knowledge makes it more certain that mind, spirit, and not matter is ultimate." (p.138).
Much of Vital is devoted to a fresh "reading" of scripture and to illustrating the history and forms of mystical human experience all of which point to "Love to be love must be revealed in a person, who exhibits it, and awakens it, and is love."(p.106). Jesus, in this regard, Jones ventures, "We have seen God [love] revealed in Christ. I wish now that we might learn to see the divine possibilities of man (sic) revealed in Christ." (p.109).
25. Jones, Rufus. (1931) Pathways to the Reality of God. New York: The Macmillan Company. (H. Selter’s book)
In this book, written nearly twenty years before Vital, Jones deliberates at more length on some similar topics in science & religion. In the concluding chapter on "God of Philosophy" he offers a condensation of western philosophy which I found extraordinarily useful. It is especially useful in revealing the historical roots of Jones view of the relationship of science to religion as two kinds of knowing. His recollection of Kant's view seems to equate to Jones' stance: "Two things, he used to say, filled him with unutterable awe, the stars above him [revealed in mathematical science] and the moral law within him [human capacity for discerning what Jones has called "the cosmic spiritual Companion" (p.235)] (p. 237).
Jones, ever optimistic and enthusiastic, argues that the scientific method which aims at description and explanation of "parts" can never lead to comprehension of the "whole": to wit; "Beauty and love and unselfish goodness lie as much beyond the scope of syllogisms as God does."(p.53). Nevertheless, "...the progress of science may greatly clarify our ideas about what kind of God we have a right to expect to find in the universe...It will help us to eliminate child-minded and primitive conceptions of God...we shall expect to find unvarying order, enduring wisdom and intelligent purpose in the God of our new faith."(p. 52).
His conclusion from his understanding of then contemporary astronomy: "The natural is blossoming into the spiritual. The moral victory is in evidence, is in process, as certainly as is gravitation or electrical energy."(p.68). In this regard, he later remarks, "The old 'ball' theory of matter has gone dead (p.83)....matter turns out to be a complicated form of structural, concentrated energy in action."(p. 84).
His views of "blossoming" are carried over into his discussion of biology and evolution: "The main miracle is that we have finally arrived, that we have become persons and can now reveal spiritual traits and engage in spiritual adventures."(p.78). At the time he was writing there had been several phases of response to evolution theory. In the first instance there had been revulsion at the idea that the mechanism by which evolution is achieved has to do with chance and matter. At a second phase, books were written to offer theories of alternative (non-materialistic) mechanisms for evolution. Jones takes comfort in the texts that point to "leaps" in evolution (evolution as a "growing and creative process") rather than the slow adaptation ("mechanical recombination"). While the debate about mechanisms of evolution taking place in the 1920's offered materialistic vs. non-materialistic competing theories, my inadequate understanding of the current and ongoing debate in biology manifests competing materialistic scientific explanations.
 26. Kelley, Donald B. (1985) "The evolution of Quaker theology and the unfolding of a distinctive Quaker ecological perspective in 18th-century America." Pennsylvania History. 52: 242-253.(Eureka reference)
Kelley traces the development of the Quaker ecological perspective from the time when George Fox and early Friends shared the Puritan’s hierarchical view of God’s dominion over men and women and the dominion of people "over the beasts of the field....and all creeping things"(p.243) "....Quaker theology led from mysticism to a heightened appreciation of the spiritual primacy of God over the ephemeral, carnal world, to a renunciation of fleshly snares, a cultivation of Christian humility, and eventually to an emergent doctrine of custodianship in the gentle ‘husbanding’ of the earth’s perishable goods and fragile life."(p.247) While some writers have pointed to an tradition of the neoplatonists like Thomas a Kempis who were read by the learned Friends (Woolman, etc.), Kelley credits the developing ecological view to the experiential/mystical communion with the divine which resulted in a "...vision of man in harmony with God, in concordance with himself and with all men, in balance with his environment....and in ecological equilibrium with all God’s ‘beasts’ and ‘creeping things’."(p.249).
27. Lonsdale, Kathleen. (1976) The Christian Life -- Lived Experientially. James Hough (Ed.) London, Friends Home Service Committee. (Referenced in Clark & Elkinton)
Hough devotes four pages to selections from the writings of the chemist (crystallographer) Kathleen Lonsdale on the subject of science and religion (she offers a more extended statement about "science" as a chapter in John Kavanaugh’s The Quaker Approach to Contemporary Problems.) Hough selects snippets of writing, many of which reflect themes we see in other Quaker scientist’s views. For instance, the first piece concludes her comments on science as the approach to understanding the material world and inward experience as giving access to the divine by referring (without citation) to Kant’s view of the certainties he found in the "starry heavens above" and the "moral law within" (p.34). The next snippets suggest that it is only the "fixed ideas of dogmatic religion" that are repellent to scientists just as are fixed scientific ideas about the world (p.34) and that just as scientists knows that in pursuit of the truth along some particular line of inquiry that wrong turns and retracing of steps is likely, so in religion one can "...without intellectual dishonesty, embark on a life of Christian service" (p.34) and discover a firmer foundation along the road. As she says in the concluding snippet "If we know all the answers there would be no point in carrying out scientific research. Because we do not, it is stimulation, exciting, challenging. So too, is the Christian life, lived experimentally. If we knew all the answers it would not be nearly such fun" (p.37). In keeping with her Quaker heritage, Lonsdale finds "that personal experience of God, however limited, is far more convincing than reason..."(p.35)
28. Lonsdale, Kathleen. (1953) Science. In John Kavanaugh (Ed.) The Quaker Approach to Contemporary Problems. (Ed.)New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. (referenced in Clark & Elkinton)
Lonsdale begins by making the case for the "close parallel between the attitude of Quakers toward authority and experience in religion and the attitude of modern science" (p. 164) In this regard, after talking at length about the way the Quaker testimonies heighten a Quaker scientists sensitivity to matters such as "secrecy" and truth-telling, she quotes H.G. Wood (a Quaker by inference) to the effect "there is a real connection between this dislike of the lie and the scientific impulse" (p.175). In terms of parallel attitudes, she mentions the Query which includes the question: "Are you loyal to the truth and do you keep your mind open to new light, from whatever quarter it may arise." She offers a brief history of Quakers as scientists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; their practical concerns and their international vision for science, taking to heart the pledge of Fellows of the Royal Society to apply their studies "to the further promoting by the authority of experiments the science of natural things and of useful arts, to the glory of God the Creator and the advantage of the human race" (p.165).
Making the case that science -- while an important means for acquiring the truth -- can only illuminate part, not the whole of experience. The direct experience of God is, for Quakers, outside the proper scope for science. It is this experience that Friends are sure about although not dogmatic about. Quakers, as religious persons and as scientists, recognize the ever emergent nature of an unfolding truth. In this regard she uses another familiar trope, that of the preface to the 1656 Advices which recommends that the advices be "fulfilled in the Spirit not in the letter; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" (p.178)
29. Miles, T. R. (1998) Speaking of God: Theism, Atheism and the Magnus Image. York England: Sessions of York. (QUIP reference)
Miles gives an account consistent with the conclusions of Ambler (above) and to the Quaker tradition of an apophatic approach to God, cited in Clarke (above). In his conceptual analysis, Miles wants to reframe the way in which theism relates to atheism. He makes the distinction between "standard" truth (such as 2+2=4) and "profound" truth which "involves reflection on the issues which have to do with life, death, and human destiny"(p.2) and claims that "religious" language should always be understood as conveying "profound" truth and not "standard" truth. In other words, religious language is always metaphorical.
The "Magnus" (Latin for ‘big’ or ‘great’) image of God, is that of a "non-material" and "supernatural" being "who made the world and is now in charge of it."(p.5). Miles wants to show us the inadequacy of the usual form of the distinction between the theist and the atheist, the distinction which is hinged on the answer to the question: "Do you believe in the existence of God?"
I shall argue that many of the apparently irreconcilable disputes over ‘the existence of God’ have arisen because the issues have been presented in ‘Magnus’ terms. What I want to put in the place of such disputes is an appreciation of the profundity of religious language and a plea for ‘the way of silence’. This latter is in effect a recognition that any attempt to express religious truths in words must in the last resort be inadequate. This idea has played a significant part in Christian thinking in the past... (p.5)
His concluding remarks make his position clear:
Magnus has been defined as a being who is supernatural and non-material, However, since there is no word in the bible that translates as either ‘supernatural’ or non-material readers who reject the Magnus image are not rejecting anything biblical. In addition, since most modern readers will be quite happy to say that God does not literally have a right hand, I hope it will not be too difficult a step for them to allow that expressions such as ‘exists’ and ‘causes things to happen’ should not be taken literally either. This would in fact be a recognition that it is demeaning to God to suppose that any description in human terms could be adequate. (P.85)
30. Porter, Charlotte M. (1983) "Edward Hicks reads the Book of Nature." Earth Sciences History: Journal of the History of the Earth Sciences Society. 2: 91-96. (Eureka reference)
In looking to explain the pictorial elements in Edward Hicks’ many depictions of the Peaceable Kingdom, Porter suggests that they were a kind of mental hygiene (a medical theory then current). The paintings expressed his wish for a kind of harmony in direct contrast to the emotional turmoil which Hicks experienced at the time of the upheaval in the Religious Society of Friends associated with the ministry of his older cousin Elias Hicks. As Hicks’ reveals in his memoirs "May the melancholy be encouraged and the sanguine be quieted; may the phlegmatic be tendered and the choleric humbled...the wolf also dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid."(p.95)
The other principal aspects of the paintings, the "geological wonder (the natural bridge) with human action (Penn’s Treaty) and divine promise (the child) ...reiterates the parallelism to the Noachian deluge found throughout Isaiah..."(p.94) Hicks’ reading of the "Book of Nature" was conditioned almost exclusively by his reading of scripture. One can imagine that his cousin’s emphasis on the more experimental tradition of Friends (the authority of the Inner Light) was problematical for one for whom scripture was so authoritative.
31. Roberts, Arthur O. (1996) Messengers of God: the Sensuous Side of Spirituality. Barclay Press. (QUIP reference)
To the best of my recollection, Roberts is the only writer among those listed in this bibliography who treats the human "senses" in a fashion other than as the means by which (with the discipline of "method") science is able to make claims about what is true of the world.
In relating the senses to spirituality, Roberts offers a triangular schematic with "intuiting", "reasoning", and "sensing" at the points and with the center of the triangle identified as "logos". "With the Logos (Christ) drawing us toward the center, demonic temptations at the periphery can be overcome...The periphery is demonic at all points outside the [triangle]. Conversely, holiness occurs all around the rim [of the triangle], as long as the Center holds within the orbit of truth. The physical senses can become messengers of God when they connect in useful tension with both the divine center of truth and with reason and intuition."(p.16-17) Thus, disciplined senses are spiritual resources.
The rest of the book treats each of the senses: hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching to find what is "Godly" in each instance.
32. Rust, David Murray. (1973) God in the Universe: Twentieth-Century Quakers Look at Science and Technology. Woodbrooke Occasional Papers 3. London, Friends Home Service Committee.(Referenced in Clark & Elkinton)
Chemist and educator Murray-Rust, offers a short version of Barbour and is most helpful in describing a reasonable ground for optimism regarding a "dialogue" between theologians and scientists.
(There is, what I take to be, a humorous typo on page five where he describes a discredited duality in which "...man [was] regarded as having a soul which inhibits his body during his earthly life.")
He makes much of the use of "models" in both science and theology and the reliance on both logical thought and intuition in both forms of deliberation. It is recent science to which he devotes himself mainly and to the application of "indeterminacy" (given the indiscernible boundary between "living" vs. "inanimate", "plant" vs. "animal", "wave" vs. "particle", "matter" vs. "energy") to thinking about God. The other crucial aspect of science has to do with scientists preference for talking about "behavior" and observation; to wit, rather than saying what something "is" the scientist tells what behavior is observed under the conditions of the observation. He uses these perspectives from modern science to argue in his concluding chapter that "The personal God [Deu ex machina] and the cosmic God ["ground of being"] are not distinct, incompatible views. (p.55). "The activity of God need not be expressed in a uniform manner in all situations. God is involved in personal relationships with man, but also in physical situations such as the transfer of one electron to another....The nature of the reaction or response (God's behavior) depends on the nature of the approach."(p. 53).
In an early chapter on the findings from science regarding evolution, he concludes that human beings are part of the animal kingdom "but he [human being] is more.".
33. Rust, David Murray. (1974) "Scientific Man and Sincere Friend: Sylvanus P. Thompson." Friends Quarterly. 18:7:289-306(Referenced in Clark & Elkinton)
This is a terrific introduction to the thought of a Quaker physicist/educator who lived 1852-1916 and contributed significantly to Quaker thought about science and religion. (Unfortunately the few publications that he produced are extremely difficult to get hold of. Guilford College’s special Quaker collection has some that are in such delicate condition that they seem reluctant to photocopy).
Thompson introduced ideas to be later found in the works of Eddington. Where Thompson was writing before the findings of quantum mechanics and relativity theory, (and thereby couldn’t make the connections which Eddington made regarding the non-material nature of matter in relation to "mind"), he did make the case for the tradition of Friends’ thought as sympathetic to the scientific method: "The habit of accurate thought and speech, of letting yea mean yea and no more, which is characteristic of Friends, is one that the scientific method tends ever to strengthen."(p.302). In addition to finding Quaker habits to be harmonious with the methods of science, Thompson points out that: "Illumination of the divine life within the soul, the Christ within, the witness of the Spirit is a fact that science can neither explain or investigate."(p.301)
34. Schwab, Calvin W. (1999) Quakerism and Science. Peddle Hill Pamphlet 343, Wallingford, PA: Peddle Hill Publications.
"From the vantage point of years [of medical research and Quaker practice] I can reflect upon an inwardly satisfying life in which science and Quakerism reinforced one another as sources of inspiration and outlets for service. From my experience, I affirm that science and Quakerism...have more in common than does science with other avenues of religious expression..."(p.3). "My epiphany was that the processes of scientific creativity and spiritual creativity [when, towards the end of a Meeting for Worship, a Friend's oral ministry weaves together a message that knits together all previous seemingly-disparate ones] that connected a gathered meeting and the creative leap in a research scientist's mind are remarkably similar. Both can yield valuable syntheses...by responding to some mysterious subjective awareness to chance juxtapositions of experiences." (p.5).
35. Silver, Bruce. (1986) "Clarke on the Quaker background of William Bartram's approach to nature." Journal of the History of Ideas. 47(3): 507-510. (Eureka reference)
In an earlier article published in this journal Silver had written about the naturalist William Bartram’s eighteenth century travel writings and Clarke (see above) wrote an article arguing that Bartram’s views were greatly influenced by his Quaker affiliation and, by way of introduction, notes that "Silver does not raise the question". In response to Clarke, Silver hastens to show that "my omission was not a lapse of scholarship."-- I’m not sure Clarke suggested it was -- Anyway, Silver seems to be compelled to show that Clarke was overstating the influence or getting it somehow wrong. Along the way Silver does make reference to deist writings that gives finer distinctions to the difference Clarke asserts lies between the deist’s views and that of Bartram. For example, Silver points to John Toland "the deist author of Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) [who] defended the Biblical account of miracles and argued that miraculous intervention is entirely consistent with divine rationality and perfection. Later thinkers like Paine and Jefferson argued that God would not use miracles to achieve his ends, but neither denied that God could modify or interrupt the order of nature. If, therefore, Bartram and the deists disagreed about God’s direct involvement in nature, they disagreed about what God might do and not about what God can do. But it is wrong to exaggerate the disagreement." (P.509) Picky Picky
36. Sutton, Richard. (1962) Quaker Scientists. 13th Ward Lecture, Guilford College, North Carolina, 19 October. (Referenced in Clark & Elkinton)
From a survey of Quaker scientists and from a reading of prior surveys and from some historical sources, Sutton concludes: "On the whole, Quakers have been experimentalist and indifferent as theoreticians." (P.11). It will not surprise the reader, therefore, that the Quaker scientist Sutton "leaves to others better versed in religion and science to discuss the interrelation of science to the winds of doctrine..."(p.4) He does make some claims about the compatibility of Quaker practice to the personal style associated with scientists. He points to the idea of "continuing revelation" and the Query of London Yearly Meeting, "Are you loyal to the truth and do you keep your mind open to new light, from whatever quarter it may arise." as illustrative of the experimental nature of Quaker practice and its fit with scientists dispositions. (He makes no mention of the epistemological problems regarding the "truth" that arise from diverse forms of inquiry.) He believes scientists are in tune with Quakers’ "high regard for the physical world as the outer vestment of God." He estimates that there is a greater prevalence of scientists among Quakers than is their distribution in the general population. He concludes the lecture with a lengthy discourse on the ethical responsibility of Quaker scientists to participate in "strategic planning" for peace.
37. Thompson, Silvanius P. (1918 ) Not an Impossible Religion. (2nd edition) London: John Lane. (referenced in Sutton)
38. Thompson, Silvanius P. (1917) The Quest for Truth. (Swathmore lecture) London: Published the Woodbrooke Extension Committee by Headley Bros. (referenced in Sutton)
39. Thompson, Silvanius P. Can a Scientific Man be a Sincere Friend ? (1895 presentation at Conference of Society of Friends in Manchester, Eng. (referenced in Sutton)
40. Thompson, Silvanius P (with others) (1915?) Science and religion, by seven men of science ... speakers in Browning hall during science week, 1914 ... London: J. Johnson
41. Walker, Richard. (1991) Vistas from Inner Stillness. Pamphlet #299, Wallingford: Peddle Hill Publications. (QUIP reference)
He begins:
In the human being a restlessness, a certain stirring in the brain, can cause us to feel there is more to the universe than we what we sense with instruments or reason from the stimuli to our senses. I feel that restlessness, and I have come to the sense it is caused by a collective consciousness in the universe that beckons me to a realization that we are one with all the elements of creation to which I am called, ever so subtly to listen.(p.3)
Walker’s personal experience is echoed in Raymo’s Skeptics and True Believers, where he says: "When the world as it is is humbly, skeptically ensconced in our minds and hearts, we will have made ourselves the instruments of the universe’s self-reflection."(p.222) And later, "On this speck of cosmic dust, planet Earth, the universe has become conscious of itself."(p.246)
This orientation toward the relation of humanity to the universe is the central theme of Swimme & Berry’s The Universe Story: To wit:
...we have a new understanding of the sequence of transformations that have been taking place over the past eras to shape the galaxies, to fashion the elements, to gather the solar system together with its array of planets, to churn together those awesome materials that make up the Earth, the inner and outer core, the mantle, the asthenosphere, the lithosphere, the upper crust through eruptions over the Earth, the violent storms that passed over the planet in its early period, then too the shaping of the seas and continents, the atmosphere and its oxygen, the coming of life in all the diversity of its plants and animal forms from the simplest virus to its most elaborate expression, then the emergence of the human and the sequence of human developments across the planet. Even our most recent modes of scientific understanding of this immense story are themselves the latest phase of the story. It is the story become conscious of itself in human intelligence. (P.237)
On page 11, Walker borrows a story from Herbert Young in which Young’s father is quoted with his answer to an atheist: "That man" father said, "Claims there is no proof of the existence of God. Such a declaration can have been made only through a lack of study, lack of observance, lack of compassion, and lack of hope. How can any man of reason and ordinary intelligence not have seen a power beyond chance in the wonders of nature, in the delicate and gorgeous flowers, in the beautiful and fruitful trees...and most wonderfully , in the form, abilities , and powers of man (sic) himself.?" [I am reminded of Miles (see above) on the subject of the difference between atheists and theists, and can imagine that the person to whom this response has been given, to have made a claim for the non-existence of God as the Magnus image].
Walker describes the response of a Friend with whom he shared his recollection of a mystical moment in his past when, on a hot and still summer night, he heard the sound of corn growing. "Mary said, ‘It’s like a crystal radio set. Isn’t it? Your put the earphones on and then ever so gently, silently, with great expectancy seek, with a Cat Whisker, a spot on that lead crystal, which connects you to the universe. ...The signal is always there, but you have to block out all external sensations to hear it. The signal is so faint, but distinct, it seems to come from a depth inside us. Yes, yes! and that’s what the Light is like too, a far distant, signal that only seems weak; yet, it is so clear and distinct when we listen with all we have."(p.5) [Here is an analogy with weight for me.]
 

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