TruthBook Religious News Blog

By Hasan Zillur Rahim

Michael Heller, a polish theologian, cosmologist and philosopher, was awarded the 2008 Templeton Prize “For Progress toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities.”

In accepting the prize, professor Heller said, “Science gives us knowledge, and religion gives us meaning. Both are prerequisites of the decent existence. The paradox is that these two great values seem often to be in conflict. I am frequently asked how I could reconcile them with each other. When such a question is posed by a scientist or a philosopher, I invariably wonder how educated people could be so blind not to see that science does nothing but explore God’s creation.”

Heller wrote 30 books, almost all of them dedicated to the creative dialogue between science, theology, and philosophy. Heller’s seminal contribution was to see in these seemingly distinct realms of human understanding a profound synergy, and he used his considerable intellect and insight in clarifying the nature of this synergistic relationship for us.

Attention to Heller’s work comes at a critical time. Scientists such as Richard Dawkins and atheists/secularists such as Christopher Hitchens have declared a war on religion. Their books are best-sellers. Many religionists have responded in kind, polarizing the religion-science issue further. What we seem to overlook is that inflexible ideologies, both secular and religious, drive common senses away, a loss for all humankind. It is this loss that Heller is determined to stem, by engaging our collective common sense and without minimizing the complexity involved in reconciling the knowable scientific world with the mysterious, and ultimately unknowable, nature of God. Through a rare combination of scientific acumen and theological insight, Heller addresses fundamental questions of knowledge and meaning in a holistic context that go far beyond the parochial arguments of the secularists and the religionists. In doing so, he also rejects a “God of the gaps” theory that uses God to explain what science cannot.

Michael Heller’s concluding statement after winning the Templeton Prize for 2008 should become a basis for public discourse on religion and science in America and elsewhere: “When thinking about science as deciphering the Mind of God, we should not forget that science is also a collective product of human brains, and the human brain is itself the most complex and sophisticated product of the universe. It is in the human brain that the world’s structure has reached its focal point – the ability to reflect upon itself. Science is but a collective effort of the Human Mind to read the Mind of God from question marks out of which we and the world around us seem to be made. To place ourselves in this double entanglement is to experience that we are a part of the Great Mystery. Another name for this Mystery is the Humble Approach to reality … The true humility does not consist in pretending that we are feeble and insignificant, but in the audacious acknowledgement that we are an essential part of the Greatest Mystery of all – of the entanglement of the Human Mind with the Mind of God.”

Labels: 2008 Templeton Prize, God, Hasan Zillur Rahim, Michael Heller, religion, science

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Friday, March 14, 2008

Physicist-priest wins $1.7 million prize

March 13, 2008

A Polish physicist and priest has won the annual million-dollar Templeton Prize for “progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities”.

Michael Heller walks away with $1.7 million for investigating questions including whether the Universe needs to have a cause (press release). This is the largest annual prize given to an individual (just bigger than the $1.6m Nobel), and comes from the same foundation that has previously funded studies into whether prayer can heal the sick, and how a nun's religious experience looks under a brain scanner.

“I always wanted to do the most important things, and what can be more important than science and religion? Science gives us knowledge, and religion gives us meaning. Both are prerequisites of the decent existence,” Heller told the New York Times.

According to the London Times:

His theories do not so much offer proof of the existence of God as introduce doubt about the material existence of the world around us. He specialises in complex formulae that make it possible to explain everything, even chance, through mathematical calculation.

Physics World says Heller has worked on various branches of cosmology and mathematics, and is currently working on non-commutative geometry. From Physics Today:

Heller’s current work focuses on noncommutative geometry and groupoid theory in mathematics which attempts to remove the problem of an initial cosmological singularity at the origin of the universe. "If on the fundamental level of physics there is no space and no time, as many physicists think," says Heller, "noncommutative geometry could be a suitable tool to deal with such a situation."

He says he will use the money to set up a centre for the study of science and theology in Poland.

“He’s one of the key contributors in the international scholarly community dedicated to the creative dialogue on science, theology, and philosophy,” says Robert John Russell, director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley (Christian Science Monitor).

New Scientist’s Short Sharp Science blog admits to some unease about the Templeton Prize, about which it says: “It’s as if rather than fighting against science the way some religious factions - like creationists - do, they figure, we'll just buy science and use it for our own ends.”

Labels: cosmology, God, Michael Heller, religion, science, spiritual reality, Templeton Prize, universe