Science, Religion and Ecology

	Book review on Weaving the Cosmos by Chris Clarke (2010) Reviewed by David Lorimer, 2011 published in Network Review No 106
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This is Chris' third and most ambitious book, bringing together his principal interests in science, religion and ecology on both a personal and intellectual level. He speaks as a mathematical physicist who has a firm grasp of the history of science and religion but who has also established an intimate connection with Nature, especially with trees in the woodlands near his home. As the title suggests, the aim is to bring together complementary aspects of reality and ways of knowing: science and religion through ecology, intuition and rationality through wisdom, matter and spirit through being. He also makes use of the myths of Psyche, Pan and Eros, and Apollo, Gaia and Artemis to represent the struggle for unity-in-difference at the individual and cosmic levels. And he adds to this mix an analysis of context-dependent logic, also represented as a triad, where the third term provides a reconciliation of the first two. The major task for contemporary humanity is to become more aware of and embody these complementary aspects of reality and existence.

Chris covers an impressive range of issues and his overall vision is of 'a new sort of humanity inhabiting a restored earth', involving a new story to live by which is at once passionate, credible and transformative. Humanity is both ingenious and collectively irresponsible, and the stakes could not be higher. So a new vision and story is imperative, as Thomas Berry and Matthew Fox have also argued. Stephan Harding in his Animate Earth has articulated a similar need to reconnect with Nature as a way of redefining our relationship with the Earth. For Chris, the essence of religion is unity and love, but narrower understandings have tended to predominate in the form of propositional assent to creeds. This reflects the kind of God criticised by Dawkins (Chris sympathises with this) which, as he points out, is just the kind of 'petty God of factual propositions' that Meister Eckhart also wanted to get rid of over 700 years ago. We find this sense of love and unity in all types of mystical experience, representing the deeper levels of religion where we gain a greater insight into wholeness. We are arguably evolving in this direction where Chris defines love as 'the desire to enter into and participate in a greater whole', and the ultimate definition of religion as 'willed and discerning participation in the mutual love of the greatest whole.'

Both science and religion have their structures of authority and orthodoxy represented by councils. Chris picks Nicaea in 325 and the Fifth Solvay Conference in Copenhagen in 1927 as paradigmatic. This leads into a discussion of the history of spirit and matter going back to Plato and bringing us once again to Eckhart and his profound understanding of being, which can be experienced in silence. The next chapter addresses logic, introducing the ideas of Matte Blanco on symmetric and asymmetric logics and the logic by which we live, which he calls biologic. The operation of these various logics is context-dependent where the contexts are constantly changing and overlapping and Gödel's realm of the unprovable constantly eludes our capacity to grasp it, as is also the case with the Greek notion  of aletheia, truth that is constantly disclosing itself.

Chris introduces into his discussion of quantum theory the work of Frederic Parker-Rhodes, an early Member of the Network whom he met in Cambridge. One of his books was The Theory of Indistinguishables, where he argues that the features of the fundamental entities in physics become progressively fewer so that there is literally nothing to distinguish one electron from another; in which case what does it mean to say that two electrons have changed places? Parker-Rhodes further proposes that the state reached by uncovering the fundamental entities of physics and the deepest centre of mystical experience is also indistinguishable and he calls this the inchoate. I suspect Eckhart and perhaps Bohm would have concurred. The dynamic of this system is one of emergence and creativity representing the unfolding of being and the apprehension of meaning.

The final two chapters bring us back to humans and ecology; also to the reconciliation of intuitive and rational ways of knowing as a way of redefining our relationship with the Earth beyond that of a detached observer and artful manipulator. The current environmental crisis encourages us to come to a new and harmonious relationship with the Earth and there is some evidence that this is already happening with socio-ecological movements such as the Transition Town Movement. It is here that ecology can help heal the rift between science and religion through the development of an 'ecological self' embedded in practice as well as theory. These help people acquire a deeper sense of love and unity. It is not inevitable that humanity will rise to our current challenges but we certainly have the capacity to do so, and Chris' book is an important intellectual and practical contribution to this emerging process that deserves to be widely read.

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