Ian Barbour connecting science and religion

After World War II the deadly possibilities of the Atomic Age raised questions that science couldn’t answer. the world had seen two horrible wars where lives of people were destroyed as if they where of no value. Man had chosen to play god with several experiments, trying to get a proper human Germanic race, destroying those which were seen as the unjust or as the haters of Jesus. Men had become playing for God, wanting to create there own justified world and taking the right to judge in their own hands.

Ian Barbour in his office in the chapel at Carleton College in 1999, when he won the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. In the 1950s, when Barbour began to promote discourse between the two fields, scientists had little tolerance for religion, and theologians had little interest in science. His was a lonely voice for rapprochement. (Jean Pieri, St. Paul Pioneer Press)

Born in Beijing, China the second of three sons of an American Episcopalian mother and a Scottish Presbyterian father, Ian Barbour spent his childhood in China, the United States, and England.  After completing his doctorate in physics he enrolled in Yale University‘s Divinity School and forged a career devoted to bridging the chasm between science and religion. Even before completing his divinity degree in 1956, he was appointed to teach in both the religion and physics departments of Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., in 1955. With his degrees in Theology and Physics, Ian Barbour explored the theological implications of science and methodological issues in both fields. In the 1970’s, he co-founded of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program at Carleton, which later became the Environment and Technology Studies program. He retired in 1986 as the Winifred and Atherton Bean Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology and Society, but continued to put his ideas on paper. He wrote or edited sixteen books. From 1989 to 1991, he gave the Gifford lectures from 1989 – 1991 at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and in 1999, he was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.

In the citation nominating Barbour for the 1999 Templeton Prize, John B. Cobb wrote

“No contemporary has made a more original, deep and lasting contribution toward the needed integration of scientific and religious knowledge and values than Ian Barbour. With respect to the breadth of topics and fields brought into this integration, Barbour has no equal”

Barbour pledged $1 million of the prize money to the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, an educational organization affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif.

Barbour claimed the basic structure of religion to be similar to that of science in some ways but also differing on some crucial points. Both being part of the same spectrum display ‘subjective’ as well as ‘objective’ features. The subjective include the theory on data, the resistance of comprehensive theories to falsification, and the absence of rules for choice among paradigms. Objective features include the presence of common data, evidence for or against a theory, and criteria which are not paradigm-dependent. The presence of subjective and objective features in both science and religion makes his thinking valuable and original. Barbour’s arguments have been developed in significant and diverse ways by a variety of scholars, including Arthur Peacocke, John Polkinghorne, Sallie McFague and Robert John Russell. His subjective / objective approach is prominent in the evolving paradigm of Religious Naturalism.

Critical realism could be seen as an alternative to the competing interpretations of scientific theories: classical or naive realism, instrumentalism, and idealism.

A critical realist perspective sees scientific theories yielding partial, revisable, abstract, but referential knowledge of the world that can be expressed through metaphors and models.

Director of the association’s Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, Jennifer Wiseman said:

“Scientists particularly have appreciated the humble and insightful ways he has considered how we imagine and model the unknowns in each realm.”

His book Myths, Models, and Paradigms (1974), which compared concepts and methods of inquiry in science and religion was nominated for a National Book Award.
Religion in an Age of Science (1990) and Ethics in an Age of Technology (1993), a two-volume set based on a series of lectures he presented in Scotland, received the 1993 book award from the American Academy of Religion.
He later published an updated and revised version of Religion in an Age of Science as Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues (1997). In When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners? (2000), translated into 14 languages, Barbour reviewed possible responses to the conflict between science and religion, ultimately concluding that the two are not mutually exclusive. In the book he looks at ‘Religion And Science’, The Beginning: ‘Why Did the Big Bang Occur?’, Quantum Physics: ‘A Challenge to Our Assumptions About Reality?’ and Darwin And Genesis: ‘Is Evolution God′s Way of Creating?’.

Barbour’s wife of 64 years, Deane Kern, died in 2011. Barbour suffered a stroke on December 20, 2013 at his home in Northfield, Minnesota, and remained in a coma at Abbott Northwestern Hospital until his death four days later. He is survived by his brother Hugh (Sirkka) of Sleepy Hollow, New York; four children, John (Meg Ojala) of Dundas, Blair of Oak Park, Illinois, David of Richfield, and Heather (Tom Eberhart) of Arlington, Virginia; three grandchildren, Graham Ojala-Barbour (Yinfei Wu) of Minneapolis, Alexandra Barbour Albers of San Francisco, and Reed Ojala-Barbour of Big Bend, Texas; and his great grandson, Edgar Deane Ojala-Barbour.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, January 18th, at 3 p.m., at Carleton’s Skinner Memorial Chapel with a reception following in Great Hall. Remembrances of Ian may be left in the comments below. The family’s obituary is available on the Bierman Funeral Home’s website.

Ian was a member of the First United Church of Christ in Northfield, where he was a steady worshiper and active member of his congregation. Ian left a wide and deep intellectual legacy, and he also led a life of great kindness and generosity. He was a humble man of deep faith, finding awe and wonder in the natural world, and great love and joy in his family and friends.

Ernest Simmons (Concordia College) wrote:

As a mentor and friend in the theology and science dialog, Ian opened a world of creative interaction for me and his groundbreaking book Issues in Science and Religion contributed to me becoming a theologian and committed to the dialog. He demonstrated that one could be a scientist and with intellectual and scientific integrity affirm the existence of God. My faith was sustained because of his reflection. No words can fully express the gentle kindness with which he approached others whether they be friends or detractors and modeled a way of intellectual and scholarly debate that was constructive to the field. Also, no words can fully express what he has meant to all of us in science and theology as a founder of the field. Blessed be the memory of Ian Barbour. We are all better persons for having been touched by such a gentle giant of an intellect housed in such a kind and caring human presence. Pax Aeterna my friend.

Takashi James Kodera ’69, Professor of Religion, Wellesley College; Rector, part-time, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hudson, MA, wrote:

May I share with all those who have known Ian Barbour my heart felt gratitude for his pioneering teaching and scholarship. Trained first as a physicist, and later in the academic study of religion, with an abiding commitment to the Quaker tradition, he spearheaded the field of “Science and Religion.”

When I took my first Religion course at Carleton as a “foreign student,” in today’s PC phrase “international student,” it was a course, team taught by Ian Barbour and Bardwell Smith. Due, in large measure, to my woeful language preparation, I did not follow the class proceedings very well. As a “courtesy grade,” as the put it, I received one of the lowest but passing grade.

What I remember of him is the rare combination of personal gentleness and intellectual acumen.

His beloved wife, Deanne, preceded him.

May their souls rest in eternal peace.

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Please Browse Inside Religion and Science by Ian G. Barbour

Find more articles on the relationship of Science and Religion

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Additional reading:

1. Ian Barbour dies at 90; academic who bridged science-religion divide
2. Ian Graeme Barbour  (October 5, 1923 – December 24, 2013)
3. Notices of the passing of members of the Carleton community: Ian Barbour
4. Ian Graeme Barbour (October 5, 1923 – December 24, 2013), American scholar on the relationship between science and religion.
5. Ian Barbour, in full Ian Graeme Barbour

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Science and Religion are portrayed to be in harmony in the Tiffany window Education (1890). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Templeton, who died in 2008
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