A recent scientifically and historically grounded theory on human genetic and cultural evolution suggests why the religious elements of culture became the primary source of both peaceful cooperation within societal ingroups and at the same time of destructive wars with outgroups. It also describes the role of religion in the evolution of ape‐men into humans. The theory indicates why human societal life is not long viable without the underpinning of a healthy, noncoercive, religious faith; why sound religious faith is weak (...) now; and why we may hope both for better morals and for worldwide cooperation in peace. (shrink)

Abstract.The values which guide mental and physical behavior seem to be derived from evolutionary facts. In our brains, selection of genes has tied the experience of pleasure to motivating what nature requires us to do for the good of ourselves, our kinsmen, and our ecosystem. When our brains evolved to house also a cultural heritage (including religion, the motivation of sociocultural goals, and rational discourse), hellish tensions could arise to split brain function (minds) and societies. Salvation could and did come (...) from natural selection's replacement of discordant elements in our heritages by better coadapted ones. In this replacement, human rational decisions participated. Selection also continued to adapt these symbiotic heritages to their common environment. (shrink)

Spirituality emerges in the function of culture to reinforce and yet redirect our genetic heritage. Our genes urge us to be concerned only for our own welfare, which can turn us to evil behaviors. Our religious traditions urge us to engage in behaviors of transkin altruism. These religious traditions have been selected for in the processes of natural selection. The challenge to spirituality is to discern the fundamental dynamics of the evolutionary processes, both genetic and cultural, that have created us (...) and to direct our behaviors in ways that can be beneficial to the entire natural system. Reason is not enough; we must also cultivate spiritual discernment in order to perceive the true nature of our situation and the best responses that are called for. The religious communities have the major responsibility for cultivating the spirituality that can achieve the most adequate discernment. (shrink)

Presented and discussed the gist of this paper at the Twentieth Summer Conference (“The Humanizing and Dehumanizing of Man”) of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, Star Island, New Hampshire, July 28–August 4, 1973. “We wish to express our indebtedness to Ralph W. Gerard, Eleanor Fish Emerson, Helen Fraser, Calla Burhoe, George Riggan, and Gertrude Emerson Sen for assisting with the preparation of the manuscript, providing references, and, most important, discussion of the concepts and evidence,” (...) the authors note. (shrink)

I concur with Williams that improving human ethics requires full consideration of the biogenetic facts; but I argue that the understanding of biogenetic facts, and of ethics also, can be improved by a fuller view of nature's mechanism for selecting what is fit, a view recently generated by physical scientists. For me ethics necessarily must fit the evolved genotype, but ethics does not emerge until the rise of cultural evolution, where nature selects a culturetype symbiotic with the genotype. I outline (...) my integrated dynamics of the relation of culturetypes to genotypes and to the laws governing physical systems. The biologist's finding that a living organism is of transient significance compared with its lines of heritage and their consequences, I argue, is constructively important for ethical and theological understanding. (shrink)

. This brief piece summarizes the author's lifelong personal credo, particularly his attempt to translate traditional religious wisdom into modern scientific concepts. Contemporary science reveals to us the vast system of natural processes that has brought the universe, our planet, and our species into existence. This natural system is in fact a “more‐than‐human ‘Lord of History,’” corresponding to traditional ideas of God. This Lord of History not only has created us but also sustains us—not just externally but also our interior (...) psychic and spiritual nature. We are challenged to discern the requirements that this system of natural processes places upon us; if we conform to these requirements, we shall be blessed, and we will be enabled as co‐creators of our future evolution. (shrink)

Ralph Burhoe developed his proposals for a social reformation at a time when the “two cultures” debate was still active. It is suggested here that Burhoe, sharing with his contemporaries an understanding of culture that was Western and normative in character, overlooked the distinction between the culture of the elites and popular culture, and consequently between religion as presented by theologians and church officials and popular religion. Therefore, his proposals for the revitalization of traditional religions, even if (...) implemented, would not work. Some contradictions within his own program are pointed out, and the social role of the sciences after World War II, as well as the ambiguities of their presence in the so-called underdeveloped nations, is analyzed. As a positive conclusion, it is suggested that Burhoe's main contribution should be sought, not in his outline for a social reformation, but in his role as an organizer of the dialogue between religion and science. (shrink)

This paper begins with some reflections on my personal experiences with Ralph Wendell Burhoe during visits to the Chicago Center for Religion and Science. I learned to know Burhoe as an interested and kind person with enormous intellectual power. In this paper I argue that integration of different concepts was the chief focus of his thinking, expressing both an ethical and a dogmatic concern. If his theory of altruism contributes to the scientific investigations into the problem (...) of trans‐kin altruism, then his vision of a scientific theology gains credibility. Such an integration is made plausible through the interpretation of altruism in light of Christian love. In fact, Burhoe's neonaturalistic approach may be a fertile resource for the dialogue between science and theology in Germany, and serve as an exemplar of Burhoe's important impact on this dialogue in general. (shrink)

This fifth and final installment from the author's book‐length study of Ralph Wendell Burhoe's life and thought covers the period 1966–1987, and it concludes with a summary of his thought. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science began publication in March 1966, the same year in which the Center for Advanced Study in Theology and the Sciences (CASTS) was founded. Both the journal and the center were made possible by Meadville/Lombard Theological School. After a brief period of flourishing, (...) CASTS was succeeded in 1972 by the Center for Advanced Study in Religion and Science (CASIRAS). Burhoe married Calla Butler in 1969, two years after his first wife, Frances, had died. He retired from Mead‐ville in 1974. The Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion was awarded to Burhoe in 1980. His thought is summarized under the topics of values, thermodynamics, the evolution of religion, the concept of soul, God, enculturation and freedom, and the Lord of History. (shrink)

This fifth and final installment from the author's book‐length study of Ralph Wendell Burhoe's life and thought covers the period 1966–1987, and it concludes with a summary of his thought. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science began publication in March 1966, the same year in which the Center for Advanced Study in Theology and the Sciences (CASTS) was founded. Both the journal and the center were made possible by Meadville/Lombard Theological School. After a brief period of flourishing, (...) CASTS was succeeded in 1972 by the Center for Advanced Study in Religion and Science (CASIRAS). Burhoe married Calla Butler in 1969, two years after his first wife, Frances, had died. He retired from Mead‐ville in 1974. The Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion was awarded to Burhoe in 1980. His thought is summarized under the topics of values, thermodynamics, the evolution of religion, the concept of soul, God, enculturation and freedom, and the Lord of History. (shrink)

This second installment from the author's book-length study of Ralph Wendell Burhoe's life and thought details the background of the establishing of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science in 1955 and its intellectual rationale. A group of clergy from the Coming Great Church Conference and scientists who were members of the Committee on Science and Values of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences came together to form the new Institute on Star Island, off (...) the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. From the beginning, with the guidance of Burhoe, the chief concern of these scientists and clergy was the need to regenerate a contemporary civilization that was on the brink of danger due to its inability to discipline its own burgeoning scientific and technological prowess. Revitalizing religion was deemed essential to this regeneration of society. Since religion is largely destabilized by science, the major task is to emphasize how contemporary scientific understandings support religious wisdom and accentuate its importance. This task is to be accomplished through a science-based theology which reformulates religious wisdom for a culture that accepts science as the most reliable form of knowledge. This rationale for IRAS also articulates the program to which Burhoe committed himself. (shrink)

This third installment in David Breed's intellectual biography of Ralph Wendell Burhoe focuses upon the impact of his thought on the Unitarian Universalist Association and that group's role in Burhoe's career. Dana McLean Greeley, elected president of the American Unitarian Association in 1958, was a key figure in Burhoe's eventual participation in the project, “The Free Church in a Changing World.” Burhoe's emphasis on the need for doctrine that could communicate religious wisdom in terms (...) of science stood in tension with free‐church tradition. Nevertheless, the section of the project's final report, titled “Theology and the Frontiers of Learning,” largely accepted Burhoe's program for a new natural theology based on science. This project brought Burhoe's program to the attention of the denomination and led to the invitation in 1964 from Malcolm Sutherland, on behalf of Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago, of which he was president, for Burhoe to implement his program in the new curriculum of that school. Burhoe accepted. (shrink)

Through cultivating my thinking, along with that of many others, Ralph Burhoe taught me to understand myself in relational terms. He helped me to appreciate religious traditions on scientific grounds and to see how religion adapts to changing conditions even as it continues to provide meaning and guidance to the wider culture. He restored my belief in an ever‐present sovereign God when God is understood in terms of function and system.

Ralph Burho's paradigmatic scientific innovation is the extension of the concept of symbiosis to coadapted human genotypes and “culturetypes,” centered on religion. Civilization also requires a coexistent secular arena, where religion's nearness may help prevent our natural synergistic instrumentalizations of each other from degrading to losses of respect for one another as responsible free agents. The mixed messages in the Bible's diverse stories help to preserve a richness of choices in memory as we navigate history. We science‐and‐religion theorists should (...) expand our cademic base to include economics, politics, literature, and other areas, while emulating Ralph's wise and good‐humored ways of drawing us together and affecting our lives. (shrink)

Ralph Wendell Burhoe was a leading figure in relating religion and science in the second half of the twentieth century. His autodidactic style and character as a public intellectual resulted in a vision that is comprehensive in its concern for the salvation of society. He does not fit easily into academic frameworks, even though he has been influential upon scholars who work in academia. This article discusses some conundrums posed by his work. There are also brief presentations (...) of the concerns that motivated Burhoe, his style of work, and the content of his vision. (shrink)

Ralph Wendell Burhoe's legacy rests on a series of interrelated theories that deal with (1) the emergence of life within physical nature; (2) the symbiosis of genes and cultures in human evolution; (3) the central importance of the brain in this symbiosis; and (4) the function of religion within this evolutionary process to carry the traditions of trans‐kin altruism that make human civilization possible. These theories give rise to a number of issues that are of current importance. (...) Burhoe's stature is enhanced when one considers that these theories were first articulated by him in the 1970s, in reliance upon the work of J. Bronowski, Alfred E. Emerson, and Donald T. Campbell. (shrink)

Many of us not part of the “old Burhoe gang” are nonetheless deeply influenced by the ideas of Ralph Wendell Burhoe, albeit in indirect ways. This remembrance summarizes six such ways: Three are “procedural” influences, namely (1) that dialogue is most valuable, especially in the science/religion interface, when carried on among those who may not agree; (2) that scholarship is necessary to refine and improve preliminary opinions; and (3) that organizations are crucial to accomplishing the first (...) two tasks. The three “substantive” influences are (4) Burhoe's focus on human values; (5) his work in defining God; and (6) his contribution to defining what it means to be human. As is well known, his emphasis in all three substantive cases was on the power and nuances of biological and social evolution, especially on the dynamics of natural selection. (shrink)