Abstract

Quantum physics and the dialogue with religion The present paper has two main purposes. On the one hand, to introduce Pascual Jordan, an author little known in philosophy academic circles and better known in scientific ones. Jordan took part in the birth of quantum physics during the first half of the 20th century and worked side by side with Werner Heisenberg under Max Born’s direction to elaborate Matrix Mechanics, an essential contribution to the formal description of atom quantum structure. On the other hand, I expose his personal contribution to the science and religion debate. In this regard, he found himself both in an unfavorable and a favorable position. Unfavorable, because Jordan stands far from such epistemological matters as scientific realism; favorable, because he took very seriously the discoveries of new rising physics, and was, thus, a committed realist when discussing scientific theories. Furthermore, he was a devoted Christian, which means that he has a realist stance on religion – the only valid choice for those who consider the relation between life and faith as indissoluble. His constitutive realism leads him to regard the relation between religion and science as an existential problem rather than as an academic one, and therefore, he dedicated a large part of his philosophical works to this subject.