Hans Küng, The Beginning of All Things: Science and Religion, trans. John Bowden (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007). Pp. xiv + 220.
Hans Küng is now the president of the Global Ethic Foundation after retiring in 1996 from being professor of ecumenical theology and director of the Institute for Ecumenical Research at the University of Tübingen. Küng is the author of more than fifty books, including The Catholic Church (2003) and On Being a Christian (1984).
In this book, Küng, a distinguished theologian, offers his personal contribution to the science and theology dialog, and attempts to offer a coherent and convincing answer to some basic scientific questions. In surveying the “beginning of all things,” Küng attempts to shed light (reminiscent of “Let there be light…”) on cosmology, the theory of evolution, and neuroscience, amongst others things within this book. Repeatedly, Küng asserts that when science has not the answer, the answer is in fact God, based upon faith but illuminated through reason. In a thorough complementarian posture (building on the principle posited by the physicist Niels Bohr in relation to the mystery of light being both a wave and a particle simulataneously), Küng notes that science and religion may seem to clash and be exclusive, but they are in fact consonant with one another. So then, Küng ardently avers that the confrontational model for the relationship between science and theology is out of date, and thus should be replaced. Küng sees the confrontational model, from both perspectives, to be defunct. Indeed, the pre-modern fundamentalist denial of science is just as unnecessary as the rationalistic modern dismissing religion from a priori agendas.
Küng also rejects the integrationist model of the relationship between science and religion from both perspectives. Indeed, Küng dismisses the religionists who simply assimilate the results of science into their dogmas, as well as the scientists who exploit religion for their theses. Küng argues that whereas in the Middle Ages people framed their questions in terms of purpose, which retained a role for the deity within nature, modern people framed their questions in terms of causality, which (under the Humean paradigm predominant in the West) removed the role of deity within nature. However, Küng asserts that postmodern people in our era should attempt to see the book of nature, so to speak, and the book of God as fully complementary.
Küng’s depiction of the relationship between science and religion rejects all absolutizing, maintains distinct areas for each, and avoids all illegitimate transitions (almost like Gould’s NOMA). Thus, even while accepting evolution, Küng still retains a role for God by facilitating the adventure of creation and in founding the laws of nature. It should be noted, however, that Küng’s belief in the Bible does not trump science, for if scientific knowledge is certain and contradicts what the Bible says, then a new interpretation of the Bible is due. Indeed, Küng notes that philosophical thought in today’s environ can no longer simply start “from above,” but instead must start “from below,” informed by human experience of phenomena.
It should be noted that whereas Küng does not contribute anything novel to the discussion regarding the beginning of the organization of matter, he nonetheless does give ample and adequate coverage to various theories regarding the derivation of such (affirming panentheism but disavowing vitalism). In consistently arguing for a panentheistic relationship of God and the world, Küng forms the basis of his conclusions regarding evolutionary progress. According to such a view, God works in and through the regular structures of the world, being present to the world dialectically in that he is transcendent in his immanence, all the while immanent in his transcendence. Accordingly, God makes possible, permeates, and perfects creation, as he is in, with, and among its causal operations (being the origin, center, and goal of the process). Concerning the personhood of God, Küng makes laudable contributions to the theology and science dialog. Indeed, Küng asserts that God is personal, but more than a person, as well as affirming the Augustinian conception of God as being more inward than the innermost part of our body, yet also affirming simultaneously Bultmann’s conception of God as “wholly other.”
On a personal note, I find much comfort in realizing that Küng, as apparent by the argumentation within this book, does not affirm creatio ex nihilo (i.e., a creation out of nothing), which is in truth not canonically supported (at least not for Protestants; the idea has its derivation from 2 Maccabees, 175-135 B.C.E). Instead, Küng supports the Biblical notion that the Spirit of God hovered over the chaotic “waters,” and brought forth order from that chaos. All in all, with this book, Küng challenges readers to think more deeply about the beginnings in order to facilitate a new beginning in dialogue and understanding. In view of such, it is to be recommended for scholars and interested laity alike.