Alexei Nesteruk, Universe As Communion: Towards a Neo-patristic Synthesis of Theology and Science (London: T & T Clark, 2008), xii + 286 Pps., $140.00.
Alexei Nesteruk is Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Portsmouth, UK, and a Deacon in the Russian-Orthodox Church. He is author of Light from the East: Theology, Science and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition (2003), of which this title might rightly be considered a continuation and extension. The aim of the present book is to consider the dialogue between science and theology in the framework of a phenomenological analysis from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, through which one may understand further the sense of the continuing embodiment of the human spirit in the world through faith, knowledge and technology. In pursuing this aim, the book attempts to explore the ways of manifestation of being-in-the-world through studying the relationship between science and theology. The ultimate desired objective of this title, according to Nesteruk, is to recognize that the dialogue between science and theology is not only be an academic exercise, but an existential endeavor at its core, as it originates from within the immediate needs of humanity. In existential terms, both science and theology have a common ground of truth and a common ontological otherness, both bestowed by God.
Nesteruk develops the ideas of Greek Patristics, treating faith (with its emphasis on Divine presence) and knowledge of the universe as two modes of communion which constitute the human condition. In part, he asserts that the ideal of responsibility for all natural creation, so vigorously advocated by the Fathers, needs to be reinstated to its proper place in the progress of humanity. He argues that the employment of Patristic thinking is apropos because the Fathers defended the faith in conditions of agnosticism (and atheism) which are comparable to today. The modern opposition between science and theology is treated as the split between two intentionalities of the one overall human subjectivity. As such, the human person, being the center of their reconciliation, becomes the major theme of the dialogue between science and theology. In what remains, I will highlight the contents of each chapter.
Chapter one proposes a Neo-Patristic ethos, one that is at rudiment existential, for the dialogue between science and theology. Therein, it is argued that an authentic dialogue between science and theology ought to follow a similar route as did the early united, catholic church, prior to its separation into Eastern and Western branches. In other words, if the dialogue between science and theology is to be fruitful, it must seek commonality and not difference (20–21). The second chapter explores in depth the convergence of a Neo-Patristic synthesis and an existential phenomenology. Particularly, he notes a twofold synthesis of the methodology in reference to the dialogue between science and theology: on the one hand, its standpoint is phenomenological and transcendental insomuch as it addresses the meaning of the universe and God and the ways in which the universe and God enter human understanding; on the other hand, this methodology is marked by a simultaneous immediate experience of the presence and absence of God in the universe (105).
Chapter three, “Theology and Phenomenological Attitude: the Human Condition, Existential Faith and Transcendence,” argues in part that theology, as opposed to other subjects, implies a personal involvement and experience; thus, in order to truly theologize, one must be a part of the experience (116). The fourth chapter delineates a human-centered model to the dialogue between science and theology as compared to a nature-centered approach. Herein, he analyzes science phenomenologically in order to articulate humanity as tacitly behind all its assertions about reality; he pictures nature in light of humanity, thus seeing humanity as the primary fact of any inquiry (170–171). The argument of the book culminates in chapter five, discussing the universe as communion, with particular reference to the transitions from Cosmology to Personhood, and the ultimate teleology behind it. In part, he herein argues that transcendence in cosmology is possible only through articulating the conditions of communion with the universe, which invariably leads to human persons as existential events of disclosure (222).
In sum, this title argues that the reconciliation of science and theology is not simply an academic exercise; it requires an existential change, a change of mind (metanoia), which cannot be effected without thorough ecclesial involvement. It is through existential change accompanied by phenomenological analysis that scientific theories can be subjected to a certain vision through which the hidden ultimate telos of scientific shows its kinship to the saving telos advocated by Christian faith. Thereby, the opposition between theology and science is para-eucharistically overcome. This new synthesis of Eastern Orthodox thought with phenomenological thought advocated by Nesteruk is at once pre-modern and post-modern in its entailments, with Nesteruk asserting that postmodernity is in truth a new incarnation of premodernity. He asserts throughout that phenomenology, through its detailed account of human subjectivity directed toward truth as well as its strong conviction that this subjectivity corresponds to reality, allows one to deal adequately with the epistemological issues of modern science. In an otherwise exemplary book for graduate students with interests in Orthodoxy and the theology and science dialogue, I contend that it would have been strengthened by a clearer introduction, one that laid out a schemata for the remainder of the title (as it stands, however, one is left trying to piece the individual chapters together until the concluding chapter, when Nesteruk explicitly ties all the loose ends together).
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA