Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience

Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience Including the discussion of a recent article on David Bohm’s cosmology Associate Professor Doru Costache, Sydney College of Divinity / ISCAST Research Director Research seminar of the Research Centre for Astronomy, Astrophysics & Astrophotonics Macquarie University, 5 May 2023 1 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience The twentieth-century historian and philosopher of religion, Mircea Eliade, mentioned a difference between Western Christianity’s historicist outlook and the “cosmic Christianity of the Balkans.” The latter was a reference to the Orthodox Christian tradition, which in Late Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages consistently framed its experience against the backdrop of the earthly environment and the skies above. In this talk, I introduce Orthodox Christianity’s interest in matters astronomical through theoretical and practical examples. The first category includes cosmographical endeavours and astronomical observations. The second category includes the annual calendar, holding the major festivals in relation to astronomical events, the geographical orientation of churches, celestial and zodiacal iconography etc. It is in this light that I then summarise a forthcoming article written together with Richard de Grijs, where I respond to his analysis of David Bohm’s cosmological thinking from the viewpoint of Orthodox theology. I end by highlighting Orthodox Christianity's openness to and interest in astronomy and cosmology, obvious in a series of modern and contemporary undertakings to incorporate scientific information into its current worldview. Thus, while Orthodox Christianity is no longer a Balkans-bound phenomenon, its worldview still engages the cosmic setting of human experience. Lesnovo Monastery, narthex (Serbia, 1349). Ivana Lemcool, “Astronomical Imagery in the Painting of the Lesnovo Narthex: Iconographic Innovations in Serbian Medieval Art” in Eight Century of Autocephaly of the Serbian Orthodox Church (Belgrade, 2020) 2: 477-493, at 479. 2 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience Outlines • Introducing Orthodox Christianity • Matters of worldview • Practical matters • On David Bohm’s cosmological thinking • The context of our research • Richard de Grijs’ contribution • My theological response • Modern Orthodoxy and cosmic references 3 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience Introducing Orthodox Christianity • A non-Western expression of ancient Christianity • Two major Orthodox families: Eastern and Oriental • Features of mainstream Orthodox Christianity relevant to this discussion • A complex framework for articulating, testing, and communicating ideas • Believing in human existence and the cosmos as works in progress • Engaging the sciences for two purposes: to deepen its understanding of reality and to communicate its message intelligibly • During the last centuries of Byzantium, Orthodox scholars contributed as scientists 4 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience Introducing Orthodox Christianity • Matters of worldview • The cosmological framework of human experience—both for the intellectual elites and the average person • Mircea Eliade: “One of the characteristics of the peasant Christianity of the Romanians and of eastern Europe is the presence of many religious elements that are “pagan,” archaic, sometimes scarcely Christianised. It is a new religious creation, peculiar to the southeast of Europe, which we have termed ‘cosmic Christianity’ because, on the one hand, it projects the Christological mystery upon the whole of Nature and, on the other, neglects the historical elements of Christianity, only to dwell, instead, on the liturgical dimension of human existence in the world.” (Zalmoxis, the Vanishing God: Comparative Studies in the Religions and Folklore of Dacia and Eastern Europe [Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1972] 251) • Maximus the Confessor: “God’s holy Church is a figure and image of the entire cosmos composed of visible and invisible essences because, like it, it contains both unity and diversity.” (The Mystagogy 2) 5 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience Introducing Orthodox Christianity • Matters of worldview—some of my relevant works • ‘A Note on Evagrius’ Cosmological and Metaphysical Statements’ The Journal of Theological Studies 71:2 (2020) 718-730. • ‘Maximus the Confessor and John Damascene’s cosmology.’ In: John Slattery (ed.). The T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Theology and the Modern Sciences. Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2020: 81-91. • ‘Strange Bedfellows? Orthodox Perspectives on Theology, Spirituality, Science, and Technology’ Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxa 65:2 (2020) 5-25. • ‘A Theology of the World: Dumitru Stăniloae, the Traditional Worldview, and Contemporary Cosmology.’ In: Vasilios N. Makrides and Gayle Woloschak (eds). Orthodox Christianity and Modern Science: Tensions, Ambiguities, Potential. Science and Orthodox Christianity 1. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2019, 205-22. • ‘The Orthodox Doctrine of Creation in the Age of Science’ Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies 2:1 (2019) 43-64. • ‘Mapping Reality within the Experience of Holiness.’ In: Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor. Oxford University Press, 2015, 378-396. • ‘Meaningful Cosmos: Logos and Nature in Clement the Alexandrian’s Exhortation to the Gentiles’ Phronema 28:2 (2013) 107-130. • ‘Making Sense of the World: Theology and Science in St Gregory of Nyssa’s An Apology for the Hexaemeron’ Phronema 28:1 (2013) 1-28 6 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience Introducing Orthodox Christianity • Practical matters • The annual cycle of readings, beginning at Easter, which is the first Sunday after the full Moon that follows the spring/autumn equinox (fourth-century decision) • Christmas takes place only a few days after the December (21-23) solstice • Traditional churches are oriented after the four cardinal directions • Church iconography usually entails painted ceilings that mirror the star field, with certain churches displaying the zodiac, as a schematic representation of the astronomical milieu of human experience 7 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience Introducing Orthodox Christianity • Practical matters—examples 8 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience On David Bohm’s cosmological thinking • Grijs, Richard de, and Doru Costache. “The Cosmology of David Bohm: Scientific and Theological Significance.” Theology and Science (forthcoming; accepted on 7 March 2023; 8,843 words) • Currently available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.04303 9 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience On David Bohm’s cosmological thinking • This article is the outcome of our research within the framework of the project “Science and Orthodoxy around the World,” running at the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens (2020–2023) • https://project-sow.org/about 10 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience On David Bohm’s cosmological thinking • The aims of our study: “We have chosen to examine David Bohm’s thinking for various reasons, beyond our personal interest in his ideas. Since he showed an aptitude for bridging scientific, spiritual, and theological representations of reality, we wondered whether his approach could be extrapolated for the purposes of making sense of the Orthodox worldview in contemporary terms. The first part of this study shows that Bohm himself demonstrated that certain Eastern religious and spiritual philosophies can inspire the scientific quest, on the one hand, and facilitate the presentation of scientific ideas in meaningful ways, relevant to the human experience in its entirety and complexity, on the other hand. Could not the Orthodox worldview be used as a similar platform? We believe that it can. To that end, Orthodox theologians themselves should overcome their scientific apathy and boldly formulate what Dumitru Stăniloae called ‘a theology of the world’ that ‘reconciles the cosmic vision of the Fathers with a vision which grows out ... of the natural sciences.’ Without such an effort, tomorrow’s David Bohms will never be able to appreciate the Orthodox worldview. Herein, we focus upon the possibility of articulating holistic and dynamic worldviews—including the theory of everything (after Bohm’s fashion) and its ramifications—as a way of bridging the Orthodox representation of reality and contemporary cosmological ideas. After mapping, in the first part of this article, Bohm’s scientific contributions and philosophical cosmology, we examine the Orthodox worldview in conversation with his views. Our aim is dual, namely, to determine whether Orthodox theology is compatible with modern cosmological ideas, and to do so from the vantage point of Bohm’s holistic and interdisciplinary approach to reality. In turn, the latter will bring to the fore the theological significance of Bohm’s cosmological thinking.” 11 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience On David Bohm’s cosmological thinking • Richard de Grijs’ contribution (sections 1-6) • Bohm’s interest in the nature of reality and dissatisfaction with the available theories (quantum, relativity) • Richard: “Bohm felt that Bohr’s classical formalism did not represent a full description of the quantum world. He questioned the orthodox, Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics espoused by Bohr, Heisenberg, and their followers, for instance the notion that the particle–wave duality of light cannot be broken. Instead, he proceeded to develop his own formalism, which has since become known as Bohm’s ‘hidden variables,’ perhaps his most enduring intellectual legacy. Resonating with Einstein’s conviction that an objective reality and order must underlie the chaos of the unpredictability that characterises quantum physics, but from a very different vantage point, he affirmed that the behaviours of subatomic particles are not chance processes, since the motions of electrons are guided by underlying ‘pilot waves’.” 12 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience On David Bohm’s cosmological thinking • Richard de Grijs’ contribution (sections 1-6) • Suspecting that space is full, not void of “matter” => his later concept of “plenitude” or “wholeness” (Richard points to ancient Greek philosophers of nature who inspired Bohm) • “Wholeness” is where quantum physics and relativity intersect (overlap?) • Richard: “Bohm’s new way of thinking about the physical universe at any scale, where everything is internally related to everything else and each part of the cosmos contains the whole universe, represented a radically new approach to reality. In this reality, the implicate order is a structure, a constant unfolding and enfolding (embracing) into the classical world, where the explicate order unfolds from the implicate order into the reality as we perceive it. In turn, these insights imply that we need to develop a more organic perception of reality than our prevailing, rigid threedimensional idea of space where time progresses linearly. Rather than adopting a mechanical worldview, Bohm suggested that by drawing instead on biological processes we might be better off describing the physical world on the basis of more organic processes.” 13 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience On David Bohm’s cosmological thinking • Richard de Grijs’ contribution (sections 1-6) • Richard: “Leaving his hidden variables behind, he once again focused on the challenging situation, with physicists, foremost Einstein, having been unable to reconcile quantum theory with general relativity. He was most concerned that modern physics appeared to require two foundational theories rather than a single, overarching framework. In turn, this spawned his thinking of the implicate order. But his mind was grappling with even bigger questions—regarding humankind’s wellbeing—at the nexus of science, philosophy, and religion. Bohm’s and Krishnamurti’s ideas met in their respective descriptions of the nature of thought, reality, and consciousness, considered a coherent whole that is never static nor complete, but a continuous ‘holomovement’ between the enfolding and the unfolding aspects of reality … At a fundamental level, Bohm’s theory suggests that out of perceived emptiness, resembling the ‘vacuum state,’ particles interact with, respond to, and are informed by a quantum potential which allows the cosmos to emerge. This information in the quantum potential makes it possible for the universe as we know it to exist. In other words, everything we know (and do not know—yet) is equivalent to information, which at some point is expected to unfold into reality. The implicate is waiting to become explicate, thus showing the true nature of the split duality of particles and trajectories. Reality is thus undivided wholeness, combining life, the universe, and everything.” 14 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience On David Bohm’s cosmological thinking • My theological response (sections 7-9) • Theological narratives of everything: Chaos to cosmos; as modern physicists acknowledge the validity of ancient intuitions (Heisenberg, Kaku), why not treating the same early Christian intuitions? • An example: “the skies and things celestial, the earth and the earthly things, the sea and things aquatic, (as well as) fire, air, the abyss, (namely,) things on high, things in the depths, things in between”; God’s Logos “organising, defining, and connecting (hypotetaktai) all things” (Letter to Diognetus 7.2) • Me: “In An Apology for the Hexaemeron [10, 26], Gregory of Nyssa (d. ca. 395) discusses the processes that led from chaos to the universe. He addresses this topic through his theory of matter and by pondering how the unified light of the origins has become the many lights of the cosmos. He takes as a starting point the view that ‘some wise and organising principle lies within each of the beings.’ This matches Bohm’s idea of God as ‘creative intelligence,’ mentioned above, as much as Diognetus does. This organising principle in nature facilitates the generation of beings by activating the fundamental elements and qualities towards material combination. Gregory’s particle physics is not important. What matters is his view of nature as the outcome of converging qualities, spurred by the divine factor … The darkness of chaos possessed the potentiality of light, or order, and became light at God’s prompting. The divine energy—‘radiating through the darkness and flow of nature’—transformed the darkness into light or the chaos into order. To explain how this occurred, Gregory makes reference to Aristotle’s idea of actualisation: light is the actualised form of the potentiality represented by darkness. Here, he anticipated Bohm’s own notion of unfolding order.” 15 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience On David Bohm’s cosmological thinking • My theological response (sections 7-9) • A summary of my proposal regarding why the Orthodox Christian worldview can creatively interact with the current scientific view of the universe • A holistic view of reality, from the whole and from the parts • Integration of theological and scientific views of reality without syncretism • An evolutionary perception of the universe • The principle of synergy • Apophaticism (the humble assessment of reality as mystery) 16 Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience Modern Orthodoxy and Cosmic References • “When with all this [i.e., the Philokalia’s wisdom] in mind I prayed with my heart, everything around me seemed delightful and marvellous. The trees, the grass, the birds, the earth, the air, the light seemed to be telling me that they existed for people’s sake, that they witnessed to the love of God for humankind, that everything proved the love of God for humankind, that all things prayed to God and sang His praise.” (The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way, trans. R. M. French (London: The Society For Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1996), 46; slightly altered) • “Love God’s creation, love every atom of it separately, and love it also as a whole; love every green leaf, every ray of God’s light; love the animals and the plants and love every inanimate object. If you come to love all things, you will perceive God’s mystery inherent in all things; once you have perceived it, you will understand it better and better every day. And finally you will love the whole world with a total, universal love. Love the animals: God has given them the beginnings of thought and untroubled joy. So do not disturb their joy, do not torment them, do not deprive them of their wellbeing, do not work against God’s intent. Humans, do not pride yourselves on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you, with all your greatness, you defile the earth wherever you appear and leave an ignoble trail behind you – and that is true, alas, for almost every one of us!” (Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Andrew R. MacAndrew, Bantam Classic (New York: Bantam Dell, 2003; ebook edn), 547; slightly altered) 17 Costache, D. ‘A Theology of the World: Dumitru Stăniloae, the Traditional Worldview, and Contemporary Cosmology.’ In: Vasilios N. Makrides and Gayle Woloschak (eds). Orthodox Christianity and Modern Science: Tensions, Ambiguities, Potential. Science and Orthodox Christianity 1. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2019, 205-222. Orthodox Christianity and the Cosmic Setting of Human Experience Instead of conclusions • Our cooperation continues: I guest-edit a monographic issue of De Medio Aevo (13:2/2024), “Scientific Interests and Technological Innovation in Byzantium: Interdisciplinary Perspectives” • Details at https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/DMAE • Richard is one of the ten international (Australia, France, Greece, the USA) contributors, and will be discussing the influence of Ptolemy’s system in Byzantium 18