Re: on Eastern Orthodoxy and science

 For anyone interested in reading more on science and Orthodoxy, Alexei Nesteruk's book "Light From the East: Theology, Science, and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition" [Fortress Press, 2003] is a good, albeit very dense, introduction. He is a physicist teaching/researching in the U.K. and also studying for the Orthodox priesthood. You may not agree with a lot of what he says, but it certainly introduces an approach that most evangelicals are unaware of [Polkinghorne's bottom-up thinking it's not!]. Nevertheless, it's our loss if we ignore the rich resources of Orthodoxy and the whole patristic tradition.
 
Karl
***************
Karl V. Evans
cmekve@aol.com
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Davis <tdavis@messiah.edu>
To: Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net>; Carol or John Burgeson <burgytwo@juno.com>; asa@lists.calvin.edu; gmurphy@raex.com
Sent: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 15:59:55 -0400
Subject: on Eastern Orthodoxy and science

When we start talking about the Orthodox tradition, my ears perk up. Let me
briefly mention two things to see whether or not there is enough interest to
take this conversation in a different direction. I've been learning quite a bit
about that tradition these past two years, and a lot of it I like.

(1) This past year I completed a fairly lengthy article giving a spiritual
biography of Michael Idvorsky Pupin, the leading Serbian-American scientist of
his generation (his career flourished from ca. 1895 to ca. 1930) and also the
most influential Serbian-American of his generation (not an exaggeration, he had
a significant role in Wilson's policy about the creation of Yugoslavia after
WW1). He also wrote extensively on religion and science in the 1920s, including
3 books that were very widely read, one of which won the Pulitzer Prize for
autobiography and was in abridged form read by millions of school children. He
brought genuine Orthodox insights into his theology of nature. Here's an
abstract of my article, which has not yet been published:

Columbia University physicist Michael Idvorsky Pupin (1858-1935), president of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the year of the
Scopes trial (1925), is usually remembered today for his discoveries of
secondary x-rays and the mathematical theory of loaded transmission lines. In
his own day, however, his life story was very widely publicized in the United
States as an example of a successful immigrant from Eastern Europe; and his many
writings on science and religion were very widely read. As a devout Serbian
Orthodox believer, Pupin?s theology of nature emphasized a central idea of the
Eastern Orthodox religious tradition: the presence of beauty and order in the
universe as manifestations of the creative divine Word (the ????? of John?s
gospel) that had brought all things into being. This paper offers a brief
intellectual and spiritual biography of Michael Pupin.

(2) One of my Orthodox colleagues (yes, Messiah does hire Christians who are not
Protestants; our faith statement is the Apostles' Creed) pointed me to this
webpage, in order to explain to me "the Holy Fire" miracle that is said to occur
annually on the true Easter (ie, the one calculated from the old Greek
calendar). I had never heard of this before, despite the spectacular nature of
the claim, and I am interested to know whether anyone knows about this. Here's
the link:
http://www.holyfire.org/eng/

Ted
Received on Wed Apr 5 10:54:00 2006