Back Transdisciplinarity and the Unity of Knowledge: Beyond the Science and Religion Dialogue


Skip Navigation Links
Home
Agenda
Featured Speakers
Paper Presenters
Public Events
Information
Contact
Registration


Sign up for Conference
2009 Updates.




   

Javier Leach
Mathematics, Empirical Sciences and Theology


Abstract I distinguish two levels in the world of natural sciences: the level of mathematics and the level of the empirical sciences. At each one of these levels I distinguish between passive perception and active language. Between the world of natural sciences and the world of metaphysics and theology there is a leap. However, they are also two complementary worlds which need to be integrated. Two complementary worlds. I propose a relationship of complementarity between natural sciences and theology. The complementarity is defined by the union of three features: separation, encounter and integration. Natural sciences and theology are two separate realities which complement each other. The separation of natural sciences and theology is based especially on the use which mathematics makes of language, which is more restricted and delimited than the use made by theology. The language of mathematics can be formalised starting from certain basic, significant components called signs. However, the language of theology cannot be restricted only to the use of these components. Theology also uses other basic components, which I will term religious symbols and which cannot be reduced to signs as occurs in the case of mathematics. The signs. Mathematics and logic uses formal signs to designate specific, precise, formal objects, such as numbers, lines and points. Empirical sciences use representative signs to designate empirical concepts such as the mass of bodies, speed and energy. The religious symbols. By contrast, the religious language cannot be restricted only to the use of signs. Besides signs, these languages contain what I call religious symbols. Religious symbols do not only represent things and objects but also views of the world, of the meaning of human action in the world, and of the relationship of the world to God and God to the world. Biography

Javier Leach is a Jesuit priest and has been director of the Metanexus Local Societies Initiative supported Chair of Science, Technology, and Religion at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas since its creation in 2003. Currently, he is also professor at the School of Computing of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. From 1961-1965, he studied philosophy at the Facultad Pontificia San Francisco de Borja in Barcelona. From 1965-1970, he studied mathematics at the School of Mathematics, Universidad de Zaragoza. From 1970-1973, he studied theology at the Philosophisch-theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt am Main (Germany). In 1977, he obtained the title of Doctor in Mathematics from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Since 1987, he has been professor at the Universidad Complutense in the area of computer languages and systems. Among other subjects, he has given undergraduate courses on discrete mathematics, logic, logical programming, functional programming, and artificial intelligence. He has given doctoral courses on automatic demonstration, functional programming, methods for the automation of demonstrations in first order logic, and demonstrators of theorems for transitive relations.



 

1616 Walnut Street, Suite 1112, Philadelphia, PA 19103 USA  |  Voice: + 1 484.592.0304 Fax: +1 484.592.0313   |   Email  |  Privacy Policy