The Quest for Understanding and Meaning: From Process and Complexity to Meaning and the Transcendent
After briefly outlining the strategies for attaining understanding, and constructing meaning, we shall discuss the complementary contributions of the sciences, philosophy and theology in pursuing this quest. The universe, life and ourselves defy complete and full understanding – they present themselves as inexhaustibly rich, but also fragile and limited – particularly with regard to ultimate origins, destiny and meaning. The universe itself has developed from a very simple, homogeneous system into one of incredible complexity – through the efficacy of the interactions which characterize it, and the emerging, highly differentiated relationships which operate within it. Scientific rationality has been incredibly successful in enabling our understanding of this cosmic saga. However, it reaches a limit to its capabilities to probe more deeply. But its success points to and validates our rational and personal quest for understanding and meaning beyond this cosmological limit – through philosophy, theology and the personal engagement from which they arise.
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Dr. William Stoeger, S.J. is a Jesuit priest from the California province of the Society of Jesus, and is also an astrophysicist working for the Vatican Observatory. He is based with the Vatican Observatory research group at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He works on the cosmic microwave background radiation, and areas of cosmology dealing with constraining our models of the universe with astronomical data, and he also works on black hole astrophysics, especially the astrophysics of galaxies and quasars, and some quantum field theory. At the same time he is also very interested in the relationship between religion and science, or more precisely, the relationships between theology, science and philosophy. He is an adjunct associate professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona.
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