Science & Soul by Charles Birch
UNSW Press, 2008, ISBN 9780868409580.
196 pp, rrp $34.95.
Reviewed by Arthur Grimshaw
This is a timely and important publication revealing
the inner motivation and inspiration of one of
Australia’s most notable thinkers in recent times.
Charles Birch has been an inspiration to his students
and contemporaries not only in the field of biology
and ecology, but has matched this passion with his
search for an understanding of both science and
religion culminating in a synthesis which he calls
‘an ecological model of God’.
Professor Birch takes us on a journey through
the major influences on his thoughts and developments,
in an ordered progression. Each chapter
brings before the reader eminent thinkers of the
past century, gathering them into convenient
groupings identified in the chapter headings as
Evolutionary Biologists, Animal Ecologists, Philosophers
of Religion, and touchstone figures
in the world of Science and Religion - leading
to Birch’s statements of his own philosophy
of life under the headings Pansubjectivism and
Panentheism.
On page 64 Birch comments: “We need help
to fit the various elements of our lives into
a consistent meaning. Science and Religion
are two critical elements”. This leads into his
encounters with a group of eminent thinkers
who have helped the author develop his own
synthesis and philosophy. Such a diverse stream
of influences makes for illuminating reading, and
for this alone Birch’s book is worth a priority
space in our reading.
This may seem at a glance to be a somewhat
indigestible stream of contacts - but take heart:
the journey is made with a clarity of expression
and a genuine passion for truth, which carries us
along as if fellow travellers with Charles Birch,
discovering new and old truths shaped into an
exposition of the unique nature of his understanding
of both science and religion.
Rachael Kohn’s foreword is a helpful and
insightful response to the journey of Birch’s
thought and his fellow travellers along the way,
especially for readers whose own disciplines have
taken a different route.
A striking feature in Birch’s thought is the
place he gives to subjective feelings – and this
underpins many of the insights which he illustrates
with references to poetic and biblical
expressions which will resonate with many readers’
own experience.
The Very Revd Arthur Grimshaw is Dean
Emeritus of Brisbane Cathedral