Theology and Philosophy

Jackelén singles out theology for the engagement of the humanities with science and technology. This makes perfect sense in contexts where theology has an accepted role to play—Jackelén acknowledges that these contexts are diverse—and I will not argue against the importance of theological reflective thought playing this role. But what are the proper roles of which theologies where in our global culture, or patchwork of cultures? At least in the present cultural climate in the West, I see many obstacles for creating the strong partnerships between science, technology, theology, and spirituality Jackelén is proposing. For instance, when in secular societies “godless”¹ institutions such as University College London (UCL) desire to relate to the spiritual, they cannot draw on theology like a church can. But they can, alternatively, draw on philosophy.

The Indigenous and premodern cultures that preceded modernity—and in the contemporary world are enmeshed in the web of modernity (Randazzo and Richter 2024)—may have seen a dominant role for spirituality and theology, but we cannot go back to the spirituality of Indigenous thought or to the theology of premodernism. Spirituality, like religion, seems to have become more of a private than a public matter; moreover, spirituality is increasingly found outside of religious traditions. Crucially, one must realize that there is no single dialogue between science and technology on the one hand and religion, theology, and spirituality on the other (Watts et al. 2022). This all leads to the present situation in our culture that —after first having gone through modernity and subsequently postmodernity—the voices of critical and self-critical theologies seem unable to create spiritual publics that can mobilize politics or spiritual attitudes that can deeply affect science and technology.

While there is no single dialogue or single potential partnership, according to recent philosophical work, there are a plurality of options for making connections between different domains in culture (e.g., Petersen 2023). I would like to suggest that a rehabilitation of spirituality, religion, and theology (which are separate things)—in a form that can fruitfully engage with science and engineering—is afoot in a new form that goes by the name of “metamodernism” (Dempsey 2023). Metamodernism, which is what comes after and transcends postmodernism (which came after and transcended modernism), offers an integrative worldview, a cultural logic of cultural logics, in which things can be both social constructs and real at the same time, and in which one is able to “toggle” between premodern, modern, and postmodern worldviews without fully losing oneself in any of these. I do not have the space to dwell on this emerging current in philosophy here. I will just signal that philosophy can be of help in brokering a spiritual way forward in science and engineering for social change. “Science and engineering for social change” also happens to be the name of an undergraduate degree we have recently launched at UCL. This degree involves a mandatory module in philosophy of culture that explicitly addresses religion and the spiritual in its larger cultural settings worldwide.²

Experience and Uncertainty

Jackelén highlights the importance of intellectus vis-à-vis ratio. Metamodern philosophy foregrounds experience and uncertainty while not forgetting about values. This means that in all domains of culture—science, technology, religion, politics, etc.—once you scrutinize what is going on in their practices, the philosophical attention can get drawn to the experience of wonder and judgment under uncertainty. For instance, if one looks, with Bruno Latour (1987), at science in the making, a strikingly different picture emerges from that of ready-made science. Once scientists and engineers pause to reflect on their practices—and they do that all the time to assess the risks and uncertainties—they are aware that they are creating chains of reference or constants through transformations, in the case of science, and inventions that rearrange technology in ingenious ways to circumvent obstacles, in the case of engineering (Latour [2012] 2013). But they are also aware that they are always at risk of being wrong.

So, the question is how ratio (calculating, controlling, monitoring) is used in the different cultural practices—especially science and engineering—versus intellectus (judgment, understanding, reflective openness to uncertainty). I would argue that science and engineering cannot be done without either. But I also agree with Jackelén that modernity has had its preference for ratio and forgotten intellectus, even though intellectus has always been there.

Then, what do you think happened, for instance, to authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who allow themselves only a modernist repertoire of talking and thinking about science, when a country delegation emphatically asked them to include Mother Earth in the Summary for Policymakers of their report on adapting to climate change?³ I witnessed this in Yokohama in 2014, and the authors were like deer staring into headlights. The compromise text they came up with in the end did not include Mother Earth and effectively only referred to a potential for instrumental use of Indigenous knowledge: “Indigenous, local, and traditional knowledge systems and practices, including indigenous peoples’ holistic view of community and environment, are a major resource for adapting to climate change, but these have not been used consistently in existing adaptation efforts” (IPCC 2014, 26). I am not sure how to do this better, since there is a fundamental incommensurability between Western science and nonmodern worldviews, but we surely should train our scientists and engineers to be able to deal with the spiritual in a less instrumental way. At the same time, we should not other Indigeneity too much, given the complex ways in which Indigenous thought is enmeshed in modernity nowadays. We need to refrain from making a binary distinction between modern and nonmodern and give attention to localized differences in how cultural values are realized and the political agency of marginalized Indigenous communities facing ecological crises (Randazzo and Richter 2014).

Sustainable Development and the Spiritual

Jackelén mentions the science of sustainability as a major area where engagement with the spiritual can make a difference, and to conclude my response I would like to briefly expand on the link between sustainable development and the spiritual. As Jackelén points out, the history of the concept of “sustainability” lies in the church. From the way the World Council of Churches described a sustainable society in 1974, one can argue that the spiritual is an aspect of quality of life that needs nurturing: “[T]he benefits of more material production and the material demands of an increasing number of people no longer outweigh the negative effects of this growth on the non-material dimensions of the quality of life” (WCC 1974, 12). Jackelén’s plea to expand some overly simplistic understandings of sustainability as consisting of three narrowly defined dimensions of ecological, economic, and social sustainability and to include the dimension of “spiritual sustainability” deserves support. The related policy question, however, becomes how governments can assess this spiritual sustainability, let alone propose and implement policy measures to protect and grow it.

On this topic, the Church of Sweden and the Swedish municipality of Ljusdal have shown leadership that merits closer study and reflection to learn how the rest of the world might benefit from these approaches. In terms of sustainability assessment for policy making, I think scenario-based approaches that rely on a comprehensive notion of quality of life (e.g., de Vries and Petersen 2009) have potential to bring out more explicitly the dimension of spirituality.

Thus, I would like to thank the archbishop for raising these important issues, and this concludes my response.

Acknowledgments

This response to the 2025 Boyle Lecture was delivered at the Church of St Mary-le-Bow on Cheapside in the City of London, UK, on February 17, 2025. The digital premiere of lecture and response via YouTube (ISSR 2025 Boyle Lecture on Science and Religion – The Most Reverend Dr Antje Jackelén) took place on March 19, 2025 and was followed by a live online panel discussion with contributions from Noreen Herzfeld and Andrew Briggs, chaired by International Society for Science and Religion president Niels Henrik Gregersen.