The first paper, "Decay, Vitality, and the Spirit: A Pneumatological Perspective on Entropy and Emergent Systems," which I'd been dreading, turned out to be best and most interesting. The presenter, David Bradnick, is a graduate student in systematic theology at Regent University, the school founded by Pat Robertson, and the paper was first delivered (I just worked out) at a conference called "Sighs, Signs & Significance: Pentecostal & Wesleyan Explorations of Science & Creation."
Thank God for the AAR! I would never otherwise have come within a hundred miles of hearing a paper with such a title delivered by someone from such a place at such a conference... indeed, I would probably have run a hundred miles to avoid it. And yet it was fascinating.The argument was basically that the emergence of order in a cosmos characterized by entropy is so improbable it needs to be explained. Bradnick cited Stuart Kauffman, a mathematician whose At Home in the Universe I read a few years ago when we were all discussing "intelligent design" and recommending books to each other. Kauffman argues that we should not be surprised at the emergence of order (he's no theist, and goes out of his way to say his account shows design can exist without a designer) so one might think his argument has little to offer a systematic theologian. But Kauffman is honest enough to say that he can model a universe in which order emerges spontaneously but doesn't know what made it happen in this one, and Bradnick responded with a similar humility. Perhaps theology might provide a helpful "elaboration of scientific results" here - not taking the place of science but supplementing it? It's a discredited enlightenment idea that a single discipline should be able to explain everything about everything.
The theology in question was Pentecostal ("pneumatology" has to do with the action of the Holy Spirit, which Pentecostals - unlike many other Christians - believe continues to send gifts in our own time), and the suggestion was that the little pockets of emergent order in the otherwise entropic universe might be seen as Spirit bring order out of chaos in an eschatological way: a "proleptic anticipation of the new creation."
Describing it now I wonder that I wasn't appalled or amused, but in truth I was intrigued. Bradnick's a smart, thoughtful guy, well read well beyond his own tradition (he discussed not only scientific theories and Kauffman but more mainline theologians like Moltmann and Tillich) and all was offered with modesty and intellectual honesty. I spoke to him afterwards, and he told me he's written a fuller study of Pentecostal theology and science, emphasizing that both are traditions which take experience very seriously. Both are empiricist, open-ended and fallibilist.
If he were my only experience of a Pentecostal intellectual, I'd have to concur - and he is my only such experience. I've asked him to send me a copy of his paper - I'll let you know if it makes as much sense the second time through, but I have to admit that I'm intrigued. Something new!
