SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Series coordinated by
Basarab Nicolescu and Magda Stavinschi

This volume is issued with the generous support

of the John Templeton Foundation
within the framework of the Program
“Science and Orthodoxy. Research and Education”
 TRANSDISCIPLINARITY
IN
SCIENCE AND RELIGION

6/2009

BUCUREªTI, 2009
 EDITORIAL BOARD

Director:
Basarab Nicolescu

Editor in chief:
Magdalena Stavinschi

Members:
Ioan Chirilã
Philip Clayton
Radu Constantinescu
Milan Dimitrijević
Christopher C. Knight
Thierry Magnin
Eric Weislogel

ISSN 1843 – 3200

Published by Curtea Veche Publishing House

Bucharest, Romania
 CONTENTS / SOMMAIRE

Research Works / Recherches

JACQUES ARNOULD
C’était demain ou L’humanité, d’une frontière à l’autre ……………………………… 9
CHRISTOPHER C. KNIGHT
The Future of the Dialogue between Orthodox Christianity
and the Sciences ……………………………………………………………………………………… 29
KRESIMIR CEROVAC
The Dialogue between Religion/Theology and Science as an
Imperative of the Times …………………………………………………………………………… 33
Revd. DORU COSTACHE
Approaching the Christian Worldview with St. Basil the Great ………………… 45
OTNIEL L. VEREª, IOAN G. POP
Transdisciplinarity and Christian Thought ……………………………………………… 57
MIHAELA GRIGOREAN
André Scrima, visionnaire du transreligieux …………………………………………… 69
GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU
A Transdisciplinary Perspective on the Concept of Reality ……………………… 83
ROBERTO POLI
Two Theories of Levels of Reality ………………………………………………………… 135

Studies / Études

CORIN BRAGA
La philosophie empirique contre l’imagination ……………………………………… 153
INNA SEMETSKY
Virtual Ontology / Real Experiences ……………………………………………………… 169
IOANA COSTA
Knowledge as Inner Word ……………………………………………………………………… 201
RADU MORARU
The Symbol of the Imperial Gates in the Orthodox Church Sculpture ……… 207
ALEXEI BODROV
Problems and Perspectives of the Science-and-Religion Dialogue
in Russia ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 211
M. GIGOLASHVILI, R. KILADZE, G. RAMISHVILI, V. KUKHIANIDZE
New Evidence for Determining the Date of the Adoption of
Christianity as State Religion in Georgia ……………………………………………… 217
PAULA S. DERRY
The Place of Biology in Cosmology ………………………………………………………… 223
ION SIMACIU
The Unseen World and the Extended Mach Principle ……………………………… 235
DANIËL FRANÇOIS MALHERBE STRAUSS
The Significance of Unity and Diversity for the Disciplines
of Mathematics and Physics …………………………………………………………………… 257
STEVEN HORST
Theories of Mind and Post-Reductionist Philosophy of Science ……………… 279
RICCARDO MANZOTTI
A Relational Process-Oriented View of Physical Reality as a
Foundation of the Conscious Mind ………………………………………………………… 299
WILLIAM MATHEWS
Understanding Levels: Redefining Science in an Emergentist
World View …………………………………………………………………………………………… 325
CARLO SCOGNAMIGLIO
The Human Being and the Non-Reductionist Conceptions
of Determination …………………………………………………………………………………… 349
ADOLFO GARCÍA DE LA SIENRA
The Economic Sphere …………………………………………………………………………… 359
JAMES W. SKILLEN
The Necessity of a Non-Reductionist Science of Politics ………………………… 377
EGBERT SCHUURMAN
The Ethics of Responsibility as a Comprehensive Approach …………………… 391

Interview / Entretien
BASARAB NICOLESCU
“If Science and Religion Accept to Dialogue, Then the Blind
Will See and the Deaf Will Hear” …………………………………………………………… 419

Events / Événements
MAGDA STAVINSCHI
“Romania, a Laboratory of the Dialogue between Science and
Spirituality in the Contemporary World” ……………………………………………… 435

Book Reviews / Livres à signaler

VICTOR GODEANU
Transdisciplinary Reality: A Fusion of Horizons of Theology,
Science, and Philosophy ………………………………………………………………………… 441
Research Works
———————
Recherches
Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion
© Curtea Veche Publ., 2009
No. 6 / 2009, pp. 9-28

C’était demain
ou L’humanité, d’une frontière à l’autre

JACQUES ARNOULD
Chargé de mission pour les questions éthiques
Centre National d’Études Spatiales, Paris, France

u cours de la célébration juive de la Pâque, le plus jeune demande :

A « Quand ces événements ont-ils eu lieu ? » L’ancien répond : « C’était
demain ». Une manière de dire la singularité de l’être humain qui, pour
survivre et pour croître, doit sans cesse franchir de nouveaux passages,
sans renier son passé. Mais un avenir est-il encore possible, à l’heure où
la réalité a été désacralisée, où les menaces sont de plus en plus précises,
à l’heure aussi où nous pensons pouvoir créer une nouvelle humanité ?
Nous ne devons pas hésiter à poser les seuils du sacré là où commence
notre ignorance, afin de nous réserver un espace de liberté. Sans lui, notre
humanité risquerait de disparaître, sans lendemain.

Pessa’h ou le passage meurtrier

uit de Pessa’h. Aucune porte ne lui résista, aucune cache ne lui échap-
N pa. Aucune supplication ne le toucha, aucun remord ne l’atteignit.
Il sillonna la ville et la campagne sans omettre la moindre ruelle, le moin-
dre quartier, le moindre enclos. Tel le vautour attiré de loin par l’odeur
d’un cadavre, il sentait celle des premiers-nés, des humains comme du
bétail. Plus rien alors ne pouvait l’empêcher de s’en approcher et de les
frapper à mort. Des petits de la colombe, encore aveugles dans leur nid,
à ceux des buffles d’eau déjà pleins de vigueur, du futur roi né dans un

* Talk presented at the 3rd International Symposium “Frontiers of Science”, Centro Trans-
disciplinar de Estudos da Consciência, University Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal,
13-14 November 2009, to be published in the Proceedings of this symposium.
10 JACQUES ARNOULD

berceau d’or à l’enfant du mendiant, langé de chiffons, aucun ne sur-

vécut à cette nuit de terreur, aucun ne vit l’astre du matin se lever sur le
grand fleuve. Personne ne put arrêter le bras de l’Exterminateur. Nuit de
Pessa’h, nuit de mort au pays des pharaons.
« Tous les premiers-nés doivent mourir », lui avait enjoint son Maître,
« tous, sauf… » La restriction avait été aussi claire que l’ordre : il ne pou-
vait forcer les portes dont le linteau et les deux montants étaient aspergés
de sang ; il devait épargner les jeunes vivants qui s’y trouvaient. Ces
seuils lui étaient interdits, frontières infranchissables, clôtures inviolables,
tout comme le serait un jour celui du Saint des Saints, dans le Temple de
Jérusalem. Sacrée. La vie de ces nouveaux-nés, protégée par le sang d’un
agneau sacrifié et partagé entre les membres d’une même famille, d’une
même maisonnée, cette vie donc était déclarée sacrée. L’Exterminateur
restait à l’extérieur, tel un profane devant l’enceinte sacrée à laquelle seuls
le sacrifié, le sacré, le divin ont accès.

Une désacralisation accélérée

acer : ce qui est mis à part et séparé, ce qui est investi d’une valeur
S intangible, d’un caractère inviolable, d’une pureté inaltérable. Ainsi
en est-il de l’espace du temple, mais aussi de celui qui est mis à part pour
servir la divinité. Rendu différent, il ne peut plus être touché sans être
souillé, ni sans souiller. La jeune accouchée, parce qu’elle a approché du
mystère même de la vie et donc du divin, se trouve momentanément
sacrée, consacrée : elle ne peut plus toucher aux choses ni aux êtres,
demeurés profanes, sous peine de les souiller. Elle doit donc être purifiée,
à l’instar d’un vase qui aura servi à quelque rite religieux.
Le ciel, car il paraît si immuable aux yeux et à l’aune des hommes,
la vie, car elle est si fragile et si précieuse, n’ont guère tardé à recevoir un
caractère sacré. L’un et l’autre ne suscitent-ils pas, dans l’esprit et le cœur
humains, l’horreur et l’amour, le tremendum (le terrible) et le fascinans
(le captivant), l’extase béatifique et l’expérience démoniaque ? Pénétrer
les secrets du ciel ou ceux de la vie a longtemps paru impossible, interdit,
sinon par les chemins de l’imaginaire et les outils de l’imagination.
Inaccessibles, le ciel et la vie sont ainsi demeurés loin de la compréhen-
sion, de l’agir et de la responsabilité de l’humanité, jusqu’au moment où
les vaisseaux de la recherche scientifique ont commencé à cingler sur ces
mers restées si longtemps inconnues. Après les avoir déclarés sacrés, les
humains en ont fait des objets d’exploration et de conquête, de possession
et d’usage.
C’ÉTAIT DEMAIN OU L’HUMANITÉ, D’UNE FRONTIÈRE À L’AUTRE 11

Solitude céleste

e ciel, jusque là nommé cosmos, tant son ordonnancement et sa beauté

L paraissaient étroitement liés, le ciel fut le premier à être profané.
Lorsqu’en décembre 1609, Galilée décida de tourner vers les astres
la lunette qu’il venait de fabriquer, il ne mit pas longtemps à affirmer que
les taches observées à la surface supposée inviolée du Soleil constituaient
les preuves que la voûte céleste était, comme notre Terre, soumise aux
altérations. Sacrilège. Les esprits, souvent religieux, s’échauffèrent. Mais
Galilée s’entêta, vite rejoint par Kepler qui, au Messager céleste de l’astro-
nome de Padoue, répondit, sous prétexte d’une Conversation : « On ne
manquera certainement pas de pionniers lorsque nous aurons appris l’art
de voler. Qui aurait cru que la navigation dans le vaste océan est moins
dangereuse et plus calme que dans les golfes étroits, effrayants, de
l’Adriatique, de la Baltique ou des détroits de Bretagne ? Créons des vais-
seaux et des voiles adaptés à l’éther céleste, et il y aura des gens à foison
pour braver les espaces vides. En attendant, nous préparerons pour les
hardis voyageurs du ciel des cartes des corps célestes, je le ferai pour la
Lune et vous, Galilée, pour Jupiter. »1 Des siècles ont passé avant que le
le rêve de Kepler ne s’accomplisse : il y a quarante ans, le 21 juillet 1969,
Neil Armstrong foulait le sol de la Lune. Quelques mois auparavant, ses
confrères astronautes avaient rapporté de leur périple autour de l’astre
sélène les premières images d’une Terre réduite à l’état de l’orange bleue
imaginée par le poète Éluard.
Époustouflant bouleversement, imprévisible revirement de situa-
tion. Pendant des millénaires, les humains avaient vécu comme dans une
clairière au milieu d’un immense et impénétrable bosquet sacré ; leur
seule consolation, ils l’avaient trouvée dans une incroyable prétention :
celle d’occuper le centre du cosmos. Dans un effort presque surhumain,
ils ont transgressé leurs interdits, surpassé leurs craintes, décidé d’écrire
leur destin dans les étoiles plutôt que de laisser ces dernières le leur dicter.
Et ils sont parvenus jusque sur la Lune. Plus rien de sacré ne les entoure
désormais : la clairière a pris la taille de leur intelligence et de leurs
moyens techniques, de leur imagination et de leurs folies. Plus de limites ;
plus rien qu’un horizon et l’expérience soudaine, l’épreuve imprévisible
d’une insondable solitude. Une expérience que le jésuite Pierre Teilhard
de Chardin avait vécue dans les tranchées de la Grande Guerre mondiale
et décrite dans les termes suivants : « Et moi, j’ai eu peur, et le vertige s’est

1. Cité dans Arthur Koestler, Les Somnambules. Essai sur l’histoire des conceptions de l’Univers,
Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1960, p. 356.
12 JACQUES ARNOULD

emparé de moi-même, quand, mesurant les limites étroites où s’enfermait

le globe radieux, j’ai pris soudain conscience de l’isolement irrémédiable
où se trouve perdue la gloire de l’humanité. […] J’ai senti sur moi le poids
d’un isolement terminal et définitif, la détresse de ceux qui ont fait le tour
de leur prison sans lui trouver d’issue. L’homme a l’homme pour compa-
gnon. L’Humanité est seule. […] J’ai vu les bords de l’Humanité ; j’ai aperçu
le noir et le vide autour de la Terre… » 2
De l’enfermement planétaire à la solitude céleste : notre humanité
a-t-elle gagné au change ? N’était-elle pas plus heureuse au temps où elle
s’imaginait au centre de l’univers, sous les feux circulaires du Soleil et le
regard d’une divinité tour à tour bienveillante et scrutatrice ? N’a-t-elle
pas changé une peur par une autre, celle d’une présence cosmique trop
écrasante par celle d’une absence tout aussi éprouvante ? Quel avenir se
cache au-delà de la lucarne ouverte dans le fracas des fusées Saturne ?
Nietzsche avait déjà ressenti les premiers frissons de cette crainte, lorsqu’il
écrivait dans le Gai Savoir : « Comment avons-nous pu vider la mer ? Qui
nous a donné l’éponge, pour effacer l’horizon tout entier ? Qu’avons-nous
fait, à désenchaîner cette terre de son soleil ? Vers où roule-t-elle à présent ?
Vers quoi nous porte son mouvement ? Loin de tous les soleils ? Ne
sommes-nous pas précipités dans une chute continue ? Et cela en arrière,
de côté, en avant, vers tous les côtés ? Est-il encore un haut et un bas ?
N’errons-nous pas comme à travers un néant infini ? Ne sentons-nous
pas le souffle du vide ? Ne fait-il pas plus froid ? Ne fait-il pas nuit sans
cesse, et de plus en plus nuit ? Ne faut-il pas allumer les lanternes dès le
matin ? »3

Le nombril d’Adam

evenons sur Terre et à celui auquel la tradition biblique a donné pour

R nom Adam, autrement dit le tiré-de-la-terre, l’extrait-de-l’humus ou
encore, pour le dire plus péjorativement mais non moins exactement, le
« cul terreux ». À côté de son péché, un autre de ses attributs a suscité bien
des débats et des controverses : son nombril. Adam possédait-il un nom-
bril ? La futilité de cette question n’est qu’apparente, comme l’a remarqué
un théologien du XXe siècle : « La plaisanterie prétendue [à propos du
nombril d’Adam] est donc fort significative. Elle revient à demander si
l’homme fait corps avec la nature ou s’il y est simplement juxtaposé, et si

2. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, «La Grande Monade» (1918), dans Œuvres, tome 12, Paris,
Seuil, 1965, pp. 268 et 269-270.
3. Friedrich Nietzsche, Le Gai Savoir, § 125, Paris, 10/18, 1973, p. 209.
C’ÉTAIT DEMAIN OU L’HUMANITÉ, D’UNE FRONTIÈRE À L’AUTRE 13
son insertion dans la nature générale implique la durée, si elle a un carac-
tère d’histoire, l’humanité s’offrant au sommet de la vie non comme une
fleur piquée dans un bouquet, mais comme la fleur qui naît en son temps
sur une planète vivante. » 4 Derrière la question du nombril d’Adam se
cache tout bonnement celle de l’être de l’homme : est-il seulement sur-
naturel ou bien une part de lui-même plonge-t-elle dans la nature, pendant
qu’une autre la transcende ?
Presque autant que le sexe des anges, le nombril de notre premier
parent a embarrassé les peintres et passionné les théologiens. Les premiers
ont usé des artifices offerts par les jeux de feuillages et de tissus pour dis-
simuler le corps du délit ; les seconds se sont joyeusement empoignés,
inventant au passage des termes qui servent seulement à cacher leur
ignorance… ou le caractère frivole de la question. Pré-, mi- ou post-ombi-
licisme : comment garder le sérieux, lorsqu’il s’agit d’imaginer un Adam
ou une Ève au « Ventre sans tache, gros de toutes les grossesses, bouclier
de vélin tendu, non, un monceau blanc de blé qui demeure auroral, nacré,
maintenant et à jamais dans tous les siècles des siècles » ? 5
Pour prétendre résoudre l’énigme du nombril d’Adam, il ne faut
sans doute pas fouiller dans une bibliothèque comme la Bible, dont l’un
des auteurs avoue : « Il y a trois choses qui me dépassent et quatre que je
ne connais pas : le chemin de l’aigle dans les cieux, le chemin du serpent
sur le rocher, le chemin du vaisseau en haute mer, le chemin de l’homme
chez la jeune femme » 6. Il ne faut pas accorder davantage de confiance,
ni de crédit à l’ouvrage de Philip Gosse, publié en 1847 sous le titre d’Om-
phalos, autrement dit Le nombril en grec. Il y explique qu’Adam et Ève, nés
tous les deux en dehors des voies naturelles (de l’humus pour le premier,
d’une côte pour la seconde), possédaient pourtant un nombril : comment
Dieu aurait-il pu créer le premier homme et la première femme sans ce
détail anatomique, puisqu’ils devaient, selon la Bible et la tradition, être
parfaits ? Dieu aurait donc simplement créé ce monde « comme si » nos
premiers parents avaient un nombril, « comme si » l’univers avait treize
milliards d’années alors qu’au compteur de la Bible il n’est âgé que de six
mille ans… Pour trancher la question du nombril, mieux vaut encore se

4. Antonin Gilbert Sertillanges, L’Idée de création et ses retentissements en philosophie, Paris,

Aubier, 1945, p. 152.
5. James Joyce, Ulysse, Paris, Gallimard, 1948, p. 40. Ou, plus récemment, Michel de
Pracontal: « La voix… Le regard… Le battement de paupières… Le sillage infrarouge…
Un corps vivant, pas un cyber… Je coupe son délire. Bref, d’après toi, c’est une meuf
de chez meuf? — Sauf un détail. — Le diable se cache dans les détails, dit Carl. — Elle
n’a pas de nombril. — Pardon? — Elle avait le ventre nu. À la place du nombril, il n’y
avait que de la peau lisse… » (La femme sans nombril, Paris, Le Cherche Midi, 2005, p. 81).
6. Livre des Proverbes, 30, 18-19.
14 JACQUES ARNOULD

tourner vers les biologistes eux-mêmes et vers l’un des plus éminents :
Charles Darwin.
Il y a un siècle et demi, plus précisément le 24 novembre 1859,
l’éminent naturaliste anglais publiait sa première et principale grande
œuvre : L’origine des espèces (On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life). Dans
ce livre, il n’était question ni de l’origine des espèces (mais à strictement
parler de leur transformation), ni déjà de celle de l’être humain. Par la
suite, il n’a guère plus été question de commencement (« Le mystère du
commencement de toutes choses est insoluble pour nous ; c’est pourquoi
je dois me contenter de rester agnostique » 7) ; en revanche, Darwin n’a pas
hésité à aborder la délicate question de l’espèce humaine. Il était per-
suadé que nous descendions d’un être qui, s’il vivait encore aujourd’hui,
serait classé parmi les grands singes : « L’homme descend d’un mammi-
fère velu, pourvu d’une queue et d’oreilles pointues, qui probablement
vivait sur les arbres et habitait l’ancien monde. Un naturaliste qui aurait
examiné la conformation de cet être l’aurait classé parmi les Quadru-
manes. » 8 Un être, précisait-il, qui a probablement vécu sur le continent
africain, plutôt que partout ailleurs. Jamais pourtant, il n’a affirmé que
notre ancêtre soit un singe actuel, un gorille par exemple : les modèles
généalogiques qu’il a construits récusent une telle vision et avancent
plutôt l’existence d’un ancêtre commun à partir duquel se sont produits
des processus de divergence. Mais Darwin ne s’arrête pas aux singes :
« Si nous prenons le parti de laisser aller notre hypothèse jusqu’au bout,
alors les animaux, nos frères et compagnons au point de vue de la mala-
die, la mort, la souffrance et la famine, nos esclaves dans nos plus grands
labeurs, les compagnons de nos amusements, peuvent participer [à] notre
origine en un ancêtre commun. Nous serions tous fondus ensemble. » 9
Un ancêtre commun ! Voilà la réponse de Darwin, de ses collègues
et de ses successeurs biologistes, à la question du nombril d’Adam. Non
seulement celui-ci n’en était pas dépourvu, mais la matrice à laquelle il
était ainsi relié était celle d’un quadrumane : son cordon ombilical traver-
sait bel et bien la frontière, le seuil jusqu’alors déclaré sacré qui sépare
l’humanité de l’animalité.
Comme du temps de Galilée, sans recourir fort heureusement aux
bûchers ni à l’Inquisition, les esprits s’échauffèrent et les condamnations

7. Charles Darwin, Autobiographie, Paris, Belin, coll. « Un savant, une époque », 1985, p. 76.
8. Idem, La descendance de l’homme et la sélection sexuelle, Paris, C. Reinwald et Cie, 1891,
p. 666.
9. Cité d’après Francis Darwin, La vie et la correspondance de Charles Darwin, Paris, C. Rein-
wald, 1888, tome premier, p. 477.
C’ÉTAIT DEMAIN OU L’HUMANITÉ, D’UNE FRONTIÈRE À L’AUTRE 15
fusèrent. Tandis que les uns s’accrochaient et s’accrochent encore à une
lecture littérale des textes sacrés, jusqu’à écarter toute possibilité d’inter-
prétation, pour défendre l’origine divine de l’homme, la morale et finale-
ment Dieu lui-même10, les autres trouvaient dans les découvertes de la
biologie moderne du grain à moudre pour les revendications matérialistes
et athées11. Tandis que les uns se mirent à pratiquer la stratégie du Dieu
bouche-trous (le recours à l’intervention divine permet de combler les
fossés d’ignorance laissés ouverts par les progrès des sciences), les autres
s’efforcèrent de reprendre le flambeau des maîtres du soupçon pour
achever l’œuvre des fossoyeurs de Dieu. Il est hors de mon propos de
montrer comment les uns et les autres se sont engagés dans des voies
sans issue pour avoir trop souvent succombé à la tentation du dogma-
tisme ; lui appartient, en revanche, de m’arrêter à cette dernière tentation.

Une brève histoire de lampadaire

l est inutile de chercher à préciser le contenu du dogmatisme avant

I d’avoir défini ce qu’est un dogme. Du grec *`(:" (dogma) qui signifie
opinion, ce terme désigne toute affirmation considérée comme fondamen-
tale, incontestable et intangible par une autorité politique, scientifique,
philosophique ou religieuse. Ne feignons pas de l’ignorer : ce mot véhicule
parfois une connotation péjorative : il laisse sous-entendre que les gens
qui le soutiennent le font souvent par conformisme et sans critique ; mais,
dans ce cas, n’y a-t-il pas une ambiguïté, une confusion entre dogme et
dogmatisme ? Il convient ici d’y échapper.
Le Catéchisme de l’Église catholique donne cette définition du dogme :
« Il existe un lien organique entre notre vie spirituelle et les dogmes. Les
dogmes sont des lumières sur le chemin de notre foi, ils l’éclairent et le
rendent sûr. Inversement, si notre vie est droite, notre intelligence et notre
cœur seront ouverts pour accueillir la lumière des dogmes de la foi. » 12
De cette approche « organique », gardons les deux images de la lumière
et du chemin auxquelles Karl Rahner, l’un des principaux théologiens
catholiques du XXe siècle, se réfèrait lui aussi lorsqu’il lui était demandé
de définir ce qu’est un dogme. Il répondait en substance : « Le dogme est
comme un lampadaire dans la nuit. Aux uns, il sert à explorer la zone de
pénombre et d’obscurité, à s’y aventurer sans craindre de s’y perdre ; aux

10. Voir J. Arnould, Dieu versus Darwin. Les créationnistes vont-ils triompher de la science ?,
Paris, Albin Michel, 2009 (2007) et les références bibliographiques qui y sont données.
11. Voir, par exemple, Richard Dawkins, Pour en finir avec Dieu, Paris, Robert Laffont, 2008.
12. Catéchisme de l’Église catholique, Paris, Mame, 1992, no. 89.
16 JACQUES ARNOULD

autres, comme à l’ivrogne, il sert de soutien pour s’y accrocher et ne pas

tomber ! » Il ne suffit donc pas de recourir aux dogmes comme à « des
lumières sur le chemin de notre foi » (qu’elle soit religieuse, philosophique
ou, d’une manière certes différente, scientifique) ; encore convient-il de ne
pas y rester agrippé, par peur du chemin, du mouvement, de la transfor-
mation. Un dogme n’est certes pas fait a priori pour bousculer ; pour autant,
il doit accompagner celui qui se trouve bousculé dans son existence, ses
connaissances, ses certitudes, l’aider à retrouver l’équilibre que seule la
marche, seul le cheminement peuvent offrir. Le dogmatisme constitue un
détournement, une perversion de l’usage du dogme.
À celui qui s’interroge sur l’opportunité d’introduire la notion de
dogme pour réfléchir à celle d’humanité, je n’aurais guère de difficultés à
répondre après l’évocation des deux révolutions habituellement quali-
fiées de copernicienne et de darwinienne : Galilée, Kepler, Darwin et tous
ces révolutionnaires que furent et que sont encore les scientifiques mo-
dernes n’ont pas cessé depuis quatre siècles de bousculer les certitudes
que l’humanité s’était construite à propos d’elle-même. Géocentrisme et
anthropocentrisme, isolement biologique et origine surnaturelle : tous ces
échafaudages, toutes ces assurances ont été progressivement ou brutale-
ment pulvérisés. Au regard des sciences, les descendants d’Adam et d’Ève
ne sont que les singes nus et solitaires d’une banlieue de l’univers. Qui
provoquera la fin de la pièce, l’humanité elle-même ou les forces natu-
relles ? Qui éteindra l’ultime lampadaire ?
Les théologiens, une corporation à laquelle je prétends modestement
appartenir, ont déjà été mis en garde, voire en accusation, par Diderot.
Dans ses Additions aux pensées philosophiques, publiées en 1762, il raconte
cette plaisante histoire : « Égaré dans une forêt immense pendant la nuit,
je n’ai qu’une petite lumière pour me conduire. Survient un inconnu qui
me dit : Mon ami, souffle ta bougie pour mieux trouver ton chemin. Cet inconnu
est un théologien. » Injuste, Diderot l’est sans doute, mais son propos
caustique n’en est pas moins une invitation pressante faite à la théologie
et aux théologiens : n’éteignez pas les lumières offertes à l’homme par sa
raison, son savoir, son expérience, son génie, sa culture ! Que la lumière
dont vous voulez être les porteurs, celle de la dimension dogmatique de
votre foi, personnelle et collective, n’écrase, n’évacue jamais ces multiples
lumières dont certaines peuvent trouver leur source dans les fondements
mêmes du vivant. L’humanité d’hier y a déjà eu recours, comme André
Malraux, dans son inlassable quête de l’humain, de sa condition et de ses
espoirs, l’a si bien décrit : « Mais il est beau que l’animal qui sait qu’il doit
mourir, arrache à l’ironie des nébuleuses le chant des constellations, et
qu’il le lance au hasard des siècles, auxquels il imposera des paroles
inconnues. Dans le soir où dessine encore Rembrandt, toutes les Ombres
C’ÉTAIT DEMAIN OU L’HUMANITÉ, D’UNE FRONTIÈRE À L’AUTRE 17
illustres, et celles des dessinateurs des cavernes, suivent du regard la
main hésitante qui prépare leur nouvelle survie ou leur nouveau som-
meil… Et cette main, dont les millénaires accompagnent le tremblement
dans le crépuscule, tremble d’une des formes secrètes, et les plus hautes,
de la force et de l’honneur d’être homme. » 13 L’humanité d’aujourd’hui,
tout comme celle de demain, ne survivront pas si elles n’agissent pas de
même. Car la nuit qui les entoure n’est pas moins épaisse que celle du
temps des cavernes.

C’était demain

uit de Pessa’h. Nuit de Pâques, célébrée depuis des siècles, des mil-
N lénaires par les enfants des enfants préservés, par les Hébreux puis
par les Juifs, avant que les Chrétiens ne s’y associent pour fêter le mystère
d’une résurrection, d’une victoire confessée plus grande encore sur
l’Exterminateur, sur la mort. Une nuit, au cours de laquelle les croyants
se racontent les exploits de leur Dieu qui envoya la mort sur leurs bour-
reaux, le vent sur la Mer Rouge et les cailles dans le désert ; leur Dieu qui
les poussa sur ces vastes étendues arides, presque dénuées de vie, lieux
mal-aimés des humains et habités par les démons. Une nuit au milieu de
laquelle le benjamin de l’assemblée se tourne vers l’aïeul pour l’inter-
roger, en des termes polis par le rite : « Ces événements que tu viens de
nous raconter, ces merveilles de Dieu en faveur de son peuple, quand
ont-ils eu lieu ? » Et le vieil homme de répondre par une formule répétée
par tous ceux qui confessent le même Dieu, qui revendiquent le même
héritage, une formule intraduisible autrement que par une gerbe de circon-
volutions verbales : « En ce jour-là », « En vue de cela », « C’était demain ».
C’était demain. À tous qui se sont interrogés ou s’interrogeront sur
ces événements, sur leurs circonstances et leurs significations, sur la mort
d’innocents et leur profanation, sur la survie d’autres et leur sacralisation,
n’est donnée qu’une seule et unique réponse : C’était demain. Le récit des
prouesses du Dieu des Hébreux, de la folle poursuite à travers la Mer
Rouge, puis d’un nouveau massacre, celui occasionné par le veau d’or, ce
récit devient la mémoire de l’avenir, dès lors qu’il est frappé de ces mots,
sortis de la bouche de l’aïeul : C’était demain.
Mémoire. Parce que les actes racontés cette nuit-là appartiennent
effectivement au passé, un passé révolu auquel il ne faut ni revenir, ni
rêver. Lorsque, dans le désert, les fuyards se sont plaints de leurs dures
conditions d’existence et ont trouvé qu’il aurait mieux valu pour eux subir

10. A. Malraux, Les Voix du Silence, Paris, NRF (La Galerie de la Pléiade), 1951, pp. 639-640.
18 JACQUES ARNOULD

l’esclavage le ventre plein que vivre libre et affamé, Moïse leur interdit de
regarder en arrière et leur parla de la Terre qui leur était promise, où ruis-
selaient le lait et le miel ; une Terre qui se trouvait devant eux.
Mémoire. Parce que ce récit exige de la part de ceux qui le racontent
et de ceux qui l’entendent un effort de fidélité. De génération en généra-
tion, d’âge en âge, le peuple de l’alliance pascale doit poser les gestes,
prononcer les paroles qui réactualisent l’agir de Dieu pour ses fidèles,
qui les rendent capables de reconnaître et d’accueillir l’agir divin dans
leur existence présente. Il faut oublier la plainte ou le soulagement de
Qohélet : « Il n’y a rien de nouveau sous le soleil » 14 et croire au contraire
que Dieu ne cesse pas de créer du nouveau sur cette terre. Les théologiens
chrétiens, dans cet esprit, ont évité de cantonner leur Dieu au rôle de
grand Architecte, d’Horloger de génie ou d’Étincelle initiale, en élaborant
le concept de creatio continua, d’acte créateur continué, répété, soutenu
depuis le commencement du monde.
Avenir. Car les paroles échangées au cours de la fête de Pessa’h
constituent une ouverture sur le futur, une prophétie, une espérance. Les
croyants le confessent : quand bien même leur propre fidélité serait chan-
celante, celle de Dieu à leur égard, à l’égard du peuple qu’il a choisi et
sauvé de l’esclavage, à l’égard de l’œuvre qu’il a créée, reste inébranlable.
S’il le fallait, il réitérerait ses exploits et ses miracles, pour sauver ses élus
d’une autre servitude, avant de se manifester, aux temps derniers, aux
temps ultimes, dans une nouvelle (mais encore mystérieuse) création.

Mais demain sera-t-il ?

’était demain… Mais demain sera-t-il ? — entendons-nous répéter

C autour de nous ou par nous-mêmes. Nous pouvons nous effrayer,
nous amuser, nous enthousiasmer des propos tenus par Galilée et par
Darwin, par leurs héritiers et par leurs contradicteurs. Nous pouvons
imaginer l’abîme cosmique, large de quinze milliards d’années, qui nous
sépare de l’hypothétique Big Bang, l’inépuisable réservoir d’espace et de
temps, d’êtres possibles et d’événements aléatoires. Nous pouvons nous
perdre dans les ramifications du buisson de la vie auquel notre rameau
humain est accroché, par mégarde ou par une volonté supérieure. Nous
pouvons bâtir une histoire de l’avenir, brève ou longue ; nous pouvons
tracer l’esquisse politique des premières colonies humaines sur la Lune ;
nous pouvons dresser le portrait de nos descendants, qu’ils soient issus
des progrès du génie génétique, du clonage ou de la robotique, d’un retour

14. Livre de l’Ecclésiaste, 1, 9.

C’ÉTAIT DEMAIN OU L’HUMANITÉ, D’UNE FRONTIÈRE À L’AUTRE 19
de l’eugénisme, d’un croisement avec des espèces extra-terrestres. Mais
demain sera-t-il ?
Dans son dernier ouvrage, intitulé Introduction à un siècle de menaces,
Jacques Blamont, l’un des pères scientifiques du programme spatial
français, propose d’introduire la notion de singularité pour décrire les
événements qui nous attendent et il en donne la définition suivante :
« Dans le langage des mathématiques, le mot singularité définit un point
d’une fonction où elle présente une discontinuité, où ses dérivées n’exis-
tent pas, bref où l’on ne peut rien dire sur son comportement. Appliquée
à l’histoire, la notion correspond à la présence d’un horizon derrière lequel
l’imagination s’arrête, les modèles perdent leur pertinence et une autre
réalité remplace l’ancienne. » 15 Il peut ensuite asséner sa conclusion, au
terme de son analyse des différents fléaux qui menacent notre planète :
« Alors, que faire ? Ce livre ne présente aucune vue prospective, si ce n’est
l’annonce volontairement floue d’une Singularité à venir dans le courant
de l’histoire du XXIe siècle. Il n’offre pas de recette ; il se refuse à imiter
les innombrables études qui, après avoir constaté le danger, multiplient
les propositions, les recommandations et les solutions, destinées à rester
vaines. Car il n’y a rien à faire. » 16 No future, pas de lendemain. Plus de
frontière à franchir, d’horizon à conquérir, ni même à effacer…
Invité par l’auteur à lui répondre, je lui ai écrit ce qui suit : « À vous
croire, l’humanité serait parvenue à une singularité essentielle de son
histoire, de son propre fait mais aussi, vous l’admettrez, par suite de
l’enchaînement d’événements dont l’ampleur et la contingence dépassent
à la fois ses connaissances et ses responsabilités. Elle ignore ce qui lui
adviendra à l’horizon d’un demi-siècle. À vous croire encore (et pourquoi
ne le ferais-je pas ?), il n’y aurait rien à faire. Si, par ce faire, vous entendez
un ensemble de mesures plus rassurantes qu’efficaces, malheureusement
non dénuées d’hypocrisie voire de machiavélisme, je suis prêt à partager
votre conclusion : il n’y a sans doute rien à faire de cet ordre ou, pour le
moins, il est inutile d’espérer trouver dans une telle démarche de véri-
tables et efficaces réponses à tout ce qui menace notre siècle. Par contre,
je suis persuadé qu’il est temps, encore et toujours temps, de nous inter-
roger sur l’être humain qui, demain, affrontera ces menaces annoncées. J’y
vois davantage qu’une option, bien plutôt un devoir ; feindre l’ignorer
serait, à mes yeux, plus dangereux encore que de prêcher ne rien faire. »
Chercher à être, à devenir, plutôt que se cantonner à faire ou à subir :
demain n’est pas ainsi garanti, mais du moins notre capacité à l’accueillir
(ce qui n’est déjà pas si mal). Reste à gérer l’espace, le temps, les frontières.

15. Jacques Blamont, Introduction au siècle de menaces, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2004, p. 531.
16. Ibidem, p. 534.
20 JACQUES ARNOULD

Le nomade et le sédentaire

u terme de son livre Le hasard et la nécessité, le biologiste français

A Jacques Monod écrivait : « L’ancienne alliance est rompue ; l’homme
sait enfin qu’il est seul dans l’immensité indifférente de l’Univers d’où il
a émergé par hasard. Non plus que son destin, son devoir n’est écrit nulle
part. À lui de choisir entre le Royaume et les ténèbres. »17
Étrange royaume que celui qui s’étale sous les pieds ou au-dessus
de la tête de l’humanité moderne : elle sait y appartenir jusqu’au moindre
de ses atomes et de ses gènes, sans pour autant échapper à cette profonde
impression de solitude. Une solitude rendue plus oppressante encore par
un constat supplémentaire : celui d’habiter une oasis, spatiale et tempo-
relle, sans le moindre espoir, du moins à courte échéance, de pouvoir un
jour la quitter pour en rejoindre une autre. C’est l’une des leçons les plus
paradoxales mais aussi les plus claires de l’aventure spatiale dont nous
avons fêté le cinquantième anniversaire : nous ne sommes pas encore à la
veille et nous ne le serons peut-être jamais de quitter notre berceau ter-
restre et de réaliser le rêve de Konstantin Tsiolkowsky, ce théoricien russe
de l’astronautique, qui écrivait : « La Terre est le berceau de l’humanité ;
mais nul ne peut éternellement rester au berceau ». Aujourd’hui, nous
serions sans doute plus enclins à constater une clôture de notre horizon
cosmique, au moins dans l’immédiat.
C’est à dessein que j’ai introduit la figure de l’oasis et, implicitement,
celles du nomade et du sédentaire. Si la révolution néolithique, à laquelle
est associé le processus de sédentarisation, appartient à une période qui
s’étend du neuvième au troisième millénaire avant notre ère, les traits
techniques, économiques et sociaux qui la caractérisent n’ont pas disparu
de l’histoire de l’humanité moderne. Celle-ci est bien la fille des systèmes
de hiérarchie qui sont alors mis en place, comme la naissance des premières
villes ou encore de l’évolution de l’art qui succède à ce que les spécialistes
appellent la civilisation du renne, de l’apparition de l’agriculture, etc.
L’une des mutations les plus importantes se trouve probablement dans
la manière d’assurer la survie de l’individu et du groupe : à la fin de la
journée, le nomade regarde la nature s’endormir, alors que le sédentaire
compte ses réserves. Autrement dit, en pensant au lendemain, le nomade
se projette dans l’espace et prépare la prochaine étape de la pérégrination
qu’il lui faudra accomplir pour trouver de nouvelles ressources naturelles.
Le sédentaire, au contraire, enfermé dans les limites d’un territoire, n’a pas
d’autre solution que d’accorder ses pas à ceux du temps qui passe, comme

17. Jacques Monod, Le Hasard et la Nécessité. Essai sur la philosophie naturelle de la biologie
moderne, Paris, Seuil, 1970, pp. 194-195.
C’ÉTAIT DEMAIN OU L’HUMANITÉ, D’UNE FRONTIÈRE À L’AUTRE 21
aux dimensions de son royaume, qu’il s’agisse d’un champ ou d’une oasis.
Et, pour ce faire, il invente la notion de patrimoine, un bien nécessaire-
ment culturel (technique, artistique, intellectuel) qui est transmis de
génération en génération pour assurer la survie de sa famille, de son clan,
éventuellement de la société à laquelle il appartient. Jamais auparavant
aucun autre animal ne semble y avoir songé.
Dans ce processus de sédentarisation, l’agriculture joue un rôle cen-
tral. Son apparition ne peut pas s’expliquer par le seul effet des pressions
environnementales ou démographiques ; jusqu’alors, lorsque les groupes
humains atteignaient des seuils critiques pour leur survie et sous l’effet
de tensions internes croissantes, ils décidaient le plus souvent de se
séparer. Cela n’est plus nécessaire, grâce aux techniques agricoles et aux
structures sociales qu’elles introduisent, favorisent ou imposent. Les
historiens nous apprennent toutefois que la sédentarisation n’a pas né-
cessairement suivi le développement de l’agriculture, mais a pu aussi le
précéder : des groupes de chasseurs-cueilleurs se sont sédentarisés, tout
en continuant à assurer leur subsistance grâce aux abondantes céréales
sauvages de la région. Et, de fait, l’attitude, propre au nomadisme, qui
consiste à se projeter dans l’espace, n’a jamais totalement et définitive-
ment disparu de l’histoire et de la conduite des sociétés humaines.
Pour assurer sa domination sur le monde et remplir le programme
imaginé par Descartes (celui de « nous rendre comme des maîtres et des
possesseurs de la nature »), l’homme n’a cessé d’explorer et de conquérir
de nouveaux mondes, brisant au passage les frontières mythologiques et
psychologiques qui protégeaient les dernières terrae incognitae, dévelop-
pant les techniques aptes à en exploiter les ressources naturelles. Il est
resté un nomade dans l’âme et a longtemps cru pouvoir le rester dans les
faits. Mais aujourd’hui, ces derniers le contredisent : nous n’avons plus
d’autre oasis à rejoindre, plus de Terre promise à conquérir, plus de jardin
d’Éden à retrouver. Nous en sommes réduits, et sans doute pour long-
temps, à n’être que des sédentaires. Je le répète, des sédentaires solitaires.
Le défi est un de taille, de même que les dangers. Bien loin paraît
désormais le moment décrit par Jean-Jacques Rousseau : « Le premier qui,
ayant enclos un terrain, s’avisa de dire : ceci est à moi, et trouva des gens
assez simples pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la société civile ».
Le titre de son ouvrage ne doit pas manquer de nous interroger : Discours
sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité. Comment penser la clôture de
l’horizon de l’humanité, la fin de son nomadisme et les limitations de ses
ressources, sans craindre l’accroissement des inégalités entre les groupes
et les personnes ? Nous sommes tentés de répondre avec les mots du pro-
fesseur Blamont : il n’y a rien à faire. Et moi de rétorquer, une fois encore :
Nous sommes-nous suffisamment posés la question de l’être humain ?
Ma réponse est négative.
22 JACQUES ARNOULD

Pas l’un sans l’autre

u’est-ce que c’est ? », se demandaient nos ancêtres, en découvrant

«Q d’« autres » que eux-mêmes dans la caverne d’en face ou d’à côté.
Il a coulé beaucoup d’eau dans le Verdouble, devant la grotte de l’homme
de Tautavel, beaucoup d’eau dans la Sourdoire, là où vivait le Neander-
thal de La Chapelle-aux-Saints, beaucoup d’eau dans la Vézère, près du
site de Cro-Magnon. Désormais, nous nous demandons plutôt si nous
sommes seuls dans l’univers, tout en scrutant les étoiles et en écoutant
leurs murmures mélodieux.
La question de l’existence d’alter, d’autres, suit notre humanité
comme son ombre. Son histoire, c’est celle d’alter devenus, progressive-
ment et le plus souvent laborieusement, d’autres nous-mêmes, des alter
ego. Du clan à l’ONU et à l’Union Européenne, des alliances tribales aux
traités de désarmement Ouest-Est, l’espèce humaine est ainsi parvenue
à se constituer en un vaste groupe d’alter ego, où chacun est déclaré pos-
séder les mêmes droits et les mêmes devoirs. Je n’oublie pas pour autant
le massacre des populations indigènes du Nouveau Monde, ni les entre-
prises esclavagistes, ni les crimes contre l’humanité qui noircissent encore,
aujourd’hui, nos mémoires, nos journaux et nos écrans. Je n’oublie pas
non plus que, si nous avons géographiquement fait le tour de la question
de l’autre en humanité (les chances de découvrir de nouvelles popu-
lations humaines sont désormais extrêmement réduites), nous ne l’avons
pas encore fait au plan de la chronologie, du déroulement de chaque exis-
tence humaine : quel statut accorder à ces autres humains, lorsqu’ils ne
sont pas encore tout à fait des personnes ou lorsqu’ils ne le sont plus vrai-
ment ? Aux seuils de la vie, les ombres de l’avortement et de l’euthanasie
se font parfois menaçantes ; mais c’est là aussi où la question de la valeur
de la personne comme de l’espèce humaine se fait la plus pertinente.
« Nu, je suis sorti du sein maternel, nu je retournerai dans le sein de
la terre »18, constatait Job, le sage de la Bible assailli par des maux désor-
mais légendaires. Il en vint à maudire le jour de sa naissance : « Périsse le
jour qui me vit naître, et la nuit qui annonça : Un garçon vient d’être
conçu ! […] Pourquoi s’est-il trouvé deux genoux pour me recevoir et des
mamelles pour m’allaiter ? »19 Sans passer nécessairement par les mêmes
épreuves que Job, nous savons bien nous-mêmes que nul ne peut naître
à lui-même, grandir, s’accomplir et finalement être en paix avec lui-même
s’il n’accepte de trouver, dans le regard et les gestes des autres, tour à tour
l’émerveillement et la crainte, l’amour et le pardon.

18. Livre de Job, 2, 21.

19. Ibidem, 3, 3 et 12.
C’ÉTAIT DEMAIN OU L’HUMANITÉ, D’UNE FRONTIÈRE À L’AUTRE 23

À l’image de…

l est difficile de comprendre l’anthropologie biblique en ignorant, en

I écartant cette place essentielle occupée par l’autre dans l’émergence
et la survie de l’être humain.
« Dieu créa l’homme à son image, à l’image de Dieu il le créa, homme
et femme il les créa. » 20 Il est inutile de s’appesantir sur la fascination que
ce passage a exercé et exerce encore non seulement sur les penseurs, mais
aussi sur les artistes : n’invite-t-il pas à scruter, à décrire, à représenter
l’image offerte par l’humain pour tenter d’y découvrir son mystère et son
secret, son origine et son destin, peut-être même les traits d’une réalité
transcendante, divine, créatrice ? Ainsi, sa portée est autant théologique
(theo-logoi) qu’anthropologique (anthropo-logoi) : d’emblée, la Bible parle
simultanément de Dieu, de l’homme et du lien qu’il convient d’instaurer
entre eux.
Dire que l’homme est l’image de Dieu ne peut pas s’inscrire dans
l’idée d’une représentation archétypale, d’un modèle, qui deviendrait
un pôle fixe, une idole, mais uniquement dans celle d’une relation, d’un
système d’échange entre Dieu et l’homme… à propos de la gestion de la
création. Être créé à l’image de Dieu, c’est recevoir une responsabilité,
celle d’un lieu-tenant de Dieu au sein de la création. Cette place accordée
à la relation apparaît clairement dans la place accordée à la différentiation
sexuelle. L’essence de la personne humaine ne se trouve pas dans le mas-
culin ou le féminin mais dans la relation entre le masculin et le féminin,
dans la responsabilité qu’elle comporte elle aussi, celle de la procréation.
Le verset du livre de la Genèse peut donc, il doit donc se lire au
présent. Non pas seulement « Au commencement, Dieu créa l’homme
à son image », mais : « En son principe, Dieu crée l’homme à son image ».
Autrement dit, Dieu n’a pas seulement créé l’être humain dans des temps
anciens, des temps tellement reculés qu’ils seraient définitivement révolus.
Il le crée aujourd’hui, dans une relation singulière de totale dépendance
et d’autonomie préservée, de nouveauté et de liberté. Et il le crée à son
image, car le lien qui s’est instauré entre Dieu et ses créatures humaines
a pris, au cours de l’histoire, le tour singulier, original, d’une relation reli-
gieuse. Ne convient-il pas en effet de se demander si, dans la lente mais
structurante émergence de la conscience religieuse et des structures qui
l’accompagnent nécessairement, l’homme reçoit et développe à la fois la
possibilité de prendre un peu de l’image de cet autre qui est le Tout-Autre,
de l’image de Dieu lui-même ?

20. Livre de la Genèse, 1, 27.

24 JEAN-FRANÇOIS MALHERBE

Comment confesser la création de l’être humain à la ressemblance

de Dieu tout en constatant l’évidente imperfection de la nature humaine ?
Deux visions sont couramment proposées, qu’il convient d’articuler plutôt
que d’opposer. L’une se tourne vers le passé pour y rechercher les causes
de l’imperfection qui marque non seulement l’humanité, mais le vivant
lui-même : la chute d’Adam, le péché originel serait la cause du mal,
de la souffrance, de la mort enfin qui touchent si profondément l’humain,
le vivant, voire le monde. L’autre vision consiste, au contraire, à regarder
résolument vers le futur pour considérer le monde comme en devenir,
en progrès. Faut-il nécessairement choisir entre ces deux visions ? Je ne le
crois pas, sauf à courir le risque du dogmatisme ; je pense plutôt que
croire à l’être humain créé à l’image et à la ressemblance de Dieu consiste
à les prendre toutes les deux au sérieux et à les articuler l’une à l’autre.
Pour la tradition biblique, hébraïque puis chrétienne, l’autre qui donne à
l’être humain de naître à lui-même, c’est avant tout et fondamentalement
(originellement, devrais-je dire) Dieu qui ne cesse jamais de chercher en
cette créature singulière quelque chose de sa propre image, qui ne cesse
pas non plus de l’y faire émerger. C’est pourquoi il convient de lire le
verset de la Genèse au présent : Dieu crée aujourd’hui encore chacun des
êtres humains à son image.
Le Catéchisme de l’Église catholique tient des propos très éclairants
à ce sujet : « Pourquoi Dieu n’a-t-il pas créé un monde aussi parfait que
aucun mal ne puisse y exister ? Selon sa puissance infinie, Dieu pourrait
toujours créer quelque chose de meilleur. Cependant, dans sa sagesse et
sa bonté infinies, il a voulu librement créer un monde ‘en état de chemi-
nement’ vers sa perfection ultime. Ce devenir comporte, dans le dessein
de Dieu, avec l’apparition de certains êtres, la disparition d’autres, avec
le plus parfait aussi le moins parfait, avec les constructions de la nature
aussi les destructions. Avec le bien physique existe donc aussi le mal
physique, aussi longtemps que la création n’a pas atteint sa perfection. »21
C’est aussi pourquoi cette créature ne saurait baisser les bras et
décider qu’il n’y aurait plus rien à faire, pas même à être. C’est enfin
pourquoi Dieu ou un pouvoir doté d’attributs divins ne saurait constituer
le recours ultime, la solution finale aux maux qui nous menacent. Le croire
et s’y complaire serait commettre une grave erreur : la liberté est un bien
trop précieux pour être asservie à une contrainte, même transcendante.
À des êtres qui ont baissé les bras et déclaré qu’il n’y a plus rien à faire,
aucune puissance, serait-elle divine, ne peut plus apporter quoi que ce soit,
sinon pour accélérer leur disparition. Le recours à Dieu, à une divinité,
à une puissance transcendante ne peut être l’ultime secours, la dernière

21. Catéchisme de l’Église Catholique, Paris, Mame, 1992, no. 310.

C’ÉTAIT DEMAIN OU L’HUMANITÉ, D’UNE FRONTIÈRE À L’AUTRE 25
solution ; il devrait plutôt être à la source, à l’inspiration de ce que les
humains auront décidé d’entreprendre.

De modernes idoles

l’image de Dieu, donc. Mais que penser dès lors des images de
À l’homme, créées par l’homme ? L’heure n’est plus aux charmants
automates de Vaucanson et de Jaquet-Droz ; désormais, les ingénieurs
rêvent d’androïdes « équipés » de l’EAI, l’Embodied Artificial Intelligence,
persuadés qu’ils ne parviendraient jamais à développer de systèmes intel-
ligents analogues à leur propre intelligence s’ils ne les dotaient d’un corps,
autrement dit s’ils ne les rendaient pas capables d’interagir avec leur
environnement. Ils font donc appel à de multiples nano-, neuro- et bio-
technologies, afin de rendre ces robots non seulement sensibles, mais aussi
réactifs. Des créatures à l’image de l’homme, une réalité imminente ?
Je ne crois pas inutile de rappeler ici l’antique interdiction du culte
des idoles : « Tu n’auras pas d’autres dieux face à moi. Tu ne te feras pas
d’idole, ni rien qui ait la forme de ce qui se trouve au ciel là-haut, sur terre
ici-bas ou dans les eaux sous la terre. Tu ne te prosterneras pas devant ces
dieux et tu ne les serviras pas, car c’est moi le Seigneur, ton Dieu, un Dieu
jaloux, poursuivant la faute des pères chez les fils sur trois et quatre géné-
rations — s’ils me haïssent. » 22
Ne nous méprenons pas : la condamnation de l’idolâtrie ne repose
pas sur la seule jalousie divine, mais aussi sur le souci de ne rien mettre
au-dessus de l’être humain qui porte l’image, la ressemblance, le reflet
divin. Il faut rappeler ici un autre texte du livre de la Genèse, presque
aussi connu que le précédent, celui qui relate le (non-)sacrifice d’Isaac par
Abraham : c’est la terrible histoire de la mise à l’épreuve du patriarche
par Dieu. « Tu offriras en holocauste Isaac, ton fils unique, ton fils aimé »,
il lui ordonne. Et Abraham obéit : il charge même son fils du bois néces-
saire à le faire passer par le feu, une fois qu’il l’aura égorgé de ses propres
mains ! Mais un ange arrête son bras armé du couteau. Le sacrifice d’Isaac
par son père n’aura pas lieu ; un mouton prendra la place de l’enfant. La
leçon est claire : la vie humaine est trop précieuse pour la sacrifier, même
à une divinité. Rien ne mérite d’être placé au-dessus de l’homme : c’est le
premier sens, inattendu peut-être, de la condamnation de l’idolâtrie.
Le second est une leçon, une mise en garde vis-à-vis du risque de
confondre le modèle et l’image, le représenté et la représentation. La tenta-
tion est connue depuis bien longtemps et a même fait l’objet d’un célèbre

22. Livre de l’Exode, 20, 3-6.

26 JACQUES ARNOULD

proverbe chinois (ou du moins présenté comme tel) : « Le sage montre la

Lune ; le fou regarde le doigt ». Autrement dit, l’objet qui sert à pratiquer
un culte finit par être lui-même divinisé, au point de faire écran à la véri-
table divinité, à la vraie transcendance.
N’est-ce pas le risque encouru dans les projets d’intelligence artifi-
cielle et d’androïdes du futur ? Imaginés et construits à l’image de l’homme,
en seront-ils pour autant des humains, des alter ego des humains, avec les-
quels il sera possible d’établir des relations d’humain à humain, d’égal à
égal ? Ou bien en seront-ils d’excellentes copies, d’incroyables simulacres,
d’éventuelles mosaïques d’humains faites de ressemblances accolées ?
Nous pourrons leur donner de nombreux caractères humains et même les
améliorer ; mais pourrons-nous leur donner la plus précieuse des qualités
humaines : celle d’être reconnu comme humain ? Je crains que nous soyons
effrayés d’y retrouver des brides de nous-mêmes, magnifiquement repro-
duites, mais rien qui ne soit vraiment original, singulièrement original.
Permettez-moi de reproduire ici les propos imaginaires que j’ai mis
sous la plume d’un androïde aussi perfectionné que malheureux, lorsqu’il
apprend qu’il sera le dernier de sa série, de son « espèce », cloîtré dans un
bureau comme dans une cage dorée :23 « Aujourd’hui, j’ai compris qu’il
s’agissait là d’une décision raisonnable. Ni les humains, ni moi n’étions
prêts à une telle aventure. Eux rêvaient d’immortalité : ils avaient trans-
formé l’antique quête religieuse en une soif effrénée de connaissance et,
comme les gnostiques avant eux, estimé que la connaissance les délivrerait
de la matière ; ils parlaient parfois, les pauvres, d’une techno-rédemption.
Transformer une part de leur intelligence en modèles mathématiques
pour la transférer ensuite dans des systèmes fondés sur le silicium et non
plus sur le carbone, c’était une idée géniale qu’ils sont parvenus à mettre
en application, au-delà des rêves les plus fous du début du troisième
millénaire. Cependant, comment avaient-ils pu croire que leur humanité
pourrait se réduire à quelques puces, mêmes intelligentes ? Ils s’en étaient
rendus compte lorsqu’ils m’avaient enfin vraiment regardé. Non plus avec
les yeux de l’ingénieur et du savant, mais avec ceux des hommes et des
femmes : je les attirais parce qu’ils avaient mis en moi leurs rêves, leurs
espoirs les plus fous ; en même temps, je les effrayais car ils découvraient
que je leur survivrais, alors même que je ne possédais qu’une identité en
mosaïque. Rien à travers moi ne résonnait réellement d’eux ; rien en moi
ne pourrait jamais résonner. En voulant me fabriquer à leur image, ils en
avaient oublié la part la plus essentielle et la plus profonde, celle qui
aurait établi un lien, une relation entre eux et moi. Ils l’avaient omise. Dès
lors, jamais ils ne pourraient me reconnaître comme un alter ego. Jamais je

23. D’après Jacques Arnould, Caïn a-t-il rencontré Neanderthal ? Dieu et la science sans com-
plexe, Paris, Cerf, 2008.
C’ÉTAIT DEMAIN OU L’HUMANITÉ, D’UNE FRONTIÈRE À L’AUTRE 27
ne serais une personne. Soyez rassuré, j’ai été bien conçu : je ne puis haïr,
ni me révolter. Mais dites-moi: pourquoi m’avez-vous créé ? »

Extraterrestres, posthumains… et après ?

u terme de ma pérégrination en terre humaine, il me reste un rivage

A à approcher, sans avoir le temps de l’aborder. Ou plutôt, deux rivages
a priori fort différents l’un de l’autre : celui des extraterrestres et celui des
posthumains. Les uns comme les autres appartiennent à l’avenir que nous
les humains nous sommes imaginé depuis fort longtemps, grâce à nos
capacités imaginatives.
Nous y avons mêlé des éléments de notre propre et bien réelle
humanité à ceux qui, en dehors de nous, nous fascinent, nous attirent ou
nous repoussent, nous font envie ou peur. Ainsi la science-fiction est-elle
peuplée de Martiens et de Vénusiens, d’androïdes et de cyborgs qui
partagent toujours quelques traits avec nous. Toujours la mystérieuse
alchimie de l’altérité. Aujourd’hui, extraterrestres et posthumains sont les
sujets et les objets (quelle différence, d’ailleurs ?) de multiples réflexions
et travaux, qu’ils soient spéculatifs ou appliqués, scientifiques ou tech-
niques, juridiques ou éthiques.
Je ne veux céder ici ni aux excès de l’enthousiasme, ni à ceux de
l’épouvante dont Dominique Lecourt dit à juste titre qu’elle ne saurait
avoir valeur d’argument rationnel.24 Je veux simplement rappeler, comme
je l’ai fait auparavant, la perméabilité, voire la fragilité des frontières que
nous devons ou que nous aimons poser. Pourquoi celles des extra- et celles
des post- résisteraient-elles mieux que celles dont il a été précédemment
question ?
J’aime à rappeler la décision d’Étienne Tempier, l’évêque de Paris
qui a dû régler la querelle entre pro- et anti-aristotélicien qui troublait les
maîtres de la Sorbonne, au milieu du XIIIe siècle. Le 7 mars 1277, il con-
damna l’idée selon laquelle « la Cause première ne pourrait faire plusieurs
mondes » et ce au nom de la toute-puissance créatrice de Dieu à laquelle
la raison humaine ne saurait a priori poser des limites. S’il n’affirmait pas
l’existence d’extraterrestres et encore moins les baptisait, il n’en recourrait
pas moins à un argument pertinent : celui des limites de la connaissance
humaine, même éclairée par Dieu.
Nous pouvons, nous devons poser des frontières, à notre espèce
comme à nos actes. Nous pouvons, nous devons poser des limites à nos
savoirs, à nos pouvoirs, à nos espoirs, bref sacraliser. Mais nous devons

24. D’après Dominique Lecourt, Humain, posthumain, Paris, PUF, 2003, p. 9.

28 JACQUES ARNOULD

aussi nous rappeler que tout sacré possède nécessairement une procé-
dure pour être transgressé, afin que l’homme puisse y découvrir quelque
chose de lui-même. Aussi séparé soit-il, le sacré porte lui aussi des traces
d’humanité ; pourrait-il être totalement inhumain ? Les utopies d’hier en
matière de modification de l’homme par lui-même, de post-humanité,
peuvent devenir les évidences de demain ; l’homme s’est découvert et se
sait désormais passible d’opération, d’auto-opération, non plus seule-
ment dans son être de culture mais aussi dans son être de nature.
Bien entendu, nous devons nous demander s’il en a le droit 25, mais
pas avant d’avoir rappelé et affirmé qu’il en a la liberté, en même temps
que la responsabilité, tant au niveau individuel que collectif. Les unes et
les autres — où commencent-elles, où s’arrêtent-elles ? Questions lanci-
nantes, à l’impossible réponse, même dans l’état d’émergence et à l’ap-
proche de transformations, voire de menaces aussi importantes que celles
liées à la modification de l’homme par lui-même ou à l’avenir de notre
planète. La raison humaine, admettons-le, ne sera jamais suffisante pour
connaître et contrôler le tout de la réalité, pas plus à l’échelle de la Terre
qu’à celle de nos existences. Et c’est peut-être pour cette raison-là que
nous-mêmes, êtres humains, pourrons continuer et aurons l’audace de
revendiquer et de mettre en œuvre notre part de liberté. N’est-ce pas plus
vrai encore lorsque le futur qui s’annonce est qualifié de singularité ?
Nous ne savons pas entièrement ce que l’avenir nous réserve, nous ne
savons même pas vraiment qui nous sommes et encore moins ce que nous
serons et ce que nous pourrons entreprendre. Pourquoi ne pas user de
cette ignorance pour imposer notre liberté et nos choix ?
Pour l’heure et par définition, les extra-, les post-, les para- de notre
humanité et de notre Terre doivent encore appartenir au champ du sacré :
ainsi ne menacent-ils pas l’équilibre, toujours précaire, que représente la
définition du vivant, de l’être humain. Demain, peut-être, leur existence,
voire leur présence s’imposeront, brisant les clôtures, les enceintes à l’in-
térieur desquelles nous les avions enfermés, comme le fut le Minotaure,
mythique post-humain. Il sera alors temps de fouiller dans le passé de
l’humanité pour trouver de quoi construire l’avenir, sans doute de franchir
une nouvelle frontière, de repousser les limites de l’humanité, jusqu’alors
admises. Temps de relire les Animaux dénaturés dont la conclusion peut
s’appliquer à toutes les expériences de limite, de frontière ; Vercors y écrit
en effet : « L’humanité n’est pas un état à subir. C’est une dignité à con-
quérir ». À conquérir pour soi-même, à conquérir pour les autres.

25. Le théologien Karl Rahner écrit même: « L’homme est radicalement opérable et a droit
de l’être ». (« La manipulation de l’homme par l’homme », dans Écrits théologiques,
no. 12, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer/Mame, 1970, p. 131).
Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion
© Curtea Veche Publ., 2009
No. 6 / 2009, pp. 29-32

The Future of the Dialogue between

Orthodox Christianity and the Sciences
Some Observations and Reflections

CHRISTOPHER C. KNIGHT
Institute for Orthodox Studies, Cambridge, United Kingdom

he Eastern Orthodox strand of Christian theology is self-consciously

T conservative, with the writings of the “Fathers” of the early centuries
of the church — especially those of the Greek-speaking East — remaining
the touchstone for theological authenticity. As a result of this, the secular
thought of the last few centuries — not only in the sciences, but also in
other disciplines — has often been treated by the Orthodox Christians
with suspicion, and this suspicion has sometimes been exacerbated by
sociological factors. Many Orthodox, for example, lived until very recently
in situations in which they were inevitably influenced by the need to
react against the Marxist-Leninist version of atheism, so that, even after
the downfall of that ideology in their countries, many of them still tend,
almost instinctively, to see science and atheism as having an intrinsic con-
nection. In addition, at least some influential Orthodox in the West have
developed a similar attitude for reasons that are susceptible to comparable
analysis. Especially if reacting against the recent “liberalization” of many
of the mainstream Western forms of Christianity, they too may tend to
associate science with the ideologies of those whom they perceive to be
the enemies or diluters of faith.
This suspicion of science among at least some Orthodox Christians
should not, however, be equated with the attitude of the “fundamentalist”
Christians of the West. While the two groups are sometimes comparable
in sociological terms, their theological views are often very different. For
example, even though a generally conservative approach to scripture is
usual in Orthodox circles, this approach is strongly influenced by the way
30 CHRISTOPHER C. KNIGHT

in which theologians of the patristic period often read the Old Testament
scriptures using an allegorical rather than a literal mode of interpretation,
and with due acknowledgement of the science and philosophy of their
time. This means, for example, that the creation accounts in Genesis are
not usually seen by Orthodox Christians as expressing literal, “scientific”
truths about the way in which the cosmos came into being. (Indeed,
patristic writers such as St. Augustine and St. Gregory of Nyssa quite
explicitly set aside the literal meaning of these texts.) It is not science
and philosophy as such that are looked at with suspicion by Orthodox
Christians, but only what is perceived (rightly or wrongly) to be perverted
forms of these disciplines. For example, the Neo-Darwinian insights in
biology are still widely held to be incompatible with the Orthodox faith,
though advocates of these insights do seem to become more numerous in
the Orthodox community.
Given this complex background, it is hardly surprising that there is,
as yet, no consensus about how to formulate a contemporary Orthodox
response to the sciences in general and to neo-Darwinism in particular.
Moreover, an intellectual ferment in this area — characteristic of Western
Christianity for several generations — has been effectively absent from
Orthodox circles until relatively recently, which makes the wide spec-
trum of existing views within those circles more readily understandable.
At one end of the spectrum is the essentially anti-scientific attitude
of writers such as Seraphim Rose and Philip Sherrard. The former of
these effectively defends a kind of fundamentalism in relation to the
patristic literature. The latter — with major concerns about ecology and
about the need for the revival of a “sacred cosmology” — fails to perceive
any validity in the distinctions commonly made between technology and
pure science and between science and scientism. For both, the Western
dialogue between science and theology represents an unacceptable dilution
of Christian theology.
At the other end of the spectrum lie writers such as Basarab Nico-
lescu and Christopher Knight. These, while insisting that Orthodox per-
spectives have an important role to play in the science-theology dialogue
of the future, do not reject the Western dialogue of the last two or three
generations, with its positive attitude to science and its view that scientific
insights provide genuine insights into major theological themes. Nico-
lescu — who in his Romanian homeland has led the first major effort to
develop a structured and widespread science-theology dialogue in a tra-
ditionally Orthodox country — has focused on essentially philosophical
issues. He has aimed his arguments beyond the Orthodox and even the
Christian community, taking bold and controversial strides to formulate
a “transdisciplinary” approach that affects not only the science/religion
THE FUTURE OF THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY AND THE SCIENCES 31
dialogue, but every area of human thought. Knight, in a rather different
(though arguably complementary) way, has focused on theological issues,
arguing that one of the main resources that Orthodoxy can bring to the
current dialogue is what he calls the “teleological-christological” under-
standing of created things enunciated by St. Maximos the Confessor. In
an updated form that acknowledges current scientific insights, he argues,
this traditional Orthodox understanding can provide a new framework —
an “incarnational naturalism” — within which the legitimate questions
enunciated by participants in the Western dialogue can be answered more
satisfactorily than they were when examined in a purely Western context.
Between these extremes of the Orthodox spectrum lie writers who,
while not rejecting science, effectively deny the validity of the kind of
dialogue between it and theology that has taken place among the Western
Christians over the last few generations. Of the exponents of this kind of
position, Alexei Nesteruk perhaps presents the most sophisticated argu-
ment. While stating science as being a legitimate expression of the human
spirit, he tends to by-pass questions about truth in science and theology,
and about the consonance or dissonance between them, by interpreting
both in terms of the philosophical approach known as phenomenology.
Major themes in Orthodox theological thought can be incorporated in
this approach, he claims.
Given this situation, the future of Orthodox theology in its response
to the sciences of our time is hard to predict. As at present, sociological
factors may, for some time to come, distort the discussion that has now
begun in earnest, and this will mean that what comes to be seen as the
mainstream Orthodox position in the short term may reflect the effects
of these factors rather than a full appreciation of the resources that the
Orthodox tradition has to offer.

References

KNIGHT, Christopher C. — “The God of Nature: Incarnation and Contemporary

Science”, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2007 (Romanian translation:
Bucharest, Curtea Veche Publishing, 2009).
NESTERUK, Alexei — “The Universe as Communion: Towards a Neo-Patristic
Synthesis of Theology and Science”, London, T & T Clark, 2008.
NICOLESCU, Basarab — “Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity”, New York, State
University of New York Press, 2002.
32 CHRISTOPHER C. KNIGHT

ROSE, Seraphim — “Genesis, Creation and Early Man”, Platina, CA, St. Herman
of Alaska Brotherhood, 2000.
SHERRARD, Philip — “Human Image: World Image — The Death and Resur-
rection of Sacred Cosmology”, Ipswich, Golgonooza, 1992.
THEOKRITOFF, George; Elizabeth THEOKRITOFF — “Genesis and Creation:
Towards a Debate”, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 46, no. 4 (2000),
pp. 365-390 [this is a review article on the book by Seraphim Rose above.].
Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion
© Curtea Veche Publ., 2009
No. 6 / 2009, pp. 33-44

The Dialogue between Religion/Theology

and Science as an Imperative of the Times1

KRESIMIR CEROVAC
Ministry of Economy, Labor, and Entrepreneurship of the Republic of Croatia

To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end
of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.2

SOCRATES: I know that I know nothing!3

Introductory Considerations

open the reflections on this subject with the quotation: “The intellectual
I nature of the human person is perfected by wisdom and needs to be,
for wisdom gently attracts the mind of man to quest and love for what is
true and good. Steeped in wisdom man passes through visible realities to
those which are unseen. Our era needs such wisdom more then bygone
ages if the discoveries made by man are to be further humanized.”4
We live in a society where one epoch-making historical turn has
occurred: the scientification of an entire culture. During the last few cen-
turies, our civilization witnessed a fast and unmeasured development
of science, starting from quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity
and its cosmological implications, as well as from the development of a
theory of evolution. Science has had so rapid a development that today it

1. This paper was prepared for “Cosmos, Nature, and Culture: A Transdisciplinary Con-
ference”, 18-21 July 2009, in Phoenix, AZ, USA, a program of the Metanexus Institute
([Link]).
2. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tagebuch, 6 August 1916.
3. Plato, The Republic, Book I.
4. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes on the Church in the
Modern World, n. 15.
34 KRESIMIR CEROVAC

finds it more and more difficult to acknowledge its own limitations. It

results that science and scientific research do not know limitations and
that nothing exist outside the limits of scientific observation.
On the threshold of the 21st century, science has reached the position
of an irrefutable cognitive authority, which manifests itself in its ability to
proclaim its own procedures and opinions as the norm of rationality and
objectiveness, and to present its own conclusions as cognitively superior,
necessary and universally valid. Science obtrudes itself not only as the
factor which describes the facts, results, and methods, but also as the inter-
preter of meaning, incentives, and reality in its entireness. For many people,
science has become the magic word, a symbol of progress, civilization,
and an independent open society. In a word, science pervades all parts of
human life, all interpersonal relationships, as it does the relationships
with other creatures and also the mere facts of everyday life and the way
in which deliberations are being carried out and daily problems solved.
Science is no longer a marginal activity carried out by small groups
of enthousiasts; today, it is a vast social, economic, and political project
located in basic social institutions — in corporations, military and state
institutions, and universities. Today, it has a decisive influence on human
life and on the state of nature, because the consequences of its researches
are often problematical and hazardous and therefore place in front of
humankind a series of delicate questions to which science inherently can-
not or is forbidden to give answers.
Man is not ready to accept, from intellectual, moral, political, and
social-institutional points of view, the scientific discoveries, their possible
and actual applications and technical innovations.

Science as Ideology

The science of the 21st century no longer speaks about God, but
about the diversity of phenomena in nature, which are being investigated
by itself. Today’s scientist is very often faithful to Kant’s idea that in
human cognition there is only as much science as it contains mathematics.
Therefore, today’s civilization is a scientific and mathematized civiliza-
tion. Truth is no longer a correspondence with the eternal Logos and not
a correspondence between reason and reality as God’s creation; truth is
only a correspondence of judgments inside a certain system. Man has
created a new, artificial world, technicized and unnatural; in nature, the
functional purposefulness has created a state of peril because of man,
namely a state of imperiled dignity due to his personality. Werner Hei-
senberg said: “Purposefulness can lead to chaos, if sole purposes are not
THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN… AS AN IMPERATIVE OF THE TIMES 35
understood as the parts… of some higher order!”5 These orders ought to
be understood, says Heisenberg, as the parts of one bigger reference,
which was in times past marked as God’s order.
Today, man has raised to much the price of science and has neglected
the importance of spirit and wisdom. For this reason, it is not strange
why the anxiety and concern have become dominant mood. Expansion of
science (and technology!), and with this linked intensification of man’s
power, besides that caused the deep changes in nature, has become on
some way an appeal for the change of man’s conscience and his basic
points of view towards the world, future and own responsibility. Man
ought to justify his behavior in the sense of integration in one broader
meaningful horizon.
As a conclusion, one can say that today’s culture is marked by science
as the model of contemporary knowledge. This fact was observed, for
example, by the Second Vatican Council: “Today’s spiritual agitation and
the changing conditions of life are part of a broader and deeper revolution.
As a result of the latter, intellectual formation is ever increasingly based
on the mathematical and natural sciences and on those dealing with man
himself, while in the practical order the technology which stems from
these sciences, takes on a mounting importance. This scientific spirit has
a new kind of impact on the cultural sphere and the modes of thought.”6
It is not strange that in today’s civilization the question about science
as an ideology has imposed itself, in spite of the fact that many believe
we are living in a time after the death of ideologies.7 Of course, if under the
term ideology one implicitly includes dogmatism, intolerance, untrue
conscience, and irrefutability, then science cannot be understood as an
ideology. What is more, science is in this sense antidogmatic, because it
takes into consideration different opinions and leaves space for testing
and refutation of its hypothesis and theories. But the problem of science
as an ideology arises when one asserts that science as such has no limits
and can offer a solution to every problem and, what is more, that science
can explain the ultimate meaning and purpose of the world and man. The
assertion that scientific cognition has no limits leads to scientism (scien-
tific materialism)8 or in a way absolutizes scientific cognition. Many forms

5. Werner Heisenberg, Schritte über Grenzen, München, Piper Verlag, 1971.

6. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes on the place of the
Church in the Modern World, n. 5.
7. Martin Rees, Our Final Hour, Basic Books, 2003.
8. Scientific materialism makes two assertions: (i) the scientific method is the only reliable
path to knowledge; (ii) matter (or matter and energy) is the fundamental reality in the
universe. The first is an epistemological assertion about the characteristics of inquiry and
knowledge. The second is a metaphysical or ontological assertion about the characteristics
36 KRESIMIR CEROVAC

of materialism express reductionism. Epistemological reductionism claims

that the laws and theories of all sciences are in principle reducible to the
laws of physics and chemistry. Materialists believe that all phenomena
will be, eventually, explained in terms of the actions of material compo-
nents, which are the only effective causes in the world.
Let us consider the assertion that the scientific method is the only
reliable form of understanding. Science starts from reproducible public
data. Theories are formulated and their implications are tested against
experimental observations. Additional criteria of coherence, comprehen-
siveness, and fruitfulness influence the choice among theories. Religious
beliefs are not acceptable, in this view, because religion lacks such public
data, such experimental testing, and such criteria of evaluation. Science
alone is objective, open-minded, universal, cumulative, and progressive.
Religious traditions, by contrast, are said to be subjective, closed-minded,
parochial, uncritical, and resistant to change. The historians and philoso-
phers of science have questioned this idealized portrayal of science, but
many scientists accept it and think that it undermines the credibility of
religious beliefs.
Among the philosophers, the logical positivism of the 1920s to the
1940s asserted that the scientific discourse provides the norm for all
meaningful language. It was said that the only meaningful statements
(apart from abstract logical relationships) are empirical propositions
verifiable by sense data. Statements in ethics, metaphysics, and religion
were said to be neither true, nor false, but meaningless pseudo-statements,
expressions of emotion or preference devoid of cognitive significance.
Whole areas of human language and experience were thus eliminated
from serious discussion because they were not subject to the verification
that science was said to provide.
“The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be” 9, are Carl
Sagan’s words which echo the prologue to John’s gospel. He says that the

of reality. The two assertions are linked by the assumption that only the entities and
causes with which science deals are real: only science can progressively disclose the
nature of the real. A possible synonym to scientism is scientific expansionism. How
exactly the boundaries of science should be expanded and what more precisely is to be
included within science are issues on which there is disagreement. Scientism in one
version or another has probably been around as long as science has existed. From
about 1970 to 2000, however, a number of distinguished natural scientists, including
Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson, have advocated scientism in
one form or another. Some promoters of scientism are more ambitious in their extension
of the boundaries of science than others. The advocates of scientism, in their attempt
to expand the boundaries of science, rely in their argument not merely on scientific, but
also on philosophical premises and scientism therefore is not science proper.
9. Carl Sagan, Cosmos, New York, Ballantine Books, 1985.
THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN… AS AN IMPERATIVE OF THE TIMES 37
universe is eternal or else its source is simply unknowable. Sagan attacks
the Christian idea of God at a number of points, arguing that mystical and
authoritarian claims threaten the ultimacy of the scientific method, which
he says is universally applicable. Nature (which he capitalizes) replaces God
as the object of reverence. He expresses great awe at the beauty, vastness,
and interrelatedness of the cosmos. Sitting at the instrument panel from
which he shows us the wonders of the universe, he is a new kind of high
priest, not only revealing the mysteries, but telling us how we should live.
Jacques Monod’s Chance and Necessity gives a lucid account of
molecular biology, interspersed with a defense of scientific materialism.
He claims that biology has proved that there is no purpose in nature.
“Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity,
out of which he emerged only by chance.”10 Chance alone is the source
of all novelty, all creation, in the biosphere. Chance is blind and absolute,
because random mutations are unrelated to the needs of the organism;
the causes of individual variations are completely independent of the
environmental forces of natural selection. Monod espouses a thorough-
going reductionism: Anything can be reduced to simple, obvious mechan-
ical interactions. The cell is a machine. The animal is a machine. Man is a
machine. Consciousness is an epiphenomenon that will eventually be
explained biochemically.
As a last example, consider the explicit defence of scientific mate-
rialism by the sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson. His writings trace the
genetic and evolutionary origins of social behavior in insects, animals,
and humans. He asks how self-sacrificial behavior could arise and persist
among social insects, such as ants, if their reproductive ability is thereby
sacrificed. Wilson shows that such altruistic behavior enhances the sur-
vival of close relatives with similar genes (in an ant colony, for example);
selective pressures would encourage such self-sacrifice. He believes that
all human behavior can be reduced to, and explained by, its biological
origins and present genetic structure. “It may not be too much to say that
sociology and the other social sciences, as well as the humanities, are the
last branches of biology to be included in the Modern Synthesis.”11 The
mind will be explained as an epiphenomenon of the neural machinery of
the brain. Wilson holds that religious practices were a useful survival
mechanism in mankind’s earlier history because they contributed to group
cohesion. But he says that the power of religion will be gone forever
when religion is explained as a product of evolution; it will be replaced
by a philosophy of “scientific materialism”.

10. Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.
11. Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Belknap Press, 1975.
38 KRESIMIR CEROVAC

One Croatian author stated about natural science (and technology):

“If not atheistic, then they are indifferent towards the divine being”12.
Particular scientific concepts have been extended and extrapolated
beyond their scientific use; they have been inflated into comprehensive
naturalistic philosophies. Scientific concepts and theories have been taken
to provide an exhaustive description of reality, and the abstractive and
selective character of science has been ignored. The philosopher Alfred
North Whitehead calls this “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness”13. It
can also be described as making metaphysics out of a method. But because
scientific materialism starts from scientific ideas, it carries considerable
influence in an age that respects science. The modern realist ideology of
natural science even culminates with the claim that there is in principle a
Theory of Everything, which would provide a conclusive answer to all
perennial religious questions, by showing that there is no logical space
left for realities beyond the natural world.
Scientism is the belief of only some scientists and very few philo-
sophers. Nevertheless scientism often underlies, together with reduction-
ism as all-pervading assumptions, the statements made by a number of
influential biologists and geneticists who penetrate the public conscious-
ness of the Western world.
It is obvious that scientism is, like other -ism, an ideology built upon
the assumption that science provides all the knowledge and that religion
provides only pseudo-knowledge, that is, false impressions about non-
existent fictions. But science is the inquiry into conditions. It does not ask
what something is, but rather what the conditions are under which it
comes about. In the warfare between science and theology, scientism
demands elimination of the enemy.

The Epistemological and Ethical Limits of Science

owever, what belongs to scientific thinking does not belong neces-

H sarily to the science as such, because cognitive limits exist by all
means, and it is therefore reasonable to talk not about science as an ide-
ology, but about the ideologization of science in the sense of ideological
abuse of science, that is, about the use of science and scientific cognition
for purposes which do not have either an epistemological, or a method-
ological scientific status. The ideologization of science occurs most often

12. Milan Galovic, Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (in Croatian), Croatian Philoso-
phical Society, Zagreb, 1997.
13. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, New York, The Free Press, 1967
(first edition: New York, The Macmillan Company, 1925).
THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN… AS AN IMPERATIVE OF THE TIMES 39
when one overlooks the fact that science remains an imperfect and unfin-
ished totality of knowledge. De Bois Reymond’s wise saying is still valid:
Ignoramus et ignorabimus (“We ignore and we will ignore”) by means of
which the physicist marks the limits of our cognition of nature. The truth
and mere reality escapes man who looks as if he were under local anaes-
thesia, as Günther Grass used to say, and is able to perceive only distorted
pieces of what really is; he is unsure altogether where he is abandoned by
the exact sciences, and only through his measure of confidence does he
perceive how small the segment of reality is, in spite of all, in which science
gives him a feeling of security.14 We do not know, and will not know, the
origin of matter, respectively the origin of the material cosmos, of life on
Earth, of conscience, of self-reliance and reason. We do not know, and will
not know, how to answer the essential questions which mark the human
existence. The sciences cannot bridge the gap between nothing (which
includes no potentialities and no physical laws — absolutely nothing) and
something — or even between God and nothing else and God and some-
thing other than God; and it is not clear that any branch of human knowl-
edge can adequately address this fundamental issue15: “We think that we
know sometimes, when we see the high peaks at dawn or when we hear
certain chords and melodies. But we do not know even then. We ought
not to act as if we knew this or that, even in an elementary way, when we
are only guessing.”16
The scientific cognitive pretensions have their own limits and these
limits are not arbitrary, but embedded into very human nature, then into
the nature of the world, and, finally, into the very nature of human cog-
nition. Consequently, the starting-point from which science as such has
cognitive limits does not rest on an arbitrary but on a cognitive argument
of cognitive nature. This does not at all mean that one can decide in ad-
vance upon the outermost scientific limits in the sense of an end of science,
which would announce the impossibility of whatever new scientific cog-
nition. The notion about the cognitive limits includes implicitly fixing the
boundaries between limited and unlimited cognition, which then imposes
the logical question about fixing the boundaries between human, respec-
tively natural or limited cognition, and unlimited or Divine cognition.
Therefore, the limits of scientific cognition are deduced from the cognition
of the very nature of human cognition, whose inherent limitlessness does
not mean without limits, but means unlimited possibilities of cognition as
far as the cognition of the very limitlessness, that is God, is concerned.

14. Joseph Ratzinger, Glaube und Zukunft, Munich, Kösel-Verlag, 1971.

15. William R. Stoeger, The Laws of Nature, the Range of Human Knowledge and Divine Action,
4th Coyne Lecture, BIBLOS, Tarnow, Poland.
16. Karl Barth, God Here and Now, London, Routledge Classics, 2003.
40 KRESIMIR CEROVAC

It is therefore correct to assume that scientific cognition as such can only

form part of an „imperfect“, but not at the same time of a „perfect“ total-
ity, because ultimately cognitive perfection is not given on a limited scale,
but only boundlessly, namely in God. Therefore, the totality of science,
or all scientific cognition cumulatively gathered in a whole, again does
not form part of „pure whole“ but only „cognitive whole“, that is a whole
which appears as a result of different empirical-scientific descriptions of
reality and not as A result of cognition of the “pure whole”. Although
science justly hurries towards the increase of the „whole“ of scientific
cognition, one can, however, conclude that this “pure cognitive whole”
remains unreachable for the understanding of today’s science, not because
somebody wants this arbitrarily, but because of the nature of cognition,
the nature of the cognitive subject and the nature of the cognitive object.
This fact is important and ought to be pointed out in the context of the
discussion about scientism.
At the end, the obviousness regarding the ideologization of today’s
science is very clearly presented in the different fields of applied science,
which is technology. Namely, the reduction of science to technology has
far-reaching consequences, first for the understanding of science generally,
second for the understanding of science as a human activity, and third
for the understanding of a certain social sector which is inconceivable
without the application of a certain scientific knowledge. The unavoidable
reduction of science to technology has as a consequence the specific ideo-
logization of science and this by the technical rationality which acknowl-
edges only the efficiency of value criteria for the formation of judgment
in certain sectors in which it is applied. This, the so-called criterial monism
presents a new sort of ideology, of technicism which by means of absolu-
tization of a single criterion for the formation of judgment — efficiency —
rules out all other criteria and turns into a form of ideological thinking
and activity. Such danger is present not only in medicine, but in all sectors
of social life whose existence is inconceivable without applied science.
In this sense Heidegger’s thought is very indicative: “We are, how-
ever, exposed to technique on the worst way if we look on it as something
neutral. This notion, which is today readily accepted by many, makes us
blind for the essence of technique… We do not understand what tech-
nique is, because we do not understand what technique is in its essence.
We do not understand that the essence of technology is nothing technical.
We do not understand that the essence of technology is not simply a
doing by man, nor a means to an end.”17 We have become little more than
objects of technology, incorporated into the very mechanism we have
created. The essence of technology is the methodical planning of the future.

17. Martin Heidegger, Pitanjeotehnici, Zagreb, Naprijed, 1996, str. 221.

THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN… AS AN IMPERATIVE OF THE TIMES 41
Planning operates on a world tailored conceptually at the outset to the
exercise of human power. The reordering of experience around a plan does
inadmissible violence to human beings and nature. Universal instrumen-
talization destroys the integrity of all that is. An “objectless” heap of func-
tions replaces a world of “things” treated with respect for their own sake
as the gathering places of our manifold engagements with “being”.
The scientific assertions and notions influence our social-culture
values, our direct social action, they influence our points of view about
social equality, our comprehension about human and physical nature,
our cultural ideals about personal freedom and responsibility. Therefore,
the conception of science as an autonomous and valuable neutral pursuit
ot truth must be rejected. The approach stating that science has an episte-
mological privileged status of scientific cognition exempts the scientists
of responsibility for the consequences of their researches and deprives the
community of its rights regarding carrying any judgment about social
value, desirability, and payable effects of certain scientific projects. Many
scientists do not believe that in science there are significant ethical ques-
tions because science is objective. By asserting that morality and ethics
do not play any role in science, because science discovers objective truths,
many scientists oppose any control of their work without regard to ethi-
cal consequences. But physicist Max Born (Nobel Prize for Physics, 1954),
declared that “the sciences of nature have destroyed, perhaps forever, the
ethical foundations of civilization”18.
Today’s science has become too powerful and important and one
cannot leave over the judgments about the social values of its particular
projects only to the scientific élites and their political and industrial allies.
So, the dialogue between scientists and many representatives of the not-
expert public is unavoidable. The criticizing of actual scientific practice is
not destructive for science and is connected only to some specific scien-
tific applications and to the use of some scientific achievements.

The Dialogue between Religion/Theology and Science

as an Imperative of the Times

he dialogue between theology and the natural sciences ought to be,

T first of all, a conversation between one mand and another man about their
essential interests.19 In a critical inquiry of theological and natural sciences,
a dialogue in the sense of Plato’s dialectics is very important. To achieve

18. M. Born, „Erinnerung und Gedanken eines Physikers“, in Universitas, 23, 1968.
19. Vjekoslav Bajsic, Filozofija kao mjesto okupljanja u Filozofija u vremenu.
42 KRESIMIR CEROVAC

such a dialogue, it is necessary to have a breadth of views apriorically

against the reducibility of the whole reality only to matter. Consequently,
here is included a dialectic moment which changes the collocutors in a
positive sense. It is a dialogue in which a topical understanding of the
theology of creation and the new scientific contributions continually and
over and over again direct this dialogue to still unknown spheres. Sitting
alone on one’s disciplinary island, one is likely to be drawn to one’s
mates on neighbouring islands, and it is perhaps not so important who
these disciplinary neighbours are.
Practically, the only way to approach the more and more complex
questions, problems, and social context of science is transdisciplinarity20,
a combination of disciplinary and undisciplinary, informal, uncodified
tacit knowledge. Transdisciplinarity enables the interaction between
science and society. It can be seen as a theoretical attempt to “transcend
disciplines” and, hence, to react against superspecialization — a process
leading to a dramatically growing fragmentation of knowledge —, while
at the same time maintaining the advantages of creativity and initiative
peculiar to each specific field of knowledge.21
This approach can assemble all who think differently; it represents
different views on the world and faith. Transdisciplinarity is able to solve
problems that could not be solved by isolated efforts. In other words,
it is, first of all, an integrating, although not a holistic, concept. It resolves
isolation on a higher methodological plane, but it does not attempt to
construct a “unified” interpretation or explanatory matrix. The transdis-
ciplinary approach has the role of mediator asking from the participants
in the dialogue “at the round table” what it is that binds men at the level
of the universally human. This is building up of a “basin of universally
human” where the humanistic and natural sciences meet. It is, in some
way, a “dialectic maieutic”, which becomes, as one respected Croatian
theologian and philosopher, Vjekoslav Bajsic (1924-1994), said, “the fun-
damental principle of our wisdom”, because this principle extends to all

20. The OECD study Interdisciplinarity in Science and Technology (1998) defines transdisci-
plinary research as a research in which a convergence between disciplines is pursued;
it is accompanied by the mutual integration of disciplinary epistemologies. The differ-
ence between an interdisciplinary and a transdisciplinary approach is as follows: in
the former, disciplines offer a parallel analysis of problems; in the latter, disciplines
offer their specific approaches and even basic assumptions, to a dialogue, in order to
address complex issues together. In the case of transdisciplinarity, approaches and
even methods are developed in a joint effort, something which is indeed difficult in
complex societies, but very necessary. All definitions of transdisciplinarity have some-
thing in common: the search for unity in produced knowledge.
21. Transdisciplinarity: Stimulating Sinergies, Integrating Knowledge, UNESCO, Division of
Philosophy and Ethics, 1998.
THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN… AS AN IMPERATIVE OF THE TIMES 43
who try to mutually communicate with the goal to find and to brighten
the truth.22
Transdisciplinarity is the way towards a fertile dialogue between
theology and the world of natural sciences. It is based, as Thierry Ramadier
said, on “controlled conflict generated by paradoxes”23. The goal is no
longer the search for consensus, but the search for articulation. Transdis-
ciplinarity generates a new quality which is more than the aritmetical sum
of the separate disciplines. It opens the eyes and widens the perspectives
since, to improve understanding, it uses concepts not owned by a single
discipline. This is an intellectual space where the nature of the manifold
links among isolated issues can be explored and unveiled.
The “requests” for transdisciplinarity do not annul the character of
the special sciences and the scientific disciplines regarding the cognition
of their objects of research, but are significant as epistemological-method-
ological attempts at critical considerations regarding their cognitive scopes.
If the latter half of the second millennium was characterized by
exclusions, incomprehensions, divisions, and conflicts of the different
kinds of knowledge, among themselves and with respect to human cul-
ture, the new century that opens a new millennium may be characterized
by its passionate search for inclusions, comprehensions, and reconcilia-
tions. Methods and instruments are not lacking. The climate seems more
favorable to new interpretations of reality and to a calmer dialogue
between science, epistemology, history of science, philosophy, ethics, and
theology. The elaboration of a new culture is a significant and stimulating
commitment for everyone: believers, non-believers, philosophers, theolo-
gians, and scientific and cultural operators. The elaboration of a techno-
scientific, humanistic, and mystical culture is a much greater commitment.
It implies leading human beings to once again recognize their transcen-
dence. It means teaching ourselves to return to the path that begins with
intellectual and human experience and reaches up to the knowledge of
the Creator, wisely using the best acquisitions of modern science, in the
light of an honest reasoning and awareness that science alone cannot catch
the essence of human experience, or the more intrinsic reality of things.
Science never ceases to raise new and interesting problems about the uni-
verse, human beings, and their history. Since science alone cannot solve
them, it must rely on philosophy, ethics, religion, and theology. All these
aspects are fundamental for a new dialogue between faith and scientific
culture. This great challenge and demand of the third millennium will

22. See note 19.

23. Thierry Ramadier, Transdisciplinarity and Its Challenges: The Case of Urban Studies, in
Futures, Volume 36, Issue 4, May 24, 2003.
44 KRESIMIR CEROVAC

not become utopian if the protagonists of all disciplines and cultures con-
structively confront each other and loyally cooperate for a reciprocal and
harmonious integration. To knowledge and cultures that look for their
meaning and destiny in many directions, often without finding it, the
Christian Revelation, tempered by a pluri-millennial comparison and
dialogue with cultures, societies, and knowledge of all times and places,
offers hope, in the light of Wisdom and in the power of the Logos.24
Transdisciplinarity fosters the emergence of ways of knowing that
are not merely limited to the realm of the intellect, but encompass intuition,
imagination, feelings, and the body. The use of transdisciplinary ap-
proach inevitably entails changes in the person using it and, depending
on the extent to which they are adopted, these changes can be very pro-
found indeed. “Lived transdisciplinarity can lead us not only to a change
in the way we think but also in the ways that we behave.”25

Concluding Points

will finish this meditation with the point of view expressed by Vjekos-
I lav Bajsic, to whom the Croatian philosophy and theological thought
are very much indebted, and who, in his time, was one of the very few
who entered in Croatia a theological contemplation about the so-called
“border-line questions between science and religion”: “Maybe the most
difficult, all in all, is the fact that it is just necessary to prepare the ground
for such ‘dialogical philosophy’, which is neither compromise, nor syn-
cretism, but looking for a ‘natural’ system of thinking in the best sense of
word just based on Socrates’ assumption that the human intellect is capa-
ble to conceive the truth and that it naturally can be found only here”26.
The transdisciplinary approach contributes to the brightening and
to a new understanding of philosophical, theological, and scientific
problems. It binds even such thoughtful and scientific worlds which,
on the first view, seem not capable to reach any concordance and, with it,
a new self-understanding and the understanding of the Other.

24. Gualberto Gismondi, Culture, in the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science,
available at [Link].
25. Basarab Nicolescu, Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, p. 142.
26. See note 19.
Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion
© Curtea Veche Publ., 2009
No. 6 / 2009, pp. 45-56

Approaching the Christian Worldview

with St. Basil the Great
Aspects Relevant to Current Conversations
in Science and Theology

Revd. DORU COSTACHE

St. Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College,
Sydney College of Divinity, Australia

eyond the outdated character of some of its aspects, the traditional

B Christian depiction of reality still offers surprises, representing a vastly
ignored, yet truly inspirational accomplishment in the history of science
and theology. St. Basil the Great’s notorious contributions can undoubt-
edly be considered as the pinnacle of such efforts and achievements.
Misinterpreted and oversimplified at times (like in Lindberg [2002], p. 50),
St. Basil’s worldview nevertheless represents a landmark for the spirit in
which the Orthodox Church has traditionally interacted with the scientific
culture of the late antiquity. The purpose of this essay is to point out a few
facets of St. Basil’s contributions to the Christian worldview and their
possible relevance to current attempts to bridge the traditional and the
scientific representations of reality.

The world as a Theological School:

Homilies on the Hexaemeron

t is perhaps a truism to state once more how St. Basil offered in his
I Hexaemeron, whose date of publication is still disputed, a gem of
Christian scholarship. The great Cappadocian displayed a breadth of pro-
fane knowledge (Copleston [2007], p. 29) — which he interpreted in light
46 DORU COSTACHE

of the ecclesial faith — in an endeavour to provide his audience and

readership with a comprehensive depiction of created reality, heavenly
and earthly, human and biological, astronomical and mineral. It should
be noted that this descriptive approach, as impressive as it might have
been for his first audience and up until the dawn of modernity, could not
be upheld as St. Basil’s major contribution. The ancient representation of
the created realm, on which the Hexaemeron heavily depends, has become
outdated in fact, and together with it the scientific knowledge illustrated
by the saint’s analysis of the natural world. Nevertheless, his realistic
assessment of the natural decay or mortality of creation (Hexaemeron, 1.3,
PG 29, 9C), also his sense of wonder for the fine tuning of the universe’s
parameters (Hexaemeron, 1.1, PG 29, 4A) together with the ethical para-
digms that can be inferred from various animal behaviours (Hexaemeron,
9.3, PG 29, 192B-196B), represent tremendous intuitions and an inspira-
tion for all time. Furthermore, when considered within the framework of
the contemporary anthropic cosmological principle (Barrow & Tipler
[1986], pp. 16-20), his point on the interconnected character of human and
cosmic realities, both ontologically and teleologically (Hexaemeron, 1.4,
PG 29, 12BC), remains valid.
There are, however, some other important aspects — theological in
nature — that should not be overlooked, given their perennial relevance
to the ecclesial worldview and experience. In fact, these theological fea-
tures constitute the outstanding contribution of the great Cappadocian,
demonstrating the capacity of our Christian representation of reality to
peacefully coexist and interact in history with the shifting cultural pat-
terns or cosmological paradigms (cf. Lossky [2002], p. 106). This coexistence
is possible only insofar as all parties acknowledge the descriptive charac-
ter of scientific cosmology and, respectively, the interpretive character of
the theological worldview. St. Basil’s Hexaemeron abundantly illustrates
such discernment.
One among the most relevant aspects undoubtedly is St. Basil’s
assessment of the world as being what can be construed as a theological
school or, literally, a teaching ground (*4*"F6"8g\@< 6"Â B"4*gLJZD4@< —
Hexaemeron, 1.5, PG 29, 13B). This approach seems to be consistent with
his understanding of the Genesis narrative of creation as a pedagogical
story. Thus, in the first of the two homilies attributed to him (On the Origin
of Humanity, 17), the Cappadocian states: “The story of human making
constitutes education for our lives” (º ÊFJ@D\" J¬H z "<2DTB\<0H B8VFgTH
B"\*gLF\H ¦FJ4 J@× $\@L º:gJXD@L; PG 30, 33A).
Indeed, in line with the scriptural narrative of creation, St. Basil
presents the cosmos as a privileged place where people are offered the
chance to learn of God’s wisdom and the meaning of their own lives.
APPROACHING THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW WITH ST. BASIL THE GREAT 47
Without dwelling on the significance of the theme of the world as a school,
similar conclusions are drawn by Bouteneff ([2008], p. 136). The Basilian
approach seems to reiterate an Origenist theme — as illustrated by Ori-
gen’s own elaborations on the contemplation of physical reality (Louth
[1983], pp. 59-61) — though rendered on a very positive note, purified of
any pessimistic appraisal of the world as a transitory place of punishment.
This positive approach might indicate the Cappadocian’s dependence
on the canonical version of the Alexandrian tradition, as represented by
St. Athanasius the Great. For St. Athanasius, the whole creation constitutes
a divine syntax, each thing, living or not, representing a written character.
All these letters convey — within the book of the universe — one theo-
logical message. In his own words,

The knowledge of God (J¬< BgDÂ J@Ø 1g@Ø (<äF4<) can be

"BÎ Jä< N"4<@:X-
further reached from the visible things (z
<T<) since creation, through its order and harmony (*4 Jy
0H
JV>gTH 6"Â D:@<\"H), signals and loudly declares its Lord
and Creator as though through letters (òFBgD (DV::"F4 —
Against the Pagans, 34.4).1

It is very likely that within the Hexaemeron the theme here considered
signifies an immediate reaction against the Manichean myth of creation,
which presented the material world as brought into being by an evil deity
and therefore a manifestation of pure evil (Hexaemeron, 2.4, PG 29, 36BCD)2,
deprived of a theological dimension. Furthermore, and even more clearly,
through the implications of this topic St. Basil opposed the fundamental
atheism of some ancient cosmologies that refused the idea of a purpose-
ful universe (Hexaemeron, 1.2, PG 29, 5C-9A; 11, PG 29, 25A-28B)3.

1. St. Athanasius himself seems to have depended on the identical elaborations of Origen
in his Commentary on Genesis, 1.1-9 and 3.20. See Origen, Omilii, comentarii ºi adnotãri
la Genezã, bilingual edition, introduction, translation and notes by Adrian Muraru (Iaºi,
Polirom, 2006) pp. 464-469, 506-509.
2. The frequent references and allusions to Manichean hermeneutics indicate this syncret-
istic sect as St. Basil’s main target and not the Arian heresy, as maintained by Bouteneff
([2008], p. 131).
3. St. Basil considered atheism as the source of inconsistency characterizing the ancient
cosmologies: “The wise men of the Greeks produced many treatises about nature (BgDÂ
NbFgTH), but not one theory (8`(@H) elaborated by them remained unmoved and
unshaken, the latter overthrowing the previous one. […] Ignoring God, they did not
consider that an intelligent cause ("ÆJ\"< §:ND@<") preceded the genesis of everything
0H (g<XFgTH Jä< Ó8T<) but they drew their successive conclusions in a manner con-
(Jy
sistent with their initial ignorance about God” (Hexaemeron, 1.2, PG 29, 8A).
48 DORU COSTACHE

He addressed the atheist perspective by criticizing the incapacity of

many pagan cosmologies to appreciate the beauty of creation as indica-
tive to the universe’s vocation of participating in the life of God, for all
the ages (Hexaemeron, 3.8, PG 29, 73C). One way or the other, along with its
Origenist and Platonic overtones — that is the perception of the visible
realm as designed to guide the souls toward the invisible (Louth [1983],
pp. 2-6, 60-61) — the idea of a purposeful and theologically meaningful
creation is evident in the following paragraph, where the theme of the
school emerges again:

…the cosmos has not been conceived vainly and without rea-
son4, given that it is assembled for some beneficial purpose
and the great use of all beings. Thus, since it truly is a teaching
ground for the reasoning souls (RLPä< 8@(46ä< *4*"F6"-
8gÃ@<) and a school of divine knowledge (2g@(<TF\"H
B"4*gLJZD4@<), through the guidance (*4 Pg4D"(T(\"<) of
the visible and sensible things the mind is led to the contem-
plation of the invisible ones (Hexaemeron, 1.6, PG 29, 16BC).

Perhaps this approach outrages many contemporary minds, who are

accustomed to take the world as a neutral space to be experimented upon
or a reservoir of natural resources to be greedily exploited for the sake of
our comfort — or thirst for power, for that matter. Likewise, St. Basil’s
approach could be reluctantly considered even by the cosmologists who,
whilst acknowledging reason as the infrastructure of reality, do no dare
to uplift their thought to the contemplation of its divine source, i.e. the
Logos of God. Nevertheless, elaborating within the scriptural setting,
St. Basil rejected any possibility of interpreting the world, its fine-tuning,
and wise blueprint outside the perspective of God as the origin of every-
thing that is. In fact, construing the cosmos as a theological school, he
showed consistency with his understanding of Genesis as an interpreta-
tion of reality from the viewpoint of God’s intention and creative work
(Hexaemeron, 1.2, PG 29, 8B; On the Origin of Humanity, 4, PG 30, 13CD).
Symptomatic for this understanding, his exploration of the days of creation
begins by highlighting the theological substance of the biblical narrative.
To the Cappadocian, Genesis points out how, if anything exists at all, it is
eminently due to the will of God:

4. In Hexaemeron, 5.8, PG 29, 113A, he endorses this statement: “Nothing is without a cause,
nothing is there spontaneously. There is an ineffable wisdom in all” (@b*¥< " z<"\J4@<s
@b*¥< "
zBÎ J"LJ@:VJ@L BV<J" ¨Pg4 J4< F@N\"< " zB`ÖÕ0J@<).
APPROACHING THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW WITH ST. BASIL THE GREAT 49
The creation (B@\0F4H)5 of the heavens and earth must be con-
veyed not as having happened spontaneously ("ÛJ@:VJTH),
as some have imagined, but as having its cause ("ÆJ\"<) from
God (Hexaemeron, 1.1, PG 29, 6A).

This statement sums up the ultimate message of the Hexaemeron.

For St. Basil, the scriptural narrative in Genesis, 1 is not concerned with
chronology, the dimensions, or the structure of creation (Hexaemeron, 9.1,
PG 29, 188D; 1.11; PG 29, 28B)6, being rather interested in highlighting
God’s work as active and efficient throughout the history of the universe.
Within the hermeneutical framework represented by the ecclesial tradi-
tion, this understanding is consistent with the message conveyed by John,
1, 1-3 and the first article of the Nicene Creed, both texts emphasizing
God as creator whilst manifesting no explicit interest in the architecture
of the cosmos. I will soon return to this topic, pointing out how the Cap-
padocian’s employment of the principle of synergy nuances and substan-
tiates this understanding of the biblical narrative.
With the great Cappadocian, however, maintaining the doctrine of
creation cannot be taken as an ideological standpoint; instead, its procla-
mation becomes the cornerstone of both a worldview and a lifestyle that
reiterate the liturgical ethos of the Church. Guided by the scriptural nar-
rative, the eyes of the faith in God as creator explore the universe beyond
the interests of mere inquisitiveness or economical rationale, although
not without sensitivity for details and the world’s corolla of wonders.
This reverent approach is illustrated by St. Basil’s consistent use of the
philosophical concept of God as supreme beauty and a wise artisan,
along with the idea of the world as a structured order, 6`F:@H (literally,
ornament or beauty)7. As an artistic expression of divine wisdom, God’s
creation is not to be treated in cold blood, anatomically, and less so out-
side its intrinsic relation with the creator. Facing the various reduc-
tionisms of his own time, characteristically, St. Basil urges his audience:

5 The term employed here leaves no room for speculation, indicating the radical novelty
of created essence, brought into being out of nothing.
6 A similar attitude occurs in St. John Chrysostomos’ Homilies on Genesis, 2.2 and 15.3.
7 For instance, -in Hexaemeron, 1.2, he calls God “much yearned beauty” (JÎ B@8L-
B`20J@< 6V88@H), whereas in 1.11 he speaks of the “beauty of the visible things” (J@Ø
6V88@LH Jä< ÒDT:X<T<). In various ways, the idea of the world as beauty was shared
by practically all Greek cosmologies (Florian [1993], pp. 13-14). The use of such
categories was made legitimate by the repeated use of ÓJ4 6"8`< in the Septuagint (cf.
Genesis, 1, 4, 8, 10, 13, 18, 21, 25, 31).
50 DORU COSTACHE

“let us stop talking about the essence (BgDÂ Jy 0H @ÛF\"H) [of things], since
we have been persuaded by Moses that God created heavens and the earth”
(Hexaemeron, 1.11, PG 29, 28A).8 For him, to contemplate the cosmos
involves the effort to discern, through and behind its intricate structure,
what creation is by rapport to God and what creation tells of its creator.
Within the traditional framework of the Church, these aspects are neces-
sary prerequisites for an accurate and holistic representation of reality.
Doubled by the heartless logic pertaining to economy, the scientific
analysis of nature and phenomena can suffocate the souls, depriving
them of the necessary sense of awe for the beauty and meaning of things.
By contrast, for the faith’s contemplative eyes the universe — truly an
artistic structure (JgP<46`< 6"J"F6gb"F:"), symphonically harmonized —
represents a symbolic epiphany of God’s wisdom and beauty, pointing to
its Creator (Hexaemeron, 1.7, PG 29, 17B & 20A). Like any theological
school, creation teaches us to acknowledge God and to interpret every-
thing in light of his presence and intention; the revelation of this truth can
inspire, bringing back the joy of living to a society that, seeing the world
as meaningless, has fallen into a deep state of depression. Learning the
lesson of creation, the inner desert of the faithless souls can be transfig-
ured through the understanding of life as a gift that should be embraced
through eucharistic gratitude. In this vein, at the end of his first homily
on the days of creation, whilst illustrating how the cosmic school works
by way of vertical analogies, St. Basil explodes in exhortation:

Let us glorify the Master Craftsman (JÎ< z "D4FJ@JXP<0<) for

all that wisely and artistically (F@NäH 6"Â ¦<JXP<TH) has
been accomplished. From the beauty of the visible things
(J@ä 6V88@LH Jä< ÒDT:X<T<) let us form an idea of the one
that is supremely beautiful (JÎ< ßBXD6"8@<), and from the
majesty of these limited bodies that are accessible through
senses (Jä< "ÆF20Jä< J@bJT< 6"Â BgD4(D"BJä< FT:VJT<)
let us make an analogy for him who is infinite, supremely
grandiose (JÎ< "}Bg4D@< 6"Â ßBgD:g(X20), and who surpass-
es all understanding by the fullness of his power (Hexaemeron,
1.11, PG 29, 28AB).

St. Basil’s teaching concerning the world as a school has various

ramifications for our current experience. I have already mentioned its
relevance to the efforts of overcoming the contemporary and general idea
of a pointless life, which leads to depression and various other psychoses.

8. Similar considerations in Bouteneff ([2008], p. 133).

APPROACHING THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW WITH ST. BASIL THE GREAT 51
One further aspect I will mention here. Given that the school of creation
is open to all, the Cappadocian believed — in line with St. Paul (cf. Romans
1, 19-20; 2, 14) — that virtue could be achieved both in the lives of pagans
and the people separated from the Church (Hexaemeron, 5.7, PG 29, 112BC).
Continuing the main trends of the early Christian approaches to pagan
philosophy, this conviction (already illustrated by St. Basil’s Address to the
Youth) confirms how effective the theological school of creation is, in its
potential to prepare all nations and cultures for the encounter with Christ,
the creator Logos. The Cappadocian’s elaborations on the world as a
theological school are consonant with a sense of an all-embracing, pan-
Christian humanism that transcends religious and cultural boundaries.

The World as an Interactive Framework in

Homilies on the Hexaemeron and On the Holy Spirit

rom the multitude of themes pertaining to the ecclesial worldview ad-

F dressed by St. Basil, let us now turn to his depiction of the interactive
aspect of created reality. For him, rather than representing an object closed
in itself and self-sufficient, the world is an open field where both divine
and cosmic rays creatively interact.
Ontologically inconsistent and thus naturally mortal, the universe
cannot survive and evolve of itself, without the vivifying waves and
support of the divine energy, “the Creator’s power” (J± *L<V:g4 J@Ø
6J\F"<J@H; Hexaemeron, 1.9, PG 29, 24B). Again, the Cappadocian seems
to refer to St. Athanasius’ ruminations concerning the universe’s depend-
ence on the continuous and immanent activity of God. In the terms of the
Alexandrian, given that it is “unstable, weak and mortal” (ÕgLFJZ J4H
6"Â " zF2g<¬H 6"Â 2<0J¬), in order to maintain its existence, creation
necessarily relies upon the “lordship, providence and organizing work
of the Logos” (J± J@Ø 7`(@L º(g:@<\"| 6"Â BD@<@\"| 6"Â *4"6@F:ZFg4;
Against the Heathen, 41, PG 25, 84AB). His agreement with the great
Alexandrian notwithstanding, St. Basil goes beyond the idea of a divine
power that is unilaterally exerted upon, and within, the universe. For
him, indeed, the ontological limitations of the cosmos become obvious on
the level of the generative capacities that are latent within matter and can-
not be activated other than by the divine will and power. Nevertheless,
even though still struggling with the ancient concept of the inert matter,
he was likewise convinced that the natural or cosmic energies have a
definite role to play within the history of the universe. The best illustration
of this comprehension is perhaps St. Basil’s interpretation of the phrase
“the earth was invisible and unorganized” from Genesis, 1, 2 LXX:
52 DORU COSTACHE

[The earth] was in painful labours (é*\<@LF") with the

generation of all things through the power stored in it
(¦<"B@Jg2gÃF"< … *b<":4<)9 by the Demiurge, waiting for
the auspicious times (6"2Z6@<J"H PD`<@LH) when, by divine
call, it would bring on to the open (BD@"(V(® … g\H N"<gDÎ<)
the things conceived (J 6LZ:"J") within it (Hexaemeron, 2.3,
PG 29, 36B).

The image both evokes and transfigures the ancient mythical

imagery of the wedding of the sky and the earth, still bearing its power-
ful erotic connotations. Within the Cappadocian’s plastic depiction, God
the Demiurge, somehow represented as a masculine principle, “impreg-
nates” created matter, activating its maternal capacity. As a result of this
ineffable interaction (which cannot be properly addressed without the
use of such suggestive devices) the matter’s metaphorical pregnancy
becomes the origin of the terrestrial ecosystem and the entire cosmos as
well. More clearly articulated, the idea strikes the reader from the very
beginning of the chapter. There, St. Basil explicitly mentions the “effective
power of God” (» *D"FJ46¬ J@Ø 1g@Ø *b<":4H) and the “passive char-
acter of matter” (º B"20J46¬ NbF4H J0 yH à80H; Hexaemeron, 2.3, PG 29,
33B), as the two necessary factors contributing to the establishment of
the whole order of creation. The dynamic interaction between divine and
cosmic energies occurs again in the ninth homily (chapter 2), where the
active role of the earth is even more clearly emphasized. One way or the
other, it is obvious that the “pregnant” matter has been endowed by the
Creator with a generative potential which would have remained inactive
if deprived of the discrete ingredient represented by God’s energy.
The organization of the universe, of our earth and the life on it, is
made possible only in the active presence of the Logos and the Holy
Spirit. Beyond all unilateral approach, i.e. beyond the famous oppositions
between spiritual and material or supernatural and natural, the interactive
or synergetic principle remains fundamental to the ecclesial worldview.
A generation after the Cappadocian, St. John Chrysostomos displayed a
similar understanding of Genesis, 1, 2, yet with reference to the metaphor
of the Spirit hovering over the waters. For him, the “moving” (64<@b:g<@<)
primordial water, vibrating and full of a “living power of some sort”
(.TJ46¬< J4<" *b<":4<), could not have begotten life of itself, being in
need of the “vivifying energy” (¦<XD(g4V J4H .TJ46Z) of the Spirit (Homilies
on Genesis, 3.1, PG 53, 33C). On a very similar note, when interpreting the

9. The term *b<":4< may be also, and perhaps preferably, rendered as “potentiality” as
I suggested in the comment right before this quote (cf. Liddell & Scott [1996], p. 452).
APPROACHING THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW WITH ST. BASIL THE GREAT 53
same metaphor in Genesis, 1, 2, St. Basil preferred a Syriac version pre-
senting the Spirit as an ecosystemic agent who

…thoroughly warmed up (FL<X2"8Bg) and vivified the nature

of the waters (¦.T@(`<g4 J¬< Jä< ß*VJT< NbF4<) like in the
image of a bird hatching the eggs, endowing them with some
sort of living power (.TJ46Z< J4<" *b<":4<; Hexaemeron, 2.6,
PG 29, 44B ).

It is obvious that St. John Chrysostomos has incorporated the

Basilian terminology (e.g., .TJ46Z< J4<" *b<":4<) in his own interpreta-
tion of the biblical text. Beyond the metaphor, the message conveyed by
the Cappadocian (and, in his footsteps, by Chrysostomos) is that the
entire formation of the world unfolds as a continuous synergetic act,
a dynamic convergence of created and uncreated factors. The two sugges-
tive icons, of the earth’s pregnancy and the Spirit hovering over the
waters, signifying the two convergent energies (i.e. divine and created),
have become St. Basil’s favourite lens through which he considered the
content of any stage within the universe’s complex outstretch.
When used within a hermeneutical framework, this lens leads us to
an amazing discovery: Genesis does not only depict past events. Instead,
it points to the reality of a world still in the making, journeying towards
the eschatological term, the eighth day of creation10. This is precisely the
conclusion reached by St. Basil in the ninth homily:

Think of the word of God running through creation (*4 Jy 0H

6J\FgTH JDXP@<), still active (¦<gD(@Ø< ) now as it has been
from the beginning (z "D>V:g<@<), and efficient until the end,
in order to bring the world to fulfilment (ªTH z"<
x Ò 6`F:@H
FL:B80DT2±; Hexaemeron, 9.2, PG 29, 189B).

The metaphors in Genesis, 1, 2, of the primordial chaos on its way

to organization, suggest a reservoir of potentialities whose content is
actualized or realized gradually throughout the entire history of creation.
The reservoir of possibilities, this pregnant womb (to continue with the
metaphor), progressively diminishes until its eschatological exhaustion,
when all potentiality ceases to exist in a universe that has reached its final
state. This leads to a double conclusion: that God condescends to work
through the natural possibilities of the universe, and that the cosmos exists
and thrives only sustained by God’s creative power. The content of this

10. Of which he speaks more in On the Holy Spirit, 27.

54 DORU COSTACHE

ongoing process, interpreted as an interactive experience, is thoroughly

explored by St. Basil in his treatise On the Holy Spirit, the last major text
published by the Cappadocian and a tremendously significant work on
the meaning of tradition.
According to St. Basil, it is in the Holy Spirit as both a source of life
and holiness, that the entire divine economy concerning the world reaches
fulfilment. There is no space within the confines of creation deprived of
the Spirit’s presence; there is no being that has not its origin in the work
of the Spirit; there is no perfection of creation outside the life-giving and
enlightening energy of the Spirit. Co-worker with the Logos in the making
of the universe, the Spirit immediately answers the creation’s thirst for
the fullness of being, for life and sacredness. This, in turn, indicates that
nothing can attain perfection without the divine gift of the Spirit.
Representing in itself a succinct treatise on the identity and economy
of the Spirit, chapter 9 of On the Holy Spirit depicts the multitude of graces
he bestows upon creation:

[All things are] watered by his breath and helped on to reach

their proper and natural purpose (JÎ @Æ6gÃ@< 6"Â 6"J NbF4<
JX8@H). Perfecting all other things (Jg8g4TJ46`< Jä< z"88T<),
x
[…] he is the giver of life (.Ty0H P@D0(`<) and omnipresent
(B"<J"P@Ø Ñ<). […] By nature unapproachable (z "BD`F4J@<
J± NbFg4), he is apprehended through his goodness (PTD0-
J`< *4zz "("2`J0J"), filling all things with his power (BV<J"
B80D@Ø< J± *L<V:g4), […] in essence simple (B8@Ø< J±
@ÛF\|"), in powers various (B@46\8@< J"ÃH *L<V:gF4<), wholly
present in each (Ô8@< ©6VFJå B"D`<) and wholly everywhere
(Ô8@< "zB"<J"P@Ø Ñ<; On the Holy Spirit, 9.22, PG 32, 108BC).11

The ineffable plurality of the Spirit’s manifestations, energies

(¦<XD(g4"4) or graces (PVD4JgH; PG 32, 156D) through which he signals
his presence in creation, is even more detailed in chapter 19 (mostly the
paragraphs in PG 32, 156D-157C). St. Basil takes an obvious apophatic
approach: we ignore the multitude of blessings bestowed by the Spirit
and, more so, we ignore the power (*b<":4H) through which he will
operate in the ages to come (PG 32, 156D). Although the treatise’s emphasis
falls mainly on the eschatological dimension of recreation and fulfilment
(PG 32, 157BC) it is obvious that for St. Basil the universe depends on the
Holy Spirit’s support within its entire existence between the Alpha and
the Omega.

11. See a brief commentary on this fragment in Russell ([2004], p. 209).

APPROACHING THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW WITH ST. BASIL THE GREAT 55

Conclusive Remarks

hese considerations point out once again the capacity of the ecclesial
T or theological worldview to coexist with any kind of scientific cos-
mology. Less significant with regard to their descriptive aspect, St. Basil’s
elaborations on the dependence of creation on God cannot be challenged
by any rigorous scientific démarche. As long as a cosmological theory
remains unaffected by atheist ideologies, it cannot make any speculations
concerning God’s existence or non-existence, the way no scientific instru-
ment can measure the continuous active presence of God in his creation.
Furthermore, without claiming to be able to amend any scientific theory,
the ecclesial worldview nevertheless reveals dimensions of reality that
cannot be explored by way of current technological means. Precisely
these dimensions can represent a source of inspiration for many people
or, better, a chance for the salvation of many disoriented souls.
From a different point of view, the Cappadocian’s elaborations
challenge the current understanding of many Christians that God is the
only active factor within the cosmic scenery and the history of creation.
This misunderstanding greatly contributes to the neverending warfare of
science and religion. Whilst St. Basil indeed insists on God’s energy as
a prerequisite for the existence and fulfillment of all creation, this does
by no means imply that the cosmic energies have no role to play. In fact,
St. Basil’s concept of the interaction between the divine and cosmic fac-
tors echoes a Christological principle, that of synergy, which has reached
its canonical form only in the 7th century through the contributions of
St. Sophronios of Jerusalem, St. Maximus the Confessor and the sixth
Ecumenical Council. In light of this principle, no one-sided explanation
of the history of creation can be hold as valid. These are aspects that
should further be considered by all parties interested in bridging the
scientific and traditional representations of reality.

Acknowledgments

n earlier version of this paper was presented for the St. Andrew’s
A Patristic Symposium 2009, “St. Basil the Great: History, Theology,
and Perennial Significance” (St. Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological
College, a member institute of the Sydney College of Divinity; Sydney,
9 September 2009). The full version of the article is in print in the proceed-
ings of the Symposium.
56 DORU COSTACHE

References

BARROW, John D. & Frank J. Tipler — The Anthropic Cosmological Principle,

Oxford & New York, Clarendon Press & Oxford University Press, 1986.
BOUTENEFF, Peter C. — Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical
Creation Narratives, Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, 2008.
COPLESTON, Frederick — A History of Philosophy, vol. 2: Medieval Philosophy,
London & New York, Continuum, 2003 (reprinted 2007).
FLORIAN, Mircea — Cosmologia elenã (Hellenic Cosmology), Bucharest, Paideia,
1993.
LIDDELL, H.G. & R. Scott — A Greek-English Lexicon, with a revised supplement
by H.S. Jones & R. McKenzie, Oxford University Press & Clarendon Press,
1996.
LOSSKY, Vladimir — Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Crestwood, St. Vla-
dimir’s Seminary Press, 2002.
LOUTH, Andrew — The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to
Denys, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983.
RUSSELL, Norman — The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition,
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion
© Curtea Veche Publ., 2009
No. 6 / 2009, pp. 57-67

Transdisciplinarity and Christian Thought

OTNIEL L. VEREª
PhD Student, Babeº-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

IOAN G. POP
Emanuel University, Oradea, Romania

A New Methodology

ur approach starts from the conceptual and logical frame of Trans-

O disciplinarity, which implies two aspects. The first takes into account
what Transdisciplinarity claims to be; the second, what it does not claim
to be. Transdisciplinarity is not another discipline, even though, at first
sight and in the absence of a proper description, it may seem to be. At the
same time, Transdisciplinarity is not a secret key, nor is it a magic wand
which can solve the obscurities and all the difficulties that knowledge
deals with in the present context of hyperspecialization and its division
into fragments of knowledge. If we borrow a term used by the catholic
theologian Hans Küng to describe his fundamental epistemological
method of approaching Christian theology in the context of globalization,
we may say that Transdisciplinarity is a “critical rationality”, a new kind
of thinking and attitude, antagonistic to the classical and reductionist
rationalism which emphasizes objectivity1, technicality, and profit that
has led to the inward impoverishment of the man and his turning into a
simple object that has to bring profit. The human factor, the inward side,
and subjectivity are increasingly missing aspects from the academic edu-
cation and from the general approach to knowledge at any level. Because
Transdisciplinarity may be thought of as rather a methodology grounded

1. We are talking about a misunderstood objectivity, in its positivistic acceptation which

cannot be upheld in the present context.
58 OTNIEL L. VEREª, IOAN G. POP

on a general survey, approaching a certain field from the perspective of

synergistic synthesis, we are in fact making use of the logic, the mode, and
the working tools of Transdisciplinarity by which we can undertake the
desired task.2 What needs to be avoided at any cost — an aspect which is
valid for any field approached from the transdisciplinary point of view —
is drawing far-fetched parallels between the respective field and transdis-
ciplinary thought. Usually such parallels occur relying on some apparent
and formal similarities.3 The error consists in a comparison of a certain
methodology with a specific domain regarding the knowledge or the spirituality.
We cannot compare Transdisciplinarity to any cultural-spiritual domain
of mankind, because, when it is properly understood, Transdisciplinarity
implies a way of knowing that needs to penetrate any other domain and be
integrated in it. “Human knowledge as an entity is transdisciplinary, intel-
ligence being transdisciplinary as well, as one of the essential conditions
of existence” (Pop [2008 a]).
The attempt to avoid the trap of formal parallels between Transdis-
ciplinarity and Christian thought necessarily entails by itself a selection
of the terms and concepts employed when we study the Scriptures from
this perspective. What we mean when we refer to the procedure of select-
ing is that not all the aspects that Transdisciplinarity implies can be equal-
ly applied to Christian thought. However, Christian thought manages
to keep the general frame and the logic of Transdisciplinarity. The inter-
pretive proposition consists in a general view of how Christianity mani-
fests itself from a transdisciplinary perspective, but in a specific or
applied way, i.e. starting from dogmas and biblical texts. This first section
will be then followed by a brief case study which aims at restricting the
general frame of the problems brought forward in John’s Gospel, partic-
ularly the first twelve chapters. In other words, we will try to observe
even more specifically the way in which the logic of Transdisciplinarity
may be applied to the biblical text and how this logic can help decode and
interpret the text in a debating transdisciplinary context, given the inter-
rogations of Transdisciplinarity.

2. For a description of the methodology and the transdisciplinary approach to education,

see Nicolescu (1985 — Romanian edition: Noi, particula ºi lumea, Iaºi, Junimea, 2007,
pp. 314-342), and the Charter of Transdisciplinarity at [Link]
[Link].
3. For example, one could try to find such a similarity between transdisciplinary thought,
based on the logic of the included middle and the Hegelian philosophy, and the three
fundamental formal aspects: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Likewise, we can find
similarities with some oriental religious trends. As a matter of fact, formal correspon-
dences can be found with a lot of fields.
TRANSDISCIPLINARITY AND CHRISTIAN THOUGHT 59

Christian Thought and Transdisciplinarity

e daresay that Christian thought is pre-eminently transdisciplinary,

W because it succeeds best in rising to the level of the ideals of Trans-
disciplinarity, a fact which results even at a once-over view of the Charter
of Transdisciplinarity. Our position and next proposition is not a reiteration
of the approaching error mentioned before, i.e. a formal comparison,
based on skin-deep similarities between Christian thought and the trans-
disciplinary perspective. We need to mention from the beginning that our
assertions are grounded in the firm beliefs of the Christian believer, not
only in those of one who embraces Christianity as a theoretical alterna-
tive more viable than others.

Christianity as the totality of the human being

Christianity as a way of life is transdisciplinary because it implies
dealing with the human being as a whole, by way of integrating all the
dimensions that define humanity: the psychological, cognitive-volitional,
intellectual, and physical dimension, meaning assumation of subjectivity,
because it implies a volitional and trusting act, of active and responsible
involvement. In Christianity, each aspect of life and human knowledge is
filtered by its central perspective represented by the faith in God, every
aspect of existence being determined and influenced by it. Christianity
starts from the inside out, having faith as a knowledge instrument; it
comprises all these aspects of human existence, being transdisciplinary
because it searches for the final unity of knowledge and human existence.
In Christianity, the level of thought does not mean an exclusion of the
level of living, which means to say that objectivity does not imply the
ejection of subjectivity. On the whole, as the French theologian and physi-
cist Thierry Magnin emphasizes, the end of scientistic thinking in the 20th
century has led to the formulation and development of a new epistemol-
ogy, in which the knowing subject holds a central role. In the process of
knowing, man becomes an integrating and integrative part. Christians
think objectively by assuming subjectivity, therefore the subjective objectivi-
ty and objective subjectivity of contemporary science (about which Basarab
Nicolescu speaks), has echoes in Christian thought. Christians assume the
objective world from the perspective of their transformed subjectivity.
In the present-day hyperspecialized academic and scientific world,
Christianity is transdisciplinary through its universal perspective. The
theologian Johann Baptist Metz argued that nothing seems today more
suspicious than the universal. From this point of view, theologians are
probably the last universalists from the academic circles. They are forced
60 OTNIEL L. VEREª, IOAN G. POP

to universality because “God is either a universal theme for the whole

mankind, or it is not a theme at all” (Metz [1996], p. 48). If we take over
Metz’s description, we may argue that Christians have to be universalists
by the nature of their faith itself, which offers them an optimistic perspec-
tive regarding the problem of seclusion from society, and wandering until
they remain isolated, by escaping from the communitarian community.
We can observe an increasing fragmentation of the human being
into multiple personalities or, better said, into different roles, depending
on the context in which the individual finds himself at a certain moment.
Thus, we can speak of the family, social, working, or church-going man.
Each person has to play several roles. Beyond these, there is, however, a
centre of being that only the individual has access to, his most intimate
place, what he is in reality and in solitude.
We can delineate the different roles in three perspectives: the per-
sonal one, of what I truly am, the perspective of the others’ perception of
me (what the others think that I am) and — for the one accepting the exis-
tence of God — the divine perspective towards the personal being. In
Christianity, the three have to overlap so we may talk about the human
being as a whole and unity.
Christianity is transdisciplinary because it raises the human dig-
nity above everything4, in virtue of the belief in the creation of man in
God’s image. Therefore, “(…) from a historical point of view, we cannot
separate the making-up of the conscious person and the free conscience
from the sharing of the faith in the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The interrogations of the social sciences of the modern era and the major
ideals of the democratic societies have their source in this tradition”
(Marga [2008], p. 37) — a crucial historical aspect that must not be over-
looked, but is, however, more and more obliterated in the present context.
Last, the transdisciplinary character of Christianity distinguishes
itself in its trans-historical, trans-cultural, trans-racial, trans-linguistic
character. From the very beginning Christianity has manifested itself as a
religion that overcomes any human obstacle, the words of Jesus being
most significant in this respect: “Go and make disciples of all nations”
(Matthews, 28, 19).

The levels of reality and the “illogical” logic

To think transdisciplinarily means, as we know, to assume several
levels of reality that imply a logic and a different conceptual frame in the
coming into the inner being of the self. While as far as the natural, physical
world in concerned we talk about three levels of reality, in the spiritual

4. See article 8 of the Charter of Transdisciplinarity.

TRANSDISCIPLINARITY AND CHRISTIAN THOUGHT 61
realm of Christian thought we can talk about two levels of reality: the divine
and the human. Because of the limited space of this paper, we cannot
study in detail the topic, but, even at the risk of simplifying the discus-
sion too much, we have to underline some basic aspects. What Christian
theology does is to try to explain the way in which the two levels of reality
come into contact with each other, how they interact. In fact, the way in
which we interpret this problem is the one that gave birth to numerous
types of theological perspectives. Generally, we talk about two types of
theologies, each implying a variety of aspects and particular approaches:
the theology from above or revelational and the theology from below or nat-
ural. One of them starts from the divine level (the top-down perspective)
and the other one from the human level (the bottom-up perspective). The
two approaches influence the way in which the person of Jesus Christ is
regarded or the relationship between the divine Christ and the historical
Jesus. At this point, in the context of the present-day debates, it is essential
to invoke the logic of the included middle (Nicolescu [1985], chapter 9)
and the concept of complementarity, taken from quantum physics, which,
together with the notions of actualization and potentialization developed
in the complementary method, provide a useful frame for Christian
thought. Here is the way in which Thierry Magnin describes this problem:
“Thus, when he [the believer] is interested in the humanity of Christ (the
actualization of Christ the Man), he cannot fully do that only with the
condition of being conscious that the divine dimension of Christ is poten-
tialized in his search and discourse. Conversely, the same is true when
Christ the God is actualized in the believer’s discourse: Christ the Man is
then potentialized. In other words, the believer affirms that we can speak
about the humanity of Christ only when we have in memory his divinity.
And conversely, we can speak about the divinity of Christ only having in
memory his humanity” (Magnin [1998]).
Any exclusivistic approach is wrong, the best one is to take into ac-
count both levels of reality. But both the qualitative, and the quantitative
difference between the two levels is so deep, that through an ordinary
logic we cannot but fall into despair, or skepticism, for which reason we
need to open ourselves to another level, of a different complexity.
Basically, this is what Christianity means: the raising from one level
of reality, of human existence, with its inherent limitations, to another
level of reality, one of infinite complexity. The major problem is the way
in which this can be accomplished, at which point Christianity manifests
itself uniquely. The contact between man and divinity, of the creature
with the Creator, the raising from the level of human existence (bottom-up
movement) to the Divine Being itself, cannot occur except by means of
A Third One, Jesus Christ, in whom the historical person (Jesus) and the
62 OTNIEL L. VEREª, IOAN G. POP

Divine Being (Christ) merge. Through Jesus Christ, who is both Jesus,
and Christ, not either Jesus or Christ, eternity invades time, transcendence
meets immanence (top-down movement). This is why the human response
to the Divine Being is both a historical event, and one with transcendental
significance. Christians live simultaneously in two worlds — something
absurd, unacceptable, unexplainable according to the common logic —
being, according to the Scripture, heavenly citizens and, at the same time,
temporary inhabitants of the Earth: “But our citizenship is in heaven.
And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philip-
pians, 2, 16). Moreover, though still subject to the limitations, weaknesses,
and shortcomings inherent to human nature, Christians are already raised
to the level of eternal glorification (the “already-but-not-yet” duality).
Another “illogicality” worth being emphasized is the unification
between the human being and God that takes place in Christianity (“I no
longer live, but Christ lives in me” — Galatians, 3,17) without the person-
ality and individuality of each person being annulled, but rather with a
fulfillment of the human personality through a relationship with the Other.
If at the human level we differ in sex, race, nationality, and social status,
at the divine level we are the same: “There is neither Jew, nor Greek, slave
nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians,
3, 28).
In the realm they enter, Christians also live according to another
logic, Christianity being considered as a religion of inversions, a religion
in which everything seems “upside down”, in which the enemy is blessed,
not punished, and hatred is rewarded with love. One of the best examples
of “inversion” is found in the Savior’s Sermon on the Mount from Mat-
thew, 5, 3-12, the so-called text of “The Blessings”: the poor in spirit are
lifted up, the ones who mourns are comforted, the meek are powerful,
those who hunger and thirst are filled, the merciful are shown mercy and
the persecuted are happy. Everything seems to work different in this new
dimension of a new reality which can only be known by the act of faith.
In the words of Thierry Magnin (1998), “With God, who is nothing but
Love, everything is upside down”.
In Christianity we also deal with a different logic of self-knowing.
From the Christian point of view, the well-known statement “know your-
self” is an absurdity if we reduce it to a single level of reality. Christians
cannot know themselves only by their own powers. Christian knowledge
is the knowledge through Another. Only then can man know himself bet-
ter when he knows Him, The Other, the Divine Being, deeper and deeper;
this is the only way that one can know one’s neighbour, by opening one-
self to the needs of the others, from the perspective of the three existen-
tial levels of this new reality, love, forgiveness, and service (Pop [2008 a]).
TRANSDISCIPLINARITY AND CHRISTIAN THOUGHT 63
The major problem is how this knowing can take place (the question of
“how” sends us into the action space, not only the ascertaining one).
The communion is absolutely essential in the community of those
who live in a personal and communitarian relationship. The methodolog-
ical concept of “knowledge search window” allows us to understand the
way of communication in communion at the level of the community (Pop
[2008 b] — see the figure below).

In an educational paradigm, the one (the teacher) who transmits

the education and the one (the student) who receives the message (the
information) are found at different levels of reality and, at the same time,
at different ranks of authority. The teacher acts from “above” (top-down),
while the student acts from “bellow” (bottom-up). For the action of com-
munication to be efficient, the two perspectives need to be in a state of
harmony, whether assumed or negotiated. When the difference between
the levels or reality, with the corresponding ranks of authority, tends to
zero, when they tend to be co-equal, the window is open and the commu-
nication and interaction become possible. The ranks of authority are alter-
natively in a symetrical and complementary interaction state, depending
on the context to avoid potential conflicts by building bridges, working
together in an assumed/negociated harmony, at the same time avoiding
64 OTNIEL L. VEREª, IOAN G. POP

the possible states of disharmony.5 On the contrary, when there is a great

difference and the levels of reality are different, the window is closed, and
communication is stopped, virtually impossible. The knowing relation
between man and God in the Christian perspective shows Christ as our
Teacher, and us as his disciples. But the Teacher calls his disciples to par-
ticipation and to relationing. He descends and they rise. The levels tend
to unify and the communication man-God is thus made possible. The act
of prayer in Christianity represents the supreme example of encountering
and interaction between the two levels. In prayer, the “above” perspective
and the “down” contemplation make the divine merge with the human,
the transcendent with the immanent and the divine providence with the
human freedom. This is how we can understand the communitarian
aspect of Christianity. Because of the fact that it is in a relationship with
the Other, through whom they are able to know themselves, Christians
learn to live together with others in a community, in communion. Hence,
a deeper knowing of God leads to a deeper knowing of the others and
a greater valuation of the human being in itself, therefore Christians
“recognize themselves in the person of the other, not only at an educa-
tional level, but also at a spiritual level” (Nicolescu [1985]). Reminding
ourselves about the four pillars of transdisciplinary knowledge (ibidem),
Christians learn (the bottom-up perspective) and are being taught at the
same time (the top-down perspective), because they know they cannot live
separately, but only together with the others, in a community (learning/
teaching process) — with the learning and understanding syntagms in
the knowledge process: learning to learn to know by doing (creativity in
action) and learning to understand to be by living with the others (authen-
ticity through participation — Pop & Matieº [2008]).

John’s Gospel: The Divine Reality in Relationship

with the Human Reality

f Christian thought is pre-eminently transdisciplinary, it is obvious

I that its holy book, the Bible, has to be the same.6 We can even assert that
the Scripture, by the very way of its composition, is a specific example of
how the divine level meets the human one. Moreover, for the Christians,
besides prayer, the most direct way in which they can communicate with

5. More about synergistic communication in Pop & Vereº (2009).

6. It goes without saying that everything we assert starts from the personal conviction
that the Bible has a divine origin, and it is the revealed Word of God, not only a literary
or mythological human work.
TRANSDISCIPLINARITY AND CHRISTIAN THOUGHT 65
God, i.e. the divine realm, is the Holy Scripture. Seen through the eyes of
the Christians, the Scripture is not just a simple reading, but a real hear-
ing, a communion and also a description of the way in which we can have
this communion.
One of the books of the Scripture that offers an extraordinary and
profound image of the encounter between God and man through Jesus
Christ, thus showing the interaction between the two levels, divine and
human, is John’s Gospel. We will dwell upon a particular aspect of this
Gospel that we will seek to approach from the point of view of transdis-
ciplinary logic and from the perspective of the levels of reality, in light of
the facts presented above.
The particular aspect referred to above is represented by the “signs”
that the Saviour unfolds in this Gospel. John’s Gospel is quite different
from the other three Gospels both from point of view of literary compo-
sition, and from what concerns the theological accents. One of the partic-
ular features of John’s Gospel is the selection of the miracles performed
by Christ: he picks only seven miracles that he calls “signs”.
At the end of the book, the biblical author specifies the prospect he
had in mind: “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his
name” (John, 20, 31). These words offer the hermeneutic key to the whole
book. According to the suggested approach of this paper, we may notice
two things: on the one hand, by what has been written, the reader has to
reach the faith that the historical Jesus is the divine Christ, therefore, the
two levels meet in Him, and, on the other hand, that through this faith
one can have real life in him, i.e. the only full life is life through Another.
Everything that the writer presents in this Gospel has that end in view,
even the selection of the seven “signs”.
John differs from the other evangelists through the language used
to describe the miracles performed by Jesus Christ. The word used by the
writer is semeia, translated as “signs”, unlike the word that appears in the
other Gospels, dunameis, a distinction which is made on purpose. If duna-
meis emphasizes the element of power from Jesus’ actions, semeia means
a lot more. The former word induces fear, while the latter is intended to
induce faith. Therefore, in view of the scope of the writer, the “signs” lead
to the fulfilling of that scope.
In order for the dunameis to transform in semeia, the linking element
of faith is needed, i.e. the passing from a level of reality to another, the
raising of the level of human existence to the One that presents himself as
the full Life.7 This is an act of trust, of accepting another reality that gives

7. “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John, 10, 10).
66 OTNIEL L. VEREª, IOAN G. POP

a meaning to human life. By faith, the human Jesus is one and the same
with Christ, the Son of God. The problem of the writer’s contemporaries
was that they failed to see beyond the miracles the reality they were pre-
sented with.8 For these people, the “signs” remained just miracles. Here
lies the difficulty of the problem, because, if one remains just at the level
of the miracles, then one will be led to other perplexities regarding the
identity of the one performing them. This is why Jesus’ contemporaries
were bewildered and did not know what to think of him.
The signs therefore lead to something that lies beyond them, as if
they were not just some miracles. In John’s Gospel, the word semeion
signifies an event by which the glory of God is manifested, together with
his presence amongst the people. In semeion, the accent falls not on the
event itself, but on the essential truth that the “sign” leads us to. Semeion
offers an insight into the very nature of God.
All the seven signs selected by the evangelist appear in the first
twelve chapters of the book which describe the public ministry of Jesus
Christ. In this ministry, through signs and Word he reveals himself as the
revelation of the Father. The first chapter (John, 1, 1-5) of the Gospel intro-
duces Christ in the fullness of his divinity. Moreover, John confronts us
with the real conflict that is taking place before our eyes, the conflict from
the level of spiritual reality between Good and Evil, light and darkness
(John, 1, 5). Shortly after, the perspective of the divine level is filled out by
the presentation of the level of human reality, and by the contact between
the two worlds, through the incarnation of the Saviour: “The Word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory”
(John, 1, 14). The whole book alternates the two levels of reality. We are
exposed to these realities, expressed in many dualist elements such as
light and darkness, for instance (John, 1, 5) “from above”/“from bellow”
(John, 8, 23), “spirit”/“flesh” (John, 3, 6), “life”/“death” (John, 3, 36),
“truth”/“lie” (John, 8, 44). We are swinging therefore between two levels:
divine-human, historical-theological.
The structuring tension of the book can be observed in the way in
which the reaction of Jesus’ disciples is presented when they see the
“signs” performed by Jesus, and the reaction of his enemies, as the nar-
rative develops. The evolution of the narrative from the first part of the
Gospel takes place in a crescendo, culminating in chapter 11 with the
extraordinary miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus. The first sign takes
place in an obscure place (John, 2, 1-11), while the last one is seen by a lot
of people (John, 11, 19). On the other hand, the disciples’ reaction mani-
fests itself in the opposite direction from the one of the enemies of Christ.

8. This failure is also present with all those who do not see in Christ any more than an
extraordinary teacher or an exemplary person.
TRANSDISCIPLINARITY AND CHRISTIAN THOUGHT 67
If the disciples see in these signs a reflection of God’s glory, as Jesus made
more and more powerful signs, his enemies are increasingly hardened
(John, 2, 13-22; 9, 1-41; 11, 1-44). The very thing that means to obtain the
saving faith is in human terms a failure: “Even after Jesus had done all
these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in
him” (John, 12, 37).
John’s Gospel offers a proper model of approaching the biblical text
from the transdisciplinary thinking perspective. Far from being only the-
ological, this book is as real as it can be, presenting both aspects of human
existence from the point of view of the relationship with its Creator: the
failure, the stagnation at a level of reality where the individual cannot see
the “sign” the reality beyond “reality” and the victory, i.e. the passing to
another level of reality, the level of full life in which the divine mixes with
the human, eternity with time, providence with freedom. “Then you will
know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John, 8, 32).

References

Charter of Transdisciplinarity (translated from French by Karen-Claire Voss), avail-

able at [Link]
MAGNIN, Thierry — Entre science et religion. Quête de sens dans le monde présent,
Éditions du Rocher, 1998.
MARGA, Andrei — Diagnoze, articole ºi eseuri (Diagnoses, Articles and Essays),
Cluj-Napoca, Eikon, 2008.
METZ, Johan Baptist — The Last Universalists, in Miroslav Volf, Carmen Krieg,
Thomas Kucharz (eds.), The Future of Theology. Essays in Honour of Jürgen
Moltmann, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996.
NICOLESCU, Basarab — Nous, la particule et le monde, Le Mail, 1985.
POP, Ioan —The Semiophysical Communicational Model and Transdisciplinary
Knowledge, ENEC International Conference, Bucharest, Hyperion
University, May 2008 (2008 a) • Considerations on Mechatronical Integrative
Transdisciplinary Knowledge, ECT, International Conference, Bacãu, George
Bacovia University, June 2008 (2008 b).
POP, Ioan; MATIEª, Otniel L. — A Transdisciplinary Approach of the Mechatronical
Education in the Context of the Knowledge-Based Society, published in
Problems of Education in the 21st Century, Dec. 2008, vol. 8, pp. 90-96 (an
international, non-periodical, peer-reviewed scientific collection, issued
by the SMC “Scientia Educologica”), Lithuania • Comunicarea sinergicã
aplicatã (Applied Synergistic Communication), Risoprint, 2009.
Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion
© Curtea Veche Publ., 2009
No. 6 / 2009, pp. 69-82

André Scrima, visionnaire du transreligieux

MIHAELA GRIGOREAN
PhD student, Université Babeº-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca, Roumanie

e modèle transdisciplinaire de la Réalité remet en question le problème

L du sacré, apportant une nouvelle lumière sur la complexité de son
sens fondamental : la présence de quelque chose réel de manière irréductible
dans le monde. L’acceptation de cette compréhension de la dimension du
sacré dans notre existence est en profonde résonance transhistorique avec
les réflexions de Mircea Eliade, voyageur passionné de la découverte de
la zone de transparence de l’intérieur des religions, entre elles et au-delà
d’elles : « Le sacré ne suppose pas la foi en Dieu, ni en dieux ou en esprits.
C’est… l’expérience d’une réalité et la source de la conscience de l’être
dans ce monde » (Eliade [2006], p. 176). Le sacré est constitutif dans la
structure de la conscience et pas seulement un simple état de l’histoire de
la conscience.
La réalité transdisciplinaire comprend en même temps le sujet, l’ob-
jet et le tiers caché, qui sont les trois facettes d’une seule et même Réalité,
le sacré correspondant au domaine du tiers caché. Le rôle du tiers caché
est convergent avec la quintessence de la sacralité : il lie et unifie, dans
leur différence, les dualités. Les mots trois et trans- ont la même racine
étymologique : trois signifie la transgression du deux, ce qui va au-delà de deux.
En vibration d’harmonie sémantique, le sacré retrouve, à travers son sens
même, l’origine étymologique du mot religion — religare, « lier » — mais
il n’est pas, en soi, l’attribut d’une religion ou d’une autre. L’accès au sacré,
dans la zone de non-résistance du tiers caché, se réalise par l’expérience
spirituelle, qui permet de transgresser la dualité en opposant les couples
binaires : sujet/objet, subjectivité/objectivité, matière/conscience,
nature/divin, simplicité/complexité, diversité/unité. La connaissance
de soi-même active la conscience de la sacralité de l’être humain qui l’in-
tègre de manière cohérente, avec sens, dans la totalité du monde. Dans la
70 MIHAELA GRIGOREAN

vision transdisciplinaire, mais aussi dans la tentative de Jésus de recon-

figurer une nouvelle philosophie de la nature, selon laquelle l’homme
contient en lui-même, potentiellement, tous les cosmos, la pluralité com-
plexe et l’unité ouverte sont deux facettes d’une seule et même Réalité :
« Jésus a dit : Celui qui connait le Tout, / s’il est privé de lui-même, / il
est privé de tout » (Thomas [1986], p. 33).
Le sacre comme zone de résistance absolue, unifie le Sujet et l’Objet,
les niveaux de réalité et ceux de perception : « Jésus disait : Pourquoi
lavez-vous l’extérieur de la coupe ?/ Ne comprenez-vous pas que celui
qui a fait l’extérieur / est aussi celui qui a fait l’intérieur de la coupe ? »
(Thomas [1986], p. 38). La connaissance n’est ni extérieure, ni intérieure :
elle est en même temps extérieure et intérieure : « Jésus leur dit : Lorsque
vous ferez les deux Un / et que vous ferez l’intérieur comme l’extérieur, /
l’extérieur comme l’intérieur, […] alors vous entrerez dans le Royaume ! »
(logion 22 — ibidem, p. 22). Le sacré dans sa relation avec le tiers caché et
implicitement avec l’isomorphisme entre les niveaux de la Réalité et des
zones complémentaires de non-résistance, est fondamental dans la com-
préhension de l’unus mundus décrit en filigrane des 114 logia de l’Évangile
de Thomas : « Jésus leur dit : Lorsque vous ferez les deux Un, / […] alors
vous entrerez dans le Royaume! » (logion 22) ; « Jésus disait : Si vous faites
les deux Un / vous serez Fils de l’Homme » (logion 106 — ibidem, p. 41).
Le contenu sémantique de la révélation comme opérateur essentiel
dans toutes les grandes traditions spirituelles, se rapproche du mot voilé :
apokalyptein (en grec) a le sens de découverte, de lever le voile, la racine
kal désignant « ce qui est caché ». André Scrima décante deux axes de
sens de la révélation, en mettant en miroir ce thème spirituel avec le sym-
bolisme de la porte : « Le voile sépare deux espaces ; y permet ou interdit
l’accès ; cache et suggère en même temps. […] La porte indique des li-
mites nettes, s’associe à des espaces de type cosmique, tandis que le voile
personnalise d’une certaine manière la même opération sémantique et
noétique. Le voile peut être porté par une personne, peut être assumé
intimement ; dans le voile tu peux t’envelopper » (Scrima [2008], p. 79).
Par analogie, le terme révélation réunit en distinguant deux orientations
contradictoires au niveau du sens et, implicitement, au niveau de l’ex-
périence fondée par la révélation : découverte, dévoilement et en même temps,
dissimulation, recouvrement.
En se fondant sur les connotations profondes, spirituelles, du sym-
bolisme du voile, la transdisciplinarité fait une nette distinction entre le
Réel et la Réalité, pour éviter les conséquences des possibles confusions au
niveau de la compréhension conceptuelle : « Le Réel signifie ce qui existe,
tandis que la Réalité est liée à la résistance dans notre expérience humaine.
Le Réel est, par définition, caché pour toujours, tandis que la Réalité est
ANDRÉ SCRIMA, VISIONNAIRE DU TRANSRELIGIEUX 71
accessible à notre connaissance » (Nicolescu [2002], p. 102). Pour qu’il y
ait une cohérence de l’isomorphisme Réel/Réalité et, en même temps,
une passerelle qui assure l’unité ouverte entre eux, il faut prendre en con-
sidération que l’ensemble des niveaux de la Réalité se prolonge par une
zone de non-résistance, de transparence absolue vis-à-vis des expériences,
des représentations, des descriptions, des images ou de nos formalisations
mathématiques : « Cette zone de non-résistance correspond, dans notre
approche de la Réalité, ‹ au voile › de ce que Bernard d’Espagnat nomme
‹ le réel voilé › et se rapproche certainement de l’affectivité du point de
vue de Lupasco » (Nicolescu [2009], p. 88). La zone de non-résistance
joue le rôle du tiers caché qui est alogique grâce au passage simultané par
le dévoilement et l’enveloppement, donc par révélation — reprenant l’exercice
herméneutique d’André Scrima, d’une zone de résistance et d’une zone de
non-résistance de « suprêmes contradictions » (ibidem, p. 90) : « De la per-
spective du mot révélé et de son écoute, le monde est dissimulation,
voile. L’essence du mot est mystérieuse » (Scrima [2008], p. 98).
Les réflexions d’André Scrima liées à la révélation captent l’inter-
action et la convergence au niveau ontologique, entre présence et absence,
le fait de voiler développant un contour, une forme cachée sous le voile :
« Le voile signale une présence cachée à laquelle on ne peut accéder que
graduellement, en levant le voile, ce qui implique la successive conforma-
tion, adaptation de mon être à cette présence-là » (Scrima [2008], p. 80).
La révélation comme contenu spécifique de la « zone de résistance abso-
lue » correspondant au sacré, est l’espace de coexistence de la « trans-
ascendance » et de la « trans-descendance » (Nicolescu [2007 b], p. 150).
En tant que « trans-ascendance », cette zone correspond, dans les termes
d’André Scrima, à la dissimulation, au recouvrement, ou à l’absence présente
du sacré, corrélative à la notion philosophique de la « transcendance »
(qui vient de trans, « au-delà » et de ascendere, « monter »). En tant que
« trans-descendance », elle est liée à la notion d’« immanence » ou à la
fonction de découverte, de dévoilement de l’acte révélateur, coïncidant dans
la structure de la Réalité transdisciplinaire avec la présence absente du sacré.
Pour désigner cette zone de résistance absolue, le mot sacré est ap-
proprié comme tiers inclus qui met en harmonie la transcendance imma-
nente avec l’immanence transcendante, l’enveloppement avec le dévoile-
ment, la présence avec l’absence, la montée avec la descente : « Le sacré
permet la rencontre du mouvement ascendant de l’information et de la
conscience avec celui descendant par les niveaux de Réalité et de percep-
tion » (Nicolescu [2007 b], p. 151). Une cohérence orientée vers l’union des
contradictoires, entremise dans le logion 22 de l’Évangile de Thomas : « Jésus
leur dit : Lorsque vous ferez le haut comme le bas, […] alors vous entre-
rez dans le Royaume » (Thomas [1986], p. 22).
72 MIHAELA GRIGOREAN

Facilitant la relation entre le subjectif et l’intersubjectif, le sacré

forme un ternaire de l’amour, sans comprendre la logique du tiers inclus.
Il connecte les deux pôles qui scellent l’humanité dans sa spécificité fon-
damentale, à la dimension transubjective de l’existence. Son contenu axio-
logique devient une condition sine qua non pour constituer ensemble le
projet d’un nouvel humanisme, basé sur l’ouverture, la tolérance et le
dialogue — les valeurs essentielles de la transdisciplinarité : « Le sacré
étant d’abord une expérience, il se traduit par un sentiment, celui de la
présence de Nous, ce qui lie les êtres et les choses et, par conséquence,
induit dans les profondeurs de l’être humain le respect absolu des altérités
unies par la vie commune sur une seule et même Terre » (Nicolescu [2002],
p. 93).
La verticalité de l’être scellée par le signe de la transubjectivité
traverse l’horizontalité intersubjective par la recherche permanente du
tiers vécu, en tant que découverte, trouble et étonnement dans l’ouverture
conférée à la subjectivité au carrefour de deux axes du Vif : « Un Éros
extraordinaire, inattendu et surprenant traverse les niveaux de la Réalité
et les niveaux de la Réalité du Sujet. Les artistes, les poètes, les hommes
de science et les mystiques de tous les temps ont avoué la présence de cet
Éros dans le monde » (Nicolescu [2009], p. 94). En tant que source de ce
double mouvement simultané et sans contradiction, de montée et de
descente parmi les niveaux de la Réalité et de la perception, le sacré est la
condition primordiale de la liberté, de la responsabilité et de la dignité
humaine. La transhumance du sujet et de l’objet dans l’espace de l’unité
entre le temps et le non-temps, la causalité et la non-causalité, apparaît
comme dernière source de nos valeurs. En voyageant dans la Vallée de
l’étonnement, les pas du chercheur de Sens, deviennent révélateurs, mon-
tant et descendant en même temps la montagne intérieure ou la montagne
analogue, comme la nomme René Daumal.
Le mariage paradoxal dans n’importe quelle expérience spirituelle
entre la vallée de l’étonnement et la montagne intérieure est sous le signe du
Mot révélateur, tiers inclus entre soumission et création sur l’escalier
herméneutique au double sens : haut et bas, recouvrement et découverte :
« Ce qui est en haut est pareil à ce qui est en bas, mais, malheureusement,
ce qui est en bas n’est pas pareil à ce qui est en haut. De l’asymétrie fermée
hermétiquement » (Nicolescu [2007 a], p. 105).
Il est essentiel que nous vivions l’expérience du sacré comme incar-
nation dans le quotidien de « la Présence absolument énigmatique du
Tiers » (Michel Camus) et cet événement de l’être peut chercher sa place
dans l’horizon où se rencontrent et se communient le Réel et la Réalité :
«Celle-ci se passe au moment où la conscience de soi n’est plus conscience
de soi, mais conscience de la présence de l’absence dans le centre de la
ANDRÉ SCRIMA, VISIONNAIRE DU TRANSRELIGIEUX 73
conscience » (Nicolescu & Camus [2004], p. 32). Basarab Nicolescu décrit,
sous forme de confession, les modalités par lesquelles n’importe quel être
humain peut accéder au « tiers aimant de nous ». En tant qu’expression
plénière du tiers et, ainsi, comme « point de départ et point d’arrivée de
la transdisciplinarité » (ibidem), l’amour crée le miracle de l’apparition du
tiers : l’être aimé est simultanément le même et infiniment un autre. Pour
intégrer ce type d’expérience qui célèbre notre mystère irréductible, le
communiquant avec l’autre, il en faut un troisième terme, un « nous », qui
abrite le sens de la vie, dans la transparence entre la parole et le silence :
« Je suis ce nous, l’être aimé est ce nous, mais en même temps nous
sommes différents et c’est justement là que se trouve la différence qui
nous permet d’accéder au tiers aimant de nous » (ibidem, p. 33).
L’expérience du tiers aimant est ternaire, ayant besoin de vivre
simultanément les trois tiers qui unifient leur action dans leur intimité à
la fois visible et invisible. Le tiers mystérieusement inclus crée le mystère
de l’autre, l’approchant de mon propre mystère par l’entremise des trans-
significations comme véhicule qui active le contenu du Mot révélateur.
Mais cette recherche de « l’autre infini » dans moi-même est possible
seulement par le captage simultané, dans un étincellement intuitif, de
plusieurs niveaux de la Réalité, perçus simultanément, aussi bien par moi
que par l’autre, grâce au tiers inclus ontologique. Le langage commun qui
s’établit comme passerelle du dialogue et de la communication au niveau
des significations, doit être structuré sur le tiers logique inclus pour être
cohérent et compatible avec son contenu référentiel. Une fonction d’uni-
versalité surgit ainsi, dans le territoire de notre thématique, outre la
fonction révélatrice du mot comme logos (en grec) ou kalam (en arabe), qui,
d’après André Scrima, est destinée, tôt ou tard, à assurer la compréhen-
sion entre les gens. L’ouverture du mot à l’universalité valorise, de manière
créative, l’un des trois pylônes transdisciplinaires de la Tradition qui vise
« la possibilité de découvrir par l’expérience intérieure les lois cosmiques
universelles de nature symbolique » (Nicolescu [2007 a], p. 52). Sans pos-
tuler la coexistence nécessaire du tiers mystérieux inclus et du tiers inclus
ontologique dans l’herméneutique du texte sacré et complémentaire,
dans l’activité spirituelle, André Scrima capte les significations et les
conséquences majeures du rôle du tiers logique inclus, dans le domaine
du langage. La compréhension de la manifestation de l’universalité du mot
dans les relations interhumaines, « comme signe de la liberté et, finale-
ment, de l’amour » (Scrima [2008], p. 88), prouve le fait qu’André Scrima
est arrivé à une vision transreligieuse sur le monde.
La complexité tertiaire veille d’une manière affectueuse la rencontre
et l’échange d’information spirituelle entre la verticalité de l’être (ou la
dimension trans-subjective) et son horizontalité, ou l’aspect intersubjectif
74 MIHAELA GRIGOREAN

de l’humain. La conversion du subjectif et de l’intersubjectif dans la zone

ineffable du trans-subjectif est possible seulement par le rapport au sacré
comme source de l’attitude transreligieuse.
Une incarnation du transreligieux dans différentes traditions spi-
rituelles du monde est topographiée rigoureusement et de manière incertaine,
en paraphrasant Jean-Yves Leloup, par André Scrima dans son cours du
25 janvier 1978 1, à l’intérieur d’un thème commun à toutes les religions :
la révélation. Il fait une description du contenu sémantique des modèles
fondamentaux de la révélation dans le domaine de la spiritualité d’après
un critère unique, universellement valable : les distinctions cartographiées
ne regardent pas la géographie, mais l’esprit, ou, dans une expression
transdisciplinaire, en résonance avec les réflexions de Mircea Eliade, un
troisième élément : « une géographie de l’esprit ». Une tentative de capter
ce que Basarab Nicolescu désigne par « saint ternaire : celui sans lieu, sans
temps et celui de l’abîme sans profondeur » (Nicolescu [2007 a], p. 130)
en convergence par interaction réfléchie avec son voisinage poétique :
« La contradiction ternaire est, dans son unité, aspatiale, alogique et atem-
porelle. Mais son auto-interaction crée l’espace, la logique et le temps »
(ibidem). Le dynamisme spirituel de la révélation peut être vécu comme
une expérience transdisciplinaire, par sa création essentielle comme unité
d’un couple de contradictions fondamentalement au niveau ontologique :
dévoilement et recouvrement. Le dépassement de cette dualité se réalise
par le tiers caché qui la facilite et la transgresse dans la zone alogique de
la conscience de la sacralité : « La réalité voilée est une notion fertile. Elle
nous encourage à être dans la recherche de l’Évidence absolue. Mais si
nous pensons que nous pouvons dévoiler la réalité voilée, nous tombons
de nouveau dans le piège du néant. Combien existent-ils de niveaux de
Réalité dans la réalité voilée ? » (ibidem, p. 113). Nous parcourrons, auprès
d’André Scrima, un itinéraire avec des bornes enracinées dans diverses
traditions spirituelles du monde, mais avec la liberté et la créativité assu-
mées au niveau individuel, pour conférer de l’unicité et du style person-
nel, au chemin qui s’étale dans l’ouverture de l’horizon parmi ces marques
de l’identité intérieure et au-delà d’elles, dans l’universalité.
Dans la tradition chrétienne, la bipolarité du voile est mentionnée
du point de vue de celui qui reçoit la révélation. Pour Moïse, pour recevoir
la Révélation, il faut être enveloppé. Seule la connexion au Réel caché pour
toujours permet le circuit de l’information spirituelle, donc un dévoilement
du sacré sur différents niveaux de la Réalité. Et dans la tradition néo-tes-

1. Ce cours se trouve parmi d’autres qu’il a présentés entre 1977 et 1979 à l’Université
Saint-Joseph, à Beyrouth, au Liban, dans son livre L’expérience spirituelle est ses langages,
pp. 75-193.
ANDRÉ SCRIMA, VISIONNAIRE DU TRANSRELIGIEUX 75
tamentaire, le voile apparaît plusieurs fois, mais surtout dans un contexte
proposé par Saint Paul, lorsque, exhortant ses auditeurs à lire les Écritures,
il leur suggère de lever le voile qui couvre encore leur âme.
Nous pouvons déchiffrer cet appel de Saint Paul, en appliquant les
postulats de la méthodologie transdisciplinaire, conformément auxquels,
la sacralité se fonde sur l’unification des niveaux de l’être : corps, esprit
et cœur et leur correspondance avec les niveaux de la Réalité contextualisés
de l’Objet. Le voile qui couvre le cœur représente la réduction du sujet à
un seul niveau de Réalité. Le christianisme développera ultérieurement,
à travers la prière, dans une manière créatrice, unique, la configuration
du cœur comme centre de l’unité de l’être.
En se situant en dialogue et ouverture envers les autres cultures,
spiritualités et religions, André Scrima découvre l’Islam en tant que pos-
sesseur d’une riche tradition en ce qui concerne la sémantique du voile,
en connexion avec un autre nœud conceptuel, la lumière : « La trans-
parence absolue de la transcendance rend impossible la vue, mais permet
la naissance de la vision » (Nicolescu [2007 a], p. 105). Les liens complexes
et de profonde résonance entre voile – lumière – vue – vision attribue à la
révélation une configuration compatible avec la réalité transdisciplinaire,
celle-ci « n’étant ni religieuse ni areligieuse : elle est transreligieuse »
(Nicolescu [2007 b], p. 151). Il y a un hadith (une affirmation du prophète
Mahomet ou une tradition liée à lui) selon lequel il y a soixante-dix-mille
fois sept voiles de lumière et d’obscurité qui couvrent le Visage de Dieu.
Si son visage n’était pas caché par le voile, le monde serait détruit par le
scintillement de son visage : « Voir signifie le ternaire de la lumière de la
Raison : la lumière physique, la lumière de l’âme et la lumière noire du
sans-profondeur. L’une sans l’autre est aveugle » (Nicolescu [2007 a], p. 130).
Nous retenons l’interprétation d’André Scrima concernant l’expres-
sion typique et courante, dans toutes les traditions2, le numéro 70 × 7 (ou
700 × 7) indique, par la forme, sa fonction — qui n’est pas quantitative,
mais qualitative : « C’est la qualité d’une multiplicité indéfinie, celle-ci
étant la première révélation captable de l’Infini » (Scrima [2008], p. 81).
Le paradoxe ontologique de la lumière : elle est invisible mais elle rend
toutes les choses visibles : « C’est toujours le même enjeu : apprendre ce
qui se trouve entre les ténèbres et la lumière. Pourquoi, depuis la nuit des
temps, l’énigme est-elle restée une énigme ? » (Nicolescu [2007 a], p. 104).
Concrètement, dans le plan de l’existence quotidienne, le voile est
associé à la condition du nomade et de la tente par le moyen de valorisation

2. Quand Jésus dit qu’il faut pardonner 70 × 7 (Matthieu, 18, 22 ; Luc, 17, 4), il ne limite
pas le pardon par rapport au comptage, mais il ouvre le chemin vers les potentialités
infinies des valeurs humaines fondamentales, comme le pardon.
76 MIHAELA GRIGOREAN

de l’intégration dans l’harmonie de la nature et des territoires que son

logement occupe. Le portrait intérieur du nomade ou du voyageur spirituel
est brossé avec un troublant étonnement par Basarab Nicolescu, dans
l’esprit du koan zen : « Celui qui cherche, trouve. Et celui qui trouve n’a
rien trouvé. Voilà pourquoi le destin de celui qui cherche est de chercher
sans cesse » (Nicolescu [2007 a], p. 161). Dans la perspective du thème de
notre étude, nous citons comme source de la résonance du transreligieux
dans son lien avec l’itinérance spirituelle, le logion 2 : « Jésus disait : Que
celui qui cherche, / soit toujours en quête / jusqu’à ce qu’il trouve, / et
quand il aura trouvé, / il sera dans le trouble, / ayant été troublé, il
s’émerveillera, / il régnera sur le Tout » (Thomas [1986], p. 15), ainsi que
le logion 42 : « Jésus a dit : Soyez passant » (ibidem, p. 26).
Dans la tradition spirituelle musulmane, Husayn ibn all-Hallaj parle
du voile (hijab) comme d’un rideau intermédiaire entre le chercheur et
l’objet de la recherche, entre le débutant sur le chemin et son désir, entre
le tireur et la cible (le tir à l’arc étant un « sport » d’initiation dans l’école
spirituelle Zen. Le voile est lié à la perspective ouverte du cœur, les êtres
étant ceux qui se voilent eux-mêmes, mais Dieu, en les vêtant, dans le
voile de leur nom, fait que leur existence soit possible. Donc, dans cet
horizon spirituel, le voile est un symbole qui est en lien non seulement
avec Celui qui se révèle, mais aussi avec celui qui reçoit la révélation.
Si le Créateur leur montrait les sciences de Ses pouvoirs, les créatures
mourraient ; s’il leur découvrait la Réalité, elles mourraient.
Dans la tradition liturgique byzantine, il y a une prière dédiée au
Saint Esprit, qui lui demande de venir vivre dans une tente, la tente de
notre cœur, elle-même révélatrice de notre condition itinérante (Scrima
[1996], p. 100).3 Le nomadisme spirituel offre plusieurs perspectives sur
la Réalité, offrant cette ouverture-là utile à n’importe quel chercheur qui,
par différentes expériences, peut avoir accès à une vérité unique, ultime,
en inventant en permanence son chemin sans chemin et en ne se bâtissant
jamais une maison en pierre.
Dans la tradition ébroïcienne, les Tablettes de la Révélation étaient
gardées dans l’Arche d’alliance, abritées dans une tente. Seulement quand,
avec David, et puis avec Salomon, le peuple hébreu a fondé un royaume,
la tente a été remplacée par un bâtiment en pierre et en bois de cèdre.
À l’intérieur du temple de Jérusalem, le sanctuaire, le tabernacle est
séparé du reste de l’espace par un voile — en signe de réminiscence et en
hommage à la condition itinérante.

3. Scrima (1996), p. 100 : Notre Roi des cieux, le Consolateur, « trésorier des bontés et créa-
teur, viens et installe-toi à demeure parmi nous ». « La demeure » renvoie à la notion
du « corps ». « Fais-toi une tente ; pas une riche maison en pierre, mais une demeure
de nomade : c’est le cœur dans lequel l’itinérant fait place à l’Esprit. »
ANDRÉ SCRIMA, VISIONNAIRE DU TRANSRELIGIEUX 77
André Scrima interprète ce signe divin comme une réorientation du
circuit de l’information spirituelle, un passage de celle-ci du niveau de
l’objet de la réalité, délimité par l’espace sacré du temple, au niveau de la
réalité du sujet ou au temple du cœur, la zone de discontinuité entre
ceux-ci étant symbolisée rituellement par le tabernacle vide, l’intérieur
devenant comme l’extérieur et réciproquement.
Dans le dialogue de Basarab Nicolescu avec Michel Camus (Nico-
lescu & Camus [2004], p. 34), est évoqué le poète Adonis, présenté comme
un visionnaire qui vit un pressentiment de l’invisible caché dans l’intérieur
du visible (Michel Camus) : « La transparence est elle aussi une voile /
Comme le soleil même, qui est à peu près une ombre… »
La zone de non-résistance entre le Sujet et l’Objet nous arrive comme
une voile entre nous et la Réalité. Paradoxalement, sa vue poétique sur le
monde, qui unifie le Sujet et l’Objet, a le pouvoir de réaliser la conversion
de la transparence en résistance absolue : « Celui qui accomplit cette muta-
tion entre non-résistance et résistance absolue est l’accord entre les niveaux
de la Réalité et ceux de la perception » (Nicolescu & Camus [2004], p. 35).
Le Tiers sacré résiste à notre compréhension, acquérant ainsi le statut de la
Réalité avec la même justification que les niveaux de la Réalité, sans qu’il
constitue, cependant, un nouveau niveau de la Réalité, car il échappe à
toute science.
Il faut distinguer deux orientations fondamentales dans la vie spi-
rituelle : la mission et la vocation. Pour André Scrima, par définition et par
vocation, tous les genres de spirituels étaient des passants de frontière,
des nomades, des itinérants, un vif exemple étant même le premier, de la
tradition chrétienne, Abraham, un bédouin pauvre, qui a reçu l’appel et
a passé les frontières. L’Évangile de Thomas trace les frontières fluctuantes
du moyen d’être spirituel :
• La vocation de la création de son propre chemin : « Jésus disait :
Soyez passant » (logion 42) ;
• La mission qui correspond à cet appel : la fixation du lien, des
connexions entre le Réel voilé et la Réalité qui résiste à notre expé-
rience.
Le désir de transgresser les limites, caractérise de manière noétique
les spirituels comme étant les marginaux du Centre. L’énoncé appartient
à André Scrima, qui le soutient et l’argumente dans une logique ternaire,
fondée sur un couple de contradictoires au niveau ontologique :
• l’unité fermée ou « le cercle du monde » et caractérisée par la fini-
tude, dont l’expression est la marginalité, « l’homme se repliant sur
son propre être, à l’intérieur de certaines limites qu’il ne peut pas
dépasser, vers un nulle part » (Scrima [2008], p. 28).
78 MIHAELA GRIGOREAN

• l’unité ouverte ou « le cercle de Dieu », de communication ouverte

avec le cosmos, qui contient l’infini et inclut de manière équidis-
tante les relations de l’homme avec l’autre et avec le Créateur.
André Scrima décrit le mouvement de l’intérieur de l’unité fermée,
comme étant le passage séparé et non-intégré de multiples niveaux de
l’être, sans capter l’interaction discontinue entre eux et sans réaliser une
correspondance avec les niveaux de la Réalité de l’objet de sa connais-
sance : le microcosme et le macrocosme. Cette réalité tronquée, réduite au
Sujet qui ne comprend pas l’infini, mais l’indéfini : « On peut admettre des
pas à l’intérieur de cette finitude et de ses limites : du niveau biologique
on peut faire des pas vers le niveau psychologique, vers celui méta-
physique, vers celui technique… » (Scrima [2008], p. 28).
On observe que les deux positionnements de l’individu vers l’uni-
vers intérieur et extérieur de lui-même sont représentés dans leur forme
essentielle donnée par le symbole du cercle. L’interrogation actuelle sur la
spiritualité réside, selon André Scrima, dans la conscience d’une question
qui active la problématique de la conciliation de l’unité fermée et de l’unité
ouverte du monde : « Mais le contenant, le Cercle, comment peut-il être
dépassé, tenant compte du fait que tout réceptacle terrestre, tout ‹ con-
tenant ›, même celui extérieur — le monde même — ne comprend pas
l’infini, mais l’indéfini » (Scrima [2008], p. 28).
Pour la compréhension de la complexité suscitée par la question
concernant la reconstruction de l’unité du monde et de la connaissance,
en intégrant la logique du tiers inclus, nous utiliserons les observations
d’André Scrima, au sujet de la notion du centre, en directe liaison avec le
symbole du cercle. La marginalité ou la situation à l’intérieur de la finitude
peut être transgressée par une sortie, par une porte : le centre (du cercle) :
« Le centre est le lieu de l’origine, le point sur lequel s’appuie le compas
pour tracer le cercle. Or, le point n’a pas de dimension, c’est un non-
endroit. Il est l’origine du cercle, le lieu duquel dépend la circonférence,
le lieu par lequel toute la finitude est gouvernée et dominée. Il se peut
que les spirituels soient les marginaux du Centre (Scrima [2008], p. 29).
La solution spirituelle entrevue par André Scrima, de passage des
frontières du monde par l’action de retrouver le centre comme « un voyage
asymptotique, toujours recommencé » (Nicolescu [2007 a], p. 113) est
compatible avec la vision transdisciplinaire, par le recours à un autre con-
cept-clé : l’unification, comme tiers inclus entre l’unité fermée et l’unité
ouverte. Le destin paradoxal de l’homme spirituel en tant que « margi-
nal du Centre », se trouve sous le signe du tiers, par la vocation de l’union
des contradictoires : périphérie/centre, finitude/infini, fermé/ouvert,
intérieur/extérieur, limitation/transgression. En vibrant harmonieuse-
ment comme « théorème poétique » de la naissance de l’homme à la vie
ANDRÉ SCRIMA, VISIONNAIRE DU TRANSRELIGIEUX 79
spirituelle, les réflexions d’André Scrima avouent la présence du sacré
qui est, en réalité, notre propre transprésence dans le monde : « L’être inté-
rieur ne peut apparaître que par un abîme atemporel, qui n’est concerné
ni par l’espace, ni par la logique. Mais l’être intérieur se nourrit avec
temps, espace et logique » (ibidem, p. 153).
Reprenant la question d’André Scrima : « Mais le contenant, le
Cercle, comment peut-il être dépassé ? », une voie possible de sortie par
l’intérieur ou, en autres termes, faire « l’intérieur comme l’extérieur et
l’extérieur comme l’intérieur » (L’Évangile selon Thomas), est le parcours
« du chemin le plus court entre le petit infini et le grand infini : le conscient
infini » (Nicolescu [2007 a], p. 153).
Le paradoxe ontologique qui s’ouvre dans le chemin du dévelop-
pement spirituel, convergeant avec la montée herméneutique4 proposée
par Jésus dans L’Évangile de Thomas, est le fait que l’unicité de ce genre
d’itinérance consiste en ceci que c’est un chemin sans chemin : « une mer-
veilleuse union des contradictoires : ‹ le topos-atopos › des anciens. Le lieu
du non-lieu, l’espace du non-espace, le temps du non-temps » (Nicolescu
[2007 a], p. 113).
Les intuitions fondamentales d’André Scrima permettent l’intro-
duction ternaire du concept transdisciplinaire d’unicité dans « l’horizon »
de la limitation sans limites entre l’unité et l’union, confirmant que « l’atti-
tude transreligieuse n’est pas un simple projet utopique : elle est inscrite
dans les profondeurs de notre être » (Nicolescu [2007 b], p. 153). L’unicité
de la montée spirituelle est cette incarnation simultanée et cohérente du
tiers caché dans l’être, dans le monde et dans le Mot vif : « Il y a une seule
initiation véritable : l’auto-initiation. Son but : la rencontre avec toi-même
après avoir passé par les épreuves du petit infini et du grand infini »
(Nicolescu [2007 a], p. 153). André Scrima associe la spiritualité avec le
concept d’horizon, dans la mesure où celle-ci représente « Ce que je ne
détiens pas, mais ce qui me retient. L’horizon me contient, mais il s’éloigne
au moment même où je veux m’approcher de lui » (Scrima [2008], p. 26).
L’horizon spirituel de l’être humain est identifiable avec la zone du tiers
mystérieux de la transdisciplinarité : dehors et dedans, l’intérieur et
l’extérieur, le temps et le non-temps, haut et bas, le séparable et le non-
séparable, le visible et l’invisible, la continuité et la discontinuité. Le sacré
comme résonance de tous les niveaux de la Réalité et source de la nais-
sance perpétuelle du tiers mystérieux inclus, institue le voile du Réel et
ferme en ouvrant un horizon dont la cohérence est assurée par le circuit de
l’information spirituelle ; il possède tous les attributs du rationnel (« il me

4. Thomas (1986), p. 15: « Il disait : Celui qui se fera l’herméneute de ces paroles ne goûtera
plus de mort » (logion 1).
80 MIHAELA GRIGOREAN

contient »), sans pouvoir être cependant rationnalisé (« mais il s’éloigne

le moment même où je veux m’approcher de lui »). Quand nous voulons
élaborer un discours cohérent sur la Réalité, nous devons mentionner cette
zone de résistance absolue qui apparaît comme la source d’un double
mouvement simultané et qui n’est pas contradictoire, de montée et de
descente par les niveaux de la Réalité et la perception, assurant une con-
tinuité dans le discontinuité, selon l’observation même d’André Scrima,
abordant une problématique paradoxale au domaine spirituel : « C’est ce
qui rend intelligible un ensemble d’éléments, sans que ces éléments, en
eux-mêmes, puissent être réductibles aux objets de connaissance » (ibid.).
En décrivant en termes propres les modalités d’extension verticale
de l’être, André Scrima est en résonance avec la vision transdisciplinaire 5
qui donne un nouveau sens à la verticalité de l’être par l’orientation co-
hérente du flux de l’information spirituelle qui traverse tous les niveaux
de la Réalité, en faisant communier notre esprit avec la zone ineffable du
Réel, dans les lointains qu’on n’a jamais soupçonnés, des marches du
sacré. L’unité ouverte entre le texte sacré, l’objet de l’herméneutique
transdisciplinaire et tout pèlerin spirituel ou le sujet transdisciplinaire,
se traduit par l’orientation cohérente du flux de l’information spirituelle
qui traverse l’organisme textuel composé par la lettre et la valeur numérique,
animé par l’Esprit et le flux de la conscience qui parcourt les niveaux d’être
qui structurent l’évènement de la réceptivité ou de la réponse humaine
aux livraisons de soi-même du divin. Cette cohérence de la continuité dans
la discontinuité par les méthodes d’avancement et de passage d’un niveau
du chemin spirituel à un autre, unifiant dans la vision d’André Scrima
([2008], p. 31), deux facettes distinctes d’une seule Réalité : l’expérience,
qui « dans le sens commun, est extérieure, appartient au tangible et
s’adresse aux sens, corporels ou intérieurs » et l’esprit comme « réalité qui
s’oppose, échappe, transcende, va au-delà de ce qui est expérience ».
Le terme expérience a ses racines dans le mot grec peira et signifie
« essai », ce qui est essayé, tenté, dans le double sens du mot : le sens pas-
sif : j’ai été tenté, j’ai enduré, j’ai pris sur moi-même une partie du réel qui
m’a mis à l’épreuve ; le sens transitif : je suis celui qui met à l’épreuve cette
partie du réel dont je fais l’expérience.
Le préfixe ex- du mot expérience signifie « à partir de ». Je parle à
partir de l’essai, de l’épreuve. Ex-périer 6 comporte deux versants : celui de

5. Cette verticalité constitue, dans la vision transdisciplinaire, le fondement de tout pro-

jet social viable (Nicolescu [2009], p. 94).
6. « Expérience — le fait d’assumer quelque chose considéré pas seulement du point de
vue du phénomène transitoire, mais comme un élargissement ou un enrichissement
de l’être (de la pensée). Perception (expérience extérieure) — conscience (expérience
intérieure) », note manuscrite du dossier du cours d’André Scrima ([2008], p. 33).
ANDRÉ SCRIMA, VISIONNAIRE DU TRANSRELIGIEUX 81
la perception, intérieure ou extérieure, et celui de la conscience. L’homme
transforme en conscience le plus vaste domaine d’expériences ou de per-
ceptions possibles : « Ne pas passer par la multiplicité de perceptions,
quelle que soit leur provenance, sans les transformer en conscience, parce
que sans conscience le domaine des perceptions risque de rester non seule-
ment aveugle, inexpressif, insignifiant, mais en même temps, aveuglant,
dans le sens qu’il ne me communique rien, il ne me parle pas, il ne m’il-
lumine pas (Scrima [2008], pp. 32-33).

Conclusions

• Toute expérience spirituelle implique une attitude transreligieuse

dans la mesure où celle-ci implique, par sa mission même, la réu-
nion de deux termes contradictoires : expérience (comme zone de
résistance de la Réalité) et spirituel(le) (non-résistance) et leur con-
ciliation dans une structure commune fondatrice : la présence du
sacré ;
• L’expérience spirituelle est corrélative avec la synergie d’une pré-
sence sensible du trans-sensible par une incarnation du sacré dans
le visage inimaginable du tiers mystérieux, servant, assumant et
transfigurant la Réalité ;
• L’attitude transreligieuse est celle qui, issue d’une transdiscipli-
narité vécue, nous permet de chercher, de découvrir, d’être boule-
versés et de s’étonner des valeurs universelles des traditions
religieuses et areligieuses qui nous sont étrangères, pour arriver
ainsi à une vision transreligieuse du monde ;
• L’attitude transreligieuse ne se trouve en contradiction avec aucune
tradition religieuse et avec aucun courant agnostique ou athée,
dans la mesure où ces traditions et ces courants avouent et nous
permettent une vive communion avec la réalité irréductible du
sacré dans le monde.

Références

ELIADE, Mircea — « L’Épreuve du labyrinthe », in Transdisciplina-rité, 2006.

NICOLESCU, Basarab — Noi, particula ºi lumea (Nous, la particule et le monde), Iaºi,
Polirom, 2002 • Teoreme poetice (Théorèmes poétiques), Iaºi, Junimea, 2007 (a)
82 MIHAELA GRIGOREAN

• Transdisciplinaritatea. Manifest (La transdisciplinarité. Manifeste), Iaºi, Juni-

mea, 2007 (b) • Ce este realitatea ? (Qu’est-ce que la réalité ?), Iaºi, Junimea,
2009.
NICOLESCU, Basarab; CAMUS, Michel — Rãdãcinile libertãþii (Les racines de la
liberté) Bucarest, Éditions Curtea Veche, 2004.
SCRIMA, André — Timpul rugului aprins (Le temps du bûcher ardent), Bucarest,
Humanitas, 1996 • Experienþa spiritualã ºi limbajele ei (L’expérience spirituelle
et ses langages), Bucarest, Humanitas, 2008.
THOMAS (Apôtre) — L’Évangile de Thomas (traduit et commenté par Jean-Yves
Leloup), Paris, Albin Michel, 1986.
Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion
© Curtea Veche Publ., 2009
No. 6 / 2009, pp. 83-133

A Transdisciplinary Perspective
on the Concept of Reality1

GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

ADSTR, Ploieºti, Romania

Dicas nove sed non dicas nova Hamlet: “Do you see nothing there?”
VINCENT LERINUS Queen: “Nothing at all: yet all that is I see.”
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The Eastern Christian Perspective

t is not our intent to produce a monographic study along the trodden

I path of Christian religious cosmology. What we want, however, is to
identify within the orthodox Christian theology a valid criterion able to
legitimate reality and mark a clear distinction as well between what can
and cannot bear this name. it is about a kind of “metaphysical” criterion
announced by the revealed texts of the Bible, adopted and amplified by
the patristic literature, able to constitute a solid basis for a comprehensive
dialogue with sciences; more precisely, with the sciences’ vision of reality.

1. This paper is the fruit of a joint effort of three scholars who shared their contributions
according to their competences: Gabriel Memelis (Theology), Adrian Iosif (Sciences),
and Dan Rãileanu (Philosophy). Nevertheless, this is noticeable in the body of the paper
that develops in the already mentioned order three distinct approaches from three
different angles of the same topic: the vision on reality. Consequently, the differences
in style, for which we apologize, are understandable. We hope that those differences
will not interfere with the global vision of the paper, which we intended as a unit,
the delimitation of competences providing the advantage of a high scientific honesty.
At first glance, the reader might notice a correlative scarcity of the three perspectives.
In reality (sic), there is nothing more than our precaution not to force certain correlations,
leaving opened to the reader the option of making or to criticizing them. In this respect,
for this participative continuation of lecture to be successful, we believe that the possible
contact points between Theology, Science, and Philosophy are suggested well enough
within the three contributions.
84 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

The task we assume is not only novel, but quite difficult, because
(no need to demonstrate the obvious) Eastern Christian theology did not
develop what, in philosophical terms, is identifiable as ontology — that
is a systematic discourse on reality. Nevertheless, we will try to show
that, even if it does not produce an ontology, Eastern theology, as any
other coherent vision concerned with the Reality, is able to sustain at least
one principle of ontological engagement; a principle akin to the ontology
of nowadays’ Science.
This is why we will select among numerous aspects of the Christian
discourse only those instances with relevance to reality, that can also be
relevant to the scientific paradigm of our days. A paradigm within which
the research of what we usually call the “real world” acknowledges — in
its premises, methods, and results — the strong existence of the observer,
the human subject involved in this very world, not contemplating it from an
outside post. This paradigm puts in the center of all concerns of science
the possibility of a new philosophy of nature that enables us to think in
a coherent way about introducing man into nature (cf. Prigogyne &
Stengers [1979]).
Our concern will then be to shape out possible correspondences
and homologies of ideas fit for this interface, exploring them in the trans-
disciplinary manner of fusing horizons. In the end, we should mention
that by this kind of fusion we do not aim at articulating a new “meta-
physic”, as a meta-discourse intended to legitimate altogether religious
cosmology and natural philosophy, deriving from the current scientific
discourse on reality. This kind of preoccupation would be not only unfit,
but counterproductive too for both theology, and science.

Ta onta «ouk ex onton»: The creation “out of nothing”, or about

the difficulties and solutions of grounding a theological ontology
The Christian teaching about God creating the world “out of noth-
ing” is well-known. However, “out of nothing” refers to God’s uttering
His creative word, not to a demiurgical modelling of a preexistent matter.
Implied by the story of Genesis, this traditional teaching is explicitly con-
firmed by the Old Testament in 2 Maccabees (7, 28): “…God did not make
them [the ones seen in the skies and on the ground] out of things that
existed (ouk ex onton epoiesen auta ho Theos)”.2

2. We stay by the text and topic of the Septuagint (rendered inside brackets) in order to
avoid the nonsense implied by the lecture “from those that were not made them God”,
proper to other translations. The expression “from those that were not” raises insur-
mountable logical difficulties (how can we assert something that was not?), or ends at
the best in a reification of the original void.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 85
Certainly, this is not the only verse endorsing the doctrine of the
creation “out of nothing”. The New Testament as well, apart from certain
explicit occurrences (Romans, 4, 17; Hebrews, 11, 3), confirms that through
numerous texts referring to the creation of everything seen and unseen by
the Word, Jesus Christ (John, 1, 3; Ephesians, 3, 9; Colossians, 1, 16; Hebrews,
1, 2 and many more). It is worth noticing that in Hebrews, 11, 3 the formu-
lation is even more mysterious: “things which are seen were not made of
things which do appear (eis to me ek phainomenon)” — the Apostle seem-
ingly suggesting a “noumenal” origin and under-layer of the seen world,
though not in contradiction with the thesis of creation “out of nothing”.
I.e., if we give (as the Fathers did before us, thus christening the platonic
archetypal categorization) an elevating negative meaning to the original
“nothingness”: the ones all above the sensitive being (hyperousios), the
archetypal intelligible models of the ones seen, are named “nothing” due
to the ontological, absolute, difference from those that are to be created.
Whose models “are not” (or “nothing”) only in an apophatic sense, sur-
passing all that we identify as “being” in the perceived world.3
By accepting the creation ex nihilo4 as a declaration of faith, any
further efforts to find an essentialist ground to reality, a fundament of it
in itself, is definitely put into crisis because “the created universe, in itself
(is) implenitude and indeed non-being” (Lossky [1976], p. 91). However,
that does not mean that reality rests suspended in a sort of “metaphysi-
cal frigidity”. In complete accord with the universal religious ontology
and the nowadays discourse of the natural sciences, the ex nihilo biblical
cosmogenesis acknowledges us only on the fact that reality does not con-
tain within it any absolute criterion or landmark able to validate it qua
reality. It is not given per se, it is not ontologically self-sufficient (nor
epistemologically, axiologically or semantically, because it does not host
an absolute criterion of truth, value, or signification), nor can it explain
itself by exclusive reference to internal causes.
On the other hand, and paradoxically, this ontological suspension
represents the one factor that gives the world its alterity, its character
of something different from God, but not out of God, of “an entirely new
subject, with no origin of any kind either in the divine nature, or in any
matter or potentially of being external to God” (Lossky [1976], p. 92).
The creation “out of nothing” settles an ontological (not “topological”)
distance between “I am that I am” and the creatural hypostasized nothing-

3. See, for example, St. Maximus the Confessor, Scholia in librum De divinis nominibus IV.10
(in P.G., t. 4, col. 260 C).
4. An expression patented by the Vulgata, in 2 Maccabees, 7, 28.
86 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

ness next to God, or, better, “in front of God”.5 That, overall, not in order
to deplete the created world of ontological value, but to declare the foun-
dation of its project, its reality and goal, only into the divine volition. For
the Eastern-patristic theology, from Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa
to Maximus the Confessor and John Damascene, the ontological grounding
of the creature is this unconstrained and uncensored willingness of God
that does not bear any metaphysical interrogations about any cause sus-
ceptible to move it toward creating beside His completely unconditioned
love. For this reason, we can say for now, along with the whole Tradition,
that for the Eastern Christianity the basis of reality is (if this terminological
innovation is not too encumbering) “thelimatological” — given in the
divine will (thelema).
Nevertheless, it is not our intention to recapitulate common places
of theology, however prestigious. As noted in the Introduction, our inten-
tion is to explore a different ideative lode, nonetheless founded on the
authority of the texts, able to bring us closer to the scientific vision and
to appraise the role of the subject not only in relation to reality, but in its
“real-isation” as well.
The New Testament reiterates through the Apostle Paul the ex nihilo
creation theme: God is the One who “calleth those things which be not as
though they were” (kalountos ta me onta hos onta — Romans, 4, 17).6 This is
a crucial verse that helps us avoid the understanding of the divine act of
creation as “handwork” (an act that otherwise could tempt us towards
manufactural representations), affirming a personalist-dialogic grounding
to the “out of nothing” ontos.7

5. These delimitations from the temptations of a theological realism, to which we are

driven by the canonical texts, do not pushing Christian cosmology to become reducible
to the cosmic illusionism of the Oriental mystical philosophies, according to which the
worlds stand under the sign of an definitive appearance, a principle generator of the
universal illusion (maya), that makes them empty of being and signification. For
Christianity, the world, although lacking self-sufficiency, is not deprived of ground and
consistency, it is not a mere “bubble of vacuity” resulted from a divine playing (lila).
6. The rendering of the Greek term hos by “as though”, although literally correct, can infer
semantically the risk of a lecture in vaihingerian key: of an als ob transferred to the realm
of ontology, completely unsuitable theologically. God is not fictionally fooling Himself
by calling towards Him a world definitely inconsistent “as it would be”, knowing that,
in fact, it is of no ontological value; He speaks to the things that do not exist (or exist
only virtually, with the mention that the tension virtual/real is not applicable to God)
exactly as (tamquam in Vulgata) if they existed, thereby investing them ontologically.
7. By stating that, we do not come in contradiction with the patristic tradition mentioned
above (what we called the “thelimatological grounding” of created reality), as long as
the Persona who calls to existence the world acts freely his will. It is only about another
nuance of the creative act, toward which the Pauline theology opens, and which can
serve our purpose here.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 87
It may be sustainable righteously that the ontological prestige of
reality is sufficiently confirmed by the fact that reality is the product of a
creative act: God did not create an illusion, but a real existence. He gave
ground to reality by extracting it from non-being, which is an irreversible
fact, essentially positive8, a happy “condemning” of the being to be, oblit-
erating the way back to non-being.
Moreover, according to St. Maximus the Confessor, God indeed
granted to rational creatures — on which the fulfillment of the totality of
created reality depends (according to Paul’s advise in Romans, 8, 19-21) —
the gift of “being” (to einai), in order for all of them to move according to
their nature (kata physin), by exercising a (gnomic) will. A will that also
became, due to this motion, ontologically formative according to the divine
model (image), and able to move, therefore, the rational creatures along
a gradient of ontological escalation ranging from the simple existence
(to einai) to happy existence (to eu einai), and, finally, to everlasting happy
existence (to aei eu einai): once the rational beings made, says St. Maximus,
they are all moved “according to their nature (kata physin) from the begin-
ning (origin), because they (simply) exist (dia ton einai), toward the end (to
their target), after the will’s choice (kata gnomen) for the happy existence
(dia to eu einai). Because the target (the end) of those that are moving is the
everlasting happy existence (to aei eu einai), as the beginning is the existence
itself. And that is God, Who is the Giver of existence and Granter of happy
existence as beginning (descent) and end (target)”.9
According to St. Maximus, the three reasons of the human existence
(simple, happy, everlasting) preexist (proonta) within God10, the firmness
of the ontological grounding of the created reality according to Christian
thought being once more confirmed. His idea holds a theme common to
the theological meditation within Eastern Christianity — on which Dio-
nysius Areopagites already insisted, glossing on Paul’s texts (mostly in
De divinis nominibus I. 4, 5; IV. 7, 10; V. 5, 6, 8, 9) — affirming a full blown
“proto-ontology” with respect to creatures. Again, not in an origenist note

8. Unlike mythical pre-Christian cosmogonies (more precisely the platonic cosmogony

of orphic-pythagorean inspiration, later transferred into origenism), for which the
demiurgic act of edifying the world is the result of a fall (kathodos) of souls from the
immobile state (stasis) of an initial pleroma. Hence, the world is nothing but a prison,
a seat of becoming (genesis) that opposes the being, in which the souls fallen into
bodies “consume” by an indefinite number of rebirths (palingenesia) the consequences
of the pre-cosmogonic fall. The Christian ontology of creation reverses this trio of the
Greek vision — state (stasis), movement (kinesis), creation/becoming (genesis) — pro-
posing an intensified ontology, on the path creation — movement toward godly —
rest in God.
9. St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguorum Liber, P.G., t. 91, col. 1073 C.
10. Ibidem, col. 1084 B-C.
88 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

but in the sense that the models/reasons of actual things were assumed
at the level of the divine Logos before the actual creation — that is, before
bringing them to light. Because the ideative territory opened here is too
specialized and difficult, we will not enter it, so as not to deviate from our
precisely defined intentions; nevertheless, we invoked it as an argument
showing the consistency of the ontological base of created reality.
About the anthropology of St. Maximus, his suggestion should be
noted that, on the other hand, any option contrary to the natural tendency
of human will towards God leads inevitably to a progressive ontological
disfiguration or, in other words, to an in(de)finite tendency towards a
minimal state of being — but without regressing to non-being.
Indeed, we cannot subtract reality from creation without damaging
the creative quality of God. In addition, Paul’s text quoted above instructs
us that the very act of creation, the very ontological setting of reality,
must be first perceived as a dialogue. Ergo, what God calls to existence can
be validated as reality (driven to by the analysis made up until now, we can
enounce this as a Christian ontological principle of engagement); and,
once called, as a hypostasis of this calling, it should maintain and increase
its quality of being through the answer given to the Creator. However, the
divine call is not confined to the act of creation, but persists relentlessly,
laying out before man the road map of the ontological anabasis of which
St. Maximus speaks: God calls man, and through man the whole reality,
not to a bland existence, but to a happy one, and, by the end of days, to
an everlasting existence. Man’s advance and, consequently, of creation,
on this route depends entirely on committing to an answer articulated as
factual living in conformity with the divine Logos (through whom God’s
call is uttered).11
Accordingly, this “ontogenetic” prestige appoints the dialogue
between God and the world He creates by uttering to existence as exem-
plary model for the vocative-dialogic positioning of man towards the created
reality. By his quality of being “in God’s image”, man has the (prophetic)
vocation to ontologically elevate the entire creation to the status of topos
of a generalized dialogue, by calling all that exists according to the divine
word (kata logon) disseminated in each one. The growth of man in relation
to God from “image” to “likeness” (the iconic homologues of St. Maximus’
ontological stations) has a correlative in the ontological growth of created

11. From the angle of view of this dialogic binomial (divine) calling — (creatural) answer,
it is possible to reevaluate the great chapters of theology. This is not the intention of
this paper, however. Nevertheless, we have to remember that a supplication in one of
the beginning prayers of the Orthodox liturgy invites the orant to acknowledge the
decisive importance of the answer God is expecting from him: “Lord, have mercy to us,
because, not knowing any of the answers, we bring to You this prayer…”.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 89
reality, from the paradisiacal state to that of the Kingdom of Heaven. That
is, from Eden, “sowed” (Genesis, 2, 8) as a germinal word into the texture
of reality, to a completely transparent environment to the divine Logos.
The well-known “onomaturgy” of Adam constituted the incipit of
this itinerary to fulfillment of the anthropo-cosmic reality through calling:
Adam “called the names”12 (ekalesen onomata — Genesis, 2, 20) of all living
creatures, thus exercising the ability he was trusted with by being created
“in God’s image (or model)”; not quite bringing the world from non-being
to being, but establishing an anthropic reality by calling/naming it, as well
as by appropriating it — reality being named after the names he uttered
(Genesis, 2, 19). Thus, Adam “humanized” the universe through his utter-
ance (in the sense that he con-forms it to his own ontos — solidary with
the ensemble of creation and yet uniquely distinct). The universe that had
been given to him by genesis was somehow re-created by this calling, in the
terms of Adam’s own “cognitive matrix”, beginning from his immediate
habitat, from the proximal reality. If not interrupted by the sad interlude
of the fall, this process would have evolved concentrically in ever larger
and higher circles. Unfortunately, the naming of the woman (Genesis, 2, 23)
was only one further step in the process.
From our thematic perspective, it is possible to fusion the present
day ontological horizons of theology and science by proposing that this
dialogue stand as a paradigm for any relation between man as subject and
world as object — provided that the relation is correctly assumed and
regained in today’s scientific vision of reality. The minimal ontology on
which modern scientific research is founded retrieves indeed an interac-
tive dialogic framework. The impact of quantum mechanics bears the
responsibility for that reorientation towards a dialogic paradigm that
overpasses the impervious onto-epistemological separation between sub-
ject and object. A physicist of such amplitude as W. Heisenberg stated
unequivocally that the atomic physicist had to resign to the fact that his
science is nothing more than a link in the chain of the dialogue of man
with nature, that science no longer speaks simply about nature “in itself”
(Heisenberg [1995]). The goal of modern research is no longer concerned

12. Taking into consideration its consistent hermeneutical benefits, we prefer the form
“called the names” to that of KJV (“gave names”). Adam’s naming of the creatures
was an onomaturgy (a true act of re-creation by naming), a baptismal ritual ante litteram
officiated by Adam as a priest in the Church of creation. Nonetheless, it was not a
simple inventory of beasts or a zoological taxonomy. On the other side, our selected
translation confirms, in the authentic spirit of Hebrew, the idea that we are following
here, namely that the phrase “called the names” reveals an indissoluble link between
name and being, relative to reality (either cosmic or human). By calling the names of all
creatures, Adam reiterated on the human scale, in a true spirit of imitatio Dei, the divine
act of creating the world by uttering.
90 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

with the movements of the atoms per se, regardless of experimental obser-
vation, but we rather discover that from the very beginning we are within
the center of the dialogue between nature and man, in which natural
science is only a part — thus, the usual categorical split between subject
and object, or interior and exterior world, is useless, inducing many dif-
ficulties. For the natural sciences, too, the object of research is not nature
itself anymore, but nature scrutinized by man (ibidem).
However, this possible approach and eventual fusion will preoccupy
us in detail after the presentation of yet another dimension of Christian
ontology, relevant to our theme as well.

The “perspectival” founding of reality: The world “in the face of God”
What are the ideas we consider clarified up to this point, on which
the coming together of Tradition and Science on the theme of reality can
be established thoroughly and without hasty exaltations? Precisely, that
both Christian, and scientific ontology share in common: (i) the vision of
what can be called “reality”, a clear-cut delimitation from realism, in the
sense that neither of the two discourses — theological and scientific — has
(any longer) as an object a pretended “reality in itself”, self-sufficient and
objectively founded (a delimitation that does not automatically induce
the option for philosophic idealism); (ii) an interactive-dialogic pattern
regarding the relationship between man and world. Our day science re-
discovers man as a subject of a reality in which he is a participating actor,
not a simple spectator; reality is a theatrum mundi in which the human
subject, through its role, imprints decisively its mark on the development
of the “play”, on the way in which reality presents itself — nevertheless,
without implying that reality, ceasing to be considered “objective”, will
remain only a subjective projection of his or her mind.13
Furthermore, we will insist upon this aspect from a theological point
of view; precisely, we are interested in how it anticipates and welcomes
a completely surprising fact that has been noticed mostly in fundamental
physics research. Namely, that (phenomenal) reality and its corresponding
conceptualization change qualities according to the shift in the theoretical,
methodological, and experimental frame of the observing subject. In other
words, reality reveals itself depending on the way in which the human

13. Heisenberg (1971) synthesizes marvelously these two aspects, asserting that our image
of nature, according to the exact natural sciences of our times, exemplifies not nature
as it is, but our relations with it. Moreover, he states that the old separation of the
world in an objective existence developing in space and time, and a spirit that reflects
this development (Descartes’ res cogitans and res extensa) is not suitable to understand-
ing the modern natural sciences, because these are interested, more than anything else,
in the reciprocal relational network of man with nature, of which science is a part.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 91
subject “interrogates” it or, as has already been stated, “the perspective
creates the phenomenon”. The quantum infra-reality does not present itself
as being simply “out there”, so that the observer has nothing more to do
but notice it (according to the development and possibilities of his inves-
tigative means) as an obvious reality, objectively existent. The quantum
universe does not conform to the metaphysical presuppositions of the
classical model of reality. It cannot be considered anymore as simply
“existing” (in the classical understanding of an objective, single state), in
an aprioristic way to the observation act, uninfluenced by the intervention
of the observer, by the frame he chooses to watch. In other words, in order
to understand the quantum world, a redefinition of the concept of “reality”
as a correlative to that of “perception” and, finally, to that of “perspective” was
necessary.14 Confronted with the Cartesian model of a reality whose
essence is the extension (spreading) outside a thought that also validates
it ontologically as an aprioristic datum, independent of the observation act,
reality is no longer objectively given, nor independently objectifiable. The
observer contributes to the “real-ization” of reality, without implying that
he is the metaphysical instance that can absolutely confirm it qua reality.
Nevertheless, the ontic aprioricity and the perseity of the modern vision
give way to a new concept of reality — interactive, dynamic, and intrin-
sically related. Natural sciences cease to report about the physical reality
in itself in favor of a discourse about reality as a system of relations (of
not only local connections, but also non-local).
By positioning ourselves in the “referential system” of any religion,
we can see that none of them speaks about the reality of what we call,
with a widely general term, the “sphere of the Sacred” as imposing (even
though ontologically self-consistent) with the force of evidence to any
individual consciousness, with any objective or objectifiable necessity of
a (macro)physical or intellectual fact (through a rational argumentation
absolutely peremptorial); however, also not implying that the reality of the
Sacred could become relative by linking it to the affective or imaginative
faculty of the human subject.
Regarding Christianity (a religion whose central idea is precisely
the reality of God’s presence in Jesus Christ’s persona), we certainly remem-
ber that this reality never imposes itself as an evident fact, independent
from a certain implication/positioning of man towards it. On the contrary,

14. This vision was generalized and refined by physicist Basarab Nicolescu, who pro-
posed a theoretical model in which reality is conceived as an open structure of levels
to which correspond, within the “texture” of the subject, certain levels of perception
(Nicolescu [2007], pp. 43-45). We can follow, in the same spirit, that reality rather
unfolds its levels, as the subject activates his or her corresponding levels of perception,
which are, in fact, his or her own levels of reality.
92 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

the Incarnated God15 assumes a complete anonymity (a perfect camouflage

into the profane, as Mircea Eliade would have said) from the very begin-
ning, precisely in order to confirm man as a subject; thus making way for his
perceptual initiative, not forced in any way by means of a spectacular
“denudated” godliness that would confiscate man’s liberty, consequently
annihilating him as a subject. In addition, even when the anonymity
ceases, and Jesus asserts publicly His filial divine identity, His statements
in this direction are never accompanied by probative miracles. Jesus
consistently avoids the temptation to demonstrate irrefutably, through
the means of ostensive miracle, the divine reality of His Persona, even
though, as narrated by the Gospels, He was ultimately asked by the Jewish
religious elite to do so. On the contrary, the Lord offered the revelation of
His identity, and that of His divine reality, only to that one person opened
to invest faith into the relation with Him. Moreover, in Christian terms,
faith translates exactly man’s availability to assume independently from
certainty proofing a vision, and implicitly an existential engagement, that
projects him over the seeming evidence of the sensorial plan toward the
realm where “those unseen” reveal themselves as more real than “those
seen”. At the same time, faith is the basis of eschatological realities
(Hebrews, 11, 1-3), more precisely of the highest-degree reality. Faith repre-
sents a completely free act, not constraint or causally determinated by
evidence, by the acknowledgement of a fact obvious to everybody —
however, it should not be confused with subjective gullibility. This free
investment in trustfulness opens toward the believer a totally different
way of seeing things, practically a new perceptual horizon in which “those
of the future” are perceived as present here (Hebrews, 11, 20). In conclusion,
faith is capable to “extract” from the virtual the ontos of its object16, just as God
brings forth to being everything by His call, as we have seen already.
Otherwise, what we have here is the occurrence of a fact universal-
ly acknowledged: everywhere in religion, the perception of the Sacred as
“real” is conditioned by the availability of man to assume for himself a radical
change of mentality and behavior, a mutation capable to open another per-
spective over reality, and over the relations with his own kind as well.17

15. From the perspective of the Real-reality distinction, Incarnation represents the coming
of the Real (of the “One who is” per se) into the reality of an assumed human nature.
The Real (Jesus’ godliness) does not denude itself in any way by Incarnation, it remains
un-objectificated despite its ineffable expression in the reality of a human existence.
16. The texts are once more explicit on that: “What things soever you desire, when you
pray believe that you receive them, and you shall have them” (Mark, 11, 24, and loci
similes, Hebrews, 11, 27 etc.).
17. As a proof of the universality of this exigency, we offer the permanence of initiation
rites in the history of humankind, the scenarios of which go invariably through the
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 93
Generally, the ascetic imperatives of religions condition the access to the
Sacred by a transfiguration of the way of being and thinking. What pro-
duces this total change is not an obvious fact, nor one of a contextual or
subjective nature, but a special kind of pressure from something man per-
ceives as being over the “objective” reality and over what constitute the
manifold, changing, relief of individual or collective psychism. In other
words, the perception of the Sacred as an “irreducible real” (M. Eliade) is
realized beyond the classical dichotomy between objective and subjective
universe. That is, in a trans-subjective territory obeying different rules of
perception, analogous perhaps only to those of holistic psychology. And
that, only because a religious metamorphosis of life, of the perspective
over the world and man altogether, guarantees the access to a supreme
level of their reality.18
Back to Christianity, we should once more remember the imperative
first pronounced by John the Baptist and further by Christ Himself, rele-
vant to the fusing of horizons that we are proposing here: “Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew, 3, 1-2; 4, 17). Where the term
repentance (gr. metanoia) has precisely the meaning of changing/renewal
of mentality, of the perspective over the world; a mutation immediately
followed by the perception of the “Kingdom of Heaven” as a real19 topos
by excellence. By placing himself through the means of the metanoia in an
“angle of view” proper to God, from which the world is seen differently,
man can access its true reality; which is none other than that of the “King-
dom of Heaven”. Repentance, in the proper meaning of the Gospels, has
the parameters of a change ad fundamentis inside man, a change resulting

symbolic sequences of death and rebirth. Any person who intends to begin a religious
experience is first required to die symbolically, in the sense of a radical and irrevocable
departure from the old way of being. That with relevance to the idea we are following
here; this ritual death symbolizes the radicalism of a tearing vision of the world, it is
the condition of the possibility of starting an authentic religious life. That is why, with-
in the typology of the initiation, “death” is followed by a ritual “rebirth”/resuscitation
as a sign of the beginning of a fundamentally new modus vivendi.
18. Bertolt Brecht, a non-religious author, referred surprisingly to this relation between
the answer to the question related to the reality of the Divine and the universal imper-
ative of all religions regarding the change of life. Somewhere within the volume Stories
from the calendar, the German playwright says, through a generic character, mister
Keuner, who was abruptly asked if God exists: “I advise you to think whether your
behavior changes according to the answer to this question. If it does not, we can
renounce the question. If it changes, then I can help at least by telling you that you
have made up your mind already: you need God” (Brecht [2001]).
19. Although the Liddell-Scott lexicon gives for meta-noeo “to repent”, as well as “to
change one’s mind, to change intentions”, in the vocabulary of the Gospels, and later
in that of Christian asceticism, this term is used in a “strong”, initiating way, of trans-
formation at the level of the vision of the world (Weltanschauung), of redefining the
way in which man, mentally and behavioristically, approaches the reality he lives in.
94 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

from a drastic, nevertheless “realistic”, evaluation, done by the means of

divine criteria, of his life up to that point, concomitant to his decision to
start a new life freed from sin and death.
Besides, the fact that repentance (metanoia) introduces indeed the
religious subject into a new anthropo-cosmic reality (which has a table of
values fundamentally incommensurable in reference to our current one),
thus opening the “perceptive” and axiological horizon of Divinity to man,
displays Christ’s exigencies pronounced in the Sermon on the Mount (Mat-
thews, 5-7) thus tracing for man a profile almost revolting by its alterity,
nevertheless a profile perceived from the divine “perspective”. Conse-
quently, the behavior of such a man includes manifestations that, by the
common logic of behavior, can reach the absurd; but they are in fact, in
the new reality opened by the metanoia, completely coherent: love even
towards the enemies, turning the other cheek etc. The capacity to make
such gestures derives naturally from the new condition of existence of the
repented man, who perceives in his dense and ultimate reality as son of
God, “through the eyes of God”, his own kind as his brother, even though
that one has erred badly.
As expected, and certainly understood up to now from the text, this
chance and ability of religious man to accede to the ontologically consistent
reality (his own and of the world) by changing the perspective is assured
by the archetypal correlation between perspective and reality, given at the
divine level. In this respect, the biblical text presents what can be rightly
called a prosopic ontology (from the Greek word for face, prosopon). If, as
already seen, the anthropo-cosmic being was conceived in its entirety in
a paradigmatic frame configured by the divine ideas/wills, it will be onto-
logically ensured only if it continues to place itself “in the face of God”20
(as in Psalm 104, 29), in “His visual perspective” accordingly. This “per-
spective” being of a conceptive kind, God can also “perceive” from its
angle the most profound, “denuded and exposed” reality of all creatures
(Hebrews, 4, 13).
The creation itself of man “according to the Image of God” (Gr. kata,
in Genesis, 1, 27) evinces his inclusion from the very beginning inside such
an iconic “conceptive-perceptive” frame that, according to the patristic
exegesis, is nothing but the Effigy Itself and the Incarnated Son of God,
Archetype of the human creature as well.

20. It is about the same exigency that is referred to in the platonic language of the Fathers
as con-formation of the creature (by participation) to God’s models. We stress the fact
that by proposing this perspectival language we do not intend to simply paraphrase
metaphorically and theologically an alternative discourse, more or less exotic. Taking
the risk of being accused of “perspectivism”, we are trying a different hermeneutical
vein in fact, one completely justified by the insistency of the biblical text on such per-
spectival terms.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 95
In a most famous fragment, St. Maximus the Confessor speaks
about Incarnation as the grounding and sense of creation, as the mystery
in the “perceptive horizon” of which God brought everything into being:
Incarnation, says he, is the godly scope, thought-out even before those that
exist (ho tes arches ton onton proepinooumenos theios skopos) […] Towards
that final target looking, God brought to existence the beings of those that
exist (pros touto to telos aphoron tas ton onton ho Theos paregaghen ousias).21
So, beings have access to reality only because God conceived them by the
means of “peering (aphoron)” through a “conceptive-perceptive” perspec-
tive focalized22 on the Effigy of the Incarnated Son — the iconic matrix of
the cosmic and human being.
St. John Damascene said as well: “He (God) saw23 all things before
they were24, holding them timelessly in His thoughts (achronos ennoesas);
and each one conformably to His voluntary and timeless thought (kata ten
theletiken autou achronon ennoian), which constitutes predetermination (pro-
orismos) and image (eikon) and pattern (paradeigma), came into existence at
the predetermined time (en to prooristhenti kairo)”.25
Then, the fulfillment of one of the defining vocations of man, the
ontological regality apt to manifest itself through governing the Universe
according to the divine image (Genesis, 1, 26), depends, in its turn, on a
proper perceptive positioning of man towards reality, this one presented
from the very beginning as a multitude of levels (as Basarab Nicolescu
would have said) or, in biblical terms, as the “trees of Paradise”26. That is,

21. St. Maximus the Confessor, Quaestiones ad Thalassium de Scriptura sacra 60, P.G., t. 90,
col. 621 A.
22. Aphorao, used by St. Maximus, means precisely “to look at, to have in full view” (see
the Liddell-Scott lexicon).
23. The Greek term used here is etheasato, from theaomai, “to look on, to gaze at”. Hence,
it is a similar meaning, as in St. Maximus’ aphorao!
24. That is, He had them assumed already as models in His “conceptive-perceptive” para-
digm, He contemplated them in the Efigy of His Son, and this iconic positioning in the
“divine perspective” was conferring them already a “proto-reality”.
25. St. John Damascene, Expositio Accurata Fidei Orthodoxae I.9, P.G., t. 94, col. 837A, (English
translation by the Rev. S. D. F. Salmond, on [Link]
[Link]).
26. There is no need to argument the cosmological signification of dendroidal symbolism,
as well as its long career in the history of religions. All that is a definite acquisition of
the morphology of religions and were commented extensively by Mircea Eliade.
Altogether, the image of the Cosmos, symbol of life, seat of divinity, ax holding the
world, or mythical ancestor of man (genealogical tree), the tree reveals a prodigious
symbolical polysemantic. A true vegetal ideogram of the Cosmos — signifying by its
double arborescence, radicular and coronal, the “sky” and the “earth”, referring to the
transcendent and immanent linked by the trunk as by an axis mundi —, the tree is also
a structural synthesis at the human scale of the Universe, a cosmic tree as presented in
96 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

man can “eat of every tree” (Genesis, 1, 16) or, translating the symbols, he
can institute and dwell by means of modifying in the perceptive para-
digm a multitude of possible aspects/levels of the world/ reality (or pos-
sible worlds, if we are to talk in the terms of modal Logic). Again, the fall
of man had as an essential cause the corruption of perspective over reality
(Genesis, 3, 6-7), a change that made him institute and populate up until
the present days a defaced reality, eroded by the fracture of opposites —
the biblical ideogram of which is represented by the “tree of knowledge
of good and evil”.
Finally, the massive occurrence in the biblical text of the syntagm
“in the face of God” (enopion tou Theou) and “in the eyes of the Lord” (en
ophtalmois Kyriou) in relation with the theological positioning of man,
legitimates once more an ontology isomorphic to that of the modern nat-
ural sciences. At the same time, one of the oratory formulae typical to the
old and new-testamentary liturgy as well resumes the chorus “Lord, do
not cast me from thee face!”27, thus confirming the same thesis: the created
being is insured ontologically only insofar as positions itself in the path of
the “visual perspective” of Divinity. The message carried by the Gospels
is a continuous invitation to secure the “perceptive” posture of God, the
only one able to bring fulfillment to the human being — in this respect,
the summum bonum of Christ’s commandments is “…that you love one
another as I have loved you” (John, 15, 12).28
Certainly, the examples can be multiplied; however, we believe that
it would be excessive. Those already invoked are sufficient to detach a
preliminary conclusion, of axial importance, for the meeting with scien-
tific ontology: the body of religions with stress on Christianity anticipate
a representation of reality that will be retrieved by the sciences only at the
beginning of the 20th century — a representation contrary, avant la lettre,
to the “sanctified” presuppositions of the classical model of the natural
sciences. The religious vision proofs itself to be contiguous to the acqui-
sitions of the actual scientific paradigm that talk about a reality that is not
addressing an “objective”, inert, datum facing an observing subject, a sort

mythology. It even anticipates the image of a fractal structure. Based on the symbolic
analogy tree/cosmic reality, I think that assimilating the “trees of Paradise” with the
multi-level reality of today’s ontology and cosmology is not too far-fetched.
27. There are variants as “Behold toward me/my prayer”, “Lean Your ear toward me/my
prayer” etc. Far from being simple anthropomorphic formulae specific to Hebrew
religiosity, as stated by hasty exegetes, these syntagms reveal clearly a suggestion of
interactive ontology.
28. The loving of enemies referred above would not be possible without this preceding
transposition into the divine “visual paradigm” from whence man is not perceived as
a foe anymore, but is noticed in his ultimate reality and consistency as “image of God”.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 97
of ek-sistence outside consciousness and independent from it, the struc-
ture and phenomenal manifestations of which would not change under
the incidence of the observing and measuring process. Today, sciences
talk about a reality constituted anthropically, sensible to the presence of
the human subject. The anthropology subjacent to the scientific research
of today reverts to a more “decent”, even religious, scaling the position
of the observing subject, lessening him from the “metaphysical” altitude
where the classical model had placed him and rearticulating him ontolog-
ically and epistemologically with the observed reality. He no longer can
believe that, toward this reality, he occupies a position from where he
might be able to know it in an essential manner, and to express his knowl-
edge about it in a purely observational language (i.e., unaltered by the
data of the subjective consciousness), a language that might give him the
impression of definitive and complete assertions about the nature and
behavior of reality.
Our next chapter will develop in an analytical manner the historical
route covered by the changing of paradigm that has made possible today
an unprecedented configuration of the Science-Tradition rapport.

The Perspective of Natural Sciences

Methodological premises for a pertinent scientific approach

ommenting on the Shakespearian dialogue used as motto of this paper,
C Bertrand Russell confessed that he always asked himself how could
the queen have known that she was seeing “all that is”? This question
pervades obsessively not only the minds of poets and philosophers, but
those of scientists, too. Very few scholars did not express, in one way or
another, their own opinions about the nature of reality. To what extent,
without abandoning the probity that should characterize the scientific act,
can it be postulated that something is — that an entity can be considered,
objectively, as a part of reality? “This is the question”…
The difficulty of this interrogation is contiguous to that of defining
certain terms found invariably in its various formulations; terms like object,
subject, reality, and perception. Obviously, before deciding what exactly
makes something be real or not, the terms of what we call reality should
be precisely clarified.
The philosophy of science distinguishes mainly between three ways
proposing a definition of reality. That is practical realism (Kant), in which
the existence of certain postulates that can be objectively rendered is
admitted. Next, dogmatic realism (Einstein), insisting that whatever pos-
tulate regarding the material world can be rendered objectively. Finally,
there is metaphysical realism (Descartes), holding that, even though things
98 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

exist independently from the subject, we cannot know reality in a purely

objective manner, everything being nothing but mathematical calculation.
Once again, we identify the implicit or explicit use of the terms
mentioned above. On the other hand, it is obvious that between the
concepts of subject, object, and reality there is a certain relation. For our
purposes, we will start from the premise that the nature of the concept of
reality is given by the totality of reports that can be constructed inside the
conceptual triad subject – object – reality.
In this respect, our methodological approach will start from the
scheme regarding the subject-object relations developed by Basarab
Nicolescu; briefly, it is about a stylized exemplification of the rapports
subject-object, exposed in historical succession. Scrutinizing the vision of
the above-mentioned physicist, we can discern mainly four types of sub-
ject-object rapports, each one synthesizing an epistemological attitude
defining a certain period in the history of ideas.29

Figure 1 — Premodernity

S O

Figure 2 — Modernity

Characteristic for the pre-modern era is the fact that the Subject is
“absorbed” inside the object (Figure 1). The Subject takes part in a reality
described as a world of spirits, into which he inserts himself via the par-
ticipation to ritual acts. Nature is not something from which we can “pluck”
knowledge. The Object is not known, but allows knowledge about it, so that
the Subject gets to know only what is revealed to him. In modernity, the
Subject and the Object are each one constituted as self-standing entities
(Figure 2). The Subject dominates the Object, tempting to subdue it.

29. Basarab Nicolescu, Transdisciplinary Hermeneutic, conference held at the Sambata-de-

Sus Academy, 30 May 2009.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 99
Postmodernism is characterized, regarding the relation between
Subject and Object, by the disappearance of the Object, which finally ends
up reconstructed by the Subject (Figure 3).

S O

Figure 3 — Postmodernism

The transdisciplinary approach proposes a rebalancing of the relation

Subject-Object through affirming a unity that conserves all distinctions
between Object and Subject, inside the frame of a multiplicity of levels of
reality (Figure 4). The Hidden Third (HT) mediates this “global cohesion”
that averts the confusion (Nicolescu [2007], pp. 43-45).

TA

S O

r→∞
Figure 4 — Transdisciplinarity

Starting from this scheme (particularized accordingly to the exterior

aspects of different theories and scientific currents), we will follow up the
historical evolution of the idea of reality in science, parallel to the emer-
gency of various epistemological streams. The concept of reality cannot be
defined outside the relational hypostases Subject-Object; consequently,
we appreciate that any definition must envisage a certain comprehension
of these aspects.
In order to avoid a terminological mix-up, we adopt the distinction
between Real and Reality operated by Nicolescu (2002 b). Consequently,
Reality is that “that resists our experiences, representations, descriptions,
imagining, or mathematical formalizations”, while the Real is “what is”.
100 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

“By definition, the Real is hidden forever, while Reality is accessible to our
knowledge”. In other words, we should renounce the illusion that science
possesses the capacity to unveil “the things in themselves”, the world in
its “essence”. Science is not capable to inform us, in an absolute way, on
“what is”, but only on what resists our efforts to describe, quantify, and
understand.30
In the context of developing and interpreting the theoretical and
experimental outcomes of modern physics, a number of other criteria
relative to reality were proposed. For instance, for Born (1956), the idea of
invariant is a key to understanding the concept of reality. On the other
hand, he indicates that the old theories considering the amounts as
invariants — for example, the distances in rigid systems, time intervals
indicated by different clocks, or the masses of solid bodies — now appear
as projections, components of invariant amounts, not accessible directly.
The legitimate question that arises is if the new invariants are not, in their
turn, projections as well in the frame of larger theories, of other invariants,
of which we can legitimately ask the same questions — how can we be
certain that we have established an invariant in itself, or, in a redundant
formulation, an “absolute invariant”?
Another criterion of reality is formulated by Einstein, Podolsky, and
Rosen in a famous article in which they assert that without disturbing
a system in any way, if we are able to predict with certainty the value of
a physical amount, then there is an element of physical reality correspon-
ding to this value. Bohr however, argued that an ambiguity slipped into
the formulation of this criterion referring to physical reality, precisely
regarding the reference to the non-disturbance of the system. Criticizing
the formulation of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, Bohr (1958) stressed
the importance of the very conditions that define the possible types of
predictions concerned with the future behavior of the system.
Science does not probe the Real, the “what is in itself”, but Reality,
the things that interact through resistance with the knowing subject. The
confusion between Real and Reality has, more often than not, as a result
a heterogeneous mix of pseudo-philosophical rhetoric and scientific terms
used abusively in importunate analogies. Consequently, we consider that
this terminological distinction is due to put order into a segment of the
discourse where inconsistency and ambiguity are habitual. Because one
of the intentions of our work is the presentation of the concept of Reality
in natural sciences, we will further consider the meaning described above,
with respect to the understanding of the term reality.

30. In Deutsch’s reformulation, the criterion “if something resists, it exists” refers to the
true statements behaving in a complex and autonomous manner, that can be taken
into consideration as criteria for reality.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 101
The becoming of modern science. Reality as total separation of
subject and object
When we examine closely Figures 1 and 2, we see that the modern
scientific revolution emerged as a complete “hatching” of the subject and
its projection outside the object. Inside this complex process of passing
from the pre-modernity of the Middle Ages to full blown modernity, we
witness a dichotomy subject-object, or, as Constantin Virgil Negoiþã put it,
a sort of pull-back of the subject from the object. Thus, the subject detaches
itself from the object in a way resembling that of an art critic taking a
methodical distance from a work of art in order to evaluate it “objectively”.
The question arising here is whether this epistemic pull-back was
indeed necessary as an obligatory premise, initially fertile, of the emer-
gence and development of the modern natural sciences. Could it have
been possible to make science, indeed, as long as the subject subsisted
absorbed within the subject? Could it have been possible to speak about
a resistance of Reality as long as the knowing subject was perceived as being
contoured evanescently in an objective and animated Reality?
Heisenberg, looking for an answer to these questions against the
theological background of the times when modern science was born, did
not hesitate to project forth the epistemological initiative of a separation
between subject and object. He stated that a certain specific trait of Western
Christianity, which he qualified steeply as “atheism” (Germ. Gottlosigkeit)
had projected God as a far, distant, Deus otiosus, allowing for a paradigm
in which man, as an autonomous subject in relation with God, could have
considered nature, consequently, as an object separated from him. Accord-
ing to Heisenberg, the changing in attitude toward nature of the scholar,
in such a way that God seemed hurled into the skies so far that regarding
Earth as independent from God made sense, entitles us to talk about a loss
of God specific to Christianity, thus being able to understand why other
cultures were spared of such a development; maybe in connection to that
development, nature also becomes an object of artistic representations,
independent of religious themes; the ideal of an “objective” description or
explanation of nature corresponds as well to this consideration of nature
as independent not only from God, but from man too.
Without pleading pro domo, and without starting from the premise
that the birth of modern science in Europe was the best in all possible
histories of that ideatic flux, we need to argue that such a tendency toward
“impiety” was not manifest in Eastern Christian theology as well. Here,
the thinking of the Holy Fathers kept together the triune God-man-cosmos
in an inseparable whole, a perception that always enabled the holistic,
interdependent, approach of any of these terms — despite the “risk” (not
necessarily pernicious) of not generating a “scientific thinking”.
102 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

Like Heisenberg, Bickerton considers, too, that the progressive

distancing from the exterior world is the price to be paid in order to know
a few things about the world (Calvin [1996]). In other words, the disrup-
tion between subject and object was — and still is, according to certain
opinions — an absolute condition, necessary in order to be capable today
to talk about science (in the modern understanding of the term). Schrö-
dinger’s assertion (1974) according to which the abolishing of the Subject
of Knowledge from the image of the objective world is the dear price that
we had to pay for a satisfying image of the world can also fit in the same
thematic register. The model in which reality is seen as an exteriority that
the subject tries to subdue systematically seems to be one of the essential
factors that made possible the jump to what we call today modern science.
Admitting the fact that outside the subject there is a concrete object, some-
thing that resists to subject’s efforts to describe and, finally, subdue it,
seems to be one of the conditions linked to the epistemological frame that
allowed modern science to appear in the West and not somewhere else.31
Basarab Nicolescu (2002 a) describes the dynamic of this changing
of epistemological paradigm in the following terms: “Modern science was
born from a brutal fracture from the old vision of the world. It is grounded
on the surprising and revolutionary idea for the time of a complete sepa-
ration of the knowing subject from a Reality supposed to be completely
independent from the observing subject.”
The fact that the object “reacts” in the same way to similar “actions”
leads to the conclusion that physical Reality32 is nothing but a sum of
objects describable by the subject and, since the object has consistency, it
can be considered to be “real” , not a mere illusion or interior construct of
the subject. Because it has a physical consistency, because it “exists” and
has a cohesion that seems more persistent than the mental flux of the sub-
ject, the object deserves to be studied, classified, measured, and engaged
in a conceptual whole meant to explain the physical substrate of reality.

31. It may be that the origin of the separation between subject and object, far from being
just a methodological separation necessary to the constitution of modern science, goes
back far from this moment, being identifiable within the separation of the western
political theology, from Augustine, in Civitate Dei and Civitate terrena. This separation
lays at the origin of the concept of modern state in which the laic state, institutionally
objectivated, is the real, concrete, one, in front of the individual subject to whom it
imposes its objectivity. In these circumstances, to the divine City only the territory of
a subjective projection is conceded.
32. The founders of modern science did not rule out the possibility of existence of a super-
sensible Reality and of an uncognoscible Real, even though, in order to address them,
they used a different terminology. However, our issue here is the concept of Reality in
classical physics meaning.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 103
The process through which the subject distances itself from the
object is already visible at a close up of Galileo’s statements, in the sense
that from all knowledgeable natural means, the constitution of the uni-
verse should be considered as occupying the first place, meaning that by
surpassing all the others by the generality of its content, it should surpass
them in importance as well (Galileo [1953]). Galileo explicitly formulates
methodological principles without which it should be very difficult to
imagine modern science, in the sense that the knowledge of the effects of
nature leads us toward the knowledge and causes, because otherwise the
research would be blind. Consequently, it is necessary to have knowledge
of the effects of the causes we are looking for. Obviously, in the reality
model offered by the pre-modern concept it was not possible to talk about
the “knowledge of the effects” and “finding of causes”. Galileo also tried
to establish the “characteristic and condition of the natural and true things”
(ibidem). For him, the characteristic and condition of true things is that it
is impossible for them to be otherwise; reality comprises in itself an object
that behaves according to immutable laws, generating similar effects
when similar causes act upon it. There is an exterior datum of the subject
that produces quantifiable effects that, in their turn, lead us to reasonable
causes, capable to be analyzed via perceptions by the sense organs of the
subject — perceptions that are in a direct rapport with the phenomena
generated by the object.33
More pregnant tones were given to this model of reality by Sir Isaac
Newton, who postulated the existence of an absolute time and an absolute
space as “recipients” in which objects move and interact. Absolute time,
true and mathematic, flowing equally, without any connection to some-
thing exterior, in itself and according to its nature, and absolute space,
taken in its nature unrelated to anything exterior, that remains forever the
same and immobile (Newton [1999]) — these are the two Newtonian
scholia promoting the model of an independent exterior physical reality.
The subject has the role to decipher the mysteries of this rational reality
perfectly determined by the laws of classical mechanics. We could say that
the reality described by the Newtonian mechanics “resists”, nevertheless
“failing”34 only to the capacity of the knowing subject to acknowledge the
laws that “hold” all things together. Reality, in the classical acceptation,
was more and more similar to a clock, the scientist himself being a sort of

33. It is interesting to see how Galileo (1914) analyzes the mechanism of perception and
sensation, considering that the wave “born in the trembling of the body” produces the
sound that spreads in the air, making the eardrum vibrate, becoming sound in the soul.
34. Very suggestive on the matter is Basarab Nicolescu’s formulation: “Nature was offering
herself to man as a mistress, to be dominated, conquered” (Nicolescu [2002 a]).
104 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

watchmaker destined to understand and predict it’s functioning according

to the laws formulated by the mechanics of Sir Isaac Newton.35
Local causality is one of the ordering factors of the world exterior
to the subject. The subject possesses the faculty to notice and formalize
the real causes of things (i.e., according to Nicolescu, “the institution of a
paradigm of simplicity”), the natural things possessing only the causes
that are necessary in order to explain their appearances, the same natural
effects being produced by same causes (Newton [1999]).
This age, characterized by optimism and total trust in the science’s
aptness to change the world, promotes the concept of a single Reality worth
of this name. According to Basarab Nicolescu, that is the objective Reality,
governed by objective laws, one of the consequences of the scientism
defining this period in science history being the fact that it “incumbed
a persistent and tenacious idea: that of the existence of a single level of
Reality”, of an objectivity uniquely determined by a strictly local causality
characterized by an immutable continuity.
However, as Niels Bohr noticed as well, the objective world of the
natural sciences of the last century was a limit-concept and not reality
(Heisenberg [1971]).

Theory of relativity
The first change in the classical model came along the epistemolog-
ical consequences of the restricted theory of relativity.
Born (1962) explains the “weakness” of the classical model, showing
that the existence without any connection with the exterior of absolute time
and absolute space seems strange for a scholar like Newton, who states
his intentions as directed to researching only what is real and observable;
however, something without any connection with the exterior cannot be
acknowledged and, consequently, has no reality.
By demonstrating that there is no absolute reference system (i.e., in
which the observer has the possibility to measure the absolute parameters
of space and time), the theory of relativity came with a reconsideration of
the role played by the observer, the subject that is, in the physical descrip-
tion of phenomena exterior to him.
By detailing and adapting the scheme in Figure 2, we are able to see
in the figure below, referring to the new model of Reality implied by the
theory of relativity, an asymmetrical relation between Subject and Object,
and an approach of the two entities. The Object is no longer that exterior,
inalterable, structure imposing itself tyrannically to a Subject who was

35. Kepler formulated for the first time the metaphor of the watchmaker with the intent
to show that the movement of heavenly bodies is more similar to that of a pendulum
watch than of a divine organism.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 105

S O
Figure 5
Theory of relativity

nothing but a simple observer of the phenomenal world around him. The
profound structure of relativist Reality is no longer an immutable datum,
but the result of the interaction between Subject and Object.
Quoted by Heisenberg (1971), Bohr illustrates this change of epistemic
perspective, stating that what we can communicate through an objective
language in the meaning of classical physics is only information about
the facts, without any possibility of predicting future events eluding the
observer or the means of observation; in this respect, the natural sciences
of today reveal for any fact its objective and subjective characteristics.
The notions of time and space are deprived of the independency
conferred to them by the axioms of Newtonian physics36, now being linked
in a subtle way to the reference system of the observer. In the context of
the theory of relativity, the result of the measuring depends not on the
subject, but on the positioning of the subject. For the first time in the history
of science, the observing subject gains a slim ascendency over the objective
external datum, while the concept of Reality gets new understandings by
revealing the fact that we do not live in a kind of rigid space-time “recep-
tacle, without any connection to anything external”. By affirming the role
played by the observer in the way the exterior world appears, the notion
of Reality becomes more “elastic” and, without any anthropomorphizing,
appears more “human” than the one created by Newtonian physics.

The quantum revolution

One of the consequences essential to the apparition of the quantum
theory is a new approach of the concept of Reality.

S O
Figure 6
Quantum theory

36. Albert Einstein — Fundamental Ideas and Problems of the Theory of Relativity, Nobel Lectures,
Physics 1901–1921, Amsterdam, Elsevier Publishing Company. Available at: http://
[Link]/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/[Link].
106 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

Figure 6 (previous page) renders, using the limitations of analogy,

the transformation brought to the understanding of Reality by this theory.
In the setup of the Subject-Object relational process (between observer and
phenomenon), the Object tends to be “absorbed”. It no longer possesses
that rigid “impenetrability” of the classic theory and the distance from the
Subject is considerably reduced. The quantum particle is “a completely
new entity, irreducible to classic representations” (Nicolescu [2002 b]). The
quantum theory shows the impossibility of localizing a quantum event
precisely in space-time, the notion relative to the Object inherited from
classical physics being replaced by that of event (relation, inter-connection).
It is no longer possible to talk about separability in the classical under-
standing, because “the quantum event is not separable as an object”37.
A supporter of the Copenhagen School, Heisenberg (1971) states
that reality depends on the structure of our consciousness, the objective
realm being only a small part of our reality. Regardless of our position
toward the Copenhagen School, the fact that within the quantum theory
the role of the observer is more pregnant than that attested by the theory
of relativity is undeniable. Here, the observing subject of the theory of
relativity assumes the status of subject participating in the consistency and
coherence of objective reality.
After the pullback of the pioneering years of science, we witness,
alongside the vertiginous development of modern physics, an increasing
proximity between Subject and Object (Nicolescu [2002 b]). The initial
interval in method, fertile and necessary according to certain epistemolo-
gists, seems to diminish; the subject and the object are getting nearer to a
common point of equilibrium now. The diaphanous contour of the Object
suggests its potentiality in relation with the capability of the Subject to
actualize it through the observing (measuring) process. Quantum reality
is no longer a homogenous and static datum, but, as Basarab Nicolescu
points out, a perpetual oscillation between actuality and potentiality.

Reality in cyberspace-time
In the mid-1980s, the technical term “virtual reality” popped out,
which quickly became fashionable within the mass-media. The possibility
to make virtual holydays, to visit virtual museums, or to act in movies
alongside virtual actors conquered immediately the public imagination,
this spectrum of products integrating rapidly into the market. However,
beyond those purely technical appearances, and ceasing to be a metaphor
belonging to the sci-fi literature, the model of cyberspace-time generated
a new perspective on the concept of Reality.

37. Heisenberg goes even further, stating that symmetry is something more profound than
the particle.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 107
Hence, for this model we propose the scheme illustrated in Figure 7.
We have come now to a reverse situation compared to that of pre-moder-
nity, illustrated in Figure 1. Now, the tendency is that the Subject builds
the Object intellectually, in fact remodeling a new Reality — in trans-
disciplinary terms, it is about the apparition of a new level of Reality, the
level of cyberspace-time, as will be argued further on.38

Figure 7 — The cyberspace-time Reality

Vince (2004) defines virtual reality as an image of reality in which

physical objects, or anything else, are obsolete for building that reality.
As for Deutsch (1997), he introduces the notion of virtual reality generator,
as a device capable to manipulate our senses by bypassing their normal
functioning. In this way, because the Subject builds up an Object to which
he confers the characteristics and proprieties he desires, the proximity
between Subject and Object is annuled.
The new created object can be physically impossible; nevertheless,
it is imperatively necessary for it to be logically possible (Deutsch [1997]).
Avoiding falling into solipsism, Deutsch extends the technical concept of
virtual reality, showing that the link between the physical and virtual
worlds is tighter than it may appear. Obviously, argues Deutsch, imagi-
nation is a form of virtual reality. Even more, the experience of the world
acquired “directly” through the senses is also virtual because our external
experience is never direct (ibidem). In accordance with Schrödinger (1974),
who uses color perception as an example, the sensation of color cannot be
explained through the objective representation of the physicist about light
waves. Without fear of being suspected of subjective idealism, we can assert
that what we usually call color or sound is nothing more than sensations
constructed by our perceptive apparatus.39 Simply, our experience is a

38. Basarab Nicolescu, Transdisciplinary Hermeneutics, a conference at the Sâmbãta-de-Sus

Academy, May 30, 2008.
39. It seems that Democritus first noticed that. In a fragment transmitted by Galen, we
hear that Democritus’ opinion was that colors and tastes are according to the common
human condition (nomo), although, according to the nature of things (eteé), there are
only atoms and void. Similarly, Diogenes Laertios states that Democritus says that the
atoms are the principles of all things, anything else only seeming to exist. Atoms and
108 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

“virtual” reality generated by our mind based on external sensorial data

and a “software” functioning in our brain.40
According to Nicolescu (2002 a), virtual reality, considered on strict-
ly technical grounds, is only an epiphenomenon of the cyberspace-time
reality. Consequently, the main characteristics of the cyberspace-time are:
it is natural and artificial altogether, of a material nature in various grades
of materiality, it determines a new relation of transformation between
mathematical equations and images, signals travel in it at the speed of
light, the number of its dimensions is not necessarily four (three for space
and one for time), it is governed by a non-classical logic and its causality
is of a loop type (linear causality is abolished), and it is characterized by
self-movement (submission to a principle of maximality stating that every-
thing that could be done will be done).
For cyberspace-time, the status of Reality can be recognized in the
sense of the definition accepted in the introduction of this study because,
as stated by Nicolescu, in the so called “virtual” reality what resists is the
mathematical equations.
The level of the cyberspace-time is legitimately instituted as another
level of Reality because it possesses relevant characteristics in that sense:

a) it can be described as an ensemble, unaffected by the action of a

number of general laws;
b) it sustains an opposition in fundamental laws and concepts to
the macro-physical level of Reality (cyberspace and cybertime
pose entirely different proprieties);
c) the terms that are irreconcilable on the microphysical level can
be perceived as non-contradictory on the level of cyberspace-time
Reality.

We cannot close this section without phrasing some interrogations

in relation to the connotative meanings of the concept of reality in cyber-
space-time. So, there is the question referring to the extent in which the
“virtual” reality of cyberspace-time is a product of a creative imaginary,
of an imaginatio vera. Is cyberspace-time reality a product of an authentic
imagination, or of a destructive one? (Nicolescu [1991]).

void are the only realities. Our perceptions are apparent and conventional (nenomisthai).
In Schrödinger’s understanding, Democritus introduces the intellect (diamonia), in
conflict with the senses (aisthesis) about the real. In his opinion, the image of every
individual about the world is, and stays forever, a construct of his spirit.
40. Stating that the map preceding the territory engenders the territory, places the authen-
tic post-modern author Jean Baudrillard in the same line. In the postmodern vision,
the whole Reality is a virtual Reality, although from reasons different from Deutsch’s,
and without implying any strictly technical connotations of the word virtual.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 109
In André Chouraqui’s interpretation, the first words of Genesis can
be translated as “In His head Elohim created…”. Thus, the factual creation
of the world and man could have been preceded by a creation in the
divine imagination. In this original interpretative translation, the physical
Universe was preceded by a proto-universe that, in a sense, can be thought
of as purely virtual. Could this imaginative capacity of instituting “virtual”
worlds be, on the grounds of his constitution as theological subject ac-
cording to the image and resemblance of God, conferred to man as well?
We are questioning as well the extent to which the cyberspace-time
reality can be perceived as a reminiscence of the Parmenidean linkage
between thinking and being, in the sense that the act of thinking is able
to ground and legitimate reality. The answer to that question cannot dis-
pense itself from an in-depth philosophical study following below.

Transdisciplinary reality
Analyzing the principle of objectivation characteristic to modern
science, Schrödinger noticed that the scientific world became objective in
such an odious way, that it blew away the chances of the spirit and im-
mediate sensations and, our science being based on objectivation, it hence
missed the opportunity of an adequate understanding of the Subject of
Knowledge (Schrödinger [1974]). Precisely in this respect, Transdiscipli-
narity attempts at reconciling all models of Reality presented so far (see
Figure 4), by restoring a dynamic point of equilibrium in the reciprocal
conditioning between Subject and Object.
The conformity between human thought and the intelligence hid-
den in natural laws (Nicolescu [2002 b]) makes possible the existence of
the mediation between Subject and Object, in a multiplicity of levels of
Reality. Transdisciplinarity proposes an alternative to other models that
promote either “dissolutions” of Reality, or an imbalance of interactions
Subject-Object. Inside the transdisciplinary frame, distinctions such as
“objective reality” and “subjective reality” become nonsensical, due to
the fact that the levels of Reality that characterize the transdisciplinary
Object are coherent with the levels of perception of the transdisciplinary
Subject — that is, the transdisciplinary Subject is made up of the totality
of the perception levels and the complementary non-resistance zone. The
transdisciplinary Object together with the transdisciplinary Subject create
an open unity (Nicolescu [2002 a]), while the Interaction term between
Subject and Object can be reduced neither to the Object, nor to the Subject.
The transdisciplinary paradigm of Reality affirms the existence of a
global coherence between Subject and Object, in which, at the same time,
the distinctions are conserved. Transdisciplinarity postulates a non-local
interaction between Subject and Object, mediated by a Hidden Third (HT)
(Nicolescu [2007], pp. 43-45). The role of the Hidden Third is played by
110 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

the non-resistance area, which allows the unification, in their difference,

of the transdisciplinary Subject and the transdisciplinary Object (ibidem).
The non-local interaction mediated at a global level confers consistency
to Reality. Even though they do not have any point of direct contact, the
Subject and the Object inter-condition each other in a more subtle way,
because both participate in the same Reality.
The role of Transdisciplinarity is to make both the objective subjec-
tivity of Science and the subjective objectivity of Tradition coexist (Nico-
lescu [2002 b]) and to re-settle the human at the confluence of scientific
honesty and the pathos of Tradition.

The Philosophical Perspective

Introductory considerations
e cannot have a mature perspective over the concept of reality
W without approaching the relation object-subject from the angle of
philosophy, central to any type of discourse. Beginning with Parmenides,
whose well-known sentence identifies knowledge to being41, the terms of
this relation are rather superimposing and implied, behind the simultane-
ity of the noetic and ontological levels. Thus, from the very beginning,
simultaneity blocks any type of knowledge prevailing from the “objecti-
vating” of the subject toward the object, reducing everything to a mere
tautology. In the same time, however, we can argue that Parmenides’
assertion presupposes the existence of a germinating dichotomy subject-
object.42
This relation between the noetic and the ontological planes can be
understood as a setting into the general frame of thinking the relation
between subject and object. A first “breach” between these planes, only
methodological though, took place with Plato: from a superposition of
the relation (that could be seen as an identification between subject and
object), a methodological “crumble” is first produced, becoming factual
later, with Descartes. In Heisenberg’s thought, as well as in Basarab Nico-
lescu’s transdisciplinary methodology, unity is regained because the sub-
ject and the object, although distinct43, presuppose a kind of interaction
that makes knowledge possible. Hence, we are no longer able to express

41. To gar auto noein estin te kai einai (“for thinking and being are the same”); also Clement
of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 23.
42. The Parmenidian sentence is typical for the cognitive paradigm of postmodernism, in
which the subject cannot be separated from the object.
43. At least at methodological level, in order to ensure an “objective” character to knowl-
edge.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 111
the terms of a pure ontology, completely different from the knowledgeable
subject, as was the case with the classical Cartesian model of science.
Then, a double perspective on reality, ontological and epistemolog-
ical, becomes compelling. The legitimacy of a metaphysical criterion,
which science can propose in its approach of articulating an objective
and sensible discourse about reality, can be justified only in this double
perspective, ontological-epistemological, where the “objectivity canon”
ultimately comes from the interaction subject-object proposed by the
transdisciplinary methodology.
The Real was always the obsession of thinkers. It was always sup-
posed that, in search for the truth, beyond the great variety of facts and
regularities accessible to empirical knowledge, there are simple funda-
mental structures of reality (Flonta [2004], p. 17). What remains to do in
order to reach these structures is just to conciliate, to unify the three great
levels of knowledge: observation, empirical knowledge, and theoretical
knowledge.
No matter how abrupt and unexpectedly theological this assertion
might seem, we cannot talk about any type of founding in the absence of
apophatism. The platonic metaphysics — if we are to consider it first —
already sends us toward this kind of founding. Today’s science, as well as
philosophy and theology, are founded apophatically at the level of the
insertion of the indemonstrable, as discourse grounding. The recovery of
the individual at the level of the universal raises the question of the pos-
sibility of a perspective from the part of science over a reality in constant
change. The problem of the objectivity or subjectivity of science is being
expressed, according to Basarab Nicolescu, by a mental construction based
on the classical image of reality.
Irrespective of the paradigmatic context we are placing ourselves in,
a discourse about reality necessarily draws a triple dimension (a meta-
physical, epistemological, and analytical ontology), as well as certain
connecting bridges, from the dialogue with other disciplines. We can no
longer talk about reality in a de-contextualized and singular way. Thus,
the discourse about reality implies a certain type of entities evidencing an
ontological program and, at the same time, an epistemology, a theory of
knowledge. In addition, the language (at the level of which we can hope
to achieve the fusion of horizons in a transdisciplinary manner) plays a
decisive role circumscribing the whole sphere of discourses about reality.
A coherent approach of reality presupposes to assume the problem-
atic of the being and the possibility of knowledge about it. In this way, a
triple perspective — metaphysical, epistemological, analytical — is com-
pulsory (as mentioned above). If the analytical perspective is tributary to
the 20th-21st centuries, the epistemological and, especially, metaphysical
112 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

perspectives draw the philosophical reflection of over two and a half mil-
lennia.
Reality is a correlative concept and cannot be thought about in the
absence of the signification of other concepts. It can be thought only in
relation to the concept of “appearance”. The opposition between appear-
ance and reality engenders an ontological and paradigmatic discourse
about the knowledge of things and of the world, generating, among other
things, a dialogue between science and theology. Ultimately, both dis-
courses are, in one way or another, tributary to the philosophical language.
We cannot talk about language without taking into consideration
the knowledge, because language and knowledge reckon each other. The
limitations of the (anthropological) language necessarily draw a border
between cataphatic and apophatic expression; however, the border being
in fact man himself, they complete each other. We can refer to cataphatic
and apophatic at the level of philosophical44 and theological45, as well as
scientific46 discourse. In this way, scientific knowledge instruments the
cataphatic at the level of true and grounded opinion, while apophatism
represents the “hard” aspect of the building technique in ontology47,
being the fundamental reference in theoretical constructions48. In Eastern
Christian theology, cataphatic knowledge represents the contemplation
of God in his reasons (logoi) disseminated at the level of natural, created
reality. This knowledge with referrence to creation plays a necessary role
in man’s climbing toward God and is realized asymptotically, having as
starting-point our opinions, more or less grounded, about reality. How-
ever, in this asymptotic climb toward the divine mystery, the cataphatic
does not have total freedom. The possibility of cataphatic language is due
to the analogical (not homological) correspondence between God’s and
the world’s proprieties, expressed via obligatory symbolic terms, in which
the proprieties of the world indicate, they elevate, however unfulfilling,
toward God’s proprieties. Hence, the cataphatic is bordered continually
and, at the same time, included in apophatism, which is present at all
levels of the spiritual climb.

44. Cataphatism sends to the ontological plane of the sensible, while apophatism to the
intelligible plane, which cannot be defined or postulated, but only determined nega-
tively. The language plays a mediating role between the two ontological planes.
45. Here, cataphatism has an iconic role, the sign sending to the signified realities of creation,
while apophatism represents a refusal of exhausting God’s mystery in statements.
46. Cataphatism is found in empirical knowledge, where it has a symbolic function, while
apophatism at the level of the construction of scientific theories.
47. Apeiron for Anaximandros, being for Parmenides, intelligible for Plato etc..
48. A good example would be the fact that, with Euclid, apophatism passes to geometry,
too, the point being defined as the one that has no parts.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 113
Finally, the three levels of scientific knowledge (observation, empir-
ical knowledge, theoretical knowledge) presuppose, altogether, cataphatic
and apophatic knowledge. In this way, the cataphatic character of the first
three levels, implying as well scientific observations and the correspon-
ding generalization, is continued by the apophatism of the third level
(that of theoretical knowledge). In relation to empirical knowledge, the
apophatism of the theoretical knowledge is being noticed not only when
operating with indemonstrable but also when it is expressed in concepts
that, although very distinct, are not abstracted from empirical observation
(not possible in the absence of a previous theoretical frame). Consequently,
scientific knowledge cannot separate itself from philosophical knowledge
that, by definition, anticipates that part of the unknown that can be added
to knowledge and, even more, the appeal to assumptions.
As there are limitations to any human endeavor, in any type of dis-
course we find ourselves the cataphatic language will always entail, on
the limit, the apophatic one. By attempting to justify ultimate truths, we
can decipher a similar methodology, grafted on an apophatic expression,
in any paradigm. Finitude is a basic fact of the human being. Regardless
that it is taken as a source of bitterness or soothing, there is no doubt that
there are limitations to any human achievement, with reference to human
resistance, resources, or life itself (Priest [2003]).
In order to have a complete vision of the idea of reality, it is impor-
tant to mention that we have to call in the transdisciplinary methodology,
in virtue of which we will have to operate with the following three dis-
tinctions: Real-Reality49, subject-object and thing50-phenomenon. Those
three, inter-definable and reciprocal, are distinguishing since the beginning
of philosophical thinking, even though less obvious.
Since Plato, the three essential dimensions51 regarding the way the
world (reality) is, the way we can know about it and the way we can talk
about it are put into equation.
With Theaitetos, one of the most difficult problems of philosophy, that
regarding the knowledge, is opened. In this Dialogue, the way to knowl-
edge gets to the criticism of certain pseudo-knowledge that, at the most,
only indicates, by negative example, the way toward the real knowledge.
On the other hand, the term episteme, indicating the maximum closeness
to the pure forms of the being, that is the Ideas, is about knowledge pure
and simple. Episteme implies not only the knowledge of an established

49. We must distinguish between Real and Reality. Real means what is hidden forever by
definition, while Reality is linked to resistance in our experience (Nicolescu [2002 b]).
50. Thing-in-itself/noumenon.
51. Metaphysical, epistemological, and analytical (language) ontology.
114 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

relation, but also of a principle (arche). Knowledge is an intuition of the

essence of things, Greek science being inseparable from metaphysics in
that respect. When enouncing a truth unchangeable by circumstances,
Plato states the universality and atemporality of the authentic knowledge.
To know means getting over the diversity and instability of human opin-
ions, thus reducing the multiplicity of things to the unity of a universal
definition.
In Theaitetos, in his endeavor to define science, to show what knowl-
edge means, Plato concludes in an aporetical (doubting) key that knowl-
edge can be neither opinion, true opinion, nor true and founded opinion.
While the Sophist attempts to find a solution to the idea of participation
at the level of language, Timaios attempts a restructuration of thinking
in order to understand, or even define, this matter. Ultimately, Plato’s
apophatism underlies the distinction between becoming and being. Hence,
the relation between the intellect and the truth is possible in virtue of the
existence of Good, on the side of the Being and not on that of the Becoming.
Plato’s philosophy cannot be other than apophatic and circumscribed by
a negative logic. The access to the truth is due to the intermediation of the
experience that appeals to the level of things in the world, where every-
thing is ephemeral and relative. Only by relating to Idea, which is eternal,
simple and absolute, we get access to the real knowledge.
Man, as a bearer of soul, has access to the knowledge of the intelli-
gible world. The soul, like Plato’s Ideas, makes the truth knowledgeable,
a fact evidenced by the aporetical character of the Dialogues.52 The space
between truth and its appearance could not be covered by human logic
only. The likeness of man with the divine, by its dynamic character, makes
the climbing towards the intelligible ones feasible. We can attain the high-
est of understandings only through the analytical intellect, dianoia (i.e.,
thinking by distinctions), and we can have an un-intermediated vision of
the truth only at the level of the pure intellect, of the nous. Only certain
contradictions, paradoxes brought to light by the study of sciences (that
reveal the imperfection and incompleteness of sciences), have the capacity
to awake the asleep nous in everyone’s spirit. Hence, the real knowledge
supposes a gradual reorientation of the intellectual scrutiny from “tech-
nical” issues to the “non-technical” ones, in order for the fully awaken
nous to comprehend in a single embracement the whole reality — conse-
quent to a sudden enlightenment as asserted by Plato in the Seventh Letter
(Cornea [1986], p. 76). In this way, the knowledge of the Good53 is linked

52. Due to the understanding of the link between the world of appearances and the world
of the intelligible.
53. The Good is superior to the intellect and the being; it represents the supreme knowledge.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 115
to the image of the soul and its corresponding likeness with divinity. Thus,
by not possessing it by himself, man tends toward the real wisdom, since
“wise indeed is the solely God”54. By its resemblance to Ideas, man’s soul
is immortal, a fact that cannot be demonstrated, presupposing rather an
apophatic understanding. Immortality is not, strictly speaking, demon-
strable, because it belongs, as any idea resulting from the direct intuition
of forms, to the domain of revelation (Tecuºan [1983], p. 42).
What reality 55 possesses indeed is the world of Ideas, the world of
the intelligible. Ideas are independent from the material realities of things
and phenomena. Ideas cannot be mistaken for logical realities or concepts
of thought and, because their objectivity would be affected, they cannot
reside in the human intellect. They exist in a world different even from
the divine thought. The Ideas shows the characteristics of a supreme and
unchallenging objectivity (Muscã [2002], p. 131). From the fact that they
are self-supported entities, separated in an absolute way from the pheno-
menal world, it results that they can assure the objectivity of the thought
in general and, especially, of philosophical thought. As Shand puts it, forms
are not objects of the sensible world; sensible objects change and have
properties that differ according to the point of view in such a way, that
they are not entirely objective. In addition, Forms are not entities at the
base of appearances, as atoms are. Forms subsist beyond the flowing of
experience, space and time, in a transcendent and over-sensible, perceived
ultimately exclusively by the intellect. Forms are pure essences, objective,
and, as objects of knowledge, they comprise the characteristics demanded
by knowledge itself (Shand [2002]). From the platonic perspective, at the
level of the sensible world we can express only opinions describing an
approximate reality56, the real knowledge being realized only at the level
of Ideas. Thus, man is situated between the sensible world and the level
of Ideas.57
Platonism had a considerable influence on the Fathers of the Eastern
Church, as well as over the Christian thinkers from the West. Moreover,
it represented, and still represents, a reference in any attempt to construct
or reconstruct an onto-metaphysical discourse. The philosophy and science
of the 20th and the 21st centuries is often inscribed in a platonic tradition
as well.

54. Plato, Socrates’ Apology, 23a.

55. The Real in Basarab Nicolescu’s vision.
56. The empirical reality.
57. “Man is in the middle, between sensible world and ideas. He cannot give up the ideas
because they are essential to him; he cannot neglect the sensible things either, because,
willingly or not, he has to remember through them” (Jeanne Hersch).
116 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

From Platonism, three aspects were mainly assimilated in theology:

— the existence of an ideal world: there is an ideal world, where the

immutable patterns of reality are called Archetypes; their exis-
tence is postulated, they being the necessary references in order
to describe a world placed under duration and change; the world
of Ideas is dominated by the supreme Archetype, sometimes
called the Good, as in the Republic, or the One, as in Parmenides,
or simply the Being, as in Timaios, or the Beautiful, as in the
Banquet (Meredith [1995]);
— the way in which the sensible world relates to the intelligible world:
the finite and time-dependent Reality of the seen world relates in
different ways to the eternal world of the perfect Archetypes;
in order to express this relation, Plato made use of terms like
“participation” and “imitation”; in Timaios, the making of the
visible world is reported, where Plato delimitates himself from
a doctrine of creation in the strict sense of the word; God (in fact
the Demiurge), explains Plato, searches for the perfect archetypes
which he imprints in the preexistent matter, as a seal leaves its
mark in soft wax; in this way, the philosopher explains the reasons
in virtue of which things are as they are, while not telling any-
thing, however, about their prime cause (ibidem);
— man’s soul is immortal: each man holds within an immortal soul
representing his life principle and the principle of his desires as
well; the soul, prisoner of the body, is attracted toward the high-
est things by the internal dynamic of the eros in order to regain
the initial dwelling in the skies; this natural appetence toward
good and beautiful asks to be liberated and reactivated through
moral and spiritual exercises, or, more precisely, thru askesis —
a work necessary for the soul to regain its initial vision, taking
care that the “wings” lost during the fall at the beginning of time
to grow back; Plato gives a memorable account of this ascetic path
by his cave metaphor (Republic, book VII), as well as by the dis-
course about the ascendant movement of the eros (Banquet — ibid.).

The problematic of the ontological consistency of the created world,

although solved differently in the Platonic and the patristic thought, con-
verges, nevertheless, toward a common solution, stipulating a real existence
of the world. If Plato, in Timaios, implies the eternity of the matter, in such
a way that the Demiurge appears rather an ordinate of the Universe, in
the patristic thought we have an authentic creation: the created Universe
is, in an absolute way, a new being.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 117
According to Plato, the Universe appeared at one moment not “out
of nothing”, but from a previous state of chaos. The world is gendered
not in an absolute way, but rather in a sense presupposing development.
The Demiurge creates depending on the matter he has at his disposal, ac-
cording to the models, in such a way that the resulting copies are as likely
as possible to those. In Timaios, although the creation is not absolute, since
the world is shown as existing forever, a real consistence is nevertheless
stipulated, even if only at the phenomenal level.
Also with Plato, we can notice how the philosophical discourse
about the world operates already with the three conceptual distinctions 58
mentioned previously. This will be reflected in the theological discourse,
as well as in the scientific one.

The Subject-Object distinction

Schnädelbach (2002) asserts that our claims of knowing something
are always questionable. What we know, due to perception, imagination,
experience, or science, and we consider to be true and founded, might be
shown to be false and unfounded. Where we begin to explain how things
are indeed, it is not anymore a matter of accumulating new judgments,
but of judgments about the judgments belonging to our knowledge. This
kind of judgment transforms everything we know into an object, con-
fronting it to the standards that we are ready to apply to the claims that
we know something.
Within the philosophical thought, the object (in itself) is presented,
in a first perspective, as what exists outside the subject, facing it off (pos-
tulated as a reality independent from the mental, as having an existence
of its own). However, in another perspective, the object is described as
dependent on the subject (there is nothing outside the mental entities,
objects being not revealed as realities independent from the subject, but,
somehow, as mental products). Within the first signification, the object is
what is present, or the correlative of a cognitive activity (either sensible,
or intellectual). Within the second signification, the object is placed between
the knower and reality (non-present in itself, but adequately represented
by the object). The first situation stresses what is inside the object and, due
to the object, what can be seen, felt, heard, and conceptually understood.
The second case stresses what is not manifest in the object, hence hidden.
If, for Plato, objectivity is provided by the separate and real existence
of forms 59, beginning with Aristotle a new perspective over the guarantee
of objectivity is opened. Intelligible forms, although immanent to empirical

58. Real-reality, subject-object, and thing-phenomenon.

59. At the intuitive level, there is a bridge between the intelligible world and the sensible
world. The soul, resembling the Ideas, would access reality through language.
118 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

objects, can be separated from them by thought. The form expresses the
unchanging reality, in virtue of which we can talk about proper or scien-
tific knowledge. Aristotle shares with Plato the conception that, if knowl-
edge is possible, then it can only be knowledge about what is real; and
what is real is eternal and unchangeable. Briefly, the necessary truths that
we know must be joined with their references to the according ontologi-
cal objects. Hence, if proper knowledge exists, then we must deal either
with the existence of a world of real objects, eternal and unchangeable,
placed beyond the sensible world (Plato’s standing), or with the existence
of certain real proprieties, eternal and unchangeable, of the sensible world
(Aristotle’s standing — Shand [2002]).
Those two types of ontological grounding were variously emulated
by the philosophical, the theological, as well as the scientific discourses.
If St. Augustine, in conformity to Platonic tradition, stipulates that
the objects of knowledge are eternal and independent from the human
mind (belonging to an eternal and immutable mind of God), St. Thomas
Aquinas follows the Aristotelian line referring to essences.60 Universality
becomes a property of thought and language.61
With Descartes and Leibniz62, the distinction subject-object begins
to stay at the basis of the reconstruction of discourse about the fundamen-
tal nature of reality. Hence, the spirit, the subject (whose essential propriety
is thinking), faces off the matter, the world, whose essence is spreading
those substances (the world and the spirit) owing their existence to God
(the supreme substance). In Leibniz’s vision, too, we refer to ultimate
substances grounding the reality.63 If, for the rationalists, the fact that the
world possesses a fundamental structure that can be understood only
through reason presupposes a reality beyond appearances (involving
necessarily an absolute subject-object distinction), for the empiric philo-
sophers all material knowledge is given only through experience.
As a very strict empiricist, Berkeley maintains that the limits of what
is intelligible or is useless to talk about must be referring to something
from within our experience (Shand [2002]). In the spirit of this thinker, we

60. Essences do not exist before, or independent from, the individual things.
61. To Ockham, universality is first a propriety of ideas and second of the language that
expresses the ideas, not of entities or natures distinct from individual characteristics
of the things in the world (Shand [2002]).
62. We owe to rationalism the idea that the world possesses a real fundamental structure,
that can be intuited (logically) through reason, but without presupposing an aprioris-
tic methodology of science.
63. The monads — defined by Leibniz as simple, without the possibility of being changed
or destroyed. Hence, the real is only what happens inside them, at the same time being
the principle of what exists (of reality).
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 119
can assert the ontological doctrine stating that only about the ideas within
the mind, as well as about the minds themselves, it can be said that they
exist, because it is senseless to talk about things that may exist in some
other way, as long as the expressions used in such a discussion are not
necessarily linked to an idea (ibidem). Thus, the material substance elimi-
nated, God becomes the sole real cause of our ideas and feelings. The fact
that matter does not exist in reality leads us to the conclusion that there is
nothing outside the mental entities.
Along with Frege and Husserl, a new page in the history of thought
opened. In order to answer the question regarding “What is a thought?”,
or at least to look for a plausible answer to that question, it is vital that
the answer should not be psychological. Hence, bearing in mind that the
foundation of logical laws cannot be determined by psychological research,
the expulsion of thoughts from the mind imposed itself with necessity.
Michael Dummett shows that the expulsion of thought from the mind (i.e.,
from the interior world of own experiences) and from the physical world
represents Frege’s stronghold against psychologism. This leads to a kind
of Platonism, to the Fregean mythology of the third world and, finally,
to the linguistic turn that allows the objective treatment of thoughts
completely distinct from internal mental phenomena. The fact that psy-
chologism conceives of thoughts as something subjective ultimately leads
to the illustration of the fact that they are un-communicable. Neverthe-
less, the expulsion of thoughts from the mind is not grounded only on the
argument of objectivity, but also on the fact that we cannot assert that
concepts (not describable as contents of consciousness) appear in the
mind as mental images do. The return to thought makes possible the act of
judgment. This implicitly shows that, to be communicable, thoughts can-
not be private phenomena of the consciousness. They must be considered
objective, because only in this way can they be transmitted without spare
by the language. According to Frege, the thought stays in close relation
with the truth. Consequently, it cannot be asserted that concepts appear
in the mind in the same way mental images do, because they cannot be
described as contents of the consciousness (they are not mental contents).
Thought is not dependent on psychic processes because nothing happen-
ing in the brain is able to explain what exactly is conferring signification
to our verbal expressions.
Thoughts are not contents of the mind (they do not belong to the
internal world) and do not belong to the external world either — the
world of material objects in which we all live. In this case, there is nothing
left to us but to state, to postulate eventually, the existence of a third world,
that of thoughts. Thoughts are out of space and time. They do not interact
causally with other objects and do not act causally over other objects.
120 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

Their existence does not depend on the different ways of expression or

understanding; however, they can be articulated by different individuals
in different circumstances, in many different ways. Thoughts do not pos-
sess the characteristics of reality in the way objects within the physical
world do; they are not entities subjected to changes and transformations.
As already stated, thoughts suppose a third world. “[…] the law of gravi-
ty […] is completely independent from all that is happening in my brain
and from any change or alteration of my representations of it. Neverthe-
less, the comprehension of this law is a mental process! Right, but a process
on the limit of the mental that, consequently, cannot be fully understood
from a strictly psychological point of view. Here, we are dealing with
something that is not mental anymore in the proper sense: thought. And,
perhaps, this process is the most mysterious of all” (Frege [1897], p. 145).
Like Frege, Husserl does not deny the reality of the external world
(of the being of the external world); however, the objective access to it is
based on consciousness. We are interested in objects as they appear to the
consciousness in their universal or essential aspects, by which all objects
of the same kind, if they are to be what they are, must possess certain
characteristics; in Husserl’s view, phenomenology, which is the true
philosophy, follows the goal of being a science of the essences, or an eidetic
science, essences being independent from any individual conscience and
absolutely objective and universally valid. Also, without essences or
significations objects mean nothing to us; essences, conferring to objects
the signification of being, are ultimately phenomena of the consciousness
(Shand [2002]). By that, reality is perceived at the level of the invariants.

The thing-phenomenon distinction

The dichotomy thing-phenomenon invites us to a double reflection,
ontological and epistemological. The discourse about the relation between
subject and object also brings out another kind of dichotomy, respective-
ly thing (in itself)-phenomenon and, ultimately, real-reality. In fact, those
three pairs of concepts are, as already said, inter-definable.
The object of knowledge is represented by the experience or by the
phenomena. To the phenomena, however, corresponds something
unknown, an X named by Kant thing in itself. The concepts and principles
of the existence are applicable only to phenomena, not to the thing in itself,
because they cannot surpass the experience — they do not have a trans-
cendent use (Andrei [1997]). The phenomenon and the thing in itself gain
different statuses. Phenomena occur in space and time, being given to us
by experience. However, the thing in itself cannot be known, we not being
able to say anything about it; it can be thought about, but not acknowl-
edged. Reality is expressed by appearances (phenomena). Kant believed
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 121
that Newtonian mechanics explained not a reality beyond appearances,
but the appearances themselves (Shand [2002]).
Things in themselves exist independently from human knowledge,
and constitute the basis of the appearance. By his transcendental idealism,
according to certain interpretations, Kant was a phenomenalist and a
noumenalist as well. In addition, he stated the existence of the works in
themselves as resisting phenomenalist reduction. In this context, we can
refer to two philosophical doctrines, from the perspective of which the
world would be constituted, on the one hand, by a multitude of objects
independent from any observer (an externalist perspective), while, on the
other hand, the description of the objects in the world would make sense
only inside a theory (an internalist perspective).
Realism64 is opposed, conventionally, by nominalism and idealism
altogether. However, what interests us is the fact that any form of realism
supposes the existence of a reality, of a certain exteriority that is able to be
researched objectively, such that the reality as a subject of thought should
become independent from the human spirit. Reality is not dependent on
the knowing consciousness and does not belong solely to the cognitive
act. The truth is independent from any observer. The formulation of the
problem by metaphysical realism presupposes the existence in themselves
for all objects, and we use a kind of lasso in order to catch some of them
(Putnam [1981]). If direct realism excludes any form of idealism and phe-
nomenalism, representational realism accepts that there is a particular,
non-physical, intermediator — a veil of the perception. Putnam rejects
metaphysical realism, according to which the knowledge of reality as it is is
possible, as well as conceptual relativism, according to which there is no
truth, no real knowledge. He maintains that the fallibility of knowledge
must be admitted, and the act of knowing must be seen as an interaction
between our conceptual schemes and reality.
The problem of the external world is ultimately reduced to an epis-
temological issue. For Locke, Berkeley (for whom there is nothing outside
mental entities — matter does not exists in reality), and Hume, it is evi-
dent that we can know only the phenomena and not the essence of things.
The question regarding the substance, or essence, of things is not legitimate
as long as we do not know anything about them, and can acknowledge
only what is inside us. Even if a stand of the phenomena existed (a sub-
stance of a kind), we would not be able to have an epistemological access
to it; even more, it would be only an illusion.

64. There are several types of realism: realism of the common sense (usual things are real),
scientific realism (postulated theoretical entities are real), psychological realism (men-
tal states are real).
122 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

The existence of an external world within the frame of analytical

philosophy was rendered in terms that expressed the relation between
language and reality. To Wittgenstein, the boundaries of language became
the boundaries of the world.65 However, this logical mirror of the world
was ultimately broken. Wittgenstein, in the second part of his works,
stated that the way of philosophy is, first, a lucid and sincere effort to
reeducate and honestly acknowledge that a professional philosophy (he
rejected the linear-traditional way of philosophy and any indoctrination)
is not possible. Nonetheless, while searching for truth, philosophy does
not project ultimate realities, but shows that the apparent unsolvable
problems are in the end generated by language and not by the nature of
reality or the things in themselves. We have to deal with a sort of arbitrary
that leaves to be understood that reality is independent from thought and
from language. There are certain conventions between language and real-
ity that, by their very nature, belong to the human.
De re is another way to assert the fact that to any particular objects
belong particular properties — it is used in modal logic, where the con-
struction of possible worlds is founded on the real world. I.e., any truth of
the real world is valid in any of the possible worlds as well. “I don’t know,
I always agreed to what Bishop Butler said: ‘Any of the things is what it
is, and not another’” (Saul Kripke). To Kripke, objects can have modal
properties (de re modality) — what separates him from Quine — and he
maintains that any object in the actual world, or in any other possible
world66, is necessarily identical to itself. Building his argumentation on
de re modality (the fact that an object has essential proprieties), Kripke
(1980) demonstrates that we can discover the essence of an object by
empirical means, of course, taking into account the distinction between
aprioristic and necessity as well. Moreover, he asserts that, as it is pos-
sible to learn a mathematical truth in an a posteriori mode (and the math-
ematical truth cannot be contingently true), it is likewise possible to access,
in an empirical mode, a posteriori necessary truths. Something can belong
to enounces known a priori and, nevertheless, could be known also by
people through experience. As such, we have necessarily metaphysical
truths reachable by empirical methods, this being sustained by a strong
realist intuition. The essentialist maintains that objects possess not only
accidental proprieties, but also essential ones. Eventually, this leads to the
statement that objects possess the statute of things in themselves and,

65. His ontology is based on facts, not on things, the real world being made up of facts.
66. For him, the possible worlds are the way in which the world could have been, or
states, or histories of the whole world, practically any counterfactual course of history.
The terminology of the possible worlds can be replaced, but not in an absolute way,
by the modal idiom it is possible to…
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 123
even more, their essential proprieties could be discovered empirically.
This idea is not accepted by the majority of the thinkers. For example,
Quine shows that necessity is not contained in the things we talk about,
but in the way we talk about them. We notice here how problematic the
acceptance of the fact that there is a possibility of knowing the essential
proprieties of things is. It would implicitly suppose a categorical distinc-
tion between subject and object, or a methodology in which the epistemo-
logical perspective is plainly distinct from the ontological one.
Unlike science, that teaches us new facts and has a strong explana-
tory role, philosophy has as its goal a clarifying research of concepts,
its role being not constructive, but critical by excellence. Even though
philosophy is not expected to build theories, to give explanations, it con-
tributes to “enlightenment” because conceptual clarification can ensure
the whole understanding of controversial issues; in this way, it is fully apt
to furnish rational “revelations”; even more, the type of understanding
furnished by philosophy through analysis and conceptual clarification is
vital to theoretical success (Adrian-Paul Iliescu).
The “late philosophy” practiced by the author of Philosophical
Researches relies on the reeducation of people’s thinking against the general
tendency to standardize a particular model of thinking. The philosopher
would be called to defend our mind from the pressure of this leveling
roll, to help us to perceive the complexity of life and the diversity of our
experiences (Flonta [2004], p. 17). We find ourselves in front of a particular
relativism, altogether “cultural” and “cognitive”, where reality has a
dependency toward thinking and language as well. Everything is linked
to a form (situation) of life such that “truth, reality, knowledge, moral
values and other of the kind are our truth, our reality and so on; they are
not absolute but relative and limited to us” (Grayling [1988]). Reality is
not self-supporting, it does not have an essence that we have to grasp
absolutely, but is built as a partner (it remains open, developing asymp-
totically as a form of life) to our language, which is not an ideal one. The
success of its use depends on an appropriation of a “technique or social
practice”, not to a “mental algorithm”. Thinking, on its part, far from being
an “invisible” and private process, is articulated within the perspective
of certain forms of life which are guided by particular rules. Usually, the
deciding factor over the meaning of expressions is the context. Hence, we
cannot talk about an autonomy of language. There is always “a linguistic
agreement” grafting on “an agreement in the life form”.

Real-reality distinction
In his article “Sense and limits of exact sciences”, Max Planck dis-
tinguishes between the naïf-real (that is the scientific image of the world,
124 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

which is not definitive, but ever changing) and the metaphysical-real (the
absolute real). Scientific activity, crossing over from the old image of the
world to the new one, leans asymptotically toward the definitive real (that
is the realization of an image of the world that would not demand an
upgrading), a goal it will never reach. This real world, absolute in meta-
physical understanding, is independent from the human factor escaping
comprehensive knowledge.
However, Einstein (1949) believes in the possibility of creating a
model of reality that would represent the things as they are, not as mere
approximations and probabilities of manifestation. In a sense, he thinks
true the fact that pure thinking is apt to penetrate the real, as dreamed by
the people of the Antiquity.
Basarab Nicolescu distinguishes between Real and reality, unifying
in a particular perspective the views of the previously mentioned authors.
He accepts the premise of a real world in its absolute meaning, as stated
by Planck, stipulating nevertheless that we have to keep in mind the fact
that the scientist himself is constitutive of the Universe. In reference to
Einstein, Nicolescu agrees that a model of Reality can be built, which is
not able, however, to decipher the Real.
Heisenberg (1971) declares that the thing in itself (the smallest parts
of matter and referring mostly to the fact that we no longer can trace a
limit between how the things exist and the way we acknowledge it) can-
not be accepted as existing. The concept of matter is thus dissolving at the
inferior limit that is in the realm of the smallest spatial dimensions, into
the concept of mathematical form. Ideas are more fundamental than
objects. Somehow, Heisenberg makes a step toward the transdisciplinary
methodology stating that in the future it will be difficult to decide in the
case of the advance of science if it is a progress of physics, of the theory
of information, or of philosophy. The future evolution will be precisely
the unification of science, the over-passing of the historical boundaries
between different special disciplines.
The answer Planck is looking for by asking: “What really means
this continual changing of what we are calling real?” targets, in his view,
the assumption of a goal-real (metaphysically), and of an infinitely per-
fectible real, precisely in the virtue of the previous. It is important to
mention that the new image of the world does not cancel the older one.
Each new supplemental condition will make the new image of the world
appear simplified. However, no matter how close we come to the ideal
image of the world, from the point of view of the exact sciences, an un-
crossable gap between the phenomenological world and the real meta-
physical world always remains, generating a constantly efficient tension
that could never be eliminated — a tension acting inside the authentic
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 125
researcher as an inexhaustible source of his thirst for knowledge (Flonta
[2004], p. 17).
Like Planck, Einstein (1949) points out the value of the freedom of
creation of the human spirit. In this context, he raises the question of our
ability to find the right way anymore. The answer to that problem refers
directly to mathematics: we are entitled to believe that nature is an out-
come of the simplest mathematical ideas we can imagine. In both cases,
the metaphysical-real (absolute) is at stake, that we tend to reach step-by-
step, in a monotonously progressive manner, by passing from what is more
particular to what is increasingly general (Flonta [2004], p. 17). Before the
experiment, it will always be the imagination, the free creation of the
human spirit, the creative principle of which is based on mathematics.
Even though experience remains a strong criterion in the mathematical
building of physics, the creative principle resides in mathematics.
The representation of reality is shaken with the introduction of a
discrete discontinuous structure of energy by Max Planck. The disconti-
nuity issue would question the classical realism that presupposed conti-
nuity, local causality, determinism, objectivity etc. Important to mention
is the objectivity issue. We go back to Socrates’ philosophical saying that
he repeated so many times: “Know yourself!” Has Nature something to
say about ourselves? Is it true that by knowing the Universe I am able to
know myself?… Can we be satisfied thinking of science an ensemble of
operative recipes on the plane of direct materiality, but without significa-
tion on the plane of the Being? Accept how, but forget why? To chase the
Being outside the realm of science? (Nicolescu [2002 b]). Actually, the
question is whether we can make a distinction between the objective and
the subjective at the level of science.
Basarab Nicolescu argues that it is impossible to talk categorically
about the absolute objectivity of science. The quantum Universe implies
a participation of the subject. Therefore, there is a particular type of inter-
action between subject and object. The Subject/Object issue was at the
center of the philosophical reflection of the founding fathers of quantum
mechanics. The point of view I express here is in complete accord with
that of the founders of quantum mechanics, Heisenberg, Pauli, and Bohr,
who, like Husserl, Heidegger, and Cassier, contested the fundamental
axiom of modern physics: the total separation between Subject and Object
(Nicolescu [2002 b]). Therefore, we cannot refrain from asking why we
are still acting according to obsolete representations of the world, to old
concepts, and not try to assume the quantum image?
In order to eliminate the ambiguities in the representation of reality
under a single aspect — keeping in mind that the images relative to the
world changed anyway and certainly will change in the future as well —
126 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

Basarab Nicolescu introduces the notion of levels of reality. Thus, reality is

a social construct (having an inter-subjective character) and, at the same
time, possesses a trans-subjective dimension as well, in the sense that
there are experiments that can jeopardize any scientific theory. Basarab
Nicolescu shows that, at the present time, we can talk about four levels of
reality: macrophysic, microphysic, cyberspace-time and superstrings
(considered by some scholars as the final fundament of the universe). It
is worth noticing that, since 1942, Heisenberg has introduced the idea of
regions of realities, which comes close to the concept of levels of Reality.
Crossing from a level of reality to another, we notice a rupture of laws
and fundamental concepts. In order to justify the presence of coherence,
presupposing a transmission of information from one level to another,
we can presume the existence of a “non-resistance zone to our experiences,
representations, descriptions, images, or mathematical formalizations.
Any level of Reality exists in this zone. The non-resistance zone cor-
responds to the sacred. The sacred is rational, but cannot be rationalized”
(Nicolescu [2002 b]).
The issue of the Sacred introduces the possibility of elaborating a
coherent discourse on reality. Basarab Nicolescu asserts that reality is in
accordance with Gödel’s theorem (relative to arithmetic and applicable
to any mathematic that includes arithmetic), which can be deciphered
only by operating on “logical principles”. Hence, we have an open unity
of knowledge. This process of knowledge is dynamic and opened.

Transdisciplinary methodology
It is founded on three postulates:

“The existence in Nature, and in our knowledge about Nature, of

different levels of Reality and perception.
Crossing from one level of Reality to another level of Reality is made
with the help of the logic of the included middle.
The structure of the ensemble of the levels of Reality is a complex
one: each level is what it is, because all other levels exist at the same
time” (Nicolescu [2002 b]).

Unlike the one-dimensional classic thinking, where Reality presup-

poses a single level, the transdisciplinary vision takes into consideration
a multidimensional reality.
An important aspect of the theory that we have to take into consid-
eration is the included middle. Thus, we need three terms in order to define
the new logic: A, non-A, and T. The relation between these terms is rep-
resented intuitively by a triangle in which A and non-A define one level
of reality, with T (a state representing a third dynamism) being placed on
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 127
another, different, level.67 The antagonistic couples cannot come to terms
on the same level of reality, because a single level can generate only op-
posite stands; isolated from the other levels, it becomes self-destructive.
However, the question arises if, by admitting the existence of an infinity
of aspects, we are not shifting the problem and dissolving the real in a
multitude always inaccessible in its wholeness. This is precisely the his-
torical merit of Lupasco68: he admitted that the infinite multiplicity of
the real can be restructured, being deduced from only three logical terms,
concretizing by that the expectation of Pierce (Nicolescu [2002 b]).
Even from the beginnings of quantum mechanics, physicists were
interested in formulating a new logic to solve the emerging conceptual
problems. According to Basarab Nicolescu, even today, a large number of
scientists are still hesitating to abandon the Boolean way of thinking,
referring to the world of the experience by the traditional language. Niels
Bohr was the first to transfer the contradiction from the plane of existence
to that of language, asking the physicists to accept concomitantly A and
non-A, though not simultaneously on the same plane of investigation.
Nevertheless, the logical consequences of the complementary principle
meaning that there is a principle of contradiction organizing and struc-
turing the new vision of Reality (Nicolescu [2002 b]) introduces Lupasco
into the equation. In Lupasco’s vision, reality has a “ternary structure”,
and the possibility of being of the Universe is given by that contradiction.
In nowadays’ physics, space-time is not a fundamental concept.
Consequently, we are able to define space as a simultaneity of events.
Space appears as a contradictive conjunction, while time appears as a
contradictive disjunction (Nicolescu [2002 b]).
Based on the logic of the included middle, we can state that there is
a possibility of describing a coherence between the levels of reality. How-
ever, the knowledge remains always open. In other words, the action of
the logic of the included middle on the different levels of reality indicates
an open, Gödelian, structure of the ensemble of levels of reality (Nicolescu
[2002 b]).

67. This logic is inspired by quantum physics, where an event is not only a corpuscle or a
wave, and where we deal with the impossibility of a precise localization in space-time
of a quantum event. A quantum event is altogether continuous and discontinuous. In
the bootstrap theory, nature is conceived as a global entity, and the notion of precise
identity of a particle is questioned. Practically, there is no object in itself with a proper
identity. A particle cannot be defined separately, its existence being linked to all others,
or, as Basarab Nicolescu put it, “A particle is what it is only because all other particles
exist in the same time”.
68. Stéphane Lupasco (1900-1988) was a French philosopher of Romanian origin, who
reconciled to a certain degree philosophy and science, based on a common thinking
founded on the principle of universal existence as an irreducible contradiction.
128 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

It must be mentioned that in the case of transdisciplinarity we talk

of a transdisciplinary Object consisting of the ensemble of levels of Reality
and its complementary zone of non-resistance, and of a transdisciplinary
Subject defined by the ensemble of the levels of perception and, respec-
tively, by its non-resistance zone. In order for the transdisciplinary Subject
to be able to communicate with the transdisciplinary Object, it is necessary
that the two non-resistance zones be identical. This point of contact, inter-
action between the Subject and the Object, cannot be reduced to either of
them. Therefore, in the case of transdisciplinary knowledge, we have a
ternary vision (Object, Subject, and Interaction) different from the classi-
cal one where we got a binary structure (Subject and Object).
Kant does not doubt that there exists an independent-from-mental
reality ; to him, this is a postulate of reason. He refers to the element of
this independent-from-mental reality in different terms: thing-in-itself
(Ding an sich), noumenal object, or noumen, collective — noumenal world.
However, we cannot express any concept about noumenal things. Even
the notion of noumenal world is a sort of limit of thinking (Putnam [1981]).
He states that the objects of internal senses are ideally transcendental
and not transcendental. Reality is but the way in which we perceive things.
The nature of reality was, as we could see so far, the obsession of
any thinker no matter his paradigmatic discourse. The changing nature of
sensible phenomena could not express itself in a coherent way so that it
could guarantee any objectivity. The Greek philosophy has par excellence
the merit of stating that we can have an objective and coherent discourse
about the world in the absence of any type of invariants. In fact, the
becoming, the dynamic, is not describable and this fact was known from
the very beginning of philosophy. The impossibility of bathing twice in
the same water of the same river is a fact that must be understood as a
confirmation of the impossibility of freezing the flow in the form of sub-
stance or object. The flowing, the process, the becoming, explain us the fact
that “other waters” enthrall us in every moment (Haranguº [1999]).
What transdisciplinary thinking proposes to us mainly is to under-
stand nowadays’ world in virtue of the unity of knowledge. Knowledge
is neither external, nor internal: it is internal and external at the same time.
The study of the Universe and the study of the human being sustain each
other (Nicolescu [2002 b]). This way, the vertical recovery of the human
being is pursued, meaning that science cannot be reduced to one aspect
only, to researching the exterior world exclusively based on the sense
organs, although essentially it is a prolongation of these under this aspect.
In this way, an important meaning is given through recognizing the place
of man in the process of knowledge.
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 129
The ontological engagement of science presupposes an epistemo-
logical holism, too. The entities belonging to reality depend on the way
we research the reality. The ontological engagement is done at the level of
a well man-made construction that encounters the experience only at the
peripheral level of the system. Out of this holistic interpretation of science,
we infer that we can revise even logics and mathematics — though they
are not simple generalizations of some empirical statements. This is in
order to reestablish the harmony between our opinions and experiences,
thus ensuring a relation between language and the world, placed as far
as possible from errors. The sum total of our opinions is seen by Quine
as a “field of dynamic forces” in which we can distinguish only gradual-
ly between approaching experience and departing from it. The stake in
virtue of which we can admit (choose) the assertions as true or false, is
not given by repeatable models of expression, but of individual events in
order to avoid not only the ambiguities derived from negligence, but also
the systematic ones. The sentences of logics or mathematics, or those of
ontology are not beyond this field. Only certain pragmatic reasons are
able to revise them so easily, not some special guarantees of truth. Aban-
doning or altering them can generate important changes in the system of
knowledge (Hügli & Lübcke [1992]). In this way, Quine shows that it is
senseless to search for a border between statements that are the expres-
sion of experience or those that are generally valid. Such a border does
not exist. This fact is even more grounded and justified when any state-
ment is able to escape revision. Quine asserts that even the revision of the
excluded middle was proposed as a mean for the simplification of quan-
tum mechanics.
We notice that the interrogations concerning the nature of reality
refer at the same time to aspects of ontology, of epistemology, and of lan-
guage theory as well. The fact that science is dependent on both language
and experience shows that we cannot talk about reality from the perspec-
tive of a unique discipline. In order to decipher what is beyond certain
dichotomies, and at the same time to re-signify certain concepts, it is vital
to operate the real-reality distinction in the terms of Basarab Nicolescu.
If reality saves both the phenomenon, and the knowing subject, then we can
decipher at the level of the real deeper meanings belonging to the thing-
in-itself and to the object. At the level of reality, we cannot talk about the
outer world in absolute terms and we cannot talk about the inner world.
From the transdisciplinary perspective, at the level of all discourses about
the real reality, there is a certain type of complementarity that gives us the
confidence of approaching the correct and coherent understanding of the
world.
130 GABRIEL MEMELIS, ADRIAN IOSIF, DAN RÃILEANU

Thus, Transdisciplinarity envisages in the same time what is, between

disciplines, within the different disciplines, and beyond any discipline. Its
finality is represented by the understanding of the present world, one of
its imperatives being the unity of knowledge (Nicolescu [2002 b]). Hence,
within the transdisciplinary vision based (not only) on quantum physics,
where the concept of the ultimate constitutive element of matter is prac-
tically ignored, can we regain the metaphysical One, the Parmenian canon of
the being?

Epilogue

erhaps, because of the risk of giving the impression, totally opposite

P to the intentions stated in the beginning, of a closed and self-sufficient
engagement, it could have been more suitable to withhold the temptation
of writing an epilogue to our paper. By selecting an ending, nevertheless,
we are doing that not aiming at summarizing conclusively the presented
ideas, but to prevent any possible discomfort that the baffled (of placing
the orthodox theology in a transdisciplinary context) reader could expe-
rience. We specify that, such a positioning of theology should not appear
by any means as illegitimate in the sense that the discourse of orthodoxy
would risk to dilute, or even lose, its identity, crossing over to the realm
of an anonymous spirituality. The transdisciplinary methodology, totally
in resonance with the spirit of Christianity, inaugurates within scientific
knowledge a way of methodological and terminological flexibility that
allows for the widening of the horizon of knowledge beyond reductionist
models and linguistic clichés. A similar thing was done in the domain of
the spirit by the Fathers of the Church, who never showed any intention
to “sanctify”, idolatrously, the philosophical system in whose paradigm
they talked — or a particular conceptual frame, or even the theological
vocabulary that they often forged semantically by transvaluating the
philosophical language of the moment — but to save the ever ineffable
significations from beyond these means of expression and knowledge.
Regarding the vision over reality, we could see that theology resists
even the toughest and most recent exigencies that the scientific and philo-
sophical analysis of this concept rises and largely anticipates. Theology
will not come with a fossilized discourse about reality, in quasi-definitive
formulas, but it will not lose either the identity ethos of its ontological
discourse because of its flexibility. Hence, we can propose a fusion of
horizons of the concept of “reality” in the very meaning of this syntagm
avoiding elegantly the previously mentioned extremes: a dynamic and
self-transcendent process regarding the creation of a new horizon of
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONCEPT OF REALITY 131
knowledge out of many, respecting completely however their identity.69
This new horizon opens over a “shared understanding” of the issue in
discussion, understanding that it does not blunt in syncretical manner the
particular relief specific to the horizons that fused. It is a new vision of the
world emerged from the fusion of horizons, enriched, not simply resulting
from the sum of different, more or less complementary, points of view.
Therefore, inasmuch as the Eastern Christian theology does not
build its own discourse on reality out of closed and immutable concepts
sealed to semantic and opposable (to those of the present-day scientific
ontology) refinements, we argue that a fusion of horizons and, implicitly,
the understanding itself in a transdisciplinar territory is possible. As stated
in this paper, this mutual understanding can be based on at least two
consistent ideas: the ontic and epistemic “sensibility” of reality toward
human involvement, and the distinction Real-Reality — the latter derived
in patristic theology from the non-essentialist grounding of the created
reality “out of nothing”. If this fusion is capable to sketch a modest draft
of a new Weltanschauung, we ultimately leave it to the reader and to time
to decide…

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Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion
© Curtea Veche Publ., 2009
No. 6 / 2009, pp. 135-150

Two Theories of Levels of Reality

In Dialogue with Basarab Nicolescu

ROBERTO POLI
University of Trento and Mitteleuropa Foundation

Introduction

ot long ago I had a chance to contact Basarab Nicolescu. During the

N past few years, we have both been engaged in developing what we
call the theory of levels of reality, without really knowing what the other
was doing. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that the two
theories have been explicitly compared. Indeed, open discussion of the
pros and cons of the two proposals may prove beneficial to both of them,
because it may help clarify their presuppositions, provide clearer presen-
tations of their results and eventually pave the way to new problems
worth addressing. Both theories have a number of theses in common
(e.g. the difference between levels of reality and levels of organization; see
Nicolescu [2002] and Poli [2004]) as well as putting forward remarkably
different claims. Clear recognition of their similarities and differences,
and frank discussion especially of the latter, may therefore contribute to
the development of a conclusively more robust theory of levels of reality.
Before beginning the said critical comparison, I would point out that
both Nicolescu and myself have defended the importance of the organic
nature of reality, albeit in markedly different ways. Nicolescu openly relies
on the tenets of Naturphilosophie and in particular on the vision advocated
by Jacob Böhme and set out in his award-winning book on Böhme (Nico-
lescu [1991]). As a consequence, “an attempt to elaborate a new philoso-
phy of Nature” comes to be seen as “a privileged mediator of a dialogue
among all the areas of knowledge”, which amounts to saying that the
elaboration of a new philosophy of nature “is one of the highest priorities
of transdisciplinarity” (Nicolescu [2002], p. 65).
136 ROBERTO POLI

As far as my own proposal is concerned, my theory of levels of

reality is a component of a more classically oriented idea of dynamic
ontology. Aristotle and Leibniz are two of the great philosophers of the
past who sought to develop a categorical system of dynamic nature.
Closer to our times are the endeavors of Brentano, Husserl, and Hartmann
in Europe and of Peirce and Whitehead in the United States. By standing
on their shoulders, we will perhaps be able to see a little bit further. Even
if the two proposals proceed along different routes, in principle they are
not orthogonal to each another.
Another thesis shared by both of us is that “reality is structured via
a certain number of levels” (Nicolescu [2002], p. 49). Unfortunately, how-
ever, I see no reason to accept the subsequent claim “for the sake of clarity,
let us suppose that this number is infinite” (ibidem, p. 50). I, for one, do
not see any robust reason in favour of the demanding claim that there
should be an infinite number of levels of reality, and, in any such case,
an explicit argument in support of it should be provided. Interestingly,
the claim of an infinite number of levels of reality seems to run counter to
other aspects of the theory defended by Nicolescu. If we consider that the
only levels of reality explicitly mentioned by Nicolescu are the quantum
and the macro-physical world (see below), the idea of an infinite number
of levels is at odds with the distinction itself between levels of reality and
levels of organization.
According to Nicolescu, transdisciplinarity is based on three pillars:
levels of reality, the logic of the included middle, and complexity. I myself
accept a version of the theory of levels of reality, whilst I reject the logic
of the included middle; and from what I have been able to understand,
my view of complexity is rather different from Nicolescu’s. This may also
be the most appropriate place to admit that I am unable to understand
some of the subtleties of Nicolescu’s theory of transdisciplinarity: for
instance, its claims that “the place of transdisciplinarity is a place without
place” (Nicolescu [2002], p. 117) or its systematic use of twin expressions
such as “immanent transcendence” vs. “transcendent immanence” (ibidem,
p. 128). Being unable to grasp the intended meaning of these expressions,
I will omit their analysis.
This paper focuses on Nicolescu’s theory and relies on his Manifesto
of Transdisciplinarity (2002). In order not to interrupt the flow of the argu-
mentation, I have summarized some of the main theses of my own theory
of the levels of reality in the Annex at the end of paper.
TWO THEORIES OF LEVELS OF REALITY 137

The Backgrounds of the Two Theories of Levels of Reality

y way of introduction to the two different theories of levels of reality

B developed by Nicolescu and myself, it is helpful to state their respec-
tive backgrounds. As already mentioned, Nicolescu considers the theory
of levels of reality to be one of the three requisite components of a new
vision called “transdisciplinarity”. The other two requisite components
of transdisciplinarity, besides the theory of levels of reality, are the logic
of the third included and complexity, which I shall respectively discuss in
the sections and below.
Transdisciplinarity today comes in different guises, as a simple
search on the web will prove. Here I will consider only the view of trans-
disciplinarity elaborated by Nicolescu. The first step towards under-
standing transdisciplinarity is to distinguish transdisciplinarity sharply
from both multi- and inter-disciplinarity. According to Nicolescu ([2002],
p. 42), multidisciplinarity studies a topic from several different disciplines
at once, whilst interdisciplinarity addresses the problem of transferring a
method from one discipline to another (ibidem, p. 43). On the other hand,
transdisciplinarity is mainly interested in “the understanding of the pres-
ent world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge”
(ibidem, p. 44). It is precisely this goal of the unity of knowledge that
obliges one to consider “that which is at once between the disciplines,
across the different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines” (ibidem).
One might perhaps add that the task of transdisciplinarity is to
bring to light, to make visible, the usually hidden links among the various
disciplines.
In this respect, it is important to acknowledge that “disciplinary
research concerns, at most, one and the same level of reality” (Nicolescu
[2002], pp. 44-45). Ever more precisely, “in most cases, it (= disciplinarity)
only concerns fragments of one level of reality” (ibidem, p. 45). I can only
add that I entirely agree with the latter two quotations. Furthermore,
“transdisciplinarity concerns the dynamics engendered by the action of
several levels of reality at once” (ibidem). Again, I totally agree.
The only difference worth noting is that I understand “the dynamics
engendered by the action of several levels of reality at once” to be the core
subject of ontology. This is a first interesting outcome: what Nicolescu
takes to be one of the defining features of transdisciplinarity corresponds
to what I take to be one of the defining features of ontology. Perhaps a not
entirely obvious outcome.
Nicolescu himself partly admits that his theory has an ontological
bent as well: “The meaning we give to the word reality is pragmatic and
138 ROBERTO POLI

ontological at the same time” (Nicolescu [2002], p. 20). Although I am

unclear as to the connections between the pragmatic aspects and the
ontological ones, I am happy enough with this at least partial acknowl-
edgment of the ontological side of transdisciplinarity.
Given this first, possibly unexpected, result, interest grows in what
in the end constitutes a level of reality. As before, a quote may suffice: “By
‘level of reality’ we intend to designate an ensemble of systems that are
invariant under certain laws”. Which amounts to saying “that two levels
of reality are different if, while passing from the one to the other, there is
a break in the laws and a break in fundamental concepts (such as, for
example, causality)” (Nicolescu [2002], p. 21). I could not express my own
ideas any better.
Before I add some of the necessary details, it will be helpful briefly
to return to the problem of the unity of knowledge. Philosophy has long
shown that there are two main routes to achieving the unity of knowl-
edge: the various kinds of knowledge may be unified because their object
is one or because their method is one. The former route presupposes that
the world (the universe) is one; each kind of knowledge (each discipline)
may consider only some aspects of the world (its material constitution,
for instance) or some of its entities or parts (such as the living entities
populating the world). The unity of the world is the ground for the unity
of knowledge about the world. This view is essentially ascribable to
Aristotle and can be termed the ontological understanding of the unity of
knowledge. The opposite view is the epistemological one initially devel-
oped by Descartes. This second perspective starts from the thesis that all
forms of knowledge that we are able to develop are always our forms of
knowledge. If we want to rely on knowledge that is as certain and evident
as possible, our only option is to check and assure the internal consistency
of our theories.
However important consistency may be, it is nevertheless a feature
internal to theories. Much more relevant is whether a theory is able to
grasp, even to a limited extent, some aspects of reality.
As far as I can tell, scientists of whatever bent do their best to know
how the reality of interest to them actually works, be it microphysical
particles, the Na-K pump within cell membranes, the onset of depression,
or the divorce rate in wealthy countries. I have deliberately provided
radically different examples from sciences as diverse as physics, bio-
chemistry, psychology, and sociology. In short: all the sciences have a
basic ontological orientation and it is therefore legitimate to claim that for
them the ontological side prevails over the epistemological one. This is
precisely the starting-point of the theory of levels of reality that I have
been developing for more than ten years.
TWO THEORIES OF LEVELS OF REALITY 139
The situation at hand is the radical opposition between the fact that
the world (= reality) is one, and the fact that we seemingly need an ever-
growing number of disciplines, sub-disciplines, and technologies to
understand the many sides of this same world. Since we do not have any-
thing like a “science of the sciences”, ontology seems the only categorical
framework within which we can address the problem of synthesizing the
multiplicity of accounts provided by the complex array of disciplines and
technologies.
As far as I can tell, the theory of levels of reality is precisely the
general framework able to provide the categorical tools with which to
distinguish and coordinate the various disciplinary and technological
outcomes. Some categories will be universal, i.e. valid for all kinds of
reality, whilst others will be domain or local categories, i.e. valid only for
some kinds or modes of reality.
The theory of levels of reality should encompass each and every
science: not only the natural sciences — something that can be taken as
obvious — but also the cognitive and social sciences. In other words,
“reality” does not mean “physical” reality, for also psychological and
social phenomena are real (on occasion dramatically so).
For me, all the sciences have a basic ontological orientation. They
seek to understand the world and our experience of it. Ontology, as an
autonomous discipline, studies the links among results obtained by the
various sciences. The problem is that the pictures yielded by the different
sciences are categorically different, and no conceptual framework able to
synthesise them properly is available. Consequently, an adequate onto-
logical framework still has to be elaborated.
Ontology needs the achievements of all the sciences if it is to accom-
plish its aims. Even if we accept the Philosopher’s claim that, by virtue of
the problems it addresses, ontology is philosophia prima (first philosophy),
then because of the answers it proposes, ontology can be only philosophia
ultima (last philosophy). In between there lies science.
On the other hand, Nicolescu seems to start from the more restricted
thesis that “reality” should only be understood as “physical” or “material”.
It is not by chance, then, only two main levels of reality are explicitly
mentioned by the Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity: one corresponding to
quantum physics and one roughly corresponding to classical physics,
namely: “the quantum level, which is a level of reality different from the
macrophysical level” (Nicolescu [2002], p. 25). These two levels can be
taken as showing that the micro-structure of the world obeys laws very
different from those valid for the mesoscopic structure of the world, such
as global vs. local causality (or nonseparability vs. separability). Whilst I
obviously agree with the claim that the ontological nature of the quantum
140 ROBERTO POLI

world is different from the nature of the macrophysical world, I would

further claim that organisms, minds and societies — in their own way
different from those characterizing physical entities — instantiate authen-
tically different levels of reality.
If I have understood Nicolescu correctly, his theory firmly distin-
guishes levels of reality from levels of perception. Strictly speaking, for
him levels of perception are not levels of reality. Yet I do not understand
why physics alone should be deemed real. For me, also perceptions and
cognitions are real, albeit in a way different from that in which physical
entities are real (and we know that the latter can be real in at least two dif-
ferent ways: the quantum and the macro). Furthermore, social phenomena
also have their own family of levels.
Before turning to a more detailed analysis of these issues, I must
address the problems of the logic of the included middle and complexity,
the two other pillars of transdisciplinarity.

The Logic of the Included Middle

hile Nicolescu’s analysis of physical levels is crystal-clear and arises

W from a thorough acquaintance with the current understanding of
physics, his references to logic and logical frameworks starts from a per-
spective very distant from the contemporary understanding of logic. This
raises a serious problem: whilst I fully accept the claim that our under-
standing of logic may still be limited, and that many surprises may be in
store, we nevertheless have a prima facie obligation to rely on what we have
so far understood and the results obtained. Those wishing to propose an
alternative formal framework have the substantial obligation to provide
compelling arguments in favour of their alternative proposal. If they fail
to do so, they are not in a position to reasonably ask other scholars to
accept their proposal. To date, the logic of the included middle has been
entirely at odds with contemporary logics: properly speaking, the logic of
the included middle cannot be called a logic at all. Its structure is under-
specified, no formal derivation rule has been established, no theorem
derived, no metatheory developed. In short, none of the criteria for legit-
imately speaking of a logic has been fulfilled. It may well be that all these
developments will come about in due time. However, to date, the
requirements for considering the logic of the included middle a real logic
have not been met. This has an immediate consequence: if the logic of the
third included cannot be seriously considered a real logic, the idea of
grounding transdisciplinarity on it radically undermines the viability of
the idea itself of transdisciplinarity.
TWO THEORIES OF LEVELS OF REALITY 141
In this regard, the second article of the Charter of Transdisciplinarity
warrants a brief discussion. The article runs as follows: “The recognition
of the existence of different levels of reality governed by different types
of logic is inherent in the transdisciplinary attitude. Any attempt to reduce
reality to a single level governed by a single form of logic does not lie
within the scope of transdisciplinarity” (Nicolescu [2002], p. 148). I un-
reservedly accept the idea that an array of different logics may be needed
to model different levels of reality. However, I am unsure as to the exact
meaning of the qualification “types” of logics. To what does the article
refer? To the difference between, say, propositional and predicative logics?
Or to the need to use, say, temporal or modal logics? I, for one, am con-
fused by the reference to “types” of logic. Something more important,
however, is implicit in the article: upon taking it for granted that differ-
ent levels of reality may need different logics, the most relevant question
becomes: How are the various levels of reality tied to each other? What
connections link the various levels? What logic, if any, should be adopted
to model these ties? Is there any single logic connecting the various levels,
or should we resort to a number of different logics according to the case?
Interestingly, the Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity forcefully defends the
claim that one single logic, namely the logic of the third included, should
be used to articulate the links between levels. Moreover, the connection
between levels of reality and levels of perception must also adopt the logic
of the third included. On the other hand, the Charter of Transdisciplinarity
is significantly silent on the links between levels. Perhaps not even those
who have endorsed the Charter of Transdisciplinarity are entirely sure
about the logic of the included middle.
What I find difficult to understand is the tension between the claim
that the only logic linking the different strata of reality is the logic of the
included middle and the author’s candid admission that “no one has
succeeded in finding a mathematical formalism that permits the difficult
passage from one world to another” (Nicolescu [2002], p. 21). I presume
that I can read “level” for “world”. I am entirely in favour of the latter
claim (and obviously thoroughly against the former one). Within my own
framework, in fact, I have never sought to specify the logic linking the
various levels to each other. Since the various strata of reality are so cate-
gorically different, I see no real problem in humbly admitting that there
may be no logic between them. It may well be that the very idea of an
inter-strata logic should be rejected.
142 ROBERTO POLI

Complexity

omplexity is the third pillar of transdisciplinarity. Unfortunately,

C the analysis of complexity provided by the Manifesto is cursory and
unspecific. To make matters worse, the claim is advanced that “the logic
of the included middle is perhaps the privileged logic of complexity”
(Nicolescu [2002], p. 30). The further remark that “privileged” should be
understood “in the sense that it allows us to cross the different areas of
knowledge in a coherent way” is not much help. Since I do not know of
any specific treatment of complexity conducted from the point of view
of this theory of transdisciplinarity, I am not in the position to add more
specific observations.

Levels of Perception or the Psychological Stratum?

ccording to Nicolescu, “The different levels of reality are accessible

A to human knowledge thanks to the existence of different levels of
perception, which are found in a one-to-one correspondence with levels
of reality” (Nicolescu [2002], p. 55). This quote marks the point of maxi-
mum difference between our two theories. To abbreviate the many ques-
tions that can be raised, the issue is why psychology (or cognitive science)
is not seriously taken into consideration. Insofar as we are interested in
the physical world, we all assume without further ado that we must pay
all the necessary attention to physics and its results. Similarly, if we are
interested in perception or any other psychological phenomenon, the first
step is to pay all the necessary attention to psychology and its findings.
I accept that ontology may eventually reach the conclusion that some
scientific data are not entirely reliable and may need deeper considera-
tion. However, this will be the outcome of profound and highly precise
analysis and cannot be assumed a priori. Now, if there is something that
psychology has supported with an astonishing range and amount of
experimental data is that the perceptual connection with the external world
is far from being one-to-one.
As regards physics, no one can seriously speak today about physics
without acknowledging quantum phenomena. Likewise, any serious dis-
course on perception cannot but acknowledge that it has its own internal
laws and the connection with the perceived world is many-to-many.
However, even if the admittedly too restrictive one-to-one claim is
amended, the problem remains as to whether perception should or should
TWO THEORIES OF LEVELS OF REALITY 143
not be taken as an autonomous level of reality. My answer is that psycho-
logical phenomena form a specific level of reality, and perception should
be considered a specific sub-level within the psychological level.

The Laws of the Levels

s already said, in most cases the exact connecting links between levels
A of reality are still unknown, or only partially known. This serious
lack of knowledge notwithstanding, we are nevertheless able to specify
some of their most general properties. The Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity
mentions three theses formulated by the physicist Walter Thirring (Nico-
lescu [2002], p. 63). Let me repeat them in some detail:

1. The laws of any inferior level are not completely determined by

the laws of a superior level… That which is considered to be fun-
damental on one level may appear accidental on a superior level,
and that which is considered to be accidental or incomprehensible
on a certain level can appear to be fundamental on a superior
level.
2. The laws of any inferior level depend more on the circumstances
of their emergence than do the laws of a superior level. The laws
of a certain level depend essentially on the local configuration to
which these laws refer… Certain internal ambiguities concern-
ing laws of an inferior level of reality are resolved by taking into
account the laws of a superior level.
3. The hierarchy of laws evolves at the same time as the universe
itself. In other words, the birth of laws occurs simultaneously
with the evolution of the universe. These laws pre-existed at the
“beginning” of the universe as potentialities. It is the evolution
of the universe that actualizes these laws and their hierarchy.

I have no principled difficulty in accepting these three laws. Since

each of them comprises a number of different aspects, these should be
distinguished. The second law, for instance, seems to include the idea that
all the categories of a particular level of reality perform their determining
function jointly. This is indeed a profound intuition, explicitly presented
by Nicolai Hartmann, one of the greatest figures in the field of the theories
of levels of reality (see Hartmann [1952], p. 65). An immediate conse-
quence of the solidarity linking together the categories determining a level
of reality is that categories occurring in various levels have meanings at
least partially different since they interact with different sets of categories.
144 ROBERTO POLI

As a matter of fact, Hartmann’s laws of the dependence and in-

dependence between levels go deeper than Thirring’s into the details of
inter-level connections. Let me copy the relevant passages from my article
“The basic problem of the theory of levels of reality”, pp. 274-275. Given
that the difference between strata and layers has not yet been introduced,
I will continue to use level generically (and modify the text accordingly):