The Marriage of Sense and Soul : Integrating Science and Religion

Rating:
Summary: Excellent in Spirit, poor in science
Review: "Marriage," as I'll call this book is an excellent, clear summary of a lot of Wilber's work on transpersonal psychology, esp. their levels and dimensions. On the topics of psychology, philosophy, religion, and their integration in Lovejoy's "Great Chain of Being," I don't think you'll find any writer more knowledgeable than Ken Wilber. Yet I feel the book does not really achieve its purpose, which is unifying science and religion.

In discussing religion Wilber does a superb job of delineating what religion really needs to be: religion, really the spiritual *experience*, is not the literal myths that true believers hang their hats on, nor the differing versions of God that separate the followers of the almost countless religions and religious concepts in the world. Rather, it is the internal process(es) of self-awareness, the "eye of contemplation," that can lead one to higher levels, to God, Oneness, or whatever you want to call the Intelligence that pervades everything. I found the discussion of the many subjects that unite in Wilber's elucidation of the spiritual journey to be more clear and concise in "Marriage" than any of his books I have (tried to) read since his groundbreaking first book, "Transformations of Consciousness." Sometimes I find Wilber's highly-praised books to be far too intellectual.

Another outstanding part of this book are Wilber's excellent definitions of what he calls the "dignity" and "disaster" of modernity, dignity being the differentiation of the spheres of art, morals, and science, followed by the "disaster" of disassociation, where science has come to claim hegemony over not only truth but how to discover truth "empirically." Wilber's discussions of the idealist, romantic, and post-modern movements, which have tried to heal the split, are also first-rate. On the other hand his discussion of science is weak, and to me it simply doesn't work, not because his intentions aren't right, but because science simply tends to be "God-less," and his arguments to convince scientists are not convincing, and I don't agree with the implication that science somehow has to validate religious traditions. To me that is conceding far too much to science. As well Wilber seems to have little or no feel for what scientists do, and perhaps the real purpose of the book is not any kind of marriage between the two spheres, but rather how to use a "scientific method" of distilling the wisdom gained from the world's mystics (from many different religious traditions), and testing one's owns spirituality and good deeds against the experiences of these mystics. Science as it is practiced today simply does not encompass these value spheres, and perhaps it should not, other than the obvious ethical cases where scientific knowledge is used for deleterious purposes. Strangely enough, the author does not write a word about such an "injunction" for science and scientists, though a major part of his arguments about science validating religion evolves from injunctions that are a vital part of the scientific process.

The point is, the scientists who try to marry their disciplines with spirituality, like Deepak Chopra and Larry Dossey, are already doing a fine job, in my opinion, and these pathbreakers really dig into the details of such a convergence. So why do we need an intellectual treatise by a non-scientist which itself gives practically no details from any scientific discipline to make the case for this "marriage?"

To give one example, Wilber never really defines what he means by evolution. Is he talking about strict Darwinian evolution or is he talking about spiritual evolution? The so-called rejection of Darwinian evolution by religion is overblown in this book. Most religions accept Darwin's main thesis, that life has evolved over very long spans of time. What any religious organization would naturally reject are the implications of Darwinian evolution, that life has no meaning because all life evolved through chance. Yet I know of not one organized religion that actually promulgates what Wilber discusses in his books: the evolution of the soul, which is far more important for humans than the tedious details of physical evolution. Evolution is a complicated subject that warrants more words than I have here.

Perhaps an even better example of a true marriage between science and religion would be the evidence provided by scientific research that love and compassion are actually good for the physical heart! It would be very entertaining to read reviews of this book by some of the spokemen of mainstream science, such as Steven Weinberg and the authors of books like "Higher Superstition." I would wager that they would find this book quite amusing. They aren't

interested in merging science with anything, as they are convinced that science has nothing to do with Spirit or the unity of anything. And I say fine, because as far as I'm concerned science has no business validating any internal experience. I'd recommend "Seduced By Science" for a good discussion against the need in an age dominated by science for scientific "validatation" of anything spiritual.

In the end I would highly recommend this book for its content, regardless whether it achieves its purpose. But I have found books that really get down to the nitty gritty of how science (really modern physics) might parallel religious traditions more useful in defining a "marriage" of the two spheres, though in a sense the scope of this book is far wider. To name 3 of these books, I'd recommend "The Tao of Physics," "The Self-Aware Universe," and "Religion And Science (by Ian Barbour). Also, John Haught's "God After Darwin" really goes into the details of how to reconcile religion with science. I do not agree with Wilber's contention that science is strictly "monological."

Rating:
Summary: A good "Marriage."
Review: I made a New Year's resolution to read all of Ken Wilber's books this year. In this first book to meet my goal, Wilber promises the marriage of sense and soul, and he delivers. He takes on "perhaps the greatest task confronting the postmodern world" (p. 105), integrating scientific truth with religious meaning, by showing "how we might begin to think about both science and religion in ways that allow their reconciliation and eventual integration, on terms acceptable to both parties" (p. 5).

We are living in an "Age of Chaos" (p. 103), a "modern wasteland" (p. 188), and a "flatland" where everything is "reduced to the flattest surface" (p. 135), devoid of interior meaning: "no within, no deep" (p. 139). "Gone the mind, gone the soul, gone the spirit," Wilber writes, "and in their place, the unending nightmare of monochrome surfaces, the disqualified universe of flatland holism, the great and utterly meaningless system of dynamically interwoven ITs" (p. 187). However, Wilber sees hope in evolution. Although we may have "lost touch with the primal Eden" (p. 109), evolution "is simply Spirit-in-action, God in the making, and the making is destined to carry all of us straight to the Divine" (p. 104).

Wilber, like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel before him, believes there is no going back to connect with "a lost Spirit" (p. 108). Whereas the Romantic, Idealist, and Postmodern rebellions failed (p. 139), he argues that if "we are to effect a genuine integration of science and religion, it will have to be an integration of real science and real religion, not bogus science and bogus religion. And that means each camp must jettison its narrow and/or dogmatic remnants, and thus accept a more accurate self-concept, a more accurate image of its own estate" (pp. 169-70). "Engage the injunction" of contemplation, he instructs: "take up the injunction or paradigm of meditation; practice and polish that cognitive tool until awareness learns to discern the incredibly subtle phenomena of spiritual data; check your observations with others who have done so, much as mathematicians will check their interior proofs with others who have completed the injunctions; and thus confirm or reject your results" (p. 173). Thus, Wilber views Zen and other contemplative traditions as "a deep science of the spiritual interiors" (p. 203). "With the eye of contemplation, Spirit can be seen. With the eye of contemplation, God can be seen. With the eye of contemplation, the great Within radiantly unfolds" (p. 174).

This is not an easy book, and some readers new to Wilber might find this a downright difficult MARRIAGE. Wilber also challenges his readers to adjust their attitudes toward both science and religion in establishing his integration. Still, this is a good MARRIAGE, and as the saying goes, a good marriage takes work.

G. Merritt

Rating:
Summary: Science vs. Religion? Why must it be so?
Review: Ken Wilbur has got to be one of the smartest authors that I've come across. While a good portion of this book was a bit over my head, I did come away with a good understanding of his major point. It is important for modern society and science to accept the reality of spirituality and this will not happen if science continues to categorize anything without hard evidence to support it as nonsence.