Science and Spirituality as Resonant Magisteria: Boundary Work in the American Spiritual Tradition

• In Event: 50868 - Rethinking Boundaries, Practices, and Paradigms in Contemporary Religious Life

Abstract

This paper explores the boundary work of scientists who construct science as resonant with spirituality, against a view of science as disenchanting and thus antithetical to spirituality. Drawing on historical scholarship, we trace what we call the resonant magisteria model of science and spirituality as it developed across the nineteenth and twentieth century American spiritual tradition. We then present six case studies drawn from qualitative interviews with physicists and biologists who carry forward the resonant magisteria model today. These scientists emphasize the capacity of science to afford a sense of connection with nature or the universe or cosmos, and openness to possibility as necessary for doing science properly—features bearing an elective affinity with the romanticism, monism, and wonder that figure in contemporary spirituality. Scientists engage in this boundary work, on our analysis, not principally out of instrumental interests but to honor and articulate their felt resonance between science and spirituality. We discuss implications of this case for theorizing resonance beyond problem-solving contexts, motivation grounded in affect, and action in relation to qualitative experience.

Authors

• Bridget J. Ritz, University of Notre Dame

• Galen Ing Watts, University of Waterloo