Notes

1. . Ralph WendellBurhoe, “The Human Prospect and the ‘Lord of History’,” Zygon  10 (1975): 301.
2. . Ibid.
3. . Ibid., p. 302.
4. . Ibid.
5. . Ibid., p. 303.
6. . Ibid.
7. . Ibid.
8. . Ibid., p. 304.
9. . Ibid.
10. . Ibid.
11. . Ibid., p. 306.
12. . Ibid.
13. . Ibid., p. 310.
14. . A. F. C. Wallace, Religion: An Anthropological View (New York: Random House, 1966). Emile Durkheim's classic work is The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Joseph Swain (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1915). For an extended analysis and critique of Durkheim which elaborates some of the critical observations developed later in this paper, see “Émile Durkheim's Ordering of the Sciences: A Résumé and a Critique,” in my Cognitive Structures and Religious Research (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1970).
15. . Burhoe, p. 312.
16. . Ibid., p. 313. The quote is a quotation drawn from Wallace.
17. . Although Burhoe does not cite Talcott Parsons in this discussion, it seems to me he is drawing on notions which Parsons helped develop and popularize (see, e.g., Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1951). In Parsons's later work he became very interested in sociocultural evolution. Again, this line of thinking was initiated in the later part of the nineteenth century in both England and France. Durkheim, Morgan, and others elaborated ideas comparable with those Burhoe develops here.
18. . Burhoe, pp. 313–14. This quotation illumines Burhoe's deification of nature and his use of a mechanistic model.
19. . Ibid., p. 316.
20. . Ibid., p. 317. Burhoe does not indicate what he means by “fully scientific” in this context. He does say: “… for those exposed to scientific beliefs, the scientific extension of previous myths and theologies would be as essential to aesthetic and motivational religion of the twenty‐first century as were the informational patterns of the DNA necessary for the evolution of cells and organisms. It also seems to me that such an interpretation of religion in terms of modern natural philosophy or science is as necessary and as big a step in the advancement of religion as was the synthesis of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy with religion in the preparation for Western civilization as successor to the classic Mediterranean civilization.” The global quality of this characterization should be noted. From many points of view, modern natural philsophy or science is extremely complex and variegated and more closely related to alternative traditional philosophic schemata than Burhoe's characterization would suggest. Similarly, the synthesis of Plato and Christianity that Augustine undertook differs substantially from the synthesis of Aristotle and Christianity that Aquinas undertook. The alternative understandings of the relation of human forms of understanding to the order of nature exhibited by Einstein and Whitehead, two of the greatest philosophers of nature of the modern epoch, may suggest to some the extraordinarily subtle and complex relations between scientific formulations, philosophic perspectives, and religious understanding. P. W. Bridgman's operationalism illustrates an approach coherent with a Sophistic perspective. The question, “Which modern natural philosophy will be most widely appropriated in the twenty‐first century to interpret religious experience” seems to me to be the crucial one. As the critical portion of this essay suggests, I have grave doubts about the adequacy of the mechanistic‐materialistic mode Burhoe uses in his paper to interpret religious experience and to sustain the human spirit.
21. . Ibid., p. 319. The parallel between Burhoe's vision and that of Comte is striking (see Auguste Comte, Positive Philosophy (New York: Appleton, 1853). Similarly, the outline Burhoe suggests is strikingly similar to that of Durkheim. (See, e.g., the last chapter of Elementary Forms of the Religious Life.) Wallace, whose work Burhoe cites with approval in several parts of his paper, is probably the figure linking Burhoe to this tradition.
22. . Burhoe, p. 321. In his discussion in this section Burhoe notes the influence of Plato and Aristotle on Christian theology. Interestingly, he does not note the influence of the Greek atomists and Sophists. It seems to me that a synthesis of these two heritages is reflected in Burhoe's own constructive efforts. The materialism of the atomists is combined with the interactionalism, operationalism, and antimetaphysical outlook of the Sophists to produce a “scientific theology.”
23. . Ibid., pp. 321–22. The term “cathected” may relate Burhoe to the Freudian heritage, but he does not elaborate his usage of the term here.
24. . Ibid., p. 326.
25. . Ibid., p. 328.
26. . Ibid.
27. . Ibid.
28. . Ibid., p. 329. In recent Western history this distinction is grounded in the bifurcation between theoretic reason and practical reason. Burhoe does not explore this tradition and its Kantian roots in this paper.
29. . Ibid., p. 330. Note the implicit Newtonian view of time as that which flows and of space as that which extends evenly in all directions in the passage “… including the laws or ways in which it operates in time, the dynamic history of its sources as far as they can be traced in time and spwe,…” (italics added). In spite of his strong interest in evolution, Burhoe does not cite such evolutionary thinkers as Henri Bergson, S. Alexander, Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, or Teilhard de Chardin. Significantly, none of these thinkers deified nature.
30. . Ibid.
31. . Ibid., p. 335.
32. . Ibid., p. 336.
33. . Ibid., p. 338.
34. . Ibid., pp. 338–39.
35. . Ibid., p. 342.
36. . Ibid., p. 345.
37. . Ibid., p. 346.
38. . Ibid., p. 347.
39. . Ibid., p. 347–48.
40. . Ibid., p. 352.
41. . Ibid., p. 357.
42. . Ibid., p. 361.
43. . Ibid., p. 367.