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Can Love Really Make the World Go Around?

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The saying goes, “Love makes the world go around.” If we could only make that statement true, then the world would truly be a better place, right? Essentially, that’s what “The Works of Love: Scientific and Religious Perspectives on Altruism” conference at Villanova University near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was all about. Between May 31 and June 5, 2003, hundreds of scholars and researchers from every continent except Antarctica came together in a seminal effort to launch a process designed to lead our global society toward greater altruism and unlimited love.

The folks involved in this effort are pioneers who are bucking the status quo in many of their disciplines. It’s not that there haven’t been apostles of love in our midst before. After all, in the 20th century, Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embodied the type of love that transforms society. But let’s face it, the meaning of love is muddled at best. In America, we love everything from our fellow beings to our cars or the latest meal deal at McDonald’s. And in the academic and scientific research realm, the situation has even been worse. In general, love, especially love that is altruistic or unlimited, has been shunned, and those who have chosen to study it have been marginalized — until now. If you’ve been following my columns, you’ll have heard of the emerging field of scientific and theological research and scholarship on unlimited love. The folks involved in this effort are joining together to say “there’s got to be a better way” and that way is to figure out how people can become more loving instead of focusing only on why people are dysfunctional, angry, hateful, etc.

The conference was hosted by the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (IRUL, www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org) and the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science (www.metanexus.net) in collaboration with the Columbia Center for the Study of Science and Religion (www.columbia.edu/cu/cssr ), the Center for Research on Religion & Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania (www.crrucs.org), the Fetzer Institute (www.fetzer.org), and the John Templeton Foundation (www.templeton.org). Sponsors included the American Teilhard Association (www.orgs.bucknell.edu/teilhard), The Christian Science Committee on Publication for Ohio (www.tfccs.com), Macmillan Reference USA (www.galegroup.com/macmillan), the Samueli Institute for Information Biology (www.siib.org), Science & Spirit Magazine (www.science-spirit.org ), Science and the Spiritual Quest II (www.ssq.net), and Templeton Foundation Press (www.templetonpress.org).

The list indicates the groundswell of interest in the topic and provides a great list of sites that readers may wish to explore. Some of these sites have been profiled in earlier columns. Others will get in-depth coverage in the future. The fruits of the Works of Love Conference can be tasted at the Metanexus site. By mid-July, many of the papers that were presented at Works of Love will be published on line. In addition, over $2 million in research grants for scientific studies on the phenomena of spiritual transformation were awarded by Metanexus during the conference. The abstracts for the 24 studies will also be on line at the Metanexus site.

The Works of Love Conference featured a broad range of disciplines and opinions. The most controversial area was the debate centering around evolutionary biology. Some biologists, like David Sloan Wilson, believe that everything, including altruism and religious values, can be explained by biology and that God, along with the flat earth theory, is off the table as far as scientific or rational thought are concerned. Sloan was challenged by Holmes Rolston III, the father of environmental ethics and one of the world’s leading scholars on the philosophical, scientific, and religious conceptions of nature, with a cautionary tale entitled, “The Good Samaritan and His Genes.” It is interesting to note that while those of us who believe in God or a higher power as the ground of being have been enthralled by the supporting evidence that seems to be coming out of quantum physics theory and research, the evolutionary biologists have taken center stage in the world of science with the claim that THEY CAN EXPLAIN IT ALL. Physicists who I spoke with at the Works of Love Conference told me that the rest of us will just have to be patient. Prior to the 20th century, physics was the science that claimed to explain it all. Then the physicists began to hit the wall. Suddenly, they knew that they just don’t have all the answers. Biology, physicists state, haven’t hit that wall, but eventually they will.

This controversy was put into perspective by a lawyer who attended the conference. His contribution was to point out that despite their differences in opinion about the origins of altruism, both Sloan and Rolston are dedicated to developing techniques that will enhance altruism. This point cannot be stressed enough. For really it is only on the points of agreement that true progress can be made toward transforming society.

Space does not allow for in-depth coverage of the entire conference. So be sure to check out the Metanexus web site and read the papers that were presented. Those papers include my own contribution, “Paul Tillich and Pitirim A. Sorokin on Love: Contributions of a Dialogue between Science and Religion.” Other titles include “The Evolution of Love in Teilhard de Chardin,” by Kathleen Duffy, “Love Without Boundaries,” a wonderful examination by Thomas E. Reynolds of the lessons of love taught by his autistic son, and “Faith-based Communities and their Activities in Relation to the Spiritual Ideal of Unlimited Love,” by Beverly B. Mack, a paper that focuses on unconditional love in action in the Sufi city of Fez, Morocco.

And don’t forget to check out those abstracts about the scientific studies on the phenomena of spiritual transformation. The studies include “Spiritual Transformations and Desistance from Crime,” a project that focuses directly on spiritual transformation as an active and dynamic process that works to improve life, and “A Prospective Study of Awe and Spiritual Transformation,” a project that postulates that awe triggers changes in attachments to principles, concepts, and entities that transcend the self and examines the mechanism of this transformation.

That second study is one that I will be following with great interest. A major point in my paper centers on Tillich’s recognition that through ecstasy (aka “awe”), access to the highest form of love is accessible to all. Tillich recognizes that these ecstatic connections, while fragmentary, are real and important. This stress on fragmentation allows humans to recognize each fragmentary connection to God or higher power as valid and valuable. I postulate that the recognition of the validity and value of each fragmentary connection leads to increasing numbers of those moments, and, therefore, increasing moments in which Unlimited Love can be actualized. In my paper I state that this is a hypothesis that deserves scientific consideration. It is with great delight that I discover that one of the scientific studies funded by Metanexus seems to address this very hypothesis.

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Mary Montgomery-Clifford is a certified web author and developer. Her company, Montgomery Media Enterprises ("Freelancing with Finesse!"), specializes in public relations, events, promotions, writing project and web authoring, development and publicity. Ms. Montgomery-Clifford has a Master's Degree in religious studies from Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) in June 2002 and is working on a Ph.D. with a focus on the new scholarship of Unlimited Love and the Other Regarding Virtues in the Fall of 2002. She is also in the process of completing the Morris Pratt Institute Course on Modern Spiritualism. Contact her via e-mail at Monty764@aol.com, by phone at 773-235-8821 or at her web site at www.montymedia.com.

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