(02:10–03:06) Music
"The Multiples of One" from Awakening, performed by Joseph Curiale

(02:22) South Africa and Apartheid

Courtesy: South African Department of Justice

(02:52)Book on Cosmology
Ellis has written a web-published book, The Universe Around Us: An Integrative View of Science and Cosmology, that presents a thorough overview of the natural and life sciences, and how they differ from each other.

(04:09) Reference to St. Augustine
St. Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430 CE) is one of the most prominent figures of medieval philosophy whose authority and thought have had a lasting influence. Augustine is one of the main figures who merged the Greek philosophical tradition and the Judeo-Christian religious and scriptural traditions. Some of his best-known works are The Confessions and City of God.

Krista Tippett and George Ellis in Philadelphia. Photo: Mitch Hanley

(07:03) On Becoming a Quaker
A religious group of Christian derivation, the term Quakers is the common name for The Society of Friends. Although the term appears earlier, it took root when the movement's leader, George Fox, instructed a magistrate in Derby to tremble at the name of the Lord. Fox believed that churches were abandoning their religious principles and that even reformation could not restore their faith.

Fox emphasized that the inner light takes precedence over external guidance. As such, followers relate directly to Christ without the intervention of clergy, liturgy, or traditional sacraments. Quakers believe meetings of two or more people can constitute a spiritual experience. Women are equal with men.

Quakers oppose war and will not take oaths. As Ellis says, he was attracted to the faith because they engaged in peace movements and other practical matters without having to believe in creeds and doctrine.

Quakers fought for the abolition of slavery, a woman's right to vote, prison reform, and caring for the mentally ill. There are approximately 250,000 Quakers in the world, about half of them residing in the United States.

(08:11) Ellis Discusses Quaker Organizations in South Africa
Ellis describes his approach to improving social issues by looking at them as short-, medium-, and long-term solutions. As part of the short-term effort, he got involved with the Quaker Service Fund, a fund that remains active. The Fund involves itself with the community by serving the poor through aid provisions. This includes providing money for transportation, education, food, clothing (even items such as sewing sewing machines), and housing.

During the era of Apartheid, the Fund distributed aid during the Crossroads burnings (more than 60,000 people lost goods and their homes through arson) and basic needs such as plastic sheets to give shelter to the homeless. The Fund also coordinated the distribution of food, and supported development projects for homeless thousands.

Ellis says his medium-term effort includes policy change while his long-term approach takes place in the arena of the debate about science and religion.

(08:41) Quote of Bernard Williams
In a passage from Ellis' book, On the Moral Nature of the Universe, he quotes from the ethicist and philosopher Bernard Williams' book Morality. The following excerpt expands upon this passage Krista mentions during the program:

Less well-known is a thin volume by Bernard Williams with the modest title Morality. Williams provides a devastating critique of both subjectivism and moral relativism, and then goes on to survey the major positive approaches to ethics from antiquity to the present. He finds most of them defective in that they are not capable of answering the question, why be moral (at all)? There is also, however a sort of theory

that … seeks to provide, in terms of the transcendental framework, something that man is for: if he understands properly his role in the basic scheme of things, he will see that there are some particular sorts of ends which are properly his and which he ought to realize. One archetypal form of such a view is the belief that man was created by a God who also has certain expectations of him.

Williams says that it has been practically a philosopher's platitude that even if a God did exist, this would make no difference to the situation of morality. But Williams believes this platitude to be based on mistaken reasoning: "If God existed, there might well be special, and acceptable, reasons for subscribing to morality." Unfortunately, concludes Williams the atheist, the very concept of God is incoherent; religion itself is incurably unintelligible.

(09:42) Types of Cosmology
Ellis says that there are two types of cosmology: one with a small "c" and another with a capital "C." The former is the branch of science that deals with the physical universe involving the structure, origins, and development of the universe. It can be identified with the formation of galaxies and the gravitational forces acting upon them to shape the universe, of which Einstein's general theory of relativity pertains. Two popular cosmological theories satisfy these two elements: the Steady-State Theory, the Big-Bang Theory.

The latter type, Ellis says, includes the involvement of human interests and the implications it has on humanity. A particularly interesting definition of cosmology appears in The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition:

cosmology
A system of beliefs that seeks to describe or explain the origin and structure of the universe. A cosmology attempts to establish an ordered, harmonious framework that integrates time, space, the planets, stars, and other celestial phenomena. In so-called primitive societies, cosmologies help explain the relationship of human beings to the rest of the universe and are therefore closely tied to religious beliefs and practices. In modern industrial societies, cosmologies seek to explain the universe through astronomy and mathematics. Metaphysics also plays a part in the formation of cosmologies.

(10:09–10:42) Music
"Rob Roy" from Where in the World?, performed by Bill Frisell Band

(11:06) Krista Quotes Phrase from Ellis
The phrase "confounding the calculus of rationality" can be found in Ellis' statement at the Templeton Prize news conference — which can be read in its entirety on the next page — on March 17, 2004:

Much our of life can be thought of as a struggle between emotion and rationality — the calm analyst deciding on a logical basis what we should do, versus the emotional hot-head who rushes into action and just does things. A common view is that evidence-based science represents that calm rationality which exemplifies us how we ought to behave, and we should try to avoid basing our lives on faith and hope rather than rationality and reason. However this is also a bad misunderstanding. In facing our individual and communal lives, we always need faith and hope as well as rationality, and indeed the real issue is how we can best balance them against each other. Take the case of my own country: there were very many times in the past when it was rational to give up all hope for the future — to assume that the nation would decay into a racial holocaust that never happened. It did not occur because of the transformative actions of those marvellous leaders Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, confounding the calculus of rationality. This is a really important practical issue that I have only recently begun to consider. It is in a sense the theme of the book The Far-Future Universe that I edited.

However as well as being a highly practical issue, this also relates to the issue of reductionism and the way the mind functions. The reading and writing I have been doing on that topic have led to a very interesting appreciation: the fact that the rational mind is in a profound developmental sense based in the emotional mind. This is true both functionally and in evolutionary terms. So one of my latest projects is looking at this fascinating theme, and even writing about it in association with Judith Toronchuk of Trinity Western University. So I am now happy that though I am a cosmologist by trade, I have just had a paper on this theme accepted for publication by the journal Consciousness and Evolution. This paper shows that the tension between emotion and reason has a deep grounding in the neurological mechanisms underlying brain function.

Courtesy: South African Department of Justice

(14:29) Reference to Boycotts
During the era of Apartheid, a number of countries exercised economic and athletic boycotts. In 1973, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a document that internationally condemned apartheid as unjust and racist. Read the text of "International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid", which took effect in 1976.

Athletic boycotts of the apartheid-era South Africa government happened at different international levels. In the modern Olympics, South Africa was denied participation in 1960. The International Olympic Committee restored recognition of the South African Olympic Committee in 1991, thereby allowing the nation of South Africa to compete in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain.

(17:14–18:55) Music
"III. Postludium" from Leggiero, Pesante, performed by Valentin Silvestra

(17:57) Ideas of Nonviolence and Kenosis
Ellis cites a list of distinguished leaders of nonviolence, including Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Steven Biko, and Nelson Mandela, who endured great suffering. And many of these people trained their followers to accept suffering.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who encouraged Martin Luther King to use nonviolent methods of protest, says that he wouldn't want to live in a world without suffering. Listen to Thich Nhat Hanh in the Speaking of Faith show, "Brother Thay: A Radio Pilgrimage with Thich Nhat Hanh."

In Greek, kenosis means "to empty oneself." Ellis believes that the ethic of kenosis is built-in to the universe and finds its expression in all the major religions. Essential elements of this idea of kenotic ethics play themselves out in personal and communal relationships, in the act of forgiveness, and in self-sacrifice. At its extreme, it may involve sacrificing one's own life.

(26:48) God of the Gaps
Ellis says that the ethic of kenosis is not simply a "God of the gaps" concept but is God at the boundaries of human understanding and knowledge. In "E.T. and God" — published in the September 2003 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, Paul Davies, a former Templeton Prize winner, explains the meaning of the phrase and argues why it is inadequate:

The term "God of the gaps" was coined to deride the notion that God can be invoked as an explanation whenever scientists have gaps in their understanding. The trouble with invoking God in this way is that as science advances, the gaps close, and God gets progressively squeezed out of the story of nature. Theologians long ago accepted that they would forever be fighting a rearguard battle if they tried to challenge science on its own ground. Using the formation of life to prove the existence of God is a tactic that risks instant demolition should someone succeed in making life in a test tube. And the idea that God acts in fits and starts, moving atoms around on odd occasions in competition with natural forces, is a decidedly uninspiring image of the Grand Architect.

(28:25–28:45) Music
"Sarabande from Suite No. 3 in C Major" from The Cellos Suites: Inspired by Bach, performed by Yo-Yo Ma

(17:14–18:55) Music
"Wenyukela" from Raise Your Spirit Higher, performed by Ladysmith Black Mambazo
*This song is about Jesus rising after the crucifixion and talks about how South Africans were nearly misled into killing one another during the elections.

(32:56) Reference to Sir John Templeton and Agapic Love
Ellis refers to Sir John Templeton, creator of the The Templeton Prize For Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities, was born in America and is now a naturalized British citizen. He is an entrepreneur known for his philanthropic work. A graduate of Yale University and Oxford University, Templeton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1987. He wrote Agape Love: A Tradition Found in Eight World Religions.

Listen to "Marriage, Family, and Divorce," a show by Speaking of Faith in which Luke Timothy Johnson discusses several types of love, including agape. Agape is a Greek word that connotes a practical, self-sacrificing type of love, as Ellis says, an unconditional love. Often found in the New Testament of the Bible, early Christians refer to agapic love as a special love for God and God's love for man.

(33:36) Reference to Conferences
While talking about agapic love, Ellis tells two personal stories. In the first story, he mentions speaking at Science and the Spiritual Quest (SSQ), an international program conducted by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley, California. The program focuses on the ethical and spiritual questions raised by the best of contemporary science through dialogue and workshops given by leading scientists. Watch a video of a speech given by George F. R. Ellis at a symposium sponsored by SSQ, "Science and the Three Monotheisms in the 21st Century, A New Partnership?," in Granada, Spain in August 2002.

In the second story, Ellis mentions hearing a speech at the State of the World Forum. The State of the World Forum is a series of seminars that took place in New York City in September of 2000 and addressed four primary subject areas: persistent world poverty, love and compassion, the future of human health and happiness, and peacemaking and reconciliation. Dr. Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, spoke there as part of a panel discussion, "A Framework for Spiritual Forgiveness and Reconciliation — Perspectives from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam."

(35:10) Mention of Alpha Centauri
While saying he's confident that life on other planets would understand kenotic ethics in the same way they would understand the universal language of mathematics, he makes reference to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our solar system. It is composed of three stars consisting of Alpha Centauri, Rigil Kentaurus (also known as Alpha Centauri A, the most similar to the sun in our solar system), and Proxima Centauri, which is actually slightly closer than the other two stars. Alpha Centauri is 4.3 light years from Earth.

(39:58) Quaker Peace Centre
The Quaker Peace Centre (QPC) is based in Cape Town, South Africa. The organization is comprised of a team of peacemakers from different backgrounds whose mission is to develop and implement innovative, sustainable models and partnerships that foster outcomes of peace, justice and personal responsibility for non-violent conflict resolution.

(41:04–42:17) Music
"String Quartet No. 1" from Leggiero, Pesante, performed by Valentin Silvestra

(42:03) Historical Example of Kenosis
When asked about the United States' involvement in Iraq, Ellis provides examples of the practice of kenotic ethics implemented after major wars in the 20th century. He says that the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I punished the German people and eventually gave rise to World War II. Conversely, Ellis says, the Marshall Plan put into practice the ethic of kenosis by rebuilding and helping the Germans, which has granted Europe nearly 50 years of peace.

(45:44–46:24) Music
"III. Postludium" from Leggiero, Pesante, performed by Valentin Silvestra

(50:57–53:12) Music
"Wenyukela" from Raise Your Spirit Higher, performed by Ladysmith Black Mambazo
*This song is about Jesus rising after the crucifixion and talks about how South Africans were nearly misled into killing one another during the elections.