Theistic Science Symposium
at Bryn Athyn College on Oct 25, 2025
Burning Bush:
Seeing the Sacred in SciencePresented by Swedenborg Scientific Association and the Theistic Science Group.
The SSA would like to introduce the Theistic Science Group a collaboration of New Church scientists and theologians working on a model of scientific principles. But how did we get there? We learn from Emanuel Swedenborg:
The true order is to be wise from the Lord, that is, from His Word, and then all things follow, and one is enlightened even in matters of reason and of science. For it is never forbidden to learn the sciences, because they are useful for life and delightful; and one who is in faith is never forbidden from thinking and speaking as do the learned of the world, but it must be from this principle, to believe the Word of the Lord, and confirm spiritual and celestial truths by natural truths, in terms familiar to the learned world, so far as possible, Therefore the starting-point (principium) must be from the Lord, and not from self. The former is life, but the latter is death. (AC 129).
Take a tree, or its seed, its fruit, its flower, or its leaf, gather up the wisdom that is in you, examine the object with a good microscope, and you will see wonderful things, while the interiors that you do not see are still more wonderful. Observe the order in its development, how the tree grows from seed even to new seed, and consider whether there is not at every successive step a continual endeavor to propagate itself further; for the final thing to which it aims is seed, in which its reproductive power exists anew. And if you are willing to think spiritually, which you can do if you wish, will you not now see wisdom here? Examine any other object on the earth, as a silkworm, a bee, or any other little creature; look at it first naturally, afterwards rationally, and at length spiritually, and if you are able to think deeply, you will be astonished at it all; and if you will let wisdom speak within you, you will say in amazement, "Who can fail to see the Divine in these things? All things are of the Divine wisdom?" (DP 3).
Agenda:
Opening, Dr. Reuben Bell
The Burning Bush — Seeing the Sacred in Science and remembering Ron, Rev. Andy Heilman
The Sacred in the Brain, Rev. Clark Echols
A Dynamic Model of the Mind with References to Swedenborg and Peirce, Dr. Stephen Smith
New and Useful Ideas in Physics and Psychology from Swedenborg, Ian Thompson, Ph.D.
Goethe, Swedenborg, and the Scientific Worldview, Angela Rose, Ph.D.
Finding a new Physics Course in the Four Laws Revealed in AE 1146, Rev. Andy Heilman
Intelligent Default 2.0, Dr. Reuben Bell
My Testimony to Theistic Science from the Classroom, Maxwell Blair
Video Talks:
Rev. Reuben Bell, Ph.D.
Opening the symposium and remembering Ron Horvath
Rev. Andrew Heilman
The signification of the bramble burning with fire: Seeing scientific truth full of Divine love and wisdom
Rev. Clark Echols
The Sacred in the Brain Seeking a satisfying understanding of "mind."
Dr. Stephen Smith
A Dynamic Model of the Mind with References to Swedenborg and Peirce
Ian Thompson, Ph.D.
New and Useful Ideas in Physics and Psychology from Swedenborg Discovery of new correspondences to resolve long-standing puzzles in quantum physics and in the psychology of cognition and its development.
Angela Rose, Ph.D.
Goethe's Swedenborgian Worldview
Rev. Andrew Heilman
Finding a new Physics Course in the Four Laws Revealed in Apocalypse Explained 1146 A non-Newtonian approach which emphasizes endeavor, conservation, and equilibrium with the end in view of freedom.
Rev. Reuben Bell, Ph.D
Intelligent Default 2.0 This presentation reexamines the pre-Darwinian concepts of morphological archetypes and the inheritance of acquired characteristics as potentially valid, and attempts to see how they comport with the Heavenly Doctrines. It will help me point my thoughts to another book to follow my Intelligent Default of 2019. These ideas serve to better explain the most difficult question of where and how a preexisting spiritual use might be transmitted to a natural form and come into correspondence with it.
Max Blair, Ph.D.
My testimony to Theistic Science from the Classroom