Can beauty be found in suffering? Is it rational to believe in miracles? These and other, seemingly paradoxical questions fill the classroom with intense—sometimes heated—discourse in some of the most unexpected courses offered at Santa Clara.
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| Electrical Engineering Professor Aleksandar Zecevic teaches his course in Chaos Theory, in which students debate scientific perspectives on theology, aesthetics, and ethics. |
Two highly respected deep thinkers in SCU’s theology school and engineering department challenge a widespread belief that science and religion are essentially unrelated areas of human inquiry.
If ever there were a perfect example of kindred spirits, it would be found with Aleksandar Zecevic, a professor of electrical engineering, and Alejandro García-Rivera, a theologian and faculty member of the Jesuit School of Theology (JST). Their main connection leads them to align with the Jesuit outlook that every dimension of creation is sacred and therefore no area of study or line of inquiry is off limits.
Both men are nicknamed “Alex,” have impressive science backgrounds, share a lifelong passion for aesthetics, and are intent on revealing ways in which concepts that appear to be self-contradictory may, in reality, express a number of possible truths. They’ve both designed innovative courses with a primary goal of creating autonomous thinkers.
The two met three years ago, when Zecevic recruited members for a joint JST-SCU colloquium on science, art, and religion with colleagues from JST, the School of Engineering, and the College of Arts and Sciences. In their monthly meetings, the interdisciplinary reading group delves into various aspects of aesthetics. Where most of us think of aesthetics or beauty in terms of form, order, and symmetry, Zecevic explains that it is the mix of order and disorder that characterizes nature, and without disorder it would be a boring universe devoid of novel occurrences.
Both men employ the Socratic style of teaching, a form of inquiry and debate that serves to stimulate critical thinking and illuminate ideas. The focus is on giving students questions, not answers, and the openness of the Jesuit way of teaching naturally allows the needed space for students to engage the big questions.
Zecevic uses his recently completed manuscript, Chaos Theory, Metamathematics and the Limits of Knowledge: A Scientific Perspective on Theology, Aesthetics, and Ethics, as the primary text in his course of the same name. He says, “Many times in science, especially when you have no direct experience of the concepts you are dealing with, you resort to aesthetic criteria … you go with what looks the most elegant mathematically.”
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Theologian and JST Professor of Systematic Theology
Alejandro García-Rivera |
In his 2009 book, The Garden of God: A Theological Cosmology, García-Rivera uses the cultivation of a garden as a metaphor for man’s relation to the cosmos—a garden not so much designed as discovered. He reminds us that “aesthetic insight is needed if we are to discover the garden of God in the cosmos.” He adds, “I believe wholeheartedly that we must begin to see the interconnectedness of the world, to grasp its complexity, even if our intellectual traditions have conditioned us to seek a different type of grasping.” He often uses the term “interlacing,” which he describes as the artful weaving of various perspectives across disciplines to gain an insight greater than any of its components.
García-Rivera teaches the course Theology and Human Suffering at JST. “I always start the class by saying it’s hard to teach a class where everybody’s an expert … because who hasn’t suffered?” At times, he says he may be the naïve one in the classroom. It can become tense when students from all parts of the world share experiences. Many have known great turmoil, endured torture, or witnessed the deaths of loved ones; others have struggled with serious illness and loss. “Students come back to me years after and tell me it’s the one course that’s helped them the most,” he says. What makes this class unique is that it’s based on the principle of the cosmic nature of suffering and the beauty of suffering. But how can one find beauty in suffering? “That is our challenge in theology, especially today,” says García-Rivera. “If you cannot see beauty in suffering there’s just one alternative left … and that’s despair.”
Why should a student care about this intersection of science and religion? Zecevic offers a rationale from the engineering course he teaches on science and religion, in which students are faced with the question: “What can one rationally believe?” Students with a religious background may wonder, for example, if what they learn in the sciences is compatible with their beliefs. Students in a technical discipline might ask whether certain counterintuitive theological claims (such as miracles) are logically acceptable. As part of their coursework, the students write candid, sometimes beautiful reflections on these questions, often transforming themselves in the process.
“This is not something that you are likely to see in any other engineering class,” says Zecevic. “It’s wise to question … Jesuits are good at that.”
(In the midst of producing this publication, on December 13, 2010, we were saddened to hear that Alejandro García-Rivera passed away. He was a respected colleague, beloved teacher, and one of the most important and influential voices among the circles of theology and science.)
