Revisiting the Rocks of Ages: The Ontology of Human Development as a Sample Case of Meaningful Collaborations Between the Magisteriums of Science and Religion

Abstract

We argue for the possibility of creating a mutually-meaningful and mutually-consequential collaboration between the Magisteriums of Religion and Science by providing a sample case about how fundamental issues in understanding the ontology of being human within developmental science align with corresponding ontological issues within instances of Judeo-Christian theology. We illustrate how two specific areas of collaboration—palliative care that sustains meaning, mattering, and dignity within individuals in the end-of-life period, and promoting earth stewardship that addresses challenges to sustaining a habitable planet for human life—are instances of opportunities for meaningful integrations of the two Magisteriums. We hope that our sample case may be persuasive enough to motivate scientists and theologians with knowledge of other areas within their respective Magisteriums to generate additional sample cases. We call for collaborative actions to demonstrate that mutually beneficial exchanges between the two Magisteriums can result in new spiritual knowledge of mutual significance to the teaching authorities of both science and religion.

1. Introduction

This article presents a perspective about and proposes a possible action agenda for creating meaningful—that is, mutually consequential—integrations of the Magisteriums of Religion and Science. As developmental scientists, we use the ontology of human development as a sample case for such integrations.1

Developmental science is a multidisciplinary field that draws on scientific areas such as evolutionary biology (e.g., Gissis and Jablonka 2011; Gould 1977; Jablonka and Lamb 2005; Noble 2012, 2015), developmental epigenetics (e.g., Cole 2014; Collins 2016; Moore 2015; Moore et al. 2025; Slavich and Cole 2013), comparative psychology (e.g., Greenberg 2011, 2014), and developmental psychology (e.g., Damon 2025; Lerner, forthcoming). Within the theoretical and empirical literature within and across these areas of science, the work of the paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould (e.g., Gould 1977, 1981, 1996; Gould and Vrba 1982) has had and continues to have a major influence within developmental science. For instance, as noted by theologian Alistair McGrath (2021), whose scholarship intersects importantly with the work of Gould (e.g., Gould 1999, 2003) and, as well, with the discussion we present in this article, Gould contributed fundamental knowledge to evolutionary biology (e.g., regarding concepts such as the punctuated equilibration model of evolution, and phenomena such as exaptation) and was as well an excellent scientific communicator.

We shall explain that McGrath (McGrath 1999, 2021, 2023; McGrath and McGrath 2007; see too Howe 2016) presented a conception of the relation between science and religion that embodies the view of the relations between the Magisteriums of Science and Religion subscribed to by the present authors. Nevertheless, it is perhaps understandable that, when Gould (1999) wrote a book about the nature of the relation between the Magisterium of Science and the Magisterium of Religion, developmental scientists, including the present authors, paid attention to it. Indeed, given Gould’s influence within developmental science, we believe it is especially useful and timely for us to illustrate the convergences between the Magisteriums in regard to the ontology of human development.

At this writing, substantive collaborations between science and religion that go beyond Gould’s 1999 views have been burgeoning across the first quarter of the 21st century. This work is in large part due to the influence of McGrath’s (e.g., McGrath 1999, 2021, 2023; McGrath and McGrath 2007) scholarship (e.g., Howe 2016; Schaefer 2022); and, as well, it is due to the substantial growth in grant funds awarded for research to pursue a “science-engaged theology” (SET) scholarly agenda. Despite important critiques of the methodology involved in this work (Kopf 2025), a key leader in this scholarship estimated that “hundreds of scholars and priests have been involved in these grants and, as a result, have reshaped their work and practice to more explicitly and consciously engage with scientific literature and methods and/or collaborate with working scientists” (Leidenhag 2024a, p. 404; see too Leidenhag 2024b). Nevertheless, because of the deserved scientific influence of the work of Gould on the developmental science of humans, and particularly because of his contributions to ideas about ontological conceptions of the meaning of being human (e.g., Gould 1981, 1996), we begin our discussion of the importance of meaningfully integrating the Magisteriums of Science and Religion with a focus on Gould’s 1999 conception of the relation between the two Magisteriums.

Gould (1999, p. 22) sought to move beyond “the fallacious notion that science must be at war with religion” Forms of this idea have been present in human thought for millennia. A key illustration of this idea is the history of controversy in philosophy and theology about whether human life should be governed by what is observed or what is unseen but believed, a discussion that engaged Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas, Luther, Descartes, the British School of Empiricism, and the Berlin and Austrian versions of Logical Positivism (e.g., Boring 1929, 1950; Borsboom et al. 2004; Misiak and Sexton 1966). More certainly, the notion of a war between science and religion emerged in 1859, with the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. Here the controversy involved whether human life evolved over eons from other species as compared to whether either the literal interpretation of the biblical rendition of the creation of humanity was true or that the complexity of biological life provided evidence for the hand of an intelligent designer.

However, neither Darwin (1859) nor other leading scientists of the 19th century (e.g., Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, and Louis Pasteur; Gould 1999), nor leading scientists of the 20th and 21st centuries (e.g., Francis Collins, Albert Einstein, Katalin Karikó, Max Planck, and John Polkinghorn) accepted such a split between, or an either-or formulation of, the Religion-Science relation. Gould’s (1999) rejection of this split was based on his belief that science and religion existed as Non-Overlapping Magisteriums (which he labeled with the acronym NOMA). NOMA meant that there was not a war between Magisteriums but, instead, they existed as equally meaningful systems of knowing, each with distinct realms of discourse, or “teaching authorities” (Gould 1999, p. 53)2.

In essence, then, Gould envisioned that the Magisterium of Religion and the Magisterium of Science could, in effect, be visualized as a two-circle Venn Diagram, with each circle touching the periphery of the other circle but not intersecting with it. Gould (1999, pp. 4–5) used the concept of NOMA to explain why the two Magisteriums should not:

experience any conflict. Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values—subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate but can never resolve. Similarly, while scientists must operate with ethical principles, some specific to their practice, the validity of these principles can never be inferred from the factual discoveries of science. I propose that we encapsulate this central principle of respectful noninterference—accompanied by intense dialogue between the two distinct subjects, each covering a central facet of human existence.

Similarly, physicist and theologian John C. Polkinghorne (2000, p. 55) argued that “science and theology differ in their emphases, with science exploring how things happen and theology investigating why, and both are essential to a fuller understanding of reality” (p. 55).

In turn, our careers as developmental scientists have involved trying to illuminate the fundamental processes of human development across the life span and engaging in respectful dialogue with both scientists in other fields, such as biology, medicine, economics, physics, and behavioral, social, and cultural science, and with leaders of different world religions (e.g., Balswick et al. 2016; King et al. 2024; Lerner 2024; Lerner et al. 2025). As we shall explain, in more detail later in this article, at this writing the cutting-edge theoretical focus of the field of developmental science is derived from dynamic, relational developmental systems (RDS)-based concepts of human life. As explained by Overton (2015), RDS is a metatheory, that is, a “theory of theories,” a philosophical specification of the ideas that should be part of any scientific theory, or scientific model, informed by the metatheory. Accordingly, when a scientific model is derived from RDS the phenomena and levels of analysis of all other scientific fields are not regarded as separate from the subject matter studied by developmental sciences. RDS metatheory specifies that all facets of human life and of the natural world within which humans are embedded are dynamically integrated into an ever-changing whole that evolves across time and place (e.g., Noble 2012, 2015; Overton 2015).

Within this dynamic system every part of the whole is both a producer and product of the changing structure and function of every other component of the system. Accordingly, proponents of this approach to describing, explaining, and optimizing the coactions within this dynamic system have the mantra “Avoid all splits” (Witherington et al. 2018). Perhaps channeling Kant’s resolution of the Third Antinomy, which reconciles nature and freedom by assigning them to two distinct standpoints (the phenomenal and the noumenal) in Critique of Pure Reason (Kant [1781] 1929)3, Overton (2015) explained that there are three successive moments of analysis used in the ontology guiding theory-predicated research in developmental science research: 1. The integration of opposites (depicted in the lithograph created by M. C. Escher, Drawing Hands); 2. The opposites of integration; and 3. The synthesis of wholes. Consistent, then, with the ontology used within all models of dynamic living systems (e.g., Moore et al. 2025; Witherington et al. 2018) there are no distinctions among, no splits between, or no independent components of the dynamic system within which humans live and develop. In this article, we seek to extend the mantra of developmental science to the collaboration between science and religion and, in so doing, suggest that it is possible to create a principled overlap between the two Magisteriums.

Thus, the collaborative and collegial exchanges we have had with scientists from other disciplines have now led us to a different view of the two Magisteriums than the one forwarded by Gould (1999), one aligned with the ideas of Alister McGrath (e.g., McGrath 1999, 2021, 2023; McGrath and McGrath 2007). As explained by Howe (2016), McGrath (McGrath 2023; McGrath and McGrath 2007) does not view science and religion as possessing completely distinct views of reality but, instead, envisions conditions under which there would be an overlap between the Magisteriums, that is, the possibility of meaningful, that is, mutually consequential, integrations (i.e., collaborative endeavors that advance knowledge in both Magisteriums). Indeed, Howe (2016, p. 11) explains that such integration means that “sometimes science and religion have things to offer each other precisely because they sometimes address the same subjects and employ the same methods.” Accordingly, McGrath and McGrath (2007, p. 41) propose “partially overlapping magisteria (a POMA, so to speak), reflecting a realization that science and religion offer possibilities of cross-fertilization on account of the interpenetration of their subjects and methods.” The POMA model conveys the idea that mutually-consequential integrations would be collaborations producing knowledge of use to the respective teaching authorities of the two Magisteriums, that is, that beyond the potential valuable but parallel use of the ideas from the two Magisteriums, there could be valuable intersections.4

It is important to be precise here by what we mean, and do not mean, by mutually consequential and integrative collaborations. We do not mean that scientists will begin to do empirical research testing the validity of the ontological and other theological teachings found in one or more faith traditions within the Magisterium of Religion. As well, we do not mean that theologians will accept or reject empirical findings derived from good science because they see a discrepancy between such findings and specific teachings of their faith tradition. On these points we stand with Gould (1999) in asserting that such cross-Magisterium commentary is obviously not reflective of either mutually-respectful dialogue or, more fundamentally, of a respect for the validity of the authoritative teachings within each Magisterium. What we do mean is that we believe there are instances where the authoritative teachings within each Magisterium may coincide and, in such cases, teachings from one Magisterium may aid in support of existing teachings in the other magisterium and, in a constantly changing world, may lead to insights or recommendations for action that align with the teachings within both Magisteriums.

Using the scientific study of human development and theological ideas drawn from Judeo-Christian theology we will provide examples of such alignment between these respective instances of the two Magisteriums. Our hope is that the examples will be sufficiently persuasive to motivate scientists and theologians representing other sciences and religious traditions to generate additional opportunities for collaboration. We discuss next how we have organized the following sections of this article to contribute to our hope.

2. Our Approach to Illustrating the Possibility of Mutually-Meaningful Collaborations

We join McGrath (McGrath 2023; McGrath and McGrath 2007) and other scholars in supporting mutually consequential integrations of knowledge from the Science and Religion Magisteriums (e.g., King 2016; Lerner 2024; Lerner et al. 2025; Misiak and Staudt 1954). In fact, another book published in the latter years of the 20th century has been a foundation of the ideas we present in this article: Sir John M. Templeton’s The Humble Approach: Scientists Discover God (Templeton 1995). The humble approach suggested by Sir John represents the idea that the physical, life, and social/behavioral sciences have not learned all that can be discovered about what knowledge is relevant to understanding humans, their proximal and distal world—the universe—and connections between human life and its sociocultural and physical ecological context. Sir John suggested that humility, coupled with curiosity and open-mindedness, can result in the discovery of new facets of reality that can illuminate ways in which the Magisteriums can have mutually-constructive dialogues and meaningful collaborations that enrich their respective teaching authorities.

Adopting the humble approach for us involves, first, pointing to the obvious point that we cannot speak for all sciences or all religious traditions. Second, even within developmental science, we cannot in a journal article (or, perhaps as well, in a single book) discuss every facet of knowledge about the human life span that could possibly provide opportunities for mutually-productive dialogue between the two Magisteriums. In turn, we are similarly limited in our understanding of the nuances and facets of all existing religious and theological traditions. Such knowledge might enable an exhaustive interrelation of the accumulated totality of the teachings located within the Magisterium of Religion with the subset of ideas in developmental science that we have the expertise to discuss.

Despite these recognitions of our scholarly limitations, we believe we can build on prior work (e.g., Balswick et al. 2016; King 2016; King et al. 2024; Lerner 2024; Lerner et al. 2025) and provide a unique sample case using fundamental issues in understanding the ontology of being human within developmental science that align with corresponding ontological issues within some instances of Judeo-Christian theology. We will also illustrate how some specific instances of this correspondence create opportunities for meaningful—that is, mutually consequential—integrations of the two Magisteriums. Although, as we implied earlier, and despite the influence of the McGrath POMA model (McGrath and McGrath 2007), of Sir John’s book (Templeton 1995), and of the funding by the philanthropies he created in supporting the SET program of scholarship (e.g., Leidenhag 2024a, 2024b), collaborative science-religion research within developmental science that reflects programmatic integration of scholarship involving the two Magisteriums is, at this writing, still in the “hypothesis searching” (Cattell 1966) phase of theoretical development.

With (Cattell 1966; see too Kuhn 1970; Lerner, forthcoming), we define theory as a set of statements that integrate existing data and lead—through hypothesis testing—to the generation of additional data; as such, the extant empirical literature involving developmental-science-religion integrative data sets is too sparse to involve a useful, much less a robust, theoretical literature. Therefore, at this writing, the developmental science-religion integration exists in a hypothesis searching phase and, accordingly, we will suggest two areas wherein the shared, dynamic and relational systems approach to the ontology of human development can be used to launch programmatic science-religion scholarship involving two areas of significant concern within both Magisteriums.

We discuss how a shared relational ontology is relevant to palliative care for individuals within the end-of-life period and address crises for the future of humanity because of climate change and, more generally, the earth system (e.g., Schellnhuber 2008, 2009, 2024). We hope that our sample cases may be persuasive enough to motivate scientists and theologians interested in the ontology of human development and, perhaps as well, individuals with knowledge of other scientific areas within their respective Magisteriums, to generate other sample cases and, as well, take actions to explore creating the mutually beneficial exchanges that Templeton (1995) believed could result in new spiritual knowledge.

In our view, this knowledge would be derived from developmental science illuminating how capacities for relational thriving are formed, and theology and ethics providing the reasons why such thriving ought to be pursued—thus preserving a disciplined division of labor within the collaboration.5 Indeed, with this approach to collaboration, it may be that developmental scientists might see a useful frame for programmatic engagement in SET projects. The two examples we present later in this article might be ones that elicit the hypothesis-seeking science-religion collaborations to which we pointed earlier.

3. On the Ontology of Being Human Within the Two Magisteriums

Contemporary models in developmental science address the ontological question of “What is the nature of a human being?” or, in other words, the question of “What does it mean to be human?” through reference to the attributes of the living system we label as human (Lerner, forthcoming; Lerner et al. 2025; Witherington et al. 2018). Within developmental science, dynamic, relational developmental systems (RDS) metatheory offers a perspective that describes a living system as an organization of completely fused actions (i.e., coactions; mutually-influential relationships) of any living organism, be they the cells, tissues, or organs in a living organism, or the coactions of individuals or groups occurring within the physical setting or settings in which they live (Lerner, forthcoming; Noble 2015). Thus, living systems are relational entities; they always coact with their contexts and, as such, the living system exists in a mutually-influential state and space with its context.

This coaction means that the individual and the context (both its physical ecological and its social ecological features) are mutually regulative; they dynamically coact, meaning that the structure and function of an organism contribute to the structure and function of the context at the same time that the structure and function of the context contribute to the structure and function of the organism. The key point to understanding a living system, then, is that all its components are dynamically connected to each other. The functions, activity, or changes in one component of the system cause functioning, activity, or changes in every other component of the system. In other words, a living system has an organization wherein each component of the system both produces and is produced by every other component of the system. Accordingly, the connections among any two system components may be represented by a bidirectional arrow—⇔ (and never by a unidirectional arrow: →).

As such, a living system is a dynamic, holistic entity that in effect causes its own functioning, activities, or changes. In developmental science, this capacity for self-organization is termed autopoiesis (Lerner, forthcoming; Witherington et al. 2018). The configuration of a living system at one point in its development across time and place causes its configuration at a subsequent point in development across time and place (Brandtstädter 1998, 2006). Accordingly, all individuals possess agency, that is, actions of the individual are a contributor to the structure and function of the living system (as well, of course, individual structure and function are shaped by the actions of the system on the individual).

Therefore, all facets of the human and the world of the human are integrated inseparably across time and place because all domains of human development coact dynamically in the developmental system. Each individual is then embodied (Overton 2008, 2015), meaning that morphological and physiological characteristics, psychological and behavioral characteristics, and sociocultural characteristics combine in a multiplicative-like coactional process that produces emergent characteristics, features of the human that would not exist without such dynamics.

In addition, each human’s living system is always in flux, because change in the individual or context evokes movement or change in all other components of the system (Noble 2015). As a consequence, no two human beings have the same living system (Bornstein 2019). That is, no two humans have the same history of dynamic system coactions among facets of the integrated and holistic system that (a) might be most associated with the embodied individual; and that (b) might be labeled part of the social, cultural, and physical-ecological context across time. Of course, there are some facets of life that are common (universal, nomothetic) to all members of the species homo sapiens. For example, across the life span the sequence of infant sensorimotor reflex changes, the sequence of growth in neuromuscular coordination, and the progression in language development are common across all instances of human life. Some instances of human life are common to some people but different for other people (e.g., males have one reproductive system with defined stages of maturation and females have a different reproductive system with stages of maturation specific to that system). However, each human has facets of development that are unique, meaningful changes occurring because experiences within the embodied living system can be a basis for person-specific, or idiographic changes (Molenaar 2004; Overton 2008; Rose 2016). No two people, even monozygotic twins, have the same history of epigenetic changes, social relationships, or experiences within the constructed or natural ecology of human development across their life spans.

Developmental scientists must integratively address all three instances of human variation to adequately understand or enhance human life (cf. Allport 1937; Kluckhohn and Murray 1948; Molenaar 2004). The uniqueness of each human life and developmental trajectory is articulated in Bornstein’s (2019) Specificity Principle, which indicates that the specificity of each human life can only be identified through consideration of these three instances of variation. However, whether discussing nomothetic, differential, or idiographic change, there is one additional set of interrelated features of human life that makes it distinct from the lives of other living systems, and these feature of humans constitutes the point of convergence between the ontology that exists in developmental science and the ontology found in the instances of Judeo-Christian theology.

4. Mutual Beneficence, the Reciprocating Self, and Developmentally-Nurturant Relationships

Individual ⇔ context coactions are always mutually influential. However, they may not always be mutually beneficial. Mutually beneficial coactions between an individual and other people (e.g., child ⇔ parent, student ⇔ teacher, patient ⇔ caregiver) or between an individual and the physical ecology (e.g., an individual opting to have a carbon-neutral lifestyle in order to contribute to lessening the bases of pollution and climate change and the individual subsequently experiencing better air quality) are the foundation of thriving across the human life span. In other words, such mutually beneficial coactions promote, maintain, and sustain individual thriving and, on a more macro level, the flourishing of humanity because of living sustainably on their common home, the earth (e.g., Scarlett, forthcoming; Schellnhuber 2008, 2009, 2024). In short, such mutually beneficial coactions enable individual thriving and societal flourishing (King and Mangan 2023; Lerner et al. 2025).

As we have noted, the coactions involved in a living dynamic system create new properties of this system; these properties may be termed transformational or emergent changes. When mutually-beneficial coactions instantiate individual thriving and societal flourishing, an emergent quality of human life develops that, as discussed by developmental scientist and theologically trained Pamela Ebstyne King, is termed a “reciprocating self” (e.g., King 2016; King et al. 2024). This concept refers to an individual who has a guiding purpose in life, a telos, to live with and for others, to have a life marked by mutually beneficial individual ⇔ individual relationships. Thriving occurs “with” (e.g., developmentally-nurturing relationships; Lerner et al. 2025) and “for” others (e.g., a purpose that benefits others; Damon 2008, 2025; Damon et al. 2003). Such relationships are the basis of a reciprocating self, that is, possessing a self-definition as being a person who strives to live with and for others in relationships that are mutually beneficial (Balswick et al. 2016; King 2016; King et al. 2024; King and Mangan 2023; Schnitker et al. 2019). Growing bodies of empirical research support the essential nature of loving and caring relationships for thriving (Lerner et al. 2025).

In addition, because living with and for others has moral significance (e.g., Nucci 2017, 2019), a capacity for normative self-direction might emerge within the dynamic, relational developmental system, an emergence that may reflect (as we discuss in the next section) the common status of a relational “ought” among world religions. The “how” of such a moral telos would be instantiated by the agency of the individual (the person’s intentional self-regulatory capacity) within the autopoietic living dynamic system; this moral telos might align with ideas from theology and ethics that provide the reasons why such responsible relationality ought to be pursued.

In sum, in dynamic concert with each other, the concepts of holism, embodiment, autopoiesis, agency, specificity of individual ⇔ context coactions, mutual beneficence, the presence of developmentally-nurturant relationships, and the reciprocating self create a human that possesses a telos of living with and for others and thereby affords each human the potential to thrive across the life span, which is a key aim of developmental science. Accordingly, developmental scientists seek to apply theory-predicated and methodologically-rigorous research to prevent or ameliorate developmentally “toxic” conditions (those person ⇔ context coactions that are antithetical to human thriving) and to promote the developmentally-nurturant conditions that enable each human to live with and for others in a world where all humans and the home on which we all live (our planet) have equitable and socially just opportunities to flourish and to experience the person ⇔ context coactions that make human beings human. This goal is commensurate with instances of Judeo-Christian theologies, theologies that share the idea that being human involves living with and for others in a dynamic system of developmentally-nurturant relationships (King 2016; King et al. 2024; King and Mangan 2023; Lerner 2024; Lerner et al. 2025).

5. Judeo-Christian Anthropological Concepts of Human Ontology and Development

An exploration and comparison of the key ideas associated with dynamic, RDS-based models and Judeo- Christian theological anthropology emphasize the importance of understanding humans from the vantage of a relational ontology and provide substantive insight into the process of being and becoming human. Drawing on dynamic, RDS metatheory and theological anthropology, we aim to weave together these all too-often isolated threads of knowledge and wisdom into a renewed tapestry of being and becoming human and of human thriving. Recognizing that the constructs of embodiment, holism, specificity, and relationality are drawn from developmental science, Lerner (2024), Lerner et al. (2025), and King et al. (2024; King and Baer 2022; see too Balswick et al. 2016) have discussed the convergence between the scientific meaning of these terms and concepts found in various instances of both Protestant and Catholic theology.

Of particular salience within this convergence is the idea of telos, of a human purpose that involves living for and with others in mutually-beneficial ways. In particular, interpretations of the Doctrine of the imago Dei point to the simultaneous unity and uniqueness of the three persons of the Christian trinity as a means for understanding that humans, made in the image of God, are intended to be and become particular or specific persons in relationship with others—human, God, and the created order (see King 2016; King and Baer 2022; Lerner et al. 2025).

This approach to life, one wherein developmentally-nourishing relationships exist between the self and others—of what King (2016; see too Balswick et al. 2016) terms a reciprocating self—is found as well in Judaic theology. For instance, as discussed by Templeton (1999):

“Deuteronomy 6:5 states that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This reminds followers that love toward God is essential, and that one way it is expressed is by using one’s powers of goodness to benefit others. In fact, when one loves and cares for others, one is loving God”

(p. 11).

Indeed, Rabbi Hillel expressed the Judaic idea of living for and with others in a mutually beneficial, developmentally nurturant manner in his posing three questions—“If I am not for myself who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now when?”—and by his statement in the Babylonian Talmud that “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow! That is the Whole Torah; the Rest is Interpretation.”

In sum, just as human relationality is valued within the ontology found in dynamic, RDS-based approaches to developmental science, it is clear that a converging concept of relationality is found within Judeo-Christian anthropological ontologies. Indeed, writing about a Christian approach to bioethics in the treatment of the elderly, Gastmans et al. (2024, pp. 4–5) noted that:

the fact that human life is fundamentally embodied and relational—from the moment of conception and throughout the life span … indicates that human emotions, such as love, loyalty, fidelity, and empathic concern, as well as the need for affiliation and the need to matter positively to others are the specific features of human existence that are both derived from and contribute to relationships that make human beings human.

In short, the ontology of human life within developmental science and within Judeo-Christian theology converge in asserting that there is an essential relationality of human life (Balswick et al. 2016; King 2016; Lerner, forthcoming; Lerner et al. 2025).

6. Towards Meaningful Developmental Science Collaborations Between the Magisteriums of Science and Religion

It may be, then, that the relationality involved in the reciprocating self provides a point of substantive convergence within both the religious and scientific ontologies we have been discussing. This convergence may enable the creation of a productive sample case illustrating how the Magisteriums of Religion and Science might collaborate productively. There is some evidence that members of both Magisteriums may have had similar insights.

As we have explained, in developmental science, the fact that humans are embodied, holistic, and agentic beings makes mutually beneficial relationships possible; these relationships lead to human thriving and a flourishing world (Lerner et al. 2025). The Catholic concept of accompaniment conveys the centrality of developmentally-nurturant relationships. Accompaniment involves a sharing of time, skills, and resources as well as mutuality and friendship through interpersonal engagement (Pope Francis 2017). Pope Francis (2013) viewed accompaniment as being physically and spiritually near someone to promote spiritual growth, healing, and liberation. Through accompaniment, individuals are called to contribute to the thriving of each unique person and the common good.

Indeed, relationality, embodiment, holism, and specificity of each human life inform the foundations for a Christian theological anthropological understanding of telos that has been articulated as a reciprocating self. Sachs (1991) discusses human action as the feature of life that reflects human agency and, as such, humans’ contribution to dynamic individual ⇔ context coactions. In addition, in the ontology discussed by Sachs the essential centrality of community points to why and how mutually influential person ⇔ context coactions must transform into mutually beneficial ⇔ adaptive coactions. Sachs (1991, p. 9) insists that “One can be human only in community with others. Apart from relationships to others, we can neither live nor develop … human beings labor to build up the world.”

Similarly, in Judaism the meaning of being human is to have a life that is relational and ethical. All human life has the telos of emulating God’s attributes (imitatio Dei) by being kind, forgiving, and just in relationships with all other people and to enact the role of Tikkun Olam, of working to heal the world. This role involves human actions that promote social justice and the well-being of all people and of the world (of the planet) that is the home of all humans. Jews are mandated to repair the lives of all people through both everyday acts of kindness and generosity and as well through contributing to the cessation of injustices visited on all others and damages done to the physical ecology of the world. The mandate of Tikkun Olam is reflected in contributing to social justice, equity, striving to protect the environment, and embracing a common humanity wherein the welfare of all humans is prioritized. Indeed, the Talmud teaches each Jew that “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

In short, it may be that meaningful collaborations pertinent to concepts of relationism can occur between an instance of the Magisterium of Science, represented by the ontology found within developmental science, and an instance of the Magisterium of Religion, represented by the ontology found with Judeo-Christian religious doctrine. We next present two examples of mutually-relevant instances of relationism—one involving human–human relationships and the other involving human–physical environment relations—that can be furthered through meaningful collaborations between the two Magisteriums.

7. Two Possible Mutually-Meaningful Collaborations

As we have explained, our conception of a meaningful collaboration (i.e., of a mutually-beneficial relationship) between the two Magisteriums involves instances where the authoritative teachings from one Magisterium may aid in support of existing teachings in the other Magisterium and, in a constantly changing world, may lead to insights or recommendations for action that align with the teachings within both Magisteriums. We have also explained that the ontologies of being human within developmental science and Judeo-Christian theology align in regard to the fundamental significance of relationism. They point to the importance of developmentally-nurturant relationships, of a telos to live a life marked by living with and for others, and of contributing to sustaining the context (be it the interpersonal, institutional, cultural, or physical-ecological context) that is supporting oneself. In short, both Magisteriums point toward living with and for others as vital to purpose in life (Bronk 2024; Damon 2025; King 2016; Lerner et al. 2025).

Such reciprocating relationships provide necessary relational support to enable a person to feel that they matter, that their life has meaning and purpose for self and others. Both of the examples of mutually-meaningful collaborations derive from supporting the positive and mutually-beneficial relationism that is found in the instances of the two Magisteriums.

8. Palliative Care

As a relatively new field of study and practice, palliative care stands to benefit from collaborative insights from both Magisteriums. Given our views based on the relational ontologies of developmental science and Judeo-Christian anthropology, that relationships are essential to human life and purpose, we suggest that the relational profession of palliative care may benefit from further collaboration between these Magisteriums. Indeed, there is evidence from developmental and medical science (e.g., Carozza et al. 2025; Gawande 2014) and from religion (e.g., Correa and Sgreccia 1999; de Paula and Pegoraro 2015) for a convergence in emphasizing the benefits of developmentally-nurturant relationships among the dying person, the family, and caregivers that maintain the person’s sense of the value, purpose, and meaningfulness of their life, of feelings of agency, and of dignity. This convergence points to the role of the Magisterium of Religion in contributing to palliative care teachings about the salience of purpose, meaning, and the value of the entire span of human life; in turn, the role of the Magisterium of Science can involve both illuminating these contributions of the Magisterium of Religion to the importance of such end-of-life care (cf. Gould 1999) while, at the same time, making its own contributions to understanding how to enhance medical and psychosocial care to the dying person and to their family.

To feel that your life has mattered, that your life has been meaningful for the people with and world within which you have lived, is important across life and, as well, is increasingly important as a person ages. Arguably, it may be especially significant for a person in the latter years of life and, perhaps particularly so, for a person nearing the end of life. Is it possible to enable people who are knowingly nearing the end of their lives to maintain meaning through providing nurturant relations? Is it possible to “help people achieve what’s most important to them at the end of their lives?” (Gawande 2014, p. 155).

Palliative care enacted in the context of the above-described collaboration between the two Magisteriums may provide positive answers to these questions. Palliative care may be defined as comfort care given to a terminally ill person “so as to promote comfort and relieve pain. The goal of this care is to provide comfort and highest-quality life” (Younis and Ahmed 2024, p. 2345). The recognition by a dying person that their life has had value to loved ones and to the world within which their family will continue to live may be an important contributor to the goal of palliative care.

There are numerous instantiations of palliative care (Carozza et al. 2025; Centeno et al. 2018). For instance, in a review of 73 studies conducted across 18 countries, Carozza et al. (2025) found that palliative care including music, art, movement, pets, and spiritual components showed some evidence (involving different effect sizes) of lowering distress and promoting emotional expression, social and spiritual connectedness, and finding meaning. Therefore, there is some evidence that including a spiritual component in palliative care is useful in providing meaning to individuals nearing the end of their lives. Nevertheless, Ursoleo et al. (2025), in a bibliometric network analysis involving 842 studies of palliative care, found that spiritual care was the least developed and most overlooked facet of end-of-life palliative care.

Nevertheless, in that palliative care provides meaning to end-of-life patients, its use per se indicates that such care provides relationality, which continues to make human beings human, and nurturance, which is a fundamental resource for positive human development in earlier periods of life. As such, a mutually-meaningful collaboration between representatives of the two Magisteriums (e.g., a co-designed and shared decision-making procedure created by integrated medical expertise and pastoral guidance regarding essential components of or process in end-of-life care) could enhance the quality of existing instantiations of palliative care, a need that is quite apparent to reviewers of the current evaluation research literature (e.g., Carozza et al. 2025; Ursoleo et al. 2025).

In fact, such a collaboration between the two Magisteriums may have already begun. The Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV), a Vatican-based Catholic institution, views palliative care as a means to ensure human dignity and meaning to end-of-life individuals. With the sponsorship of the PAV, Centeno et al. (2018) conducted a Delphi study involving 13 world experts in palliative care advocacy. Across four iterative rounds, participants identified the most significant stakeholder groups and then proposed for each group the most important recommendations to advance the effectiveness of palliative care. A cluster analysis of the participants’ judgments provided a classification of stakeholder groups that varied in levels of importance for advancing the quality and use of palliative care. The two groups with the highest importance were, first, policy makers, because they could advance programs and policies that promoted palliative care that provided meaning and dignity to end-of-life individuals and, second, academicians, because they could enhance research and teaching pertinent to the importance of palliative care.

9. Sustaining the Common Home of Humanity

The dynamic, RDS-based concepts of human developmental science emphasize that the fundamental processes of human life involve mutually beneficial relations between each individual and the sociocultural and physical ecology of the world. Indeed, what makes humans human are the mutually-influential individual ⇔ context coactions that provide nurturance for the maintenance and sustainability of the social and physical ecology of human life. Whereas the significance of such coactions constitute knowledge that is well-understood and strongly evidence based in developmental science, insofar as the physical ecology of our planet is concerned nurturing sustainability of humanity’s common home, the earth, remains controversial at this writing.

Developmental scientists are not the only scientists frustrated by this controversy. Scientists who study the climate of the earth or, more exactly, scientists that study the Earth System (ES), which is defined as the “conglomerate formed by human civilization and its planetary matrix (i.e., all parts of the Earth that interact with the members and manifestations of our species)” (Schellnhuber 2009, p. 20562), are more than frustrated. They are alarmed. For instance, in 2008, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, of both the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Potsdam, Germany and of the Environmental Change Institute and Tyndall Centre of Oxford University in the United Kingdom, published a paper with the provocative title “Global warming: Stop worrying, start panicking?” By 2024 he presented a more profound question pertinent to whether humans have passed a tipping point in changing the ES to so great an extent that the current geo-evolutionary period of the planet, the Anthropocene era, the era of humans, had irrevocably put the earth on a path to being uninhabitable. His 2024 question was: “Can we survive the Anthropocene?” (Schellnhuber 2024).

Schellnhuber is of course neither the only ES scientist expressing concern about this possible future nor the only one calling for better methodology to predict components and outcomes of these changes (e.g., Nofirman 2024; Qiu et al. 2024; Urban et al. 2024). In addition, a common theme in the ES literature is an appeal for policy changes based on good science (and, obviously, not on poor science) and on rejecting the denial of science per se and “conspiracy” theories about the reasons why ES science and scientists should not be believed.

One way that policies and beliefs may be changed is through developing individuals with an understanding of good science and, more specifically in regard to the sustainability of our planet, with a telos to act as stewards of our common home. For instance, Katherine Hayhoe (2021), a leading climate scientist and evangelical Christian, sees science and religion as complimentary lenses—she views theology as providing moral motivation to care for the planet. In addition, her evangelical background leads her to frame climate action as a biblical calling: caring for “the least of these” and stewarding God’s creation. In her view, religion does not just coexist with science—it supplies the ethical imperative to use science responsibly. Developmental scientist and theologian W. George Scarlett (forthcoming) has made a comparable observation:

Collectively, we know how to support children’s and youth’s development as earth stewards, and there are a great many around the world providing that support. Again, it’s not a lack of know-how that’s getting in the way. It’s a lack of cultivating whole cultures in ways needed to get support for earth steward development up to scale

(p. 2).

Given that he is both a developmental scientist and a theologian, it is not surprising that Scarlett does not see a split between the two Magisteriums. Indeed, we find commonality with Scarlett in envisioning that faith-based appeals for stewardship may be an effective means to bring science and religion together and create cohorts of ES stewardship working in a united effort to save our common home. An example might be creating a virtue-based earth-stewardship curriculum for youth of different age levels that is co-developed by character program practitioners, educators, developmental and environmental scientists and local faith communities; this curriculum could entail enactment of sustainability initiatives both in school and in the community. Scarlett points to such collaborative initiatives. He notes that:

religion can and should play a role in bringing support for earth steward development up to scale. But it can’t do so unless we shift from a belief-institution to a faith-tradition paradigm for understanding religion and its potential role for creating whole cultures that get earth steward development up to scale

(Scarlett, forthcoming, p. 14).

Other theologians agree with Scarlett. In fact, their authoritative teachings make clear that earth stewardship is a duty of individuals taught within their Magisterium. Obviously, followers of the Jewish faith see this obligation as a clear part of Tikkun Olam. As well, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox church, underscored the faith-based commitment of his church by explaining the connection between degradation of the earth and sin. At a meeting in 2017 he said: “To commit a crime against the natural environment, against the natural world, is a sin” (Jolley 2025). Pope Francis was also a vocal advocate for climate action. His 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, explained that caring for the Earth is an act of love, justice, and human dignity and that continuing climate change is a moral and spiritual crisis that unjustly disproportionately impacts the world’s poorest people the most. He called for complete transitions away from fossil fuels and for international justice in support for vulnerable nations.

Pope Francis also discussed integral ecology, a concept that emphasizes the biological, physical, chemical, and environmental aspects of world, and that highlights humanity’s embeddedness in nature and their interconnections to all other living creatures and matter on earth (Deneulin and Zepeda 2022). Integral ecology recognizes the value of all life, both human and non-human, with a preferential option for the poor and most vulnerable creatures on the earth (Deane-Drummond and Deneulin 2022). Through the lens of integral ecology, humans and nature are fused. Humans have a dynamic and relational coaction with the natural world.

In sum, there is evidence that, in regard to both the example of palliative care and the example of earth stewardship, there are considerable opportunities to advance what are already beginning mutually-meaningful and mutually-beneficial collaborations between instances of the Magisteriums of Science and Religion. Indeed, we selected these two sample cases not only because of the correspondence they each manifested between the ontologies of being human found in both Magisteriums but, as well, because they represent the already-started collaborations that we hope other scientists and theologians will see as evidence that their humble and open-minded engagement in respectful dialogues across the Magisteriums will create still other instances of the new spiritual information envisioned by Sir John Templeton (1995) more than a quarter-century ago at this writing.

10. Conclusions

In The Humble Approach (Templeton 1995), Sir John Templeton had a vision of scientific and religious discovery that extended across centuries, and not only across a few decades of one century. As we explained, although our authorship team is composed of developmental scientists and a theologian (who is also a developmental scientist), we have written this paper with a recognition of the limitations of our areas of expertise but, as well, with the hope that our presentation may not only generate cross-Magisterium SET or SET-like collaborations that extend across time but, as well, involve scientists and theologians with expertise and perspectives beyond our own.

One possible indicator that our hope is being actualized would be that, at least within developmental science, a “hypothesis searching” (Cattell 1966) research phase of collaborative scholarship will be initiated and that dynamic, RDS metatheory will eventually be appropriate to use in generating hypothesis-testing work, if only at first to evaluate the idea that science–religion collaborative optimization programs result in positive findings more so than programs derived by the ideas of only one of the Magisteriums. The two examples we presented are only initial suggestions of areas wherein a shared, dynamic and relational systems approach to the ontology of human development could be used to launch programmatic science–religion scholarship. Given this admittedly humble and limited—but we believe useful—purpose of this paper, we also hope that leaders in developmental science might collaborate to move the agenda we envision forward. Indeed, if this article is a basis of the launching and growth of scholarship that will eventuate in sufficient data to enable theory creation, we would regard the appearance of such new and sustained developmental science-religion collaborations as evidence that the scholars producing such work are engaging in mutually consequential research.

For example, the dynamic, RDS-based conceptions of mutually-influential coactions characterizing human life and development could prove to be a useful frame for science-religion collaborations. If so, then empirical tests of mutually-beneficial, theory-predicated hypotheses that reject “split” thinking (Overton 2015), implied by Kant ([1781] 1929) and used in Gould’s (1999) NOMA model, could result in the evidence countering such split conceptions. Such evidence would be an example of the new spiritual knowledge envisioned by Sir John Templeton (1995).

Convergences between the theological ontologies of world religions and of science can contribute to efforts to optimize human development and enhance equity and social justice for all individuals. Collaborative efforts, forged through respectful dialogues about such convergences, could result in an action plan representing an historic opportunity for goodwill among all people and peace on a sustainable planet and.

Indeed, although speaking of creating peace and not war between adversarial nuclear powers, and not about mutually-meaningful collaborations between the Magisteriums of Science and Religion, President John F. Kennedy presented a vision not only for respectful dialogue (as in Gould 1999) but for the meaningful collaborations that others, in both science (e.g., Collins 2006) and theology (e.g., Howe 2016; McGrath 2023; McGrath and McGrath 2007; Plantinga 2011), have envisioned. President Kennedy (1963) said:

So, let us not be blind to our differences—but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved… For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.