This qualitative interview-based study examines metaphysical views of natural scientists (n = 35), focusing on the relationship of self to the universe. We use as a framework the idea of oneness, the view that the universe is fundamentally one thing. We examine how scientists situate their positions on religion and ultimate reality engaging with this concept. Our main research questions are: (1) How do natural scientists conceive of ultimate reality? What is their ontological picture of the world/universe? (2) How do natural scientists relate their spiritual, religious, and ethical outlook to their scientific topic(s) of study? Participants hold a sophisticated range of views that are influenced both by religious self-identification and disciplinary field. They regularly turn to philosophy and theology to guide their forays into ultimate reality, including philosophical and theological traditions such as Daoism, Buddhism, Calvinism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and ancient philosophy. We found that natural sciences and humanities do not compete, but are complementary when it comes to meaning-making.

This essay is a social-scientific study of Paul's deployment of holiness language in 1 Corinthians. Specifically, an interpretation of holiness is offered to explain Paul's argument in 1 Cor 7.12–16 in favour of non-separation in the case of a believer married to a non-believer. For Paul, holiness involves participation in the oneness of God interpreted christologically. This participation is embodied in the holiness-as-oneness of the church. In relations between believers and unbelievers, purity rules to do with sex and marriage carry a significant symbolic burden. In some cases, clear lines of demarcation are drawn. Other cases constitute grey areas; and the suggestion here is that ‘mixed marriages’ are one such. For Paul, holiness is a matter of neither genealogical nor cultic purity. Rather, it has a boundary-transcending quality. In the case of a mixed marriage, the unbelieving partner, together with the children, is sanctified by remaining in oneness with the believing partner. Paul's concern for the oneness of the church spills over into a concern for the oneness of the household.

When Paul employs the motif of oneness in 1 Corinthians 12 and joins it to the metaphor of Christ's body, he is drawing not only on Greco-Roman political rhetoric, as argued by the majority of interpreters, but also, and at times more directly, from theological wells found within his Jewish theological heritage: the use of the phrase ‘one body’ in 1 Corinthians is an ecclesial application of the Shema. Paul's oneness language expresses not simply a call to internal unity or social harmony. Ultimately, the ecclesial designation ‘one’ is a succinct articulation of an ecclesiology of Christological monotheism.