John Polkinghorne – Science & Faith

“I think of science and religious faith as being two eyes. Both are looking for truth. I can see with more depth and accuracy using both eyes together, like binocular vision, than if I use either eye by itself separately.”

“I’m a very passionate believer in the unity of knowledge. There is one world of reality – one world of our experience that we’re seeking to describe.”

“If the experience of science teaches anything, it’s that the world is very strange and surprising. The many revolutions in science have certainly shown that.”

“Quantum theory also tells us that the world is not simply objective; somehow it’s something more subtle than that. In some sense it is veiled from us, but it has a structure that we can understand.”

“Science cannot tell theology how to construct a doctrine of creation, but you can’t construct a doctrine of creation without taking account of the age of the universe and the evolutionary character of cosmic history.”

 

Rev Dr Sir John Charlton Polkinghorne KBE FRS (born 16 October 1930) was Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1979, when he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest in 1982. He served as the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge from 1988 until 1996.

Polkinghorne is the author of five books on physics, and 26 on the relationship between science and religion; his publications include The Quantum World (1989), Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship (2005) and Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion (2007). He was knighted in 1997 and in 2002 received the $1 million Templeton Prize, awarded for exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.

Photo credit: Julia Vitullo-Martin

More on John Polkinghorne can be seen here.

There are a wealth of talks by John Polkinghorne on the website of the The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion.