Customer Reviews

Belief in God in an Age of Science (The Terry Lectures Series)

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As a Christian with an undergraduate exposure to theology and a Ph.D. in physics (and a continuing interest in both), I am offended by the lack of intellectual integrity shown by so many authors who address science/theology issues. Whether from the "creationist" side (which seems to be the principal voice being heard from the Christian viewpoint) or the secular-humanist side (which has been the principal voice being heard from the scientific community) the "discussion" (if you can call it that) is all too often characterized by a circular kind of reasoning which begins with a particular world-view and then, by entertaining nothing but "evidence" congenial to that viewpoint, proceeds to arrive at the pre-held viewpoint as the only "logical" conclusion. Equally insidious are the "post modernists" and "subjectivists" who essentially question the point in seeking "truth" of any kind since they regard our perception of "reality" to be hopelessly distorted by our individual and societal agendas, or those who try to compartmentalize faith and reason as equally legitimate but incompatible activities -- as if the reality of faith is somehow different from the reality of the physical universe.

Polkinghorne is a refreshing change from this usual dismal discourse. If you are seeking confirmation that a first-rate scientific mind can exist in company with an unapologetically orthodox Christian faith, this book should do the trick. This is not to say that all readers will agree with all of Polkinghorne's stances. Those of the "Biblical literalist" stripe will undoubtedly be offended that Polkinghorne tolerates no traffic in the Creationist agenda. Secularists will be offended that Polkinghorne unabashedly holds that the revelation of God through scripture and the experience of the Church are expressions of a legitimate reality. Many Christians will be offended that Polkinghorne isn't dogmatic that the Christian faith has a "lock" on theological truth and that he is willing to accept that the other great world religions also have something to contribute to the dialogue. On the other hand, non-Christian religious may well be offended that Polkinghorne is not prepared to negotiate the truth of primary Christian doctrines, such as that of the incarnation. And anyone looking for a "light read" or pat answers will become quickly discouraged -- this is the kind of book you have to read carefully, with the brain fully engaged and open. The satisfaction comes not from achieving closure, but from being engaged with interesting and meaningful questions.

Polkinghorne skilfully and credibly notes how the insights and discoveries of modern physical science have, contrary to the expectations of the 19th century scientific community, become more, rather than less amicable to a theistic worldview. He regards this, not as "proof" of the latter, but rather as a demonstration of his principal thesis: that there is a cosmic reality in the search for which both science and theology are fellow travelers. Science, using tools of experiment and quantification seeks to comprehend the mechanism by which the universe operates. Theology, using the insights of revelation and experience seeks to understand the author of the mechanism and His ongoing purposes. But there is only one reality -- the reality of theology must ultimately be congruent with the reality of science, and vice versa.

Another prevailing theme is that a true seeker of truth must be prepared to accept the tentativeness of our current state of knowledge on any subject -- reality is complex, and our understanding will always be incomplete. At the same time, Polkinghorne believes passionately that reality is accessible to our intellect (which is in itself a pregnant truth to ponder) and he convincingly demonstrates how the journey of truth discovery (allowing for the occasional mis-step along the way) inevitably enlarges rather than overthrows the prior reality. Just as physicists were challenged in the early 20th century to integrate the new realities of relativity and quantum mechanics into the durably functional framework of classical Newtonian physics, so too the early Christian church was challenged to integrate the new reality of the risen Christ and the tangible activity of the Holy Spirit into the durable truth of traditional monotheistic Judaism, resulting ultimately in the Trinitarian formulation. In neither case was the new synthesis achieved by an instant and tidy process (or without controversy surviving even to the present), but this should not be perceived as an embarassment in either case, but rather as a testament to the integrity of the process -- "orthodoxy", whether in science or theology, is the end result of surviving controversy and challenge. In science, the hallmarks of an ultimately acceptable theory are not only that it encompasses all available information, but also that it is fruitful in suggesting new areas of insight, and also conforms to a certain aesthetic of "elegance". The requirements for achieving theological orthodoxy are, in fact, not all that different. Polkinghorne believes that, in both cases, the process does indeed help us to ever more closely apprehend the reality which is our objective.

Periodically, I have been fortunate to have encountered a book whose pages offered both insight and on-going intellectual challenge. This is one of those rare finds. I highly recommend this book for the serious inquirer.

I found Polkinghorne very honest. It is refreshing to see a physicist clearly identify the almost "religious" faith that some scientists (and atheists) have in their explanations for the origin of the universe. Allow me to paraphrase Polkinghorne on pages 8 and 9. "Moving up the scale of bold speculation, one might evoke notions of quantum cosmology which suggest that universes of various kinds are continually appearing, bubbling up as quantum fluctuations in some universal substrate. Speculation becomes even more rash and desperate...maybe the laws of nature themselves fluctuate, so that a vast portfolio of worlds rise and fall within a sea of seething chaos. It is time to consider the other alternative: that there is a divine purpose behind this fruitful universe."

Polkinghorne has not convinced me of the existence of a God, though he has made the "godless universe" alternative look almost as bogus as some of the world's religions. Call me a happy agnostic. I cannot be atheist after reading this book. This book, coupled with John Barrow's "Impossibility", leaves me with hope.

If you are interested in a shallow, simplistic and facile treatment of an extremely important question, you will have to look elsewhere. The same goes for those who approach the subject with a closed mind, whether they are fundamentalists or atheists. If you think you already know all the answers, this book will only annoy you.

However, if you've already spent some time studying this question, buy the book. Or if you are willing to hear from a gentle and thoughtful person who has the highest scientific and theological credentials, buy Polkinghorne's little book.

It's short, but it isn't a quick read. Polkinghorne assumes his audience has some knowledge of the points in question. You might read a few pages, put down the book and think about it for a few days. You might feel a need to learn more about a certain aspect of physics, evolution or even philosophy. You might even find yourself asking a friend, "Do you think God will remember everything about me after I've died, so that He can put me back together again? What is a soul anyways?" Then your friend will smile uncertainly and change the subject.

Right or wrong, Polkinghorne's ideas are reasonable, careful and thoughtful. Other physicists, more famous than Polkinghorne, have made pronouncements about God. They don't share Polkinghorne's expertise in theology. After reading his work, the difference is obvious.

Anyone interested in the interaction between science and religion should read this book.

I love a good book that bridges (because yes there is a bridge) between science and theology. I bought this book after seeing all the praise it received here on Amazon, along with other places. And indeed the book did start out strong. It explored the nuances of how science and theology are woven together to show the purpose of the universe, from the smallest of particles to the largest of galaxies. The enjoyment rose, many considerations were given by the author, then something happened. It was as if a rousing discussion turned into a tedious lecture. My reading slowed down. I understand what Mr. John Polkinghorne is talking about, but the way he talks about all the considerations between science and theology, just seems like a heavy load with dwindling payoff. The sentence and paragraphs just seemed to start boggling down after half the book has been read. This doesn't mean that I don't like what is being said, it is just that what is being said is being said in a very laborious way. I highly suggest readers to read this book, it does have some very important considerations to be made toward the balance and the binding of theology (the exploration toward the mind of God and the will of God and the love of God) and science (how the will of God works on quantum natural, the Newtonian natural, and super-natural levels). At least in my opinion. However, I must warn you that there will be times that you will find yourself laboring through a few pages here and there just wishing the author to get to the point, at least in a more flowing way than he does.

This book is dense in ideas. Fr. Polkinghorne does not talk down to you, he expects you to keep up. I must admit, that even with an MSEE, I had to read some passages three or four times before I felt that I had grasped the nuances. However, it is well worth the effort (assuming you have your OED on hand as well as your old physics and philosophy texts!). I would say that fred101 did a better job than any other reviewer to date in summarizing the key elements of this book, but I will attempt to condense it further and make it more readable -- even if it may only be for my own edification!
Fr. Polkinghorne makes clear that he knows that he cannot claim to make a "proof" of God's existence nor can he likewise claim that science (that is to say the human endeavor to "explain" and thereby predict/retrodict commonly observed phenomena -- my apologies to Huston Smith, but there is my attempt) can completely approach an all encompassing explanation of reality. Modern philosophy as well as modern physics itself (through QM's indeterminancy) and the Incompleteness Theorem of Godel have seen to that. Those who seriously study these subjects will appreciate this. What he can say, however, is this, that science has approached a certain practical level of explanation that cannot be ignored any longer by those of more mystic beliefs or philosophies. Likewise, he argues that at least the belief in a God of the new natural philosophy as he outlines here (and in his other books) would be as (if not more) "intellectually satisfying" in placing a context to the cosmos as we understand it currently than a universe born out of nothing! He adds to this that it is to his thinking nothing short of spectacular to heap upon this a belief, as non-intelligent design'ers must, in the coincidences of the apparently narrow path which not only brought us into existence, but which also makes the universe appear to fight our general understandings of entropy (chaos) by "becoming" something more "complex" and even "self aware" (through our minds) rather than just remaining within its equally likely state of the original primordial chaos of the big bang. Perhaps, only David Bohm or Fritjof Capra have offered something plausible here, but they are not in the mainstream of interpretations of QM. Fr. Polkinghorne relies on the former to explain this God's possible method of interaction with our reality through its complex (edge of order and chaos) systems. This could be considered a weak link by many, but there it is. I admit that I am slightly inclined to it myself, as far as it may be taken.
If there are any other weak points to Fr. Polkinghorne's thinking, they would start with the connection he attempts to make between this neo-natural theology and the orthodoxy of Christianity. I honestly didn't understand it. At best I would describe it as a liberal application of "Cartesian Doubt" -- If you don't know/have any better facts, it's best to stick with what's most commonly believed. But by that logic then we should all perhaps be Buddists or Muslims. Anyway, from other reviews, I am apparently not alone. In his defense, he rightly points out that "critical realism" as applied to theological study is a new field and better theological minds than he have only begun to grope its boundaries -- we therefore must be respectfully patient on this perhaps. Equally unfortunate is the fact that he evades (squarely!) facing the question of the rather spectacular notion that such a Creator, as he just envisioned, should bestow any particularly special character to one (incredibly small!) cultural group and to add perhaps more insult to this, only visit them with an incarnation of Himself -- leaving no first-hand written word. For a design as spectacular and intricate as this universe appears to me, on a planet as small as ours, it would seem to be a blundering oversight to miss all the other diverse cultures -- though, to the mind of a chaotician, nothing could be a sweeter picture, perhaps, than one illiterate man, coming from seeming nowheresville, and exhibiting such a major influence upon the world.

In all, this may be one of the most important books you'll ever read, if you understand it! I very highly recommend it.

John Polkinghorne is truly an intellectual. I picked up all of his books at the library thinking they would be a fun but brief read. I was dead wrong. His books may be short (this one is 130 pages) but the material is dense. Anyone who is interested in Science and Theology (regardless whether they are a Naturalist or not), Polkinghorne is required reading.

He is a Theoretical Physicist, former President (now fellow) of Queens College and Canon Theologian of Liverpool. He is also an ordained Anglican priest. He was part of the group of physicists that discovered quarks and gluons and is unquestionably qualified to write on the intersection of Religion and Science.

As someone who took little interest in science in high school, and continued to be apathetic towards science my first year of university, I know nothing about physics. Now I have taken interest in science, particularly evolutionary biology. But physics always seemed too esoteric and dense to be of any interest to me. Until I started reading more about it and realized how fantastic a subject it is.

But I am still an amateur and getting through this book was quite difficult but I think the determined reader armed with a dictionary, can plow through and learn much about what theology has to say about Reality in light of science. When discussing the concepts of physics and theology Polkinghorne often takes the readers knowledge for granted assuming everyone knows the mathematics of Chaos Theory or of "epistemological input and ontological belief" in Critical Realism. It can get a little frustrating to be reading and have no clue what he is talking about, but with persitance, it is overall an enjoyable read.

This IS NOT an apologetic work and anyone who approaches this as such will not find any conclusive evidence that God exists. Polkinghorne does briefly discuss some basic defenses on the existence of God, but by no means goes into a detailed discussion. Those looking for definitive proof will have to look elsewhere. As a matter of fact, those who think they have found conclusive proof that God exists (or doesn't exist) is quite delusional. I think both stances can be rationally defended. I think this book is focused on "If there is a God what would his character be in light of the processes of the Natural World?" And in my opinion, although Polkinghorne himself does not say this, the Christian God seems to fit this role much easier than the ideas of God in Islam and Judaism, as well as the eternally cyclical and impersonal "essences" of Buddhism and Hinduism. In Eastern Orthodoxy (and Hans Kung also discusses this in "On Being a Christian" and in more detail in "Does God Exist?"), unlike the West, God is not something we can prove by mere methods of reasoning. He is something we cannot even described with words (in the East this is called apophatic theology), but He is a personal living being in which we enter into a mystical relationship, sharing in his divine nature. Polkinghorne did not mean to prove God's existence through physics or math, just open the minds of those that might never have thought that it is possible to believe in God in an age of science.

But I think traditional Theism wins out because, as Polkinghorne states, it is concerned "with making total sense of reality...the force of its claims depends upon the degree to which belief in God affords the best explanation of the varieties, not just of religious experience, but of all human experience"(24). But whether you believe this is true or not he discusses how new findings in science can help us develop our theology better when it comes to questions about Divine Providence, Predestination/Freewill, the Christian doctrine of the Fall, the nature of God (especially his omnipotence) and God's relationship to the material world.

In the conclusion of this review let me pick out a few ideas that I found especially interesting to me an Orthodox Christian, and then investigate how these relate to the theology of Eastern Orthodoxy (where I believe there is the best synthesis of science and metaphysics).

For instance his idea on the Fall found on pages 87-89 are astounding. He explains how can understand the myth found in Genesis and how to understand it. Here is a rather large quote of this discussion:

"The scale of theological thinking, in both space and time, still remains domesticated and anthropocentric. When theologians speak of the "world", they usually do not mean the universe but our local planet. When they talk of history, it is mostly the few thousand years of human cultural development that they have in mind. When they talk of the future, it seems to stretch only a few centuries onward. This means that some questions referring to cosmic beginnings and endings require further discussion.

Concern with beginnings scarcely needs to focus yet again on the tired issue of big bang cosmology. Popular science writers, who like to garnish their wares with references to God, still seem to find it difficult to grasp that the doctrine of creation is concerned with why the world exists, and continues to exist, rather than how it all began. Yet the rest of us know that theology is concerned with these ontological questions and that it gains little from science's fascinating, but largely theologically irrelevant, talk of temporal origins. Much more important is that event which is that event which surely the most significant in cosmic history to date--the dawn of consciousness. From the theological point of view this raises the acute question of how we are to understand the Christian doctrine of the Fall.

In sense of contemporary experience it seems to straightforward. One recalls Reinhold Niebuhr's remark that original sin is the only empirically verifiable Christian doctrine! You only have to look around--or within--to see the slantedness of human nature, which frustrates human hopes and perverts human desires. Yet we can no more believe that this is the entail of a single disastrous ancestral act than we can believe that there was neither death nor thistles in the world before our forebears took that fateful step. It has long been understood that the powerful tale of Genesis 3 is to be understood mythically rather than literally. In part it portrays life as we now experience it, but that recognition does not remove the question of how these things came to be in God's supposedly good creation.

Clearly consciousness is possessed by some of the higher animals but it seems likely that the further power of self-consciousness, with its concomitant ability to form expectations and plans for the future, only dawned with the evolution of hominid lines leading eventually to Homo sapiens. As that self-awareness developed, I suppose that a corresponding spiritual awareness of the presence of God also became apart of the experience of these living beings. One can conceive of a struggle in the hominid psyche between the pole of the divine, resolved by a turning from God and a concentration on the creature as all-sufficient, a succumbing to the temptation whispered in Eve's ear by the serpent in that powerful ancient story, to assert human autonomy over creaturely dependence, to believe "you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:5). In Luther's phrase, humanity became incurvatus in se. At what stage in hominid development, an over what period of time, this inversion upon the self took place, I do not know. That it has taken place seems confirmed by the contemporary human condition. It is in these terms that one can try to construct a contemporary doctrine of the Fall.

There was death in the world long before there were our human precursors. After all, it was the extermination of the dinosaurs that gave us mammals our evolutionary chance. But the Fall, as I have described it, turned death into mortality. Self-consciousness made us aware of our transience--we could foresee our deaths--and alienation from the God who is the eternal ground of hope, turned that recognition into sadness and bitterness. In a similar way, the problems of living, symbolized by thorns and thistles, became causes of frustration and the expense of spirit" (87-89)

In Eastern Orthodoxy the Garden and the Fall is not some "perfect" place where Adam and Eve were fully realized in their perfection, and that we "fell" from this status and now we are forever damned by the transmission of "Original Sin" by our progenitors. This is a Western Idea of the Fall. In the light of physics the universe seems to have an inclination towards openness and creaturely self-making and this seems to square much better with Eastern cosmology than with the West. As Vladimir Lossky states in "Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church" we see in "the initial state of the created cosmos an unstable perfection in which the fullness of union is not yet achieved and in which created beings still have to grown in love in order to accomplish the thought-will of God" (97). And these thought-wills "determine the different modes that creatures participate in the creative energies" (95). So instead of the myth in Genesis being understood as something that once was, it was something that could have been. Rather than being partners with God, partaking in His nature, growing in perfection, we instead chose ourselves to be self-sufficient. Christ restored that broken bond out of love, not as a satisfaction of God's wrath. He "became human so that humans may become divine" as St Athanasius said.

So in Eastern thought the universe is more dynamic and relational in character, not the static universe of Augustine. So we, as creature reveled to be created in the Image and Likeness of God have the supreme role in the cosmic drama as microcosm and mediator bringing together the physical and spiritual universe, which we truly become "gods" as God himself became man, that the material world becomes full of God's divine Energies through our responsibility as "priests".

If one would like to go further I would recommend "Light from the East" by Alexei V. Nesteruk.

In this book Polkinghorne tries to show that theology is a rational discipline. The book is intensely honest and filled with intelligent ideas you enjoy thinking about even if at the end you disagree with. Some of them, such as what the Christian dogma of the Fall of Man means within humanity's evolution, took my breath away. The same goes for his proposal on how actually God acts in the world and scientist's model on how He will act to resurrect all souls on the Second Coming. To see a scientist try to make science compatible with religion not to mention Christian mythology is really amazing.

Since Galileo, the Church has been frantically retreating from its claims about nature and about natural theology. Today theology finds itself in the corner and Polkinghorne builds his last line defense on arguments such as the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in physics, the Anthropic Principle and the physicists' subjective search for beautiful theory. These arguments, even though brilliantly constructed, will not convince anybody who is not convinced already, and are, I think, wrong.

Polkinghorne, being a scientist, is too respectful of science for my taste. I would have enjoyed a more aggressive stand, showing, for example, that human agency, not to mention human consciousness, is difficult to reconcile with the scientific view. Also, he devotes exactly one phrase on the spooky phenomenon of uniform mystical experience that cuts through time and religious denominations. He plays by the rules of science and insists on the losing proposition that theology is rational and therefore should be as convincing and taken as seriously as science. Polkinghorne puts a lot of emphasis on the "unity of knowledge" and tries to unify science and theology and to show that these are aspects of the same search for truth. A better strategy would be to have theology engulf science and explain that science forms only a small (not even a very relevant part) of knowledge. After all, how we should manage our spouse and kids, how to understand pain and failure in life, are matters outside of science and much more relevant to our well-being and to our understanding of the world and its meaning. For literally everybody, this kind of knowledge is more important than scientific knowledge. To a religious person God is everything and knowledge starts with God and passes through layers before reaching at its most basic level knowledge about the physical world.

On the whole, this is a very worthwhile book that is filled with ideas and references to other books. I have not read much on this subject but this book probably shows how far rational theology can go which is not very far - a sobering and important conclusion.

The review title is in reference to the actual book contents and some of the previous reviews. Yes, this is one of the meatiest books I've ever read. I have several college courses under my belt in philosophy, along with a B.S. and M.S. in geology, but even so there were sections that went over my head. Anyone who wants to tackle this should have a basic philosophy background and know a thing or two about the scientific method. Knowing quantum physics helps too.
I still gave this book such a high mark since it was practically flawless as far as logic is concerned. Trying to look skeptically, I had a hard time arguing against his points. Any person predisposed towards a strong rationalist/metaphysical naturalist viewpoint probably will still encounter stumbling blocks when Polkinghorne discusses Christian theology. What anyone from that viewpoint will not be able to do is disprove his points, or even call them implausible.
The sections that weren't replete with philosophical jargon were actually pretty accessible, and I thought the writing was wonderful. If you're looking for a book that will help your spiritual mind make peace with your thinking mind, READ THIS. Just make sure to know your philosophy of science beforehand.

Polkinghorne satisfies the conflict some Christians have between the concept of creation and the evidence of evolution. Wonderfully literate and thoughtful reasoning by a brilliant and humble man. A must for any serious exploration of our faith and its expression in today's scientific world.

I was fascinated by this book and aim to read it again. Although some of the philosophy can be a bit thick at times, this is an excellent overview of the relationship (healthy and dysfunctional at times) of science and religion/theology.

I think this book picks up where E.O. Wilson's *Consilience* leaves off. Polkinghorne faces squarely both the strengths and the difficulties/drawbacks of empircal science and religion (specifically Christian theism, although much is of general interest) and shows that each discipline gains from understanding the complementary interests and value of the other.

I can truly say that this book has enriched my thinking.

Cannot recommend this highly enough.