Quotes by John Polkinghorne - Page 1

At present, too much theological thinking is very human-centered.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Theological
Thinking
Too Much
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It is the faithfulness of God that allows epistemology to model ontology.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
God
Epistemology
Faithfulness
Ontology
Model
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Mathematics is the abstract key which turns the lock of the physical universe.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Keys
Math
Teaching
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God is not a God of the edges, with a vested interest in beginnings. God is the God of the whole show.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Interest
Shows
Whole
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Whitehead reacted strongly against the idea of God as a cosmic tyrant, one who brings about everything.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Cosmic
Ideas
Tyrants
Brings
Strongly
Tyrant
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So Whitehead's metaphysics doesn't fit very well on to physics as we understand the process of the world.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Fit
Metaphysics
Physics
World
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I think it's very important to maintain the classical Christian distinction between the Creator and creation.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Christian
Creation
Distinction
Important
Thinking
Classical
Maintain
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Evolution, of course, is not something that simply applies to life here on earth; it applies to the whole universe.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Courses
Earth
Evolution
Universe
Life Universe Earth
Course
Simply
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The rational transparency and beauty of the universe are surely too remarkable to be treated as just happy accidents.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Happy Accidents
Remarkable
Transparency
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God didn't produce a ready-made world. The Creator has done something cleverer than this, making a world able to make itself.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Able
Done
World
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Those theologians who are beginning to take the doctrine of creation very seriously should pay some attention to science's story.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Science
Attention
Creation
Doctrine
Pay
Stories
Beginning
Seriously
Story
Theologians
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Yes, I was a parish priest for five years. I was a curate in a large working class parish in Bristol and the Vicar of a village in Kent.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Bristol
Class
Five
Parish
Village
Years
Curate
Large
Priest
Vicar
Yes
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I need the binocular approach of science and religion if I am to do any sort of justice to the deep and rich reality of the world in which we live.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Justice
Needs
Reality
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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.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Knowledge
Believer
Passionate
Reality
Seeking
Unity
Experience Reality World
Knowledge Experience World
Describe
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I very much enjoyed my career in science. I didn't leave science because I was disillusioned, but felt I'd done my bit for it after about twenty-five years.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Careers
Disillusioned
Enjoyed
Twenties
Twenty Five
Years
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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.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Revolution
Strange
Surprising
World
Revolutions
Shown
Teaches
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Nevertheless, all of us who work in quantum physics believe in the reality of a quantum world, and the reality of quantum entities like protons and electrons.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Believe
Nevertheless
Physics
Quantum
Quantum Physics
Reality
World
Electron
Entities
Work World Believe
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However, as the Eastern churches have always maintained, through Christ creation is intended eventually to share in the life of God, the life of divine nature.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Christ
Church
Creation
Divine
Divine Nature
Eastern
Share
Life Nature God
Churches
Eventually
However
Intended
Maintained
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Chance doesn't mean meaningless randomness, but historical contingency. This happens rather than that, and that's the way that novelty, new things, come about.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Chance
Contingency
Historical
Mean
Meaningless
New Things
Novelty
Randomness
Way
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Hope is much more than a mood. It involves a commitment to action.... What we hope for should be what we are prepared to work for...as far as that power lies in us.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Action
Commitment
Lying
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I was very much on the mathematical side, where you probably do your best work before you're forty-five. Having passed that significant date, I thought I would do something else.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Best Work
Mathematical
Sides
Significant
Best Work Your
Best Work Do Your Best
Date
Do Your Best
Forty-Five
Passed
Something Else
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Well, it's because I gladly acknowledge some ideas that are part of process theology, but which I think are not tied to all the details of process thought, and are very illuminating and helpful.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Acknowledge
Details
Ideas
Illuminating
Theology
Thinking
Tied
Gladly
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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.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Quantum
Structure
Subtle
Theory
World
Understand
Also
Simply
Objective
Some
Sense
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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.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Age
Science
Character
Cosmic
Creation
Doctrine
Theology
Universe
Account
Construct
Evolutionary
Taking
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Of course, Einstein was a very great scientist indeed, and I have enormous respect for him, and great admiration for the discoveries he made. But he was very committed to a view of the objectivity of the physical world.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Admiration
Committed
Discovery
Enormous
Objectivity
Scientist
Views
Respect Great World
Discoveries
Einstein
Indeed
Physical
Physical World
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When you realize that the laws of nature must be incredibly finely tuned to produce the universe we see, that conspires to plant the idea that the universe did not just happen, but that there must be a purpose behind it.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Nature
Everything Happens For A Reason
Ideas
Law
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Bottom up thinkers try to start from experience and move from experience to understanding. They don't start with certain general principles they think beforehand are likely to be true; they just hope to find out what reality is like.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Bottom
Moving
Principles
Reality
Thinking
Understanding
General
Be True
Beforehand
Likely
Thinkers
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The physical fabric of the world had to be such as to enable that ten billion year preliminary evolution to produce the raw materials of life. Without it there would not have been the chemical materials to allow life to evolve here on earth.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Earth
Evolution
Evolve
Fabric
Materials
Produce
Raw Materials
Ten
Years
Allow
Life World Earth
Billion
Chemical
Enable
Physical
Preliminary
Raw
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People, and especially theologians, should try to familiarize themselves with scientific ideas. Of course, science is technical in many respects, but there are some very good books that try to set out some of the conceptual structure of science.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Book
Ideas
People
Structure
Science Good People
Conceptual
Many Respects
Respects
Scientific
Theologians
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Theologians have a great problem because they're seeking to speak about God. Since God is the ground of everything that is, there's a sense in which every human inquiry is grist to the theological mill. Obviously, no theologian can know everything.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Inquiry
Problem
Seeking
Speak
Theologian
Since
Ground
Mill
Obviously
Sense
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Of course, nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking, but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Culture
Deny
Fifteen
Human Beings
Importance
Thinking
Thousand
Thousand Years
Universe
Years
Beings
Billion
Span
The History Of
Theologians
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After all, the universe required ten billion years of evolution before life was even possible; the evolution of the stars and the evolving of new chemical elements in the nuclear furnaces of the stars were indispensable prerequisites for the generation of life.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Elements
Evolution
Generations
Indispensable
Nuclear
Stars
Ten
Universe
Years
After
Before
Billion
Chemical
Possible
Evolving
Generation
Required
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I also think we need to maintain distinctions - the doctrine of creation is different from a scientific cosmology, and we should resist the temptation, which sometimes scientists give in to, to try to assimilate the concepts of theology to the concepts of science.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Concepts
Cosmology
Creation
Doctrine
Giving
Temptation
Theology
Thinking
Assimilate
Distinctions
Maintain
Resist
Scientific
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The test of a theory is its ability to cope with all the relevant phenomena, not its a priori 'reasonableness'. The latter would have proved a poor guide in the development of science, which often makes progress by its encounter with the totally unexpected and initially extremely puzzling.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Science
Encounters
Progress
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The remarkable insights that science affords us into the intelligible workings of the world cry out for an explanation more profound than that which itself can provide. Religion, if it is to take seriously its claim that the world is the creation of god, must be humble enough to learn from science what that world is actually like. The dialogue between them can only be mutually enriching.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Humble
Profound
World
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Theology differs from science in many respects, because of its different subject matter, a personal God who cannot be put to the test in the way that the impersonal physical world can be subjected to experimental enquiry. Yet science and theology have this in common, that each can be, and should be defended as being investigations of what is, the search for increasing verisimilitude in our understanding of reality.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Reality
Tests
Understanding
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Science and religion...are friends, not foes, in the common quest for knowledge. Some people may find this surprising, for there's a feeling throughout our society that religious belief is outmoded, or downright impossible, in a scientific age. I don't agree. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if people in this so-called 'scientific age' knew a bit more about science than many of them actually do, they'd find it easier to share my views.
John Polkinghorne / Physicist
Journey
Knowledge
Religion
Science
Religious
Views
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