The Faith of a Scientist

From an inter­view at Chris­tian­i­ty Today: John Polk­ing­horne worked for years as a the­o­ret­i­cal ele­men­tary par­ti­cle physi­cist and then a math­e­mat­i­cal physics pro­fes­sor at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty before resign­ing to train for min­istry in the Church of Eng­land. Ear­li­er this year, he was award­ed the 2002 Tem­ple­ton Prize for progress in reli­gion…

Polk­ing­horne on whether sci­ence and faith are com­pat­i­ble: “I’ve nev­er felt an either/or sit­u­a­tion that I had to choose either my sci­ence or my reli­gious belief. Of course, there are puz­zles about how the two relate to each oth­er, and I tried to think about those dur­ing my sci­ence days. And, of course, I’ve thought a great deal more about them since then.

“I try to hold the two togeth­er as far as I can myself. I want to be, so to speak two-eyed: look­ing through my sci­ence eye and my reli­gious eye at the same time. I’m glad that I’m both a physi­cist and a priest and, though I’m puz­zled by how those aspects of me fit togeth­er, I want to hold them in dia­logue with each oth­er.” (read the whole thing)