Quarks, Chaos & Christianity

SMcK foreword: RJS's question below stunned me this morning. Did God create in such a way that the laws of nature were how he created, so that expecting something outside the laws of nature is looking for the wrong thing? And I wonder how you define miracle: Is it an "interpretive" word or the event itself? Anyway, here's the post by RJS:

John Polkinghorne has written an excellent little book Quarks, Chaos & Christianity ruminating on questions related to science and religion. Polkinghorne is a theoretical physicist and an Anglican priest - and his thoughts are always worth considering. Today I would like to look at the chapter in this book on miracles. This discussion, I think, has bearing on the issues related to evolution, creation, and Intelligent Design.

Should we expect the effects of God's intelligent design of creation to be empirically discernible? Did God use natural or miraculous means?

First we must consider what is meant by "miracle." Polkinghorne considers three kinds of miracles in scripture. Miracles arising from normal human abilities possessed to an extraordinary degree, miracles involving the timing or occurrence of natural events, and miracles involving events contrary to nature.

More here-

http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2009/06/what-about-miracles-rjs.html

Interview with a Physicist Theologian

Christian thinkers have long employed insights from sociology, literature, and other fields to augment their ideas of how God works in the world.

Yet despite the world-changing insights of science, very few theologians have drawn on physics, biology or geology in the same way.

Renowned Anglican physicist-theologian John Polkinghorne wants to change all that. His new book, "Theology in the Context of Science," examines what topics like space and time can teach us about God, and how a scientific style of inquiry can benefit theologians.

Polkinghorne, who was awarded the Templeton Prize in 2002 and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his work reconciling science and faith, spoke about his new book from his home in England. Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.


Q: Theology and science are highly specialized, often complex disciplines. Is it feasible for someone to become fully versed in both?

A: I'm not saying that every theologian has to approach theology through the context of science any more than a liberation theologian would say that everyone has to live in base community in South America.

I wrote the book to encourage theologians to take the context of science more seriously ... without having to master all of the technical details.


Q: You write that theologians should be happy to operate in the "questioning" context of science, but they are often not. Why is that?

A: I'm puzzled by that. That kind of thinking impoverishes theology.
Science and theology are cousins on a quest for truth. The insight of science is to move from evidence to understanding, not to start with general principles that will control the whole discussion. Scientists learn that the world is quite often surprising and doesn't match our expectations. I am very happy to practice my religious beliefs in that sort of way.

More here-

http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2009/04/interview-with-a-physicist-the.php

Science Weekly: Olivia Judson on the importance of daring experiments

On this week's podcast, why scientists experiment and how a career in particle physics doesn't mean you can't believe in God.

Biologist and author Olivia Judson tells us where scientists are missing out in their quest for knowledge. They should take more risks and never assume they know anything, she says – experimentation is always the answer.

Particle physicist turned theologian John Polkinghorne tells Ian Sample how he quantifies his religious beliefs. John's scientific work was on elementary particles, and he played a significant role in the discovery of the quark. But in 1979 he left physics to become an Anglican priest and he has since published books on how religion and science can co-exist. His new book – Questions of Truth – proposes answers to questions such as, can you prove God exists, and is he actually a delusion?

In the Newsjam, we discuss why the word "dirty" is most in danger of going the way of the dodo, Nasa's doomed Orbiting Carbon Observatory and why doodling while you listen to this podcast shows that you ARE paying attention.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/audio/2009/mar/02/science-weekly-podcast-olivia-judson-polkinghorne