The Faith of a Physicist
John Polkinghorne, “The Faith of a Physicist,” Fortress Press, 1996.
“It was a brilliant tactic of investigation for Galileo and his successors to confine themselves to the primary quantitative questions of matter and motion, but that narrow view would be a poor metaphysical strategy, condemning one to a narrow reductionist conception of reality. Those discarded secondary qualities of human perception may in fact prove to be primary clues to the construction of an ampler view of the way the world is. Music is more than vibrations in the air.” (p. 5)
“I want to try to show that although faith goes beyond what is logically demonstrable – and what worthwhile view of reality does not? – yet it is capable of rational motivation.” (p. 5)
“As Jeffery Wicken says, ‘Although scientists may officially eschew metaphysics, they love it dearly and practice it in popularized books whenever they get the chance.’” (p. 9)
“The direction of our thought is taking is that of an ample and many-valued view of human nature, which resists men and women being confined to consideration under some impoverished rubric such as genetic survival machines or computers made of meat.” (p. 13)
“Our investigations of physical reality can largely be ordered into a hierarchy of sciences whose objects of inquiry manifest an increasing degree of complexity: physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology. Those of a reductionist frame of mind regard the ‘higher’ sciences as no more than elaborations on the fundamental themes of the ‘lower’. In the end, all is physics… Such a thorough-going reductionism is a kind of neo-mechanical view of reality, and since it is the ‘mechanical’ problems which get solves first…, it is scarcely surprising the biologists are tempted,…, to espouse such opinions. Physicists did the same in the eighteenth century, but they have accumulated more experience since then… and its practitioners, in consequence, tend to be much more wary about making claims that all is within their narrow grasp.” (p. 28)
“Anthony Kenney says: ‘After all, if there is no God, then God is incalculably the greatest single creation of the human imagination. No other creations of the imagination has been so fertile of ideas, so great an inspiration to philosophy, to literature, to painting, sculpture, architecture, and drama; no other creation of the imagination has done so much to stir human beings to deeds of horror and nobility, or set them to lives of austerity or endeavor.’” (p. 52)
“If I were asked to say what is the present consequence for the believer of holding a belief in God – what is its ‘cash value’ in terms of life now – I would summarize the answer by saying that there is One who is worthy of worship and that he is the fitting ground of the hope that there is a meaning to existence and a final fulfillment awaiting us.” (p. 66)
“Very early in the universe’s history… there was a sequence of events in the course of which the presently-experienced forces of nature crystallized out from the original, highly symmetric, grand unified state. … the balance between the strength of the forces that results depends upon the infinitesimal… triggers which cause the crystallization to occur in this way rather than that. These force ratios are of anthropic significance. If they do not lie within certain narrow limits, the subsequent history of the universe will not be capable of producing carbon-based life. It is not inconceivable …that part of the divine Creatorly activity brought it about that the ratios fell within the anthropic limits…” (p. 79)
“Keith Ward…: ‘It often seems that we can neither stand the thought of God acting often (since that would infringe our freedom), nor the thought of him acting rarely (since that makes him responsible for our suffering).’” (p.83)
“In relation to moral evil…, despite the many disastrous choices…, a world of freely choosing beings is better than a world of perfectly programmed automata. …in relation to physical evil…, God allows the whole universe to be itself. Each created entity is allowed to behave in accordance with its nature…” (p. 83)
“…what is the value in his allowing a tectonic plate to slip or a cell to become cancerous? Could not these be corrected without doing violence to the integrity of creation? … I take it we are not considering the possibility of a merely magical world in which fire changes its characteristics when it comes within a few inches of a human hand. … We are characters who have emerged from the scenery; its nature is the ground of the possibility of our nature.” (pp. 84-85)
“It seems to me, as a matter of Christian experience, that one has to strive to take scripture seriously in its totally. An a la carte approach, relying on carefully selected favourite passages, would be an unacceptable impoverishment.” (p. 153)
“Scientists who are hostile to religion tend to make remarks such as ‘Unlike science, religion is based on unquestioning certainties.’ They thereby betray their lack of acquaintance with the practice of religion. Periods of doubt and perplexity have a well-documented role in spiritual development.” (p. 193)