Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion - Hardcover

Polkinghorne, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300110146 ISBN 13: 9780300110142

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Reality is multi-layered, asserts the Reverend John Polkinghorne, and in this insightful book he explores various dimensions of the human encounter with reality. Through a well-reasoned and logical process, Polkinghorne argues that reality consists not only of the scientific processes of the natural world but also the personal dimension of human nature and its significance. He offers an integrated view of reality, encompassing a range of insights deriving from physics’ account of causal structure, evolutionary understanding of human nature, the unique significance of Jesus of Nazareth, and the human encounter with God.

The author devotes further chapters to specific problems and questions raised by the Christian account of divine reality. He discusses, for example, the nature of time and God’s relation to it, the interrelationship of the world’s faiths, the problem of evil, and practical ethical issues relating to genetic advances, including stem cell research. Continuing in his pursuit of a dialogue between science and theology that accords equal weight to the insights of each, Polkinghorne expands our understanding of the nature of reality and our appreciation of its complexity.

About this title

About the Author

John Polkinghorne, KBE, FRS, is fellow and retired president of Queens’ College, Cambridge. Winner of the 2002 Templeton Prize, he is both a quantum physicist and an Anglican priest.

Reviews

Starred Review. According to the physicist-priest Polkinghorne, "If the physicists seem to achieve their ends more successfully than the theologians, that is simply a reflection of how much easier science is than theology." Without abandoning his general standpoint as both a scientist and a theologian, Polkinghorne's essays pursue a wider set of interests, acknowledging terrain where theology becomes difficult and uncertain work. Reflections on issues of space-time, quantum mechanics and chaos theory—familiar from Polkinghorne's previous books—are joined by essays on human nature, the problem of evil, the historical Jesus and the relationship between Christianity and other faiths. Polkinghorne's basic approach remains consistent: he is a friend of science, but a foe of scientific reductionism, arguing that "nothing [science] can tell us requires us to deny our directly experienced human capacity" to act responsibly and seek meaning in the universe. Surveying human aptitudes for self-consciousness, language, rationality, creativity, moral awareness and the "slantedness" of human life that theologians call sin, Polkinghorne concludes, "how strange it is that many biologists... claim not to be able so see anything really distinctive about Homo sapiens." Balancing intellectual modesty with openness about his own Christian faith, Polkinghorne's reflections will engage both thoughtful believers and inquirers into issues of faith and reason. (Nov. 29)
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In the latest of his ongoing reflections on the connections between faith and science, Polkinghorne ponders the limits of an empirical approach to reality, persuasively arguing that human experience comes fully into focus only in religious belief. Thus, readers contemplate distinctively human attributes--language, self-consciousness, morality, spirituality--that resist neo-Darwinian explanations yet harmonize with scriptural doctrines about the divine image impressed upon our species. Probing further, Polkinghorne illuminates the human need for hope that transcends the grim cosmic predictions of astrophysics. He finds that hope in the resurrection of Jesus, but he concedes that neither science nor religion can yet resolve the doctrinal disagreements separating Christianity from other world faiths. But the shared metaphysics that already leads Moslems, Jews, and Christians toward similar scientific perspectives emboldens him to believe that patient interfaith dialogue will in time unite now-divided religionists as they confront the challenges of twenty-first-century bioethics. A book to stimulate the thinking of skeptics and believers alike. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300110146
• ISBN 13: 9780300110142
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208