JP
John Polkinghorne
55quotes
Quotes by John Polkinghorne
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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.
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So Whitehead’s metaphysics doesn’t fit very well on to physics as we understand the process of the world.
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I think it’s very important to maintain the classical Christian distinction between the Creator and creation.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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