Quarks, chaos & Christianity : questions to science and religion

By: John Polkinghorne

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Synopsis: "As someone who's both a scientist and an Anglican priest, I've been concerned with trying to understand how the scientific and religious views of the world relate to each other. Do we have to choose between them or are they, instead, complementary understandings that, seen together, give us a fuller picture than either on their own would provide? I find the best way to sort out what I really think is to try to write it down. The late Bishop John Robinson once said to me that he couldn't think without a pen in his hand, and I knew exactly what he meant. In consequence, I've written six books on different aspects of this question. Now I've decided it would be useful to try to provide an overview that surveyed the whole scene, rather than concentrating on this or that particular feature of it, as my earlier books have done. At the same time, it gives me the chance to try to set out the main lines of the argument without having to reproduce all the detailed discussion that I've gone into previously. I do a fair amount of speaking on these issues, and I always greatly enjoy the discussion period that normally follows a lecture. This experience has given me some idea of what the main questions are in people's minds, and what are the most helpful insights to offer them. I actually think that we need both science and religion, and that they have many important things to say to each other. I hope this short book may help others to share in such a conversation."