Over the years of John’s career, he has produced some great quotes in his books, interviews and live show talks that give you a snipper into how he thinks and the views in which he has on Religion and Science as a whole. From various sources on the web, here is a list of the top quotes from each source; we’d love to know what your favorite ones are and why they are so; how do they make you think and feel, do they make you question your own reality?
John Polkinghorne Quotes: Brainyquote
“It is the faithfulness of God that allows epistemology to model ontolgy”
“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.”
“Chance doesn’t mean meaningless randomness, but historical contingency. This happens rather than that, and that’s the way that novelty, new things, come about.”
“However, as the Eastern churches have always maintained, through Christ creation is intended eventually to share in the life of God, the life of divine nature.”
“Of course, nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking, but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe.”
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John C. Polkinghorne: Goodreads
“If we are seeking to serve the God of truth then we should really welcome truth from whatever source it comes. We shouldn’t fear the truth. Some of it will be from science, obviously, but by no means all of it. It will sometimes by perplexing, how this bit of truth relates to that bit of truth; we know that within science itself often enough and we find it outside of science as well. The crucial thing is to be honest.”
“Scientific discovery requires the boldness of provisional commitment to a point of view, while remaining aware that this may require subsequent modification in the light of further experience.”
“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.”
“Epistemology models ontology.”
“Claims for the occurrence of miraculous events will have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. There can be no general theory to cover the character of unique events, but the refusal to contemplate the possibility of revelatory disclosures of an unprecedented kind would be an unacceptable limitation, imposed arbitrarily on the horizons of religious thought.”
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John Polkinghorne: Azquotes
“When you realize that the laws of nature must be incredibly finely tuned to produce the universe we see, that conspires to plant the idea that the universe did not just happen, but that there must be a purpose behind it.”
“God didn’t produce a ready-made world. The Creator has done something cleverer than this, making a world able to make itself.”
“Evolution, of course, is not something that simply applies to life here on earth; it applies to the whole universe.”
“Hope is much more than a mood. It involves a commitment to action…. What we hope for should be what we are prepared to work for…as far as that power lies in us.”
“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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John Polkinghorne: Wikiquote
“Quantum theory also tells us that the world is not simply objective; somehow it’s something more subtle than that. In some sense it is veiled from us, but it has a structure that we can understand”
“God is not a God of the edges, with a vested interest in beginnings. God is the God of the whole show.”
“God didn’t produce a ready-made world. The Creator has done something cleverer than this, making a world able to make itself.”
“There is much cloudy unpredictable process throughout the whole of the physical world. It is a coherent possibility that God interacts with the history of creation by means of “information input” into its open physical process. The causal net of the universe is not drawn so tight as to exclude this possibility. Mere mechanism is dead, and a more subtle and supple universe is accessible to the providential interaction of the Creator.”
“Because the creation is not itself divine, we can prod it and investigate it without impiety”
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John Polkinghorne: Todayinsci
“I stand before you as somebody who is both physicist and a priest, and I want to hold together my scientific and my religious insights and experiences . I want to hold them together, as far as I am able, without dishonesty and without compartmentalism. I don’t want to be a priest on Sunday and a physicist on Monday; I want to be both on both days.”
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John Polkinghorne: Inspiring Quotes
“Hope is much more than a mood. It involves a commitment to action…. What we hope for should be what we are prepared to work for…as far as that power lies in us.”
“God didn’t produce a ready-made world. The Creator has done something cleverer than this, making a world able to make itself.”
“When you realize that the laws of nature must be incredibly finely tuned to produce the universe we see, that conspires to plant the idea that the universe did not just happen, but that there must be a purpose behind it.”
“I think it’s very important to maintain the classical Christian distinction between the Creator and creation.”
“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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