At age 48, Dr. John Polkinghorne resigned his Cambridge professorship of mathematical physics to enter Westcott House, an Anglican seminary in Cambridge. It was somewhat shocking news to the scientific community, given his success in academic research. He had not only published many papers on theoretical elementary particle physics and two technical scientific books, but he also played a significant role in a very big scientific event, the discovery of the very small particle of matter--the quark.

By all measures he is as influential in the clergy as he remains in science. First serving as a curate in a working-class parish, he went on to become president of Queens’ College at Cambridge. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997, founded the International Society for Science and Religion, and has written a bookshelf full of articles and books on the interrelationship of science and theology. In 2002 he won the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research for Discoveries about Spiritual Realities.

tothesource: It is all too common to see the relationship of science to religion either as one of antagonism or complete independence of one from the other. I take it from Science and the Trinity, that you heartily but respectfully disagree?

John Polkinghorne: Science and religion are complementary, both seeking truth through motivated belief but at different levels--science on the impersonal universe and religion on the level of the transpersonal reality of God.

tts: You speak of the "profound intelligibility of the universe." Is it profound enough that science could very well be pointing to God, rather than, as many prominent physicists have proclaimed, away from God?

JP: The deep intelligibility of the universe is no 'happy accident', but it reflects the fact that the Mind of God lies behind the wonderful order of the world and we are creatures made in the image of our Creator, that is, made so that we can understand that deep intelligibility.

tts: We are used to having theologians who are not scientists make grand claims about science, and scientists who are not theologians make even grander theological claims. You are both a scientist and theologian, a physicist and an Anglican priest. How has your dual background helped you curb some of the ambitions and excesses of such theologians and scientists?

JP: Scientists and theologians should listen respectfully to each other and not think they can tell the other side what they ought to think about their own specific concerns.

tts: I am sure that at least some of your fellow scientists find you taking Scripture with the utmost seriousness a bit odd. They might well ask, "How can a physicist lend any credence to the Bible, especially given the embarrassing number of alleged miracles?" How do you respond?

JP: In the realm of the personal generally, and in religion in particular, unique events can carry a unique significance. I see scripture as the record of God's special acts of self-disclosure. Miracles become intelligible in that context, not as divine conjuring tricks, but as unexpected consequences in unprecedented circumstances (rather like the way superconductivity goes beyond the everyday expectation of Ohm's law).

tts: In regard to evil, you state: "That there is cancer in creation is not something that a more competent or compassionate Creator could easily have eliminated, but is the necessary cost of creation allowed to make itself." Some might regard that as an inadequate account of evil. Or to approach the same difficulty from the side of God's power, what do you make of reports of cancer being cured by prayer? If such cures are real, then it would seem that a compassionate Creator can eliminate cancer.

JP: Prayer is deeply personal, and the wholeness sought may come in different ways to different people-sometimes through physical recovery, sometimes through the positive acceptance of what is happening.

tts: You do not give up the Christian doctrine of the afterlife. Yet, you do not believe that we have immaterial souls that exist after death. Is your position more the result of your being a physicist or a theologian?

JP: I believe that the human soul has no natural expectation of a destiny beyond death (of a kind that science might investigate), but I believe that it will be preserved from perishing by the faithfulness of God.

Polkinghorne's newest book Science and The Trinity reviewed by Dr. Benjamin Wiker

As both an Anglican priest and a physicist, John Polkinghorne is a welcome participant in the ongoing debates about the relationship between science and religion. All too many scientists are unwilling to take the claims of Christian theology seriously, or simply push them off into the purely private realm. All too many theologians are either unwilling or unqualified to engage with contemporary science. The result, of course, is that science claims full authority in the public realm to define reality, both spiritual and material. Since much of science has historically come to be defined according to the blunted philosophy of reductionist materialism, the spiritual claims of religion are often relegated to the private realm of fancy.

Against this, Polkinghorne argues in Science and the Trinity (and elsewhere) that the claims of science and Christianity are both real. In fact, by discovering “the profound intelligibility of the universe,” scientists are lending support to the theological assertion that “there is a divine Mind that lies behind the marvelous order of the cosmos.”

Nor is Polkinghorne interested in a faint deism, but how the mind of the scientist and the mind of the Christian theologian work much the same way, and even how central Christian doctrines illuminate recent discoveries of science.

Both scientists and theologians reason from evidential starting points which are embedded in larger, theoretical structures. No scientists simply performs experiments in the absence of a more comprehensive theory about nature, the theory being the very thing he is trying to prove by the experiment. In the same way, theologians reason about particular matters (such as arise in Scriptural study) based upon a more comprehensive account of the faith.

Polkinghorne’s more daring claim is that Christian doctrines often illuminate scientific discoveries. It is not that we can infer the Most Holy Trinity from our study of nature, but “that there are aspects of our scientific understanding of the universe that become more deeply intelligible to us if they are viewed in a Trinitarian perspective.”

For example, “the universe has proved to be astonishingly rationally transparent, and the human mind remarkably apt to the comprehension of its structure.” But the “purely naturalistic thinking” of mere materialism “is unable to cast light on this deep intelligibility, for ultimately it has to treat it as a fortunate but fortuitous fact.” But the Christian doctrine of divine creation through the Logos, the second person of the Trinity, and the creation of human beings in the image of God make the deep intelligibility and the aptness of our comprehension completely understandable, even predictable.

While Polkinghorne offers other insightful examples of the illumination of science by Christian theology, he does seem at times to let “purely naturalistic thinking” determine his theology. For example, he infers from cosmic development from the Big Bang to the arrival of human beings, that evil is simply a tradeoff we have to endure, a “necessary cost of a creation allowed to make itself.” Or again, since physics defines things according to matter and energy, that the human soul must somehow be confined within this realm as well, the result being that no immaterial soul lives on after death. This brings him to posit the notion that we are annihilated at death, and recreated at the final judgment.

Such concessions to purely naturalistic thinking aside, Polkinghorne is, in many ways, heads above so many other participants in the dialogue about science and religion, that he is a worthy ally for the critical reader.

Benjamin Wiker

House Speaker Dennis Hastert has told federal officials that the lighted, decorated tree on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, known in recent years as the "Holiday Tree," should be renamed the "Capitol Christmas Tree."

The name change on Tuesday comes one day after the Engelmann spruce was delivered from New Mexico to Capitol Hill for decorations and displays until Jan. 2.

Hastert will light the tree, referred to as the "People's Tree" by the New Mexico-based committee that delivered it, during a ceremony on Dec. 8.

The re-named tree was called a Christmas Tree until the late 1990s, when it was changed to the name "Holiday Tree." The source of the name change in the 1990s is unclear, but this year's Web site could not be changed and still refers to it as a holiday tree.

Calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree has become a politically charged prospect in jurisdictions across the country, from Boston to Sacramento and in dozens of communities in between. The city of Boston changed the name of its Holiday Tree back to Christmas Tree after being threatened with several lawsuits.

Fox News

Why Marriage Matters, Second Edition: Twenty-Six Conclusions from the Social Sciences

1) Teenage girls who grow up without their biological fathers in the home are much more likely to experience puberty at markedly younger ages, compared to girls who grow up with their biological fathers. Partly as a consequence, the rate of teenage pregnancy is about 5 percent among girls whose fathers stick around for their entire childhood and about 30 percent among girls whose fathers left before they turned 6. Furthermore, girls who are exposed to an unrelated male in their home-a mother's boyfriend or a stepfather-experience puberty at an even earlier age than girls who just live with a single mother. University of Arizona psychologist Bruce Ellis suggests that pheromones-aromatic chemicals that send sexual signals between persons-may help explain the association between family structure and girls' sexual development.

Showdown Over Nativity Display: Homeowner Refuses to Take Down Display Despite Threat of Fines

ANN ARBOR, MI. - Since moving into their new home three years ago, the Samona family of Novi, Michigan, has displayed a Nativity scene on their front lawn during each Christmas season. This year however, the management company of their subdivision sent them a letter demanding that they remove the Nativity scene. If they did not remove the display, the Samonas could be fined up to $100 a week until the display was removed.

Batoul Samona, the homeowner stated, "I have been displaying my nativity outside this house and my previous house for about 25 years without any problem until this year. My family will not remove the nativity from our front lawn under any circumstances."

Batoul's 16 year-old son Joseph was equally defiant, "This Nativity display is a family tradition which will not be abolished. My family strongly believes in celebrating the birth of Christ in this way."

The Samona family contacted the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which agreed to represent the family at no charge. The Law Center has already contacted the management company notifying them that the Center represents the Samonas in this matter.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center, commented, "The action of the management company in demanding only that the nativity scene be removed when several other objects remained on the lawn is clear evidence that this was an attack on Christmas. We will vigorously defend the constitutional rights of the Samonas to express their religious message on their own property."
Scores of citizens have come to the Samona home to view the display and express their support as news of the showdown became public. One individual even called and offered to pay any fine imposed.

Edward White, trial counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, who was at the Samona home today commented, "We trust the management company will reconsider its decision and allow this family to continue to celebrate Christmas as they see fit on their private property. Their nativity display is beautiful and only adds to the beauty of the neighborhood.

Thomas More Law Center

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