Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships in Science & Religion

Fine-Tuning the Universe

Physicists and theologians gathered in Oxford last week to discuss the complex relationship between their two disciplines, and to pay tribute to physicist and priest the Revd Dr John Polkinghorne. But in doing so, some also posed challenges to his thinking.

by Edwin Cartlidge

'Epistemology models ontology" is one of the Revd Dr John Polkinghorne’s favourite phrases. It means, roughly speaking, that what we know is a reliable guide to what is actually out there in the world. In fact, he used to say it so often that his wife gave him a T-shirt with the words emblazoned upon it. It was in the same spirit that staff from the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at the University of Oxford tried unsuccessfully to find a T-shirt with another of Dr Polkinghorne’s trademark expressions, "bottom-up thinker", ahead of a four-day conference being held at the centre last week to mark Dr Polkinghorne’s eightieth birthday later this year.

Bottom-up thinking is central to Dr Polkinghorne’s view of reality. He carried out research in particle physics for nearly 25 years before quitting academia and training for the Anglican priesthood. Then, after serving as a parish priest for several years, he returned to the academic fold to become president of Queens’ College, Cambridge, and to investigate the interplay between science and religion.

He says that his work as a scientist showed him the importance of experience as a guide to what is true, rather than assuming that the world will conform to certain preconceived abstract principles. He maintains that the core of modern physics – quantum mechanics – with its strange, probabilistic conception of nature, would never have been dreamed up from scratch but instead came about because experimental results demanded it.

For Dr Polkinghorne, this way of thinking applies equally to theology. He argues that it is mistaken to try to prove that God exists using pure logic since, as he puts it, "clear and certain ideas often turn out to be neither clear nor certain". Indeed, he says, there is no "knockdown argument" for the existence of God. Rather, his religious belief derives from a number of different sources. These include his experience of worship and a reflection on the decisions he has taken in his life, as well as his belief in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In addition, Dr Polkinghorne draws on a couple of general observations he can make as a scientist. One of these is simply the very intelligibility of the universe, the fact that it is possible to make theories about the way the world works and to use mathematics as the language of those theories, an ability which, he claims, could not have come about through mere evolutionary necessity.

The second of these strands is the fact that the laws of nature appear to be fine-tuned to produce life. For example, if gravity were just slightly stronger than it is, stars would burn too quickly to support life on orbiting planets, but if it were slightly weaker, then massive stars that produce life-essential elements such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen would not be possible. He maintains that the existence of a creator God is a far more satisfactory explanation for this fine-tuning than what he calls the "extravagant" idea, as put forward by some scientists, that there exist an enormous number of different universes, with us by necessity existing in that universe in which the conditions are just right.

At the Oxford conference, many of the speakers discussed a particular aspect of Dr Polkinghorne’s contribution to the field of science and religion. It was perhaps Dr Polkinghorne’s use of the fine-tuning argument, or anthropic principle, that raised the most criticism. Cambridge psychologist and Anglican vicar Fraser Watts argued that science may come up with an explanation for this fine-tuning that does not rely on multiple universes, pointing to the possibility that the theory of the Big Bang might be brought to bear on the issue. For Watts, the employment of the anthropic principle in theological reasoning is similar to the nineteenth-century argument from design – the idea that the universe must have been designed because living beings are so well adapted to their environments – which was, most scientists believe, made redundant by Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. "I suspect that the anthropic principle is theological thinking that has migrated to science," said Watts. "It operates in an uneasy shadowland between theology and science."

Emeritus Bishop of Oxford Richard Harries, who also spoke briefly at the meeting, echoed Watts’ concern. He said that natural theology should be used with caution and that personal experience was the strongest source of knowledge for the existence of God.

An area in which Dr Polkinghorne received more backing was the relationship between God and time. Dr Polkinghorne believes it vital to retain the notion of "flowing time" – that we move from a past that we can no longer access to the present and then to an unknown future. This is challenged by the idea of the "block universe", that the entire space-time continuum is a single entity, a "great chunk of frozen history" that makes no distinction between past and future. The block universe is taken by many to be the notion of space-time required by Einstein’s special theory of relativity, but Robert Russell of the

Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley, California, believes that is not necessarily the case. He maintains that a "relational space-time ontology" can square the apparent circle and thereby avoid the need to drop either special relativity or the idea of flowing time.

Indeed, Dr Polkinghorne proposes that it is not just humans who exist within this flowing time, but also God. He maintains that while God is eternal, He "condescends truly to engage with the time of creation" and therefore denies himself the power to predict the future precisely. This, says Dr Polkinghorne, is a "libertarian God" who allows room for individual free will. Theologian Philip Clayton told delegates at Oxford that this was a very "radical" departure from the orthodox Christian conception of the omniscient and omnipotent God, allowing God to become "much more like us".

This idea of flowing time was also endorsed by nuclear physicist and theologian Ian Barbour of Carleton College in the United States. In his detailed discussion of exactly how his understanding of the relationship between science and religion is similar to and differs from that of Dr Polkinghorne, Dr

Barbour also pointed out that the two of them adhere to the philosophy of "critical realism" – that there exists an objectively knowable reality but that there is no straightforward way of finding out about this reality. This concept, they say, applies both to science, which involves a complex interplay of theory and experiment, and to theology, which involves knowing God through a mixture of revelation, Scripture,

personal experience and culture.

There are, however, key differences of perspective between the two scholars on the nature of Christ. Dr Polkinghorne takes a more traditional view of Christ as both fully human and truly divine, that Christ was truly resurrected and that there was indeed a virgin birth. Dr Barbour rejects this view of Christ and concurs with the scientist-theologian Arthur Peacocke, who holds that the various

accounts of the empty tomb are "inconsistent" and that the virgin birth is "legendary".

Such differences of perspective might be seen by atheists as a sign of weakness in attempts by scientists to account for both the physical and religious domains. Indeed, some of the more strident atheist scientists, such as Richard Dawkins, believe that theology has no place in academia. Dr Polkinghorne and like-minded scientists would share atheists’ opposition to a strict biblical view of

Creation. For them, the Bible is not a science book. But they also believe there is a necessary limit to the power of science. As Dr Polkinghorne told participants at Oxford, "science has a coarse-grain net and many things fall through it, including the sacred encounter with God."

■Edwin Cartlidge is a science writer basedin Rome.