Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships in Science & Religion

Something Rather Than Nothing

The scientists who find space for religion

by Edwin Cartlidge

Not all scientists share Stephen Hawking’s view that modern physics makes the Creator redundant, writes Edwin Cartlidge.

Among these is John Polkinghorne of Cambridge University, who is well known for his studies on the relationship between science and religion, having worked as a particle physicist for 25 years before becoming ordained in the Church of England. Polkinghorne says his religious belief does not spring from one "knockdown argument" for the existence of God but instead derives from a number of different sources. Among these are personal experience, including worship and reflecting on the decisions he has taken in life. But he also draws faith from the very fact that the universe is intelligible and describable in terms of mathematics, and that the laws of nature appear to be finely tuned to support life. This observation he believes is more satisfactorily explained by the existence of God than the possibility of countless parallel universes – among which one is bound to be suited to life – or simply the brute fact of existence.

Polkinghorne finds much common ground with nuclear physicist and theologian Ian Barbour of Carleton College in the US, including the belief that both science and religion seek to explain an objective reality that cannot be understood in a straightforward way. But Polkinghorne has a more traditional view of Christ than Barbour, believing that Christ was both fully human and fully divine, that he was born of a virgin and that he was resurrected. Indeed, Polkinghorne believes there is both good historical evidence and strong theological motivation for the Resurrection. Barbour, however, disputes both the reality of the empty tomb and the virgin birth.

Nobel Prize-winning atomic physicist William Phillips of the University of Maryland is adamant that science and religion are not, as is often portrayed by the media, "irreconcilable enemies". He too finds evidence for God in the intelligibility and fine tuning of the cosmos. But he says that these arguments are only suggestive, and that a feeling of "God’s presence" in his life and evidence of God’s goodness in the world" are more important. Such statements, he adds, are not meaningless because they are not scientific. Indeed, he says there are many other statements of this type that have great value, such as those conveying beauty or virtue. "Science is not the only useful way of looking at life," he concludes.

For Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University in the US, science does not rule against the existence of God. Instead, he says, by showing how "dynamic and creative" the universe is, science in fact "expands our appreciation of the Divine in ways that could not have been imagined in ages past". He rejects the "intelligent design" movement because it seeks to find God in the gaps of current scientific understanding, a strategy he describes as "particu larly depressing".

On the other hand, he criticises atheists for assuming that God is natural and therefore open to scientific investigation. "By making

God an ordinary part of the natural world, and failing to find him there, they conclude that he does not exist," he says.

This location of God outside of nature is also sustained by geneticist Francis Collins, formerly head of the Human Genome Project and now director of the US National Institutes of Health. For Collins, a former atheist, the most compelling argument in favour of God put forward by Lewis was the existence of what appears to be a universal morality among humans, that, he reasoned, cannot come from within our physical world. "If God exists, then he must be outside the natural world," he says, "and therefore the tools of science are not the right ones to learn about him."

Providing a different perspective on the relationship between science and religion is physicist Charles Townes, Nobel prize winning inventor of the laser. Townes claims that science and religion in fact are very similar. He points to what he regards as a number of characteristics shared by the two disciplines, including the essential role played by faith (faith in the universe’s order, in the case of science), the role of revelation or inspiration, and, more controversially, the idea that religious beliefs, like scientific theories, can be

regarded as working hypotheses that can be tested and validated. Ultimately, he believes, science and religion must converge. As he puts it: "they both represent man’s efforts to understand his universe and must ultimately be dealing with the same substance. As we understand more in each realm, the two must grow together."