John Polkinghorne is one of
many scientist-theologians accepting both an intelligent Creator and modern
evolutionary science, while rejecting both atheistic materialism
and erroneous attempts to find scientific "alternatives" to evolution such
as creationism or intelligent design theory. He notes:
The trend is to look for God in dramatic discontinuities in physics or biology, and if none are found, to declare religion vanquished. But God may act in subtle ways that are hidden from physical science. (The Hand of God by Sharon Begley and Michael Reagan, Templeton Foundation Press, 1999, p. 126)
In "Physics and Metaphysics in a Trinitarian Perspective" Polkinghorne
writes:
We may indeed follow Jacques Monod in seeing evolutionary process as involving an interplay between chance and necessity, but we need not go on to agree with him in annexing the metaphysically tendentious adjective "blind" to the chance half of the process . . . Chance represents a shuffling mechanism for exploring potentiality . . . This happens within the given necessity of natural law . . . whose regularities will be seen by the theist as pale but true expressions of the Creator's faithfulness. The remarkable potentialities present within the physical fabric of the universe will be understood as an expression of the divine purpose for creation's fertility. (Theology and Science Vol. 1, 2003, pp. 33-49)Back to NRCSE Home Page