Science and Trinity by John Polkinghorne

Author:John Polkinghorne [John Polkinghorne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: aVe4EvA
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2006-05-14T20:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

Theological Thickness

revious chapters have indicated how theBookofNatureandtheBookof Scripture can be read in ways that are both supportive of Christian belief and also illuminated by that belief. The level of discourse has been similar to that which in theoretical physics would be called ‘phenomenological’. That is to say, significant aspects have been identified and proposals have been made for the broad categories within which understanding of the phenomena can most satisfactorily be located. When scientists are investigating a new physical regime, a phenomenological exploration of this kind is often the necessary preliminary. It offers a sketch-map of the territory, identifying some of its most notable features but falling short of giving a detailed understanding of the intellectual topography and ecology of the domain. Albert Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectric effect (1905), and Niels Bohr’s model of the atom (1913), provided this kind of fruitful initial insight into

aspectsofwhatwasgoingonintherealmofquantumphenomena.1 However, the ideas that these bold pioneers proposed were very ad hoc in their character, and how they should be integrated with the previously highly successful concepts of Newtonian and Maxwellian physics was obscure and uncertain. The theorists had to press on to seek a fully articulated and integrated account of quantum mechanics. When the moment of enlightenment came, it did so with remarkable rapidity and fullness of achievement. In the annimirabiles of 1925 and 1926, the essential character of modern quantum theory was brought to birth through the initiating discoveries of Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, and in subsequent important elucidations due to Paul Dirac and Max Born.

In a similar fashion, theologians cannot rest content simply with the direct insights of natural theology and biblical theology. They are driven to seek the integration of this material into the more fully articulated scheme of a systematic theology. The theology of nature discussed in the preceding chapter was a step in this direction, but obviously there is much more to be done. The systematic task is both essential and yet beyond the power of human completion. In physics we are seeking to understand a physical world that, for all the signs of its inexhaustible richness, is one that we transcend and can put to the experimental test. At least within well-defined and well-winnowed regimes, we can expect to gain the kind of extensive and stable success that eventually proved possible in the case of quantum theory.2 There is a striking contrast in

See J. C. Polkinghorne, QuantumTheory:AVeryShortIntroduction,Oxford University Press, 2002, ch. 1.

Even that achievement can have its limitations. In the case of quantum theory, we know how to do the sums, and the answers prove to be in impressive

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