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" Evolution, of course, is not something that simply applies to life here on earth; it applies to the whole universe. "
John Polkinghorne
Here
Universe
Life
Related Quotes:
" People, and especially theologians, should try to familiarize themselves with scientific ideas. Of course, science is technical in many respects, but there are some very good books that try to set out some of the conceptual structure of science. "
John Polkinghorne
Good
Books
Try
" Whitehead reacted strongly against the idea of God as a cosmic tyrant, one who brings about everything. "
John Polkinghorne
Everything
Against
Cosmic
" If the experience of science teaches anything, it's that the world is very strange and surprising. The many revolutions in science have certainly shown that. "
John Polkinghorne
Experience
World
Science
" At present, too much theological thinking is very human-centered. "
John Polkinghorne
Present
Thinking
Too Much
" Of course, nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking, but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe. "
John Polkinghorne
Think
Culture
History
" The physical fabric of the world had to be such as to enable that ten billion year preliminary evolution to produce the raw materials of life. Without it there would not have been the chemical materials to allow life to evolve here on earth. "
John Polkinghorne
Evolution
Earth
Year
" Those theologians who are beginning to take the doctrine of creation very seriously should pay some attention to science's story. "
John Polkinghorne
Attention
Science
Beginning
" However, as the Eastern churches have always maintained, through Christ creation is intended eventually to share in the life of God, the life of divine nature. "
John Polkinghorne
Always
Creation
God
" Quantum theory also tells us that the world is not simply objective; somehow it's something more subtle than that. In some sense it is veiled from us, but it has a structure that we can understand. "
John Polkinghorne
Us
Understand
More
" Bottom up thinkers try to start from experience and move from experience to understanding. They don't start with certain general principles they think beforehand are likely to be true; they just hope to find out what reality is like. "
John Polkinghorne
Hope
Reality
Start
" Yes, I was a parish priest for five years. I was a curate in a large working class parish in Bristol and the Vicar of a village in Kent. "
John Polkinghorne
Years
Class
Yes
" So Whitehead's metaphysics doesn't fit very well on to physics as we understand the process of the world. "
John Polkinghorne
Fit
Process
Physics
" Of course, Einstein was a very great scientist indeed, and I have enormous respect for him, and great admiration for the discoveries he made. But he was very committed to a view of the objectivity of the physical world. "
John Polkinghorne
View
Made
World
" Nevertheless, all of us who work in quantum physics believe in the reality of a quantum world, and the reality of quantum entities like protons and electrons. "
John Polkinghorne
World
Work
Reality
" Theologians have a great problem because they're seeking to speak about God. Since God is the ground of everything that is, there's a sense in which every human inquiry is grist to the theological mill. Obviously, no theologian can know everything. "
John Polkinghorne
Great
God
Human
" I was very much on the mathematical side, where you probably do your best work before you're forty-five. Having passed that significant date, I thought I would do something else. "
John Polkinghorne
Do Your Best
You
Work
" I very much enjoyed my career in science. I didn't leave science because I was disillusioned, but felt I'd done my bit for it after about twenty-five years. "
John Polkinghorne
Career
Science
Done
" Chance doesn't mean meaningless randomness, but historical contingency. This happens rather than that, and that's the way that novelty, new things, come about. "
John Polkinghorne
Chance
Come
Mean
" Science cannot tell theology how to construct a doctrine of creation, but you can't construct a doctrine of creation without taking account of the age of the universe and the evolutionary character of cosmic history. "
John Polkinghorne
Character
You
Age
" Well, it's because I gladly acknowledge some ideas that are part of process theology, but which I think are not tied to all the details of process thought, and are very illuminating and helpful. "
John Polkinghorne
Thought
Details
Think
" It is the faithfulness of God that allows epistemology to model ontology. "
John Polkinghorne
God
Model
Epistemology
" After all, the universe required ten billion years of evolution before life was even possible; the evolution of the stars and the evolving of new chemical elements in the nuclear furnaces of the stars were indispensable prerequisites for the generation of life. "
John Polkinghorne
Generation
Universe
Stars
" I think it's very important to maintain the classical Christian distinction between the Creator and creation. "
John Polkinghorne
Creation
Important
Think
" I'm a very passionate believer in the unity of knowledge. There is one world of reality - one world of our experience that we're seeking to describe. "
John Polkinghorne
Our
Experience
World