John Polkinghorne - Scientist and Priest

GDR You cannot show compatibility by compartmentalization though. If they do not support one the other then no compatibility exists except by making claims despite the evidence. That is just the point though. Religion does not seek answers, it makes them up. If we had answers we could implement them, yet thousands of years have gone by and religion has solved nothing. That is staggering to me. Exactly how is the study of the nature of our structure and how things work in anyway impersonal? Religion has a personal encounter with what then? A claimed deity that performs incredible feats without leaving a trace? A being whose qualities vary dependent upon which religion you inquire of?I can see the ambiguity being as it is self imposed but where is the risk? What commitment are you speaking of, stubbornness? That is not an answer. What could possibly make sentences pasted together without logical progression and in much contradiction of itself compelling? And please expand on where you think I lack objectivity. But that is just it.The universe is not finely-tuned for life. We presume that the world is somehow of such balance and beauty because we thinking creatures can comprehend it out of arrogance.
On this one pale blue dot{credit to Carl here} orbiting a star with 7 other planets on which we have yet to detect life we find that there is just a little sliver of conditions available in which sentient life can barely survive. On this planet we are at the mercy,even with the technology, of the forces of nature.
The vastly greater realm of the cosmos is distinctly hostile to organisms such as ourselves. On this planet we adapt to the conditions or die,except by dint of the technology we have learned to harness by scientific study of the nature of things.
Even if we had fine-tuning why would it not be us who are fine-tuned to the world rather than vice-versa?
What exactly is the evidence that speaks of a "Mind" or intelligence that is somehow disembodied and leaves no trace nor exists except in those who first adhere to believing in spite of a lack of any reasonable support to show this to be the case?
And then you state that this non entity caused something to happen without explaining except to purport that magic really exists as though this were a perfectly reasonable point of view.
I do not need to believe that which can be evidenced since the evidence speaks for itself. I do not claim that world itself is even completely comprehensible but that does not make a case for the patently absurd. Please do explain how they compliment one another because I think that is not the case. It appears to me that John keeps them separate in order to avoid the inevitable conflict. He is of two minds which does not make for a stable platform methinks. There is ample evidence to show that the world was not created specifically by way of the fact that there is no evidence to show it was.
If the world was created by an entity or intelligence then the evidence would show itself and in that way eliminate the other possibility that it was not. It is telling that the world operates exactly the way in which we would expect it to if there were no driving intelligence behind it. Then you have been misleading in your OP as this sentence shows. Polkinghorne never does manage to do what I have highlighted in this paragraph.

I obviously disagree. I contend that Polkinghorne and others very much apply reason to believing the things that they do. It isn't scientific but we all come to non-scientific conclusions about our existence. For example an Atheist believes that our moral code is something that has developed culturally over time. As a Christian I believe that there is more to it than that.We could go down the road of arguing about why we are able to love, have a sense of justice etc. but it would be off topic and has already been done numerous times.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

All that atheists have in common with each other is that they do not believe in any Gods. They do not share opinions on what "our moral code" is, let alone how whatever it is came about. As an atheist, so do I.

We might get shutdown for being off topic but could you expand on that?

You seemed to imply that you thought that there's more to "our moral codes" than being built up in culture over time. So do I, because a lot of our apparent moral behaviour has its roots in our biological nature.Best for another thread, because as you say, off topic.But briefly, a social animal like us which is capable of behaviour like that described in the good Samaritan parable has certain evolutionary advantages. So, our morals aren't just a matter of culture.I can't speak for other atheists on this, and the reason I picked up on your comment on what atheists think about morals was to point out that atheism is not a belief system, and the only thing that we all have in common is lack of belief in Gods. No other shared politics or philosophical opinions or views on morality or anything else.

I looked at the rules and as this is the "Coffee House" forum we are probably ok. Thanks for the response. It seems to me that we have dwindling resources for our population. However in our church we are actively involved in supporting a home in Uganda for young women who have been severely disadvantaged. (There are millions of people both religious and secular doing similar things.) Wouldn't it be to our advantage to have millions of people in the third world just disappear so that the world's resources wouldn't be spread as thinnly?It seems to me that altruism continues to exist even though in many cases it creates a cultural disadvantage. This suggests to me that there is something operating that can't be explained by evolutionary advantages. There moral laws that come from somewhere. Thou shalt not murder, steal etc. I gather from your previous statement that you believe they are a result that they are creating an evolutionary or cultural advantage. Isn't that a belief?We have laws that we agree on and there has to be a reason for the fact that we have them. I don't disagree that culture plays a role but I also believe that there is something implanted in our consciousness that comes form something or someone beyond oursleves and I believe that Christianity does the best job of explaining what that something or someone is.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

It is just the fact that they aren't contradictory. You see religion as being made up whereas I believe that God does interact with His creation. You say that religion has solved nothing but that is an empty statement as neither of us have any idea of what the world would like like if religion had never existed. Who says He hasn't left a trace? If God created the universe that would be a lot more than a trace. Jesus Christ and the history of His church is more than a trace. Just because you choose not to believe doesn't mean that it isn't true, any more than a creationist not believing in evolution makes that untrue. Fair enough but in the end our existence depends on the fact that we are fine-tuned to our environment. The fact that we exist and perceive the world in a particular way if nothing else. Science does a great job in understanding the workings behind our physical world, whereas Polkinghorne believes that his religion goes a long way in explaining why things exist at all. You might say that no explanation is necessary or even possible but He would disagree. How do you know that? Your life experience and knowledge is based solely on the world in which you exist. You have no basis for saying how else it might or might not be. I suppose I could have worded that better, but still it is clear that John believes that God is the Mind and the creative force behind all of the natural world. He would agree though that his faith is faith and not scientific and though he does seem them as separate disciplines he sees no contradiction. I happen to agree with him.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

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You seemed to imply that you thought that there's more to "our moral codes" than being built up in culture over time. So do I, because a lot of our apparent moral behaviour has its roots in our biological nature.

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I do not think you two brought the weave out of the loom.John has said

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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.

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John's rather distinct viewpoint is dependent on us being "carbon beings". He does not have much of an issue with evolution, given that one has to have carbon to begin with(It might proove instructive to see what he would say if Sara Conner/Baum could actually exist with Silicon life integrated with oxygen as the new FOX show portrays but I would guess all this would be fiction to him). That is the prerequisite for his rather expanded explanation.Now the question is can "the moral codes" or the answer to the purpose of life be also dependent on carbon or evolved carbon. Seeing that John P's view, not mine or yours necessarily, refers back to something that comes out of Medelev's Periodic Table the only way to not follow this line of discussion is to assert that there really is no difference, or to say just what it is, within Kant's "Metaphysics of Morals" during his preface to THE METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF JUSTICE where he wrote

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Indeed, the possibility of an a priori intuition and of space being such an intuition, rather than merely (as Wolff held) the juxtaposition of the manifold of objects external to one another that is given in empirical intuition

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page 5 The Library of the Liberal Arts 1965

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between that and Wolf's empirical view of any kind of substance itself in terms of current views on physics.In other words what is more than cultural (assuming we are not arguing Lamarck vs Darwin)and biological OR beyond toward the suprasensible is either the simple juxtaposition of carbons OR the changes in the space of carbons over geological time. Biology of purpose (if there were such) and moral codes (whether sociobiological or not)need not be in the latter while they ARE at least in the former. John permits one to ask the deeper question in the latter place BECAUSE he has a physicist view of the space place itself.Now, I admit that John has allowed this from his physical viewpoint, not a biological one first and foremost. So if you were to have the off topic view that some of the juxtapositions of bauplan carbon could not give the expanded region of the Q&A on thread @EVC that you thought was a lie (above), this ?might? be possible given a particular reading of evolutionary theory, but for my own understanding I can not agree to/with this.I think that scientists HAVE already asked if there is a purpose in evolution and some (Will Provine) have been convinced there is none but at the same time they do not have a sophisticated enough view of the places spaces (beyond random deme interactions) that must be so so as to even touch on the same carbon jughandles that one must approach physically given Polkinghorne view. The only way then is to culutrally dismiss John rather than biologically being more sophisticated. This I personally find is in error.Sure, if it is only blind faith that is the answer then this is insuffient as to the questions but as it is that the current elite science refuses to bring Wolff and Kant anycloser today (via the spaces of population genetics etc), and I can clearly cognize such a possiblity, it still seems that John's extended relations from testing to trusting say, is required in the process of bringing the places of these spaces OUT of coincidence in our individually confused minds and into community. As long as the elite have two walls to evolutionary thought it is only us on the other side that will drill through. It is needed if the inutition towards the moral code (whatever that is) be made, otherwise we simply have a disgreement like you and GDR posted above.

GDR Well they can hardly be contradictory when one requires evidence and the other only operates without it. How is this different from science vs. nothing at all? Yet you cannot provide evidence to show that God interacts with the world. Religion has solved nothing in the way of meaning and purpose and destiny as Polkinhorne says is the mandate it has. It has made up meaning as it went along but has always maintained that it is a matter of faith and that questioning it is blasphemy or a sign of weakness in the faith. If is a meaningless premise if that premise cannot be substantiated in some way. Mohammed and the history Islamic world is more than a trace also. It is not up to me to provide evidence for the claim of Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha or any number of historical characters and the supposed acts that they performed as that is up to the people making the claim to provide.Evolution is the observed descent with modification resulting from the imperfect replication of genetics and the selection pressure of the environment in which living organisms must dwell in the timeframe at which they exist. That is fact and is documented in multiple disciplines and in multiple levels of reality.
Evolution can be backed up with evidence while religion operates only when it is not asked to provide such. Yes and that is to be expected of creatures who have had to deal with environmental pressures that select for fitness that is relevant to the time frame they live in. That is a fine statement but you do not elaborate to show your reasoning. Please do. Well if John would disagree then what is the purpose he claims religion reveals? I maintain that he cannot make a case for the properties of God unless and until he establishes what constitutes God in the first place. That Polkinghorne believes this to be the case is not the issue. It is whether he can put forth good arguments to support that. Well, as I have said, compartmentalization is not the same as compatability. You cannot have disagreement if you play by different rules, especially rules that are not reasonable to begin with. Let us see. First we have a physical world in which all the operations that occur are the result of four known fundamental forces that are measureable and that reveal patterns and symmetries from which we can further use to reveal things that were hidden. With these forces we have explained the universe at multiple levels and with great precision. Religion dreams of being so accurate.
In no investigation has there ever been evidence to show things like "speaking in tongues" to actually exist nor any measureable effect to prayer.The problem of evil evaporates in a world where a God does not exist.
Why some die and others live is easily explained by rules of probability but not through the claim that a God intervenes to decide a persons fate.The fact that there are numerous Gods that present different human concerns and political wrangling is explainable form the point of view of no Gods at all. It boils down to issues of human beings playing politics and jockeying to improve their lot in life and that of their close friends or tribe.Any contradictions in holy texts are removed in simple terms as being a matter of different people inserting their different values systems into the melting pot of human societies. It also explains why we , after countless millenia of religion in the forefront, have never managed to tame our wild nature.

But this is the crux of the whole thing. You are only prepared to accept physical scientific evidence. I agree. It doesn't exist. There isn't scientific evidence that can prove He even exists.We can debate until the cows come home but we aren't going to resolve anything. I believe that there is more to our life than the physical world that we perceive. You apparently don't, so what I might view as evidence isn't acceptable as evidence to you.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Biological "programs" in social animals don't necessarily lead to rational "selfish" behaviour of individuals. Anthropologists will be able to tell you about hunter/gatherer tribes which operate like large extended families, and function on an "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs" basis. Without going into details, this makes sense.With modern travel and media communication, people increasingly identify, consciously or subconsciously, with the entire 6 billion as being the tribe, so your example of helping people on another continent is not foreign to our biological nature at all. It's a mistake to see evolution as something that would automatically promote selfishness in individual organisms. Social animals, from ants to ourselves, can make individual sacrifices for the group's "selfish genes".Save a child's life in Uganda, and you as a Christian might see yourself as doing the right thing, but you've also given the individual the chance to reproduce, and be the parent of organisms that carry about 99.9% of your genes.Touching on the topic, Polkinghorne is a good scientist, and he might, at least partially, agree with me on this.When you say: Remember that biological programs don't make us behave in rational "evolutionary" ways in ever changing circumstances, and all of our programs evolved (obviously) long before the present world population crisis.Most species go extinct because, in a sense, evolution doesn't have the time to create the new characteristics, behavioural as well as physical, when environments change too quickly.However, I don't think your example is a very good one, because I think it's definitely to our advantage to increase levels of international help and cooperation. Twentieth century history shows us that the cultures that achieve virtual zero population increase (apart from that attributable to increased life expectancy), are those with the most wealth, highest life expectancies, highest literacy rates, and, I might add especially for you, lowest levels of traditional religion.So, while improving conditions in struggling areas of the world may seem to increase population in the short term, when people feel increasingly secure, they actually choose to have less children, and that means we might be able to achieve relatively stable world population by the end of this century, or early in the next. You seem to be confusing atheists with philosophical movements, like humanism. Atheists are people who don't believe in Gods. One might be a serial killer, and another a philanthropist. They do not share a moral philosophy any more than cigarette smokers or people who don't believe in fairies share a moral philosophy.Atheists are not defined by by anything other than their lack of belief in Gods.When someone makes up a commandment like "though shalt not kill", it's surprisingly meaningless. If you applied modern Canadian values, for example, Moses would be condemned to about a thousand life sentences for murder and genocide. Don't you read your bible?And Christendom, throughout its history, managed a far higher killing rate than the secular modern Western Europe of the last 60 tears or so (church going started to decline rapidly from about 1950 onwards).That lots of our behaviour is the result of past evolution isn't a belief in the "blind faith" sense, it's evidence based. The "something" could be our subconsciousness and our biological natures, both individual and as a species. As these are things that we know to exist, and they fit the bill, don't you think it likely that they are, at least, possible explanations (added to culture, as you agree). Odd if you were brought up a Muslim and indoctrinated as a child with Islam. Or were you, like Polkinghorne, brought up as a Christian?At least 95% of the world's religious people happen to believe that the religion of their background does the best job of explaining things. You can try and intellectualise your cultural programming if you want to, but it won't convince the likes of me. I was brought up in the exact same form of Christianity as Polkinghorne (and Dawkins, interestingly) and I understand very well where he's coming from.I de-programmed myself decades ago.

Quite likely. He doesn't, so far as I know, have any issues with evolution or abiogenesis, both of which can be accommodated in his mind with his particular version of the Christian God (there are many) as an underlying force. The point has frequently been made that neither his God nor any other God seems to be necessary for these processes, neither is there evidence for any of them, so that while he and other believers in other Gods will certainly bring them in, they do not do so by processes of reason, and by looking at the evidence, they seem to do so because they personally desire to believe in these Gods.Using the word "trust" in place of "blind unreasoning faith" doesn't change anything. Asking questions is something we all do. Where I differ from John P. is that he answers questions which are not at this point answerable by human knowledge by sticking in his God. That's not true questioning and enquiring, Brad, it's cheating.He's quick to say that this is not a God of the gaps, but ultimately, it is.Perhaps Gods should be renamed "gap-fillers". I'm sure GDR and I will have to agree to disagree on this, as I don't see religion as playing any thing other than a negative role in serious contemporary thought, or science, and his Christianity is obviously very important to him.

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For example an Atheist believes that our moral code is something that has developed culturally over time. As a Christian I believe that there is more to it than that.

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Of course, there is a growing body of evidence (no faith or supernature required) that morality has not only developed culturally over time, but biologically as well.You may of course believe whatever you like "as a Christian", but why should anyone consider your superstitions as valid as real-world evidence that requires no faith to accept?

Let's just assume for a minute that biologists could scientifically demonstrate how we became altruistic through an evolutionary process. It wouldn't change my view of things at all because it still shows the characteristics of design. If we are biologically programmed by evolutionary means, it still demonstrates the likelihood of a programmer. JMHO I wouldn't disagree Maybe the reason birth rates are down in countries with the lowest levels of traditional religion is because people have developed the attitude of "looking out for number one" and that children interfere with life style.One of the biggest concerns in western countries is health care, meanwhile the birth rate is dropping. We seemed to be much more focused on living to be a 100 than we are about reproducing the next generation. It is all about us it seems. Stable families would go a long way towards having people feel secure. I'm not saying that people necessarily share a moral philosophy but I suggest that most people believe that one exists whether it be God given or not.Atheists believe that there is no god. That is a belief. It also requires faith in the idea that we have only ourselves to look to in defining legal and/or moral standards. There have been terrible things done in the name of Christianity by people who claim to be Christian. People are tribal and we desperately want to be recognized as being part of a tribe. We divide ourselves up occupation, which sport team we cheer for, religion, race and even gender. Christ's message, (as well as Buddha and others) speaks strongly against unhealthy levels of tribalism.As far as reading my Bible is concerned you are probably right. I don't read it enough. I spend a lot more time reading about it by authors like Polkinghorne, NT Wright, Philip Yancey etc. The best guy I have found for science is Brian Greene. My next reading project though is to read the Bible right through. I can hardly wait to get into the genealogies. When the church becomes the road to political power it is a recipe for disaster for both church and state. The church is compromised as it becomes made up of people seeking political power as opposed to people seeking to serve God. The state becomes damaged as it becomes led by unaccountable power seekers. {I'm not saying that that religious people shouldn't be involved politically but just that they should use the normal political route.) Possibly yes although I obviously don't believe that is the case. Just the same, even if you are correct that doesn't preclude the possibility that God used our biological natures to program us.It goes back to my response to sidelined, we either accept the idea that there is an intelligence that is distinct from our physical or we don't. That sort of fixes how we approach these discussions. Neither position is scientific. I too was brought up Anglican but I was agnostic for about 20 years. Most of the major world religions have a great deal in common. The original Buddha preached very much the same message as Jesus did. (Love your enemy etc.) Islam has the same roots as Christianity. It is the questions surrounding the man Jesus Christ that bring about theological differences. I did the same and then re-programmed myself. You should try it, I highly recommend it.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

If you think that altruism requires a programmer, the programmer himself, by definition cannot be altruistic. You end up with the same kind of infinite regression that the I.D. people do when they claim that intelligence requires an intelligent designer. The original designer has to be unintelligent. Biological evolution is a non-intelligent, non-altruistic "designer". Really? Perhaps we should develop the welfare programs and old age pension schemes that the religious third world is renowned for. We could try and match their infant and child mortality rates, as well.Actually, if you sign a check for foreign aid, it will be going to one of these very religious societies, for sure. Belief in Gods, like belief in any other supernatural beings, requires faith. Lack of faith in Gods doesn't require faith, by definition.You're making a common mistake of religious people. You probably lack faith in lots of things for which there's no evidence, yet you have a blind spot when it comes to your God, and seem to think that it requires faith to lack faith in it.As for legal and moral standards, do you expect me to torture someone to death for working on a Sunday? Read that Bible of yours. But you and Polkinghorne seem to be suggesting that this intelligence for which there's no evidence does effect our physical environment in some way. And what's odd, and typical of religious people, is that you then make the leap to assuming that an intelligence behind the universe, if it existed, would be a version of the Abrahamic God, an apparent middle-eastern tribal invention, rather than an effectively infinite number of other possible candidates. Buddhism isn't really theistic, and Islam declares the Christian scriptures to be corrupt, and that Christ is not God. Are these minor differences? I don't have the required talents to be religious. I'm terrible at lying to myself.