Books, Arts & Manners: New Physics, New Theology

Belief in God in an Age of Science, by John Polkinghorne (Yale, 150 pp., $18)

THE West is entering a new chapter in its intellectual history, and John Polkinghorne is one of a handful of scientists who have already, so to speak, managed to read several pages ahead in the text. Belief in God in cm Age of Science is no mere rehash of the tired science-religion controversy. Rather, this short volume, based on the Terry Lectures at Yale, explores the sweeping consequences of recent revolutions in science for the conflict between skepticism and faith. Those familiar with Polkinghorne—an eminent Cambridge University physicist who also happens to be an Anglican priest—will find here a distillation of earlier reflections as well as some new argumentation. The book is worth reading not only for its many insights, but also because it presages a new style of thinking that takes us beyond not only the modern but also the postmodern—a sophisticated, scientifically informed outlook which is nonetheless animated by a firm, rationally supported religious faith.

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Patrick Glynn

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Belief in God in an Age of Science, by John Polkinghorne (Yale, 150 pp., $18)

THE West is entering a new chapter in its intellectual history, and John Polkinghorne is one of a handful of scientists who have already, so to speak, managed to read several pages ahead in the text. Belief in God in cm Age of Science is no mere rehash of the tired science-religion controversy. Rather, this short volume, based on the Terry Lectures at Yale, explores the sweeping consequences of recent revolutions in science for the conflict between skepticism and faith. Those familiar with Polkinghorne—an eminent Cambridge University physicist who also happens to be an Anglican priest—will find here a distillation of earlier reflections as well as some new argumentation. The book is worth reading not only for its many insights, but also because it presages a new style of thinking that takes us beyond not only the modern but also the postmodern—a sophisticated, scientifically informed outlook which is nonetheless animated by a firm, rationally supported religious faith.