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All John Polkinghorne Quotes
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
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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
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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
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At present, too much theological thinking is very human-centered.
John Polkinghorne
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Those theologians who are beginning to take the doctrine of creation very seriously should pay some attention to science's story.
John Polkinghorne
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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
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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
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Whitehead reacted strongly against the idea of God as a cosmic tyrant, one who brings about everything.
John Polkinghorne
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So Whitehead's metaphysics doesn't fit very well on to physics as we understand the process of the world.
John Polkinghorne
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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
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I think it's very important to maintain the classical Christian distinction between the Creator and creation.
John Polkinghorne
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