John Polkinghorne Q&A

Minor technicality: due to the quirks of the British honors system John, being a CofE Priest, is not "Sir John" even though he has a knighthood.

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Freewill and Neurology If we admit that our thoughts are dependent on the neural substrate, then how can we possibly say that they determine what we ultimately do? How can we say that it is not the random fluctuation of neurons? Appeals to Quantum indeterminancy to defend free will fall flat, since quantum level behavior really doesn't add up enough to affect higher level actions of neurons - neurons are just too big! Even if they did work, it's chance, not some independent agent, that determines their behavior.
But the same is true for the behavior of neurons! what is acting on them but other bodily forces? The problem really comes full circle when we realize that we can't hold insane people responsible for their actions. We forgive them because neurologically, they didn't have the substrate to enable them to conceive of different alternatives before acting. Thus, they can't be held responsible.
but then can we by extension hold ourselves responsible? we depend on a neural substrate just as much as they do, but ours, we claim, is "normally functioning". But normal functioning is just the neural substrate behaving in a different way. Why would the causal relationship change at this level??? it wouldn't!! Therefore, no free will!
Of course, what happens to reason then? It falls apart. Even the atheist can't say that his beliefs were rationally formed, because his reasoning is really nothing but neurons fluttering around in his head. all our arguments, hopes, dreams, loves, are constructed on ideas that were passed on to us throughexperiences. and so, experience is all that there is left, which is purely random and relative. so, no truth at all then, i suppose. the relativists are right. the materialists are right. and this is when i start to get depressed.
so much for ethics: nobody can be held responsible for anything. (anarchists will delight in this. i just get scared)
so much for the theological excuses for evolution, that the loving god allowed creatures the freedom to choose whether to love god or not. The excuse just doesn't work if theres not free will, and neuroscience is clearly stating now that there isn't!- though 15 billion years of chance, chaos, and extinction events made this excuse rather weak in the first place! How COULD there be free will? if we are dependent at all on physical realities that obey physical laws?
Of couse, then what of morality? punishment? maintaining order? justice then becomes nothing more but a necessity for survival. by extension then, the sociobiologists were really right about morality emerging only because of the survival value of cooperation. sure, you might say that love FEELS like it is more, but then this is just an exaptive trait of something that was only adaptive at another point, just like playing the violin with my hands only happens because they used to be useful for getting food.
Free will was really the last hope for me, as it was the linchpin holding together the contemporary systematic theology. now i think i have to give it up. and with that, any hope for jesus, the god of theism, life after death, justice, and hope for the future. The only thing that really might keep people from suicide this point is a kind of Camus appeal to heroism, which is fairly tenuous.
Preliminary Response: the basic point is simple: the world is not clock-like (where things happen mechanistically) but cloud-like (where the behaviour of almost all systems is under-determined by energetic considerations) Thus the fact that a higher-order system is composed of lower-order systems does not mean that the lower-order systems determine or replace the level of explanation of the higher-order system.
In clock-like systems (ie "Machines") then in principle it seems that the lower-order explanation makes the higher order explanation obsolete - at least 'in theory' because this is patently untrue in practice (you cannot begin to understand the behaviour of a complex piece of software in terms of holes and electrons in silicon - indeed the detailed behaviour of the silicon is simply irrelevant to the software which will run 'just the same' on a completely different hardware implementation). However if you are dealing with cloud-like systems (ie pretty much any natural system, including certainly the human mind and brain) it is not even possible in principle to fully explain the higher-order system in terms of the lower-order ones.
The fallacy lies in the words "dependent on". We can admit that thoughts are dependent on the neural substrate in the sense that, without it (or something equivalent) we presumably cannot think, but this does not mean "dependent on" in the sense of "determined by".
Certainly, the disciplines of thinking about this kind of causality (what John calls "active information") are very new compared to the reductionist thinking that dominated much of science. But the fact that something is not scientifically well-understood does not mean that it does not exist. Superconductivity was an excellent example: dark matter and dark energy are clear contemporary examples.
And actually it is impossible to construct a valid argument that thought does not determine behaviour at least some of the time - because that is a necessary pre-requisite for there to be any valid arguments.
John adds: A deterministic neuroscience, if it were true, would indeed subvert its own conclusions. Thst in itself justifies the strongest suspicion of such claims. For a concice account of my view, see Ch 3 of Science and Theology

Speculation in Science: We see so much speculation in science today with models ranging from our world being a creation of an alien civilisation, to the multiverse. Is this the result of us knowing how the universe began and how something came from nothing ( or so it is claimed), as we have reached an epoch in science, is that why all these speculative theories are coming about?
By the way Nicholas are you a PhD student of Brother John?
Preliminary Response Well we don’t even know what the Dark Matter and Dark Energy are. I think we have so much speculation partly because there has been so little progress. String/M Theory may be “not even wrong” but where is the better idea?
I was a student of John’s as an undergraduate, but no PhD.
John adds; Together with many scientists of my generation, I deplore the rather recklessly speculative mood that seems present in much contemporary physics.

Disputes within the Anglican Church? Was just wondering what your thoughts were on the current disputes within the Anglican Church?
Preliminary Response; I don’t want to get drawn into controversies like this and I suspect John does not either. I am a great admirer of Tom Wright and I think John is as well. God moves in mysterious ways, and wisdom and truth will prevail in the end – with how much pain and grief remains to be seen, but it probably won’t be worse than Athanasius!
John adds: I too do not want to be drawn into this controversy. Christians are bound to disagree on some matters. When they do they have to seek both generosity and integrity in dealing with it.

Where are our departed loved ones? Your books have helped me enormously on my faith journey as like you I have been blessed with a revelation of life after death and have often wondered, that if there is a far better life to come, why did`nt God get it right first time round. The God of Hope helped a lot with that. But my question now is, when our loved ones die ( and I am so sorry to read about your wife) where do suppose they are right now ? do we have to wait until the Day of resurrection or do you think we can talk to them and pray with them now as time isn`t an issue ?? and do you think they know what`s going on here ? and can we be of any help to them, or they to us ??I`m so sorry if it`s too soon for you to address this question but perhaps it`s clearer than ever to you now.
God bless you and thank you for your wonderful ministry.
Preliminary Response: Just as life in the womb is a necessary prelude to independent life on this earth, it seems that life on this earth is a necessary prelude for us to have the loving union with God that He wants. This seems to be because we can only love if this love is freely given with real freewill, and this is only possible in the kind of universe (with free processes and with God’s presence veiled) that we inhabit.
The relationship between God’s view of time and ours is very unclear to us, and probably will always be so. Perhaps the least misleading way of putting it is that those who die in Christ are with God (“the souls of the righteous [which means those who are right with God, not of course those who do good works!] are in the hand of God”) but we are all looking forward to the glorious Resurrection at the ‘end of time’. It may well be that our subjective experience will be that we “asleep in Christ” and then we wake up on that great Day.
It seems to me that we can pray for the dead and to some extent talk to them, though too much might be unhealthy. We cannot know in what sense, if any, they can see and hear what we do, though we all I think have strong intuitions sometimes that there is some such knowledge. They can of course inspire us: we can’t help them in any way except through prayer and of course only God knows how and to what extent this “works”. We do know that He loves our departed loved-ones even more that we do and did – dying sinless in agony on the Cross so that they may have eternal and loving union with Him.
I hope this helps a bit and will see what John has to add.
John adds: I’m glad you found The God of Hope helpful. For me the key concept for us in relation to the departed is that they are in Christ in a similar, but distinct, way to that in which we are in Christ, and so in Him we have unity and prayerful contact that is real, but hard to specify in detail.

The guard on the tomb - fabricated? In Science and Christian Belief (1994) when you discuss St.Matthew's account of the watch set on the tomb you say (Chapter 6, page 117) "I consider this to be a patently fabricated tale from a Christian source, concocted precisely to rebut the canard that the disciples had been grave-robbing." I'd be interested in hearing from you your reasons for reaching this conclusion.
Response: "in view of the known demoralisation of the disciples after Jesus's arrest and the privacy with which he had spoken to them beforehand about his trust in God's vindication, I very much doubt whether the authorities would have been worried enough to set a guard. I may be wrong about this of course, and I would not want to impose my view on others. I did, however, feel that honesty required me to make this point. Generally speaking I am persuaded that the gospels are substantially historically reliable."
Nicholas adds: for what little it's worth (not much!) I don't find John's argument very persuasive at this point, and in any case what I think he means is "I consider this likely to be a fabricated tale from a Christian source..."

Quantum Computing & Physics Disproving Thank you for your website. I always feel afraid that physics is on the verge of disproving everything I put my faith in, and yet I'm not very math or science-smart and so can't evaluate it for myself. Sometimes reading about physics (e.g. Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos, which finally helped me understand quantum physics a little, and I do mean a little) puts me more in awe of God, but it also seems to wear away at my sense of his imminence and personhood. Anyway, I wanted to know if you could say something about quantum computing--I can't make heads or tails of it. If it works, does it really prove the existence of other worlds, since "calculations" would be performed in those other worlds? And does it really matter if there are other worlds--I mean, even if only a tiny corner of everything is fine-tuned for man, isn't that still pretty extraordinary (like a womb being fine-tuned for a growing human)?

Preliminary Response: The experiments on Quantum Computing are very encouraging although engineering practical large-scale quantum computers will be difficult. They depend on perfectly normal Quantum Theory and don't change the philosophical issues at all as far as I can see. If you believe in a 'many worlds' interpretation of Quantum Mechanics then you might say that the calculations are taking place in many worlds, but that is a contentious viewpoint that is not at all required by the physics.

More generally, physics can't "disprove" theology (or vice versa) the domains are too different. Physics can't even disprove biology. This is not to say that there are different truths, there is only "One World" but in order to begin to study a set of phenomena you have to look at them from an appropriate point of view.
To a non-scientist Science seems like a load of answers but to scientists Science is far more a load of questions with some techniques for trying to address them. The fact that there is no detailed physical (or biological etc..) explanation for something means only that - it does not mean that the phenomenon in question does not occur. Superconductivity was observed in 1913 and a reasonable explanation was only found in the 1960s.
I hope this helps a bit and I'll see what John has to add.

John adds: Quantum computing certainly does not have to take place in 'other worlds'; this-world devices will suffice. For quantum ideas you might want to read my Quantum Theory: A very short introduction.

I have just started reading "Exploring Reality" and have some questions right off the bat.
1. Hasn't EPR been recently tested and proven experimentally to be in line with QM predictions rather than Einstein's?
2. Didn't Von Neumann prove (although perhaps flawed) that the "hidden variable" theory was not possible?
3. Didn't Bell's work fail to prove the validity of Bohm's "hidden variable" views?
I am interetsed in JCP's views. My own background is that I have a BSc from Xxx University. I have an MA in Philosophy of Science. While I try to keep up with physics I may have missed the latest developments.
Another last question. My impression is that QM WORKS, and that because of this, many phyicists don't worry about the philosophical implications and just use it.
Preliminary Response 1. Yes I believe all the experiments confirm entaglement.
2,3 No I don't think so, I think Bell showed that these views are possible - though most physicists reject them.
Yes you are right about most physicists. But of course that doesn't make the issues unimportant. The very cutting edge philosophical work is being done by Jeremy Butterfield (now at Cambridge). I don't necessarily agree with or fully understand Jeremy's work - but he's certainly a world-class thinker in this area.
John adds: John adds: John Bell showed the error in Von Neumann's work and his celebrated inequalities enabled experimentalists to show that there is no local realist account of quantum physics.

Could you please expand on your comments regarding genetic algorithms and randomness? Genetic Algorithms use (pseudo) random variation and (artificical analogues of) natural selection to optimise some desirable qualities of a complex object. Although the means is random the end is definitely not.

Most compelling argument for God's existence Thank you so much for your website. I am teaching some issues in apologetics in my Sunday School class at church - and your site has been very useful. My question is: Bertrand Russell was once asked how he would explain his unbelief if he died and met God. Russell said he would reply, "you didn't give enough evidence." Do you think Russell has a case, or do you believe God has made the evidence for His existence self-evident? If God is self-evident, what do you think are the most compelling self-evident arguments for His existence?
Preliminary response: In a word: Jesus.
To amplify a little (but how inadequately!) - there can be no reasonable doubt that Jesus existed and his enormous effect on human history is pretty well inexplicable on a secular reading of His life. Reading the accounts in the Gospels we are clearly presented with a real person whose character, at the deepest level, speaks out to us today. Truly this is the Son of God.
John adds: I particularly like your one word response (I did the amplification afterwards)

How does God interact? I would like to begin by thanking you for this great website, which was the primary reason for my conversion to evolutionary theism and a much richer understanding of God and interpretations of The Bible.
    I have numerous questions, but really two main concerns with which I can't easily find the answers. The first involves the stories in the OT of people living for hundreds of years. How is this supposed to be taken? Is it just a story? Is it meant to be taken literally? Is it biologically possible? It seems quite specific, but it's possible that I'm missing the point. An athiest will believe The Bible is the fabrication of man, but it certainly seems like a strange thing to make up. It's not a major concern, but any light shed would be helpful.
   My second question is a little less black and white and involves God's use of evolution as a creation method. I understand and accept why he would do this, but I don't understand how. Does God act directly through evolution, or simply conceive the process and allow it to happen? Was God aware that it would culminate in human beings and if so, how would this affect the idea of God and limited Omniscience? Or does limited Omniscience only apply to man after he became self aware and capable of good/evil?
Of course we'll never know the exact ins and outs of how, but I value your input.
     I appreciate if John is not available to respond and many condolences for the loss of his wife. Any answers you could give however would help greatly.
Preliminary response: It's hard to know what to make of these stories of people living to a great age. In the past the standard line was I think that these ages were more symbolic than literal. On the other hand we now have a body of research which claims that ageing is not quite the natural inevitable process that we have been led to believe. But these claims may be marketing hype. At present it still looks as if the numbers are not to be taken literally, but I guess we are less certain than we once were about what is, or is not, "biologically possible"
    Of course we can never know the details of how God interacts with His creation. What we do know is that He interacts like a loving father, respecting the autonomy of his children but always working for their ultimate good. It seems probable that His interventions are minimised as far as possible, and are consistent with the underlying faithful laws of nature that He has ordained (which are of course not identical with the laws that we currently think we have discovered, which are only approximations "through a glass, darkly"). We also know that the Deist picture of a God who winds up the clockwork and then goes away is profoundly non-Christian. It is reasonable to guess that He nudges events from time to time, but probably almost always in such a way that the outcomes, however improbable, are not impossible. It however seems likely that the Resurrection is a genuine phase change where the laws of the New Creation burst in on the old. However since we don't know what makes up 97% of the Universe, it is important to be humble and realistic about the limits of our understanding!
    I hope this helps a bit and will see what John has to add.
John adds: I think the vast ages attributed to some ancients were the way in which writers of that time expressed wisdom and significance. In other words, here as sometimes elsewhere biblical numbers are, I believe, symbolic rather than just literal. On evolution, I bleieve God interacts with the unfolding history of creation but also, because of divine love, allows creatures to be themselves and to 'make themselves'. Of course, sometimes God does something radically new, as in the resurrection of Christ, which is the seed event from which the new creation has begun to grow out of the old creation.

Beyond Adam and Eve? Does the Bible offer any explanation about how the human race progressed beyond the sons of Adam and Eve? Who did they in turn marry? Were women were created for them from scratch? How did they procreate, if this is known? Did Adam and Eve have unknown daughters with whom incest occured? If Cain was killed by Abel (or visa/versa), was they progress of the human race left only to one son? You get the idea. Simply, does the bible speak to what happened after Adam and Eve?
Response: It seems pretty clear from the Bible that Adam and Eve were the first truly morally conscious hominids but that there were other males and females around (eg Gen 4:14) from whom Cain's wife and the wives of the descendants of Adam would have come.

How many times are we judged to be deemed worthy of admission to heaven? We often believe recently departed individuals are admitted to heaven based on past good lives - or, at least we and their families certainly hope so. Yet we are also encouraged to believe that when Christ returns to earth, He (with perhaps God's help) will determine who gets into heaven. "He will judge the quick and the dead." Does this mean those previously admitted will be judged again for a second admission? Or, does it mean the recently departed are waiting for the second coming to be judged in the future just as anyone else?
Response: We are of course never worthy of eternal life, this is the free gift from God to those who believe and trust in Jesus. The Biblical picture is not of people "dying and going to heaven" but "dying and being resurrected on the Last Day" God's view of time is not ours

If random selection is the driving mechanism of evolution, then how is man special? Why would G-d endow a being that randomly appeared with religion? Also, if one accepts the thesitic evolutionary account of Haugh, how does one then later account for divine intervention in man's affair?
Response: as the computer scientists who use genetic algorithms have demonstrated clearly, the use of randomness in an algorithm does not mean that the outcome will be random.

Please be clearer Dr. Polkinghorne, before i offer any criticism, please allow me to thank you for your mission and efforts in trying to do something i have wished years for someone to attempt in an intellectually sound way; the bringing together of science and religion, and in particular science and christianity. i applaud your efforts, your intelligence and you motives.
   i confess i am am not all that familiar with you or your work, which appears quite vast. i have, in fact only read part of "The God of Hope and the End of the World". The part that I've read, however (only the first third or so, so far) has inspired this response (which i hope makes it's way to your eyes). First, as I said already, thank you. You express thoughts I have had in some form or another for years. I am not a writer, nor a particularly credible source to be writing such things, but I think and see as much as the next person. But two things strike me so far. The first is the density of your writing. This may just be a matter of taste but I believe your style is over-wrought and difficult to follow. It is true that complicated ideas sometimes require complicated language. In this case, however, I believe many of your ideas could be expressed much more simply resulting in a wider accessibility to your ideas by the general public. As a parallel to this, I believe the overly intellectual tone of your writing, while perhaps appealing to the more scientifically minded reader (but not necessarily so - it is a stereotypical thought to believe so) does not do justice to the holistic nature of the God you describe; one who is not only the creator of the universe of galaxies and quarks, but of love as well. Your writing lacks a human touch. I am so sorry to be so blunt, but it is only because I care.
   The other point I would like to make may be a little harder for me to articulate. I'll try. When you talk about systems, you seem surprised at patterns that appear seemingly magically out of your perceived probability of randomness. I dispute that this is remarkable. It is only systems that are not well understood (yet) that seem to produce magical results. A computer would likely seem nothing less than divine to my ancestors, for example. In my own mind, we do not need to search far for what is truly magical - there is the one fact that everyone seems to sidestep - perhaps because there is no clear answer, nothing really to say about it except "yes". The fact that we are all here, the things you describe, this text on the screen the air you are breathing the chemical reactions in your brain as you read this, my mother, your desk... they exist. That is all. It cannot be explained. Everything else, all arguments pointing to something mysterious, something not yet discovered, something science has overlooked or cannot explain may well be explained one day. Your books, and all books on the topic may be regarded as quaint and naive one day. But there will be no answer to the WHY, only to all the billions of HOWs. Science studies how God works. I would like to reiterate my admiration for your efforts in communicating that to people. However, just as my own thought to you, I wanted to say that in the end, I'm not sure it matters much. As much as I myself give much thought to such things, it will all ultimately come down to a faith of some sort, a faith that won't be won through argument I'm afraid. Only through grace, whatever that may be. One day we might know how God works, we learn more everyday, but I don't know that we can learn on our own - ever - why.
    That's all. I hope you receive my thoughts in the kindest manner.
Preliminary Response Thank you for this. It is fair to say that God of Hope was written for academics at Princeton and many of John's other books are more accessible. Also the particular field in which he works - the interaction of Science and Religion - probably needs to be written in a way that will appeal to scientists who are not, sadly, big on references to love in their academic discourse!
   John agrees that the fact that we and anything else exists is in itself remarkable, but in addition it turns out that, if the known laws of physics or their constants were even slightly different no form of life could exist anywhere in the universe, which was quite unexpected and is also remarkable. Furthermore the ways in which deep order arises apparently spontaneously from chaotic systems is also very surprising - it is becoming understood a bit better and the idea that John suggests that 'active information' is a causal principle seems to have increasing merit.
John adds: "I write concisely partly becasue that's how scientists write. I try to be accessible but I have to give enough detail to support the intellectual respectability of what I say. Try Quarks, Chaos and Christianity (SPCK) - quite a chatty book"

Atheist's objections I counter some of your ideas as written on your website concerning the CH4 documentary by Richard Dorking. (sic.)
You say... "By far the biggest examples of intolerance, violence and destruction in human history are those wrought by the militant atheism, underpinned by bogus science, of the type that Dawkins espouses. Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot."
   You seems to have invented a new movement called "millitant atheism" to make his point. Yet, Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot have little in common, except they were murderous dictators. If you are suggesting that their horrific activities were somehow inspired about by their lack of belief in a God, why not suggest they were also motivated by all the other things they didn't believe in, like Father Christmas or faries?
By that logic, if only Hitler had believed in faries, there would have been no Holocaust. Absurd.
   You seem to be suggesting that atheism is some kind of idealogical belief which would inspire people to act in its name. In fact, it is merely not    believing something.
   Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot were inspired people to crueltly by inspiring belief not lack of belief. In Hitler's case, his belief was that the Germanic peoples belonged to a race which was superior to other races. He also saw himself as the God-figure of his people, leading them to glory and mastery of the planet.
   You ask... "Does he [Stephen Weinberg] think all the Nazis who rounded up his relatives in concentration camps were religious?"
Nazism was a religious-like ideology, based on a fantasy the Nazis wanted to believe about themselves, just like Christians and Christianity. They may not have believed in a God in exactly the way Christians do, but they certainly viewed Hitler as a mythical, God-like figure-head of their ideology.
   You claim... "Atheism turns people into animals, and the results are clear from the rivers of blood of the 20th Century."
What a sweeping statement, backed up by no evidence whatsoever. As I said, atheism is a lack of belief in a God or afterlife. I doubt you'll find many historians (if any) who will place the blame for either world war on a lack of belief. Those conflicts were created by complicated political and idealogical reasons, which you might learn by picking up a history book. Also, are you suggesting the First World War was conducted by atheists? This is clearly flase. Britain, France, Russia, Austria and Germany were at that time Christian states, yet they led their people into one of the most inhumane, sickening, brutal and bloody conflicts of all time.
   I am an atheist. I am also a pacifist. My family are all atheists. But there are no "rivers of blood" at my house. We love and care for each other deeply. Your claims that non-believers are animals would be insulting if your ideas weren't so flimsy.
   Care to comment?
Preliminary Response   Firstly, at an empirical level, these 4 regimes must represent a good 85% of the atheist regimes (weighted by number of citizens) in recorded history (the atheist phase of the French Revolution may well account for another 2-3% which was about as bloodthirsty). Atheist regimes are actually quite rare, representing say 20% of the regimes (weighted by citizens) in recorded history. The only theist regime I can think of which practised/allowed mass murder of its citizens on a comparable relative scale was in Rwanda (representing say 0.1% of regimes). So at an empirical level, the association between atheist regimes and mass murder is very strong - far worse than smoking and cancer. Of course your argument about Father Christmas is bogus, because no regime, whether atheist or not, has been led by people who believe in Father Christmas.
   But what is the mechanism? Well Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot all claimed to be Marxists and Marxism "the science of history" was the essential underpinning ideology that allowed them to perpetrate their massive crimes. The essence of Marxism is dialectical materialism and a denial of the existence of God - indeed Marxism was specifically developed as an anti-Christian philosophy. Hitler's Nazi-ism was admittedly far more confused than Marxism, a sort of anti-Marxism which was based on the popularised Darwinism of Haekel (the Dawkins of his day) and picked up the widely-held German view that "survival of the fittest" was a scientific and moral principle (and that, of course, the Germans were the fittest!). But more fundamentally, if you don't believe in God it is very hard to believe in a morality that will constrain you when you have an enormous amount of power. Christian leaders, however powerful, know that they are "under God" and that they do not have ultimate power, but are themselves under judgement. Atheists, manifestly, do not. An absence of constraints on the abuse of power leads, understandably, to an abuse of power.
   Incidentally, these 'darwinian' views were very common in German intellectual an military circles in the early 1900s, and very widely held by the German General Staff. It was this that shocked Vernon Kellogg, a Stanford professor who was posted to the headquarters of the German general staff During the period of American neutrality in World War I and was shocked to find German military leaders, sometimes with the Kaiser present, supporting the war with an "evolutionary rationale." They did so with "a particularly crude form of natural selection, defined as inexorable, bloody battle." - his subsequent book Headquarters Nights helped bring the US into the war.
   I obviously don't suggest that all atheists are immoral - many smokers do not die of cancer. But atheism and power is an exceptionally dangerous mixture.
   I'm glad to learn that you don't consider humans to be animals - most atheists do. And that view does lead to the rivers of blood of the 20th C - not in all cases but in enough to cause massive concern, and over 100M deaths.
John adds: Of course there are ethical atheists. I certainly respect them and wish to work with them where it's appropriate. However false ideologies do not only correspond to erroneous beliefs. They can also lead to terrible actions. The Church has not been free from this kind of error (crusades, inquisition), but the twentieth century atheist regimes are truly frightful examples. I would not express myself quite as uninhibitedly as Nicholas does, but the point remains one that has to be taken into honest consideration.

Evolutionary Just-so Stories I have been looking through the science sections of a few major book stores with the hope of finding some actual science. Instead I find a multitude of books on Darwin and the scientific explanation of religion and why we believe. I had to look at the sign above the section to see if I accidentally wandered into the philosophy section instead. I was looking through a few books on the evolution of religion and basically they say that we are religious because of our genes and evolution. Religion helped us survive (helped us not be nervous in certain situations and made us stay away from dangerous places). Basically we believe religion because the molecules in our head tell us to...but only if we have the genes to code for them of course. What about this idea that science can explain religion through genetics/evolution (which means that god and morals evolved to serve our survival puropses)? It seems like they are using the idea that there is no god to figure out what questions to ask and what arguments to use...but how does that work exactly? Can the assumptions you use to base an argument or hypothesis on be used as the conclusion? Can you use arguments that assume that God doesn't exist to show that God doesn't exist? An example would be God doesn't exist so therefore the only explanation we have for religion is that religion evolved because it has some kind of survival value. Therefore since religion evolved (and we made up God) for our survival, that means that God doesn't exist. Is this logical? My final question is how much of this is really science and how much is really a personal philosophy that has made its way into science? What are the arguments against the idea that God is a creation of evolution?
Thanks for your website and your great work!
Preliminary Response Thank you for your question.
There are two problems with these kind of evolutionary "explanations"

They tend to be 'just so stories'. If something happens biologically then it must, by defintion, have some survival value, so you can say it happend because of the survival value. But if the opposite happens, you just say the opposite had survival value too. Historically atheists have claimed that religion was bad for you, but now in order to explain it they have to say it is good for you!
They obviously don't "explain away" something like religion. This is most obviously true because the very belief in evolutionary explanations must by hypothesis have a survival value, so if evolutionary "explanations" of beliefs rendered them invalid then by that "argument" the belief in evolutionary explanations must itself be invalid.

Now when you are comparing worldviews (such as Christianity vs Evolutionary Naturalism - henceforth C vs EN) you can't usually make deductions between them, but what you can do is take some observed features of the world and ask how likely each is under C or EN. Some facts about the world (such as anthropic fine-tuning) are very awkward for EN, and others, such as the levels of evil and suffering, are awkward for C. A fact that is mildly awkward for EN is widespread religious belief and it has to be explained in the way you suggest, but this is not proof of EN merely proof that EN is not, in this respect, inconsistent. My own view is that the evidence for C is "almost overwhelming" in the sense that it is not irrational to deny C and hold EN, just as it is not irrational to believe that a coin which alternates strictly between Heads and Tales for several hundred tosses is 'random' - it's logically possible just very unilkely. And indeed since it is an essential feature of C that God leaves us with a choice on whether to believe in Him or not, that is exactly what we would expect.
I think one really serious challenge for EN is that there is a lot of evidence that C has biological survival value compared to EN, and it is very hard to see how human minds, which according to EN are purely the product of evolution and therefore cannot have faculties unless these faculties confer selective advantage, can have the faculty to disbelieve something which gives selective advantage to believe (call this "Disadvantageous Disbelief" or DD). It is hard to see how DD can have survival value, yet this is what holders of EN claim to have in rejecting C.
Deep waters - I hope this helps.
John adds: There may be evolutionary and social factors that have contributed to the immense success of modern science, but the principal reason is that it has achieved contact with the reality of the physical world. I think that a similar kind of possibility must be accorded to religion: that it arises from actual contact with the sacred reality of God. What's sauce for the scientific goose should be sauce for the religious gander.

Atheists and Hell Sorry to bother you again. I have a two part question that is rather vexing for me. The first one has to do with The Garden of Eden and The Fall. Atheists often argue that we fell due to God's alleged incompetence/irresponsibility. For example, I saw this on a message board earlier:
"The idea that a god could send one of his children to hell for not believing in him certainly places anger in the lap of the religious folks who buy into such a doctrine, IMO. As I've stated numerous times before, I find the belief that a god would place a burden of sin on the entrie population because two people in a garden were fooled by an entity who was created by said god with the intention of fooling those people simply ludicrous. Keep Snake Boy out of the garden, and don't let him fool those simple-minded folks in the first place, and you have no problem, and no 'sin' that you need to place on the rest of the kids from there on out. How come I can figure out such an easy plan, but the god of the Bible can't? While we're at it, don't put that tree in there with them, either. If I had something that I didn't want my kids touching, I wouldn't lock it in the room my kids are staying in, and then put a trickster in there to talk them into playing with it. It's called parenting skills, something I think this god is lacking."
   To be honest, I don't know how to answer this. I mean, I know this is not what went on - like yourselves I don't take the creation story in Genesis as being meant to be more of an "abridged" narrative of early human history rather than a literal account so a lot of this stuff is symbolism (but this is getting irrelevant) - but I don't really know how to word it. It seems as if this atheist would have a point (God forgive me) but...I don't know could you please help me?
   The second part of my question has to do with Hell. Most atheists have the "frying pan torture chamber" image of Hell which is easily dispelled so I don't really need help there. Basically, it's the equally common charge that it's unfair for God to send people to Hell just because they find belief in Him to be illogical/irrational/intellectually deficient in some way and are, thus, unable to do so. Part of the response to the "injustice of Hell" argument is what C.S. Lewis formulated in The Problem of Pain and The Great Divorce, mainly that God doesn't "send" anyone to Hell. People send themselves there, as the Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft says, the theme-song of Hell is the Frank Sinatra song "I Did It My Way." I really believe that, and this seems to be the biblical answer as well. The problem is, you really can't say this to an atheist and come away unscathed (perhaps in some cases quite literally). They will become quite irrate and rant about ad hominems, genetic fallacies, etc. and say atheists can't reject Someone they don't believe in in the first place. At which time they'll proceed to call you their favorite new curse words "judgmental fundamentalist" because you accuse them of knowing God exists but rejecting Him anyway. Something I think is entirely true but...again could you help me out in formulating some kind of response to their "can't reject Someone you don't believe in in the first place" rebuttal?
Preliminary Response Well this 'Eden' business is a ludicrous misrepresentation, as you know. The snake is symbolic - of the deep reality that if people have freewill then they can choose between good and evil, and will in fact choose evil. If God did not allow us freewill, we would be incapable of love. Parents precisely allow children to grow and make mistakes so that they can learn.
As for the Hell business, it seems to me that this is one thing Atheists and Christians could agree on. Ask an Atheist whether (s)he believes that (s)he will live eternally in perfect loving union with God, Father Son and Holy Spirit (which is what is meant by Eternal Life) and (s)he will presumably say no. So what are they complaining about :-). Hell is simply the opposite of Eternal Life. We do not have a right to Eternal Life, it is a gift from God only available to those who want to and are able to receive it. To those who do not, it would indeed be torment. Love is the positive, non-Love/rejection is the negative. If Atheists cannot love, then they have 'rejected' by default, it is not an act but a non-act
Does this help at all?
Supplementary Question I worded some of my comments wrong in my initial message looking back on it. I meant to say, "Like yourselves I'm a theistic evolutionist so I don't take Genesis literally, I classify it as a 'myth' (though not in the popular sense of that word)..." Anyway, onto the main point.
   I know this person was putting the worst possible spin on the Genesis story (no surprises when dealing with internet atheists) and your comments were very helpful. It's just that, I'm something of a "new convert" to theistic evolution and I'm trying to develope a complete and satisfying interpretation of Genesis in light of evolution. This is something that has proven to be more difficult than I originally thought it would be. Does evolution render things like Eden and the Fall as unhistorical? I know this has to do with the original question I asked you but this is somewhat different. One of Christianity's central tenets is that we are fallen and marred creatures in need of redemption (of course you know this) so how do we maintain this doctrine in light of this "allegorical" interpretation of Genesis?
   Regarding the Hell bit. I see what you're saying. It's just that, whenever the question of Hell comes up in atheist-Christian debate/argument, the dialogue goes something like this:
ATHEIST: Hell is unjust because of...XYZ.
CHRISTIAN: A. Hell is not literally fire & worms, etc. B. People only end up in Hell because they'd rather be their own gods rather than repent, accept God's forgiveness, and follow His will. In other words, they choose it.
ATHEIST: That's ridiculous, atheists dont reject God they just don't think He exists! You make it seem like atheists really know God exists but reject Him because they'd rather party their whole life and spend eternity in Hell!
CHRISTIAN: ?
I'm just trying to figure out what a good response to that last atheist objection would be. Since, in the case of anti-Christian atheists, that is the truth (as you know)! The problem is we can't really say this without incurring the atheist's scorn and allowing him to dismiss you as "fanatical" and ending the dialogue. Does that help clarify where I'm coming from?
Preliminary Response to Supplementary I think the honest answer is that almost all atheists, at least in the US and the UK, are atheists because they actively choose to reject the almost overwhelming evidence for God and Christ. If we just take four main lines of argument:
a. The existence of the Universe
b. Anthropic fine-tuning
c. The existence of objective morality
d. The life and witness of Christ and His Resurrection
   In each case choosing to disbelieve them is an act of will and faith, whereby the atheist chooses not to believe a hypothesis which explains all the facts well, merely hoping that there might be another explanation or saying that there is none - which is manifestly not the case, but the atheist just chooses not to accept it. (Some atheists try to deny (c) but this leads them into a major intellectual and moral mess.) So the truth is that the atheists you are talking to have indeed deliberately rejected God.
   Whether it is always wise to say this pastorally is another matter.
   Tempted to make up a parable of a man whose long-lost great uncle Sam leaves him $1M in his will, but the man refuses to believe in the great uncle, whom he has never met (family could have been deceiving him, documents could be forged, attorney could be bogus, everyone knows that Uncle Sam is a figure of speech) and therefore refuses to go to the Attorney's office to sign for the gift, and it is given to others. Hardly unfair I think.
John adds: In creation God holds in being a word in which the divine love has given to creatures the freedom to be themselves. The Adam and Eve story is a powerful myth {John, like you, is not using 'myth' in the popular meaning of the word as meaning 'untrue story'} expressing the insight that humanity has abused the gift by turning away from the Creator who is the one true ground of all human flourishing. The tragedy of Hell is that its inhabitants have chosen to be there - the gates are locked on the inside to keep God out, rather than on the outside to keep them in.

More about fine tuning I have an urgent question from myself and a friend after reading John's book "beyond science"
Many say that the universe is finely tuned, it is based upon precise constants, such that if it was to change by a "certain amount" then the universe won't exist, but some argue that this is subjective, they say that this is proof that the universe is based upon random constants, this is because it is NOT the case that the if the universe changes by "ANY" amount that the universe will not exist, only by a certain amount, but again, not any change,
Hence they say that this is a sign to say that the universe was an accident, in your book "beyond science" you do detail how there are lesser constants then the cosmological one, whereby if it was to change by a certain amount things would not exist but again, not any amount.
Am I right in thinking that it may be the case that you scientists will find the universe more precisely tuned then previously thought of ? such that if the constants where changed by any amount the universe with life would not exist?
It seems as though the universe is not finely tuned according to those arguments. I'm really shocked by this recent thought,
Preliminary Response Sorry it has taken ages to respond to this - I was away and then very busy.
Like all the arguments for the existence of God (and indeed most arguments for the existence of anything) the Fine Tuning Argument is persuasive rather than analytic - in other words it is not impossible that life and the universe is some unexplained accident, it just seems very improbable.
No-one knows the correct theory of quantum gravity (many people think that some version of 'Brane' theory, which is a generalisation of string theory, may do the trick but no-one knows) but on the basis of what is currently understood there are a number of apparently fundamental constants (such as the amount of matter/energy in the universe, the ratio of the mass of the electron to the mass of the proton etc.. - Prof Martin Rees's book about this is called 'Just Six Numbers') which as far as anyone knows could in principle take almost any value except that if the values were even slightly different from what they are at present, there are strong reasons to believe that intelligent life could not exist in the universe (ie be 'Anthropic')
There are essentially only four possibilities:

This Fine Tuning is highly unlikely in a random possible universe, but God has ensured in His loving wisdom that it is so, so that we can come into being.
This Fine Tuning is highly unlikely in a random possible universe, but luckily the one that exists is Anthropic
This Fine Tuning is highly unlikely in a random possible universe, but there are such a vast number of other Universes that it is not unlikely that at least one of them is Anthropic.
There are as yet undiscovered reasons why this Fine Tuning is not highly unlikely in a random possible universe.

It's fair to say that pretty well all atheists with a scientific background who have seriously considered the matter are driven to (3), explicitly to avoid (1) and with very little other scientific motivation. (2) is just too much of a cop-out and even if the laws of physics turn out to have different fundamental constants it seems very likely to most people that the same kind of anthropic fine-tuning will apply. If the string/brane theorists are on the right lines, and we are in a 12-or-more-dimensional space-time and not a 4-dimensional one, the chances are that there will be extra constants that are mysteriously fine-tuned, not fewer.
John adds: Fine-tuning is an undisputed scientific fact of our universe (The most exact number relates to the cosmological constant - a kind of anti-gravity - which is, and has to be, less than 10^-120 of what would otherwise be its expected value) I think Nicholas's four points put clearly and accurately what are the possible metascientific responses to these remarkable facts.

Problems from a Libertarian Atheist An atheist on a discussion board I sometimes frequent posted a 'Challenge to Christian Apologists' and I'm wondering if you can help me refute this guy's argument. It's not all that long and it's available here.

Preliminary Response: There are about 16 different arguments presented on that site! I really can't deal with all of them.
   The basic fact is that not everything in the Bible is intended to be 'taken literally'. This is obvious from the 'contradictions' that arise if you were to try to take it literally. The ancient Jews were much cleverer than most of us at noticing contradictions - so they knew perfectly well that the Bible has to be read on many different levels, and so have Christians throughout the ages.
   Now it's obvious from Genesis 1 that this rib story is not meant to be 'taken literally', because we have already been given an account of creation in which male and female were created together. What then does this rib business mean? Well first of all, the word for 'rib' (tzehlag) also means 'side' so what the Bible is really saying here is that men and women are two sides of the one unity which is humanity. Remember God (elohim, plural!) says "let us create man in our own image - male and female created he them" - and we can understand this in the context of the Trinity, where the unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is even more intimate than the union of man and wife. Obviously this is not about DNA! Indeed we now understand something of how God created humankind 'from the dust of the earth' and it's a very wonderful and interesting story, involving the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. But these details are not what the Bible is about: the Bible is about relationships between God and humanity. Of course "defender" won't be impressed by this, but he needs to take the general point that you don't refute someone's position by refuting something that they are not saying. If he were serious he'd allow Christians to define what they understand the Bible to say on this, and then try to refute that!
   It is clear that the serpent is here a representative of the Devil. The Devil would presumably have caused Eve to hallucinate - less trouble than wiring the serpent for sound, though that is perfectly possible as well. Clearly the serpent didn't know what he was doing!
   NB: I am not saying that the Bible has got it wrong. Any telling of a story leaves out certain details - no-one could tell these stories better with greater accuracy and similar economy and symbolic reference.
   A Cambridge Prof has come up with some reasonably plausible mechanisms for the Egypt miracles. We don't know if they are correct - but it certainly shows they are not impossible.
   On the resurrection, there are of course instances of people who appeared to die but have not - however this is not what happened to Jesus. We don't know the details of course, but God clearly transformed his old body into a Resurrection Body which is not subject to normal physical laws (possibly using a super-symmetrical transformation of the matter into the Dark Matter which seems to make up most of the Universe). If God perfectly remembers you and if your personality is about the patterns of connection and waves in the brain then God could, of course, recreate this 'software' on a different hardware - and it would be 'you' IF and ONLY IF you had freely given your will to God for Him to do this (otherwise it'd be a clone). Of course if God does not exist then true resurrection is impossible - so what? We knew that anyway.
I've also posted this on Lib Def's site - we'll see what he has to say.

Dawkins' Channel 4 Programmes I recently watched two by one-hour programmes on BBC TV entitled "The Root of All Evil" by Richard Dorking which I found very interesting. Not being a well educated man myself I would have liked very much to hear someone like JCP giving his views on these programmes and perhaps having a similar programme himself where we could hear his side of the argument. I have downloaded a ten page document from the web site of Dr. Victor Zammit (never heard of him before) that is highly critical of Dr. Dorking's views but I have known of Dr. Blenkinghorne for many years now and indeed have read some of his books. I would therefore welcome his views on Richard Dorking and his TV programme. {signed by X X "an octogenerian" I have not changed what he sent although of course it was a Channel 4, Dawkins, Polkinghorne. Someone born before 1925 using the Internet to such good effect is to be admired}
Preliminary Response: Thank you for your email. You might want to put this to Channel 4
I didn't see Dawkins's programme but we are familiar with his views. The fact is that although most scientists don't believe in God at present a significant minority do and almost all scientist accept that science alone cannot settle the question. There are only about 3 media scientists, none of the first rank, who peddle the "Science proves atheism" view, of which Dawkins is the most prominent. Going by the summary

He says that "Science... must continuously test its own concepts and claims. Faith, by definition, defies evidence: it is untested and unshakeable, and is therefore in direct contradiction with science." But, as Prof McGrath has pointed out in his brilliant demolition of Dawkin's 3rd rate philosophy Dawkins' God, the 'definition' of Faith that Dawkins uses is one which no mainstream Christian theologian holds. If Dawkins were a scientist he would test his claim that "Faith, by definition, defies evidence" He does not - his is wrong, and actually deliberately misleads since he knows from McGrath book that he is wrong.
He says "religions preach morality, peace and hope, in fact... they bring intolerance, violence and destruction" By far the biggest examples of intolerance, violence and destruction in human history are those wrought by the militant atheism, underpinned by bogus science, of the type that Dawkins espouses. Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot. Religions might not bring perfection, but Atheisms have 100 times worse track record. Interesting that when Dawkins wants to smear christians he says that he feels that a Christian gathering resembles a Nurenberg rally ... ie evolutionary atheism!
The Lourdes thing is grossly misleading! There have been 'only' 33 certifiably miraculous cures that have no medical or scientific explanation. But millions feel better and indeed the evidence that religious faith improves health, enhances lifespan and reproductive success (ie more grandchildren) is overwhelming and incontrovertable.
Dawkins says region is 'poisonous' but scientifically it is good for people's survival. This poses a serious philosophical problem for Dawkins who claims that all our mental faculties are the result of evolution. He says it is a 'virus' but gives no evidence, only selective anecdotes, that it is harmful. He seems to think that Judaism is a particularly bad virus - a view which is intellectual ancestors in Germany and Russia shared, and acted upon! And if there are movies in the US which 'demonise' abortion and homosexuality there are many many more that enthusiastically promote such practices. Are these 'viruses' too?
How an otherwise intellgent man like Stephen Weinberg can say that without religion, 'you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.' is beyond me. Does he think all the Nazis who rounded up his relatives in concentration camps were religious??
"kindness and generosity are innate in human beings, as they are in other social animals." True, so are the capacities for murder, rape, and extreme cruelty. Look at the way chimanzees behave, killing eachother and each others babies. Religion, especially Christianity, provides a basis for millions to live and work together in love, forgiveness, honesty and cooperation. Atheism turns people into animals, and the results are clear from the rivers of blood of the 20th Century.

Stenger's missionary atheism In researching for a book I am writing (from a Christian viewpoint) of certain esoteric practices, I have noted a worrying increase in activity from zealous “missionary” atheists of eminent scientific standing. Among their ranks is physicist and astronomer Professor Victor J. Stenger. http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/ ...who has a number of forthcoming publications:
- The Comprehensible Cosmos (forthcoming July 2006)
- God: The Failed Hypothesis (forthcoming 2007)
I am not a scientist, though I have read a great deal ...including most of John Polkinghorne’s books about the interface of science and religion. As a ‘partially informed’ non-scientist it seems to me though that the conclusions postulated by Prof. Stenger (in advance of publication) do not follow from the offered scientific arguments. His general standing will no doubt, though, carry weight.
Amongst other things, Prof. Stenger seems to discount entirely the philosophical rationale for belief offered by Prof. Richard Swinburne (whom he quotes) and takes a very particularist view of certain aspects of science. He even shoots at his erstwhile co-conspirator Antony Flew for modifying (albeit weakly) his viewpoints about the existence of a creator.
I appreciate that Professor Polkinghorne cannot take upon himself the weight of all arguments for God-centred science - but his standing is such to offer a better chance than others ...who could only counter with unhelpful yah-boo arguments likely to polarise opinion - as with (e.g.) opponents of Richard Dawkins. Shouting from the extremities of opinion with inadequately supported arguments cannot help either God or humanity.
I beg, please pass this to John Polkinghorne or in default anyone else able to offer rational scientific weight to counter any mis-information.
Preliminary Response Thanks for your email. I've glanced at Prof Stenger's presentation which summarises his book and I must say it looks pitiful. For example he says, correctly, that "if God exists he should be the source of our morals and values". He then claims that:

"These principles should be original and clearly not of natural origin" There is no reason at all why this should be so - all mainstream Christian thinkers I know would hold that God has been guiding people towards Him through their consciences since the dawn of history.
"Believers should be observed to live by these principles and not decide right and wrong for themselves" He then interprets the former to mean that all believers should invariably live by these principles. Well that might be nice, but it is certainly the opposite of Christian doctrine on this point, and there is no reason to suppose that it should be true. Of course in general the worst crimes against humanity have been committed by Atheists, who have no solid basis for their morality, contrary to his statement that "atheists are just as moral as believers" - well some may be but on aggregate not. And as for taking obsolete commandments from the OT, Chistianity has never held that these are binding on Christians. So his 'argument' might apply to certain extreme Jewish sects - I don't know - but it certainly not a refutation of any mainstream Christianity I know.

   His idea that mystical or religious experiences should lead to empirically testable knowledge is again rather laughable. That is not what religious revelations are about - and no-one claims they are. There are excellent reasons to do with freewill why God does not do this.
He also has a big non-argument that "If humanity is so special, why so much wasted matter in the universe"? Since it takes about 12bn yrs for humanity to evolve the Universe has to be c12bn light years in size, and to achieve the critical densities that are necessary you need about the matter that we have. He completely fails to engage with the anthropic fine tuning that even impresses atheist astronomers like Martin Rees - most cosmologists accept that the only reasonable alternative to Anthropic Fine Tuning is a vast plethora of multiverses: he seems to be stuck badly in the past and unwilling to engage with the facts.
   He then suggests that the Bible makes scientific claims like "the earth is flat". (Well, Ps 93v2 says in the Prayer Book "He has made the round world, so sure that it cannot be moved" - but sadly this seems to be a mistranslation, and modern translations don't say "round"!) The fact is that the Bible is not a scientific treatise, and it says nothing about whether the world is flat or round. In OT times people probably assumed it was flat, by NT times it was known to be round. (Erastothenes (276-194 BC) famously made a reasonable estimate of its circumference.)
   His assertion that there is no evidence for the life and death of Jesus is absurd, and to say that "physical and historical evidence" "rules it out" is again pitiful. I'm not an expert on the 1st Temple but I very much doubt his assertions about this: as for archeological evidence of Exodus this is a moot point, but the fact is that Archeology can rarely prove a negative - the fact that you can't find something doesn't mean it doesn't exist!
   Again his "argument" "Evil exists, therefore God does not exist" is pitiful. Thedoicy is non-trivial but he needs at least to engage with it. No mainstream religion has ever claimed that Evil does not exist.
   Finally the idea that the laws of nature arose from nothing is plain silly - only by a gross abuse of language can a "quantum fluctuation" be considered nothing - and it can only exist because of pre-existing physical laws!
   The fact is that there are philosophical difficulies for both Christian theism and Atheism, it is a balance of probablities and anyone who can say that it is proven beyond reasonable doubt is simply ignorant or deceitful.
   Hope this helps a bit.
John adds I do not know of Stenger's writings, but it seems to me that he makes a naive account of religion into a straw man to be demolished by appeal to (actually limited) scientific authority. Serious atheists must have the honesty to engage with the serious arguments of religious believers. As Nick says, the assertion that there is no evidence for the life and death of Jesus is just ridiculous.

The Bible & Divine Intervention I agree with John Polkinghorne about the nature of the creation stories in Genesis: surely, these narratives disclose foundational truths in the manner of, say, poetry, or song. My question, however, concerns the dividing line biblical apologists draw between the first eleven chapters of Genesis and the supposedly historical accounts from Abraham onwards, including the Gospel traditions regarding Jesus. Many of the Biblical stories are replete with delightful puns and allusions, yet they are embedded in texts that purport to be chronicles of Israel’s history. Or they have the character of folk-tales – I am thinking specifically of the episode that occurs in the opening chapter of 2Kings, in which God twice dispatches the enemies of the prophet Elijah with heaven-sent fires (it makes me think of the ‘third time lucky’ motif one finds in so many fairytales). If we do not have to take this story literally, why should we attach any more credence to Elijah’s appearance in the stories of Jesus’ Transfiguration? Again, if we convert the Transfiguration into some kind of elaborate metaphor, why should we not feel compelled to do the same to the Resurrection? Where, in relation to the Bible, does story end and history begin, and how can we tell the difference? Christian theology might demand that God intervene in history but that’s not the same thing as saying that He did.
Preliminary Response It's not as simple as this. You have to ask, of each part of the Bible, what kind of writing this is and what is God trying to tell us through it. This is not a matter of 'poetry' vs 'literal truth': we use notational conventions in science as well, for example, when I write f=ma I don't mean to imply that the word "fry" means the same as the word "mary", and talk about the 'big bang' does not imply cymbals and sound waves!
We cannot dismiss the first 11 Chapters of Genesis as myths even though many of the exact details are not the point, as is clear from the fact that there are two creation stories in Genesis which differ as to the details - God is saying "don't be hung up on the details, these are not important, understand what I am trying to tell you about the fundamental truths about the relationships between God, Humanity and Creation" This incidentially is why Darwin's theories were never rejected by the mainstream churches on theolgical grounds - indeed he was buired in Westminster Abbey and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York were on the committee for his funeral memorial.
Equally Kings and Chronicles present somewhat different perspectives on the events they cover, and although they represent remarkable historiography for their time, we need to read the scriptures in the light of Christ. I suppose it is not inconceivable scientifically that something happened to the first 2 companies but theologically it seems mightily implausible. And these books were written hundreds of years after the events they describe.
However, when we come to the Gospels we are dealing with serious attempts by eye-witnesses or people with direct access to them to tell the truth as it happened. The idea of the Resurrection as an elaborate metaphor, for example, arose in the 19th Century with people like Hegel and Strauss. But it's a nonsense: Jesus died and yet the tomb was empty (otherwise the Jewish and Roman authorities could have produced the body and nailed all this subversive talk of resurrection stone dead). So perhaps the disciples stole the body and fabricated the resurrection stories? Why would anyone give their lives for something they knew to be a lie?
It's not just Christian theology that implies that God can, and does, intervene in history. If God, a Loving Ultimate Creator, exists at all then He must interact with the creatures He loves from time to time. Of course, if you assume a-priori that God does not exist, then it follows that God does not intervene in history - but there are very serious difficulties for Atheism as a world-view which is why it has always been rather marginal and seems to be decining heavily after its brief and disasterous flowering in the 20th Century led to the worst regimes and human disasters in the whole of recorded history.
John adds: The Bible is not a book but a library, with many different kinds of writing, interweaving story and history. Myth is a word easily misunderstood. It does not mean a fairy story, but truth so deep that only story can convey it. See my Science and the Trinity Ch 2 for more on scripture.

Genetic Determinism and Evolution I have no problem accepting evolution as an explanation of how we as creatures came to be (i.e. how we 'got our bodies') but if you accept that, do things like genetic determinism necessarily follow? What do you make of the Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson who writes:

"...no species, ours included, possesses a purpose beyond the imperatives created by its own genetic history (i.e., evolution)....we have no particular place to go. The species lacks any goal external to its own biological nature" (On Human Nature, 2-3).

He also claims that scientific materialism will one day overcome traditional religions and even secular humanism. Now, I can't accept this reductionistic theory of morality which would have us believe that all our notions of virtue and goodness are really just remnants of evolutionary processes or 'herd instinct' meant for our survival as a species and any sense of value we place in them is merely illusary. And that all our behavior is completely determined by our genes so free will is also an illusion. Surely, biological evolution is a scientific fact but it only explains how we came to be, one need not base his entire worldview upon it as Wilson clearly does right? What do you or John make of all this. Thank you so much for your time, patience, and wisdom.

Preliminary Response: No, 'genetic determinism' is a nonsense. Even Dawkins accepts that genes only act statistically - ie they don't "program" you in any real sense. It's worth remembering that evolution is like gravity - it's a pervasive organising principle but not the whole story.
Wilson is entitled to his opinion, but to the extent that "purpose" is meant in a metaphysical, philosophical, or theological sense he is making a statement which is not susceptible to scientific investigation, and is beyond his competence. As for his predictions of the triumph of scientific materialism, people have been saying such things since at least the 1790s. But over 200 years of experience of secuar triumphalism shows is:

Secular triumphalist regimes have been the biggest disasters and mass-murderers is history (Mao, Stalin, Hitler etc.. Hitler's was built on scientific evolutionary notions taken directly from Wilson & Dawkin's predecessors Spencer and Haeckel - disowned by Darwin himself)
The demise of religion never seems to happen. Even in the UK, which has a very secular culture in the commentariat, 72% of people in the Census said they were Christian.
In biological and evolutionary terms, religion (esp. Christianity) is good for you. Compared with secularists, Christians are happier, healthier and have more grandchildren. All over the world, secular societies are committing demographic suicide.

So Wilson is peddling his wishful thinking, unsupported by any real evidence - indeed the evidence seems to point the other way.
John adds: The distinct personalities of identical twins show that absolute gentic determinism is untrue. The intricate structure of the individual brain is not completely genetically specified, but develops in response to experience.

LISA Satellite and Multiverses The LISA satellite will be sent into space. It is said that it will either prove or disprove the multiverse theory, the satallite will even take pictures of the creation event?! ( or its claimed)....as I heard from a documentary by michio kaku
   1. Even IF we do get some indication from that satellite that other universes exist, OR something outside "our" universe exists, that it will still bring us no closer to knowing what that universe is like i.e wether those universes contain life like ours, or wether those universes have different laws, or wether there is a finite amount or infinite amount of those universes etc?
   2. Could it be that the multiverse is genuinely untestable? I ask this because michio kaku says that the creation event will be seen
Preliminary Response First of all, don't forget that LISA is only in concept phase, and that launch is slated for 2014. So it's premature to say much with confidence about the results of the LISA experiment at this stage!
   IF our current understanding of gravity is approximately correct then LISA ought to be able to detect rather strong gravitational waves such as those from (the hypothesised) Massive Black Holes as well as some of the binary star systems. LISA should also give us more insights into the mysterious 'Dark Matter' and 'Dark Energy' that are thought to make up over 90% of the observable universe. However LISA will still fall short (by many orders of magnitude) of detecting the so-called "holy grail'" of cosmology, the stochastic background of gravitational waves produced during the hypothesised inflation of the early universe.
   Some of the multiverse theories offer testable predictions about the distribution of matter and gravity in this universe, and the LISA observations might therefore 'falsify' some of these and strengthen others. But people who want to believe in multiverses will probably be able to tweak their models to be consistent with almost any set of observations - and it is also pretty certain that anyone who wants to believe in 'Fine Tuning' will be able to fine-tune their models accordingly. As far as I can see, the basic problem in cosmology is that theories are at present very much under-determined by observation: cosmologists are notoriously 'often in error but seldom in doubt'.
   Given any particular multiverse theory we can, of course, say something about the other universes that would exist under this theory, since by definition they will also be obeying the (hypothesised) 'laws of physics' But anything we say will have to be treated with caution, since we cannot know whether these laws are correct or merely useful approximations (like Newton's Laws)
   Kaku - like many cosmologists, is very excited about M-Theory which is an 11 (or 12) dimensional generalisation of string theory. The string theory community has been 'on the verge of a breakthrough' for about 20 years but, although I don't understand the details at all, it all feels rather contrived. All that can be said with certainty is that it might lead to a better physical theory, it might not, and until the dust settles any philosophical conclusions based on it are highly speculative. Hype to sell books and get grants may be pragmatically useful, but it isn't real science - real science deals in un-certainties at the cutting edge.
   There are certainly some multiverse theories that yeild some predicions that are testable in principle. But remember that this really only allows for falsification not verification.
John adds: like many physicists of my generation, I am very sceptical about multiple universes. Arguments from superstrings depend on believing that theorists can correctly second guess nature 16 orders of magnitude beyond anything we know experimentally.

More on Adam and Eve First of all I would like to thank you for putting together such a wonderful and informative sight and John for all of his remarkable work in science and theology. I haven't actually read any of John's books but after visiting this sight I immediately placed Belief in God in an Age of Science on my Amazon.com Wish List and hope to read it very soon. It was, in fact, this website which really helped assuage my fears of biological evolution and eased me into it in such a tranquil manner that I cannot thank you enough.

Limbo and Purgatory With the recent rejection of the concept of limbo by the Catholic Church, our discussion group is wondering about the authenticity of Purgatory. While it is reasonable (and there is ample evidence that the Judeo-Christian tradition accepts this) to think that most who die while not deserving of eternal punishment are not quite ready for heaven, the exact nature of such an intermediate state/place seems vague. For example, how can a spiritual entity such as a soul be bothered by fire? I seem to recall that John recently published the findings of a group that dealt with the after life and had some interesting things to say about Purgatory. Could you or John put a concise statement of of this on the web?
Preliminary Response John co-authored a report of the CofE called The Mystery of Salvation and this is the paragraph which mentions purgatory (p196-7)
Since heaven is a participation in the life of God, only those fitted to share that life may fully enter into it. Heaven is a communion of saints, a communion of those made holy by the work of the Spirit in the response of faith. Sanctification, grwoth in holiness, is the condition of heaven. And there is no holiness without God's grace because only God can make holy. Yet such holiness requires our human response; it is not the product of mechanistic determinism, but a fruit of our love freely given, won from us by God's transforming love for us. Those Christians who have wanted to speak of 'purgatory' have by this language wanted to sterss that God's love and mercy reaches out to fit for heaven those who staill at their dying need to grow in that holiness which is the very condition of communion with God. Those who have resisted the language of purgatory have done so because they believe that God usues death itself as the instrument to complete the necessary toask of dealing with sin which, up to that point, still distorts the life of all Christians. This view claims support from texts such as Romans 6.7: 'Whoever has died is freed from sin.'
As far as 'fire' and so forth goes, that language has always been metaphorical. I don't think any serious theologian from any tradition has ever thought that the souls in purgatory have bodies. However if we were truly confronted with the reality of our sins and of the holiness of God we might well want our sins to be 'purified by fire' and the sensation might not be less painful - after all pain is perceived in the mind. As CS Lewis puts it somewhere, if we are invited to God's banquet wearing filthy stinking rags we might well want to get clean clothes, even if they are not strictly 'necessary'.
John adds: on purgatory, see my God of Hope and the End of the World, Ch 11

Implications of a hypothetical Meteor Strike on Jesus I care very much about science and religion. (Christianity is my native faith, and I am very devout though also rather heterodox.)
    I tend to strongly favor strict evolutionary theory over all forms of creationism, for example. I also tend to think of miracles - if there are miracles at all - as restricted to humanly-mediated healings, and discount other miracle stories as mythical or folkloric, etc.
    However, I have a problem. A very simple thought-experiment -- a bit of counterfactual history -- seems to put in grave doubt my basic assumptions, assumptions I believe I share with most people who care deeply about both science and religion.
    It is embarrassingly simple. Suppose that a destructive event, an asteroid strike for instance, were to occur at a very "inopportune" time for the unfolding of salvation history. Suppose this event occurred during the life of Jesus but before His ministry. (It can be located elsewhere, but for Christians this is a good place to put the event). Suppose that this event either destroyes all human life, or destroys all human life in Judea, or indeed, it is sufficient for a Christian to imagine a very localized event affecting the person of Jesus.
    Such an event at precisely such a moment poses special problems that it would not cause earlier or later. For instance, I am reconciled to the idea that life on earth (or human life) might have never arisen due to such an event; or having, arisen, might have been so terminated, in prehistory. God plainly appears to permit such lamentable events both very large and very small -- it is integral to the very structure of this universe that such events can and will occur, on all scales. This can be reconciled to Chrstianity.
    Likewise, as a Christian, I am reconciled, though to a lesser degree, to the notion that such an event might have occurred at any point after Jesus' career. I strongly prefer to think of humanity as having a destiny and of the modern world as being part of that destiny, but this is not a particularly biblical view. Such an event in the years after Christ would, I guess, be an acceptable biblical End of the World.
    No, the problem is precisely with a hypothetical event that makes nonsense of *all* our special claims about the Jewish and Christian traditions. Imagine, to give another example, a Judea-destroying asteroid occurring after the Babylonian exile and before Alexander. This is scientifically entirely possible! And yet what remains of the very idea of salvation history, what remains of the prophets, in the light of such counterfactual history? It seems to mock them, and mock them devastatingly.
    I believe that this modest thought-experiment, of such a humble garden-variety sort that anyone who has seen a Hollywood disaster movie can easily grasp it, casts grave doubt on the ways we, as people who are committed to both science and religion, adjudicate their respective claims. Either God can and when necessary will act to protect His grand project of salvation history -- giving us the sort of large-scale miracle that is at odds with our scientific sense of things -- or, if He does not, the very idea of salvation history is irretrievably left in tatters.
    My apologies for posing my question at such length! I pose it to the two of you because I trust that you will not respond glibly.
Preliminary Response Arguments from counterfactuals are rather dangerous, but I think the essence of your problem is that, having decided in advance for philosophical reasons that God does not intervene in nature, you can hypothesise 'random' natural events that could have frustrated God's decisive intervention through Jesus Christ. But the essence of Christianity is that God has intervened in nature through the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus. And I think the Christian answer to your question is that if there had been such a meteorite, God would have deflected it, though I would add that He would probably have done so by means of an infinitessimal adjustment a long time before the event (indeed the moon and Jupiter both act to greatly reduce the incidence of meteor strikes on earth).
    Of course we don't understand precisely how God interacts with nature, but we know from our own experience that persons do interact with nature and since we don't even understand how human persons do it's a bit much to expect to understand how God does. We do know that practically all systems in nature are subjet to chaotic dynamics - cloud-like rather than clock-like and also subject to quantum fluctuations, so at a physical level the world is radically non-deterministic and does not exclude other causal principles. John talks suggestively about "active information" and suggests that in 100 years time these issues may be a lot better understood. After all chaotic dynamics itself is a relatively new area and is much better understood now than 30 years ago. Remember that real science is about what is imperfectly understood and un-known: the idea that science deals in solved questions is quite mistaken.
John adds: In the life of Jesus, God's providential care ensured that its purpose was not frustrated (eg the warning about Herod), but part of that purpose was that the Son of God should in due course share to the uttermost the human experiences of suffering and death, thereby bringing about our redemption from their bondage.

Clarifying speculative chemistry In the response to the question entitled "Miracles - Water into Wine" you commented on the reaction:
H2O + 2H2C -> C2H6O
Whereas for H2C to form if there was H and C present it would simply form CH4 (Methane) from what I can make of it.
You mention sugars which the commonly occuring sugar (sucrose) is C12H22O11
This would coincide with the carbonated theory although it would be hydrogenated as the bubbles would be H2 not CO2 as it would go by this reaction:
H2O+2CH4 -> CH3CH2OH+2H2
(You may wish to generalise the formula for ethanol to C2H6O at the loss of accuracy).
All the earthenware jugs would have needed then for the CH4 to occur in this instance would have been the them to have been used for emptying the chamber pots of the better off. Alternatively the ingredients for the clay could contain something that could biodegrade and form CH4 during the decomposition (e.g. hay or straw) as most organic materials produce this.

Preliminary Response Thank you. There's no doubt that this reaction, although perhaps possible in principle, is most unlikely. Come to that, so is the evolution of the eye! My point is simply that it is not impossible.

Importance of Proofs of God's Existence If a proof of God's existence can be done, then how important is it? Hopefully this is just a rhetorical question.
This proof meets scientific standards such as being falsifiable, as stipulated by the late Stephen Jay Gould and documented by Karl Popper. Within it are precisely defined the points that are provable and when faith begins. With this proof, the most ardent evolutionist will have to agree that evolution is an unrealistic theory. Why? Because this is strictly on based on facts, and truth, that lead where they will lead.
Preliminary Response We need to be clear though that the scientific Evolution is like Gravity - it clearly happens and is an important biological Law of Nature. However just as Gravity in no way disproves the idea that God created the Universe, but merely gives some important insights into how God created the Universe, so scientific Evolution is not at all incompatible with Christianity. Of course if people like Dawkins make an Idol out of Evolution, and suggest that it not only is an important law of Biology but Explains Everything then this is not only profoundly un-Christian but also profoundly un-scientific. That idea doesn't need disporving but de-bunking!
Outside Mathematics proofs can only be persuasive, never utterly conclusive. After all God does not force us to believe, He wants faith.
John adds: We have come to see that proff is a category of limited application (even in mathematics, as Godel showed). What we need is well motivated belief, and I believe Christian faith can claim that. A useful philosopher here is Michael Polanyi.

Conscience What is conscience exactly? Is it that little voice inside of us, that gut feeling that guides us in choosing which course of action to take? Is it a little voice outside of us like Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio? Is it a little of both or is it neither? I know it's more than simply a gut feeling.
Preliminary Response I think the 'exactly' is beyond the wit of man - or even of woman.
Just as Soul is our deepest self so Conscience is our deepest understanding of what is right and wrong. It may sometimes feel a bit like a 'third party' but it isn't, although no doubt God can communicate with our Conscience just as He can communicate with other aspects of our minds.
Of course exactly how our minds relate to our brains and bodies is very poorly understood, so it's too much to hope that conscience can be precisely understood. Though I think there are some suggestive PET images about parts of the brain that are associated with moral inhibitions, which are clearly related to, though not identical with, conscience.
John adds: it is hard to understand, and even harder to deny, our deep inner experiences such as conscience. I see its 'voice' as part of the frontier of exchange between the human spirit and the Holy Spirit.

How is Fine Tuning Regarded I'd like to ask John for some comments regarding the so-called fine-tuning of the universe, and how this is regarded my scientists generally.
As a theist (and a non-scientist) I'm a little puzzled as to how much weight, from both a theological and scientific point of view, one should give this data. In a number of places in JPs books there seems to be an insistence that there are only two real possibilities regarding the data; either some kind of God has created the universe, with intelligent life written into the design; or else there are multiple universes, where a world like ours is almost inevitable. At the same time, JP advises caution, saying there are no knock-down arguments, etc.
I'm puzzled by the fact that so few scientists and philosophers of science seem to feel driven to believe one or the other of these options. Maybe John could say a few words about why he thinks this is; is it intellectual dishonesty that keeps scientists from picking one of these alternatives, or are there good scientific/philosophical reasons for not choosing? If I'm correct in my feeling that most do not opt for one or the other, how is this data seen generally amongst scientists? Are there really no other plausable alternatives? (Even other theologians, eg Arthur Peacock, who you would think would be overjoyed at such powerful evidence for God, seem very cautious about accepting the fine-tuning at face -value. Is this degree of caution a good thing?)
Preliminary Response I think that amongst scientists who think about cosmology there is now pretty wide agreement that the fine tuning is too spooky to be a coincidence so, if they are atheistic, there has to be a multiverse in which our anthropic region is just one of many. See eg Sir Martin Rees (of course that doesn't make it almost inevitable, you can chose an infinity of numbers and never get pi) I think this is one of the strong factors that converted Anthony Flew to theism. My suspicion is that most of the older school science/religion/philosophy people aren't properly aware of the exquisite fine-tuning - after all most of the thinking on determinism and logic is pre-Godelian.
The main reason for caution is that since noone really knows what a correct theory of quantum gravity will look like (branes are suspiciously epicyclic) noone can be sure that the correct theory, when found, won't make the fine-tuning much less improbable. This doesn't, of course, undercut the case for God - if indeed He has created the Universe with laws so ingenious that intelligent life is pretty well inevitable, without having to fine-tune the initial conditions so exquisitely, then the heavens will still be declaring the glory of God - but this is not the reason we believe, it's merely one important reason why theism fits the data much better than atheism.
John adds: no competent scientist denies that if the laws of nature were just a little bit different in our universe, carbon-based life would never have been possible. Surely such a remarkable fact calls for an explanation. If one declines the insight of the universe as a creation endowed with potency, the rather desperate expedient of invoking an immense array of unobservable worlds seems the only other recourse.

Superdeterminism and Logic Sorry to bother you again, but I have a really troubling question about multiverse logic that I was wondering if I could ask, please. In Tegmark and Lewis' multiverse models, the thinking appears to be that since it's logical that the universe could have been made differently, all logical universes exist.

Intelligent Design Right now there is a federal trial under way in Dover, Pa., USA, over a school policy requiring teachers to explain to students about "Intelligent Design" before teaching evolution. as a scientist and as a Christian wha do you think about "Intelligent Design" being taught in science classes?
Preliminary Response: Evolution clearly happens and there is very strong genetic evidence for the evolutionary connection of most animals including man. However because evolution is a mechanism based on 'randomness' it is fundamentally non-deterministic and thus it is quite possible for other processes to be at work as well, alongside evolutionary ones. Also it is quite impossible to calculate the likelihoods of evolutionary outcomes of any complexity, so it is impossible to know the likelihood of the observed evolutionary outcomes. If a toss of 4 coins comes down with 1 heads and the rest tails you have no strong reason to suppose that there is anything else happening than randomness: if a toss of 4,000 coins comes down with 1 heads and the rest tails it is not, of course, impossible that this has happened by chance but you'd certainly be more inclined to look for additional factors - even more so with 4 million coins. This would still be true if you had a trillion trillion samples of 4 million to choose from - the likelihood of this event with a fair coin is 2^-4M or roughly 10^-1.2M

Similarly, the idea proposed by some ID advocates that certain biological systems couldn't possibly have evolved is almost certainly wrong. But it is quite reasonable to point out that many biological systems are of such complexity that the likelihood of 'random' evolution with natural selection being the whole story of their emergence seems small and is certainly inscrutable. In some ways we can compare evolution to gravity and Dawin to Gallileo (not Newton, because Newton worked out an amazingly accurate quantitative theory of gravity). Gravity is an extremely important physical force, but it is not the only physical force. Indeed one of the reasons that leading physicists of the 19th Century were so cautious about Darwinism was that, on the basis of what was then known of the physical forces of nature, the sun could not be old enough to allow time for evolution to have occurred. It was only when Einstein's corrections to Newton's theory of gravity uncovered the possibility of massive energy release in nuclear transformations that the source of the Sun's energy was understood.

To summarise:

Limited Omniscience + Other faiths I agree with much of what Dr. Polkinghorne has to say about the emerging creation in God in his book, Science and the Trinity. However, I part ways with him when he characterizes God as having "chosen to possess only a current omniscience" and who "does not know all that will eventually become knowable" (S&T p 108).
Since I believe that God created the Universe (I include in the Universe Space-Time and the additional dimensions that may exist, if the String Theorists turn out to be correct.), I don't see how God could be bound, constrained, or limited to that Universe. To expand just a bit on my thinking about God, I regard the Creator, in some sense, as "outside" our Space-Time. In that sense, it appears to me that the Creator fully comprehends All, including all the presently undetermined. In my view, God also continually upholds the total of Creation by the Word of Power. Thus, in some sense, God is intimately "inside" our Space-Time. For me, the problem is that my brain is too small to really comprehend these concepts.
I would much appreciate hearing Dr. Polkinghorne's comments concerning the thought that the Creator may not be constrained to Space-Time. If that is correct, what are the implications for what God knows?
As a Christian, I appreciate the opportunity to hear Dr. Polkinghorne's exposition from the Trinitarian perspective, and I understand that S&T was deliberately limited to presenting those concepts. However, while I was reading, I wondered how Dr. Polkinghorne thinks about non-Christians. What place do Atheists, Moslems, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus etc. occupy in God's Universe?
Preliminary Response: It is not that the Universe binds God, but that God, in an act of love, choses to limit His omniscience. To use a weak analogy, suppose you have a pair of spectacles that allows you to see through clothing, it would not be a loving act to use those in normal life. If the concept of limiting one's omniscience is coherent (which I think it clearly is) then say that God cannot limit His omniscience is to say that He is not omnipotent.
God loves non-Christians - they are created in His image and Jesus came to save us all. It's clear that some non-Christians are saved, and that God will save as many as He can. This makes John something very close to being a universalist. I observe that if there is a probabilty p>0 that someone will miss out on eternal loving union with God - an infinite good - through not truly embracing the Good News then it doesn't matter what the value of p is, it is still infinitely important that they do so. And p must be >0 because otherwise salvation is compusory, and not an act of love.

John Adds: the preliminary replies are very helpful, and suggests you might want to look at Ch 10 of Science and Christian Belief or Ch 7 of Science and Theology

Spiritual Realm (+ Adam & Eve) In the evangelical tradition, there is a lot of emphasis placed on the spiritual realm; that is, that Ephesians 6:12 battle against the powers of darkness. We're taught that there is a literal Heaven and Hell, that there are real angels and demons, and that there is a real Devil (especially made apparent during Christ's 40 days in the wilderness). I've read much of John's discourse regarding his thoughts on the afterlife (a divine memory of personality culminating in eventual resurrection, dual-aspect monism, etc.), but I haven't really seen him comment on these matters relating to the spirit realm. Do you or John not believe these to be literal places/beings, or is it simply that it doesn't bring much to the arena of scientific/theological discussion, and thus doesn't warrant attention? (+ there was an inital remark about whether Adam & Eve existed)
Preliminary Response : Demons and the Devil clearly exist, and they are clearly spiritual beings rather than physical. Exactly how and in what mode they exist is something of which we know pretty well nothing, and about which speculation seems pointless.
Heaven and Hell clearly exist, and they are clearly spiritual states rather than physical places. In The Mystery of Salvation which John co-authored with other members of the Doctrine Commission of the CofE they state (p199) "Hell is not eternal torment, but it is the final and irrevocable choosing of that which is opposed to God so completely and absolutely that the only end is total non-being... If God has created us with the freedom to choose, then thgose who make such a final choice choose against the only source of life, and they have their reward. Whether there be any who do so choose, only God knows."
What I would add to this is that this final choice of separation from God is objectively worse, from the PoV of the 'damned' than being roased on fires etc.. and the traditional images of Hell. Ultimate loving communion with God is an infinite good, so being deprived of this is an infinte loss. The image Jesus repeatedly uses of ending up onto the municipal rubbish heap outside Jerusalem (Gehenna) "where the fire is not quenched" and where there is "wailing and gnashing of teeth" is (of course!) absolutely right and a far better description of what is really at stake than foolish stoical talk about "going into the night" The choice of ultimate rejection of God is like chosing to be an abortion rather than to be born into a life far more wonderful and abundant than anything we can now imagine.
PS It is highly probable that Adam and Eve existed - there must have been an initial fully morally conscious Man and Woman (resp.) it is seems extremely probable that they were a couple and that they were also the first to sin. It is clear from the Bible that there were other members of the species around, but presumably these were not yet morally conscious enough to be capable of sin. Also Darwin and Evolution should not be confused with the ultra-Darwinists (like Dawkins and Haeckel) who hijack(ed) good science to make ill-digested cod-theology.
John Adds: What I think about Heaven and Hell is set out at some length in The God of Hope and the End of the World (Yale/SPCK). For an imaginative picture of these matters, see CS Lewis's The Great Divorce.
When one considers an evil event such as the holocaust, one can see human and societal factors that helped to bring it about, but there is such a weight of evil involved that I think we would be unwise to dismiss the possibility of evil spiritual forces also being at work (demons and the devil). Why and how they exist and are allowed to operate is, of course, a deep and perplexing question. What I think we can affirm is that the ultimate victory lies with God and Christ.
On Adam and Eve I am less confident than Nicholas that they were identifiable unique historical beings. I see them as symbolising humanity after the almost unimaginable, but certain, event of the mergence of self-conscious, God-conscious beings that occurred with our hominid ancestors.
Nicholas Adds: So John & I agree that they existed, but he points out that they might be sets of people (symbolised by an individual member of each - quite standard in Hebrew) rather than single individuals.

Response: Even if we eliminated 'dying of old age/cancer/heart attack etc...' we would still not make people immortal - murder, suicide, accidents and residual disease would eventually kill people. Furthermore, all these wild claims about the therapeutic value of mapping the genome seem to be grossly overblown, at least on the timescale of a couple of decades. It is now clear that the genome tells us far less about how the human body works than was at first supposed and that the expression of genes into physiololgy is enormously complex and very poorly understood. Indeed it is not entirely clear that the concept of a 'gene' is correct - there is suspiciously too much "junk DNA" and it is possible that different genes overlap in the DNA. It is also completely clear that the idea that DNA = an individual is utter rubbish. Identical twins have the same DNA and yet are quite different people. There are also other mechanisms to heredity than DNA transfer - eg your immune system and probably other learning in utero not to mention the other ways in which you learn from parents and siblings.
Having said all that, it is certainly conceivable that at some stage in the 21st C technologies will exist that will allow organs to be re-grown (perhaps from bone marrow stem cells) or repaired (maybe by nano-bots??) so that sufficiently rich people could prolong their 'natural' lives very considerably - almost to the level of the OT Patrarchs (wouldn't it be amusing if it turned out that these lifetimes in the Bible were correct and that modern man had simply got corrupt genes?)
You ask about theological implications: first order I'm not sure that there are any. After all, as noted, the Bible pre-supposes that some humans lived for centuries anyway. It would hopefully further undermine the 'culture of death' and make "euthanasia" look pretty silly, but thologically everyone, from the strongest and richest to the weakest and poorest, is made in God's Image and someone of infinite value, for whom God was prepared to die in agony.
You ask about coming to control the evolutionary process. Well humans (and others) have been doing this through sexual selection for a long time! This mechanism, known to Darwin but strangely underplayed by the (mostly male) formulators of neo-Darwinism, has certainly been a major force in human evolution for a considerable time and is probably now the dominant one in the developed world. Germ line genetic therapy and in-utero screening are certainly worrying developments and could take this further - but I hope the ethical line against it will hold. Most parents want some mystery about their children. I can see no reason to phase out the desire to procreate, especially if colonisation of other worlds becomes possible. That is also part of the 'culture of death'.
Raising the dead to life genetically is a nonsense - even if someone was born today genetically identical to Napoleon there is no chance that they would replicate his deeds or his entire personality.

Chaotic Inflation I'm writing because I have one caveat to accepting the teleological argument as presented by Rev. Polkinghorne. Although I'll grant that most multiverse ideas have a strong odor of implausibility about them, the continuing popularity of Andrei Linde's theory of chaotic inflation as a multiverse generator has made me unable to fully embrace teleology as embodied in the physical laws. Is chaotic inflation falsifiable, first of all? Second, I've read and will allow that there are certain physical laws (such as GRT, Pauli exclusion, etc., which may be subsumed under string theory), that MUST be in place for Linde's universe generator to function. However, doesn't this bring us back to the question of whether the laws' existence describes the universe or vice versa, or whether they are mutually existent and supporting? If either of the latter two options are true, it would seem that the universe generator is the product of necessity, and the multitude of universes it creates are the product of chance. (One could make the weak anthropic principle argument that the laws of our own universe are deterministic too, but in this case the coincidences seem too extreme to attribute to any force other than God.) Thanks so much for your time, and God bless! :)

Nicholas' Preliminary Response I'm not an expert on Chaotic Inflation - or indeed Cosmology, but here goes.
Firsly, one must remember that cosmologists are "often in error but never in doubt" - I think that's unfair to Linde BTW because he understands that his theories are speculative and provisional. There clearly seems to be something in the Inflation idea but it all feels a bit like Physics at the turn of the 19th/20th C: until we understand how QM and Gravity fit together everything is up in the air and when we do we'll probably find that the maths that seems to work (like the Lorenz Transformations) actually works for very different reasons from that now supposed.

The argument for the endless succession of chaotically inflating universes with a fractal character seems to boil down to this:

However CI probably implies that most Universes also create a very large number of 'daughter' Universes so if CI is true we probably live in a multiverse composed of a potentially infinite number of Universes which are probably largely causally independent of each other post-creation and essentially un-knowable. The problems with CI seem to be that:

CI is no more of a challenge to faith than Evolution - it's possible that God has chosen to work in this way. But it's interesting that the best scientific thinking at present is that either God specially created the Universe or there are a potentially infinite number of unknowable alternative Universes. I know which makes more sense to me!

John is away so won't be able to comment on this for a while. I hope it is of some use.

Redemption for All 2 I have a follow-up on Redemption for All:If you believe that the offer of redemption is still available to those who fail to repent and follow Christ before they die, how do you interpret the story of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31)? It seems clear that the rich man in this parable wishes he had repented before it was "too late"; the story tells of a "great chasm" between heaven and hell, which can never be crossed.
Response Redemption for all does not mean that it doesn't matter when you repent - it may well be that people reach states when they are past repentance, and anyway living live with Christ is an inestimable good in itself. If you meet the love of your life when you are in your 20s it matters, a lot, if you don't marry her and follow a chain of doomed relationships, even if you end up marrying her in your 60s. (Indeed one reason is that you don't have children, and the joy of helping someone else come to faith, or strenthening theirs, is also considerable!) Repentance has to be genuine - a robber who steals £1,000 and gives it back for a £2,000 reward has not repented - so I doubt whether someone who 'repented' just becasue they were now suffering torment would actually have re-oriented their will enough.
We've also got to be careful not to read more in to this parable than is there. It's clearly got some elements of metaphorical language - we don't really believe that we will all be in Abraham's "bosom". Nor does it say that the chasm can never be crossed, merely that "those who wish to go across (diabaino- same word as in "come to Macedonia and help us", also used in Heb 11:29 of crossing the Red Sea) nor from there to us can cross over (diaperwsin - also used in Acts 21:2, Matt 9:1 14:34, Mark 5:21, 6:53 so it has connotations of going on a boat). Of course Jesus descended into Hell and preached to the dead and gave salvation to many there (cf Matthew 27:52-53).
Ultimately we are compelled to affirm both that (a) the choice is real and urgent and matters deeply and that (b) God's love is infinite and his mercy is everlasting, so God will save all that He can.

Predestination i am doing a study on God and a free universe how can it be free when paul himself speaks of predestination (romans 8 v 29+30), and i noticed in one of his books jcp talks of destiny and predestination? please help as i have rather ground to a halt over this question.
Nicholas's Preliminary Response: Paul rarely speaks of predestination, and what he means is that it is God's intention from the beginning of time that we should be saved through Jesus, and that it is God who calls, justifies and glorifies. Paul is not taking a scientific or philosophical position on whether the future is pre-determined (and BTW if he had one, we would not be obliged to follow it). Paul often speaks of Love, and it is central to his theology and indeed the theology of the New Testament.
One of the major advances in Theology and Philosophy over the last 50 years is a deeper understanding of the connection between love and freedom. Alongside this we are able to glimpse the sheer brilliance of God's Creation in solving an impossible problem: how can an omniopotent and omniscient God create beings that are genuinely free to chose to love. The answer seems to be by creating a universe which has JUST the right balance between lawfulness and randomness to allow freewill beings to evolve.
I hope this helps - and I'll see what John has to add
John adds: Nothing much to add to Nicholas's excellent reply, except perhaps the following: William James liked to speak of the Creator as a Chess Grand Master engaged in a game with club player opponents. The Grand Master will win the game, whatever moves the players freely make. In other words we can believe that God will bring about his purposed ends, by contingent means.

Binitarianism In Faith in the Living God－ a Dialogue written by you together with Professor Michael Welker... I’ve found one word is very hard to understand, namely, “binitarians”(p71). I beg you to give me a clear explanation of it. John says: Binitarians are those who do not regard the Holy Spirit as a divine Person and so take a dual view of God and Father and Son only

Hasn't science proved that the laws of nature prevent the changing of wine from water?
Not really! Wine is essentially alcohol and water and sugars, all made from H₂O and CO₂. Of course under normal conditions this requires biological catalysts and takes a long time, but when the Son of God is present on earth these are not normal conditions: and what God does every day through the agency of His creatures (vines and yeasts) it seems that on this occasion He did quickly. I [Nicholas] also remember speculating that He might have caused some of the Oxygen atoms to turn into Carbon ( H₂O + 2 H₂C = C₂H₆O - interestingly the reaction O -> C + alpha is the main source of energy for Carbon Cycle stars, although in this case the temperatures are 15MK and the isotope is O-15 not O-16) and that the alpha particles that would then have been emitted is a reason why Jesus told people to stand back and why he used stone vessels. It also leads to the in-principle testable prediction that it was white wine, possibly lightly carbonated - Champagne indeed!

Of course all these details are wild speculation - we cannot possibly know how Jesus did it, but at least we do know that it is not impossible! I'll see what John has to add.
John adds: The idea that some miracles are accelerated natural processes is at least as old as Augustine, who said that what takes months in the vineyard happens immediately at the Lord's command. Nicholas has produced an ingenious modern version of thinking about water into wine in this way. I am much more reserved about this approach, not least because the central Christian miracle of Christ's resurrection (the event on which in my view the Christian faith pivots) cannot be understood in this way.
Nicholas adds : For those not used to the gentle English style, I think this means John really doesn't agree with this approach! I would add that there is an interesting "theopic prediction" that comes from my 'explanation' which is that O -> C + α can occur at room temperature in aqueous phase. It would be very interesting to find out whether this was true - I bet no-one has looked and if anyone does and finds it a Nobel awaits! I'd also add that the relationship between matter and consciousness is very poorly understood - we sort of know that concsiousness emerges from organised matter and that it in turn organises matter to its purposes. It is possible therefore that the Resurrection is at the deepest level, part of the structure of the Universe and therefore not a violation of the laws of nature so much as a divine intensification of them. This is not, of course, to deny that it is a miracle.

Was the Tsunami an Act of God?
Nicholas's preliminary response:The Tsunami is, in a very obvious way, the working out of physical laws - the same ones that cause the beautiful seas and mountains and seem to be exquisitely fine-tuned to produce intelligent life.
The magnitude of the human catastrophe is very much a function of human action, specifically:
a. Neglecting to have a Tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean - an inexpensive measure (a few $M) that would have saved almost all the lives in Sri Lanka and India and probably most of them in Thailand - although apparently the Thai earthquake monitoring service suspected there might be a Tsunami and decided not to issue a warning because it would damage tourism.
b. The prolonged civil war with Islamist separatists in Aceh which has prevented effective infrastructure and undermined govenrmental systems, thus, in all probability, greatly increasing the death toll.

John adds: this is something I wrote for our Parish Magazine, based on a few words with which I prefaced my sermon on 2 John:
Great natural disasters, like that which we have seen in the Indian Ocean, trouble all of us and perplex religious believers as they wrestle with the question of God's role in these matters. It would be foolish to suppose that there is some simple formula that could, in a few sentences, remove all our difficulties, but there are two thoughts that may be of some help as we think and pray and give in response to what has happened:

One reason why the tsunami occurred is that we do not live in a magic world, but in a creation that has been given the gift of reliable and regular laws of nature by its Creator. The great fertility of life in all its forms depends on that gift. But it also has its inescapable shadow side. A world of evolving fruitfulness canno help also being a world with malformations and ragged edges as part of it. The fact that there are tectonic plates has enabled mineral resources to well up from within the Earth, replenishing over many millions of years the chemical richness of its surface. The raw material for endless generations of life became available in this way. Yet if there are tectonic plates, they will also occasionally slip, producing earthquakes and the huge ocean swells that accompany them. You cannot have one without the other. We all tend to think that if we had been in charge of creation we would have kept all the nice things and discarded all the bad ones. The more we learn scientifically how the world works, the more clearly we see that this is just not possible, for fruitfulness and destructiveness, order and chaos, are inextricably intertwined.
The second thought is a specifically Christian insight into God's relationship to suffering. Our God is not just as compassionate spectator of events, looking down in pity from the safety of heaven, but we believe that, in the cross of Christ, God himself - living a human life in Jesus - has truly been a fellow-sharer of the anguish of the world. Where is God in the suffering of creation? The Christian answer is that God is a participant alongside us in the strangeness and bitterness of events. I believe that this insight meets the problem of suffering at the most profound level possible.
I hope that these thoughts may be of some use as we prayerfully wrestle with our perplexities about the devastation left by the tsunami.

Are thoughts material? Are thoughts material and does it matter.?
I viewed a recent discussion on the topic of whether our thoughts are material. The two main responses were, from the Christian that the process was but the thought wasn’t. The generally held atheist view was that all processes and outcomes were material and that there is no other element to it and saying that all those involved in neuroscience would agree. I understand that this is obviously a huge topic but I was wondering what your thoughts were on the issue and what the implications are for the Christian if our thoughts are wholly material.
Preliminary response: Thoughts cannot be any more material than software - and if two persons can have the same thought in different places then the thoughts can hardly be material! Furthermore, because brains are hypercomplex systems and truly subject to chaotic dynamics, they are non-deterministic at a physical level and thus ripe for being subject to causation from 'active information'
John Adds: I agree with Nick's response. Of course, thinking is an activity which has a material substrate, but I beleive that the relationship of mind and brain is best understood in terms of the view of dual-aspect monism, linking the material and the mental to form a complementary relationship, rather than through a fallacious attempt to reduce the mental to the material.

Creation - only in the past? Thanks for answering some questions for me a couple of years ago and giving me some very helpful leads to follow. I'm amongst a lot of Creationists again, and I feel very sad that they are not open to some of the wonderful insights of 'kenotic' interpretations of Creation. As with evolution, Creationists (Young Earth ones, anyway) have a very convincing argument that the Bible only ever talks of Creation in the past tense (as opposed to providence and sustenance). Are there any obvious Biblical answers to this, or is it just going to be a blind alley to follow? I am trying to write down some of my answers to Creationism, because it's being taught so widely round here, but my arguments are only 'valid' if they can be demonstrated from the Bible--it's quite a challenge.... I'd love to know if you could help me.
Preliminary Response The Christian doctrine of Creation has always been that it is a continuing and not merely an historical event. Christians are not Deists. Specific biblical references to God creating (present or future tense) include Ps 51:10, 104:30, Is 4:5, 48:7, 65:17-18, Jer 31:22, Amos 4:13. It's also relevant that tenses in Hebrew don't work the same way as tenses in English or Greek, but I'm no expert on this.

String Theory I am currently attending a class titled Science and Theology. John Polkinghorne is the author for all the books that we are using for this class. I am working on a paper that begins with a religious concept and then applies the scientific explanation. I have chosen to base my paper on life after death, and the ressurection of chist. I intend to apply the String Theory as explanation via 10 dimentions and the basics to the theory. I would appreciate if you are able to supply me with any information regarding John Polkinghorne's opinion on this matter. Thank you.
Preliminary Response Remember that String Theory is still very speculative. So anything you said would have to be on the lines of "if this speculative theory were correct, then it is conceivable that this could have been a phyisical mechanism involved" Remember that, according to latest estimates we don't even know what most of the matter in the Universe consists of (only abouy 3% seems to be made of Protons, Neutrons and Electrons).

Cancer You said in your St.Edmunds Lecture (2002) 'The same cellular processes that have driven the fruitful history of evolution through genetic mutation, must necessarily allow other cells to mutate and become malignant. The anguishing fact that there is cancer in creation is not gratuitous, something that a more compassionate or competent Creator could easily have remedied.' Could God not have guided evolution so that we have bodies which attempt to kill off cells which mutate and become malignant?
Preliminary Response Well He has /we do - there is a wonderful and elaborate immune system whose mysteries we are only just beginning to fathom, (see eg http://www.cancerresearch.org/immhow.html) - but the immune system is not infalliable, and we develop cancer and other diseases when the immune response is insufficient to prevent the disease. I think the fundamental reason the immune system is not infalliable is that it is built with stochastic processes and also that if the immune responses are too strong then (a) you get auto-immune diseases and (b) the energy used is excessive. John's fundamental point - that it is the same molecular processes - of course remains.

Causality and Q Smith In a conference on atheism Quentin Smith said the following about how there is no room for God as our universe was bound to happen by chance:
"But the more important point is this: not only is there no evidence for the theist's case, there's evidence against it. The claim that the beginning of our universe has a cause conflicts with current scientific theory. The scientific theory is called the wave function of the universe. It has been developed in the past ten years or so by Stephen Hawking, Andre Vilenkin, Alex Linde, and many others. Their theory is that there is a scientific law of nature called the Wave Function of the Universe that implies that it is highly probable that a universe with our characteristics will come into existence without a cause. Hawking's theory is based on assigning numbers to all possible universes. All of the numbers cancel out except for a universe with features our universe possesses. For example, contains intelligent organisms such as humans. This remaining universe has a certain probability very high -- near to a hundred percent -- of coming into existence uncaused.

Hawking's theory is confirmed by observational evidence. This theory predicts our universe has evenly-distributed matter on a large scale, which would be on scales of super-clusters of galaxies. It predicts that the expansion rate of our universe -- our universe has been expanding ever since -- would be almost exactly between the rate of the universe expanding forever and the rate where it expands and then collapses. It also predicts the very early area of rapid expansion near the beginning of the universe called inflation. Hawking's theory exactly predicted what the COBE satellite discovered about the irregularities of the background radiation in the universe. So a scientific theory that is confirmed by observational evidence tells us that the universe began without being caused. So if you want to be a rational person and accepts the results of rational inquiry into nature, then we must accept the fact that God did not cause the universe to exist. The universe exists because of this wave-function law.

Now Stephen Hawking's theory dissolves any worries about how the universe could begin to exist uncaused. He supposes that there is a timeless space, a four-dimensional hypersphere, near the beginning of the universe. It is smaller than the nucleus of an atom. It is smaller than 10^-33 centimeters in radius. Since it was timeless, it no more needs a cause than the timeless god of theism. This timeless hypersphere is connected to our expanding universe. Our universe begins smaller than an atom and explodes in a Big Bang and here we are today in a universe that is still expanding. Is it nonetheless possible that God could have caused this universe? No. For the wave function of the universe implies there is a 95% probability that the universe came into existence uncaused. If God created the universe, he would contradict this scientific law in two ways. First, the scientific law says that the universe would come into existence because of its natural, mathematical properties, not because of any supernatural forces. Second, the scientific law says the probability is only 95% that the universe would come into existence. But if God created the universe, the probability would be 100% that it would come into existence because God is all-powerful. If God wills the universe to come into existence, his will is guaranteed to be 100% effective."

Please can you shed some light on the situation as to what is going on.

Preliminary Response Quentin Smith is either totally bamboozling or being bamboozled.

1. These ideas of Hawking are highly speculative. They are not 'current scientific theory' but 'current speculation by some scientists' and certainly not a 'scientific Law'. Cosmologists are notoriously 'often in error but seldom in doubt'.

2. Clearly any theory which says “the Universe will come into being because of X with exactly the characteristics that we now observe” will be 'confirmed by the observational evidence' in the sense that it will be consistent with that evidence, but that does not give any empirical backing to X. You need to predict major new facts that cannot be better explained.

3. His last statements about probabilities are hopelessly confused. If you have two rival theories, H1 and H2, and one gives a probability of 95% to an X and the other 100% then the only way you can tell them apart is to have some instances of X not happening. If Q Smith has observed some instances of the Universe not coming into existence then he is remarkable indeed!

4. Even if it were the case that the ultimate Laws of Physics were such that an Anthropic universe was highly likely to come into existence this would still not answer the question of why the laws of Physics had that particular form. The only coherent answer to that question – as opposed to a refusal to answer it with a 'well it's just so' – is that an Ultimate Creator created the universe with these laws.

John adds: "I think point 4 is the chief point - the others are replies to what seem very rash speculations"

I have now read quite an interesting very recent article by Q Smith at here in which he concedes the case against 'well it's just so': "I reject standard or traditional atheism and side with theism on this issue. A theory that includes an explanatory hypothesis about some observational evidence e, such as spacetime’s beginning to exist, is ceteris paribus epistemically preferable to any theory of the observational evidence e that does not include such an explanatory hypothesis. No atheist has ever provided a proof that the existence of spacetime is a brute fact and, consequently, standard atheism remains, in this respect, an unjustified hypothesis." but tries to argue that "There exists a metaphysically necessary, essentially uncaused, timeless, and independent (“a se”) point that, if spacetime begins to exist, is the transcendent cause of spacetime’s beginning to exist." is a better explanation than God. There is, as you would expect, a considerable amount of philosophical slight-of-hand involved in this! There is also the bizzare 'argument' that God would not have created order out of chaos - he seems to think that God's creation began with the Garden of Eden. How anyone with such apparent basic ignorance of what the montheistic religions actually teach can be taken seriously when they comment on God is one of the mysteries of late 20thC secular thinking. But to retreat so clearly from the nonsense stated by many atheists means that he is, perhaps, "not far from the Kingdom of God"

      There are several weaknesses in the theory of cosmic evolution, regardless of the name which is attached to it. I'm sure these questions have been posed previously to John, and in my opinion, neither cosmic nor macro-evolution can possibly subscribe to the scientific method. I think most scientists know that to be a true statement. The last tenured chemistry professor I discussed this with tried to suggest computer simulations as verification of the theories 'if this or that is first in place'. The key word there being 'if'.
      But from a creationist's standpoint, I think it all boils down to a few core questions. Firstly, as a Christian, do either of you accept Jesus Christ as complete 'truth'? If so, in John 5:47, Jesus says: "But if ye believe not his (Moses') writings, how shall ye believe my words?"
      As Moses was the major author of the pentateuch, as received from God Himself, how do you come to the conclusion that Genesis (which is truth, according to Jesus Christ, as He was present with God the Father 'in the beginning') and the Biblical account of creation can allow for a 'marriage' of some sort with evolutionists? The two never even meet at the altar.
      Genesis 1:27 clearly states that we (Adam and Eve initially) were created in the image of God. Not the beasts of the field. There is a clear distinction. Yes, everything created on the canvas of the universe is a reflection of grand artistry, but only mankind is created in the image of God. So, how could man have evolved from other animal types, even back from the 'primordial ooze', without losing this distinction? What's more, were there other Adams and other Eves?
     What was Jesus really saying in John 5:47?

Reply The fact that there are two creation accounts in Genesis which differ in in-essential details shows precisely that the in-essential details are not to be taken literally. This is no doubt why God caused there to be two such accounts (Jews were of course very aware of such issues, see eg the story of Daniel and the false witnesses in the Apocrypha). The Bible says that "God created man in his own image" and "formed man out of the dust of the earth". Science, not Theology, addresses the question of how, scientifically, this formation took place.

At present the evidence that God chose to do this through the physical processes of 'evolution' is very strong. Not only is there the obvious evidence about the physical similarities of organisms, the astonishing genetic similarities between Hom. Sap. and eg Drosophila Melanogaster strongly suggest that God uses this amazingly powerful principle in much of the work of His creation, just as eg He uses gravity and other elegant physical laws. By making the universe full of beautify scientific laws not only does He give us futher insight into His faithfulness (remember how Maxwell had Psalm 111:2 engraved over the Cavendish Labs) but He makes it possible for us to be His co-creators and to be free to chose to love Him.

Of course those who say Evolution when they mean Atheistic Evolution as a metaphysical principle (beings evolve without God) rather than a scientific one (beings evolve) are simply equivocating. But as Stephen J Gould pointed out, the science of Evolution does not entail Atheistic Evolution, and is at least equally compatible, as all true science is, with Christianity. Remember how desparately atheists tried to avoide the Big Bang because it sounded too like creation? However, as Al Plantinga points out, if Atheistic Evolution were the whole story, then human reason could only have evolved to give survival value rather than truth, and consequently Atheistic Evolution acts as a 'defeater' to its own rationality.

It seems that God formed humans from some pre-humans by endowing them (male and female) with a human Spirit (the 'breath of life' also means 'spirit of life' - the words are the same in Hebrew and Greek) and this is not at all incompatible with Genesis - not only does it fill in many details that (of course) Genesis leaves out, it also explains where the other people in Genesis 4 come from.

John 5:47 is of course talking about Moses's testimony about Jesus and has no direct relevance to the theory of Evolution.

John kindly described this draft response as 'admirable' "the only point I would add would be that AR Wallace made the Plantinga point about rationality and evolutionary necessity already in the 19th Century"

Multiple Universes I have followed the debate on multiple universes on your website with great interest. I, too, subscribe to the view that this theory (and its sister, string theory) smacks rather of desperation and amounts more to a philosophy than a science. But then again, one gets used to science 'fiction' being present as science fact to support the latest atheistic fad.

However, I do find the concept of multiple universes an interesting one, and one which might resolve the apparent conflict between an omniscient God and human free-will. There has always been a tendency for this conflict to end up with pre-destination and a new group of 'elect'. If on the other hand we were to consider that God is omniscient in the sense that He knows all outcomes from every action, but not omniscient in that He knows which of various choices a human being will actually pick at any point. In that scenario, the concept of multiple universes is really just a description of the mind of God, which must hold all outcomes at all times. To that extent they 'exist', but not in any physical form. I would be interested in your thoughts on this, probably heretical, view.

Preliminary Response John (and I) think that just as God limits His omnipotence to allow us freewill and autonomy, He also limits His omniscience for similar reasons. If you don't take this view then you are led into a 'many worlds' interpretation of QM - which is a kind of multiple universes although not quite because the 'mainstream' multiple universe view seems to be that these universese are not causally connected - and all kinds of difficulties about a faithful God acting in History.

Logically the mind of God must be capable of holding everything that can be known, but it is clearly logically possible (and, we would suggest, theologically necessary) for God to chose not to know something.

Resurrection and Mental Illness You write in The Tablet 'If we matter to God now, as we certainly do, then we shall matter to God for ever..... We can take with all due seriousness all that science can tell us about ourselves and this world and still believe that God will remember the patterns that we are and will recreate them when we are resurrected into the life of the world to come.'

Does a person with autism or schizophrenia matter to God? If a person has autism or schizophrenia, is that part of the pattern that that person is?

Response Yes (such people do matter to God) And to the extent that these are "illnesses" surely God will heal them - but if there are some elements of the conditions which enhance their personalities then no doubt God will strike the right balance. Of course we cannot hope to know the details, but most forms of restoration into a new and better mode of being (eg pictures, films, recordings) have similar issues around them.

A medical Student Asks I am a 4th year medical student and consider myself very intellectual (multiple awards and papers etc) yet I have always found a faith in God. I never saw science and religion conflicting (perhaps this is due to the generation I have come from--I am only 27) so science/evolution/the big bang have always been part of my scientific lexicon. However there are times when I doubt my faith and I was wondering if you could help by answering some of the quesitons I have below--

1) Why did God only reveal himself directly (through miracles/his son) in the biblical age and not the modern age. Surely if God wanted all of us to know him he would not have just revealed himself to a specific age of man. Why then become reculsive and elusive after an age of revealing. If the answer is b/c of free will then what of the free will of those who were privy to any of the number of the biblical stories, did they have the free will to choose to worship. Basically I am asking--doesn't the sudden disappearnece of his direct influence in our lives argue for the bible as allegory rather than history?

2) I sometimes worry that I only believe because I want to think there is meaning to my being here, or that I have such a love of life and of my fiance that I could not fathom the concept of being erased from existence one day. How am I to be sure/how are any of us to be sure that we are not just taking our most basic fears and assinging hope to where there is none. That in order to make this chaotic transient existence we have not developed (artifically) purpose/longevity/everlasting life where there is none.

3) If any of us in the modern age had not been brought up by families with a faithful tradition would we have come to God on our own. In other words--if there had been no Bible--no oral/written tradition--how many of us would come to believe in a supreme being in an age of scientific explanations?

4) Are there many other people out there like John Polkinghorne. I do not mean physicists who have become clergy (as I am sure this is the exception rather than the rule). What I mean is are there still faithful scientists who see that their faith and relgion are nto in conflict. Recent polls indicate that 40% of American scientists believe--but that number drops when the label of preeminant scientist is attached to less than 10% (and I believe this number is lower overall if one looks into non-american scientists). How is faith to endure when scientists have becoem the clergy of the 21st century? Are there people liek John who can make this a reality or is this the last gasp in a dying tradition?

Preliminary Reply 1) God's incarnation can only have happened once in human history. Indeed the 'window of opportunity' between the re-building of the Temple and its destruction was rather small. By definition the majority of humans can not be contemporaries of Jesus's earthly life, so Christianity has to be something that is accessible to all. And God's influence has to be indirect for freewill - after all Jesus never forced people to believe.

2) Certainly Christianity makes sense of aspects of life that otherwise appear meaningless - but the same is true of any other good explanation. And whatever we think of our theories and ideas, there is the fact of Jesus, whose love and towering personality and teaching by word and deed resonates throughout the ages.

3) If there had been no Christian faith in a Loving Ultimate Creator who reveals His purposes and creates us in His image, there would not be any scientific explanations: pretty well all the great pioneers of science were devout Christians. However it is surely true that the initiative of communication between God and humankind has to come from God - and the Good News is indeed that it has come from God. Without Christ there would be no Christians, but then without the Sun (and a lot of anthropic fine tuning) there would be no intelligent life on Earth. We must, and should, start from the evidence that is available.

4) Yes. Simon Conway-Morris FRS (paleontologist), Rev Bernard Silverman FRS (statistician), Dennis Alexander (biologist) spring immediately to mind and there are many others. I recall correspondening with the authors of that 'pre-eminent scientists' study and I don't think it's very good data. Part of this will be that the older generation of pre-eminent scientists swallowed the 'science-vs-religion' nonsense that people like you rightly reject.

But I also think that the cultural power of Scientists is in significant decline since about 1970 - it is widely understood that science does not have all the answers. Faith will endure because it is true, and by God's grace the truth will always triumph above cultural trends.

John Adds
1) God continues to reveal the divine will and purposes through the working of the Holy Sprit (cf John 16:12-14)

2) Another way of expressing what you say would be Augustine's insight that our hearts are truly restless till they find their rest in God. Purified desires points us in the right direction.

4) it is surely the power of scientism that has been declining.

Additional Question Assuming there was some way to disprove the fine tuning of the universe. Say brane theory pans out, or there is some scientific way (I know I am speaking in extremes) of proving the multiple universe theory. Would this change how you felt/believed about God?

Nicholas's Response Well of course good support for brane theory would not disprove fine-tuning, and unless the extreme multiverse theories of David Lewis (every logically possible universe exists - in which case of course God exists in some universes and hence in all) are correct, there would still be the question of why the laws of physics have this particular form given that other forms would not be conducive to life.

But most people have believed in God without knowing about anthropic fine-tuning, and if that argument were shown to be much less forceful than it now appears it would make apologetic to scientists a little harder, but not alter faith. Although it would slightly reduce the wow-factor, rather as if we found that the stars were in fact largely an optical illusion.
Remember that cosmologists are "often in error but never in doubt". To base faith on cosmology is to rest it on very insecure foundations - to illustrate it with the glory of the universe, and to challenge those who profess to put their faith in the ephemeral theories of scientists, is a different matter.
Hope this helps a bit more.

The faith of an Atheist? Why is Russell's assertion that 'The universe is just there and that's it' and always was, not an acceptable idea. Why can't things be simply having effects on what was already there in the first place - matter? Is Kant wholly wrong when he observed that nature has a secret art that enables it to organize itself out of chaos? Again with regard to Kant, is our deus absconditus merely an ideal of our own power of reason - a thought omnipotence? I feel it to be more likely that it is a human trait to posit the idea of God and to indoctrinate the young about that idea. It seems to me to be impossible, as Ayer said, to say either that there is or there is not a God - therefore it would be a matter of mere faith completely [or mistaken reasoning], but what reason might one have to have faith in one thing and not another. Does the atheist therefore have similar faith that there is no God?

Preliminary Response a. There are philosophical worries about whether the notion of a contingently self-existing entity is coherent. But leaving these to one side, let's allow that H0:"The Universe just is" and H1: "There is a Loving Ultimate Creator" are both 'acceptable ideas'. Pretty well all the physical evidence at present favours H1. The likelihood of a big bang and of the extraordinary Anthropic Fine Tuning that we observe is infinitessimal under H0 and close to 1 under H1. Of course Russell was ignorant of all this, and indeed a major reason why Big Bang was resisted so long was that it was just a bit too like Genesis 1.
b. Compare eg H8:"The species just are" and H9:"Species evolve from one another". They are both, in some sense 'acceptable ideas' but the available evidence strongly favours H9
c. Christians don't believe in a deus absconditus - that is indeed an idol and highly implausible.

Brights Hello, I am writing a little piece on the "rise of the brights" for a small coffee house newspaper in San Diego called the Espresso. I am trying to determine how serious this "movement" is and what implications might result if more people "come out" into the open with their assertion that "I am also a bright"; I am someone who does not believe in "ghosts, elves, or the Easter Bunny--or God." (to quote Dennett from the NYTimes). I am currently reading Belief in God in an Age of Science where Polkinhorne notes that the works of Dennett and Dawkins are more of a problem for the secularists than the Christian Church. I think I see what he means, but I wonder if he could elaborate on that point specifically, and in relation to this "bright" movement. In particular, is the name "bright" simply arrogant and snobby or is it a legitimate title replacing all the negatives terms used hitherto, e.g., non-believer, Godless, Atheist, etc.? Furthermore, if its just a name change, is there any reason to make such a fuss?

Preliminary Response What I think John means is that Dawkins and Dennett exhibit "facile triumphalism" rather than the Christian Church. They continually make sweeping assertions which are un-supported by the scientific or historical evidence. There is something fundamentally dishonest about "ghosts, elves, or the Easter Bunny -- or God" The arguments for the existence of God are in a completely different league from those for ghosts or elves, you might as well say you don't believe in phrenology, phlogiston -- protons. Nothing-buttery is not merely foolish and simplistic, it is self-refuting, and indeed there are very interesting arguments (due to Al Plantinga) about the self refutation of evolutionary naturalism. People who believe in evolution and not God have always wanted to dominate those whom they consider inferior and been happy to use misleading propaganda to achieve thier ends (on their view, why not?: the entire creed of the Nazis was "survival of the fittest" Nicholas chris kramer wrote:

Can we see truth? I am a young adult novelist, and I like to lace my tales with something for young pliable minds to consider, though the story always exceeds the theology. A common theme is the examination of perception and how it helps/hinders our pursuit of what is ultimately true. I have noticed Scott, Polanyi and Dr. Polkinghorne mentioning Freud, but not in any depth on the subject of which I'm most intruged, that is, Freud's theory that we see all through the tinted glass of perception. I feel he carries this concept to extremes by implying that our "wish faculties," if I may, will always exceed our desire to see truth clearly and will annihilate it. I just would like to hear Dr. Polkinghorne or yourself rescue us from this dilemma of perception in our quest for pure "knowing," less relative to sciences than to theology and psychology. Carol Plum-Ucci

Preliminary Response St Paul knew, even better than Freud, that our perceptions of truth can be distorted by our hopes, fears and earthly beliefs. John, as you know, espouses the approach of 'Critical Realism' which suggests that we can get progressively more accurate understandings "Scientists are mapmakers of the physical world. No map tells us all that could be concievably be told" (Faith Science and Understanding Ch 5) John refers quite rightly to "the masters of suspicion ... like Marx and Freud who claimed to reveal that human thought has its origin not in the ostensible objects of its engagement, but in the hidden motivations of class or sex" (Scientists as Theologians p2) and contrasts this with the manifest success of Critical Realism in scientific matters. In summary, the fact that our perceptions are imperfect does not mean that they are always wrong, merely that we have to adopt "the frame of mind where I may firmly hold to what I believe to be true, even though I know that it might conceivably be false" (Faith Science and Understanding p34 quoting Polyani Personal Knowledge p214) but recognising that even for very good explanations "there may be a significant element of modelling, at least in the way in which the express their insights in everyday language" (Faith Science and Understanding p 84)

The Elect I have held to the belief in an elect for the twenty-five years since my conversion to Christianity. But I find it terrifying and weighty, a judgment we seem to bear more heavily the more we cast it upon others. I am rather sick of the weight of it (so, yes, in that sense this question comes from my Freudian wish to annihilate it :)), and Newbigin was the first to stun me with the suggestions of a misinterpretation of the Pauline gospels and, conversely, salvation of all. My question: Christ speaks of eternal punishment, and regardless of whether he was using metaphor or speaking literally, the implication of some sense of awfulness succeeding death in certain cases is difficult to deny. What do you and Dr. Polkinghorne have to say about Christ's own words, perhaps most nauseating in tale of Lazarus and the rich man?

Preliminary Response John is pretty close to being a universalist. There is rather a good Doctrie Commission Report The Mystery of Salvation which John helped write which grapples with these issues.My own take, for what little it's worth, is this - What do we know? "God so loved the world" and He wants all humanity to be redeemed and through Jesus offers salvation as a free gift to everyone. But He has given us freewill so that we have the power to choose, He will not force us to accept His love - He is not a rapist. It is pretty clear that God will save everyone whom he can - no-one will be excluded because God did not want them. But there is a paradox: the choice - loving union with God - yes or no - is of supreme importance. Compared with this no earthly loss even comes close - burning in fire, weeping, gnashing of teeth are pale approximations to the seriousness of the issue. They are clearly 'picture language' but this does not mean that the reality is less, but greater than words can adequately express.
So what are we to make of Dives and Lazarus? (Luke 16:19-31, sadly not discussed in The Mystery!) Well it's partly a story against the idea that riches are God's blessing and poverty God's curse. It's also noteworthy that there are 6 brothers + Lazarus who the Rich Man wants sent to his brothers (so the resurrection will make 7 [perfect] what "Moses and the prophets" points to) Abraham never says that no-one will believe, merely that some will not, partly because they have already hardened their hearts and not listened to God's Word. As for "the great gulf fixed" we know that Jesus "descended into Hell" and that He was strong enough to break the power of death (see eg Matthew 27:52-53).
What we must never do, of course, is look down on "them" as the "non-elect" since it is God's will that we should do everything we can to encourage others to accept the gift of salvation, and even St Paul was not prepared to take his own salvation for granted.

John adds All human knowing involves perception from a particular point of view, which will offer opportunities for insight but be bounded by its inherent limitations. I certainly do not think that this implies that we are unable to get beyond misleading tricks of perspective, but it does mean that we have to be careful. Nicholas quoted Michael Polanyi (a very helful writer on this subject) who emphasises that science is precarious (it does not trade in unquestionable proof) but also reliable (it affords us verismilitudinous knowledge). One place where you could find my take on this is Chapter 2 of Beyond Science (CUP). I would extend this critical realism to theology also (see Belief in God in an Age of Science (Yale UP) Chs 2 and 5). I am sure that God is not less merciful than we are inclined to be.
I do not think everyone's eternal destiny is fixed at death - think of those whose geographical or historical situation prevented their hearing the gospel, of those whose response has been crippled by experiences like child abuse. Yet wittingly to turn from Christ in this life is spiritually very dangerous and I think that is what the stern NT language about judgement is principally intended to convey. For a more detailed discussion see The God of Hope and the End of the World (Yale UP) esp. ch 11.

Created in the Image of God? I have read with interest the website of John Polkinghorne and I am deeply appreciative of his thoughts on integrating science and religion. If it were possible, I would like to know some of his thoughts on what he thinks Genesis 1:26-27 means, especially in trying to understand what it means for humankind to be created in the image of God. I am a graduate student at XX University in XX Texas. I also pastor the XX Church in XX Texas. We are studying the account of Creation for one of our graduate seminars and I am writing a paper on Genesis 1:26-27. I'm just curious at what some of Dr. Polkinghorne's thoughts would be.

Preliminary Response I'm finding it quite hard to spot explicit references to this in John's books. Let me give my preliminary answer to the underlying question - but John may well offer a rather different point of view. First of all, nothing we can say can exhaust the richness of scripture. The language of Genesis was inspired and speaks of things which are 'too deep for words'. Being made in god's image clearly does not mean we are like God in every respect, but that in very important respects we are an ikon of God. I think the main threads are:
a. We are persons, capable of true love (and hence endowed with free will and living in a universe with 'free processes' - reasonably but not totally predictable)
b. We are capable of moral choices
c. We are intrinsically part of a loving community. The fact that the Trinity was present at Creation adds an extra dimension to 'let us make ... male and female created He them'
d. We are intrinsically valuable in God's eyes (see John's comment below)
e. We are creative - indeed called to be co-creators
f. We are capable, by God's grace and redemption, of perfect union with God - indeed Jesus is "the (perfect) image of the invisible God"
I hope this helps and I'll see what John adds.

John's Comments Nick, thanks for your message about imago dei and your very helpful reply. Just a few more thoughts one might add:
Debate about the meaning of the "image of God" has gone on for centuries in the Christian community. Nicholas is right that it is very rich, multifaceted concept. Other components include:
g. Science's power to fathom the deep structure of the Universe, which I believe to be a pale reflection of our being in the Creator' image
h. The granting of 'dominion', understood in the sense of a caring shepherd-king rather than an exploitative despot and perhaps also linked with the custom in the ancient world for absent kings to erect statuary images of themselves to recall their authority exercised through local vice-regents.
I think one of the most important meanings is Nicholas' d (valuable in God's eyes) which liberates us from taking too functional a view of God's gift (rationality etc..). The fundamental worth of the gravely handicapped surely derives from the fact that they too are bearers of the divine image.

Better without belief in God? Delight fills my soul as I read the "Divine Action" interview with Dr. Polkinghorne and Lyndon Harris. As Chaplain at a boarding school, I am continually challenged by the questions of students (and staff) who represent a variety of religions - and of course, agnostics and atheists. A question has arisen which comes from a mathematician who not only questions the existence of God (god / godde) but denies such existence, believes that religion is simply 'tribalism' and postulates that the world would be better off without it in any form. I welcome your comments ... especially if they can be in the realm of a universal understanding of the Divine Being rather than Christocentric. Thank you! Be well and be blessed.

Preliminary Response This widely held view was tried in the 20th Century. Societies covering a very large fraction of the world's population were established where religious instruction was forbidden or strongly discouraged, and the politics was conducted according to exclusively secular principles, founded on the laws of evolution (in one case) and economics (in the other cases). On balance, the experience of these societies leads the rational person to conclude that perhaps these 'experiments' was not encouraging for your friends views. I am referring of course to Hitler's Germany, Stalins USSR, Mao's China and Pol Pot's Cambodia.

Do you (or John) pray? If so, why? Is it, for example, for praise, thanksgiving, forgiveness, redemption, change? If your prayers are a request for change (e.g. an end to war or famine, a cure for an illness, help with exams, etc.), I have trouble understanding the reasoning behind such requests in light of your statement that "God choses to limit His omniscience as well as His omnipotence". Do you believe that He limits His omniscience/omnipotence only partially, in which case some requests (but very few) may get answered; or do you believe He limits these powers totally, in which case prayer specifically for change, although very common, would be pointless (apart, perhaps, from the solace of the person saying the prayers)?

Preliminary Response We do both pray including intercessory prayers: this follows the example of Jesus and always they are implicitly qualified with "nevertheless, not my will, buy thy will be done" I don't quite know what it would mean for God to limit His power totally - I guess it would be a deist conception whose cohernece I rather doubt, certainly not the God of the Bible. God limits Himself out of love and to the extent that love requires: of course we don't understand the details of this but the principle seems clear.. Chapter 6 of John's book Science and Providence gives a very good discussion of these issues.

Multiverse and Understanding of God The theoretical physicist Max Tegmark has written some stimulating papers on the idea that the implications of quantum mechanics and also the assumption that space is infinite both lead to a view of creation as a multiverse, in which all possibilities are realised. What does this imply for our understanding of God and indeed for arguments about His existence? Presumably if all logical possibilities are realised then at least one cosmos exists in which God either comes into being or is present from 'the beginning'. And if there is an infinite array of universes, in whatever sense we understand this, then an infinite number will 'contain' God. However, presumably the same argument would lead to the reality of an infinite number of universes that do /not/ ... Multiverse ideas seem to be gaining ground, so what has the theological response been?

Preliminary Response: We don't find the arguments for multiverses particularly persuasive, but clearly if God (Ultimate Creator) exists in any possible world then God exists in all possible worlds, so if Tegmark's ideas were correct they would imply that God exists. Thus those who propose enough universes to avoid a "neo-Design" argument must be careful not to have enough to be caught by this "neo-Ontological" argument.

God Evolving I'd be interested in John's and your views on Jack Miles' provocative book Christ - A Crisis in the Life of God. Miles' analysis of the Gospels is explicitly a 'literary' one treating the Bible as an art-work rather than as history or theology, but his thesis could be considered as a possibility for our 'objective' understanding of God and Christ. The argument, briefly, is that God evolves and changes His mind - from being the Lord of Hosts to becoming the Lamb, renouncing His violent interventions in the world and instead seeking to redeem humanity and also Himself (as the creator of a world in which evil, violence and rivalry flourish).
One way of looking at this is that God has three modes - an eternal and unchanging one as sustainer of all that is and can be; an evolutionary one as creator of this particular world in which He sees humans evolve; and a participative one, changing from the God of the Old Testament to the God of the New. Olaf Stapledon has a similar perspective in his remarkable non-Christian theological novel Star Maker.
Can God be lonely? No - but a Perfect Being without a Creation cannot know what it is like to be imperfect and a Creator. The world makes sense as God's project - perhaps one of an infinite array - in which He explores what He in his lone perfection cannot know...

Preliminary Answer I don't know the book - but from a Christian perspective it is clear that our understanding of God has changed - but not God Himself. Indeed philosophically it is hard to see how ultimate reality could fundamentally change. Christians also understand that God is three Persons and therefore could never be lonely - but the infinite dance of Love that is the Trinity invites us to join the dance of love, and it is this that is Eternal Life - the Life of the quality that is lived by God.

God outside Time I am a lifelong Catholic, and have recently encountered an agnostic whose questions are particularly difficult for me to answer. Having challenged me to find a Christian physicist, he also wants me to account for how humans can have free will and have a God that is omniscient at the same time. His argument is that if God knows what we will do before we do it, then our free will is gone because God cannot be wrong. I've tried using time arguments, but his argument is that if God exists outside of time, He does not exist. I would love to have some kind of solid scientific and religious information to present to him, so if you could help me out, I would really appreciate it!

Preliminary Response I'm really sorry this has taken so long to answer. There are many Christian physicists and other scientists. There is some quite useful stuff now on the polkinghorne.org Q&A John thinks that God in love limits His omniscience so that we can have true freewill. Of course other theologians point out that watching someone doing something is not the same as focing them to do it. As for the "if God exists outside of time, He does not exist" this is clearly wrong. The relationship of a Creator to His creation is a bit like that of a playwright and his plays. Shakespeare exists outside The Tempest - and does do even if he happens to be playing the part of (say) Prospero in the production. I hope this helps a bit.

Related Question I read your short reply about the question someone asked regarding God existing outside of time. I have a related question which is puzzling me. If God (and heaven) exist out of time then from God's perspective everything has already happened - he doesn't see things progressing linearly as we do; he see's everything at once. Therefore, from God's perspective I am already dead and either in heaven or in hell. If heaven and hell are also outside of time then there can be no causal link between their realm and our time-based one. Therefore, I must exist in heaven or in hell; but I don't. Why?

Preliminary Response I think there are three points here:
1. God, in love, choses to limit His omniscience as well as His omnipotence. In order to give us the freedom to learn to love, we are given the freedom to act, and chose.
2. God can exist outside time but still experience progression - indeed if (as we strongly suspect) that is fundamental to being a Person then there could be a series (T*) in God's experiences into which the time t we experience on Earth maps in an order-preserving way. In particular John has suggested that the mapping between earthly time and God's time could well be such that, whenever we die, our resurrections happen at the same moment at the end of (t) time. Provided the t->T* mapping is order-preserving then there can be a causal link.
3. In physics and morality the act of observing is an act. Even if Superman has 'x-ray eyes' so that he can look right though Lois Lane's clothes, if he loves her he will choose not to look.

John Polkinghorne Q & A