Saturday, September 06, 2008

Faith and physics

Hilary sent me a quote she found in A Severe Mercy, a book she's reading :

"And another Anglican, Shirley Rosser, in physics at the college, was no less firm in the faith [then their neighbor]. The fact that he, like Peter and Lew at Oxford, was a physicist and a Christian led me to formulate a theory as to why so many physicists--I knew of still others--were committed Christians. The theory went like this: The non-scientists say, well, we don't know the answers, but the scientists do; and the scientists who are not physicists say, well, we don't know the answers either, but the physicists do; and the physicists know that they do not, in fact, have the ultimate answers and, accordingly, turn to Christ who does."

This seemed exceedingly harmonious with the following well known quote of Maxwell's:

"I think that men of science as well as other men need to learn from Christ, and I think that Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that this view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable of." [James Clerk Maxwell, 1875]

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tim: Thank you. While I need to think about my lecture tomorrow, some of your readers may want to see more about the quotation you gave. They can see:

www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2004/PSCF9-04McNatt.pdf

www.asa3.org/asa/PSCF/1985/JASA6-85Seeger2.html

www.cityreformed.org/snoke/hsbook/selection5.pdf

-- dad

8:41 PM  
Blogger Theologic said...

1. A Severe Mercy is a great book.

2. Actually, the physicist doesn't believe in God. It is the mathematicians. See http://tinyurl.com/2jgm4 for some interesting details.

Uncle T

10:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tim: You can read about the Christian physicist Lew Salter (mentioned in A Severe Mercy) at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Salter

-- love Dad

7:41 PM  

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