Growing up, David believed that Young Earth Creationism was the Christian position on origins and how God created. As he endeavored to learn more, he was intrigued by Francis Collins book The Language of God because Francis did not present evolution as a rival theory to Christian faith, but as something that described God's method of creation. David studied biblical interpretation and found John Walton's scholarship to be tremendously helpful in understanding the original purpose and intent of the Genesis narrative.

Reflecting on his personal journey, David thinks that it is important that we don't oversimplify questions related to science and faith, but that we explore them deeply in order to understand science in a robust, Christian way.

Transcript

My name is David Wilkinson, I teach at Durham University in the department of theology, I used to be a physicist and I still am fascinated by science and theology. I became a Christian at the age of seventeen, and at that point Christian faith was very new and exciting to me. I’d also decided to do a physics degree at university; now I’m not that type of person who built a telescope at the age of four or anything of that sort. I did physics at university, I have to admit, because I was quite good at mathematics and therefore I knew I wouldn’t have to work very hard doing physics. I could spend time doing real things at university, such as cricket and other things-- typically British of course.

However what happened for me as I began to study physics at Durham University was that my new-found faith and this new area of science began to enrich each other, and Kepler of course once said that science is thinking God’s thoughts after him. And I think what was happening in hindsight was that as I was encountering the God of creation in and through Jesus, so what God had created became more and more valuable, more and more interesting to me, just as when our children brought back drawings and paintings from their school class. They weren’t great pieces of art but they were put on our kitchen walls because we knew the person who had created them, and because I was being introduced to the God of creation, so the science itself began to live for me.

Another thing was that the science at university level, particularly as one starts to explore relativity and quantum theory, cosmology, is that as John Polkinghorne would say, “It breaks the tyranny of common sense.” This isn’t a mechanistic world of Isaac Newton and those theologians who think that every question is wrapped up. This is an exciting open world of exploration and questions, of freedom both for God to work and the universe to explore. And this became more and more fascinating to me as time went on. My faith enriched my science, and my science enriched my faith. Now that wasn’t always a process where there were easy questions to answer; there were often difficult questions. But I have to say that continually, the science and the faith have gone together and have enriched each other.

My own particular interest then over the years has been how one takes the issues of science and faith and communicates them to folk who aren’t Christians. As I go around the world these days, I find many people who are fascinated by some of the questions that modern science raises, questions such as the intelligibility of the universe. How can our minds understand the universe back to such an early stage? The fact that the universe is very carefully balanced, fine-tuned for the existence of life. The question of human significance in such a vast universe. The sense of awe and wonder as you look not just at the vastness of the sky but also the fact that underneath the complexity of the universe are rather simple, elegant, beautiful laws. And I find that many folk, whether they are people of religious faith or not, find themselves drawn in by these questions that say “Is there a deeper story to the universe? Are these pointers to something that goes beyond science?” I don’t believe that they can prove God in any way, but I do think that they are pointers towards a God who in Christ is the best explanation for all of these different areas.

Off camera: “Let me ask you one question here: you mentioned John Polkinghorne. You studied with him, I believe. Would you tell something about your relationship to John Polkinghorne, and you might begin by saying, ‘John Polkinghorne was my mentor or whatever’. Just a few things about your relationship with him.”

Wilkinson: One of the most important things for me in the science/faith relationship has been those mentors, those great men and women of faith and science who have helped me along the way. Those have been many for me. One of the key people for me in this area has been Sir John Polkinghorne. John was teaching theology in Cambridge, having retired as head of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, trained as an Anglican priest, and then started to teach theology just as I arrived in Cambridge also to study theology. And what I found in his thinking was a commitment to the rigor of science, and someone who not only philosophized about science but had a feel for science as a working scientist, but someone who’s prepared to take that science and contemporary science and use it in theology today.

If I have one criticism of my fellow theologians from time to time it’s that they’re often stuck in the physics of the 19th century rather than the 20th and 21st centuries. They’re still dominated by this clockwork universe, whereas Polkinghorne and others have taken seriously that the universe is very different. And Polkinghorne with many others have spent time with me answering my questions, being gracious to the type of questions I’ve wanted to push, but they’ve impressed me by showing integrity both towards Christian faith and to science by holding the two together and not compromising on either.

Today's video is courtesy of filmmaker Ryan Pettey, director/editor of Satellite Pictures and features physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne.

I grew up in a Christian home and I can't really remember a time when I wasn't, in some sense, part of the worshiping and believing community of the church. So Christianity has always been central to my life. Academically, I was good at mathematics and so I moved into theoretical physics and I spent about 25 years working in that and enjoyed it very much and regarded it as being a Christian vocation to use such talents as I had. But you don't get better as you get older in mathematical subjects and after 25 years I found I had done my bit for physics and I'd do something else. So the idea of seeking ordination and becoming a Christian minister of Word and sacrament seemed a worthwhile thing to do--also, to my wife fortunately. So she agreed with that and that's how I made this rather unusual change.

Physicists do, I think, have a sort of cosmic religiosity. They do find it necessary to take seriously the order of the world. They are wary of religion because they have a picture of religion that is based upon blind faith, submission to authority, and so they don't want to commit intellectual suicide. Neither of course do I. So I've also tried to show my friends that my religious belief, not only explains the order of the world, but has other motivations which are also important.

Science has [achieved] its great success by the limit of its ambition. It doesn't try to ask and answer every question, but essentially asks the question "how do things happen"? It's a very important question to ask and, of course, science has been stunningly successful in answering it. But it is not the only question to ask about the world. There are questions of meaning and purpose. Is there something going on in what is happening? Now science, by its very nature, when it's honest and true to itself, doesn't seek to answer those questions. But they are questions that we know are meaningful and necessary and I want to have as full of an understanding of the world as possible which means that I need the religious answers to, if you like, the "why" questions about the world, the meaning and purpose and value of the world, just as I need the scientific answers to the "how" questions about the process of the world.

I worked in quantum physics and of course quantum physics is totally different to the physics of the world of everyday. So in the quantum world things can sometimes be like waves--spread out and flappy. Sometimes they can be like particles, little bullets. Now nobody would think that that is a sensible thing. Only the nudge of nature itself, only the way the world actually is could drive us in that direction. And now, of course, we understand many things on that basis. And that is one of the things, incidentally, that persuades me that science is dealing with truth. Not the complete truth. There is always something more to find out, there is something around the next corner which we wouldn't have thought of before hand. But we have to keep on looking for the truth and when we find it we have to commit ourselves to it and trust it.

I think that discoveries of new truth in science and beyond science are always in some continuing relationship to the truth that has been there before. When Einstein came along and discovered general relativity he didn't throw Newton away. He showed the limitations of Newton's understanding and was able to extend them. Newtonian ideas are still good enough to send an explorer satellite to Mars so they are not exactly useless. In the same sort of way, I think there is a sort of development of doctrines as people sometimes say. The understandings of truth in the present build upon the understandings of the past. They may modify them in various ways, see them in a different perspective. But I don't think they just wipe them away and start with a clean slate.

I suppose everybody would like certainty, but it isn't available to us in that absolutely black and white way. We have reasons for our beliefs. I commit myself to my Christian belief for reasons that are sufficient enough for me to bet my life upon it. But we don't have absolute certainty in the 2+2=4 sense. And that is true of everybody. Everybody has to make a commitment beyond what they know for certain to be true. I would define faith as commitment to well motivated belief, accepting the consequences of that, not only for my intellectual attitude to the world, but also the way I live my life.

Today's video is courtesy of filmmaker Ryan Pettey, director/editor of Satellite Pictures.

In this video, physicist Ard Louis discusses the misconceptions about evolution and what it says about our purpose. A lot of the young earth arguments against evolution, says Louis, can be beneficial to those promoting atheism. According to Louis, both sides are attempting to extract theology from the natural world and wrongly accept the premise that where we come from determines who we are and how we should live. However, that’s not what the Bible tells us; rather, our value comes from God, and God determines who we are and how we should live.

Many understand evolution as a theory underlined by the idea that our existence is purposelessness. But our value and purpose do not come from whether or not we were created by an evolutionary mechanism. Evolution may tell us something about how we were created, but it is not the source of our worth. That worth comes from God.

For more from Ard Louis, be sure to read his white paper for BioLogos.

John Polkinghorne remembers the day when some of his colleagues thought he had lost his mind. He was already famous as a physicist for his work in helping explain the existence of quarks and gluons, the world’s smallest known particles. He was a member of England’s Royal Society, one of the highest honors bestowed on a scientist –Isaac Newton is also a member. His students at Cambridge University had likewise moved into leading roles in scientific research.

It was the end of the academic year, and he and some other professors had gathered in his office for a brief meeting. At the conclusion, they gathered their papers, ready to leave.

“Before you go,” Polkinghorne said, “I have something to tell you.”

The tiny audience settled back into their chairs.

“I am leaving the university to enter the priesthood. I will be enrolling in seminary next year.”

There was stunned silence in the room for several seconds, then murmuring, some of it kindly supportive. The lone Scotsman in the audience, an atheist, was both wistful and wary: “You don’t know what you’re doing,” he said. Others later wondered if John Polkinghorne was committing intellectual suicide.

His decision brought to light a much larger question that has been discussed for centuries, well before Darwin and Dawkins: “What Is the Relationship Between Faith and Science?” In the years following this decision to leave the physics world, where he specialized in one kind of unseen realities, and enter the spiritual world where he explored other unseen realities, Polkinghorne has become one of the most significant spokesmen for making the relationship between faith and science one of harmony, not conflict.

He has written more than 30 books on theology and science (and the relationship between the two), served on national boards to determine ethical standards for scientific research, and was knighted by the Queen for his contributions in ethics and science. He is the founding president of the International Society for Science and Religion. He was awarded the Templeton Prize – the highest honor given in regard to the relationship between science and religion. He has studied and lectured on most continents, at the most prestigious locations, including Yale, Princeton, and the Smithsonian Institution, and appears regularly on documentaries regarding the beginning of the universe, Albert Einstein, C.S. Lewis, and countless other topics. He was featured recently on The Science Channel in the U.S. for the program Through the Wormhole, narrated by actor Morgan Freeman.

While much is made in the popular media and some religious circles that one is either a person of science or a person of faith, he has never seen how the two could be in conflict. As both a physicist and a priest, he embraces and embodies both.

One thing that did not change when he moved from academia to ministry was that both involved a quest for truth. In both science and religion he moves from evidence to interpretation to motivated belief or conclusion – a process he calls “bottom-up thinking.”

After serving as a parish priest just up the hill from the Canterbury Cathedral, Polkinghorne returned to the world of academia in Cambridge – first as the dean of chapel, and ultimately as president of Queens’ College until he retired. He continues to study, write and administer the sacraments.

I met Rev. Polkinghorne at a theology conference in Boston in 2007, at the suggestion of an editor who had an idea for a book. The idea was to make the book biographical in form, so that the world could read about the life of this very fascinating man and important thinker. But the book would be bigger than that, too. It would use Rev. Polkinghorne as a launch-point to then discuss bigger questions about the relationship between science and faith. How can a scientist really believe in miracles? How, or why, does a scientist pray? And how could a physicist possibly believe in the Resurrection of Jesus? Behind these questions is, essentially, this one: Aren’t science and faith fundamentally at odds with one another? The answer is no, and the reason is that John Polkinghorne embodies the relationship between the two. I interviewed him at his home in Cambridge several times over the next few years, as well as in Venice, where he was lecturing at a God and Laws of Nature conference at the Venice Institute, and at Oxford, where the entire God and Physics conference was dedicated to Polkinghorne’s work and to commemorate his 80th birthday.

The resulting book, Quantum Leap: How John Polkinghorne Found God in Science and Religion, by Dean Nelson and Karl Giberson, will be released by Lion-Hudson Press of Oxford, in 2011.

The book captures Polkinghorne’s views on the big cosmic questions regarding Evil, the Trinity, Evolution, the Big-Bang Theory, Adam and Eve, Intelligent Design, Atheism, the Resurrection, Salvation, Eternity, and other issues that seem to pit science against faith.

Atheists, especially those in the present realm who sell millions of books, have a faith of their own, Polkinghorne says. It may be faith in selfish competition, in Marxism, or in freedom to live as one pleases without responsibility, but there are often elements of faith, nonetheless. Sometimes the faith is in those who proclaim to not have a faith.

A theme that emerges in both his writings and in personal conversation with Polkinghorne is the phrase “But that’s not the whole story.” Science, life, God, the universe, are always surprising us with something else, or Something Else, he says. So after all these years of research and reflection, Polkinghorne is comfortable with the posture that there is always more. To everything. Looking at the world both through the eye of faith and the eye of science improves the vision over what using just one eye or the other would provide, he says.

He appeared recently at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, where I teach with Darrel Falk of BioLogos. He gave a 30-minute lecture on the relationship between faith and science and then let me interview him for 30 minutes. The interview has the feel of a couple of old friends talking.

“He doesn’t do all the work for you,” said one of his former parishioners. “He’ll discuss things with you and then say, ‘You can do some of this thinking yourself, you know.’”

That’s our hope as you watch this program – you’ll hear some things that will make you want to think more deeply. Because there’s always more to the story.

In this video Conversation, BioLogos Senior Biblical Fellow Peter Enns speaks with the Rev. N.T. Wright about some of the concepts explored in his latest book After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (HarperOne, 2010).

Enns begins by asking Wright what prompted him to write the book.

Wright responds, “I wrote it because I became fascinated a few years ago with the way in which the vision of God’s purpose to put all things right in the end actually affects what we loosely refer to as the moral life.” Many Christians think in terms of how good and bad behavior dictates who will go to heaven or hell, while still others focus more on the saving grace of Christ—and from this, it is clear that there is a preoccupation with how one should live.

There is confusion in our culture about what is right, though, Wright notes. Does one try to live by rules? By making a moral calculation when faced with every dilemma? Or does one try to live “authentically” and hope it all turns out well?

None of these options are good, says Wright. For example, rules alone are bad because they can stultify and prevent one from growing up.

How then do we live? Wright suggests that we revive the ancient idea of character and virtue as seen in the New Testament.

When Paul talks about character in Romans 5, he writes, “hope does not disappoint us.” In fact, he offers the steps to a full human existence by highlighting the character traits that Christians are called to develop. Therefore, if we frame the question of morality in terms of a biblical eschatology (a vision of what the real end is) then all sorts of things can grow within us to make us into the people God wants us to be.

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We all love survival stories, which is perhaps why I like to compare my own faith journey to one--though with considerably less blood and suspense.

You see, my faith shouldn’t be alive. By all accounts, it should have perished the moment I started asking questions about faith and science. All my life I’d been taught that I had to choose—between believing the Bible and believing my science book, between honoring God and embracing evolution. To accept one was to effectively kill the other, I learned. They couldn’t both survive. They were incompatible.

And yet here I am—a girl who loves Jesus and accepts evolution, alive to tell the tale.

Survival stories usually begin in a dramatic setting, and mine is no different. For most of my life I’ve lived in Dayton, Tennessee, home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Located in the buckle of the Bible Belt, Dayton is not the most convenient place to question a literal interpretation of Genesis. Most people here believe that evolution is part of an anti-Christian worldview, and the wounds from getting called “yokels” and “ignorants” by the press during the trial are still being nursed today.

I attended a small Christian college in town named after William Jennings Bryan, where one of the most popular professors at the time was a leading young earth creationist. This professor often told the story of how, as a sophomore in high school, he had dreams of becoming a scientist, but could not reconcile the theory of evolution with the creation account found in the Bible. So one night, he took a pair of scissors and a newly-purchased Bible and began cutting out every verse he believed would have to be removed to believe in evolution. By the time he was finished, he said he couldn’t even lift the Bible without it falling apart. That was when he decided, “Either Scripture was true and evolution was wrong or evolution was true and I must toss out the Bible.”

Having operated within this paradigm for so much of my life, I experienced a major crisis of faith when I encountered the overwhelming scientific evidence in support of evolutionary theory soon after graduating from college.

On the one hand, I felt betrayed. Pastors and teachers had assured me that science supported a 6,000-year-old earth and that only atheists with an agenda against Christianity believed it was older. And yet everything from the fossil record to biodiversity to starlight to DNA seemed to confirm evolutionary theory as sound, with the overwhelming majority scientists affirming it.

On the other hand, I was afraid to accept undeniable truth I’d encountered. I didn’t want to walk away from my faith. I didn’t want to throw out the Bible. I didn’t want to reject God. But everything I’d been told up to that point led me to believe I had to choose. Doubt is difficult to describe to those who have never experienced it. What’s most frightening about it is how one question leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another, creating a sort of domino effect out of your skepticism and fear. I lay awake for hours at night, struggling with this conflict between my intellectual integrity and my faith. I begged God to “help me in my unbelief,” but His presence seemed to drift farther and farther away with every seemingly irreconcilable conflict between reason and faith.

I thought for sure my faith was a goner.

The first rescue helicopter came in the form of Francis Collins’ “The Language of God.” A friend recommended it, and it was the first time I’d ever read the work of a scientist so passionately committed to both his Christian faith and accepted science. The fact that it was even possible to be a Christian and believe in evolution gave me hope.

In the third chapter, Collins includes a quote from St. Augustine, who—centuries before Darwin made his landmark observations—warned Christians against interpreting the first two chapters of Genesis too strictly. Said Augustine, “In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.”¹

That was when I realized that my hyper-literalist interpretation of Genesis 1-2 was going down, and it was taking my faith with it.

I couldn’t let that happen.

So like a survivor cutting off his arm to escape from beneath a boulder, I severed my fundamentalist approach to Scripture. (Okay, so it wasn’t really that dramatic. Let’s just say I spent some time on the BioLogos site, ordered “The Lost World of Genesis One” by John Walton, and managed to survive the faith crisis with my love for God and for the Bible intact.)

So why tell my story?

Because I wasn’t alone out there in the wilderness of doubt, and not everyone’s faith survived. I have friends who walked away from their Christian faith right when their gifts and talents could have served it best. They walked away because they thought being a Christian demanded willful ignorance and fear of truth. They walked away because they felt betrayed by their pastors, parents, and professors. They walked away because they believed the lie that they had to choose.

And that makes me angry sometimes.

It seems like for every survival story, there is a story of loss…which is why I believe the BioLogos Foundation is so important. We’ve got to work together to reverse this trend. We’ve got to send out more rescue helicopters to young people around the country who are desperately holding on to what remains of their faith. These are unnecessary casualties of an unnecessary war, and the simple knowledge that faith and science can coexist can be enough to bring a lost soul back from the brink.

My faith shouldn’t be alive.

But it is, and not a day goes by that I am not grateful for the gift of a second chance.

Rachel's book Evolving in Monkey Town is available on Amazon. To hear about Rachel's journey, see our video conversation with her (below).