Freeman Dyson on Religion and Science. From the New York Review of Books, a review of The God of Hope and the End of the World by John Polkinghorne.
I am a practicing Christian but not a believing Christian. To me, to worship God means to recognize that mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our comprehension. When I listen to Polkinghorne describing the afterlife, I think of God answering Job out of the whirlwind, "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?... Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.... Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?" God's answer to Job is all the theology I need. As a scientist, I live in a universe of overwhelming size and mystery. The mysteries of life and language, good and evil, chance and necessity, and of our own existence as conscious beings in an impersonal cosmos are even greater than the mysteries of physics and astronomy. Behind the mysteries that we can name, there are deeper mysteries that we have not even begun to explore.
After more or less rejecting narrow theology of the book he's reviewing, Dyson turns to several tuhors. First is Olaf Stapledon, who wrote science fiction of a vast, nearly theological nature. Stapledon was a clear influence on Arthur Clarke and many other today. He's really some writer, and I need to remember to have at him again. Star Maker, Sirius, and Last and First Men are all amazing books. He also mentions Octavia Butler, who I've enjoyed but neglected lately.
Dyson's last paragraph starts, "Science and religion are both still close to their beginnings, with no ends in sight. Science and religion are both destined to grow and change in the millennia that lie ahead of us, perhaps solving some old mysteries, certainly discovering new mysteries of which we yet have no inkling." This is an amazing thought.
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