Quote of the Moment

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Speaking of Faith

"We don't make progress by denying our experience." I am quoting John Polkinghorne as he was interviewed this afternoon on the NPR radio program Speaking of Faith. Rev. Dr. Polkinghorne is a physicist and Anglican priest and was discussing one of my favorite subjects of late, the happy coexistence of the Christian faith and science. It does no good to deny truth when it doesn't fit your understanding of faith. Christians should never fear truth, as all truth is truly God's.

Apparently Dietrich Bonhoeffer said something to the effect that since God is unknowable, as man discovers more and more "truths" in the scientific world, God is pushed farther and farther away from us. Mr. Polkinghorne countered with the idea that since the Christian God is a god of truth, whenever we uncover more scientific truth, we get to know God better. I embrace the second theory. Our universe is amazing and we should not be afraid to discover how it works.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What progress have you made?
What experiences have meant something to you? What is your faith in? What truth are you facing that might not be what you want or that might be counter to what you have had faith in? What do you fear?

You need not answer these questions, but I am compelled to ask them simply because I am your husband.

-your husband.

PS. You take nice photos.

Ann said...

What progress? I have lost my former fears, or maybe distrust of science in general. I guess a fear that remains is that God may be very different than I have always thought. I fear that I do not know him as he really is. I don't want to create God in my own image. I want to know what he's really like and what he really thinks of so many different things, including me!