Karl Giberson

Readers of this journal [Perspectives of Science and Christian Faith] will need no introduction to John Polkinghorne. He is the author of over thirty books on science and faith, including an autobiography; so it was with some surprise that I discovered this new biography. This, however, is no traditional biography. Nelson and Giberson attempt to “tell the story of Polkinghorne, and along the way … unfold some bigger issues” (p. 7).


We are presented with the life of Polkinghorne, from his birth in 1930, the death of his brother during World War II, his education at Trinity College, Cambridge, his career in particle physics, through the ordination process in the Anglican Church, to parish life in Kent, and back to academia in Cambridge. In between this, we are introduced to many of the key ideas of Polkinghorne. These include the relationship of science and faith, the nature of reality, the resurrection of Jesus, the role of prayer, miracles, the problem of suffering and pain, and life after death.


As I read, I kept getting a sense of déjà vu. There is little or no new material here, but what we have is a well-constructed summary of Polkinghorne’s books interspersed with biographical details. Interviews have been conducted with Polkinghorne of which we have a few extracts, but the majority is material gleaned and edited from Polkinghorne’s writings. This is a strength of the book; it provides a good introduction to Polkinghorne. It is also its weakness as it provides no new information or insight.


Unfortunately, there is a tendency toward the hagiographic—very little or no criticism of Polkinghorne is presented. This is a shame as some of Polkinghorne’s views will be controversial to many Christians, particularly his view of post-mortem salvation. The strength of this approach is that the authors let Polkinghorne “speak” for himself; the weakness is that we are left wondering what Nelson and Giberson’s views are.


At times, what is presented here is a rationalistic, almost evidentialistic, view of Polkinghorne. This is even suggested by the book’s subtitle, “How John Polkinghorne Found God in Science and Religion.” It seems to imply that we find God, rather than that he finds us: “it’s the evidence that leads a physicist to believe in the equations, and it’s the evidence that leads a person of faith to believe in God” (p. 183).


This well-written book will provide an amuse-bouche or a taster into the life and work of Polkinghorne. It is strong on description but weak on evaluation. The book is not aimed at readers of this journal who have thought through issues of the integration of science and faith; rather, it is aimed at those who think that being a Christian and a scientist involves “intellectual suicide,” or is as logical as being a “vegetarian butcher” to use Polkinghorne’s phrase. There are five pages of endnotes, but no index and no list of Polkinghorne’s books.


For those who want to know more about Polkinghorne’s life, I suggest obtaining a copy of his autobiography From Physicist to Priest. For more on his view of the interaction of science and faith, a good first place is his Quarks, Chaos and Christianity and then his Reason and Reality.… (altro)

This book is, in part, a sequel to Giberson and Francis Collins’ book The Language of Science. It aims to be a faith-friendly “science and religion” book (202), and it largely succeeds in that it treats both science and faith with respect. However, it sometimes fails to deal explicitly with the faith commitments implicit within science.

It is an accessible, easy read with a lightness of touch as one would expect from Giberson who has written or co-written eight books dealing with the interaction between science and faith. As always, Giberson writes with the conviction that science is the ‘handiwork of the Creator’ (13). He seeks to show that, on the one hand, Christians need not fear science as a challenge to faith and, on the other, that science does not necessarily lead to, or promote, atheism. His main theme for this book is that ‘our expanding view of the world around provides us with a constant new source of wonder that motivates reflection on the Creator of this world’ (25).

The first part of the book tells the ‘story’ of science from the Greeks to the big bang and quantum theory. Giberson focuses on the cosmic coincidences that make ‘the Earth is such a great place to live’. In the second part he looks more at the design arguments. He avoids the inductive approach of moving from design to a designer and rightly suggests that design arguments are ‘all-too-often based on gaps in our knowledge’. But if we believe in a designer then we should see marks of design in the creation.

At times there is almost a tacit acceptance of the belief in the progress of science and in the scientific method. We are provided with an oversimplified view of the scientific method: observation and theory are the two legs of science. Much of the discussion of observation and theory is very good and he does acknowledge the ‘complex and idiosyncratic’ relationship between the two, but he sometimes doesn’t quite go far enough. There is little discussion of the theory-dependent nature of observation (we see what we want to see) and the role of worldviews in our understanding.

Giberson has an optimistic view of science, though he does acknowledge that it ‘is a finite human enterprise with all the limitations that entails’ (125). He sees the progress of science as one that ‘extends, encompasses and absorbs rather than refutes old understandings’ (128). For him science works by consensus, but ‘there is no way to draw a clean boundary between science and nonscience’ (137) and yet he does draw boundaries when he asserts that astrology and dowsing are not science, though he is more circumspect where multiple universes are concerned. He sees science, then, in terms of a spectrum: presumably, the demarcation is by consensus; and we are encouraged to ‘trust the generally accepted picture of science’ (140). Is democracy a way of deciding truth or even science?

The book is well illustrated with black and white photographs and line drawings scattered through the text and with eight colour plates. There is a short bibliographic essay, but, surprisingly, there is no mention of Polkinghorne’s work in the bibliography – and that despite Giberson having previously written a book about him (which is mentioned; for a review see S&CB (2012)24 (1): 87; for my less effusive review see PSCF (2012) 64(4): 271).

Despite some of my reservations this is a helpful well-written introduction to the complex area of science and faith. Giberson succeeds in showing that science can be embraced as an encouragement rather than a threat to the Christian faith.



This review first appeared in Science & Christian Belief (2013)25(1).… (altro)

In Seven Glorious Days: A Scientist Retells the Genesis Creation Story, author Karl W. Giberson re-presents the Genesis 1 narrative in light of the best scientific explanations of our origins. Thus the seven days are re-written to explore elements of creation through the lens of contemporary cosmogony, astronomy, quantum physics and biology. Giberson teaches Science and Religion at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts, a fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), a regular contributor to various journals and periodicals and has written extensively on the relationship between science and faith. He is also popular lecturer and author, he has been a presenter (and vice president) of the BioLogos Foundation and the editor of Science and Spirit for the Templeton Foundation. In this book, Giberson brings together his skill as a scientist and his literary skill as a lay Christian theologian.

The result is a popular level book which culls together the best of human inquiry into Creation and presents it in a warm engaging way. The chief value of this book is not apologetic--I doubt that the young earth creationists or ardent atheists would be convinced by Giberson's prose; however for those with eyes to see and ears to hear (and other powers of observation) this book is a hymn of praise and wonder to God for our fine tuned universe. The topics which Giberson covers range from the Big Bang (neither big nor a bang), the formation of matter at an atomic level, the existence of supernovas and their contribution to the development of the elements in the periodic table, the precise conditions and various factors which conspired to make life possible, and the mysteries of human development. So while his 'rewriting of Genesis 1' is a radical departure from the biblical narrative, he covers significant ground and I found it fascinating. This is not a book which explores in depth the biblical account for its theological import. It's aim is much more modest: to show how our scientific knowledge bears witness to our Creator.

I liked this book a lot. One of the joys of reading this book is that Giberson does more than present a God friendly cosmogony; he also tells a little of the history of science and the way in which our current scientific knowledge testifies of the remarkable world we live in. This is a beautiful, worshipful book and well worth reading.

Thank you to Paraclete Press for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for this review.… (altro)