close-up
history and the “I”

The “Leap” of the Physicist
He spoke at the Meeting about certainty and knowledge. A scientist and Anglican priest, John Polkinghorne, tells how faith helps him to live, and why one must “start from experience.”

by Suzanne Tanzi

“We cannot oppose science and faith–both aim at the search for truth.” These are the words of John Polkinghorne, fellow of the Royal Society and of Queens’ College, Cambridge. Born in 1930, he is one of today’s greatest physicists (Templeton Prize, 2002), who made an important contribution to the discovery of the quark. At the Rimini Meeting, introduced by the astrophysicist, Marco Bersanelli, he spoke about “Certainty in Scientific Knowledge,” a theme to which he has dedicated fifteen works, like Belief in God in an Age of Science (Yale University Press, 1998). His is not a purely academic interest, since he is a theologian and Anglican priest. This is why we went to see him, behind the scenes, and asked him what he is sure of in his life and in his work. “I am a priest and a physicist,” he explained. “Not in the sense that I am a priest on Sundays and a physicist on Mondays. I want to be both every day.” How is it possible? “The two complement each other. You see, scientists may be diffident to religion. They are afraid of the diktat of an authority that they cannot prove. Yet faith is not a leap into the dark, but into the light.” How does this position affect your research? “Faith helps me to live. Our society seems to want an absolute certainty, as if it were possible to answer all the questions. Instead, I think that in order to understand we have to begin from experience, not from ready-made ideas. We need to learn from our encounter with reality.”