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St Edmund's Parish Church
Roundhay, Leeds, England
Articles - Book Reviews - John Polkinghorne
"Searching for Truth", by John Polkinghorne.
Published by The Bible Reading Fellowship. ISBN 0-7459-3298-3.If you've got this far into Lent and haven't yet found a way of making the most of this season, then give this book a try. John Polkinghorne is both an Anglican priest and a Fellow of the Royal Society. As such he is suitably qualified to comment on the science/faith debate, which he has done in books and public lectures with great effect.
"Searching for Truth" does not require degrees in science or theology to understand. Thankfully, Polkinghorne has a gift of writing meaningfully in language that every-day mortals such as you and I can make sense of. He's also an imaginative writer, and this saves his book from the risk of being dry and heavy.
If you're put off by a book that looks at science and faith then I urge you to give this one a try. It doesn't seek to use the arguments of one to knock points off the other. Instead, Polkinghorne shows how science and faith can learn from and inform each other - indeed, how they are ultimately dependent upon each other to fully make sense of our world. In this way he deals effectively with the naive assumption that the worlds of science and faith are mutually exclusive. The unwritten subtext to this assumption is that as the truth of science is observable and that of faith is not, then science must hold the "real" truth and faith be ultimately groundless and immature. Polkinghorne's view is that a mature faith and a realistic understanding of science will aim to draw out the best that each has to offer as we search for a truth to live our lives by.
There's one short chapter for each day of Lent. Each begins with a few verses from scripture; a few paragraphs of comment; and, finishing with a short prayer. Make a start now, and I'm sure you'll want to finish it off after Easter.
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