Has science made religion redundant?

Rev Dr Sir John Polkinghorne, physicist and theologian, comes to Scotland on 28 February to give the second of the James Gregory lectures at St Andrews University, a series studying the theme of science and religion.“Science is essentially asking why things happen and of course it’s been very successful in answering that question, but it’s not the only question to ask about what’s going on. You can also ask if there’s any meaning and purpose in what is going and that’s the subject of religion. They’re asking different questions and they’re looking at different types of experience.” says Sir John.“For example, science tends to look at the world and treat it as an ‘it’, as an object; something you can kick around, pull apart and find out what it’s made of – that’s the experimental method, which is science’s great secret weapon. But we also know there is a whole swath of encounters with reality, where we meet it not as an object, as an ‘it’, but as a person. Above all, we encounter God in that way and when we move to that realm, testing has to give way to trusting. If we set traps to see if you are my friend, I’ll destroy the possibility of friendship between us.”More from The Scotsman…