561 - Physicist and Christian, A Dialogue Between the Communities

Physicist and Christian,
A Dialogue Between the Communities
By William Grosvenor Pollard
178 pp. Greenwich, Connecticut, The Seabury Press, 1961. $4.25.

Anyone who, like the reviewer, has had the responsibility of counseling college students regarding their choice of a professional career knows how difficult it is to portray the true concept of a particular field, say chemical engineering. One can quote definitions or outline subject matter (most of which will be incomprehensible to a neophyte) or point to members of the profession and what they do, but in the end lie realizes that his picture is incomplete and not entirely satisfactory. As a matter

562 - Physicist and Christian, A Dialogue Between the Communities

of fact, even a senior chemical engineering student is only beginning to understand the significance of what he is studying. But once lie has become a practicing member of his profession, uncertainties disappear and lie knows what chemical engineering is all about. Only membership in a community permits one truly to understand that community.

In the first two chapters of this book under consideration, which represents an expanded version of the Bishop Paddock Lectures given by the author at the General Theological Seminary in 1959, Dr. Pollard examines the characteristics of a community and the problems which arise out of such a consideration. He gives particular attention to the two communities with which he is most vitally concerned, that represented by the scientific field of experimental and theoretical physics and that of the Christian Church, and he finds them remarkably similar in many important details.

The author now turns his attention to the meaning and reality of spirit." It is rather surprising that he chooses the Marine Corps as a typical community, since his previous concern has been with science. His analogical reasoning has severe limitations, since, of course, the esprit de corps of the armed services and the Holy Spirit of Christian theology are quite different, although Dr. Pollard finds the former useful in understanding the latter. He concludes that the experience of a spirit perceived by a community enables him to establish the reality of spirit on a purely experiential basis.

In Chapter IV Dr. Pollard examines nature and supernature and restates many of the concepts introduced by Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy. In this chapter the dialogue between physics and Christianity is resumed, and the author shows us that while the realm of the conceptual is the proper domain of science, there are non-conceptual elements in science which lead us out of nature into supernature. He is careful to caution us, however, that science by itself cannot lead us to a knowledge of God or even to a recognition of his existence.

These concerns over the reality of the non-conceptual as well as the conceptual bring us quite properly into a philosophical discussion of knowledge itself. While Dr. Pollard makes no attempt to set forth a complete theory of knowledge, he does provide an outline for such a theory. He believes that there are three roads Lo knowledge, all of which provide valid results- (1) the rational or experimental approach in which things and events are perceived, (2) the reception of non-conceptual information through community experience, and (3) personal encounter (the I-Thou concept). The anthor makes clear his debt to Martin Buber at this point.

"Among the problems which beset the relationship between science and Christianity, none seems to present difficulties of a more fundamen-

563 - Physicist and Christian, A Dialogue Between the Communities

tally irreconcilable nature than the claim of the Church to possess a store of valid and authentic knowledge given by revelation." So states Dr. Pollard at the beginning of the final chapter, and this portion of the book is devoted to that problem. Revelation is regarded as the result of a divine-human encounter and thus a source of valid knowledge as discussed in the preceding chapter. Revelation also comes through the community, and the Bible is the record of such revelation. The author's Christian orientation is made evident in the final section of the book called "Christ as Ultimate Revelation."

This book is written by a man who is both the Executive Director of the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies and a priest of the Episcopal Church. It is an honest and intelligent book written out of personal experience by one who permits us to share in his meditations. It can be read with profit by anyone who belongs to either of the communities represented. Perhaps the strength and limitations of this dialogue can best be summarized in Dr. Pollard's own words.

"It is not possible for anyone but a physicist to really know the truth of physics; everyone else has to take it on faith. Equally so it is not possible for anyone but a fully involved and committed Christian to really know the truth of Christianity. Purely by way of personal witness out of my experience in both communities, I can simply assert that the knowledge I believe I have of the truth of Christianity and my sense of conviction as to its essential validity and reality rests on just as good and just as firm and convincing grounds as the knowledge I have of the truth of physics and my sense of conviction as to the essential validity of the view of reality which the community of physics has presently achieved. Having said this, however, I am aware that I would have just as difficult a time convincing an oriental mystic who profoundly disbelieved in the reality of physics that the statement makes sense, as I now have in convincing a scientific colleague who profoundly disbelieves in the reality of the Gospel. This simply means that all knowledge comes through community and that it is only within the community in which it is known that the question of its validity can ultimately be settled."

Richard K. Toner
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey