427 - Transcendence and Providence: Reflections of a Physicist and Priest

Transcendence and Providence: Reflections of a Physicist and Priest
By William G. Pollard
Edinburgh, Scottish Academic Press, 1987. 269 pp. $17.00.

Current studies show that the so-called warfare between science and theology was largely the invention of a few late nineteenth-century critics seeking to defend the autonomy of secular institutions and professions. Prior to the late eighteenth century, science and theology were interdependent disciplines that often invigorated each other. In our own time, there has been a renewal of mutual appreciation and dialogue.

One of the pioneers of this new dialogue has been William Pollard, for years a physicist at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and, since 1954, a devoted Anglican priest with an evangelical zeal for defending the Christian faith in a secular world.

Pollard is now semi-retired, but in the 'fifties and 'sixties he was one of the few Christians who addressed the world of modern science in credible terms. His two early works, Chance and Providence (1958) and Physicist and Christian (1961), helped many of my generation to approach questions of science and theology in a constructive way.

Transcendence and Providence is the sixth volume in a series, Theology and Science at the Frontiers of Knowledge, edited by Thomas F. Torrance. Unlike most other volumes in the series, it is a collection of the author's essays written and published over a span of several decades (1953-84). While all the essays have been published separately, they have not been readily available, and there is value in seeing them together in one volume.

Three ideas that are distinctive in Pollard's thought are the positive value of indeterminacy, the communal nature of science, and the contingency of the process of evolution.

Classically, the divine operations were categorized as either ordinary or exceptional, depending on whether or not they were consistent with the laws of nature. Early modern science found that a quest for

430 - Transcendence and Providence: Reflections of a Physicist and Priest

uniformities and regularities in nature was almost invariably rewarded with success. Its God became associated almost exclusively with natural law. Modern religion, in contrast, has sought the divine largely in personal encounters shielded from the stubborn facticity of natural processes. Science and religion were thus separated entirely. Today, however, scientists are rediscovering the importance of chaotic and indeterminate processes in nature. Pollard sees positive value in this new development from a theological viewpoint. The singular, the unrepeatable, and the indeterminate point to a God who permeates space and time but is not contained by them (chapters 3, 11, and 12).

Science and theology were also separated by the notion that one was entirely rational and objective, while the other was not. Along with other writers like Michael Polanyi and Harold Schilling, Pollard has shown that induction into the community of scientists requires commitment and faith just as membership in the church does. He is not only theorizing. He speaks from his own experience (chapters 1, 7).

Finally, Pollard develops one of the late Loren Eiseley's arguments for the contingency of evolution. It is often said that life must exist many places in the universe. This is probably true. But it is also said that most of these experiments in evolution must have produced intelligent life. Pollard argues that we have evidence to the contrary right here on earth. With continental drift, the ancestral life forms on earth were divided into three completely separate regions: Australia, the Americas, and the Afro-Asian land mass. Only one of these three "experiments" led to anything even resembling intelligent life. The evidence at hand, therefore, points toward a radical contingency in the process of evolution and the uniqueness of the intelligence with which we are gifted (chapters 10, 11, and 15).

Some of the information cited on planetary physics and fossil hominids is a bit dated because these fields change so rapidly. But the author's insights and arguments are, if anything, ahead of their times. This is easily one of the best volumes now available on current issues in science and theology.

Christopher B. Kaiser
Western Theological Seminary
Holland, Michigan