Like Einstein before him, Freeman Dyson was long associated with Princeton\u2019s Institute for Advanced Study, shown here in an aerial photograph by Hanno Rein.\u00a0 (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Back on 21 November 2006, the astoundingly productive Anglo-Irish theologian Alister McGrath delivered a speech in New York City under the perhaps rather cheeky title\u00a0\u201cThe Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World.\u201d\u00a0 Armed with Oxford University<\/span>\u00a0doctorates in both divinity and intellectual history and \u2014 even prior to those \u2014 in molecular biophysics, Dr. McGrath is exceptionally well positioned to comment upon matters at the interface of religion and science. \u00a0The text of his speech, as well as the introduction that preceded it and the questions and answers that followed it, appears between pages 235 and 267 of Eric Metaxas, ed., Life, God, and Other Small Topics: Conversations from Socrates in the City<\/em> (New York: Plume\/Penguin, 2011).\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a passage from that speech.\u00a0 In it, Dr. McGrath refers, of course, to the Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (1941-), who has become famous as a zealous advocate of the so-called \u201cNew Atheism.\u201d\u00a0 However, he also alludes to the sadly short-lived Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002), also personally an unbeliever, whose essays and best-selling books were far more charitable to religious belief than those of Dawkins, and to the eminent Anglo-American mathematician and theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson (1923-2020), of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, who publicly identified himself as a Christian:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stephen J. Gould, who died recently of lung cancer, had some very interesting things to say.\u00a0 In his book Rocks of Ages<\/em>, he argues that science simply cannot, by the legitimate application of its methods, decide the God question one way or the other.\u00a0 I think most scientists would think that is the case.\u00a0 Now, again, Richard Dawkins does not think that that is the case.\u00a0 He argues that real scientists ought to be atheists, and, therefore, I regret to say, challenges the scientific credentials of people like Freeman Dyson for daring to take an interest in religion and occasionally saying something nice about it.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nIf I could express a real concern here . . .\u00a0 You know, I love the sciences.\u00a0 I think they are wonderful, but, if you say, as Dawkins does, that science entails atheism, which everyone knows isn\u2019t the case, then actually what you are going to do is persuade a large body of religious people that science is off-limits, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s right.\u00a0 I think that the position of science in our culture is so precarious that if you actually imply that it\u2019s antireligious, then it\u2019s going to lose its support at a moment in history when it needs all the support it can get.\u00a0 And, therefore, I want to say that Richard Dawkins is doing science a disservice by portraying it in this way.\u00a0 (252-253)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
On 16 April 2015, by the way, the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0published an interview with Freeman Dyson, entitled \u201cFreeman Dyson: By the Book.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 In it, he was asked \u201cWhat books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?\u201d \u00a0He replied, \u201c\u2018The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.\u2019 I treasure it because some of my best friends are Mormons<\/a>, and the book tells a dramatic story in a fine biblical style. The reader has to wait with growing tension almost until the end of the story to reach the final climax, when Jesus arrives in America and founds his second kingdom here.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Back on 21 November 2006, the astoundingly productive Anglo-Irish theologian Alister McGrath delivered a speech in New York City under the perhaps rather cheeky title\u00a0\u201cThe Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World.\u201d\u00a0 Armed with Oxford University\u00a0doctorates in both divinity and intellectual history and \u2014 even prior to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9221,56,6994,14369,17240,2595,17234,7971,12881,9224,11809,177,243,17237,2454],"class_list":["post-88471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alister-mcgrath","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-dawkins","tag-duke","tag-eric-metaxas","tag-freeman-dyson","tag-gould","tag-harvard","tag-institute-for-advanced-study","tag-mcgrath","tag-princeton","tag-richard-dawkins","tag-science","tag-stephen-jay-gould","tag-university"],"yoast_head":"\n
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