Can a Scientist Pray?

John Polkinghorne Can a Scientist Pray? Can a scientist pray? I suppose it depends a bit on what you mean by"pray."We know there are lots ofdifferent ways ofpraying. There is adoration. There is meditation. There is contrition. There is petition. I think actually quite a lot of scientists pray widiout even knowing that they're doing so. One ofthe fundamental experiences in science—in fact, one of the rewards for doing science—is the feeling ofwonder diat we have from time to time at die marvelous pattern and structure and fruitful history ofthe physical world that is revealed through our inquiry. Wonder is an indispensable word in the scientist's vocabulary and it is the payofffor all the weary labor and frustration involved in scientific research. I was a dieoretical physicist, a sort of pencil and paper person, and at the end of an average working day my wastepaper basket had lots of crumbled bits of paper in it, as the good ideas of the morning failed to work out in the afternoon. As with This lecture was delivered by John Polkinghorne at the University of St.Thomas, October 2, 1997. LOGOS 2:2 SPRING 1999 LOGOS every worthwhile activity, there is a lot ofroutine involved and a certain degree offrustration, but the reward is tiiis sense ofwonder. And when scientists feel that sense ofwonder at die rational beauty ofdie physical world, whether they know it or not, I think they are actually adoring the Creator, whose mind is revealed to us in that marvelous order. I believe that the beautiful equations of fundamental physics express the mind of the Creator, set forth in the laws of nature which, in their regularity, are expressions of God's faithfulness . So diat form ofpraying adoration or wonder is very natural to a scientist. But ofcourse, where the rub comes, where the question, "Can a Scientist Pray?" gets radier pointed, and where we need to think carefully is in relation to petitionary prayer. Can a scientist actually withintegrity, knowing all that he or she does know as a scientist, ask God to do something in the physical world?After all, doesn't science tell us that the physical world is very orderly, and regular, that what is going to happen, is going to happen? Doesn't that mean that really there isn't scope for God's special providential action over and above the laws ofnature that God has ordained? I think that's a problem many people feel. Let me illustrate it by referring to ourAnglican formularies.The historic Book ofCommon Prayer, which reached its final form in 1662, contains within it a prayer for seasonable weather, asking that God will send good weadier for the crops. When the Book of Common Prayer was revised in 1928, a somewhat modified but still recognizable form of diat prayer was retained in the prayer book. When, however, theAlternative Service Book (which is the modern liturgy diat is used in most Church of England churches, not in all as we don't abolish old liturgies when we introduce new ones)was issued and audiorized in 1 980, no such prayer appeared in die book. The nearest you can get to it is a harvest collect retrospectively thanking God for the fruits of the earth. CAN A SCIENTIST PRAY?I ? But it's not entirely clear why one should be thankful afterwards for what one did not have die nerve to ask for beforehand! I diink that many church congregations would feel uneasy were the priest to lead them in prayers for a change in the weather, say during a period ofdrought or a period offlood, because it seems to diem diat the weather just happens. That of course would certainly be so if the physical world were a clockwork world. The scientific discoveries ofdie eighteendi and nineteenth centuries, stemming from the great ideas of Sir Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell, seemed to present a picture of a world that was mechanical in its nature. The world was portrayed as a system that is predictable and controllable; in a sense it is tame—we can know what it's going to do. For...