Remembering John Polkinghorne

A personal recollection of gratitude reports on the way that the writings of John Polkinghorne inspired and guided the author's own thinking in science and theology since meeting him as a graduate student. Themes of both agreement and disagreement are selected from the many to be found in Polkinghorne's corpus. Closer attention is paid to two of his books, Science and Christian Belief and Faith, Science and Understanding. A running theme is the creative tension of a 'bottom-up thinker', one of whose salient and influential arguments was that of 'top-down causation'. Although there is disagreement over Polkinghorne's exegesis of divine character in Job, thinking the argument through did bear fruit

Argument (complex analysis) · Art · Causation · Character (mathematics) · Epistemology · Faith · Gratitude · Literature · Salient · Theme (computing) · History · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Social Psychology