John Polkinghorne (1930–2021): A Brief Tribute

The Revd Professor John Polkinghorne, kbe, frs, has died at the age of 90.

Of all the scientist-theologians to have written on divine action in the past few decades—and let’s face it, there have been, and continue to be, many—John Polkinghorne was the one whose work most resonated with me. When I was doing my doctoral research and searching for people who had issues with the concept of primary and secondary causation, I found Polkinghorne’s work on the topic quite refreshing. He didn’t mince his words: double agency, he observed, is ‘an unintelligible kind of theological doublespeak’ (Science and Christian Belief: Theological Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker (London: SPCK, 1994), pp. 81–82). It’s the kind of statement I wish I had constructed and had the courage and confidence to disseminate.

And of all the scientist-theologians to have contributed to the broader science and religion dialogue in the past few decades, John Polkinghorne was the one whom I thought was held captive least to scientific frameworks, primacy, and pressures. It seems to me he was far more willing to let Nicene orthodoxy dictate the terms of his theology than most of his peers. This is most evident in Science and Christian Belief, from which the above quotation about double agency is taken. That said, I didn’t agree with everything Polkinghorne wrote, and you can see my critical appreciation of his take on primary causation and informational causality in my chapter in God and the Scientist, edited by Fraser Watts and Christopher C. Knight (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012).

Polkinghorne wrote extensively on eschatology and how the natural sciences can enrich the more traditional descriptions of the age to come. I conclude this brief tribute by quoting the final paragraph in From Physicist to Priest: An Autobiography (London: SPCK, 2007), p. 172:

No one knows when or how their own life will end, but we all know that death is ahead of us sometime. For a long while I have prayed regularly that I may be given the grace to make a good death. For the Christian, it will be the final act in this world of complete commitment into the hands of a faithful God and merciful Saviour. I greatly value the words of a Charles Wesley hymn that for me express perfectly how one should seek to think about one’s death,

Ready for all thy perfect will,

My acts of faith and love repeat,

Till death thine endless mercies seal,

And make the sacrifice complete.