The doctrine of creation of the kind that the Abrahamic faiths profess is such that it encourages the expectation that there will be a deep order in the world, expressive of the Mind and Purpose of that world’s Creator. It also asserts that the character of this order has been freely chosen by God, since it was not determined beforehand by some kind of pre-existing blueprint (as, for example, Platonic thinking had supposed to be the case). As a consequence, the nature of cosmic order cannot be discovered just by taking thought, as if humans could themselves explore a noetic realm of rational constraint to whichthe Creator had had to submit, but the pattern of the world has to be discerned through the observations and experiments that are necessary in order to determine what form the divine choice has actually taken. What is needed, therefore, for successful science is the union of the mathematical expression of order with the empirical investigation of the actual properties of nature, a methodological synthesis of a kind that was pioneered with great skill and fruitfulness by Galileo. .John Polkinghorne
About This Quote
The view of the universe taken by science is that of a creation. The world is not the product of chance; science does not offer mechanical explanations of how things happen. It can be said, therefore, that science affirms the existence of a creator. But it also asserts that creation has been made in such a way that it can be known and understood by observing and experimenting with nature.
The world is not static; it is dynamic; it exists in time; and it is subject to change. Since science affirms creation, it affirms the concept of creation ex nihilo (Latin for "out of nothing") which means, in effect, "out of what was not."
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