"Real" Theology/Science-Biochemist/Anglican Receives Award
Feisty
www.templetonprize.org
This is the bonified way that people prove their theories. Here is a
verifiable account from someone who has really done the work, and shares it
with the world. In the AP article he said something to the effect of "the
money is not what's important." He shares his wealth of education with the
world:
Arthur Peacocke Wins 2001 Templeton Prize
New York, March 8 -- Arthur Peacocke, a physical biochemist and Anglican
priest who pioneered early research into the physical chemistry of DNA and
has since become a leading advocate for the creative interaction of theology
and science, has won the 2001 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. The
announcement was made today at a news conference at the Church Center for the
United Nations in New York.
Peacocke, the only Oxford University Theology faculty member to be both a
Doctor of Science and a Doctor of Divinity, in 1986 founded the Society of
Ordained Scientists (S.O.Sc.), an ecumenical, international order that seeks
to foster the spirituality of those working as scientists and as ordained
persons and to act as a bridge between the Church and science. He is a strong
proponent of "critical realism," holding that science and theology both aim
to depict reality and must be subject to critical scrutiny, and that neither
Scripture, Church nor religious tradition can be accepted as
self-authenticating.
The Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion is awarded annually to a living
individual who has shown originality in advancing ideas and institutions that
deepen the world's understanding of God and of spiritual life and service. It
is the world's best known and largest religion prize, this year valued at
700,000 pounds sterling, about one million dollars, and the largest annual
prize given to an individual. Global investor Sir John Templeton created the
prize in 1972 to honor the discipline of religion in the same way that the
Nobel Prizes honor such disciplines as economics, medicine and physics. The
monetary level of the Templeton Prize is always set at an amount that exceeds
the Nobel Prizes.
H.R.H. Prince Philip will award the Templeton Prize in a private ceremony at
Buckingham Palace on Wednesday, May 9. A public ceremony, held each year at
various locations throughout the world, will honor Peacocke on Thursday, May
10 in the Great Hall at Guildhall in London. Guildhall, the site of the first
Templeton Prize public ceremony honoring Mother Teresa in 1973, last hosted
the prize ceremony in 1990.
In his nomination of Peacocke to the Templeton Prize judges, Dr. David Hay of
the Centre for the Study of Human Relations at Nottingham University in
England wrote that Peacocke had created a new understanding of the
relationship between theology and science "which has brought about an
increase in our understanding of God in the contemporary world...generating a
new theology for a scientific age."
The Rev. Canon Dr. Arthur Peacocke was born in 1924 in Watford,
Hertfordshire, England, about 20 miles northwest of London. He had a typical
Church of England upbringing though his family was not religiously active. At
age 11 he won a scholarship to Watford Boys' Grammar School, which gave him a
disciplined, rigorous education through wide-ranging debates on science,
religion and philosophy.
These early experiences set the path for much of Peacocke's life, during
which he has established an international reputation as a diligent
investigator and indispensable resource with a succinct, no-nonsense style in
writing and speech. He has been known to chide arguers of Creationism versus
Evolution, an issue he feels has clearly been decided in favor of Evolution.
His many books and lectures vigorously challenge dominant orthodoxies in a
determined effort to find truth in both science and religion.
As an undergraduate, perhaps appropriately, Peacocke was an unabashed
skeptic. After an adolescent evangelical phase, he became a "mild" agnostic
whose contact with conservative evangelical Christianity further alienated
him from "all things Christian." Yet, he hungered to make sense of
fundamental issues, a quest largely unfulfilled until he heard a sermon at
Oxford's university church by the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple,
and, for the first time, conceived of the possibility that Christianity might
be intellectually defensible. World War II and post-war revelations of the
horrors of Nazi concentration camps further prodded his religious thought as
he sought to come to grips with the problem of evil.
In 1941, he had won an Open Scholarship in Natural Science to Exeter College,
Oxford. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry with 1st Class Honors
and Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy research degrees from Oxford
University, Peacocke became in 1948 a lecturer in chemistry, and then senior
lecturer in biophysical chemistry at the University of Birmingham in England.
While there, conventional church teaching left him disenchanted. Seeking an
alternative to automatic acceptance of Church or scriptural authority, he
began a thorough study of theology, with the encouragement of a professor,
Geoffrey Lampe. In 1960, he received a Diploma in Theology and, in 1971, a
Bachelor of Divinity from Birmingham University.
In 1952, when the structure of DNA was announced in the British journal
Nature, Peacocke was a Rockefeller Fellow in Natural Science working at the
Virus Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. With his
colleagues in Birmingham, he was able to show that the chains in DNA are not
branched, as once thought, and that the double helix exists in a solution.
Later, beginning in 1959, he continued his research as a physical biochemist
at Oxford.
Parallel to his scientific endeavors, however, Peacocke was investigating the
relation of science and theology. He continued to demand a reasoned approach
to religious tradition and dogma, and found himself drawing closer to full
Christian adherence. Beginning in 1961 he served as a Lay Reader in the
Church of England, but felt his inability to administer sacraments was "like
trying to walk on one leg." Ten years later, he entered the Anglican
priesthood, determined to live as a priest-scientist.
It was at this time that his scientific and theological pursuits tangibly
merged with the publication of Science and the Christian Experiment, which he
wrote while still a full-time scientist with a research group working on the
physical chemistry of DNA and proteins. In 1973, the book won the prestigious
Lecomte du Noüy Prize, the first global recognition of Peacocke as a leader
in the new discipline of science and religion. That same year, he became Dean
of Clare College, Cambridge, allowing him to pursue more fully his
interdisciplinary vocation.
Among his other major publications in this area are Creation and the World of
Science (1979), which established further his international reputation,
Intimations of Reality: Critical Realism in Science and Religion (1984),
Theology for a Scientific Age (1990, 2nd edition 1993, including his 1993
Gifford Lectures), God and the New Biology (1994), From DNA to DEAN:
Reflections and Explorations of a Priest-Scientist (1996), God and Science: A
Quest for Christian Credibility (1996), and Paths from Science Towards God:
The End of All Our Exploring (scheduled for April 2001).
Besides founding the Society of Ordained Scientists, of which he is now
Warden-Emeritus, in 1985 Peacocke initiated the Ian Ramsey Centre for the
Interdisciplinary Study of Religious Beliefs in Relation to the Sciences,
including Medicine, at Oxford. The center's namesake, a former Bishop of
Durham and philosopher of religion, had in the early 1960s urged the
cooperation of Christian theology with other disciplines for its own
intellectual integrity and to help solve contemporary ethical dilemmas.
Peacocke also initiated the establishment of the UK Science and Religion
Forum and the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology.
In remarks prepared for the news conference, Peacocke said, "The search for
intelligibility that characterizes science and the search for meaning that
characterizes religion are two necessary intertwined strands of the human
enterprise and are not opposed. They are essential to each other,
complementary yet distinct and strongly interacting -- indeed just like the
two helical strands of DNA itself!" He added, "Science is the global language
and possession of our times and it is time, especially now at the beginning
of this first century of the new millennium, for thinkers and adherents of
all religions to engage creatively with the universal perspectives of the
sciences."
Peacocke joins an illustrious group of professional scientists who have won
the Templeton Prize, including physicist and theologian Ian Barbour in 1999,
astrophysicist Paul Davies in 1995, physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
in 1989, and Benedictine monk and professor of astrophysics Stanley L. Jaki
in 1987. Last year the prize was given to Freeman J. Dyson, a physicist whose
futuristic views have consistently called for the reconciliation of
technology and social justice.
Among the best known recipients of the prize are the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham in
1982, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1983, and Watergate figure Charles Colson who
received the prize in 1993 for his work in founding Prison Fellowship. Mother
Teresa received the first Templeton Prize in 1973, six years before she won
the Nobel Peace Prize.
Peacocke lives in Oxford and has been married for 52 years to the former
Rosemary W. Mann who, from being a headteacher of a church school, went on to
be one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools with national responsibility
for the education of young children. They have two children, Christopher, a
professor of philosophy, and Jane, an Anglican priest and educator.
end article
Feisty
Thomas J Best
but see below for the *real* truth ;-)
Feisty <not@inthislife> wrote in message
news:tafdq6b...@corp.supernews.com...
<snip>
> H.R.H. Prince Philip will award the Templeton Prize in a private ceremony
at
> Buckingham Palace on Wednesday, May 9.
>See? The off-planet Lizard King Himself, will award the prize. In a
'private ceremony', so that they can all get together and discard their
human disguises!
A public ceremony, held each year at
> various locations throughout the world, will honor Peacocke on Thursday,
May
> 10 in the Great Hall at Guildhall in London. Guildhall, the site of the
first
> Templeton Prize public ceremony honoring Mother Teresa in 1973, last
hosted
> the prize ceremony in 1990.
See? The Great Hall at Guildhall? Who else has Guilds? That's
right - the Masons! Who was the *first* prizewinner? That's
right - that well-known SP and Vatican stooge! They're *all*
in it together, I tell you! Snarfle, gibber, froth, psychotronics,
MIB, black helicopter implants....
<snip biography>
> end article
> Feisty
tam:-)
John
"Thomas J Best" <noe...@nowhere.yet> wrote in message
news:3aa862c...@nancy.pacific.net.au...
> I like this, Feisty... good work recognised
> but see below for the *real* truth ;-)
>
> Feisty <not@inthislife> wrote in message
<snip>
> in it together, I tell you! Snarfle, gibber, froth, psychotronics,
> MIB, black helicopter implants....
You know, psychotronics does sound like one of those silly
made up words made from two other words, like if you tried
to make a word from "science" and "theology" for example.
<snip>
Feisty
Thomas J Best <noe...@nowhere.yet> wrote in message
news:3aa862c...@nancy.pacific.net.au...
(oops-I'm blushing!) Honest mistake. Thank's for the tip. I didn't know that
buzz word! I'm getting the education of my life here!
I still think of bricks when I think of the word mason!
Feisty
RDT
Or that equally ridiculous word "dianetics". Only a mentally
disturbed person would make up words like that.
RDT
--
The only thing I'll ever ask of you
Gotta promise not to stop when I say when...
---Foo Fighters