Ruth Gledhill has a lovely article posted on giving the background on the most recent winner of the Templeton Prize for contributions in Science and Religion.

The winner, Bernard d’Espagnat, a French quantum theorist has been working on trying to uncover a philosophical model which would allow us to connect the mathematical predictions of Quantum Theory to a physical reality that we can understand. (This is massively important question.)

From his interview:

“‘It appears that physics can only reach at what I call empirical reality which is reality just as it appears to us by means of these concepts we are able to construct. Quantum physics in particular shows that we presumably cannot go further and reach at the ultimate reality. Therefore there is a borderline between what we can really get at which are the phenomena, and those free spaces for grand intuitions devoid of classical consequences.

‘Therefore ultimate reality, if it is attainable at all, I think is attainable only partly, and very partly indeed, but perhaps by intuition. In support I think that a sense of beauty gives us perhaps such glimpses, partial glimpses, of what ultimate reality is.’

‘He said science had helped him justify his impression of a link between beauty and the divine.”

Interestingly enough, I’m giving a workshop at the National Workshop on Christian Unity this April on how the lack of definitive answer to such questions might impact the work of an ecumenist.

Read the full article here.