John Charlton Polkinghorne KBE FRS (16 October 1930 – 9 March 2021) was an English theoretical physicist, theologian, and Anglican priest.

[10] A prominent and leading voice explaining the relationship between science and religion, he was professor of mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1979, when he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest in 1982.

[13] Following National Service in the Royal Army Educational Corps from 1948 to 1949, he read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1952 as Senior Wrangler, then earned his PhD in physics in 1955, supervised by the Nobel laureate Abdus Salam in the group led by Paul Dirac.

[13] He was promoted to reader in 1965,[15] and in 1968 was offered a professorship in mathematical physics, a position he held until 1979,[13] his students including Brian Josephson and Martin Rees.

[19] He said in an interview that he felt he had done his bit for science after 25 years, and that his best mathematical work was probably behind him; Christianity had always been central to his life, so ordination offered an attractive second career.

[13] He resigned his chair in 1979 to study at Westcott House, Cambridge, an Anglican theological college, becoming an ordained priest on 6 June 1982 (Trinity Sunday).

[citation needed] He worked for five years as a curate in south Bristol, then as vicar in Blean, Kent, before returning to Cambridge in 1986 as dean of chapel at Trinity Hall.

[27] Polkinghorne said in an interview that he believes his move from science to religion has given him binocular vision, though he understands that it has aroused the kind of suspicion "that might follow the claim to be a vegetarian butcher.

[29] He suggests that the mechanistic explanations of the world that have continued from Laplace to Richard Dawkins should be replaced by an understanding that most of nature is cloud-like rather than clock-like.

The atheist's "plain assertion of the world's existence" is a "grossly impoverished view of reality… [arguing that] theism explains more than a reductionist atheism can ever address.".

"[34] He cites in particular: Polkinghorne believes that The well-known free will defence in relation to moral evil asserts that a world with a possibility of sinful people is better than one with perfectly programmed machines.

But I am certainly not a creationist in that curious North American sense, which implies interpreting Genesis 1 in a flat-footed literal way and supposing that evolution is wrong.

"[41] Nancy Frankenberry, Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College, has described Polkinghorne as the finest British theologian/scientist of our time, citing his work on the possible relationship between chaos theory and natural theology.

"[45] The novelist Simon Ings, writing in the New Scientist, said Polkinghorne's argument for the proposition that God is real is cogent and his evidence elegant.

[46] Richard Dawkins, formerly Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, writes that the same three names of British scientists who are also sincerely religious crop up with the "likable familiarity of senior partners in a firm of Dickensian lawyers": Arthur Peacocke, Russell Stannard, and John Polkinghorne, all of whom have either won the Templeton Prize or are on its board of trustees.

[48] A. C. Grayling criticized the Royal Society for allowing its premises to be used in connection with the launch of Questions of Truth, describing it as a scandal, and suggesting that Polkinghorne had exploited his fellowship there to publicize a "weak, casuistical and tendentious pamphlet."

After implying that the book's publisher, Westminster John Knox, was a self-publisher, Grayling went on to write that Polkinghorne and others were eager to see the credibility accorded to scientific research extended to religious perspectives through association.