The Polkinghorne Reader ( edited by Thomas Jay Oord ) provides key excerpts from Polkinghorne's most influential books.

Polkinghorne considers that " the question of the existence of God is the single most important question we face about the nature of reality " and quotes with approval Anthony Kenny: " After all, if there is no God, then God is incalculably the greatest single creation of the human imagination.

* " Best Working Model ": For some ( e. g. John Polkinghorne ) religion makes the most sense of " the way the world is.

John Polkinghorne suggests that the nearest analogy to the existence of God in physics are the ideas of quantum mechanics which are seemingly paradoxical but make sense of a great deal of disparate data.

For example, here is a passage from Dyson's review of The God of Hope and the End of the World from John Polkinghorne:

Particle physicist and Anglican theologian John Polkinghorne objects to what he calls promissory materialism — claims that materialistic science will eventually succeed in explaining phenomena it has not so far been able to explain.

Polkinghorne prefers " dual-aspect monism " to faith in materialism.

* Polkinghorne, J. and Oord, T. J., The Polkinghorne Reader < nowiki ></ nowiki >

However many modern scholars ( such as John Polkinghorne ) hold that it is part of a deity's nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for a deity to go against its own laws unless there were an overwhelming reason to do so.

Dr John Charlton Polkinghorne, KBE, FRS ( born 16 October 1930 ) is an English theoretical physicist, theologian, writer, and Anglican priest.

Polkinghorne was born in Weston-super-Mare to George Polkinghorne, who worked for the post office, and Dorothy Charlton, the daughter of a groom.

When he was 11 he went to Elmhurst Grammar School in Street, and when his father was promoted to head postmaster in Ely in 1945, Polkinghorne was transferred to The Perse School, Cambridge.

Polkinghorne accepted a postdoctoral Harkness Fellowship with the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with Murray Gell-Mann.

Polkinghorne decided to train for the priesthood in 1977.

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.

Polkinghorne accepts Evolution.

Following the resignation of Michael Reiss, the director of education at the Royal Society — who had controversially argued that school pupils who believed in creationism should be used by science teachers to start discussions, rather than be rejected per se — Polkinghorne argued in The Times that there is a distinction between believing in the mind and purpose of a divine creator, and what he calls creationism " in that curious North American sense ," with a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and the belief that evolution is wrong, a position he rejects.

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.

The British philosopher Simon Blackburn has criticized Polkinghorne for using primitive thinking and rhetorical devices instead of engaging in philosophy.

When Polkinghorne argues that the minute adjustments of cosmological constants for life points towards an explanation beyond the scientific realm, Blackburn argues that this relies on a natural preference for explanation in terms of agency.

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.

Polkinghorne responded that " debating with Dawkins is hopeless, because there's no give and take.

The philosopher 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 arguing that Polkinghorne had exploited his fellowship there to publicize a " weak, casuistical and tendentious pamphlet.

In a sense, the problem stems from centuries of introspection on the part of the Chinese people, which has blurred the distinction between fact and fiction in regards to this early history.

* Infinite-valued determinism: General semantics regards the problem of ' indeterminism vs. determinism ' as the failure of pre-modern epistemologies to formulate the issue properly as the failure to consider or include all factors relevant to a particular prediction, and failure to adjust our languages and linguistic structures to empirical facts.

" Brin instinctively regards genetics as a database and computing problem.

Duals are often tolerated if the problem is strong in other regards and if the duals occur in lines of play that are subsidiary to the main theme.

In regards to working with Sean Penn, who had a reputation for being difficult to work with, Allen later said, " I had no problem with him whatsoever ...

A still unsolved problem regards the possibility to archive email messages on disk.

This says that with regards to many-one reducibility, the halting problem is the most complicated of all computer programs.

The methods used are also different in regards to the population being served as well as the context and nature of the problem.

User-centered design can be characterized as a multi-stage problem solving process that not only requires designers to analyse and foresee how users are likely to use a product, but also to test the validity of their assumptions with regards to user behaviour in real world tests with actual users.

With regards to the production of strangelets, Frank Close, professor of physics at the University of Oxford, indicates that " the chance of this happening is like you winning the major prize on the lottery 3 weeks in succession ; the problem is that people believe it is possible to win the lottery 3 weeks in succession.

The Hearing Voices Movement regards itself as being a post-psychiatric organisation, positioning itself outside of the mental health world in recognition that voices, in their view, are an aspect of human differentness, rather than a mental health problem and that, as with homosexuality ( also regarded by psychiatry in historical times as an illness ), one of the main issues is about human rights.

Foucault cites the well-known texts of Adam Ferguson: Essay on the History of Civil Society ; from the 18th century to show how liberalism approached this problem from different angles and Adam Smith and his own infamous text The Wealth of Nations which complement one another with regards civil society.

The issuance of the accounting practices and standards as regards to the different holding patterns, adds to the accountability that is sought, in case the problem increases in magnitude.

A final problem that people find is that identity fraud is all too common in regards to the disposal of electronic products.

The governor regards the problem with the rebels as insignificant.

In Terror and Civilization: Christianity, Politics, and the Western Psyche, Drury regards the contemporary political problem as " thoroughly Biblical.

Duncan & Chase-Lansdale ( 2001 ) found that the impact of welfare reform varied by age of the children, with generally positive effects on school achievement among elementary-school age children and negative effects on adolescents, especially with regards to risky or problem behaviors.

FSF India regards non-free software as not a solution, but a problem to be solved.