Science Quote by John Polkinghorne

Polkinghorne is doing something rare in the science-and-religion arena: refusing the easy merger. The line is a controlled pushback against a familiar modern impulse - to treat theology as if it only earns legitimacy by translating itself into the vocabulary of physics. Coming from a working physicist (and, famously, a theologian), the move carries insider authority: he is not shielding religion from critique so much as defending science from category error and theology from becoming a bad imitation of science.

The phrasing matters. “Maintain distinctions” is deliberately unsexy, almost bureaucratic, but it’s a rhetorical brake on the culture-war habit of forcing every big question into a single arena with a single scoring system. He draws a boundary between “creation” and “scientific cosmology” not to keep them from speaking, but to stop one from being smuggled into the other under the banner of sophistication. “Assimilate” is the tell: it suggests an empire, a dominant framework absorbing a weaker one, flattening difference into digestible, testable propositions.

The subtext is a critique of scientism rather than science. When he says “which sometimes scientists give in to,” he’s naming a temptation born of success: because science explains so much, it begins to act like it should explain everything, including meaning, purpose, and ultimate dependence. Polkinghorne’s intent is intellectual hygiene. He’s arguing that cosmology can describe the universe’s history; “creation” addresses why there is a universe at all and what it signifies. Confusing them doesn’t strengthen either side - it just produces bad physics and thinner faith.