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Science: Christian and Natural?
Ian Hutchinson
Ian H. Hutchinson is Professor and Head of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Institute of Physics. A graduate of King's College at the University of Cambridge, and of the Australian National University, his primary research interest is the magnetic confinement of plasmas; seeking to enable fusion reactions, the energy source of the stars, to be used for practical energy production. For fifteen years he headed the Alcator Project, the largest university-based fusion research team in the nation. He is author of the standard monograph on Plasma Diagnostics and of more than 120 scientific journal articles. Dr. Hutchinson has written and spoken widely on the subject of Science and Christianity, in academic, professional and congregational contexts.
In this personal as well as intellectual examination of the relationship of faith and science, Ian Hutchinson recounts his discovery that there is no inherent contradiction between a thorough Christian commitment and the pursuit of Natural Science.Through his career he found not only that God's truth and scientific truth are compatible, but also it is hardly an overstatement to say that science is a Christian pursuit. The giants of science have over history been predominantly people of faith, he says. The philosophical roots of science sink deep into the fertile soil of the Christian world view. And many essential traits of the personal practice of science: truthfulness, objectivity, openness, thoughtfulness, are echoes of spiritual values.
Hutchinson's research field, fusion plasma physics, has attracted many Christian scientists; probably, he says, because it combines the highest of intellectual challenges with the opportunity to develop a technology of great human benefit. Exercising scientific leadership within this big-science environment brings personal and moral challenges as well as technical and intellectual ones. Our public discourse will rarely make our faith explicit, but many around us will sense, however dimly, our distinctive vocation. And some will seek its source.
"The marvels of the scientific world are little revelations of God's creative thoughts," Hutchinson concludes. "They are part of a centuries-long heritage built by remarkable thinkers, many of whom were devout Christians, on a Christian philosophy of the world as an intelligible but contingent free creation."
Program recording date and length: 2002 ~ 1 Hour (This study was presented originally at Pepperdine University.)
