Thus there are two Books from whence I collect my Divinity; besides that written one of God, another of His servant Nature, that universal and publick Manuscript, that lies expaned unto the Eyes of all: those that never saw Him in the one, have discovered Him in the other.
T. Browne, Religio Medici, Part I, ch. 15.
The very existence of science demands the value judgment and essential ethic that knowledge is good. The additional and still more fundamental ethic of responsibility makes scientists individually responsible for evaluating the knowledge that they acquire, for transmitting it as may be right, and for its ultimate utilization for good.
G.G. Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution. A Study of Life and Its Significance (New Haven: Yale University Press,1967), p. 313.
Well, to me, science is terribly exciting. I am not saying that the satisfaction comes from just having solved a problem; the satisfaction really comes —as far as I am concerned— in the achievement of understanding.
B. Eudison, Scientists. Their Psychological World (New York: Basic Books,1962), p. 100.
All scientist, when they are sincere, recognize that the search for truth is the real reason that justifies the efforts of pure science and constitutes its nobility.
L. De Broglie, Physics and Microphysics (New York: Grosset and Dunlap,1966), p. 208.
Cristianity is, among the great religions, most explicitly history-conscious, and in this sense evolutionistic. It affirms that the history of mankind and of the world is not merely an illusion or an irremediable evil. History is the vehicle of creation. The world had a beginning, and will have an end.
T. Dobzhanky, The Biology of Ultimate Concern (New York: New American Library,1967), p. 37.
All life is sacramental; all nature is needed that Christ should be understood: Christ is needed that all nature should be seen as holy.
(C.A. Coulson, Science and Christian Belief, Oxford University Press, London 1955, p. 118)
If we cannot provide an account of our faith in terms that may be understood by the professional scientist, then we abdicate our claim to give a comprehensive interpretation of the whole human experience. This would be a tragedy.
C.A. Coulson, Science and Christian Belief (London: Oxford University Press,1955), p. 97.
If there were increated matter God would seem to lack the power of creating matter, and have borrowed for His work that which was already at hand. But if such matter were disordered, how remarkable it is that matter coeternal with God would not have been able to confer beauty and order upon itself, seeing that it did not receive its substance from a creator but possessed it timelessly itself.
Ambrose of Milan, Hexameron, II, 1,2.
Certainly you have among your philosophers men who maintain that this world is without a beginning and was not created. But a majority, almost all even of the heresies, allow it a beginning and a maker, and ascribe its creation to God. Firmly believe, therefore, that He made it wholly out of nothing, and by believing that He has such powers, you will have found the knowledge of God.
Tertullian, The Resurrection of the Dead, 11, 5.
I conclude from the existence of these accidents of physics and astronomy that the universe is an unexpectedly hospitable place for living creatures to make their home in. Being a scientist, trained in the habits of thought and language of the twentieth century rather than the eighteenth, I do not claim that the architecture of the universe proves the existence of God. I claim only that the architecture of the universe is consistent with the hypothesis that mind plays an essential role in its functioning.
F. Dyson, Disturbing the Universe (New York - London: Harper & Row,1979), p. 251.