In his early career as a scientist researching the physical chemistry of biological macromolecules, Peacocke studied DNA. But after 25 years, he left science for religion, becoming a priest for the Church of England.
There, his mission was to help Christians understand that science and religion can mix: both try to depict reality, and both must be open to critical investigation. “The search for intelligibility that characterises science and the search for meaning that characterises religion are two necessary intertwined strands of the human enterprise and are not opposed,” Peacocke argued.
For instance, Darwinian evolution, he said, is consistent with the idea of God, and indeed helps explain creation. Evolution is not an evil to be dismissed as heretical, he said, but is rather a “disguised friend.” He founded the Ramsey Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religious Beliefs in Relation to the Sciences and Medicine at Oxford University in 1985, and won the 2001 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion — and donated most of the prize money to the Ramsey Centre. The Reverend Canon Arthur Peacocke, MBE, PhD, died October 21. He was 81.