During his tenure at Harvard, the astronomer Owen Gingerich—who died two weeks ago at the age of ninety-three—was known as a colorful professor who would engage in such stunts as propelling himself with a fire extinguisher to demonstrate the laws of physics. Gingerich also made important contributions to the history of science and was a committed advocate of Pluto’s status as a planet. And unlike some other prominent students of the cosmos, he remained committed throughout his life to belief in God. Neil Genzlinger writes:
Professor Gingerich was raised a Mennonite and was a student at Goshen College, a Mennonite institution in Indiana, studying chemistry but thinking of astronomy, when, he later recalled, a professor there gave him pivotal advice: “If you feel a calling to pursue astronomy, you should go for it. We can’t let the atheists take over any field.”
He took the counsel, and throughout his career he often wrote or spoke about his belief that religion and science need not be at odds. He explored that theme in the books God’s Universe (2006) and God’s Planet (2014). He was not a biblical literalist; he had no use for those who ignored science and proclaimed the Bible’s creation story historical fact. Yet, as he put it in God’s Universe, he was “personally persuaded that a superintelligent Creator exists beyond and within the cosmos.”
Margaret Wertheim, reviewing that book in the Los Angeles Times, called it “lucid and poetic.”
“In this time of sectarian wars, when theists and atheists are engaged in increasingly hostile incivilities,” she wrote, “Gingerich lays out an elegant case for why he finds the universe a source of encouragement for his life both as a scientist and as a Christian. We do not have to agree with his conclusions to be buoyed and enchanted by the journey on which he takes us.”
Read more on New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/11/science/space/owen-gingerich-dead.html