John Polkinghorne is a scientist and an Anglican priest, fellow and former President of Queens' College, and winner of the 2002 Templeton Prize among many other awards and honors. He is the author of more than 20 books, all published by Yale University Press. In this sober-minded book, Polkinghorne examines the most important issues at the crossroads of science and religion. For added value, each chapter has within it references to his other books so readers can check them out for more amplified treatment of the subjects at hand. This process makes perfect sense since the author has been writing about the relationship between science and religion for 30 years.

These two truth-seeking endeavors operate on vastly different wave-lengths: one deals with an "impersonal encounter with the physical world" whereas the other is "a reflection in transpersonal encounter with the sacred reality of God." Both are valid approaches and both utilize "bottom-up" thinking. This qualifies them in Polkingham's estimation to be colleagues in the common quest for truth. He assesses six areas where science has much to say: causality, relationality and holism, cosmology, evolution, time, and consciousness. In a chapter titled "Theology and Science in Interactive Context," Polkingham outlines areas where religion addresses a wider view of realty in its exploration of creation, evolution, evil, divine providence, prayer, miracles, God and time, eschatology, revelation and scripture. He closes with some observations on two core beliefs of Christians and a pat on the back of the Holy Spirit as a pathfinder.