The months in Scotland were a kind of homecoming for me. My grandfather was a physician in Edinburgh, which was my father’s home until he went as a geologist to China, and later to America. More recently, my oldest son was a student for a year at the University of Aberdeen. He told us to bring warm clothes with us. Someone had said to him: “Ye’ll know it’s cold when the weather r-r-rusts your molars.” But after temperatures of thirty-four degrees below zero in Minnesota, Aberdeen was warm by comparison. And my wife and I received a truly warm welcome from the University of Aberdeen, particularly from the faculties of theology, philosophy, and physics.

I began work on these lectures several years ago during a term at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) in the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, California. Both at the time and in subsequent years I have greatly appreciated interaction with the groups of faculty, graduate students, and visiting scholars who have met under the auspices of CTNS and its director, Robert Russell.

I am deeply indebted to Arthur Peacocke, Holmes Rolston, Robert Russell, and my wife, Deane Barbour, for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. Valuable suggestions on particular chapters came from John Barbour, Mary Gerhart, David Griffin, Philip Hefner, Eric Juengst, Nancey Murphy, John Polkinghorne, and David Wilcox. I am grateful for Scott Oney’s assistance in revising the text on my word processor and to Priscilla Stuckey-Kauffman for careful copyediting of the manuscript.

An earlier version of chapter 1 was published in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding, edited by Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, S.J., and George V. Coyne, S.J. (The Vatican: Vatican Observatory, and Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988). A shorter rendition of chapter 5 was included in Cosmos As Creation: Science and Theology in Consonance, Ted Peters, editor (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989.) They appear here by prior agreement with the respective editors.