Ian Barbour

Ian Graeme Barbour was born in 1923 in Beijing, China (to American parents who were university professors). He began his higher education in physics and received his PhD in physics from the University of Chicago, where he conducted research under great physicists such as Enrico Fermi. However, his deep interest in ethical and theological issues led him, after several years of teaching physics, to go to Yale University and also earn his divinity degree. He then spent many years teaching and conducting research as a professor of physics and a professor of religion at Carleton College in Minnesota.

Barbour's greatest achievement was organizing and methodizing the dialogue between science and religion. His groundbreaking book, Issues in Science and Religion (1966), officially established this topic as an independent academic field of research. In his later works, especially the book Religion in an Age of Science, he presented his famous fourfold model for categorizing the relationships between science and religion: 1) Conflict, 2) Independence, 3) Dialogue, and 4) Integration.

Barbour was also an advocate of 'Critical Realism' in both science and theology; meaning he considered both scientific laws and religious propositions to be metaphorical descriptions that nonetheless refer to an independent reality. In the philosophy of religion and theology, he was influenced by Alfred North Whitehead's 'Process Philosophy' and sought to present a conception of God compatible with the findings of evolution and quantum physics. Ian Barbour passed away in 2013.