Charles Alfred Coulson FRS (13 December 1910 in Yorkshire – 07 January 1974 in Oxford) was a British applied mathematician and theoretical chemist known for the application of molecular orbital theory to chemical bonding and the electronic structures of molecules. Coulson gained first-class honors in each of the three parts of the Cambridge tripos Mathematics Part I (1929), Mathematics Part II (1930), and Physics Part II (1931). He developed a particular interest in quantum theory, and its application to chemistry. He was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at Kings College, London, in 1947, and went on to become Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University in 1952. In 1972, he became the first Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at Oxford. His book Valence (1952) was highly influential.
Beside his scientific works, he wrote Science, Technology and the Christian (1953) and Science and Christian Belief (1955), integrating his scientific and religious views. He conveyed his religiosity in a gentle and sometimes humorous manner, for example, when he claimed in his inaugural lecture at King’s College, that he had received mail addressed to him as Professor of Theological Physics.
Alister McGrath describes his main contributions to the science-faith dialogue with these words:
‘Coulson’s major contribution to the discussion of the relation of science and religion lies in his vigorous and insistent rejection of the notion of a “God of the gaps.” The “gaps” in question could be described as explanatory lacunae in other words, gaps in our understanding. Coulson was alarmed at the tendency of some religious writers to propose that what could not at present be explained was to be put down to the action or influence of God. For Coulson, this was a vulnerable and unjustified strategy. It was vulnerable on account of scientific progress. What might be unexplained today might find an explanation tomorrow. “When we come to the scientifically unknown, our correct policy is not to rejoice because we have found God: it is to become better scientists.” Coulson was fond of quoting Henry Drummond on the pointlessness of an appeal to such gaps: “There are reverent minds who ceaselessly scan the fields of nature and the books of science in search of gaps. Gaps which they fill up with God. As if God lived in gaps!”’
McGrath continues:
‘Coulson insisted that God was to be discerned through the ordering and beauty of the world, not hiding in its recesses. A God who is obliged to conceal his actions of providence so that we cannot see him, a God who hides his presence in Nature behind the law of large numbers, is a God for whom I have no use. He is a God who leaves Nature still unexplained, while he sneaks in through the loopholes, cheating both us and Nature with his disguised “room for manouevre.” For Coulson, the biblical account of creation points to the universe possessing and demonstrating a meaningful and ordered pattern, which can be uncovered by the natural sciences. It is in this area that Coulson sees a strong convergence between science and Christianity. Rather than seek God in those things which cannot be explained, Coulson argues that God is to be found in the remarkable beauty and ordering of the world. “We can trace in what we call the Order of Nature the working out of an almost unbelievably grand purpose.”’
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References:
Wikipedia
Inters.org
Alister E. McGrath: Science and Religion: An Introduction, 1999, chapter: Case Studies in Science and Religion
Science meets Faith 