John Huntington

A Passion for Truth: Reflections of a Scientist-Priest John Huntington

A Passion for Truth is an intimate account of John Huntington's interior life as a physical scientist and as a priest. In mid-career as a scientist he experienced a sudden and undeniable call to the priesthood. It became imperative to work to reconcile his two vocations within a single worldview. This plunged him into an intense reflection on the authority of physical science and the trustworthiness of religious experience. He could not turn away from the question. This book is the result. The author uncovered a number of fallacies embedded in our Western culture that serve to impede spiritual formation and to discourage the faithful. At the root of them all is the idea that it is acceptable to be careless with the truth. In liberal academic circles this is called postmodernism; in theology it is called relativism; in physical science it is called scientism. He concluded that, if striving for clear thinking is our loving response to our Creator who endowed us with intellect, then loose thinking, permissive thinking, untruth, relativism, could not be from God. It cannot be condoned. Huntington wants to awaken in us a passion for truth, and in doing so he wants to comfort us and bring us hope. 1