The scientist who recognizes God knows only the God of Newton. To him the God imagined by Laplace and Comte is wholly inadequate. He feels that God is in nature, that the orderly ways in which nature works are themselves the manifestations of God's will and purpose. Its laws are his orderly way of working.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the belief that the natural laws of the universe are a reflection of God's will, contrasting differing views of God held by scientists.
Arthur Compton's quote highlights the relationship between science and religion, suggesting that true understanding of God can only be realized through the laws of nature. Compton argues that the orderly mechanisms of the natural world reveal God's intentions and that simplistic or purely philosophical interpretations of God, like those offered by Laplace and Comte, do not suffice in capturing the divine essence embedded in the cosmos.
In practice
This quote can be used in a scientific discussion about the intersection of faith and the natural laws.
Those whose thinking is disciplined by science, like all others, need a basis for the good life, for aspiration, for courage to do great deeds. They need a faith to live by. The hope of the world lies in those who have such faith and who use the methods of science to make their visions become real. Such visions and hope and faith are not a part of science.
Yet is it possible in terms of the motion of atoms to explain how men can invent an electric motor, or design and build a great cathedral? If such achievements represent anything more than the requirements of physical law, it means that science must investigate the additional controlling factors, whatever they may be, in order that the world of nature may be adequately understood.
Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves.
I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.
There are only certain intervals of time when life of any sort is possible in an expanding universe and we can practise astronomy only during that habitable time interval in cosmic history.
We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.
Darwin's theory of evolution is a framework by which we understand the diversity of life on Earth. But there is no equation sitting there in Darwin's 'Origin of Species' that you apply and say, 'What is this species going to look like in 100 years or 1,000 years?' Biology isn't there yet with that kind of predictive precision.
We have at most ten years - not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions... We are near a tipping point, a point of no return, beyond which the built in momentum and feedbacks will carry us to levels of climate change with staggering consequences for humanity and all of the residents of this planet.
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