BUT WAIT, THERE's MORE:

Religion and Science Revisited: a review of Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Stephen M. Barr (Robin Collins, November 2003, First Things)

Barr begins his book by pointing out that the methods and discoveries of modern physics can and must be separated from the philosophical doctrine of materialism, which so often serves as a dogmatic and, as Barr goes on to show with great power and effectiveness, unsubstantiated faith among physicists. According to Barr, it was never obvious that physics implied or presupposed a materialistic view of the universe, but the existence of such a connection has been rendered downright implausible by a series of developments in twentieth-century physics. In a series of lucid chapters, Barr addresses the question of whether the universe had a beginning, looks at the issue of whether the universe exhibits any evidence of design or purpose, and examines what contemporary physics (and mathematics) has to say about the nature of human beings—specifically on the question of whether our behavior is determined by physical laws and whether we have an immaterial nature. At each point, Barr shows that “recent discoveries have begun to confound the materialist’s expectations and confirm those of the believer in God.”

Understanding Barr’s main contention is key to judging the cogency of his arguments. If the reader approaches Barr’s book in the hopes that it will provide a scientifically defensible proof of the central claims of biblical religion—such as, at a minimum, that God exists—he will be disappointed. As Barr repeats at several points throughout the book, he seeks merely to demonstrate that numerous discoveries in science confirm the expectations of the believer more than they do those of the materialist. For instance, Barr prefaces his discussion of so-called anthropic coincidences—that is, the fact that many of the laws that govern the universe seem to be fine-tuned for life to exist and thrive—by noting that this evidence has not “succeeded in ending the old debate between religion and materialism.” Nonetheless, he also notes that it has “dramatically changed the terms of the debate. It is no longer a question of whether one can find any evidence in nature that we were built in. Such evidence abounds. It is now a question of whether that evidence should be taken at face value, whether it really means what it seems to mean.” Throughout the book, Barr seeks above all to counter one of the main arguments materialists have offered for their position—namely, that science confirms a materialist worldview rather than a religious one.

Many of Barr’s analyses are incisive and exceptionally well-argued. He also displays a sophisticated understanding of Christian theology, especially in the Roman Catholic tradition, often citing such historically important theologians/philosophers as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas in support of his arguments. In his chapter on cosmology, for example, Barr is careful to point out that the claim that God created the universe simply means that the universe depends for its existence on God’s free will; as Aquinas pointed out, this could be the case even if the universe always existed. Nonetheless, Barr argues that because big bang cosmology—including recent variants such as inflationary cosmology—hypothesizes a beginning, it fits better with the expectations of traditional theism than with atheism, which has historically posited an eternal universe. Although we cannot be sure that future cosmological discoveries will not overturn this conclusion, Barr claims that “the trend is clear: everything we have ever studied has proven to have a beginning.”

Barr is at his best in confronting the arguments—and, just as often, the rhetoric—of materialism. As he points out, since theists believe that the world was created by a supremely intelligent being, we would expect it to be at least partially intelligible by human reason, which traditional Christian theology has held to be a uniquely human gift of God. Such intelligibility is a puzzle for materialists, however. As Albert Einstein famously remarked, “The most unintelligible thing about the universe is that it is intelligible at all.”

Barr also correctly points out the circularity of some of the most common arguments in favor of materialism. Materialists, for instance, claim that to deny that everything in the natural world can be reduced to physics or mathematics is nothing more than “mystery-mongering” and thus a rejection of rational explanation. As Barr notes, however, this assumes, without rational justification, that all rational explanation must be rendered in terms of equations and quantities, an assumption that theists reject.

Then there is Barr’s powerful argument against materialism as such: “If ideas are just patterns of nerve impulses, then how can one say that any idea (including the idea of materialism itself) is superior to any other? One pattern of nerve impulses cannot be truer or less true than another pattern, any more than a toothache can be truer or less true than another toothache.” In other words, human judgment and evaluation, which are necessary to determine truth and error (including the truth or error of materialism), presuppose a world of moral meaning that transcends the merely material. The very effort to demonstrate the truth of materialism thus refutes materialism.

It's almost as if the point of the Universe is for us to figure it out.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 5, 2003 11:19 PM