"Has Science Buried God?" Part I

John C. Lennox.  God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?  (Lion, 2009).  A review.

I took my wife the other night to attend a poorly-delivered lecture from a renowned Christian philosopher, and then gave considerable attention on our return home in the car to reassuring her that she is not stupid.  “The problem was NOT with you!” I said to my wife.  “That noted professor failed miserably to do the basic and necessary work of making his points clear for all.”  In light of my expectation from his lecture title, “Does Science Need Religion?” I judged at its conclusion that that question had neither been answered nor even attempted.  The best the audience had to take away was that science and religion are compatible.  It is because I know from his writings that that noted philosopher actually does believe science needs religion, that I drove away disappointed that he missed a huge opportunity when speaking to an audience of a thousand.   

Having just finished outlining on paper the arguments of another scholar, Philosopher of Science and Professor of Mathematics, John Lennox of Oxford University, I conclude that the latter is an unsurpassed master at making profound points simple, memorable, and powerful.  The title of his book, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?, wrongly suggests that Dr. Lennox’ thesis modestly settles for mere compatibility between the two in the sense that a place remains for God even in the face of the powerful claims of naturalism (“naturalism,” is defined as a belief that reality is limited to material substances and mechanistic operations, and excludes the existence of the soul, the spiritual realm, and every conception of deity).  Returning to Lennox, by the time careful readers wade through the chapters and arrive at the final page they will reasonably conclude, consistent with his own summation, that it is naturalism and not God that decisively receives the death-blow.   Yet Lennox’ agenda is more robust still.  He also persuasively argues the stronger case that, as a whole, the disciplined scientific exploration of the natural order, in and of itself, is historically and intellectually connected to a theistic worldview that is grounded on the existence of the transcendent, omnipotent, and intelligent God of the Bible (p.209).  For him, the rejection of belief in God effectively undermines those guarantors which have to this point legitimatized science, including confidence in a truthful correspondence between perception and reality, the uniformity of nature, and truth as a legitimate authority which binds seekers to follow it where it leads (see p.205).  

To be continued...