the failed hypothesis: how science shows that god does not exist. by j. stegner

The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God does Not Exist. By J. Stegner. Pp. vii, 302, Amherst, NY,Prometheus Books, 2007, $11.00.

This is a lucid, well-written, and well-constructedbook – a resplendent compendium of errors. After apreliminary discussion of models and methods, theauthor launches into his main topic with an accountof what he calls the illusion of cosmic design, and thefutility of any search for a world beyond ‘matter’. (Iam not quite sure whether he distinguishes as clearlyas he might between what Sir Arthur Eddingtoncalled derisively ‘Matter (Loud Cheers!),’ and thatmysterious somewhat that satisfies the equations ofmodern physics.) The fourth chapter moves fromearth to the cosmos in search of evidence, whichpredictably it finds lacking, ‘that the universe (1) hadan origin and (2) that origin cannot have happenednaturally’ (p. 113). (As I understand it, the ‘BigBang’ was an event which (1) almost certainlyhappened, but (2) didn’t have to happen, since lawsand preconditions did not exist before it. Dowe havea parallel to this in our experience? Of course we do –in the actions and products of intelligent agents. Nowonder Sir Fred Hoyle resisted acceptance of the‘Big Bang’ for so long – as so strongly suggesting, ashe said, the creative activity of the God of theism.)The fact is that theistic religion is nothing better

than the expression of sentimental and deludedhuman longings. We must face the fact that we livein an uncongenial universe within which we haveevolved by the remotest of chances. The vistas of thepast opened by palaeontology provide us with timeand to spare for the climbing of what RichardDawkins would call ‘Mount Improbable’. (I hold nobrief myself for the quite fashionable theory of‘intelligent design’ invoked to explain order allegedotherwise to be inexplicable. But it will not do to betoo dismissive of an argument that converted thephilosopher Antony Flew from a lifetime of atheism.)A creator who was almighty and loving would haverevealed her- or himself clearly and unequivocally,which ‘God’ plainly has not done. The falsity of theBible’s pretensions to be divine revelation arepalpable; it is a tissue of myth and legend, the productover many centuries of a primitive and pre-scientificpeople. Somewould have it that the ‘golden rule’, thatwe should do to others what we would wish them todo to us, is unique to Christianity; but it finds nobleexpression in Hindu, Taoist, and (perhaps especially)Buddhist texts (pp. 188–9; this is true). God is notnecessary formorality; the evolution of human society

can explain perfectly well whywe have a sense of rightand wrong, of good and evil (but not why we shouldtake it seriously when push comes to shove).Thus far Stegner. The bearing of science on God’s

existence is almost the exact opposite of what hesupposes. C. S. Lewis declared that the popularscientific-materialist picture was ruined by a centralinconsistency. Its proponents asked him to believethat reason arose by a fluke as a result of themindless surging of particles of matter over aeons oftime. Yet the science which they invoked reliedineluctably onmatter in the remotest galaxy obeyingthe thought-laws propounded by scientists in theirlaboratories here on earth. How far scientificarguments for or against the existence of God arepossible depends on what one means by ‘scientific’.In the broad sense, an argument is scientific simplyso far as it is thoroughly rational, and states itsconclusion as the best available to explain therelevant evidence. But some such arguments are of adegree of generality which makes them ‘metaphysi-cal’ rather than strictly ‘scientific’; this applies towhat appears to me the best argument for theexistence of God, which takes as its basis the verypossibility of science. Theism explains what scienceat once presupposes and establishes, that theuniverse is intelligible, and to be known byappropriate operations of our minds. It is conse-quently best explained as due to an intelligent willwhose intelligence explains that it is intelligible at all,and whose will explains that it has the kind ofintelligibility which science progressively finds it tohave – in terms of oxygen rather than phlogiston, ofspecial relativity rather than a luminiferous aether,of the evolution of species through mutation andnatural selection rather than the special creation ofeach species, and so on. Is God a hypothesis at thisrate? In a sense, yes. One can excogitate alternativeaccounts of the fact to be explained – don’t ask why(or you’ll get a thick ear); we put the intelligibilitythere ourselves (Kant); it’s just a brute fact withoutexplanation; and so on. Among these, the realexistence of a creative intelligent will may well seemthe least unsatisfactory. The only deity liable to‘disproof’ by ‘science’ in the narrower sense wouldbe that depressing entity ‘the god of the gaps’.

Calgary, Canada Hugo Meynell

God, Actually: Why God Probably Exists, Why Jesus Was Probably Divine, and Why the ‘Rational’ Objections toReligion Are Unconvincing. By Roy Williams. Pp. 384, Oxford, Monarch Books, 2009, $18.95.

Roy Williams practiced law in Australia for nearly20 years, for many of which he considered himself

an atheist. Numerous life experiences as he enteredthe first few years of his third decade on earth –

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