Science, Religion, and the Meaning of Life

by Mark Vernon

Have evolution, science and the trappings of the modern world killed off God irrevocably? And what do we lose if we choose not to believe in him? From Newton and Descartes to Darwin and the discovery of the genome, religion has been pushed back further and further while science has gained ground. But what fills the void that religion leaves behind? This book is an attempt to look at these questions and to suggest a third way between the easy consolations of religion and the persuasive force of science that the everyday modern reader can engage with.

Genres: Theology

211 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2006

Reviews

[Virtuella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel this book has really moved me forward. It is good to be reminded that we cannot know God, that we can in general know very little with absolute certainty and that it is hubris to think so. I like what he says about science “overreaching” and how he dismantles bigoted scientists like Dawkins. It is, after all, not religion, but science hand-in-glove with capitalism that has brought the world to the sorry state it is in now. He is quite right to say that scientism and religious fundamentalism are pretty much the same thing, i.e. people arrogantly assuming that they have all the answers. Interesting to read that he thinks the religious fundamentalists are merely mimicking the scientists when they are claiming biblical accounts as fact; that literalism is a relatively new attitude. By contrast, in medieval times God was more commonly seen as a mystery to contemplate, and Vernon traces this through core medieval thinkers such as Thomas Aquinus and Meister Eckehart. Vernon suggests to see doctrines not as statements trying to express objective realities, but as paradoxes inviting contemplation of the mystery. This made a lot of sense to me. Likewise most of science, the Dawkinses of the world aside, has moved on from its naïve positivism and acknowledges the limits of our understanding. We have known it since Kant, since Plato, since Socrates that we cannot know what things are in and of themselves, only how they appear to our perception.

The gist of the book is that an agnostic is very different from both an atheists and a theist, though probably more religious than areligious in their overall attitude. Vernon makes a very insightful comment that the main difference between an atheist and a religious person is that the atheist sees existence as a random fact while the religious person sees it as a gift.

Another thing I really liked about the book is how it drove home the importance to let God be big enough. Any “God” who fits into a human definition would be a human-sized God and therefore a false idol. Whatever we can imagine as the biggest of the big, the most all-encompassing thing in the universe, God must transcend it. We need to watch our God-talk that it does not become idle chatter, and acknowledges that God is unfathomable and ineffable. The only truly appropriate response to the infinite awesomeness of God, after all the talking is done, is silence.