‘Finding God in the Waves’ is a
moving tale of love of God, love of science, and the two loves finding space in
one person. I recommend this book to
anyone who loves science but doesn’t want to abandon faith because of that love
of science. It is a well-told story full
of feeling and twists and turns. And
depending on how you come out on the faith-atheist question, it definitely has
a happy or disappointing ending. The title
makes that much clear.
As much as I enjoyed the book, I
have some specific critiques. I will go
into those in more detail in future blog posts, but will summarize them
here. My first critique is the entire
notion that a true scientist will have trouble with many aspects of the
Christian faith. The author makes this
assumption throughout the book. I know
plenty of scientists, MIT and UNC PhD’s, who have no trouble following Jesus
and committing to excellence in their fields (chemistry, medicine,
biology). To assert that knowledge of
science automatically leads to dismissal of certain tenets of the faith is a
leap the author made that was unnecessary and is not the case for many
scientists.
Second, I was mostly disappointed
that the author made no reference to the best resources that deal with the
intersection of faith and science. He
said the internet is full of instances where atheists overwhelm Christians in
debates. He has apparently never watched
the debates Oxford mathematician and devoted Christian John Lennox has had with
atheist scientists; or, those of Oxford church historian and biologist Alister
McGrath. It is unfortunate that he never
referred to McGrath’s work at all. McGrath
deals with questions of faith and science in depth in several of his books and
is uniquely qualified to do so. The same
is true of John Polkinghorne whom McHargue also never cites. He also make no mention of the ongoing work
of the Biologos foundation. He refers to
one of the science authors who works with Biologos, but beyond that he does not
seem to be aware of the best site out there for conversations about science and
faith.
A third critique comes in his clear
prioritizing for scientific knowledge over faith knowledge. He doesn’t claim that God must live within
the laws of nature. But he does believe all
acts of God in this universe must be observable within the laws of nature. Every faith axiom he proposes begins with a
doubt and then the doubt is assuaged when he can account for it with brain
science. I don’t believe God is beholden
to the limitations of the human brain and no matter how amazing the human brain
is, it is limited. God acts outside of
the workings of the brain. Every of God
humans experience and describe is not confined to some part of our brain and
how it stores information. But, this
author cannot accept anything as real unless scientific observation (mostly
brain science) accounts for it.
This leads to a fourth major
critique: his treatment of the resurrection.
The author compares Oxford Bible scholar and historian N.T. Wright to
Stephen Hawking in expanse of knowledge.
Wright is the ‘Stephen Hawking’ of faith, he says. He also says the Gospels were written too
late to be treated as reliable sources for events in Jesus’ life. N.T. Wright disagrees. In his exhaustive treatment of the
resurrection he cites the gospels as reliable sources. Wright, whom McHargue praises for his
scholarship, believes the gospels and the other New Testament books can be shown
to be reliant upon oral traditions that date back to the days of Jesus and thus
used in a complex historical argument.
McHargue seems completely unaware of this and thus dismisses the
possibility of the resurrection as an event in history. If history is treated as a science, then
history shows that the best conclusion is that the resurrection happened. It was an event in history. Wright shows this as does Gary Habermas and Mike
Licona, each in their own lengthy scholarly studies of the topic. McHargue has either not read this material,
or disregards it. Of course if he
understood that history shows it had to have happened, it might throw him for a
loop because it shows something in history happened that science cannot
reckon. He treats the resurrection as
something that is not necessary for faith.
I agree that it is not. But if
one’s faith is Christian in nature, the resurrection has be a
nonnegotiable. McHargue does not deny
the resurrection and he sees signs of it in creation, but there is evidence of
it that he either doesn’t know or doesn’t accept.
These are each meaty critiques that
bear their own treatment, and I hope to get to each in future blog posts. For now, I am very glad to have read ‘Finding
God’ and I recommend to anyone who in interested in science and in faith. In spite of my critiques, I rejoice at McHargue’s
journey as I find his search for God moving and true. Read this book and allow it to challenge your
own thought about God. It won’t be easy,
but it is worthwhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment