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Questions Of Truth: Fifty-One Responses To Questions About God, Science, An

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"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." -- John 4:24

If you are like me, it's often frustrating to read what pastors have to say about science because they may not know much about science. The potshots that atheists take at Christianity are often based at least in part on scientific-seeming comments. Wouldn't it be nice to read what a scientist has to say about science and Christianity?

Questions of Truth takes you to the doorway through which you can begin to learn about how science and Christianity stack up, side-by-side. John Polkinghorne is a former professor of physics who often writes about Christianity and science. Nicholas Beale is a management consultant who speaks eloquently in defense of Christianity. Both write from a faith-based perspective that will seem familiar to many Christians.

The book opens with about 100 pages of questions and brief answers. In a few cases, the answers are elaborated on in appendices concerning the extreme delicacy of the universe that allows for us to live, the mind and the brain, and evolution. All sections of the book generously refer to more detailed arguments in other sources through commentaries, footnotes, and a bibliography. In many cases, you won't find what you are really looking for until you get into those more detailed treatments.

This book, rather, mimics the Web site that Nicholas Beale maintains to publicize John Polkinghorne's views about Christianity. As such, it's brief and to the point: That the book's strength.

The authors separate respond to each question so you get at least two perspectives in each case. Here are a few of the key points that the book makes:

1. Science is about "how" things work and Christianity is about "why" they work. The two perspectives can exist side-by-side because they are looking at different questions.

2. The unknowns about the physical world exceed the knowns. As a result, it's premature to say that science can prove much of anything about Christianity in many cases. The seemingly quirky characteristics of quantum physics suggest a world made to permit and encourage free will and loving cooperation.

3. Many of the atheistic arguments made by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion don't look so good when you quantify the points.

4. In many areas concerning Christianity and science, you can't prove or disprove key beliefs and theories.

Whimsical arguments sometimes take off in good humor which lends the book some lighthearted moments, such in as the section about how Christian believers live longer and produce more children than atheists suggesting that "natural selection" favors Christian belief.

Although your time would probably be better spent in reading the Bible or in prayer than reading this book, I think you'll find Questions of Truth will increase your appreciation of the truths that the Bible relates.

First let me compliment the author on his knowlege of quantum physics and the mechanism of neural functioning. So often we are led to read books where the author claims to know his topic but then fails miserably in its delivery. The author, however, has a strong tedency to overestimate the knowlege of his audience. If I were not well versed in physics I would have become easily lost in the undefined technical jargon. This is not a book for someone without a moderate scientific background.

Secondly, I picked up this book because of its subtitle....." Responses to Questions about God, Science and Belief." The subtitle however, should have read....."From a Christian Viewpoint". The author takes the same, old predictable stance that the Bible is the unerrant word of God and attempts to explain scientific principles on this highly questionable premise. If an initial premise cannot shown to be true, no reliable conslusions can be drawn from it no matter how strongly you wish that they could. Because of that, very few of his conclusions can be taken with a high degree of ethical certainty. There are two initial sequences in early Genesis not because God wishes to teach us two different lessons but because one of them is obviusly wrong (if not both of them)! What then is the purpose of this book other than to be one of the many publications that claim to be based on 'truth' when it is actually based on 'religious faith'? As long as we have religionists who refuse to admit to any level of error in their manner of religious thought we will continue to have the gap between science and spirituality grow, and not lessen, in size.