God’s Undertaker

"If we are to believe many modern commentators, science has squeezed God into a corner, killed and then buried him with its all-embracing explanations. Atheism, we are told, is the only intellectually tenable position, and any attempt to reintroduce God is likely to impede the progress of science. In this stimulating and thought-provoking book, John Lennox invites us to consider such claims very carefully."

-- from the back cover

In my opinion, many of the Christian apologists of our day really minister more to believers, perhaps confirming them in their faith, than actually engaging unbelievers in an intellectually rigorous and winning way. John Lennox is a notable and welcome exception.

-- from the back cover

Having heard Lennox speak in person, as well as followed some of his debates and written works, I have consistently been impressed -- and challenged -- by the genuineness and genius with which he addresses the issues of our society. God's Undertaker is perfect case in point.

While several Christian apologists have addressed whole works to refuting the popular athesim of men like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, these efforts have necessarily been limited in the range of questions they consider and have been largely reactionary (addressing the claims of Dawkins and/or Hitchens, but not going on the offensive to stake out new or ground-breaking intellectual territory for Christianity). Lennox wisely opens his work up to larger questions and issues than just the neo-Darwinists (although he does address their arguments) and, as a result, makes his work a stand-alone classic of Christian philosophy and science.

Lennox -- who jokes that he is "perishing by degrees" with his MA, PhD, DPhil, and DSc and who is Professor in Mathematics at the University of Oxford -- comes to the table well-prepared and well-qualified to represent a rigorously intellectual Christianity. The fact that he was a once student under C.S. Lewis further endears him to me personally.

While there are certainly portions of the book that stretched this non-scientist's mind, the vast majority of it was accessible, engaging, and thought-provoking for any reader interested in this important discussion.

While summarizing a work of this depth and scope is impractical for a lowly blog entry, I will encapsulate the overall accomplishment by contending that Lennox has in each chapter and with each topic laid out such careful and devastatingly thorough argumentation that, at least on the issues considered, it is hard to imagine any intellectually satisfying reply.

From overarching considerations such as the limitations of science, the nature and scope of evolution, and the appearance of design in the universe, to specific questions raised by the genetic code and its origin, God's Undertaker more than challenges the common contention that science has buried God -- it positively and convincingly contents that the opposite is true and that "theism sits more comfortably with science than atheism."

And, as a Christian, I especially appreciate that he pulls this off with an often-humorous, always-winning way of communicating.

Having said that, I encourage you not to take my word for it, but to read the book for yourself and wrestle with its substantial implications -- whether you are a Christian believer or not.

I will conclude, then, with just a few of many worthwhile quotes from Lennox's book:

"There is clearly no inconsistency involved in being a passionately committed scientist at the highest level while simultaneously recognizing that science cannot answer every kind of question, including some of the deepest questions that human beings can ask. . . It is one thing to suggest that science cannot answer questions of ultimate purpose. It is quite another to dismiss purpose itself as an illusion because science cannot deal with it."
"Because God is not an alternative to science as an explanation, he is not to be understood merely as a God of the gaps. On the contrary, he is the ground of all explanation: it is his existence which gives rise to the very possibility of explanation, scientific or otherwise. . . Rational intelligibility is one of the main considerations that have led thinkers of all generations to conclude that the universe must itself be a product of intelligence."
"Natural selection is not creative. . . selection has no innovative capacity: it eliminates or maintains what exists."
"Inevitably, of course, not only those of us who do science, but all of us, have to choose the presupposition with which we start. There are not many options -- essentially just two. Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second."