By Weylan Deaver
Richard Dawkins, irascible critic of the Creator, says “I am utterly fed up with the respect we have been brainwashed into bestowing upon religion” (p. 8). He would like nothing better than to banish theism and religion to the ash heap of historically bad ideas. But, has science buried God? That question is the subtitle of God’s Undertaker, a Lion Hudson book penned by John C. Lennox. With three doctorates, Lennox is a mathematics professor at Oxford and a philosopher of science at Green Templeton College. His twelve chapters are a volley of withering fire against pseudo-science masquerading as the real thing.
Is a Dawkins an atheist because of the evidence, or because of a worldview, not founded on science, which he carries with him to the microscope? Lennox’s thesis is that real science actually points toward an intelligent Designer. That some scientists are so vehemently opposed to God speaks more to their unscientific prejudice and presuppositions than it says about God. The degree of atheistic animosity toward theism is itself a curiosity to Lennox, begging investigation why, if God were fiction, anyone should hate Him so. Lennox gives the much needed reminders that “Statements by scientists are not necessarily statements of science” (p. 19) and “you cannot deduce a worldview from a science” (p. 121). Worldviews are not mixed in a test tube; they originate outside science, but end up influencing the conclusions of scientists.
Lennox claims the biblical worldview, grounded in the ancient Hebrews’ concept of a single, omnipotent Creator has done more to advance science than any contribution from the ancient Greeks. Far from stopping scientific investigation, it was belief in an orderly universe created by God which initially propelled the discipline. Theism gave science its beginning; atheism gives science a black eye.
Lennox takes evolutionary theory to task, pointing out there is an “edge to evolution,” beyond which it cannot go. This is why small changes within species are observed (i.e. microevolution), but evolution across species (macroevolution) has never been observed, much less duplicated by science. Gaps in the fossil record tell an embarrassing tale too often buried as science’s dirty secret.
Further, as science is able to see increasingly on a microscopic level, it is becoming more difficult to argue against design in the universe. Lennox discusses the marvel of DNA from a scientific and mathematic perspective, adding up facts that make it impossible for life to have arisen on the basis of mindless chance. And, as information theory begins to blossom, he draws a striking point on the biblical teaching that, prior to the incarnation, Jesus existed as the “Word” of God. Information is real, but not physical. And there is nothing anti-science in recognizing divinely-put information in a cell, which gives design to an organism (especially when evidence points to the impossibility of its being undesigned).
Rejecting the popular concept that faith is not evidence-based, Lennox gives a cutting edge, refresher course on why we need not bow to brash scientists who overreach into metaphysics and stake claims far too weighty for science to bear. The last chapter is a devastating critique of David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher who did much to destroy belief in biblical miracles.
Lennox is an engaging writer, pulling the rug from under atheism with true British courtesy. But his kindness does not disguise the tatters in which he leaves materialism. His final two sentences are worth the book’s price: “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” (p. 210).
[This review was originally published in the April 2011 issue of Sufficient Evidence (pp. 56-58), the journal of the Warren Christian Apologetics Center.]
Biblical Notes 