Mindless matter or Creator?
Inevitably, of course, not only those of us who do science, but all of us, have to choose the presuppositions 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.
John Lennox, God’s Undertaker – Has Science Buried God? - Lion Hudson, Oxford 2008 - p. 179
I enjoyed reading this book, but it is not an easy read! John Lennox is a Reader (Professor) in Mathematics and Fellow of Green College, University of Oxford. He recently debated Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion - check this and listen to this debate here). If you want to find out more about the rationality of faith in a Creator God, this is a book that I can highly recommend.
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6 comments:
I'm not sure that it's appropriate to describe faith in terms of rationality, since this is a human construct and thereby part of the 'mindless matter' of which you speak
Thanks for your thought-provoking comment, Daniel. If you really think (or believe) that rationality is material, please put it in an envelope or box and mail it to me. I will send you my respect and greetings in return.
Typical
Typical?
Come on, can't you take a little joke? I was only trying to make a serious point in a light hearted way. You are talking about a 'human construct' and all I wanted to stress is that ideas, concepts and thoughts are immaterial. Or didn't I get your point? If that is the case, please accept my apologies and feel free to expand.
No, you got my point, I was just in an uber-serious mode. Sorry.
I will gladly elaborate, although my ideas and views remain in a formative stage
Paul--
Thank you for directing us to this excellent debate. John Lennox handles the issues brilliantly. It would have been interesting to hear these two head-to-head in a less structured way.
"Faith" (understood as the Bible invariably uses it) is not "what one believes" but rather "who one trusts". I would have loved to have heard John Lennox force Richard Dawkins to explain how exactly he manages to live a life completely void of "faith". No doubt in the end Dawkins would either have had to storm off or admit that he merely believes in a lesser god -- that is he believes only in human reason (which by his own argument is itself merely the capricious result of undirected natural processes).
Richard Dawkins would have to argue very well to convince me that all this vast universe (much less all the infinite number of universes he posits) exist simply so that in the end Richard Dawkins could commit heresy against Darwinism by bowing down to the god of Darwinism.
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