Customer Reviews

Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect For Religion In The Age Of Evolution

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John Haught has no problem reconciling his religious beliefs with evolution. He argues that evolution, and all science, only goes so deep in explaining the world. He points out his objection to scientists, such as Dawkins, using evolution as a weapon to promote their own atheistic beliefs. He sees this as science overstepping it's bounds and becoming a religion of it's own. I am an evolutionist, butI agree with him here.

He also takes strict creationists and "intelligent designers" to task for trying to recast their religious beliefs as science. The "God of the Gaps" approach of taking anything currently under debate in the scientific community as evidence of evolution being wrong, and therefore creationism or intelligent design being right, ultimately will backfire as science progresses to fill in the gaps. He sees this as poor reasoning, since science isn't done yet.

But Haught goes on to say that untimately science cannot provide the final answers or final truth, and this is where religion can step in and reach deeper. I agree with this; science can only explain so much and religion has plenty to explain after that.

All in all, a very positive book that presents a "middle way" in the current evo-creation debate. Science and religion are compatible if the two side will recognize where science ends and religion begins.

This is one of the most annoyingly schizophrenic books I have ever read.

The author launches off into many wonderful attacks against literalism then employs literalism himself! The author points out the problems of metaphysics and especially the problems we encounter when we are not able to put off "metaphysical gratification" then lapses into his own brand of feeble metaphysics, the idea that there is "in fact" inexhaustible "depth" to the universe or that the Cosmos is "narrative to the core."

I believe the author gets pulled off course because his personal agenda requires conclusions that his arguments do not allow him to reach, so he leaps. In fact, to some extent this book is a fascinating record of a learned mind veering away from its own awesome conclusions. I do not use the word "awesome" lightly. Indeed, I think the book's strengths far, far outweigh its weaknesses. The attacks on literalism and metaphysics (though undercut) are highly inspirational and informative, the straining toward a new view of religion essential, the attack on scientific literalism necessary.

This book does not heal the rift between science and religion as much as it shows the width and depth of a chasm that continues to open. With all its flaws, "Deeper Than Darwin" is an engrossing and important book that should be read and reread by anyone interested in religion, science or philosophy.

While reading this book I imagined a discourse community of endless time - a Shangri-la - where all of us fully explore philosophical points from every possible angle. I'd like to think Haught's book can be a challenge for believer, non-believer, seeker, or agnostic alike. Instead of looking for weaknesses, why not find the meat of the author's thought and engage him/her exactly there--with respect? For example, his concept of depth permeates every page of the book, yet one reviewer feels it was not explained.

Depth implies one is willing to go where things are not finally or fully grasped, and Haught's point is that evolutionary science with its "irreversibly temporal and prodigiously prolonged narrative," always open to contingency, actually points toward depth and a future that is open. (Those who rest content under the banner of religion equally need to be reminded of this.)

"The unbending rigor of natural selection need not, however, lead to a philosophical fatalism, as it has done so often among Darwinians. Nature's predictable laws, abstracted in one way or another by every science, can instead be read as necessary grammatical rules that any incarnation of deeper meaning must adhere to if it is to receive embodiment. Just as the sentences on this page have to obey inviolable grammatical regulations, the novelty that emerges in evolution can become actualized only if there is an underlying constancy in the laws of nature. p. 59

"Why, we may ask again, is the universe so unaccountably composed of the compound of contingency, predictability and temporality that are essential to story? Why, in other words, is nature narrative to the core? Why does it possess the openness to novelty that is resident in the accidents essential for evolution? Why does it have the regularity and reliability that we associate with the "laws" of physics, chemistry and natural selection? And why does it unfold in such an irreversibly temporal and prodigiously prolonged manner?...

"One may, of course assert gratuitously that it is all an accident, that the universe's felicitous blend of contingency, necessity and temporality itself has no explanation itself, just as the naked existence of the universe is said at times to be inexplicable. However, such a claim is no less metaphysical than a theological one would be. Moreover the idea that the existence of our story-bound cosmos might be an absurd accident in a void of ultimate meaninglessness suffers from the disadvantage of not cohering well with the ongoing scientific search for intelligibility.

"Our view of what reality is like in its ultimate depths must be in consonance rather than competition, with scientific understanding if the latter is to have a future. Were we to suppose that the universe at bottom is an abyss of absurdity, this would hardly encourage the ongoing quest for deeper and deeper insight. On the other hand, a theological conviction that the cosmos in its ultimate depths is endlessly intelligible goes very well with science. A trust that the world is intelligible "all the way down" allows science to breathe and to have an indefinite future. Such trust can only encourage the ongoing scientific adventure of trying to figure things out.

"At the same time, a trust in the world's endless intelligibility will discourage all dreams of final theories. It will shatter the pretense that physics can capture the mind of God, or that Darwinism can give us the deepest available understand of life." (63-4)

I think this book could help us all to let go of our cherished fetishes, such as "God" or "Darwinism" (I'm imagining some participants clinging to voodoo dolls of the other) and embrace the present discussion as something to enjoy and share, trusting that a variety of views can enrich not threaten one's own view.

For those who think God, religion, Darwin, and evolution this book shows that they can. Haught, in my opinion, is one of the best theologians today. He shows that one does not have to be stuck in the mode of thinking that is either evolution or God. There are more than one way to look at reality and deep levels of meaning in reality. People do not go deep enough in there views of science and religion. Please read this book and Haught will do a much better job explaining all this than I ever can.

John Haught rejects at length the very points that a top 500 reviewer accredits to Haught. This critic's careless reading is the cause of the supposed contradictions. Haught has published extensively in his academic career at the University of Georgetown, so there should be no mistaking the thrust and context in which this book is written.

John Haught's concern, in his book "Deeper than Darwin" to convince us that science and religion cannot only co-exist, but can co-exist without relegating either the former or the latter to second chair.

He tries to explain this by arguing that the two may well simply be interpretations of the world 'on different levels.' To show how 'different levels' of interpretation are possible, he resorts to metaphor. Just like social issues can be explained in terms of psychology, economics, politics, biology, etc. (each interpretation being right on its own level of explanation) he agues that science and religion can also do this.

But this is where Haught's coherence ends. Nowhere does he give much of an explanation as to what the "deeper" level that religion supposedly gets to. Nowehere does he address the question of how, as the Bible (and other holy books) make historical predictions that can be checked by science (many already disproven), the two are not at odds.

What's more, Haught gives no reason to suppose that religion occupying a "deeper" realm than science is anything short of the kind of Gouldian "non-overlapping mysteria" he writes so sternly against! If he means something different, he never made it explicit in the book. We are constantly left guessing what "deeper" might actually mean.

Lastly, Haught seems to resort a decent amount to the "god of the gaps" idea that he, again, rails so much agianst in the Intelligent Design movement. Science hasn't explained x, he exclaims, and might not be able to. Therefore, religion should supplant science here. But that is EXACTLY what ID is.

In brief, this book needs to be rethought. The ideas need to be presented more explicitly (rather than every paragraph seeming to be a rehash of the one that came before). Haught never quite gets to the point and (maybe) because of that, fails to offer anything convincing; his only offer is poetic prose.

Mr. Haught's book initially raises great expectations for the reader due to his supposed familiarity with his subject material. But IMHO nothing was delivered. He seems skilled in introduction and critical appraisals. But he has nothing tangible to offer except vacuous prose. I would say the book is worth reading for those interested in what an opposing view to Dawkins or Dennett might entail. In my mind one of Daniel Dennett's footnotes from Darwin's Dangerous Idea nicely sums up such an attempt to offer an alternative view to real darwinism in a criticism of Paul Tillich's theological approach as "bombastic redescription."