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Is Nature Enough?: Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science

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NOTE TO READERS: This review was subjected to a negative vote campaign on Sept 5, 2007. The express intent of this campaign is to prevent people from reading books critical of Darwinian evolution. It is a silly and juvenile tactic that reflects personal desparation, and should not be taken as a reflection upon this book or the author. REVIEW FOLLOWS.

John Haught is a theological naturalist. A product of 18th century British theological thought, he sees God as both independent of and simultaneously within the universe we inhabit. But, he also believes that universe cannot reveal, at least in the strictly scientific sense (which he terms "theory"), any understanding of God. Instead, he suggests our experience of God must be understood by other means of "knowing," namely beauty, intersubjective, affective, and narrative means of understanding. This tendency to separate means of knowing and to find God in some, but not all of these means, is part and parcel of the theological naturalist position that has a strong following in theology today. It is popular because it effectively removes God from the problems of suffering in the world (a theodicy) and simultaneously insulates religious thought from the threat of scientific developments that might undermine a literal reading of various religious texts.

Although Haught clearly supports theological naturalism, he is very concerned by two modern intellectual movements that would seem to challenge it. The first is a pure "naturalism" that asserts nature is all there is. He correctly identifies Darwinian thought as the prime supporter of this form of naturalism. This line of reasoning suggests that since science can find no "evidence" for God, God must not exist. It further argues that to believe in a God (or Gods) is inherently an irrational endeavor. Theological naturalism is also challenged by the intelligent design movement which sees in nature evidence of the handiwork of God. ID theorists claim to find evidence of design in nature that (might) point beyond purely natural causes. Both trends undermine the claims of theological naturalism and this book is Haught's attempt to respond to each.

Against the 'atheistic naturalists' (a term I use to distinguish these people from Haught's own theological naturalism--he simply calls them naturalists and refers to their belief system as naturalism) Haught offers a pair of related arguments. His first, repeated using various analogies throughout the book, is that there are often multiple layers of meaning or explanation for any phenomena we observe. Consider a pot of water boiling on a stove. When asked why the water is boiling, one could argue that the molecules within the water are in the process of moving from a liquid state into a gaseous one. This is perfectly correct. It is the level of explanation that Haught associates with science. Another explanation, however, is the possibility that someone turned on a stove. Yet a third level of explanation may be as simple as "I want to make some hot chocolate." (Haught uses tea in his example, but that's what you get for publishing with the very English Cambridge University Press.) Now, the interesting thing is that these "layers" of explanation do not contradict each other. It is entirely possible that I want hot chocolate and the water is boiling because the molecules are transforming from one state into another. Indeed, he notes, we would never contrast these two levels of explanation. No one says that we want hot chocolate instead of changing the state of molecules. But this is precisely what atheistic naturalists do. They claim that a scientific explanation for life inherently precludes a theological or purposeful one. And it is an absurd argument on the face of it.

That said, Haught's argument for layered explanations does not so much "prove" an entity like God as allow for one, and Haught is aware of this, so he offers an interesting puzzle to demonstrate the intellectual poverty of atheistic naturalism. Our minds, he notes, have a "desire to know" and it is a desire that is not satisfied by illusions. The clever part of this argument is that, if you try to disagree with it, you vindicate his very point. Suppose you question the argument. In so doing, you are seeking the truth of the matter, and therefore vindicate his point. But what of it? An atheistic naturalist would simply respond that our desire for truth is a highly successful adaptation, and nothing more. And Haught, true to his respect for layered interpretations, would not disagree with the argument that adaptation at the very least allows for intelligence. But he also notes this explanation is woefully inadequate. If it were true, on what basis would we be able to justify our claims of truth. After all, religion, which the atheistic naturalists claim is an illusion (or delusion, to use Richard Dawkin's phrase) is also an adaptation, and on what basis would we know that atheistic naturalism is any better off? In short, our desire to know and, indeed, the very nature of truth itself, points to a universe larger than the purely material.

Though clever, Haught's arguments are hardly new. Einstein speculated that the most amazing thing about the universe was that we could make sense of it at all. C.S. Lewis grounded his apologetics not in physical reality, but in our ability to perceive it and trust in our perceptions. More recently, Kenneth Miller, biologist at Brown University, has criticized many of his fellow defenders of Darwinism, and in particular Richard Dawkins, for similar logical lapses. Dawkins claims, for example, that religious beliefs are simply "memes" that perpetuate themselves, a sort of disease of the mind. But if "memes" can make us believe in God, then surely they could also make us believe in memes as well. Indeed, it seems the attempt to undermine religious knowledge with "science" is an enterprise that could ultimately undermine all other forms of knowledge with it. (For more on this subject, I strongly recommend Miller's Finding Darwin's God despite the fact that I do not agree with all of his observations.) In short, atheistic naturalism is inherently inadequate as an explanation for the universe. It is not so much wrong as incomplete. This is, in part, due to the fact that atheistic naturalists dismiss other forms of knowing as somehow apart from the universe when they are very much a part of it. In short, naturalism does not even describe all of nature, much less what may lie beyond it.

Haught concludes his critique of atheistic naturalism by offering an alternative theological perspective. We find truth in the "memory of God" and we find meaning to suffering, not in the longing for an ideal past which science, correctly, tells us cannot have existed, but in an "anticipation" of the future. These forms of knowledge are not scientific, but again, as Haught points out, that hardly makes them wrong. Indeed, on the question of suffering, Haught points out that an understanding of science, and in particularly some of the more horrific elements of the struggle to survive highlighted by Darwin (think ichneumon wasps laying their eggs inside living catepillars--great for the wasp, but not so good for the catepillar) allows us to form a new theodicy, one in which we recognize that the universe is not a completed work, and indeed, it cannot be. Were it, then it would not be separate from God. We as sentient beings can strive to make it better, and bring a unity to creation and God that is not at present there. In short, the universe, and our role in it, has purpose, and this purpose is simply beyond the scope of science to grasp. But the fact that scientific methods cannot detect it does not make such purpose any less real.

Most of the book deals with Haught's response to atheistic naturalism. He accepts science, and indeed repeatedly says he wants to see science pushed to its ultimate limits. Indeed, the very act of doing so vindicates one of his central proofs for the existence of God, namely that we strive for truth when atheistic naturalism gives us no reason to suppose such an endeavor will be productive. But if Haught finds naturalism inadequate, he is incensed by intelligent design in all its forms. The latter, he feels, is theology "in an explanatory slot customarily reserved for science."(p. 60)

This is not because Haught is unaware of some of the problems intelligent design addresses. He readily admits that life from non-life is problematic, and not merely in the mechanical sense, but more broadly in the informational sense. He recognizes that DNA sequences convey information and this information is separate from the physical structure that contains it. This is precisely the sort of problem William Dembski, Michael Behe, and Dean Kenyon attempt to address and which most of their critics routinely ignore. Haught also recognizes that the very existence of a universe capable of supporting life cries out for explanation and he is rightly dubious of the multiverse claims which attempt to explain away the many and growing number of anthropic coincidences in our universe. But, he cautions that we still cannot turn to theology for answers to these questions, lest science later "explain" them and theology should be discredited. There is something to this argument, but it seems rather odd coming from an author who places such a high value on layered explanations. Should a multiverse "explain" anthropic principles on one level, would it really preclude all anthropic explanations? But one suspects that is not really Haught's main concern anyway. Like his 18th century predecessors, his real concern lies with theodicy. How can we protect God from being associated with the evils we see in the material world? He worries that if we acknowledge that God is in some sense the author of DNA, the "language" of life, that we would be "attributing to God not only healthy but also diseased and unfit organisms..."(p. 68) But even as this claim places him squarely in the tradition of his 18th century predecessors like Thomas Burnet, it is well outside the religious traditions Haught is supposedly defending in this book. Does Haught seriously believe that God is the author, at some layer of explanation, only of the "fit" and not of everything else? This is truly an odd claim, and it suggests a weakness in theological naturalism as a whole. Indeed, in Michael Behe's recent book, he confronts directly Darwin's own problem of the wasps and catepillar. That on some level we experience horror in this is undenable. To deny the existence of a creator on the basis of our experience is absurd, a non-sequetor if there ever was one.

But there is a more fundamental problem with Haught's critique of intelligent design. This is that he is systematically excluding design from investigation. It is true that science can tell us little, if anything, about God. But that is not to say that we cannot still recognize design and speculate about its origins. William Dembski's Design Inference attempts just that. And even if one disagrees with Dembski's proposed filter, the fact of the matter is that we all make design inferences in our everyday thinking. Indeed, to purposefully ignore them would be to deny way of knowing, precisely what Haught attacks the atheist naturalists for doing.

And this ultimately is why Haught's argument fails against intelligent design. The search for truth, Haught argues, is intimately connected to our own "fullness of being."(p. 41) Indeed, one of his strongest criticisms of atheistic naturalism is that it arbitrarily limits our modes of understanding. And yet here is Haught, insisting that we cannot consider the clear implications of design in either the universe or life. We cannot do so in the scientific realm nor, it seems, in the theological. And our fullness as humans is diminished because of it. I can think of no greater argument against theological naturalism. Still, this is a worthy book that will challenge readers from a wide variety of perspectives.

John F. Haught is a theologian from Georgetown who's books deal with science and religion. In this book he discusses scientific naturalism and why it appeals to people. Yet, he shows in the end it offers no hope for humanity. In fact, it can really only lead to nihlism. He offers an alternative view that there is more than just the material world. He respects science and knows its importance. Yet, there is a deeper level of understanding of science that he explains very well. It gave me a new sense of hope reading this book.

John Haught is among the leading theologians today, with over a dozen books to his credit. I read this one with high hopes of learning something new about science and spiritual thought. I was disappointed to find instead just a confused collection of poor reasoning and bad theology.

The problems start with the subject of the book: naturalism. Haught wrote the book as a refutation of naturalism, but his inability to even define properly what he opposed reduced his arguments to confused ineffectiveness. Haught initially defines scientific naturalism correctly, as the belief that everything that exists is part of our universe, and that reason and the scientific/empirical method is the way to understand all that is. This view is properly contrasted with supernaturalism, the belief that there are aspects of our universe which are fundamentally mysterious, and NOT integrated into the natural world, and which at their core are beyond reason and investigation. But Haught does not stick with this definition, instead substituting several others, which include materialism(the belief that matter is the only thing in the natural world), atheism (the rejection of God and souls), reductionism (all explanations of things ultimately involve only the simplest and most fundamental elements, as contrasted with an emergent/tiered understanding), and purposelessness (there cannot be meaning or purpose in the natural world). While there are scientific naturalists who hold by each of these supplemental views, they are not NECESSARY consequences of scientific naturalism, and there are naturalists who reject each of them. But Haught, in a book-length demonstrating of the equivocation fallacy, switches back and forth among his various definitions of naturalism, asserting that by finding flaws with one, he has refuted all meanings of scientific naturalism.

Haught claims that religion and science are completely separate realms, and one should not intrude into the purview of the other. Haught initially defines religion as supernaturalism, as the belief that there are mysteries beyond our reasoning power, which can and do reach out to us to ¡§carry us away¡¨. He also offers knowing through intuitive immediacy as an alternative means of arriving at truth than the empiricism of science. He cites the widespread certainty of our having souls, and of there being a ¡§beyond¡¨ as prime examples of these intuitive truths. However, he then violates his own definitions by adding on understandable assertions and attributes to religion ¡V claiming that there is a Creator God, who embodies the Perfections of all admirable traits, and who is a Savior as outlined in the Bible. Since these assertions are understandable, they are testable by reason. Since some of these assertions are about aspects of our physical universe, those assertions are testable empirically, and can in principle be empirically refuted. That these added assertions are not ¡§intuitively immediate¡¨ is demonstrated by the diversity of religions that people have held and currently hold by. So his revised definition of religion brings it back immediately into rivalry with reason and science. But Haught then applies an equivocation fallacy to religion as well- asserting that Science has no business challenging any religious views (per his first definition), even after he himself makes religious assertions that are challengeable.

Haught then discusses a variety of issues that he considers scientific naturalism to be inadequate to address. In each, he tries to show in detail a failing of scientific naturalism, then with virtually no examination of his counter proposed worldview, he declares a theological view to be more satisfactory. This process involves two fallacies. The first is that an unexamined hypothesis is NOT superior to an examined one which has identifiable weaknesses. The second is that he assumes a false dichotomy: that either his narrowly defined view of scientific naturalism is true (he generally argues against one of the narrower assumptions listed in my opening discussion), or else his version of religion must be true. Since, as I have noted there are non-reductionist, non-materialist, pantheistic, etc naturalisms, and many many alternative Religions, his attacks provide none of the support for his worldview that he claims they do. In addition to these structural problems as well, his dozen or so subjects basically boil down to one, that materialism cannot explain consciousness. He brings the argument in almost every chapter around to some aspect of consciousness eventually.

We see this process in the first of the subjects he discusses, reductionism. He provides an example of something he asserts reductionism cannot explain: that of lighting a fire to roast marshmallows. He considers a layered set of descriptions necessary to properly describe this: the Intention to roast marshmallows, the Precondition of an assembled fuel pile and ignition source, and the Fundamental Chemistry understanding of the combustion of wood in an oxygen atmosphere. He declares that reductionist naturalism would allow for only one explanation, the chemical one, and because Intentions (the aspect of consciousness he uses in this case) are not reducible to chemistry naturalist materialism is refuted. This entire argument is an example of a straw man fallacy. Reductionism does not require a single cause, only that all causes be explained at a fundamental level. Reductionists explain intentions and behavior through the self-teaching process of brains that lead to identifying marshmallows as good eating, fuel piles as roasting preconditions, etc. Reductionism is not refuted by his example, nor naturalism.

Haught then discusses intelligence, in a long roundabout chapter. He declares that we have a need to know a pure Truth, and we are not satisfied with delusions or falsehoods. He assert that a) naturalism cannot explain this need, b) naturalism does not provide adequate justification to trust our own judgment, c) naturalism rejects the subjective aspects of truth, which is a self-contradiction when all truth arrives to us subjectively, d) naturalism cannot explain consciousness. Discussing these points: a) humans in my experience do not actually seek Ultimate Truth, but rather Sufficient Explanations. This acceptance of practical working hypotheses, and deferral of abstract searches for Truth, is the sort of practicality one would expect form intelligence that had an evolutionary origin. b) Evolutionarily, one WOULD trust oneself, inappropriately so. The anti-subjectivity aspect of science he objects to is taken because our subjective judgments are so often wrong. c) The philosophers of science who provide the rationale for empirical scientific naturalism, pre-eminently Karl Popper, acknowledge that at its heart everything we know is subjective. Haught is ignorant of the Philosophy of Science he is attempting to rebut. d) I agree that materialism cannot explain consciousness. But Haught provides no support for his claim. It is a pure unsupported assertion.
Haught then discusses life and its uniqueness. He attributes that uniqueness to life¡¦s striving, and awareness. He discusses the non-reducibility of information theory to materialism, and the peculiar properties of our universe noted in the Anthropic Principle (of the dozens of fundamental constants in the universe, most had to be in very narrow ranges for life as we know it to have evolved). But having approached an evidential argument for God¡¦s role in the universe, he backs off from asserting that God designed the universe, or introduced Information content by creating life. He actually criticizes the Intelligent Design movement for making these claims, arguing that since these are testable and therefore refutable assertions, they should not be made as part of religious claims. He still insists that life exists because of God¡¦s Grace and Generosity, but wants this to be a vague, untestable, and content free claim.

Haught discusses emergence in another lengthy chapter. Emergence is the idea that increasing levels of complexity can appear in natural systems through the operation of natural laws. These phase changes, in which later complexity replaces earlier simplicity, has occurred several times across the entire universe, primarily early in the Big Bang. He asserts that naturalism is necessarily reductionist, and reductionism cannot explain emergence. He also asserts again that intelligence (which he takes as the ultimate of emergence events) cannot be explained by naturalists, because being accidental, they cannot justify their trust in it. The point on intelligence I already addressed. For his claim that naturalists must be reductionist, neither Paul Davies nor Karl Popper are, which is sufficient examples to refute his assumption. The process of emergence is somewhat surprising, in light of the entropy principle, but Victor Stenger explains very clearly why in an expanding universe increasing complexity can occur simultaneously with increasing entropy.

Haught also discusses purpose and values. He points out that only living things have purpose or operate with goals, and that naturalism tends to dismiss these goals as illusory aspects of a more fundamental and purposeless process. Haught tries to take the goal of scientific naturalists ¡V the pursuit of Truth as an absolute value, and show that valuing anything is self-contradictory for naturalism. His argument cites several recent naturalist attacks on religion, which assert that comfortable self-delusions are evolutionarily adaptive. He argues that since adaptivity is the ultimate virtue in Darwinian ethics, the attacks on delusional religion, in favor of Truth, DESPITE the adaptivity of religious delusions, constitute acts of Vice not Virtue for Darwinian ethics, and are therefore self-refuted. Haught¡¦s argument is based on a faulty understanding of virtue in Darwinian ethics. He considers virtues to be absolutes, but Darwinian ethics are not absolutist, but rather pragmatic. Truth is useful, and should generally be adhered to. Same with Reason, and with Comfortable Illusions. But in this case, the critics he cites have used their Reason (useful but not perfect), and cite the Comfortable Illusions (useful but not perfect) as now counter-survival, and are asserting it is time to displace some of the Comfortable Illusions in favor of Truth (also useful but not perfect or always applicable).

In a chapter on the universe, Haught focuses once again on intelligence and consciousness, and its emergence from an unintelligent Cosmos. He finally comes out here and asserts that the universe is designed, and that its fundamental intelligibility and the Anthropic principle show this. He declares the naturalist¡¦s explanations of how unaware chemicals developed a first person perspective as absurdly inadequate. I too have found the materialist¡¦s explanations of how consciousness emerged to be simply false ¡V since they ascribe no causal effect to consciousness, it is logically impossible for it to develop through evolutionary processes. But all of Haught¡¦s other points are invalid. The Anthropic principle only apples to life AS WE KNOW IT, and other forms of life (plasma, solid state superconducting, magnetically encoded, etc) are possible in principle. His claim that intelligence could only emerge if the universe were ultimately and fundamentally intelligible is a false assertion of absolutes ¡V intelligence is useful if ANY part of the world is predictable, it need not be all of it. Even in THIS ¡¥intelligible¡¨ universe, the emergence of intelligence was late and accidental in the history of life, which refutes his claim the universe was constructed for beings like us.

In a chapter on morality, Haught argues that Darwinian ethics cannot provide us a moral compass, because we need different ones at different times. We need to be obedient as children, to integrate and accept societal mores as we mature, and to engage in higher reasoning when our society is in the wrong. But all stages are explainable in Darwinian terms, and the ultimately ¡§right¡¨ morals are those informed by higher reasoning ¡V the others are just evolutionary shortcuts that pragmatically help us make less difficult moral choices. He does not really understand Darwinian ethics.

Haught argues for life after death. His argument is a series of false assumptions, which I will summarize:

{ We are intelligent
{ Intelligence requires two things:
o That the universe be COMPLETELY intelligible
o That we love Truth


{ Since COMPLETE intelligibility cannot be shown empirically
o It must be taken on faith
o This faith presumes a caring/benevolent universe
o God is therefore implied/assumed


{ Loving something requires
o That thing to be permanent (not limited by human lifespans, or a finite universe)
X Which he takes as proof of our immortality
o A first person perspective
X Which naturalism cannot provide
X Thus refuting naturalism

After the first point, I think it should be obvious to most readers that pretty much all of his assumptions are false, so I will pass on to other chapters.

Haught recognizes that he has to provide some alternative means of arriving at truth beyond naturalist empiricism, and does take a half-hearted stab at one. What he offers is a ¡§richer¡¨ empiricism. It is ¡§richer¡¨ because it admits a first person perspective into what we consider is real and valid. This richer perspective he also asserts will try to understand primary experiences even before they are screened and classified by our minds. Since this is a PRE-first person perspective (we do not see primary experiences ¡V our brains classify and package information for our minds), I was not sure what he was getting at here. He never spells out what this ¡§richer¡¨ empiricism would really consist of, or why it has anything to do with his religious worldview. I considered this to be a strategic decision on his part. By leaving it vague, he can ascribe all sorts of wondrous advantages and unsupported conclusions to this ¡§richer¡¨ empiricism, that would be shown as so much hot air by a detailed description.

A further problem for him is that empiricism already has encompassed all of his proposals for making it ¡§richer¡¨. I have already discussed how the philosophy of science recognizes that everything we know is subjective, and objectivity can only be approximated. There is also an entire naturalist science dedicated to studying the first person perspective, psychology. And neurologists are very active in characterizing what the ¡§primary¡¨ experiences are, and how our brain packages them before they enter our consciousness. Since naturalism already has every feature that he calls for as an alternative, and basically every argument he presents against naturalism is a fallacy of some kind, I found Haught¡¦s book to ultimately be the most ringing endorsement of naturalism I have ever read.