Customer Reviews

Pascal's Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding

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In "Pascal's Fire", Keith Ward reflects on the relationship between faith and the findings of modern science, treating topics such as - among others - chance and necessity, quantum physics and the mechanistic universe, the evolution of order in the universe, leading to life and ultimately to self-awareness and responsibility, the origin and future of the cosmos etc. The existence of an ultimate mind who chose to create a rationally intelligible universe which functions through laws that can be expressed in mathematical terms, but who also freely intervenes in the context of an otherwise autonomous progress of self-organisation of the universe, for which it was originally set up and by which it reaches goals of intrinsic value, are presented - and, in my view, convincingly so - as a rational and coherent explanation for the universe. In other words, the observation of the universe suggests such a mind. The argument progresses to show that this ultimate mind can also be viewed as personal, loving and compassionate, though in a way far beyond anthropomorphic projections. A purely scientific approach, however, is blind to the personal side of God, Ward argues - this is where personal experience, feeling and intuition come in, and may legitimately be taken seriously.
All in all, Keith Ward's holistic approach, integrating faith and reason in his intellectual quest, is inspiring and reminded me of the "two wings" of faith and reason by which man strives toward the truth, of which John Paul II wrote. To me,after having read this book, the apparent contradiction between evolution and intelligent design is resolved. In short, it's a win-win for faith and reason!

The xiongmao review is good summary of the book's aims. I've enjoyed Keith Ward's previous works and while this book has many interesting passages - primarily because the author has a keen ability to explain complex scientific findings in very accessible language - it appears to have been written because the author has had his faith in traditional religious narratives properly undermined by contemporary science. Eschewing these easily assailable religious stories, he has taken scientific discourse and composed a pseudo religious narrative (somewhat Platonic, somewhat Kabbalisistic) which does not find itself at any point, at odds with the emerging sciences. The trouble is that along the way, he is constantly speaking for his creator god in absentia, apologising on their behalf for what many evolutionary biologists see as a wasteful and violent universe, and all this (especially the chapters on evolution) are propounded in bombastic prose. The author consistently calls scientists who are disturbed or unimpressed by this universe as 'depressed' or 'depressive' (! their conclusions are hardly rash or the result of mental imbalance), but this implies that if the reader agrees with these scientists and not the author they too are 'depressive'. From my layperson's POV it seems that the small biological narratives of individual lives are founded to no small degree in hunger, pain, insecurity and finally death. The meta-narrative of biology IS violent, merciless, and seemingly entropic. The necessity of the enquiring human being to seek beyond these inherently unappealing narratives is a sign, surely, of psychic health, even if one's seeking leads one to agree with the aforementioned evolutionary biologists. It would seem that the author's view of creation is that it is not 'fallen' but suggests that the physical is the means whereby a creative intelligence has chosen to create finer things - spirit. Yet as one recently uncovered 'gospel' put it, "If the flesh came into being because of the spirit, it would be a marvel, but if the spirit came into being for the sake of the flesh, it would be a marvel of marvels (Ward's thesis). Yet I marvel that this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty."

the delivery was fast, but it cost too much.