Customer Reviews

The SCIENCE OF GOD

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4 star:		(21)
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2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Several have said that this book is completely unconvincing for various reasons. The reasons tend to be as follows:
1. The author quotes non-Biblical sources such as Kabbalistic writings, therefore they have no relevance to the Bible.
2. The author does not read the Bible in a literal fashion from a person's perspective on Earth (and that's what the Bible was intended to be, damn it!).
3. The author is an idiot because he is trying to prove the existence of God, and it's clear God doesn't exist.
4. This book is no more than this person's opinion, and therefore has no value.

Each of these reasons contains a kernel of truth, but little more. All of them show inconsistency in reasoning. To refute:
1. The non-Biblical sources such as commentary on Scripture CAN be true, even though they are not the primary source, i.e., the Bible itself. The logic in point one is presented thusly:
a. The Bible is true.
b. Source A is not the Bible.
c. Ergo, Source A is not true.
This is a non sequitur fallacy that implies that only the Bible contains truth, and everything else is false. Even the Bible itself says that there are things (specifically, other miracles of Christ) not mentioned in the Bible. Other works besides the Bible can be sources of truth, even if those works are not divinely inspired. (Example of inconsistency in reasoning in this logic: most who agree with number 1 will claim the above and then read other authors like Billy Graham or Hal Lindsey. If the writings of Billy Graham can contain truth, why not the writings of Josephus or the writings of Rambam?)

2. The whole point of this book is to attempt to square the text of the Bible with modern science. To those who would say that the author is out of bounds by interpreting the six-day creation story as being six days from God's perspective (as opposed to the perspective of someone on Earth), let's look at another passage. Is the bread and wine at the Last Supper LITERALLY the Body and Blood of Christ, or only symbolic? Most who hold to the logic evinced by point 2 would say that the Six Days were six days as we understand them, but that the bread and wine were only symbols of Christ's Body and Blood. once again, this is inconsistent reasoning. Incidentally, as a Catholic, I believe that the bread and wine, are, in fact, the actual Body and Blood after the Consecration. Also, nothing in the Bible says that EVERY word in the Bible is absolutely literal, so to assume otherwise violates the (also unbiblical, yet ironically assumed by many) tenet of Sola Scriptura.

3. If you accept premise number 3, you are no scientist. Theists, atheists, and agnostics can all be good scientists. Since we cannot disprove the existence of God, it is an irresponsible (and unscientific) person who claims that only atheists can be real scientists. We are free to discuss problems in logic of the various religions, but to dismiss out of hand the possiblity of the existence of a Creator is to be in denial.

4. This may be the most ridiculous premise of all. Of course this book is only this man's opinion. He does not claim it to be a religious text. He only says that he is trying to find a way to reconcile what seem to be completely exclusive opinions. Also, in the same vein, of course his postulates are untestable. So is Darwin's theory of evolution, as it would take millions of years from now for us to observe any real macroevolution. That does not mean that Darwin was wrong, nor does it mean that this author is wrong. On the other hand, Einstein's theory of relativity has been tested. Without a counterexample, it cannot logically be assumed to be false. Certain parts of evolutionary theory, such as microevolution, HAVE been tested and shown to be true as well.

I, as I said, am a Catholic. In reading this book, I find my faith greatly strengthened. Not because this man or his work is specifically Catholic in nature (I think he is an Israeli Jew), but because his work lends scientific backing and independent credibility to what the Catholic Church has always taught. St. Augustine, in the 4th century AD, said that we should always have "faith seeking understanding". He also said that if science or OUR UNDERSTANDING of Scripture are at odds, then one of them is incorrect. For many years, Creationists have said that science was wrong, and Evolutionists have said that Scripture was wrong. What is beautiful about this book, is that it shows that both of these groups could be wrong about their assumptions, and all the while both groups could be right about their core beliefs. Does this mean that both might have to modify their worldviews to accept this thesis? Yes, however, this modification neither endangers faith nor science, but should strengthen both. Because of the fact that Catholic teaching is bolstered by these ideas, this is definitely a must-read for Catholics. Actually, I think it is a must-read for all who seek truth.

Those who say that nothing in this book changes their minds about anything (unless, of course, they already agree 100% with the author), are either not actually reading the book, or their minds are SO closed that they believe they already know everything worth knowing. (If the latter is the case, why bother reading? Reading a book only to create a straw man is not evidence of a person seeking truth, but only that of a person with a closed mind. Only God knows everything.)

Obviously, as this man is not God, nor is inspired directly by Him, this work is not perfect. But it is definitely gourmet food for thought.

As a scientist in an ongoing search for truth, I have been disappointed by ham-handed efforts of the creation crowd to cling to extreme minority viewpoints of credentialed scientists from diverse fields of science that would collectively be required to support a *literal* interpretation of Genesis. Similarly, I have been mystified by scientists who reflexively dismiss the idea of some kind of intelligent design outright by way of circular reasoning, arguing that since intelligent design can never be disproven, it is not scientific and thus could not be truth, since only science can properly assess truth.

It is hard to understate, then, the moxie of Schroeder's innovative attempt to reconcile with Genesis scientifically DOMINANT paradigms (i.e. universe many billions of years old, terrestrial life hundreds of millions of years old, species variation to extensive degree by alteration or differential expression of genes). Schroeder introduces his intent thus: "In the following chapters, I attempt to avoid the subjective tendency of bending Bible to match science or science to match Bible." (softcover p.19) Whether he was successful or not is in the eye of the reader, but the explicit intent is refreshing.

This book, then, would be of particular interest to two groups:

1) Scientists who wonder how their mainstream conclusions could possibly be reconciled with ancient accounts of creation from the Hebrew Torah.

2) Jews and Christians who are discomforted by the apparent incompatability between the text of their faith versus the observed truth about our planet and universe as collected and interpreted by the VAST MAJORITY of professional scientists.

The prime example of this reconciliation is Schroeder's attempt to fit a 15-billion year old universe with the six-day account of Genesis by arguing that: 1) from a collective, "Creation-wide" perspective, time advanced differently in the primordial hot universe (time dilation), and 2) that "days" in the ancient hebrew text only adopted the terrestrial perception (instead of universal perception) of time passage upon the creation of man late in the "creation" process.

Later chapters address other issues, such as the likelihood that genetic variation by mutation at rates observed in today's laboratories (or even much greater rates) were sufficient to generate the speciation evidenced in the fossil record within the abbreviated time-frame indicated by the fossil record itself.

By virtue of his theological background and professional training (MIT-trained physicist), Schroeder is uniquely qualified to attempt such a reconciliation. However, as evidenced by several previous reviews, this training is not enough-- at least not enough to win over skeptical scientists. It may be that the sheer enormity of burgeoning data within each of the fields (molecular genetics, population genetics, paleontology, geology, as well as cosmology and particle physics) is simply too great for one individual to incorporate into solid perspective within *each and every* discipline to present an airtight case on all scientific fronts.

Previous reviewers have asserted gross inaccuracies with the science presented in this book. As a clinical neuroscientist, I am not in a position to assault or defend Schroeder on evolution, genetics, particle physics or cosmology. However, I would argue against throwing the baby out with the bathwater. For example, the latest data on cosmic background radiation indicates an accelerating expansion of the universe, and an approximate age of 13.7 billion years instead of the 15 Schroeder cites. Must this nullify the core of his whole premise? Maybe so, but not enough to discard this book out of hand.

The strength of this work is in its innovation. Schroeder rightly notes that the Bible is silent on many subjects, and actually leaves room for many observed phenomena, such as speciation and niche-filling by DNA alteration. It is only the rigid mindset of many religious individuals that closes this possibility.

The weaknesses of the book lie in the specific physical science undergirding Schroeder's arguments, as well as in his over-reliance on conjecture. I thus was left with the same mind-set I had before I read the book, namely that the simplest explanation for why the Genesis account is not borne out by the findings of mainstream science is that Genesis was inspired and spoke great *truth* on a metaphorical and didactic level-- but not at a literal level.

On the whole, I found it a fascinating read. In accord with previous reviewers, I liken this effort to a Model-T. Crude in the light of today, yet innovative at its introduction, with the potential to be honed with further investment in this line of reasoning. This whole line of inquiry would benefit enormously by some kind of COLLABORATIVE work, with each chapter penned by a bona-fide expert in that field of the physical sciences, where this expert can build a much more solid case in conjunction with the totality of data in his or her field. I could even envision anonymous contribution, inasmuch as publicly arguing for some kind of intelligent designer is probably not conducive to garnering tenure in the Paleontology Department of Secular State University....

Here we have one more crusader, a distinguished physicist and Biblical scholar, trying to bridge the gap between religion and science, showing that what might appear as diametrically opposed descriptions of the creation of the universe, of the start of life on Earth, and our human origins, are in fact identical realities viewed from different perspectives. His theological sources are the hewbrew Bible, the Talmud, and the 13th century kabalist Nahmanides.

Schroeder tackles the issue of Darwin's theory of evolution and its flaws ("nature does not make jumps" versus "natures only makes jumps"), quantum uncertainty, relativity, cosmic background radiation, convergent evolution, anthropic argument, and other recent scientific innovations. All of these issues are placed side by side with Biblical and kabalist commentaries.

The result is an amazing tapestry where the six days of creation match scientific description (time dilation), the Biblical "bere'shith" is the beginning of time, matter, and space, quantum mechanics is the graveyard of determinism and confirmation of free will, and the scientific "insufficient caused event" is the age-old Biblical definition of a miracle. There is room for concepts such as: God was to chose Abraham only long after Abraham had chosen God, scientific confirmation that less-than-human creatures with human-like bodies and brains existed before Adam, and pre-programmed DNA.

It is in fact an "Amazing Technicolor Raincoat," weaved by a brilliant mind. Schroeder may be accused for "seeing reality as he assumes it to be," and for far-fetching his Biblical interpretations. It is clear, however, that his honest intentions are not to bring disruptions but rather contribute to the convergence of science and theology. Needless to say, strict believers on each side of the fence will have to open their minds.

The main reason I chose to write this review was to clear up some of the misunderstandings in other reviews about Schroeder's time calculations. The choice of the factor million million is NOT arbitrary. It is based off of the redshift of cosmic background radiation between quark confinement and approximately the present. It is also related to the change in temperature from quark confinement to the present. I double-checked this temperature change in "Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics: Volume II (3rd Edition)".

Actual review: this book is great. As a christian, I had fears when I began reading it. I see this fear when evolution is mentioned in my church. It is the fear that your entire life is based on something that doesn't agree with the facts, that you have been missing the truth.

But in reading it, my faith in the Bible is stronger than it has ever been. It is true what he says: an understanding of the works of God comes not only from the Bible, but from a firm understanding of science. Don't blink at the facts. Read this book and understand why there is no reason for conflict between two of God's greatest creations.

----

6 years later (2009)...

This review has apparently been helpful to so many people that it is now the top-rated review. I am honored and grateful that so many people found affinity with what I said.

This also happened to my review of Schroeder's other book, The Hidden Face of God. However, like that review, I am probably about to lose my spot as the top-rated review because I feel an overriding responsibility to be honest.

The Science of God was an important book for me. It got me seriously thinking about science and evidence. It is what propelled me to reach beyond the small religious world I had relegated myself to and to start talking seriously to other people about the truth. I believed Schroeder's arguments were the key to uniting science and the Bible.

However, after years of studying, researching, thinking, and discussing, I no longer agree with the arguments I presented above in support of the book.

1 REDSHIFT
It is true that the choice of the factor million million (10^12) is not *completely* arbitrary. It is indeed based off of the redshift of cosmic background radiation between quark confinement and the present.

But there is a problem.

There were 3 primary eras during the big bang. The GUT era (10^32 to 10^27). The Hadron era (10^27 to 10^12). And the Lepton era (10^12 to 10^10). Amazing things were happening to quarks and other sub-atomic particles in all of these eras.

Now here is the punch-line: there is no scientific reason to select the end of the Hadron era (10^12) as the time when the universe "really" started. The only plausible reason I can think for selecting this temperature is that Schroeder wanted his calculations to work out. And so he personally (and subjectively) selected that temperature.

This can all be verified from the same diagram I used 6 years ago: "Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics: Volume II (3rd Edition)". Page 1162, Figure 45-24.

2 SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE
After years of study and thought, I can no longer agree that Science and The Bible are compatible. The Bible was created by religion. And science was created by the scientific method.

Now, let me start by saying that there are two very important things that science and religion agree about:

1) There is truth
2) We can find that truth

That is, there is a true reality behind this existence and there are ways that we can know about the greater truths of this reality. We can know about things that we can't even see with our own eyes. These truths can be revealed to us.

But there is also one very important thing that science and religion disagree about. And that is HOW these truths will be revealed.

A) According to religion's rules, truths about the universe can simply be *asserted* and believed because they feel right to the individual or because someone else asserted them a long time ago. According to religion, once a statement is asserted about the universe (e.g. "God exists"), that statement can be treated as THE truth and can never be questioned without destroying the religion.

B) According to science's rules, truths about the universe can only be discovered through careful and thorough study of external evidence. According to science, when a statement is believed about the universe (e.g. "time is absolute"), that statement can and should be questioned. If external evidence causes us to doubt that statement, science becomes stronger because it receives new answers.

Here is the conflict: both science and religion are trying to define the same universe simultaneously. These two rule-sets directly contradict each other.

If scientists tried to discover truths using rule-set (A), there would be no science. Just a bunch of warring cultural opinions, like todays world religions. But because they discover truths using rule-set (B), science is unified. There is a consensus. In science, we all believe the same things about reality because what we believe is not based on personal feelings (of either ourselves or people who lived thousands of years ago): it is based on external evidence that can be verified at any time.

I applaud Schroder for supporting evolution and the big bang. But when it comes to the topics of God and the Bible, he stops thinking like a scientist.

He is no longer asking: "What does the evidence say? What does it motivate us to believe is true?" He is now asking: "How can I present the evidence in a way that it will appear to support my personal beliefs, which I was not motivated to believe in by evidence?"

Schroeder's book does a superb job of evoking new thought on this subject and ongoing debate of exactly how God created the earth. There are many theories, such as Day-Age, Gap, Flood and Literal-24 Hour Day. But, Schroeder brings another idea into the equation, that of Einstein's relativity. A very interesting read.

While Schroeder's scientific approach is novel, his theological sources are suspect. Maimonides, a 13th century Jewish philosopher, was one of his major sources for theology. Conservative Christian teachings of all congregations today would disagree with these ideas. Nahmanides, also from the 13th century, was a Jewish Biblical commentator and kabbalist. His ideas are closer to today's beliefs, but both of these sources were in a theological no-man's land of time. They were far removed from the authors, the cultural/linguistic aspects behind the Torah of Scripture and they did not benefit from the scholarship of the past 150 years. While these are good sources of reading, they are not the place to rest ideas of theology regarding Creation because of these issues.

Schroeder brings up a SUPERB observation regarding those involved in the debate of Creationism versus Atheistic Macro-Evolution. Very few people involved in the debate are highly knowledgeable regarding both sides of the argument. Most scientists have a "high-school level" or lower understanding of theology and most supporters of Biblical Creationism have the same level of understanding of science. Very few are well-versed in both.

Schroeder delves deep into scientific discussion supporting Creation and Biblical accounts. This is interesting and is much too deep for those not trained in science. There is some superb theory put forth, but this is really for graduate level study.

This is not the book to start an investigation in the theories of Creation and Evolution, but after much reading, this could be an interesting book to read to get deeper inputs.

The author attempts to square modern scientific evidence with a literal interpretation of the Old Testament. His primary theological sources are the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, and Nahmanides, "a leading 13th-century kabalistic commentator".

While the pieces fit together almost too perfectly, Schroeder's book is loaded with astounding scientific concepts and facts that make random evolution and random reality seem totally out of the question. Science, just as much as theology, demands a designer's hand.

For example, when discussing the improbability that matter formed at all during the Big Bang, he says,

"For an exotic, still uncertain reason, infinitesimally more matter than antimatter was produced...As the particles and antiparticles annihilated, that one extra particle in ten billion remained. From those rare 'extras,' every galaxy, star, and human is composed..."

He employs unimaginable large and small numbers to defend design with regard to evolution, the origin of life, DNA, and a host of other mysterious physical phenomenon. Bottom line--numbers don't lie. The odds that our DNA took shape by chance is zero, a statistical impossibility.

One of his most interesting explorations is his attempt to reconcile the six days of creation with our understanding that the universe is fifteen billion years old. He bases his argument on the law of relativity. Schroeder argues that for God, existing in a time perspective outside of ours, one day might seem like a billion years from our point of view. While I couldn't follow all his arguments, it seemed rather amazing that he could square the time difference between Genesis and science so perfectly. Still, that time discrepancies between God and man can be explained by relativity is credible, even if the numbers do not fit perfectly.

Schroeder also debunks some common misunderstandings about evolution. According to him, the fossil record indisputably proves that life did not evolve gradually, but that it appeared suddenly and mysteriously.

"These fossils in conjunction with other discoveries indicate that all animal phyla appeared almost simultaneously 530 million years ago in the Cambrian period. All further development was confined to variations within each phylum. One of the great mysteries of animal evolution is why no new phyla have appeared since that Cambrian explosion of life."

That was news to me, along with several other facts about evolution that he discusses along the way.

For the science-challenged (like me), this is a tough read. But I'm glad I read it, because I had no idea how strong the physical evidence for design is, or how much I misunderstood the current outlook on evolutionary theory. If Schroeder is correct about how perfectly the Biblical authors described physical law as we understand it today, that may be the best rational argument of all in favor of God.

I never realized that a book dealing with science could be so poetic and intriguing. Yet Dr. Schroeder has written such a book: a real page turner. Using information from the fields of micro-biology to quantum mechanics to cosmology, as well as traditional biblical commentaries from past centuries, Dr. Schroeder brings amazing and convincing data to support his thesis that science and the Bible are not only compatible but the study of one is enhanced by the study of the other. The knowledge brought from both do not compete or contradict, but converge.

Without being in any way dogmatic or preachy, Dr. Schroeder shows how biblical texts have within them the hidden meanings known in ancient times which we can only now more completely understand with the help of science. One cannot come away from this book without a deeper appreciation of the intricacies of of the world we live in from the smallest particle to the scope of the expanding universe. The "how" that we can learn from science is absolutely mind-boggling. Dr. Schroeder helps synthesize this with the no less intriguing "why" that we can gain form biblical sources.

Anyone interested in such diverse topics as what kind of statistical possibilities are necessary for random evolution, the naturalness of miracles, and what kind of god allows the good to suffer will appreciate this awesome book.

Many have attempted to reconcile the apparent disparities between science's account of the big bang/evolution and the creation story in Genesis. Schroeder presents an interesting approach that works within the framework of both paradigms.

Schroeder analyzes the original Hebrew wording of the Genesis account to identify subtle meanings which lend insight into how the Genesis account may be compatible with modern scientific knowledge. He applies Einstein's concepts of relativity of time and space and suggests that the "six days" of creation may refer to a sort of cosmological time instead of 24-hour-day earth time, because in the big bang mass and gravity were concentrated (and gravity bends light and therefore dilates time). Lending support is his observation that there were four "days" in the Genesis account that occurred before the sun (the basis for our 24-hour solar day) was created. Schroeder suggests that these four pre-solar days may have encapsulated the periods of stellar expansion and evolution occurring after the big bang and before the ignition of our sun. Schroeder also goes on to suggest that proto-humans such as the Neanderthal, etc. were part of the physical process of creation, after which "Adam" developed and became a "living soul." After the creation of Adam on the sixth day, according to Schroeder, the Bible begins marking time according to 24-hour solar days.

I am not an expert in these areas but I feel that Schroeder presents some very interesting perspectives on this topic that provide a fertile ground for further pondering and investigation. I would even suggest that Schroeder's work has the potential to do for creationism what Carl Sagan's "COSMOS" series did for the public understanding of cosmology.

One of the most interesting facts of this book, in my experience, is people's reactions after reading it. Religous christians attack it for being unorthodox. Religous Jews tend to want to debate its points. Why?

Because Schroeder, a religous Jew, accepts the value of the many supportive texts that Jews read along with the bible. Christians reject these texts and look mainly to the texts obvious meaning. That is unfortunate.

Imagine, a 12th century Jewish comentator described the "big bang" in almost exactly the way a high school physiscs teacher would in 2001?. The writers of the talmud saw each stage of creation "evolving" into the next and discussed whether 6 days for the divine was the same as 6 days as they experience it. For me, such facts are mind blowing.

I urge anyone interested in understanding a Jewish approach to the world to read this text. We believe people were created with reason exactly so we could probe the mysterys of creation and help in the divine plan. Along with everything else, Schroeder demonstrates that much current science was prefigured by religous scholars who used holy texts as their source.

If you want to understand why faith and reason are not in conflict, I urge you to read this book.

This book is far from perfect. It has some reasoning that is a bit ad-hoc. However, as a whole it is filled w/great information. It is an especially good book for atheists who believe they have it all figured out. From reading some of the negative reviews that accused Schroeder of being a bad scientist for believing in God, I must question their reason for reading the book in the first place (if they did, in fact read it). Also, it seems to me that people who are so narrow minded are doing nothing more than manipulating the terms. In other words, to them, being a good scientist = being an atheist. Even if your theories are incoherent & non-sensical, you're still a great scientist so long as you disbelieve in God. (Richard Dawkins would be a great representative of this motif). On the other hand, being a believer = being a bad scientist (or pseudo scientist). Even if you make revolutionary insights into the nature of the universe, but believe in God (Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton would be examples of this), you are STILL bad scientists - by default. Now, if one rids oneself of silly pre-suppositions such as this, he might just learn something from Schroeder's book. If not, then there is no reason to read it. Furthermore, there is no reason to read any book as it means that the individual who subscribes to such an absurd set of "rules" has closed his mind to reason. One of the things this book does quite well is dis-inter so much "embarrasing" data that the august "scientific community" has decided to sweep under the rug. The Wistar Institute is a great example of this. Contrary to popular belief, science is hardly an "objective enterprise seeking the truth." To the contrary, metaphysical pre-suppositions run amok & theories are often based on them more than the data itself. Any philosopher of science knows this all too well. Thoughtful people who choose to read this book may find out as much for themselves.