God, Chance and Purpose: Can God Have It Both Ways? (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: chance hypothesis, rejection set, specified complexity, Can Intelligent Design, Conway Morris, Florence Nightingale (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

'... provides theologians with important and necessary raw materials to be carefully used within their own areas of expertise.' European Society for the Study of Science and Theology

'Bartholomew, an Emeritus Professor of Statistics, presents a complex story line with exemplary clarity, arguing both against those who maintain that the likelihood of life, let alone humans, appearing by chance is so miniscule that there must be an intelligent designer, and against those who assume God must have determined every detail of His creation.' Theological Book Review

Product Description

Scientific accounts of existence give chance a central role. At the smallest level, quantum theory involves uncertainty and evolution is driven by chance and necessity. These ideas do not fit easily with theology in which chance has been seen as the enemy of purpose. One option is to argue, as proponents of Intelligent Design do, that chance is not real and can be replaced by the work of a Designer. Others adhere to a deterministic theology in which God is in total control. Neither of these views, it is argued, does justice to the complexity of nature or the greatness of God. The thesis of this book is that chance is neither unreal nor non-existent but an integral part of God's creation. This view is expounded, illustrated and defended by drawing on the resources of probability theory and numerous examples from the natural and social worlds.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (March 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521707080
• ISBN-13: 978-0521707084
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #754,673 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God and chance are compatible, July 11, 2008

By	Paul R. Bruggink (Clarington, PA USA) - See all my reviews

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David Bartholomew is Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His book offers a perspective on chance and divine action that only a statistician could provide.

The problem that his book addresses is that chance suggests lack of purpose, and theology speaks of purpose. His solution is seeing chance within, not outside, the providence of God. "Chance plays a positive role in the world and . . . does not undermine God's sovereignty."

Bartholomew identifies three models of evolution:
(1) Blind chance: little or no opportunity for God to act at all.
(2) Purely deterministic: "God's determinate actions successfully mimic chance and at the same time achieve other desired outcomes."
(3) Mostly chance with occassional intervention by God: a modest amount of direct action (obscured by chance) with a large dose of genuine randomness. "In this scenario there are many random happenings, and most of the time, the deity in charge has no more to do than to sit back and delight in the variety of creation. For example, he cites Simon Conway Morris' notion of convergence, according to which "evolution is liable to produce similar solutions to similar problems wherever and whenever they occur . . . making the emergence of something like ourselves a near-certainty" ("Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe" (Cambridge University Press, 2003)).

Regarding the popular notion of God acting undetectably at the quantum level (as suggested by Robert Russell, John Polkinghorne, Nancey Murphy, and others), he concludes that "it is very doubtful whether there are any quantum events which God could influence whose outcomes might significantly determine what happens at the macro level."

In his chapter on Intelligent Design, he concludes that it is a tautology and is not, therefore, a valid scientifice method.

Although the book is non-technical, a background in statistics would certainly help in fully grasping the author's points. I recommend this book for Christians (particularly those with any training in statistics) who want a better understanding of the nature of God's providence, i.e., how God acts in the world.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Serious attempt at reconciling chance and Christian theology, July 17, 2008

By	David J. Aldous "gentleman scholar" (Alameda, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Even though I'm not a fan of theology, I can recommend this carefully written and serious book to anyone who is interested in the theological implications of chance as seen by a professional statistician. His thesis is "chance is to be seen as within the providence of God rather than outside it" and I'm not competent to comment on the theological arguments. But less than half the book explicitly involves God; much of the book is a descriptive account of where and how scientists see chance involved in the natural and human world. For instance, the chapters on "Chaos out of order" and "Order out of chaos" are nice reminders of the importance of the levels and scales on which we view the world; what looks random on one level may look ordered on another. And the brief and straightforward accounts of many topics (small world networks, random epidemics, game theory, genetic algorithms and a dozen more) are clear and non-technical. So this book is as good or better at surveying the domain of chance as many popular science books written expressly for that purpose; though to my taste, like most other books it is too uncritical of the claimed real-world
relevance of such mathematical models.

Also noteworthy is a central chapter giving a cogent technical critique of the attempts by William Debski, a leading advocate of Intelligent Design, to calculate the chance of a particular biological feature (such as the bacterial flagellum) having ``evolved by chance".

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars too much statistics, not enough science,, May 8, 2009

By	physicist ad lib "old religious physicist" (NE Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

I was tempted to quote Disraeli's (or was it Mark Twain's?) remark about statistics--"there are lies, damn lies and statistics"--and let it go at that, but decided to proceed further. The insights on probability and statistics are indeed worthwhile (although I've dabbled in statistics, I wasn't really aware of the distinction between probability--a priori guessing--and likelihood--a posteriori reasoning, and such fallacies as the Prosecutor's fallacy). These make if worthwhile to get the book. However Bartholomew doesn't connect the science behind statistical law (as applied to the way the world works) but sticks to purely ontological chance. Let me take just two examples. He cites radioactive decay as a purely random process, but it in fact is based on physical law--the quantum mechanics of a particle in a potential well; if one goes from microscopic to macroscopic dimensions, then other, deterministic models apply. Bartholomew argues against the strong Anthropic principle by supposing that there is a distribution for the appropriate fundamental constants (it would have to be awfully tight--the omega value, in particular)that makes them more probable than just "pick a number,any number" but that is essentially the same as saying the values were "chosen", i.e. that some physical law prevails to set the constants. I could cite other examples, but space forbids. I've bought the book and got something out of it, but it's not one I'll keep in my permanent library; look for it on Paperbackswap.