The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth (Hardcover)

by Gerald L. Schroeder (Author) "When I picture the earth and solar system hanging in the vastness of space, I feel an anxious need to grab hold of something stable..." (more)
Key Phrases: random reactions, motor proteins, unified order, Deep Blue, Barry Tiller, Gulf Stream (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Israeli physicist Schroeder extends the approach taken in previous works (Genesis and the Big Bang; The Science of God) by reviewing biological phenomena whose intricate complexity hints at "wisdom within wisdom" in the design of the universe. "If we could see within as easily as we see without, every aspect of existence would be an unfolding encounter with awe; almost a religious experience even for a secular spectator," he writes. Although Schroeder can claim no special expertise in cell biology or neuroscience, his enthusiasm and sense of wonder are personally engaging, and his metaphysical speculations reflect a wry humility that cannot be taken for granted in this genre. Schroeder writes in two moods, sometimes discerning the transcendent unity of the divine wisdom with unequivocal clarity, sometimes tracing the pattern only faintly and accentuating the continuing hiddenness of God. Although he expresses obvious impatience with orthodox Darwinism and the "materialist superstition" of hard-core reductionists like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, he is gracious toward religious skeptics and often addresses them as his primary audience. While many in the scientific community have been openly distrustful of the "intelligent design" movement and suspicious of its (generally Christian) religious associations, Schroeder's professional stature and his nonliteralistic approach to the Bible may help him connect with a wider readership.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Schroeder takes the widespread perception that science disproves religion and turns it on its head: from cosmology to neurology, the latest research makes sense only if viewed from a metaphysical perspective. The strict materialism that excludes all purpose, choice, and spirituality from the world simply cannot account for the data pouring in from labs and observatories. Nor can it explain the thrill of transcendence that occasionally pierces ordinary lives. Well schooled in the rigors of the sciences, Schroeder knows too much about natural complexity to try to wring some tidy set of doctrines out of the cosmos. Rather, it is an ineffable shiver of the divine, a deep-down stirring of wonder, that he discovers in the furthest reaches of quantum physics, glossed with the poetry of the Hebrew prophets and the mysteries of the kabbalah. At the heart of the cell, in the depths of the quasar, lies a deep wisdom encoded in a unified chain of information. Let rigid atheists and biblical literalists take a pass, but this book deserves widespread circulation among readers still alive to the hidden harmonies of the universe. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (May 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684870592
• ISBN-13: 978-0684870595
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #693,870 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

152 of 162 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awe and mystery, May 17, 2002

By	A. Keith Parker (Huntsville, AL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a physicist, I have been seduced by the awe and mystery (to borrow from "The Outer Limits") of quantum mechanics for years. Still, the esoteric nature of subatomic physics was never adequate to convince me of an intelligent design of the universe. Schroeder, however, has succeeded in convincing me of an underlying wisdom in nature through his eloquent description of the mind-boggling complexity of molecular biology. I came away from this book with a perplexing and contradictory sense of calm and breathlessness.

Schroeder succeeds where others have failed; namely, he has convinced me that an honest and compelling argument can be made for the existence of God/Creator/universal intelligence without resorting to fundamentalist dogma or pseudo-science.

Be warned: parts of the book are tedious; Schroeder admits this. If you are unwilling to put some thought behind the subject matter, then this book isn't for you. But if you're not afraid to think, then by all means read his book; your soul will thank you.

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reductionism and teleology., August 26, 2003

By	Wesley L. Janssen (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Noted Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder presents a compelling case that our universe is readily reducible to simply this -- an immaterial wisdom. "The solidity of iron is actually 99.9999999999999 percent startlingly vacuous space made to feel solid by ethereal fields of force having no material reality at all." And what is that tiny portion of an "atom" of matter that we describe as supposedly being "matter", that is, the quarks and electrons? They are incredibly precise (i.e., specified) packets of 'frozen' energy, highly tuned to interact with these highly tuned "ethereal fields." It seems that such objects are essentially intellectual constructs, as are all the "objects" of the so-called particle zoo. We call "something" a quark (or a photon, electron, etc) only because we can assign a certain behavior to "it". But what is "it"? Apart from saying that "it" is specified information, nobody knows. Within the quantum mechanical framework, these "objects" are essentially mathematical objects. As Einstein told us, what we call matter is merely condensed ("frozen") energy. And it turns out that energy is merely information. But what incredibly elegant information it is! (If it were not, neither people nor stars nor any "material" thing could exist). The materialist paradigm of our age is decidedly uneasy with the revelation that "matter" is but an elegant creation of a nonmaterial and extra cosmic entity. Why should we have an "Elegant Universe"? Philosophical pre-commitments seek a "blind" non-thing as an explanation, actually demanding a clumsy series of explanations other than the theist's Creator. (Interestingly, this approach is mislabeled "reductionism" and/or "positivism"!) "Consider the 'coincidences'" of nature's wisdom, asks Schroeder, and explanations other than a wise Creator "must seem a bit forced," even to the atheist.
The only detraction that I will offer is that the author subscribes to a kind of 'process theology'. Overall, this may be a minor problem. Schroeder's central thesis is itself elegant (and modestly eloquent, and yes, obvious to anyone who isn't psychologically pre-committed to rejecting it out of hand).

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A First Rate Teacher, December 4, 2003

By	Bert Wiefels (Banning, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth (Paperback)

Schroeder is a wonderful teacher. He sees the sublime in science and his prose is at times beautifully poetic. He delves in both the macrocosm as well as microcosm using both to show that there is an inherent design to the universe and the life within it. This is a book that is well suited to those who would run from the usual creationist palaver yet feel that all of the wonder we see in this universe has to be more than an accident.