Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Give it up!, November 26, 2000
Through his book, Mr. Griffin has helped me answer one of the big questions that has bothered me since my undergraduate years in Electrical Engineering - how to resolve my sense of mystery in the world around me with my understanding and appreciation of the scientific method of inquiry. In a nutshell, the answer is that both Science and Religion have to give up some long held beliefs and dogmatic statements of "fact." Put succinctly; "Belief in the supernatural causes problems for religion it can not solve, and supernaturalism makes religion incompatible with science. For both reasons, religion needs to give it up." "Belief in materialism causes problems for science it can not solve, and materialism makes science incompatible with religion. For both reasons, science needs to give it up." In addition to the views on resolution of this de facto conflict between religion and science, Mr. Griffin's book has shed a considerable amount of light on my meager understanding of Alfred North Whitehead's writings around what I refer to as Process Theology. It has encouraged me to study further my own philosophy and theology and to explore how it fits with my understanding of the material world. As a technologist, it seems imperative for me to clearly understand this issue if for no other reason than to have a sound basis for ethical conduct in our increasingly technology dependent society. So to that end, this book is must reading for all of us, since we will all have to make ethical decisions about advancement in technology from creation of "spiritual machines," to genetic manipulation.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A good primer on the topic, March 6, 2007
The ongoing attempt to reconcile religion with science is understandably challenging as we try to encompass the infinite within our finite human rationality. This book does a good job of framing the discussion.
This book's approach is to classify "religion" and "science" into two categories each.
1. Supernaturalism (religion-sup) holds that God is outside and independent of creation and can affect it from the outside.
2. Non-supernatural religion (religion-ns) holds that God is a part of creation and is not outside of its laws and rules, and must work within them.
3. Scientific-atheistic-materialistic science (naturalism-sam) says that the material universe is all there is, and we can only know what can be perceived via our five senses. This version of naturalism is necessarily atheistic and deterministic (our "minds" are an illusion of our physical brains, and there is no freedom of action, all actions are prescribed by the action/reaction of the matter that composes us.)
4. Non-supernatural science (naturalism-ns) does not insist on only a materialist perspective. Since our consciousness is a self-evident aspect of our existence, we can also know things via non-sensate experience (introspection, etc.)
The author's thesis is that a combination of religion-ns and naturalism-ns can bring fruitful reconciliation of impasses between religion and science. If we accept that God is a part of nature (Griffin's analogy is that God is the "mind" of creation as a human mind is part of the body), and that science includes non-material matters, we can overcome difficulties associated with the religion-sup (why does a good, all-powerful God allow evil?) and naturalism-sam (if the material is all there is, how do we explain our consciousness in a satisfying way?).
This metaphysical viewpoint also provides fresh perspectives to consider such areas as parapsychology (which materialism-sam rules out a priori), and reconciling the creation/evolution debate. Griffin presents an interesting discussion of both subjects. Particularly helpful is his is identification of 14 different iterations of "Darwinian evolution" that have been discussed, showing that when people speak of "evolution" it is important to identify/clarify which of the 14 iterations they have in mind. Griffin thoroughly explores all the nuances of these iterations of Darwinism, invaluably framing this topic for future debates.
Also interesting is his proposal that the materialist perspective of science, and the "ex nihilio" religious view that God was apart/outside of creation, were not settled on from the beginning but are fairly recent developments in past centuries.
While I do not completely concur with Griffin's premises and conclusions (I have no problem with the concept of an all-powerful "supernatural" God who could take six days to create a world that appears physically to have been in existence for billions of years, or who self-defines what is good and evil and who is not subject to our human formulations of logic, rationality, etc.), I found this book very interesting and helpful to clarify the issues, and thus I give it five stars.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very informative, November 23, 2003
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I especially like Griffin's coverage of the historical events and philisophical issues surrounding the science-religion debate. I think that he effectively discusses the history of science and the enlightnment within the context of 18th, 19th, and 20th century religiousity (i.e., deism, atheism, etc.). I also like his description of how science influenced religion and vice versa during the previous centuries. These well-constructed discussions are presented in the first few chapters.
Although I don't agree with his synthesis of science and religion (specifically, I don't favor rejecting God's supernaturalism), he does a good job of educating the reader on how important issues such as supernaturalism, determinism, and free will, etc. play a role in the issue of reconciling science and religious beliefs. I sometimes found myself saying, "that is a great insight."
If I have to pick something I did not like it would have to be his lengthy coverage of Darwinism. He presents a Process Theologian interpretation of Darwinism to support his viewpoint. I found this long discussion tedious, but others may find it interesting.
IMO, this book is a good read.
Dave
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