Brian Weyers
Directed Writing 6
Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking by Phil Dowe is an amazing book. It is filled with powerful examples of how religion and science interact agree with one another in many cases. He takes the reader through the main ideas of science that really contradict what religion tends to say and digs deep into them to show what they really say. After he has done that he goes on to explain the opposite belief and then connects the two with stunning bonds that seem so simple yet vastly intercalate at the same time. This author will take the more difficult idea of God and chance and explore as to what Dowe was thinking. After that is made clear the strengths and weaknesses of how he connects the two will be examined.
Dowe takes on the extremely difficult idea of God and chance. The rational worldview is that of most theologians. It states that God is in control of the universe. This is called providence. There are three basic ways in which providence works. The first is that God is the necessary cause of every event and aspect. This means that without God no event would ever happen. The second claim is God is the sufficient cause of everything. This idea implies that if B needs A to happen then if A occurs B will as well. It is sufficient because there might be other ways that ensure B happening. The third way is that God is the complete reason for every event. Boiled down this statement tells us that God has a specific reason for every event that happens. The chance worldview, the opposite of the rational worldview, is what is most commonly accepted by the scientific community. This idea is basically that they world people live in is in chaos all the time. When it is developing moment by moment, some of those moments are completely up to chance. In even more simpler terms the world does not know where it is going next. He goes on further to explain each of these coming to a very important conclusion. If chance exists then God does not and if God exists than chance does not. With further reading we find the Dowe goes on to explain how Bell's theorem proves God. The first premise of this is that everything has a sufficient cause. The next is that there some events which do not have a sufficient physical cause, therefore something else, God, must have caused them. He finishes by saying that if there is no chance then God is proved and if there is chance then God controls the meaningful parts as proved by Bell's theorem.
In Dowe's argument there are many strengths and weaknesses. The weaknesses are few but very crucial. Many concepts and ideas expressed by Dowe are speculative and dependent. They are quite broad and cover a large grey area instead of being black and white. Some sections of his argument are left up to "chance", if you will, and can go either way. He does not have a complete 100% way to prove his argument for the simple fact that he cannot prove that God exists. If that detail was settled then the rest of the debate would be over and could be settled straight away. In contrast to that there are many strengths to this argument that Dowe offers. The first is that he uses logic that can be understood by your everyday person. He takes complicated principles in science and applies them to everyday knowledge and thus creates a book where the incredible intellectual can understand as well as your average everyday human being. Dowe also takes scientific knowledge and uses it to prove a very theological argument which is a like the final touchdown in the Super Bowl. He takes a study that is generally thought to be the rational and logical way of thinking, and used it to prove another study that is thought to be based on faith and fairy tales. Overall it is this author's opinion that Dowe has given a very solid and genuine argument. It can be put up as a place where Theology and Science do in fact coincide and work together. Dowe is able to take two studies and mold them together where it seemed impossible to do so.
In conclusion the works of Dowe are explored through looking at what he says and then taking it deeper and indentifying the strengths and weaknesses of it. The idea of chance and God has been debated and disputed throughout history and probably will continue in that same manner. There is no definite way to prove how God interacts with the idea of chance because there is no possible way to prove God exists in our world right now. That is the key concept needed in order to finish Dowe's argument. However without that he does an excellent Job to illustrate his points and make them understandable. That is the what makes Dowe so intelligent. He takes very complicated theorems and principles and makes them understandable and relatable. Dowe is a genius in our own time and is bale to share that vast knowledge with the rest of the world.
