The foundations of chemical kinetics (McGraw-Hill series in advanced chemistry)

Book Description

This book deals with a central topic at the interface of chemistry and physics - the understanding of how the transformation of matter takes place at the atomic level. Building on the laws of physics, the book focuses on the theoretical framework for predicting the outcome of chemical reactions. The style is highly systematic with attention to basic concepts and clarity of presentation. Molecular reaction dynamics is about the detailed atomic-level description of chemical reactions. Based on quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics or, as an approximation, classical mechanics, the dynamics of uni- and bi-molecular elementary reactions are described. The book features a detailed presentation of transition-state theory which plays an important role in practice, and a comprehensive discussion of basic theories of reaction dynamics in condensed phases. Examples and end-of-chapter problems are included in order to illustrate the theory and its connection to chemical problems.

Kinetics: An entry from Macmillan Reference USA's
<i>Chemistry: Foundations and Applications</i>

Average customer rating:

Kinetics: An entry from Macmillan Reference USA's Chemistry: Foundations and Applications
Peter Atkins
Manufacturer: Macmillan Reference USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000M4QG5W

Book Description

“Chemistry: Foundations and Application” is an accessible four-volume set that covers chemistry’s laws, processes, applications and sub-disciplines, reviews the history of the field, including modern research and practical applications, and includes biographies of scientists past and present. Varied topics that examine and explain chemistry's many branches, including inorganic, industrial, atmospheric and computational chemistry, and biotechnology allow students and general-interest readers alike to explore the myriad ways in which chemistry plays an important role in daily life.

Reaction Rates: An entry from Macmillan Reference USA's
<i>Chemistry: Foundations and Applications</i>

Average customer rating:

Reaction Rates: An entry from Macmillan Reference USA's Chemistry: Foundations and Applications
Edward M. Eyring
Manufacturer: Macmillan Reference USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000M4QH9W

Book Description

Average customer rating:

The foundations of chemical kinetics
E. N Eremin
Manufacturer: Mir
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007AS6IQ

Book Description

Argues that both evolutionism and creationism rely too heavily on notions of underlying order and design. Instead of focusing on the idea of novelty in human experience-novelty as a necessary component of evolution, and as the essence of divine Mystery. In God After Darwin, John Haught argues that the ongoing debate between Darwinian evolutionists and Christian apologists is fundamentally misdirected: both sides persist in focusing upon an explanation of underlying design and order in the universe. Haught suggests that what is lacking in both of these competing ideologies is the notion of novelty, a necessary component of evolution and the essence of the unfolding of divine Mystery. He argues that Darwin's disturbing picture of life, instead of being hostile to religion - as scientific skeptics and many believers have thought it to be - actually provides a most fertile setting for mature reflection on the idea of God. Solidly grounded in scholarship, Haught's explanation of the relationship between theology and evolution is both accessible and engaging.

"Haught's remarkable study faces without flinching the challenge that the evolutionary character of reality presents to a robust and intelligent [or credible] belief in God. In a most readable and perceptive manner the author dissects the character of that challenge, points out the limitations on its understanding imposed by its prejudices, and explores an excitingly open view of God's creative involvement in the processes of reality and its ecological significance. This is a book full of illuminating insights that will stimulate and inform all those who are seriously interested in the science and religion debate today." -David A. Pailin, University of Manchester

"The relationship of science and religion has once again assumed centrality among cultural and intellectual concerns. John Haught has encouraged this development and continues to give leadership to the reflection involved. This book provides an original, insightful, and exhilarating look at how a quite radical version of neo-Darwinian theory, usually understood as excluding and belief in God, can in fact aid Christians in developing a more Biblical faith by replacing the God of static design and controlling power with the God of vulnerable, self-giving love." -John B. Cobb, Jr., School of Theology at Claremont

"A lucid, learned, and liberating book with a new insight on almost every page. A pleasure to read, God After Darwin subtly rearranges the religious furniture in your head. Haught's thought-provoking proposals, especially his view of God as the dynamic, loving power of the future with a vision rather than a plan for this evolving universe, deserves wide readership and discussion." -Elizabeth A. Johnson, Fordham University

"Haught argues that evolutionary biology can enrich theological conviction, and vice versa. He does so with vigor and insight, reforming and deepening classical ideas of God, often regaining overlooked Biblical wisdom. Against fears of irreconcilable conflict, Haught's challenge is that theology after Darwin not only survives, but is even more of an adapted fit in the world. His analysis is seminal, fertile enough to breed a next generation of theologians." -Holmes Rolston III, Colorado State University; author of Genes, Genesis and God

"On the highly embattled issue of God and evolution, the most well-known positions tell us that God exists but evolution doesn't, that evolution exists but God doesn't, or that science and religion are completely different things. Jack Haught's God After Darwin, which regards evolution as "a gift to theology," presents an alternative vision - of a universe still unfinished and a Creator who, far from the omnipotent designer undermined by evolution, is the cosmic source of possibility, value, novelty, information, and beauty." -David Ray Griffin, Claremont School of Theology; author of Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts

"God is dead. At least the god of intelligent design is dead, gone the way of the god of the gaps. Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins need to re-tool their tedious and narrow theology. In God After Darwin: A Theology of Creation, theologian John F. Haught makes the exciting and compelling case that far from undermining the existence of God, Darwinian evolution points the way to a fresh understanding of God and the natural world. Creation is not finished and the future, so green with the promise of novelty, is not determined. God in an evolutionary cosmos is not a God of static being but of dynamic becoming. A finished creation must be a perfect creation, which is contradicted by the fact of suffering. If creation were perfect, what need have we of a Savior? Because creation cannot receive God's infinite love in a finite instant, the world necessarily has to transform and expand, in a word, to evolve. An unfinished world is necessarily an imperfect world. Drawing on the works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Alfred North Whitehead and Karl Rahner among others, Haught has articulated an understanding of God that respects Christian orthodoxy but also resonates with the world of Darwin, Einstein and Hawking. Can it be that theology owns its own "dangerous idea," namely that metaphysical materialism is incompetent to make full sense of the actual discoveries of evolutionary science? Haught argues that the theological metaphysics of Teilhard allows all of the data of evolution, especially the emergence of novelty, to stand out. In short, he argues for a metaphysics of the future. As an evolutionary biologist, I have read Haught's book with excitement, admiration and pleasure-though it will take me a long time to ponder all of the stimulating ideas." -Peter Dodson, University of Pennsylvania; President, Philadelphia Center for Religion

"John Haught has a track record of presenting magisterial contributions to our understanding of how to regard the engagement of religion and science. In this book, he performs a twofold task: he shows how traditional thinking about God might take the measure of contemporary evolutionary science, and he also provides a resource for theologically serious thinkers in the ongoing work of reconstructing faith in a scientific age. His proposals carry the work to a new level." -Philip Hefner, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago; director, Zygon Center for Religion and Science; editor, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science

Customer Reviews:

Evolution and Process Theology.......2006-10-21

The approach advocated by Haught to dealing with the implications of evolution is one of "engagement" which he describes as "taking evolution into the very center of theological reflection on the meaning of life, of God, and of the universe." [I question the "center" characterization because it implies that those who in the past or now lack understanding of the evolutionary idea could not be at the center. A better characterization would be that it amplifies and deepens our understanding of what has or should have always been at the center. And one should also note that we are talking only about the center of "theological reflection," not the center of religious or spiritual life, which is something quite different.] At one level, this engagement is seen as a development of "natural theology" which has generally been disregarded in modern times. Scientists especially have pointed to the connection between cosmic origins which cannot be explained by evolution and the conditions of the evolution which produced life, however apparently indeterminate the process. They point out, as Kauffman noted, the extreme improbability of the precise physical conditions and laws of the universe at the time of creation such that life as we know it was possible. By carrying back the intelligent design argument to the big bang they make it more credible but without removing the difficulties of the apparent arbitrariness of biological development.

More broadly and importantly, some modern theology has attempted to bring the insights of knowledge of cosmic and biological evolution to enhance and enrich traditional teachings about God and God's relationship with the world. Haught summarizes the ways in which evolutionary insights are consistent with and complement traditional Christian teachings. The idea of evolution is seen as more compatible than previous understandings with biblical belief not only in an original creation but God's ongoing or continuous creation which results in a future fulfillment of creation. An initial "perfect" creation, finished and static, could not be a creation truly distinct from its creator. Such a "world" would simply be an appendage of God, not a world which God transcends. It would be a world without a future for there would be no true development, and a world devoid of true life the nature of which is to continually change and go beyond itself. Henry Bergson described life not as things but a tendency which becomes "actualized" or real only in a creative unfolding. Struggle, suffering, even evil are characteristic of true freedom and lead to the an understanding of the universe and the story of humankind as capable of leading somewhere.

The understanding that humankind is the product of and intimately connected with cosmic history supports the Christian belief that the ultimate purpose and hope of human life embraces the entire cosmos. Human beings are not disconnected from the rest of the universe which is simply some kind of prop for the human drama which has its denouement only in the afterlife. Instead, as St. Paul says, the entirety of creation "groans" for ultimate fulfillment. The eschatological expectations expressed by Jesus and held by the early Christians for the coming of the kingdom in real human history may be taken more seriously when judged against the backdrop of the awesome movement of creation through the ages. The reality of God is better understood in temporal terms, God who comes into the world from "up ahead" rather than in the static spatial terms of a heaven "above."

Further, God is revealed not as a series of propositions nor as once for all time historical epiphany, but as a continuing "communication of God's own selfhood to the world." The fullness of divine infinity cannot be received instantaneously into or by a finite cosmos. Such an reception could take place only gradually. A finite world could "adapt" to an infinite source of love only by a process of gradual expansion and ongoing self-transcendence, the external manifestation of which might appear to science as cosmic and biological evolution.

God's grace in the form of unconditional love by its nature does not compel but seeks to persuade. It does not absorb, annihilate, or force itself on the beloved. It wishes the beloved to become truly other by letting it be so that a true relationship in freedom is possible. Such a love may even take the form of a certain self-withdrawal, precisely as the condition for allowing the world to emerge on its own so as to attain the capability of deep relationship with God. Nicholas of Cusa prayed, "How could you give yourself to me unless you had first given me to myself?" The epic of evolution may be interpreted as the story of the world's struggle toward an expansive freedom in the presence of self-giving grace. Such a world is one percolating with contingency rather than one made rigid by necessity.

Our understanding of God's power is recast in this view. It is a power to influence but not constrain or coerce. Such a world given leave to become more and more autonomous, even to help create itself and eventually attain the status of self-consciousness and freedom, has much more integrity and value than any conceivable world determined by providential design. This is the view of "process theology" which does not find any incompatibility in the evident spontaneity manifested at the levels of quantum indeterminacy, or in the undirected mutations in biological evolution. No other conception of God's power is more consistent with the orthodox religious belief that God is infinite love. This God is the source not only of order but also of novelty and ongoing creativity. As such God must also be the source of instability and disorder which make change and transformation possible, conditions essential to life as we know it.

Haught presents a view of redemption which seems less convincingly tied to evolutionary insight. The God of process theology he says,
intimately "feels" the world, as the biblical narratives affirm over and over. God it would seem is influenced deeply by all that happens in the evolutionary process. Everything whatsoever that occurs is "saved" by being taken eternally into God's own feeling of the world. Even though all events and achievements are temporal and perishable, they still abide permanently within the everlasting compassion of God. In God's own sensitivity to the world, each event is redeemed from absolute perishing and receives the definitive importance and meaning that religions encourage us to believe in - always without seeing clearly.

Haught argues that the evolutionary perspective not only allows us "to enlarge our sense of God's creativity by extending it over measureless eons of time; it also gives comparable magnitude to our sense of the divine participation in" ("co-suffering, or com-passionate involvement in") the life-process. The Christian understanding of a God who empties himself and submits in humility to crucifixion speaks with conviction to the real world of evolution that strives and suffers and endures in order to grow and become more than it controls and dominates. In short, God as self-outpouring of suffering love in the person of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ corresponds to the actuality of suffering, struggle, loss, and death inherent in the evolutionary understanding of life. The Christian God provides meaning to our experience of this reality by verifying "our intuition that the agony of living beings is not undergone in isolation from the divine eternity, but is taken up everlastingly and redemptively into the very `life-story' of God."

Haught thus largely accepts the critique of the materialists of an omnipotent "designer God" pulling the strings on a puppet universe or setting in motion and then watching from afar a mechanistic universe preordained to achieve some inscrutable purpose. The reality of evolutionary history rightly contradicts such a notion of God. Instead, it supports a notion of God as the ultimate reality conceived of as fundamentally self-emptying, suffering love which is characterized by self-restraint and the subtle power of attraction and persuasion that respects the true freedom accorded to creation, the possibility of genuine co-creation, instead of either mindless deterministic materialism or the unfolding of an eternally fixed divine plan. This alternate view gives us "a reasonable metaphysical explanation of the evolutionary process as this manifests itself to contemporary scientific inquiry." It does not provide an easy answer to the eternal problem of theodicy. But evolution recognizes the simple fact that the universe is still in the process of being created, that the nature of God's world is such that there is a profound letting be that permits suffering, loss, and death, yet affords us hope that the story of each element is bound up in the story of the whole which is taken up and finally made whole in the heart of divine compassion.

Repitious.......2005-09-06

This is a compendium of several articles. Haught makes the same argument over and over again - that God loves the world so much that he is willing to leave it alone to determine it's own destiny. He offers little in the way of evidence of this assertion. It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't need an entire book - the first one or two chapters make the point.

Three "Ds" and a distant deity.......2005-02-01

Up front, let us grant that Haught gets a few things straight. He acknowledges the impact Darwin has had on our view of life. And the supernatural. Many of Darwin's successors declared natural selection signalled the end of theism. That terminal judgment will be addressed in this book, but he warns that theology must still "come to grips" with the "opulence of evolution". From this opening he seeks to create a new theology. In order to launch this enterprise, Haught must sweep away some obstructions. Among these obstacles is the wave of "intelligent design" [which is neither] - Michael Behe's excuse for failing to understand how natural selecton works. Haught dismisses Behe with ease, claiming the idea "ignores novelty". So far, so good.

Haught then mounts his pulpit to steal a book title as a means of launching an assault on Darwin's most penetrating students, Daniel C. Dennett and Richard Dawkins. "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" [1995] is what this book is about. Haught flaunts the term often. Each time, he tries to discount it, sniping at Dennett for being "prolific" and his presentation as done "in laborious detail". The detail appears to have been too much for Haught, since he seems to have missed many of the more obvious points. Dawkins, a much more outspoken non-theist than Dennett, if that's possible, gives Haught the vapours. Dawkins' "selfish gene", a frequent target of theists, here undergoes the usual vilification. It's "materialist" and "mechanistic". When you're building a case for the supernatural, such ideas are anathema. Perhaps even worse for Haught than the "Three-D" figures is that of Edward O. Wilson. At least Dennett and Dawkins aren't lapsed Christians, but Wilson shed his Baptist upbringing when he discovered gods and life aren't related. What greater betrayal could a theologian encounter?

While Haught is disparaging the non-theists, he steps back a bit. He wants to show he's a reasonable man. We're all good fellas, here. He demonstrates his knowledge [such as it is] of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, but he wants to add a new element. A deity. Somewhere in the process some god has to be involved, he says. Well, his god at any rate. That step back puts him on a slippery slope. As Haught builds his thesis, you observe him sliding down the ramp. The ramp is labelled "sophistry" and Haught has a supreme talent for it. He wants to create a "theology of evolution" - perhaps one of the more bizarre concepts of modern times. Haught takes us through "laborious detail" in explaining how many philosophers and theologians have struggled to merge Darwin and a deity. All have failed and Haught is no exception.

Haught's sophistry utilises a range of voices. He even snares Taoism for a prop. He finally selects two buttresses - Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin and philosopher Hans Jonas. De Chardin's struggle to reconcile natural selection with metaphysics has been refuted too many times to recount here. Jonas may be new to some of Haught's readers, but Haught attempts to introduce him. A follower of Alfred North Whitehead, Jonas was also influenced by Jewish Kabbalistic thought. He contends the deity [please note "the"] made the universe with the "promise" of life - and, one presumes, at some point would produce an intellect to observe it. Jonas pushes this deity about as far from human ken as can be achieved and still have any meaning. As a stretch of conceivability and expression of unreality, there are few peers. What purpose such a deity could have remains escapes understanding - and reason. It turns out this is the whole point - at some future time one of natural selection's products, humanity, will reach an "Omega Point" to encounter this deity. To what end isn't explained.

Books such as Haught's are attempts to reconcile the irrational with the real. Limited, as he is, by his Roman Catholic Christianity, he starts with a flimsy a priori stance. He then tries to shore it up with a confusion of quotations synopsised ideas. As we wade through his quote snippets, we learn that an event never historically justified, a crucifixion, provides one gleam of illumination for his thesis. A dim light to steer by. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Evolution is Basic Christian Theology.......2004-12-28

This is a wondrous work, wherein Haught truly presents a theology of evolution. He doesn't show that evolution is consistent with the Bible- rather that the kind of God we read of in the Bible would *have* to create with evolution. And that modern materialistic philosophy can in no way answer for evolution- in fact, alone, Christianity is the belief system that most fits with evolutionary biology.

Haught uses a wealth of authors, some more well known than others, both biologists and theologians. He redeems process theology and shows how it fits with the Bible. He grapples with the best of Gould and presents a way that the magisterium of religion and science *should* mix, while still having their boundaries.

Every year I present evolution in my biology class, to students from Christian and Muslim backgrounds, and receive acrimony from administration, parents, and students alike. To try to assuage the hostility, I teach a day of philosophical approaches to evolution, to indicate that there are many ways to approach this controversial topic, and the students need to talk with their parents about what the best way is for them personally. This book is causing me to rewrite my class presentation of the philosophy of evolution. No longer will I break it up into Theistic, Deistic, and Atheistic approaches. Haught makes a very convincing case for three approaches of Opposition, Separatism, and Engagement. Ironically, the materialistic atheists and the literal creationists are both in the same camp of opposition. Separatism is the belief that both science and religion teach different sides of the same coin- something I have found myself on in the past. But I have long wanted to move more towards Engagement- looking at how evolution would influence the idea of God. After all, if God made the world this way, as all science indicates, then that should tell us something about God- as Romans 1.20 indicates.

Haught provides a way for us to understand God through evolution- but specifically Jesus Christ in God. It is the theology of kenosis, central to the Christian belief, that is most fully formed in evolution (outside the Incarnation); it is this theology which best philosophically explains evolution. It is a God who loves enough to step back and allow for that which He loves the freedom to come to Him, in true Love, that causes evolution. It is a God who opens the doors to possibilities. This is a God who pours Himself out, who took the form of a servant, who became a human and part of His creation, who died, who is willing to be humble, who is willing to love and to risk losing the ones He loves, who is willing to love and have people turn against Him. What kind of world would this kind of God create? Haught argues a world with suffering, with change, always in the process of creation, and therefore not yet perfect, a world that can be changed, is changing, and the creation participating in the creation of itself. It is a God of the Future, and not the present only, or the past only. A God, as witnessed throughout the Bible, of Hope, expecting new things. Behold, He makes all things new.

This isn't Deism, for God is very involved, and emotionally moved by what is happening, and participating in the suffering of His creation. Nor is this trying to step into science. There is no reason, from a scientific perspective, why evolution has to posit the existence of a God, or His nonexistence. But the moment we ask, "Why would such a world have been allowed to evolve?"- when we ask the why questions, then we move into theology. And neither materialistic evolution nor traditional "Intelligent Design" theory answer this question adequately- they both ignore the question in much the same way. ID Theory looks only at the great complexity of certain problems, without answering the awkward byzantine questions of awfulness in creation. The problem of evil in nature is nothing new- evolution just brings it out much more clearly. Haught argues the answer is in understanding the character of a God who suffers with his creation, and is willing to see his creation suffer in order to change into something greater, without dictating the creation be as He sees it should be, as if it were merely an extension of him rather than something separate.

Where is God then in the evolutionary process? Haught suggests within information, at all levels- something not defined by science, and not explained by evolutionary theory. And so God loves all his creation. I loved the novel idea that God loves the atoms of the rocks as well as us. Yes, I think He loves me more, but all of his creation is his sons and daughters, for He made it. All is in the process of forming. And perhaps, he loves those atoms of rocks because one day the will be (or have been) part of a creation that is more capable of recognizing his wonder and brilliance. All creation worships Him, the Psalmist says. A rock is best at it's worship when it is fully rockish. Which isn't hard for a rock. But we worship all the more, for we do it fully willingly, and knowingly. Or we can. And so are loved all the more for it.

But the presence of God is where the book begins to break down. It is in the end a bit too Deistic for me, still. While I don't think Haught argues in any way for Deism, I don't think he fully answers the presence of God. There seems to be little place for the miraculous in his explanations. If this is a God of Kenosis, as seen in the Incarnation, than He is and always was a God of Kenosis, pouring Himself out in suffering for His creation. But also if He was a God of the miraculous in the Incarnation, than He always was a God of the miraculous. In the end, Haught remains too far on the side of Arminianism for me. Yes, God allows His creation to proceed of it's own will- but at the same time, His will is constantly working to shape all things. In the doctrine of Augustinian predestination, this in no way denies the free realm of chance, for the two happen simultaneously. This is supported by Haught's argument that God is beyond time and ahead in Time. Haught's position is that God is present throughout in feeling, but not as actively working as I would like. He is hoping in the future. But what is He hoping in? Were He to hope in anything but Himself, then He Himself would commit idolatry, God forbid. But then He can not hope in chance, or in the creation that He Himself made through the process of natural selection- rather, He must hope in his continual actions in that same creation.

Additionally, Haught is kind of confusing towards the end, where he goes off on some tangents on the presence of the subjective, and other authors' thoughts on it, without ever defining what the subjective is. And the idea of how original sin entered the world is not well answered. Naturally, Haught posits, like C.S. Lewis, that the two Genesis stories are myth. But he then puts the idea of a perfect world, central to the Truth of the myth, as something that never existed, except in the realm of the Perfect Ideal. Edwards does a better job of answering this issue in The God of Evolution.

Much of the second half of the book is epistemology, which I ironically find very hard to understand, above all the forms of philosophy. That made for slow reading- but that's my fault.

I think the greatest aspect of this book is Hope. Not merely hope that we can reconcile evolution and Christianity. That's there- but that's only a slim part of it. It is the idea of possibility, the presentness of something pregnant. Not a wish for the Real- but real Hope, that there will be something coming that is greater than what we have now. This is God's great desire for us. This is the witness of the entire Old and New Testaments. We are going someplace greater on this plan for the future. What it will be, we don't know. It is the excitement of the Future that we gain from the God of the Future, He who is the Future, pulling us into a new realm. He began this eons ago, and continues now, and will present something New, in creatio originalis, creatio continua, and creatio nova.

In the end, it's just faith language gobbledygook. Too Bad........2004-06-12

I just read this book for the second time. I first read it several years ago after I had just come off a very emotionally difficult change in worldview, that of a believer to one of a naturalist who doesn't see the need or existence of God. Not only that, I was a Catholic for almost 40 years. But, after discovering Steven Jay Gould, Daniel Dennet, Michael Shermer, Robert Buckman and most especially Richard Dawkins, I felt it was a matter of personal dignity and even morality to give up any notion of a personal God, or even ultimately of an impersonal God.

In any case, when I saw this book, I grabbed it off the shelf. Maybe it would be a last chance for me to reconcile my desire to be in the Catholic Church, or even a Christian, with my acceptance of what we know to be true about the natural world!

The first time I read it, as with this last reading, I was exhilarated by the first chapters. It was such a relief and a thrill to have a religious person acknowledging everything that we now know about nature and on the likelihood of the existence of God. I had grown so weary of the religious I encountered simply living in denial of what we know about the universe, or deliberately remaining foggy in order to hold onto, what I believe is ultimately a great coping mechanism.

I recommend this book to anyone who is a believer. I think he makes arguments that are compelling for accepting the truth about evolution and it's philosophical repercussions. After I read Dennet, for example, I wondered how anyone could even study older philosophy except as a quaint historical reminder of where we came from when we didn't have any way to answer the questions of existence. Anyone who is a theologian by trade or a thinking religious person should read this book.

But then, unfortunately, Haught just does what they all do: backbends; trying to hold onto a religious, Christian perspective while trying to accept scientific evidence. He has to stretch himself this way and that, making Jesus a person who proves that God is sympathetic to our pain, but ultimately unable to do anything about it. He calls evolution part of God's endless creativity that allows for unending experience of novelty. It's fine to get all poetic about the stupendous, terrible beauty of evolution -- but how does that point to a compassionate and aware God, let alone a Christian one? It doesn't.

I was glad to see that American Catholic Magazine gave this book a good review -- most of the Jesuits I encountered and spoke at length to about my leaving the Church had a very rudimentary understanding of science. I was also glad to see that Haught calls for an end to the Intelligent Design argument that so many of the religious are so weary of. It must be awful to have to constantly hold up that tired and unsupported concept; to me it must be just embarrassing. The Discovery Institute website reviews this book and goes on and on about the "facts" of intelligent design. Honestly I have to stop reading it, like I have to look away from someone making a fool of themselves trying to support that crazy, shot-down long ago, argument. As Ingersoll once said, croaking frogs trying desperately to explain how their croaking caused spring to arrive.

In any case, Haught says that nature's theme is the same as the Bible's: promise.

Okay. How is the theme of the Bible: promise? I don't get that from the Bible. The Bible's god is a terrifying creature, who kills the innocent willy-nilly and makes false promises over and over again. Okay. Evolution is terrifying, the innocent are caused horror and pain, and... the Judeo-Christian God causes the same thing. Is that a good argument for God? Doesn't that just make God worse than no God at all? At least nature is indifferent. And then the parts of the Bible that inspire hope, hope for an afterlife and ultimate justice: Haught doesn't show how this is compatible with a worldview that is naturalistic. It's a hopeful fantasy, and because it's hopeful, Haught accepts it.

I was actually expecting a better philosophic and scientific argument to believe. Haught is ultimately reduced to saying things like, "the initial conditions and fundamental cosmic constants for the universe seem so precisely bent toward the eventual production of carbon, and then life, that they suggest a new basis for natural theology." So? So, carbon is one of the building blocks for life. And yes, the biggest question is: why is there something rather than nothing? But why does the answer have to be a loving, watchful God who cares (but ultimately can't do anything about it.)

Worst of all, Haught acknowledges having read Dawkins, who I think writes the most eloquently and movingly about how beautiful and terrifying the natural world is, offering us the consolation that even though we are probably in a lonely godless universe, it doesn't mitigate our own appreciation for nature and that overwhelming feeling of awe at the acknowledgement of our stupendous luck at being here able to observe it. In a scientific worldview, one is able to stand up straight and look reality square in the eye. That dignity is a reward that is deep, unlike the cheap reward from the comfort of belief. So in the end, after reading the book for a second time this week, I feel Haught doesn't come up with any better arguments for faith than anyone with less scientific knowledge. At best, he encourages believers to accept the facts of science. At worst, he gives believers more linguistic gobbledygook to make the case they've always wanted to make from the beginning, for purely social and emotional reasons.

Average customer rating:
GOD AFTER DARWIN: A THEOLOGY OF EVOLUTION.(Review): An article from: Theological Studies
Anthony Battaglia
Manufacturer: Theological Studies, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | e-Docs | Formats | Books
General | Nonfiction | HTML | Formats | e-Docs | Formats | Books
Philosophy | Nonfiction | HTML | Formats | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B0008HEA9M
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Theological Studies, published by Theological Studies, Inc. on September 1, 2000. The length of the article is 927 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: GOD AFTER DARWIN: A THEOLOGY OF EVOLUTION.(Review)
Author: Anthony Battaglia
Publication: Theological Studies (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 2000
Publisher: Theological Studies, Inc.
Volume: 61 Issue: 3 Page: 569

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books