William Lane Craig, Review: Has Science Found God? by Victor J. Stenger (2005)

Has Science Found God? By Victor J. Stenger. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2003. 373 pp. np.

This book does not represent a thoughtful contribution to the flourishing dialogue between science and theology. Rather, as one might have divine from its publisher, it is a polemical book from the free-thought subculture by a self-styled Internet Infidel bitter about his Catholic upbringing and condescending toward anyone of theistic convictions.

In this book, Stenger sets the bar for himself impossibly high, promising to prove scientifically that "In high probability a nonmaterial element of the universe exerting powerful control over events does not exist" (p. 19; cf p. 23).

Stenger never delivers on his promissory note. Most of his arguments at best function as refutations of cosmological and teleological arguments, not as positive arguments for atheism, so that even if Stenger's arguments were correct, one would be left only with agnosticism, not atheism. His comment also reveals a philosophical gaucherie that plagues the book: theists do not take Cod to be "a non-material element of the universe," but its transcendent Creator, Some indication of the level of sophistication of the book's argument may be seen in Stenger's riposte to cosmological and teleological arguments:

"[Theists] see no way that the universe could have just happened,,, .'How can something come from nothing?' they , , . ask, never wondering how God came from nothing . , , , modem preachers have used another variation of Paley's watch: Imagine a hurricane hitting a junkyard and assembling a full Boeing 747 aircraft, , , . And yet, they never bother to try to describe the kinds of cosmic winds by which something infinitely more complex‹-God himself‹-was assembled (pp. 93-4)."

These ratiocinations are so childish that it is embarrassing to see them advanced seriously by a professor of physics, Stenger promises to rely "strictly on existing, well-established theories of physics and cosmology" (p, 20), Instead, his speculations quickly go off the rails, as he is forced to rely on controversial interpretations of quantum mechanics, metaphysical conjectures about negative time "prior" to creation, speculations about alternative bases for life, and inconsistent and llicit wielding of Ockham's Razor in order to turn back the evidence for theism. Moreover, there is a high intellectual price to be paid for Stenger's brand of atheism: First, one must beheve that a contingently existing universe inexplicably exists for absolutely no reason at all. Second, one must believe in a logically incoherent model of the origin of the universe which no other scientist in the world accepts. Third, one must believe that the conditions suitable for life are not narrowly constrained, despite all the evidence to the contrary, or else believe that an infinite number of undetectable, parallel universes exists, all randomly ordered in their constants and quantities, without any independent evidence of such a world ensemble. Fourth, one must believe that there is no moral difference between a mother who loves and nurtures her children and a sexual predator who preys upon them, that things like slavery, racial hatred, religious persecution, and genocide are morally indifferent acts, and that moral praise and blame are unjustifiable. Fifth, one must believe that the majority of the world's
> &gt; historians who have studied the life of Jesus are mistaken about tlie historicity of his empty tomb, post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the Christian Way, or else embrace some naturalistic explanation of these facts which has been overwhelmingly rejected by historical scholars. Sixth, one must believe that everyone who claims to have a personal experience of Cod is psychologically deluded. One may be excused if he concludes that the price Stenger exacts for freedom from the God of his fathers is just too high,<p>

WILLIAM LANE CRAIG
> TALBOT SGHOOL OF THEOLOGY<br> BiOLA UNIVERSITY
> LA MIRADA, CALIFORNIA<p>