A panoramic but fractured effort to find a compromise between faith and reason.
A book attempts to justify the existence of the Christian God on the basis of modern science.
Contemporary discussions about science and religion routinely pit the two against each other, as if they were mutually exclusive. Ivey (Science, Philosophy and Jesus Christ, 2015), though, argues that both the considerable advances of modern science, as well as ancient philosophy, support the basic tenets of Christian theology. In a wide-ranging study, the author not only argues that monotheistic religion is compatible with the findings of reason, but specifically with a New Testament God. To that end, Ivey acknowledges but defends the historical record of the Roman Catholic Church, embarks on a lengthy comparative study of the major world religions (including Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormonism, and, surprisingly, Zoroastrianism), and explains Einstein’s theory of relativity. There are several discussions of the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, and an extended examination of the relationship between faith and reason. The philosophical twine that tethers the parts into a whole is the argument that “militant science,” despite its pretensions to completeness, cannot adequately address, let alone decisively solve, the most fundamental questions. In fact, the value of science is ultimately a function of its humble prostration before religion, properly understood: “On the other hand, science can perform great service for the philosopher, the theologian, and for all of us by taking a great part in leading us in the proper direction toward ultimate truth, so long as science turns the baton over to theology and philosophy before we actually get to such depth in our research.” Of course, this is a welcome and thoughtful message in an age of self-indulgently dogmatic atheism, whether right or wrong. But Ivey’s prose is often so turgid and halting and his arguments so obscure that even the most sophisticated reader will likely have difficulty following them. In addition, the author’s interpretation of contemporary science is sometimes shaky, and seems driven by a desire to substantiate his preferred conclusions. For example, it takes some interpretive leaps to state that “quantum physicists have found God on the quantum level.” This is a thematically roaming book that ambitiously, but disjointedly, attempts to accomplish far too much in a single volume. Ivey candidly admits that it is a work of Christian apologetics, and sometimes that devotion to his own religious faith chafes against his commitment to reason.
A panoramic but fractured effort to find a compromise between faith and reason.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5148-3931-7
Page Count: 426
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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