Fraser Watts, Creation: Law and Probability (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), xi + 200 Pps., $22.00.
Fraser Watts is Reader in Theology and Science at the University of Cambridge, England, and Vice-President of the International Society for Science and Religion. He is a clinical and research psychologist who is widely published, as well as an ordained priest in the Church of England. This present volume arises from a conference of the International Society for Science and Religion and Science (ISSR) held in Boston during August, 2004. However, the book is more than just a proceedings of the conference, as several papers have been significantly reworked, and two papers are entirely new. The chapters of the book fall into three main categories: philosophical (1–3), scientific (4–7), and theological (8–11). Ten contributors explore the important but often neglected relationship between ‘law’ and ‘probability’ within the natural world, looking at it from a variety of different disciplines, including history and philosophy, as well as theology and science. Moreover, they analyze this relation from a variety of different sciences, including cosmology, evolutionary biology and neuroscience. Finally, they look at this relation in a dialogue of different faith traditions. In what follows, many important points from individual chapters shall be highlighted.
The editor of the volume, Fraser Watts, sets the stage for the remainder of the book in chapter one by examining the concepts of ‘law’ and ‘probability’, and shows how they are used in different ways in both theological and scientific discourse. Watts indicates how the concepts of law and probability have arisen in different scientific domains, and then enunciates how they play an important role in the relationship between science and religion. Regarding the nature of ‘probabilities’, Watts asserts that they necessarily involve a sense of ‘openness’, which at least allows God the ability to direct the process(es) with his purposes. In an important note, Watts acknowledges that throughout the book, the terms ‘law’ and ‘probability’ are non-agency terms, which undergirds the balance of the book regarding its emphases on the philosophy of science and theology (7).
Peter Harrison, in chapter two, notes that the conception of ‘laws of nature’ is one that science has inherited from a seventeenth century worldview, heavily influenced by underlying theological convictions. However, there has been much flux in the way in which these ‘laws of nature’ have been perceived in the ensuing centuries. Indeed, Harrison notes that recent philosophy of science sees the laws of nature in a much more flexible, almost approximate, manner than did the originators of the concept (30). In a mentally demanding third chapter, Phillip Clayton demarcates three rather broad views regarding the laws of nature: as expressions 1) of divine choice, 2) of eternal necessities, or 3) of regularities. Clayton notes that mainstream secular thought favors the first two views of the laws of nature, although noting that there is a rudimentary shift towards the latter view developing in our postmodern society. This ‘softer’ view of the laws of nature opens up ‘space’ so that the divine could interact with his creation without violating the laws of nature (i.e., it potentially avoids interventionism). As a result, Clayton emphasizes the potential consonance between theism and natural law, noting that the laws of nature have not only a physical, but also a theological role to play in the natural world (38).
Niels Henrik Gregerson, in chapter five, examines various theological approaches to self-organizing systems, using a three-strand typology: 1) the universal laws of nature, the general formative principles of nature, and 3) the general rules of complexity. In fleshing out his construal of this typology, he does not deny that there are some ‘universal’ laws, but he nevertheless argues that even these cannot predict concrete empirical outcomes, noting that the applicability of these ‘universal’ laws is more restricted than popularly conceived (86). Further, he posits that a ‘regularity’ view of the laws of nature offers rich ‘untapped’ possibilities, also affording the emergence of innumerable novelties within nature, for a theological interpretation of those same ‘laws’ (81). Michael Ruse acknowledges in chapter six that the notions of progress, direction, and purpose come up most acutely in the discussion regarding biological evolution. He wonders, however, if evolution could be explained in theological terms. He interacts critically with the recent proposal of Simon Conway Morris (2003) that evolutionary convergence suggests the inevitability of the evolution of intelligent life.
In chapter eight, David Bartholomew focuses on six areas of argumentation that have been used in theology, which have their root in science: the origins of life, the probability of God’s existence, the anthropic principle, intelligent design, divine action within the world, and whether chance may be included within God’s providential workings in nature. In so doing, he argues very effectively, in my opinion, that chance indeed could have a place in the divine purpose for creation. In chapter nine, Wesley J. Wildman asks how one moves from scientific or philosophical discussions of law, chance, and probability to theological assertions regarding ultimacy. He argues for a comparative metaphysics, one that is capable of accommodating a variety of worldviews, as that which is able to bridge the chasm between secular science and theological visions of ultimate reality.
John Polkinghorne, in a lucid summative afterword, draws the various threads of the preceding discussion together, asserting that the deep regularities found throughout the world points beyond a Humean conception of constant conjunction regarding causality, and further that they are amenable to a conceptioning of causality as being top-down in orientation. His conclusion has potentially profound implications for theology, as it points to an explanation beyond that which science alone can provide. For those readers interested in the ongoing debate between religion and science, and especially for those who have acute interests in philosophy of science, this volume is to be highly recommended.
Bradford McCall
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA