Modern Physics and Ancient Faith

I’ve begun reading Stephen Barr’s Modern Physics and Ancient Faith. Barr is a theoretical particle physicist at the University of Delaware. The book is a fascinating account of how modern physics undercuts the basis for philosophical materialism.

I should note that Barr, a Catholic, is not an “Intelligent Design” proponent. In fact, Barr has published a short critique of some aspects of ID theory in First Things. In this book, rather than addressing Intelligent Design theory, Barr discusses classical arguments from design and shows how modern physics presents problems for philosophcial materialists. I’ve only begun reading, but here is a nice quote from the book’s first chapter:

The believing Jew or Christian does not feel the need to be embarrassed when materialists attack religion as ‘anti-scientific’ or irrational. For he regards his own beliefs as not less but far more rational than those of the materialst. He regards them as providing a fuller, more coherent, and more sensible picture of reality. A picture in which the existence of the universe is not merely some colossal accident, in which human life has both purpose and meaning, in which ideas about ruth and falsehood and good and evil are more than chemical responses in our brains, and in which the beauty, harmony, and order of the universe, which science has helped us to see more clearly than ever before, are recognized as the product of a wisdom and a reason that transcends our own.

Stay tuned for more.