John C. Lennox (1) (1943–)

The new atheists, like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking, are ever in the public spotlight these days, or so it seems. The idea that brilliant physicists and scientists can make sense of this world without a God appeals to many. Certainly the conclusions reached in books such as Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design — that there is no God and no ultimate point to the universe — are conclusions many atheists and secularists are all too eager to affirm. Since everything does fit so show more nicely together, however, should we wonder if the case made is really as air tight as claimed? If the conclusions are made to order, we might have warrant to carefully scrutinize the claims of these New Atheist authors.

John Lennox, author of God’s Undertaker, and a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford in his own right, takes on Stephen Hawking’s arguments in a forthcoming book published by Lion Books and distributed in the US by Kregel Publications (available July 15). In God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design Is It Anyway?, Lennox exposes the circular reasoing and non sequitors that abound in Hawking’s The Grand Design. Lennox begins by framing the scope of what science can really address as it attempts to examine metaphysical questions. He then points out both Hawking’s dismissal of philosophy and his misunderstanding of Christian theism. God is not merely a “god of the gaps”, an explanation for the world as we know it. The Christian understanding of God has Him outside the boundaries of creation as Lord over all of it, not some explanation for unknown phenomena. As for philosophy, after rejecting it as “dead”, Hawking jumps in and tries his own hand at several metaphysical questions that philosophy has long addressed. Hawking’s attempt at doing philosophy is all the poorer for his outright rejection of it.

Lennox then takes Hawking to task for claiming that the theory of gravity, or scientific laws in general, can operate as a “creator” in a sense, and be the ultimate cause for our universe. He clarifies what a law or rule of nature really “is”, and illustrates how Hawking makes more of such laws than can really be claimed. He then goes on to show how Hawking’s “M” theory of the “Multiverse” conveniently sidesteps objections by positing the existence of infinite universes. Still the question remains, why are there any universes instead of no universe? Lennox reveals that other major physicists have their own doubts as to the ability that M theory really has for being an explanation of everything.

Lennox also addresses head on the claim that miracles cannot happen because the laws of science would be invalidated. He pries open the layers from this question and shows the irrationality of claiming that science strictly forbids the existence of exceptions or miracles.

By the end of this short book (it’s only 100 pages long), Lennox has made a convincing case for theism and demonstrated that reasonable scientists continue to affirm the divine. Lennox’s book is accessible and clear, even as it interacts with quite complicated elements from Hawking’s writing. The book doesn’t own the six-day, young earth Creationist view, but it doesn’t rule it out either. Lennox argues that often the new atheists assume that to believe in God is to believe in a young earth view, and he shows this is not true. Lennox marshals arguments from science (the very idea of the big bang supports the Bible’s claim that the world has a beginning – something science has only admitted in the last hundred years), philosophy, history and the realm of human experience. The resulting case is convincing and should serve to bolster the faith of any troubled by the new atheism. At the least, it offers avenues of further exploration available in grappling with these issues.

Before closing my review, I should excerpt a small section from this book which captures some of Lennox’s craft in action. This excerpt will illustrate his style and the way he can cut to the heart of an issue with incisive logic.

"Suppose, to make matters clearer, we replace the universe by a jet engine and then are asked to explain it. Shall we account for it by mentioning the personal agency of its inventor, Sir Frank Whittle? Or shall we follow Hawking: dismiss personal agency, and explain the jet engine by saying that it arose naturally from physical law…. It is not a question of either/or. It is self-evident that we need both levels of explanation in order to give a complete description. It is also obvious that the scientific explanation neither conflicts nor competes with the agent explanation: they complement one another. It is the same with explanations of the universe: god does not conflict or compete with the laws of physics as an explanation. God is actually the ground of all explanation, in the sense that he is the cause in the first place of there being a world for the laws of physics to describe."

To this I add my “amen”. I encourage you to pick up this little book as it offers an excellent primer on how to deal with the claims of the new atheism. Even if you differ with Lennox on a point or two, his clear style and succinct arguments will equip you in thinking through these issues on your own.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Kregel Publications via Litfuse Publicity Group. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review. show less

After assuring me that his dog is not a "god of the gaps", Lennox proceeds to uncover gaps in which I might be persuaded that his imaginary fiend is lurking. Whatever "happened" "before" "the big bang" is however surely the biggest gap that remains to science. And if science can't tell us why it is that the world is explainable to us by science, then that is what is known as a ...gap... in our scientific understanding. (Such surely isn't that hard to grasp?) Abiogenesis too strikes me as show more being the biggest ...gap in our understanding of how life came to be the way it manifests itself on our planet.

Lennox is capable of quoting a lot of people. A lot of people. He finds the very strangest bits of writing by a variety of people which he can proceed to use to his own ends. His argument seems to run along the following lines: "Some random scientist held/holds some view or other (taken out of context more likely than not), therefore it is respectable for you to hold the view I (ab)use his view to support." For myself, however, I am far more interested in the actual science than I am in these various citations I have very little opportunity to verify for myself (due to the vast number cited). And Lennox, or certainly his readers, would do well to heed the motto of the Royal Society: "Nullius in verba".

If only I could be convinced that he has spent more effort trying to understand the science behind those various citations than on working out alternative meanings to the English words used in said citations. One bit of science he does not, in my opinion, understand, is evolution. He doesn't realise that Berlinski's "Head Monkey" is in fact the ever-changing environment in which a genome evolves. That harsh environment does indeed give the effect of impressive intelligence and yet it remains both blind and dumb (dumb as in non-intelligent).

Part of Lennox's reasoning is dependant on a) his interpretation of the bible, b) a traditionally held biblical chronology. What happens to those of Lennox's arguments when modern archaeology contradicts the biblical account and chronology? He doesn't seem to grasp even the fundamental issue that there is a difference between Deism and Theism.

Finally Lennox admits that his is in fact a god of the gaps, but claims his gaps are... wait for it... good gaps! What does he take me for?

The reason why we look for an Aunt Matilda when we see a cake is because most of the time we see cakes, we know who made them. We have never seen Lennox's proposed "god". One day science may jolly well be able to read Matilda's mind to reveal her purpose for the cake. That day science may also be able to read Lennox's mind to reveal his purpose for cooking his books.

Lennox is correct about one thing though: Science can bury Yahweh no more than it can bury Superman. show less

Normally, I wouldn’t read this kind of book, but given the substantial number of positive comments, and its abbreviated length, I figured what the hell. Admittedly, I skimmed much of it. I doubt very much that parsing each sentence would have made any difference.

The preponderance of reviewers around the web appear to believe Lennox destroyed Hawking’s arguments. He did no such thing and to do so would have been impossible since each is starting with a different set of assumptions: Lennox show more with his belief that God exists and that something cannot arise from nothing (totally failing to explain God’s origin); Hawking with the opposite, that something can easily arise from nothing. It doesn't help that each has a different definition of what constitutes “nothing.” One could have reconciled both positions by simply accepting the proposition that God is the laws of physics, but that wouldn’t be any fun.

I suspect that reviewers will line up for or against this book depending on their prior assumptions as well, so I am not ranking this book because I’m sure that my certainty that there is no God (as defined by Christians, Moslems, and Jews, i.e. an entity that actually gives a shit and responds to requests to intervene often violating the laws of physics when necessary) just couldn’t possibly exist would predispose a negative rank.

Lennox’s book is a response to Hawking’s book, The Grand Design, which I have not read. A review in Science News (7.27.12) notes that Hawking’s poses and proposes to answer the following questions. “ Why is there a universe? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? Why are the laws of nature what they are? While acknowledging the fine-tuning of Earth that allows for favorable life conditions, Hawking promotes the multiverse theory, which holds that our universe is only one of countless others, each with their own forces of nature.” So both he and Lennox are engaged in a conjectural debate. I don’t like that since you can’t conjecture your way out of a paper bag. By doing so, Hawking’s speculation opened the door wide to counter-speculation. (Anyone who argues that using the Bible as a source to refute conjecture just doesn’t know his history or Bible. There’s way too much evidence on how those beliefs evolved and were developed. There is as much evidence for the existence of Leprachauns and Santa Claus as there is for God and they all rely on faith.) I’m always amused by those who claim that the Big Bang, evolution, etc. are mere theories, and then go on to unquestionably accept the greatest hypothesis of them all, that “God” exists, for which there is no evidence at all.

So the debate, if one dare call it that, is like two guys sitting in a bar, one claiming Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player; the other asserting it had to be Hank Aaron, each absolutely certain. Fun, I guess, if you are well-lubricated. For the rest of us, it’s just a boring conversation that only makes the righteous on both sides happy. For my part, Hawking should have stuck to astrophysics and Lennox to math neither of which is useful to the debate and left the speculation to pundits. show less

The author, John C. Lennox, is a professor of mathematics at Oxford University. I read this book for the Christian Reading Challenge based on a recommendation from a friend. My friend stated that the author would be able to prove that God created the world in 7 days. While I disagree with the author's ability to provide this proof, he certainly shot holes in the arguments of the New Atheists against creationism as well as coming up with quite a few interesting points about the Genesis show more Chapter 1 story.

The author begins by stating that he is a scientist who believes in both science and the Bible. He says that you can draw scientific implications from the Bible but that does not mean that the Bible is a scientific treatise from which you can deduce Isaac Newton's laws or Einstein's equations. The Bible was not intended to explain the origins of the universe in a detailed scientific language. It was intended to teach people about God.

A discussion over young earth and ancient earth creationist views is expanded upon to point out that the definition of the word "creationist" has changed over the centuries. Originally it referred to someone who believed in a creator with no implication for how the creating was done. Today, a creationist is usually referred to as someone who believes in a young earth. Also, these viewpoints are not new. They have been debated by Jewish scholars since times before Christ. Whether the 6 days in which God performed his creation were 24 hour cycles or epochs of unspecified lengths changes your perception of the age of the earth. Then there is the question of what is meant by "earth." Is it a planet, dry ground or something else? Consider whether you are interpreting the Bible from the era in which it was written or in the era in which you are currently living. That changes everything too.

All of these discussions were further expanded upon in the book. In addition, there are 5 appendices that dispute several theories of the New Atheists concerning the Genesis text. The book gets extremely scientific here, above my scope of knowledge.

The main thrust of the author's argument is that there is a way to understand Genesis 1 that doesn't compromise the authority of Scripture and at the same time take into account our increased knowledge of the universe. I thought that this was fabulous! Many of his discussions were above my ability to understand. I am not a mathematician or a scientist. I was impressed though with what he had to say.

I cannot remember a time when I was excited to read Genesis but John Lennox has made it seem important to study. He has highlighted the creation story for me in a fascinating manner. I highly recommend this book! show less