God and the Universe Book

God and the Universe is like a philosophical heavyweight title fight. Arthur Gibson--a philosopher from the University of Surrey, with an impressive CV from Cambridge--wades into the ring and slogs it out with the big questions which surround theology, cosmology and philosophy. He understands the philosophical and theological implications of modern theories about the beginning of the universe, and challenges the established antipathy between science and religion with an erudition that has mastered minds from Aristotle to Hawking and from Aquinas to Einstein. Without proposing facile, reactionary solutions, Gibson offers a fresh way forward in the relationship between science and religion.In four exhaustive sections he covers the problem of religious and scientific language, the space-time continuum, the cosmology of life and cosmological ethics. In each section he aims to show how the language of cosmology, theology and metaphysics should converge. He suggests that "the philosopher and the cosmologist are midway between the poet and the physicist". Gibson is a professional philosopher and he argues his case with the density and precision which his profession requires. As a result, this book is not for the faint-hearted or lazy-minded. A basic philosophical knowledge, at least, is a required background and speed readers need not apply. Despite the density of his ideas, Gibson writes with lucidity and elegance. His arguments are carefully developed and cautiously applied. The final result is a challenging step away from the fragmented chaos of post-modernism, towards an exciting new synthesis of the differing strands of modern thought. --Dwight LongeneckerRead More