God, Chance and Purpose: Can God Have It Both Ways?

Description

The book explores the role of such ideas as probabilities, chance, randomness, and purpose, to approach the existence of God. Essentially, the thesis is that chance or determinism are not directly linked with the presence of God. The statistical explanations are interesting, but the book is flawed on many levels.

Firstly, nowhere does the writer define what he means with the term "God". Simple as it may sound, it is an essential part of the discourse and to philosophically ignore it places the argumentative foundation in serious danger. Essentially, the writer falls victim of his own criticism of "taking variables for granted" when calculating probabilities. The book casually accepts a monotheistic - perhaps even a specifically Christian - version of "God" with all the associated shortsightedness this produces. Would the argument be different should we consider a different "God"? The answer must be yes.

Secondly, the writer's approach to quantum mechanics is both outdated and flawed. It should come as no surprise that a statistician would opt for the ensemble interpretation of quantum mechanics, arguing that there is no paradox at all (e.g. with kittens in boxes or electrons passing through double slits), because, in his opinion, quantum mechanics do not apply to individual electrons - or kittens - but to vast numbers of them. The fact that he argues that, essentially, quantum mechanics - devised to be used with individual particles - should not apply to individual particles poses no problem or paradox to the him.

All in all, it's an interesting to read book, with short chapters and not bloated with mathematics, but it's philosophically flawed and offers little to the age-old metaphysical questions of Who are we and Is there a God