Before I go on to assess the book I must say something about the controversy, which is prominent in the United States's education system and is beginning to have its effects here in the UK too.

It is an argument between those who hold to so-called Intelligent Design (ID) and those who believe natural processes alone can explain the origin of life and then its subsequent development. (For my own assessment of the argument one can continue to read this review and/or find my article devoted to the subject by clicking here. This review is going to cover only Denis Alexander's points.)

The latter group (against ID) includes many Christians - even evangelical Christians - who believe that natural processes for the origin of life (biogenesis) and evolution can be reconciled with Genesis 1. They usually hold that the matter of the universe including the natural laws of nature (such as gravity) were created by God and finally tuned to allow, stars, galaxies, planets like earth, and then life to form. In this view God endowed His creation with a 'fruitful potentiality' to produce all that we see around us today. (For short we refer to this view as TE meaning Theistic Evolution or Theistic Evolutionist.)

The first group says that life is so so complex and information-rich, that an Intelligent Design is needed to explain it.
Part of their case is summarised in the following quote from a recent letter to The Times which is commenting on the famous atheist philosopher Anthony Flew who when examining the complexity of simple life was converted to some kind of Theism
Commenting on Flew's change of mind, Dr. Jonathan Witt writing to the Times (22nd December 2004) says:

An important part of the argument is that the complexity of the simplest form of life contains information in the form of 'code' or 'words' or 'language' (DNA and RNA for example). It is contended that the origin of any code has to be Mind. If one is examining ancient markings on a rock, which are not just complex patterns but a language, one will conclude that they are the products of an intelligent mind.  A detailed support for this view comes from the mathematician Bill Dembski who has written extensively on mathematics and information.

Please note that advocates of ID are not proposing a belief in a young earth or a particular religion, even though some of them may hold also to a young earth view. They simply are saying that life requires Mind for its origin and also its development as the amount of its information content increases. (There is more information in the DNA of an elephant than of a bacterium.)

Against this view is the view of evolutionists and theistic evolutionists that the ID people are invoking the 'god of the gaps'. It is true, they say, that there in no viable theory of the origin of life - but one should not put any 'god' in that gap to explain it. Science is about finding physical causes for physical phenomena, not invoking God every time science is faced with a mystery.

Those holding to TE say that to invoke God to explain part of creation is to attempt to introduce Him as part of the data of natural science and that is unacceptable. The Christian doctrine of Creation says creation is separate from God and therefore one must not look for God in Creation.

Also whereas naturalistic science says science is defined as that study, which always looks for physical explanations, the ID people, say 'no', science means 'follow the evidence' and the evidence leads to ID.

Denis Alexander is an evangelical Christian and Cambridge geneticist who holds to the TE view.

A very important aspect of his recent book: Rebuilding the Matrix is to defend that view and criticise ID. However there is much more to his book than that.  This assessment will consider the other parts of his argument. In addition to my main purpose, which is to try to counter his support for TE and defend ID, I will admit the validity of some of his criticisms. In writing this review I will be referring also to his other much smaller book Beyond Belief which he recently wrote with Robert White.

In many ways this is a very good, thought-provoking read, to be recommended to all, no matter what their personal positions are with respect to Young Earth Creationism, Intelligent Design, Theistic Evolution or even Atheism. There is much in its theology and perhaps philosophy (especially the history of both) that is worth getting to grips with. Indeed both sides of the TE vs ID debate really do need to take cognisance of the theological and philosophical issues it raises. If they don't, their arguments will simply shoot past one another. This would be a pity because both sides have arguments that merit serious consideration.

Fairly soon I expect to be teaching a brand-new course in the history of science, philosophy and theology, at a university in a non-western country. For the reasons outlined above I intend to include this book in the recommended reading.

Although I will admit the validity of his some of his theological criticisms of the way ID is sometimes formulated, I disagree with his theology. It is, I believe, the nature of his mistaken theology of creation and the immanence of God that causes him so strongly to oppose ID.

Underlying even Christian scientist understanding of the natural world is the all-pervading metaphysic of naturalism. So often, even for a Christian, the belief that all physical effects must have physical causes is an article of faith. This is a faith for which, in principle, there could be no evidence. Physical science examines physical things and therefore it could never show that non-physical things don't exist. If it could demonstrate in a 'Theory Of Everything' or ‘Grand Unified Theory’ (TOE or GUT) that the physical universe is a closed system of cause and effect it might have evidence for its faith. However many, including T. F. Torrance (decades ago) and now I believe Stephen Hawking, say that Gödel’s theorem makes a quest for a TOE fruitless. (See for example Stanley Jaki’s paper ‘A late awakening to Gödel in Physics’). Obviously science needs to assume for most of its work that there are physical causes for physical effects but its ontology must not stick to that belief with a fundamentalist fervour.

Indeed mind over matter is something we experience every moment of our waking lives when the decisions we make and the thoughts we have (which in principle could not be physical - or so I would argue) effect the movements of our bodies. Readers who are familiar with Popper's 'The Self and Its Brain' he will recognise the way I have framed this point.

Denis Alexander's Valuable Contribution to the Discussion.

1. His chapter 4: 'The Bridge to Disenchantment - The Roots of Modern Science - From the Greeks to the Scientific Revolution' is magnificent and full of theologically inspiring quotations from the early pioneers of the scientific revolution.

Fundamental to his thesis is that the Biblical doctrine of Creation where God is not limited by the pre-existing forms of the Platonists nor the teleology of Aristotle is essential for the advance of experimental science where nature must be examined for what it actually is, rather than what the Greeks thought it must be according to their deductions from the first principles of their philosophy.

This is a fairly well-known point but it deserves to be repeated, not least to show how much experimental science depended on the Christian worldview for its liberation.

This view of creation as liberated from theological impositions; eternal forms and ideas; mistaken teleology; and also from spirits and gods, as part of the data of natural science, enabled scientists to get on with their work of examining nature as a genuinely free creation of the one God who is consistent, faithful and rational.

However I think he takes this very good point too far and it leads to his fear that ID is trying to smuggle God back into His creation as if He were part of it. This is fundamental to his anti ID thesis. I explain later what I mean.

2. His discussion of Galileo's controversy with the Catholic Church (p107 – p124) is interesting and challenges pre-conceived notions of a Galileo who stood up against an obscurantist religion of a bygone age. Denis Alexander shows us that nothing could be further from the truth.

3. His Chapter 7 'The Warfare Merchants' is a very good introduction to the man Darwin - what influenced him; his meticulous scientific method; his theological reflections; and his honest recognition of the problems facing his famous theory.

4. His discussion of paradigm changes in science and the enormous difficulties in bringing about such changes. (p21ff)

5. His outline of other ancient accounts of how the world came to be with a comparison with the much more impressive Genesis account. (p324ff)

6. His reasons for believing atheism to be incoherent. (p 247)

7. His whole chapter 8 entitled 'Reweaving the Rainbow', which is a good discussion of scientific knowledge and religious knowledge and their relation to one another.

Quibbles

1. Pythagoras. Denis Alexander thinks that, because Bertrand Russell made fun of Pythagoras's odd religious beliefs, Russell had a low view of him. (p 68) Although Denis Alexander is not making an important point here here I should say that Russell regarded this ancient Greek philosopher as having one of the greatest minds of all time. (History of Western Philosophy page 49). It was the reality of numbers that led Pythagoras to argue for a transcendent world impinging on our world - an argument that, right up to the present day, has inspired many philosophers.  The only other person to receive such a Russell estimation ‘of one of the greatest minds of all times’ is Leibniz.  (History of Western Philosophy page 563).

2. Racism. In chapter 2 where he shows that science can be misused to support doubtful ideologies, he describes how in the 19thC and early 20thC scientific facts were assembled to support the racist theories. He rightly (I hope, but I am not sure) assumes that his modern readers reject racism. However it would have been helpful to actually counter the apparent strong scientific case for racism he describes - the case that was made by scientists of a bygone age by other scientific discoveries that have superseded them. Unfortunately he doesn't give us any help other than the very general view that of course those theories were wrong. At the end of this chapter he makes a forceful moral case against racism but does not give a scientific response to the earlier scientific case he ably described.

3. His discussion of various understandings of Chaos (p334ff) does not seem to allow for Polkinghorne's view that the Chaos in the macro world belongs to the very nature of the created order and it is not just that we don't know all the facts about initial conditions. Indeed it is this interpretation of Chaos theory that Polkinghorne uses to support his theory of Divine Action in nature and therefore the efficacy of prayer. If I understand it correctly Polkinghorne sees God's providential action in history and the natural world as 'information input' rather than an extra 'push', for which his interpretation of Chaos theory allows.

4. I was surprised that he seemed to side with Newton in his different view of the natural world than that held by Leibniz. Denis Alexander holds (with Newton) that physical laws (such as gravity) are external to matter, whereas Leibniz held that they are internal to matter. Denis Alexander seems to assume that Leibniz sided with Aristotle's view (from which science needed to be liberated) that purpose in inherent in matter.

If I understand it rightly what Einstein showed us was that the laws of nature are internal to what matter, energy, space, time and light are in relation to one another. Physical law is not a 'third collection of things' externally relating one aspect of the physical world to another. It was Leibniz who Einstein proved right not Newton.

5. He criticises Platonism and neo-Platonism for their belief in eternal forms. (p 190ff) Now of course I agree with this criticism. However he doesn't tell us why the Platonists believed in such a transcendent world. They didn't just make it up without reason! It was the problem of 'universals', which made Plato realise that this world must be related to an eternal world. Pythagoras was the first (as far as we know) to recognise the problem - which he saw in the reality of numbers.  Although the Platonic solution is unsatisfactory, at least it was an attempt to engage a real problem. I am not sure that Denis Alexander realises this and my doubt is strengthened by his seeming praise of nominalism. For a good discussion of the problem of Universals see Bertrand Russell’s ‘The Problems of Philosophy’ for his chapter on that very subject.

6. John Wheeler's Participatory Universe. Denis Alexander refers to this very strong form of the Anthropic Principle and then dismisses it. (page 410) At first it does seem bizarre but I gather Wheeler was arguing for something that was a logical consequence of quantum mechanics - not so easily dismissable.  It alleges that human consciousness is needed for the development of the universe even before humans came on the scene! If that is really so then it might explain how a 'fallen' human soul could affect the world of nature before humans existed! I don't expect anyone to take my theory seriously but I do hope that one day someone might just look at the theological implications of Wheeler's view rather than merely dismissing it.

Deism, Immanence and god of the gaps.

His criticism of ID's theology can be summarised under the heading 'god of the gaps' and Deism.

Here his criticisms of ID have some force but I suspect all that ID needs to do is be more careful in its use of language. I also think that, despite his many denials and criticisms of others - (that they are really Deists or semi-Deists), Denis Alexander, in his understanding of how nature must be examined, approaches a kind of Deism albeit one of the original warm-hearted variety. When criticising others for Deism he consciously uses Samuel Johnson's rather disparaging view of the belief as a cold-hearted belief in a distant God. Denis Alexander is not a Deist in that sense and not at all a Deist of any kind in his belief in the Biblical miracles, the Incarnation, God's providence in history, personal healing etc. For example in Chapter 13 he uses the concept of the Immanence of God to justify his belief in miracles. However in his understanding of how the created order must be examined, it is difficult to distinguish his view from that of Deism.  Here I must distinguish between the two kinds of Deists.

The cold-hearted Deist of Johnson's definition holds a belief in a distant disinterested God who merely got the universe going.

However the original Deism was sometimes more 'religious' than that.

A warm-hearted Deism is quite compatible with a belief in the immanence of God IF the immanence of God has no physical consequences. So a Deist can pray for a closer relation with God. However, if he is to be consistent,  he cannot pray to God to help him with a physical problem. This is because he believes that God created a physical universe, which is entirely self-contained and, apart from its origin, completely self-explanatory. Denis Alexander strongly denies holding to any form of Deism. However I confess that holding the view that all physical phenomena only have physical explanations (so, for example, the detectable action of God must not be allowed in biogenesis), seems like Deism to me - at least in the laboratory. Of course the methodology of physical science must pursue physical explanations, but that must not lead to an ontology that says only detectable physical explanations exist.

 

But what about Denis Alexander's criticisms of the ID movement?

In Beyond Belief he refers to Michael Behe (a leading proponent of ID) as saying that some biological structures can have purely natural explanations and others need ID. (page 133). Denis Alexander goes on to tell us that a true Theist holds that all of nature is created and sustained by God not just some of it. Indeed so, and ID supporters need to be careful in the way they word their pronouncements.

However what does Denis Alexander himself mean when he says that all of nature needs the continual presence of God? He tells us that it exists because God continually wills it to exist. But what does that mean? I found his discussion of the immanence of God in Creation very confusing and perhaps confused. However he insists in the belief in the immanence of God in upholding the created order and then uses illustrations.

He compares the relation of God to His creation as an author to a play he has written. (p 317) That sounds like Deism to me. An author may continue to be pleased with a play that he has written but its continued existence does not depend on him/her at all.

He also compares it to the relation of the sun to the biosphere. (p 317) Without the sun the biosphere would quickly die but the sun does not direct the physical processes on earth and what may evolve. But a Christian does believe that human beings (physically and spiritually) were meant to be here. We don't accept the radical dualism that says that only the spiritual matters and the physical is of minor importance or of no importance at all.

 His Deism becomes clearer when he tells us that "physical phenomena require physical processes". page 281.

I consider that Denis Alexander makes two fundamental mistakes in his understanding of creation - mistakes that lead him to have faith in the statement quoted immediately above.

1. The primary substance of God's creation was physical matter.

2. 'The Universe represents a seamless cloth of God's creative activity' (Beyond Belief page 29)

I believe that physical matter is not the primary 'stuff' of creation but a secondary manifestation of God's work.

In his 'History of Western Philosophy' Bertrand Russell mentions several questions which he believes are important but beyond the bounds of scientific or philosophical enquiry. Two of them are 'What is mind?' and 'What is matter?' Let us consider the second and leave the first for another discussion.

What is matter? Leibniz argued that matter couldn't be made of matter. (He also argued that the mind couldn't be the brain. Brain-mind identity believers have never managed to begin to counter his points.)

His argument with reference to matter went something like this: If you break matter up into tiny pieces of finite size they could always be broken in two again. Therefore any 'particle' of finite size cannot be fundamental. If a fundamental particle exists it must be infinitely small. However since a definition of matter is that it occupies space, matter cannot be made of matter, it must be made of 'souls'.

Post Einstein people may say that matter comes from energy. However a normal definition of energy is that it is matter in actual or potential motion and therefore the belief that matter comes from energy begs the question.

When we consider matter/energy as a wave or field we find that it is a wave understandable by mathematics.

In one of his non-religious books on Quantum theory, (Quantum Theory – A Very Short Introduction) John Polkinghorne says it is intelligibility rather than objectivity from which all physical existence emerges.

So information, (in the form of mathematics?) lies in and behind all physical reality.

The theoretical physicist Paul Davies in ‘The New Scientist’ recently wrote: "Normally we think of the world as composed of simple, clod-like, material particles, and information as a derived phenomenon attached to special, organised states of matter. But maybe it is the other way around: perhaps the Universe is really a frolic of primal information, and material objects a complex secondary manifestation.” (New Scientist, January 30, 1999, Pg. 3). (Rather than the other way round: information emerging from mindless particles and energy.)

If Paul Davies is right then it resonates with the Bible’s teaching that ‘Word’ is the foundation of all things.

I believe the following also may be relevant:

These are words from Bertrand Russell’s ‘Study of Mathematics’:

And we should consider this from Paul Dirac (Nobel Prize: Quantum Theory):

At the present time, Quantum Theory seems to expose this non material world, so Paul Davies can edit a book and call it: The Ghost in the Atom. 

When we press the question far enough do we really think that we understand any physical processes in terms of other physical processes - say one pebble hitting another? The electrons, which supposedly surround the nucleus in the atoms of the pebbles are not tiny hard or soft things. So what are they? They seem to emerge from non-material information.

Information in the form of mathematical code or something equivalent to languages must have its origin in Mind. If you receive a letter written in a language or mathematical code, you cannot discern the origin of the language or code from the chemistry of the ink or paper. Its message is explained not by the chemistry of the ink and paper but the mind who wrote it.

This resonates with the Biblical teaching that God creates by His Word and upholds all things by the Word of His power. 

This does not mean that God is part of His creation (Denis Alexander's fear of ID). We have to be careful to distinguish between Creating Word and created information.

Again in a recent edition of 'Science and Christian Belief' (which Denis Alexander edits with Ernest Lucas) I was glad to read a marvellous article by Peter Bussey (Beyond Materialism – Aquinus, Duns Scotus and Quantum Physics) making a similar point about matter. He likens the old mind-brain problem to mind-matter. It is mind that gives matter its form in terms of 'laws of nature'. Without form there would not be formless matter there would be no matter. It is a brilliant article linking consciousness; quantum theory; a realist view of mathematics; the mind; and the laws of nature, with the nature of matter itself.

He comments that while biologists are looking for more physical explanations for biological complexity, physicists are looking to non-physical mind to explain matter itself!

Once one realises that mind gives rise to matter then one is not far off from ID. It is very different from Denis Alexander's immanence of God, which seems to have no bearing on the physical. Bussey's argument is not put in the same way as ID, but one can't help noting that life itself is not just complexity, but information.

Life too is information but surely of a different order.

To quote Dawkins (in his The Blind Watchmaker [TBW]):

"What lies at the heart of every living thing is not a fire, warm breath, nor a 'spark of life'. It is information, words, instructions . . . Think of a billion discrete digital characters . . . If you want to understand life, think about information technology."

It is this information nature of life that Dembski tackles in his work. I am glad to hear that Paul Davies has come to Dembski's defence against his critics. He says:

“Dembski’s attempt to quantify design, or provide mathematical criteria for design, is extremely useful. I’m concerned that the suspicion of a hidden agenda is going to prevent that sort of work from receiving the recognition it deserves".  (Quoted in L. Witham, By Design [San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2003] and referred to in Dembski's Open Letter to the National Association of Scholars in Response to Paul Gross’s Article on Intelligent Design in the NAS’s September 2003 Issue of Science Insights)

In 'Beyond Belief' Denis Alexander refers to Dembski's work but passes it by without engaging with it.

Denis Alexander, although critical of Dawkins' views on other matters, does seem to accept his view in TBW that random mutations and the filter of natural selection can explain our physical existence. My article www.apologetics.fsnet.co.uk/dawkins.htm seeks to refute that. Anyway as a Christian Denis Alexander must surely believe that humans were meant to be here. If random mutation and natural selection are the cause of our physical existence then it cannot be argued that we were meant to be here.

Now, let us consider the second belief (above) that Denis Alexander has about creation:

2. 'The Universe represents a seamless cloth of God's creative activity' he says. (Beyond Belief p. 29)

But that is not the Biblical worldview! Among the many possible interpretations of Genesis 1 we learn that God did not create everything at once. There was a sequence of a relatively small number of steps.

Putting aside the interpretation of the Hebrew 'bara', we learn that, among other things, God first created nature without any life and then went on to create living but non conscious life and then on to conscious life and finally human beings.

If this very obvious interpretation of Genesis 1 is taken seriously one cannot reduce the knowledge of life to the knowledge of physics and chemistry, just as one cannot reduce the knowledge of the initial 'stuff' of creation to the 'nothing' from which God created it.

Similarly I do not believe it will ever be possible to reduce knowledge of conscious mind to biology. The fashionable word is 'emerge'. We are told that mind and consciousness ‘emerged’ from the complexity of the brain. (Not that Denis Alexander says this). But the word 'emerge' is just a word. It explains absolutely nothing. Although the word 'emerge' can give the impression that we might know what went on, it doesn't tell us anything.

No one can explain how the original creation emerged out of nothing. (Electrons emerging from a vacuum as in interpretations of quantum theory's understanding of the implications of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, is not a theory of how they emerged from absolutely nothing.)

There is no viable theory of biogenesis and no theory of the existence of consciousness from biology.

Denis Alexander assumes that to invoke God to explain the origin of life is to claim that He intervened in his creation. (p 318) But that is not so. The creation of life in Genesis 1 is an integral part of the Creation processes not an intervention in it.

In all this discussion I am reminded of what guided Einstein. To quote Einstein:

Here is ID par excellence!

However Denis Alexander is critical of the Design argument in general. Here I refer again to the writings of Bertrand Russell - an unlikely ally.

Bertrand Russell greatly respects the argument from design especially as expounded by Leibniz. He writes:

He regards this familiar argument as having "no formal logical defect". He rightly points out that it does not prove the infinite or good God of normal religious belief but nevertheless says, that "if valid", (and Russell does not give any argument against it) it demonstrates that there is a Mind which is "vastly wiser and more powerful than we are".  (See his chapter on Leibniz in his History of Western Philosophy.)

With the unexpected backing of Bertrand Russell, please my fellow Christians, do not be ashamed of the argument from Design!

When considering the origin of life that is the simple point that ID is making! I am sure it needs to tidy up its theology, philosophy and wording but why attack it?

Postscript.

Not being in the same scientific league and Denis Alexander I cannot argue with his biology. However he says several time (eg page 289) that Darwinian evolution provides the paradigm within which all biological research is carried out. He says:

Now compare that statement with the following statement from Professor Philip S. Skell, Member, National Academy of Sciences, Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus Penn State University. In 2005 he said:

Many of the scientific criticisms of (neo-Darwinism) are well known by scientists in various disciplines, including the disciplines of chemistry and biochemistry, in which I have done my work. I have found that some of my scientific colleagues are very reluctant to acknowledge the existence of problems with evolutionary theory to the general public. They display an almost religious zeal for a strictly Darwinian view of biological origins.
Darwinian evolution is an interesting theory about the remote history of life. Nonetheless, it has little practical impact on those branches of science that do not address questions of biological history (largely based on stones, the fossil evidence). Modern biology is engaged in the examination of tissues from living organisms with new methods and instruments. None of the great discoveries in biology and medicine over the past century depended on guidance from Darwinian evolution---it provided no support.