Arising out of a day conference in 2001, organized by Christians in Science (www.cis.org.uk), this collection of essays, by top grade theologians and scientists, attempts to tackle questions like: How can belief in truth be maintained in a postmodern world? Can science really be objective? Are Christianity and science inevitably in conflict? What does quantum physics imply about the nature of reality? Can we be sure about anything?

This isn’t the kind of book to give to anyone. It is 260 pages long, and uses phrases like, ‘The basic phenomenology of quantum processes is therefore perfectly objective’. You’ll need to be careful how you use the book. This book could really help you if you want to firm up your own epistemology, or want to grow in your thinking. You will have some of the intellectual foundations to help you remain confident that the Christian gospel is a gospel that is a sure, confident and certainly known hope, rather than a continual theorising or human projection. This book tackles that subject masterfully well. It is particularly good on new scientific enquiry and how the Christian can think about that subject.

The book is a fully-fledged response to the attack on the idea of truth in science, which takes scientific enquiry down to the level of a socially determined discussion about the world. With the ‘Death of the Author’ or the idea of a truth-maker or signifier, who gives scientific fact and interpretation its value now? G. K. Chesterton once remarked, ‘Modern intelligence won’t accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority.’ The idea is that the attack is not just on science, but on reality outside our own minds. This of course would include Christian belief. So is Christianity only in my mind, or is it out there too? In Philosophy Alvin Plantinga has been arguing with the ‘Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism’ that naturalism can’t furnish us with reliable truth gathering apparatus. So this would defeat any rational justification for naturalism.

The rebuttal to this attack on truth in science from these essays is actually very convincing and decisive. We can know reality because we are made in the image of God with rational minds and science thus takes the higher theology of exploring God’s world to bring him glory. This is great stuff and nearly counterbalances the critical tone of the book.

I think it does, however, perhaps succumb a little too quickly to the popular identification of postmodernism with negative philosophical and theological factors while overlooking the positives. I’m not a postmodern enthusiast, but we are commanded, not invited, by Scripture to see the good as well. Too many evangelical responses to postmodernism are too negative, and that kills the possibility of real conversation Derrida, de Saussure, Lyotard, are certainly relevant, but continually underscoring the issue as being relativistic subjectivism, religious pluralism, crystal healing and ‘no-truth’ is a throw that is a little wide of the mark. I found that the scholarship which dealt with the actual explanation of what postmodernism is a little disappointing at a mere two pages. There was no talk of the backdrop of Hegel, or Heidegger that lies behind the postmodern worldview either. There is more thrown in as you go through the individual essays. However, it could still do with a more thorough treatment that incorporates some of the sociological and anthropological factors. They could be given a more thorough and detailed philosophical analysis, as well as a slightly warmer, more positive tone.

In essence the counter-attack that is used is critical realism. We can, carefully, know reality. Not just hoping, but knowing. The epistemological model proposed by Carson is worth repeating again too. ‘Human beings know some things truly, even if they are the first to acknowledge that we cannot know anything exhaustively’. Burke, concludes:

We do not fear the discoveries of science, for what we discover is God’s handiwork in the first place. Philosophically we are critical realists, with a firm theological base for regarding the world as “real”, but aware too that our tumbling attempts to understand it are error prone … but in the end we find a coherent, intellectually satisfying position that reflects the glory of God

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