He writes well, with humour, and has put in some time on the research. Unfortunately, or perhaps not, he avoids the kernel of the problem. Right at the start, he has a quick attack on the First Cause argument. He sets up the most naive version of the argument, and shoots it down. The rest of the book is given to the demolition of various other 'proofs', and is generally unobjectionable, since these proofs do deserve demolition. He is particularly good on the ontological proof of St. Ambrose. His treatment is marred by some ad-hominem attacks on American fundamentalists and their political backers. One understands how the influence of these folk is an irritant, but the source of an argument should not influence our appoach to its validity.
The key question for me (and as I have just learned, Leibnitz!) is: Why is there anything?[2]
Why is there any thing at all?
This is not a question about prior causes, things that were there in the past and caused what is there now. It is a question about now, and always,
and here and everywhere. Why, now, is there any thing?
There are two possibilities: (1) There does not have to be a reason. (2) There has to be a reason.
(1) is an interesting possibility, that I need more time to think about. If we accept (2), then the reason is a being that is at least as real as the thing, and we are quickly led to the existence of a being that contains its own reason for existing. Let's call it B. Then there are two possibilities: (2.1) B is the space-time we detect by our senses and explore by the scientific method of conjecture and refutation. (2.2) B is different from space-time, but somehow sustains it, and B.
Many thinking people, among them some of my friends, believe (2.1), so it is not crazy. All my life, I have believed, and still believe, (2.2). I could be wrong, and I don't understand how B goes about sustaining space-time, or why. I do know that I will never understand anything about this unless I believe, to begin with. Augustine said: You must believe that you may understand. Faith is an act of the will. It is not compelled. I accept that (2.2) is one step more complicated than (2.1), and hence violates Occam's Razor. Neither (2.1) nor (2.2) can be disproved, but they have profoundly different consequences for our view of life.
Accepting (2.2), we have two possibilities: (2.2.1) B is not intelligent,
or (2.2.2) B is intelligent.
As far as our attitude, hopes and moral stance go, (2.2.1) has no consequences that differ from those following from (2.1), whereas
(2.2.2) provides ground for hope, and meaning. (This not an argument for its truth.)
(It is also interesting to note, in passing, that without (2.2.2) we have no reason to suppose that experience, or any thing, is intelligible. The scientists who laid the foundation for that very 'modern science' which is taken by many as disproving the existence of God were motivated to search for intelligible patterns by their belief that the universe is made to a plan.)
[1 What is the source for this?
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