God's Advocate

If it is not quite evident yet on this blog, religion and theology are two topics of great interest to me.  I have no formal training in either area, however, I do have a strong interest in these topics.  I would have to say that what I have learned is typical of the auto-didact, my reading is not particularly structured or systematic, but I think I am fairly well-informed on the issue of the existence of God.  Dean Overman's A Case for the Existence of God is a serious, intellectually dense, stimulating, and compelling in arguing for the existence of a God, a creator.  Overman, though he doesn't beat you over the head with it, is also a Christian.  However, as someone who is a lawyer, a theology student at Princeton Theological Seminary, and a former Templeton scholar in information theory, physics, and religion at Oxford. Overman is a formidable intellect in defense of God's existence, not an evangelist for Christianity.  

The book is only 160 pages long and contains 13 chapters. However, if you read the afterward and the three appendices, the book stretches out to around 200 pages.  In these pages, Overman packs a tremendous amount of argumentation and information.  I would not recommend reading it in one sitting.  You need time to digest the information presented.

Overman begins by arguing that if science can theorize about imperceptible objects, then one cannot be prevented from making arguments about God using theoretical and not empirical concepts too.  I think this argument is particularly timely given the fact that physicists recently spoke about finding the God particle (Higgs Boson), but cannot actually see it, we can only find traces of it.  

Overman argues that there is sufficient reason for the universe to be not only intelligible, but also rational and not merely random.  "The conundrum of using reason to argue against the existence of reason appears odd if not self-defeating. The intelligibility of physical reality appears to require the principle of sufficient reason." (25)

He goes on to also show why it is reasonable to conceive of a creator who is outside of its own creation and that our universe likely has a creator.  "Don Page, one of Stephen Hawking's collaborators, understands this issue well and uses the example of an artist's drawing of a circle to illustrate that the absence of a beginning or an end does not remove the artist as the cause of the circle." (40)

Overman next goes to the problem of a supernatural creation, but first he uses science to show how difficult a natural and random creation would be. "Moreover, because a creation out of nothing is not within the power of natural causes, one rationally conclude that, if the universe began to exist, it had a supernatural cause." (43) Why is it tough to prove a natural creation? Overman argues that at the very beginning of creation, at what is known as Planck time, there were no laws of physics, actually no physics at all. He elaborates," To be rational the atheist must show how something comes from nothing. Otherwise, the existence of something is not explained, unless that existence is a necessary existence, independent of anything else. One has to have a starting point, and if an atheist is not going to beg the question why her starting point exists, she must begin from really nothing- what Francis Schaeffer called nothing-nothing. This means no laws, no quantum fields, no wave functions, no observers, no energy, no particles, and no motion." (51)
The advantage of the theistic view is that God who is outside of the universe is the cause of creation. As a another trace of a creator, Overman spends the better part of "The new mathematics of information is consistent with the reasons for the existence of God emphasized in this book. These reasons are based on the argument for a necessary being, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics, the order and rationality inherent in the universe,the fine-tuning of the universe for the development of conscious life, the evidential force of religious experiences, and the reason there is something rather than nothing." (73) Chapter 6 detailing how intelligle and mathematic the universe truly is. Overman writes, "The new mathematics of information is consistent with the reasons for the existence of God emphasized in this book. These reasons are based on the argument for a necessary being, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics, the order and rationality inherent in the universe,the fine-tuning of the universe for the development of conscious life, the evidential force of religious experiences, and the reason there is something rather than nothing." (73)
As he continues building his case for God, Overman spends some time considering the implications of quantum physics for the universe and for the history of the debate over God's existence. As Overman notes, many of the most famous skeptics and opponents of religion based their arguments on a Newtonian scientific paradigm. With the work of scientists like Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, and Albert Einstein, the atheistic arguments have not ncessarily kept pace with science. To use one example, Overman shows that a purely materialistic view of reality creates problems for trying to make sense of our world. He writes, "The observer cannot make the measurement or observation, and also be part of the probability description of a physical system. The observer must always be someone outside of the probability description of the wave function."(77) this is an application of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Overman devotes most of chapter 8 to a discussion of the relatively new field of algorithmic information theory. Making use of this field, Overman makes a strong case that information may be the new paradigm for energy and an integral component of reality. It is also not reliant on matter for its existence. Overman explains, "Even when one attempts to apply a reductionist method and press on to deep-down reality, one finds that the foundation for all energy and matter appears to be an expression of information. This may remind one of the claim that 'in the beginning was the Word (Logos)." (86-87)
As you might expect from a trained lawyer, Overman does spend some space on the formal proofs for God's existence, relying heavily on the philosopher and writer, Mortimer J. Adler's book How to Think About God.  Overman doesn't think that proofs are superfluous to a belief in God and to the Christian faith, but he also doesn't feel there is any particular reason that one has to be convinced by reason to be a theist and Christian.
One of the weakest parts of the book is his argument, which isn't original, that without God there is no morality and no manner by which we can establish morality or distinguish between good and evil.  The famed philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell's classic What I Believe convinced me that an atheist can be moral and can make a case for ethics and morality. Overman's hyperbolic argument leads him to make comments like this: "Our distinction between good and evil between right and wrong are absurd if there is no God. If there is no God, a serial killer and a benevolent charity are ultimately of equal moral value. (Actually there is no moral value if there is no God.)" (89)  Now, this is just rhetorical grandstanding, in my opinion.  Overman is too smart to not be aware of philosophies like Utilitarianism that could make a compelling argument why a charity is more morally valuable than a serial killer.  If taking to its limits, Overman's argument makes some sense.  In other words, I believe that one should not murder or steal because I believe that God has created all of us humans.  Similarly, I can argue for environmental restraint because again God has created our world.  I do have an absolute standard that an atheist does not. However, just because there is no absolute moral or ethical standard does not preclude the development of a secular ethical and moral framework.  Also, this type of absolute standard has not prevented Jews, Christians, and Muslims from committing horrible atrocities against one another and even within their own faith traditions.
Overman does do a nice job of trying to argue for other approaches to God beyond the merely rational method.  In this portion of his work he appeals to famous scientists and philosophers like Blaise Pascal, Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber, Simone Weil, Mortimer Adler, and others.  Everyone one of these individuals possessed a keen intellect, but they also saw clearly the limits of reason.  I was familiar with most of these thinkers and their arguments, but if you are not, this is a good introduction to some alternate ways to attempt to develop an understanding and relationship to God.
In his appendices, Overman expands on why he sees the materialist and atheistic case for creation fall short.  Appealing once again to information theory, Overman argues, "The laws of physics are basically compact formulas, the millions of instructions (information) contained in the smallest living organism's DNA requires sequences that are too random and contain too much information to be derived from compact formulas.  If I understand this correctly, Overman is arguing that life as we know it cannot be derived from the relatively simple algorithms available in the natural world.  He cites the work of physicist Paul Davies, who has written a series of books that have over time drawn him to the side of theism.  Davies writes, "The heart of my objection is this: The laws of physics that operate between atoms and molecules are, almost by definition, simple and general.  We would not expect them alone to lead inexorably to something both highly complex and highly specific. ... genomes are more or less random sequences of base pairs, and that this very randomness is essential if they are to play the role of evolvable, information-rich molecules." (Davies, The Fifth Miracle, 254-256)
Overman concludes by invoking the work of the mathematician Kurt Godel and his Incompleteness Theorem which argues that mathematics and other systems of information cannot ultimately prove their own validity.  I am butchering this, but you can look up Godel's argument if you wish.  Here is Overman's take on it: Godel's theorem demonstrates that mathematics  is incomplete because the system leaves unanswered the truth or falsity of certain mathematical propositions that are the logical results of valid mathematical inferences. . . . There is clearly a limit on the ability of human reasoning to know that logical thought processes will lead to truth."
This is not an easy read and requires the reader to ponder many new and difficult concepts.  Overman does a masterful job of making many of these concepts comprehensible.  His use of appendices allows the non-specialist to stick to the text, but does offer more detailed analysis of these ideas, if you are interested.  He also uses extensive footnotes, but I did find these to be mostly helpful.  A most important book for the ongoing debate regarding the existence of God.

Czar