More Than Matter?

Is There More to Life Than Molecules?

The question of what it is to be a human person is the biggest intellectual question of our day.' Keith Ward has taught philosophy and theology in British universities for the past 40 years, and he is now weighing in on a major intellectual battle: whether human persons are purely materialistic - nothing but matter - or whether there is another, deeply valuable part of us, which transcends our bodies in nature and moral worth: the soul. For centuries philosophers have debated the question, but the battle has taken the limelight through the works of the New Atheists. In this book Professor Ward guides the reader through a panoply of thinkers and traditions, arguing that there is more to humanity than bodies. In fact, he argues, there is more to the entire universe than the naked eye perceives. (And contrary to the New Atheist assertions, there are good philosophical arguments to back this up!)

Modern Physics and Ancient Faith

Scientific materialism grew out of scientific discoveries made from the time of Copernicus up to the beginning of the twentieth century. These discoveries led many thoughtful people to the conclusion that the universe has no cause or purpose, that the human race is an accidental by-product of blind material forces, and that the ultimate reality is matter itself. Barr contends that the revolutionary discoveries of the twentieth century run counter to this line of thought. He uses five of these discoveries—the Big Bang theory, unified field theories, anthropic coincidences, Gödel’s Theorem in mathematics, and quantum theory—to cast serious doubt on the materialist’s view of the world and to give greater credence to Judeo-Christian claims about God and the universe.