Doubleday, New York, 1994; 528 pp., MR 29.90.
 

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND EVERLASTING LIFE*

The author of this highly exciting book, subtitled "Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead", is an American professor of mathematical physics at Tulane University, Florida, U.S.A. He should know what he is taking about when he sets out to scientifically prove in this book that God exists and that man will be resurrected after death to live an everlasting life, just as the great world religions have asserted. It might be puzzling to many that he describes himself as an atheist and traces his line of thinking from scientific materialism, particularly of the Marxist John Bernal. However, a good book is a good book, whoever writes it. It is extremely well-researched, packed with information from wide-ranging sources, interspersed with keen insights, and written in a surprisingly objective and readable style in spite of its heavy and sensitive theme as well as its technical nature. Anyone to whom the problem of life’s meaning is important must read this book.

To give readers an idea of its tremendous scope, I should tell them that it consists of thirteen chapters that include such breath-taking titles as "Determinism in Classical General Relativity and in Quantum Mechanics", "How Free Will Can Arise from Quantum Cosmological Mechanism", "The Physics of Resurrection of the Dead to Eternal Life", "What Happens After the Resurrection: Heaven, Hell and Purgatory", "Comparison of the Heaven Predicted by Modern Physics with the Afterlife Hoped for by the Great World Religions", "The Omega Point Theory and Christianity", and "Theology as a Branch of Physics". The notes and bibliographical list are very useful and there is also a long Appendix for Scientists who require more technical details.

For many people and for far too long, religion and science have been kept apart. The two cannot be linked, much less equated, according to them. No less than the Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences decreed in a Resolution dated 25 August, 1981 as follows: "Religion and science are separate and mutually exclusive realms of human thought whose presentation in the same context leads to misunderstanding of both scientific theory and religious belief." On the religious dogmatic side, let me quote this rather representative view: "In many respects and on many points, the presuppositions of modern science concerning man, the universe and reality can very well undermine the Islamic belief system. If one really understands the meaning of each of the six articles of faith and all their philosophical and scientific implications, then one cannot at the same time be a defender of the philosophy of modern science without falling into philosophical and logical contradictions or without sacrificing one’s intelectual honesty."

Of course, in all the great religions, there have been philosophers and theologians who argued for the congruence of religion and science: Maimonides in Judaism, Acquinas in Christianity, Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rush in Islam and modern Hindu, Buddhist and Coficiuan reformers. But modern European civilization after Issac Newton, Charles Darwin and other materialist philosophers who seemed to have disposed of a just and good God from the universe appeared to have embarked on the road to everlasting atheism. However, this is not to be. The relativity theory of Einstein and the quantum physics of Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, Louis V. de Broglie, Erwin Schrodinger and others have displaced the the mechanical block universe of earlier centuries with a less deterministic and more "spiritual" universe with a possible creator who has created it. The twentieth century has also come with two terrible wars that completely upset the simple optimistic progressivist world-view of the eighteenth century. Mankind is now less certain about the ability of science to lead it to uninterrupted progress, thus giving way to a renewed interest in religion in general. But that is only one side of the picture. The other is that modern quantum science are fast approaching the time when it will be able to endorse the essential teachings of the great religions, i.e. the existence of God and of an infinite afterlife. This is precisely what Prof. Tipler has done in this book.

The author also gives three very interesting reasons for the divorce of science and religion, namely: (1) the continuing influence of classical (Greco-Roman) metaphysics on contemporary (Western) theology and religion and its separation from modern science, modern science being nearer to the true understanding of reality than medieval or ancient science;(2) general religious opposition to the atheism of modern science (actually some modern scientists); and (3) the difficulties inherent in the transmitting and understanding by human beings of the Book or the Word of God.

Thus, according to Prof. Tipler: "The only book which does not suffer from these limitations is the Book of Nature, the only book which God wrote with His/Her own hand, without human assistance. The Book of Nature is not limited by human understanding. The Book of Nature is the only reliable guide to the true nature of God." (p. 337) In other words, there are two books, the Written Book and the Unwritten Book, and the two must agree. In this sense, science, i.e. the study of nature, cannot but come to the same conclusions as the teachings of a true revealed religion.

The Person in the machine! God is immanent in the universe, but being its Creator and Ruler, He is also transcendental. He is the power within and without the universe, just as a human being is propelled by a power inside and outside him. I must confess that the professor’s profound insight makes clear to me the meanings of the following verses of the Quran on the nature and power of God:

Although Prof. Tipler says that no single religion can be singled out as most consistent with the Omega Point Theory, he states that it is consistent with core beliefs of all the great world religions, that is, belief in a Supreme Personal God and belief in resurrection after death. However, he points to "the universal Muslim belief on the absolute oneness of God" as agreeing with the Omega Point Theory. " ... the Omega Point is a point, which is to say a single entity. God’s absolute oneness is a mathematical theorem in the Omega Point Theory." (p. 304) He also shows that the theory refutes the resurrection of Jesus and the Christian trinity. (pp. 309-21)

However, he faults Islam on the question of the everlastingness of Hell, arguing that since God is merciful, the punishment in Hell must be corrective and must end at some point. He cites the case of the Sudanese theologian who tried to solve this problem by introducing the theory of the two messages of Islam, the universal and eternally valid one of the early Mecca period and the historically-conditioned one of the late Medina period, but was unfortunately hanged for heresy in 1985. For this reason, he says that Islam will not easily solve this contradiction. He is unaware that there exists three Qurabic verses and several authentic hadith which speak of the non-eternity of Hell. I give one of each here:

He criticized all traditional theodicies, including Christian, as attempts to justify God’s ways to humankind. He claims that Omega Point theodicy "is the first theodicy to successfully absolve God of moral responsibility for evil. All previous theodicies have overestimated what omnipotence can do, because they have underestimated what omnipotence has done." His reasoning is based on what is known as logical impossibility or logical contradiction. A logical impossibility is a nonsensical statement, like the famous schoolboy fallacy, which goes thus: "If God is omnipotent, then He can make a stone so heavy that even He cannot lift it. But if He cannot lift it, then He is not omnipotent!" The fallacy lies in the fact that no such stone can actually exist. The statement is utter nonsense. As the professor rightly says, "God’s omnipotence is not limited by humankind’s ability to utter nonsense. God’s omnipotence just means that He can do anything which is not logically impossible." This means that the existence of evil in the world is logically necessary following from God’s attributes of justice, good ness and mercy.

The second point I wish to comment on is the rise of American Deism at the time of the American Revolution and its rapid collapse. I am surprised to find its closeness to the monotheism of Islam. The author identifies two essential points in all the writings the American Revolutionary Deists, namely: (1) the existence of a personal God who created the universe, and (2) the existence of an afterlife. He names five principal leaders: Thomas Paine, author of the revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense, Benjamin Franklin, physicist and printer, Ethan Allen, commander of the forces that achieved the first American military victory, the captuire of Fort Ticonderoga; Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, and George Washington, first president and commander-in-chief of the American Revolutionary Army. On the first page of his book, The Age of Reason, Paine stated: "I believe in God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life." He concluded it with:

I doubt if even many Christians know that Thomas Jefferson wrote a little never-published book called The Philosophy of Jesus, and he contended that the religious doctrines of Jesus (which he also regarded as the essential doctrines of the Deism he himself accepted) were just three, namely: (1) that there is one All-Perfect God, (2) that there is a future state of rewards and punishments; and (3) that to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself, is the sum of religion. I am reminded of a Quranic verse giving the same import: "Surely, those who believe -- the Jews, the Christians and the Sabi`in -- those who believe in God and the Last Day and lead a righteous life wil receive recompence from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor grieve." (Al-Baqarah: 62)

However, it is unfortunate that such beautiful conception of religion, brought into America on the crest of a great anti-colonial revolution, should have died so quickly. I am not sure that the author is right to explain the event as due to Deism being "too impersonal". (p. 326) One cannot say that being rational is being impersonal. Is physics not rational? Is the author also not seeking a rational religion? The reason for Deism’s disappearance from America then must be other than this.

Thirdly, the book’s conception of life as one literally of eternal progress. This is a refreshing outlook in the face of the present so-called post-modern, post-industrial and anti-science ideology of environmentalism and limited growth. It is doubly refreshing because of its affirmation by physics. The author says, "Even on the most materialistic level, the future existence of the Omega Point would assure our civilization of ever growing total wealth, continually increasing knowledge, and quite literal eternal progress. This perpetual meliorism is built into the definition of `life existing forever’ ..." (p. 217) It is part of cosmic evolution. In this vast canvas of cosmic change, there will come a time when our species Homo sapiens will become extinct and be replaced by another higher species. He says:

The modern Pakistani poet and philosopher, Muhammad Iqbal, in his book The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam refers to the early development of evolutionary ideas with Jahiz (d. 868-9), and more particularly with Ibn Maskawaih (d. 1030). Modern Quran commentator, like Maulana Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Asad, have also pointed to this evolutionary perspective from such Quranic verses.

Fourthly, the author’s statement that morality cannot be divorced from facts is extremely important. This is to establish the truth that the universe, while existing as a fact, is a basically moral universe. This is the case because having being created by a good and moral God, it cannot be otherwise. Prof. Tipler criticizes the view that morality is the central concern of religion. "Throughout human history, the central concern of religion has been human self-interest," he says. (p. 330) He proves this by simply saying that a declarative sentence like "Thou shall not kill" is also an imperative sentence ("You ought not to kill."), because killing, except in the course of justice, is a self-negating action and against human self-interest. Again, the statement is important because much of the world’s scientific community today labors under the impression that morality is divorced from fact.

It is stated in the Quran that in the end everyone, including sinners, will be saved, i.e. after having been cleansed of evil. Yet throughout history all religious have shown a consistent tendency to develop theologies of exclusivity -- "no salvation outside the church". Although the author correctly notes that the Quran gives overwhelming importance to God’s attribute of mercy, he states that "I do not expect to see in my life time the whole of Islam resolve the contradiction between its (correct) belief in God’s compassion and its (incorrect) belief in eternal torment" (p. 304) In other words, the author expects to see the emergence of a true universal religion whose teachings are validated by his Omega Point physics, the religion of truth, God’s own religion. The publication of his book is historic in the sense that it heralds the coming of such an age, the age of the congruence of science and religion. As he says, "... `eternal life as physics’ is an idea whose time has come." It is a book to open the exciting Twenty First Century, bringing in the true Age of Reason.

* This review was published in Islamic Studies, Vol. 35, No. 3, Autumn 1996; pp.345-54.