New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy by Robert J. Spitzer, S.J. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 148 DAVID BRADSHAW University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy. By ROBERT J. SPITZER, S.J. Grand Rapids, Mich., and Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010. Pp. 319. $28.00 (paper). ISBN 978-0-8028-6383-6. There is nothing timid about the title of Robert Spitzer’s book. Neither is there anything timid about its purpose, which is to show that contemporary developments in physics, mathematics, and philosophy bolster the traditional theistic arguments for the existence of God—so much so that theism today enjoys “the strongest rational foundation for faith that has come to light in human history.” The book willingly borrows notions and arguments from traditional theistic philosophy but strengthens them by appealing to con-temporary physics and mathematics in an intellectually sophisticated manner. It thus has the great merit of providing theists with a “state of the art” case for philosophical arguments for the existence of God. Spitzer distinguishes five basic arguments for God’s existence, but he does not intend a one-to-one correspondence to the famous fivefold list of Thomas Aquinas. Spitzer begins instead with a discussion of Big Bang cosmology, which, in his view, clearly suggests against Newton that time has an “edge” or is finite. Spitzer is aware that the “classical” model of Big Bang cosmology, which seemed to imply something like a Hawking-Penrose singularity, has been decisively altered by the more recent inflationary models of the origin of the universe. Relying on the work of Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin, however, he argues that even the most contemporary accounts still strongly suggest a temporal origin for our universe—even if our particular universe is only part of a multiverse. He appends a “postscript” by Bruce L. Gordon to bolster these claims. While this first argument appeals to a beginning of time in order to establish the necessary existence of a creator of time, Spitzer’s second argument appeals instead to how the universe is. That is, he attempts to show that contemporary Big Bang cosmology gives us indications of design at work in the cosmos. In his view, the old design argument, which had ceased to be credible in light of the Newtonian postulates of an infinity of space and time, is suddenly back with us in a form bigger and better than ever. Since it has become clear to modern physicists that the cosmos is marked by finitude, it is difficult to account for its order and patterns by appeals to pure randomness. If one cannot appeal to infinity, the probability equations seem to suggest that the universe is ordered, patterned, or designed. This is the argument that has come to be known in our BOOK REVIEWS 149 time as the appeal to “anthropic coincidences.” That is, it is claimed that in order for life of any sort to emerge in the universe, the universe had to be carefully fine-tuned, presumably by an agent possessing super-intelligence. These first two arguments remind one of the first sections of Stephen Barr’s Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, and indeed it is profitable to read the two books in conjunction with each other. In his final three arguments, however, Spitzer turns away fromcontemporaryphysics to contemporary philosophy—sort of. For example, his third argument is an updated version of the Thomistic “uncaused Cause” proof; yet even here he does not avoid bringing into the discussion a very interesting comparison between the medieval notion of simplicity and contemporary field theory as it is understood in modern physics. He points out that just as an electromagnetic field does not respect the parameters of either electricity or magnetism, but through its simpler nature is able somehow to encompass both, so divine simplicity is able to provide the conditions for the existence of the limitations of finite creatures without itself sharing in those limitations. Spitzer’s fourth argument is largely a restatement of the argument of his fellow Jesuit Bernard Lonergan, who explained his claim about God as an “unrestricted act of understanding” in the famous nineteenth chapter of Insight. Spitzer says that his own argument is unique only in the...