"Why there almost certainly is a God" - the title of a book I have been reading by Keith Ward, recently the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, previously the Professor of Philosophy at Kings College London. Whilst obviously philosophical I found that which I have read (the first half or so) very lucid. It was heartening to hear someone so highly qualified in terms of thinking demolishing Dawkins claim to be able to explain everything not only by science but also by evolutionary theory. He points to the irreducible nature of consciousness as something that is acknowledged as real knowledge by philosophers. In other words this is a distinct kind of knowledge which whilst springing from the brain cannot be reduced to synapse activity. So this was heartening. He then applied this argument to the potential, that if mind is a distinct kind of knowledge, then it is possible for mind to exist without a physical cause, a spiritual mind. Science simply cannot comment on this potentiality. I found this argument persuasive.

Another aspect of his argumentation was that even if evolution explained the diversity of life on earth then it was remarkable, that, given a few laws that were very finely tuned, such diversity could arise from so simple a process. Given the improbability of this occuring he suggested that this makes some kind of lawgiver more probable than that the laws of evolution have arisen spontaneously. This is a more complex argument and I have missed out a few steps, but the key thing is that just as the laws of the motion of the planets do not cause us to doubt the probability of the existence of God, so the laws of evolution, equally finely tuned to produce that which is intended, cannot disprove the existence of God. Quite the contrary. Ward postulates that the laws of evolution are sufficiently elegant for him to propose that, like other laws in the universe, they seem predisposed to the formation of complex and ultimately intelligent life. He uses Dawkins very own "experiments" with computers to show how evolution only works with, as Dawkins admits, very specific values in the various laws of evolution, like generation times, muitation rates, selection pressure and the like. The necessity that these laws are finely tuned seems to be similar to the anthropic principle in physicas, the principle that seems to anticipate the development of intelligent life.

I am looking forward to rereading his arguments and progessing down his train of thought and whilst I would not consider myself a theistic evolutionist, he certainly introduces an intriging possibility - which agrees in my mind with a basic scriptural principle. God is in control of the universe, even its most chaotic elements, and he is in control in ways in which we can see the means of his control, through natural laws. It is not that gravity is some separate force that a places the movements of the planets beyond his control. Rather that we have discovered the ordered way in which he does it. God is involved in every movement of any particle due to another via the force of gravity. Similarly if God has established the laws of evolution, there is no reason why he is not totally involved in what appears to be a chaotic and random process. God could guide the evolutionary process, however it might function. Evolution, far from being an argument to reject the existence of God, paradoxically reveals an order in what otherwise would appear disordered and chaotic, the competition we see in nature.

This does not solve the problem of how to distinguish between aspects of nature that are red in tooth in claw due to the fall or due to the way in which God intends living things to behave, but either way there is order. Which agrees with Genesis 1.