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God, Creation and Mr Davies

P. C. W. Davies in his recent, popular God and the New Physics ([19831, p. ix). This is a bold claim in a day in which the conventional wisdom dictates that theology and science are two mutually irrelevant disciplines, whose respective findings have no implications for those of the other. As one who has tried to cross the line from the other direction, I can only agree with Davies, though perhaps for different reasons, that no serious religious thinker can ignore the tenets of the so-called new physics. The philosopher of religion who is a theist ought to adhere to a synoptic world view which embraces the universe as the object of empirical study, and he should not be surprised if theological doctrines like creatio ex nihilo come to be confirmed by the empirical sciences. By the same token, the scientist, at least insofar as he chooses to reflect philosophically, ought to be open to the metaphysical implications of his theories and not to wear the blinders of a narrow scientism which disdains such considerations. The risk of engaging in such interdisciplinary synthesis is, of course, making blunders in the field with which one is less familiar. Davies often seeks to correct the theologian's concept of God and the universe on the basis of current physical theory. Such admonitions are welcome; but parity requires that when Davies himself enters upon the province of the philosopher of religion then he, too, must be patient of correction. Now whatever other merits Davies's book may have, it seems to me that correction is in order with regard, at least, to his discussion of the cosmological argument for a temporal first cause of the universe. For Davies's critique of that argument seems to be based at several points on misunderstandings which appear to vitiate his objections.