Reading the dust jacket of this book, I had high hopes; "Robert Winston provides a unique perspective: he writes as a respected scientist who is also committed to Judaism'. I looked forward to a well-known scientist and science communicator writing sympathetically and knowledgably about God and religious belief. It would be a breath of fresh air from the kind of science communicators who are full of antipathy to God and religious belief and can only ridicule or gaze uncomprehendingly at a world as religious as it ever was, thinking themselves (mistakenly) somehow devoid of faith.
Winston says his book is "not an enquiry into the existence of God' [4], it is the story of an idea; the idea of a supernatural dimension to our existence. Winston calls it the Divine Idea. Beginning with pre-historic humanity, Winston speculates about religion's roots, and examines how "the Divine Idea' might have benefits for human beings and their societies that make it explicable in anthropological and evolutionary terms. He then turns to an account of the emergence of monotheism which resolves into three chapters on the big three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A colourful chapter on "Heresies and Schisms' provides light relief before the final two chapters treating the rise of science and the present moment respectively.
This book is accurately subtitled "A personal journey'. Winston is candid with his readers; "I am not an atheist. I do not pretend to understand the nature of God [" ] I have no idea whether there is an afterlife " but I am prepared to accept that God may exist. Paradoxically, I am a practicing Jew.'[11] His affection for the Hebrew Bible is obvious: he is not skeptical regarding the historicity of the Hebrew Bible's storyline or figures like Abraham. He stands aloof from highly critical Biblical scholarship. In addition he has some sensitive reflections on Biblical episodes scattered through the book. He is also very warm towards rabbinic tradition and scholarship.
By contrast, the book is on balance rather less warm towards Christianity, and rather less willing to take the New Testament on its own terms. He says things like, "In Paul's letters Jesus is turned into a divine figure because this would be more appealing to his Greek audience'[152]. Gospel accounts have been "possibly [" ] created' [166], "may have been doctored' [166], seem like "political storytelling' [167], could be "in large part invention' [167]. Winston says that Jesus central message was that "[Jewish religious] observance alone was not enough' [italics original] and that, "[a]fter his death, it was not possible to keep his cult alive using this rather abstruse, Jewish message for Jews; so the writers of the gospels and Paul modified the message, presenting it as a substitute for the Jewish Law that offered salvation to all.'[171]
To top this off, Winston gives four long paragraphs over to entertaining the theories outlined by Tom Harpur in his book The Pagan Christ [a bestseller in Harpur's native Canada]. To give such writing such attention, and to give more scholarly, mainstream and reputable writings on Jesus no attention, is regrettable, to say the least. (1)
I don't know how a knowledgable Muslim might feel about Winston's take on Islam. Winston is anxious to defend Islam from Western animus and suspicion [conservative Christians being those actually named as having "dark prejudice', 178] He gives a description of Muslim history, beliefs and practice, drawing comparisons and contrasts with Judaism and Christianity. He gives sympathetic accounts of jihad, sharia and the status of women, and ends by praising Islam for its foundation in "peaceful values', the religious toleration in its history and the growth of more sophisticated thinking and reform which is "slowly sweeping the Muslim world' [207].
The chapter on the rise of science in the West is called "God in Retreat', and trots out the usual suspects " Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei " to tar all Western Christianity with the brush of bigoted resistance to the march of experimental reason. Winston's conclusion is almost that simple. Of course, the truth is rather more complex, and it is a pity he does not reflect even an undergraduate appreciation of the history and philosophy of science. The moral to Galileo's story, according to Winston, is that "Western Christian teaching, by contrast [with Islamic and Jewish thinking], had a dangerous tendency to nail down its beliefs and enshrine them in written authority, rendering them rigid' [266]. Galileo's stoush with the Inquistion and the Pope cannot be used to support such a statement, and no careful historian would make such an observation. (2)
Winston is ultimately no scientific naturalist, yet I would hardly say that he has broken new ground in reflecting on the relationship between science and religion in this book [contra the dust jacket]. A couple of times he says that religion is to God as technology is to science [7;331], suggesting that religions can be used for good or evil, and without impugning God. He calls science Man's "most essential tool', but says that "science will never quite explain his personal existence, or the far flung universe beyond his grasp. His search for the point of life must continue' [336]. Here we see Winston as a man of the present Western moment " the open minded seeker after the transcendent; respectful of worthy religious traditions and loyal to his own; yet taking its theological claims in a suitably liberal sense and emphasis.
There are many other details in the book that could be taken up, but instead I will make one comment. I think the book has been written too quickly. Winston wrote the book to coincide with a major television series, and was therefore working to tight timelines on the television show and the book together [see Acknowledgements]. It shows. The book lacks both coherence and direction and also proper nuance and sophistication. It seems like the work of a layman who has not had time to develop a rounded familiarity with the areas he is less familiar with, and who therefore seems idiosyncratic and simplistic in his analysis.
Religion, the Divine Idea, is too undifferentiated in the book. The very different structures of religious thought and practice amongst human beings is not acknowledged or explored properly. Are Orthodox Jews, Muslim vegetable merchants, young Cambodian incense burners really linked by a common activity and way of thinking [4-5]? How true is it that "a religious belief continues to be held as means of making sense of the world, whatever happens'[280]? "Western Christianity' is too often thought of as monolithic. The touch of the master, who can communicate deep insights simply, lacks. Perhaps with more time and thought, it could have been a much better book.
Of course the sniping against Christianity was irritating, but this book was disappointing because Winston did not have the necessary perspective to make it really stimulating and insightful. The best bits were his evident affection for Judaism, the small historical sketches of religious eccentrics, and the some of the literary appreciation evident in the opening and closing musings.
ENDNOTES:
1. Harpur's credibility is questioned at [url=http://www.tektonics.org/harpur01.html]http://www.tektonics.org/harpur01.html[/url]
2. Read eg Kirsten Birkett, "Galileo: History v. Polemic' Kategoria (1) 1996, 13-42.
