Here are two books that I have not read, but that sound fascinating and possibly significant. Possibly significant, at least, for some people’s thinking, doubts, and questions. I may eventually read them but at this point have too many books ahead of them on the pile. Alas. I’ll call attention to book reviews that attract me to them.
The first is The Devil’s Best Trick: How the Face of Evil Disappeared, by Randall Sullivan (Atlantic Monthly Press; 2024). The New York Times reviewer says, “At the start of his journey, Sullivan’s not sure if he believes in the Devil; by the end he is certain that Satan is real.” Reviewer Clancy Martin:
I have had experiences in my life that most people might describe as ‘supernatural.’ And though, unlike Sullivan, I do not believe in Satan, I think there are indeed all kinds of phenomena unexplained by contemporary science—which is, after all, still in its infancy. What is more, I tend to believe that people like Randall Sullivan are intellectually responsible and acting in good faith; we should at least open our minds to the possibility that they may know something we do not.
This book will doubtless be made into a television show, and this is the rare case where that’s good. I wouldn’t watch it; just reviewing the book has me petrified.
The second is Why? The Purpose of the Universe by Philip Goff (Oxford, 2023). In a lengthy review in The Christian Century (July 2024), “Consciousness All the Way Down,” religion professor Ian Curran says Goff is arguing for a perspective radically different from Materialism. Reviewer Curran notes:
For the last hundred years, the dominant position in Anglo-American philosophy when it comes to the nature of the mind has been materialism, the rather dreary assessment of our inner, conscious lives as the manifestation of nothing more than the biological functioning of our brains. In its most extreme form, this view holds that the mind, and with it the self, is an illusion, a trick that the brain plays upon us.
Curran is correct to refer to this position as “dreary.” It is at least that, an ultimately hopeless philosophy of life in a broken world. There is, however, among scientists, another perspective afoot known as “panpsychism.”
Panpsychism suggests that there is an underlying rationality to the physical world, and this suggestion is supported, according to Goff, by the contemporary scientific discovery that the universe seems exquisitely designed for life. There are several dozen variables within the laws of physics that reveal the universe to be balanced on a razor’s edge between myriad other, chaotic possibilities. For example, the strengths of the four fundamental forces and the masses of elementary particles, if they were only slightly different, would render life in the cosmos impossible.
As a Christian I find panpsychism (from the review, remember—I haven’t read the book) sounding incomplete. A more complete and satisfying perspective sees ultimate, final reality to be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This means that personality, rationality, communication, love, meaning and purpose are intrinsic to the cosmos, to the created order. So, it is unsurprising to me that someone like Goff finds such evidence for consciousness and purpose. Goff’s arguments sound fascinating and helpful for interacting with skeptics in our world of advanced modernity.
Just writing this is beginning to make me think I need to read both titles. But the pile to be read remains high…
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