THE DIVINE CHALLENGE
On Matter, Mind, Maths & Meaning
By John Byl
Banner of Truth. 319 pages. £8.95
ISBN 0 85151 887 7
John Byl is both a Christian in the Reformed tradition and Professor of Mathematics at Trinity Western University, British Columbia, and this book centres on his interests in mathematics and logic. The book's cover claims that his argument is 'that the Christian worldview provides the only foundation for logic, mathematics, science and morality'. These broad goals are confirmed by such chapter headings as: 'Mysteries of Matter, Chance, Cause and Chaos', 'From Matter to Mind', 'From Mind to Math', 'Beyond Naturalism, The Christian Worldview'.
So we have an ambitious aim and a wide scope, but does the venture work? Well, this reviewer's verdict is 'only partially'. Byl makes some good points and has some telling quotations but I do not think that he makes the most compelling case possible. Firstly, I think he presumes too much on the mathematical and logical knowledge of the reader. I find such sentences as 'It is for this reason constructivists reject the Power Set Axiom for infinite sets as well as Cantor's transfinite numbers' rather opaque. I suspect I am not alone.
Secondly, I found myself put off by the author's unexplained use of the Authorised Version for the extensive biblical quotes. This results in a text which jars badly. For instance on page 82 we have, juxtaposed with a typically clear passage from Richard Dawkins (we may dislike him but the man can write), the rendition of Psalm 139.13-18 which begins: 'For thou hast possessed my reins and has covered me in my mother's womb'. I do not find this at all helpful and it hardly makes the book suitable for the non-Christian who we might assume was a potential reader. On the matter of texts, there are some further oddities; on page 133, at the heading of a chapter entitled 'Mysteries of Mathematics', we get a puzzling citation from Titus 1: 'One of themselves, even a prophet of their own said "The Cretians [sic] are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." This witness is true.'
