Book Review
Mostly Mapped
The Realist Guide to Religion and Science by Paul Robinson
Gracewing, 2018
(556 pages, $35.00, paperback)
By and large, we no longer have universities in the West; we have "multiversities." Our institutions of higher education divide themselves into narrowly specialized fields of inquiry, all too often degenerating into insular, departmental fiefdoms. Meanwhile, true interdisciplinary study of nature, humanity, and God is rarely encouraged, and even when attempted, is rarely done well. Without a unifying theory of "how we can know the truth about reality" (i.e., epistemology), interdisciplinary study becomes a cacophony or, at best, a playground for intellectual dilettantes who merely "dip their toes" into several fields of inquiry at once, with no conceptual tools that might enable them to integrate the differing perspectives they encounter into a harmonious worldview, or to fashion a compelling and intellectually credible vision of reality as a whole.
Against this backdrop, The Realist Guide to Religion and Science by Paul Robinson comes on the scene as a breath of fresh air. Robinson boldly asserts what he believes to be the only nourishment for the healthy development and intellectual consistency of both religion and science: namely, a "realist" epistemology drawn principally from Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas (and interpreted in our era by Etienne Gilson and Stanley Jaki above all). In other words, only philosophy, as the Queen of the Sciences, provides the key to the flourishing of both science and religion at once—and the antidote to the self-destructive tendencies of both when cut off from their foundation in epistemological realism.
Realism Examined in History
Robinson's book offers the added bonus that it is both analytical and historical at once. In part one, the author lays the foundations in reason for an Aristotelian-Thomist epistemology that avoids the slippery slopes of idealism on the one hand and empiricism on the other. Both of these extremes, he contends, inevitably sink us into the dark waters of irrationality and radical skepticism; they destroy our ability to know the truth about the world around us (and even about the world inside of us). Chesterton's famous chapter on "The Suicide of Reason" springs to mind.
Then, in the second and third parts of the book respectively, Robinson provides the reader with an intellectual history of religious thought and of scientific thought. He demonstrates the validity of the claims he made regarding the importance of epistemological realism by examining them in the laboratory of the real history of the religious and scientific cultures of the West. In these two parts he shows how the successes of both cultures are linked to the finding of their roots in philosophical realism, and how their failures are connected to the gradual loss of those same roots. The "proof is in the pudding," as the saying goes, and Robinson serves up the pudding of the intellectual history of Western civilization in a way that shows it has a secret ingredient—or a missing ingredient, as the case may be—that makes all the difference.
Clear, well-organized, laced with helpful graphs and charts, engaging, and at times eye-opening, this book also almost completely rebuffs the modern notion that it is well-nigh impossible (given the complexity of every field of inquiry in the sciences today) to present an intellectually responsible and integrated vision of the whole of reality. Robinson attempts this gargantuan task in a single volume of only 500 pages, and he almost pulls it off.
Almost.
Some Strengths & Weaknesses
The problem is that this book will disappoint a fair number of the students who read it—depending on their academic background—especially if it is used as an upper-level undergraduate textbook (as it should be). This is inevitable, of course, given the ambitious nature of what Robinson is trying to achieve here. He boldly attempts what almost everyone today would say is impossible—a vision of the whole. The brightest students, therefore, will pick out the deficiencies and shortcomings in it. Their professors, however, must not let the critique distract them from emphasizing what Robinson has achieved in this work.
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33.2—March/April 2020
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