CATEGORY

How science has changed our perceptions of God—from the age of Newton to the era of quantum mechanics.

A grand work of philosophy and history, The Many Faces of God shows how our religious conceptions have been shaped by advances in technology and science. Beginning his narrative in the 1600s and concluding with the fervor of the millennium, Jeremy Campbell shows how Isaac Newton and his generation altered the medieval definition of God from one interpreted through divine messengers to an all-knowing, autocratic God who watched over the scientific wonders of the universe. Arguing that religions harbor a secret fear that science may one day explain God away, Campbell masterfully shows how twentieth-century technology and theology have become intertwined, often to the detriment of both disciplines. Illuminating the writings of such intellectual luminaries as Calvin, Luther, Einstein, and Niels Bohr, all the way up to John Updike, The Many Faces of God is a sweeping history of religious and scientific thought in the Western world.