A faith-based examination that tries to square Genesis with astrophysics, with mixed results.
An eager inquiry into how time works, invoking Christian theology to braid together diverse strands of theoretical science, including cosmology, evolutionary biology and quantum mechanics.
Predicated on the reasoning that God’s influence is unavoidable, the author’s theory on the origin of time winds back to when God created the universe and, with it, “universal time.” (Humans, on the other hand, define “relative time” with clocks, calendars, histories and timelines.) Driver describes the three states of time (past, present and future) and connects faith to the nature of time, observing that humans rely on the supposition that the future will happen in a certain way. “The expected future is based upon collective information on the aging process of many who have gone before us,” he says. “These are life expectations due to time.” Driver delves into astrophysics and illustrates some working theories with memorable metaphors. To describe how cosmologists have observed the expansion of the universe, he explains that the universe is like a curtain, its unfolding accelerating so that it expands faster than the speed of light; the hand pulling the curtain, according to Driver, is God. Even further, Driver argues that the Big Bang theory, the operating assumption most astrophysicists use for the creation of the universe, relies on a supernatural force that defies the laws of physics, which, in Driver’s mind, makes it as equally plausible an explanation as a divine creator forming the universe. Driver uses this explanation to set up a theory that God uses science to reveal his ways to humans, one discovery at a time. One of his pivotal points describes God as an intelligent creator, setting forth the material for the creation of the universe and the laws that correspond to how it will behave and then letting the universe develop on its own. He points to evidence supporting evolution as the workings of a divine creator rather than a theory drawn from natural observations: “Darwin, in his limited theology, did not understand that nature is another name for God.” To prove God’s presence in creation, Driver delineates biblical evidence for later scientific discoveries. Yet the argument’s reasoning gets murky when taken to its logical extremes. For Driver, at the beginning and end of time, there exist two realms—spiritual and temporal—and God’s omnipotent governing of the universe is greater than time itself. But the conversational tone treats scientific theory with broad sweeps of generalization, as with his explanation for quantum physics: “Subatomic particles that make up the atom are broken down to lower elementary particles….According to the Scripture, the universe is all made of that which is not seen, elementary particles.” Often switching to the collective “we,” Driver attempts to speak for humanity in reasoning that only Christianity provides a comprehensive explanation for the universe’s existence—a notion with which some readers might disagree.
A faith-based examination that tries to square Genesis with astrophysics, with mixed results.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-1622952571
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Tate Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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