'GOD' AS UNIVERSAL ARCHITECT (1984) Review of: GOD AND THE NEW PHYSICS. By Paul Davies. Dent. 255pp. $26.95.* by William Grey SCIENTIFIC and religious outlooks share the common ambition of providing a consistent and comprehensive understanding of the universe. Their respective attempts to realise this ambition, however, have proved to be notoriously antagonistic. Davies is a professor of theoretical physics. In this book he addresses himself expansively to the subtle and perplexing conundrums of the cosmos. Questions about the organisation and structure of the universe, and its beginning and ultimate fate, are approached not only from the point of view of his own discipline of physics, but with an eye to suggestions provided by the traditions of religious thought. This approach is certainly not a common one. The resulting book is an absorbing and (reasonably) accessible account of contemporary physical theory, and its progress (and lack of it) in unravelling some traditional puzzles about creation, existence, space, time, matter and mind. The questions which Davies and his physicist colleagues tackle include, or at least border on, many which have troubled theologians and philosophers for millennia. However, it is unusual for scientists to pay very much attention to the reflections of these alternative traditions. In many cases this neglect proves to be amply justified. Davies's gentle insinuation of traditional religious ideas into the discussion of grand cosmic issues usually does little to illuminate the problems. Nevertheless it does to some degree reveal a continuity of concern about ultimate cosmic issues, and places scientific speculations in a broad historical perspective. In general, Davies's account shows how appeals to divine intervention have been progressively rendered redundant in accounts of the origins and nature of matter, of life, and of mind. There appears to be little in physics to support the traditional conception of a supernatural deity. In reaching this conclusion Davies in effect endorses the informed consensus which rejects so-called "cosmological" arguments, which are attempts to establish the existence of a deity by appeal to the fact of the existence of the world. Davies nevertheless does express an attitude of reverence to the universe, and at the end of his book provides some speculation about the possibility of a natural (rather than a supernatural) God. The view is certainly heretical, both from the point of view of orthodox religious traditions and from that of the generally atheistic dispositions of physicists.. The puzzling features of the universe which Davies seems to think make it tempting to invoke intelligent organisation relate to very general properties of the structure of the universe, in particular its stability. Davies flirts with the notion of a natural deity, bound by the laws of physics, that was not responsible for the creation of everything by supernatural means, but which exists rather as a pervasive intelligence, encompassing all the fundamental fields of nature, and which was responsible for converting an incoherent Big Bang into the complex and orderly universe which we now observe. Without supernatural omnipotence such a deity is certainly not eternal: the inexorable laws of thermodynamics must eventually witness the progressive running down of organised complexity, to their ultimately simple, tranquil and boring state of equilibrium. It would certainly require the intervention of a supernatural deity to wind it up again. Davies's book presents a wealth of absorbing speculations over a generous range of topics. Space, time, gravitation, quantum physics, thermodynamics, relativity, black holes and other singularities, particle theory, the anthropic principle, consciousness and more besides, all feed his wide-ranging speculations. He has also some intriguing speculations as to why anything exists at all. The universe, Davies speculates, may be the ultimate "free lunch". All the topics concern different levels and modes of organisation of objects. The appearance of complexity may, however, be misleading: it may be that our existence is constrained to a level of physical organisation which makes the world appear to us as an aggregation of independent bits. The book abounds with paradox. Quantum theory appears to suggest that the mind determines reality, while relativity appears to affirm the reality of a future which the mind is powerless to change. Davies is an able proselytiser of the complexities of modern physical theory. He successfully shares his excitement about the world-view of contemporary physics, which has done much to uncover the elegant underlying harmonies of the world in which we live. It may be that one day some privileged mind will uncover the glittering prize of the basic unity of the world which is hidden from us by our poverty of energy. It would be possible to quibble about Davies's treatment of a number of his topics. But overall this is an exciting, mind-stretching romp to which it is difficult to do justice in the space of a modest review. *This review was published in The Canberra Times, Saturday, March 24, 1984, p. 24.