Can a Smart Person Believe in God?

July 26, 2004
Guillen, science journalist and author of Five Equations that Changed the World
, a PW
best book of 1996, offers a brief and buoyant defense for believers encountering atheism in the culture of science. Drawing on his own story—as a Pentecostal preacher's son whose scientific aspirations and education shaped him into a "practical atheist" before life experiences helped him rediscover his faith—Guillen is able to speak to both sides with a minimum of "us vs. them" posturing. Although he now espouses a strong (and orthodox) Christian faith, he also concedes that "it's the rare person among us whose confidence in God is so utterly rock-solid it can't be secretly shaken by some overzealous humanist accusing him of being a bonehead." Guillen's key metaphor is "stereoscopic faith," a perspective that looks at life through both intellectual and spiritual eyes to produce a deep and meaningful vision of the world. While some science-and-religion authors stress the similarities between these perspectives, Guillen sees them as indispensably different, like the lenses of 3-D glasses: "God gave us... two powerful and well-matched abilities: to prove things we find hard to believe" and to "believe in things we find hard to prove." Guillen's effusive tone and knack for simplicity make this book a good fit for undergrads or bright high school students interested in science and technology.