The Measure of God

Starred review from July 11, 2005
From the Victorian era to the present, the Gifford Lectures in Scotland in natural theology have been a uniquely prestigious forum for conversations about faith and reason, attracting many of the 20th-century's biggest names in theology, philosophy and history, as well as the natural and social sciences. Witham, a science journalist, develops the story of the lectures into a cameo history of modern ideas about God. Although his coverage is necessarily selective, Witham includes an impressive range of material for a single volume: lecture summaries, biographical sketches of selected presenters, observations of Scottish history and local color, and a wealth of background information on intellectual movements that have shaped the lectures over the decades. Witham follows disciplines and ideologies rather than strict chronology, allowing the story to flow more naturally. The text is deeply researched and factually rich, even dense at times. But fans of the Gifford Lectures will appreciate Witham's thoroughness, as well as his interest in the personalities of the presenters beyond the lectures themselves. For all their intellectual accomplishment, these thinkers were also human beings whose "efforts to conceive, produce, and finally deliver the lectures reveal a remarkable drama of mortal hopes, fears, victories, defeats, vanities and frailties."