Perspectives on God
For a long time scientists with broad interests have been writing better books on philosophy than professional academic philosophers. The same would now seem to be case in Theology too. Robert Winston is a human fertility expert, a TV presenter, but also a widely read polymath. He is an orthodox Jew, but he regards the rituals and beliefs of his own religion with almost the same sympathetic detachment as Zoroastrianism. He begins by saying that religion is to God as technology is to science. The pursuit of truth in science is an ultimate good, but its practical application in technology can be good or bad, the comforts and achievements of modern society, and pollution, destruction of the environment and atom bombs.

In the same way God is the ultimate reality of what is, but the worship of God can lead to compassion and enlightenment, or intolerance, fanaticism and obscurantism. If he had followed this insight to its limits, the result would have been a great book, not a merely interesting one. As it is, he describes the rise of the God idea from its beginnings at the dawn of human consciousness to its apogee in the three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity , and Islam . On the way he examines, and courteously dismisses, various currently fashionable attempts to explain religion away. There may be a centre in the brain which becomes aroused in spiritual experiences. Indeed the gene for it may be generally present. Alternatively organised religion is a powerful means of achieving social unity and discipline. Winston argues that all these theories may be half truths, but none explain the power and importance of religious belief to those who have it.

His account of the complex strands within Judaism will be an education to many who take a rather simple minded view of that religion, though devotees of the Kabbalah might regret that their perspective was not given a fuller coverage. The potted account of Islam is very sympathetic, and might be recommended as compulsory reading for today’s politicians. He tackles the difficult topic of the rise of Christianity with clarity and does some justice to the deep theological questions which arise, Yet the tension between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith may be deeper than he allows, and there is always the point of view that asserts that St. Paul was the real founder of Christianity - he coined the word "Christ" after all. The evolution from the man chosen by God, to the Son of God, and on to God the Son took centuries and was bitterly contested.

In order the grasp the total story of God Winston rightly gives much space to the ecstatic visionaries on the fringes of the great religions and the fanatical fundamentalists in the rearguard. He ranges from Evangelical snake cults in Kentucky to Hasidic seers in mediaeval Poland, and leaves one with the feeling that in its persecution of heretics the Inquisition did have at least a little point. He obviously has the feeling that somewhere within all religions there is the straight line which points towards God. He almost gets to the point of enunciating this, but not quite. He observes that in the Upanishads the Brahman is that which is beyond all Gods. In the Middle Ages the mystic Meister Eckhart talked of the "Godhead" beyond God. However the possibility that the God of the 3 monotheistic religions is a human concretisation of something beyond is not considered, and Eastern religion is given but a cursory mention. This is a pity, because a fuller comparative analysis of religion Eastern and Western might have raised more clearly some key questions. How necessary is the crystallisation of spiritual experience into religions, dogmas, rituals and scriptures ? Having crystallised how far does religion help or hinder the quest into a deeper spiritual reality ? There are paradoxes here waiting to be unravelled.

As a scientist, Winston is naturally concerned with the rise of modern science, its conflicts with the established church over astronomy and evolution, and the secularisation of modern society. In a restrained, but powerful, section he recounts his own conflict with a fundamentalist Catholic church over fertility research using discarded embryos. However the book ends with a moving statement that science is all we have got, and yet it is so little. The vastness and mystery of things stands before and around us, if only we will take our eyes of the ground and look out to the stars and let our imagination and intuition dissolve into awe. For Robert Winston the story of God ends in reverent and humble agnosticism.