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Feel Free

Stephen M. Barr

Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will By Robert M. Sapolsky Penguin, 528 pages, $35 Many people have been amazed by the capabilities of ChatGPT and the rapid...

On the Origins of Specious Myths

Stephen M. Barr

The War That Never Was: Evolution and Christian Theologyby kenneth w. kemp cascade, 234 pages, $28 Conventional wisdom has it that science and religion have perennially been at war....

First Words

Stephen M. Barr

Why Only Us: Language and Evolutionby robert c. berwick and noam chomskymit press, 224 pages, $22.95 Perhaps the most sensitive point of contact between religion and science is the...

A New Era

Stephen M. Barr

God’s Planet by owen gingerich harvard, 192 pages, $19.95 According to a famous formulation of Stephen Jay Gould, science and religion constitute “non-overlapping magisteria” or “NOMA.” What he meant...

Man the Mystery

Stephen M. Barr

From Big Bang to Big Mystery: Human Origins in the Light of Creation and Evolution by Brendan Purcell New City Press, 370 pages, $34.95 Benjamin Disraeli famously asked whether...

Chance, by Design

Stephen M. Barr

Christians who accept Darwinian evolution are, it is sometimes said, trying to have it both ways. If evolution is driven by random mutations, we cannot be part of a...

Fearful Symmetries

Stephen M. Barr

Since the time of Newton, science has advanced by a strategy rightly called “reductionism.” This method, which explains things by analyzing them into smaller and simpler parts, has yielded...

Review of Life After Death: The Evidence

Stephen M. Barr

Life After Death: The Evidence by Dinesh D’Souza Regnery, 256 pages, $27.95 n While much apologetic effort has been spent arguing for the existence of God, relatively little has...

Matter Over Mind

Stephen M. Barr

Neuroscience, Psychology, and Religion: Illusions, Delusions, and Realities About Human Nature By Malcolm Jeeves and Warren S. Brown Templeton, 168 Pages, $17.95 n There was a time when people...

Science Seeking Understanding

Stephen M. Barr

The conversation between science and religion has suffered two sad losses recently, with the deaths of Peter E. Hodgson, the English physicist, on December 8, and Fr. Stanley L....

To Light a Candle

Stephen M. Barr

I first came across the name of Richard John Neuhaus when he was writing religion columns for National Review in the 1980s. I vividly remember a day when I...

What to Give a First Things Reader

George Weigel Stephen M. Barr David Novak Wilfred M. McClay Midge Decter

Seeking ideas for presents this year, we asked several of our well-read friends and contributors for recommendations of a few wise, or fun, or disturbing books that every First...

Theology After Newton

Stephen M. Barr

The Historicity of Nature: Essays on Science and Theology by Wolfhart Pannenberg Templeton, 272 pages, $29.95 Wolfhart Pannenberg, one of the great figures of German Protestant theology, turns eighty...

The Form of Speaking

Stephen M. Barr

The Language of God by francis s. collins free press, 304 pages, $26 “Today we are learning the language in which God created life.” With these words, President Clinton...

The Idol of Science

Stephen M. Barr

The Creation: A Meeting of Science and Religion by Edward O. Wilson. W.W. Norton, 160 pages, $21.95. If there is a single word that sums up the life and...