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The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning
An impassioned, erudite, thoroughly researched, and beautifully reasoned book from one of the most admired religious thinkers of our time that argues not only that science and religion are compatible, but that they complement each other—and that the world needs both.
Religion and science, argues Rabbi Sacks, are the two essential perspectives that allow us to see the universe in its three-dimensional depth. Science teaches us where we come from. Religion explains to us why we are here. Science is the search for explanation. Religion is the search for meaning. We need scientific explanation to understand nature. We need meaning to understand human behavior. There have been times when religion tried to dominate science. And there have been times, including our own, when it is believed that we can learn all we need to know about meaning and relationships through biochemistry, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology. In this fascinating look at the interdependence of religion and science, Rabbi Sacks explains why both views are tragically wrong.
Religion and science, argues Rabbi Sacks, are the two essential perspectives that allow us to see the universe in its three-dimensional depth. Science teaches us where we come from. Religion explains to us why we are here. Science is the search for explanation. Religion is the search for meaning. We need scientific explanation to understand nature. We need meaning to understand human behavior. There have been times when religion tried to dominate science. And there have been times, including our own, when it is believed that we can learn all we need to know about meaning and relationships through biochemistry, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology. In this fascinating look at the interdependence of religion and science, Rabbi Sacks explains why both views are tragically wrong.
370 pages, Hardcover
First published July 7, 2011
About the author
Jonathan Sacks
179 books397 followersRabbi Lord Jonathan Henry Sacks was the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. His Hebrew name was Yaakov Zvi.
Serving as the chief rabbi in the United Kingdom from 1991 to 2013, Sacks gained fame both in the secular world and in Jewish circles. He was a sought-after voice on issues of war and peace, religious fundamentalism, ethics, and the relationship between science and religion, among other topics. Sacks wrote more than 20 books.
Rabbi Sacks died November 2020 after a short bout with cancer. He was 72.
Serving as the chief rabbi in the United Kingdom from 1991 to 2013, Sacks gained fame both in the secular world and in Jewish circles. He was a sought-after voice on issues of war and peace, religious fundamentalism, ethics, and the relationship between science and religion, among other topics. Sacks wrote more than 20 books.
Rabbi Sacks died November 2020 after a short bout with cancer. He was 72.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 121 reviews
January 5, 2015
"Science takes things apart to see how they work, religion puts things together to see what they mean."
That's the overarching perspective that Rabbi Sacks applies in this book which is part defence of the compatibility of science and religion and part assertion of the value of religion and its meaning and values – particularly the irreducible mystery of love – in the face of atomistic individualism and reductive ideologies.
Sacks notes that the meaning of a system does not inhere within the system, but is something imposed, asserted or discovered from outside the system. It's this observation that allows him to argue that any attempts to derive ultimate meaning and value from scientific inquiry into physical systems will be futile. This is an important point to be made in what is generally a fruitless shouting match between the religiously committed and the anti-religiously committed. However, not all of Sacks' arguments felt as strong to me. In what feels like a forced metaphor, he counterposes alledgedly "right brain" thinking of the Greeks with the "left brain" approach of Hebrew thought. This fairly flimsy contrast does a lot of work with relatively little evidence to back it up. As a metaphor, I can live with it. But as cultural, sociological and historical analysis it doesn't have a lot going for it.
Sacks attempts to mount a defence of religion as offering meaning, hope, community and a shared basis for common values – and whose loss he sees as opening up chasms of meaninglessness, loneliness and nihilism. It's a common complaint of religious writers in the face of the "New Atheism" – and it's probably not without foundation. Sacks probably doesn't wrestle enough, though, with how and why belief in God is difficult and different for the religiously committed in the 21st Century in ways it hasn't been for believers in the past.
Sacks is a sensitive and intelligent writer, and a deeply thoughtful man. There's a lot here to reflect on, and his urging of a "theology of protest" in the face of suffering is a helpful counter to cheap theodicies and glib religious dismissals.
That's the overarching perspective that Rabbi Sacks applies in this book which is part defence of the compatibility of science and religion and part assertion of the value of religion and its meaning and values – particularly the irreducible mystery of love – in the face of atomistic individualism and reductive ideologies.
Sacks notes that the meaning of a system does not inhere within the system, but is something imposed, asserted or discovered from outside the system. It's this observation that allows him to argue that any attempts to derive ultimate meaning and value from scientific inquiry into physical systems will be futile. This is an important point to be made in what is generally a fruitless shouting match between the religiously committed and the anti-religiously committed. However, not all of Sacks' arguments felt as strong to me. In what feels like a forced metaphor, he counterposes alledgedly "right brain" thinking of the Greeks with the "left brain" approach of Hebrew thought. This fairly flimsy contrast does a lot of work with relatively little evidence to back it up. As a metaphor, I can live with it. But as cultural, sociological and historical analysis it doesn't have a lot going for it.
Sacks attempts to mount a defence of religion as offering meaning, hope, community and a shared basis for common values – and whose loss he sees as opening up chasms of meaninglessness, loneliness and nihilism. It's a common complaint of religious writers in the face of the "New Atheism" – and it's probably not without foundation. Sacks probably doesn't wrestle enough, though, with how and why belief in God is difficult and different for the religiously committed in the 21st Century in ways it hasn't been for believers in the past.
Sacks is a sensitive and intelligent writer, and a deeply thoughtful man. There's a lot here to reflect on, and his urging of a "theology of protest" in the face of suffering is a helpful counter to cheap theodicies and glib religious dismissals.
October 22, 2017
My brother was so worried about me reading my first Richard Dawkins a couple of weeks ago that he bought me this as a present. It's the perfect counterpoint. Rabbi Sacks makes a very strong case for the co-existence of religion and science and how each one offers us something different but vital. Brim full of great anecdotes and wisdom both secular and divine, this was a gentle, non-confrontational read. That approach alone puts it ahead of Dawkins's slightly more belligerent framing.
December 30, 2014
It was difficult to decide how many stars to give this book because it was incredibly strong and important in some parts, but in others, merely laborious and repetitive.
Let me explain.
First, it's important to say from the outset that I think is Rabbi Sacks is incredibly learned, maybe a genius, and his facility to weave Biblical texts with those held sacred from the Western canon is always thrilling for this English teacher.
Also, as a response to recent works by New Atheists (Sacks's term, not sure if it's pejorative) like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens (RIP), and Sam Harris, Sacks's defense of the religious life is thoughtful, moderate, respectful, and conducted at low decibel. And though It is an incredibly welcome and needed entry into that discussion, in many ways, Sacks's preoccupation with defending religion against the NA's overtly dismissive diatribes is one of its faults as well. What I mean is that, and maybe I'm wrong here, I don't think that many thinking people believe, as Hitchens claimed, that "religion poisons everything." Emanating from such brilliant minds, it's a startlingly stupid assertion. OBVIOUSLY, one can cherry pick ANY "ism's" most morally deranged followers, most chillingly nationalistic writings, and most violent outliers and claim that the ISM "poisons everything." So Sacks spends far too much of this book arguing that there is something worthwhile, noble, and good, about leading a religious life. He never claims that these are guaranteed, only that throwing out religion altogether, as the NAs would have us do, robs humanity of one its most beautiful creations.
One other weakness (and then onto the justification for FOUR stars). As Sacks spends chapter after chapter explaining what is lost if we abandon religion (and by contrast what one gains through its maintenance), he bases much of his argument upon the foundation that the alternatives to God are meaninglessness, loneliness, loss, and desperation. In time, perhaps all of those are possible. But just because an existentialist understanding of the universe causes sadness and a sense of life's being absurd, doesn't make it UNTRUE! Sacks says here, as he has elsewhere, that he doesn't see why it's any more intellectually honest to choose despair over hope and faith. He's right. But he's mis-identifying the context of that belief moment: For many, especially in the atheist camp he's chiding, the disbelief in God is NOT a choice. To suppose that they're making a choice is to presuppose God as a given. As if God is a completely natural, logical, and untaught conclusion to come to merely through living. It is, for scientists, not that way at all. I think Sacks KNOWS this as well because he's brilliant.
And so the REAL choice being offered and defined in this book is: given the pain and suffering in the world, and frequently, its seeming meaninglessness, doesn't religious faith offer an amazingly healthful, holistic, communal, and thoughtful alternative? Absolutely! It just doesn't mean that its tenets are TRUE!
Where Sacks is strongest is in two sections. First, his discussion of right and left brain thought as mirrored in Hebraic and Hellenistic LANGUAGE and culture is absolutely fascinating, and as far as I know, novel. He admits that the right/left split he describes is overly reductive, but it is illustrative nonetheless.
Finally, and this is no small feat---Sacks's chapter on suffering and why bad things happen to good people is brilliant. Thankfully, at least from this reviewer's perspective, he REJECTS all traditional theodicies as facile and "comfort too cheaply earned." He never explains away suffering, but rather, argues that central to Hebraic thought is the REJECTION of comfort and an embracing of conflict and cognitive dissonance. He calls this the "The Theology of Protest," and though at times its real life implications seem cloudy, it is on the whole inspirational and smart.
Let me explain.
First, it's important to say from the outset that I think is Rabbi Sacks is incredibly learned, maybe a genius, and his facility to weave Biblical texts with those held sacred from the Western canon is always thrilling for this English teacher.
Also, as a response to recent works by New Atheists (Sacks's term, not sure if it's pejorative) like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens (RIP), and Sam Harris, Sacks's defense of the religious life is thoughtful, moderate, respectful, and conducted at low decibel. And though It is an incredibly welcome and needed entry into that discussion, in many ways, Sacks's preoccupation with defending religion against the NA's overtly dismissive diatribes is one of its faults as well. What I mean is that, and maybe I'm wrong here, I don't think that many thinking people believe, as Hitchens claimed, that "religion poisons everything." Emanating from such brilliant minds, it's a startlingly stupid assertion. OBVIOUSLY, one can cherry pick ANY "ism's" most morally deranged followers, most chillingly nationalistic writings, and most violent outliers and claim that the ISM "poisons everything." So Sacks spends far too much of this book arguing that there is something worthwhile, noble, and good, about leading a religious life. He never claims that these are guaranteed, only that throwing out religion altogether, as the NAs would have us do, robs humanity of one its most beautiful creations.
One other weakness (and then onto the justification for FOUR stars). As Sacks spends chapter after chapter explaining what is lost if we abandon religion (and by contrast what one gains through its maintenance), he bases much of his argument upon the foundation that the alternatives to God are meaninglessness, loneliness, loss, and desperation. In time, perhaps all of those are possible. But just because an existentialist understanding of the universe causes sadness and a sense of life's being absurd, doesn't make it UNTRUE! Sacks says here, as he has elsewhere, that he doesn't see why it's any more intellectually honest to choose despair over hope and faith. He's right. But he's mis-identifying the context of that belief moment: For many, especially in the atheist camp he's chiding, the disbelief in God is NOT a choice. To suppose that they're making a choice is to presuppose God as a given. As if God is a completely natural, logical, and untaught conclusion to come to merely through living. It is, for scientists, not that way at all. I think Sacks KNOWS this as well because he's brilliant.
And so the REAL choice being offered and defined in this book is: given the pain and suffering in the world, and frequently, its seeming meaninglessness, doesn't religious faith offer an amazingly healthful, holistic, communal, and thoughtful alternative? Absolutely! It just doesn't mean that its tenets are TRUE!
Where Sacks is strongest is in two sections. First, his discussion of right and left brain thought as mirrored in Hebraic and Hellenistic LANGUAGE and culture is absolutely fascinating, and as far as I know, novel. He admits that the right/left split he describes is overly reductive, but it is illustrative nonetheless.
Finally, and this is no small feat---Sacks's chapter on suffering and why bad things happen to good people is brilliant. Thankfully, at least from this reviewer's perspective, he REJECTS all traditional theodicies as facile and "comfort too cheaply earned." He never explains away suffering, but rather, argues that central to Hebraic thought is the REJECTION of comfort and an embracing of conflict and cognitive dissonance. He calls this the "The Theology of Protest," and though at times its real life implications seem cloudy, it is on the whole inspirational and smart.
June 25, 2013
I think that this is a wonderful book, as brilliant a synthesis of science and religion as one could hope to find today.
I thought the theological interpretation of Darwin's theory was an interesting and original one.
I also admire Rabbi Sacks' humility and respect for the various religions and social groups (such as scientists), while at the same time still being able to firmly articulate ideas.
Having read a few of his books, I wasn't sure if this one would contain original ideas, but that fear was allayed. Some of the ideas appear in Future Tense and Dignity of Difference (those are the only ones I've read thus far), but I found much new material as well.
I thought the theological interpretation of Darwin's theory was an interesting and original one.
I also admire Rabbi Sacks' humility and respect for the various religions and social groups (such as scientists), while at the same time still being able to firmly articulate ideas.
Having read a few of his books, I wasn't sure if this one would contain original ideas, but that fear was allayed. Some of the ideas appear in Future Tense and Dignity of Difference (those are the only ones I've read thus far), but I found much new material as well.
April 16, 2018
You know those books that resonate with you so much you have to explain them to as many people as possible in order to get people to read them?
This book is one of those for me.
I'd been wanting to read The Great Partnership for a long time, as several people had recommended it to me, and I'm already a fan of Rabbi Lord Sacks. While I don't always agree with him (for example, I feel that he overlooks the overwhelming evidence from the Gemara and Rishonim against his premise that Judaism must be a religion of protest and not of theodicy), he brings much-needed wisdom and moderation to interpret our modern world. Sometimes, I felt my instincts and personal beliefs validated; at other times, I felt myself exposed to new and vibrant insights.
He admits his lack of objectivity: in the supposed clash between religion and science, he comes from the perspective of a believer. But he nonetheless addresses this problem (and describes how there is ultimately no problem at all, in a way that reminded me of Jim Gates, the amazing physicist who also believes in G-d) from both angles, evaluating history and evidence with an even hand. He addresses particular critiques lobbed by philosophers, scientists, and other public figures against religion and the belief in G-d with honesty and detail.
The writing is lucid, although I felt a little overwhelmed near the beginning of the book, where Rabbi Sacks explains philosophy and philosophers I have only a passing acquaintance with (and that from decades ago, when I was in grad school). I got the impression that Rabbi Sacks is smarter and better-educated than me and the book was a bit imposing. I'm glad I stuck it out -- the book gets better and easier to understand as it goes along, and is particularly beautifully written in the second half. I also love the polite style of discourse adopted by Rabbi Sacks. For example, when he discusses the theories, statements, or actions of those he disagrees with, he firmly objects to those theories, statements, and actions, not to the people themselves. He admits when something is well-argued, well-articulated, or includes a worthy insight even if he ultimately disagrees with it.
One quibble: I feel like the second-to-last chapter, "Why G-d?", doesn't belong in the place it is in. By locating near the end, it sounds like this is what Rabbi Sacks has been leading up to (even though he says at some point in the chapter, that it he doesn't believe you can necessarily argue a person into believing in G-d). I think it would have made sense to instead insert the chapter into an earlier place, presenting how thinking believers end up in the believing camp, roughly parallel to the arguments against belief which he presents earlier. Also: I'm not sure that the chapter is necessary at all. Since he effectively says that religious belief is a separate issue from scientific endeavor, I feel like he largely renders those arguments unnecessary.
I highly recommend this book, for believers and non-believers alike. If you are a believer, it helps you understand the "other side" of the argument and to learn to get along with those who disagree with your belief. If you are a non-believer, and on the fence about picking up The Great Partnership (because it's by a believer--not just any believer, but a rabbi!), consider this, from the moving epilogue that closes the book:
"My aim in writing this book has not been to convince you...I have tried simply to show you that religious faith is not absurd, that it does not involve suspension of our critical faculties, that it does not and should not seek to inhibit the free pursuit of science, that it does not rest on contradiction and paradox, that it does not force us to accept suffering as G-d's will for the world, and that it does not ask us to believe six impossible things before breakfast...Yet I am troubled with the rancor that has entered the debate in recent years." (p.294)
The thing that Rabbi Sacks wants most is cooperation, peace, and harmony for the mutual benefit of all people. This humane book tries to move us a little closer to that goal.
This book is one of those for me.
I'd been wanting to read The Great Partnership for a long time, as several people had recommended it to me, and I'm already a fan of Rabbi Lord Sacks. While I don't always agree with him (for example, I feel that he overlooks the overwhelming evidence from the Gemara and Rishonim against his premise that Judaism must be a religion of protest and not of theodicy), he brings much-needed wisdom and moderation to interpret our modern world. Sometimes, I felt my instincts and personal beliefs validated; at other times, I felt myself exposed to new and vibrant insights.
He admits his lack of objectivity: in the supposed clash between religion and science, he comes from the perspective of a believer. But he nonetheless addresses this problem (and describes how there is ultimately no problem at all, in a way that reminded me of Jim Gates, the amazing physicist who also believes in G-d) from both angles, evaluating history and evidence with an even hand. He addresses particular critiques lobbed by philosophers, scientists, and other public figures against religion and the belief in G-d with honesty and detail.
The writing is lucid, although I felt a little overwhelmed near the beginning of the book, where Rabbi Sacks explains philosophy and philosophers I have only a passing acquaintance with (and that from decades ago, when I was in grad school). I got the impression that Rabbi Sacks is smarter and better-educated than me and the book was a bit imposing. I'm glad I stuck it out -- the book gets better and easier to understand as it goes along, and is particularly beautifully written in the second half. I also love the polite style of discourse adopted by Rabbi Sacks. For example, when he discusses the theories, statements, or actions of those he disagrees with, he firmly objects to those theories, statements, and actions, not to the people themselves. He admits when something is well-argued, well-articulated, or includes a worthy insight even if he ultimately disagrees with it.
One quibble: I feel like the second-to-last chapter, "Why G-d?", doesn't belong in the place it is in. By locating near the end, it sounds like this is what Rabbi Sacks has been leading up to (even though he says at some point in the chapter, that it he doesn't believe you can necessarily argue a person into believing in G-d). I think it would have made sense to instead insert the chapter into an earlier place, presenting how thinking believers end up in the believing camp, roughly parallel to the arguments against belief which he presents earlier. Also: I'm not sure that the chapter is necessary at all. Since he effectively says that religious belief is a separate issue from scientific endeavor, I feel like he largely renders those arguments unnecessary.
I highly recommend this book, for believers and non-believers alike. If you are a believer, it helps you understand the "other side" of the argument and to learn to get along with those who disagree with your belief. If you are a non-believer, and on the fence about picking up The Great Partnership (because it's by a believer--not just any believer, but a rabbi!), consider this, from the moving epilogue that closes the book:
"My aim in writing this book has not been to convince you...I have tried simply to show you that religious faith is not absurd, that it does not involve suspension of our critical faculties, that it does not and should not seek to inhibit the free pursuit of science, that it does not rest on contradiction and paradox, that it does not force us to accept suffering as G-d's will for the world, and that it does not ask us to believe six impossible things before breakfast...Yet I am troubled with the rancor that has entered the debate in recent years." (p.294)
The thing that Rabbi Sacks wants most is cooperation, peace, and harmony for the mutual benefit of all people. This humane book tries to move us a little closer to that goal.
December 14, 2011
Well worth the read for anyone who takes religion and science seriously; doesn't matter whether you're affiliated with Judaism.
Rabbi Sacks's central thesis is that no system contains meaning inherently; it is imposed from without. In this context, he takes it to mean that the physical universe (as governed by laws of nature, which he apparently takes for granted as autonomous) is in itself meaningless; it is only outside agents of sentience (such as religion) which ascribe meaning to it. All attempts to derive meaning from scientific inquiry are thereby futile, and tend to end up in destruction.
The author sees the rationalist effort to "square up" reason with God's apparent position and action opposite us and the universe, as misguided, a development not authentic to Abrahamic monotheism, but rather imported from the culture of ancient Greece. He loosely associates these worldviews with right- and left-brain thinking respectively, and argues that shedding this insistence on linear logic (such as is manifest in the discussion of theodicy) will resolve theo-philosophical tensions.
The author sees the current-day picture of aggressive atheists and stubborn fundamentalists angrily opposing each other as related to messianic politics, and cites the French, Russian and Nazi revolutions as examples of the failure of messianic thinking in treating worldly problems.
This was the best exposition of separate-realm thinking (science and religio-spiritual) that I have read, and through it I was finally able to understand that model. What bothered me most about Rabbi Sacks's approach is his focus on pragmatism as a justification or role-definition for religion. He argues for religion mostly as something to fill the void of meaning-making, and only after concluding his arguments, describes how he rationally sees God in the universe. To my ear this was a hollow treatment of religion, casting it primarily as utilitarian, and leaving God himself as a mere afterthought. That itself strips the meaning of religion for me. I presume that this imbalance may simply have been a side effect of the focus of the book; I have not read the author's other books.
Rabbi Sacks's central thesis is that no system contains meaning inherently; it is imposed from without. In this context, he takes it to mean that the physical universe (as governed by laws of nature, which he apparently takes for granted as autonomous) is in itself meaningless; it is only outside agents of sentience (such as religion) which ascribe meaning to it. All attempts to derive meaning from scientific inquiry are thereby futile, and tend to end up in destruction.
The author sees the rationalist effort to "square up" reason with God's apparent position and action opposite us and the universe, as misguided, a development not authentic to Abrahamic monotheism, but rather imported from the culture of ancient Greece. He loosely associates these worldviews with right- and left-brain thinking respectively, and argues that shedding this insistence on linear logic (such as is manifest in the discussion of theodicy) will resolve theo-philosophical tensions.
The author sees the current-day picture of aggressive atheists and stubborn fundamentalists angrily opposing each other as related to messianic politics, and cites the French, Russian and Nazi revolutions as examples of the failure of messianic thinking in treating worldly problems.
This was the best exposition of separate-realm thinking (science and religio-spiritual) that I have read, and through it I was finally able to understand that model. What bothered me most about Rabbi Sacks's approach is his focus on pragmatism as a justification or role-definition for religion. He argues for religion mostly as something to fill the void of meaning-making, and only after concluding his arguments, describes how he rationally sees God in the universe. To my ear this was a hollow treatment of religion, casting it primarily as utilitarian, and leaving God himself as a mere afterthought. That itself strips the meaning of religion for me. I presume that this imbalance may simply have been a side effect of the focus of the book; I have not read the author's other books.
December 6, 2018
Thoroughly splendid! With one main caveat: The way Rabbi Jonathan describes 'Pauline' Christianity is inaccurate and inadequate, as a cursory study of Orthodox Theology will show. Generally, this is another tremendous book by the affable Sacks and perhaps even better than Not In God's Name: a marvellous mixture of Theology, Philosophy, History, Neuroscience and Narrative all delicately juxtaposed. Sacks writes with the crisp rationality we might expect of a Doctor Of Philosophy and, better yet, has a gift for the fine art of storytelling. Most important is his fidelity to the patterns and promises of Biblical Faith-acknowledging the political role of covenant and placing it over and against the hunger for worldly revolutionary power. Discerning good from bad revolutions and habits of heart and mind which help move us closer to heaven or hell. Sacks offers helpful critiques that even too many Christians should consider and provides considerable correctives to common interpretations of Adam and Eve and Abraham and Isaac. His writing is focused and swift and he appropriately follows the Biblical pattern of both/and duality. While not falling into the error of dualism or seeing everything in binaries. Sacks respects the dynamite surprise of radical monotheism and the God of Revelation as it pertains to all areas of life. Shattering the perverse public-private mythos. Fabulously fitting for a book which speaks of a desire to bring together metaphorical left and right-brain thinking. Rabbi Sacks not only brings the brain back together but the mind, body and spirit. Jonathan is managing this in his own life in a number of ways and is an inspiration.
April 7, 2013
This is the best book on science and religion I have read. I'm also very moved and impressed with Rabbi Sacks view of religious faith, particularly within Judaism. It restores my faith that the Jewish people are not condemned to a perpetual internecine, self-destructive warfare. Well written, erudite and well up argued.
November 5, 2020
Grandes momentos diminuídos por trechos de um conservadorismo besta.
February 23, 2014
A must read.
April 18, 2018
brick. wall. head. impact. good.
December 2, 2019
If you’ve ever been conflicted when discussing faith, higher purpose and its relation to science, this is your book.
May 21, 2020
Read at your peril
The best argument in favor of the existence of God and the necessity of religion that I have ever read.
The best argument in favor of the existence of God and the necessity of religion that I have ever read.
March 25, 2019
Though the writer’s an Orthodox Rabbi, this book isn’t about how Orthodox Jewish belief, or any specific organized religion, holds up to the challenges of modern scientific findings. The two central religious tenets which seemed to be most closely examined in this book are very general and common to all Abrahamic religions - the very existence of God and His involvement in the creation of the world. However, presenting these two tenets as the big challenges to scientific minds is creating strawmen – these are far from the big 21st scientific challenges to organized religion. Plenty of people unaffiliated with religion can accept to the idea that there may be a God behind the Big Bang and there’ve been enough religious leaders who’ve embraced evolution over the past 100+ years to make it a non-issue. The issue that Rabbi Sacks failed to deal with - which I think is much more threatening to organized religion than scientific assaults on the existence of a supreme being or evolution- is the scientific deconstruction of holy texts in the 21st century. Never before has scientific analysis allowed us to have as many insights into the past and to parallel cultures & texts as we do now. Never has the authenticity of sacred texts been so challenged. Science has taken modern archaeology to a whole other level. I think that this deconstruction -whether through a better understanding of the context in which texts were written and more evidence of human intervention in sacred texts than ever before – is the real challenge to religion in the 21st century. Organized religion relies on divine authorship and some interaction between God and man that endorses current religious practices as in line with the will of God. Therefore, questioning divine authorship, and/or God’s direct or indirect communication with human beings, based on a more scientific, evidence-based approach to exploring the past and canonic texts, is what I think Rabbi Sacks should have focused on more in exploring the tension between religion and science. Or, at least, he should have addressed this tension somewhere in his book.
What Rabbi Sacks did do pretty well in this book is make a case for the strength of the religious experience. Ironically, he even quoted somewhat scientific studies to bolster his basic arguments that religious communities can make this world a better place and can allow us to live happy fulfilling lives. If nothing else, Rabbi Sacks’ arguments support allowing religion to thrive rather than trying to squelch it. Rabbi Sacks is, of course, against religious extremism or religious dualism (that divides believers and non-believers into ‘good’ and ‘bad’) but doesn’t see the historic harm inflicted in the name of religion as something intrinsic to the religious experience or to religious life. Personally, I think endorsing the religious experience is like endorsing swimming – some things just need to be experienced rather than written about. I do think, though, that sometimes you need to read about swimming in order to be inspired to get into the pool, and the geshtalt of this book might manage to extend that invitation to scientifically-minded people.
March 21, 2018
This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's helped me navigate the different approaches given respectively to religious and scientific thought. Scientific thought, Rabbi Sacks argues, is the rigorous approach to figure out how systems work by disassembly into various components. Religious/metaphysical lines of inquiry contemplate whether the system has meaning or a purpose.
What I appreciate is that Rabbi Sacks is self-aware of the fact that he paints ideas with broad brushstrokes. With regards to philosophy, it is difficult not to do so. However, he remains very respectful of people who live outside of a system of faith. In fact, his writings clearly demonstrate the weight of his admiration for a number of them. This is something I like, as a great many books on religion which I have read have rarely acknowledge the moral and intellectual contributions of atheists.
One of the other sections which I really appreciated was a section on how evolution could still be part of a divine plan. This is to be separated from the ideas of social Darwanism which has serious moral ramifications (i.e. eugenics, euthanasia, genocide). Rabbi Sacks makes an interesting argument of God allowing creation itself to be creative, and to allow a random series of events to carry out His plan.
This is a thought provoking book - well-written and well-researched. I look forward to reading more of his works.
What I appreciate is that Rabbi Sacks is self-aware of the fact that he paints ideas with broad brushstrokes. With regards to philosophy, it is difficult not to do so. However, he remains very respectful of people who live outside of a system of faith. In fact, his writings clearly demonstrate the weight of his admiration for a number of them. This is something I like, as a great many books on religion which I have read have rarely acknowledge the moral and intellectual contributions of atheists.
One of the other sections which I really appreciated was a section on how evolution could still be part of a divine plan. This is to be separated from the ideas of social Darwanism which has serious moral ramifications (i.e. eugenics, euthanasia, genocide). Rabbi Sacks makes an interesting argument of God allowing creation itself to be creative, and to allow a random series of events to carry out His plan.
This is a thought provoking book - well-written and well-researched. I look forward to reading more of his works.
July 23, 2016
How to form questions about god in the modern science? The atheistic and rational side of me asked first about the existential question “does god exist”, then the value question “how does god relate to my life”. Set aside textual records, there is no way to prove god’s existence, scientifically. In such path of inquiry, the second question becomes moot. We live through birth, growth, and death; “the rest is silence”. I had long put the god question in the pile of myth, superstition, horrific historic wrongs, and virulent global geopolitics. Maybe human is just a better computing and scheming animal, forever striving and swarming around replicating genes and forming cohesion social memes. Our ability to master science and derive technology simply give us the ability to expand for resource to gobble up, territories to conquer, enemy to squash or manipulate. Laws and ethnics often come across as behavioral codings for the greater and longer-term good of the homo sapiens. Social Darwinism would like to explain everything under the selfish gene, and the more horrifying Nietzsche “Will to Power”.
What a bleak picture of human life! If we are to take such views seriously, then individual life becomes irreducibly meaningless. Life piles upon life; death takes us all. One can be a Stoic or an Epicurean, or a heroic scornful Camus, to stare down the meaninglessness but still live on. Tolstoy had painted a vivid picture of being caught between a ravening beast and death pit, which life is the bush being eaten away by mice. When all science and philosophy peel away most of the myth and superstitions in traditional religions, themselves have left us without any answer to the meaning of life. One can argue the flower of pure science can do as much as harm as religion, and the best of philosophy and ethnics did not prevent Nazi’s ravage.
The question of god is the question of whether one needs to have an overarching narrative of one’s life. When all the science and philosophy is done, the question becomes a personal choice. (I am reminded of the movie “Life of Pi” on similar theme). The answer comes early in the book by two brilliant paralleling paragraphs (page 26 and 27), the original by the atheistic Bertrand Russell, the 2nd paraphrased by the author, from “unyielding despair” to “unyielding hope” to the question of “soul’s salvation” without changing the abiding scientific evidence.
Thus there is no first question of “does god exist”. One must choose first if one cares about the meaningfulness of one’s life beyond the doings in one’s biological and social realm. One must answer to one’s soul when such questions become irrepressible.
Then there is the operatic question. How does one formulate the “meaningfulness” without having to subdue one’s rationality and scientific knowledge? Godliness is in the particular, not the universal, as the author told us. We individually must determine how we follow through our question. Is our own god a being to negotiate worldly goods? A bargaining partner for bodily life eternal? Or in general, a deity to “I” or “me”? The bag of bones and flesh, the sack of appetite and vanity? What kind of small god would be willing to trade on such trivial terms?
Scientist talked about “singularity”, the ultimate merging of human and artificial intelligence. Our bodily appetite and positional vanity would vanish. Would we just become the roaming “borg” as in Star Trek imagination? Or something completely different.
The author told us that his vision of god has offered human hints and signs. No amount of Darwinism can explain away all the things humane. We have seen the purest altruism and self sacrifice, the transcending beauty in poetry, literature, art and music. There are sufficient evidence to give us hope that homo sapiens have more capacity than what our bodily reality dictates. As the author pointed out “the flowering of the spirit” is not the “spandrels, the decorative motifs that have nothing to do with the weight-bearing of life”, but the very quintessence of redemptive of life from the merely animalistic existence. In another word, the linkage to divine, or “singularity”.
So, in the first place, a choice instead of a question “do I need to find meaning in my life”. Then, another choice again on “what is my action toward such meaning”. As it stands now, one can contemplate whether one’s god is the fierce grandfather in Michelangelo’s Sistine mural, or the figure on a cross in El Greco’s painting. Or one can follow the author’s own (page 89):
“ That is how I have sought God, not through philosophical proofs, scientific demonstrations or theological arguments; not through miracles or mysteries or inner voices or sudden epiphanies; not by ceasing to question or challenge or doubt; not by blind father or existential leap; certainly not by an abandonment of reason and an embrace of the irrational. These things have brought many people to God. But they have also brought many people to worship things that are not God, like power, or ideology, or race. “ The author believes in living one’s life in “work of love”, in the daily actions of goodness and kindness. As he said: “God is the question of which my life is the answer”.
In someways, this book’s teaching is similar to the Zen and Buddhism teaching. In the end, spirituality is about conquering ego, enlarging one’s vision and concern through loving-kindness, and living one’s life in full awareness of higher callings of conscious and kindness to all beings and things.
(This book has many segments of highly intelligent and engaging discussion. Sometimes receptive but always come across sincere. A book worths of re-reading).
What a bleak picture of human life! If we are to take such views seriously, then individual life becomes irreducibly meaningless. Life piles upon life; death takes us all. One can be a Stoic or an Epicurean, or a heroic scornful Camus, to stare down the meaninglessness but still live on. Tolstoy had painted a vivid picture of being caught between a ravening beast and death pit, which life is the bush being eaten away by mice. When all science and philosophy peel away most of the myth and superstitions in traditional religions, themselves have left us without any answer to the meaning of life. One can argue the flower of pure science can do as much as harm as religion, and the best of philosophy and ethnics did not prevent Nazi’s ravage.
The question of god is the question of whether one needs to have an overarching narrative of one’s life. When all the science and philosophy is done, the question becomes a personal choice. (I am reminded of the movie “Life of Pi” on similar theme). The answer comes early in the book by two brilliant paralleling paragraphs (page 26 and 27), the original by the atheistic Bertrand Russell, the 2nd paraphrased by the author, from “unyielding despair” to “unyielding hope” to the question of “soul’s salvation” without changing the abiding scientific evidence.
Thus there is no first question of “does god exist”. One must choose first if one cares about the meaningfulness of one’s life beyond the doings in one’s biological and social realm. One must answer to one’s soul when such questions become irrepressible.
Then there is the operatic question. How does one formulate the “meaningfulness” without having to subdue one’s rationality and scientific knowledge? Godliness is in the particular, not the universal, as the author told us. We individually must determine how we follow through our question. Is our own god a being to negotiate worldly goods? A bargaining partner for bodily life eternal? Or in general, a deity to “I” or “me”? The bag of bones and flesh, the sack of appetite and vanity? What kind of small god would be willing to trade on such trivial terms?
Scientist talked about “singularity”, the ultimate merging of human and artificial intelligence. Our bodily appetite and positional vanity would vanish. Would we just become the roaming “borg” as in Star Trek imagination? Or something completely different.
The author told us that his vision of god has offered human hints and signs. No amount of Darwinism can explain away all the things humane. We have seen the purest altruism and self sacrifice, the transcending beauty in poetry, literature, art and music. There are sufficient evidence to give us hope that homo sapiens have more capacity than what our bodily reality dictates. As the author pointed out “the flowering of the spirit” is not the “spandrels, the decorative motifs that have nothing to do with the weight-bearing of life”, but the very quintessence of redemptive of life from the merely animalistic existence. In another word, the linkage to divine, or “singularity”.
So, in the first place, a choice instead of a question “do I need to find meaning in my life”. Then, another choice again on “what is my action toward such meaning”. As it stands now, one can contemplate whether one’s god is the fierce grandfather in Michelangelo’s Sistine mural, or the figure on a cross in El Greco’s painting. Or one can follow the author’s own (page 89):
“ That is how I have sought God, not through philosophical proofs, scientific demonstrations or theological arguments; not through miracles or mysteries or inner voices or sudden epiphanies; not by ceasing to question or challenge or doubt; not by blind father or existential leap; certainly not by an abandonment of reason and an embrace of the irrational. These things have brought many people to God. But they have also brought many people to worship things that are not God, like power, or ideology, or race. “ The author believes in living one’s life in “work of love”, in the daily actions of goodness and kindness. As he said: “God is the question of which my life is the answer”.
In someways, this book’s teaching is similar to the Zen and Buddhism teaching. In the end, spirituality is about conquering ego, enlarging one’s vision and concern through loving-kindness, and living one’s life in full awareness of higher callings of conscious and kindness to all beings and things.
(This book has many segments of highly intelligent and engaging discussion. Sometimes receptive but always come across sincere. A book worths of re-reading).
February 20, 2022
3 stars: Average for Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
My favorite parts of the book was when Rabbi Sacks interpreted the Old Testament. I love his analysis and interpretation of it; his perspective is different from mine, and it's a delight to read another interpretation.
The summary of the book would be this. It's not science or religion; it's science and religion. Science explains how while region explains the why. He shares a story of one man asking his friend why he likes football. His friend explains how the game is played and, at the end, the man says great I know how to play, but you didn't ask me why you like it.
Rabbi Sacks explains things as black and white, mostly because he is comparing science and religion.
My favorite parts of the book was when Rabbi Sacks interpreted the Old Testament. I love his analysis and interpretation of it; his perspective is different from mine, and it's a delight to read another interpretation.
The summary of the book would be this. It's not science or religion; it's science and religion. Science explains how while region explains the why. He shares a story of one man asking his friend why he likes football. His friend explains how the game is played and, at the end, the man says great I know how to play, but you didn't ask me why you like it.
Rabbi Sacks explains things as black and white, mostly because he is comparing science and religion.
June 11, 2022
I felt like this book didn't do a great job of what it promised on the tin. However despite that it was so good that I'm going to give it a 5/5 review anyways.
While I thought the argument for a partnership between religion and faith was only made on a very superficial level, this is one of the best defences of faith I have ever read. Jonathan Sacks has a narrative style and way of explaining things to do with faith in such an inspiring and thoughtful way that keeps you very engaged while you read.
Did I agree with everything he said? Absolutely not. I thought at times his characterisations of atheism were very uncharitable and there are clearly some moral issues we disagree on.
However despite this, I really loved this book and feel like I am a better person for having read it.
While I thought the argument for a partnership between religion and faith was only made on a very superficial level, this is one of the best defences of faith I have ever read. Jonathan Sacks has a narrative style and way of explaining things to do with faith in such an inspiring and thoughtful way that keeps you very engaged while you read.
Did I agree with everything he said? Absolutely not. I thought at times his characterisations of atheism were very uncharitable and there are clearly some moral issues we disagree on.
However despite this, I really loved this book and feel like I am a better person for having read it.
March 1, 2019
Rabbi Sacks reminds us that religion and science share much but in particular they share faith. Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean. Faith is about how we behave not what we believe. He argues that science and religion are compatible, that they complement each other and that the world needs both. A very illuminating book that needs to be read more than once.
May 19, 2021
This was a difficult read for me but well worth the effort!
June 21, 2019
The great partnership is one of the first books I read at yeshiva. Firstly I found Rabbi Sacks writing beautiful and extremely persuasive. Most The arguments made by Rabbi sacks I found very convincing and well put. There were a few topics that I didn’t seem to be as satisfied with the answers but over all I think you get most of them.
May 1, 2013
Mixed bag. First of all, I very much like Jonathan Sacks' tone and perspective. He's the Chief Rabbit of England and, like Rowan Williams, current Archbishop of Canterbury, he has an encompassing vision of spirit and intellect working in concord in the interests of a kinder, more harmonious world. He sees no inherent conflict beween science and religion and, in the first of the three major sections of this book, does a very good job presenting his vision. Beginning with some really interesting material on the difference between Hebrew and Greek alphabets, he establishes a vision of right brain/left brain complementarity which leads to a distinction between ways of knowing based on understanding mechanism (science) and figuring out meaning (religion). I'm planning on using this book as part of a summer class I'm team-teaching (for K-12 teaches)on the science-religion relationship, and I think it'll do a good job framing constructive, respectful discussions.
As I read that section, I assumed that Sacks was providing a variation on Stephen Jay Gould's notion of NOMA--the "non-overlapping magisteria" of science and religion (See SJG's Rocks of Age). Of the three primary approaches to the science-religion relationship--the other two are the fundamentalist "war" model and the New Age "convergence" model--that's the one that works best for me. Curiously, Sacks explicitly rejects Gould later in the book and presents his work as a variation on "convergence." Still thinking about it, but for now I'm keeping it filed under "NOMA" despite the author's intentions.
Okay, so why three stars? There are two problems with The Great Partnership, both of which I expect would be resolvable if I had two or three days to sit down and talk them through with the Rabbi. The first is an off-shoot of the mass market audience he was seeking and found. There are simply too many places where very complex historical, scientific and philosophical issues are reduced to a sentence or a dependent clause. Not nearly enough nuance. Clearly, Sacks knows that Marxism and Naziism and the French Revolution are very different ideologies, but he tends to include them along with the "new atheism" in lists of world views that reject religion. (That's particularly problematic with the Nazis, and I'm certain Sacks has thought the question through more deeply than the book demonstrates.) At many points, my short hand version of history and ideas simply differs from his. The difference isn't the problem; the lack of explanation is.
The second, and deeper, problem is that, Sacks paints an absolutely and insupportably rosy picture of the relationship between religion--by which he almost always means the Abrahamic tradition that includes Christianity, Judaism, and Islam--and "freedom." He inserts a few sentences saying he's aware of the abuses of religion, but he seems comfortable with brushing them aside and deciding that the balance is unarguably positive. Similarly, he treats capitalism as an outgrowth of "secular" thought and seems to think contemporary monotheism is a countervailing presence. Gotta say I just don't see it. Maybe that's because I'm an American, but damn....the churches have marched hand in hand with the merchants throughout the colonial enterprise; contemporary Islam has at the very least a substantial authoritarian tendency; the conservative agenda in American politics frequently uses religion to justify exploitation and the abandonment of the poor.
Sacks clearly resists all of those tendencies, seeing them as perversions of the religious approach. He'd have hard work convincing me that they aren't the main current of an argument in which he represents an honorable and preferable minority.
I was slightly bothered by the fact that only about half the book actually deals with science, which is *not* synonymous with secular thought. To say that the Soviets exalted science is true only in a bizarrely twisted sense. Again, I imagine Sacks has thought this through more deeply than the book shows.
As I read that section, I assumed that Sacks was providing a variation on Stephen Jay Gould's notion of NOMA--the "non-overlapping magisteria" of science and religion (See SJG's Rocks of Age). Of the three primary approaches to the science-religion relationship--the other two are the fundamentalist "war" model and the New Age "convergence" model--that's the one that works best for me. Curiously, Sacks explicitly rejects Gould later in the book and presents his work as a variation on "convergence." Still thinking about it, but for now I'm keeping it filed under "NOMA" despite the author's intentions.
Okay, so why three stars? There are two problems with The Great Partnership, both of which I expect would be resolvable if I had two or three days to sit down and talk them through with the Rabbi. The first is an off-shoot of the mass market audience he was seeking and found. There are simply too many places where very complex historical, scientific and philosophical issues are reduced to a sentence or a dependent clause. Not nearly enough nuance. Clearly, Sacks knows that Marxism and Naziism and the French Revolution are very different ideologies, but he tends to include them along with the "new atheism" in lists of world views that reject religion. (That's particularly problematic with the Nazis, and I'm certain Sacks has thought the question through more deeply than the book demonstrates.) At many points, my short hand version of history and ideas simply differs from his. The difference isn't the problem; the lack of explanation is.
The second, and deeper, problem is that, Sacks paints an absolutely and insupportably rosy picture of the relationship between religion--by which he almost always means the Abrahamic tradition that includes Christianity, Judaism, and Islam--and "freedom." He inserts a few sentences saying he's aware of the abuses of religion, but he seems comfortable with brushing them aside and deciding that the balance is unarguably positive. Similarly, he treats capitalism as an outgrowth of "secular" thought and seems to think contemporary monotheism is a countervailing presence. Gotta say I just don't see it. Maybe that's because I'm an American, but damn....the churches have marched hand in hand with the merchants throughout the colonial enterprise; contemporary Islam has at the very least a substantial authoritarian tendency; the conservative agenda in American politics frequently uses religion to justify exploitation and the abandonment of the poor.
Sacks clearly resists all of those tendencies, seeing them as perversions of the religious approach. He'd have hard work convincing me that they aren't the main current of an argument in which he represents an honorable and preferable minority.
I was slightly bothered by the fact that only about half the book actually deals with science, which is *not* synonymous with secular thought. To say that the Soviets exalted science is true only in a bizarrely twisted sense. Again, I imagine Sacks has thought this through more deeply than the book shows.
May 25, 2013
This book argues for the benefits of belief in God and religion. Religion binds people into groups,creates altruism and defeats egotism (p.156). I was reminded of a Psych 101 experiment with the 5 monkeys, banana and cold water where the monkeys are forced to consider how an act by an individual monkey affects the group. The advantage of religion is that one's acts are related to the impact on the group and thus one must act in a moral sense.(P.155). He contrasts left brain, linear, scientific (atheistic) thinking with right brain, intuitive (religious) thinking. At one point Sachs introduces what I consider to be a contrived analogy to Greek writing and the left brain. The Greeks are considered to be the early scientists. Greek writing started off as right to left and switched to left to right while Hebrew writing is right to left. This reminds me of the two different approaches described in Gilbert's Einstein's Jewish Science which makes a point about how Jewish thinking is constantly trying to interpret laws in the bible using relativist analysis while German culture is much more rooted in nature (empirical science ). Also, how Descartes and Newton were constrained in their scientific development by adherence to Catholic and Protestant dogma. Sachs argues that science and religion can work together in a partnership and do not have to be viewed as incompatible. Science takes nature apart to understand how it works, religion tries to understand how to put things together in a search for meaning. However, one can be a scientist and still believe in God and have faith.
There is an Interesting note on Havdala (p.212) as to why we light a candle at the end of the Sabbath. God created Adam on sixth day which was also the day on which they sinned and ate the apple from the tree of knowledge. Rather than expel him from Eden on the Sabbath, God deferred it for one day so they could have sabbath in Eden . At the end of that day it was nighttime and they were afraid to journey in the dark so God taught them how to make fire and light a candle.
Darwinism doesn't refute religion nor vice versa. The question to ask is what insights do science and religion offer to each other. The Creator made creation creative and ever evolving and thanks to Darwin we know how this applies to nature .
The problem of evil is discussed in the context of why does God permit evil. Sachs describes 3 forms of evil--that due to the physical world which we know is imperfect from a scientific point of view, the second is the evil that man does against man and the third is the evil that man does against himself. Sachs argues that rather than wait until one goes to heaven to find evil gone replaced by justice that one must grapple with the world as it is today. But rather than accept the world as it is, true faith requires crying out against injustice in the same way that many biblical characters did (Moses, Abraham, Habakuk,Job). The question then arises as to what must one make of the coming of the Messiah. Will the world then become more perfect or is this just a goal that can never be realized but just a way of thinking about reward for man overcoming his inclination for evil.
Acceptance of the world as it is, rather than rejecting a belief in God as incompatible with the experienced evil is a theme also described in Kushner's book, The Story of Job,How Bad Things Happened to Good Person. Kushner asks that rather than question God as being responsible for evil one should simply go forward as best as we can, even in the face of terrible tragedies and live the days to come in the best way we can. This requires persistence in faith.
The bottom line of faith is characterized by the survival of the Jewish people despite the catastrophes they experienced
While Jews may not be optimists they do not lose hope and their faith has sustained them.
There is an Interesting note on Havdala (p.212) as to why we light a candle at the end of the Sabbath. God created Adam on sixth day which was also the day on which they sinned and ate the apple from the tree of knowledge. Rather than expel him from Eden on the Sabbath, God deferred it for one day so they could have sabbath in Eden . At the end of that day it was nighttime and they were afraid to journey in the dark so God taught them how to make fire and light a candle.
Darwinism doesn't refute religion nor vice versa. The question to ask is what insights do science and religion offer to each other. The Creator made creation creative and ever evolving and thanks to Darwin we know how this applies to nature .
The problem of evil is discussed in the context of why does God permit evil. Sachs describes 3 forms of evil--that due to the physical world which we know is imperfect from a scientific point of view, the second is the evil that man does against man and the third is the evil that man does against himself. Sachs argues that rather than wait until one goes to heaven to find evil gone replaced by justice that one must grapple with the world as it is today. But rather than accept the world as it is, true faith requires crying out against injustice in the same way that many biblical characters did (Moses, Abraham, Habakuk,Job). The question then arises as to what must one make of the coming of the Messiah. Will the world then become more perfect or is this just a goal that can never be realized but just a way of thinking about reward for man overcoming his inclination for evil.
Acceptance of the world as it is, rather than rejecting a belief in God as incompatible with the experienced evil is a theme also described in Kushner's book, The Story of Job,How Bad Things Happened to Good Person. Kushner asks that rather than question God as being responsible for evil one should simply go forward as best as we can, even in the face of terrible tragedies and live the days to come in the best way we can. This requires persistence in faith.
The bottom line of faith is characterized by the survival of the Jewish people despite the catastrophes they experienced
While Jews may not be optimists they do not lose hope and their faith has sustained them.
October 13, 2015
At times, the best I've ever read on religion and its important connection to all of life, especially science. At other times, so incredibly wrong about God and salvation--understandably given his Judaism. Worth a read, no doubt. But not a complete endorsement.
May 29, 2013
The best book on religion and science I have ever read. Rabbi Sacks is humane, educated, and open to both wonder and reason. He makes the combination make perfect sense.
November 10, 2018
A lot of valuable insights in this.
January 31, 2016
This is a very good book! Rabbi Sacks is very thoughtful and articulate in describing the importance of both science and religion and pointing out how well they work together. Both are necessary. He says that science analyzes and pulls things apart to explain how they work, while religion brings things together and gives meaning to life. We must be thoughtful and search and study and learn all that we can through the scientific method, but religion endures and gives purpose.
This is a critical topic for all of us to understand. Regardless of what we believe or don't believe we should come together to protect religious freedom because we are all better off when we live in a moral society. I learned a lot reading this book. Rabbi Sacks talks about religion (pulling much from his Jewish faith that is very insightful, but also from Christianity and Islam), science, philosophy, economics, psychology, and more. This is a complex world, but when are goal is to seek for truth it all comes together!
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
"Today the danger is of a radical religiosity combined with an apocalyptic political agenda, able through terror and asymmetric warfare to destabilise whole nations and regions. I fear that as much as I fear secular totalitarianisms. All religious moderates of all faiths would agree. This is one fight believers and non-believers should be fighting together (p. 2)."
"I want, in this book, to argue that we need both religion and science; that they are compatible and more than compatible. They are the two essential perspectives that allow us to see the universe in its three-dimensional depth. The creative tension between the two is what keeps us sane, grounded in physical reality without losing our spiritual sensibility. It keeps us human and humane....Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean (p. 2)."
"'Science without religion is lame; religions without science is blind (Albert Einstein, p. 6).'"
"Science is about explanation. Religion is about meaning. Science analyses, religion integrates. Science breaks things down to their component parts. Religion binds people together in relationships of trust. Science tells us what is. Religion tells us what ought to be. Science describes. Religion beckons, summons, calls. Science sees objects. Religion speaks to us as subjects. Science practises detachment. Religion is the art of attachment, self to self, soul to soul. Science sees the underlying order of the physical world. Religion hears the music beneath the noise. Science is the conquest of ignorance. Religion is the redemption of solitude (p. 6)."
"All other civilisations rise and fall. The faith of Abraham survives (p. 8)."
"Religion is not a horseshoe, and it is not about luck, but one thing many Jews know is that it works whether you believe in it or not. Love, trust, family, community, giving as integral to living, study as a sacred task, argument as a sacred duty, forgiveness, atonement, gratitude, prayer: these things work whether you believe in them or not. The Jewish way is first to live God, then to ask questions about him (p. 15)."
"The search for God is the search for meaning. The discovering of God is the discovering of meaning. And that is no small thing, for we are meaning-seeking animals. It is what makes us unique. To be human is to ask the question, 'Why (p. 25)?'"
"The meaning of the system lies outside the system. Therefore, the meaning of the universe lies outside the universe (p. 29)."
"Here, roughly, is how an Epicurean would advise us to live. Do not make emotional commitments. Seize the day and harden yourself against a darker tomorrow. Do not pledge your life in marriage or suffer the burdens of bearing children. There is only one life, so there is no point in foreclosing your options or spending your time raising the next generation, for by the time your investment bears fruit you may no longer be here to see it. Do not get involved in public life: it is stressful and creates envy. Do not spend too much time on others: they seldom repay your efforts or even thank you for them. What matters is you. The others can look after themselves and if they cannot, that is their problem, not yours. Spend your time with friends. Live simply. Get used to solitude....Do not ask what life is for. Live it day by day. And when it becomes burdensome, end it at a time and place of your choosing....Individuals can live without meaning. Societies in the long run cannot (p. 34)."
"During the Holocaust there was no choice. What remained once you had lost everything there was to lose? Frankl realised that there was on freedom that can never be taken away: 'to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.' The freedom that remained was the decision how to respond (p. 35)."
"To find meaning in life is to find something we are called on to do, something no one else can do. Discovering that task is not easy....God is the question to which our lives are an answer (p. 37)."
"A civilisation that had space for science but not religion might achieve technological prowess. But it would not respect people in specificity and particularity. It would quickly become inhuman and inhumane....The world of science is an arena of causes and effects. The world of people in their glory and frailty is a domain of hopes, fears, dreams, anxieties, intentions and aspirations, all of them set within frameworks of meaning through which we discovered, if we are fortunate, our purpose of life, that which we are called on -- by God, by nature, by the still small voice -- to do (p. 55)."
"We create space for God by feeding the hungry, healing the sick, housing the homeless and fighting for justice. God lives in the right hemisphere of the brain, in empathy and interpersonal understanding, in relationships etched with the charisma of grace, not subject and object, command and control, dominance and submission. Faith is a relationship in which we become God's partners in the work of love (p. 74)."
"Meaning is made and sustained in conversations. It lives in relationships: in marriages, families, communities and societies. It is told in narrative, invoked in prayer, enacted in ritual, encoded in sacred texts, celebrated on holy days and sung in songs of praise (p. 77)."
"Faith is about seeing the miraculous in the everyday, not about waiting every day for the miraculous. So my induction into godless philosophy did wonders for my faith. It cleared the garden of religion from the covering of weeds that was disfiguring the lawn and hiding the flowers. Nor did I expect otherwise. If God created the world, then his existence must be compatible with the world. If he created human intelligence, his existence must not be an insult to the intelligence. If the greatest gift he gave humanity was freedom, then religion could not establish itself by coercion (p. 81)."
"Faith is not certainty. It is the courage to live with uncertainty. Faith is never easy. The great heroes of the moral life, like the great artists and scientists and thinkers, like anyone who has undertaken to live a life of high ideals, know failure after failure, disappointment after disappointment. What made them great is that they refused to despair (p. 97)."
"Everything I have learned about faith in a lifetime tells me that the science of creation - cosmology - wondrous though it is, take second place to the sheer wonder that God could take this risk of creating a creature with the freedom to disobey him and wreck his world. There is no faith humans can have in God equal to the faith God must have had in humankind to place us here as guardians of the vastness and splendour of the universe. We exist because of God's faith in us. That is why I see in the faces of those I meet a trace of God's love that lifts me to try to love a little as God loves. I know that nothing with greater power to lift us beyond ourselves and to perform acts that carry within them a signal of transcendence. God lives wherever we open our eyes to his radiance, our hearts to his transforming love (p. 98)."
"'The absence of God, when consistently upheld and thoroughly examined, spells the ruin of man in the sense that it demolishes or robs of meaning everything we have been used to think of as the essence of being human: the quest for truth, the distinction of good and evil, the claim to dignity, the claim to creating something that withstands the indifferent destructiveness of time (Leszek Kolakowski, p. 101)."
"When you stop believing in God, there is no sudden explosion of light or darkness. The world continues on its accustomed course. The sky does not fall. The sun still shines. Life goes on. But something is lost nonetheless, something important that gives life connectedness, depth and a sense of purpose; that gives you a feeling of participating in something vast and consequential. When we lose God, what else do we lose? What do we lose collectively and individually?....The loss is not immediately obvious, but our human worth is subtly undermined (p. 101)."
"Outside of religion there is no secure alternative base for the unconditional source of worth that in the West has come from the idea that we are each in God's image. Though many have tried to create a secular substitute, none has ultimately succeeded (p. 102)."
"I fear for the future of the West if it loses its faith. You cannot defend Western freedom on the basis of moral relativism, the only mortality left when we lose our mooring in a sacred ontology or a divine-human covenant. No secular morality withstood Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. No secular morality today has the force to withstand sustained onslaught of ruthless religious extremism. Neither market economics nor liberal democracy has the power, in and of itself, to inspire people to make sacrifices for the common good. In the multicultural nation states of contemporary Europe, it is increasingly difficult to know whether there remains a compelling sense of the common good (p. 109)."
"The point of this chapter is simply to note how fragile is the concept of human dignity, and how easily it can be lost in the course of scientific thinking (p. 122)."
"There is something intrinsically dehumanising in the left-brain mentality. The scientific mind lives in detachment, analysis, the breaking down of wholes to their component parts. The focus is not on the particular -- this man, that woman, this child -- but on the universal. Science per se has no space for empathy or fellow feeling. None of this is to say that scientists are not compassionate and loving human beings: surely they are. But when science is worshipped and religion dethroned, then a certain decision has been made to set aside human feelings for the sake of something higher, nobler, larger (p. 123)."
"Science cannot, in and of itself, give an account of human dignity, because dignity is based on human freedom (p. 124)."
"The politics of covenant is about faith and hope, the faith that together we can build a gracious future and the hope that history can be redeemed from tragedy. A nation predicated on covenant can always renew itself. It is highly doubtful whether other political formations can do so (p. 134)."
"When people begin to lose their religious convictions, often the first thing they stop doing is observing religious rituals. The last thing they lose is their moral beliefs (p. 147)."
"It was the strength of its families and its consecration of the love between husband and wife, parent and child, that made Judaism what it is and gave it the passion and resilience it has always had (p. 165)."
"Darwinism seems to be proof of the meaninglessness of life (p. 213)."
"From one perspective, the story of Joseph is a series of random events, driven by a series of human decisions that might have been otherwise. From other perspective, it is the working out of a providential pattern whose end was announced (in Joseph's dream) at the beginning. That is why a sentence like 'Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind' may be true and false in equal measure (p. 222)."
"There is nothing obvious about divine design. It is oblique, subtle and sometimes non-linear. It needs much intelligence and depth to perceive it, and it is arrived at not by the left-brain process of analysing microscopic detail, but but the right-brain capacity to step back and see the picture as a whole (p. 229)."
"How can God allow unjust suffering in the world (p. 233)?"
"Far from attempting to minimise the problem, the Bible maximises it, seemingly at every opportunity. The people who challenge divine justice are not heretics, sceptics, deniers of the faith. They are the supreme heroes of the faith: Moses and the prophets, the people who carry God's word to the world. This cries out for explanation (p. 235)."
"'What would we expect the world to be like if...there was an omnipotent, omniscient, all-good God?' No child would die. Perhaps no adult would die. Animals would not hunt each other for food. There would be no sickness, no poverty and no hunger. No one would be homeless or without access to pure water and medical treatment. There would be no Earthquakes, no tsumanis, or if there were, they would cause no loss of life (p. 236)."
"This life is not all there is. There is another world, after death. There is heaven. There is peace and eternal life. All the evil of this world is banished in the world to come. It is there that we find justice, truth and God. God is good; the world is bad; therefore God is not to be found in this world but in another, the world we enter when we die (p. 237)."
"The survival of religion is the greatest improbability of all....To explain the world, we have science. To control it, we have technology. To negotiate power, we have democratic politics. To achieve prosperity, we have a market economy. If we are ill, we go to a doctor, not a priest. If we feel guilty, we can go to a psychotherapist; we have no need of a confessor....Faith would seem to be redundant in the contemporary world. And yet far from disappearing, it is alive and well and flourishing (p. 281)."
This is a critical topic for all of us to understand. Regardless of what we believe or don't believe we should come together to protect religious freedom because we are all better off when we live in a moral society. I learned a lot reading this book. Rabbi Sacks talks about religion (pulling much from his Jewish faith that is very insightful, but also from Christianity and Islam), science, philosophy, economics, psychology, and more. This is a complex world, but when are goal is to seek for truth it all comes together!
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
"Today the danger is of a radical religiosity combined with an apocalyptic political agenda, able through terror and asymmetric warfare to destabilise whole nations and regions. I fear that as much as I fear secular totalitarianisms. All religious moderates of all faiths would agree. This is one fight believers and non-believers should be fighting together (p. 2)."
"I want, in this book, to argue that we need both religion and science; that they are compatible and more than compatible. They are the two essential perspectives that allow us to see the universe in its three-dimensional depth. The creative tension between the two is what keeps us sane, grounded in physical reality without losing our spiritual sensibility. It keeps us human and humane....Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean (p. 2)."
"'Science without religion is lame; religions without science is blind (Albert Einstein, p. 6).'"
"Science is about explanation. Religion is about meaning. Science analyses, religion integrates. Science breaks things down to their component parts. Religion binds people together in relationships of trust. Science tells us what is. Religion tells us what ought to be. Science describes. Religion beckons, summons, calls. Science sees objects. Religion speaks to us as subjects. Science practises detachment. Religion is the art of attachment, self to self, soul to soul. Science sees the underlying order of the physical world. Religion hears the music beneath the noise. Science is the conquest of ignorance. Religion is the redemption of solitude (p. 6)."
"All other civilisations rise and fall. The faith of Abraham survives (p. 8)."
"Religion is not a horseshoe, and it is not about luck, but one thing many Jews know is that it works whether you believe in it or not. Love, trust, family, community, giving as integral to living, study as a sacred task, argument as a sacred duty, forgiveness, atonement, gratitude, prayer: these things work whether you believe in them or not. The Jewish way is first to live God, then to ask questions about him (p. 15)."
"The search for God is the search for meaning. The discovering of God is the discovering of meaning. And that is no small thing, for we are meaning-seeking animals. It is what makes us unique. To be human is to ask the question, 'Why (p. 25)?'"
"The meaning of the system lies outside the system. Therefore, the meaning of the universe lies outside the universe (p. 29)."
"Here, roughly, is how an Epicurean would advise us to live. Do not make emotional commitments. Seize the day and harden yourself against a darker tomorrow. Do not pledge your life in marriage or suffer the burdens of bearing children. There is only one life, so there is no point in foreclosing your options or spending your time raising the next generation, for by the time your investment bears fruit you may no longer be here to see it. Do not get involved in public life: it is stressful and creates envy. Do not spend too much time on others: they seldom repay your efforts or even thank you for them. What matters is you. The others can look after themselves and if they cannot, that is their problem, not yours. Spend your time with friends. Live simply. Get used to solitude....Do not ask what life is for. Live it day by day. And when it becomes burdensome, end it at a time and place of your choosing....Individuals can live without meaning. Societies in the long run cannot (p. 34)."
"During the Holocaust there was no choice. What remained once you had lost everything there was to lose? Frankl realised that there was on freedom that can never be taken away: 'to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.' The freedom that remained was the decision how to respond (p. 35)."
"To find meaning in life is to find something we are called on to do, something no one else can do. Discovering that task is not easy....God is the question to which our lives are an answer (p. 37)."
"A civilisation that had space for science but not religion might achieve technological prowess. But it would not respect people in specificity and particularity. It would quickly become inhuman and inhumane....The world of science is an arena of causes and effects. The world of people in their glory and frailty is a domain of hopes, fears, dreams, anxieties, intentions and aspirations, all of them set within frameworks of meaning through which we discovered, if we are fortunate, our purpose of life, that which we are called on -- by God, by nature, by the still small voice -- to do (p. 55)."
"We create space for God by feeding the hungry, healing the sick, housing the homeless and fighting for justice. God lives in the right hemisphere of the brain, in empathy and interpersonal understanding, in relationships etched with the charisma of grace, not subject and object, command and control, dominance and submission. Faith is a relationship in which we become God's partners in the work of love (p. 74)."
"Meaning is made and sustained in conversations. It lives in relationships: in marriages, families, communities and societies. It is told in narrative, invoked in prayer, enacted in ritual, encoded in sacred texts, celebrated on holy days and sung in songs of praise (p. 77)."
"Faith is about seeing the miraculous in the everyday, not about waiting every day for the miraculous. So my induction into godless philosophy did wonders for my faith. It cleared the garden of religion from the covering of weeds that was disfiguring the lawn and hiding the flowers. Nor did I expect otherwise. If God created the world, then his existence must be compatible with the world. If he created human intelligence, his existence must not be an insult to the intelligence. If the greatest gift he gave humanity was freedom, then religion could not establish itself by coercion (p. 81)."
"Faith is not certainty. It is the courage to live with uncertainty. Faith is never easy. The great heroes of the moral life, like the great artists and scientists and thinkers, like anyone who has undertaken to live a life of high ideals, know failure after failure, disappointment after disappointment. What made them great is that they refused to despair (p. 97)."
"Everything I have learned about faith in a lifetime tells me that the science of creation - cosmology - wondrous though it is, take second place to the sheer wonder that God could take this risk of creating a creature with the freedom to disobey him and wreck his world. There is no faith humans can have in God equal to the faith God must have had in humankind to place us here as guardians of the vastness and splendour of the universe. We exist because of God's faith in us. That is why I see in the faces of those I meet a trace of God's love that lifts me to try to love a little as God loves. I know that nothing with greater power to lift us beyond ourselves and to perform acts that carry within them a signal of transcendence. God lives wherever we open our eyes to his radiance, our hearts to his transforming love (p. 98)."
"'The absence of God, when consistently upheld and thoroughly examined, spells the ruin of man in the sense that it demolishes or robs of meaning everything we have been used to think of as the essence of being human: the quest for truth, the distinction of good and evil, the claim to dignity, the claim to creating something that withstands the indifferent destructiveness of time (Leszek Kolakowski, p. 101)."
"When you stop believing in God, there is no sudden explosion of light or darkness. The world continues on its accustomed course. The sky does not fall. The sun still shines. Life goes on. But something is lost nonetheless, something important that gives life connectedness, depth and a sense of purpose; that gives you a feeling of participating in something vast and consequential. When we lose God, what else do we lose? What do we lose collectively and individually?....The loss is not immediately obvious, but our human worth is subtly undermined (p. 101)."
"Outside of religion there is no secure alternative base for the unconditional source of worth that in the West has come from the idea that we are each in God's image. Though many have tried to create a secular substitute, none has ultimately succeeded (p. 102)."
"I fear for the future of the West if it loses its faith. You cannot defend Western freedom on the basis of moral relativism, the only mortality left when we lose our mooring in a sacred ontology or a divine-human covenant. No secular morality withstood Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. No secular morality today has the force to withstand sustained onslaught of ruthless religious extremism. Neither market economics nor liberal democracy has the power, in and of itself, to inspire people to make sacrifices for the common good. In the multicultural nation states of contemporary Europe, it is increasingly difficult to know whether there remains a compelling sense of the common good (p. 109)."
"The point of this chapter is simply to note how fragile is the concept of human dignity, and how easily it can be lost in the course of scientific thinking (p. 122)."
"There is something intrinsically dehumanising in the left-brain mentality. The scientific mind lives in detachment, analysis, the breaking down of wholes to their component parts. The focus is not on the particular -- this man, that woman, this child -- but on the universal. Science per se has no space for empathy or fellow feeling. None of this is to say that scientists are not compassionate and loving human beings: surely they are. But when science is worshipped and religion dethroned, then a certain decision has been made to set aside human feelings for the sake of something higher, nobler, larger (p. 123)."
"Science cannot, in and of itself, give an account of human dignity, because dignity is based on human freedom (p. 124)."
"The politics of covenant is about faith and hope, the faith that together we can build a gracious future and the hope that history can be redeemed from tragedy. A nation predicated on covenant can always renew itself. It is highly doubtful whether other political formations can do so (p. 134)."
"When people begin to lose their religious convictions, often the first thing they stop doing is observing religious rituals. The last thing they lose is their moral beliefs (p. 147)."
"It was the strength of its families and its consecration of the love between husband and wife, parent and child, that made Judaism what it is and gave it the passion and resilience it has always had (p. 165)."
"Darwinism seems to be proof of the meaninglessness of life (p. 213)."
"From one perspective, the story of Joseph is a series of random events, driven by a series of human decisions that might have been otherwise. From other perspective, it is the working out of a providential pattern whose end was announced (in Joseph's dream) at the beginning. That is why a sentence like 'Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind' may be true and false in equal measure (p. 222)."
"There is nothing obvious about divine design. It is oblique, subtle and sometimes non-linear. It needs much intelligence and depth to perceive it, and it is arrived at not by the left-brain process of analysing microscopic detail, but but the right-brain capacity to step back and see the picture as a whole (p. 229)."
"How can God allow unjust suffering in the world (p. 233)?"
"Far from attempting to minimise the problem, the Bible maximises it, seemingly at every opportunity. The people who challenge divine justice are not heretics, sceptics, deniers of the faith. They are the supreme heroes of the faith: Moses and the prophets, the people who carry God's word to the world. This cries out for explanation (p. 235)."
"'What would we expect the world to be like if...there was an omnipotent, omniscient, all-good God?' No child would die. Perhaps no adult would die. Animals would not hunt each other for food. There would be no sickness, no poverty and no hunger. No one would be homeless or without access to pure water and medical treatment. There would be no Earthquakes, no tsumanis, or if there were, they would cause no loss of life (p. 236)."
"This life is not all there is. There is another world, after death. There is heaven. There is peace and eternal life. All the evil of this world is banished in the world to come. It is there that we find justice, truth and God. God is good; the world is bad; therefore God is not to be found in this world but in another, the world we enter when we die (p. 237)."
"The survival of religion is the greatest improbability of all....To explain the world, we have science. To control it, we have technology. To negotiate power, we have democratic politics. To achieve prosperity, we have a market economy. If we are ill, we go to a doctor, not a priest. If we feel guilty, we can go to a psychotherapist; we have no need of a confessor....Faith would seem to be redundant in the contemporary world. And yet far from disappearing, it is alive and well and flourishing (p. 281)."
October 2, 2020
Jonathan Sacks deconstructs absolute scientific realism very well; his overarching premise (the meaning of a system must lie outside of the system) has two utilities: one, it refutes the idea that we can know God purely through scientific methods and asserts that metaphysical cosmology by necessity must lie outside of the system that it upholds. (Science.)
He also discusses why we must believe in something (and live for something) other than life itself. If we only live for what a cruel and chaotic world gives us, it's easy to become disenfranchised and give up on life altogether. Our lives' meanings cannot lie in the material world. There must be another purpose.
I didn't agree with everything that he wrote, however. His attempt at tackling the problem of evil was weaker than I had hoped. "Could God have made a race of creatures who, of their own free will, did good to others? No," he writes (I'm paraphrasing.) "Free will means the freedom to do evil." He says that God could have made us do nothing but sing praises to Him and do good to each other, but would such a God be worthy of our praise?
The answer many atheists have would probably be something like: "Is a God that allows so much suffering and evil to exist worthy of our praise?" Sacks's attempt at explaining why a God who does not allow for evil to exist is actually less worthy of our praise than a God who does is lackluster and comes down to a single rhetorical question. When Sacks says that "science has shown us why suffering must exist" and goes on to explain how "cancer exists because of genes' abilities to mutate, the same ability that made evolution possible" the obvious counter to this is to ask /why/ God allowed for mutation to cause so much pain-- could He not have made all mutations benign? Why must evolution occur, period, given that natural selection naturally involves the pain, death, and suffering of so many living organisms?
My answer has approximated the answer that Sacks attributes to Jonathan Keats-- that suffering exists to teach us something about being wise and doing good. Sacks "counters" this by saying that the Jewish philosopher Maimonides supported economic justice so that no one would need charity, which is a little irrelevant to that argument, in my opinion. Sacks seems to think that "If Alan suffers so that Brian can help him, Alan is merely a means to an end." Sacks is forgetting that Alan presumably has ample opportunity to help the suffering himself when he gets the chance to. If we draw a false dichotomy between suffering, passive individuals and active moral agents, sure, that is condescending.
But such a dichotomy doesn't exist anywhere but in Sacks's head. Both Alan and Brian are moral agents who have the opportunity to grow in kindness, and invite others to do the same to them when they are in need of help. We all suffer so that we all may do good to one another. We are all "Alan" at times and "Brian" at times. In fact, pretending that humans exist in two classes: the disenfranchised "Alans" and virtuous, heroic "Brians" is, in itself, a bit condescending. We all suffer, and we all aim to help the suffering.
And even if we accomplish what Maimonides laid out, make sure everyone able to be self-sufficient is self-sufficient, there will always be unexpected illness, natural disaster, people with severe impairments who cannot work, animal cruelty, and a bevvy of other issues in need of taking care of. Drawing a dichotomy between Keats and Maimonides was a bit bizarre in my opinion.
Sacks had some good ideas and some shakier ones, but altogether I enjoyed the book and am giving it 4 stars.
He also discusses why we must believe in something (and live for something) other than life itself. If we only live for what a cruel and chaotic world gives us, it's easy to become disenfranchised and give up on life altogether. Our lives' meanings cannot lie in the material world. There must be another purpose.
I didn't agree with everything that he wrote, however. His attempt at tackling the problem of evil was weaker than I had hoped. "Could God have made a race of creatures who, of their own free will, did good to others? No," he writes (I'm paraphrasing.) "Free will means the freedom to do evil." He says that God could have made us do nothing but sing praises to Him and do good to each other, but would such a God be worthy of our praise?
The answer many atheists have would probably be something like: "Is a God that allows so much suffering and evil to exist worthy of our praise?" Sacks's attempt at explaining why a God who does not allow for evil to exist is actually less worthy of our praise than a God who does is lackluster and comes down to a single rhetorical question. When Sacks says that "science has shown us why suffering must exist" and goes on to explain how "cancer exists because of genes' abilities to mutate, the same ability that made evolution possible" the obvious counter to this is to ask /why/ God allowed for mutation to cause so much pain-- could He not have made all mutations benign? Why must evolution occur, period, given that natural selection naturally involves the pain, death, and suffering of so many living organisms?
My answer has approximated the answer that Sacks attributes to Jonathan Keats-- that suffering exists to teach us something about being wise and doing good. Sacks "counters" this by saying that the Jewish philosopher Maimonides supported economic justice so that no one would need charity, which is a little irrelevant to that argument, in my opinion. Sacks seems to think that "If Alan suffers so that Brian can help him, Alan is merely a means to an end." Sacks is forgetting that Alan presumably has ample opportunity to help the suffering himself when he gets the chance to. If we draw a false dichotomy between suffering, passive individuals and active moral agents, sure, that is condescending.
But such a dichotomy doesn't exist anywhere but in Sacks's head. Both Alan and Brian are moral agents who have the opportunity to grow in kindness, and invite others to do the same to them when they are in need of help. We all suffer so that we all may do good to one another. We are all "Alan" at times and "Brian" at times. In fact, pretending that humans exist in two classes: the disenfranchised "Alans" and virtuous, heroic "Brians" is, in itself, a bit condescending. We all suffer, and we all aim to help the suffering.
And even if we accomplish what Maimonides laid out, make sure everyone able to be self-sufficient is self-sufficient, there will always be unexpected illness, natural disaster, people with severe impairments who cannot work, animal cruelty, and a bevvy of other issues in need of taking care of. Drawing a dichotomy between Keats and Maimonides was a bit bizarre in my opinion.
Sacks had some good ideas and some shakier ones, but altogether I enjoyed the book and am giving it 4 stars.
October 20, 2017
I did not fall in love with this book from the beginning. As I trudged through the introduction and the first few chapters, I found the tone of the book overwhelmingly analytical. "All the proofs in the world will not get them to change their mind." Pg 31, said in reference to people who are unable to gain trust in the world based on past experiences. On the next page he says, "we cannot prove that life is meaningful and that God exists," yet this is exactly what he seems to be trying to do. Initially, it's almost as if he's saying one thing yet doing another.
At first, the writing felt so painful I thought I was revisiting my undergraduate modal logic class - in fact a modal logic proof may have even proved to be more elegant than the initial sluggish 'drech,' for example, let's look at this awful sentence: (p.39) "It is, in fact, from the hemispherical asymmetry of the brain that the entire drama of the mutual misunderstanding and conjoint creativity of religion and science derive." No suprise, Rabbi Sachs was a philosophy graduate at Oxford University
The book starts out as a painful theological essay, starting with all of the reasons to not believe that God has any significance in our modern world largely driven by science and reason. However, eventually, as Sachs establishes his framework for ultimately explaining that we cannot explain God the same way we explain rational things in the universe, he pivots to describe God and religion in a more musical and beautiful way: "Religion consecrated our humanity." - pg 77.
At this point, Sach's book starts to hit its stride and suddenly the thoughts and arguments begin to pervade my everyday thinking. I couldn't stop thinking about this book as I was reading it and after finishing it absolutely loved it. I had accept the fact that the beginning I found so difficult to get through was probably not written for me. Fundamentally, I came into reading this book from the position of being a believer, so I did not need to be convinced.
More than anything, this book helped me appreciate not what religion is, but what it isn't. The chapters towards the end make clear that the arguments commonly used against religion which rely on the beliefs that religion is fatalistic, deterministic and meant to be always good, are in fact religious fallacies themselves and were never presented in the Abrahamic, monotheistic tradition that way in the first place. Rabbi Sachs eventually explains that many of our modern beliefs of what religion is come from Greek and other Western traditional interpretations of religion, and ultimately Sachs does this very successfully.
At first, the writing felt so painful I thought I was revisiting my undergraduate modal logic class - in fact a modal logic proof may have even proved to be more elegant than the initial sluggish 'drech,' for example, let's look at this awful sentence: (p.39) "It is, in fact, from the hemispherical asymmetry of the brain that the entire drama of the mutual misunderstanding and conjoint creativity of religion and science derive." No suprise, Rabbi Sachs was a philosophy graduate at Oxford University
The book starts out as a painful theological essay, starting with all of the reasons to not believe that God has any significance in our modern world largely driven by science and reason. However, eventually, as Sachs establishes his framework for ultimately explaining that we cannot explain God the same way we explain rational things in the universe, he pivots to describe God and religion in a more musical and beautiful way: "Religion consecrated our humanity." - pg 77.
At this point, Sach's book starts to hit its stride and suddenly the thoughts and arguments begin to pervade my everyday thinking. I couldn't stop thinking about this book as I was reading it and after finishing it absolutely loved it. I had accept the fact that the beginning I found so difficult to get through was probably not written for me. Fundamentally, I came into reading this book from the position of being a believer, so I did not need to be convinced.
More than anything, this book helped me appreciate not what religion is, but what it isn't. The chapters towards the end make clear that the arguments commonly used against religion which rely on the beliefs that religion is fatalistic, deterministic and meant to be always good, are in fact religious fallacies themselves and were never presented in the Abrahamic, monotheistic tradition that way in the first place. Rabbi Sachs eventually explains that many of our modern beliefs of what religion is come from Greek and other Western traditional interpretations of religion, and ultimately Sachs does this very successfully.
January 25, 2023
The title is a little misleading and this book is difficult to summarize. As alluded to in the title, Sacks views science and religion as complementary that are necessary to a wholistic understanding of existence. He views an unnecessary tension as being introduced by classical Greek philosophy which influenced early Church fathers as it relates to revelation and reason and western religious thought. Sacks contrasts that with ancient Hebrew thought in an interesting way throughout the book.
Most importantly, Sacks views religion as providing meaning outside a temporal existence while science provides understanding of a current existence. Relying upon well-known arguments, Sacks says the meaning of anything has to come from outside it. Therefore, the meaning of the universe has to come from outside of it to be valid and therefore cannot come from science alone if the universe acts in accordance with defined rules. Sacks analogizes this to 'right-brain and left-brain' thinking: "The human mind is capable of doing two quite different things. One is the ability to break things down into their constituent parts and see how they mesh and interact. This is often called “left brain” thinking, and the best example is science. The other, often called “right brain thinking,” is the ability to join events together so that they tell a story, or to join people together so that they form relationships. The best example of this is religion.
To put it at its simplest: science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean. And we need them both, the way we need the two hemispheres of the brain."
What follows is an interesting argument with what may be seemed as a mundane conclusion.
Sacks book is wide-ranging with digressions on primarily Jewish thought as it relates to the following topics: (i) what it means to be a meaning-seeking animal; (ii) why religion matters (what we stand to lose; human dignity; the dangers of the will-to-power; etc); (iii) and common challenges (nature of evil; Darwin; abuse of religion, etc.). A book rich with discussion but difficult to summarize.
Most importantly, Sacks views religion as providing meaning outside a temporal existence while science provides understanding of a current existence. Relying upon well-known arguments, Sacks says the meaning of anything has to come from outside it. Therefore, the meaning of the universe has to come from outside of it to be valid and therefore cannot come from science alone if the universe acts in accordance with defined rules. Sacks analogizes this to 'right-brain and left-brain' thinking: "The human mind is capable of doing two quite different things. One is the ability to break things down into their constituent parts and see how they mesh and interact. This is often called “left brain” thinking, and the best example is science. The other, often called “right brain thinking,” is the ability to join events together so that they tell a story, or to join people together so that they form relationships. The best example of this is religion.
To put it at its simplest: science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean. And we need them both, the way we need the two hemispheres of the brain."
What follows is an interesting argument with what may be seemed as a mundane conclusion.
Sacks book is wide-ranging with digressions on primarily Jewish thought as it relates to the following topics: (i) what it means to be a meaning-seeking animal; (ii) why religion matters (what we stand to lose; human dignity; the dangers of the will-to-power; etc); (iii) and common challenges (nature of evil; Darwin; abuse of religion, etc.). A book rich with discussion but difficult to summarize.
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