Lennox on God, ethics, science
He’s famed for atheism debates
You can hear the accent of his native Northern Ireland in the voice of John Lennox, a professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford in England and a world-class debater of atheists.
Lennox, 70, is a f r i end a nd former tutor of Michael W. Cook, founder, chief executive officer and chief investment officer of SouthernSun Asset Management in Memphis.
Thanks to that tie, audiences at three Memphis churches and an auditorium adjacent to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis will be able to hear Lennox on Sunday and Monday.
In a telephone interview last week, Lennox avoided revealing what he’ll say at his talks,” such as “The God Particle: Has Physics Made God Unnecessary?” But he was very direct about his views.
Q: The role of science in health care is huge. How has that affected the role of theology?
A: “Bioethics is the big question and I actually did a degree in bioethics, so I’m a very unusual mathematician.”
Q: For the health care worker, the doctor, the nurse, the people who make decisions every day, what role should this be playing?
A: “This is a huge topic because the science outpaces the ethics. We develop technologies of keeping people alive and it raises huge questions about resource allocation ... And so ethics is a big issue and ethics raises deep questions, whose authority, who said so, and that
ends up being a serious theological question.
“I haven’t been asked to talk on that topic, but I’m concerned about it because ethics is worldview dependent, by which I mean, that if you think that an embryo is just a collection of cells, well then, you can do what you like. If you thing this is human life and human life is made in the image of God, that will give you a different viewpoint.
“One of the things I would like to get in the public arena is the discussion of worldview dependence of ethics.”
Q: If education systems aren’t delivering a solid science background, is it a fair contest with a church and faith-based community delivering the theology message?
A: “Well, there are two things there. First of all, what I wish to do is make clear that it’s not God versus science at all. That’s not the real issue. There are scientists who are believers in God and there are scientists who are atheists. It’s the new atheists that have said it’s a battle between God and science, and I think it’s demonstrable nonsense.
“The issue is between the worldview of theism and the worldview of naturalism, and there are scientists on both sides. And you don’t need a lot of education to see that, but the problem is the whole debate is being misrepresented to the public, and what I want to do is put arguments into the public space that are accessible to everybody.”