Can A Smart Person Believe In God - Hardcover

Michael Guillen, Ph.D., is a theoretical physicist and former science correspondent for ABC News. He taught physics at Harvard for eight years, during which time he won awards for his distinguished teaching. He currently serves as president of Spectacular Science Productions and chief consultant for science and religion for Crystal Cathedral Ministries, appearing often on the Hour of Power. For his work on Good Morning America, World News Tonight, Nightline, and 20/20, he has won Emmys, Teddys, and an EMMA. Guillen has also published hundreds of articles and reviews in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Esquire, and Science Digest.

Guillen, science journalist and author of Five Equations that Changed the World, a PW best book of 1996, offers a brief and buoyant defense for believers encountering atheism in the culture of science. Drawing on his own story—as a Pentecostal preacher's son whose scientific aspirations and education shaped him into a "practical atheist" before life experiences helped him rediscover his faith—Guillen is able to speak to both sides with a minimum of "us vs. them" posturing. Although he now espouses a strong (and orthodox) Christian faith, he also concedes that "it's the rare person among us whose confidence in God is so utterly rock-solid it can't be secretly shaken by some overzealous humanist accusing him of being a bonehead." Guillen's key metaphor is "stereoscopic faith," a perspective that looks at life through both intellectual and spiritual eyes to produce a deep and meaningful vision of the world. While some science-and-religion authors stress the similarities between these perspectives, Guillen sees them as indispensably different, like the lenses of 3-D glasses: "God gave us... two powerful and well-matched abilities: to prove things we find hard to believe" and to "believe in things we find hard to prove." Guillen's effusive tone and knack for simplicity make this book a good fit for undergrads or bright high school students interested in science and technology.
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