Comments on Paul Davies's "Physics and the Mind of God"
Paul Saka, 10-2002

Davies puts forth a number of arguments for believing in God. He doesn't distinguish among them, but they are distinct.

Because Davies is a physicist, you might expect him to advance the Cosmological Argument. Indeed, he spends a fair amount of time talking about the big bang and quantum physics, thus implying that such ideas are relevant to theism. But then, buried about two-thirds into his essay, he admits:

So where is God in this story? Not especially in the big bang that starts the universe off, nor meddling fitfully in the physical processes that generate life and consciousness. I would rather that nature can take care of itself.

When push comes to shove, Davies seems to acknowledge that the Cosmological Argument is unsound. Instead, his chief argument seems to be based on this non-sequitur:

there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as a lawlike order in nature that is at least in part comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.

So, to believe in the power of reason is to believe in the existence of God? This inference doesn't even begin to follow unless you invoke some Principle of Sufficient Reason, but -- aside from the fact that Davies omits doing so -- Davies effectively denies the PSR when he agrees that time is bounded and spontaneous events possible.

More provocatively, Davies implies that the existence of intelligence would be "stupendously improbable" if there were no God. This is actually a version of the Design Argument, and my response is to refer you to my teleology page. [In short: it is a mistake to infer from the existence of design to the existence of a designer; and it is a mistake to use common-sense intuitions about probability in careful, sound reasoning.]

In an argument parallel to the Demands of Justice -- which holds that because the universe is optimally just, there must be a divine reason for it -- Davies suggests that because the universe is optimally interesting, there must be a divine reason behind it. 

in some sense we live in the most interesting possible universe.

But the idea that we live in the most interesting universe possible is as open to disproof as the ideas that we live in the best of all worlds, or the worst. It is easy to image a reality being more interesting/ good/ bad/ whatever than actually it is. [Notice how Davies often waffles. In the present case he says "in some sense" because he wants to have it both ways: he wants to deny that we live in the most interesting universe, for otherwise he would be easily refuted; and he wants to assert that we live in the most interesting universe, for otherwise it would be hard to reconcile with a God who prizes interestingness, as Davies's god does.]

Perhaps realizing that his intellectual arguments are unconvincing, Davies writes:

Many of our social ills can be traced to the bleak worldview that three hundred years of mechanistic thought have imposed on us.

He implies that belief in God is justified because, regardless of whether it is true, it enriches our lives. However, this position can be criticized on two grounds. First, if X is to be justified in believing proposition P, X needs to have reason to believe that P is true; otherwise, X is just engaged in wishful thinking. Second, I challenge the idea that the mechanistic worldview has brought more social ills than social goods. Compared to the average person in 1700, the average person today enjoys a longer life expectancy, and anesthesia for those times when surgery is needed; a significantly reduced chance of suffering from violent crime; indoor plumbing and personal hygiene and consequently improved interpersonal relationships; the comforts of central heating and a varied diet; the joy of music, cinema, and other art (for a peasant in the 1700s, the only way to hear Beethoven was to hear it live, and to hear a live symphony might have been a once-in-a-lifetime event); and on and on.

I don't mean to glorify contemporary society. I'm just saying that Davies's discussion of the past sounds plain ignorant.