The World in His Hands: A Christian Account of Scientific Law and Its Antithetical Competitors

From the moment we wake until the time we go to sleep we are bombarded by the benefits of science in the practical elements of everyday life. Electricity lights hot showers breakfast cereals clothing cars cell phones roads security systems computers communications traffic lights climate control and entertainment are just a sampling of the many benefits of science. In addition to technological advances medicine and agriculture progress with science as well. Even educational political and marketing strategists invoke science to substantiate their claims. Science dominates the collective Western mindset and we regard it with the utmost respect. Yet society remains generally religious even though science and religion are frequently thought of as being at odds with one another. How do we reconcile the two? Christians are taught to believe that God is in control of everything including the natural elements. But how does God relate to physical laws? Is God in control of the world or laws of nature? Could both views be correct? This book examines the Christian doctrine of divine providence and its implications for the laws of nature and the problem of induction before contrasting secular and Islamic approaches to these same topics. The Declaration of Independence famously speaks of the Laws of Nature and of Natures God. Its authors were making an appeal to universal moral laws established in the natural order and they credited those laws to a divine author. In this excellent book Christopher Bolt argues that such is also the case for universal scientific laws: these laws of nature must also be credited to a divine author who originally created and even now continually sustains the physical cosmos. Bolt is not the first to argue for a theistic basis for science but whats unique about his book is that it makes the case for a distinctively Christian theistic basis. This is a splendid work of philosophical theology with important applications in Christian apologetics. I highly recommend it. --James N. Anderson Carl W. McMurray Professor of Theology and Philosophy Reformed Theological Seminary Charlotte Christopher Lee Bolt is a pastor-teacher at Elkton Baptist Church and head of theology at Legacy Bible College.