This [quantum uncertainty] is something biologists, almost universally, have not yet come to grips with. And its consequences are enormous. It certainly means that we should wonder more than we currently do about the saying that life is made of “mere” matter….
This means that absolute materialism, a view that control and predictability and ultimate explanation are possible, breaks down in a way that is biologically significant. It means that after we have obtained understanding of so much of the world around us, the ultimate mastery of even the tiniest bit of matter in the universe will always elude us….
[Thus] The core assumptions supporting the “scientific” disbelief [atheism] of the absolute materialist are wrong, even by the terms of science itself…
What matters is the straightforward, factual, strictly scientific recognition that matter in the universe behaves in such a way that we can never achieve complete knowledge of any fragment of it, and that life itself is structured in a way that allows biological history to pivot directly on these tiny uncertainties. That ought to allow even the most critical scientist to admit that the breaks in causality at the atomic level make it fundamentally impossible to exclude the idea that what we have really caught a glimpse of might indeed reflect the mind of God.
….In the final analysis, absolute materialsm does not triumph because it cannot fully explain the nature of reality.
pages 208-209, 214, 219 Finding Darwin’s God
The above quotes Miller used to justify an earlier claim:
Quantum reality is strange, troublesome, and downright illogical, but its unexpected discovery solves one of the key philosophical problems faced by any religious person: How can a world governed by precise physical law escape a strictly deterministic future?…
The indeterminate nature of quantum behavior means that the details of the future are not strictly determined by present reality….few theologians appreciate the degree to which physics has rescued religion from the dangers of Newtonian predictability. I susspect that they do not know (at least not yet) who their true friends are!
pages 203,204
I saw Miller echoing ideas I found in Barrow’s Book. In other parts of his book, Miller suggest reality is influenced by an Eternal God.
Finally, if I may add a little twist to all of these fine words by Miller, let me add one further observation. Ken much-of-the-problem-lies-with-atheists Miller blasts materialism as unscientific, and the atheistic position as not a scientific position. One could almost see him agreeing with, oh, something we’ve all heard before:
….new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature.
Salvador