When An Atheist Confronts His Worldview: A Review of “Mind and Cosmos” by Thomas Nagel

When a prominent atheist philosopher declares the most respected and popular foundation for atheism to be “certainly false” we ought to all pause and listen. Thomas Nagel has written was is surely one of the most surprising little books to come out last year. Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception Of Nature Is Almost Certainly False is a short but powerful book. It is packed with cogent arguments against the very foundation naturalism, namely that the physical sciences alone cannot explain human origins.

Nagel has not turned religious. He makes no suggestion that he has switched teams and is now batting for theists. “My skepticism is not based,” he writes, ” on religious belief, or on a belief in any definite alternative” (7). The problems he has with the basic evolutionary theory provided by Naturalism is that it is inconsistent with life. He writes:

It is just a belief that the available scientific evidence, in spite of the consensus of scientific opinion, does not in this matter rationally require us to subordinate the incredulity of common sense. That is especially true with regard to the origin of life. (7)

Nagel is a philosopher, and ultimately this is a concern of logic. The Naturalist worldview, as he describes it here, is simply not acceptable.

Alvin Plantinga has pointed out four particular areas where Nagel has rejected the worldview. In her own review of the book Amy Hall summarizes:

1. Mind and Cosmos rejects, first, the claim that life has come to be just by the workings of the laws of physics and chemistry…. As Nagel remarks, “It is an assumption governing the scientific project rather than a well-confirmed scientific hypothesis.”

2. The second plank of materialist naturalism that Nagel rejects is the idea that, once life was established on our planet, all the enormous variety of contemporary life came to be by way of the [unguided] processes evolutionary science tells us about: natural selection operating on genetic mutation, but also genetic drift, and perhaps other processes as well…. [Nagel:] “[T]he more details we learn about the chemical basis of life and the intricacy of the genetic code, the more unbelievable the standard historical account becomes.”

3. [Nagel] thinks it is especially improbable that consciousness and reason should come to be if materialist naturalism is true. “Consciousness is the most conspicuous obstacle to a comprehensive naturalism that relies only on the resources of physical science.”

4. According to Nagel, materialist naturalism has great difficulty with consciousness, but it has even greater difficulty with cognition. He thinks it monumentally unlikely that unguided natural selection should have “generated creatures with the capacity to discover by reason the truth about a reality that extends vastly beyond the initial appearances.” He is thinking in particular of science itself. (“Plantinga Reviews Mind and Cosmos”)

As the title suggests, it is in regards to the mind that Nagel has the most difficulty. How can we account for consciousness, intentionality, meaning, purpose, and value if we cannot account for the appearance of the mind in evolution? Any worldview that does not account for this is simply reductionist, according to Nagel.

Christian apologists have long held such views. Plantinga himself has written extensively on some of these notions, and Nagel expresses his appreciation for the likes of Plantinga and others, particularly those in the Intelligent Design movement. But he is not willing to give up his search for an atheistic foundation. It is frustrating that Nagel does not give a fair and thorough evaluation of theism. After all Christian philosophers keenly propose a solution to his worldview dilemma. In part it makes the outcome of this book somewhat sad. For Nagel has no alternative theory to propose, only critique to offer. And while I hope that many will read and interact with this critique, particularly those in the Scientific community, without an alternative proposal nothing is likely to change. Even Nagel at times seems to suggest a sort of “it’s not perfect, but we have nothing better” attitude. Christianity proposes a real solution that is consistent with itself and yet still promotes the continued study of our natural world.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s short, 128 pages, but it’s packed with heavy and powerful content. It can be a dry read at times as Nagel looks at every angle of his argument with Naturalism. But it is worth your time to see how an insider dismantles the foundation of his own worldview. But we shouldn’t rejoice at this, instead we should pray that God will use this book to reveal the answer to Dr. Nagel and to others.