A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature

Meaningful or meaningless? Purposeful or pointless? When we look at nature, whether at our living earth or into deepest space, what do we find? In stark contrast to contemporary claims that the world is meaningless, Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt reveal a cosmos charged with both meaning and purpose. Their journey begins with Shakespeare and ranges through Euclid's geometry, the fine-tuning of the laws of physics, the periodic table of the elements, the artistry of ordinary substances like carbon and water, the intricacy of biological organisms, and the irreducible drama of scientific exploration itself. Along the way, Wiker and Witt fashion a robust argument from evidence in nature, one that rests neither on religious presuppositions nor on a simplistic view of nature as the best of all possible worlds. In their exploration of the cosmos, Wiker and Witt find all the challenges and surprises, all of the mystery and elegance one expects from a work of genius.

Benjamin Wiker (Ph.D., Vanderbilt) is lecturer in theology and science at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. He is also a senior fellow of Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington. His work has appeared in such publications as Crisis, First Things, National Catholic Register and the New Oxford Review. He is the author of Moral Darwinism.

Jonathan Witt (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is senior fellow and writer in residence at Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington. He was formerly associate professor at Lubbock Christian University. He has published articles in Touchstone, Literature Theology, Windover, Princeton Theological Review and Philosophia Christi.