Light of the Mind, Light of the World

The world is not a machine. Humanity is not a mistake. 
 
For centuries, a grim anti-human outlook has taken hold of the public imagination, teaching us all to view ourselves as random products of a cruel and uncaring natural world. Today, from apocalyptic environmentalism to twisted eugenics and dystopian bionic augmentation, movements are rising around the world to dispense with humanity or subordinate it to a pitiless mechanical logic. For many, it has come to seem as if the human spirit is obsolete, religious faith is illusory, and mankind is destined to be extinguished or surpassed. Some might even see the end of humanity as a good thing. 
 
But that is not our future. Light of the Mind, Light of the World tells a daring new story about how we got here, and how we can chart a better path forward. Surveying the history of science and faith from the astronomers of Babylon to the quantum physicists of postwar Europe and America, classicist and scholar Spencer A. Klavan argues that science itself is leading us not away from God but back to him, and to the ancient faith that places the human soul at the center of the universe. Reconciling the discoveries of science with the truths of the Bible, Klavan shows how the search for knowledge of the natural world can help illuminate the glories of its Creator, and how the latest developments in physics can help shatter the illusion of materialism.

Spencer A. Klavan is a scholar, writer, and podcaster. A graduate of Yale, he earned his doctorate in ancient Greek literature from Oxford University. He is the author of the acclaimed book How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises and the editor of Gateway to the Stoics. The host of the Young Heretics podcast and associate editor of the Claremont Review of Books, he has written for many outlets, including The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, City Journal, Newsweek, The Federalist, The American Mind, and The Daily Wire. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

"Spencer Klavan is a profound and wide-ranging scholar, a believing Christian, and a writer of gorgeous prose. In Light of the Mind, Light of the World, he takes on the daunting task of explaining how the divine is revealed through science in the light of new discoveries and ancient wisdom. He does this with his typical panache and erudition, shining light on the history and development of the scientific enterprise, attempting to take the reader beyond the dead end of mere materialism to a meeting of the divine and human minds."
—Jeremy Carl—Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior and author of The Unprotected Class
 
"Modern humanity is in the deadly grips of a vulgar scientism that is all too eager to explain away the rich and varied grounds of human dignity. We remain prisoners of antiquated accounts of the world that explain everything in terms of mathematics, mechanism, and matter-in-motion, and that reduce the wonders of the human mind to the impersonal workings of the brain. Spencer Klavan will have nothing of this debased account of things. In remarkably eloquent prose, and with a full command of science, philosophy, and theology ancient and modern, Klavan tells the exciting story of how modern physics has recovered the indispensable role that the human mind plays in giving shape to the very structure of physical and spiritual reality. Reality itself is nothing less than the meeting point of 'the light of the mind' with 'the light of the world.' Klavan brilliantly explores all the implications of this recovery of the God-given human birthright to be 'stewards and humanizers of the universe.'"
—Daniel J. Mahoney—Professor Emeritus, Assumption University
 
"Our scientific age has wrought among its many wonders a malady of spiritual disenchantment. Spencer Klavan's new tour-de-force, Light of the Mind, Light of the World offers urgent medicine by looking within and then beyond science. The author rectifies the errors of popular intellectuals with characteristic erudition and perspicacity. Spencer Klavan is the Right's Yuval Harari—so distinguished by the fact that Spencer happens to be not only smart but also right. Read this book."
 —Michael J. Knowles, author and podcaster
 
"Klavan asks a question forgotten since early modernity: is science a complement or a substitute for Christianity? And if those are the only possibilities, is 'atheist science' simply an oxymoron?"
—Peter Thiel, technology entrepreneur and author, Zero to One
 
"What a dazzling feat of intellectual history! Spencer Klavan shows us how cutting-edge science itself is teaching us how to overcome centuries of spiritual illiteracy, and to learn once again how to read the divinely written Book of Nature. Light Of The Mind, Light Of The World is by no means a wearying God-of-the-gaps exercise in Christian apologetics, but rather a pensée composed with balletic elegance and brimming with the joyful confidence of a man who has seen the light, and is eager to bring the liberating news to those dwelling in the cold, disenchanted darkness."
—Rod Dreher, New York Times bestselling author of The Benedict Option and Live Not By Lies
 
"The road out of Biblical religion is paved with modern science—or so goes the oft-told tale. But in this painstakingly researched and majestically written work, Spencer Klavan compellingly situates the scientific enterprise within a long, rich intellectual tradition that sought to understand and relate to God even as, in its adolescence, it seemed to dethrone Him. And now, as the discoveries of quantum physics re-open metaphysical vistas long obscured by scientific materialism—but deeply resonant with the ancient insights of the Biblical tradition—Klavan has furnished society with a brilliant vision of science and faith in harmonious, invigorating dialogue—essential reading as a new age of faith dawns."
—Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamm, host of the Good Faith Effort podcast and CEO of the Bnai Zion foundation.
 
"Despite the appearance of hubristic certainty about the way the world works, deep down many of us are seized by confusion and apathy about the most fundamental questions regarding our existence. We have resigned ourselves to thinking this confusion is normal.
 
Science, in recent history, elevated human existence. But in the midst of all its advancement, convenience, and splendor, science has morphed into something more malignant. Many of us have grown up in the world placed as unwitting passengers on the freight train of Scientism. While spiritually paralyzing us, it is not that Scientism is leading us to nothing, but to anything.
 
Spencer Klavan, using a wide array of approaches that only his mind is capable of synthesizing—scientific, political, philosophical, religious, and social—brings us back on track by recentering our understanding of the universe. He dispels myths of materialism and opens our eyes to perceive, and not just see, the world that we are truly living in. Spencer shows us that by understanding we are co-creators with God, we can embody the authentic understanding of the good, which is the best, indeed the intended way, to promote human flourishing."
—Julie Hartman, writer and co-host of Timeless and Dennis and Julie

"Spencer A. Klavan is one of his generation's most impressive thinkers. In his first book, How to Save the West, he not only brilliantly summarized the political crises facing our nation, but also offered real solutions. Now, in Light of the Mind, Light of the World, he goes on a deep dive into the source of our civilization's greatest challenge: the attack on religion and the elevation of science over faith. Klavan is honest and sober minded without ever losing hope, teaching us all how science can reveal the Glory of God rather than suppress it. A must-read."
—Glenn Beck, New York Times best-selling author and nationally syndicated radio host of The Glenn Beck Program & Co-founder of Blaze Media.