Charles Murray’s Budding Faith: Is Science Finally Finding God?
“Sometimes smart people have a hard time believing stuff that everybody else knows.” So said the condemned (and possessed) convict in the “religious” film Nefarious (2023) to his self-assured atheist psychiatrist. Charles Murray, the famed political scientist and successful author, can certainly relate to this. Quoting his wife on religion, he stated last year, “We learned that smart people don’t believe that stuff anymore.”
While this was never actually true, the perception that it is may finally be changing. It certainly has for Murray. Late last year he published his new book, Taking Religion Seriously, in which he discusses his journey toward theism. He says, too, that modern science may be pointing man back toward God.
On The Elizabeth Farah Show recently, Murray mentioned that spiritual pursuit is for him very much an affair of the head. Faith certainly is not in his heart (at least not yet), as he freely admits. He says that in his view “spiritual perception is a trait,” and it’s weak in him. But he is adept at assembling empirical evidence, he states, and this is what he has done with his book. It is a work that he says targets people such as himself: “cold, logical” atheists.
Seeking Theism
Murray explains that he was never hostile toward religion and its adherents, and he recognized its cultural utility. He just didn’t think he needed it in his life. This began changing, however, when his wife, Catherine, birthed their daughter.
Now, Murray emphasizes that his wife is highly educated and “brilliant,” not someone ignorant of scientific principles. And she said about their new child, “I love her more than evolution requires.”
Seeking meaning beyond the material, Catherine then started attending Quaker meetings. Charles joined her because they had two young children, and he believed that some faith facilitated good character development. But then something happened: Murray wanted to go beyond mere utilitarianism.
He wanted to discover Truth. Thus did his quest begin.
Science Pointing Toward the Divine
In numerous recent interviews, Murray has explained how scientific realities have pushed him toward theism. He cites the physics of the Big Bang as his personal “Road to Damascus” moment. As he stated in a December Merion West interview:
There is a consensus among physicists that the Big Bang was fine-tuned to create a universe of stars and galaxies that, in turn, could lead to the creation of life, whereas the much more probable outcomes were a universe of massive black holes or a universe of radiation and no mass at all.
That is, our universe depends on extraordinarily precise constants, such as the ratio of electromagnetic to gravitational forces. Slight deviations would make galaxies, stars, or life impossible. Nobel laureate physicist Roger Penrose calculated the odds of a life-permitting universe arising by chance at far less than one in trillions. For Murray, the most rational conclusion is intentionality — an “unmoved mover” behind the scenes.
He adds that cosmology always requires an initial miracle. How do you explain all matter originating from an infinitesimally small singularity? “Something from nothing” remains inexplicable under purely naturalistic accounts, whereas divine action provides a coherent explanation.
Murray also highlights evidence that consciousness doesn’t reside exclusively in the brain. Thousands of verified near-death experiences (clinical death — no detectable heartbeat or brain activity) include accurate details of events that occurred while the person was “gone.” Examples are a surgeon “flapping wings” with his elbows or the exact location of a patient’s dentures.
Similarly, cases of terminal lucidity show advanced dementia patients suddenly regaining recognition, speech, and personality shortly before death. (This is despite their neural networks having been destroyed.)
In this vein, Murray points to rigorous quantitative studies on parapsychological phenomena (ESP, clairvoyance, psychokinesis) as further evidence. Collectively, these create a growing conflict between strict scientific materialism and unexplained phenomena. They put materialism “in trouble” on its own empirical grounds.
Do note, however, that Murray presents all this with humility. It’s to him an evidence-based exploration for fellow skeptics, not dogma or the stuff of full spiritual conversion. He does, though, now describe himself as “pretty much a Christian.”