Does God Exist?
You have reached the website for the novel Dry Bones, a place for curious minds exploring the ultimate question—does God exist?
Biology professor Roger Limine had the answer all figured out. A devout Darwinian and zealous atheist, he knew humanity’s place in the universe—a place that, while neither glamorous nor meaningful, gave him a platform to answer all the mysteries of existence without reliance on antique notions like God, spirit, heaven, hell, good, evil, or any of the other metaphysical delusions. His was a perfectly comprehensible, purely mechanistic cosmos no broader or more magnificent than the ability of his five senses to divine. And so science became his religion and spreading its philosophical implications his ministry. He was one of the prophets of reason, helping to convert young minds stuffed with sentiment and mythology to his stark world view.
And then comes the time of his life when he is spiritually besieged. His terminally ill wife ambushes him with a campaign of philosophical and scientific arguments for God’s existence, triggering debates that range from playful to poignant. He has a near death experience during which he either hears or hallucinates, he’s not sure which, the pronouncement of Almighty judgment upon him. And he’s bedeviled with an unending series of absurdly improbable but thematically identical petty vexations.
Playing off the analogy between solving a whodunit and deducing metaphysical truth, the plot challenges Roger by dropping what might be numerous clues. Are they calling cards from beyond or merely unlikely but entirely natural occurrences? Where should he draw the line between coincidence and miracle, and how many coincidences will it take before he can be certain of a purposeful hand?
Interwoven with Roger’s spiritual transit is the tale of a hard-fought lawsuit filed by the ACLU to prohibit a school district from teaching “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution, into which Roger finds himself unwittingly drawn.
A combination of love story, philosophic inquiry, scientific journey, and legal theater (with healthy doses of both low and highbrow humor), Dry Bones offers clues to solve the ultimate mystery.
If you are someone whose faith is shaken by fears that science has foreclosed it, this book is for you.
If you are someone who rejects faith because you’ve concluded that a rational, informed person cannot have it, test yourself by reading Roger’s story.
It’s free!