Keith Ward on the Origin and Nature of the Universe

"To the majority of those who have reflected deeply and written about the origin and nature of the universe, it has seemed that it points beyond itself to a source which is non-physical and of great intelligence and power. Almost all of the great classical philosophers — certainly Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Locke, Berkeley — saw the origin of the universe as lying in a transcendent reality. They had different specific ideas of this reality, and different ways of approaching it; but that the universe is not self-explanatory, and that it requires some explanation beyond itself, was something they accepted as fairly obvious."

Keith Ward
God Chance and Necessity, Oxford, One World Publications, 1996 p.1. 

Book Review: More Than Matter? by Keith Ward

An immaterial mind, distinct from the brain, destroys strict materialism. Materialists do not believe mankind has a spirit. His soul is only “a little wind and smoke.” When the materialistic atheist backs up in a conversation and says, “Hold on, I’m searching for a word,” point out the inconsistency. One can ask them: “Who is searching?” Those who claim that only the physical world exists, and that their mind is just a block of flesh, cannot really answer that question. Frequently, they will quickly see their dilemma. Non-theist Thomas Huxley, in one of his moments of weakness, asked, “How is it that anything so remarkable as the state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is it just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djinn, when Aladdin rubbed his lamp?” And in More Than Matter? Is There More to Life Than Molecules Keith Ward answers Huxley’s inquiry as he offers philosophical reasons, with fine care and precision, for the contention that there is an immaterial mind that maneuvers the brain.