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Review Summary: Not Very Helpful |
Date: 2007-09-19 |
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Details: In "Three Views on Creation and Evolution," several Christian thinkers defend differing approaches to the integration of science and theology, particularly with regards to Genesis and God's method of creation.
Paul Nelson and John Mark Reynolds support Young-Earth Creation, which argues that the account in Genesis should be taken literally and the `days' actual twenty-four hour periods of creation six to ten thousand years ago. Robert Newman defends the Progressive Creation view, which contends that the universe and the earth are very old, and the `days' referred to in Genesis are not to be taken as literal twenty-four hour periods, but rather as unspecified periods of time. Howard Van Til defends Theistic Evolution (or, Fully-Gifted Creation), whereby God created the universe with the capability to develop life. Additionally, a host of commentators, including J.P. Moreland, Philip Johnson, and Walter Bradley, offer responses to the individual essays or to the exchange as a whole.
Unfortunately, while I view the topic as a worthwhile one, I simply felt that this book did not contain enough meat to be valuable. Most of the authors spend the time trying to show that their view is consistent with a solid Christian faith or that it is, for some theological or practical reason, preferable. However, this does not really resolve the debate. The authors should have spent more time analyzing the relevant Bible verses and, especially, discussing the scientific evidence. This book does establish that all of the views, including theistic evolution, are quite compatible with a Christian faith and worldview, but it does not really advance the issue much further. Moreover, the authors of each section are not given the chance to respond to their colleague's essays. Instead, four separate authors offer responses. However, all of these reviewers are Progressive Creation advocates, which leads to a slightly biased presentation. If you are interested in the creation/evolution debate with regards to Christian theism, then Three Views on Creation and Evolution may be of some use, but is not highly recommended. |
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Review Summary: Pathetic |
Date: 2007-07-12 |
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Details: If you really want answers to questions of this nature study biology
instead of getting your head filled with this ideological non-sense. |
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Review Summary: three views on creation and evolution |
Date: 2006-11-11 |
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Details: A very good review of the three views on creation/evolution (Young Earth and Old Earth Creation and Theistic Evolution). The format (point cpounterpoint was helpful and informational. I found the book to be very helpful in understanding the three point of view. |
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Review Summary: The Gift of God's Miraculous Intervention: A Clear Exposition of Christian Perspectives on the Origin of Life |
Date: 2006-06-21 |
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Details: For Christians, the issues raised by the different views on creation and evolution can be challenging. Can a "young earth" be reconciled with a universe that appears to be billions of years old? Does scientific evidence point to a God who designed the universe and life in all its complexity?
Three Views on Creation and Evolution deals with these and similar concerns as it looks at three dominant schools of Christian thought. Proponents of young earth creationism, old earth creationism, and theistic evolution each present their different views, tell why the controversy is important, and describe the interplay between their understandings of science and theology. Each view is critiqued by various scholars.
Paul Nelson and John Mark Reynolds provide a clear explanation of the differences between theistic evolution, young earth, and old earth creationism. Young and old earth creationism both share a view that there are discontinuities in biology and real design in nature. Yet theistic evolution does not share this view.
Robert C. Newman then explains that his approach is to harmonize both nature and Scripture. Theistic evolution is problematic because of its common refusal to let Scripture speak to matters of origins. Young earth creationism is problematic in that it does not permit science to speak. Wiester argues that the natural record provides many challenges to evolution--such as the explosion of life during the Cambrian period.
Finally Howard J. Van Till expounds his view of a "fully gifted creation" where the universe was created to bring life into existence through natural laws. He finds claims that Scriptures provide "privileged information" to be "embarrassing" because they show little regard for the "informed judgment" of the scientific community. Phillip Johnson finds Van Till's views self-contradictory: Van Till argues that God should "withhold" no gift from creation that would require God's intervention to create, but yet Christians of all stripes believe God has intervened in history.
This volume clearly expounds the pro's and con's of various Christian perspectives on creation. While this debate is surely not going to end soon, this book will bring a greater understanding and appreciation of "other viewpoints" to all interested. |
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Review Summary: ID vs "Fully gifted creation" |
Date: 2005-09-22 |
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Details: While there are three views presented in this book, the great devide is between Intelligent Design (represented by both Young and Old Earth Creationism) and Van Till's "Fully gifted creation". According to Howard Van Till God created everything at the Big Bang, and since the created Universe had all it needed from the start the dead matter evolved naturally to life to plants to fish to mammals to man. Creation did not need God to intervene so man could be created, it was from the start "fully gifted". All that was needed was time.
Nelson & Reynolds (Young Earth) and Newman (Old Earth/Progressive creationism) believe that Van Till is both biblically/theologically wrong and that also science shows that everything did not evolve naturally. The differences between the YE and OE views are quite insignificant, compared to the difference between Van Till and the others. Therefore, the editors gave as much space to Van Till as the other two views together. (A view that is missing is creationism that is only based on the Bible, which I believe has been and probably still is quite common.)
Nelson and Reynolds have dissapponted some reviewers, since they don't make a very strong case against the OE view. Instead they describe their view, give some reasons why it's intellectually acceptable to still be a YE creationist, and then make the reader focus on naturalism as the enemy. Until naturalism has lost its dominance, it would "not just be foolish; it would be intellectual treason" not to unify with other critics of naturalism, even if they disagree on chronology (p.100). In my opinion Nelson and Reynolds' essay is easy to read, informative, and focuses on the important issue.
Robert Newman argument for the OE view can be summarised in his words "I prefer to interpret nature as to avoid having God give us fictitious information" (p.109). In other words, what special (the Bible) and natural (creation) revelation tell us, should form our views. This poses problems for the YE view, since starlight seems to have travelled for several million years before reaching earth. If God created it to look that way, he has given us a "fictitious history" - misleading information. Newman considers the scientific evidence against a young earth to be strong, but he has also found some "biblical hints" (e.g. the "last hour" in 1 John 2:18 has lasted for 2000 years). Van Till's "fully gifted creation" faces similar problems. Newman thinks that it can fit (more or less) with Genesis 1, but in Genesis 2 man is created directly from the dust which doesn't square with a complete evolution from first life to man. Newman also thinks that the ID movement has mounted quite a lot of scienitific evidence against natural evolution as a complete explanation. When it comes to the description of Newman's own view it is appearant that the OE is the largest "tent" to be in -from persons who believe that God created the first life which evolved from there, to people who differ from YE creationists only in their interpretation of the biblical "days", they are all under this label. Newman himself thinks that the days were literal days, but that there was time *between* this creation days. That's about the oddest interpretation in my opinion ("the second day is actually the 109982783 day, but God rested between the first and the second day - although he of course didn't rest in the same sense as on the 7th day..." or what does he mean?), although I have respect for the OE view generally.
Van Till's case is based both on theological considerations and on his philosophy of science. The theological reason for believing that God created everything at once, and then it evolved, is that God would be cheap if He withheld "gifts" from His creation that He could have given at once. Van Till does not think that the Bible does or can speak specifically on how God created, since the authors did not have our scientific concepts. "Similarly, since the biblical authors had no working concepts of genetic variability, self-organizing molecular systems, genomic phace space, or natural selection, it would strike me as wholly inappropriate to expect the biblical text to offer any unique insights in the evaluation of the various specific theories that contribute to the modern scientific concept of biotic evolution." (p.208-9) Nor can science say that God created, since sience in about finding *natural* explanations. Evidence against Darwinism would, moreover, be out of line with the view that God created everything at once - which we are supposed to believe as Christians. While Van Till's essay is rhetorically skillful, and he makes some valueble points (even if Darwinism were true, we still have a Universe created by the Almighty God), I find his arguments to be very weak. A theology that excludes what the Bible might say specifically on the subject! And a philosophy of science that has predetermined what the facts may say! Believe it if you will.
Unlike many other counterpoint books, the authors are not allowed to reply on eachothers essays in this volume. Instead, four experts (biblical studies, theology, philosophy, and science) write responses. All experts are OE creationists (though the philospher, JP Moreland, has some YE leanings too), which make the responses a bit one sided. Fortunately, no one is of the exact same brand as Newman... The book is concluded with two postscripts. One by Richard Bube, who supports Van Till's view. The other by Phil Johnson, who is in favor of (and one of the leading proponents of) Intelligent Design.
All in all, many subjects are discussed, and the book is thought provoking in many ways, but the best thing is that it gets the focus straight: The main issue is between naturalism and a biblical worldview. |
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out of 20 Reviews
