Product Description: Three views on creation and evolution are presented in this popular format whereby the contributors provide their own articles and respond to those of their peers.
Christianity and the Nature of Science ^ An underlying theme in "Three Views" is that how one understands the nature of science is of primary significance for guiding where one ends up on the creation/evolution issue. Theistic evolutionists, along with secular and atheistic evolutionists, believe that methodological naturalism is a necessary component of science. Restricting science to natural categories of explanation, it is claimed, does not mean, however, that metaphysical naturalism as a worldview follows from that. The connection is supposedly spurious, the assumption being that the scientific theory of evolution is valid and supported by good, objective scientific evidence, and is not connected whatsoever to any form of evolutionism.
However, I believe that theistic evolutionists are mistaken about both methodological naturalism being a necessary part of science, and the separability of evolution from evolutionism. Science is not a strictly objective, metaphysically neutral, value-free activity: it operates, rather, as part of a paradigm, a way of looking at the world which includes a set of assumptions and questions that may or may not be asked. Currently a positivist (ie. materialist) paradigm reigns in biological science, with all the assumptions and limitations that we are told are part of the necessary nature of science itself. But prior to Darwin, biologists, or naturalists, as they were then called, practiced science within a paradigm of theistic science. In the former paradigm, it was entirely appropriate to integrate theological beliefs as part of scientific practice, and God's primary activity as part of an explanatory apparatus. Methodological naturalism became integral to biology only after the paradigm shift, and it would be wrong to say, in hindsight, that the previous generation of naturalists had not been practicing science because they had not adhered to that stipulation.
This new limiting of biology to the natural world was also not simply done to refine scientific practice and enable inquiry to go beyond the dead ends that sometimes occurred when scientists appealed to the mysterious purposes of God and would investigate no further, although there certainly was that element. The belief was also that if biology was to be a true science on par with chemistry and physics, it too had to be a closed system. There had to be the a priori working assumption that there was a physical explanation for everything in biology, and that God could not be active in the physical world. Darwin himself was very frustrated, not so much that there was resistance to his theory, but that many of those who embraced it thought that God guided the process. This indicated to him that they just didn't understand his theory: natural selection became superfluous as a driving force in evolution if God was actually in control of it.
Darwin wasn't promoting atheism per se, just atheism in the practice of biology. But the implications of this, even if not overtly raised, were clear. Theistic evolution was acceptable to secular biologists only if the theistic content was understood as consisting of no more than mere belief and subjective feelings, because an objective God would surely be objectively involved in the world, and positivist science disallowed that. Evolution, from Darwin himself and right on down to today, was and is understood by the scientific community to be a blind, purposeless, material process which did not have us in mind. In this sense "evolution" and "evolutionism" are indistinguishable.
So for theistic evolutionists to say that evolution is God's way of creating is to miss the process of reasoning to the Darwinian conclusion. Darwin's theory did not win out over its competitors because it better explained the facts of the natural world; it won because it most completely removed God from biology, and thus best fit the new positivist paradigm that biology had adopted. Critics who recognize this see how spartan the actual evidence is for evolution when it is precisely stated, that is, as a theory accounting for biological complexity solely by the mechanism of mutation and natural selection. That theistic evolutionists are comfortable with the scientific evidence is not surprising when they define "evolution" in a much more vague sense, such as "an observed increase in complexity of organisms over time." Furthermore, they insist that the scientific theory of evolution, strictly speaking, has no metaphysical implications, and, as I have explained, this is just false.
The attempts by theistic evolution to reconcile theism with evolution are too costly, for two reasons. First, it must redefine the word evolution. And second, the cognitive content of theism must be greatly limited. Richard Bube is comfortable that we are still "provided with evidence of God's activity when seen through the eyes of Christian faith" (p. 254) but in a culture that equates only science with reason and knowledge, this is mere personal belief and is therefore nothing to be taken seriously.
The positivist paradigm shift was a mistake for biology because it lacks the resources to deal with information, and information is the key to biology. Other nineteenth-century figures, namely Marx and Freud, who like Darwin attempted to explain reality in positivistic (materialistic) terms have since been discredited. A century and a half after Darwin it would seem it is time for a wholesale revision in how we view biology.
Intelligent design advocates are calling for another paradigm shift, one that does not rule out supernatural agency a priori. Notwithstanding the warnings of theistic evolutionists, we need not fear the "god-of-the-gaps" fallacy. For one thing, a gap existing in a closed system may disappear when we do not limit scientific explanations to the material world. Furthermore, John Mark Reynolds is confident that "even without the constraint of methodological naturalism, empirical inquiry will...govern itself. We need only trust that nature will talk back to us when we try to make her say something that isn't true" (p.59). If God has indeed spoken to us not only through Scripture but also through nature, then we should be able to apprehend this in an objective, verifiable fashion.
Somewhat informative but there must be better out there ^ A good and necessary book with lots of food for thought but it sometimes seems more like a precursor to a real debate - defining terms and worldviews - versus an argument for each position. Or perhaps it's rather like a post-debate conversation. The arguments have been hashed out for decades and are taken as givens by the writers, so they're moving on to philosophical topics. But the average reader would like to hear the evidence, please!
I also miss the round-robin rebuttal system used in the other books in this terrific series. The third party panel of critics are a distraction and are not clearly identified or categorized. They take up useful space that could used by the primary essayists to, well, present their case!
Not Very Helpful ^ 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.
Pathetic ^ If you really want answers to questions of this nature study biology instead of getting your head filled with this ideological non-sense.
three views on creation and evolution ^ 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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