Book Review – Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design
An update to Zondervan’s Counterpoints: Bible & Theology series, this book contains essays from the leaders of the four main “origins” positions within Christianity. The format is standard Counterpoints format: Essay, 3 Responses, Rejoinder.
Ken Ham begins with his signature fanatical interpretation of Genesis as applied to the immorality in current culture and the evangelical church. He then proceeds to walk through a point by point Biblical defense of YEC, then a scientific defense, citing large quantities of references along the way. Hugh Ross presents the OEC view next, explaining at length the RTB position on the Day-Age Model. Deborah Haarsma describes the BioLogos case for EC, reviewing the Biblical and physical evidence in detail. Stephen Meyer concludes with the history and scientific evidence for ID.
This was a very interesting book. My first reaction upon hearing of its publication was why on earth someone like J.B. Stump/Zondervan would want to dignify AiG’s views by including Ham. Now that I’ve read the book, I see at least partly why. Ham’s section is rife with obvious logical fallacies, questionable theology AND science, and is discernibly less gracious in tone. For example, he asserts that Genesis 1-11 is literal historical narrative, based on the use of the verb form in the Hebrew language. However, I doubt he considers all ANE literature that use similar verb forms to be historical truth. Additionally, he seems to lack a robust respect for general revelation (the Book of Nature), as well as an understanding that while God’s creation was initially good, it wasn’t perfect, else Adam & Eve would not have been able to sin. With regard to the contentious tone, I was surprised to see Ham affirm that a belief in YEC is not an essential of the gospel since my perception is that he believes it is. After reading his section and responses, however, I remain skeptical that he really means it. He claims that it is not a salvation issue, but that it IS a gospel issue, in fairly strong language, accusing those who deny YEC of undermining the foundation of the gospel. Given his obvious contempt for the other three authors, I think his claim that he believes YEC is not a salvific issue rings hollow.
The other three authors were more respectful in their disagreement towards each other, although there were points of sharp disagreement at times. Two affirm an old earth (RTB/BL), while the third is open to it. I’ve stated elsewhere that I don’t think the RTB position is internally consistent. There are actually quite a few points of agreement between these latter three positions.
I was interested to learn more about ID, even more interested to see at what points RTB and BL disagreed with ID. All, including Ham, faulted Meyer for not boldly identifying the Designer as God, referencing Antony Flew’s change of mind without requisite religious conversion. If you’re going to make an argument for ID, you may as well name the Designer. This is a valid point, in my opinion, although it may not be a totally accurate perception of the ID position. Ross points out that Meyer’s given arguments are unnecessarily complex; there are simpler arguments that could be given, that an average lay person would be better equipped to understand, and he lists quite a few possibilities. Haarsma points out that ID is subject to the risks of “god of the gaps” arguments (reliance on scientific arguments that may be proven erroneous in the future). She also points out several scientific assertions with which BL disagrees, including Meyer’s defense of Michael Behe’s irreducible complexity argument, which has since been debunked, and the fact that new genetic material codes could come from the environment, an Intelligent Designer may not necessarily be required.
Meyer spends quite a bit of time taking issue with Haarsma’s perceived lack of support for guided vs unguided evolutionary processes, which is, largely, a misunderstanding of the BL position, I think. There is also quite a bit of debate about whether all new genetic material, i.e. mutations, “errors,” are of necessity functional or not.
In conclusion, the editor, J.B. Stump, makes some helpful observations about the process, noting that unity in THIS disagreement seems impossible at this point (there was apparently a squabble about equal time.) I know that BL has had extended dialog with both RTB and The Discovery Institute, and both Meyer and Ross separately affirmed interest in future dialog between their organizations; I’m going to guess that AiG is the biggest obstacle in achieving Christian unity in disagreement at this point. All the authors agree it may be possible to craft a unified position on the origin of the first biological life; there are currently no widely accepted scientific explanations for origins, per se. All shared legitimate concerns about issues of evangelism.
Additionally, Stump pointed out that the subject matter is quite complex, and not readily accessible to regular people outside of the sciences. Ultimately, it comes down to which expert you trust the most, which expert you believe presents the most coherent case. For me, simply in terms of Christian love and graciousness and tolerance in the face of disagreement on nonessentials, Ham is the least trustworthy. In addition to RTB’s inconsistency, I personally find RTB’s (soft) concordism problematic. And while I agree with the general concept of intelligent design, I find the genomic evidence for evolution compelling. Therefore, for me, EC seems to be the best fit from both a theological, scientific, and trustworthiness perspective.