Review: Should Christians Embrace Evolution?
Review by David Couchman
This book is a response to Denis Alexander's 'Creation or Evolution: do we have to choose?'
Like 'Darwin, Creation and the Fall,' this is a collection of papers by different authors. As always with this kind of book, this means that some of the chapters are much stronger than others.
Unlike 'Darwin, Creation and the Fall,' the authors of this book answer the question 'Should Christians embrace evolution?' with a resounding 'no.'
The first half of the book contains theological responses to theistic evolution; the second half contains scientific responses.
In the first half, the authors clearly identify the theological problems associated with theistic evolution, and set out why they think Denis Alexander's attempted solutions do not work.
One of the biggest theological issues is whether Adam and Eve were specific individuals, made in the image of God, and the parents of the whole human race. New Testament passages such as Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15:22 seem to require this.
Another major issue is whether the Fall was a real historical event. If you say that it was not, it seems inescapable that God created a world in which suffering and death were normal - in fact, they were the mechanism by which God created us.
In the second half of the book, the authors set out to demonstrate that the scientific evidence in support of evolution is not as conclusive as theistic evolutionists would have us believe.
One problem in the current debate is that theologians who are not theistic evolutionists often seem to look at the scientific evidence for evolution, and say 'so much the worse for science.' Yet there is a large amount of scientific evidence, for example in the field of genetics. Meanwhile, scientists who are theistic evolutionists often seem to fudge the theological problems raised by theistic evolution. Neither of these approaches will do. We cannot ignore what the Bible says about human nature and the origins of sin, death and suffering. Neither can we ignore the scientific evidence that does not fit in with how we understand this. As it stands at the moment, this debate leaves me with more questions than answers.
If you want to get up to speed on the current state of the debate over theistic evolution, I recommend reading both 'Creation or Evolution' by Denis Alexander and 'Should Christians embrace evolution,' edited by Norman C Nevin.
The Chapters:
Foreword by Wayne Grudem
Preface by Phil Hills: a twenty-first century challenge
- Evolution and the Church, by Alistair Donald
- The language of Genesis, by Alistair McKitterick
- Adam and Eve, by Michael Reeves
- The fall and death, by Greg Haslam
- Creation, redemption and eschatology, by David Anderson
- The nature and character of God, by Andrew Sibley
- Faith and creation, by R T Kendall
- Towards a science worthy of creatures in imago Dei
- Interpretation of scientific evidence:
-
- Homology, by Norman Nevin
- The nature of the fossil record, by Norman Nevin
- Chromosomal fusion and common ancestry, by Geoff Barnard
- Information and thermodynamics, by Andy McIntosh
10. Does the genome provide evidence for common ancestry? By Geoff Barnard
11. The origin of life: scientists play dice, by John Walton
Conclusion: Should Christians embrace evolution? By Phil Hills and Norman Nevin.
EAUK.org
