Rating: 
Summary: Problems reconciling Mr. Ruse's philosophy with the Bible
Review: I do not believe that those who adhere to some form of theistic evolution (God used evolution to create everything) or progressive creation (God intervened at various points in the process of evolution) fully realize that their position violates clear concepts revealed in the Bible--indeed much that is foundational to the very Gospel itself. For instance.. Concept violated: the goodness of God The Bible says 'God is good' and in Genesis 1:31 God described his just finished creation as 'very good'. How do you understand the goodness of God if He used evolution, 'nature red in tooth and claw' (as Mr. Ruse describes it), to 'create' everything? Concept violated: Adam's sin brought death and decay, the basis of the Gospel According to the evolutionist's (and progressive creationist's) understanding, fossils (which show death, disease and bloodshed) were formed before people appeared on earth. Doesn't that mean that you can't believe the Bible when it says that everything is in 'bondage to decay' because of Adam's sin (Romans 8)? In the evolutionary view, hasn't the 'bondage to decay' always been there? And if death and suffering did not arise with Adam's sin and the resulting curse, how can Jesus' suffering and physical death pay the penalty for sin and give us eternal life, as the Bible clearly says (e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive")? Concept violated: the divine inspiration of the whole Bible If the Genesis accounts of Creation, the Fall, the origin of nations, the Flood and the Tower of Babel - the first 11 chapters - are not historical, although they are written as historical narrative and understood by Jesus to be so, what other unfashionable parts of the Bible do you discard? The biblical account of creation in Genesis seems very specific with six days of creative activity, each having an evening and a morning. According to the evolutionary sequence, the biblical order of creation is all wrong. Do you think God should have inspired an account more in keeping with the evolutionary order, the truth as you see it, if indeed He did use evolution or followed the evolutionary pattern in creating everything? Concept violated: the straightforward understanding of the Word of God If the Genesis account does not mean what it plainly says, but must be 'interpreted' to fit an evolutionary world, how are we to understand the rest of the Bible? How are we to know that the historical accounts of Jesus' life, death and resurrection should not also be 'reinterpreted'? Indeed, can we know anything for sure if the Bible can be so flexible? Concept violated: the creation is supposed to show the hand of God clearly Dr Niles Eldredge, well-known evolutionist, said: 'Darwin . . . taught us that we can understand life's history in purely naturalistic terms, without recourse to the supernatural or divine.' [Niles Eldredge, "Time Frames - the Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium", 1986, Heinemann, London, p. 13.] Is it not philosophically inconsistent to marry God (theism) with evolution (naturalism)? If God 'created' using evolution which makes Him unnecessary, how can God's 'eternal power and divine nature' be 'clearly seen' in creation, as Romans 1:20 says? Evolution has no purpose, no direction, no goal. The God of the Bible is all about purpose. How do you reconcile the purposelessness of evolution with the purposes of God? What does God have to do in an evolutionary world? Is not God an 'unnecessary hypothesis'? Concept violated: the need of restoration for the creation If God created over millions of years involving death, the existing earth is not ruined by sin, but is as it always has been-as God supposedly intended it to be. So why then should He want to destroy it and create a new heavens and earth (2 Peter 3 and other places)? Starting to get the picture of where compromising theology leads? Books I would encourage one to read instead: "Icons of Evolution" by Jonathan Wells, "Bones of Contention" by Marvin Lubenow, "Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No!" by Duane Gish, "In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation" by John F. Aston, "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" by Michael Denton, "Astronomy and the Bible" by Donald B. DeYoung, "Refuting Evolution" by Jonathan Sarfati, "The Answers Book" by Ham/Snelling/Wieland, and "The Young Earth" by John Morris.
Rating: 
Summary: Asks but doesn't answer all the questions
Review: I was looking for ways to explain my pro-evolution stance to fellow evangelicals and was a little disappointed. The author asks all the relevant questions I could think of (extra-terrestrials, pre-adamite humans, sin and the fall, theodicy) but his answers seem brief and incomplete. Written for the already convinced.
Rating:
Summary: a very good try, worth the reading, but unconvincing
Review: It is a surprising book. It is mild in tone, polite and nice to revealed religion. He obviously did his homework, understanding Christianity, probably better than the man in the pew, maybe without believing it. He doesn't have the anguished tortured sounds that a believer does when he encounters the conflicts in the faith or between the faith and the world. He make no profession of faith, nor does he profess no faith on the other hand, in the book, so i accept his words as an interested party, a friend of the court, amis curiae. What the book is not: it is not a poor substitute for either Darwinianism or Christianity, for he does justice to both positions, evenhanded throughout. It is not a wax nose for either position, pushing and pulling either to make it fit a preconceived position. He doesn't leave out the nasty bits, those little family secrets that everyone hides from company. But rather trots them out for inspection by all: determinism, freewill, the soul, theodicy. All in all the book is best seen as a nice introduction to several philosophic themes as handled by two different kinds of thought systems. I'm not convinced of anything in particular, the book doesn't strive to convert the borderline, nor does it preach to the choir, converting the already saved. Which is in itself interesting, how to approach a loaded gun subject and come off as a discussion amougst buddies rather than a bloodbath. quote----
pg 59 "Our powers of sense and of reason are given to us by God-they are crucially involved in what it means to say that humans are made in God's image- and to turn our back on such firmly established science is theologically unacceptable. Not just theologically unacceptable, of course, but also threatening to science, in the sense that if one's Christianity is such that one can disregard such strong science, "
The fact that he found and is sensitive to Plantinga is indicative of the scholarship that went into the book. Ruse did his homework.
I have of late read several secular books on the soul or on the mind-body problem and this is the first time i have seen the names: Augustinian, Aristotelian, Thomist not slighted in the least, but rather taken as heart felt and serious human endeavors to come to grips with the real world. In order to prove his points he doesn't water down either of the two systems, but rather lets the hard parts hit straight on. quote--
pg 98 " Not everyone will be happy with this synthesis or attempt at harmony. There are both Darwinians and Christians who argue that if one starts using law, becoming a naturalist, this is the slippery slope which ends at the bottom with materialism: meaning at this point that nothing supernatural at all exists, which means atheism, which means that Christianity is ruled out as false. Hence, Darwinism, as a supreme manifestation of the naturalistic philosophy, ends in the falsity of Christianity." Putting himself at certain risk of being hated by all is certainly brave, maybe stupid, except that he is knowledgable and smart enough to defend himself from both groups. It is to his benefit that Ruse was able to find 138 pages of complementary things to say about how Darwinianism and Christianity could fit together, before he hit theodicy on pg 139. But to his greater credit he realizes that faith must enter into the picture somewhere in the system and theodicy is a very good place to stop and let faith speak. This i believe will be Ruse's contribution to the ongoing debate, that a scientist can come to conclusions, like Plantinga's, that some people are making science into the metaphysics of scientism, a rival faith, that all Christians will rightfully deny is the proper role of reasoning in the world. But the book, as it stands between two competing faiths, will not be greeted nicely by either science. Sadly so, for Ruse is making a good and serious effort, not at compromise which will be the great label pinned upon it, but at reconciliation. For as Ruse apparently believes, although not stated in this book, God created two books: Scripture and general revelation, and as they derive from the words of a single God they will not contradict each other. If they appear to do so, either the theology is wrong or the science is wrong, or both. I think Ruse's answer is clear in the book, both need work, by workmen following the activities in the other system as they go about their efforts at fixing what is broken.
Rating: 
Summary: "Never" is a very long time.
Review: Michael Ruse deserves alot of credit for seriously tackling the subject of the compatibility of Darwinism and Christianity. He also deserves credit for understanding and acknowledging basic Christian beliefs, something that unfortunately cannot be said for some others, like Stephen Jay Gould, who have written on the intersection of science and religion. Before reaching the substance of Ruse's work, we need to clear up some matters raised by other reviewers. Several young earth creationists have pointed out that the Bible teaches that death--not only human death but animal death, predation and bloodshed, as well--is a result of Adam's sin and the resulting fall of the human race. Rom. 5:12; 8:18-22, I Cor. 15:21-22. But if the fossiliferous strata are interpreted according to conventional uniformitarian geology, it proves that death has been around for millions of years before humans existed, and thus before the first human sin. This is a valid point, but we Bible-believing Christians need to realize that our problem on this point is with uniformitarian geology, (something I call Lyellism), not with evolution or Darwinism. Charles Lyell had already won the day for uniformitarian geology almost 30 years before the publication of Darwin's "Origin of the the Species." The men who agreed with Lyell that vast ages were needed to form the fossiliferous strata were creationists, many of them Anglican clergymen like Coneybeare and William Buckland. Thus, we cannot blame Darwin for theological problems created by uniformitarian geology (and I agree that there are many). Ruse only spends a couple of pages breifly discussing these developments in geology. This book is addressed to the possible conflicts between Darwinism, with its teaching that humans evolved from lower primates, and Christianity, with its teaching that humans were created by God in God's own image. The central doctrine of Christianity is that Christ is the Son of God, and that Christ died to save fallen humanity. This is not a doctrine peculiar to any particular brand or branch of Christianity. All Christians believe that Christ died to save us; He is our Redeemer. How might this central doctrine conflict with Darwinism? Because it presupposes the need for a Redeemer. It presupposes that there was a fall, that man sinned and fell from grace, something that is taught in Genesis but denied by Darwinism. It seems to me that this is the central conflict between Darwinism and Christianity, and I think, after reading the relevant parts of this book, that Ruse would agree. To my mind, Ruse gets alot of credit for recognizing that there is a real and substantial conflict here. "an essential component of Christian theology, . . . is that humans are descended from a unique pair (monogenism). That part of the Adam and Eve story cannot be interpreted symbolically. . . . the trouble is that this goes completely against our thinking about the nature of the evolutionary process. Successful species like humans do not pass through single-pair bottlenecks: there is certainly no evidence that this was true of Homo sapiens, a species which seems to have been well spread around the earth" (pp. 75-76). Ruse admits that "we seem to have reached an impasse." (p. 77). Thus, by page 77, Ruse has spotted the problem. Although the book goes on to page 218, I don't think he ever came close to solving it. The general thrust of the book is that something like what has come to be known as "theistic evolution" is compatible with Christianity. "It is not by chance that the universe exists and it is not by chance that we exist within the universe." (p. 83) But is the idea that God guided the evolutionary process compatible with what Ruse calls "full-blooded Darwinism"? Doesn't evolution teach exactly that it is just by chance that we exist? Those readers familiar with the writings of Stephen Jay Gould, especially "Wonderful Life", know that he teaches that evolution need not have resulted in the human race. Indeed, it was just the luck of the draw that humans ever evolved. Ruse thrashes around on the horns of this dilemma for several pages, never mustering up the courage to say that Gould is just flat wrong. So what remains of "theistic evolution"? "The Christian would be foolish to think that Darwinism insists that humans are uniquely significant and bound to appear." (p. 91). Wow! Not much remains even of theistic evolution. Ultimately, Ruse admits that there had to be a fall in order for Christianity to work. "In the course of evolution, there must have been a first moment of conscious moral choice. That is the point at which the 'fall of humanity' began and humans were estranged from that natural fellowship with God which should have been theirs, and from their natural ability to relate unselfishly to one another." (p. 205, quoting Ward) But, again, it is not compatible with Darwinism: "And the whole business of an original, unique Adam and Eve goes flatly against modern evolutionary biology. . . . Is one supposed to believe that the parents of Adam and Eve--for they will have had such in the evolutionary story, if not in Genesis-- were soulless or sinless or what? And what about their brothers and sisters, and the next generation of homo sapiens, most of whom were not descended from Adam and Eve?" (p. 209) Ruse just never solves this basic contradiction. He never comes close. But I salute him for trying. If nothing else, the fact that a man as clever and well educated as Ruse could not solve the basic contradiction between Darwinism and Christianity confirmed for me what I already suspected: the contradiction is insoluble.
Rating:
Summary: Kudos for seriously addressing the subject
Review: Michael Ruse deserves alot of credit for seriously tackling the subject of the compatibility of Darwinism and Christianity. He also deserves credit for understanding and acknowledging basic Christian beliefs, something that unfortunately cannot be said for some others, like Stephen Jay Gould, who have written on the intersection of science and religion. Before reaching the substance of Ruse's work, we need to clear up some matters raised by other reviewers. Several young earth creationists have pointed out that the Bible teaches that death--not only human death but animal death, predation and bloodshed, as well--is a result of Adam's sin and the resulting fall of the human race. Rom. 5:12; 8:18-22, I Cor. 15:21-22. But if the fossiliferous strata are interpreted according to conventional uniformitarian geology, it proves that death has been around for millions of years before humans existed, and thus before the first human sin. This is a valid point, but we Bible-believing Christians need to realize that our problem on this point is with uniformitarian geology, (something I call Lyellism), not with evolution or Darwinism. Charles Lyell had already won the day for uniformitarian geology almost 30 years before the publication of Darwin's "Origin of the the Species." The men who agreed with Lyell that vast ages were needed to form the fossiliferous strata were creationists, many of them Anglican clergymen like Coneybeare and William Buckland. Thus, we cannot blame Darwin for theological problems created by uniformitarian geology (and I agree that there are many). Ruse only spends a couple of pages breifly discussing these developments in geology. This book is addressed to the possible conflicts between Darwinism, with its teaching that humans evolved from lower primates, and Christianity, with its teaching that humans were created by God in God's own image. The central doctrine of Christianity is that Christ is the Son of God, and that Christ died to save fallen humanity. This is not a doctrine peculiar to any particular brand or branch of Christianity. All Christians believe that Christ died to save us; He is our Redeemer. How might this central doctrine conflict with Darwinism? Because it presupposes the need for a Redeemer. It presupposes that there was a fall, that man sinned and fell from grace, something that is taught in Genesis but denied by Darwinism. It seems to me that this is the central conflict between Darwinism and Christianity, and I think, after reading the relevant parts of this book, that Ruse would agree. To my mind, Ruse gets alot of credit for recognizing that there is a real and substantial conflict here. "an essential component of Christian theology, . . . is that humans are descended from a unique pair (monogenism). That part of the Adam and Eve story cannot be interpreted symbolically. . . . the trouble is that this goes completely against our thinking about the nature of the evolutionary process. Successful species like humans do not pass through single-pair bottlenecks: there is certainly no evidence that this was true of Homo sapiens, a species which seems to have been well spread around the earth" (pp. 75-76). Ruse admits that "we seem to have reached an impasse." (p. 77). Thus, by page 77, Ruse has spotted the problem. Although the book goes on to page 218, I don't think he ever came close to solving it. The general thrust of the book is that something like what has come to be known as "theistic evolution" is compatible with Christianity. "It is not by chance that the universe exists and it is not by chance that we exist within the universe." (p. 83) But is the idea that God guided the evolutionary process compatible with what Ruse calls "full-blooded Darwinism"? Doesn't evolution teach exactly that it is just by chance that we exist? Those readers familiar with the writings of Stephen Jay Gould, especially "Wonderful Life", know that he teaches that evolution need not have resulted in the human race. Indeed, it was just the luck of the draw that humans ever evolved. Ruse thrashes around on the horns of this dilemma for several pages, never mustering up the courage to say that Gould is just flat wrong. So what remains of "theistic evolution"? "The Christian would be foolish to think that Darwinism insists that humans are uniquely significant and bound to appear." (p. 91). Wow! Not much remains even of theistic evolution. Ultimately, Ruse admits that there had to be a fall in order for Christianity to work. "In the course of evolution, there must have been a first moment of conscious moral choice. That is the point at which the 'fall of humanity' began and humans were estranged from that natural fellowship with God which should have been theirs, and from their natural ability to relate unselfishly to one another." (p. 205, quoting Ward) But, again, it is not compatible with Darwinism: "And the whole business of an original, unique Adam and Eve goes flatly against modern evolutionary biology. . . . Is one supposed to believe that the parents of Adam and Eve--for they will have had such in the evolutionary story, if not in Genesis-- were soulless or sinless or what? And what about their brothers and sisters, and the next generation of homo sapiens, most of whom were not descended from Adam and Eve?" (p. 209) Ruse just never solves this basic contradiction. He never comes close. But I salute him for trying. If nothing else, the fact that a man as clever and well educated as Ruse could not solve the basic contradiction between Darwinism and Christianity confirmed for me what I already suspected: the contradiction is insoluble.
Rating: 
Summary: not bad, but too many problems
Review: Michael Ruse is a Darwinist and a Christian. This book is his attempt to remove the barrier between Darwinism and Christianity. One of the problems with the book, however, is that he doesn't really go into what Christianity is. He does cover the book of Genesis, though. Moreover, I agree with some of his views of Genesis. He admits that the Genesis implies a relatively young earth. He believes the bible should be taken literally, unless the text "is clearly false, then interpretation is permissible." Pg 51 I would agree with all of those things. However, Ruse goes on to say that it was "God's task was to create humans, which he did through His progress-guaranteeing fundamental theorem of natural selection." He then has to delegate Adam and Eve down to fiction. He removes God from creation, and proclaims that nature is self-sufficient. He does this because of his preconceived views of the world.
There are some bright spots in this book. Ruse's argument for evolution is persuasive. However, I do have some problems with some of what Ruse wrote. For starters, he argues that the first organic molecules came from inorganic molecules. He argues this transition came about all through natural processes, without divine intervention. However, science has never demonstrated that organic molecules could come from inorganic molecules. Ruse's belief for this comes from his blind faith in nature. Furthermore, the idea of spontaneous generation has been scrapped for a while now. Ruse knows this, and attempts to separate this transition from the defeated hypothesis of spontaneous generation, because, he argues, this only created the building blocks of life themselves, and not REAL LIFE. Pg 62 However, this is a poor use of semantics. Feel free to call it what you want Mr. Ruse, however, that doesn't erase the improbability of your theory. All you have is blind faith in the impossible. Wait, and hope that science can duplicate the process of organic materials from inorganic. However, until science actually DOES produce life from non-life you have nothing to stand on except your blind faith in naturalism.
As if bringing up his faith in spontaneous generation wasn't enough, Ruse goes on to argue in favor of another defeated icon of Darwinism. That is that embryology somehow proves common descent. He says: "The naked eye cannot tell apart the embryos of dog and human. This points to a shared evolution origin." Pg 18 Ruse fails to understand though that there are just too many differences between the supposed evolutionary ancestors embryos. This differences remove any creditability that embryology could support Darwinism. Moreover, if embryology does indeed support Darwinism than it is high time Darwinist rewrote evolutionary history because according to Darwinism, early humans developed teeth first and then their tongues, but according to embryology, tongues are developed first and then teeth. In short, embryology cannot say if Darwinism is true or not.
Finally, Ruse says: "It may indeed be the case that a Darwinian cannot be a Christian, but it is something to be decided only after one has looked at the two systems and worked through their points of possible conflict and dispute. It is not to be settled a priori before one begins. It is certainly not to be settled in happy and total ignorance of what others claim and believe." Pg Ix On this I completely agree with Mr. Ruse. Ignorance should be avoided. People need to do their own searching and come up with their own ideas of whether or not a Darwinian can be a Christian. This book can help you decide one way or another.
Rating:
Summary: Can a Darwinian be a Christian? Absolutely!
Review: Michael Ruse seriously considers whether the major tenets of Christianity are compatible with Darwinism. He convincingly shows that a Christian view of human nature which includes free will, original sin and the soul are not excluded by science in general nor by Darwinism in particular. Questions such as why there is pain and suffering are also shown to have mutually supportive answers in Christianity and Darwinism. Michael Ruse clearly shows how opponents of methodological naturalism, such as Phillip Johnson, engage in bad theology as well as bad science. As a biologist, I found that although he deals with serious theological issues, Michael Ruse writes in a highly engaging and accessible style. I would highly recommend this book (along with the "Tower of Babel" by Robert Pennock and "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth Miller) for anyone who wonders whether methodological naturalism is anti-religious. The copy of "Can a Darwinian be a Christian?" which I read was checked out from our local library. Will I now be purchasing my own copy? Absolutely!
Rating:
Summary: A serious and original book!
Review: Ruse's book is an exciting journey along the interface between science and religion. Although one might say that it's title should be "How can a darwinian be a christian?", the book does deal very seriously with the relationship between science and religion, and does thet in an original way. As a student of both philosophy of religion and life sciences I found that Ruse presents both sides' arguments very clearly and without distorting them at all (which isn't usualy easy to do). And as for the question of taking the biblical story literaly (which a few of the reviewers here thought as a must and as a destruction of Ruse's ideas) , it was the great jewish philosopher Meimonides who said that it (the story told in Genesis I 1-11) is only a story which should be interpreted according to science.
Rating:
Summary: A serious and original book!
Review: Ruse's book is an exciting journey along the interface between science and religion. Although one might say that it's title should be "How can a darwinian be a christian?", the book does deal very seriously with the relationship between science and religion, and does thet in an original way. As a student of both philosophy of religion and life sciences I found that Ruse presents both sides' arguments very clearly and without distorting them at all (which isn't usualy easy to do). And as for the question of taking the biblical story literaly (which a few of the reviewers here thought as a must and as a destruction of Ruse's ideas) , it was the great jewish philosopher Meimonides who said that it (the story told in Genesis I 1-11) is only a story which should be interpreted according to science.
Rating:
Summary: Alone in the demilitarized zone
Review: Someone should buy Michael Ruse a new dictionary. The term "polemic" doesn't appear in his. He doesn't engage in polemics, and pours balm on those that occur. The "war between science and religion" is something he deplores. His subtitle sets the tone of this book in describing "The Relationship Between Science and Religion", deftly eschewing conflict at the outset. In reconciling the discipline of science with the dedication of faith, Ruse follows the labyrinthine path of Christian teachings. His Quaker upbringing and background in the history of science has prepared him well for this torturous task. His sense of wit allows him to achieve this without becoming ensnared in arcane theological questions or sectarian strife. Few, if any scholars have accomplished this level of detachment with such charming style. Ruse establishes his credentials promptly, offering a succinct account of "Darwinism" [a term i loathe]. He explains the history and mechanisms of evolution by natural selection with aplomb. The book is valuable for this summation, if nothing else. He explains various forms of evidence such as the similarity of animal body structures [homology]. He continues with various dialogues between Christians who view evolution as a threat to morals, society, ethics and the other tired arguments and why they have no basis. Finally, Ruse states the obvious: many scientists are and have been, successfully practicing Christians. Whether or not they've made the effort to rationalise this disparity, he saves them the effort in examining how the reconciliation can be achieved. For centuries, he reminds us, the study of Nature was in order to glorify a deity. He uses Augustine frequently in support of the view that Nature deserves serious study. Ruse calls this "the Augustinian option", that Christianity has no room for the ignorant. Nature's wonders and laws follow a divine plan, which must be recognized and respected. Science then, is not an enemy, but rather an ally. Ruse concludes with a firm "Absolutely!" to the book's title. He warns of the difficulties: one must choose from among the various Christian ethics and values, recognize that not all questions have been answered nor all issues resolved, be prepared for some in-depth study. The path is difficult, but having been traversed by some, others may follow. Given the nature of the topic, Ruse has performed an outstanding service in addressing this complex question with such finesse and clarity. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
|
