Boekbesprekingen

This volume represents a major achievement that has been prepared over the preceding years. It comprises a collaborate response to publications by Francis Collins, Denis Alexander, John Walton and other Christian scholars who have tried to reconcile Christian faith and neo-Darwinian evolution. In seventeen essays their ‘theistic evolution’ is criticized from various scientific angles, eight papers discuss its philosophical underpinnings, four papers contain theological refutations and two are of a historical nature (one on C.S. Lewis and the other on B.B. Warfield, disputing their purported allegiance to theistic evolution). Not all papers are new – some have been sampled from materials that were published before.

Not all authors are opposed to theistic evolution. In particular James Tour (chapter 4) does not want to take issue with it, but also in C. John Collins’s paper there is nothing that targets theistic evolution per se (despite the editors’ claim to the contrary, 56).

Further, the most basic layer of evolutionary theory – gradual change over vast amounts of time – is intentionally excluded from discussion (40-41). As a result, young earth creationists will hardly find anything that supports their position in this book. Instead, throughout the book the notion of intelligent design is promoted as key to understanding the world’s biological diversity.

There is much to recommend in this volume. Its scientific part displays many examples of thoroughgoing scholarship that question the monopoly of natural selection and point to lacunae in the theory of common descent (e.g. the paleoanthropological gap between Australopithecus and Homo erectus, chapter 14). The book’s philosophical part contains compelling analyses of scientism, i.e. the abuse of science for ideological purposes. Taken together, both parts prevent us from adopting a tunnel view with regard to natural selection and common ancestry, as if these are the only games in town. Although the tone of the book is

Yet, the book does not provide what it promises, viz. a convincing refutation of theistic evolution. As I see it this is mainly due to three reasons. First, despite occasional claims to the contrary its scientific part leans heavily on God-of-the-gaps arguments. Quite some essays basically argue that ‘natural selection doesn’t explain phenomenon x’, ‘common descent doesn’t square with observation y’, ‘enzymes cannot be invented by any (...) evolutionary process’ (84), et cetera. Well, perhaps that is true as far as we can see now. But we should keep in mind that the future may bring forth new explanations, or strengthen existing theories that up to now are uncertain because of a lack of evidence. So the real question is: what if standard accounts of evolution will turn out to be true after all – would we, as Christians, then be prepared to accept them?

Second, when one wants to attack a certain position, the best way to proceed is to first depict it in its most convincing form.

Instead, the editors of this book have chosen to work with a fairly extreme definition of theistic evolution (cf. e.g. 784) – so that it almost coincides with deism. As a result, many theistic evolutionists will not recognize themselves in the attitudes and views that are rejected. For example, most of them don’t take contemporary science for granted whatever it may come up with, and some of them even uphold traditional doctrinal notions like the human Fall. In fact, it is these subtler positions that are by far the most promising ones – but precisely these are largely overlooked here.

Third, what is missing is an informed reflection on the relevant hermeneutical issues: how should we read the Bible, for example when it contains traces of ancient near Eastern world pictures that have become obsolete (such as the famous three-tiered universe)? The task of addressing the interaction of science and Scripture has been left to Colin Reeves, a retired mathematician (not a theologian). Reeves misses the chance to enlighten us on this topic since he is overly polemic, rejecting contemporary science out of hand in a way that is utterly unconvincing. Being a theologian myself, I regret to say that the theological essays in the book form its weakest part. All of them are ‘flat’, treating the Bible as a series of prooftexts that are then contrasted with views associated with theistic evolution. They don’t explore the possibility of acquiring a more perspectival view that differentiates between the Bible’s theological tenets (including the historical ones!) and the science-of-the-day representations in which these are often couched. In my view, the editors should have done a better job in addressing the crucial hermeneutical issues.

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