Abrahamson, Karen K.

English

Andrews University

establishing the canon of the HB. It is over two decades now since this construct was critically evaluated and found wanting. This volume deserves careful consideration by both NT and LXX scholars: by the former, because all too often the LXX is overlooked as a link in the chain between the NT and the OT; by the latter, since the quotations in the NT are an important, even complex, witness to the ongoing development of the IXX text Also students of both disciplines as well as students of early church history will h d  the book beneficial. I leave the (informed) layperson last, because it is not easy readmg but offers much in terms of understanding how the question of canon was addressed, should one have the patience to persist Loma Linda, California BERNARD TAYLOR Hunter, Cornelius G. Darwin2 God EvoYution and the Problem o f E d  Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2001. 192 pp. Hardcover, $17.99. Cornelius G. Hunter is a recent graduate of the University of Illinois Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology. He is also the author of Drmvn's Pmoj The Tn'uqh o@&ion over Science (Brazos, 2003). As an advocate of the Intelhgent Design movement, Hunter joins ranks with Phdlq Johnson, Michael Behe, and William Dembski. Hunter proposes that evolution is a reaction against a particular view of God. Thus evolution is a metaphysical, rather than a scientific, argument. He demonstrates this contention by discussing the main points of Darwin's argument for evolution, then shows how each of these points hinges on metaphysical arguments (chaps. 2-4). Thus, for him, "evolution is neither atheism in disguise nor is it merely science at work" (8). Hunter proposes in chapter 1 that Darwin was influenced by Milton's characterization of God in Parahe Lost. hlilton dealt with the problem of moral evil by btancing God from his creation. Darwin, Hunter contends, carried this separation of God further by making God unnecessary to his creation. God could not be responsible for either moral or natural evil because he was not directly responsible for the process of creation. Rather, natural laws governed the development of life and, in fact, were the source of evil. In chapters 2 through 4, Hunter examines the three primary evidences for Darwjn's evolutionary theory: comparative anatomy, mall-scale evolution, and the fossil record. He then examines problems with this evidence and concludes each chapter with the metaphysical attributes inherent in Danvin's arguments. He demonstrates that Danvin's theories were centered around the problem of God and providence. For instance, he notes that two metaphysical arguments are embedded in Darwin's understanding of comparative anatomy. First, God would never repeat a pattern in his creation of the speues, and second, evolution is proved to be true by the process of elimination. God would not create a world where evil exists and where there are many quandaries present among organisms; thus evolution is proven true on the basis of negative theology. Hunter believes that the use of such negative theology underlies all of evolutionary theory. In his discussion of Daiwin's understandmg of srnd-scale evolution, Hunter h d s  three metaphysical arguments. First, Darwin brought about the downfill of Linnaeus's fixity and essentiality of the species by legitimatizing the notion that new species are regularly created by unguided natural forces. A second metaphysical problem that emerged out of Darwin's small- scale evolutionary theory was that God is not a micromanager. It was impossible to believe that God would bother to create such a menagerie of different species. The third metaphysical problem that Hunter deals with in chapter 3 is that the "evidence for evolution incorporates re4yous ideas" (63). He points out that evolutionists from Darwin to the present use their arguments directly against the doctrine of divine creation. Thus "evolutionists' rebuttals to creation, though cloaked in scientific terns, are metaphysical because they hinge on one's doctrine of God and creation" (64). Finally, Hunter examines the metaphysical arguments imbedded in Darwin's interpretation of the fossil record. God would not have made a world with so many different types of species; nor would God have allowed the vast majority of these species to result in extinction. He contends that "evolutionists are using nonscientific arguments for evolution. Their arguments rely on an unspoken premise about the nature of God and how God would go about creating the world" (84). Thus, "some people fwd extinctions troubling because they focus on God's benevolence. Others can just as easily interpret extinctions as a result of the futility to which creation has been subject" (84). Therefore, he views Darwin's conclusion to be that it is "better to line species up in a sequence and ascribe it to natural law. If God cannot do it, then nature can. And the new view is so convincing because the old view is so untenable. . . . Evolution is a fact for the simple reason that the alternative, modemism's divine creation, is not considered viable" (84). The modem solution to the problem of evil and what to do about God's part in it, is to effectually separate God from creation and to accept evolutionary theory because creation is impossible. In chapter 5, Hunter argues that Darwin's metaphysical arguments have continued to the present. In his examination of five evolutionists (Joseph Le Conte [1888], H. H. Lane [1923], Arthur W. Lindsey [1952], Sir Gavin de Beer [1964], and Verne Grant [1991]) who have attempted toprove that evolution is "undeniably true," Hunter shows that the metaphysical foundations of evolution have remained stable since Darwin. Hunter believes that stability has been maintained because the popular understanding of God has not changed significantly from Darwin's day. Further, he contends that evolutionists are not responsible for this picture of God; "it was, rather, formed over many centuries, long before Darwin was ever born" (1 13). In chapter 6, Hunter then describes the belief in God that laid the foundation for Darwin's theory of evolution. He discusses how the attempt to explain creation scientifically led to the belief that God created the world through secondary means via natural laws. David Hume overthrew natural theology through his rejection of miracles. Hume believed that the principle of cause and effect excluded any "interference of supernatural transcendent powers and that therefore there is no 'miracle' in sense of the word. Such a miracle would be an event whose cause did not lie within history" (Hume, cited on p. 120). Thus God was placed outside of history, uninvolved and inefficient in regard to the development of human history. Hunter then turns to the problem of evil, showing that the nature of God was tirst questioned under the rubric of moral evil and then natural evil. The development of a theodicy became necessary for many, such as Leibniz, because it was felt that the actual realities found through scientific discovery were in conflict with popular conceptions about the character of God. Hunter contends that the shift in understanding that occurred in regard to creation and the problem of evil during this period laid the foundation for Darwin's evolutionary theory. In chapter 7, Hunter discusses how, "in the nineteenth century, the opinion among intellectuals that God was superfluous in philosophy and science grew from a minority position to the consensus" (127). He points to three major problems that contributed to the development and acceptance of evolutionary theory: rational theism, uniformitarianism, and the problem of evil. Rationalistic theism came as a result of a human-centered outlook that permeated much of nineteenth-century religious thought. "Amidst this milieu of relqgous thought, two important themes are discernible in the writings of Darwin and his fellow naturalists: Gnosticism and natural theology" (129). Gnosticism contended that God is separate from his creation (a trend, Hunter proposes, already developing in modem theology in the writings of Milton, Leibniz, and others). Natural theology rationalized God through the use of logical proofs for his existence. Uniformitarianism came out of the earlier understanding that God had created no new species after his initial creative act. This idea then grew into the modern notion that creation is stable with fixed, predictable laws. Thus when organisms with apparent dtsparities were found in nature, the protest was that the God of rational theism would not have created such a world. As scientific discoveries were made that seemed to show quandaries between the picture of a benevolent and loving Creator and the presence of natural evil, evolutionary theory began to have more presence among scholars. Darwin's theory of evolution was successful, Hunter proposes, because he was the fust to provide a scientific answer to the problem of evil. In chapter 8, Hunter shows the relationship of evolution to metaphysics. Throughout the book, Hunter builds his argument by showing that Darwin's theory came from a metaphysical, rather than a scientific, stimulus: the desire to separate God from the problem of evil and to protect God's benevolent character from the quandaries found in scientific discovery. In chapter 8, he specifically addresses the metaphysical problem. Darwin's theory, now with the scientific stamp of approval, moved from the minor leagues to major consensus within a relatively short period of time. However, Hunter contends, with every effort to separate God from creation, and even to declare God not only unnecessary but dead (Nietzsche), the central problem that evolutionary theory deals with is God. This, he affirms, is strictly against the scientific method, which separates metaphysics and nature, making them mutually exclusive from one another. Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, appeals to science to solve the metaphysical problem of God's existence and action in the world. To add insult to injury, Hunter believes, evolutionists generally refuse to acknowledge the metaphysical foundations upon which evolutionary theory is built. Hunter concludes his book with an examination of the "blind presuppositionalism" of evolutionary theory. Thus his task in the chapter is to examine "the various responses to evolution and how they can be understood in terms of their treatment of evolution's presuppositions" (163). He believes that it is important to understand the presuppositions that lie behind any theory. He notes that evolution is an interesting case study, "not as a model of how objective knowledge might be arrived at, but as a model of how subtle the use of presupposition can be" (162). Further, he contends that the theory of evolution "relies on the belief that God never would have created the world as we fmd it" (162-163). He shows how evangelicals, such as Warwick and van Til, have been influenced by evolution and how this influence has subsequently affected their theology, especially in regard to their understandings of God. Hunter's final thought is that "we need to understand the metaphysical interpretations that are attached to the scientific observations. We need to understand these things because, ultimately, evolution is not about the scientific details. Ultimately, evolution is about God" (175). Hunter's presentation in Damin's God is concise and to the point. Rather than wandering through unnecessary criticisms of evolutionary theory, he sticks to his main point and provides documentation to support his theory. His easy-to-read style makes the book acceptable for introductory college courses and for those without extensive study in the physical sciences. However, his ability to present an easy read does not detract from the book's scholarly potential. For all of Hunter's easy-reading style, there is a subtle (or perhaps, not so subtle) turning of the evolutionary argument back on itself. Hunter demands that evolution stick within its own self-ascribed laws of scientific method. Further, he makes frequent use of the Leibnizian (Aristotelean) law of contradiction, in which one must assume the meaning of something in order to deny it; otherwise the denial would be meaningless (i.e., Hunter challenges the evolutionary claim that God does not involve himself directly in the creative process, if indeed he exists at all. If one assumes that God does not exist, then one must have assumed that God did exist, because otherwise the notion of God would not be an issue at all). Once again, Hunter forces evolutionists to reexamine their arguments and to acknowledge the Leibnizian (and other) presuppositions that bolster their beliefs, and to move on to surer and (if truly scientific, less religious) foundations than those upon which evolutionary theory is currently based. To argue against divine creation, Hunter contends, is ultimately a religious, metaphysical idea. To  support it, then, with scientific evidence is a contradiction of scientific methodology, which clearly distinguishes between the metaphysical and the physical. Thus, evolution is not atheism, nor is it science. I recommend this book as a valuable source tool for better understanding the herrneneutical issues behind evolutionary theory. Berrien Springs, Michigan KAREN K. ABRAHAMSON Johnson, Phillip E. The Right Questions: Truth, Meaning and Public Debate. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2002. 191 pp. Paper, $16.00. Phillip Johnson, dean of the Intellgent Design (ID) movement, has been portrayed as leader of a nefarious conspiracy to undermine science teaching in American public schools. Barry Palevitz huffs that IDers like Johnson "have a strategy that would make any conspiracy maven drool" ("Intelligent Design Creationism: None of Your Business? Think Again," Evohtion 56/8 (2002): 171 8-1720). Barbara Carroll Forrest and Paul Gross have written a whole book "exposing" Johnson's 'Wedge strategy" complete with secret memos from the Discovery Institute (Evohtion and the Wedge ofInteIbgent Design: The Trojan Horse Strategy [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 20031). Ironically, all this hyperbole is directed at a movement that is transparently open in its goal to liberalize science and science education from constraints imposed by materialist dogma. There is no clandestine ID agenda and certainly no reason to search for secret memos by the conspirators involved; from the start Johnson has been open about the 'Wedge strategy." For all the details, any interested party can consult his htghly readable book The Wedge ofTmth: Spdtting the Founhtzons ofNaturahm (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000). If there is a plot and Johnson is lea- it, it is one of the most poorly concealed conspiracies in history. In The Right Qztestions, Johnson continues the open discussion characteristic of his previous writings. This is a good b g  for those interested in clear thinking about the origin of life, as concealing Johnson's sharpedged wisdom on this and related topics in conspiratorial secret memos would be a tragedy. The thesis of The RzghtQuestions is simple. When conttoversd topics are discussed, the right questions must be asked before constructive dialogue can occur. In no area of intellectual life is this principle truer than in the current debate over the origin of life. However, Johnson does not restrict his questions to quibbling details about what may or may not be at certain strata in the fossil record, or whether nature is capable of producing molecular machines. Instead, he deals with questions that his career as a professor of law at UC Berkeley has uniquely prepared him to address. In this book, among other subjects, he tackles the right questions about logic and the right questions about truth and liberty. When addressing these broad questions, Johnson uses his expertise as a logician and &ial lawyer to bring into sharp focus the issues involved and expose fuzzy thLnkLng. For most readers this will be both 

Darwin\u27s God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil [review] / Cornelius G. Hunter.

https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2839&amp;context=auss

Darwin\u27s God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil [review] / Cornelius G. Hunter.

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