The Creationist Debate

Arthur McCalla, The Creationist Debate. The Encounter between the Bible and the Historical Mind, (Bloomsbury, 2013), £19.99, pp viii – 327,ISBN:978-1-62356-852-8

The first edition of McCalla’s book was already well-known to me when I received this new edition for review. The first edition is an excellent critical study of the historical growth of creationism, an area surprisingly neglected by historical scholarship given the prominence of creationism in the pews of North America. This second edition is better still, thoroughly deserving a place alongside Ronald Numbers’ magisterial The Creationists as one of the few definitive historical studies of the phenomenon.

Beginning with the medieval metaphor of ‘the two books’, McCalla charts the historical development of scriptural exegesis and its relation to science (the earth sciences in particular) in the early modern period, setting the scene for a discussion of the great Darwin debates of the nineteenth century, the development of inerrancy and fundamentalism, and then ‘creation science’ in the twentieth century. Key moments like the Scopes trial feature prominently, along with Whitcomb and Morris’s epochal creationist text, The Genesis Flood, grounding the debate in the political and social milieu of American religious conservatism.

Noticeably more polemical in tone than Numbers, McCalla’s aim is to demonstrate that debating with creationists over the interpretation of scientific evidence misses the point. Their real agenda is to exalt the status of the Bible above all historical contingencies as a transcendent reality of its own. This is why creationism must defend its inerrantist reading of the Bible from all historical studies that threaten it, evolution for sure, but biblical criticism perhaps even more so. And this provides an explanation as to why creationism is persistently able to evade all attacks on its view of science, since science is only a secondary issue compared with the exalted creationist view of the Bible.

First published in 2006, McCalla’s new edition of 2013 expands the original treatment in several ways. There are small changes to the earlier chapters, but most notably, the treatment of intelligent design towards the end of the book is expanded considerably from the first edition, bringing the treatment up to date by covering the first decade of the twenty-first century. More material on Islamic and Vedic creationism also helps to extend the remit beyond that of the United States (but apart from this McCalla’s discussion of creationism is largely restricted to the American situation). Another new chapter presents a penetrating overview of attempts within more moderate Christianity (compared to creationism) to harmonise science and religion, making useful points of contrast and contact with the creationist situation. This chapter makes McCalla’s case all the stronger, since it brings the issues closer to home for those of us who might be tempted to take an ‘us and them’ attitude towards creationism.

This is an excellent book, and is highly recommended.

 

Review of The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity

J. B. Stump and Alan G. Padgett, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

I have lived and taught with this book for a year now, using it extensively in our new MSc programme in Science and Religion.  I can honestly say that it is a superbly useful resource at this level, alongside other similar titles: the even more voluminous Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (2008, ed. Philip Clayton and Zachary Simpson) and the much more compact (but no less insightful) Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion (2010, ed. Peter Harrison).  These three titles cover much of the same material, at a similar depth, and even making use of some of the same authors. At first sight then, there is relatively little to distinguish these three titles, but it is important to note my earlier caveat ‘at this level’. Like the other two books, the Blackwell Companion is heavyweight and scholarly, which means that readers new to science and religion dipping into the book may struggle to find a quick answer to old chestnuts like ‘Has science disproved religion?’, or ‘What does Richard Dawkins think about this?’  On the other hand, those more familiar with the controverted and contorted academic dialogue between science and religion will find that the Blackwell Companion provides new opinions and fresh approaches.

The most obvious point that distinguishes the Blackwell Companion from its older siblings is that it concerns the dialogue between science and Christianity, instead of the more usual generic ‘religion’.  This already illustrates how times have changed in recent years, since scholars have become sensitive to the fact that the ‘science and religion’ dialogue in the past has almost always tacitly meant ‘science and Christianity’, and that when other religions are brought to bear openly, the questions and answers change considerably.  It is not only that different conceptions of God are at stake across the world religions, but different conceptions of reality too.  Hence, the fact that the Blackwell Companion self-consciously focusses on Christianity means that it is able to engage in greater depth with specific issues.  This is an important point, since, as the editors note (p.xix), now that the science-religion field is maturing into the second generation of scholars, it is time for a more ‘fine-grained analysis of the issues’.  Added to which, the scientific fields involved in some of these areas (e.g. cosmology, and the cognitive sciences) are moving very rapidly at present, and an up-to-date and fine-grained approach is by far the most appropriate.  Accordingly, rather than containing mostly single articles on important topics like Big Bang cosmology and fine-tuning, or theology and Darwinism, the Blackwell Companion stands out by presenting a number of different views on each.  Thus, Part IV contains five articles on modern cosmology and physics, while Part V contains seven articles on evolution (including two that argue the case for and against Intelligent Design).  While there is inevitable overlap in content in some of these articles, one gets much more of a sense of the breadth of opinions at play than in the usual handbook approach, where crucial topics are often covered by one general-purpose article.

In addition to its fine-grained approach in crucial areas, the Blackwell Companion has also tried to broaden the boundaries of the traditional science-religion field.  In a still male-dominated field (p.xix), it is very welcome to see a number of chapters on feminist angles, and on the role of women in science.  ‘Science’ is also broadened beyond the natural sciences, so that human sciences (principally psychology, sociology, and economics) are included.  Finally, I was delighted by Part XI, which devotes chapters to six of the most important contributors to dialogue between science and Christianity from the last fifty years (Teilhard, T. F. Torrance, Peacocke, Barbour, Pannenberg, Polkinghorne).  Not just ‘key issues’, these chapters give one the chance to begin to get inside the minds (and different approaches) of ‘key thinkers’.

But for all its strengths, there are inevitably some areas of weakness in a volume like this, which seeks to cover an immense sweep of thought and practice.  ‘Practice’ is at least as important to Christianity as is thought, but apart from the section on bioethics (Part VII) – and a very rich article on transcendence by Alexei Nesteruk – Christianity comes across in this book largely as an intellectual exercise.  Of course, to some extent this reflects the scope of the scholarly field at present, which is far more interested in investigating religion in its encounter with science as a cerebral, rather than a spiritual and practical, discipline.  And the editors, relying on the traditional ‘philosophical and historical approach to the topic’ of science and religion (p.xix), have by and large not challenged this paradigm.  So we find little evidence in the Blackwell Companion, for instance, of the many and varied explorations in the visual and literary arts of the encounter between Christianity and science/modernity.  More noticeably though, the focus on philosophy and history has meant that Christianity in its explicitly confessional dimension has suffered disproportionately in this volume.  Christian Scripture (and especially Genesis) is mentioned here and there, but is rarely engaged with at any length, despite its significance in the history (past and present) of science and Christianity.  And while Part X is devoted to ‘Theology’ (with a short section on the Trinity by Polkinghorne in a longer chapter, and a very helpful chapter on miracles such as the resurrection of Jesus, by Padgett), it is not until we come to chapters on specific individuals – particularly Teilhard, Torrance, and Pannenberg – that we find extensive confessional discussion of important Christian doctrines, where the roles of Christ, and of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, feature intensively.

Partly, these reservations illustrate the point that, while this second-generation field is actively focussing on specifics raised by the previous generation, the boundaries of the field are still wide open – still ‘up for grabs’ to a large degree – and very much dependent on the particular mediating discourses brought to bear to allow science to converse with religion.  The first generation has been very much caught up with history and philosophy, but there is every reason to suppose that other solutions will bear fruit in time. As I said at the outset, this Blackwell Companion has proved itself to be an indispensable companion to me as I try to set out the current shape of the field for the third generation, but I cannot help but wonder how different such a volume will look in their time.

This review was published in Modern Believing 55 (2014) 78-81.

Take me to your Messiah – Science, Religion, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (David Wilkinson)

A review of David WIlkinson’s excellent new book from OUP – David Wilkinson, Science, Religion, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, (Oxford University Press, 2013), £25, pp 1 – 227, ISBN:978-0-19-968020-7

Until the 1920s, only one galaxy was known of, our own Milky Way. Nowadays, it is commonplace in cosmological research to affirm not only the existence of countless galaxies, but also countless universes. In parallel with this vast expansion of our cosmic horizons has come the realisation that there are countless other planets beyond those in our own solar system, many of which could be potentially life-bearing. Just a few weeks before writing (4th November 2013) another 833 new planets were added to the list by astronomers working with the Kepler Space Telescope, and ten of those planets could be suitable for life. As the scientific work continues apace, theological questions – some old and some new – are raised with increasing rapidity. If life is discovered on another planet, especially if it is intelligent life, what will be the impact on our world religions, and especially on Christianity, which relies on the unique incarnation of Christ. Continue reading

Natural religion and un-natural science

I was recently re-reading a book I reviewed a little while ago for The Expository Times – Robert N. McCauley’s Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not (OUP, 2011). It has a highly original thesis, and has had an influence on the way I think about the science-religion question, so I thought it worthwhile to post the review here (lightly edited).

I’ve never read a defence of religion quite like this one, which also turns out to be a defence of science, and a re-definition of both. McCauley’s thesis – building on recent research in cognitive science – is quite simple to explain, but it has wide implications for Science and Religion as a field. His main point is that religion has nothing to fear from science. Not because there’s definitely a God (or gods), nor because any of the claims religion makes in its various guises of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc are objectively true – McCauley steadfastly avoids all of these kinds of questions – but because it reflects deep-seated ways in which human cognition develops at an early age. To put it bluntly, it’s easy for humans to be religious, because it’s built into the way we think; it comes naturally. Children readily acquire religious beliefs from an early age (by primary school age), frequently construe the world around them in teleological terms, and take an active interest in discerning true from false beliefs. Children soon appreciate the difference between various kinds of hidden/hypothetical agent (e.g. belief in God versus belief in the Tooth Fairy).

Continue reading

Jesus the Higgs boson

I am often asked what the ‘God particle’ (i.e. the Higgs boson) has to do with God. A few months ago I wrote an article for the Diocese of Edinburgh magazine, The Edge, attempting to give a novel angle on that question, specifically within the context of a Christian confessional response. Since people have been e-mailing me from far and wide ever since, asking for a copy, I thought I’d post it on our new blog. Here it is…

‘Why is it called the God particle?’ people often ask me. The Higgs boson was predicted nearly 50 years ago by, among others, our own Peter Higgs of the University of Edinburgh, but has leapt to the fore recently because it appears to have been discovered experimentally. This is big news in science, since the Standard Model of particle physics pretty much stands or falls on whether it exists or not, and the Standard Model is the best scientific explanation we have at the moment for why there are particles – things rather than nothing. Now there are many different particles – some of them have mass (you can weigh them) and some don’t. And this is why the Higgs boson is so important: it confers that most basic of physical properties – mass – to other particles. That, and the fact it’s been so difficult to discover, is the reason it’s earned itself the name of ‘the God particle’. It’s a moot point what it might tell us about God though.

Continue reading