# New Book on Theistic Evolution



## greenbaggins (Mar 9, 2018)

This book looks to be the _definitive_ critique of theistic evolution. It is a massive tome, weighing in at just over 1 kilopage. It looks exciting for those of us who have been waiting for a more or less thorough critique of theistic evolution, which has begun to invade even the more conservative NAPARC denominations. The critique comes from scientific, philosophical, and theological directions. And it is on sale right now at 50% off!

Reactions: Like 3 | Informative 1


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## GulfCoast Presbyterian (Mar 9, 2018)

"kilopage?" I didn't know this was a thing!  Off to buy book.


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## greenbaggins (Mar 9, 2018)

GulfCoast Presbyterian said:


> "kilopage?" I didn't know this was a thing!  Off to buy book.


 I just thought it was funny. It's something my father would have said. If something costs over a thousand dollars, he will say it costs one kilobuck.


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## ZackF (Mar 9, 2018)

James White has labeled MacArthur’s new Preacher’s Bible an ‘assault bible’ due to the size.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Mar 9, 2018)

ZackF said:


> James White has labeled MacArthur’s new Preacher’s Bible an ‘assault bible’ due to the size.


Over Five Pounds in weight! Yikes!
https://www.gty.org/store/bibles/44TPB


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## timfost (Mar 9, 2018)

1 lb. = (approx.) 0.2 kilopages

Reactions: Like 1


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## Dachaser (Mar 9, 2018)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Over Five Pounds in weight! Yikes!
> https://www.gty.org/store/bibles/44TPB


Dr MacArthur uses his edition as the big club to ward of Charismatic Chaos in his church.


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## Dachaser (Mar 9, 2018)

greenbaggins said:


> This book looks to be the _definitive_ critique of theistic evolution. It is a massive tome, weighing in at just over 1 kilopage. It looks exciting for those of us who have been waiting for a more or less thorough critique of theistic evolution, which has begun to invade even the more conservative NAPARC denominations. The critique comes from scientific, philosophical, and theological directions. And it is on sale right now at 50% off!


This looks like it may well become the definituve standard work on this issue, as the theory of Theistic Evolution has really gained a foothold into even conservation Christianity, and dilutes down the real intended understanding in the Bible as to origins.


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## Bill The Baptist (Mar 9, 2018)

Excellent book, and at an excellent price. WTS currently has for about $9 less than either Amazon or CBD.


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## Bill The Baptist (Mar 9, 2018)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Over Five Pounds in weight! Yikes!
> https://www.gty.org/store/bibles/44TPB



It’s my understanding that it has legs that fold out to make its own pulpit

Reactions: Funny 3


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## Alan D. Strange (Mar 9, 2018)

Lane:

I've not read it (hope to this summer), but one of our graduates that taught science in the university has and said that it was an excellent treatment of the subject. 

Thanks for calling everyone's attention to it. 

Peace,
Alan


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## Regi Addictissimus (Mar 9, 2018)

Great. Another book I must add to my list. So many good books, and so little time.


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## Edward (Mar 9, 2018)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Over Five Pounds in weight! Yikes!



Only $200 each. Think they have a discount if one buys by the case?


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## Bill The Baptist (Mar 9, 2018)

Edward said:


> Only $200 each. Think they have a discount if one buys by the case?



Everyone who attended the Shepherds Conference this week got a free copy (well, the conference did cost $400, so not exactly free) and now I am beginning to see people selling them for a slight discount of $160.


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## bookslover (Mar 10, 2018)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Over Five Pounds in weight! Yikes!
> https://www.gty.org/store/bibles/44TPB



Looks like a modern update on the old concept of the pulpit Bible.

Two downsides: (1) It's the NASB. (2) It's $200.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Braden (Mar 13, 2018)

I really like the NASB for New Testament details. What's wrong with it?

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk


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## Dachaser (Mar 13, 2018)

Braden said:


> I really like the NASB for New Testament details. What's wrong with it?
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk


Its probably the most accurate to the New testament Greek, as long as you agree with the Critical Greek text that was used as one of its sources.


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## Bill The Baptist (Mar 13, 2018)

Braden said:


> I really like the NASB for New Testament details. What's wrong with it?
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk



Many people feel that’s it’s focus on literalness has resulted in a wooden style of English that sounds more like Yoda than Shakespeare.

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## Dachaser (Mar 13, 2018)

Bill The Baptist said:


> Many people feel that’s it’s focus on literalness has resulted in a wooden style of English that sounds more like Yoda than Shakespeare.


The feature of the NASB though trying to maintain things such as the Greek Verb tense to us in English gives to it the wooden style, but does also give to it the accuracy feature.


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## Bill The Baptist (Mar 13, 2018)

Dachaser said:


> The feature of the NASB though trying to maintain things such as the Greek Verb tense to us in English gives to it the wooden style, but does also give to it the accuracy feature.



Yes, but accuracy is about more than just literalness. It is also about recognizing the differences between languages. For example, if i were to translate the English phrase “it’s raining cats and dogs” literally into another language, they might picture some sort of apocalyptic scene. A better approach would be to simply translate it into the equivalent phrase that meant it was raining heavily, even though this would technically be less than literal.


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## Braden (Mar 13, 2018)

Dachaser said:


> The feature of the NASB though trying to maintain things such as the Greek Verb tense to us in English gives to it the wooden style, but does also give to it the accuracy feature.


Yeah ok. I should've said I use it as a reference rather than an everyday reading Bible.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Reactions: Informative 1


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## greenbaggins (Mar 14, 2018)

Moderator note: the OP was about the book on theistic evolution. Just a gentle reminder that translation questions can be discussed in another forum.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Dachaser (Mar 14, 2018)

Bill The Baptist said:


> Yes, but accuracy is about more than just literalness. It is also about recognizing the differences between languages. For example, if i were to translate the English phrase “it’s raining cats and dogs” literally into another language, they might picture some sort of apocalyptic scene. A better approach would be to simply translate it into the equivalent phrase that meant it was raining heavily, even though this would technically be less than literal.


The translations such as the NASB/NKJV do try to be as formal as possible, but they also seek to translate when needed more "looser" sense in order to have it make sense to the reader.


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## Nate (Apr 4, 2018)

greenbaggins said:


> This book looks to be the _definitive_ critique of theistic evolution. It is a massive tome, weighing in at just over 1 kilopage. It looks exciting for those of us who have been waiting for a more or less thorough critique of theistic evolution, which has begun to invade even the more conservative NAPARC denominations. The critique comes from scientific, philosophical, and theological directions. And it is on sale right now at 50% off!



I’ve made my way through introduction and the portion of this book that critiques Neo-Darwinism—this comprises about the first 1/3 of the book. There are a lot of excellent critiques of Neo-Darwinism in this section; however, some of the typical flaws commonly associated with ‘creationist scientists’ and Intelligent Design proponents are also on display. Unfortunately, some of these flaws are significant enough to provide academic theistic evolutionists and atheistic evolutionists with ammunition to (again) dismiss many of the experts in the book as ‘failed’ scientists or individuals who somehow acquired academic credentials, but who clearly don’t actually understand their field, and have thus been relegated to obtaining a job at a creationist or ID organization.

In this respect, this book so far has been frustrating. The academic credentials of the contributing authors are highly touted in book advertisements and in the book itself. Yet, errors basic to molecular biology (literally at the high school level) are made by these experts, and are apparently not caught by the book editors (who also possess credentials that undoubtedly should allow these mistakes to be caught). Two mistakes are particularly unforgivable: 1) On pages 230-231, Stephen Meyer’s description of DNA molecule assembly is simply incorrect. 2) On page 240 Jonathan Wells incorrectly describes the structure of a nucleotide (the basic structure of DNA molecules). While these two errors might seem minor in the context of 330 pages of text, the nature of these mistakes legitimately calls into question the competency of the authors and editors to critique their chosen topics within Neo-Darwinism (there are additional minor oversights too). This is really too bad—because, these fundamental errors aside, the force of some of these authors’ arguments against Neo-Darwinism were really very good.

Additional noticeable shortcomings in this section are: 1) The book’s definition for theistic evolution will certainly generate controversy. The operating definition for the book is “_God created matter and after that did not guide or intervene to cause any empirically detectable change in the natural behavior of matter until all living things had evolved by purely natural processes._” It is highly questionable whether this definition captures a significant proportion of theistic evolution adherents. 2) A central component of Wells’ critique is that DNA sequences _do_ _not_ contain programs or plans for embryonic development. This is in direct contradiction to Meyer’s contention that DNA sequences _do _contain programs for embryonic development. 3) The critique of the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES) model associates neutral theory (NT) with EES, and Michael Lynch with NT. A careful reading of the primary literature suggests that NT is more often associated with standard evolutionary theory and that Lynch developed aspects of nearly neutral theory (NNT). Again, while these may appear to be small differences, they will be noticeable to experts in these fields, and will provide ammunition for the contention that the book’s experts are not qualified to offer sound critiques.

There are several authors who present great critiques of Neo-Darwinism and origin of life theories with no associated errors or contradictions, and I am happy to incorporate their arguments into my understanding of the topic. But, for me, the above highlights a common problem with ID and creation scientists: I really like a lot of their arguments, but can I trust them? They often make fundamental blunders, often demonstrate that their reading of the primary literature is not as careful as it should be, and sometimes contradict each other on central issues.

I still look forward to making my way through the rest of the book.

Reactions: Like 1 | Informative 2


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## ZackF (Apr 4, 2018)

Nate said:


> I’ve made my way through introduction and the portion of this book that critiques Neo-Darwinism—this comprises about the first 1/3 of the book. There are a lot of excellent critiques of Neo-Darwinism in this section; however, some of the typical flaws commonly associated with ‘creationist scientists’ and Intelligent Design proponents are also on display. Unfortunately, some of these flaws are significant enough to provide academic theistic evolutionists and atheistic evolutionists with ammunition to (again) dismiss many of the experts in the book as ‘failed’ scientists or individuals who somehow acquired academic credentials, but who clearly don’t actually understand their field, and have thus been relegated to obtaining a job at a creationist or ID organization.
> 
> In this respect, this book so far has been frustrating. The academic credentials of the contributing authors are highly touted in book advertisements and in the book itself. Yet, errors basic to molecular biology (literally at the high school level) are made by these experts, and are apparently not caught by the book editors (who also possess credentials that undoubtedly should allow these mistakes to be caught). Two mistakes are particularly unforgivable: 1) On pages 230-231, Stephen Meyer’s description of DNA molecule assembly is simply incorrect. 2) On page 240 Jonathan Wells incorrectly describes the structure of a nucleotide (the basic structure of DNA molecules). While these two errors might seem minor in the context of 330 pages of text, the nature of these mistakes legitimately calls into question the competency of the authors and editors to critique their chosen topics within Neo-Darwinism (there are additional minor oversights too). This is really too bad—because, these fundamental errors aside, the force of some of these authors’ arguments against Neo-Darwinism were really very good.
> 
> ...


I’m not a scientist but want to like these guys’ work. I appreciate your commentary.

Reactions: Like 1


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## mgkortus (Apr 4, 2018)

Nate said:


> 1) The book’s definition for theistic evolution will certainly generate controversy. The operating definition for the book is “_God created matter and after that did not guide or intervene to cause any empirically detectable change in the natural behavior of matter until all living things had evolved by purely natural processes._” It is highly questionable whether this definition captures a significant proportion of theistic evolution adherents.



Nate, if this is the operating definition of theistic evolution, then you are correct: it does not capture a significant proportion of TE adherents. For example, Biologos teaches that God guided the entire process by his providence.


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## mgkortus (Apr 4, 2018)

Nate said:


> I still look forward to making my way through the rest of the book.



Nate, you are uniquely qualified to offer commentary on this book. Please continue to do so as you read through it.


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## Nate (Apr 4, 2018)

mgkortus said:


> Nate, if this is the operating definition of theistic evolution, then you are correct: it does not capture a significant proportion of TE adherents. For example, Biologos teaches that God guided the entire process by his providence.



Exactly. Some of the authors assert that BioLogos operates under the book's definition, then a few paragraphs later use BioLogos quotes that demonstrate the opposite. They do the same with Francis Collins (although, he does sometimes get pretty close to the book's definition).


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## Dachaser (Apr 4, 2018)

Nate said:


> Exactly. Some of the authors assert that BioLogos operates under the book's definition, then a few paragraphs later use BioLogos quotes that demonstrate the opposite. They do the same with Francis Collins (although, he does sometimes get pretty close to the book's definition).


Do the authors ever account for the facts that there have been no fossils ever found in transition from one species into another, nor that there has even been shown a way that nature/evolution can alter Dna in order to have that happen?


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## Nate (Apr 4, 2018)

Dachaser said:


> Do the authors ever account for the facts that there have been no fossils ever found in transition from one species into another, nor that there has even been shown a way that nature/evolution can alter Dna in order to have that happen?


I've only started the section that addresses the fossil record. The first essay in this section is interesting in that it provides a balanced review of the state of the fossil record, describing those findings that do seem to be evidence of transitional species as well as those findings that are clear evidence of the impossibility of transitional species within the accepted evolutionary scheme.

In the first section, there's plenty of discussion on the impossibility of DNA alterations accounting for transitions above the level of animal families.


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## Dachaser (Apr 5, 2018)

Nate said:


> I've only started the section that addresses the fossil record. The first essay in this section is interesting in that it provides a balanced review of the state of the fossil record, describing those findings that do seem to be evidence of transitional species as well as those findings that are clear evidence of the impossibility of transitional species within the accepted evolutionary scheme.
> 
> In the first section, there's plenty of discussion on the impossibility of DNA alterations accounting for transitions above the level of animal families.


The only way to tie into theistic Evolution would be to deny a literal historical meaning to genesis, and to disregard the aspect of God Himself creating all things after their own kind.
Do they deal with the so called Cambrian explosion of life forms, without any apparent animals before??


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