📚 Top 5 Books on the Bible, Creation, and Science 🔬

Scientific Challenges to Christianity

Challenges to the Christian worldview come from many different directions, but one of the most common that I see is from the direction of the sciences. Many skeptics see the claims of creation in the beginning pages of the Bible and dismiss all its contents. It is important that we, as Christian case-makers, defend the proper view of these first chapters to remove the stumbling block from the scientifically-minded skeptic. Unfortunately, there is a heated controversy among Christians on the proper interpretation of these initial chapters and the proper interpretation of scientific discoveries. This list of books that I recommend is targeted at those Christians who are interested in the sciences and/or often speak to skeptics who raise scientific challenges against the Christian worldview. They will help think through the controversy and help remove scientific stumbling blocks when challenged by skeptics. Combined, they provide the Christian with a consistent view of creation that takes into account the sciences and remains faithful to the original intentions of the biblical authors. If you have never read these books, I do recommend reading them in the order presented. For your convenience, I have linked the book titles to my chapter-by-chapter reviews and provided a short reason why I chose the books for this list, but if you really want the details and wish to be blessed by the content of the books, you will need to pick up a copy (remember to check your local library!). Now, on to the list!

Philosophy of Science, Circumstantial Evidence, and Creation

Introduction

For those who have followed me for some time, you know that I take a strong stance on the importance of defending the Christian worldview in its specific claims about reality, as opposed to only defending general claims. For those who are not familiar with my reasons for this position, please see my posts here and here. One of the theological debates that I defend specifically is a particular view on creation. I take the old-earth creation (OEC) position that holds to the literal historicity of the records of Genesis 1-11. I came from a position of young-earth creationism (YEC) but changed due to the lack of scientific evidence supporting the view and the complete compatibility of OEC with Christianity. A couple years ago, a prominent YEC leader (Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis) debated Bill Nye on the scientific status on YECism. Ham constantly drew a distinction between "observational/operational science" and "historical science" to say that what happened in the past cannot be known. I wrote a post last year critiquing this philosophy of science and provided a followup clarification on my position (here and here, respectively).

Since then I have read and reviewed one of the foundational works on the philosophical distinction (Origin Science: A Proposal for the Creation/Evolution Controversy by Norman Geisler and J. Kirby Anderson). My previous posts dealt with the distinction as presented by Ken Ham (and many other YEC proponents); however, today I want to deal with the distinction as presented by Geisler and Anderson. There is a wide chasm between the two understandings, and if Ken Ham is getting the distinction from the work of Geisler and Kirby (or someone who agree with their distinctions), then he has misunderstood the distinctions. My goal is to explain the distinctions made by Geisler and Anderson and show how they have been misunderstood by Ken Ham and other YEC proponents. I will also show that the rejection of circumstantial evidence in Ham's understanding necessarily undermines the presuppositional grounding of knowledge of all events recorded in the Bible, which is what Ken Ham promotes in place of a circumstantial, evidential approach to discovering the mechanisms, timing, and purposes of creation.

Book Review: Origin Science

Introduction

"Origin Science: A Proposal for the Creation-Evolution Controversy" (Amazon, GoodReads, Quotes) by Norman Geisler and J. Kerby Anderson is an older book that recently came to my attention. I have been involved in science/faith apologetics for quite some time, and it took a critique of one of my posts before I was made aware of this philosophical work. I have to admit that I was nervous to read this book, since I highly respect Dr. Geisler, and one of my critics used him against me. When I received the book, I was debating whether I would review it or not, but after reading the introduction, I was hooked and decided that this work was too important to the science/faith dialogs not to review it. This review will follow the usual chapter-by-chapter format of previous reviews, and while I do my best to communicate the content to the readers, this review is not meant to take the place of purchasing the book and reading it for yourself. I will conclude the review with my own thoughts and recommendations. The book is 183 pages, divided into seven chapters and six appendices.

Historical Science, Deception, and Blind Faith

Introduction

As I have mentioned in a couple posts in the past (here and here), it is important that apologists investigate theological questions and details of the Christian worldview. Without such investigation, inconsistency in the worldview that is being defended will easily creep in. Because consistency is a feature of reality, unbelievers will seize the inconsistency as evidence against Christianity as the true worldview. This can have detrimental effects in public places where honest seekers may be listening to and watching conversations. One of the detailed areas of the Christian worldview that must be consistent is God's character (one area of theology). If God's character is found to be inconsistent with what we are defending, then it serves as evidence that we have something wrong (in part or in whole- see the post Is Your View Falsifiable for more on this). Today, I want to focus on God's moral character, specifically His perfect honesty (Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2; and Hebrews 6:18).

The Challenge

One of the most contentious debates in the Church today focuses on the age of the universe and the length of the days of creation in Genesis 1. One of the most influential arguments against the young-earth creationist position (YEC) is that if nature reveals an ancient age (~13.7 billion years, as the evidence powerfully [and some would say "only"] supports) yet the universe is actually young (6,000-10,000 years) then God has given us a false revelation in His creation; this means that God is ultimately deceiving us and the truth is not found in Him. If a view of God necessitates that He is lying to us, then the god necessitated by that view is NOT the God of the Bible. And if we defend such a view, we are found to be false witnesses of God and the truth is not found in us. This challenge is not one to be taken lightly and it must be addressed.