WHY NOT CREATION? Edited hy W. E. Lammers. The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. Price $1.50. Reviewed by Sidney J. Jansma, Sr.
This book consists of Selected Articles from the Creation Research Society Quarterly (1964 to 1968) and represents the thinking of a significant group of scientists who reject the theory of evolution because it is not supported by the facts of nature. It asks why there is such a persistent rejection of creation as the origin of the universe when the evolutionary theory has fallen into a thousand pieces.
These articles om the gauntlet from the concept of creation versus evolution through radio-active dating, geological evidence, paleontology, genetics, biochemistry, botany, zoology and finally social considerations. Since the point of departure of all these articles is the acceptance of the historicity and inerrancy of Scripture, those in our church community who tamper with the first eleven chapters or the first three chapters of Genesis should not read this book. It could blitz them from their methological podium and pulpit, and this would be a terrible blow to their ego. On the other hand, since a closed mind stagnates and becomes unproductive, it is just to such people this book is addressing itself.
What is disturbing is the naive acceptance by confessing Christians of false ideas when oblivious to their inherent dangers. While these articles are written by scientists for scientists, any layman interested in solidifying his thinking about nature’s secrets would do well to peruse its pages, which give a wealth of information. To begin with, there is the question, are laws of nature changing? Does God play cat-and-mouse games with us? What are the questions and what is the evidence? Have evolutionary systems of sociology withstood the test of time? Is there an answer to cosmos origination? Or is there, as the astronomer Kuiper (Mt. Palomar Observatory) believes, no scientific solution to the beginning. What was created ex nihilo? Was it plasma, ylem, or atom which God then used to make the cosmos?
The articles on paleontology have pictures of human footprints in which are imbedded some trilobite fossils. Trilobite fossils are in the Cambrian formation and assumed to be six-hundred million years old. Thus, either the Cambrian formations arc young or man has been on this earth six-hundred million years. There are no fossil remains below the Cambrian. An article on genetics poses the question of life from inorganic to organic. The next article shows that man could have devolutionized as his tribe spread from Mesopotamia the center of civilization, after the flood, to the far corners of the earth.
Mention is made of the DNA problem in the article on biochemistry, and the attempts to create life in the laboratory. From here the investigation touches the general theory of evolution, or macro evolution; that is, from the amoeba to mankind. This dwells on the difficulty of not only the cause of evolution, but also on the actual processes involved. The last article on social considerations asks the question: why are there so few modern thinkers who care to examine their own lives, and why arc so many thinking men their own priests and their own professors of ethics as well? Experience is regarded as the only source of knowledge, and a new doctrine of nature nudges man on the way of godhood. Whittaker Chambers states that it was not Communism but the Western elite who had rejected their religious roots of civilization that have made political solutions impossible. This book is for ministers, educators, and laymen who are concerned.
In conclusion, I would say that also in our church community the systematic rejection of our religious roots forebodes no good. We may well ask, how can a minister who, after having signed the “Form of Subscription,” serve communion when convinced that the flesh and blood of Jesus the Christ evolved from the Brute-Beast?
APOSTOLIC HISTORY AND THE GOSPEL. Biblical and Historical Essays for F. F. Bruce on his 60th birthday. Edited by Prof. W. Ward Gasque (Regent College, Vancouver) and prof. Ralph P. Martin (Fuller Seminary, Pasadena) . Published by Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich. 1970, 378 pages, $1.95. Reviewed by Dr. Renze O. De Groot, pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Coopersville, Mich.
This book is published as a “Festserift” to mark the respect in which Dr. F. F. Bruce, world-renowned New Testament scholar, is held. Professor Bruce is Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, England. Those who wrote these Essays arc linked with Dr. Bruce by ties of scholarly interest and Christian labors. Professor Bastiaan Van Elderen is one of the contributors to this book in honor of F. F. Bruce. He, Van Elderen, counts it a great pleasure to participate and honor this “stellar example of Christian scholarship, genuine devotion and loyal stewardship.” About five hundred people are listed in the forepart of this book as offering congratulations to the eminent professor and scholar. I was not able to find any names there of members of the Calvin Seminary faculty. Especially Bruce’s Commentaries on Acts, Romans, and Hebrews are worthy.
Contributors to this book of essays are mainly from Colleges and Seminaries in England. Scotland, the United States, and one each from Germany, Switzterland, Belgium, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia. There are twenty-four Essays, none of which is over twenty pages in length. Their content concerns the History, Archeology, and Exegesis of the New Testament writings, touching on matters developed in the prolific writings of Dr. Bruce.
The outstanding and comprehensive commentary all Acts by Professor Bruce (which has had several re-editions both in England and America, also a Japanese edition) is the springboard for nine Essays in Part I of the book under review. Another twelve Essays deal with Bruce’s presentation of the Apostle Paul and his New Testament Epistles. The final three Essays end with one on The Modern Missionary Movement in the light of the explosive effect of reading deeply; Romans chapter I verse 18, and reaching the conclusion that Missions are for men who are ungodly, and under the wrath of God.
Note this paragraph by A. F. Walls (p. 356), powerfully setting forth the humbling framework of all mission and preaching as these pertain to all men everywhere:
“Systems (world religions) have slipped into the place of (and substitute for) ungodly men, in the interpretation of Romans 1. (So too) Christianity (as system) has slipped into the place of the righteousness of God. The true ‘system’ is thus opposed to false systems (though Christianity has been formally identified with other labels covering as wide a range of phenomena as most of them (the pagan systems). If the principalities and powers work within human systems, they can, and do work with this one (Christianity) too. Man-in-Christianity lies under the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18) just as much and for the same reasons, as man-in-Hinduism. It was the realization of this which saved the earliest generations of Modern Missionaries from the worst sort of paternalism. Man was vile everywhere, not only in Ceylon! The Christian preacher had the same message of repentance and faith for the non-Christian world (of the heathen) as he had been preaching in the Christian world (of the Christians): for it was not Christianity that saves, but Christ.”
This sampling of dealing with the challenges of the new Testament for our modem world, characterizes these numerous Essays of the volume, with a wide solid consistency throughout. Bruce, the scholar of New Testament, studies preeminently and has certainly stimulated excellent studies from these contributors, lending the book a wide range of scholarship in the conservative tradition.
This book consists of Selected Articles from the Creation Research Society Quarterly (1964 to 1968) and represents the thinking of a significant group of scientists who reject the theory of evolution because it is not supported by the facts of nature. It asks why there is such a persistent rejection of creation as the origin of the universe when the evolutionary theory has fallen into a thousand pieces.
These articles om the gauntlet from the concept of creation versus evolution through radio-active dating, geological evidence, paleontology, genetics, biochemistry, botany, zoology and finally social considerations. Since the point of departure of all these articles is the acceptance of the historicity and inerrancy of Scripture, those in our church community who tamper with the first eleven chapters or the first three chapters of Genesis should not read this book. It could blitz them from their methological podium and pulpit, and this would be a terrible blow to their ego. On the other hand, since a closed mind stagnates and becomes unproductive, it is just to such people this book is addressing itself.
What is disturbing is the naive acceptance by confessing Christians of false ideas when oblivious to their inherent dangers. While these articles are written by scientists for scientists, any layman interested in solidifying his thinking about nature’s secrets would do well to peruse its pages, which give a wealth of information. To begin with, there is the question, are laws of nature changing? Does God play cat-and-mouse games with us? What are the questions and what is the evidence? Have evolutionary systems of sociology withstood the test of time? Is there an answer to cosmos origination? Or is there, as the astronomer Kuiper (Mt. Palomar Observatory) believes, no scientific solution to the beginning. What was created ex nihilo? Was it plasma, ylem, or atom which God then used to make the cosmos?
The articles on paleontology have pictures of human footprints in which are imbedded some trilobite fossils. Trilobite fossils are in the Cambrian formation and assumed to be six-hundred million years old. Thus, either the Cambrian formations arc young or man has been on this earth six-hundred million years. There are no fossil remains below the Cambrian. An article on genetics poses the question of life from inorganic to organic. The next article shows that man could have devolutionized as his tribe spread from Mesopotamia the center of civilization, after the flood, to the far corners of the earth.
Mention is made of the DNA problem in the article on biochemistry, and the attempts to create life in the laboratory. From here the investigation touches the general theory of evolution, or macro evolution; that is, from the amoeba to mankind. This dwells on the difficulty of not only the cause of evolution, but also on the actual processes involved. The last article on social considerations asks the question: why are there so few modern thinkers who care to examine their own lives, and why arc so many thinking men their own priests and their own professors of ethics as well? Experience is regarded as the only source of knowledge, and a new doctrine of nature nudges man on the way of godhood. Whittaker Chambers states that it was not Communism but the Western elite who had rejected their religious roots of civilization that have made political solutions impossible. This book is for ministers, educators, and laymen who are concerned.
In conclusion, I would say that also in our church community the systematic rejection of our religious roots forebodes no good. We may well ask, how can a minister who, after having signed the “Form of Subscription,” serve communion when convinced that the flesh and blood of Jesus the Christ evolved from the Brute-Beast?
APOSTOLIC HISTORY AND THE GOSPEL. Biblical and Historical Essays for F. F. Bruce on his 60th birthday. Edited by Prof. W. Ward Gasque (Regent College, Vancouver) and prof. Ralph P. Martin (Fuller Seminary, Pasadena) . Published by Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich. 1970, 378 pages, $1.95. Reviewed by Dr. Renze O. De Groot, pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Coopersville, Mich.
This book is published as a “Festserift” to mark the respect in which Dr. F. F. Bruce, world-renowned New Testament scholar, is held. Professor Bruce is Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, England. Those who wrote these Essays arc linked with Dr. Bruce by ties of scholarly interest and Christian labors. Professor Bastiaan Van Elderen is one of the contributors to this book in honor of F. F. Bruce. He, Van Elderen, counts it a great pleasure to participate and honor this “stellar example of Christian scholarship, genuine devotion and loyal stewardship.” About five hundred people are listed in the forepart of this book as offering congratulations to the eminent professor and scholar. I was not able to find any names there of members of the Calvin Seminary faculty. Especially Bruce’s Commentaries on Acts, Romans, and Hebrews are worthy.
Contributors to this book of essays are mainly from Colleges and Seminaries in England. Scotland, the United States, and one each from Germany, Switzterland, Belgium, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia. There are twenty-four Essays, none of which is over twenty pages in length. Their content concerns the History, Archeology, and Exegesis of the New Testament writings, touching on matters developed in the prolific writings of Dr. Bruce.
The outstanding and comprehensive commentary all Acts by Professor Bruce (which has had several re-editions both in England and America, also a Japanese edition) is the springboard for nine Essays in Part I of the book under review. Another twelve Essays deal with Bruce’s presentation of the Apostle Paul and his New Testament Epistles. The final three Essays end with one on The Modern Missionary Movement in the light of the explosive effect of reading deeply; Romans chapter I verse 18, and reaching the conclusion that Missions are for men who are ungodly, and under the wrath of God.
Note this paragraph by A. F. Walls (p. 356), powerfully setting forth the humbling framework of all mission and preaching as these pertain to all men everywhere:
“Systems (world religions) have slipped into the place of (and substitute for) ungodly men, in the interpretation of Romans 1. (So too) Christianity (as system) has slipped into the place of the righteousness of God. The true ‘system’ is thus opposed to false systems (though Christianity has been formally identified with other labels covering as wide a range of phenomena as most of them (the pagan systems). If the principalities and powers work within human systems, they can, and do work with this one (Christianity) too. Man-in-Christianity lies under the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18) just as much and for the same reasons, as man-in-Hinduism. It was the realization of this which saved the earliest generations of Modern Missionaries from the worst sort of paternalism. Man was vile everywhere, not only in Ceylon! The Christian preacher had the same message of repentance and faith for the non-Christian world (of the heathen) as he had been preaching in the Christian world (of the Christians): for it was not Christianity that saves, but Christ.”
This sampling of dealing with the challenges of the new Testament for our modem world, characterizes these numerous Essays of the volume, with a wide solid consistency throughout. Bruce, the scholar of New Testament, studies preeminently and has certainly stimulated excellent studies from these contributors, lending the book a wide range of scholarship in the conservative tradition.