12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Evolution AND God?, April 21, 2010
This review is from: The Genesis Enigma: Why the Bible Is Scientifically Accurate (Hardcover)
Evolution AND God?
Andrew Parker, a broad-based biological scientist, who is up-to-date on the latest understanding of evolutionary evidence, proposes that yes, there is room for both -evolution and God. Scientists and theologians don't need to fight and argue any longer. The Bible isn't at odds with scientific findings after all, and therefore can be trusted.
Some of Parker's professional colleagues, including Professors John Lennox, Alister McGrath, and Alan Millard at Green Templeton College, Oxford University, all well-versed in religion, inspired him to further explore the science versus theology controversy.
In the Genesis Enigma, Parker weaves together his insights from Christian art, biblical archaeology, development of the biblical texts, and evolutionary science to arrive at a stunning conclusion: The Old Testament is true, and more specifically, the Genesis 1 creation sequence corresponds to the current scientific understanding of life's evolutionary history.
After establishing the validity of the Old Testament through archaeological findings in Chapter 1, Parker devotes each of Chapters 2-8 to the main events of Genesis 1. He carefully documents the history of the various fossil discoveries and the resultant evolutionary thought and conclusions regarding the stages of life on earth. To his own surprise, he discovers a match between the sequence of creation events in Genesis and the modern scientific account of how the universe and life came to be. It needs to be mentioned, however, that in some cases the correspondence between the Genesis creation account and scientific understanding of origins is not as clear cut as Parker tries to convince the reader.
In the last chapter, Parker examines the place of God amidst the scientific evidence. In a middle-ground solution, he proposes God to be the entity behind the Big Bang and the creator of the initial energy which gave rise to the material universe.
Drawing on the thoughts of C.S. Lewis and others, Parker observes that a universal moral law has existed in the various civilizations throughout human history. In addition, the sense of beauty and spirituality is almost universally integrated into the human psyche. These realities point to the existence of a Higher Power.
Another fact that Parker points out is that we live in a virtual reality world - an enormous amount of data about what exists is simply unavailable to us. Furthermore, our sensory system distorts the information that we do collect. Since our senses are extremely limited, we must accept that we'll never fully understand the universe. There are indeed mysterious elements that are outside or even beyond scientific explanation, one of which is the question of origins.
Because of the limitations of our senses and brains, it can be concluded that there is the potential for God's existence - the possibility of an intelligent, complex, and to us incomprehensible, Force behind all that exist is very real. C.S. Lewis, and before him the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, postulates that "God" may be more like a mind behind the universe - something unknowable and beyond human comprehension.
Parker's conclusion is that the Bible is a metaphorical text as only metaphor can express what literal language cannot. The "writer" of Genesis didn't have the understanding of modern science and yet was able to record events so that they seem to match with today's scientific discoveries. This is strong evidence for God and divine inspiration.
The Genesis Enigma will not please conservative Christians who believe in a literal interpretation of the Creation account and a young Earth, because Parker rejects this thinking without much justification. The book may, however, be enjoyed by those who like science and already feel that parts of the Bible are written in metaphoric language. They may find the systematic description of the various scientific discoveries and their possible biblical parallels of interest.
Parker broadens the traditional Christian concept of God by pointing out new possibilities for life's origins. All in all, however, any book of this nature is of necessity speculative because human limitations prevent both scientists and theologians to ever arrive at the full knowledge of what happened at the beginning and how it all came together.
Eva Peck ([...])
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
29 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good Summary of the Science, but No Theological Depth, November 6, 2009
This review is from: The Genesis Enigma: Why the Bible Is Scientifically Accurate (Hardcover)
Andrew Parker is a well-known and respected scientist. His knowledge of evolution and the Big Bang is extremely impressive, and in his new book, The Genesis Enigma, Parker attempts to show how a metaphorical reading of Genesis 1 actually has numerous parallels to the scientific understanding of world. Eventually, Parker posits some views on how science and religion can coexist, finding room for God to fit within the boundaries laid out by scientific thought.
In theory (no pun intended), this was an interesting idea for a book. The "Battle over the Beginning" has been fought for years, and I was mildly interested to read a book that claimed to find a middle ground. What I found this book to be instead was a science textbook that explains the origins of the universe from the Big Bang on, then uses some extremely questionable exegesis to say that the Bible agrees with the science. I say questionable because, for example, connecting the mention of "lights" in Genesis 1:14 to the development of sight was very unconvincing. What you basically have is a scientific history book (both of the earth and the scientists who developed the theories behind evolution) with a few theological claims tacked onto the end.
Two things were exceedingly evident to me as I read this book: 1) Parker has an immense knowledge of science and can explain complex theories quite well. 2) He is not a theologian and does not understand the theological implications of most of his claims as he attempts to reconcile religion and science. He clearly doesn't believe the Bible is God's Word, and he just doesn't seem to understand why Christians would have a hard time with even the claim that God just created the energy for the Big Bang and then stepped back to watch. Even a cursory reading of the whole of scripture, however, reveals that God is intimately engaged in this world that he created. Additionally, I kept coming back to this as I read Parker's claims: If God didn't personally create us, forget Him. He would have no claim on us, no right to enforce a moral law on us, and the need for Jesus to redeem us from our rebellion against that law and God would disappear. Christianity falls if God is not our Creator (See Romans 5).
Throughout the entire book, there were numerous moments where Parker was forced to admit that science has no answer to something (i.e. Where did the energy for the Big Band come from? Why do animals reproduce at all? Why does religion exist at all if it serves no evolutionary function?). In the final chapter of the book, Parker addresses many of these questions to get to his claim that there is "room for God" within a scientific understanding. The problem with this is that the God Parker arrives at in his understanding (sort of, he seems mostly agnostic) doesn't resemble the God presented in the Bible at all. As I said, Parker doesn't seem to have a problem with this, but Christians will.
That's why I'm not exactly sure of his audience for this book. Christians will clearly see that he's pulling the foundation away from all of Christianity, and non-religious people will likely not care whatsoever that Genesis can be metaphorically interpreted to somewhat match up to science. Parker doesn't aim at reconciling science with God (consistent with Christianity), he just wants to reconcile it with the possibility of a god.
I enjoyed reading parts of this book simply to get a good summary of what science says about the earth's origins, but that's really all. In terms of thinking through how to reconcile that science with Christianity, there's nothing very new or helpful here.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worth Pondering, March 5, 2010
This review is from: The Genesis Enigma: Why the Bible Is Scientifically Accurate (Hardcover)
I'm going to echo some of the other reviewers' sentiments - Parker is a gifted scientist and communicator, so I learned a lot about biological history. I suppose this is especially valuable to me since I never received a basic education in evolution, growing up under young-earth creationist teachings. His discussion of the development of the first eye was inspiring! What a dramatic moment in the history of life, and in my mind a very plausible explanation for the pre-Cambrian explosion. Like the other reviewers,though, I find his attempt to equate the development of the eye with "lights" in the Genesis account to feel strained a bit beyond belief.
Still, there are enough other odd components to the Genesis creation account to make his basic idea worth considering. God told the earth to "bring forth life"? Focus on life in the sea by a landlocked ancient writer? Interesting.
Parker's discussion of whether religion and science need conflict was also very interesting to me, as was the appendix,a study of the authorship of the Pentateuch.
If you're intrigued by the basic thesis of the book, I don't think you'll be disappointed by reading it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
