He Who Thinks Has to Believe [Paperback]

A. E. Wilder-Smith (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bethany House Pub (July 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871232596
• ISBN-13: 978-0871232595
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,624,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting perspective., March 30, 2000

By 

Van H. Edwards "www.dawgandponyshow.blogspot.com" (Fayetteville, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: He Who Thinks Has to Believe (Paperback)

Dr. A.E. Wilder-Smith is an Oxford-trained scientist who has written a fictional tale of a "modern" men coming across a remote tribe of "Neanderthals". Conversations are held between Mr. Neanderthal and the modern men concerning where the universe came from. The story is mainly conversation, as Dr. Wilder-Smith's aim is to tackle the issue of mere creationism vs. big bang cosmology. The story approuch certainly makes it more interesting. I would recommend this book, espiecially to Christians looking for arguements against a universe created by accident. Although I don't agree with all his ideas, Dr. Wilder-Smith makes many very poignant points.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Wilder-Smith classics, April 19, 2004

By 

Shannon Richie (Northumberland, PA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: He Who Thinks Has to Believe (Paperback)

A. E. Wilder-Smith was probably the leading twentieth century European creationist. After reading this book, it is easy to see why.

I had put off reading Wilder-Smith for some years on the grounds that he is deceased and I figured (naively!) that his work had been superseded by others. However, this is not really the case. This work is as fresh of a basic argument for creationism as one will see in print today. Its compact size is another reason to pick this one up.

Set in the form of a fictional conversation between a Neanderthal tribe in New Guinea accidentally discovered by an airplane crash rescue mission, the book proceeds to lay out some simple, yet powerful, philosophical arguments for the creationist/Christian world view. Most other books on this topic utilize technical or biblical data to make their case, but Wilder-Smith actually exercises your mind to think logically in arriving at a rational conclusion to the issue. In the end, evolutionary thinking is shown to be irrational.

This is an excellent work for someone with a philosophical bent who wants to briefly examine the basis for the creationist viewpoint. Highly recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars A BOOK FROM THE MOST FAMOUS CREATIONIST FROM EUROPE, September 30, 2011

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: He Who Thinks Has to Believe (Paperback)

Arthur Ernest Wilder-Smith (1915-1995) was an organic-chemist, humanitarian, lecturer and an author on young earth creationism. He also wrote books such as Man's Origin, Man's Destiny: A Critical Survey of the Principles of Evolution and Christianity, The Creation of Life: A Cybernetic Approach to Evolution, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, The Scientific Alternative to Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory: Information Sources and Structures, etc.

Here are some quotations from the book:

"We say that matter plus energy plus know-how (from a Creator or from a programmed genetic code [spore] devised by a Creator) results in life. You, however, claim that matter plus energy alone gives life, and that we, therefore, require neither a Creator nor his program (spore) to conceive life. We have experimental evidence behind our faith and are therefore rational. You cannot produce a single experiment to confirm your materialistic claims!" (Pg. 26)
"Your theories require that at least occasionally in the course of billions of experiments life develop from clay (inorganic matter) and energy. Unfortunately for you and your theories this has NEVER happened experimentally, despite billions of experiments." (Pg. 27)
"...Progogene only investigated systems well out of equilibrium. Such systems are, therefore, irreversible and have nothing in common with the organic-chemical systems, which supposedly spontaneously provided the original building materials of life, are, of course, as every organic chemist knows, strictly reversible (apart from certain known 'entropy holes'), so that Progogene's otherwise so important work is totally irrelevant here." (Pg. 45)
"Why the 'either chemistry or metaphysics' explanation of the origin and meaning of biology? Are these experiments contradictory, or do they supplement each other? Do they really exclude each other, as Crick and countless others seemingly assume?" (Pg. 71)