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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Science Facts & Bible Wisdom, September 19, 2008
Science Facts & Bible Wisdom, (2006), by Harry W.
Miller, Xlibris, 249 pp., $21.99
Harry W. Miller ranges over a wide variety of disciplines in this volume discussing how the findings of modern science confirm the truth of the Bible. In order to begin to comprehend this book the reader needs to understand the three interpretive grids that the author uses. One, is that modern thinking (science-especially physics, and psychology) is used to help understand or interpret problematic parts of the Bible. Two, Miller extols the use what he terms "non-dualistic' and inclusive mode of thinking and condemns exclusionary, "deductive dualistic" reasoning. Three, Miller comes from a strong Roman Catholic orientation. He is interesting is showing the theological correctness of the Roman Catholic faith.
Miller is very eclectic in his use of sources and subjects. He moves from speaking about quantum theory to transpersonal psychology to comparative religion to church history and Bible interpretation. Miller attempts to fit the findings and speculations of these various disciplines together to explain how science can help explain metaphysical issues. He uses the writings of psychologists Williams James, Michael C. Corballis, Jenny Wade, Kenneth Ring and Julian Jaynes and scientists like Gerald Schroeder, Isaac Asimov, David Bohm, and religious historians and writers Harry W. Crocker III, Avery Dulles, David Cooper, Melvin Morse, Phillip H. Wiebe, G.K. Chesterton and numerous others.
Miller states early on (p. 60-61) that he believes that exclusionary thinking (deductive logic) is "worldly reasoning" and actually connected to the Fall. "The separation of the feminine from the masculine form of humanity is a figurative expression for the "beginingness" of the world's duality/polarity: Adam and Eve's original sin opened their eyes to a lower, dualistic form of reason whereby they came to know good and evil, sin and death, and were cast out from the garden/paradise." (p. 126) Rather than a moral failure--an act of disobeience the Fall is now connected to a "wrong" form of thinking. He lauds "inclusive argumentation, uses the additive of analogical imagination. (p. 60-61)" which he claims the Roman Catholic church has traditionally used. Miller goes further and quotes a fifteenth century prelate, Nicholas of Cusa who wrote, "the highest spirit of reason, who bars the way until he is overcome." Miller goes on to add, "That "highest spirit of reason" refers to none other than Satan himself, the father of all reasonable lies." (p. 126) However the Bible says, "Come now, and let us reason together," Says the Lord, "Though your sins be as scarlet, They should be as white as snow, Thought they are red like crimson. They will be like wool. "If you consent and obey, You will eat the bread of the land; "But if you refuse and rebel, You will be devoured by the sword." Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken." (Isaiah 1:18-20, NASV). Here God is using deductive argumentation. It should be also mentioned that Jesus, the apostle Paul, the other apostles and Old Testament prophets also used deductive argumentation in their pronouncements. Miller would have been better served not to try to stigmatize a valid form of reason like deductive logic. Actually Miller uses deductive logic when he rants against the Protestant Reformation (p. 120, 123). Miller is unhappy for the division of the church that the Protestant Reformation caused however he ignores what happened in 1054 when the Pope Leo IX excommunicated the patriarch Michael Cerularius in Constantinople and Cerularius excommunicated Pope Leo XI which split the church into the Roman Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox church. This split has persisted for over 900 years.
This reviewer disagrees with many Miller's conclusions regarding historical and theological issues. He sometimes uses eisegesis instead of exegesis in his Bible interpretation. Eisegesis means that your are reading your meaning into the text. Exegesis means that you are reading your meaning out of the text. Good Bible scholarship allows the text to speak for itself whether or not that text supports one's persuppositions. On p. 80 after Miller discusses his ideas on how to reconcile the days of Genesis 1 with a supposedly billions of years old universe he rewrites Genesis 5:1, "These are the generations (cycles) of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Eternal God made heaven and earth." Actually Genesis 5:1 says, "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God." (NASV) The rest of Genesis 5 is a genealogy of Adam's descendants through his third son Seth. This genealogy is repeated in the New Testament (Luke 3:36-38). In attempting to buttress his argument Miller completely misses the normative reading of the passage.
There are also issues of historical debate, Miller writes this about the ancient British Druids, "They were the direct descendants of the Adamic race, the family of Adam, and from that branch of it coming from Eber, the word from which "Hebrew" is derived." (pp 130-131). Eber is a descendent of Shem, one of the sons of Noah (Genesis 11:15-17.) However there is strong historical evidence that the early Britons were descended from another of Noah's son, Japheth (see After the Flood by Bill Cooper, 1995).
In a discussion of the "English Reformation" Miller states this about the birth of the Anglican church during the reign of Henry VIII, "It was not a Protestant revolt based on Church doctrines, but merely a power grab by the king's secretary, Oliver Cromwell." (p. 132) Oliver Cromwell was the Lord Protector, a strong Puritan who was involved with the execution of Charles I and lived about a century after Henry VIII. Miller is actually referring to Thomas Cromwell a distant relative of Oliver Cromwell. While Harry is substantially correct in his assessment, the Church of England later did become a thoroughly Protestant church.
Miller takes a theistic evolutionary approach to the creation of the universe, animals and humans. Miller writes (p. 93) "But Genesis says humanity was instead first "made," its fully distinct form was the first allowed to develop. Only after that was it "created" as a unique, spiritual being: God created the human spirit, the neshema, and infused it into the mature prehuman or hominid form. All acts of creation are instantaneous, since they transcend time, whereas the making or forming of entities in the universe occur over vast periods of time (Schroeder `97, 137-39). Actually a straight forward reading of Genesis 1-2 leaves no room for Miller's evolutionary musings. God made man out of the ground (on Day 6, see Genesis 1:26-28, 2:7, also see Exodus 20:11). Genesis 2 goes into more detail concerning the creation of man and woman. These events were instantaneous and the text leaves no room for "vast periods of time" or slow evolutionary development. Addressing the account of the Fall in Genesis Miller writes, "Today, many still find the emergence of human free will as it is addressed in the Holy Bible's book of Genesis to be the best exposition of it that was ever written, despite the fact that its story is necessarily told in a figurative manner." Of course this is not a fact ("figurative manner") but Miller's interpretation. In Matthew 19:3-9 and Mark 10:2-12 Jesus himself treat Adam and Eve as real historical people who lived in time and space. They were not figurative. The Apostle Paul in Romans 5:12 (and following) treats Adam's transgression as sometime that took place as a real historical event--nothing figurative about it.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this book has to do with discussions of Near Death Experiences (NDE) and Out of Body Experiences (OBE). Miller writes about religious visions and includes two of his own experiences that were separated by many years. He grapples with various ways using psychological, neurological and spiritual means to explain these occurrences.
While much more could be written the above should suffice to give some background analysis for this book. The only group of individuals the reviewer could recommend this volume to are scholarly persons like Miller (and who agree with his interpretations) who enjoy trying to meld different academic disciplines and speculations together to forge a possible unified view of reality.
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