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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A much needed book - very helpful, January 14, 2005
Origin of the Human Species by Dennis Bonnette is a book that needed to be written. Without depending on young-earth creationism, Dr. Bonnette has built a convincing case that belief in Adam and Eve still makes sense even if human evolution took place.
Those who read this book primarily as a book of science - expecting many quotes from the latest research - miss the point entirely. Dr. Bonnette does not claim to be a natural scientist. He offers a very even-handed presentation of many different scientific viewpoints, usually not trying to decide the winners. Rather, this book is a philosophical analysis of the various theories about human origins - both old and new - as they relate to evolution. It shows that sound reasons demand that God creates and sustains whatever processes, including evolution, that take place, and that there is no scientific claim that stands against the need for God to create the first true human beings, at least as to their spiritual component, the soul. In this he strikes at the heart of Darwinism, which attempts to construct an evolutionary theory without God.
The first chapters examine the debate between Darwinian evolution and scientific creationism, the nature of species, and the philosophical possibility of evolution. Then, a fascinating in-depth analysis is given of recent ape-language studies, proving that man alone has true language and a human spiritual soul. It shows that God alone can create such souls. Next, a chapter examines whether life, especially intelligent life, can exist on other planets. The next few chapters show in detail how the standard theory of human evolution might be compatible with a legitimate reading of Genesis - one that insists on Adam and Eve as our actual first parents. Then a chapter turns to the question of exactly how old man and the earth are, with various arguments involved in the young-earth vs. old-earth debate being analyzed. Finally, a chapter examines Cremo and Thompson's Forbidden Archeology - not claiming that they are right about everything - but concluding that their work at least presents a "challenge to human evolution's current theory (p. 208)" so that a reasonable person may still have "probable cause to doubt current human evolutionary theory" (p. 209). Throughout this work, Dr. Bonnette, is not playing the role of the experimental scientist, but rather as a professional philosopher, he employs "the classical metaphysician's habit of analysis, as a critical instrument of reason, well suited to judge the relative logical and epistemological merits of contending views." (p. xx).
Origin of the Human Species is a much-needed book because it cuts through the current scientific debate over human evolutionary claims so as to support some major philosophical and theological truths. These include God's existence and central role in any evolutionary process, human possession of a spiritual soul that only God can make, and the continued reasonableness of belief in Adam and Eve.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bonnette's masterful analysis (ISBN 1932589007), February 3, 2004
[This review refers to the newer Sapientia Press edition (ISBN 1932589007).] Dr. Dennis Bonnette has, by all accounts, done a masterful job of honestly assessing, and even more coolly dispatching, the exagerrated claims of Darwinian agitprop-men like Ridley, Dawkins, and Dennett. The other reviews here mention well enough the foci of this book -- a Thomistic critique of Darwinian naturalistic assumptions, a very close analysis of ape-language studies, etc. -- so I won't go into great detail there. (That's what reading the book is for! *wink*wink*) The two special merits of Bonnette's book are 1) its conceptual broadness and 2) its philosophical acuteness. First, Bonnette shows the broad arenas of thought that are being disputed -- and then shows what other areas of thought too easily get the green light in Darwinism (e.g., naturalistic presumption, causal contingency, shallow exegetical assumptions, etc.). He doesn't pound away at one or two arcane theoretical points; rather he shows the theological, philosophical and anthropological contours of this debate. Second, while he covers a lot methodological ground in <i>Origin of the Human Species</i>, Bonnette never relents from his Thomistic precision of thought. He doesn't just throw quotes around. He carefully analyzes the relevant points with a thoroughness his mentor, the Angelic Doctor of Aquino, would admire. In a word, Bonnette sees the forest for the trees, and vice versa. If you're serious about "the evolution debate," buy this book. As the author himself wrote to me: "I shall never get rich selling this book. But I do hope it will help resolve the 'evolution vs. Bible' problem that has caused so much loss of faith on the part of many scientists, students, and scholars."
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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A valuable book for theology and philosophy, April 6, 2002
As a professor of Catholic theology, I found Dr. Bonnette's book especially helpful as a defense of the historicity of original sin. Many people today believe it is an either/or situation in regard to evolution and the Bible. They do not understand that in addition the alternatives of "young-earth scientific creationism" and "atheistic evolutionism," there are other logical and scientific possibilities, including what Bonnette calls "theistic evolution" and "progressive creationism." It takes a philosophy professor like Bonnette, well-trained in logic and epistemology, to examine so-called "scientific claims" of naturalistic/atheistic evolutionism. After reading this book, Christians can have assurance that there is nothing in science which shows that there was not or could not have been a historical fall from God's grace of an original pair of humans (i.e. Adam and Eve) from whom we all descend. While Bonnette's book does not treat the statements of more recent popes such as
Paul VI and John Paul II, he does provide a firm foundation for what both Vatican II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirm, i.e. that even though the account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses "figurative language," it does affirm "a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man." This book deserves a wide circulation among all who take the Bible and original sin seriously.
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