Book Review:

Bush, L.B. The Advancement: Keeping the Faith in the Evolutionary Age. B&H Publishing

Group Nashville, Tennessee, 2003.

Introduction

L.B. Bushs book The Advancement: Keeping the Faith in the Evolutionary Age suggests that the modern, secular worldview that has developed since the Enlightenment is a stark contrast with the Christian worldview. Bush adamantly insists that faith must come before an emphasis on scientific understanding. Bush is not completely anti-science in the sense that he concedes that God has created a rational world, based in orderly moral as well as natural laws. But he argues that science, as is the case in classical philosophy, must be found in theology, not the reverse. Instead, in the modern era, there has been a growing tendency to view religion as primitive, and human existence as progressing to a better, more progressive, and secular worldview as a result of greater knowledge about the material world. Overall, the book presents a literate, but factually controversial, alternative history of modern scientific development (particularly emphasizing the concept of evolution) through a creationist lens.

Summary

Bush divides his text into eight chapters. After introducing his text and his main issues with any philosophical system which does not put God and Christ at its center, he then contrasts what he calls modern scientific naturalism with traditional theology in Chapter 2, The Rise of Advancement Science. Scientific explanations which did not remind people of God or thrust moral implications upon the hearer were more likely to be accepted by the increasingly secular general public (Bush 22). In his view, science originally began with creation and theology; now modern science has been used to disprove or ignore the Bible by discounting its relevance in scientific interpretation, most notably evolution. Chapter 3, The Advancement and Theory of Knowledge, Bush states that the secular conception of evolution is as much a culturally-conditioned product as religion is alleged to be: Do evolutionists believe in evolution because they are biologically determined and sociologically constrained by the evolutionaryprocess to believe in evolution? (Bush 34). Furthermore, it is possible to offer new, theistic alternatives to the naturalist evolutionary concept.

In Chapter 4, Modern Theistic Alternatives, even presupposing that evolution occurred, Bush argues, this theory must go on to contend that there is still infinite potential within the transcendent part of the God/process (Bush 48). In short, even if evolution exists, this does not mean that there is no room for transcendent, theological conceptions of the human. The naturalistic concept of evolution, Bush argues, is overly narrow and does not explain why human beings have the ability to conceptualize God and the divine. This is a common argument for the existence of God advanced since the Middle Ages, namely if a conception of God can exist in the human mind, there must be some independent existence for that entity.

Chapter 5, What is Naturalistic Evolution, offers an overview of the secular conception of evolution which Bush is attempting argue against. In this chapter, Bush specifically advances an argument against the science of...…are not necessarily compatible.

There are also many theologians who interpret Genesis in a metaphorical way, or as a way of teaching human beings moral truths. This is something that scientific evolutionary theory cannot accomplish and even if evolution according to science is correct, this does not cancel out the benefits of religion. Bushs book also suffers from the fact that it only focuses on one scientific theory, evolution, rather than discussing how other scientific ideas about the universe may be more or less compatible. The book seems predicated upon the idea that if the material truths about Genesissuch as a rather short period of time to create the world and a complete separation of the development of humans and animalscannot be proven, then this weakens the strength of religious faith in general.

Conclusion

Religion is not simply about factual truth but emotional and spiritual truths. Creationist science has many problems within it as a pure science and using it as the only way that Genesis has value to modern humans is inherently problematic. The problem with using science as a justification for religion is that scientific people who disdain religion will simply turn away from a weakened, diluted science without considering the other benefits religion can provide them and the other moral truths it holds. While Bush makes some good arguments about not viewing pre-Enlightenment history as primitive, he does not make a strong case for an alternative religious viewpoint because of his focus on proving creationist science as valid.