Book Review: The Advancement by L.B. Bush – Faith vs. Science

Introduction

L.B. Bush's The Advancement: Keeping the Faith in the Evolutionary Age argues that the modern, secular worldview that has developed since the Enlightenment stands in stark contrast to the Christian worldview. Bush adamantly insists that faith must come before an emphasis on scientific understanding. He is not completely anti-science — he concedes that God has created a rational world grounded in orderly moral and natural laws. However, he argues that science, as in classical philosophy, must be rooted in theology, not the reverse. Instead, the modern era has seen a growing tendency to view religion as primitive and human existence as progressing toward a better, more 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 the concept of evolution — viewed through a creationist lens.

Summary of the Text

Bush divides his text into eight chapters. After introducing his main issues with any philosophical system that does not place God and Christ at its center, he contrasts what he calls modern scientific naturalism with traditional theology in Chapter 2, "The Rise of Advancement Science." 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 regarding evolution. As Bush writes, "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 Chapter 3, "The Advancement and Theory of Knowledge," Bush contends 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 evolutionary process to believe in evolution?" (Bush 34). He further argues that it is possible to offer new, theistic alternatives to the naturalist evolutionary concept.

Chapter 4, "Modern Theistic Alternatives," develops this position. 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 eliminate room for transcendent, theological conceptions of the human. The naturalistic concept of evolution, Bush contends, is overly narrow and fails to explain why human beings have the ability to conceptualize God and the divine. This echoes a common argument for the existence of God advanced since the Middle Ages: if a conception of God can exist in the human mind, there must be some independent existence for that entity.

Bush's Scientific Arguments Against Evolution

Chapter 5, "What is Naturalistic Evolution," offers an overview of the secular conception of evolution that Bush sets out to challenge. Here Bush specifically argues against the science of evolution, beginning with the claim that "physical similarity among living beings is an indication of a historical biological linkage" through the fossil record, as well as the common ancestry of invertebrates and vertebrates (Bush 51). This section contains the book's most sustained engagement with empirical science. Bush argues that there are gaps in the fossil record — a contention common among proponents of intelligent design — and that "a wise designer could build all life according to a pattern that could include a common organic chemistry" (Bush 52). Some of his arguments flatly reject the preconditions of evolutionary science, such as the idea that nonliving matter can generate living matter through entirely natural processes. Bush contends there remains room for the possibility of divine intervention.

Bush also disputes that spontaneous biogenesis, supported by the similarity of genetic material across species, is scientifically credible, arguing that "for identical genetic coding systems to have spontaneously and independently arisen from a random process that occurred by chance is simply unacceptable because it is incredibly improbable" (Bush 53). In his view, randomness is implausible, and therefore God as first cause and first mover is the only likely alternative. Chapter 6, "Why Not Naturalistic Evolution," extends this theme, with Bush asserting that "human minds are a qualitative jump, not just a quantitative one, above the animals" — a claim that both affirms humanity's superior place in the cosmos and challenges naturalistic evolutionary theory.

Conclusion

Religion is not simply about factual truth but about emotional and spiritual truths. Creationist science carries significant internal problems as a scientific framework, and using it as the sole basis for Genesis's relevance to modern humans is inherently problematic. The difficulty with using science as a justification for religion is that scientifically minded people who are skeptical of religion will simply turn away from what they perceive as a weakened, diluted science — without considering the other benefits religion can provide or the moral truths it holds. While Bush makes some valid arguments against viewing pre-Enlightenment history as intellectually primitive, he ultimately fails to make a compelling case for an alternative religious viewpoint, largely because of his insistence on validating creationist science. As scholars such as those associated with the BioLogos movement have demonstrated, more nuanced engagements between faith and science are available and may prove more persuasive to both religious and secular audiences.