Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (P.S.)
by Kenneth R. Miller
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kenneth R. MillerEdition: Paperback
Published: 2007-04-01
ISBN: 0061233501
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (P.S.)
Book Review: Informative, Important but Somewhat Lacking
Summary: 4 Stars
As so many of the other reviews state, the first part of the book is excellent in explaining how solid the evidence is for evolution and how arguments against evolution have all been proven incorrect.
Dr. Miller then goes on to explain how flawed the strategy of fighting evolution is, if you are a believer in God. By doing this, you then give scientists, and the public, a weapon against belief because you equate God only with a universe in which the laws of science are not sufficient to explain our existence. So as science keeps finding the mechanisms which brought us here - as science is constantly doing - you are arming atheists with evidence that there is no God. A more mature way to view God is that He "fashioned a fruitful world in which the process of continuing creation is woven into the fabric of matter itself."
But Dr. Miller also explains how some scientists are also guilty of creating this artificial rift between belief in evolution and belief in God. He quotes several scientists who claim that evolution invalidates God and even eliminates the possibility that life has meaning! No wonder believers of God try to find a way of invalidating evolution.
I believe Dr. Miller's argument - that a God who gives us freedom of action and thought; a God who made the world and life sufficient to evolve without needing intervention; and a God who can still choose to act in our world using the undetectable tools of space, time, chance and indeterminacy - is well thought out and well argued. It is a very important point that so many people seem to miss and this is why I think this book is very important. We cannot allow immature thinking to leave us with opinions that either deny overwhelming scientific evidence or declare that life has no meaning and morality may not even exist.
At the time I write this, the most helpful review has the following criticism of the book:
"... it seems to me that this would be an unsatisfactory argument to someone who wishes to have an "active" God in their individual lives who can intervene on their behalf."
I strongly disagree with this statement. Just read page 242 where Dr. Miller writes "God, the Creator of space, time, chance, and indeterminacy, would exercise exactly the degree of control He chooses." And then continues to discuss how God could influence the thoughts and actions of individuals when we pray for strength, understanding or patience, for example. A God who creates a world where he does not have to intervene does not equal a world where God cannot intervene.
I do, however, have some criticisms of my own. Like many other reviewers I also find some of the latter part of the book a bit weak. For example, in the section labeled "No More Mr. Nice Guy" he declares the argument that evolution is too cruel to be compatible with a loving God, as "the strangest, the least logical," and "the most bizarre."
Perhaps because of his low opinion of this argument, Dr. Miller is able to give only a weak and unmoving counter-argument. Basically, he says that evolution is no more cruel than the "raw savagery of nature itself" and that altruistic behaviors do exist in nature and they are "most often directed towards helping close relatives... [so] the gene is actually helping a copy of itself to survive. So the selfish gene theory comes in to make evolution more Godly? What about an answer that discussed how evolution is misinterpreted to be nothing but competition where only the few, strongest species and individuals survive by ruthlessly looking out for only themselves? There are millions of species on the planet today and there are billions of humans in existence at this moment. We are interdependent and we are great at co-existing. Evolution is not as cruel as most of have been led to believe. If you want a much better answer to that question, I recommend the book Darwin's Lost Theory of Love by David Loye. The mere fact that we humans do risk our lives for others, many times for those we are not related to, is a fact of nature. And when scientists say that evolution is fact and that implies that we are selfish and can only care about the survival of our own genes, they are obviously wrong.
Lastly, it should be noted that this book is limited to the God of "western religions". Dr. Miller explains why he does not deal with Eastern religions - "Many Eastern religions take the view that reality is entirely subjective" therefore the workings of nature would also be considered subjective rather than reflecting God. Dr. Miller's God is male (using exclusively masculine pronouns for God such as "He" and "His") though he does state on page 274 that "theologians have long maintained that any vision of God as a physical person of a particular age, dress, and appearance is necessarily in error." He maintains that the bible was written to nourish the soul (a quote from Saint Augustine that Dr. Miller agrees with) and that it should not be taken as a scientific description of the world. Thus the two versions of creation (in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2) which contradict each other - man and woman are made simultaneously in chapter 1; man was made first and then after some time woman was created in chapter 2 - require interpretation and are not literal truths. The question one might ask as to how women being an afterthought and many other statements in the bible (e.g. Eve being responsible for the downfall of man and God punishing all women by making childbirth painful) may be nourishing to the soul is not touched upon. Dr. Miller is not interested in revising or questioning the bible or religion except in the very specific area where anyone's religious beliefs may contradict evolution. That is personally disappointing to me and I find it weakens his theology but it is very understandable as Dr. Miller is a religious person who's attempting nothing more than finding a way for him to be able to reconcile evolution to his religion and help others do the same.
You may consider looking at the website: [...] and reading the book: Darwin's Lost Theory of Love by David Loye (see link below) in addition to reading this book.
Darwin's Lost Theory of Love
Summary of Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (P.S.)
From a leading authority on the evolution debates comes this critically acclaimed investigation into one of the most controversial topics of our times
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