The Creationist Debate: The Encounter between the Bible and the Historical Mind - Softcover

McCalla, Arthur

4.62

8 ratings by Goodreads

9780826480026: The Creationist Debate: The Encounter between the Bible and the Historical Mind

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826480020 ISBN 13: 9780826480026

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2006

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This book places the present Creationist opposition to the theory of evolution in historical context by setting out the ways in which, from the seventeenth century onwards, investigations of the history of the earth and of humanity have challenged the biblical views of chronology and human destiny, and the Christian responses to these challenges. The author's interest is not primarily directed to questions such as the epistemological status of scientific versus religious knowledge or the possibility of a Darwinian ethics, but rather to the problems, and various responses to the problems, raised in a particular historical period in the West for the Bible by the massive extension of the duration of geological time and human history.

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About the Author:

Arthur McCalla is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy/Religious Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Canada.

Review:

“The second revised edition (1st ed., CH Feb'07, 44-3251) of this masterful work by McCala (Mount Saint Vincent Univ., Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) further develops a historical account of debates between creationists and proponents of evolution. Central to the debates is the tension between modern science and religion, between objective history and history grounded in scripture. The central problem in recent attempts to accommodate scripture to modern science is how to interpret biblical texts rather than questions about evolutionary fact and theory. McCalla reveals the essential duplicity of scientific creationism and proponents of intelligent design in purporting to revise the very conception of historical and scientific inquiry to promote scriptural doctrine. Opponents of creationism see the Bible as portraying myths of origins rather than historical reality. McCalla argues his case forcefully, but the criticism is never strident n tone. He suggests that attempts to find a rational compromise between religious commitment to scriptural tradition and scientific views of nature fail to recognize the underlying threat of ‘reactionary biblicism' to the values of a liberal-democratic society. This fine work should interest anyone concerned with the historical and contemporary relations of science and religion. Includes a good index and wide-ranging bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through researcheser/faculty; general readers.” ―H.C. Byerly, University of Arizona, CHOICE

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