THE GENESIS OF NATURE AND THE NATURE
OF GENESIS
By Norman Parker
New Generation Publishing. 246 pages. £7.99
ISBN 978 1 785 507 377
The author is a retired biology teacher writing about the evolution-creation debate to try and find a way forward. He believes in evolution (don’t react yet!) and biblical creation. But what do we mean by these terms and is there a way forward?
No-one comes out unscathed; we are all challenged to look carefully at our thinking. He rejects Darwinism and Neo-Darwinian Synthesis as being on shaky foundations scientifically. In fact, his arguments are often stronger than those put forward by creationists.
But he also challenges the thinking of Creationists, especially Young Earth Creationists. How much do we read into the Scriptures rather than from them, e.g. in terms of the formation of the geological strata and the fossils? The Bible does not refer to them, so we are free to posit them where we like, consistent with the revealed Bible account.
In fact, I feel there is a chapter that has been missed from the book which would have been a helpful addition to the debate. It is clear that the Bible has a story-line from Genesis to Revelation and our understanding of it all grows from Genesis. Careful study of our doctrines shows that they are embedded in the Genesis record.
Mr Parker feels it is necessary to offer an alternative approach to demonstrate what mechanism might be involved in the evolution of life. (It is very apparent from this book that evolution, which is based on living things, has been extrapolated to the material universe in which evolution of any sort is not valid.) The author believes that the best way forward is through ‘Evo devo’ based on a study of development processes (read chapter 7 to get a grasp of the idea). To this he adds his own idea, ‘Innate Transformation’ (chapter 8). He ends by trying to suggest ways forward. This is a book that I think every Christian concerned with the subject of origins should read. Don’t expect to agree completely with Mr Parker; he would be surprised if you did. But it may help to sharpen up all of our arguments.
