Peril in Paradise: Theology, Science and the Age of the Earth
Mark S. Whorton
Authentic Media 2005
This is the second book I've read recently advocating an old earth creationist (OEC) position. The author is an engineer who has worked for NASA and is also well-known as a Christian apologist.
Whorton takes a stronger line against Young Earth Creationism (YEC) than Snoke in his book I would say. As well as advocating the day-age view and arguing against YEC on a number of grounds, he spends much of the book contrasting what he calls the "Perfect Paradise Paradigm" (basically YEC) with another theological position he calls the "Perfect Purpose Paradigm". He comes close to saying at some points that the Perfect Paradise Paradigm is actually teaching a sub-biblical view of God, creation and especially evil. For me this part of the book was not a great success.
Other parts of the book are more successful. All in all I think he both hits and misses his targets in the course of the argument. Without doubt, he shows up many of the weaknesses of YEC teaching, and establishes a number of important OEC points. Just occasionally I think he oversteps the mark and gets a bit confused in his thinking. This is especially evident in his treatment of how suffering was (in Whorton's view) always part of the created order and part of the creation God saw was "very good".
In my view Snoke's book is a better constructed argument and succeeds in its aims without resorting to the occasionally odd bit of theology that Whorton allows to creep into his argument.
Hi James,
ReplyDeleteInterested to see that you would affirm the existence of animal death before the fall but not animal suffering. Bearing in mind that the fossil record displays evidence of carnivory, cancerous growths, disease, bone fractures and many other kinds of pathology, is it possible to avoid the implication that those animals suffered too?
Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting my blog and for mentioning my review of your book on your site.
I think your book is a good treatment of a doctrine I do not agree with, and I'm sure will be popular with many who accept the YEC interpretation.
My point was simply that whereas the death (and the causes of death) of animals is a fact, their suffering is not necessarily a fact but an inference. Suffering is largely subjective and we cannot know how much a pre-Fall animal "suffered" whereas I do believe we can know that they died.
Hi James,
ReplyDeleteThanks for replying. I think the angle you're taking is interesting, but difficult to defend. If the suffering of animals is largely subjective (and not necessarily an evil), then what are the implications for a Christian approach to animal welfare and animal husbandry? Should we seek to minimise animal "suffering" by regulating hunting, eliminating the use of animals in experimentation, using anaesthetics in animal surgery, etc?