Shadow of Oz, by Wayne Rossiter (Wipf and Stock, 2015) does something that should have been done a long time ago: it takes a direct and critical look at the theology of theistic evolution. Often the debate over intelligent design (ID) has been cast in terms of questioning the theological premises of ID, e.g., accusations of god-of-the-gaps, God making things up ad hoc, etc., but the shoe can be on the other foot: do theistic evolutionists have a coherent theology? Wayne Rossiter takes a close, often iconoclastic, look at the theological beliefs of major theistic evolutionists such as Kenneth Miller, Karl Giberson, Francis Collins, and John Polkinghorne. As a well-trained biologist as well as a Christian, he is competent to evaluate the scientific arguments involved and how they interact with the theology.
You may not agree with every one of his points, and the book may not convince you to adopt the ID position, but this book deserves to be read by everyone following the TE/ID debate. It belongs on the shelf next to C.G. Hunter’s Darwin’s God, which took a similar look at the theology of evolutionists in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. As we know, science is never done in the absence of theological presuppositions, and these two books together provide a good review of how theology has shaped the discussion of evolution over the years.
-David Snoke
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