Review of: Coming to Peace with Science

Coming to Peace with Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology
Darrel R. Falk
Intervarsity Press, 2004
0-8308-2742-0

by Heather Campbell

Coming to Peace with Science is written to an audience of evangelical Protestant Christians. The author is himself an evangelical Christian, one who is also a professor of biology at Point Loma Nazarene here in San Diego. Professor Falk believes that science, specifically evolution, does not negate the Bible - indeed, the beauty of biology reveals its Creator. Falk's lucid explanation of the evidence for evolution is framed in language appealing to those Christians who have historically been known for their rejection of science.

The book starts and ends with Falk's own personal experience with religion, as well quotes from a wide range of theologians who argue that it is possible to interpret Genesis less than literally without affecting core doctrines of the faith. Falk states that the Bible was not intended as a scientific treatise but rather as a way to bring people into unity with God. The message of Genesis is that God is the Creator; the length of time, or even the method, by which he brought life into being does not much matter.

Chapters 3 to 6 focus mostly on the variety of evidence for evolution and the deep age of the earth, with some religious interpretation interspersed. Falk's ability to use analogies to explain complex concepts really shines here. One example is found in the chapter Tracing Lineage by Tracking Genes: suppose that you make a photo album for your son and daughter. After putting the album together you make a copy so that each child can have one. Only then do you discover that you accidentally put two of the exact same photo into the album -- but since there's no harm in that, you leave them as is. Next, suppose that your daughter's child scribbles crayon all over one of these doubled photos, but your daughter just leaves the scribbling because one photo remains. If these photo albums become a family tradition, copied and handed down through the generations, it would be possible to trace the 'lineage' of photo albums by the presence or absence of this scribbling. Similarly, gene duplications and introns (non-coding insertions into DNA) are a powerful clue to biological heritage.

Following are some direct quotes from chapters 3 to 6.

Actually there are forty independent isotope systems used by geologists for dating minerals.
...even if we allow that the techniques may have an error margin of from 5 to 10 percent, we would still be left with an Earth that was over 4 billion years old...The fact that different and independent radiometric techniques are in relative agreement with one another...is a confirmation of their validity.

Given the overwhelming amount of evidence, it is appropriate for Christians to accept that science is revealing details of God's activity. By closing our minds to this form of revelation, we are missing the opportunity to peer into the workings of the God we love so much.

Animals, plants, and other organisms really do share common ancestors, but through a process continually under control of God's Presence, the history of life has taken the course that it has. According to this view, God is not necessarily more active at one time than another.

Since 1990, three times as many bird fossils have been found from the period of 150 million years ago up to 70 million years ago as had been found in all of recorded history.
...the 1990s ... was the greatest decade in history for the discovery of transitions.

Until just several thousand years ago, the top Australian carnivore niche was filled not by a mammal nor by a bird but by a reptile - in this case a giant dragon lizard. The lizard, Megalania, was fifteen feet long and weighed close to one thousand pounds, or the size of a Kodiak bear.

Is the instruction book for how to make a chimpanzee any less the product of God's creation because it carries with it the "scars" of gene duplications, pseudogene deletions, retroposon insertions, and old silenced instructions on how to build a virus?...Just like each specific scar on your body is a reflection of a specific event in your past, so also the distinctive changes in DNA are a reflection of the past history of organisms -- a past that stretches far back into the antiquity of biological time.

Chapter 7 starts off by addressing some common objections of creationists, then takes up the issue of human evolution. This treatment of this topic is worded carefully:

"Hence God simply told us that we, like animals, are created from the dust of the ground. And that, as you know, is the heart of the gradual creation story -- no biologist could put it more succinctly than that."

Falk suggests that the account of the creation of Adam and Eve could be interpreted as a creation of humans as spiritual beings, capable of a personal relationship with God.

The conclusion of this last chapter is a cry for unity among Christians: those who believe in sudden creation and those who believe in gradual creation should accept each other as fellow followers of Christ. This is not to say that he compromises on the science, even here emphasizing:

"If the most predominant version of sudden creation were true, the sciences of nuclear physics, astronomy, geology, and biology would all be utterly wrong. It cannot be taught in the science classroom because it is not science."

Falk feels that making creationism a litmus test for entrance into the Christian church is divisive and counterproductive. He gives a poignant account of his own eventual return to Christianity later in life -- he had been longing to reconnect to the church for years, but was hesitant because he did not know how his position on this issue would be received. Fortunately he found a congregation who opened their arms to him, but he worries that other would-be seekers might feel unwelcome elsewhere. His purpose in writing the book was not necessarily to convince the reader of gradualism, but to convince the reader that it is possible to be a sincere Christian who accepts gradualism. The church and its individual members would all benefit from an atmosphere of tolerance on this point.

If creationists are ever to come to some level of acceptance of the deep history of the universe, it will be thanks to the influence of fellow evangelicals such as Professor Falk, whose love for both God and the natural world shine from the pages of Coming to Peace with Science.