William A. Dembski, The End of Christianity: Finding A Good God In An Evil World (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2009), xii + 241 Pps., $22.99.
After having spent much of the last decade writing about – and being an advocate for – the Intelligent Design community, Dembski (Research Professor in Philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) here takes on the perennially ‘hot’ issue of theodicy. Dembski contends that there are resources within Christianity that will allow for it to make peace with the presence of evil in the world. In this title, Dembski makes three claims, and seeks to thereafter substantiate them in sequence: 1) God by wisdom created the world out of nothing; 2) God exercises particular providence in the world; and 3) All evil in the world ultimately traces back to human sin. By the end of the text, Dembski purports to substantiate concludes that “the end (result) of Christianity” will be the radical realignment of our thinking insomuch as we see God’s goodness in creation despite the distorting effects of sin in our hearts and evil in the world. In what follows we will look a little closer at the contents of this title, and make a few general conclusions about its contents.
This title is composed of 24 chapters, arranged in five parts: the first part explicitly addresses evil, its origin, derivation, and extent; the second part compares and contrasts young- and old-earth creationism, with their attendant approaches to the problem of evil. Part three deals with the concept of divine action, addressing in part whether a God-who-acts is culpable for not acting in preventing evil, whereas part four constructs an argument for the retroactive effects of the Fall; the final part ties up some loose ends, particularly with reference to the relations between evolution, interpretations of Genesis, and the purpose(s) of God.
Notably, Dembski contends that God’s goodness begins and ends with the cross of Christ, which is the fully adequate answer to evil yesterday, today, and tomorrow; but whence the origin of evil? Dembski asserts that all evil derives from the Fall (8), which necessarily requires a strictly literal interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis; this constitutes a first critique of this title – after all, I contend that it is well possible to be a conservative Christian (as I), but to also assert at one and the same time that the first chapters of Genesis should not be read in such a manner as Dembski’s title entails. In view of the overwhelming evidence for (macro)evolution, the lineal descent of humanity from one primal pair of humans is scarcely possible or coherent. Additionally, in reading the Genesis account in the manner which Dembski does, he effectively forces the bible to ‘mean’ something that it was never intentioned to mean (i.e. forcing modernity perspectives onto premodernity texts). For example, humans are to blame for the presence of personal sin (disobedience), and the prevalence of natural evil (including, but not limited to: floods, disease, animal suffering/death). Yet this contention is oblivious of the necessity of death for the advancement of evolutionary systems (i.e. death is a primal driver of evolution). To contend that human action(s) is responsible for ‘natural’ evil (if there even be such a thing) is intellectually deficient. In a second line of critique, Dembski purports to delineate a fully trinitarian model of divine action in this title; however, while there are scattered references to the Holy Spirit, one wonders if a thoroughly trinitarian approach to theodicy is represented here due to the conspicuous lack of reference to the Spirit.
While I appreciate Dembski’s intent, I question if he has truly furthered the contemporary conversation regarding theodicy with the publication of this title. At various points, he seems to be lacking exposure to key – read fundamental – tenets of the modern scientific thought; as such, this title may be relegated in its relevance to a slim audience – North American Evangelicals broadly considered at best, or North American Fundamentalists at worst.
Bradford McCall
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.
Theodicy attempts to resolve how a good God and evil world can coexist.