I bought this book expecting a real debate between the three views mentioned, namely, Young Earth Creation, Old Earth Creation, and Theistic Evolution. The reason I found it disappointing is for two main reasons. None of the contributors really talk about the evidences for their position, but instead ramble on about their philosophy of science. Van Till spends most of his time trying to convince people to call his perspective the "fully-gifted creation perspective" instead of theistic evolution. To me, it really was just playing with words in order to avoid the negative Christian response to evolution. Does Van Till believe in Darwinian evolution or not? He says he does, so why not Theistic evolution? His view, as he expresses it, is really Deism, although he protests that it isn't. Read what he says and decide for yourself. My other major complaint with the book was that instead of the proponent of each view responding to the other two views, the responses were made by a third party "panel". I found this to be extremely unsatisfying.
The book wasn't totally without merit, and all three perspectives had some good things to say - but it got lost in a lot of wordiness about "words" which really took away from the book as a whole.

This book consists of essays by proponents of each of the three views (Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, and Theistic Evolution) and commentaries by practitioners of four disciplines: Biblical studies, theology, philosophy, and science. The entire discussion is concluded by summaries by Philip Johnson, an advocate of intelligent design, and Richard Bube, an advocate of theistic evolution.

The result is only partially successful. I am particularly impressed with the essays by Paul Nelson and John Mark Reynolds (Young Earth Creationism) and Howard J. Van Till (Theistic Evolution). Both give lucid and reasoned presentations of their views. I was pleasantly surprised to see Nelson and Reynolds, neither of whom I have read before, forego some of the more common but already discredited scientific arguments for a young Earth. Van Till presents a well thought-out and challenging integration of science and theology.

I am very disappointed by the commentaries, however. My first complaint is that the commentators sometimes seem unwilling to critique the essays primarily within their own expertises. For instance, John Jefferson Davis spends much of his space discussing the fossil record. On the one hand, none of the other commentators talk about this important piece of evidence. On the other hand, I wish the editors could have found someone other than a theologian to do this.

My second, more serious complaint is that each of the four commentators speaks entirely from an Old Earth Creationist perspective. In fact, Walter Bradley (who is supposed to provide criticism from a scientific perspective) uses the space allotted for commentary on the Old Earth Creationist perspective to attack the positions later presented in the Theistic Evolution essay. The reader is deprived of any scientific critique of the Old Earth Creationist view and instead finds a philosophical objection to a view not even presented yet. I find that entirely inappropriate.

As a brief introduction to the thinking in the three perspectives on creation and evolution, the primary essays in this book are very good. They each present some of the strengths and weaknesses of their own positions. These are not explored fully, but each essay is well referenced for further reading. The commentaries could have benefited by a better selection of commentators, however.

i've read in the field of creation-evolution for nearly 30 years now, from the _genesis flood_ to _darwin's dangerous idea_. that certainly doesn't make me an expert, only a concerned layman. this book is addressed by christian's to christian's, not that anyone outside of that community won't get a great deal out of the discussion only that the emotional desire/impetus to seek answers pushes christian's with a high view of scripture to try to reconcile the two biggies in their lives: science looking at general revelation and theology looking at scriptures. if you're not part of this community it is much easier just to ask "so what?" and not to understand why this is such a personal topic.

this is a first book, that is suitable for educated people to delve into a topic where many of the other books in this field/topic presume a background in either science or theology, or where the books are so stridently biased as to be "preaching to the choir" and put off 'newbies' with their presentation.

the issues are presented well enough that i think if someone finishes the book they will have a reasonable idea of what the problems are and where the different parts are most concerned in the discussion. it is not a scientific or theologically based book but rather philosophic. it presents concerns from each viewpoint, thus showing relative priorities in what each person discusses first and critisies as lacking emphasis in the other viewpoints. this is one value in a debate type of format, it can leave you with a prioritized idea of what people find important in the issues.

one problem however with this debate framework is that each person reading the book who already have committments to issues or positions tend to cheer for their side and boo down the opposing sides. this is evident from the reviews posted here, the young earth creation team is not the big names in the field, so it looks like in suffers from lack of heroes. nay, the two philosophers defend the position well given the page constraints they faced.

there is one issue running through the book i wished everyone had addressed in a more explicit matter, that is the difference in accepting the functional materialism of science versus the uncritical acceptance of a materialist world and life view of scientism. there is much confusion between the two, you can see it in much YEC criticism, in this book as well, of both progressive creationism and theistic evolution. naturalism is the idea that what we see is what we get, no god's behind the curtain, no skyhooks to come down and rescue us. there must be a distinction between how science uses this idea as a working hypothesis, as a functional means to an end, versus how a philosophy uses it as an axiom. of the 3 viewpoints, only vantil talks to the separation of the two. the YEC's fault the other two positions as if they accepted the materialism/naturalism as a deep committment in their systems. which as christian's is simply unacceptable from the beginning.

i liked the book. i think if you need a place to start it supplies one. however if you are already committed to a position you would be better off served by jumping straight to one of the major works in each viewpoint. and interact with that author without the polemics that form the debate structure of the book.

Fr. Richard McBrien is a well-known cleric who has made a career of public dissent in the Church. If this is the position he wishes to take, that is his business. However, when he purports to write a history of the papacy, is it too much to expect precisely that?

Instead, McBrien has provided several hundred pages of typical, tiresome "Catholic" dissent badly disguised as a history book. As a non-Roman Catholic clergyman, historian and theologian, I find that very unfortunate.

For a far better book from an academic perspective, I would suggest Dr. Owen Chadwick's Oxford Dictionary of the Popes as a much more valuable reference tool.

McBrien tries to compress almoat 2,000 years of religious, social and political history into one volume and does a pretty solid job. He gives anywhere from a few paragraphs to a few pages on the over 260 popes throughout history, with the bulk of his text spread out over the popes of the 20th century.

For the most part, McBrien looks at the popes with a scholarly and critical eye, describing how most of the popes throughout history were preoccupied with political and military matters rather than spiritual ones.

However, he does drift from a scholarly, critical examination from time to time. For example, I thought that he was improperly airing out his theological complaints against the current pope in his section on John Paul II (McBrien is theology chairman at Notre Dame), but I enjoyed his passage about the much-beloved pope, John XXIII. (can someone out there recommend any good books on this pope?)

McBrien ends this reference work with some papal facts, like "best and worst" and "firsts and lasts" and has a chronological list, as well as an alphabetical list, of the popes. However, my favorite parts of this book were the introductions to each chronological period of papal history. McBrien gives a general picture of the mood of the day and how each pope dealt with military, political (and sometimes spiritual) issues of the day. He also takes a look at internal church politics and stresses that throughout history, popes were sometimes under control of kings, emperors, powerful families and groups of bishops and clergy.

I've even used this book to settle barroom discussions over popes and in August, 2002, when the press began to ask if Pope John Paul II was going to resign, I referenced this book when people were asking me if other popes have resigned in the past (they did, BTW).

The book is a solid reference if you someone asks you who Pope Eugenius or Sixtus II was, and when they were popes. Since McBrien had 2,000 years of history to cover, it piqued my curiosity to learn more about these fascinating individuals and the times in which they lived.

This book is the most important among my vast library of papal history books because McBrien includes many facts about the popes that I have only been able to find in obscure books. He lets us know who is favorite and least favorite popes are, but that helps to give a more personal approach to this topic, which is refreshing in that most informational (particularly historical) books tend to be so dry. This is an excellent sourcebook for those interested in papal history and can easily be read from cover to cover without the reader ever getting bored with the text. McBrien is an excellent writer and this is by far the most well-written, interesting, and informative books on the subject of popes that is readily available.