Reviews for The only chaos and other essays

The average rating for The only chaos and other essays based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-06-05 00:00:00 Elizabeth Rivera An excellent look at the relationship between Scripture and science. Van Till divides the book into four sections after laying out the problem (or debate) regarding the harmony (or lack thereof) between the Bible and science. The first section looks at what the Bible tells us about the Creation; that is, about that which God has created. Van Till demonstrates well that the Bible is covenantal history, not science text and that its purpose is to communicate the relationship between God and his Creation, not the technical details of natural processes by which he created and continues to sustain it. In the second section of the book Van Till explores what it means for "science" to observe and describe ongoing and historic natural processes. As an astronomer and physicist he places special emphasis on astronomy and specifically on stars: their make-up, the natural processes that go on within them, and their evolution. He uses this look at stars to demonstrate the role of physical observation and its place in shaping our understanding of the Creation as well as how it has evolved and how it functions. He also explains the limitations of science and physical observation. Science can observe and comment on natural processes, but it cannot answer questions about relationships, purpose, and ultimate origins. In the third section of the book Van Till first addresses the problem of "scientific creationism" which attempts to interpret the Bible as a book that tells us about technical natural processes and then moves onto the problem of "naturalism", which wrongly assigns creative power to natural processes. Finally, Van Till brings us to a well though-out conclusion in which he explains the harmony of Scripture and science when each is understood properly and within its own limitations. Some may find Van Till a bit long-winded when it comes to "Part II" and his description of the details of astronomy and stellar evolution. I'm not convinced that he needed to go into as much detail in a book aimed at scientific laymen, but the section is interesting. He presents his case extremely well. This book would serve well as a companion to Francis Collins' "The Language of God", which deals with the "language" of scripture and deals primarily with biology and genetics. The questions each book asks are a bit different, but together they cover a great deal of complimentary ground. Ultimately, Van Till does a very good job showing the complimentary nature of the "two books": scripture and nature. Neither gives a full picture of Creation and both are necessary if we are to understand it fully. The Bible tells us about the covenantal relationship between God and Creation; Science tells us how Creation works. Perhaps the best illustration Van Till gives is that of his showing a piece of paper to two different people. One person describes it as "green" and the other as "square". "Are these descriptions contradictory?", asks Van Till. Of course they aren't; they're simply addressing the paper in different ways and from different perspectives and together give us a more complete understanding.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-02-12 00:00:00 K A Whittaker He helped me by this comment: "I am convinced that it is both appropriate and mandatory for us to address to the Bible questions about the relationship of the physical world to God, but I consider it wholly inappropriate to address questions about the physical properties, material behavior, and temporal development of the world'questions raised in the context of the modern scientific era'to the Bible.