Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 34:1 (Nov 1971)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

Bernard Delfgaauw: Evolution: The Theory of Teilhard de Chardin. Translated by Hubert Hoskins. New York: Harper and Row, 1969. 124. $4.00.

Jan Lever: Where Are We Headed? Translated by Walter Lagerwey. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970. 59. $1.65.

Russell W. Maatman: The Bible, Natural Science, and Evolution. Grand Rapids: Reformed Fellowship, Inc., 1970. vii, 165. $3.50.

Can the Christian really feel at home in an age dominated by science and technology? To what extent may the Christian incorporate the methodology and the results of science into his thinking? Does the Bible speak at all about scientific matters? Many thinkers have addressed themselves to these difficult questions, but there has been anything but a consensus.

Perhaps more fully than any other individual in recent times Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest and paleontologist, devoted his life to grappling with these questions. His writings have had profound influence on modern thought. Teilhard’s thoroughgoing theistic evolutionism has been the subject of many penetrating studies. To these may now be added an English translation of a little book first published in Dutch in 1961 by Bernard Delfgaauw, professor of philosophy at the State University of Groningen.

Evolution: the Theory of Teilhard de Chardin is a brief summary of the evolutionary thought of Chardin that is intended for those who have read or are about to read The Phenomenon of Man. Delfgaauw claims that the book was written for the reader who has not necessarily had any training in philosophy or the natural sciences, but in fact it seems to be geared more to the reader who already does have some background in evolutionary thought. This must be said despite the crisp, compact, and precise style of Delfgaauw’s work. Although the book is an excellent summary of Teilhard’s thought, the beginning reader probably would do better to read The Phenomenon of Man. One who seeks some

acquaintance with Teilhard’s thought can in no way really appreciate his dramatic, dynamic mysticism simply by reading Delfgaauw’s rather technical work. Delfgaauw seems to be very sympathetic to Teilhard. No biblically Christain critique of his thought is evident anywhere in the work.

Of greater influence in Reformed circles is Jan Lever, professor of zoology at the Free University of Amsterdam. In Where Are We Headed? Lever has provided us with a series of brief, very meaty radio talks in published form. He writes as a scientist who holds to biblical revelation and the gospel of Christ yet believes that certain views “...

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