Science in Christian Perspective

Book Reviews for September 1987

Index
ADAM AND EVOLUTION by Michael Pitman. London: Rider and Company (distributed by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI), 1984. 268 pages. $12.95.
IT'S A YOUNG WORLD AFTER ALL by Paul D. Ackerman. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1986.
ORIGINS: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth by Robert Shapiro. New York: Summit Books, 1986, 322 pages. Hardcover; $17.95.
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (2nd ed.) by David G. Myers. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1987. 702 pages, index. Hardcover.
THE PERSON IN PSYCHOLOGY by Mary Stewart VanLeeuwen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.
SCIENCE IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT by A. Hunter Dupree. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, 1986. 481 pages. Paperback; $14.95.
THE SILICON SOCIETY by David Lyon. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. 127 pages. Paperback; $4.95
RESPONSIBLE TECHNOLOGY by Steven V. Monsma (ed.). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. 252 pages.
SPEAKING IN TONGUES: A Guide to Research on Glossolalia by Watson E. Mills (ed.). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. Paperback; $24.95.
CHRISTIANITY IN CONFLICT by Peter Williamson and Kevin Perrotta (eds.). Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1986. 147 pages. Paperback; $7 .95.
THE NEW TESTAMENT IN ITS SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT by John E. Stambaugh and David L. Balch. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986. 194 pages, index. Hardcover.
THINE IS THE KINGDOM: A Biblical Perspective on the Nature of Government and Politics Today by Paul Marshall. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. 160 pages. Paperback.
THE ABSENCE OF TYRANNY: Recovering Freedon in Our Time by Lloyd Billingsley. Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1986. 202 pages. Hardcover; $11.95.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMAN DIGNITY by John Warwick Montgomery. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986. 218 pages. Paperback.
DEATH OF THE SOUL: From Descartes to the Computer by William Barrett. New York: Anchor Press. Doubleday & Company, 1986. 173 pages. Hardcover; $16.95.
THE TRUTH OF VALUE: A Defense of Moral and Literary judgment by Paul Ramsey. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1985-139 pages.
CHRISTIAN HOPE AND THE FUTURE by Stephen H. Travis. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1980, 143 pages.
WHO DO AMERICANS SAY THAT I AM? by George Gallup, Jr. and George O'Connell. Philadephia: Westminster Press, 1986. 129 pages. Paperback; $9.95.
MAKING SENSE OUT OF SUFFERING by Peter Kreef t. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Books, 1986. 184 pages. Paperback; $5.95.
THE CHRISTIAN FRAME OF MIND by Thomas F. Torrance. Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1985. 62 pages. 13.75.
THE MIND POLLUTERS by Jerry R. Kirk. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985. 221 pages. Paperback; $6.95.

ADAM AND EVOLUTION by Michael Pitman. London: Rider and Company (distributed by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI), 1984. 268 pages. $12.95.

Most of the time, I am content to accept a general theory of evolution as the most likely scientific explanation of the vast body of evidence available to us and to remain open to the unravelling of mysteries in the future, even though I realize the many scientific and possibly theological problems that attend such a position. There are two major occasions when such a quiescent attitude deserts me: (1) when I read committed evolutionists who go out of their way to assure me that all is established fact and that few mysteries remain, and (2) when I read committed anti-evolutionists (a.k.a. creationists) who go out of their way to assure me that nothing is established fact and that there is no way one could possibly imagine that the present world order came into existence by an evolutionary process rather than by a fiat creation. This book lies in the latter category.

The author, a biology teacher at Cambridge with the interesting credentials of an MA in classics and a BA in science, proceeds in a witty and intelligent fashion to repeat what must be hundreds of times a single theme: he cannot imagine how the wonders of the world today could possibly have arisen from a process of evolution. As an alternative, he presents a somewhat ambiguous creationism without deep roots in religious tradition or even in the Bible. In a curious parenthesis near the end of the book, he devotes four pages to outlining the shortcomings of common "fundamentalist" creation movements, in the course of which he indicates a willingness to accept the biblical accounts as myths and dissociates himself from what he terms "Old Testament fundamentalism." Leaning toward a progressive creation perspective, he does not argue for a young earth and ' although he mentions that one of the fundamentalist creationists' challenges is "the validity of radiometric dating," he devotes only nine words to this issue.

For the Christian, there can be no debate about the wonder of this world and its apparent elements of design for human life, nor about the attribution of this wonder to the wonderful work of ". Pitman handicaps his case by seeing everything in black and white. If the origin is not by creation, then it must have happened without God. He concludes his book with the following words:

But the direction of the argument is clear-there has been neither chemical evolution nor macro-evolution. Nor, as some twentieth century churchmen bio-illogically accept, did God involve chance mutations in "creation by evolution." No intelligent creator would leave matters to chance: on the contrary his purpose would be to realize, in plan and in practice, his ideas. Pressing the logic to its conclusion, this book advocates a grand and full-blooded creation. (p. 255)

Confident in his own apprehension of the ways of God, Pitman can make such a sweeping statement in good faith.

The cogency of his case is severely damaged by the introductory chapters that abound in false dichotomies. Following are a few of these misleading philosophical perspectives:

"Did we evolve by chance ... Or are we special?" (p. 13)

"Where there is no spontaneous generation there may lurk a Creator." (p. IS)

" . . . we may even speak of the spiritual evolution of a person-the process by which he strives to free his soul from its fetters of mind and body." (p. 20)

"An atheist believes that evolution is the result of chance. Theistic evolutionists believe God, having created the universe, let purposeless chance evolve life. A creationist, dismissing this hybrid view as absurd, contends that an intelligent creator creates complex machinery, such as a living body, deliberately." (p. 22)

"Today creationists may take a broader view. Only outand-out Fundamentalists hold a literal belief in these versions of creation; others may hold different opinions, or no opinions at all, on the identity of the Creator, but strong views indeed on the reality of intelligence that underlies creation." (p. 23)

"Practically all (clergy) were dismayed at finding God displaced from the centre of creation and chance-blind chance as it used to be called--occupying the throne." (p. 24)

"If creative intelligence is wholly material, are not soul or a Creator figments of erroneous calculation?" (p. 26)

"Were the codes designed, or did they evolve?" (p. 27)

"Darwinians are determined that matter came first, and that mind has arisen from it through aeons of trial and error. The origin of nature was a big bang, not a Generator. For the creationist, mind came first and created matter for its instrument to play upon.... In this way the work could be reproduced again and again without the composer's attention." (p. 31)

"The universe sprang into existence when, at the beginning of time, nothing nowhere for no reason exploded (Big Bang Theory).- or "From mind to molecule; mind preceded matter and created the cosmic drama which it now sustains according to a recognizably lawful programme." (p. 229)

IT'S A YOUNG WORLD AFTER ALL by Paul D. Ackerman. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1986.

My wife asked, "Why do you do this to yourself?" She easily discerned that reviewing It's a Young World After All was not my idea of fun. What you have here is a loose assortment of "creation science" evidences for a young Earth (Exciting Evidences for Recent Creation, as it appears in the subtitle). The geochronological focus here derives from many types of geological, geophysical, and astrophysical considerations. Nearly all of these arguments have been discussed and the corresponding evidences refuted, for example in the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, Creationl Evolution, and volumes such as Scientists Confront Creationism, Is God a Creationist?, and The Fourth Day. Why then bother to sustain the counterpoint at the risk of wasting space in the journal and seeming too reactionary? Answer: Somebody has to do it, ideally one working in the disputed subject areas.

According to the book's back cover, author Paul Ackerman is a member of the Psychology Department at Wichita State University. He is also president of the Creation Social Science and Humanities Society. What better credentials to write on the physical and chemical nature of some time dependent processes! In 131 pages, Ackerman covers not only two dozen or so topics ranging from the old moon dust accumulation problem to polonium halos, but he also gives us his justification for faith in creationism.

Chapter two deals with a perceived scarcity of meteorites in the rock record. Henry Morris'account of this young Earth 11 evidence" led to Paul Ackerman's "conversion." This age argument follows from an estimated influx of meteorites surviving the atmosphere to fall to the Earth's surface. This quantity (nowhere given) is extrapolated through time ("millions" of years) with a result that "many of them" (meteorites) should be discovered in rock strata. On the contrary, even these potential fragments of "countless" meteors would account for an insignificant volume of material in comparison to the total of accumulated earth-sediment. Additional considerations are the complete recycling of rocks both in the hydrologic cycle and in the plate-tectonic dynamo, the very limited sampling of the Earth's outermost crust (including the oceans), and the possibility of the chemical/physical modification of original materials. Given the above evidence, baystack- needle-hunting would be more logically feasible than searching for ancient meteorites. One further note-the fairly recent recognition of iridium anomalies and microspberules within certain strata may indicate that meteorderived substances are more abundant than previously believed.

The only other "evidence" I will bother to discuss here is the curious find of a vertically-oriented fossil whale discovered within a unit of diatomaceous earth in California. The concept of slow, gradual sedimentation is supposedly disproven by the cross-cutting nature of this fossil. Please note that (1) the author obviously has no perception that the sedimentation rate of planktonic organisms is directly measureable and that this rate is exceedingly small in many cases (about Imm per 1000 years); (2) he gives us no idea of the original bedding attitudes of the deposited material; and (3) he does not realize that before solidification into rock, the diatomaceous sediment was in the appropriately-named form of ooze. Upon death, the whale could have sunken into the ooze and thus become entombed. Without further data no one can say more than that the whale died sometime after the millions of diatom skeletons surrounding it.

It is unfortunate that books of this kind make it into Christian bookstores, churches, and evangelical schools without the "balanced treatment" of opposing viewpoints. Ackerman's writing reads like an evangelistic broadside and not a review of scientific evidence. Terms such as "battle," "heroes," "defender," and "triumph" are used in the book's introduction in reference to the conflict between creation scientists and anyone who differs with their dogmatism.

It's a Young World After All and other published examples of the creation science genre serve three harmful purposes: (1) thev are bolsters to those who in cult-like fashion have become committed to a pseudo-Christian doctrine; (2) these are apologetic works which are persuasive to those without the scientific grounding needed to evaluate various opinions; and (3) in their scientific deficiency, these books foster bad stereotypes of Christians as fanatical anti-intellectuals.

Reviewed by Jeffrey K. Greenberg, Associate Professor of Geology, Wheaton College, Wheaton. IL 6-0187.

ORIGINS: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth by Robert Shapiro. New York: Summit Books, 1986, 322 pages. Hardcover; $17.95.

Dr. Shapiro is Professor of Chemistry at New York University, and may be familiar to some readers as coauthor of the book, Life Beyond Earth. The present book is written for a popular audience, but because of the nature of the questions that are asked, and of the search for answers to these questions, a reasonable understanding of science will certainly be required of the reader. The author has generally avoided highly technical terms and tries valiantly to explain difficult concepts by using simpler illustrations. This approach may detract from the value of the book for some, because analogies are never perfect representations of the real truth.

The major character of the book, the Skeptic, continually asks questions such as, "What does the evidence really show?" or, "Are assumptions made that are not really valid?" As a consequence of this approach, the author comes to the conclusion that nearly all of the currently proposed theories for the origin of life have very little substantial evidence to support them.

In a beginning chapter, the author provides an excellent discussion of the role of doubt in scientific endeavor. He emphasizes some of the same attitudes toward science that this reviewer has tried to instill in his own students, and that were emphasized over a century ago by Claude Bernard:

.."our object must not be to preserve a theory by seeking everything that may support it and setting aside everything that mav weaken it. On the contrarv, we ought to examine with greatest care the facts which would overthrow it" (p. 40, An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, H.C, Greene translation), Shapiro notes that this view toward scientific investigation has been forgotten by many today, including a number of those involved in research on origins.

Shapiro is fond of the words "myth" and "mythology", which he carefully defines: "A myth presents itself as an authoritative account of the facts, which is not to be questioned" (p. 34). He classifies the biblical description of creation as a myth because it has to be accepted by faith , without regard to experimental evidence pro or con. He notes, however, that "an idea or account need not be wrong just because it is presented as myth" (p. 34). He classifies many of the current theories for the origin of life as myths as well, because their proponents are so committed to their particular theory that they have lost the capacity to properly evaluate scientific evidence. He draws a parallel to the theory of spontaneous generation of life, which was generally believed prior to the studies of Louis Pasteur. After the work of Pasteur in the 1860's, this theory would have to be classed more as a myth, yet one of its major proponents, the English scientist Henry Bastian, supported spontaneous generation until his death in 1915. Shapiro comments that "a scientific maxim states that discredited theories expire not by the rapid conversion of their followers, but only after the last adherents have died off" (p. 52). He makes some interesting comparisons of the theory of spontaneous generation to current theories on the origin of life.

Although this review is too short to comment in detail about Shapiro's (or the Skeptic's) dismissal of the evidence for current theories of origins, a few major objections follow. (1) In regard to the so-called primordial soup, the most prominent amino acids produced in simulation experiments are glycine and alanine, with only infinitesimal amounts of more complex biomolecules. (2) Investigators always choose experiments providing the highest yield of the desired product. Thus, the intelligence of the investigator has played a major role in the results that have been reported. (3) Current theories for the development of the planet Earth are not in accord with the reducing atmosphere which has been utilized in various simulation experiments for the production of biomolecules. (4) In regard to theories involving either DNA or RNA as the primordial replicating molecules, it is noted that no real evidence has been provided for the production of appropriate precursors in simulation experiments.

Shapiro is just as critical of those who hold "creation science" to be the answer. He questions whether proponents of this view are committed to true science and would classify their views as myth, because they believe in an "authoritative account which is not to be questioned." Although this book does not, in most cases, go into detail with criticisms about particular experiments, it does place considerable emphasis on statistical considerations and probabilities concerning the formation of macromolecules with unique structures.

Shapiro touches on many of the points made previously by C. B. Thaxton, et. al. in their book The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories. Although the latter book is listed in the appendix of the book being reviewed, no mention of the book by Thaxton, et al. is made in the text. Presumably, this is a consequence of the publication dates of the two books being too close together. In many respects, the two books complement each other. The one by Thaxton, et al. is much more technical and includes many structural formulae and equations, even though the two books touch on many of the same major criticisms of origin research. Both books consider carefully the philosophical aspects of this type of research. They differ in that The Mystery of Life's Origin is written by committed Christians, whereas Origins is written by one who makes no such claim. Shapiro's particular viewpoint is probably best illustrated by the following quotation from the book: "Perhaps, if all other explanations should fail, in the end we will have no option but to accept the idea of supernatural forces. Until we reach that point, however, we must look for rational ways of accounting for the data" (p. 200). The reviewer must hasten to add, however, that be believes Shapiro treats religion fairly and with much more understanding than most scientific writers on the topic of origins.

An interesting aspect of the book is the presentation of anecdotal accounts of Shapiro's discussions with various investigators, and of his participation in various conferences devoted to the topic of origins.

After noting all of the criticisms of origins research presented in the book, it should be mentioned that Shapiro feels that research on life's origin should proceed in the direction proposed by A.G. Cairns. Cairns' tbesis is that the precursors of life as they formed were adsorbed on clay or similar mineral structures. These mineral structures developed catalytic activity and a primitive replicative ability. Shapiro notes that there is no evidence at present for this approach, but believes this to be the direction that research efforts should follow. In the reviewer's view, research in the direction proposed by Cairns will be subject to the same criticisms and problems that Shapiro has so ably pointed out for the origins research effort of the past forty years, and such research is no more likely to bear real scientific fruit.

Overall, I believe this is a book that is definitely worth reading. The bibliographic references in the appendix should provide a general guide for additional reading on this and related topics.

Reviewed by Gordon C. Mills, Division of Biochemistry, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77550.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (2nd ed.) by David G. Myers. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1987. 702 pages, index. Hardcover.

Anyone who has taught a social psychology course should be familiar with the name David Myers. (Myers was a speaker at the 1986 annual meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation.) Dr. Myers, who is John Dirk Werkman Professor of Psychology at Hope College, is an award-winning researcher and teacher. His accomplishments are numerous: fellow of four different divisions of the American Psychological Association, author of numerous journal articles, and consulting editor to Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It is only natural, then, that Dr. Myers should author a textbook for the subject at which he is so adept.

Myers wrote this text with the realization that most students taking an undergraduate course in social psychology are not psychology majors, and few of those who are psychology majors will embark on a career in this specialization.

Therefore, the book's orientation does not plunge the student into an abyss of social psychological esoterica. The critical information is presented in a highly palatable style.

Social Psychology (2nd edition) is similar in format to the first edition. It is divided into three major units. Unit I, "Social Thinking," covers the ways that persons process social information about themselves and others. Attitude and attribution theories make up the bulk of this unit. Unit II carries the title "Social Influence." In it the reader will find a cogent presentation of the major techniques and social institutions that, in part, determine our susceptibility to influence attempts directed at us. Cultural influences, conformity, and group influences are predominant in this unit. Finally, Unit III, "Social Relations," introduces the reader to the sometimes contrary nature of human relationships. Aggression and altruism, prejudice and attraction are major topics of discussion.

At the end of each of the aforementioned units, Myers includes a chapter that is designed to apply the information contained in that unit to "real world" problems. This feature is particularly useful, given students' penchant for wanting practicality in their disciplines. The three topics chosen by Myers are all currently "hot." "Social Thinking in the Clinic," at the end of Unit 1, relies on the popular trend of integrating the findings of social psychological research with clinical treatment modes. "Social Psychology in Court," from Unit 11, focuses on the validity of eyewitness testimony and the group processes that play a role in jury deliberation. Finally, in Unit III, Myers tackles "Conflict and Peacemaking."

In addition to its coherent format, this text has a number of features that an instructor would find useful. In chapter one, Myers discusses the role of values in the conduct and interpretation of scientific research, Throughout the text, formal definitions of terms are found in the text margins for easy review by the reader. All chapters contain a "Behind the Scenes" section where selected social psychologists offer their personal thoughts on some aspect of their research. Finally, according to the preface, this edition contains at least 600 new citations. This is truly a new edition.

In summary, Myers' Social Psychology (2nd edition) is a well-written overview of the field of social psychology. I would recommend that instructors of social psychology obtain a copy of this text and seriously consider it for use in their course. It lives up to the fine reputation of its author. For those in any discipline who desire to know more about the world of social psychology, this book provides a good starting place.

Reviewed by David E. Johnson, Department of Psychology, John Brown University, Siloam Springs, AR 72761.

In this informative and closely-reasoned volume, the author sounds a clarion call for radical reform within the discipline of psychology. The changes which she envisions involve a fundamental reconceptualization of the process of studying persons. While intended for a diverse audience, this book is not easy to read; however, it certainly merits the effort required to digest it. I have read and reread it repeatedly, each time with deeper understanding and additional benefit.

Foundational to discerning the message of the book is a recognition of the dual thrust of its title, The Person in Psychology. The author has concerns both for the persons whom we study and seek to better understand, and for those who engage in this research. In the service of these concerns, she very capably exposes the fallacy of proceeding as though our human research subjects are objects to be manipulated, while the researchers themselves, also human, are autonomous agents, free and self-conscious. Consequently, the reforms she proposes involve major changes in our view of both these groups of people. According to the author, we need models of human nature which can do more justice to our agency and reflexivity. We also need a more honest conceptualization of ourselves as researchers, based on an admission of the extent to which our own values and assumptions colour the functioning of our supposedly objective science.

I believe that the author displays a good deal of wisdom in that, while strongly promoting radical change, she does not lose sight of the need for balance. For example, in seeking to correct a reductionistic conception of people, so common in the traditionallv "hard" areas of the discipline, we must not rebound into tiie opposite error of regarding individuals as autonomous to the point of self -deification. Similarly, as the positivistic view of science gives way to a more honest .. post-modern" philosophy, which will permit and even encourage candid discussion of control beliefs and assumptions previously undisclosed, we must somehow avoid the anarchy of complete subjectivism. These notes of caution are illustrative of the balanced thinking that characterizes the whole volume.

In the last chapter of the book, the author appeals to us to adopt an interdisciplinary approach in our work. She reinforces this plea by her own example, drawing from philosophy in chapter one, from history in chapters two and three' and from theology in chapter four. Armed with this background, as well as with the grid of varying Christian approaches borrowed from Stephen Evans and summarized in chapter five, she then proceeds to critique five of the major areas of psychology, examining each of them through the lens of a Christian world view. This second section forms the meat of the book. She is clearly most at home in social psychology and behaviourism, skillfully critiquing salient topics in these areas. But she brings thought-provoking insights to the reader in the other areas as well, including a disturbing second look at the western view of "intelligence" and the outline of a biblically-based personality theory-not bad for someone trained in social psychology!

While the author attempts a fair presentation of a range of Christian positions, she admittedly has most sympathy for a "humanizer of science" approach. In fact, I suspect that her priority agenda item may well be encouraging all of us who do research to make room for and give a fair chance to human cience methods. While she does not explain very thoroughly what these will involve (and I truly hope that she or someone else will do so soon), the example of the Kitwood research on adolescent values helps to convey at least a flavour of the proposed new paradigm.

I find it difficult to identify weaknesses in this work beyond those that reflect my own biases. Personally, I found the two chapters on history to be of limited value, and I think that the discussion of cognitive psychology is not as balanced and representative of the field as it might be. Otherwise, my only real concern is that the book makes tough reading, which might discourage some people from completing it. However, the effort required reflects more the intrinsic complexity of the issues presented than any unclearness in their expression.

I take my hat off the Mary VanLeeuwen. Although I have perspectivalist leanings myself, she has stimulated me to think long and hard about the adequacy of this view and the possibility of an alternative approach. The mine of this volume is deep, but the treasures of insight to be unearthed are indeed of great value. I heartily recommend it.

Reviewed by Harold Faw, Trinity Western University, Langley, B.C., Canada V3A AR9.

PSYCHOLOGY by David G. Myers. New York: Worth Publishers, 1986. 693 pages. Hardcover; $34.00.

David Myers is an outstanding Christian scholar. He is a professor of psychology at Hope College, and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. The APA presented Dr. Myers with the Gordon Allport Prize for social psycholgical research in 1978. He has authored Social Psychology, The Human Puzzle, The Inflated Self, as well as other books and articles in more than two dozen journals.

Psychology is an introductory textbook for a college course in general psychology. It has a good selection of topics which covers the essentials of the discipline in a logical sequence. It is well written, interesting, and well organized. The graphs, charts and pictures are communicative and helpful for both students and instructors. There are also complete assistance materials for the teacher including overhead projector transparencies, test questions, a teachers' guide and a student workbook. The support material is a major strength of the text.

Psychology is an objective text in the presentation of facts and theories. It raises interesting, important and thought-provoking discussion topics for classroom interaction. It is intellectually honest and current in its content. It also avoids remarks critical of Christian faith, and the sexually explicit illustrations common in so many textbooks. The only weakness is its price.

Myers' book is a thorough tool for the instruction of college students and an excellent resource book on the broad field of psychology. I recommend it above all textbooks I have used. I time I encouraged him to continue the project-all to no know of no other text with so many plusses and so few reservations.

Reviewed by Dr. Billy R. Lewter, Professor of Psychology, Palm Beach Atlantic College, West Palm Beach, FL 33401

SCIENCE IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT by A. Hunter Dupree. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, 1986. 481 pages. Paperback; $14.95.

The original edition (1957) had the subtitle, "A History of  Policies and Activities to 1940."  Its purpose was "to trace the development of science in the United States.  " The current one deletes the time limitation "to 1940." Nevertheless, despite this come-on, it is essentially a reprint with an additional 10-page preface about the subsequent 46 years.

As the author has hoped, the original edition was to me "a  guide and a stimulus," quite readable and informative, when I was a member of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The book itself was a result of an NSF grant given in 1953 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences with Dupree as the principal investigator. The project had been instigated by the questionable mandate initially in the NSF Act (1950) that the Foundation should develop a national science policy; this study was to be the basis. The author expressed his own feeling of inadequacy owing to his lack of knowledge of the internal, histories of many federal agencies.

About 20 percent of the book was devoted to the 41 years from the founding (1787) of the Constitution to the perplexing will (1829) of James Smithson, 20 percent to the next 34 years to the establishment (1863) of the National Academy of  Sciences (NAS), 40 percent to the next 53 years to the formation (1916) of the National Research Council, and 20 percent to the final 24 years until 1940. A helpful chronology is at the end (I cannot vouch for its completeness-as a physicist, I noted the omission of the establishment of the National Bureau of Standards in 1901). 

The author's additional preface to this edition consists largely of his personal opinions as he has reflected on perti nent events of the subsequent 29 years. As an NSF retiree, I myself would hardly have selected as three major transforma tions (1953-1955): the shifting of the emphasis from its sponsoring Program Analysis Office to being a primary source of statistics in the federal government; the emerging of social sciences with its subsequent lack of interest in history per se; and the action to combine the history and philosophy of science in the NSF with the latter disregard for historians.

Dupree fails to mention that the NSF actually gave a grant to the University of California, Berkeley, with him as principal investigator, to continue the study from 1940 to about 1960. Several researches by his graduate students were published, but all work stopped abruptly when Dupree transferred to Brown University for personal reasons. From time to time I encouraged him to continue the project - all to no avail.

One cannot, of course, expect any such survey to contain  the details one would require for a study of historical relations. Like any rapid tour, one would need to return to examine the exhibits in more detail. As of this date, the reprint's primary value is that of a classical historical document. I must confess I see little evidence for the author's boastful conclusion in his final paragraph that the nation, enjoying the results of science, has become "more tolerable, more humane, and more able to fulfill its responsibilities to its  people."  Strangely enough, he does not seem to be concerned  at all about education and religion as cultural factors.

Noting the fraying of the scientist's noblesse oblige during World War 11, owing to the availability of multi-billion dollar appropriations, he discusses his own consultant relationship  (1964) with the NAS Committee on Science and Public  Policy. This was a failure, owing to the 1965 report by my  one-time colleague, E. Teller, which advocated the support of  applied sciences in national laboratories. He believes that "in science policy the 1970's were not an inspiring period."  Dupree apparently still has the typical low opinion academics  have of government research, as expressed in his original book where he referred to the "disinterested, cloistered seeker for  pure knowledge and the grubby civil servant chained to mundane, grinding routine investigation." This was precisely my own prejudice until I had first-hand knowledge as a federal employee.

In general, I believe Dupree has little appreciation of the  limitations of natural science and an exaggerated notion of  the potentialities of the social sciences. He feels that the social sciences have survived because they "avoid the appearance of having a policy of their own." He hopes, possibly through  so-called technology assessment, that "every research project,  no matter how narrowly focused on physical hardware, will have an environmental and a social science evaluation built  into it"-an aspiration in line with the American pragmatic
and pluralistic society. He concludes: "in the long run,  science and American democracy will continue to fit together"; a speculative hope unfounded on historical evidence. It ignores the scientific achievements of the past by individuals under various forms of government.

Reviewed by Raymond J. Seeger, retired from the National science Foundation, Bethesda, MD M16.

THE SILICON SOCIETY by David Lyon. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. 127 pages. Paperback; $4.95.

This brief book of five chapters deals with the changes  caused by the silicon computer chip and the information revolution. The author presents some disturbing questions about how these changes are occurring and evaluates the ethical questions imposed by new technology from a Judeo-Christian perspective. A quote from the first chapter (p. 13) summarizes the author's convictions: "The conviction expressed here is that Christian Faith may be applied sensitively to the contemporary world of new technology. It promises no slick solutions, but does offer a badly-needed sense of direction. Christianity's high view of human potential to invent and create (our affinity with the creator) leads us to support the drives towards new technologies as means of opening earth's resources to all."

Each chapter has twenty to thirty references, and the book reads exceptionally well. Computers and their influence in our society is a topic about which all Christians should be concerned. We owe David Lyon a debt of gratitude for presenting the questions to us. The answer of how and what kind of influence computers will have is up to us as Christians.

Reviewed by Fred Walters, Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, LA 70504.

RESPONSIBLE TECHNOLOGY by Steven V. Monsma (ed.). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. 252 pages.

This work from the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship lives up to the glowing review printed on the jacket by Kenneth W. Hermann. The editor has done a good job of integrating the material into a coherent, readable text. The contents of the book are summarized on page nine with the following comments. Chapters I and 2 are the introduction to the topic by defining technology and further developing the focus of their study. Chapter 3 argues against the claim the technology itself is neither good nor evil, thereby strengthening the claim that technology can be done either reponsibly or irresponsibly. Chapters 4 and 5 lay the groundwork for a Christian approach to doing technology. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 consider the scientific, economic and political relationships of technology, deepening our understanding of technology by contrasting these relationships as they are with what they should be if technology is done in keeping with God's normative will. Chapters 9 and 10 consider the technological design process itself, showing how it should be shaped by the normative principles developed in Chapter 5.

The last two chapters (11 and 12) focus on the responsibilities borne by those involved in technology. Since all of us are involved in technology in one way or another, the last two chapters are in essence a call to everyone to live responsibly in an increasingly technological world. In summary, this well-written book makes a significant and much needed contribution to developing a distinctly Christian perspective on then influential role technology plays in our culture, and is recommended to all thoughtful, concerned Christians.

Reviewed by Fred Walters, Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, LA 70504.

SPEAKING IN TONGUES: A Guide to Research on Glossolalia by Watson E. Mills (ed.). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. Paperback; $24.95.

The recently released Glossolalia: Behavioral Science Perspectives on Speaking in Tongues by Malony and Lovekin was met with very positive reviews in the journals I read, and indeed it is an excellent volume. It includes nearly all of the research related to the social and psychological aspects of speaking in tongues, and it has been heralded as perhaps the finest survey on the subject.

Thus it was with some surprise that I learned that another major work on the subject had been released, this one edited by Watson Mills, who has done other volumes on the subject. This book of readings is nearly twice as long as the Malony and Lovekin book, one year newer, and costs less.

A reviewer, cited on the back cover, stated that the book contained "virtually all the important scientific articles on glossolalia, clearly an exaggeration. In contrast, the author states that he includes "a representative sample" of the literature.

Mills' book is a readings' book, in contrast to the literature survey approach of Malony and Lovekin. Thus, the perspective is much broader. Like Malony and Lovekin, the editor attempts to be objective and achieves a careful balance between perspectives. Studies are included which oppose speaking in tongues, others which favor speaking in tongues, while a majority attempt to take a neutral position.

Only two chapters have not previously been published, both written by Mills. These chapters contain some overlap with one another as well as the other chapters of the book. The chapters retain differences in footnotes from the original form. Chapters are abstracted if the original had an abstract, but no abstract is included if the original did not. Biographical background of authors is missing; a serious omission. A name index is included, but not a subject index.

Several interesting chapters are included that are tangential to the topic. I especially enjoyed chapter eleven on Appalachian holiness churches, which includes a brief section on snake-handlers. Chapter sixteen deals with hermeneutical issues, particularly the social context of the Bible. Chapter twenty-three describes linguistic and cultural issues coauthored by missiologist Marvin Mayers. Some eyebrows may lift when higher biblical criticism is used in several chapters.

The book is quite dated. Ignoring the two initial chapters, twenty-three out of the remaining twenty-five chapters are at least ten years old! The other two reprinted chapters were written in 1980. The two "new" chapters by the editor contain only two citations less than ten years old, and the editor's history of glossolalia ends in the late 1960's! Perhaps the age of the chapters is less crucial for the theologically oriented materials, but much has happened in the last ten years in psycho-social research and in the movement's history (for example, Pat Robertson is not mentioned).

In sum, the volume presents solid primary sources which give good background on the subject from several disciplines. Chapters vary from lightweight popular treatments to heavy theological or statistical studies. This book would be a good supplement to the one by Malony and Lovekin.

Reviewed by Donald Ratcliff, Toccoa Falls College, Toccoa Falls, GA 30577.

CHRISTIANITY IN CONFLICT by Peter Williamson and Kevin Perrotta (eds.). Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1986. 147 pages. Paperback; $7 .95.

Three hundred Christians came together in Ann Arbor ' Michigan in May of 1985 to explore the theme "Allies for Faith and Renewal." This was the third gathering sponsored by the ecumenical Center for Pastoral Renewal. As with the earlier two events, selected addresses from the conference have been collected into a volume. The nine contributors represent a diversity of Christian traditions (Orthodox, Catholic, Reformed, Mennonite) and a diversity of roles (clergy, academician, lay person). Yet, all face a common challengeanti-Christian attitudes and cultural patterns-and a common concern-to mobilize the church to renewal in the face of contemporary secularity.

In the introduction, editor Peter Williamson, of the Center for Pastoral Renewal, sets the tone for what follows. The conference participants are allies, despite their religious differences, for they are "galvanized" by a common foe: spiritual powers in rebellion against God, "secular conceptions of the world" which stand opposed to "divine revelation, objective truth, moral absolutes, and the biblical message The decision, therefore, is simple: Whether one's thinking will be determined by the teaching of the New Testament or by the secularized mindset. In this situation of .1 grave urgency," Christians must be challenged to renewal to prayer and to being open to the Holy Spirit. To assist in this enterprise is the ultimate purpose of this volume.

While the articles are not arranged in any perceivable pattern, they fall into three general types. A first group, consisting of the two most helpful essays, deals with political issues. The well-known Constitutional lawyer, William Bentley Ball, broaches the topic of religious liberty in the first article. He delineates two trends in religion cases, notes six particular threats to religious liberty, and then suggests six actions to be taken by Christians. One wonders how a lawyer of his stature can continue to perpetrate the mistaken notion that "the religion of secular humanism became officially installed ... in the public schools" in 1963. Yet, Ball is to be commended for his sane and moderate approach to the problem. He calls on Christians to avoid "silly and irrational" approaches which claim that the judiciary system is in the total grip of the devil.

In a somewhat rambling article, Charles Colson speaks from experience in addressing political power. After decrying both civil religion and privatized faith, he, following Ellul, calls on Christians to see through the "political illusion" that views all problems as political, rather than moral.

Three articles focus on theological issues. Donald Bloesch of Dubuque Seminary alerts the reader to some of the ideologies of the day: conservatism, welfare liberalism, socialism, patriarebalism, fascism, and technological liberalism. He follows Niebuhr in seeing a fundamental contradiction between ideology and faith. Although granting that some ideologies are closer to Christian values than others, those that seem most congruent are often the most seductive, he cautions.

Harold O. Brown calls to task certain current distortions of the doctrine of salvation. Most of these, he claims, either forget the words "of God" or limit salvation to one of its aspects. Brown employs a strained and unhelpful analogy from ancient Greek categories of physics (air, earth, fire, water) to combat what he (erroneously) sees as the four major distortions: pietistic evangelicalism, liberation theology, modernism, and universalism.

The feminist critique of the continuing use of the traditional trinitarian names is examined and found wanting by the only female contributor to the volume, Deborah Malacky Belonick, representative of the Orthodox Church in America to the Faith and Order Commission of the NCC. While her argument, based almost exclusively on patristic writings, is interesting, the article's place in the volume is unclear.

The third set of essays issue warnings to the American churches. Catholic educator James Hitchcock offers a fascinating challenge to evangelicals to learn from the "unravelling of American Catholicism" which came with the church's arrival in the mainstream of American life.

The weakest articles come from three members of the ecumenical community, The Sword of the Spirit, which is disproportionately represented in the volume. Ken Wilson speculates that current crises are part of God's strategy for overcoming the parochialism of the divided Christian denominations. This judgment theme is also sounded by Bruce Yocum. He anticipates further opposition for Christians in society and sees this as the process whereby God will purify the church. In the closing article, Stephen B. Clark, president of The Sword of the Spirit, seeks to asess the status of Christianity in American society by looking to factors that indicate either its advance or retreat. He concludes that a crucial problem is Christian conformity to the world. While not advocating following the example of the Amish, whom he admires, Clark sees a key element in the church's strategy as lying in greater separation, the construction of stronger relational ties among Christians, in order to develop a real alternative to secular society. 

While the essays in the volume are hampered by space limitations, and therefore are not without significant problems, as a whole they form an important challenge to Christians who are settling down in the world. There is a spiritual battle raging, the contributors rightly maintain, one which believers can overlook only at their peril. At the same time, the volume is unfortunately one-sided. The world is seen too much as a scene of conflict. This outlook leads to an oversimplified approach to life that pits the evil against the good, with the good too readily equated with theological conservatism and traditionalism. Yet, the body of Christ is not only served by radicals of the left, whose voices are so readily heard, but also by conservative radicals, whose positions are represented in this book.

Reviewed by Stanley J. Grenz, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, North American Baptist Seminary, Sioux Falls, SD 57105.

THE NEW TESTAMENT IN ITS SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT by John E. Stambaugh and David L. Balch. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986. 194 pages, index. Hardcover.

This is volume two of a nine-volume series edited by Wayne A. Meeks of Yale University entitled Library of Early Christianity. The series explores the Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts within which the New Testament developed. If the volume in hand is representative of the rest, readers from biblical scholars to interested laymen will have access to a massive amount of solid information in language free of pedantry and writing that is a pleasure to read.

Stambaugh is a classicist and Roman historian at Williams College with a special interest in ancient cities and religions of the Roman empire. Balch is a New Testament scholar at Brite Divinity School interested in ethical patterns in the New Testament as situated in Greek and Roman philosophical and rhetorical traditions, and in applying modern sociological questions to the first century.

The authors set out for themselves no little task. Their goal is to:

... discuss the political, religious, economic, and social features of Palestine and of the cities of the Roman empire and synthesize the results of recent scholarly work, to help the reader understand the relationship between the earliest Christians and the world around them.

It is the opinion of this reviewer that they have succeeded admirably well.

The spectrum of biblical studies has been most known by the extremes of claiming the New Testament church to be wholly-other-than the Roman world (fundamentalism) and virually-indistinguishable-from it (secularized liberalism). Happily, this work makes clear that the first century church was made up of people very much a part of their world even while they struggled to be not of it.

There are ten pages of end notes, six pages of chapter by chapter suggestions for further reading, ten pages of subject and biblical index, and sixteen pages of useful color maps.

The authors have shown mastery of much literature as well as a keen sense of humor. I only question their use of the term "Judaizers" as referring to Gentiles friendly toward Judaism but not becoming converts. It is my understanding that the term refers to Jewish-Christians who claimed that Gentiles must obey Jewish Law before becoming true Christians. Otherwise the work is alive with Greco-Roman culture, solid New Testament understanding, and discussion illustrating the sociological imagination.

Reviewed by Larry Riedinger, Sociology Graduate Student, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40215.

THINE IS THE KINGDOM: A Biblical Perspective on the Nature of Government and Politics Today by Paul Marshall. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. 160 pages. Paperback.

The author, senior member in political theory at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, has attempted to do some preliminary work toward the development of what could be termed a Christian theory of government and political action. The intended primary audience is English and evangelical, but this should present little difficulty for American, and even less for Canadian, readers.

Marshall wants to help create a framework within which Christians can be "Cbristianly" political. This framework consists of biblical understandings of the nature of justice, stewardship, humanity, and the modern world with discussions of the welfare state and international relations as major cases in point. These major agendas each have many parts (the table of contents fills a little over three pages!), so the reader is treated to many of the issues involved. While reading I felt as if I had in my hands something akin to "A Prolegomena to Systematic Christian Political Theory," which would be followed by a more massive work analgous to a systematic theology.

As a preliminary work, Marshall does a good job of covering a lot of the bases. The writing is clear and flows well, and the reader is treated to a warm sense of humor.
His general approach is to orient his message in such a way that he succumbs to neither pious promotions of idealizations nor "Christian" political positions which reflect more Right or Left ideology than biblical. He also makes clear his sympathies for and criticisms of those positions.

Finally, Marshall brings up a problem which does my sociological heart good. He discusses the problem of contextualizing Christian action. His answer is solidly Christian political organizations. These are not, however, like Right or Left "Christian" PACS (Political Action Committees). They are more like communities (koinonia) that are small models of the world-wide Body of Christ, and they should maintain an international perspective with brothers and sisters in Christ in other countries.

The only problem I see with the book is a weakness in historical perspective. Marshall points out that evangelicals are weak in political thinking, to which I heartily agree. He then lists nearly two millenia of Christian thinkers who applied themselves to political questions and makes it clear that we ignore them at our peril. He then writes the whole book with hardly any reference to any of them. In fact, most of the noted sources do not strike me as primary sources.

He also seems to have fallen for the current vogue of blaming everything on humanism-ecological disaster, in this case. He seems to think that humanism is a very recent phenomenon and is the prime cause of industrial capitalism's rape of the Earth. However, humanism goes back at least four centuries and some Christian political thinkers were heavily influenced by humanistic thought. John Calvin is a prime example. He also takes no note of the thoughts of Max Weber and R.H. Tawney (the latter an Englishman and a Christian), and their important works dealing with the inseparability of modern rational capitalism and Reformation theology. There is also only the slightest reference to Karl Marx, but that may be planned so that he will not alienate the intended readership.

Despite my historical uneasiness with the book, I could make good use of it as one of the texts in a course on political economics.

Reviewed by Larry Riedinger, Sociology Graduate Student, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40215.

THE ABSENCE OF TYRANNY: Recovering Freedon in Our Time by Lloyd Billingsley. Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1986. 202 pages. Hardcover; $11.95.

According to Lloyd Billingsley, "freedom is the absence of tyranny." It is a scarce commodity in a time when "ideologues" world-wide demean freedom in favor of exalting statism, redistributionism, and authoritarianism-all in the name of "justice." Freedom, says Billingsley, must be fought for-intellectually and militarily. And fight he does. By synthesizing the best of classical conservative social and economic thought (Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, J.S. Mill), the criticisms of respected anti-communist writers such as George Orwell and Malcom Muggeridge, and the writings of neo-conservatives and evangelical conservatives, Billingsley fires a salvo of criticisms at the ideological dismissal of freedom in our age.

Billingsley uses the term "ideology" pejoratively, following the usage of Kenneth Minogue's work, Alien Powers: the Pure Theory of Ideology (1985), which he depends on heavily. Ideologists, whether secular or religious, are enemies of freedom, seeing it as no more than a pretense for exploitation. But the ideologue does not argue logically; instead, his rhetoric is littered with special pleading, ad hoininern fallacies, emotionalism and unconvincing arguments. Billingsley finds ideology infecting Christians and cites examples from the evangelical left (developing the criticisms he made in The Generation That Knew Not Josef [1985]).

With an epigrammatic style peppered with wit, Billingsley has written an insistent and passionate defense of freedom. In so doing he rejects the moral equivalence of "the superpowers," defends the free market, and rails against statist bureaucracies in our midst which he sees as tyrannical in their own regard.

Although he cites Christian sources, Billingsley makes his case largely without the aid of Scripture. He is critical of liberal evangelicals who, he thinks, twist Scripture under the guise of being "prophetic, 11 which "is often a shortcut to a platform of authority as well as a clever way of placing the wildest pronouncements beyond the pale of examination." Yet Billingsley's lack of integration of Scripture weakens his effort and causes him to reject the (supposedly) "ideological" notion of "structural evil" when, in fact, the Bible does speak of collective evil. But it does so without endorsing the ideological errors of undermining individual responsibility, fostering guilt-mongering or advocating suicidal utopian measures. Billingsley's own citations of the statist-bureaucratic structures of the West and the outright totalitarianism of the Soviets are examples of structural evil. The conservative tradition from which Billingsley draws has roots in biblical sources that he has not fleshed out.

Although the book is not lacking in documentation, Billingsley has primarily written a manifesto and issued a challenge rather than develop fine-tuned arguments. This does make him vulnerable to oversimplification and overstatement. Yet it also gives him the freedom to explore issues provocatively, catch our attention, keep our interest, and prick our conscience. This book has a vital message: Tyranny is more abundant than absent world-wide. Freedom needs to be preserved and recovered; it evaporates too easily.

Reviewed by Doug Groothius, Research Associate, Probe Ministries, Seattle, WA 98105.

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson and the other signatories to a new nation's Declaration of Independence, could state forthrightly and categorically: "We hold these truths to be selfevident ... that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights It is a commentary upon our times that the book Human Rights and Human Dignity must now be written to reconstruct that once self-evident truth.

John Warwick Montgomery is well-qualified to write this definitive Christian apology for the metaphysical foundation of human rights and human dignity. Montgomery is Dean and Professor of jurisprudence at the Simon Greenleaf School of Law, Orange, California, and Director of its annual summer program at the International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg, France.

In addition to the LL.B., Montgomery holds eight other earned degrees, including an A.B. with distinction in Philosophy (Cornell University), a B.D. and S.T.M. (Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio), a M.Phil. in law (University of Essex, England), and a Ph.D. (University of Chicago). He has authored "over one hundred scholarly journal articles and more than thirty-five books in English, French, Spanish and German. "

Montgomery's credentials in philosophy, theology and law are most evident in this work. It is a scholarly study of the first order. The primary audience for this book will be other like-minded scholars and students intent upon a sing lar critique in the field of human rights. The generous resources (440 in all), appendices of major international human rights declarations, and list of further readings give the serous inquirer a well-spring of research material.

The book moves from a statement of need and present human rights protections to a broader evaluation of accepted human rights philosophies. Montgomery raises and discards, in turn, such secular philosophies as Compte's relativism, Bentham's utilitarianism, Hart's realism or legal positivism and its successors, various rationalistic systems flowing from Kant, and the Marxist view of human rights.

Montgomery finds each humanistic philosophy lacking in its basic proposition of an absolute or ultimately inviolable standard for human rights or human dignity. The lack of a higher view of mankind leaves open the "floodgates to indiscriminate rights for fauna, flora, and even inanimate objects." Montgomery finds these approaches to be fatally flawed by relativism, since the source of hum-an rights must invariably become mankind's individual conscience or society's collective sensibilities.

While all of these systems posit a framework for the existence of basic human rights, none satisfactorily answers the issue of a motivation for enforcing these rights in a social order. " . . . (I)t is ultimately the human heart that holds the key to respect for others," concludes Montgomery, Once again, "the philosophers have shown themselves to be long on the questions and short on the answers."

Montgomery posits his answer to this void in the closing chapter of the book. Universal rights and human dignity were conferred upon mankind by the Creator in the creation. Mankind alone received the imago Dei. Our motivation for enforcing the rights of others comes from the act of redemption, We have received grace and are now called to become, as Luther said, a "little Christ" to our neighbors.

Montgomery uses two chapters between his stated problem and solution to develop the "essentiality of transcendence" in finding a basis for human rights. First, be critiques the various .1 religious" solutions to the human rights dilemma. Montgomery rejects Buddhism (depends on man's goodness), Islam (fatalistic, chauvinistic), Judaism (legalistic burden to the human spirit) and classical religions (lack specifics). In the second, and determinative, chapter, Montgomery proposes a 11 revelational solution." He chooses the rubric of law and the rules of evidence to "prove" the reliability of Scripture and the revelational veracity of Christ's person and witness. It is a curiously forthright evangelistic chapter in the middle of a laborious philosophical dissertation. Upon the weight of this logic, however, depends the remainder of Montgomery's rationale for universal human rights and human dignity.

The reader searching for an action agenda or an international blueprint for human rights cooperation will be disappointed. Montgomery finds no worth in the idea that God has used a general revelation to develop a human rights catalogue from secular or relativistic philosophies. In the last chapter, Montgomery also separates himself from process theology, existential theology, situationalism, liberation theology, monasticism, and neo-Calvinism (Barth, Moltmann). He does appear to embrace Lutheranism, however, with both its view of God's covenant with man as the source of human rights and its allowance for one to suffer an injustice even while seeking a right for another. "The activist obnoxiously pushing for the futherance of his own rights and interests is replaced by the Christian employing his full energies to defend the rights of others. "

As an uncompromising remonstrance for a Christian definition of human dignity and human rights, the book persuasively accomplishes its task.

Reviewed by John Brown, III, President of John Brown University, Siloam Springs, AR 72761.

Despite his imposing credentials, Barrett, in style and sympathies, is a philosopher for the common man. He writes so that the musings of philosophy may be understood in the street, and so that the experiences of ordinary people may enrich philosophy. He is a notable part of a generally welcome trend toward an appreciation of the truth found in everyday life.

Death of the Soul is largely a lament over how far theories of mind and self have come from our experiences of these things. Barrett reviews the last 350 years of Western philosophy, a period in which "the labor of a good part of our culture has been reductive: to undermine the spiritual status of the human person." His focus is on major philosophers: from Rene Descartes, who dreamed of mathematical certainty and wrenched conscious man from the machine of nature; through Immanuel Kant, whose reasoned attempts to reconcile moral man with a vast, amoral universe resulted in the separation of reason from faith, and science from religion; to present day promoters of artificial intelligence, whose mechanical models of the mind complete the death of the soul-in theory, that is.

His simple point is that philosophy could benefit from a heavy dose of common sense. His major plea is for us to stay in touch with the "I" of human experience, the actual and real person who experiences life as a unity of thoughts, feelings, sensations and creative ideas, and for whom God is real.

The book flows in the direction of a reconciliation: of man with nature; of philosophy with real life; of past insights with present dilemmas; of scientific understanding and spiritual longing; of God and society. Such a reconciliation would clearly benefit the modern philosopher, nervous about the implications of an immaterial consciousness, and the common man, uncertain of the validity of his faith in a scientific age.

Though the general outline of such a reconciliation is here, the reader's expectations of it are left unfulfilled, met finally with the promise of a " future work." Nor does Barrett clearly distinguish between mind, soul and spirit-distinctions one might expect from a Christian believer. It may be that such distinctions violate Barrett's point that the human being has become too divided in theory. Yet one waits to see how his holistic view may differ from those of Eastern mysticism now emerging in our culture.

In any event, Death of the Soul is a delightful and informative survey. Barrett pulls no punches when it comes to criticizing his colleagues "in a period in which triviality has almost become an occupational hazard among philosophers." His treatment is lucid and occasionally humorous. (Of the diminutive Professor Kant he says: "The good people of Konigsberg would have regarded him differently if they had known the thoughts he was harboring.") And he is never far from the mundane: a sleeping dog is used to illustrate the alienation of man from nature, and a web-spinning spider outside his window to explain the limits of our scientific theories.

For the scientist and believing Christian, Barrett's book provides a sympathetic and scholarly groundwork on which to confront the assumptions of scientific materialism. "We do not understand the mind," he says, "unless we are able to grasp it as part of the total Being within which the human person exists and functions."

The author of this work, a professor of English and poet-in-residence at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, is well qualified to address this topic of importance to ASA members. He is equally at home, it appears, in logic and mathematics (citing from Aristotle to Frege), philosophy (Kant, Hume, Berkeley and Wittgenstein), science (Toulmin, Popper), linguistics, and ethical theory (Moore) as in poetics, literary criticism and English grammar. He brings the soul and mind of a poet to question whether values are real or should be excluded from the actual world as (supposedly) seen through the lens of positivistic science. He speaks of an 11 assumption wiggling within and beneath a woodpile of queries-the assumption that we can know, plainly, facts and that we cannot know value. . . " (p. 27). The refutation of this usually uncontested assumption is the burden of his book. His command of our language enchants even the unpoetic; he speaks of those who "billow the rhetoric," of words that 11 writhe." Yet his efforts will doubtless cause the reader to think twice when using tritely words like fact, value, and the dichotomies subject-object, subjective-objective.

Other interesting sites to visit: (1) He effectively refutes Hume's attempt to locate value in the emotions (chapter 2). (2) He wrestles with proofs for the reality of moral and aesthetic value. In so doing he devastates the usual is/ought dichotomy. "One cannot even say an is-statement, a pure and mere fact, in the sense intended: no statement is pure description, utter description, set free from all value, because statements are evaluations. The problem is not crossing the bridge from the is-statement to the ought-statement. It's getting across the bridge in order to start with the is-

Two final quotes may enable readers of this review to sense Ramsey's attitude toward science as empiricism:

What is true in what the empiricist sees about science is a good bit: Methods, results, discipline, the exclusion from consideration a number of possible judgments and issues. But to assume thereby that those procedures of science are value-neutral is false, and untrue (unfaithful) to science itself. Science is valuable because of virtuous achievement of a difficult kind. A scientific observer is never mere observer, select though he must, since it is the requirements and disciplines and fulfillment of science that sets the parameters and habits of observing. That's true of pure science-the very adjective "pure" suggests the valid ideal of knowledge conceived as a good; and true as much for the investigators at work on something where human choice, morality, valuing, set the end and some of the terms: e.g., cancer research (p. 93).

Since empiricism must adopt, use, and deal with language so to construct its case, and since empiricism in content flatly denies that there is value or truth of value, yet must assume and use the reality it denies at every point of its operations, empiricism is incoherent and incompatible with the real world. What is compatible with language and experience? The reality of value. "But to admit that much is to open the door towards theism, toward Christianity."

Yes, it opens it wide, an opening which explains some of the fierce resistence to the move (p. 103).

Ramsey's book will be appreciated by scholars of many fields. It is must-reading for men and women of science.

Reviewed by Gilbert Brewster Weaver, John Brown University, Siloam Springs, AR 72761.

in the preface of this book, we have Travis'stated purpose for writing: "Christianity without hope is an impossibility. But hope for what? Hopes expressed in the New Testament raise difficult questions both for the reader seeking to understand what the authors meant and for the interpreter attempting to convey what those hopes can mean for us today. I have tried in this book to analyse significant contributions to the modern debate about these questions, to draw attention to some key issues, and to indicate some conclusions of my own.

This publication is available in microform from University Microfilms International. Call toll-free 800-521-3044. Or mad inquiry to: University Microfilms International, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 4810&

Travis says that "eschatology is a slippery word because its meaning has been changed so much that it is in danger of being meaningless." He uses eschatology to mean such things as the "parousia" (the Greek word for the second coming of Christ), the resurrection of the dead, heaven and hell. Focusing on the past twenty years, Travis also gives particular attention to increasing the reader's understanding of the apocalypse and its place in the discussion. He emphasizes that all of these aspects of eschatology are related to each other because they are all related to Christ.

Those whose views are discussed include Gerhard von Rad, P.D. Hanson, R.J. Bauckham, Ernst Kasemann, J.D.G. Dunn, Wolfhart Parmenberg, Jurgen Moltmann, Carl E. Braaten, Rudolf Bultmann, C.H. Dodd, J.A.T. Robinson, Oscar Cullman, W.G. Kummel, John Hick, Paul Badham and John Macquarrie.

Although Travis does not agree with all insights of the apocalyptists, he urges the reader to consider three of their basic beliefs: the meaning of history can only be found beyond history; human life can only find its true fulfillment in a transcendent future beyond death; and all people stand subject to God's judgment.

The discussion of the parousia includes realized eschatology and inaugurated eschatology. Travis acknowledges that the apocalyptists are right in their emphasis that with the coming of Jesus the salvation of God came to men in a new way: the kingdom of God has arrived; but, because of their abolition of the parousia, the question of the future of Jesus Christ and the question of the goal of history are left unanswered. Travis agrees with Aldwinckle that the parousia will be an event that marks the climax of our present historical order, but will itself be beyond history in that it will introduce a new order discontinuous with the present course of history. The parousia will be a meeting between a real Christ and a real community of people.

The main purpose of the chapter on the judgment of God is to evaluate the various views on whether salvation will be experienced by all or only some and to suggest a coherent understanding of divine judgment. Travis states that the final judgment is God's ratification of the relationship or nonrelationship with him which individuals have chosen in this life. If they have fellowship with God now, they will enter into a fuller experience of his presence then. If they do not know him now, they will not know him then. If this is so, we can see that both heaven and hell are best thought of not as reward or punishment for the kind of life we have lived, but as the logical outcome of our relationship to God in this life. Travis cautions us to not become dogmatic about the specifies of the future life because of the ambiguity of biblical evidence. He says that while the New Testament clearly teaches the seriousness of judgment based on our moral choices, it does not encourage us to be dogmatic about the fate of any particular individual. There is room for differences of opinion, room for reverent agnosticism, but also for worship, action and hope in the light of "what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him" (I Cor. 2:9).
Reviewed by Emily Egbert, Lebanon, PA 17042.

WHO DO AMERICANS SAY THAT I AM? by George Gallup, Jr. and George O'Connell. Philadephia: Westminster Press, 1986. 129 pages. Paperback; $9.95.

On the cover of this book there is a come-on: "What Christians Can Learn From Opinion Polls." Statistical data are given in 35 tables and are based on a combination of the findings of the Schuller Ministries Studies, a special Gallup Poll, the Princeton Religion Research Center, the U.S. Census Bureau, et. al. It is regrettable that there is no indication here of the size of each sampling or of the total number of respondents, or of the statistical validity in each table, or when data collected under different conditions has been combined.

After the authors give some brief historical insights, they venture some thoughts about the lessons that can be learned with respect to American's beliefs about Jesus Christ. "Did Christ live?" Ninety-one percent said that He did. "Was He God?" Seventy percent said that He was. Forty-two percent believed Jesus was God incarnate, but twenty-seven percent viewed Him as divine only in the sense of being the "best man." Forty-one percent said that Jesus' most appealing personality trait was love for humankind.

I personally question the assumption that "polls can accurately reflect who believes 'what"' inasmuch as most questions are hardly definitive; there is no certainty as to what is intended or as to what is understood by the respondents. The answers, too, have to be subjectively interpreted. The authors, therefore, supplemented the formal questionnaires (the big picture) with informal interviews (the little picture). Along this line the authors then consider "Jesus as Viewed Through the Ages," based on the view of eleven historical figures.

Next is a chapter on "Jesus' Influence on Americans Today" which also exhibits the uncertainties associated with self-analysis. As people get older they tend to express more satisfaction with Jesus. Respondents were asked to select four of sixteen suggested answers as to the "Most Important Ways to Try to Follow Jesus": forty-eight percent selected obeying the Ten Commandments; forty-four percent, forgiving those who have wronged you; thirty-four percent, putting others' needs before your own; thirty-one percent, living so as to draw others to Jesus.

The report states that "a concerned laity can be a powerful influence in church affairs." It notes, however, that only ten percent feel that they are "very close" to following Jesus. Thirty-seven percent said that they needed help in putting their faith into practice. They also expressed a need for help to handle suffering and to be more effective parents.

The report suggests that in this atomic age the transition from childhood dependence to perilous adulthood is doubly difficult. Although fifty percent of college students regard religious beliefs as "very important," only thirty-nine percent attend a religious service every week.

In an afterword, R.H. Schuller, admitting uncomfortableness with statistics, advocates a new reformation of ideas for people. What is needed, says Schuller, is some kind of catalytic changing action for an unchanging church. This is a report worth considering despite my own reservations as a student of statistics.

MAKING SENSE OUT OF SUFFERING by Peter Kreef t. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Books, 1986. 184 pages. Paperback; $5.95.

Whenever I read this type of book, I start with high expectations and end with mixed feelings. My high expectations are that the author will say something new, will cast a bright light, will lead us out of the maze of paradox and confusion. My mixed feelings come from appreciation for the author's noble attempt and disappointment that nothing original has been added to the continuing discussion. As a matter of fact, at least twice Kreeft disarms the reader by confessing that he does not know whether his book is different from those already in existence, and furthermore he does not care (pp. 19, 20). His defense: "I think the people who try the hardest to be original end up being silly or else saying old stuff in camouflaged new ways" (p. 19).

However, the fact that there is little new in Kreeft's book does not mean that it is valueless. It has many virtues, among them an easy-to-read, fluid style. The approach is an enticing 11 stay with me until the end and you won't be sorry." It includes a lot of pungent quotations: "From heaven the most miserable earthly life will look like one bad night in an inconvenient hotel" (St. Teresa); "Doubts are ants in the pants that keep faith moving" (Frederick Beuclmer); and " Philosopby is a rehearsal for dying" (Socrates). He quotes most frequently from C.S. Lewis, but Pascal, Dostoyevski and Kierkegaard are favorites also.

The most important chapter in the book is chapter ten, in which Kreef t gives his answer to the problem of suffering. His view is that the Answerer is more important than the answer. The answer is someone, not something. The answer is not a word but the Word; not an idea but a person. Kreeft believes that Jesus did three things to solve the problem of suffering: He came; He transformed the meaning of our sufferings; He died and rose. I am a little puzzled as to why Kreef t thinks this solves the problem of suffering, since these facts about Jesus have been well known for nearly 2000 years, but for most thinkers the problem remains.

Kreeft's ten chapters mostly contain straight prose, but occasionally the author breaks into dialogue with the reader. He has used the dialogue format in five other books which he has authored, because he believes it is a natural mode of communicating to most people. He points out that it was the method used exclusively by Plato. Unhappily, the reader may sometimes feel frustrated, because some of his questions are not asked. Some topics which I think should have received more discussion include: pain and animals, mental illness and suicide, determinism and responsibility, and universalism and the reprobate.

This book has already received high praise from writers Elisabeth Elliot, Philip Yancey and William Kirk Kilpatrick whose comments appear on the book's back cover. Another writer, Sheldon Vanauken, contributes a foreward which commends and recommends Kreeft's book, Because Kreeft writes in such an engaging way, I am happy to add my recommendation. This book will be helpful to the neophyte who is curious, the unbeliever who is searching, and the believer who needs reassurance.

Peter Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. He has several popular books in print including Between Heaven and Hell and Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing.

Reviewed by Richard Ruble, John Brown University, Siloam Springs, AR 72761.

This little book seeks to intensify and develop the arguments Professor Torrance has made in Divine and Contingent Order and Transformation and Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge. The author continues to demonstrate the need for Christian theology to appreciate the kinds of epistemological struggles which have been waged in modern science's efforts to grasp reality in all its depth. A theological science appropriate to the Church in the world's future must apprehend God in such a way that the Gospel is given real expression with the actual truth of the world's nature and being. To this end, four short essays are presented, each with a rather sweeping view of the implications of this need.

In chapter one, three Fathers of the Early Church are highlighted so that fundamental concepts of Creation, Redemption, and the Mind of Christ with the Church are examined together. The Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo, with its implication of the contingent nature and rationality of the cosmos, is explored to point out the significance of the idea of Man in the image of God.

We must learn the value of the Mind of Christ and it is here, claims Torrance, that we can turn to the Fathers and find valuable thought for our own times. St. John of Chrysostom is exemplified as one who, refusing to separate the Creator from the Redeemer, is able to see in Jesus of Nazareth that human being whose mind gives us the kind of light by which we may truly worship God, the maker of all things. It is under the compelling reality of His person that we may be taught to see the world and the creatures of it as God intended them to be or as they ought to be. It is in this light that we may learn how to comprehend both theological and natural science.

This possibility is explored in the remaining chapters. The Word of God as the commanding Voice of God, speaking into existence both the form and the content of what has been made, must be taken seriously for the independence and the freedom of the universe to be taken seriously. This assertion of the Church should be seen as being supportive of scientific culture and, in particular, of the advance in modern science with the realization of the Einsteinian Universe and its grasp of contingent intelligibility and the rational character of contingent reality. Mankind has been crowned as the Priest of Creation as well as of Sacraments, and it is the duty of the race to serve God's love for the world as people of science as well as of faith. It is through the dynamic structure of the Godworld-man relationship, established and sustained by the creative love of God Himself, that we may realize that what has been ruined by sin and evil may be set right by those redemptive orders. This will require, Torrance argues, the restoration of an ontology of mind whose depths have been actually transformed by the Word of God, with the result that the divine order is truly brought to bear upon the structures of created reality so that they are made able to be f aithful to the love and goodness of God even in the face of the appearances of injustice and bad management.

In the last chapter, Torrance gives us suggestions as to what this might mean for university life and education in our culture. I think this is a very timely contribution to our thought, since recent concerns for the level of education in our society and the frequent turmoil and attacks in and upon our campuses continue to grow. The struggle to relate our thought to the reality of God in the world is an on-going battle for which peace and good will are profoundly necessary. If we fail to provide those atmospheres in which this struggle can be made, if we fail to nourish that kind of integrity and faithfulness intrinsic to both theological and scientific creativity, then we have failed to effect that kind of reconciliation our fragmented society requires. This wholeness is the only means the world possesses in order to achieve the in-depth kind of healing we require in our time.

Reviewed by John McKenna, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA.

THE MIND POLLUTERS by Jerry R. Kirk. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985. 221 pages. Paperback; $6.95.

I must admit that I began reading this book with more than a few images in my head of book burnings and witch hunts. I thought that, at the very least, I owed it to my profession to remember the coursework in civil liberties, my "sophisticated" understanding of the First Ammendment, or my "informed" grasp of the subtle nuances of social and political pluralism in a free society. When I read chapter one ("A Time to Stand"), the author's account of his personal struggle, and of his eventual, reluctant involvement in anti-pornography politics, I was reminded of similar passages in Jerry Falwell's Listen America! and became further convinced that this book would be something less than challenging. However, not only was I surprised, I was convicted and convinced.

Jerry R. Kirk is the pastor of the College Hill Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and president of the National Coalition Against Pornography, He has written this book for a lay audience. It is not, therefore, a sociological treatise, nor a thorough theological exposition; but, refreshingly, it is not an emotional tirade lashing out at pornographic straw men of its own creation either. Rather it is a simply-stated, compelling case for action against obscenity and pornography.

Part I details what Kirk calls "A Survey of the Damage." His premise for this section is that most mature Christians have not, with good reason, involved themselves in pornographic materials. In fact, in his experience, Christians do not envision much beyond the "soft porn" of Playboy. They have become, according to Kirk, victims of a desensitizing marketing technique which presents pornography in healthy, beautiful, and photographically-appealing packages. Consequently, most Christians do not really realize the extent of the sexual perversion and debauchery presently available.

Kirk illustrates his points only insofar as he must, but it is enough. Even without pictures, printed descriptions of mutilations, child abuse, beastiality, and sadomasochism make moving, disturbing, even sickening reading.

Part 11 is entitled "Action Plan for Change." Kirk details a step-by-step approach for dealing with pornography and obscenity in one's community. In it he reveals political sophistication and a developed sense of effective relations with the press. Here again, the advice does not lose credibility through an emotional delivery, but is offered in rational, experience-backed observations.

2. Obscenity and pornography are not harmless ideas to which some subscribe but are a threat to the moral climate of society.

3. Obscene and pornographic materials promote the promiscuous use of drugs and attack family life.

4. Obscene and pornographic materials cause sex-related criminal behavior.

Some of the researchers he quotes stop short of the cause and effect assertions Kirk seems comfortable with in the pornography- to-crime sequence. But Kirk argues, like air and water pollution, moral pollution affects us all.

Whether the Christian reader agrees with all of Kirk's assumptions or wishes to fine-tune them, he or she will find much in this volume to provoke thoughts. If the reader recognizes a pornography or obscenity problem in his or her community, this book is an excellent springboard to intelligent action.

Reviewed by Rex M. Rogers, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Cedarville College, Cedarville, 01145314.