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Eerdmans | 2020 | 328 pages | (paperback) | $39.99
For the purpose of introducing the current dialogue between specifically Reformed theology and evolutionary theory (1), this book serves admirably. As to its purpose of demonstrating that Reformed theology and evolutionary theory are compatible (5–6; cf. 266–67), this book will encourage some while others will remain unpersuaded. Both groups should appreciate the book’s calm, careful, and candid engagement with the “tough questions” of science and faith. I wonder, however, whether in its attempts to allay doubts about compatibility, the book has opened the door to a deeper, more intuitive doubt. More of that below.
Gijsbert van den Brink, who holds the chair of theology and science in the Faculty of Religion and Theology at the Free University of Amsterdam, sets as the heart of his task resolving the following tension: “The Reformed highlighting of the central role of the Bible . . . goes hand in hand with a preference for interpreting the Bible—including the Old Testament—as literally as possible, and thus raises the question of how evolutionary theory can be brought in line with a ‘plain’ reading of the Scripture” (31; cf. 73). He says of himself, “I am inclined to accept the theory of evolution. I do not embrace evolutionary theory as if I were emotionally attached to it, but I accept it as the most plausible scientific theory to date to explain the earth’s biodiversity” (4). By “evolutionary theory,” van den Brink does not mean “evolutionism,” a wholly naturalistic worldview. Rather, he claims that evolution refers to the “one specific mechanism” whereby biological adaptation and speciation occur; namely, “natural selection based on the occurrence of phenotypic variation within in species” (35–36). Following Thomas B. Fowler and Daniel Kuebler, van den Brink distinguishes among “three levels of evolutionary theory.” The first level, “Gradualism,” refers to the gradual development over a long period of time from simple things to more complex things (37–47). He notes that at this level “there is no implication . . . that the various species originated from one another” (36). The second level, “Common Descent,” refers to the “Comprehensive Family” that all life on earth comes from a single, common ancestor. The third level, “Universal Natural Selection,” refers to the famed “Darwinian Mechanism,” typically called “survival of the fittest” though it more accurately means the “survival of the most well-adapted organisms” (59).
He notes that the first two levels hold a strong consensus among the scientific community (excepting those who, for reasons of their reading of their religious texts, take issue with them), but that the third level does not hold such a strong consensus in the scientific community. On this point, “Contemporary Darwinism is far from a monolithic unity” (60). He is also quick to note that this does not mean that evolutionary theory is itself in crisis, as not a few religious apologists have claimed. It does mean that the mechanism by which evolution takes place is seen as debatable. In any case, for the remainder of the book, van den Brink asks readers to think “as if” these three levels of evolution were true and what this would mean for Reformed theology.
What does he mean by “Reformed theology”? He first notes that Reformed theology is orthodox Christianity. That is, it is not so much its own separate religion; at its core, it is consistent with, indeed is an organic growth from, its catholic heritage. It ought to be thought of “as a specific stance—that is, an intensification of some theological doctrines, commitments, and even debates,” rather than as separatist or sectarian in its teachings (21). One of those “intesifications,” and the one he identitifies as the best candidate for a “leading motif” of Reformed theology, “is the famous adage, ecclesia reformata semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei— ‘a Reformed church should always be reforming according to the Word of God’” (22). Combine this with the likewise intensified Reformed emphasis on God’s “two books” of revelation—nature and Scripture—and Reformed theology appears particularly well suited to take up questions related to evolution and the Christian faith (see 87–88).
Van den Brink thinks that the Reformed tradition lends a flexibility to rethinking our interpretation of, say, the early chapters of Genesis (cf. 97–98). But that flexibility has limits. For example, he argues that there are several readings of the early chapters of Genesis compatible with a “plain” reading of the text and with a long history of animal speciation eventuating in homo sapiens. In these readings, Adam and Eve probably do not refer to the only two and very first two people of the homo sapiens species, but rather to a group or the heads of a group (van den Brink uses the phrase “Adam and Eve and their group”). But this is not to say that Adam and Eve were ahistorical. In other words, he maintains that though we have to adjust what are some typical ways of construing the details of the early chapters of Genesis, it is the essence of Reformed theology that Adam and Eve were historical, that they were endowed with the image of God, that the Fall refers to “an originative event” in which humans willfully disobeyed the voice of God, and that this disobedience carried covenantal effects onward in the human race (183). The true historicity of these events is necessary to do justice to the Reformed understanding—indeed, the Christian understanding—of redemptive history (201–3). Hence, there is flexibility within limits.
In summary, Reformed Christians are called to take evolutionary theory seriously because they take the book of nature seriously. This requires careful negotiation of Christian teaching and evolutionary theory. Reformed theology is particularly suited for this negotiation because of its dual emphases on the two books of God’s revelation and its continually reforming itself in the light of that revelation.
Thinking back to the stated purpose of the book—helping “Christians who want to make up their minds on evolutionary theory as well as for evolutionists who want to make up their minds on Christianity” (1)—I wonder about the degree to which this has been accomplished. It seems to me that the general sense, articulated by C. S. Lewis in the early 1940s—that Christianity must “always be engaged in the hopeless task of trying to force the new knowledge into moulds which it has outgrown”—will still largely pervade among “evolutionists who wish to make up their minds about Christianity.” The compatibility of essential Christian claims with evolutionary theory will no doubt strike an interest among them, and it may even induce their assent. But giving the semper reformanda principle pride of place in Reformed theology will strike many as a clever attempt to maintain an escape hatch: any new deliverances of science may be claimed as compatible with Reformed theology because, after all, Reformed theology is always reforming.
Perhaps, though, van den Brink has an answer to this. This careful negotiation is not a call to revise or reconsider all, or especially the core, of Christian theology. This book’s primary concern is, in fact, to show that this negotiation leaves the core Christian teaching as it is (274). Evolutionary theory helps us (forces us?) to examine the details of these teachings, to be sure. But it does not negate them or transform them beyond recognition. Instead, as van den Brink claims, we “end up with an enriched view of the workings of . . . God’s providence and revelation.”
Joshua Schendel is the executive editor of Modern Reformation.
