Wipf and Stock has generously agreed to let me post my 2016 book Christianity for Doubters on my website now, so you can download the entire book here.
Although I tried to avoid theology as much as possible in my 2015 Discovery Institute Press book, In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design, second edition, in a section entitled “A Theological Supplement” I explained my motivation for wanting to write (later) the more theological “Christianity for Doubters”:
It is widely believed that Darwinism is based on good science, and that those who oppose it simply do not like its philosophical and religious implications. The truth is exactly the opposite. In a June 15, 2012 post at www.evolutionnews.org, Max Planck Institute biologist W.E. Loennig said “Normally the better your arguments are, the more people open their minds to your theory, but with ID, the better your arguments are, the more they close their minds, and the angrier they become. This is science upside down.” The case for Darwinism is weaker every day, and yet Darwinist rhetoric only becomes stronger and angrier; clearly this theory draws its power not so much from scientific evidence as from philosophical and religious convictions. If you really examine the reasons scientists support Darwinism, I believe you will find in most cases that they are philosophical and theological. For example, Darwin wrote [Barlow 1958], “I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished.” Darwin is apparently referring to passages like John 3:18, “He who does not believe is condemned,” which are sometimes interpreted to mean that all non-Christians are “condemned.” If I thought the Christian God were that unfair, I would share Darwin’s view of Christianity, and I might also prefer to believe we were accidents of Nature. But that John did not mean this as a condemnation of all non-Christians is clear from the following verse: “… and this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men preferred the darkness, because their deeds were evil.”
Because it has become obvious to me through the years that support for Darwinism in the scientific world is primarily based not on good science but on the philosophical and theological problems scientists have with what they see as the alternative, I have attempted to deal with some of these difficult problems in a “Theological Supplement” to this book…
Including all these theological chapters in a book on intelligent design would not be appropriate, as it would only encourage those who claim ID proponents do not understand the difference between science and religion. Most of us do understand the difference, we are just interested in both, and so are our critics.
The “Theological Supplement” eventually became the book Christianity for Doubters , the first two chapters discuss Intelligent Design, but the last four are explicitly theological. It is a short book, I hope you can find the time to look at it.
Versions of several chapters and sections have appeared previously at Evolution News:
- Chapter 1. What Is Intelligent Design?
- Section 2.1. Why Evolution is Different
- Section 2.3. Why Similarities Do Not Prove the Absence of Design
- Section 2.4. A New York Times Article
- Chapter 6. Is God Really Good?