Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

By: Ken Ham, Hugh Ross, Deborah Haarsma, Stephen C. Meyer, Stanley N. Gundry, Zondervan, James Stump - editor

Narrated by: Karen Ireland, Samm Musick, John Behrens

Evolution--or the broader topic of origins--has enormous relevance to how we understand the Christian faith and how we interpret Scripture.

Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design presents the current "state of the conversation" about origins among evangelicals representing four key positions:

• Young Earth Creationism - Ken Ham (Answers in Genesis)
• Old Earth (Progressive) Creationism - Hugh Ross (Reasons to Believe)
• Evolutionary Creation - Deborah B. Haarsma (BioLogos)
• Intelligent Design - Stephen C. Meyer (The Discovery Institute)

The contributors offer their best defense of their position addressing questions such as:

• What is your position on origins - understood broadly to include the physical universe, life, and human beings in particular?
• What do you take to be the most persuasive arguments in defense of your position?
• How do you demarcate and correlate evidence about origins from current science and from divine revelation?
• What hinges on answering these questions correctly?

This book allows each contributor to not only present the case for his or her view, but also to critique and respond to the critiques of the other contributors, allowing you to compare their beliefs in an open forum setting to see where they overlap and where they differ.

Figures, a book list, and footnotes are included in the audiobook companion PDF download.

4 distinct views - Great material to think about

I likes having the summary of 4 distinct views in one place. Our world needs more conversation and more actual presentation of ideas and this book did this well. There were somewhat heated responses but clear explanations of the contrasting views

Great overview

The author provides a great and thorough overview of all four viewpoints. Although the author identifies his own viewpoint in this book, he does a great job of remaining unbiased. I noticed this because I lean towards old earth creationism (although I’m not firmly in any camp). This is a different perspective than the author holds yet I found his treatment of all the perspectives very fair. This is also a very helpful read for having conversations with nonbelievers.

A great summary of views.

I was thrilled that someone was able to bring these four points of view together in one book with such important figures, especially for me including Meyer and Ham. Both of these men are tremendous influences in my understanding and appreciation of the glory of God’s creative power and the importance of sharing that with any who will open their eyes to it. I highly recommend this book to people in all four camps as comparison is the mother of clarity. There were some logical and philosophical points scored by all four contributors, but the fact remains that the same evidence is interpreted differently by those looking at amd despite the common refrain to the contrary, “science” has no more consensus on this issue than the Church. Although I am solidly in the YEC camp, I enjoyed the chapters and rejoinders from all parties and came away with new perspectives and a renewed desire to approach this particular issue with grace and to let God’s Truth show me the way, wherever it leads. A sincere thank you to all who worked together on this project to bring a structure for a constructive and thought provoking dialogue on a most important topic!

Excellent Debate

I was new to each of the positions presented in this debate, and felt I was given a balanced view of what each presenter had to say about their topic. Although I agreed with some presenters more than others, I felt each had good points to make, and prompted questions for further exploration. Definitely a good introduction to each position.

It is a good presentation of the ideas

If you have your mind made up, you likely will not change your mind.
You will get a start of an idea of what others think, even if you disagree.

Being in my 60’s and fairly well read, I can understand why certain people think the way they do.
They were raised in that paradigm and it makes sense to them.