Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution and a Rational Faith

The divine comedy Creationism

Running gags

Biblical literalism Young/Old Earth Intelligent design Creation scientists

Jokes aside

Radiometric dating K-Pg extinction event Grand Canyon Diamond

Blooper reel

Information theory RATE Creationist mathematics Vestigial structure

Evolutionism debunkers

Ray Comfort Kurt Wise William Dembski Jason Lisle v - t - e

Great and terrible Books

On our shelf:

Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity Liars for Jesus Not in Our Genes Le Livre des Secrets Trahis Literature P. L. Travers

Writer's block

Ravi Zacharias Philip Snow Nate Silver Rupert Sheldrake John Gray Max Weber v - t - e

Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution and a Rational Faith (ISBN 9781586172121) is a Christian theistic evolution book, written in 2007 by one Christoph Schönborn — an Austrian cardinal of the Catholic Church.

The main claim of the book is that science is "incomplete" without woo spirituality, and that specifically the Christian God (out of all potential deities) is somehow guiding all natural processes.

Overview

In his book, Schönborn accepts evidence for evolution and common descent and claims that these scientific theories are compatible with Catholic belief. So far, so good.

Beyond that the troubles begin, however. Schönborn denies the "neo-Darwinian" interpretation of evolution, seeing evolution not as a random process, but as a directed one.

While Schönborn claims that his views do not conflict with the theory of evolution, his arguments essentially parallel those of your standard IDiot — most notably in his attempts to replace natural processes (read: scientific theories that actually have explanatory power) with "God".

Reception

Schönborn is not only not a scientist, but indeed a faithful theologian.

As such, the book has been described not as a scientific, but a religious book — marketed towards Catholics who want to buy the conclusion that their Christianity still makes sense, whilst also (most wisely) accepting evolution.

See also

• Random Designer: Created from Chaos to Connect with the Creator
• Can You Believe in God and Evolution?: A Guide for the Perplexed
• Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution