Book Critique There areweaknesses in this text that give no strength to Christianity even whennaturalism is exposed. It appears that Bush’s reasoning behind this book is toquestion societies capability in vindicating scientific axioms that persuadeagainst the Christian worldview, a worldview that is more realistic. ConsideringBush’s arguments, even though he is successful in breaking down thenaturalistic worldview with sound and effective evidence to reinforce his stance,he did not refute their perception with sound biblical evidence or theology toshow why Christianity is a stronger and more realistic worldview, causing himto fail regarding the defense of Christianity when given the proper platform.This took place throughout most of the book. Concerning naturalisticworldviews, a growing trend, society has concluded that anything newconstitutes as being the best option needed to solve the issues of the world(ix), as if someone took the time to research every religion known to man,dissected each one individually, separated the good from the bad, then createda new religion with only the good from each old religion. Moreover,Bush authored a book that comprised an assortment of worldviews. Whenattempting to debunk their beliefs, it appears his weakness share a commonalitywith postmodernism. When dealing with vague and disarrayed worldviews, thepotential for contradiction is always there.
He came into this subject with theright intentions, however, his main focus was on the naturalist worldview as awhole, which is hard to define because the naturalist worldview exists as avirus that reacts differently with each person it inhabits. The most effectiveway to respond to something of this nature is to dissect it section by sectionbecause of its inorganization. It appears different in everyone based on theway they say naturalism. Unlike Christianity, following a set of beliefs thatremain the same and were never intended to change, naturalism is all over theplace, making it harder to tackle, which is something Bush intended on doing.This was a battle he took on alone. There was no real relation done to compareor contrast the theories leaving the reader confused regarding whether he wastrying to help them find the better option, or just show the world howpreposterous it is to believe in naturalism. Inaddition, it can be assumed by the audience, if they do not read carefully,that this is not authentic based on the lack of clarity as well as citationsthroughout this work.
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Although he discussed the fact that they put all hiscitations at the end of the book, instead of throughout, so they would havemore room on the pages (12), it still causes the book to be weak because peoplemust search for the matching footnote to the work they are trying to researchwhich is not only time consuming, but tedious as well. Eventhough Bush shows various weaknesses within the method chosen to evaluate anddissect naturalism, his strength resides in his portrayal of the evolutionarytheory and their many weaknesses. The beforementioned worldview was not theonly worldview in his critical grasp, but also Christianity and how someChristians are conforming to the ways of other worldviews, mixing the two, whenGod already forbade that and spoke against conformity. He stated how they havethe desire to retain their commitments to Christianity, but hold the biologicaldata presented by secular humanists as truth, simultaneously (32).
Hisstrongest argument deals with God, humanity, and how truth cannot be evaluatedobjectively when God is absent, which can be found in chapter three. Furthermore,even though the impression is given that the sole purpose of this book isdiscrediting secular worldviews as well as scientific worldviews superficially,he also assists Christians by preventing them from conformity, which would becompromising to their own beliefs. Being a Christian and conforming to anotherworldview simultaneously is unacceptable to God. There can be no acceptance oftwo conflicting beliefs when it comes to Christian Apologetics. Last, whencompromising the Christian faith, it shows other worldviews that the biblicalprinciples found within the Bible aren’t one hundred percent true, causingbiblical inerrancy to be abandoned.
Anotherstrength of Bush’s is that he gave an effective account for history andevolution concerning the modern worldview. He chose certain notable people inhistory to discuss the development of the advancement theory. Additionally, inheritedknowledge as well as the collective experience were introduced, which basicallymade the claim that outside of the knowledge people acquire, some knowledge islearned and comes through the mind unconsciously (30). On top of discussing thecreators of the advancement theory’s history, the way he repudiates thearguments they hold true is astounding. Conclusion Toconclude, The Advancement has the potential of being beneficial to manyChristian Apologetics as well as the Christian worldview, but it depends on theway in which they interpret what it is they read, because no matter thestrength of any argument, everything can be refuted. The account Bush givesconcerning the development and history of various worldviews were very good.
The language Bush chose to use is easy to understand with effective factualevidence the Christian worldview can apply to their life as well as defense forChristianity. This was an overall good read, with the exception of theplacement of the footnotes.