Creation and Evolution, by Lenn E. Goodman

Veysel Kaya


Creation and Evolution, by Lenn E. Goodman (London & New York: Routledge, 2010), 222 pp., ISBN 978-0-415-91381-2, £24.99 (pb)

(First paragraph)

In the heated discussions about the relationship between religion and science, Stephen Jay Gould’s (d. 2002) offering, known as NOMA “Non-Overlapping Magisteria,” has been met with a myriad of reactions. His formula had suggested that, as completely two distinct realms, religion and science address two complementary aspects of human knowledge, the first about the ultimate meaning of universe and moral values and the other about the empirical outcomes. Whoever wants to mix these two would be mixing, in Gould’s own words, “apples and oranges.” Leaving aside his emotional description of the subject in Rocks of Ages, along with occasional statements such as “with all my heart,” “brings tears to my eyes,” etc., Gould’s main thesis hardly conforms with the historical development of religious disciplines. The history of religious ideas is a history of rationality; one need not be a specialist in a religious discipline to see that every religious standpoint applies certain mechanisms to justify its fundamental principles on a rational basis. Rationality brings about the doctrine of the unity of truth, whether it comes from divine intelligence or the human mind, a notion that underpins the overall metaphysical and epistemological structures in the Medieval Period. ...

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Ilahiyat Studies: A Journal on Islamic and Religious Studies, 2009-2019 eISSN 1309-1719

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