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Book Review: The Selfless Gene – Living With God & Darwin
Author: Charles Foster
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
The term ‘Christian evolutionist’ is an oxymoron.
It is a compromising term suggesting the possibility, if not the very existence, of the compatibility of two previously interpreted opposing worldviews.
The Selfless Gene by Charles Foster attempts to reconcile neo-Darwinism with the Biblical account of creation found in Genesis, aka creationism, or intelligent design.
‘Neo-Darwinism’ is defined as a fusion between the original thesis of Charles Darwin with the more modern science of genetics. While valuing that and appraising the science of young earth creationists, Foster attempts to reconcile orthodox Christianity with evolutionary biology and what they both declare about our world, why it is here, the ethical implications of natural selection, and what such a system – based on selfishness, waste, pain and death – might say about the loving creator God of the Christian faith.
If I may respond in modern, youthful vernacular, it’s a ‘fail’, and so much more.
It is an intellectually stimulating read. It is academic in the truest sense of the word, and I doubt not it will find it’s way into many seminaries, as promoted. But it is a sardonic, bemocking and sarcastic attack on the authority of Scripture, and the Creator Himself.
The Good
This book is, indeed, highly readable. I, like many others, found it hard to put down, albeit my reasons were probably different. I’ll mention those later. The Selfless Gene is entertaining. It’s an easy read in spite of the flaunting of paleontological terms and examples with their redundant point being made ad infinitum. There is enough clean, dry humor to satisfy even the most bored, self-deprecating seminary student. And, I admittedly enjoyed, in Christian compassion of course, watching Richard Dawkins get the occasional almost-spanking.
I found it strangely gratifying watching a man attempt to sit on the proverbial theological fence between Truth and Error, attempting to please both sides – admittedly to make both sides angry – all the while throwing rocks at God for His claim on Sovereignty and His omnipotent attributes, charging God to be miscreant, frustrated and throwing His hands up in despondency. All in all, his arguments and philosophical meanderings reaffirmed the scriptural truth of the depravity of man and his enmity towards God. I applaud that truth getting out, so ‘Bravo’ Mr. Foster, for confirming Romans 1…by way of your Oxford education.
The Bad
As mentioned earlier, this book is an attack on Scripture, and our Creator. It is an all out, frontal assault on the authority of Scripture.
A Few Examples:
1. The biblical account of the fall of man
“Long before there was any human Adam around to fall, there was death and pain in the world.” (p. 81)
2. Denies The Genesis account of creation
“Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are wholly distinct but complimentary accounts. There are some barn-door discrepancies between them which indicate, if nothing else does, that the accounts are not intended to be taken literally.” (p.126)
“We have seen not only that the book is neither history nor science, but that it goes out of it’s way to remind us that it is not.” (p. 133)
3. Foster denies creation “ex-nihilo” (out of nothing) (p.133)
4. Foster suggest creation was formed out of pre-existent matter (p.134)
“The subsequent act of ‘creation’ is not the spontaneous generation of matter from nothing – not the production of cosmological rabbits from a divine hat – but a process of remodeling, dividing, ordering, and calling things forth from what already exist.” (p. 135)
5. Foster claims since man was formed ‘from the dust’, there is inherency, and thus, evolution. (p.135)
6. Foster insist creation was disobedient to God’s creation commands (p.139)
“God orders that light and darkness should separate completely. But they do not obey. In the very next verse, we read, “And there was evening and there was morning…” There was dawn and there was twilight. Illegitimately, light and dark were already mingling.”
“Right at the very beginning – if not before the beginning spoken of in Genesis – there are the seeds of rebellion, Or perhaps a pre-existing rebellion has not been completely quelled.”
7. Foster denies that evil, sin and death came through Adam. (p. 146)
“Evil was not injected into a morally pristine world by anything that Adam or Eve did or did not do. There was already a snake in the garden. whispering wicked things.”
8. Foster denies Adam, and therefore man, was cursed by God. (p. 169)
Concerning God’s curse in Genesis 3, Foster declares:
“ Does this contain a sentence of death? Does it strip man of immortality? It seems not.”
I have not even given half of the examples of this author’s theological absurdities.
Conclusion
I was really looking forward to reading this book. Yet I am greatly disappointed. This man’s explanation for pain, suffering and death in the world is unabashedly humanistic, Darwinian. It is a denial of the authority and truth of Scripture. It is a manifesto against God and His attributes as found in Scripture. The Selfless Gene may be better than Richard Dawkins ‘The Selfish Gene’, but this book is still a worldview without the Gospel. It is an explanation of things from a worldly, unregenerate view.
True science is based on the truths of Scripture. If modern biology and genetics were based on scripture, there would be no need for reconciliation with Christianity, because they would both begin with God.
Not Recommended
This book was provided for review, without cost, from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program.
Great review. Looks like I will get to skip this one, thanks for taking one for the team.
Joel,
I signed up to review books for Thomas Nelson when I saw the graphic on your site. This book is one of the choices they gave me for my first review – I’m glad I passed over it and that you reviewed it. It sure seems like Foster is aligning with those who mock God and trust man to explain the creation. Thanks for your service to our great and mighty God.
Well, that’s one I won’t be getting. Glad I passed it over.
Joel,
Many thanks for your review of my book. There are many things I would like to take issue with, of course, but here is just one: a rather important one. You say that I charge God with being the ‘creator of evil’. Er, no. Exactly and explicitly the opposite. The whole book is a defence to that charge. Here, briefly, is the thesis.
(a) If you look at the natural world, there is in it a lot of competition, pain, waste and death.
(b) If you are a traditional Darwinian you say: ‘Of course: and it is precisely those characteristics that are the fuel of the engine of natural selection.’
(c) If you think that God was involved in the creative process, you have to say one of two things. Either (i) that competition, pain, waste and death are not ethically repugnant. If they are not ethically repugnant you then go on to say that a good God could still have used them as fuel for evolution (if you’re a Christian evolutionist)or that he specifically created those characteristics (if you’re a creationist or an adherent of ID). Or (ii) that competition etc are ethically repugnant but that God is not responsible for them.
(d) I think that the suffering etc in the natural world is wholly incompatable with the self-giving, compassionate God that we see in Jesus. I also believe that God created. Accordingly I have to and do adopt (c)(ii) above. I’m really terribly orthodox. I adopt a doctrine of the fall as a explanation, interpreting it as I say that Genesis (rather than millenia of Christian tradition) interprets it), and in a way that accords beautifully with the known scientific facts. I won’t give away the solution here, but it is not one that should evoke horror in even the most conservative.
I daresay that readers of this website won’t, in the light of the review, be rushing out to buy the book. And so they won’t be able to check your references. I looked up p. 85, though, which is where you say I level that terrible charge against God. It’s all about the recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffe and the bamboo-stripping radial sesamoid bone of the panda.
Anyway: thanks for reading the book. I’m glad that some bits of it entertained.
All best wishes.
Charles Foster
You are correct. Page 85 was the wrong reference, and it has been corrected. My apologies. However, your attack on God begins actually in the preface itself sir.
Quote: “It cannot be demonstrated that a designer is necessary.”
Now, with all due respect, you’re attack on the authority of Scriptures is throughout the book, and there are too many for me to quote. And you’re attack on God as the creator of evil begins there as well, it is throughout!
It is my personal desire that folks do not purchase your book for the simple reason that you deny the creation account of Genesis altogether. You would have us believe that Darwinism and the Genesis account can be ‘married’ and that both can exist, and have existed in the past, peacefully. That is theistic evolution, and it is a great error.
God created all things ‘ex nihilo’, without pre-existent matter, and that is what you repeatedly deny to be true.
The statement you make in chapter 1 is quite true:
“Dawkins and the creationists agree, importantly, about something else. They both agree that the theory of evolution by natural selection excludes the existence of God.” Quite right!
However, in chapter 1, you state that creationism is a ‘recent movement’and that, ‘until it reaered it’s head, evolution and Christianity cohabitated perfectly happily.”
Sir, again, with all due respect, the Word of God existed long, long before the humanistic and man-made doctrine of evolution, and quite apart from cohabitating peacefully, they were at odds, no, they were, and are enemies. Truth vs. a lie.
Sir, on page 81, you stated unequivocally, “Long before there was any human Adam around to fall, there was death and pain in the world.”
This, sir, is a falsehood. Death came into existence through the sin of Adam according to Scripture (Romans 5:12). It seems to me you have a problem with the authority of Scripture.
Joel
Joel,
Thank you very much for this.
My position is clear:
(a) God created.
(b) Certainly he created the universe ex nihilo. Commentators differ about whether he created the earth and our corner of the universe ex nihilo. Gen 1:1-2 says (NRSV): ‘In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.’ Accordingly there was something there. That something, of course, was originally created by God, but apparently before the start of the particular chapter of the creation story that is Genesis 1.
(c) He did not create evil. He is wholly good, and could not create anything that is evil. Nowhere do I even begin to suggest that he did or does. The whole book is an argument that he did not.
(d) In the natural world there are some things that I regard as evil: pain, predation, competition, waste and death. Those things are wholly inimical to the nature of God as revealed in Jesus, and throughout the OT God expressly indicates (by the initial vegetarianism, the food laws etc), that he finds them repellent.
(e) The problem then is how to reconcile my belief that God created, with the existence of evil things in the world.
(f) My answer is actually a very traditional one: it is the Fall.
(g) As I detail in the book, this could not have been the Fall of Man: evil was in the garden before the Fall. There was a snake there. There are indications in Genesis 1 that the universe had in it, from the very start, the seeds of rebellion against God. And if you believe the scientific consensus, there was animal pain and death a very long time before there was any historical Adam around to fall. It is to this ancient force, opposed to God, that I attribute the horrible things that we see in the world.
(h) God continued to shape the natural world: he uses the tool not of natural selection (fuelled as it is by pain, waste, competition etc), but co-operation and altruism.
(i) I am emphatically not a theistic evolutionist. A theistic evolutionist believes that God used the forces of natural selection to shape the world. I find that conclusion morally unacceptable – a terrible indictment of God – which is why I wrote the book.
With all best wishes.
Charles
Charles, you just proved my point. Thanks. Death entered thru one man, Adam, see Romans 5. You oppose that Scriptural truth, and by doing so, oppose the Word of God.
Many thanks for your further comments. You will see that Romans 5 is dealt with in detail in the book.
Almost all serious commentators take Paul to be referring to spiritual death, not physical death. And that must be right. Two reasons: (a) Adam and Eve were banished from the garden so that they could not eat the fruit of the tree of life. They were plainly mortal in the garden. (b) As a matter of incontestable fact, living things died for millions upon millions of years before there could have been any historical Adam around to fall.
All best wishes.
Charles
Charles,
Point (a), scripture does not say they where mortal. I know many “serious” theologians and pastors that understand plainly that Romans 5 speaks about sin and death entering the world through Adam. Genesis 3:17 clearly states “Cursed is the ground because of you (Adam)”. Before Adam’s sin there was no curse upon the earth, there was no death.
Point (b) is only valid through the world view of Darwinian Evolution. There is no “incontestable fact” of anything living millions of years. There are many who trust in the evidence of a “young” earth. There is also plenty of problems with the theory of millions of years that there is no way to say it is “incontestable”.
Thank you to continue responding to this blog. It is interesting to hear you defend your position, you know iron sharping iron and all that.
Haven’t read the book but to the post above, I’m one of those people that believe in a young earth and that no animals died before Adam sinned.. I’ve researched both sides and the “Young Earth” seems more credible to me, with or without the bible’s account of creation. That being said, I do believe the bible to be the Truth, which confirms those beliefs. To quote from the Time Changer movie (more or less as I don’t have the exact words written in front of me) “The Bible isn’t true because Science confirms it, but the other way around. If you want to be a scientist, you’d better make sure that your discoveries match up with what the bible say first. At least, if you want to be a good scientist”
But for what it’s worth, Salvation comes through belief in Christ and allowing him to forgive your sins (belief itself is NOT enough, demons and satan belief, you also have to accept his gift of forgiveness and salvation).
Jesus wants to be your friend, saviour and king… regardless of whether you believe that animals died before Adam sinned or not.
Teresa, many thanks for your contribution.
Which of the Genesis accounts of creation do you think is factually correct:
(a) The first, which puts the creation of man last?
(b) The second, which puts the creation of man first – before even the plants?
All best wishes.
Charles
Charles, that is such a secular view of the bible. I really thought you had fully studied the bible before coming to your conclusions.
The “first” account is a macro-view of creation. It gives us a grand view that includes everything on earth and out to the stars.
The “second” account is of the garden of eden. This gives us a micro-view of what happened in the garden so we can see how much authority God invested in Adam in the garden. Read Genesis 2:8 and listen to what it has to say.
Your comment is something I would expect from an Atheist. I hope you reconsider your position on this section of scripture. We can disagree on some of the science that you believe points to an old earth, but the plain understanding of scripture is common ground that Christians need to agree on.
In Christ,
Mike
Mike. Many thanks. Yes, I’ve heard that explanation many times before. And there are many other attempted forms of reconciliation.
The point of my question, of course, was to demonstrate that one has to read one or other or both accounts as (to a greater or lesser extent) metaphorical. Now ‘metaphor’ is something, apropos of the Creation accounts, that the Young Earth creationists just won’t accept. Until you point out that they have to be talk about Biblical metaphors there too. And then the better of them start to look slightly embarrassed.
All best wishes.
Charles
Again, a true Christian would never call the creation account a ‘metaphor’. That is precisely the problem Mr. Foster. No sir, one must never read the account as a ‘metaphor’. It is the very Word of God. Mr. Foster, you are expressing not only unbelief, but revealing a ‘species’ of anti-theism in that you are encouraging others to ignore reject the historicity and infallibility of Scripture.
- Joel
I see this has been answered all ready by Mike but since you asked me what I believe, here it is. There is not really two accounts. I had read that story so many times and never seen a contradiction, so the first time I heard people say there was one I was surprised and re-read it. That was quite a few years ago, and the first thing that came to mind was “but it’s not contradictory at all”
While chapter 1 is a chronological account, chapter 2 focuses on mankind and spends many more verses talking about the creation of Adam before going on to say other things God had created, but it is clearly written in topical order instead of chronological. The point of it is to focus on the creation of mankind in more detail. Notice that it leaves out all kinds of things like the creation of the sun and the moon etc. It wasn’t meant to be a second account of creation, there all ready is one just one chapter previous, it’s meant to focus on mankind, his creation and his placement into the Garden of Eden.
Where is the metaphor? They are both accurate, factual accounts, one never states that it is chronological, and one does (by adding in that things happened on the first day, second day, etc…)
Joel. My children are the apple of my eye. That statement is absolutely, incontrovertibly true. But they are not apples.
Similarly the Bible tells us that God pitched his tents in the heavens. Is that true? Yes. Is there a goatskin tent in the sky? No.
God repeatedly stretches out his right hand? Did he literally? I doubt it. Is it true? I believe so: it means that he exercised power.
Etc etc etc.
All best wishes.
Charles
Teresa,
Was man created before plants, or after them? The two statements (a) man was created before the plants and (b) man was created after the plants can’t both be literally true.
Of course the two Genesis accounts can be reconciled: they are both true.If I didn’t believe that I would never have written the book. But they can’t both be literally true, I’m afraid.
All best wishes.
Charles
Charles,
What part of Genesis 1:1 is metaphorical?
Mankind was created after plants, as indicated in Genesis chapter 1. Adam was created before the trees of the garden, as described in Genesis 2. Where is the contradiction?
I find that someone has to force Genesis into a “metaphor” labeled box in order to justify Darwinian evolution because they know that the plain reading of scripture tells them God created everything in 6 standard days. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are written in a historical narrative formate, no metaphor to be found.
Charles, I hope you do not take my responses as an attack. I am concerned that you misunderstand a portion of scripture that is imperative to the faith. If God allowed death to enter the world before sin, then what is the punishment for sin? If it is death, then what sin did those animals and other pre-human creatures commit to deserve death if there was no sin before Adam?
In Christ,
Mike
Charles,
You have been asked a most valid question, and I’d be very appreciative if you would answer it directly. “If God allowed death to enter the world before sin, then what is the punishment for sin? If it is death, then what sin did those animals and other pre-human creatures commit to deserve death if there was no sin before Adam?”
- Joel
Joel,
I believe you have read the book, so you will know my detailed answers.
The punishment for human sin is eternal separation from God.
It is meaningless to ask the question ‘What did animals DO to deserve death?’Their actions and inactions do not have the moral character that would attract either condemnation or applause. But nonetheless, as I explain in detail in the book, God cares about their fate. That concern is expressed, inter alia, in the stewardship ordinances of Genesis, the prohibition on the eating of blood, the vision of Isaiah, etc etc. And it is the reconciliation of that concern with the biological facta with which the book is mainly expressed.
All best wishes.
Charles
Charles,
The destiny for lost people is not eternal separation from God. It’s the eternal PRESENCE of God’s wrath. He is not absent from hell, He pours out His wrath on those whose names is not in the Lamb’s book of Life for eternity.
Mike,
Not sure if you’ve read the book, which details in great detail with all these questions.
Have answered one of your questions a moment ago in a post directed to Joel.
Re Gen 1:1: an absolutely fascinating, resonant and complex verse. There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. Whole books have been written upon it. One example: It in fact says, ‘In beginning, God….’
In beginning what, exactly? Not the whole universe, it seems: the earth existed then, but in an amorphous form: see the succeeding verses. Of course I believe that God created ab initio, but Genesis is not the story of that creation.
Re the incompatible sequences of creation in Gen 1 and 2: they’re clear enough: just put them side by side in tabular form.
All best.
Charles
Charles,
There is the issue with your understanding of Gen1 and Gen2, they are not of the same events. Put them in successive order, not side by side, and you may get a better understanding. Remember that those chapter breaks where not in the original writings.
Mike
Man was created after plants.
You are right, both the statements that man was created before plants, and that man was created after plants cannot be true (at least not from a human perspective, I imagine God’s view on time, being outside it, could make it true if he wanted to and we’d never get it/understand it unless he decided to reveal to us how that works, but this isn’t the case here). BUT as the bible never states that plants were created after humans, there is no problem/contradiction here. I’m not saying the bible never uses metaphors anywhere, it’s a very poetic book… but this isn’t one of them… Genesis 1 and 2 agree with each other… plants were created on earth… then man was created… later the plants of the Garden of Eden were created… the Garden of Eden did not cover the entire earth, therefore it is easily possible that plants existed outside of the Garden before they did inside… Genesis 2 is just detailing the creation of man again and it’s placement into the garden of eden… not retelling the story of creation.
For the record.
Genesis Chapter 2
Verse 4
God Made the heavens and the earth
Verse 5
God made the plants
Verse 7
God made man
Verse 8
God made the Garden of Eden and placed the man there.
Verse 9
Goes on further to describe God forming plants in the garden, including the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life (which was not forbidden until after Adam and Eve had sinned and death entered the world, but they had not yet eaten of it)
This is all the same order as Genesis 1 (with some extra details such as how God created man… the only thing that we dont’ know (or at least I don’ t know, perhaps it says somewhere and I’ve missed that part) is whether the Garden of Eden was created on day 6, right after man, or whether it was on day 8 after God’s day of rest… but the order does not change… Genesis 1 just doesn’t mention the garden, that’s all.
Then you some descriptions of where the Garden of Eden was located and God’s warning about not eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil
THEN, perhaps verse 19 may sound out of order… where it says “And out of the ground, the Lord God formed eyery beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them…” but that’s where the topical order comes in. The chapter is about man: his creation, his placement, his duties. This passage is simply saying that God brought the animals to Adam to be named, and that God had formed these animals. It doesn’t say he formed them after man, it just says that he formed them period and the reason they are mentioned after and not before is because they are mentioned in the section about Adam’s duties when he names them all.
Teresa,
Thanks again. But the situation is perfectly clear:
Gen 1: Plants are made on the 3rd day: (1:11). Man is made on the 6th day: (1:27)
Gen 2:4-7: ‘In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up …..then the Lord Godformed man…’
All best wishes.
Charles
Mr Foster,
I can’t but notice that you only quoted the second half of Gen 2:4, yet capitalized the word ‘In’ as if that were the beginning of the verse. I think you did that intentionally sir, because the first part of Gen 2:4 says “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth….”
Let me explain to others why you left that out:
The phrase ‘These are the generations’ (Hebrew toledoth) show that here is the beginning of a major shift of the book. It is a narrowing down of emphasis from the entire creation to one selected area, namely, mankind and his story.
That phrase is a superscription, a ‘title’, and brings nothing to a close, but introduces what follows. It points forward, not backward and is vital to understanding a correct interpretation of the first two chapters of Genesis. Yet you are treating that phrase as a subscription, or ‘summary’.
You have missed this important signpost (intentionally I believe because it throws a wrench in your presuppositions). This signpost shows clearly there is one creation account, not two as you would have others believe in order to lend weight to your argument.
In His service,
Joel
Joel,
Thank you.
You shouldn’t be so hasty to accuse people of deliberate misrepresentation.
What I quoted was the text of the New RSV. In that, and in all modern versions, v 4b of Gen 2 begins: ‘In the day….’ (original capitalization). You were plainly thinking of the King James Version. There, you are right, all of v 4 is regarded as a single sentence. This is regarded by all competent scholars as a simple error of translation: hence the modern versions.
But it may well be that you regard the KJV as the only version inspired by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps you think that modern scholarship and translation, prompted by the Devil, inserted the capital letter with the express intention of causing believers to fall into the very trap into which I have fallen.
All best wishes.
Charles
Actually, I do not use the KJV. That is how it is translated in the ESV, NASV, LITV, and many far better translations than the KJV
But Joel, the argument still doesn’t work. Here, for example, is one of the translations you cited – the ESV: – we still have men created before plants:
’4These are the generationsof the heavens and the earth when they were created,in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
5When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.’
All best.
Charles
Again sir, with all due respect, you are treating the superscription as a subscription. I will post this morning on where that particular practice originated.
Joel. Please read the text. Whether it is a superscription, a subscription, an interoreticular prescription or anything else makes not the slightest difference. I wish that you’d all have the respect for scripture that would enable you to say: ‘there are two distinct stories here. The Holy Spirit must have had a purpose in giving us two accounts. Let’s work out what that purpose is.’
I’m going to bow out of this discussion now, but simply appeal to you all and say: you can have confidence in these majestic, complex, divinely inspired accounts. There is nothing to fear from modern scholarship. Have confidence in these books – but a confidence that stems from their real authority, not from some synthetic doctrine of verbal inerrancy.
I have enjoyed our discussions, and wish you all the best.
Charles
It’s a different style from what you are used to, a style that would have been more common then…. it is not “When there were no plants, God created man…” it is…
“When there were no plants (because the soil wasn’t moist enough as it hadn’t rained yet.) then God created a mist to cover the earth so that the plants could grow.”
(I don’t believe it actually rained until the great flood in the days of Noah which was probably when the waters above the expanse he called a sky were released… this water above the sky before then would explain why people lived so long in t he early days of Genesis)
See first it tells you that the plants aren’t growing for the reason that the ground isn’t wet enough, then it tells you that God made the ground wet for them. Just a little more detail about the creation of plants like it will go on to do about the creation of man after. And then after that God created man, and that came a few days later.
I think that the reviewer profoundly misinterpreted the intentions of Charles Foster. I do not believe his intent was to deny the authority of scripture but interpret it in a way he felt the authors intended and in a way in which agrees more closely to scientific facts. This review severely misses the mark.