Case For A Creator [Paperback]

The framework for this book follows a logical and well-thought-out progression. Strobel poses the questions hard skeptics ask on such broad topics as: evolution, faith and science, the Big Bang, fine-tuning of the universe, Earth's privileged place in the cosmos, biochemical complexity, the origin of life, DNA and, finally, the mind. He interviews many of the top minds in each of these topics, including many prominent ID personalities, such as Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, Stephen Meyer, Jay Richards, Guillermo Gonzalez, and J. P. Moreland. The material in his interviews often covers very recent work, such as Richards' and Gonzalez's Privileged Planet, which came out approximately the same time as The Case for a Creator.

Strobel gets at the heart of the scientific issues for the various topics, even such esoteric concepts as superstring theory and Stephen Hawking's supposedly "non-singularity" universe. Though reading those words may cause your eyes to cross, the book provides easy to follow examples, analogies, and explanations to drive home the basic ideas. For example, when considering Hawking's "non-singularity" universe (that is, a universe without a beginning) interviewee William Lane Craig, Ph.D., shows how Hawking attempts to deny a beginning point for the universe. However, to do so, Hawking has to employ an imaginary number (i.e. the square root of negative one), which appears to mathematically address the issue, but cannot be valid for the real world - in reality, the beginning has just been masked behind a mathematical model. Craig exposes Hawking's mathematical slight of hand for what it is.

Reflections, anecdotes and big picture summaries are interspersed throughout the book along with the engaging interviews. One noteworthy story is from Strobel's own life, where he recalls his early days as a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He was a self-proclaimed atheist at the time and was assigned to cover a local dispute over the teaching of evolution in West Virginia. Various Christians opposed the teaching of evolution, and at the time, Strobel wondered, "Why couldn't these people get their heads out of the sand and admit the obvious: science had put their God out of a job!" 30 years later, Strobel gives a compelling account of how the scientific evidence does not support the naturalist worldview, and points out that ironically, "My road to atheism was paved by science ... but, ironically, so was my later journey to God."

Similar to Strobel's past works, this book is very well referenced and provides great information for further reading after each chapter. In fact, there's even a website specifically aimed at helping people to learn more about and promote intelligent design: www.caseforacreator.com. The website includes highlights from the book and an entertaining audio program online, complete with sound effects to help visualize Strobel's personal recollections of events past.

In a very easy to read interview writing style he discusses evolution, Darwinism, science and faith, the big bang theory of cosmology, physics, astronomy and probability, biochemistry, DNA, and consciousness. For each one of these subjects he delivers an interview with a top scientist who is a specialist in that particular field of knowledge. Here is your chance to listen in as Lee quizzes them on their reasoning and theories. Listen in as he asks the difficult questions and receives soundly reasoned answers.

While these are recognized experts in their fields it should be noted that they were, of course, hand picked because they believe in a creator. As a result the book is basically an opportunity for them to espouse their views and give answers to common objections. Still, hand picked or not, the important thing is that they provide soundly reasoned, realistic answers to the questions and problems posed.

If you received an education on evolution in school then you owe it to yourself to at least be fair and learn the other side of the coin. If you have come to doubt a creator for whatever reason and have been taught that science has no room for a creator then you owe it to yourself to see why top scientists are moving over to the creation camp. At least you will find that there are two sides to this debate and it is not a closed question coming down on the side of no creator. "The Case for a Creator" is a highly recommended read on one of the most enjoyable books on the subject that I have read.

The material is not always easy, I am still mulling over the William Craig Lane chapter. He disagrees with the Hawkins's model for the start of the Big Bang. Lane's mix of Aristotelean philosophy and modern physics to me has always been uneasy mix.

His other books to me are more personal and perhaps a more useful apologetic, but this book is more fun to me. The amount of information he doles out in sundry branches of science gives me at least some tools to talk to my scientific minded friends.

I am knocking off a couple stars because some of the writing and some of the interviews seem clumsy. I would give it another 1/2 star if I could.