The Advancement Summary

Bush, Russ L. The Advancement: Keeping the Faith in an Evolutionary Age. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2003.

Introduction

After reading The Advancement: Keeping the Faith in an Evolutionary Age by L. Russ
Bush, the purpose of writing this summary and critique will be to enhance this student’s understanding of this topic. Bush’s purpose for writing this book is to give those with a different worldview the background information of what the advancement worldview is and how
Christians can defend our worldview against their worldview. The evaluation of this book is this is a must read for any Christian who is learning to defend against different worldviews, as this worldview is not all wrong. We need to understand what is wrong
During this time, the advancement worldview began to grow due to the increases in science, medicine, and technology. Bush argues that this movement was making the society to digress instead of progress, as the truth about God was being diluted. Bush demonstrates that Christians need to be informed about the nature of evidence, but he falls short in explaining how the Christian can apologetically defend their belief. Bush states,
“Many Christians have tried to develop compromise positions by which they hope to be able to maintain their theistic commitments and yet accept the interpretations of biological data which are provided by the secular humanists.” (32) Bush explains some of the well-known thoughts that are looked at by famous skeptics, like Darwin, Spencer, and
In chapter 6, Why Not Naturalistic Evolution? Bush gives four basic beliefs; mankind evolved from animals, the human mind and human behavior are therefore directly influenced by our animal ancestry, all of reality is subject to naturalistic scientific investigation, and truth is discoverable or at least confirmable by and only by the naturalistic scientific method of research.
He also gives his five objections: materialism is not self-evidently true, artificial selection has not been proven, encoded information is a necessary precondition for biogenesis, necessary source of codes is not found in nonliving matter, and under no known conditions does information arises spontaneously from noninformation. In chapter 7, Why Not Advancement? Bush provides his arguments against popular or majority opinion. He argues; knowledge versus known, critical versus cultural thought, and how history itself may be altered by cultic demand. In chapter 8, What Then Are We to Believe?
Bush gives three fundamental truths that Christians should believe in: God exists, the world exists, and Jesus is