The Advancement: Keeping the Faith in an Evolutionary Agecan be wholly summarized as Russ Bush’s endeavor to show the futility of replacing and or refuting the solidly grounded, logically sound, and naturally evidential Christian faith with the incompleteness, shallowness, and hollowness of the modern worldview. The central them that resonates throughout the book is the notion that, simply put, science and philosophy or insufficient at explaining the world, the human condition, human history, and fail to project the future of the world. Overall, Bush succeeds in showing the fallacies and shortcomings of advancement thinking, which ultimately points to the validity of the Christian faith.
The majority of Bush’s work is informative in nature, laying a basic foundation for the understanding of the modern worldview of advancement thinking and its many implications. Bush notes that the modern worldview is the product of the Enlightenment’s emphasized religious attachment and concept of morality, on which was super-imposed a growing sense of secularism brought on by and increasing awareness of historical development and inevitable progress (Ch. 1). Bush emphasizes that the central idea of advancement thinking is that science and evolution shows inevitable progress, without the influences of an Intelligent Designer helping to guide and move things along. Advancement thinking asserts that things have progressed, are progressing, and will continue to progress of their own accord.
Bush also points out that science is allowed to thrive within the realms of Christianity if it first accepts God as the source of creation and its perpetual development (Ch. 1). However, science ultimately folds on itself when God is removed and secular philosophical theories are used in His place. Whereas logic and philosophy were used only for physics, chemistry, and astronomy, the modern world view applies it to “sociology, psychology, economics, history, and even religious studies,” (Ch. 3). Ironically, there has been no knew scientific discovery, medicinal break-through, or biological revelation that has disproven the existence of God. Rather, there has only been a shift in human thinking to the presupposition that the world is best explained by science, which leads to the conclusion that God, as the source, governor, and explanation of all things, is no longer necessary. Bush argues that with God, freedom and truth thrive; without Him, they are utterly lost. The Bible teaches that God created man to be free moral agents, with the ability to process, understand, and interact with their environment, and discern truth from illusions. Without God—the objective, transcendent, yet invested creator—the human mind is no longer a unique soul, but “simply an effect of the process,” (Ch. 3). We are no longer free to choose anything, because our choices are predetermined and controlled by our environment and experiences. If, then, we are not free, how can we be held accountable for that which is societally deemed unacceptable? Truth becomes relative; there is no longer an absolute standard.
Bush also touches on those who seek to us science to explain God, an idea known as Modern Process Theology, which asserts that all of existence, at its core, is simply a subatomic process. Thus, God, the fullest measure and expression of existence, energy, knowledge, and power, can be explained as the process itself, of which everything else is an effect (Ch.4). This idea, however, fails to explain the development of the world. If mankind can only act and exist as expression or actualization of the potentials expressed in the past, there can be no actual progression; there is merely the reemergence of what has already been.
After extensively outlining the parameters and implications of advancement thinking, Bush drives home why this ideology fails to explain and interpret the human condition, history, and the world successfully. He formulates his argument on three points. Advancement is: (1) the end of inevitable progress, (2) the end of historical advancement, and (3) the end of the new beginning. Advancement thinking centers on universal inevitable progress sans divine guidance and design. However, inevitable progress cannot be applied universally, to every technological and historical advance. Inherent to the modern technological boom is the depersonalization of modern life, resulting in the loss of meaning, dissonance, loss of order and morality, dissention, and destabilization (Ch. 7). These attributes are described by scientists, philosophers, and even advancement thinkers as the antithesis of progression, yet they are the inevitable conclusion of advancement thinking. Advancement thinking is also the end of historical advancement. It calls for the demeaning of past cultures as primitive when compared to the robust technology and knowledge available today (Ch. 7). History, however, shows that past cultures were nothing close to primitive, even without the technology of today, but had clearly advanced mental capacity. As Bush states, “a genius in the ancient world could not achieve more than his or her historical context would allow,” (Ch. 7). Lastly, Bush discusses the end of the new beginning. Advancement thinking, in subtracting God from the equation, remove the only real source of inspiration and newness. Without God, everything repeats itself as products of the process. The advancement represents not a new idea based on new facts, arguments, and data, but a different way of looking at the same evidence, facts, arguments, and data.
According to Bush, Advancement theory is bound by the principle of inevitable progress: the idea that science continues to propel mankind forward and that theistic views are absolute inasmuch as the notion that science now adequately explains that which religion used to explain. One of the major strengths of Bush’s treatment of advancement thinking is his thoroughness. He addresses not only his specific views, but the objections to his views, which make his argument stronger and more objective. He adequately shows that advancement thinking does not account for the decline into abstract thinking, dissonance, randomness, and disorder, which can hardly be described as an evolution or progression passed the enlightenment thinking of a few centuries prior. He shows the fallacies of advancement thinking through logic and reasoning, the principles and areas of which advancement thinking supposes itself to be built on. This allows for the reader to see his argument as objectively valid, rather than based on opinions and personal belief. If advancement thinking fails by its own standards, it can hardly be seen as a valid assertion.
Bush also shows how adequately Christianity handles the issues advancement thinking is insufficient to address. God as the source of reason, truth, and intelligence eliminates the relativity that comes from any generation’s time, geographical space, or circumstantial situation. All comprises man has existed since the beginning of creation, and only differs in the environment through which mankind expresses itself. The intellect is the same, even though the technology may be greater now than before.
As far as can be detected, there are no weaknesses to Bush’s argument. Though his personal world view is evident, he treated the topic objectively, from the perspective of logic, science, and reasoning, rather than theology, scripture, and presupposition. Thus, his argument is sound, lacking subjectivity and bias, and true to the facts of the topic.
Overall, Russ Bush succeeds in his purpose of highlighting the inconsistencies of advancement thinking. He shows, through an objective treatment of the logic, principles, and implications of advancement thinking that this idea cannot effectively and thoroughly account for all processes expressed in the world. The world does not progress inevitably and of its own accord, evolving as it deems necessary in order to bring about a more advantageous version of itself. There is a Designer, omnisciently intelligent and fully capable guiding and directing the development of mankind and the world.
