Random Designer: Created From Chaos To Connect With The Creator

by Richard G. Colling

Written in easy flowing personal narrative for working professional,pastors and religious leaders and people of all faith. It concveys the clear message that science is the friend of faith.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published December 11, 2004

Reviews

[Gene · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found that this book would be just what I suspected. The author, a scientist, wants to bring the world's of science and Christian theology together. He wants to build a bridge between them. Guess which side has to make the trip over the bridge? Not the scientists, of course. All the big concessions are expected of the Christians, scientists are only asked to please consider whether a god could possibly exist. That's it.

The book is not at all from a Christian perspective, though it is from a theological perspective. Christ is never mentioned. That God who made us in His image so that He could communicate with Him might want to do so objectively through revelation or incarnation is never considered. The author expects us to pay attention to developments in scientific knowledge but not consider progressions in revelation. Again, this seems one-sided.

The author does a good job of specifying how God would be using an evolutionary process to develop life on earth if He chose to use that method. That's fine. He doesn't seem very convincing in making me believe that's the way God did it. I started out open to the thought of evolution guided by God's direction, but the book didn't push me any further in that direction. In many places where the theory of evolution might be a bit shaky, the author seems to resort to, "Hey, we're the scientists, you ought to trust us." Well OK, but theologians have their authority as well and need to be considered. Colling never does that. No creeds or Scriptures really inform his view of the Random Designer.

The book was written well, making the science easy to understand for the non-expert. But it just didn't do what I hoped it would do in really bringing about an honest conversation between the worlds of science and religion

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

The objective of this book is to build a bridge between biblical revelation and godless evolution, but although I applaud the author's effort to tackle such a noble objective, he fails to succeed. The concepts are not new as claimed. Progressive creationism has been around for more than 50 years and has increased the separation rather than bridging it. Sadly, the book will probably not be read by most of the agnostic audience who could benefit the most from it. I suspect that the vast majority of readers will be Christians. Of course, Christians can also learn some important lessons from the book, and I'll discuss those later in this review.

Dr. Colling has great credentials for addressing agnostic scientists, but does not seem to possess a similar knowledge of the Bible. As a result, he wants Christians to meet scientists 99% of the way across his bridge. If he has, in fact, read the Bible in any depth, he does not understand or respect it as a source of God's revealed truth. The concepts he proposes are not Christian at all, but could be applied to any religion based on a divine creator. So, instead of building a bridge between Christianity and godless evolution, he has merely proposed another human-conceived version of God. His acceptable image of God seems to be one which is not in conflict with godless evolution, but need not be in agreement with the Bible. He clearly accepts scientific theory as truth, while rejecting the Bible as God's complete, final, and inerrant revelation of Himself to man. So, for Christians, his bridge leads to another man-made religion, not to genuine Christianity. Such a bridge could be useful to agnostics, if they would read it, since the first step of Christian faith is to believe that God exists. So, I sincerely hope that I am wrong in my predictions about the composition of the book's audience and that it will lead many current agnostics to take that first step of faith.

As an engineer trained in the physical sciences, I certainly agree with Dr. Colling that proofs of God's existence abound throughout His creation, and I found the biological details to be interesting, although no more convincing than are the physical sciences. It is impossible to imagine that God exists without having revealed Himself to His creatures. His creation is an important part of that revelation, and the one from which the Apostle Paul always began his sermons when addressing audiences unfamiliar with the Old Testament Scriptures.

What are the important lessons for Christians from this book? We Christians must realize and accept that there is no widespread conspiracy among scientists to discredit Christianity per se, although we seem determined to create one by being so adamant that one already exists. Scientists, like theologians, are simply using the tools of their profession to understand the world in which we live. No human being, regardless of academic discipline, has the capability to fully comprehend and understand God and His ways. If we could, He wouldn't be God! Christians who claim perfect understanding of God are guilty of pride, which the Bible teaches is the sin that brought about Satan's fall and is thus the source of all sin. The current chasm between Christianity and science is a reflection of the human inability to fully understand God and not an inconsistency in His revelation to us. I believe, at God's chosen time, we will finally come to understand that the apparent discrepancies between these two branches of human knowledge are not contradictory, but supportive. This issue is not a question of deciding who is right and who is wrong; it is a question of learning how both sides are correct. We are not yet able to do that, but I believe that at some time in the future we will.

When we Christians adamantly claim a full understanding of God, we do great harm and are poor disciples of Christ. Specifically, we make it extremely difficult for any trained scientist to become a disciple of Christ, and we drive our Christian youth away from the scientific fields. Doing either of those two things is not only a failure in carrying out the Great Commission, but also serves to draw battle lines between science and Christianity where none should exist. What better way could there possibly be to create a divide between scientists and Christians than to ensure that there are no scientists who are Christians!!

[Frank Peters · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very well intentioned book. I really like the heart of the author and completely respect his reasons for writing the book. As a professor in Biology, who believes that God created all living things via evolution, he is troubled with the conflict within the Christian community resulting from the topic of evolution. This book represents the author’s heart desire to see people develop a relationship with the God of creation. While the author believes this God is the Christian God as in the bible, the author spends almost no effort or text on how his view of God corresponds to the creator as described in the bible. Ultimately, he essentially ignores this issue. He states that most common biblical interpretations of creation are wrong (given science), but does not provide any alternate biblical interpretation. At a scientific level he seems to simply accept naturalistic science as described by most atheists, and simply substitutes “Random Designer” where an atheist would use the word “Nature”. This created a fairly sloppy an ambiguous way of writing that I do not think was wise. This sloppiness extended to many areas of the book. One example that I found jarring was when the author proposed something, and then in the next paragraph simply decided that it was true without ever providing any argument for his proposition! Sigh. As a result, I give the book 5 stars for effort, but it was really just OK.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting! A scientist who is as passionate about his faith in a divine creator as he his about his field of expertise, microbiology. In the first part of the book, Professor Colling attempts to explain the intricacies of the physical world, and of evolution in particular, in language that nonscientists can understand, presenting them as evidence of a creator whom he calls the Random Designer. He writes engagingly from his own considerable expertise but with an attitude of humility and awe. In the second part of the book, he switches hats, so to speak, and writes as a lay theologian. But his scientific mindset is still evident. Here he makes few statements as fact but poses hypotheses to be reflected upon. Acknowledging the limitations of science, he reminds us that the existence of a Random Designer cannot be proven or disproven without a leap of faith. Colling gives his own reasoning for belief in the Random Designer and sees no conflict between the Bible as a source of spiritual truth and science as a source of truth for the physical world. While the book may not be sufficiently compelling for religious skeptics, it is definitely worth reading for Christians who regard evolution as a threat to their faith.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was lacking in some ways, but what I did like was that it was a great place to start when it came to looking for someone who put God and evolution together.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives reasonable explanations from science that back up Christians who believe evolutionary theory. All thinking Christians should read this.