In his book Baptizing the Devil, Clifford Goldstein embarks on a sustained critique of contemporary culture’s fascination with science and Christianity’s capitulation to it as having the upper hand in the search for truth. In eleven engaging chapters, Goldstein’s focus is particularly on evolution, yet along the line he contests the general claim that natural science exhausts the whole field of truth. Dialoguing with expressed views of individuals whom he describes as “the intellectual hegemons of the scientific industrial complex” (158), Goldstein’s critiques are both philosophical and theological.

The core argument Goldstein makes persistently is that science, in spite of the many benefits it can boast of through the use of its theories and methods, suffers from the unavoidable weaknesses of all human epistemological endeavors—incompleteness, uncertainty, and cultural bias. So, for example, in spite of its apparent success, today Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity has been replaced by Einstein’s general law of relativity—not to mention that Newton himself did not know what gravity was (chap. 1). And Goldstein observes that the authoritative role that was accorded the “science” of Aristotle’s cosmology in Galileo’s struggle with the church “reveals the propagandizing power of scientific tradition and dogma, even in the face of powerful conflicting evidence” (27). Furthermore, Goldstein points out that science (as well as all branches of study that involve empiricist epistemology), far from giving an objective and unbiased explanation of reality, “can never put us into contact with reality; we can never penetrate beyond the impressions that reality implants in our minds” (51). Goldstein touches on the very important question of what to make of the results of scientific investigation into the nature of things. He cautions that while scientific realists may want to credit science with, “if not an absolute true account of the world, then at least an approximate one,” debate rages on, in the field of the philosophy of science, about the truth status of scientific findings. Goldstein notes that scientific theories may be “good” but not “true” (chap. 4). He falls back on Karl Popper’s claim that “we can never give positive reasons which justify the belief that a theory is true,” a view that echoes Alfred North Whitehead’s rather interesting observation that all the basic assumptions of science and mathematics he was taught at the University of Cambridge have been set aside. Ultimately, Popper posits, science is built on a swamp (chap. 5).

Besides the basic epistemological questions raised above, Goldstein draws attention to the methods and procedures of science, which he notes are fraught with challenges. It is generally recognized that the technique of inductive reference, based on the naturalistic assumption that the future resembles the past, is the mainstay of scientific reasoning. Yet, Goldstein points out that not only is it deemed philosophically suspect, it flies in the face of supernaturally caused discontinuities described in the Bible such as the effects of the fall and the flood on nature (chap. 6). Continuing with that thought, Goldstein remarks that if the scientific study of phenomena at hand yields often ambiguous and changing results, then projections of the present into the distant past—as in scientific conclusions in evolutionary studies—become doubly dubious. No less problematic are limitations caused by the strict, materialistic framework within which scientific work proceeds. Goldstein draws attention to Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to speak to these difficulties (chap. 7). Meanwhile, Goldstein touches on the issue of what science is able to explain, burdened as it is, with the self-referential paradox. Thus, science is unable to answer questions as to why nature is or acts the way it does (chap. 8). Plus, Goldstein shows that there is ambiguity about the so-called scientific method and the nature of science itself, demonstrating that the former has been dubbed a myth, even by philosophers of science who are familiar with it (chap. 9).

In the rest of the book, Goldstein focuses on the implications of capitulation by Christians to scientific materialism for biblical faith as it pertains to evolution in particular (focusing on theistic evolution). The result, he concludes, is either the rejection of biblical teachings (e.g., on Adam and Eve, moral freedom, death, salvation, resurrection, etc.) or their being changed beyond recognition (chap. 10). Ultimately, Goldstein suggests that science indulges in as much faith (metaphysical ideas) as religion, in this case Christianity. The difference is, while science pretends to be free from faith, Christianity acknowledges it as its in-built epistemological limit (chap. 11).

Overall, Goldstein navigates the subject matter succinctly and with clarity without sacrificing depth. Numerous authorities in the fields of the philosophy of science and theology are referenced, showing familiarity with the subject. Together with his typically engaging writing style, Goldstein employs simple illustrations to clarify difficult subjects to good effect. His argumentation about the incompleteness, uncertainty, and cultural bias characteristic of all human quest for knowledge—including science—successfully prosecutes the case against science’s false pretense as the source and arbiter of all truth. Without endorsing them, Goldstein employs the ideas of figures like Kant, Derrida, and Foucault to buttress his argument. One wonders, however, whether the same critique of human epistemological tentativeness could not be turned inwards toward Christian theology, also a human epistemological effort in the search of the knowledge and truth of God. Does Christian knowledge ever put us in contact with the reality of God and the world, beyond mere impressions of them in our minds? Are the realities of the world in and of themselves discoverable in the Bible? If so, by what means and wherein lies the difference? Goldstein properly assumes the authority of the Bible, but it seems the question is left open in Baptizing the Devil, as to if, and how, certain and true knowledge may be had from the Bible. Perhaps a chapter on the nature and advantage of biblical epistemology would forestall this potential critique. Nonetheless, Baptizing the Devil ought to be a must-read for anyone with an interest in the faith-science debate.