Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering 9780830895373, 9780830840465

Table of contents :
Foreword by John H. Walton

Introduction

Part One: On Literalism

Chapter One: The Creation: A Plain Reading
Chapter Two: What?s Eating Biblical Literalists?: Creationism the Enlightenment Project
Chapter Three: Unwholesome Complexity: Literalism as Scientism?s Pale Mimetic Rival
Chapter Four: Progressive vs. Degenerating Science: Weighing Incommensurable Paradigms
Chapter Five: Does Your God Need Stage Props?: On the Theological Necessity of Methodological Atheism
Chapter Six: The Enclave Mentality: Identity Foreclosure the Fundamentalist Mind
Chapter Seven: The Gnostic Syndrome: When Literalism Becomes a Heresy
Chapter Eight: Four Witnesses Barth, Calvin, Augustine, Maimonides on the Literal Meaning of Genesis
Chapter Nine: If Not Foundationalism, What Then?: From Tower-Building to Net-Mending

Part Two: On Animal Suffering

Epigraph Two: In Praise of Self-Deprecation
Chapter Ten: Stasis, Deception, Curse: Three Literalist Dilemmas
Chapter Eleven: A Midrash: C. S. Lewis?s Cosmic Conflict Theodicy Revisited
Chapter Twelve: God of the Whirlwind: Animal Ferocity in the Book of Job
Chapter Thirteen: Creation Kenosis: Evolution and Christ?s Self Emptying Way of the Cross
Chapter Fourteen: Animal Ethics, Sabbath Rest

Conclusion

Notes

Subject and Author Index