Ronald Osborne begins the book with a vivid account of his experience growing up as a child of missionary parents in Zimbabwe. He recalls family excursions by car into a wilderness, and coming upon a pride of lions that had just killed a Cape buffalo. Osborne never forgot the scene of “beautiful carnage,” which typifies “the central riddle of the book.” Whence this “doubleness to all of animal existence”—beauty and carnage—in a world designed by God (13)?

The “doubleness” poses a “grave theological and moral dilemma” to Christians:

This world is one in which the harrowing suffering of innocent creatures through the violence of other creatures appears at once fraught with terrible savageness and at the same time part of an order that is delicately balanced, achingly beautiful, and finely tuned to sustain the tremendous diversity of life. If there is a rationally discernible “intelligent design” to the natural world as some believers claim, should we not conclude that the design reveals a pitilessly indifferent if not malevolent intelligence? Why is it that creationists who read “design” from the surface of nature never rhapsodize about the wondrous, irreducible complexity of AIDS viruses, or tapeworms, or serrated shark teeth tiered five rows deep? “It is as if the entire cosmos were somehow predatory,” writes Eastern Orthodox theologian David Hart, “a single organism nourishing itself upon the death of everything to which it gives birth, creating and devouring all things with a terrible and impassive majesty” (15).

At this point, Osborne does not go directly into solutions to the “riddle” of animal pain, but instead devotes the entire first (and longest) part of the book to a critique of “wooden literalism” on Genesis. Osborne believes that such literalism blocks believers off from plausible solutions (25–121). After the critique of literalism, he discusses the available solutions (126–79). This way of organizing the book will make it useful mainly to Christians who are struggling with how to read Genesis in the context of evolutionary science. It does, however, create some clumsiness in the flow of the book.

Osborne maintains that a woodenly literal reading of Genesis binds us to believe that violence and death in the animal realm is the consequence of a fall by Adam and Eve in Paradise. As he grew older and learned more, this solution became unacceptable:

This is why lions now killed Cape buffalo in Mana Pools and why there were crocodiles and bilharzia parasites in the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. But of course no human action could have produced such an instantaneous change, not simply in the instincts but also in the anatomical structures of countless creatures. The idea that the lions in Eden were docile vegetarians with dagger-sharp claws originally designed by God for tearing the bark off trees appeared downright silly. Somehow those massive canine teeth and retractable claws for taking down living prey had got there. This seemingly left only one possibility: God himself was responsible for the transformation of all of nature in what amounted to a hostile second creation after Adam and Eve’s fall (16).

Osborne came to think that that the explanation is not just “silly,” but also implicates God himself in extreme injustice. “The vexing question of the justice of such an act—of why God would inflict death and suffering on innocent creatures—did not enter my mind” (16). Osborne concludes, then, that we must abandon wooden literalism as we look for answers.

Besides (and here is the long detour), such literalism forces Christians into a tragic dilemma. After examining the evidence, many educated people conclude that one or the other is false: the Bible or science (19). Neither alternative is a good one.

In chapter 1, Osborne argues that such literalism and the conflict it creates with science is unnecessary. He does this by suggesting alternate readings that leave room for Christians to be open to science. Some readers may find his attempt to render Genesis open to evolution strained. For instance, he tries to keep Genesis open to belief that predation was part of nature’s original design (33). Genesis pretty clearly is not open to that belief. Also: Eve’s pain in childbirth is “multiplied,” not introduced for the first time (36–37).I believe readers should supplement this chapter by works that are better at opening Genesis to science by means of historical biblical studies (such as those by Peter Enns, Daniel Harlow, and Denis Lamoureax). It would be a shame if skeptical readers stopped reading because of suspicion raised in the first chapter.

In chapters 2–9, Osborne ably discerns several serious disadvantages of wooden literalism on Genesis. It encourages “foundationalism,” which exposes the “tower” of Christendom to collapse by merely removing one “brick” at the bottom (chapter 2); it creates need for a badly “degenerating” form of science—creation science (chapters 3, 4, and 5). It isn’t at all a “plain” reading, as claimed, because it requires constant enforcement by means of censors authorized to squelch alternative readings (chapter 6). He warns:

Fundamentalism is an idolatrous form of human reasoning, both from and about texts, not because it takes scripture literally but because it totalizes its literal readings while denying the very possibility that it might be wrong (81).

Meanwhile, this sort of fundamentalism supports a psyche of “gnosticism,” wherein an inner circle emerges seeing itself as judges of everyone else—it is at bottom a psychic sickness (chapter 7). Still further, adherents ignore Christians of the past—such as Aquinas, Calvin, Barth, and Maimonides—who advised a less woodenly literal approach to Genesis (chapter 8); and lastly, this rigid foundationalism/literalism makes reform practically impossible, because removing one “plank” in for “repair” causes the whole “ship” to sink (chapter 9). It’s a scathing critique that should be of use in churches and schools braced for the experience. I should say that the critique, while firm, is also written in the spirit of someone who has “been there.” My review cannot capture the spirit of fairness and sympathy that Osborne conveys despite the severity.

As for the central problem, Osborne treats it in the last five chapters (126–79). Some readers may wish (as I do) that he had omitted the first part on literalism and gone directly into this discussion, which begins with a condensed critique of literalism that might have sufficed on its own to discredit the literalistic solution to the problem (chapter 10). To imagine God afflicting innocent animals with excessive suffering in response to human sin makes God comparable to parent who responds to a child’s bad behavior by putting the family cat on a stove (138). There has to be a better answer.

In chapter 11, Osborne considers and (rightly, in my opinion) rejects C. S. Lewis’s proposal that perhaps animals do not really suffer consciously. The science against this proposal is just too strong to ignore (142–43). He considers Lewis’s suggestion that maybe Satan caused the long prehuman history of animal suffering, but fears (rightly, I believe) that it gives Satan too large a role in creation. Orthodox tradition teaches that God created all things (150–51).

Turning to the book of Job in chapter 12, Osborne (also rightly, I believe) maintains that when God speaks from the windstorm he take responsibility for everything in the creation, including ferocious predators (154–55). The book of Job, then, rules out the explanation that a fall (by Adam or Satan) is the cause. God inscribed suffering into nature’s design.

In chapter 13, Osborne proposes (wisely, I believe) that the God of creation is the same as the God of redemption in Christ, and that redemption was the original purpose of creation (159–63). However, I have difficulty accepting his solution. The character of the Christian God is revealed as “self-giving” and therefore willing to allow creatures freedom to operate on their own. Just as God allows humans moral freedom, which causes suffering, perhaps God likewise allows nature freedom to be itself, as theologian John Haught maintains (161–63). Rather than intervening miraculously or providentially, God lets creation unfold randomly, but within guiding constraints (164). I do not doubt that nature does unfold and act in this random yet constrained way, and that God’s reason for this is redemptive, but I’m not convinced that the reason is self-giving love, or “kenosis” that lets nature be “itself”—unleashing things like earthquakes, deadly storms, and diseases. I understand Job to teach that natural evils are part of God’s enigmatic plan to bring about a world in and through evils—a world ultimately more glorious and God-glorifying than it could be without them.

Readers should also consider Osborne’s (insightful, I believe) judgment that the Last Adam, Christ, obliterates need to worry about the existence of a literal First Adam in history (164–65). Historical Adam is not essential to the gospel, as Christian literalists are led to believe.

In the final chapter, Osborne makes insightful comments on biblical grounds for kindness to animals and for Christian approval of animal ethics (166–75).

While I do not accept Osborne’s explanation of suffering by animals as the inevitable price of nature’s freedom to be “itself,” I do strongly recommend the book for use in advanced courses of religion, or in integrative courses on science and faith. Also, despite some defects, the book is well worth reading in its own right.