Popular author and speaker Lee Strobel is back with another junior version of one of his bestselling Cases for Christianity books. This time it's Case for a Creator for Kids, a basic overview of the science behind the creation versus evolution debate. Acknowledging in the book's opening salvo that a creationist worldview can put one at odds with teachers and peers educated in secular institutions, Lee Strobel suggests that individuals make their own independent, unbiased examination of the evidence supporting the polar opposite theories of creationism and evolution. This examination must be governed purely by logic if it's to be legitimate; whatever our preconceived ideas of the universe's origin, the only way to arrive at a sensible conclusion is to set those ideas aside and focus on facts. Absolute certainty of anything is impossible, but investigation into spiritual matters can provide more reliable results than one might expect if it's carried out fairly.
Strobel begins by presenting a hypothetical mystery: you awaken one morning to find there's an elephant on your roof. You have no idea how it came to be there, and the situation seems absurd, almost impossible. Yet you can't deny this extraordinary thing has happened. If you investigate how the elephant got up there, you have choices of where to begin sleuthing. Is there physical evidence? Any eyewitnesses? A careful search for information should help you formulate a theory, as it will when you're trying to figure out the origin of the universe. But you must be willing to accept the evidence, no matter what conclusion it supports. "Any good scientist will tell you there is one important rule: follow the evidence wherever it leads you. For example, you might find trustworthy evidence that purple-polka-dotted aliens placed the elephant on the roof. That might be the best evidence you have. If so, your best guess would be that purple-polka-dotted aliens put an elephant on your roof—even if it sounds ridiculous, and even if people would laugh! Good science is objective—that means it looks only at the evidence, even if the evidence points to something we don't want to believe." With that unyielding standard as our guide, we step into the labyrinth of trying to understand how we and our universe came to exist.
There's good evidence for some kind of cosmic Big Bang, but that doesn't mean God didn't orchestrate it, Case for a Creator for Kids points out. Scientific descriptions of what the Big Bang would have been like line up well with the biblical creation account in Genesis. With this in mind, we're presented the ancient Kalam Argument, which states that if everything that has a beginning has a cause, and if the universe has a beginning, then the universe must have a cause. The next chapter fleshes this out, showing why the universe logically had to have a beginning. A brief side article is added to elucidate how God could exist eternally if the Kalam Argument proves that everything has an origin. The explanation is succinct and sound.
If the universe had a beginning, what about intelligent life within it? Is a creator necessary for humans to exist, or does evolutionary theory remove God from the equation? Case for a Creator for Kids presents another detailed hypothetical situation to demonstrate the irrationality of assuming that complex design could pop up without an intelligent source. The anthropic principle—the fine-tuning of our universe to the exact specifications required for human life—is compelling evidence of a God who designed our habitat to accommodate our frail bodies. Yet even stronger proof of intelligent design is the cosmological constant, which states that the energy density of empty space has to be set at an absolutely precise level, or the universe as we know it couldn't exist. Change the cosmological constant slightly one way, and stars and planets couldn't have formed. Change it the other, and the universe would have collapsed on itself. The closer one looks at the anthropic principle and cosmological constant, the clearer the picture emerges of a universe created by an all-powerful, eternal designer. Scientists who adhere to the rule of objectivity agree, whether or not they're personally comfortable believing in God.
We move on to the argument of irreducible complexity, which Lee Strobel uses to further bolster the case for an intelligent creator. Just as a rudimentary wooden mousetrap won't work with any piece of its apparatus missing, there are lifeforms that could not have evolved into what they are today with any component of their completed biology not in place. Their irreducible composition proves they could not have evolved as postulated by Darwinists. Michael Behe, a respected biochemist, is interviewed in this section of Case for a Creator for Kids, and he concludes that the argument from irreducible complexity is a gamechanger. "I believe...that irreducibly complex systems are strong evidence of a purposeful, intentional design by an intelligent agent. No other theory succeeds." The staggering complexity of the human genome also points to intelligent design, which makes humans worth immeasurably more than if we were an accident of evolution. As Case for a Creator for Kids puts it, "Human beings can build airplanes, but they can't build a human being like you." According to the intelligent design espoused by the Christian faith, even the least noteworthy human who ever lived is endlessly valuable, and the implications of that are awesome. The more we scrutinize our genetic code, the more we marvel at human complexity and variety, and the stronger the case is that we're the handiwork of an infinitely more amazing God. Atheistic theories of random chance can't hold up under the overwhelming evidence of our own bodies, evidence that grows more sophisticated and persuasive along with our ability to comprehend it.
What does it mean for our lives when we study the facts and decide a creator God must exist? Finding out more about that God is a reasonable next step, and Lee Strobel has other books that continue the investigation into discerning the nature of God. When an esteemed surgeon and hardened unbeliever named Viggo Olsen and his wife followed the road of sincere skepticism all the way to becoming Christians, they found fulfillment beyond what they thought possible. Among other things, "They looked at the ability of people to love and to have compassion and concluded that we must have been created by someone with those same qualities." God's goodness is reflected in his creation, in people who love and sacrifice for us because that's the example set by an eternally compassionate God. If you care to know that God, Case for a Creator for Kids is a first step that leads to so much more.
This book has a great sense of humor. One of my favorite parts is a side panel about the classic Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. It discusses the episode where Calvin says the term "Big Bang" should be replaced by something flashier, like "Horrendous Space Kablooie". Some real-life scientists actually took Calvin's advice and implemented his term! The arguments used in Case for a Creator for Kids are mostly sound, though as basic as can be. This book isn't as insightful or comprehensive as Case for Faith for Kids, but that's okay; smart, fact-based creationist literature for children needed a contribution like this, and Lee Strobel is one of the top names in Christian apologetics for readers of any age. I'd rate Case for a Creator for Kids two and a half stars, and I'm on the fence about rounding up or down. If you'd like to arm your kids with pertinent rebuttals to evolutionary theory that are simple enough to memorize, this is an excellent place to start. You'll find there's a stronger foundation for biblical belief than you might have realized.