I have seen some of the offerings for this young man that have been suggested.
I would strongly advise that these are unlikely to work for this young man. I
came from a YEC background and went through a similar crisis 3-4 years ago.
There are aspects of his epistemology and theology which those of you who
never were into that viewpoint don't know.
He comes from a young-earth church which teaches that the Bible must be
historical or it is false. That is the biggest underpinning of his belief
system.His problem now is that he is finding out that what his church has been
teaching about science is false. And he has become worried that evolution is
true. If you give him a book, like McDowells' which perpetuates the tension
between evolution (biology) and his view of Scripture, it will appear as more
of the same to him and those are the answers he finds unsatisfactory. If you
offer him a book that does not teach that the Biblical events are historical,
but are merely allegorical or metaphysical, then he will likely still hold on
to the idea that the Bible must be historical to be believed. If the events
are non-historical, then why believe the Bible. Unless you can offer some way
for the biblical events to be actual history that match in some way the
Biblical account, and does not violate scientific data, soon, I would lay odds
that this young man will reject his faith.
And this offering MUST be able to handle ALL the data of science, because he
is going to be very skeptical of anything that comes his way at this point. I
would bet that he feels that Christians are not really trustworthy at this
point in his life. He is going to do a thorough job of checking things out.
Any flaws will bring rejection.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm