What is creation theory

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Why evolution works and creationism fails. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press; Download references. Whitworth University, W. Hawthorne Rd. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Correspondence to Finn R. Reprints and Permissions. Pond, F. Scientific Authority in the Creation—Evolution Debates. Evo Edu Outreach 3, — Download citation. Published : 15 July Issue Date : December Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:.

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative. Skip to main content. Search all BMC articles Search. Download PDF. Abstract At the heart of debates among creationists and evolutionists are questions about scientific integrity and rigor. Introduction Science is a powerful way of knowing about the natural world.

Footnote 1 The biological community considers the evidence for evolution overwhelming and beyond dispute. Fighting for Authority in the Biology Classroom: What is at Stake An understanding of scientific epistemology and methodology is important because it delineates useful boundaries for the creation—evolution debates. Consider, for example, the statement of Theodosius Dobzhansky, a Christian and ardent evolutionist: Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith?

Misunderstandings About the Basic Nature of Scientific Knowledge Accusations of Metaphysical Bias The scientific community seeks testable, natural explanations for natural phenomena.

Misconception: Good science must consider all possible explanations. Misconception: Science addresses questions about the meaning of life. Misconception: Science promotes particular social values. Misunderstandings About the Scientific Process Creationists and ID proponents challenge the credibility of evolutionists and the validity of evolutionary science.

Accusations of a Lack of Professional Integrity As noted earlier, a central concern among anti-evolutionists is that a naturalistic bias permeates modern science. Footnote 18 To imply that the scientific community behaves in hostile, petty, and vindictive ways toward dissenters because of a philosophical bias toward naturalism calls into question the integrity of scientists.

Misconception: Scientific theories are only opinions. Misconception: Science provides absolute proof. Misconception: Unanswered questions undermine a theory. Conclusion Biologists are often frustrated with the need to argue the evidence repeatedly in the face of an intractable insistence that scientific knowledge conform to religious presuppositions. Notes 1. FRP serves as an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church. References A science kit about science.

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Before moving on historically, it is worthwhile to stop for a moment and consider aspects of Creationism, in what one might term the cultural context. First, as a populist movement, driven as much by social factors — a sense of alienation from the modern world — one would expect to find that cultural changes in society would be reflected in Creationist beliefs. This is indeed so. Take, above all, the question of racial issues and relationships. In the middle of the nineteenth century in the South, biblical literalism was very popular because it was thought to justify slavery Noll Even though one can read the Christian message as being strongly against slavery — the Sermon on the Mount hardly recommends making people into the property of others — the Bible elsewhere seems to endorse slavery.

Remember, when the escaped slave came to Saint Paul, the apostle told him to return to his master and to obey him. Remnants of this kind of thinking persisted in Creationist circles well into the twentieth century. Price, for instance, was quite convinced that blacks are degenerate whites. By the time of Genesis Flood , however, the civil rights movement was in full flower, and Whitcomb and Morris trod very carefully.

They explained in detail that the Bible gives no justification for treating blacks as inferior. The story of the son and grandson of Noah being banished to a dark-skinned future was not part of their reading of the Holy Scriptures. Literalism may be the unvarnished word of God, but literalism is as open to interpretation as scholarly readings of Plato or Aristotle. Second, as noted above, both for internal and external reasons, Creationists realized that they needed to tread carefully in outright opposition to evolution of all kinds.

We find in fact then that although Creationists were and are adamantly opposed to unified common descent and to the idea of natural change being adequate for all the forms we see today, from early on they were accepting huge amounts of what can only truly be called evolution! This said, Creationists were convinced that this change occurs much more rapidly than most conventional evolutionists would allow.

Macroevolution is what makes reptiles reptiles, and mammals mammals. This cannot be a natural process but required miracles during the days of Creation. Third, and perhaps most significant of all, never think that Creationism is purely an epistemological matter — a matter of facts and their understanding. Moral claims have always been absolutely fundamental. Nearly all Creationists in the Christian camp are what is known theologically as premillennialists, believing that Jesus will come soon and reign over the world before the Last Judgement.

They are opposed to postmillennialists who think that Jesus will come later, and amillennialists who are inclined to think that perhaps we are already living in a Jesus-dominated era. Postmillennialists put a premium on our getting things ready for Jesus — hence, we should engage in social action and the like. Premillennialists think there is nothing we ourselves can do to better the world, so we had best get ourselves and others in a state ready for Jesus.

This means individual behavior and conversion of others. For premillennialists therefore, and this includes almost all Creationists, the great moral drives are to things like family sanctity which today encompasses anti-abortion , sexual orthodoxy especially anti-homosexuality , biblically sanctioned punishments very pro-capital punishment , strong support for Israel because of claims in Revelation about the Jews returning to Israel before End Times , and so forth.

It is absolutely vital to see how this moral agenda is an integral part of American Creationism, as much as Floods and Arks. Ruse discusses these matters in much detail.

Genesis Flood enjoyed massive popularity among the faithful, and led to a thriving Creation Science Movement, where Morris particularly and his coworkers and believers — notably Duane T. Particularly effective was their challenging of evolutionists to debate, where they would employ every rhetorical trick in the book, reducing the scientists to fury and impotence, with bold statements provocatively made most often by Gish about the supposed nature of the universe Gilkey ; Ruse ed.

This all culminated eventually in a court case in Arkansas. By the end of the s, Creationists were passing around draft bills, intended for state legislatures, that would allow — insist on — the teaching of Creationism in state-supported public schools. In the biology classes of such schools, that is. By this time it was realized that, thanks to Supreme Court rulings on the First Amendment to the Constitution that which prohibits the establishment of state religion , it was not possible to exclude the teaching of evolution from such schools.

The trick was to get Creationism — something that prima facie rides straight through the separation of church and state — into such schools. The idea of Creation Science is to do this. The claim is that, although the science parallels Genesis, as a matter of scientific fact, it stands alone as good science. In , these drafts found a taker in Arkansas, where such a bill was passed and signed into law — as it happens, by a legislature and governor that thought little of what they were doing until the consequences were drawn to their attention.

William Clinton was governor from to , and again from to his winning of the presidency, in The law was passed during the interregnum. The theologian Langdon Gilkey, the geneticist Francisco Ayala, the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, and as the philosophical representative Michael Ruse appeared as expert witnesses, arguing that Creationism has no place in state supported biology classes.

Hardly surprisingly, evolution won. The judge ruled firmly that Creation Science is not science, it is religion, and as such has no place in public classrooms. In this whole matter was decided decisively in the same way, by the Supreme Court, in a similar case involving Louisiana. See Ruse ed. Of course, in real life nothing is ever that simple, and Arkansas was certainly not the end of matters. One of the key issues in the trial was less theological or scientific, but philosophical.

Paradoxically, the ACLU had significant doubts about using a philosophical witness and only decided at the last minute to bring Michael Ruse to the stand. The Creationists had started to refer to the ideas of the eminent, Austrian-born, British-residing philosopher Karl Popper As is well known, Popper claimed that for something to be genuinely scientific it has to be falsifiable.

By this, Popper meant that genuine science puts itself up to check against the real world. If the predictions of the science hold true, then it lives to fight another day. If the predictions fail, then the science must be rejected — or at least revised.

The Creationists seized on this and argued that they had the best authority to reject evolution, or at least to judge it no more of a science than Creationism. To his credit, Popper revised his thinking on Darwinian evolutionary theory and grew to see and admit that it was a genuine scientific theory; see Popper Part of the testimony in Arkansas was designed to refute this argument, and it was shown that in fact evolution does indeed make falsifiable claims.

As we have already seen, natural selection is no tautology. If one could show that organisms did not exhibit differential reproduction — to take the example given above, that all proto-humans had the same number of offspring — then selection theory would certainly be false. Likewise, if one could show that human and dinosaur remains truly did occur in the same time strata of the fossil record, one would have powerful proof against the thinking of modern evolutionists.

This argument succeeded in court — the judge accepted that evolutionary thinking is falsifiable. Conversely, he accepted that Creation Science is never truly open to check. On-the-spot, ad hoc hypotheses proliferate as soon as any of its claims are challenged.

It is not falsifiable and hence not genuine science. They argued that in fact there is no hard and fast rule for distinguishing science from other forms of human activity, and that hence in this sense the Creationists might have a point Ruse ed.

Not that people like Laudan were themselves Creationists. They thought Creationism false. Their objection was rather to trying to find some way of making evolution and not Creationism into a genuine science. Defenders of the anti-Creationism strategy taken in Arkansas argued, with reason and law, that the United States Constitution does not bar the teaching of false science.

It bars the teaching of non-science, especially non-science which is religion by another name. Hence, if the objections of people like Laudan were taken seriously, the Creationists might have a case to make for the balanced treatment of evolution and Creationism. Popperian falsifiability may be a somewhat rough and ready way of separating science and religion, but it is good enough for the job at hand, and in law that is what counts.

Evolutionists were successful in court. As we shall see, the task of leadership then got passed to younger people, especially the biochemist Michael Behe and the philosopher-mathematician William Dembski. For better or for worse, one sees the heavy hand of Thomas Kuhn here, and his claim in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that the change from one paradigm to another is akin to a political revolution, not ultimately fueled by logic but more by extra-scientific factors, like emotions and simple preferences.

In the Arkansas trial, Kuhn was as oft mentioned by the prosecutors as was Popper. The former is the scientific stance of trying to explain by laws and by refusing to introduce miracles.

A methodological naturalist would insist on explaining all phenomena, however strange, in natural terms. Elijah setting fire to the water-drenched sacrifice, for instance, would be explained in terms of lightning striking or some such thing. The latter is the philosophical stance that insists that there is nothing beyond the natural — no God, no supernatural, no nothing.

According to naturalism, what is ultimately real is nature, which consists of the fundamental particles that make up what we call matter and energy, together with the natural laws that govern how those particles behave. Johnson thinks of himself as a theistic realist, and hence as such in opposition to metaphysical realism. Hence, the evolutionist is the methodological realist, is the metaphysical realist, is the opponent of the theistic realist — and as far as Johnson is concerned, the genuine theistic realist is one who takes a pretty literalistic reading of the Bible.

So ultimately, it is all less a matter of science and more a matter of attitudes and philosophy. Evolution and Creationism are different world pictures, and it is conceptually, socially, pedagogically, and with good luck in the future legally wrong to treat them differently.

Theistic Realism is the only genuine form of Christianity. But does any of this really follow? The evolutionist would claim not. Metaphysical naturalism, having been defined as something which precludes theism, has been set up as a philosophy with a religion-like status. It necessarily perpetuates the conflict between religion and science. But as Johnson himself notes, many people think that they can be methodological naturalists and theists.

Methodological naturalism is not a religion equivalent. Is this possible, at least in a consistent way with intellectual integrity? To sort out this debate, let us agree to what is surely the case that if you are a methodological naturalist, today you are going to accept evolution and conversely to think that evolution supports your cause. Today, methodological naturalism and evolution are a package deal.

Take one, and you take the other. Reject one, and you reject the other. You cannot accept Genesis literally and evolution. That is a fact. In other words, there can be no accommodation between Creationism and evolution. However, what if you think that theologically speaking there is much to be said for a nice shade of grey? What if you think that much of the Bible, although true, should be interpreted in a metaphorical manner?

What if you think you can be an evolutionist, and yet take in the essential heart of the Bible? What price consistency and methodological naturalism then? It speaks of the world as a meaningful creation of God however caused and of a foreground drama which takes place within this world. And clearly at once we are plunged into the first of the big problems, namely that of miracles — those of Jesus himself the turning of water into wine at the marriage at Cana , his return to life on the third day, and especially if you are a Catholic such ongoing miracles as transubstantiation and those associated, in response to prayer, with the intervention of saints.

There are a number of options here for the would-be methodological naturalist. You might simply say that such miracles occurred, that they did involve violations of law, but that they are outside your science. They are simply exceptions to the rule. End of argument. A little abrupt, but not flatly inconsistent with calling yourself a theist. You say normally God works through law but, for our salvation, miracles outside law were necessary.

Or you might say that miracles occur but that they are compatible with science, or at least not incompatible.

Jesus was in a trance and the cure for cancer after the prayers to Saint Bernadette was according to rare, unknown, but genuine laws. This position is less abrupt, although you might worry whether this strategy is truly Christian, in letter or in spirit. It seems a little bit of a cheat to say that the Jesus taken down from the cross was truly not dead, and the marriage at Cana starts to sound like outright fraud.

Of course, you can start stripping away at more and more miracles, downgrading them to regular occurrences blown up and magnified by the Apostles, but in the end this rather defeats the whole purpose. The third option is simply to refuse to get into the battle at all. Miracles are just not the sorts of things which conflict with or confirm natural laws. Traditional Christians have always argued this in some respects.

Take the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. The turning of the bread and the wine into the body and blood of Christ is simply not something open to empirical check. You cannot disconfirm religion or prove science by doing an analysis of the host.

Likewise even with the resurrection of Jesus. After the Crucifixion, his mortal body was irrelevant. The point was that the disciples felt Jesus in their hearts, and were thus emboldened to go forth and preach the gospel. Does one simply go to Lourdes in hope of a lucky lottery ticket to health or for the comfort that one knows one will get, even if there is no physical cure? In the words of the philosophers, it is a category mistake to put miracles and laws in the same set.

Hume , is the starting place for these discussions. Although somewhat dated, Flew and MacIntyre is still invaluable. Paradoxically, both of these then-atheist authors came to see the light and returned to the Christianity of their childhoods! What has Johnson to say to all of this? What Johnson does say is more in the way of sneer or dismissal than argument.

At this point, the evolutionist will probably throw up his or her hands in despair. In actual fact, many significant theologians of our age think that, with respect to miracles, science and religion have no conflict Barth ; Gilkey They would add that faith without difficulty and opposition is not true faith, either. Such thinkers, often conservative theologically, are inspired by Martin Buber to find God in the center of personal relationships, I-Thou, rather in science, I-It. For them there is something degrading in the thought of Jesus as a miracle man, a sort of fugitive from the Ed Sullivan Show.

What happened with the five thousand? Some hokey-pokey over a few loaves and fishes? What they deny, here or elsewhere, is the need to search for exception to law. There are those who call themselves theists, who think that one can be a methodological naturalist, where today this would imply evolution Ruse Johnson has not argued against them. Let us move on now from the more philosophical sorts of issues.

Building on the more critical approach of Johnson, who is taken to have cleared the foundations as it were, there is a group of people who are trying to offer an alternative to evolution. These are people who think that a full understanding of the organic world demands the invocation of some force beyond nature, a force which is purposeful or at least purpose creating. For the moment, continue to defer questions about the relationship between Intelligent Design Theory and more traditional forms of Creationism.

There are two parts to this approach: an empirical and a philosophical. Let us take them in turn, beginning with he who has most fully articulated the empirical case for a designer, the already-mentioned, Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe.

Now turn to the world of biology, and in particular turn to the micro-world of the cell and of mechanisms that we find at that level. Take bacteria which use a flagellum, driven by a kind of rotary motor, to move around. Every part is incredibly complex, and so are the various parts, combined. Near the surface of the cell, just as needed is a thickening, so that the filament can be connected to the rotor drive.

All, way too complex to have come into being in a gradual fashion. Only a one-step process will do, and this one-step process must involve some sort of designing cause. Behe is careful not to identify this designer with the Christian God, but the implication is that it is a force from without the normal course of nature. Irreducible complexity spells design.

Irreducible complexity is supposedly something which could not have come through unbroken law meaning law that has no special divine guidance , and especially not through the agency of natural selection.

Critics claim that Behe shows a misunderstanding of the very nature and workings of natural selection.

But the fact that one finds an occasional oddball or charlatan in the history of science or a person of integrity and genius among pseudoscientists does not imply that there really is no difference between science and pseudoscience.

Because of the public and empirical nature of scientific debate, the charlatans will be found out, errors will be corrected and the honest pursuit of the truth is likely to prevail in the end. This will not be the case with pseudosciences, where there is often no method of detecting errors much less of correcting them.

Some theories are so broad or vague that they predict just about anything. They can't be refuted, even in principle. Everything is consistent with them, even apparent contradictions and contraries! Other theories allow definite predictions to be made from them; they can, in principle, be refuted. They can be tested by experience and observation. A religious cosmology, such as that offered in Genesis and accepted as a literal account of the origin of the universe by fundamentalist Jews and Christians, is of the former type of theory.

No scientific theory is ever airtight. A cosmology held by a religious group may be scientific, however. For example, if a theory says that the world was created in B.

But if, for example, the ad hoc hypothesis is made that God created the world in B. If the age or dating techniques of fossil evidence is disputed, but considered relevant to the truth of the religious theory and is prejudged to be consistent with the theory, then the theory is a metaphysical one. Evolutionary Creation EC is a Christian position on origins. It takes the Bible seriously as the inspired and authoritative word of God, and it takes science seriously as a way of understanding the world God has made.

EC includes two basic ideas. First, that God created all things, including human beings in his own image. Second, that evolution is the best scientific explanation we currently have for the diversity and similarities of all life on Earth. So what are the central ideas that define EC? ECs believe that God created and sustains all things.

We believe that God acts purposefully in creation, just as he does in our lives, and that he continues to actively uphold and sustain creation. We believe in the Trinity, the full divinity and full humanity of Jesus Christ, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

We believe that all humans are made in the image of God and all humans have a sinful nature. We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. ECs accept evolution as the best scientific explanation we have for how life on Earth has changed over time. We therefore accept the scientific evidence that all life on Earth is related, including humans—which does not negate the image of God in us.

EC is neither science nor theology, but an explanatory system that seeks to incorporate the best scholarship from each. It also includes some ideas about how theology and science relate to one another. First, we prefer EC because we are, essentially, creationists. We are not mere theists. We believe that God—by the authority of the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit—created all things. Our beliefs about God and creation come first.

When we look at the insights science provides through the eyes of faith, we get an even fuller picture of reality. Third, many people have historically accused TEs of being deists. TE has at times been associated with the idea that God created the world and all the natural laws, but is no longer actively governing or involved in the cosmos.

In the BioLogos community we affirm the biblical miracles most centrally the Resurrection , believe God answers prayer, and recognize that God works providentially through natural processes to accomplish his purposes.