Saving Darwin

Mallon · #11 20th November 2008, 03:35 PM

Originally Posted by Matthewj1985

Well there is no such thing as an honest young earth creationist is has an actual scientific education.

That wasn't the nicest thing to say.
I think many YECs out there honestly think they're doing the Lord's work. And I think they honestly believe that ignoring data is the right thing to do when it contradicts their chosen interpretation of Scripture. I disagree with that, and I don't think it's terribly honest myself, but they do.

IndyPirate · #12 20th November 2008, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by Mallon

Certainly. Glenn Morton is both a TE and a concordist, for example. I think the concordist/accommodationist dichotomy does a relatively good job of dividing the pro-evolution/anti-evolution camps, though. It's the one factor that I think best separates our attitudes toward evolution and the Bible.

Very good points. I'll also point out that there don't seem to be too many Old Earth Creationists that don't accept evolution in some form or another. There are small groups that accept that the earth is old but that each "kind" was created at separate times and microevolution happened to these "kinds". Isn't this what Jehovah's Witnesses believe or did I get that wrong?

Mallon · #13 20th November 2008, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by IndyPirate

Very good points. I'll also point out that there don't seem to be too many Old Earth Creationists that don't accept evolution in some form or another. There are small groups that accept that the earth is old but that each "kind" was created at separate times and microevolution happened to these "kinds". Isn't this what Jehovah's Witnesses believe or did I get that wrong?

All anti-evolutionary creationists I know of believe in "created kinds" and "microevolution" within those kinds. They just can't agree what a "kind" means, and redefine microevolution to suit their purposes. In fact, one YEC was just arguing here the other day that the evolution from Pakicetus to blue whales was "microevolution" (i.e., change within a kind).

IndyPirate · #14 20th November 2008, 07:44 PM

I found another new story about the book, if anyone is interested:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,455504,00.html

I agree with this part of the article:

Obviously, he thinks one can be a Christian and accept evolution, but these two sets of knowledge "don't make as much contact with each other as people think," he said.

Many fundamentalists "elevate Genesis beyond what is appropriate." Fundamentalists' spin on the creation story in Genesis "robs it of everything that is interesting," he said.

Instead, readers should recall that the Bible repeats the refrain that God found what he made "good" and looks at the world as good.

IndyPirate · #15 21st November 2008, 04:39 PM

BTW, I did not know that modern Young Earth Creationism started with Ellen White and the Seventh-day Adventists. Very interesting.

Mallon · #16 21st November 2008, 05:19 PM

Originally Posted by IndyPirate

BTW, I did not know that modern Young Earth Creationism started with Ellen White and the Seventh-day Adventists. Very interesting.

Yep. George McCready Price had a lot to do with it, too. You don't hear them talk about it much, though. Check out Ronald Numbers' The Creationists for more.

IndyPirate · #17 21st November 2008, 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by Mallon

Yep. George McCready Price had a lot to do with it, too. You don't hear them talk about it much, though. Check out Ronald Numbers' The Creationists for more.

The book mentions him too. He draws a straight line from William Miller to Ellen White to George McCready Price to John Whitcomb and Henry Morris.

He also makes an interesting point that David Friedrich Strauss's Life of Jesus Critically Examined has as much to do with the rise of YEC as Darwin's Origin of Species did. The Life of Jesus Critically Examined caused a massive backlash against more modern interpretations of scripture. This eventually led to the rise of fundamentalism in the early 1900's.

All of this church history is fascinating to me. There's a lot of stuff I did not know. I'll try to find a copy of The Creationists when I'm done with Saving Darwin. Thanks for the suggestion.

Assyrian · #18 21st November 2008, 07:37 PM

Though the original Fundamentalists were were all Old Earth and some were open to the idea God could have used Evolution.

I think the Millerite connection is very important, a tradition that got it so disastrously wrong working out God's timetable for the end may not be very reliable working out his timetable for the beginning.

Van · #19 22nd November 2008, 07:53 AM

Concordism (or better, scientific concordism), which is foundational to their [Creationist] principles of biblical interpretation, is the belief that there exists an accord between science and Scripture.

If this published view is valid, then there is no difference between scientific concordism and evolutionary creationists.

I still await an answer to the question, what is the difference between an old earth creationist and a theistic evolutionist. It appears to me to be the denial of special creation, the view of progressive creationists.

shernren · #20 22nd November 2008, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by IndyPirate

The book mentions him too. He draws a straight line from William Miller to Ellen White to George McCready Price to John Whitcomb and Henry Morris.

He also makes an interesting point that David Friedrich Strauss's Life of Jesus Critically Examined has as much to do with the rise of YEC as Darwin's Origin of Species did. The Life of Jesus Critically Examined caused a massive backlash against more modern interpretations of scripture. This eventually led to the rise of fundamentalism in the early 1900's.

All of this church history is fascinating to me. There's a lot of stuff I did not know. I'll try to find a copy of The Creationists when I'm done with Saving Darwin. Thanks for the suggestion.

Try Darwin's Forgotten Defenders for a look at how early Fundamentalists, and evangelicals in general, initially reacted to evolution - they were plenty willing to accommodate both an old earth and evolution where it seemed prudent. The book is also short and sweet, a fait bit shorter than The Creationists.

Yes literalism is often an easy but ultimately pricey backlash at a challenge to the interpretive norm of the day. Most people don't realize that the theological reasoning behind the persecution of Galileo was that at the Council of Trent, in response to the Reformation, the Catholic church ultimately decided that the only theologically allowable interpretation of Scripture was that which coincided with the Church Fathers' - and the Church Fathers had been unanimously geocentrist, thus making it impossible for Galileo to both obey the Council of Trent and maintain his heliocentric views.

Originally Posted by Van

If this published view is valid, then there is no difference between scientific concordism and evolutionary creationists.

I still await an answer to the question, what is the difference between an old earth creationist and a theistic evolutionist. It appears to me to be the denial of special creation, the view of progressive creationists.

I suppose an "accord" between Scripture and science is too vague. I certainly believe that Scripture rightfully interpreted can never contradict science rightfully concluded.

Concordism is, more narrowly speaking, the insistence that a literalistic interpretation of Scripture is the one that science must agree with, and that any difference between this interpretation of Scripture with any science is one in which science must ultimately yield, the wrongness of Scripture's interpretation not being an option.

The main difference between OECs and TEs is concerning the manner in which life came about. OECs generally accept the geological record as evidence of actual events undergone by Earth, but see life in the geological record as being specially created by God (i.e. God poofed fish into existence in the Devonian, poofed large mammals into existence after the Cretaceous, etc.). By that count I suppose you could, if you wished to be pedantic, classify me and a few others here as OECs on account of the fact that we think some supernaturalistic element must have been involved in the creating of (to borrow John Stott's interesting classification) homo divinus, man who is able to relate to God.

The thing is, OECs as a lobby group are not very active in terms of wanting to legislate evolution out of textbooks. Most OEC articles position themselves as conservative rebuttals of what they see to be YEC extremism, without necessarily going the whole hog of embracing evolutionism. And to YECs, the OEC acceptance of such views as the antiquity of Earth, animal death before the Fall, and typically some kind of local flood viewpoint, makes them just as much unbiblical compromisers as TEs. So even though OECism is theoretically a separate position on origins (and indeed was largely held in American evangelicalism as the initial reaction to evolution), for the purposes of most groups involved in the origins discussion they are rarely substantial enough to be addressed on their own.