In 1981 the Arkansas Legislature passed bill 590, known as the "Balanced Treatment of Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act". It required that creation science be taught whenever evolution was taught.
Creation science was defined as:
"1. Sudden creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing.
2. The insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of all living things from a single organism.
3. Changes only within fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals.
4. Separate ancestry for man and apes.
5. Explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of a worldwide flood.
6. A relatively recnet inception of earth and living kinds."
Immediate 26 Arkansas citizens filed suit to block the bill. Of the 26, 23 were ministers and rabbis. They included the Methodist, Catholic, Episcopalian, and African Methodist bishops of Arkansas and clergy of the Presbyterians, Southern Baptist, Conservative, and Reform Jews. The case is known as McLean vs Arkansas and Mclean was Reverend McLean of the Presbyterian Church USA. The other 3 were educators who were Christians. No atheists and no scientists. The scientists came in only as witnesses.
I'm not going to discuss the science, but the theology of the creation scientists. They got Henry Morris, Duane Gish, and other members of the Institute for Creation Research to testify in the pre-trial "Findings of Fact". Depositions. Answers in Genesis didn't exist at the time and ICR was the organization for creation science.
Below is part of an essay by Father Bruce Vawter:
"In the final issue I would like to address the question of out-and-out heresy, potentially the destruction of the whole Christian enterprise through the ham-handed activities of well-intentioned but historically and theologically illiterate Christians. In the "Findings of Fact" filed by the Defendants in the Arkansas Case prior to adjudication, a truly deplorable statement was asserted in paragraph 35: 'Creation-science does presuppose the existence of a creator, to the same degree that evolutin-science presupposes the existence of no creator. As used in the context of creation-science, as defined by 54(a) [sic]of Act 590, the terms or concepts of "creation" and "creator" are not inherently religious terms or concepts. In this sense, the term "creator" means only some entity with power, intelligence, and a sense of design. Creation-science does not require a creator who has a personality, who has the attributes of love, compassion, justice, etc., which are ordinarily attributed to a deity. Indeed, the creation-science model does not require that the creator still be in existence."
It would be hard to set emotional priorities, from bitter sorrow to deep anger, which this wretched formulation and its obvious and cynical compromise with mammon should evoke in any sensitive theological soul. Let us say nothing about the hypocrisy of good people who have obviously convinced themselves that a good cause can be supported by any mendacious and specious means whatsoever. The passage is perverse, however, not only because it says things that are untrue, namely that creationism presupposes a creator whereas evolutionism necessarily does not, and not only because 'creation' and 'creator' are proffered speciously secular, nonreligious definitions.
The worst thing about these unthinking and unhistorical formulations is what Langdon Gilkey pointed out at the Arkansas trial in December of 1981. The concept of a creator God distinct from the God of love and mercy is a reopening of the way to the Marcionist and Gnostic heresies, among the deadliest ever to afflict Christianity. That those who make such formulations do not seriously intend them save as a debating ploy does not mitigate their essential malevolence." Bruce Vawter, "Creationism: creative misuse of the Bible" in Is God a Creationist? Ed. by Roland Frye, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1983 pp 81-82.
Creation science, as formulated by the founders of creation science, seems to be heresy.
Creation science was defined as:
"1. Sudden creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing.
2. The insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of all living things from a single organism.
3. Changes only within fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals.
4. Separate ancestry for man and apes.
5. Explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of a worldwide flood.
6. A relatively recnet inception of earth and living kinds."
Immediate 26 Arkansas citizens filed suit to block the bill. Of the 26, 23 were ministers and rabbis. They included the Methodist, Catholic, Episcopalian, and African Methodist bishops of Arkansas and clergy of the Presbyterians, Southern Baptist, Conservative, and Reform Jews. The case is known as McLean vs Arkansas and Mclean was Reverend McLean of the Presbyterian Church USA. The other 3 were educators who were Christians. No atheists and no scientists. The scientists came in only as witnesses.
I'm not going to discuss the science, but the theology of the creation scientists. They got Henry Morris, Duane Gish, and other members of the Institute for Creation Research to testify in the pre-trial "Findings of Fact". Depositions. Answers in Genesis didn't exist at the time and ICR was the organization for creation science.
Below is part of an essay by Father Bruce Vawter:
"In the final issue I would like to address the question of out-and-out heresy, potentially the destruction of the whole Christian enterprise through the ham-handed activities of well-intentioned but historically and theologically illiterate Christians. In the "Findings of Fact" filed by the Defendants in the Arkansas Case prior to adjudication, a truly deplorable statement was asserted in paragraph 35: 'Creation-science does presuppose the existence of a creator, to the same degree that evolutin-science presupposes the existence of no creator. As used in the context of creation-science, as defined by 54(a) [sic]of Act 590, the terms or concepts of "creation" and "creator" are not inherently religious terms or concepts. In this sense, the term "creator" means only some entity with power, intelligence, and a sense of design. Creation-science does not require a creator who has a personality, who has the attributes of love, compassion, justice, etc., which are ordinarily attributed to a deity. Indeed, the creation-science model does not require that the creator still be in existence."
It would be hard to set emotional priorities, from bitter sorrow to deep anger, which this wretched formulation and its obvious and cynical compromise with mammon should evoke in any sensitive theological soul. Let us say nothing about the hypocrisy of good people who have obviously convinced themselves that a good cause can be supported by any mendacious and specious means whatsoever. The passage is perverse, however, not only because it says things that are untrue, namely that creationism presupposes a creator whereas evolutionism necessarily does not, and not only because 'creation' and 'creator' are proffered speciously secular, nonreligious definitions.
The worst thing about these unthinking and unhistorical formulations is what Langdon Gilkey pointed out at the Arkansas trial in December of 1981. The concept of a creator God distinct from the God of love and mercy is a reopening of the way to the Marcionist and Gnostic heresies, among the deadliest ever to afflict Christianity. That those who make such formulations do not seriously intend them save as a debating ploy does not mitigate their essential malevolence." Bruce Vawter, "Creationism: creative misuse of the Bible" in Is God a Creationist? Ed. by Roland Frye, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1983 pp 81-82.
Creation science, as formulated by the founders of creation science, seems to be heresy.
