Abstract
As mentioned above, there are many forms of “creationism” in the United States, and I think it is important for any social scientific analysis of creationism to first try and understand what these different ideas are about. This is because (and I hope to be able to show this further below) the kinds of ideas creationists harbor have a strong influence on what they are willing and able to do in order to promote them. If you think the other creationists are actually completely wrong and maybe not even Christian, you will find it hard to enter into coalitions with them. If the point of your creationist system is to spread the truth of the Bible, then you will have a harder time getting into public schools than if you focus on a few scientific issues, leaving questions of Biblical interpretation aside.
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- 1.
These are mostly Statements of Faith, which can be found on the websites of the leading creationist organizations. They are summaries of doctrinal statements which must be affirmed by every person who wishes to become a member of the respective professional creationist organization. Early creationist organizations in the 1930s and 1940s were often short-lived (see Sect. 3.1) because of disagreement among their members on various issues. The Statements of Faith were, thus, further refined with each newly founded organization until the teachings gathered there were so differentiated and unambiguous that only members who had agreed on all important points were accepted. These documents have proven themselves as summaries of the relevant creationist teachings, and can be regarded as valid and representative documents. The Intelligent Design movement does not have a Statement of Faith proper, but the views of its professional representatives are available in the form of Frequently Asked Questions, which can be found online (Center for Science and Culture n.d.-a).
- 2.
The first detailed attempt to date creation by means of this method was made by the Irish archbishop James Ussher in 1650, who put the date of creation on the 23rd October, 4004 BC and even gave the time (early evening) (Ussher 1650). See McCalla 2006, pp. 32–33. Ussher’s chronology and his approach have become important for the development of creationism, especially because his approach has been used in the Scofield Reference Bible, which was, and still is, widespread among creationists. See Morris 1984, pp. 58–59.
- 3.
Cf. Gen 7:19 f. KJV: „And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.”
- 4.
Cf. Gen 7:11 KJV: „In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.”
- 5.
The calculations of this time vary considerably even within Young Earth Creationism.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
Detailed criticism of the form of creationism represented by Reasons to Believe can be found on the webpages of the two largest Young Earth organizations, Institute for Creation Research, and Answers In Genesis (Faulkner 1999).
- 9.
The Day/Age Theory is one of the variants of Old Earth Creationism. It differs from other variants in how it justifies long periods through an interpretation of the book of Genesis. The Gap Theory assumes that there was a long period between Gen 1: 1 and Gen 1: 2, during which the same natural processes were at work that Day/Age ascribes to the 6 days of creation. The Ruin and Restoration Theory assumes that the creation account deals only with the last of a series of creations, and that the fossil record is the result of earlier ‘creations’. See Scott 2000a for this entire spectrum.
- 10.
This ideal-type position is compiled from the series Evolution as Mythology, which was published on the Reasons to Believe website in 2008 (Henry et al. 2008).
- 11.
This is the Miller-Urey experiment, where an assumed primordial atmosphere was imitated in 1953 under laboratory conditions. It produced simple organic substances by adding electricity to this supposed primordial soup. The criticism states that at the time of the abiogenesis, the atmospheric conditions were different from those assumed by Miller and Urey.
- 12.
The Cambrian explosion refers to a period of rapid increase in biological complexity at the beginning of the Cambrian era, about 540 million years ago. In the course of a few million years, different biological strains were formed. For an interpretation of the Cambrian explosion from an Intelligent Design perspective, see Meyer 2013.
- 13.
In anticipation of the next chapter of the institutional history of Intelligent Design, it can be noted that this stance has practical implications for the activities of its representatives, who see themselves as victims of censorship and bullying. See also the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Frankowski 2008).
- 14.
Despite the emphasis on the scientific nature of Intelligent Design by the representatives of this position, they do not deny the possibility that the theory is affine to and compatible with theism (Meyer 2009; Dembski 2009), and they often deal with religious validity claims (Johnson 2000; Behe 2006, pp. 232–253; Meyer 2009, pp. 439–452; Dembski 1998a, 2009; Ratzsch 1998).
- 15.
This is the title of one of the early Intelligent Design conferences that helped consolidate the movement in the 1990s. See Chap. 3.
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Kaden, T. (2019). Creationist Positions. In: Creationism and Anti-Creationism in the United States. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99380-5_2
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