Christianity Today writer says it’s time to attack creationist views!
by Michael Matthews
Published: 1 September 2004 (GMT+10)
The September issue of Christianity Today calls on leaders in the Intelligent
Design movement to cool down their attack on evolution … and to open a second
front against young Earth views.
Unbelievable?
ID troublemakers
Christianity Today, with an article written by John Wilson, acknowledges
that the Intelligent Design (ID) movement
has had great success in pointing out the flawed logic and philosophical assumptions
of biological evolution.
But the article—mockingly titled ‘Unintelligent Debate’—chastises
‘ID troublemakers’ for their ‘confrontational’ tactics and
calls on them to ‘cool the rhetoric.’
Three ‘suggestions’
The article follows with three suggested changes in the ‘evolution debate.’
Suggestion 1. Under the heading ‘What we all share,’
the article suggests that ID thinkers drop their ‘acrimony’ against
theistic evolutionists and focus on what they share in common—‘God made
us.’
Our differences ‘must be seen as subordinate to the affirmation that unites
us, the recognition of the source of our being.’ (But should we seek unity
at the expense of errors that undermine the authority of the Bible? See
Facing the issue.)
Suggestion 2. Under the heading ‘The need for intellectual
honesty,’ the article blasts ‘the strategic refusal of the ID movement
to engage in constructive criticism of the Young Earth view.’
‘What is needed from the ID movement is principled disagreement,’ the
author declares. ‘They are virtually silent about the egregious intellectual
errors that abound in Young Earth literature.’ (Incidentally, the author does
not name a single error.)
The article then praises Hugh Ross, president
of Reasons to Believe, who ‘has been more forthright’ in his attacks
on the young Earth. The author believes ‘his work could serve as a model in
this respect.’ (In reality, Hugh Ross has followed a destructive pattern of
twisting Scripture and sloppy science to promote his own antibiblical bias—see
Exposé of The Genesis
Question.)
The stuff of science
Suggestion 3. Under the heading ‘Fleshing out the design,’
the Christianity Today article argues that ID is long on rhetoric and short
on actual scientific work. It’s time to get down to ‘the stuff
of science,’ the writer argues.
This section of the essay is devoted to an article in Nature magazine on
the evolution of the immune system in lampreys (a jawless, parasitic fish). Mr.
Wilson argues that this is the real stuff of science, which ID leaders need to begin
doing. The problem is, the writer does not seem to understand what science is. (See
‘It’s not science’.)
If you look closely at the article in Nature, the debate is not at all
about the sort of science we are generally familiar with and which has been so immensely
successful—operational science, how the world works. For example, immunology
studies the immune systems in modern animals, based on laboratory work and repeated
experimentation. But the Nature article is about the origin of
the immune system in lampreys—supposedly millions of years ago. This leaves
the realm of operational science and involves origins, or historical science.
No scientist was present to observe the origin of lampreys. When scientists write
about history, they are forced to make assumptions about events that can
never be seen, tested directly, or repeated. So their conclusions are only as sound
as their assumptions. If their assumptions are wrong, their conclusions must be
unsound.
Evolutionary scientists assume that lampreys and all other creatures on
Earth arose from a single-celled organism over hundreds of millions of years. We
know that this is false, however, because God’s Word tells us so. According
to His infallible eyewitness account, the Creator says He made different ‘kinds’
in the beginning to reproduce ‘after their kinds’
(Genesis
1); moreover, Jesus Christ Himself believed that all these kinds—including
Adam and Eve—were present ‘from the beginning’
(Mark
10:6).
It’s instructive to see what can happen when evangelical Christians exalt
man’s changing, fallible beliefs above God’s infallible Word—they
end up defending the enemies of God’s Word and attacking its defenders!
Your bias is showing
The author of the Christianity Today article is an editor-at-large. Mr.
Wilson puts on a veneer of cool-headed neutrality, calling on the ID warriors to
‘step back from the fray.’ But he is clearly sympathetic to theistic
evolution. He scolds Christians in the ID movement for making too much of their
differences with theistic evolutionists because ‘we must remember our limitations,
the fallibility of our knowledge, even as we forcefully argue our case.’
But at the same time, his words betray a passionate desire to defend his own
antibiblical assumptions about history (see Evolution &
creation, science & religion, facts & bias).
‘Common ancestry [is] hard to deny, it seems to me, though most of the ID
people disagree …’ (p. 66).
Mr. Wilson is clearly biased against those who defend the history in Genesis against
direct attacks on the integrity and accuracy of its Author. Even though
most in the ID movement are unwilling to stand up for the truthfulness of the history
in Genesis, and many are actually hostile to that position, that is not enough for
Wilson. He would like to see more work done to undermine the influence of young-Earth
creationists, i.e. those who see how vital it is to let Scripture speak for itself.
‘Neither Intelligent Design nor theistic evolutionism, alas, is the most influential
position among the evangelical rank and file, where Young Earth creationism still
holds sway’ (p. 64).
Note the ‘alas’—Wilson thinks it is a pity that people should
believe the history of the universe given in the Bible. The real sadness is contemplating
this sort of article in a major Christian magazine. The issue is not some vague
shared belief in ‘the source of our being.’ New Agers, Muslims, Hindus
can all nod assent to that. The real issue is the authority of the Bible.
Genesis history was taught and believed as factual by the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Creator Himself. Undermine the truthfulness of that foundational history, and what
is left of the Gospel? Why should we expect a decaying culture to believe and accept
the Bible’s statements about morality and salvation, if they can’t trust
it about science and history? This is what the battle is all about.
Related article
| Long before this site existed, many millions searched on the word “creation”. When they do that now they will get to know this site exists and read the evidence that God is Creator. Help reach millions.  | | |
|
