Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
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ut he also criticizes “hyper-orthodox” interpretations (such as strict recent creationism)<br />
as naive, unscientific, and selfdefeating. The Bible is neither full of scientific error, he<br />
explains, nor filled with modern scientific predictions and theories. Ramm, after he<br />
wrote this book, led the American Scientific Affiliation resistance to the rising youngearth<br />
creationism and Flood Geology movement led by Henry Morris. In this book<br />
(which is dedicated to Alton Everest of the Moody Institute of <strong>Science</strong> and the ASA) he<br />
criticizes Morris’s Flood Geology predecessors: G.M. Price, Harold Clark, Byron Nelson<br />
and others.<br />
Ramm argues that the language of the Bible is “phenomenal,” and also “prescientific”<br />
(though not antiscientific): it uses popular (not technical) terminology,<br />
expressed in terms of the cultures of the time, and deals with the appearances of things<br />
and events rather than with any scientific theorizing. The creation ‘days,’ he said, were<br />
“pictorial-revelatory,” not literal: they were revealed to Moses in six visions or in six<br />
days. Ramm describes his own view as “progressive creationism,” by which he means<br />
that God created the major types by direct supernatural fiat, but that this was<br />
accomplished over long ages. He insists that, if understood properly, the Bible cannot be<br />
contradicted by science: “If the Author of Nature and Scripture are the same God, then<br />
the two books of God must eventually recite the same story” (1954:25). He denounces<br />
“hyper-orthodox” young-earth Flood Geology creationism as scientifically ignorant;<br />
worse, it makes people suppose that good science opposes the Bible. Ramm insists upon<br />
creationism, though it must be creationism which properly harmonizes with science:<br />
“Any weakening, enervating, softening, hedging or compromising of the creationism of<br />
the Bible is not true to the Bible, and already is a crack in the wall which unbelief will<br />
smash open into a huge crevice” (1954:56).<br />
Robert C. Newman and Herman Eckelmann advocate a <strong>for</strong>m of Progressive<br />
<strong>Creationism</strong> in Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth (1977). Newman, who has an<br />
astrophysics Ph.D. from Cornell University, is a New Testament professor at Biblical<br />
Theological Seminary and a leader of the Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute in<br />
Hatfield, Pennsylvania; he is also a co-author of later editions of Peter Stoner’s <strong>Science</strong><br />
Speaks. Eckelmann is a pastor and a researcher at the Cornell Radiophysics and Space<br />
<strong>Center</strong>. They dedicate their book, interestingly, to Frank Drake, Thomas Gold, Carl<br />
Sagan, and other Cornell evolutionist astronomers. The first part of the book consists of<br />
scientific evidence <strong>for</strong> the age of the earth and is a strong refutation of young-earth<br />
creationism. In the second part the authors present theological arguments <strong>for</strong> old-earth<br />
creationism, correlating Genesis with scientific theories of the earth’s origin in a<br />
modified Day-Age approach. Their interpretation is different from standard Day-Age<br />
creationism, though, in that they do not equate the Genesis days with the corresponding<br />
ages. They advocate instead an “intermittent day” theory of progressive creationism.<br />
The Genesis days are real, but not successive: they are separated by long ages, one<br />
occurring each age; the seventh is yet to come. In their scheme, the first day intervenes<br />
after the planets <strong>for</strong>m from nebular clouds after the Big Bang. The second day follows<br />
out-gassing of the ocean and atmosphere from the hot primitive earth. The third day<br />
occurs after the <strong>for</strong>mation of the continents and the appearance of land vegetation. The<br />
fourth day occurred after the atmosphere became altered and cleared by photosynthetic<br />
organisms.