Creationism - National Center for Science Education

“fundamentalist groups-.called scientific creationists.” (See, for instance, “Evolutionists
and Creationists Are At It Again!”: Elliot 1983.) This declared opposition to both
evolution and “creationism” results from Armstrong’s Gap Theory position; he calls
“creationists” to task for believing in Flood Geology and a young earth. (It is also a
reflection of Armstrong’s claim to sole possession of truth.) The anti-evolution
arguments in these articles, and in booklets written by Armstrong’s son Garner Ted
before their final schism such as A Theory for the Birds (1971; originally 1967), A Whale
of a Tale (1968), Some Fishy Stories About an Unproved Theory (1971; originally 1966),
The Amazing Archer Fish Disproves Evolution! (1967), and The Fable of the First Fatal
Flight (1966), are exactly the same as those of the “creationists.”
A.G. Tilney, the prolific Evolution Protest Movement pamphleteer, was a Gap
Theory supporter, though he does not mention this in his EPM pamphlets, which consist
instead of attacks on evolution. In 1970 he published a book, Without Form and Void,
which presumably concerns the Gap Theory (Munday 1986:42). L. Merson Davies,
another active EPM member, had a Ph.D. in geology and studied fossil foraminifera.
Davies was “the only geologist about whom I have ever heard or read,” says Henry
Morris (1984b:107-108), “who gave any credence to the gap theory...” In The Bible and
Modern Science (1953), Davies argued both for the Gap Theory and for geological
effects of the Flood. Davies also teamed up with Douglas Dewar to engage J.B.S.
Haldane in published debates on evolution.
M.R. DeHaan, MD, became very well known through his Radio Bible Class
broadcasts. (His sons Richard now does the broadcasts.) DeHaan’s book Genesis &
Evolution (1962) is resolutely creationist. It promotes the Gap Theory, and insists on a
literal six-day re-creation.
There is every scientific evidence of a prehistoric creation on this earth... Not many years ago these
findings were rejected by orthodox theologians until it was pointed out that the first and second verses of
Genesis 1 do not describe the same period. [1962:26]
DeHaan announces that various geological strata provide clear evidence of a “great
cataclysmic convolution of the earth in the dateless past,” and summarizes the standard
Gap Theory arguments. He adds one new twist, asserting that the “water” in Gen. 1:2
must have been ice, there being no sun—thus confirming scientific evidence of the Ice
Age (1962: 26-27). “The Bible is Scientific,” declares DeHaan:
You see what a dangerous, vicious mistake it is to try to defend the Bible by saying it was not intended to
be a book of science. To this statement we answer that God is the only infallible scientist, the Bible is the
only book of absolute sciences, and wherever it deals with any branch of science: astronomy,physics,
biology, chemistry, geology, mathematics, mechanics, or pyschology, it speaks with the same infallible
final authority. Not a single statement in the entire Bible has ever been disproven by true science, but in
every case true science hs confirmed the revelation of Scripture. [1962:16]
DeHaan sees evolution as a deliberate attack on Christianity (1962:41). He repeatedly
insists that “if the evolutionary theory of the origin of man by evolution from lower
animals were ever proved true, it would automatically disprove the Bible, and reduce it to
an antiquated compilation of superstitions, fable and fancies unworthy of a place in
human history” (1962:56-57). Evolution renders original sin, and Christ’s redemptive
sacrifice, utterly pointless.