Creationism - National Center for Science Education

R.J. Berry criticizes both “Fundamentalists” (Morris, e.g.) and “liberals”
(especially Teilhard) in Adam and the Ape: A Christian Approach to the Theory of
Evolution (1975). He defends creation ex nihilo, but is not a literalist. Man has a long
biological history, he says, but man (Adam) was also created theologically, perhaps in the
Neolithic, when God endowed Adam with spirituality. In fact, Berry accepts evolution,
thus making him a conservative theistic evolutionist, but his approach is quite similar to
many old-earth creationists. “Widely quoted criticisms such as Kerkut or Moorhead and
Kaplan,” he says, “are largely about details.” Evolutionist research will modify theories,
but evolution itself will not be denied.
John Clayton advocates another old-earth variant—what his young-earth critics
call a “modified gap theory,” though it also includes elements of Day-Age creationism.
Clayton is an Indiana high-school teacher with geological training who gives a popular
creation-science lecture series called Does God Exist?, which he has presented on many
high school and college campuses; 41 it is also available in film and video as a set of
thirteen half-hour programs (1982). He also distributes and loans many other creationist
materials. In his Does God Exist? series, Clayton describes how he converted from
atheism to God because of scientific evidence (mostly evidence against evolution—
especially the Design argument). He stresses that the films present scientific, not
religious, evidence: “You haven’t heard any Bible-spouting here.” In Film 4, “Fossils
and Genesis,” Clayton presents a modified Day-Age view.
In The Source: Eternal Design Or Infinite Accident? (1983; originally 1976), a
book aimed at students, Clayton refutes recent creation as well as evolution. He argues
that the Genesis order of creation is the same as the geological record, but also maintains
that there were long ages before the six days of creation. However, he denies the
standard Gap Theory, pointing out that there is no evidence for the global destruction it
posits (1983:136-137). He proposes that the first few verses of Genesis precede by long
ages the six-day creation, and that God created mankind ex nihilo on the sixth day, but
that He also made use of materials and life-forms created in earlier ages, which had
developed through these ages into an ecosystem able to support man and the other new
forms.
Because of his old-earth views, Clayton denies being a member of the “creationist
movement.” Strict creationists, returning the favor, have repudiated his interpretations as
heretical compromises, especially fellow Church of Christ members Wayne Jackson and
Bert Thompson. Jackson and Thompson’s Evolutionary Creationism: A Review of the
Teachings of John Clayton (1979) is a strongly-worded refutation of Clayton’s hybrid
old-earth views. They attribute Clayton’s views to his training in geology rather than the
Bible.
Dan Wonderly provides convincing explanations of non-radiometric dating
methods in God’s Time-Records in Ancient Sediments (1977), his refutation of youngearth
creationism. He discusses sedimentation layers, erosion features, deep drilling, and
reef and coral formation as proof of earth’s great age. Wonderly taught science in
various Christian colleges, including Grace College. His book is an expanded version of
41 I first saw the film version at UCLA, shown by Campus Advance for Christ, a Church of Christ
affiliated group. At that time (1984), a UCLA biochemistry graduate student at the Molecular Biology
Institute was one of the group’s leaders.