Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Materialists have been repeating over and over that Christians want to introduce supernatural <strong>for</strong>ces into<br />
science. But it is really the materialists who want to introduce spirits and animism into science under the<br />
guise of creative <strong>for</strong>ces hiding in dead molecules. [1981:iv]<br />
Verbrugge expanded on this theme that materialistic evolution requires animistic<br />
belief in Alive: An Enquiry into the Origin and Meaning of Life (1984), which was<br />
published by a press affiliated with Rushdoony’s Chalcedon Foundation, and has a<br />
Foreword by Rushdoony. Those who reject God always substitute other gods, Verbrugge<br />
says. Since the humanist Renaissance, scientists have continued to invent animistic<br />
spirits, reverting to the pagan animism of the ancient Greeks, who invented various spirit<br />
<strong>for</strong>ces to explain life. Verbrugge argues that Christians must adhere to Dooyeweerd’s<br />
“cosmonomic” view of creation, and stresses Dooyeweerd’s distinction between<br />
‘function’ and ‘functor.’ Those who reject the Creator constantly confuse these, and<br />
endow mere capacities with animistic powers. God-rejecting science, concludes<br />
Verbrugge, is a mass of circular reasoning and contradictions.<br />
Hebden Taylor, a pastor and author of books on Christian law and politics who<br />
later taught at Dordt College, presented “A Study of the Biological Thought” of<br />
Dooyeweerd and De Wit in his book Evolution and the Re<strong>for</strong>mation of Biology (1967),<br />
published by Craig Press. Taylor urges biblical creationism rather than the “apostate<br />
humanist theory” of origins by chance, and praises Dooyeweerd’s Cosmonomic<br />
approach. “Only by accepting God’s Word as the ordering principle in scientific study<br />
can we make sense of the data of science.”<br />
The Re<strong>for</strong>med scientific approach to modern biology is the only one which can effectively answer the<br />
modern apostate evolution. The facts of science can be interpreted in either of two frames of reference: (1)<br />
evolutionary naturalism, or (2) the Biblical account of creation. As a result the Christian believes that the<br />
universe derives its existence from Almighty God who created it <strong>for</strong> His own glory out of nothing. It<br />
follows that scientific thought and research are fundamentally a religious activity.<br />
Taylor advocates Flood Geology: “the Great Deluge alone offers a plausible solution to<br />
the enigma of the fossil record,” and argues that genetics and mutations do not allow <strong>for</strong><br />
the continuous progressive variation required by evolution. He also, revealingly,<br />
disagrees with Ernst Mayr’s rejection of typological thinking in biology (1967:55ff).<br />
(Mayr emphasized this Popperian theme recently in his 1982 Growth of Biological<br />
Thought.)<br />
Samuel Wolfe presented Dooyeweerd’s Cosmonomic philosophy in A Key to<br />
Dooyeweerd (1978), a book published by Presbyterian and Re<strong>for</strong>med. Discussing each<br />
of Dooyeweerd’s “spheres” of law, Wolfe points out that Dooyeweerd did not deal with<br />
‘faith’ as a sphere—a shortcoming which Wolfe tries to rectify, adding it as a final<br />
sphere. Wolfe says that Dordt College in Iowa, a Calvinist institution, has been the<br />
center of the Cosmonomic Movement in this country, and that Vanguard magazine is a<br />
leading promoter of it in Toronto. (See Maatman 1970, 1978; Maatman is a Dordt<br />
College science professor.) Wolfe also urges that the Cosmonomic and creation-science<br />
movements join <strong>for</strong>ces against evolution. He discusses attempts by himself and by<br />
George Howe, science professor at Los Angeles Baptist College and Board member of<br />
the Creation Research Society, to arouse interest in Dooyeweerd and the Cosmonomic<br />
movement in this country. Howe, he says (1978:27), corresponded with De Wit on the