Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
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A.E. Wilder-Smith, the creationist with three earned doctorates, has a chapter on<br />
the “cloning” of Eve from Adam in the Garden of Eden in his book The Reliability of the<br />
Bible. “The entire report reads exactly like a historical description of surgery under<br />
normal physiological conditions <strong>for</strong> surgery,” he says (1983:55) regarding the Genesis<br />
account. Wilder-Smith emphatically rejects any suggestion that this story be interpreted<br />
symbolically or mythically, and insists it is a factual description of an actual operation.<br />
God, after removing a cell from Adam’s rib, deleted the Y chromosome and doubled the<br />
remaining X chromosome to produce a female. Thus Wilder-Smith retains a literal<br />
interpretation of biblical Creation and also affirms the scientific accuracy of the Bible.<br />
A somewhat earlier theory was advanced by P.G. Fothergill in his book Evolution<br />
and Christians (1961). He suggested that Adam was “the product of pre-hominid parents<br />
acting as instrumental causes.” Adam married one of the proto-human creatures; their<br />
offspring would have been “the product of a fully-<strong>for</strong>med human male gamete and a<br />
near-human female egg.” Since each gamete contains the full complement of genes,<br />
Adam’s offspring could have been fully human if they got their genes from his gamete,<br />
and thus they could have received a soul as well. Adam could then have married one of<br />
these (his own) children—Eve. Eve was in this way created “out of Adam.”<br />
Arthur Custance, the Canadian author of the “Doorway Papers” series, has a<br />
doctorate in medical physiology (though it is usually listed in the creationist literature as<br />
an “anthropology” Ph.D.). The Flood: Local or Global? (1979), one of his several<br />
Doorway Papers volumes, contains a chapter on “The Meaning of Sweat as Part of the<br />
Curse.” Custance, who has done research on combat heat stress and related topics, here<br />
analyzes the physiological significance of biblical references to sweat, concluding that<br />
Adam originally sweated only minimally <strong>for</strong> heat regulation. Sweating from fear or<br />
emotional stress did not exist until the Fall.<br />
PROPOSITIONAL NATURE OF THE BIBLE<br />
In Genesis in Space and Time (1972), Francis Schaeffer, a leading fundamentalist<br />
theologian and philosopher, proclaims the historicity of Genesis. The Bible consists of<br />
“propositional truths” rooted in actual history.<br />
What the Bible tells us is propositional, factual and true truth, but what is given is in relation to men. It is a<br />
scientific textbook in the sense that where it touches the cosmos it is true, propositionally true. When we<br />
go to heaven, what we learn further will no more contradict the facts the Bible now gives us than the New<br />
Testament contradicts the Old. The Bible is not a scientific textbook if by that one means that its purpose is<br />
to give us exhaustive truth or that scientific fact is its central theme and purpose. [1972:35-36]<br />
The truth of the New Testament is dependent on this historicity and facticity of Genesis.<br />
What is the hermeneutical principle involved here? Surely the Bible itself gives it: The early chapters of<br />
Genesis are to be viewed completely as history—just as much so, let us say, as records concerning<br />
Abraham, David, Solomon or Jesus Christ.<br />
The opening verse of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and the<br />
remainder of chapter 1 brings us immediately into a world of space and time. Space and time are the warp<br />
and woof. Their interwoven relationship is history. [1972:15]<br />
The historic Christian position concerning Genesis 1:1 is the only one which can be substantiated, the only<br />
one which is fair and adequate to the whole thrust of Scripture. “In the beginning” is a technical term