ID & YEC

Steven Schimmrich (sschimmr@ursa.calvin.edu)
Sat, 10 Apr 1999 12:58:49 -0400

Allan Harvey asked:
>
> Perhaps I could get Bill Dembski to agree to a statement that Phil Johnson
> refused to endorse a while back:
>
> "While I believe the evidence does not support the theory of evolution,
> and while it has been abused as a tool by those pushing an atheist
> agenda, the Christian faith does not suffer if it turns out that
> evolution is true. God can create however He chooses, and is not
> diminished if His work in creation was through 'natural' processes."
>
> Could you endorse that statement? If not, what part do you disagree
> with, and why? And would you be willing to say this publicly to prevent
> people from misinterpreting the work of the ID movement?

I second this. Why don't ID people make it clear exactly where they stand on
issues like this? The standard view among many who oppose creationism is that
ID is just a "front" for getting YEC into public schools (NOTE - This is NOT
necessarily what I believe, I'm just playing the Devil's advocate here!).

Eugenie Scott, for example, of the National Center for Science Education (an
organization which opposes the introduction of creationism into the public
schools) has written (http://www.ifas.org/fw/9409/creationism.html):

> In response to such legal decisions, creationism has evolved by avoiding the
> word creationism. A current euphemism is intelligent design theory, promoted
> in the creationist textbook Of Pandas and People. It comes as no surprise to
> someone familiar with the arguments of the now-discredited scientific creationists
> that intelligent design and abrupt appearance proofs are identical with those of
> scientific creationism.

I tried to question Phil Johnson on this a couple of years ago when he gave a
series of talks at the University of Illinois while I was a graduate student
there. I wanted to know what he thought of the young-earth creationists and he
gave a very evasive non-answer (I guess I should have expected such a reply from
a laywer :).

I would ask the ID crowd what they think of YEC as it's promoted by organizations
like the ICR, CRS, and Answers in Genesis. Do they support all of the arguments
put forth by people like Henry Morris, Ken Ham, Steve Austin, etc.? Some of them?
None of them? I never seem to hear any criticism of YEC by ID people on this list
even though I know they know that many of the YEC bandied about are complete nonsense.
Why not?

I'm cynical enough to think that most of the well-known ID supporters don't
necessarily support YEC but know who's buying their books and paying their lecture
fees so avoid much in the way of public criticism (this especially applies to
Phil Johnson).

- Steve.

--
   Steven H. Schimmrich                         Assistant professor of geology
   Department of Geology and Geography          sschimmr@calvin.edu (office)
   Calvin College                               schimmri@earthlink.net (home)
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