TM12. LEARNING FROM CREATIONISM’S SUCCESS

TM12: 14 June 2003
Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Sharpe. All rights reserved.
Faith and Freedom 56 (1) Spring-Summer 2003: 4-10.

LEARNING FROM CREationism’s success

Kevin Sharpe

Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, USA
Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, UK
Oxford Institute for Science and Spirit, Oxford, UK

10 Shirelake Close
Oxford, OX1 1SN
United Kingdom.
Cellphone +44-(0)7711-519-243
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kevin.sharpe@tui.edu
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The State of Arkansas passed a law late in 1981 requiring that schools devote equal time to both creation science and evolutionary science. Efforts to establish scientifically the emergence of the universe and life – especially of humans – according to a literal interpretation of the biblical book of Genesis must have as much exposure in schools, according to the law, as does the biological theory of evolution. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law at a month-long trial at Little Rock. The judge William Overton ruled that the law violates the separation of church and state and so breaches the constitution of the U.S. This didn’t budge creationism; a 2002 headline in The Observer, ‘U.S. Schools Ban Darwin from Class,’ leads to the opening statement: ‘A religious campaign to block the teaching of evolutionary biology is taking an inexorable grip on the U.S.’[1]

My interest lies in the relationship between theology and science, especially in theology’s use of the method of science. The debates and the decision in the Arkansas case filtered down to the corner of the world where I lived. This pleased me. It also surprised me how much interest, heat, and threat were raised, and how many scientific journals carried extensive coverage. I hoped this attention would fire the scholarly and public imagination and spark an in depth investigation into the success of fundamentalism. It didn’t. I now fear for our future.

I am not from the fundamentalist or even a conservative camp. Still, I believe that the conservative side offers lessons, especially in what it highlights about authority and the needs of society – and in how not to answer these needs. I deplore creation science, yet I applaud several of its motivations and observations. This essay explores ways in which we can learn from creationism’s success and, thus equipped, try to stop its progress by better feeding believers’ needs.[2]

What Is Theology?

First, what is creation science’s relationship to theology?

Creation science isn’t a genuine science. Michael Ruse is a historian and philosopher of science whom the plaintiffs in the Arkansas trial called on as a witness and who argues this point. The first presentation against creationism in the trial aimed at providing, Ruse reports, ‘a general background discussion of religion, specifically of current thought on the sources of the Old Testament, on the growth of American fundamentalism, and on the nature of religious claims, as opposed to other kinds of claims (like those of science or philosophy).’[3] Science uses experience to test hypotheses that it may relinquish if the empirical cards stack against them. Evolutionary theory satisfies this criterion. Creation science doesn’t and so isn’t a genuine science.[4] Legislating that it is a science attempts ‘to force a crude form of biblical literalism into school biology classes.’[5]

I stand behind Ruse in opposition to creation science’s ‘perversion of learning.’[6] But is it really a ‘travesty of thought’ as Ruse claims it is?[7] What is creation science if it isn’t a science? Is it a theology? What is theology? Asking this question leads me to outline the qualities of theology, its nature and purpose.

Adherents of a religion believe or assume things about such things as God and the supernatural, as dogma, sacred scriptures, or other special documents prescribe. They also live religiously in some way: ‘living…in the light of…belief in God,’ writes Max Charlesworth, ‘praying, worshipping, performing rituals, or witnessing.’[8] They speak a language for this religious life. Theology reflects on these religious activities, constructs theories about them, and tries to explain them on the basis of the beliefs. A theologian attempts rationally, coherently, faithfully, and systematically to express and elaborate the religion’s beliefs (or the beliefs of what the theologian considers an ‘important’ group of people) in order to understand the religious life. In this way, to borrow Saint Anselm’s phrase, theology is ‘faith seeking understanding.’ The task of theologians, therefore, moves from the beliefs through to the activities and back again. Theologians may look to the beliefs to explain other things than religious activities, or they may wish to apply them to specific areas such as social concerns, liberation from social oppression, or biblical exegesis. When they do, they still base their work on a particular set of beliefs and develop them.[9]

Creation science is a theology in this sense because it invokes fundamentalist beliefs to mold, underpin, and explain the religious life of evangelical Christians. However, because it believes it applies to all of society and not just to fundamentalist Christians, it tries also to mold science.

Theology need not only work from and try to elaborate the set ideas and practices of believers. Two twists complicate the picture:

· Theologians can also play leader roles for religious beliefs, language, and life, by suggesting matters beyond the accepted beliefs. They can in this way lead believers into that new area.[10] John Robinson achieved this by proposing a nontraditional understanding of God in his book Honest to God, and influenced people like me.[11] Creationism does this too for fundamentalists by explaining how the geology, biology, and cosmology discovered by the sciences fit with a literal interpretation of Genesis.

· Theologians may also consider it important to spell out, or be faithful to, a set of beliefs other than those they associate with a religious tradition. Fundamentalism usually feels itself ardently in support of patriotism and capitalism. Schubert Ogden, to cite another example, thinks that theology should primarily be meaningful and truthful to what he identifies as the heart of human existence.[12]

In these instances, however, theologians who speak to or from a particular tradition try to make their work faithful to a set of beliefs they consider essential to that tradition.

The Authority and Subject of Theology

Creation science is a theology. What does its success teach us about theology? First, is fundamentalist theology right or wrong? Theologians may ‘go beyond the edges’ of their traditions. How far can they go without falling off the edges? Why should they accept a tradition’s beliefs? Where does theological authority lie?

The chief question that urges an Arkansas-like fundamentalist-modernist controversy centers on authority. Is science right or is fundamentalist Christianity right? Are we right as a secular culture or as a fundamentalist Christian subculture? Is the final arbiter of truth the universe or a literal interpretation of the Bible?

In climbing to its position of power and strength, creationism calls on the strength and power of existing authorities. One is that it places itself in continuity with the roots of modern western culture in Christianity. However, it then advocates a particular type of interpretation (a literalist one) of the Bible. This isn’t an ancient approach. Karen Armstrong writes that fundamentalists are:

ardent modernists. By attempting to return to ‘fundamentals,’ they [are] in line with other intellectual and scientific currents…addicted to scientific rationalism….Doctrines [are] not theological speculations, but facts….Fundamentalists [are] trying to create a new way of being religious in an age that [values] the logos of science above all else.[13]

Creationism, therefore, seeks its authority from two places: science and the Bible.

· From science. It relies on the prestige and truth-status that science holds in western society:

o It hopes that the power it gains by fraternizing with science will rub off on it and lead to a wider acceptance of its moral and religious claims.

o It approaches the world looking for the facts similarly, as Armstrong points out, to how science approaches the world.

· From the Bible. It relies on a certain interpretation of the Bible (though literalist interpretations may vary). This means that the authority lies with those people who created that interpretation or with those who claim the validity of that interpretation. Yet, this proudly protestant movement also stresses the access and responsibility of the individual to an authority, the Bible.

Fundamentalism also rejects such sciences as evolution. It thus wants the prestige and truth-status of a science while at the same time it repudiates the findings of science – an ingenious political maneuver.

It can’t do this if it wants thoughtful people to take it seriously. For a theology to claim a likeness to science, if it wants to be taken seriously, it must accept the findings of science in all realms, including geology, biology, and cosmology.

That creationism fobs itself off as a science means that it tries to speak to a root of modern life: the saturation in science and technology. For a theology to engage this saturation, though, it must accept science. It must, therefore, enter into discussions and accept observations that may lead to the undermining of cherished beliefs. Certainty may go. Authority may leave the institution or book or charismatic person and may reside, as it does with science, in external reality: the world of fact and inter-subject experience. This does not deny the influence of people, institutions, and books − and of subjective experience − on every science and on theology. But it does deny that they are all there is. Many people have similar experiences – including spiritual encounters – and these experiences aren’t purely subjective so that no one else has them. Theology can recognize a publicly-accessible authority independent of cultural and individual constructs.

The Point of Theology

The challenge of how to do theology for a secular-scientific world is more than a matter of how to develop good theory. It also concerns living.

Robert Jastrow points out that the big bang theory in cosmology ‘leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world’ because both suppose that the universe ‘commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time.’[14] Jastrow remains, however, an agnostic: ‘I keep coming close to the edge of faith, but I never quite make it over.’[15] Edwin Olson comments:

One wonders why Jastrow [director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies] went to the trouble of sticking his professional neck out so far while continuing to be an unbeliever through it all. It would seem that theistic conviction does not automatically follow when a person becomes aware that scientific knowledge has its limitations.[16]

Something more than holding a set of science-like ideas must motivate creationists.

Olson recognizes three reasons for the success of creationism:

· It arises from ‘zeal issuing in hard work.’[17]

· It offers ‘a new product for which there is clearly a wide market.’ For years, many Christians have felt suspicious of science because they think it tries to undermine their faith in its simplicity. Creationism suggests that one can hold to that naive biblical faith while at the same time being fully scientific.

· It speaks to what is happening in western culture:

One need not be a very perceptive observer of current [U.S.] society to discern the erosion of Christian behavioral standards. The opposition to Christian mores has moved from insidious to blatant, forcing a defensive posture on those who would style their lives according to biblical principles. Furthermore, atheism clad in religious and intellectual garb is heralded more openly and more frequently. Thus pressured, Christians seek help in standing firm.[18]

The creationists’ agenda isn’t, as we might at first suspect, the conversion of people to Christianity; it is to transform society. The world has become godless. Society has run amuck behaviorally and ethically, apparently bent on destroying itself. We all suffer as a result. Creationists therefore think that they must withdraw from society as it currently exists and stand against it. Christian fundamentalists thus firmly answer the problem of our social mess and so behind them stands widespread and vigorous support. Fundamentalism is an impressive and probably the most successful religious response to society’s problems at present.

It is also an inadequate and ill-fated response. Ruse describes the testimony of ‘the real scientists’ at the Arkansas court hearing, pointing out some of creationism’s shortcomings:

Francisco Ayala spoke on genetics, Harold Morowitz on the second law of thermodynamics, Stephen Gould on the fossil record, and Brent Dalrymple…gave an absolutely scintillating and lucid lecture on the dating of rocks….One could not listen to such experts without being aware of the strength and beauty of science, or of what a vile phenomenon scientific creationism really is, with its gross distortions of honest methodology….One realized that good science in itself is to be cherished, along with the other noble products of the human mind. To have been in that court room when Ayala talked of his fruitflies or when Gould talked of his fossils was to have sensed vividly that it is those who would deny evolution who are anti-God, not those who affirm it. If God exists, he cannot possibly want us to turn our backs on reason and sense, Ostrich-like burrowing our heads in the comforting but arid sands of Genesis. [19]

‘In its isolation and inflexibility,’ writes Olson, creationism does ‘more harm than good.’[20] With its exclusion of the Bible from discussion and its attempt to fabricate a scientific medium, creation science offers ‘a poor strategy for a truly Christian impact on the world.’[21]

Yet, creationism addresses something important. We should learn from the fundamentalist success. We should be aware of the needs – social and religious – that it fulfills (albeit inappropriately). We should note its methods. Then we want to devise better ways to meet the needs.

Conclusion

Thus rose and continues to rise the current challenge of how to do theology. Tradition versus modernity in the guise of biblical literalism versus science: who should direct society? A popularly credible and powerful approach to religion has yet to rise that embraces yet helps direct science, and does away with the need for fundamentalism. Theologians can lead religious believers into new terrain. To be successful, however, religion must fulfill its social role. The development of a theology must therefore remember the religious movement it hopes to engender; will it be, in a social sense, a more properly functioning religion than its competitors? It must adequately fill the same needs as fundamentalism at the same time embracing, underpinning, and helping guide science and secular life.

The writings, lectures, and preaching of theologians may help the growth of such a religion. How might we develop the beliefs and language of this religion-to-be? Do better ways exist for theology to appropriate scientific knowledge than the way creationism follows and thus speak more deeply to the spiritual aspects of life as we in a secular-scientific culture experience them? This raises the most important challenge that theologians and those interested in science and religion can pursue. It is crucial for western society.

Notes