Chapter 9.
Solving the Creationist Controversy

When he was a junior in high school, Jason, the thirteen-year-old we met in chapter six, moved from his small town to a larger city in another state. By this time in his life, Jason had found the notes in his Schofield Bible unsatisfactory and confusing. So he laid the leather-bound King James Version aside and bought a hardback Living Bible paraphrase, which he found more understandable.

Jason had been accustomed to prayer in the classrooms in his previous home town, and was surprised that prayer was prohibited in his new school. It seemed that the authorities were hostile to religion. At the beginning of the fall term he decided that he sometimes would carry his new Bible to school, as he did at his previous school.

Occasionally he discretely gave out gospel tracts about well-known Christian athletes. But when more than a few students who got to know and trust him asked for tracts, he lost some of his discretion. One student had atheistic parents who exploded in anger when they found the religious tract their teenager brought home from school.

Jason was called in to see the assistant principal who harshly told him he could no longer bring either his Bible or his tracts to school. Jason was absolutely crushed. When his mother found out, she protested to the principal about her son's abusive treatment. The principal said Jason was being "disruptive" in distributing the tracts.

She then asked when, where, and how Jason could give out tracts to friends who wanted them. The principal replied that the school board had no policy on this, for fear of lawsuits, and unless the board acted, he would prohibit all such activities.

Jason earlier in his Christian life had to overcome the extremism of a fundamentalist pastor, who had nearly turned him away from religion, and now he faced the other extreme of anti-religious people. He was distraught, but he kept trying to find some middle ground where he could be comfortable in his faith and continue to grow in his spiritual life. Jason confided to his church youth director that this certainly wasn't an easy task in a town where even the schools seemed to be against religion.

Two Competing Theories about the Nature of Man

Jason was caught up in a serious competition between diametrically opposed theories about the nature of man—the scientific evolutionary theory with its naturalistic and materialistic methodology, and the creation theory with its religious needs and demands. Inherent in these two opposing theories is a conflicting view of the nature, interpretation, authority, and relevance of scripture. In this chapter we shall discuss and summarize these theories and viewpoints, and we shall propose how a believer can utilize a literary approach to the biblical aspects of the controversy without fear of losing religious faith, moral values, or intellectual integrity.

The Scientific Theory and Method

According to a paper published by the National Academy of Science (USA) on Science and Creationism, 1984, scientists recognize as science only that which can be understood and validated "by direct observation and experimentation" (8-11). Thus, the scientific academy strongly advised against the teaching of creationism as "creation science" in the public schools, because it could not be validated by such direct observation and experimentation.

According to the evolutionary theory derived through the scientific method, man—homo sapiens—evolved from lower forms of life over millions, or billions, of years. Most scientists agree that modern humans appeared on Earth approximately 50,000 years ago, and their early primate ancestors approximately 60 million years ago (1984 publication by the National Academy of Science, p. 16). Biblical literalists believe that God created the universe in six days and that homo sapiens has been on the earth slightly over 6,000 years, during which time there has been no evolution.

The "Creation Science" Theory and Its Demands

The word "creationist" refers to one who interprets literally the creation accounts in the first two chapters of the book of Genesis. Creationists believe that God created directly all the plants and animals on earth just as they are now in their present species. They believe that life on earth goes back not much more than 4,000 years before Christ, and that the earth and the other planets, the solar system, and the universe are much younger than scientists and astrophysicists tell us.

Upon what article of faith do fundamentalists base this doctrine of the creation? It concerns a particular way of viewing the nature of Scripture as inerrant, and what seems to them the only proper way of interpreting the Bible. According to one Gallup survey, 38% of the American people say they believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word. It is upon this stated belief that fundamentalists base their views of creation. Such views leave no room for evolutionary theory, no matter how strongly it may be supported by science.

Dorothy Nelkin writes in The Creation Controversy, "Creationists and Fundamentalists have adopted the view that there are only two positions of the origins of the earth and life" (206). The first position is that of "belief in the inerrancy of the Genesis story of creation … as fact." The second position is "belief in evolution" (Nelkin 207). For them there is no middle ground. This strict doctrinal position allows for either "an inerrant Bible" or a modern scientific world view including some form of evolution, but not both. Thus creationism has become a crucial and controversial issue.

The creation science movement in the United States is an organized effort of the religious right to get the theological doctrine of creationism taught in the public schools alongside the scientific evolutionary view. Of course, most scientists, and many parents and constitutional scholars see this as an unacceptable intrusion of religion into public schools and their science departments. A large part of the citizens view this as also a clear violation of the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state as expressed in the First Amendment.

Creationists have countered such objections by developing the term "creation science" and trying to get it widely used instead of "creationism." They feel that "creation science" is strategically more desirable term than "creationism" because it describes their religious philosophy in quasi-scientific ideas. Most people, other than the creationists themselves, feel that it is not a science at all. Moreover, the Supreme Court has ruled in several instances that it is indeed religion in the guise of scince.

Nevertheless, creationists convinced the California Board of Education to issue new guidelines in 1969 for its public-school biology courses to provide equal time for teaching the Genesis account of creation. Arkansas and Louisiana passed similar legislation in 1981. Other states, including Tennessee and Georgia, endorsed the teaching of creationism in the public schools . Creationists have since made their demands before other school boards, textbook commissions, state legislatures, and courts. The Mississippi Senate passed a creationist bill with a vote of 48 to 4. Many of these bills have been ruled unconstitutional, and judges have prohibited their enforcement, but court rulings have been inconsistent. In the 1987 case of Edwards vs. Aguillard the Supreme Court held unconstitutional the 1981 Louisiana law that required any public school teaching the theory of evolution to teach creationism also.

A Tale of Two Books

Periodically throughout almost any general readings through literature, you will find scattered references to the "Two Books," (1) the Bible as the Book of God's Word, and (2) Nature as the Book of God's Works. Francis Bacon might not have been the first person to make this allusion, but he gave specific and clear expression of the idea in The Advancement of Learning (1605). In that monumental work he named and discussed the "two books" and proposed that men should be careful "that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings (divinity and philosophy, or religion and science) together." It was a given principle that each discipline was supreme in its own area, but that they should not be "unwisely mingled."

In a similar Baconian vein, many theologians, philosophers, and scientists have stated their conviction that there are at least two ways to learn about God and the things of God: (1) a study of God's word, and (2) an understanding of God's works through nature. Some Bible scholars have gone further than this and have said that the Bible can and should be interpreted by science, and that the "two books" may well be read together, without one replacing or ultimately contradicting the other.

The discussion of these "Two Books," which began at least a century and a half before Darwin's work, exemplifies an early religious view of the biblical doctrine of creation and a scientific view of evolutionary theory. In neither case was there controversy in understanding the message from the two books. One could find the same allowance in the Book of God (the Bible) as in the Book of Nature (Science) for a mysterious supernatural input to the natural process of life in the universe. The following is a brief outline of each of the two books as we read them today.

The Bible—The Book of God's Word

Human dignity is one of the most obvious ideas of the Bible and especially of the doctrine of creation. The concept of human dignity rests on two related ideas: (1) that man is uniquely made in God's image, and (2) that man is a unique rational animal. The Bible teaches that in these two respects there is an enormous difference between human beings and the other animals, thus making human beings very special. Some scientists, however, believe that neither of these ideas can be reasonably supported under the precepts of the scientific method. Here, therefore, is the crucial area where religious believers and materialistic nonbelievers have sharply different concepts of the nature of the animal kingdom as a whole.

This distinction of uniqueness extends in some ways to the view of Earth and the universe itself. A theist claims to "see the point" of the world's existence and to find a meaning in it which the evolutionist misses, as Keith Ward makes clear in his book The Concept of God (148-153). The three main elements of his thesis are that (1) the world as a whole has intrinsic value, (2) there is a rational pattern and purpose in the universe, and (3) there is a non-physical ground or cause of the universe.

The Bible, as the Book of God's Word, teaches that man is endowed with a soul or spirit, including rational, spiritual, and moral faculties. This places the human being in a special category that is not merely quantitatively, but qualitatively, different from the other animals. Animals have a brain and limited intelligence, but only human beings have certain qualities and capacities that far exceed the most advanced animal of any other species. Furthermore, minds far exceed the inanimate entities. Pascal said it best: "All bodies, the firmament, the stars, the earth and its kingdoms, are not equal to the lowest mind; for mind knows all these and itself; and these bodies nothing."

Nature—The Book of God's Works

Christians have long looked to nature for proof of the existence of God and for evidence of his handiwork in his creation. When Charles Darwin was a student at Cambridge, he read William Paley's Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, which had been published in 1802. (It was the standard work of that day in evidences for Christianity.) In it Paley carefully delineated the classic "argument from design" brought up to date in view of the New Science of that generation. According to the argument from design, logic dictated that every design must have a designer. Therefore, the orderly designed universe, and man, too, must have an adequate designer, which must have been God. There is evidence that early in his life Charles Darwin felt that Paley's reasoning was irrefutable.

This familiar argument from design is powerful but it is not completely convincing to all thinkers. In fact, twenty-three years before Paley published his book, a philosopher named David Hume had written a treatise which cast considerable doubt on the argument from design, and in the minds of many all but discredited it (Rachels 116-118). Darwin and his so-called "bulldog," T. H. Huxley, rejected the "argument from design," but neither they nor anyone else of their time could "supply a better way of understanding the apparent design of nature" (Rachels, Created from Animals, 120).

Neither did Darwin accept the "First Cause" argument of the divine creative act as the origin of the universe. This is the argument that for every observable effect in the universe there must be an adequate cause. In other words nothing is uncaused, nothing can happen for no reason; it is impossible to contemplate an infinite regress through a chain of uncaused things or events. There must be an original Necessary Being, who exists in himself alone, who needs no external cause, and is the unchanged agent of all other changes. As Thomas Aquinas wrote, "It is not possible to proceed to infinity in the order of efficient causes."

But, even though Darwin had doubts about the traditional "First Cause" argument for the existence of God, he did not want to be known as an atheist. He admitted that when he contemplated the "wonderful universe," he was tempted to conclude that it is the product of divine creation. He, nevertheless, refused to draw this conclusion himself, even though he said he could understand why others would do so (Rachels, 107-108).

The Voyage of HMS Beagle—Darwin's Discoveries and Publications

Soon after Darwin completed his university education at Cambridge, in 1831, he was invited to serve as a naturalist on HMS Beagle, with Captain Robert FitzRoy. This voyage would provide Darwin an opportunity to conduct experiments and observations around the globe, with a detailed survey of the coasts of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, the Galapagos Islands and other islands of the Pacific.

This voyage was the turning point of Charles Darwin's life. He was able to make many close observations of the plants, animals, and geology of the places the Beagle visited. For five years he recorded his observations and conclusions in his journal and notes. He also collected a large number of specimens and fossils and sent them back to England with letters describing their significance and details. News about his discoveries and research spread rapidly, and he gained a respectful reputation among scientists and the general populace (Rachels, 16-19).

During his five-year voyage on the Beagle, while conducting his research and observations, Darwin became convinced that species changed (mutated) and were able to pass on these changes to their descendants, over a long period of time, to form new species. They did this, according to Darwin, by a process which he called "natural selection." This was not a new discovery of evolution, but, rather, a new theory of how evolution may have taken place over a very long time. Furthermore, Darwin did not claim that this was the only way evolution might have taken place. He accepted the possibility that there may have been other ways, too.

Darwin wrote a 48-page sketch in a manuscript of 1842, and an long essay of 230 pages in 1844, in which he presented his theory of natural selection in considerable detail. He didn't publish either of these at that time. But he did arrange to have them published later if anything should happen to him (Rachels 20-28).

So, Darwin did not originate the theory of evolution. Nor was he the first to point out the facts about natural selection. Others knew about these facts and had reasoned and concluded that life has evolved on the planet and that species change.

Darwin's "co-discoverer" of their systematic theory of evolution by natural selection was a botanist named Alfred Russel Wallace, who had independently arrived at the same conclusions as Darwin. Mr. Wallace, in 1858, was prepared to publish his findings immediately. He was not going to delay as Darwin had. Wallace sent his preliminary paper to Darwin, and Darwin was amazed at the similarity with his own unpublished theory, which he had first formulated sixteen years earlier.

Darwin's friends urged him to delay no longer but to publish his own theory right away. Finally Darwin began writing a "big book," the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, which was published in 1859. In his later years Darwin generously referred to the theory of natural selection not only as his own view, but as "Wallace's and my view" (Rachels 30-34). Darwin was an excellent writer, and his book was a great success from the first printing.

There was one very important difference between Darwin and Wallace. Whereas Darwin had no place for God in his version of the theory of natural selection, Wallace exempted man from the general evolutionary scheme. Wallace and St. George Jackson Mivart, an outstanding contemporary biologist and Fellow of the Royal Society, held that the theory of natural selection applies to humans, but only up to a point. They reasoned that

our bodies can be explained in this way, but not our brains. Our brains … have powers that far outstrip anything that could have been produced by natural selection … God had intervened in the course of human history to give man the 'extra push' that would enable him to reach the pinnacle on which he now stands … Natural selection, while it explained much, could not explain everything; in the end God must be brought in to complete the picture (Rachels 58).

There was deep scientific disagreement between Wallace, Mivart, and other scientists, on the one hand, and Darwin, Huxley and some others, on the other hand, on this issue of the special nature of human beings. Wallace contended, on the basis of his studies and findings, that the brains of so-called "primitive" men are identical to the brains of so-called "civilized" men. He concluded that the brains of primitive humans, if natural selection applied to them, would have been little superior to that of an ape, and not so much like the brains of modern man.

The Christian Response to Darwinism

Philosopher George Mavrodes and scientist Phillip E. Johnson, of the University of California at Berkeley (author of Darwin on Trial, 1991), and Northwestern University anthropologist William Irons, are three of many learned people who argue today that there is no evidence in Darwinism that rules out the theistic interpretation that God can work through the evolutionary process. In other words, their response to Darwinism is that evolution does not rule God in, and it does not rule God out.

Another response is that the previously mentioned argument from design, in the form advocated by Paley and criticized by Hume and Darwin, was never necessary for theism in the first place (Rachels 125). After all, there were millions of intelligent theists long before Paley developed and refined his "evidence from design." Merely the rejection of the "evidence from design" argument does not logically necessitate the rejection of theism.

It is logically possible to be both a Darwinian and a theist. But Rachels is on target in pointing out that "an evolution perspective undermines religious belief by removing some of the grounds that previously supported it". The real question that remains, as Rachels keenly observes, is whether what is then left is "some suitably refined version of theism … sufficiently robust to support" the view that human beings are made in the image of God and have a special place in the divine order (127). A diluted form of Christianity such as nineteenth-century deism was not "sufficiently robust" to do this. Neither is the ultra liberal Christianity of the twentieth century able to provide this kind of support. Perhaps another form of religion, moderate in theology but still vitally connected with historic Christianity, can perform this function in the 21st century.

Darwin and Huxley were tremendously disappointed that one of their respected peers, and such an outstanding biologist as St. George Jackson Mivart, would desert their cause of natural selection without God. But this Mivart did and then became the leader of a group of dissident evolutionists who responded to Darwin by saying that, although man's body might have developed by evolution over a very long period of time, his uniquely rational and spiritual soul must have been imparted by God.

Lists of distinctively human attributes, as compared to other higher animals, have been proposed since long before the time of Darwin. Literary writers from the Golden Age of Greece to the present have celebrated monologues and lines such as:

Many the marvelous things; but none that can be More of a marvel than man! … Man in devising excels … He is the master of all through his skills. He has taught himself speech, and wind-like thought … Resourceful and skilled, with an inconceivable art, He follows his course to a good or an evil end. —Sophocles, Antigone, 442 BC

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. —Shakespeare, Hamlet, AD 1602

Poetry aside, the following are often presented as uniquely human attributes that apparently have no adequate evolutionary origin in other animals:

• Man's exceptional intelligence, especially his capacity for abstract thought, and to think about the past and pass on knowledge and the benefits of experience to the next generation
• Man's exceptional ability to use both complex verbal and visual symbols for communication
• Man's exceptionally avid curiosity in exploration of his environment even to the solar system and universe
• Man's unusual flexibility and adaptability
• Man's unique capacity for handling, storing, processing, and utilizing wide and complex ranges of information
• Man's self-consciousness, including the ability to transcend the environment in thought and to survey it as subject
• Man's ability to use "I" in a way that constitutes a new kind of entity, a "person," which makes him a bearer of rights and unique, so that he can imagine himself changing places with others
• Man's ability to act rationally, to make moral choices—that is, to distinguish between right and wrong—and to set long-term ends
• Man's aesthetic sense and creativity in the arts, science, and in literature, including the capacity to write, read, and understand books such as the Bible
• Man's ability to worship and pray—that is, man's awareness of and openness to God—and a desire to please, obey, imitate, or rebel against God.

The Present Triangular Controversy

The response of the general public to the challenge of Darwinism right after 1859 was much like the response we find today to evolution by the broad spectrum of the population. First is the response of those who accept and adjust to the materialistic claims of the scientific and secular community. Second is the viewpoint represented by fundamentalists and the religious right who reject outright the claims of evolution and natural selection; these are the people generally known as "creationists." And, third, is the response of the mainline churches and evangelical moderates that attempt to lower the level of incendiary rhetoric, and to find a middle ground between the two extremes. Some recent Evangelical writers, like Tom Sine, in his 1995 book Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America's Culture Wars, are calling for such moderation.

The Viewpoint of the Scientific and Secular Community

Stephen Jay Gould, a defender of evolution, represents one viewpoint of the scientific and secular community and many persons outside that community who, nevertheless, agree with it. They contend that evolution can pose no threat to morality or religion, and that there is no conflict between Darwinism and old-fashioned values, or any kind of values. Gould, for example, says, "Science can no more answer the questions of how we ought to live than religion can decree the age of the earth" (Rachels 2-3).

The National Academy of Sciences, representative of the scientific community in the U.S.A., takes the position that "religion and science are separate and mutually exclusive realms of human thought" (Science and Creationism 6). Accordingly, science should not pretend to make basic pronouncements in the area of values, ethics, philosophy, or religion. Neither should religion attempt to dogmatize about scientific matters. The National Academy of Sciences, however, immediately adds the advisory that science and religion should not be presented in the same context, as this "leads to misunderstanding of both scientific theory and religious belief."

The American Association for the Advancement of Science also opposes the inclusion of creation theory in science textbooks (Nelkin, 160). Their position is stated as follows: "The various accounts of creation that are part of the religion and heritage of many people are not scientific statements or theories. They have no place in the domain of science and should not be regarded as reasonable alternatives to scientific explanation for the origin and evolution of life."

Most scientists recognize that it is the task of religion, not science, to engage in a quest for intelligibility, explanation, and meaning, generally relating to the question "Why?" For example, "Why is there anything at all?" "Why does the world exist?" (Peacocke, 33-34). Or, "What is the purpose of existence?" "What purpose is there in the universe?" 'Why should the universe be of this particular kind?" "Why do men and women have moral purposes?" "Why and how are they aware of beauty, philosophy, algebra, calculus, trigonometry, chemistry, physics, love, and psychological analysis? How is it that they can reflect on their own personality, rationalize and work with abstract ideas, etc.?" These are ultimately questions of the spirit, of unique human functions and capacities that are obviously higher than those of the "lower animals." These questions are largely beyond the domain of science, which can only seek answers through a materialistic and naturalistic approach.

Meanwhile, as if one Darwinian revolution weren't enough, we now learn from people like Roger Bingham, creator of the Public Broadcasting System's series The Human Quest, that a "second Darwinian revolution," is upon us. This new revolution teaches that evolution shapes not only our bodies but our minds and our culture.

Philip Hefner, professor or systematic theology at the Lutheran School of Theology and co-director of the Chicago Center for Religion and Science, tells us that advocates of the "second Darwinian revolution" teach that certain "behavioral responses are transmitted via the evolutionary process." Hefner points out that many scientists view what was once called "metaphysics" as being "subsumed within activities of the brain." They feel that the neurosciences will eventually displace traditional ways of accounting for consciousness (510). They assume that in the future science will replace religion. It begins to appear that the "second Darwinian revolution" professes the all-embracing worldview which the initial Darwinism refrained from claiming.

The PBS series The Human Quest does, however, perform a great service in emphasizing that, according to Hefner, "a key factor in any society's struggle to maintain adequate complex adaptive systems, ours included, is in the stories we tell" (510). One of the great stories of the Bible, and, indeed of our Western Civilization, is the Genesis story of creation. Call it what you will, myth or history, it is one of the great stories of our culture. It is certainly as much an expression of the human spirit as science is an expression of the human spirit.

Hefner chides the writers and producers of The Human Quest for "the absence of any attention to the moral and religious traditions that have emerged, died away or persisted within the very evolutionary process that the series purports to describe" (511). This is a typical shortcoming of secular-minded artists and scientists in presenting any such series or documentary today. Perhaps intoxicated by the brilliance of the scientific and technological method, they all too often write as though religion and moral and spiritual values do not exist, or else that they are not important, or that they can be considered or explained in other terms, and will soon be superseded anyway. Hefner reminds the modern Darwinians that

Religious communities and theologians … have not remained utterly silent on the issues he [Bingham] raises. The Common Creation Story is an object of intense and brilliant scrutiny by theologians as diverse as Gordon Kaufman, Sallie McFague, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Langdon Gilkey, Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke, Nancy Murphy, Robert John Russell and John Polkinghorne, to mention only the most prominent names in the literature of science and religion. Symposia have been presented at the annual meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for ten years … on the intersection of cultural evolution and religion. At least two recognized academic journals, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science and the Bulletin of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at Berkeley, give regular attention to the kinds of questions that interest Bingham in this series (511).

The Viewpoint of the Fundamentalists and Religious Right

The distinction between the viewpoint of the Fundamentalists and that of the scientific evolutionists could hardly be more pronounced. The debate continues. Fundamentalists say that Darwinism undermines "traditional values", and so must be rejected and dethroned in the public schools. Evolutionists reply that Darwinism poses no threat to traditional values (Rachels 3). In the latter part of the twentieth century, fundamentalists and the religious right are using the code words "traditional values" as a rallying cry to forge a coalition of right-wing Christians into a powerful political and social force for change in the American political landscape.

Somehow the teaching of creationism in the public schools became included in a broad mesh of "traditional values" as enunciated by leading Religious Right spokesman M.G 'Pat' Robertson, the founder of the overtly political Christian Coalition (Answers to 200 of Life's Most Probing Questions 61 ff.). Creationism and Darwinism became for them a crucial point of drawing sharp distinctions and developing furious battle plans.

When a large segment of the population is aroused to scream out its unhappiness and dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, we would do well to ask why and how things have come to this point. There are reasons why a large minority of Americans have felt their rights are disregarded in banning the Bible, Christian faith and values, and religious speech from the public schools.

Many are angry because the prevailing philosophy of education has become so thoroughly secularized in the past fifty years. Multitudes resent the ability of big federal government to develop an expensive bureaucracy of experts adept in stripping states and local school boards of power to make decisions about the education of their children. Now fundamentalists, as well as some other basically conservative citizens who are not necessarily religious fundamentalists, are striking back in the way they know best—through the ballot box. They exert tremendous political pressure on representatives in Washington to revise the First Amendment of the Constitution, to authorize the teaching of "creation science" in public schools, to legalize the use of public tax funds for religious schools, and to give the various states and local school boards full control over educational policies and programs.

Such an analysis was indirectly alluded to in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal which read in part:

If caught between the relativists and the fundamentalists, we ourselves might often be tempted to side with the fundamentalists, at least those who are concerned, as we are, about a decline in the moral order … We are not sure the courts have considered what it may be like if they insist on divorcing government entirely from spiritual thought … We hope that the forces who have won this narrow battle in court [striking down the 1981 Arkansas act attempting to legislate "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution" in the public schools] won't labor too long with the notion that they have scored some major victory against religious belief (8 January 1982).

The editors of this influential newspaper had little sympathy for those who "run to the courts" every time a teacher uses the word God or church. And they disagreed with the fundamentalist attempt to make an end run around the First Amendment of the Constitution. But they acknowledged the discontent of those who publicly protested against the secular and materialistic trends in education that had been occurring for nearly a half-century.

Fundamentalists want creationism to be given equal billing with evolutionary science in the public schools. They often insist that the curriculum must include religious rites such as prayer in the schools and full freedom for religious speech, even at the expense of minorities. These demands cause others to fear that such actions will become essentially evangelism or proselytism of captive audiences. They also raise serious questions about the rights of others and the constitutional separation of church and state in the public school system, particularly because the public school system is an agency or arm of government.

Furthermore, those in the fundamentalist or creationist movement have expressed, in their own statements and actions, a willingness to force their ideas upon others without any sensitivity for the feelings, beliefs, or rights of others.

Additionally, the movement is politically powerful and has many adherents and sympathizers, not all of whom are necessarily knowledgeable of theology or the history and meaning of the First Amendment. For example, a 1981 national public-opinion survey conducted by NBC news revealed that a majority of the American people felt that public schools should teach both creationism and the scientific theory of evolution. Dorothy Nelkin commented, almost prophetically, in 1982, as follows:

With such support, creationists can turn defeat to their advantage, using it to support their image as a beleaguered group, rejected by a scientific establishment bent on protecting itself against "new" ideas. This image and the publicity of judicial actions serves them well as they continue to mobilize public support to bring creationism to the schools (The Creation Controversy 146).

The Viewpoint of the Moderate Mainline Religious Community

Many well-known and highly-regarded Christian theologians reacted calmly and positively to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, much as their earlier counterparts had reacted to the Copernican, Newtonian, and Baconian proponents of the New Science of their time.

Asa Gray, a renowned Harvard naturalist and contemporary of Darwin, accepted Darwin's theory as validated truth. He also described himself as a "convinced theist" and as one who accepted the Nicene Creed. He wrote and spoke openly that Christianity has nothing to fear from Darwin, and in fact can learn much from the perspective he provides. Gray carried on extensive personal correspondence with Darwin, arguing that the theory of natural selection could be interpreted as supporting God's providential design and maintenance of the world. He felt that evolutionary thought describes how a portion of the created order operates; but it implies nothing about the author of creation, his purposes, or his plans. Gray concluded that religious faith and the Bible are still needed to complete our world view (Rachels 84).

For decades the Roman Catholic Church was surprisingly silent on the subject of Darwinism. Perhaps it was in part because the church had been hurt so severely by its harsh reaction to Galileo's science. In 1953, however, almost one hundred years after Darwin's great publication, Pope Pius XII proclaimed that

The teaching of the Church leaves the doctrine of evolution an open question, as long as it confines its speculations to the development, from other living matter already in existence, of the human body. [However,] … that souls are immediately created by God is a view which the Catholic faith imposes on us (Rachels 99).

The majority of mainline Christian churches and their most prominent leaders have often spoken publicly of their opposition to interjecting religious beliefs into the curriculum of public schools, "such as attempting to teach creationism in biology class under the guise of science." Such churches and leaders have been joined by Jewish spokesmen in the same position, based on the fact that the public schools belong to everybody, not just to the predominant religious group in any particular district.

A Proposed Solution to the Creationist Controversy

We propose a biblical interpretation based on literary analysis, critical investigation, and modern assessment of the Genesis stories of creation. In addition to this, we concur with elements of the mainline moderate religious viewpoint that are compatible with the literary approach to the Bible that we have outlined previously in this book.

In the Old Testament there are many other scriptures than those in Genesis chapters one and two that provide an expanded basis for the full doctrine of creation. Gerhard von Rad discusses most of these scriptures, while pointing out that the passages in the Psalms and Isaiah "are theologically much less hidebound than the scholarly priestly code (of Genesis 1), whose course is dictated by a theological system" (Bernhard W. Anderson, Creation in the Old Testament 55). Then he discusses Psalm 136: 5-9; Psalm 148:1-6, 74:12-17, 8:3-9, 19:1-6, and 33:6-9; Isaiah 40:27-28; 42:5-7; 43:1; 44:24; 51:9, 10, 13.

These scriptures state that God created everything out of his redemptive love. The passages from Psalms and Isaiah always link creation with redemption, but not always with cosmology. Unlike the Genesis accounts, they do not direct the attention of the reader to how the Lord created everything or how long it took. A person who believes in divine creation should be able to accept this, while other readers can accept it as a statement of what Christians believe. In either case, the idea of biblical creation becomes less of an all-or-nothing option than it would be if the reader were clinging dogmatically to a word-for-word interpretation of Genesis chapters one and two.

The Priestly account of creation in Genesis 1:1-2:3 (to which Gerhard van Rad refers) emphasizes, not a scientific description, but a theological manifesto that God is in complete control of and is sovereign over the universe. In this creation story God gives an orderly form (analogous to the seven days of the week) and purpose (climaxing with the creation of man) to everything that exists in heaven and on earth. Appropriately, the author of the Priestly account wrote his narrative in an orderly and scholarly literary style and form.

Long before evolution was seriously proposed as a scientific hypothesis, and long before the time of Charles Darwin, certain theologians and Bible scholars suggested that the writer's reference to "days," or the "first day," etc., may be symbolical of much longer periods of time. These days were, perhaps, unspecified epochs of time during which for the creation unfolded under the sovereignty of God. The original thought of the biblical writers may have been of literal twenty-four-hour days, but the metaphorical "day" could be interpreted to refer to a millennium or a geological period of time, in view of the usage of the word "day" in Psalms 90:4 and II Peter 3:8.

Gerhard von Rad's perceptive comments on the creation stories are in line with current Bible scholarship which is generally agreed that there are, not one, but two, creation stories in Genesis. Each differs in style, language, point of view, and order of events. The first, from 1:1 to 2:3, called the Priestly (P) account, uses the word "Elohim" for God. It is, as von Rad says, the more "scholarly code … dictated by a theological system." The second story begins at Genesis 2:4 and extends to 3.24, uses "Jahweh" or "Jahweh Elohim" for God, and is called the J account.

The Priestly (P) account uses the seven days of the week as an organizational frame for the divine creative activity, ending with the seventh day of rest. Dry land, vegetation and trees are created on the third day, the heavenly bodies (sun, moon, and stars) on the fourth day, fish and birds on the fifth day, and the land animals (including human beings, both male and female) on the sixth day.

The P document pictures nature as a "hierarchy" or a "structure or system," as Frye points out in Words with Power (157). Considering the literary definition of "myth" and the features of these stories as vehicles for truth, it is not at all incorrect to refer to the Genesis stories of creation as literary "myths." The use of myth or poetry is one valid literary method of presenting timeless and universal truths.

Accepting the validity of literary analysis and applying it to Genesis would be a giant step forward in resolving the creationist controversy. If we look at these two creation accounts as literary devices rather than theological doctrine, then we can avoid the "hangups" of controversy about the scientific nature of the stories.

In the second version (the J account) of the creation story, Genesis 2:4-3.24, which refers to God as "Jahweh Elohim," the significance of the Hebrew word "adam," (2:7) is noteworthy: "The LORD God formed a human being ("ha-adam") ["the man" or "the earthling"] from the dust of the ground ("ha-adamah") [the earth] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living creature" (REB). In the Hebrew the words are prominent as another literary device—a serious pun.

This literary style of presenting the creation of mankind should serve as a clue that the writer may have a special purpose in mind. Like what? Perhaps he is using poetic and metaphorical literary tools to portray the sovereignty and power of God. Or, on the other hand, his purpose may be to lead us away from interpreting the account literally as an exact history of the first named human being to walk on the planet.

The latter theory is supported somewhat by the conversion of the common noun “adam” to a proper noun—both a pun and an interpretation. According to the J account the woman is created out of the adam's (the earthling's) body. In the early part of Genesis the first human being is referred to simply as "the man—the adam." He receives his name "Adam" only when the woman is created and named "Eve."

This personalizing of Adam by giving him a name is related to the idea of body and soul in scripture. Eichrodt has written clearly concerning the nature of man that "Man does not have a body and a soul, he is both of them at once" (Theology of the Old Testament vol. 2, 124). Many other commentators have emphasized that the human being in Genesis is not a duality of "body" and "soul"—a Greek idea, not a Hebrew idea—but an animated unity. This significance of the literary pun is further supported by another Hebrew pun, similar to "adam"—"adamah," is found in 3:1 and 7, where we find the English words "cunning" (or "subtle") in reference to the serpent, and "naked" when referring to Adam and Eve. These obvious literary devices and conventions, such as the pun (similar sounding and spelling in the original language) usually signal that a passage should probably be interpreted with a high degree of poetic or symbolic meaning. Such an interpretation of the Genesis creation stories will go a long way toward lowering the rhetoric and solving the current controversy.

The biblical view of mankind is of a psychophysical personal unity made "in the image of God." Man is at once both body and soul, and at once made of the dust of the ground and created in the image of God. When we read the Hebrew Old Testament we are better off to rid ourselves of a Greek conception of man as a dichotomy (body and soul) or trichotomy (body, soul, and spirit). According to the Bible, especially the Old Testament, man is a unified psychophysical organism with multiple parts or faculties (physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, etc.).

But, in what respect, we might ask, is man created in the image of God? In Genesis 1:26 we read: "Then God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness, to have dominion …" (REB). Note the plural pronouns for God "us" and "our." This usage may refer to what is sometimes called "the plural of majesty," or possibly to the minor divine beings thought by some to surround God. The psychophysical person, Man, therefore, is created "in the image of God," and God is spiritual, rational, regal, majestic, powerful, and moral. In the historical Christian tradition man's nature in "the image of God" tends to highlight man's immortal soul and his reason or mind, more than his dominion over nature.

Some modern theologians interpret the "image of God" relationship primarily in the sense of being God's viceroy or representative. A noted Old Testament scholar, Claus Westermann, suggests that "God, by creating man in his own image, has given man his human dignity … Man—everyman—is created for this purpose: namely, that something may happen between him and God and that thereby his life may receive a meaning" (Creation 60). Human dignity, then, involves the potential for a relationship with God that will provide meaning for human life, as opposed to a sense of futility or meaninglessness.

Creationists and fundamentalists often suspect that moderate Christians who search for a way to accommodate religion with science do so out of a sense of being over-awed by modern science. Clark H. Pinnock, Professor of Christian Interpretation at McMaster Divinity College, demonstrates that this is not so. He, being an evangelical himself, says that moderate evangelicals are "attracted to a literary reading of early Genesis" not because they are "over-awed by modern science," but "because the text requires it." He challenges his fellow evangelicals to consider the "thought patterns, literary forms, symbols, and images" found in the biblical text, and to stop treating Genesis one and two as "scientific and historical reports" (145). Pinnock expresses precisely what we see as a necessary literary approach to resolve the creationism controversy: "Because the Genesis text requires it" (148).

Pinnock calls attention, as we have, to "specific signals in the text itself which should alert us" that the literary method is the proper way to interpret these passages of scripture (148). He agrees with others who have noticed that the Genesis account of creation is a "carefully composed and systematic essay," which indicates in the way it is organized and written that it has "evidences of literary artistry in its construction" (149). The use of the "week framework" is a literary framework or device. The "parallelism between the first (1-3) and the second triad of days (4-6)" is another impressive clue of conscious literary construction, as is the progression from inanimate to animate creation (149).

It follows, therefore, that no interpretation of Genesis one and two can properly explain what the words mean without giving adequate attention to the conscious literary artistry of the writer or writers. Any reader seeking a solution to the creationism controversy, should therefore recognize and consider the kind of literary approach to the Bible which we have been advocating throughout this book.

In his concluding remarks, Pinnock observes that evangelicals are not very convincing in their literal interpretation of Genesis chapters one and two, largely because they do not observe their own principles of theological method and interpretation. Therefore, they fail to let the Bible speak definitively above their own human opinions. They are wasting time and energy in fighting the battles of creationism instead of positively asserting what the rest of the Bible (including the New Testament) teaches about a fully-developed and systematic doctrine of creation. Pinnock feels that ultra-conservative evangelicals create an enormous problem for themselves "by placing the Bible and modern science in a strongly adversarial relationship." The lesson for all here, Pinnock says, is

the principle of allowing the Bible to say what it wants to say and not imposing our imperialistic agendas onto it, squeezing it into our molds. I am not for a moment suggesting … that evolutionary theory, when it puffs itself up and pretends to offer us a worldview which can take the place of biblical theism, is not something to be fought against; or that Christians ought not to raise questions about the hard evidence which is said to favor a purely naturalistic account of origins … Our exegesis ought to let the text speak and the chips fall where they may. (152-155)

Amazing indeed is this extraordinary analysis from one of the most competent and candid of the conservative evangelical scholars of our generation. Speaking to his peers, Professor Pinnock proposes his solution to the creationist controversy, with which we fully agree. It remains only for us to summarize the following elements of his progressive and moderate position, in addition to those we have previously advanced, to complete our proposal for a solution of the creation controversy:

• Pay adequate attention to the evidences of literary artistry in the text, and let the biblical text speak for itself.
• Consistently apply whatever principles of interpretation we find valid and most productive.
• Put the Bible ahead of our own human opinions, and avoid inserting our own agendas into what we think the Bible says, or what we want it to day.
• Consider the total teaching of the entire Bible on any given doctrine or subject, rather than over-emphasize any one or two isolated passages.

Conclusion—Jastrow and Jason

Robert Jastrow, a well-known scientist with impeccable credentials, has amused many, and has shocked others into sober thought, by his famous quote:

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries (God and the Astronomers 105-106).

We can't help but wonder whether our young friend Jason and other humble believers will be waiting patiently at the summit when the learned theologians, scientists, professors, superintendents and secretaries of education, and their accompanying bureaucrats and politicians come huffing and puffing up the high peak to greet the dawn of a new day. Wouldn't you give anything to see the expression on their faces?