History of creationism
The history of creationism relates to the history of thought based on the premise that the natural universe had a beginning, and came into being supernaturally. The term creationism in its broad sense covers a wide range of views and interpretations, and was not in common use before the late 19th century. Throughout recorded history, a number of people have viewed the universe as a created entity. Multiple ancient historical accounts from around the world refer to or imply a creation of the Earth and universe. Although specific historical understandings of creationism have used varying degrees of empirical, spiritual and/or philosophical investigations, they are all based on the view that the universe was created. The Genesis creation narrative has provided a basic framework for Jewish and Christian epistemological understandings of how the universe came into being – through the divine intervention of the god, Yahweh. Historically, literal interpretations of this narrative were more dominant than allegorical ones.
From the 18th century on, various views aimed at reconciling the Abrahamic religions and Genesis with geology, biology and other sciences developed in Western culture. At this time, the word creationism referred to a doctrine of creation of the soul. Those holding that species had been created in a separate act, such as Philip Gosse in 1857, were generally called "advocates of creation", though they were also called "creationists" in private correspondence between Charles Darwin and his friends, dating from 1856.
In the 20th century the word "creationism" became associated with the anti-evolution movement of the 1920s and young Earth creationism, but this usage was contested by other groups, such as old Earth creationists and evolutionary creationists, who hold different concepts of creation, such as the acceptance of the age of the Earth and biological evolution as understood by the scientific community.
The Genesis Flood became the most successful young earth creationist publication after 1945. From the mid-1960s, creationists in the United States promoted the teaching of "scientific creationism" using "Flood geology" in public school science classes. After the legal judgment of the case Daniel v. Waters ruled that teaching creationism in public schools contravened the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the content was stripped of overt biblical references and renamed creation science. When the court case Edwards v. Aguillard ruled that creation science similarly contravened the constitution, all references to "creation" in a draft school textbook were changed to refer to intelligent design, which was presented by creationists as a new scientific theory. The Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling concluded that intelligent design is not science and contravenes the constitutional restriction on teaching religion in public school science classes. In September 2012, Bill Nye expressed his concern that creationist views threaten science education and innovations in the United States.
Creation and modern science
In the 15th and 16th centuries, discoveries in new lands brought knowledge of the diversity of life. In 1605, Francis Bacon emphasized that the works of God in nature teach us how to interpret the Bible, and the Baconian method introduced the empirical approach which became central to modern science. Natural theology sought evidence in nature supporting an active role of God, and attempts were made to reconcile new knowledge with the biblical deluge myth and story of Noah's Ark. The development of modern geology in the 18th and 19th centuries found geological strata and fossil sequences indicating an ancient Earth. The diluvial cosmogonies fell victim to their own success, as the spirit of scientific inquiry they had stimulated, gradually led to discoveries that undercut the biblical premises of flood geology and catastrophism.From around the start of the 19th century, ideas such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's concept of transmutation of species had gained supporters in Paris and Edinburgh, mostly amongst anatomists. The anonymous publication of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation in 1844 aroused wide public interest with support from Quakers and Unitarians, but was strongly criticised by the religious establishment and the scientific community, which called for solidly backed science. In 1859, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species provided that evidence from an authoritative and respected source, and within a decade or so convinced scientists that evolution occurs. This view clashed with that of conservative evangelicals in the Church of England, but in 1860 their attention turned to the much greater uproar about Essays and Reviews by liberal Anglican theologians, which introduced "higher criticism", a hermeneutic method re-examining the Bible and questioning literal readings. By 1875 most American naturalists supported ideas of theistic evolution, often involving special creation of human beings.
At this time those holding that species had been separately created were generally called "advocates of creation," but they were occasionally called "creationists" in private correspondence between Charles Darwin and his friends. The term appears in letters Darwin wrote between 1856 and 1863, and was also used in a response by Charles Lyell.
By this time, geologists recognised that the Earth was millions of years old. The exact chronology proposed by Darwin was disputed by other geologists, and the leading physicist William Thomson produced an analyses of the heat energy and thermal histories of the Earth and Sun which yielded age estimates that were too short for gradual evolution. Thomson's colleague Fleeming Jenkin wrote an 1867 review of Darwin's On the Origin of Species which opposed evolution on the basis of the shortened time available. Kelvin's age paradox was not resolved until it was discovered in the 20th century that the Earth is heated by radioactive decay, that its internal thermal gradient is affected by mantle convection, and that the Sun is heated by nuclear fusion.
Since the 1980s, the Big Bang theory has been the prevailing cosmological model for the universe. It was envisioned by a Roman Catholic priest, Monsignor Georges Lemaître in the 1930s. Lemaître suggested that the evident expansion of the universe, if projected back in time, meant that at some finite time in the past all the mass of the universe was concentrated into a single point, a "primeval atom" where and when the fabric of time and space came into existence. However, in the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist subscribed to a view that the universe is in an eternal steady state. After Lemaître proposed his theory, some scientists complained that its assumption that time had a beginning amounted to a reimportation of religious concepts into physics. When the expression "Big Bang" was coined by Fred Hoyle in 1949, he meant it to be slightly pejorative, but the term stuck and gained currency. Lemaître himself concluded that an initial "creation-like" event must have occurred. The Big Bang is contrary to young-Earth creationism, sensu stricto. But it has been welcomed by other Christian creeds, and it is in line with the Roman Catholic concept of creation. Under the Anthropic principle, by which the properties of the universe is seemingly fine-tuned for life to exist, some Christians see evidence that a divine creator has purposefully designed the universe.
Pre-scientific era
Early history
, in his book Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity, traces creationist thought to the presocratic thinkers Anaxagoras and Empedocles, in the 5th century BCE. Sedley states that Anaxagoras was recognized by Plato as "the first overt champion of a creative cosmic intelligence". Anaxagoras's theory was that the original state of the world was a roughly even mixture of all opposites, and that it was the effect of the action of nous that led to the partial separation of such opposites, hot from cold, land from water, rarefied from dense. Anaxagoras also developed the philosophical innovation of dualism of mind from matter, diverging from the stringent monism of his predecessor, Parmenides. Empedocles proposed a system whereby two competing divine forces, Love and Strife had alternating dominion over the universe and the four elements, earth, water, air and fire.Around 45 BCE, Cicero made a teleological argument that anticipated the watchmaker analogy, in De natura deorum, ii. 34
170 – Galen, Stoic Roman physician wrote against creation beliefs in On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, 11.14:
In the 5th century, Saint Augustine wrote The Literal Meaning of Genesis in which he argued that Genesis should be interpreted as God forming the Earth and life from pre-existing matter and allowed for an allegorical interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis. For example: he argues that the six-day structure of creation presented in the book of Genesis represents a logical framework, rather than the passage of time in a physical way. On the other hand, Augustine called for a historical view of the remainder of the history recorded in Genesis, including the creation of Adam and Eve, and the Flood. Apart from his specific views, Augustine recognizes that the interpretation of the creation story is difficult, and remarks that Christians should be willing to change their minds about it as new information comes up. He also warned believers not to rashly interpret things literally that might be allegorical, as it would discredit the faith.
610–632 – Muhammad reports receiving the Qur'an by divine revelation. The Qur'an holds a number of the core concepts of creationism, including a 6-day creation, Adam and Eve, Enoch, and Noah's Ark, but also provides some details absent from Genesis, including reference to a fourth son of Noah who chose not to enter the ark. Through Islam, creation beliefs and monotheism replace paganism among the Arabs.