Creationism refers to the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in some form by a supernatural being or beings, commonly a single deity. However the term is more commonly used to refer to religiously motivated rejection of certain biological processes, in particular evolution, as an explanation accounting for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth (the creation-evolution controversy). In Christian sects such creationism is usually based on a literal reading of Genesis 1-2. Other religions have deity-led creation myths which are quite different.
In many countries, belief in creationism has decreased as scientific theories have been presented that support more naturalistic explanations for the universe and for life. While some have tried to refute these theories, others believe in types of creationism that do not exclude all of these theories. When mainstream scientific research produces conclusions which contradict a strict creationist interpretation of scripture, creationists often reject the conclusions of the research and/or its underlying scientific theories and/or its methodology. Both creation science and intelligent design have been characterized as pseudoscience by the mainstream scientific community. The most notable disputes concern the evolution of living organisms, the idea of common descent, the geological history of the Earth, the formation of the solar system and the origin of the universe.
History
Main article: History of creationismThe history of creationism is part of the history of religions, though the term itself is modern. In the 1920s the term became particularly associated with Christian fundamentalist movements that insisted on a literalist interpretation of Creation according to Genesis and likewise opposed the idea of human evolution. These groups succeeded in getting teaching of evolution banned in United States public schools, then from the mid-1960s the young Earth creationists promoted the teaching of "scientific creationism" using "Flood geology" in public school science classes as support for a purely literal reading of Genesis. After the legal judgment of the case Daniel v. Waters (1975) ruled that teaching creationism in public schools contravened the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the content was stripped of overt biblical references and renamed creation science. When the court case Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) 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 subsequently claimed to be a new scientific theory. The Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005) ruling concluded that intelligent design is not science and contravenes the constitutional restriction on teaching religion in public school science classes.
Creation in early and medieval Christianity
To a large extent, the early Christian Church Fathers read creation history as an allegory with the spiritual meaning seen as more important than the literal, without denying the literal meaning. In the first century Saint Paul described Genesis 2:24 as an allegory meaning Christ and the Church, and Philo described creation as happening simultaneously, with the six days of creation meeting a need for order and according with a perfect number. Jewish writers such as Abraham ibn Ezra could be described as creationists, while consistently rejecting overly literal understandings of Genesis. Maimonides states that parts of Genesis 1-3 cannot be taken literally.
In response to the second century Gnostic belief that Genesis was purely allegorical, Christian orthodoxy rejected this interpretation without taking a purely literal view of the texts. Thus Origen believed that the physical world is ‘literally’ a creation of God, but did not take the chronology or the days as ‘literal’. Similarly, Saint Basil in the fourth century while literal in many ways, described creation as instantaneous and timeless, being immeasurable and indivisible.
Augustine of Hippo in The Literal Meaning of Genesis was insistent that Genesis describes the creation of physical things, but also shows creation occurring simultaneously, with the days of creation being categories for didactic reasons, a logical framework which has nothing to do with time. For him, light was the illumination of angels rather than visible light, and spiritual light was just as literal as physical light. Augustine emphasised that the text was difficult to understand and should be reinterpreted as new knowledge became available. In particular, Christians should not make absurd dogmatic interpretations of scripture which contradict what people know from physical evidence.
In the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas, like Augustine, asserted the need to hold the truth of Scripture without wavering while cautioning "that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should not adhere to a particular explanation, only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it if it be proved with certainty to be false; lest holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing."
Natural theology
Main article: Natural theologyFrom 1517 the Protestant Reformation brought a new emphasis on lay literacy, with Martin Luther advocating the idea that creation took six literal days about 6000 years ago, and claiming that "Moses wrote that uneducated men might have clear accounts of creation", though a German peasant listening to a translation would have different perceptions from a Jew familiar with early Jewish language and culture, and Luther still had to refer to allegorical understandings such as the meaning of the serpent. John Calvin also rejected instantaneous creation, but criticised those who, contradicting the contemporary understanding of nature, asserted that there are "waters above the heavens".
Discoveries of new lands brought knowledge of a huge diversity of life, and a new belief developed that each of these biological species had been individually created by God. In 1605 Francis Bacon emphasised that the works of God in nature teach us how to interpret the word of God in the Bible, and his Baconian method introduced the empirical approach which became central to modern science. Natural theology developed the study of nature with the expectation of finding evidence supporting Christianity, and numerous attempts were made to reconcile new knowledge with Noah's Flood.
In 1650 the Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher, published the Ussher chronology based on Bible history giving a date for Creation of 4004 BC. This was generally accepted, but the development of modern geology in the 18th and 19th centuries found geological strata and fossil sequences indicating an ancient Earth. Catastrophism was favoured in England as supporting the Biblical flood, but this was found to be untenable and by 1850 all geologists and most Evangelical Christians had adopted various forms of old Earth creationism, while continuing to firmly reject evolution.
Growing evidence for naturalistic explanations
Main article: History of evolutionary thoughtMain article: History of scienceFrom around the start of the nineteenth century ideas like Lamarck's concept of transmutation of species had gained a small number of supporters in Paris and Edinburgh, mostly amongst anatomists. Britain at that time was enmeshed in the Napoleonic Wars, and fears of republican revolutions such as the American Revolution and French Revolution led to a harsh repression of such evolutionary ideas which challenged the divine hierarchy justifying the monarchy. Charles Darwin's development of his theory of natural selection at this time was kept closely secret. Repression eased, and the anonymous publication of Vestiges of Creation in 1844 aroused wide public interest with support from Quakers and Unitarians, but was strongly criticised by the scientific community, which emphasized the need for solidly backed science. In 1859 Darwin's On the Origin of Species provided that evidence from an authoritative and respected source, and gradually convinced scientists that evolution occurs. This was resisted by conservative evangelicals in the Church of England, but their attention quickly turned to the much greater uproar about Essays and Reviews by liberal Anglican theologians, which introduced into the controversy "the higher criticism" begun by Erasmus centuries earlier. This book re-examined the Bible and cast doubt on a literal interpretation. By 1875 most American naturalists supported ideas of theistic evolution, often involving special creation of human beings.
The rapid developments in scientific understanding have led to detailed scientific and naturalistic explanations for the properties of both living things and non-living matter (from the tiniest sub-atomic particles to the development of the planets, stars and galaxies) which do not require the detectable intervention of a creator.
Theistic evolution
Main article: Theistic evolutionThrough the 19th century the term creationism most commonly referred to direct creation of individual souls, in contrast to traducianism. Following the publication of Vestiges there was interest in ideas of Creation by divine law. In particular, the liberal theologian Baden Powell argued that this illustrated the Creator's power better than the idea of miraculous creation, which he thought ridiculous. When On the Origin of Species was published, the cleric Char
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