Clarification tag
Binks clarifies a few of his remarks in response to my previous mention of his comments on Intelligent Design. He has, I think, misunderstood some of what I said, so I should clarify a few points in turn.
But let me first state that I was, in fact, unaware of his article “Intelligent Creationism & Godless Materialism.” It touches on a number of points I agree with, and I would agree with Binks that, in general, it is a good “short answer” to give to the question “what’s wrong about ID?”
The only thing I would wonder at is why he felt it necessary to deliver the answer, in his words, “without being a materialist, or a creationist, or anything else that fits the terms of the current debate.” Granted, his desire to not answer as a materialist is an understandable one…but if there is a rational objection to Intelligent Design which can be articulated from the perspective of belief in a divine creator, why not articulate that objection, especially if one is in fact a creationist (which is to say only that one believes in a creator).
But I digress.
Where my thinking diverges from Binks’ is, I think, in regard to the definitions we apply to the term “creationism” in the first place. There are basically two definitions of the word, one popular and one “academic” (which is not the best term for it, but which is about the only term I can think of):
- the belief that the Book of Genesis contains a literal account of historical events which took place beginning 6,000 to 10,000 years ago (and that the Earth’s age is likewise within that range), and thus the belief that God made the world in seven literal days, and that all of humanity is descended from Adam and Eve
- the belief that God made (created!) the world by some means
Note the difference. The second definition is simply the belief in a creator (I go the extra step of making explicit mention of God), which is to say that it is a rejection of the assertion that all things came into being randomly or by chance, and solely as the product of natural phenomena. The first definition is certainly what most would think of when confronted with the term “creationist,” but in truth presents a picture of only a limited subset of all creationists.
Put plainly: if you believe that the world was made rather than that it simply developed under no influence from any extrinsic force or entity, you are a creationist of some sort. I go to great lengths, and take great pains, to make this point as often as possible, because I think an important step in the origins debate that we Christians need to take is to recapture the term “creationist” from those who have currently co-opted it.
I do, however, entirely agree with Binks when he says:
The doctrines of a prime mover or creation or God’s power to make –- these are different from the attempt to assert the absolute scientific historicity of ever detail in the first two chapters of Genesis. That’s poor Religion, worse Philosophy, and bad science.
…
In fact, it’s possible to say that literalistic creationoids and dogmatic anti-theistic Darwinoids are twins, the two sides of a modern coin, both arguing over historicity and evidence in a way foreign to scientific tradition on the one hand, or the Bible within Christian Theology on the other.
This says it about as well as it can be said.
At any rate, Binks is more than welcome if he in fact derived some value from the opportunity to clarify his thoughts. It’s nice to think I prompted that. In one final correction, I should clarify that my choice of title was meant to express my own desire to avoid making what I was about to write sound like a woodshedding of Denyse for what she said. It was certainly not a declaration of expectation on my part.
But it’s good to know that such a fate has been avoided all the same.
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