On "Why I Am A Creationist"

            I find it embarrassing to be identified as a Christian. This is rather unfortunate, seeing as how I am a minister in a decidedly Christian church, which means part of my job is to advertise my faith to others in the hopes of creating more Christians.

            When Virginia Heffernan posted her reflection on Yahoo News, Why I Am A Creationist, I found that she had summarized the reason I find being a theist so embarrassing. Heffernan was careful to acknowledge that people might think she was stupid, which is good, because I found her rationale stupid.

            In the post, an otherwise intelligent woman concluded that living in a world where God exists feels better than living in a world without God. Rather than engaging in the intellectually arduous task of making sense of apparently contradictory truth claims, she simply chose to disregard one in favor of the other. Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.

            What continues to bother me about this position, one that is held by millions of Christians in the US, is that it is so illogical. It completely disregards the possibility that belief in a creative God might be consistent with discoveries fostered by following the scientific method. Heffernan is perfectly content to compartmentalize her life into sections that do not interact. In doing so she is able to enjoy the benefits of modern scientific discovery – in the form of technology – while completely dismissing anything else such inquiry might discover that explains the world.

            Heffernan is not the only person I know who dismisses the theory of evolution because it doesn’t mesh with her belief in a creator. She is, however, the first I’ve come across to state so baldly that she chooses to live this way because it is more comfortable than the alternative. She freely acknowledges that she is not interested in trying to make all of the pieces fit together.

            The source of the problem for people like Heffernan is that they all tend to read scripture scientifically. By this I mean that they believe that the Bible is not just theologically true, but factually true throughout. In other words, they believe the facts of the Gospel, that God raised Jesus from the dead. Since this is factually true, they expect the Hebrew Scriptures to be factually true as well. Therefore, when Genesis describes a six-day creation story, this must be the facts of how God created the world. As such, when creationists hear of discoveries that do not fit their preconceived understanding of the world, they cast them aside as Heffernan does. Quite frankly, it is easier. Unfortunately, it’s also stupid.

            Reading scripture in this way is stupid precisely because scripture itself does not claim such scientific precision. In his movie Religulous, Bill Maher talks with a Catholic scientist who points out how far removed the world of the scientific method is from the world of the Bible. To expect scientific reporting of the sort we are now accustomed to from the authors of scripture is quite simply senseless.

            Furthermore, individuals who accept the overwhelming evidence in favor of the big bang, et al, see how ludicrous a young earth understanding is. They assume that to be a Christian you must have to turn your brain off and, as a result, are not interested in what Christians might have to say. Yet it is the creator God who gave us minds that allow us to discover the means by which God created the ever-expanding universe. In the very act of shutting off our brains we deny God’s creative goodness to humanity.

            The laws of physics in their most advanced and fantastically intricate mechanics, which human beings are only beginning to understand, can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. Neither the big bang theory, nor the theory of evolution proves God does not exist. Such is beyond their capacity. Scientific discovery simply explains how things act and appear to be, but cannot explain why. “Why” is the purview of the psychologist, philosopher, or theologian.

            I am a minister precisely because I love the Triune God who has pursued me and has placed upon me a vocational call that I cannot shake. I want others to know the fullness of life available to all people as mediated and facilitated in the power of the Holy Spirit through the atonement of Christ. I just wish Christians would stop putting up so many barriers that keep people from coming to faith.

            The Church has generally done a disservice to people like Heffernan. Of course, to blame “The Church” for failure in this way is to suppose that it is monolithic and speaks with one voice on all topics. Even looking at one specific denomination, such as the ironically named United Methodist Church as it wrestles with issues such as homosexuality in its general conference should demonstrate how naïve this idea is. Still, The Church needs to do a better job of fostering the life of the mind, of scientific inquiry, and thoughtfulness.

Creationists Lack Faith

Insisting that the earth was created in seven literal days reflects a lack of faith and a desire to control God. This is not to say that young-Earthers  have no faith. Clearly they do. Their faith -- specifically, their beliefs -- are so strong that they limit the possibility of knowledge that can be accepted. Stated in another way, what a person believes limits what said individual can accept as knowledge. 

Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, claimed that people capable of comprehending the scientific realities of the world and discarding faith were "brights." The implication is that those who have faith are dim bulbs, and those who deny evolution are quite frankly burned out. Indeed, criticism of creationists generally stands on the notion that people who believe such things are stupid. 

A person's identity is tied up in his or her belief structure. If one's beliefs are based upon the historicity and factual veracity of the claims of the Bible, regardless of the genre of literature in question, then there is no room in one's mind for contradictory knowledge. Such contradictions are existential threats to one's entire identity and must therefore be resisted or thrown out. While many who hold to these beliefs may not be intellectual giants, they are not all stupid. 

What creationists fail to realize is how small and under their own control their God is. They define God by what they read in scripture and refuse to ask probing questions of the text, or to read one text against others. If they do read in this way, their beliefs predetermine the results. This means that God is only as big as the world revealed in the Bible. Ironically, this means that God is not actually to be seen in his creation unless what we discover fits neatly into the historical, factual confines of the creation stories. If those discoveries do not fit, they are quite simply dismissed as wrong.

But if God is bigger than the confines of scripture, what then? If God did not make clear through the Bible itself that there are vast areas of life and God's activity in it which are not defined there, how can we believe in him? If God did not actually take one week to create the world, can we actually trust that God raised Jesus from the dead? As an existential threat, this is huge. 

For this reason the doors of creationist churches are never opened very wide, at least not for very long. The group huddles close for protection against the threatening world outside, never realizing that the one who lives inside of them is greater and more powerful than the one who lives in the world, since he has conquered the world. If this is not evidence of a lack of faith in God, I don't know what is.