Re: great creationists of the past

Any list like this -- great creationists of the past -- is highly
problemmatic for many reasons. I will comment here only on one reason,
using one example, my good buddy Robert Boyle. I wish I had time to detail
my problems with the inclusion of several others on this list, but my
comments here may be instructive to some of the others as well.

Boyle clearly believed that the universe -- the world, whatever you want to
call the whole shebbang -- was created ca. 6000 years ago. Archbiship
Ussher was a close family friend, he even challenged Boyle to undertake his
own study of the BIble in the orignal langauges, which Boyle then went out
and did. Boyle also rejected the Cambridge Platonist view of mediated
creation: God *did* condescend to create things directly, himself, God *did*
get his hands dirty in the work of creation. Both points support the claim
that Boyle was a "Creationist" in the sense meant by the proclamation. He
also had a high view of scripture, though he was probably not a Calvinist as
is often assumed -- we don't know enough yet about his actual doctrinal
beliefs, which he was reluctant to detail on sensitive points such as
predestination, the details of soteriology, etc.

On the other hand, Boyle believed that science cannot resort to miracles; he
was absolutely clear on this point. To be sure, miracles had certainly
happened in biblical times (at least), and he used miracles as part of a
larger apologetic for the truth of Christianity, and he also believed that
God continues to perform miracles now by uniting souls with bodies in utero
for each individual person. But this isn't science, since we can't find the
mechanisms. It's true, it just isn't science.

Now the important point. To claim that Boyle was a "creationist" is to
state the obvious but also to say nothing of any importance whatsoever. I
am sometimes asked about this, and that is my answer. To say that Boyle was
a creationist in 1680 is no more significant than to say that Robert
Millikan was a heliocentrist in 1925. Neither is news, and neither has any
particular signficance. It would be news, and important news, if Boyle had
been an evolutionist in 1680 or if Millikan had been a
geocentrist in 1925.

Overall, we might just as well make up a list of "geocentrists" and include
Tycho Brahe, THomas Aquinas, Francis Bacon (yet, that is correct), and
Leonardo da Vinci. Almost anyone else you could name prior to ca. 1610, and
still most people prior to ca. 1700, would qualify. So what?

THis type of list should have a subtitle, borrowed from another geocentrist
who was likely also a creationist: Much Ado about Nothing.

Ted
Received on Sat Apr 15 10:26:36 2006