In the last post I looked at the main non-scientific Creationist objections to evolution - non-scientific because I don't believe the primary reasons most Creationists reject evolution are scientific. Now on to why in my view Creationism is founded on a misunderstanding of Science and (next post) Scripture.
Creationists seem to me to show a fundamental misconception of science, particularly its remit and limits, when they seek to bring God into science to explain the origins of the universe and of life. God can never be invoked as a scientific explanation, mechanism or cause for the simple reason that science deals solely with the natural, and God is super-natural: he stands outside or beyond or above nature, and is not a part of it nor physically discernible within it. Science can of course study God's works within nature, but in so doing it can only focus on their physical aspects and causes; supernatural causes must be excluded. (NB this does not mean that God is not a cause or explanation on a different level and of a different kind to the scientific and natural.)
So the proper subject of science is physical nature, and that nature is a seamless whole; it is not littered with parts that God left behind like an untidy mechanic, nor with unaccountable gaps that require a non-scientific explanation.
It's important to understand that God works invisibly within nature; his actions are not discernible from within nature except by spiritual (i.e. non-scientific) means. So for example we may perfectly validly believe that God 'knits together' babies in their mothers' wombs (Psalm 139:13), but an ultrasound scan will not reveal God tinkering away inside - his knitting-together utilises entirely natural biological processes. Similarly, the Genesis 2:7 description of God forming Adam from the dust of the ground is a powerful metaphor containing a deep truth, but it doesn't mean that if we could go back to the beginning we would be able to see God literally sculpting a human figure out of mud. The Creation accounts in Genesis simply are not, nor could they be, a scientific description of what happened; they are a God's-eye view, or a theologically-illuminated view, not a scientific one.
But what of miracles?
If God's acts are generally natural acts (or performed through natural agency), where does that leave miracle? Well, it partly depends what you mean by 'miracle'. Is it something scientifically impossible, against the laws of nature, or is it something wonderful, unusual, significant - an act of power and perfect timing?
The words the Bible uses tend to fall into the latter category. However, it's clear that many of them - walking on water, turning water into wine, raising the dead etc - do not comply with the normal workings of any current laws of nature as we understand them. These can perhaps best be seen as foretastes - or temporary in-breakings - of God's Kingdom, the renewed heavens and earth, which will have a new nature and new laws, and so presumably (if such pursuits are still relevant) a new science. They are the signs of another world and of a power beyond nature.
In one sense all of God's acts are miraculous; in another, they are all 'natural', or mediated through natural laws, processes and matter. So the Creation of the universe and of life were, in this sense, miraculous acts; in another, they involved entirely natural and scientifically-studiable processes.
Flaws, gaps and anomalies
Creationists and ID-ers can and do usefully contribute to science by pointing out potential flaws, gaps and anomalies in current evolutionary theory and in the evidence for it. But it seems to me that almost their whole case is built on on these gaps and anomalies, which they desperately hope can sustain proof of a young earth and undermine the science of evolution. Mary Schweitzer's discovery of soft tissue in a T. Rex bone; fossils apparently out of sequence in the geological strata - these kinds of examples seem to be the primary materials of 'Creation science'.
But it is a false hope to imagine that these flaws cannot be ironed out, the gaps cannot be filled or the anomalies not be explained without reference to God; that they will somehow topple the vast edifice of evolution. Rather, they provide fruitful areas for new research which time after time leads to new findings which strengthen evolutionary theory (such as with Michael Behe's well-refuted examples of 'irreducible complexity').
Creationists remind me irresistibly of conspiracy theorists, clinging to their minority beliefs not because the evidence justifies it but simply because their worldview demands it.
Speaking of which and going off on a tangent, did you know that there really still is a genuine flat-earth society? Check out http://theflatearthsociety.org. You couldn't make this stuff up.
Now on to part 2 of this post - Scripture...
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