Why I Am a Creationist

A Layman's Perspective

Chuck Nelson

• Publisher: Go To Publish
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781647493110
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

The subject of origins is one of humanity's universal questions. The who, what, how, when, where and why issues surrounding origins are both intriguing and controversial. While cultural authorities in academia and the media push an entirely naturalistic evolutionary model of origins, the observations and experience of many people prevent them fully accepting such a model. Many people, scientist and laymen alike, see evidence of creation or design in the cosmos and in life itself. They see life as something more than chance and chemistry.

The author is neither a theologian nor a scientist but, as a layman, has studied the issue of origins for a number of years. In this layman to layman work, the author leads the reader through the maze of philosophical and scientific issues at play in the origins debate with the objective of affirming the belief in creation or design that so many hold.

CHAPTER ONE

ORIGINS AND INTUITION

Many people find belief in creation or design to be intuitive. I have found this to be true even with people who have no particular religious affiliation or well-defined concept of God. It seems to make sense to them. At the same time, many elements of our culture reject creation and characterize it as a purely religious belief without scientific merit. People who believe in creation or intelligent design are often characterized as religious fanatics, anti-science, just plain ignorant or, at best, not intellectually informed. As a result, people with an intuitive belief trending toward creation or design often find themselves in somewhat of an intellectual bind. The idea of creation or design makes sense to them, but they aren’t and don’t want to be considered ignorant or anti-science. As a consequence, many people who harbor thoughts of creation or design in the origins debate tend to keep their thinking to themselves.

My purpose in this work is to validate the intuitive belief many have in creation and help them find their way through the philosophical, theological, and scientific matrix I will refer to as the creation-evolution debate. I will try to keep this discussion as non-technical as possible because we will be dealing with subject matter that most people don’t encounter on a regular basis. I am not a scientist or a theologian but the concepts and issues in the origins debate are not beyond the reach or understanding of the average layman. I am writing as a layman to laypeople. Another way to say that is, “If I can understand it, anybody can.”

I am a creationist. As far back as I can remember, I have always believed in creation even when my concept of a creator and creation was not clearly defined in my mind. Experiencing life and nature while growing up on a cattle ranch in northern California, the idea of creation seemed intuitive. Of course, the concept of creation requires a creator, so I believed in God even though my concept of God was sketchy. My family never went to church or seriously talked about God so my theology was limited to belief in some sort of God who would have been the creator.

I was given a Bible at an early age but when I looked into it, I quickly bounced off of the King James English and gave up on it. I wasn’t given the Bible because of any particular religious commitment on the part of my parents. I think it was based on their thinking that a well-rounded individual should have some exposure to “religion” as part of their education. My point here is that my belief in a God and creation was not drilled into me by my parents, it was intuitive, and just made sense in the world I saw. Later in life, when I talked with my parents about religion, my father described himself as an agnostic and my mother was somewhat eclectic in her beliefs and dabbled in various religions including Christian Science, Unity and astrology.

As I moved through the public education system, my intuitive belief in God and creation was challenged but never fully shaken. I became a Christian through the influence of a girlfriend in high school who invited me to church. As I studied the Word of God, I came to know the God I had always known was there. Later, in college, my belief in creation was challenged and I compromised my thinking and decided God used evolution to create. I remember reading the following on page 21 of my biology textbook:

“Living creatures on earth are a direct product of the earth. There is now little doubt that living things owe their origin entirely to certain physical and chemical properties of the ancient earth. Nothing supernatural was involved – only time and natural physical and chemical laws operating within the peculiarly suitable earthly environment. Given such an environment, life probably had to happen. Put another way, once the earth had originated in its ancient form, with particular chemical and physical properties, it was then virtually inevitable that life would later originate on it also.” (Elements of Biology by Paul B. Weisz, McGraw-Hill, 1961)

I remember the stunned feeling I had on reading this. My science book was telling me that given the “natural” properties of matter, it was “inevitable” that life would originate on earth and that “nothing supernatural was involved.” By that time, I had a strong faith in God and had received Christ as my Lord and Savior, but this appeared to be science challenging my intuitive and now theological belief in creation and God as the Creator. I wasn’t able to give up my faith in God and I wasn’t prepared to defy what I thought was “science” so I took the position that God used evolution to create. I was never comfortable with this position because I knew at some level that it clashed with both science and theology, but it allowed me to agree with both creationists and evolutionists at a superficial level. I was essentially whistling my way through a graveyard until I could deal with the matter in depth.

Many years beyond college, I began a personal study to see if I could resolve the creation vs evolution conflict that had never stopped troubling me. Although evolution was the only origins model presented through college, I never found the idea or evidence in support of it fully convincing and I was uncomfortable with my “God used evolution to create” position. Evolutionists claimed to know something about the origins and mechanics of life, but I heard nothing about how unconscious matter could become conscious and self-aware. I began to read books by scientists who were creationists presenting the scientific case for creation and against evolution. Wow! Where had this information been when I could have used it in college? I found myself being drawn into the sciences as they relate to life and origins and I continue to be fascinated by the subject matter. I found the case for creation by God to be powerfully supported by science. At the same time, I saw that the scientific case for naturalistic evolution is weak at best. The fact that certain chemicals can combine under certain conditions says nothing about how chemicals can form complex biological systems necessary for life, let alone think and reason. I was beginning to see that the text in my college biology book that had stunned me so many years before was not at all a scientific statement. It was a statement of a philosophical presupposition.

Like many people, I saw science as having great cultural authority and was not inclined to challenge science. However, at the same time I began to see where the discipline of science is frequently conflated with naturalistic, if not materialistic, philosophy. This is particularly true in academia and the popular media where naturalism is an assumed and often stated prerequisite for what some consider “true science”. Gradually, I was beginning to distinguish between science, philosophy, and presumption. Presuppositions influence conclusions so it is important to see where the science ends and philosophy or presuppositions begin in the origins debate.

Over years of reading books by scientists who are creationists and studying the philosophical and theological issues, I evolved from an evolutionist, in the sense that I believed that God used evolution to create, to a Biblical creationist. I can’t say I was a true evolutionist in my younger years because I maintained that the process of evolution was a mechanism designed and used by the Creator God. A true evolutionist in academia and the popular media today gives God no role in the origins debate. Remember, my college textbook cited only “natural” processes and specified that “nothing supernatural was involved.”

I still enjoy reading books by scientists on the case for creation. Things are getting really exciting because the more science learns the stronger the case becomes for creation. More on this later.

I don’t think my intuitive belief in God and creation as a youngster was particularly unique. Polls taken in 2007 revealed that some 60% or more of people in Canada and the United States believe in God and some form of creation. Given the fact that our educational institutions and the majority of the popular media are, for the most part, philosophically committed to the concept of naturalistic evolution, it seems amazing that so many still harbor thoughts of creation and design. I think that belief in God and creation is diminishing in our culture, but life experiences and intuition are hard to overcome. It’s surprising that so many people entertain concepts of creation in the face of the antagonism to such positions in the media and public education system.

In this work I hope to affirm and support the reader who is inclined to accept concepts of creation or design in the origins debate. At the same time, I want the reader who is not particularly inclined to believe in the creation/design model to take a fresh look at the origins issue. To keep the non-religious reader comfortable, I will try to hold my theological position until the last chapter. I will not be entirely successful in restraining theological input, but I will try. Both creation and evolution have significant theological implications and can be found in world religions but I want the reader to look at and understand the philosophical and scientific issues at play in the origins debate without getting bogged down in “religion.” Both the n...

Table of contents

• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER ONE
• CHAPTER TWO
• CHAPTER THREE
• CHAPTER FOUR
• CHAPTER FIVE
• CHAPTER SIX
• CHAPTER SEVEN
• CHAPTER EIGHT
• CHAPTER NINE
• CHAPTER TEN
• CHAPTER ELEVEN
• CHAPTER TWELVE
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
• CHAPTER NINETEEN
• ADDENDUM