I am not a scientist. Anyone who knows me knows that.  In college, I avoided science as much as possible on my way to getting degrees in non-science majors.

That’s ok I guess.

We all have our gifts. Understanding science is not my gift.

However, I am aware of science and its impact on religion, especially the theory of evolution and the Genesis Scriptures. Evolution can cut God out of creation.

For some scientists, the theory of evolution disproves the role of God in creation. Pastor Adam Hamilton in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White says that evolutionary scientists “suggest that creation has occurred without supervision and it was an impersonal process that excluded God in creation….If this is what the scientist is asking people of faith to believe, I cannot accept this, and this statement cannot be reconciled with the Bible or Christian Theology.”

It is important to get Hamilton’s point here. Evolutionary scientists are going beyond science when they says things like “No species, ours included, possesses a purpose beyond the imperatives created by its genetic history” [Edward Wilson].  “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind” [George G. Simpson].  The universe “has no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference” [Richard Dawkins].

All three statements take God out of the mix when they say “no purpose.”

You see I believe and Pastor Hamilton believes that God has a purpose for man in this world. God is at work in life, supervising and injecting Himself into life at His will.

How do Christians respond to these ideas?

One way is the theory of creation science [sometimes referred to as Scientific Creationism].

Here are the key words for creation scientists: young earth, literal interpretation of Scripture, Scripture as history.

These Christians believe that the Genesis Scriptures are chronological and creation occurred in six twenty-four hour periods. By focusing on these time periods, they postulate that the earth is ten thousand years old and the flood that destroyed the earth was five thousand years ago.

With these time frames in place, they seek to develop theories as to how nature can fit into this ten thousand year parameter.

You may be thinking that “real scientists” do not belong to this group but it depends on how you define “real scientist.” The Institute of Creation Research has a current staff which includes Ph.D.s in physics, engineering science, nuclear physics, geology, genetics and astronomy.

How can they believe the way they do? They start with their faith and they have spent their lives trying to reconcile geology and biology to the Genesis story of creation.

I can imagine that other scientists regard them as unprofessional. They may say that their Christian agenda drives their research too much.  Science is science, facts are facts, and these Scientific Creationists are taking science to places where it should not go.

I have written about a good friend and colleague who was a scientific creationist. This person is very intelligent in her field which was botany but she was a believer first and a botanist second.  I had personal conversations with other scientists who thought that her focus on scientific creationism was not science at all.  They did not have high regard for her views as a scientist.

Was God a part in the process of the creation of man? You bet He was.  Scientific creationists think the Bible is a history book and the Word of God is literal [in other words, the Bible means what It says and says what It means].

Pastor Hamilton says of Scientific Creationism “The theories they have proposed are quite interesting, though I find them unconvincing” [Seeing, 84].

What about you? Go to the Institute for Creation Research at http://www.icr.org/.

Are you comfortable with their conceptions about how our world came about? They do put God in the creation process.  They believe that the earth is a young planet.  They think the Bible is a historical document.

Can you be a Scientific Creationist?