Creationism - what it is, the concept and the essence of the concept.

In 2005, the school board of the small American town of Dover, Pennsylvania, required ninth-grade students to study the book “Of Pandas and Men.” It was intended to be a textbook presenting the “theory of intelligent design” as an alternative to evolutionary theory.

In 1987, the US Supreme Court banned the teaching of creationism in schools, which is why Judge John Jones, in a lawsuit brought by the parents of 11 students, ruled overturning the school board's decision.

Despite the fact that creationists were defeated in this case, the debate between them and supporters of the theory of evolution continues in the world to this day.

Meaning and origin of the term

The word comes from the Latin “creatio”, which means “I create”. The term itself was born among scientists of the 19th century. But the idea of ​​the creation of the world by God, which underlies creationist theories, is much older than science. The ancient pagan religions spoke about this, albeit in different ways, but Christianity gave the world the most consistent, detailed concept of Creation.

world creation

The basis of this doctrine is found in the Bible

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).

These are the first words of the Bible, which became the basis for various kinds of interpretations by theologians. The first such attempts can be seen already among the holy fathers of the first centuries.

Holy Fathers

All theologians-ascetics of both the East and the Christian West:

• they proceed from the fact that the Creator is eternal, unchanging, while His creation, the world, changes;
• understand the creation of heaven and earth quite literally.

The Creator and His creation

Already from the first centuries of the Church, various kinds of allegorical reasoning about the first verses of Genesis, about which St. Basil the Great writes:

“others, taking what is written not in the generally accepted sense, call water not water, but some other substance, and give meaning to plants and fish at their own discretion, even explain the existence of reptiles and animals in accordance with their concepts, just as dream interpreters see in dreams dreams are given interpretations that agree with their own intentions.”

This is not how the saints of God understand the Bible, who are not inclined to “mentalize.” As St. writes. Vasily, “When I hear about grass, I mean grass; also plant, fish, beast and livestock, and everything by which it is named, for this I accept.”

Other interpreters also agree with him.

St. Ephraim the Syrian points out that by “heaven” and “earth” we mean nothing more than these matters. And the great John Chrysostom warns in one of his sermons:

“To not believe what is contained in the Divine Scripture, but to introduce something else from your mind, this, I think, exposes those who dare to do such a thing to great danger.”

Six days of creation

The holy fathers understand the days of creation quite literally, meaning by them precisely days, calendar days. Here both the ancient fathers and the saints who lived closer to us in time agree.

Western theologian, St. The Venerable Bede (VI-VII centuries), writes about the creation of “the beauty of the world” in 6 days, while in the seventh the Lord “rested from his labors.”

St. holds the same opinion. Gregory Dvoeslov, Pope (VII century), noting that days are not the sequence of creation of things in this world. These are a kind of stages of manifestation of various elements of creation, created initially, and simultaneously. For example, plants were created on the first day together with the earth - after all, they subsequently came out of it - but the soil “grew” them only on the third:

“This is why Moses tells separately what was created on each day, and yet ended with the statement that everything was created at once: This is the origin of the heavens and the earth (Gen. 2:4-6).”

And St. Demetrius of Rostov (XVIII century) even identifies the days of the creation of the earth and the days of the week as people now know them:

• the first day of the week - resurrection - separation of light from darkness;
• Monday: The Creator “made the heavens out of the waters of the abyss with His omnipotent word”;
• dry land appeared on Tuesday;
• Wednesday, fourth day - creation of the Sun and Moon;
• Thursday, fifth day: creation of “fish and creatures of the water”;
• Friday – appearance of animals; then man came into being.
• Finally, on the seventh day, God “rested from His work.”

A similar understanding is also found in liturgical texts. For example, the Lenten Triodion in the Synaxarion (instructive reading) on ​​Great Friday correlates Friday as the day of the Crucifixion of the Lord and the sixth day when man was created, recognizing such a coincidence as non-random. The Great Saturday is compared with the 7th day of creation: “and on the sixth, restoring the restoration of decayed man, and renewing him with the life-giving cross, and death, on the present seventh day of repose, with a perfect repose, a life-giving and saving sleep. "

In the image and likeness

The theology of the Holy Fathers pays special attention to the creation of people.

Pre-existence of souls?

Already in the first centuries of Christianity, thinkers wondered whether the souls of people existed before their creation.

Answering similar “researchers”, St. Maximus the Confessor writes that God’s plan for man presupposes him as a combination of a body (“from the dust of the earth”) and a “living soul”:

“It is impossible for the soul and body, as parts of a person, to exist in time, one before or after the other.”

The term “creationism” appeared at the end of the 19th century as scientific proof of the existence of God.

The term “creationism” arose and became popular at the end of the 19th century. It was used to denote a concept that recognizes the truth of the Old Testament story of God's creation of the world in 6 days.

Creationism

a set of teleological concepts that recognize the truth of the creation of the world by God

The accumulation of data from various sciences (from astronomy to geology and biology), especially the spread of the theory of evolution in the 19th century, led to a contradiction between new views in science and the biblical picture of the world.

As a result, there followed the revival of creationism as a set of teleological concepts, which are the reaction of conservative Christians to the dominant ideas about the evolutionary and natural path of origin of living and inanimate nature.

Text of the court's decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover School District. Opponents of creationism are actively turning to the courts to ban the teaching of creationism in schools. Photo: upload.wikimedia.org

The first creationist organization was founded in Great Britain in 1932, and it was called the Evolution Protest Movement.

Its goal was to disseminate “scientific” information and facts proving the falsity of the teaching of evolution and the truth of the biblical picture of the world.

1932

this year the first creationist organization, the Evolution Protest Movement, arose in England

Creationists have achieved their greatest success in the United States, where they temporarily banned the teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools in several states. B

Moreover, since the mid-1960s, activists of “young earth creationism” began to push for the introduction of “scientific creationism” into the school curriculum.

1975

this year, an American court declared the teaching of creationism illegal

Proponents of the creationist theory lost their fight, since the 1975 court decision in the case of Daniel v. Waters. As a result, teaching pure creationism in schools was declared unconstitutional.

To overcome the ban, creationists decided to rename the concept “creation science,” but when it was banned, in 1987 the concept became known as the theory of “intelligent design.”

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. PACE adopted a resolution condemning creationism as a pseudoscientific doctrine. Photo: cdn22.img.ria.ru

Currently, there are several dozen creationist organizations operating in the world. Most of them (34) are found in the USA.

At the same time, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), in its resolution 1580 of October 4, 2007, entitled “The danger of creationism for education,” spoke about the unhealthy consequences of the spread of creationist ideas within educational systems.

October 4, 2007

PACE in res. 1580 expressed doubts about the advisability of spreading the ideas of creationism in education

For example, that creationism can become a threat to human rights, which are of key importance for the Council of Europe. The resolution emphasizes the inadmissibility of replacing science with faith and the falsity of creationists' claims about the scientific nature of their teaching.

Difference from the theory of emanation in philosophy

The unworldly nature of the soul often brought St. fathers to polemics with pagan philosophers, among whom were supporters of the theory of emanation (from the Latin “descent”, “diffusion”). According to the followers of the ancient philosopher Plato, the world and man arose as a result of the outpouring of the First Principle through the excess of its goodness.

But the Bible does not speak about the “excess” of creative power that created man, but about the purposeful, conscious act of creating the “crown of nature” from body and soul.

Creationists believe in the concept that the Universe was created by God or a Creator.

Creationists are scientists, researchers and popularizers of science who adhere to creationism, or the concept of the Creation of the Universe and all living things by the Creator or God.

The creationist worldview is opposed to the atheistic worldview. At the same time, atheists, using scientific data, try to logically prove that there is no God.

As for creationists, they use the same scientific data to prove the indisputability of the existence and presence of the Creator in the world.

Creation of light. From the book “The Bible in Engravings by Gustave Doré.” Creationists believe that the world was created by God, but then it began to develop according to scientific laws. Photo: upload.wikimedia.org

Jewish and Christian traditionalists rely on the Bible and the Torah, and Muslims rely on the Koran as the main source of information about the Creation of the world and all life on earth.

Creationists, or supporters of the concept of intelligent design, base their worldview not on faith, but on using exclusively empirical sources to prove the creation of the Universe.

Many famous scientists were creationists - for example, Newton.

There are several schools of thought in creationism, and some creationists recognize the role of evolution in the history of the Earth. They are called "old earth creationism." There are also evolutionists who consider themselves religious people.

Therefore, the main criterion for distinguishing a creationist from an evolutionist is the criterion of faith in the inspiration and authority of Holy Scripture. A creationist should be considered a person who recognizes the inspiration of the Bible and the creation of the world and man by God.

Abiogenesis

the emergence of life from nonliving matter

Evolutionists, despite their religiosity, do not consider the Bible to be an authority in matters of natural science, allowing for any scientific theories, including abiogenesis - the emergence of life from inanimate matter and the origin of man from apes.

The term “creationism” is relatively young, but the worldview itself is as old as the world.

Isaac Newton. Portrait by G. Kneller, 1689. It is believed that many prominent scientists were creationists, among them Isaac Newton. Photo: upload.wikimedia.org

It is believed that many outstanding scientists who lived in different times and centuries were supporters of the concept of creationism. Among them are:

• Francis Bacon;
• Galileo Galilei;
• Cala Linnaeus;
• Isaac Newton;
• Charles Babbage;
• Gregor Mendel;
• Carl Jung, etc.

It is worth noting that opponents of creationism claim that many of them did not recognize themselves as creationists.

What is the meaning of God creating man?

But for the holy fathers, much more important than the mysteries of the creation of man is the meaning of his existence, lost after the Fall, but found by Christ. St. Abba Dorotheos writes:

“In the beginning, when God created man (Gen. 2:20), He placed him in paradise, as the divine and holy Scripture says, and adorned him with every virtue, giving him the commandment not to eat from the tree that was in the middle of paradise. And so, he dwelt there in the pleasure of paradise: in prayer, in contemplation, in all glory and honor, having sound feelings, and being in the natural state in which he was created.

For God created man in His own image, i.e. immortal, autocratic and adorned with every virtue. But when he violated the commandment by eating the fruit of the tree, from which God commanded him not to eat, then he was expelled from paradise (Genesis 3), fell from the natural state and fell into the unnatural, and was already in sin, in the love of glory, in love to the pleasures of this age and in other passions, and was possessed by them, for he himself became their slave through crime...”

It is this crime and overcoming its consequences that is the main focus of theologians. According to the same word of St. Dorothea, Christ

“took on our very nature, the firstfruits of our composition, and became a new Adam, in the image of God, who created the first Adam, renewed the natural state and made the feelings healthy again, as they were in the beginning...”

But this is how St. Petersburg sees the future of man. Simeon the New Theologian:

“After Adam’s crime, God did not curse paradise... but cursed only all the other earth, which was also incorruptible and grew everything by itself... He who became corruptible and mortal because of the transgression of the commandment, in all justice, had to live on the corruptible earth and eat food perishable... In

Do you think that all this creation was incorruptible in the beginning and created by God in the order of paradise? But afterward it was subjected to corruption by God, and submitted to the vanity of men. Know also that what kind of glorification and radiance of creation will be in the next century? For when it is renewed, it will not again be the same as it was created in the beginning. But it will be what, according to the word of the divine Paul, our body will be...

All creation, by the command of God, has to be, after the general resurrection, not the same as it was created - material and sensory, but has to be re-created and become some kind of immaterial and spiritual abode, surpassing all sense.

Types and directions of creationism

C. R. Darwin's theory of evolution

2.2 Types and directions of creationism

By definition, creationism is a religious and metaphysical concept in which the main forms of the organic world, humanity, planet Earth, as well as the world as a whole, are considered as intentionally created by some Superbeing (God). And it arose as a result of the contradiction between the literal reading of sacred texts and scientific data and theories.

2.2.1 Religious creationism

There are many different movements in religious creationism that differ in their interpretation of natural scientific data.

Literalist, or young earth, creationism insists on following the Old Testament's Book of Genesis literally, that is, that the world was created exactly as described in the Bible - in 6 days and about 6,000 years ago. However, according to the most authoritative chronology in the Western world, Archbishop James Usher of England and Ireland (mid-17th century), this unique event occurred on the night of Saturday to Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC.

Religious communities in the United States are the most active in promoting literalist creationism. Here the bulk of believers - both Protestants and Catholics - consider the biblical story to accurately and correctly reflect the history of the emergence of man. Such a literalist reading of the Bible is characteristic of fundamental religiosity. It also plays a role that in recent decades the question of the rightness or falsity of the theory of evolution has been highly politicized in the United States. In the second half of the 20th century, the conservative wing of the Republican Party adopted creationism as one of the points of its party platform, designed to rally residents of the “red-neck states” - the South and Midwest of the country - around the Republicans.

The top brass of the Catholic Church takes a metaphorical, or old-earth, approach to creationism. In it, “6 days of creation” is a universal metaphor, adapted to the level of perception of people with different levels of knowledge.

On October 22, 1996, Pope John Paul II addressed the Pontifical Academy of Sciences with a message, where he stated that the conclusions of secular science regarding the theory of evolution, including its role in the origin of the human body, are based on solid scientific foundations, confirming the words of his predecessor Pius XII “Humani Generis” (1950): “In the question of man and his origin, there will be no contradiction between the theory of evolution and the doctrine of faith if we keep the basic fundamental principles unshakable.” A similar worldview is set forth in the publications of Orthodox priests, Archpriest Alexander Men (“History of Religion”), Deacon Andrei Kuraev (“Can an Orthodox Christian Be an Evolutionist?”) and Archpriest Gleb Kaleda (“The Bible and the Science of the Creation”).

2.2.2 Modern creationism

Modern creationism is by no means a homogeneous ideological movement. Some still believe that on October 23, 4004 BC, God began to create the world and on the sixth day created man “in his own image and likeness,” while others seek to enrich this theory with “all the reasonable achievements of modern science.” But ideological disputes do not prevent Darwin’s teachings from being attacked on all fronts.

The idea of ​​“intelligent design” has been especially popular in the last decade. Its adherents recognize that the Earth arose more than four billion years ago, that some animal species died out, others arose, but all these events proceeded according to a plan pre-planned by the Creator.

One of the arguments of supporters of the ideas of the theory of “intelligent design” (a fine-tuning argument) is based on the known sensitivity of the Universe and life to small changes in global physical constants (Anthropic principle).

The range of permissible values ​​of the constants turns out to be very narrow, and from the low probability of “fine-tuning” the Universe, a conclusion is drawn about its artificiality and the presence of an Intelligent Creator.

The spiritual father of the “high plane” is considered to be Philip Johnson, a lawyer and author of the best-selling book “Darwin on the Test Bench” (1991). “Every culture has a creation myth,” Johnson writes, and there are priests. These are the experts who interpret the creation story.

They may be church leaders or prominent scientists - in any case, they have the right to demand that the monopoly on the truth belong to them.

Whoever owns the history of the creation of the world largely influences the minds of people belonging to a given culture.”

As the experience of a number of American states convinces, when biblical history is disguised as science, it is easily put aside in the minds by an urgent law, like “Newton’s apple.”

Another movement in creationism is “Creation Science” or “scientific creationism” (creation science), whose proponents claim that it is possible to obtain scientific evidence for the biblical act of creation and biblical history (for example, the Flood) while remaining within the framework of scientific methodology. Proponents of “scientific creationism” typically insist on the need for a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, justifying their position with both theological and scientific arguments.

For example, to explain the multibillion-year ages of the Earth and the Universe, which are given by geo- and astrophysics, in scientific creationism attempts are made to prove the inconstancy in time of world constants, such as the speed of light, Planck’s constant, masses of elementary particles, etc.; gravitational time dilation in near-Earth space is also postulated to prove the young (less than 10 thousand years) age of the Earth and the Universe.

Creationism is not a scientific theory and does not meet the principles of verifiability/falsifiability.

Therefore, it is in principle impossible to refute creationism using scientific methods. Whatever arguments scientists bring, they all fall apart on the impossibility of falsifying any system that includes the miraculous as the main link.

Creationists question the reliability of all knowledge that is not accessible to direct experimental verification (this, in addition to much of evolutionary biology and paleontology, also includes a significant part of geology and astronomy).

According to most experts in the field of natural sciences who study the past, the literal interpretation of the sacred texts about the creation of the world, undertaken by "scientific creationists", is pseudoscientific, since such an interpretation, in their opinion, contradicts the body of paleontological and biological data on biological evolution, as well as geological and astrophysical data on the age of the Earth and astronomical objects.

3. Clash of worldviews

Active discussions between supporters of creationism and its opponents are taking place in many countries, including Russia, but not within the framework of scientific discussions, but mainly about the appropriateness of teaching such views in schools.

In the early 1920s, America was experiencing an ideological crisis. Traditionalists were worried about the encroachment on moral principles. It was a time of jazz and abstract art, contempt for Prohibition and Freudianism coming into fashion. Young people have traditionally been in conflict with their fathers. In those years, the theory of evolution was associated with progress, atheism and eugenics. The "fathers" launched, in the form of self-defense, a new "crusade", especially in the southern states, where the ban on the teaching of Darwinism in public schools took the form of law.

It was in this atmosphere that the famous “monkey trial” took place in July 1925, in which general studies teacher John Scopes was convicted under Tennessee’s anti-evolution law, and the significance of which went far beyond the scope of a specific court case. By 1927, 13 American states had passed prohibition laws similar to the Tennessee law. But in 1968, the US Supreme Court finally decided that anti-evolution laws violate the First Amendment to the US Constitution. And in 1987, the same Supreme Court banned the teaching of the biblical picture of the creation of the world in public schools.

American physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Cross, who was invited to the Education Standards Committee to discuss the school curriculum in biology in the United States, strongly opposed the idea of ​​​​introducing a course on creationism: “We won because we did not allow the theory of intelligent design into classrooms, and at the same time lost because “out of a sense of fairness” the Committee added ... the wording: “Schoolchildren should study how scientists critically examine evolutionary theory.” I strongly opposed this: the norms should say that scientists generally examine everything critically!” (magazine “In the World of Science” No. 11, 2004, pp. 34-35).

But even today there are lawsuits going on in the United States regarding the teaching of theories of human origins in public schools.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) decided on 5 October 2007 that “creationism in all its forms, such as “intelligent design” or “higher intelligence”, is not a scientific discipline and should not be studied scientifically in European schools along with the theory of evolution or even instead of her." In this resolution, PACE deputies called on the governments of 47 countries of the Council of Europe to “resolutely oppose” the teaching of creationism as a scientific discipline.

In 2006, legal proceedings against Darwin began in Russia. “Since this hypothesis is only an unsaid hypothesis, its teaching in schools cannot be explained by truly objective reasons,” the plaintiff said.

Conclusion

Man still doesn’t know how it happened. True, believers know for sure that man was created by God, as it is written in the sacred scriptures. But not everyone shares their point of view. The most self-confident of atheists sometimes puzzle believers like this: “Okay, let God create man. But who created God?

For many, belief in evolution has become the cause of all the ills of modern society. Creationists are on the offensive everywhere. Teachers in Louisiana and Arizona are required to warn students about the dangers of what they hear when teaching about evolution. Taking advantage of the temporary advantage, creationists became bolder and qualified the doctrine of evolution as a type of religion of totemism adopted by modern scientific society. And therefore, they believe, Darwinism is nothing more than paganism in science.

But rumors of a crisis in Darwinism are greatly exaggerated. Any scientific theory in one way or another advances our knowledge forward.

Thus, another concept of non-Darwinian evolution has recently emerged - punctualism. Its supporters believe that the process of evolution proceeds through rare and rapid leaps, and 99% of its time remains in a stable state. The value of this concept lies in the idea of ​​the disunity of micro- and macroevolution and the independence of the factors controlled by them.

Perhaps in the future, STE and non-Darwinian concepts of evolution, complementing each other, will unite into a new unified theory of life and the development of living nature.

Literature

1. A.P. Sadokhin. Concepts of modern natural science: textbook. – 3rd ed. - M.: Omega-L Publishing House, 2008. - 239 p.

2. R.S. Karpinskaya, I.K. Liseev, A.P. Ogurtsov. Philosophy of nature: co-evolutionary strategy. - M.: Interprax, 1995. - 352 p.

3. M. Wartburg. Miller's report // Knowledge is power, 2007, No. 6, p. 63-64.

4. A. Sherstyuk. Are ghouls, vampires and bats our ancestors? // Sign?, 2006, No. 1, p. 26-39.

5. A. V. Knyazev. Biology and religion, or how to teach evolutionary doctrine at school? First conversation // Biology at school, 2006, No. 2, p. 44-48.

6. A. V. Knyazev. Biology and religion, or how to teach evolutionary doctrine at school? Second conversation // Biology at school, 2006, No. 3, p. 31-34.

7. S. Ilyin. Dating the creation of the world // Knowledge is power, 2008, No. 5, p. 83-84

8. K. Eskov. Evolutionary theory today // Our school, 2007, No. 1, pp. 21-24.

9. A. Volkov. Gentlemen! It's time to sue over the globes! // Knowledge is power, 2007, No. 6, p. 5-13

10. V. Novik. “The Monkey Process” - 80 years ago and today // Science and Religion, 2005, No. 7, p. 6-9.

11. A. Zhuravlev. Somehow the crocodiles scattered... // Knowledge is power, 2008, No. 2, p. 74-81.

12. Yu. Tchaikovsky. I’m dying of thirst over a stream or something new in the theory of evolution // Science and Life, 2007, No. 2, p. 38-44.

13. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_evolution

14. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism

C. R. Darwin's theory of evolution

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What is the relationship between the theory of evolution and the words of the Bible?

By the end of the 19th century, despite the warnings that the holy fathers more than once expressed regarding reasoning about Scripture “from their own minds,” rationalistic interpretations appeared that aimed to reconcile the then widespread theory of evolution and the words of the Bible.

As many centuries ago, attempts are beginning to see the Book of Genesis as a set of allegories. At the same time, Christian evolutionists, in fact, do not try to understand the Word of God, but adapt it to generally accepted theories. For example:

• from the point of view of knowledge that astronomy, physics, biology have, the creation of the sky, earth, plants, animals is interpreted;
• the days of creation are allegorically interpreted as long periods of time, which allows us to reconcile the ideas of scientists about the emergence of the world about 1.5 billion years ago, man - about 40,000 with the time determined by Scripture and Tradition;
• the creation of man is considered within the framework of the so-called anthropic principle; according to its most common version, all creation is harmoniously “designed” by the Creator for the sake of creating his crown - man.

Hypothesis or truth?

Among evolutionary theologians, the majority represent Catholicism and Protestantism. Here are just a few of the most famous of them:

• P. Teilhard de Chardin, Catholic explorer, monk;
• B. Warfield, who is a Presbyterian;
• B. Graham, famous Baptist preacher.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII allowed Catholic researchers to study evolutionary theory. His encyclical calls it a “hypothesis.”

22

October

1996

In a speech by Pope John Paul II (recently canonized by the Catholic Church) at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, he spoke of the need to reconsider the understanding of biblical texts according to evolutionism.

Orthodoxy does not yet have an official position on this matter. However, dozens of theologians belong to supporters of an approach close to the concepts of Catholic and Protestant theologians to varying degrees, including:

• prot. V.V. Zenkovsky, author of many works on the history of the Church and Christian philosophy (1991-1962);
• prot. Gleb Kaleda (1921-1994);
• prot. Alexander Men (1935-1990), who outlined the “evolutionary” concept of creation in volume 1 of his “History of Religion”;
• prot. Seraphim Slobodskaya (1912-1971); In the textbook “The Law of God,” one of the most widely used today, he writes that the “days” of creation were not our ordinary days of 24 hours. After all, our day depends on the sun, and in the first three “days” of creation there was no sun itself, which means that the present days could not exist. The Bible was written by the prophet Moses in the ancient Hebrew language, and in this language both the day and the period of time were called by one word “yom”.

Many people paid attention to the discrepancy between the interpretations of the Bible by evolutionary theologians, who practically do not rely on Holy Tradition, and the position of the Holy Fathers even at the birth of Christian evolutionism. For example, the Valaam ascetic of the mid-20th century writes about this. Schema-abbot John:

“An academic missionary told me: in God’s creation, days must be understood as millions. You poor missionary, you imagine the omnipotent Creator as very weak, and attribute millions of times to Him. Your reason says this, but I believe, as the Lord said: it was evening, it was morning, the first day - we must understand it in days, and not in millions. For the Lord spoke, and so it came to pass.”

The essence of creationism.

In general, creationism is a huge movement that has a lot of branches and differences.

Some creationists claim that God still controls all processes, others that he created the earth and everything that exists, and then, as they say, let it float freely. The same is true with the age of our planet. According to some, our planet is from 6 to 7.5 thousand years old, others still agree with the point of view of scientists and admit that the Earth is about four billion years old. All these people are united by a tireless desire to connect some lines from the sacred scriptures to real scientific facts.

Creationists do not operate on any facts in their theories, and all their arguments are just demagoguery. Often, the things they say are completely stupid. For example, some of them do not believe in the existence of dinosaurs, since they are not mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. The presence of fossil remains does not bother them at all.

Deism

In rationalist philosophy it is presented, first of all, in the form of the doctrine of deism (from the Latin word “Deus”, God). It arose in the 17th century, and gained particular popularity in the 18th century. Deists:

• they believe that the Creator, having once created the world, does not interfere further in his life, or does so minimally;
• They consider knowledge of nature to be a means of knowing God.

Among the famous deists:

• J. J. Rousseau;
• Voltaire;
• M. Robespierre;
• A.N. Radishchev;
• I. Newton

Many of the supporters of the philosophical theory remained believers (for example, the physicist I. Newton), while others went so far as to completely deny religion, like Voltaire.

Another original idea belongs to the French philosopher R. Descartes, who considers God the Creator of “innate ideas.” They allow a person to study the world, give him ways of this knowledge. Subsequently, philosophy gradually abandons the “idea of ​​God”, focusing on the analysis of the general patterns of development of the world and man in his earthly existence.

Scientific creationism

Scientific creationism is a modernized form of creationism, a religious doctrine about God’s creation of the world out of nothing. It developed in the 1960s among fundamentalists in the United States. Ideologists of scientific creationism G. Morris, J. Whitcomb, D. Gish, H. Clark, Michael Behe ​​and others are trying to use new methods to discredit the teaching of evolution. Scientific creationism is characterized by strict anti-modernism, defense of the truth of the literal understanding of the biblical version of creation through the widespread use of data from the natural sciences, and the proclamation of scientific creationism as a strictly scientific alternative to the teaching of evolution. To substantiate scientific creationism, research centers have been created, the largest being the Institute of Creation Research. The main arguments of scientific creationism come down to justifying the “heat death” of the Universe using the second law of thermodynamics, denying intermediate forms among fossils and existing organisms, discrediting scientific geochronology in order to justify the small age of the Earth and thereby refute the teaching of evolution. Ideologists of scientific creationism use the ideas of neocatastrophism to interpret the biblical flood as a global cataclysm that led to the creation of fossil remains. Fundamentalists launched an active political and ideological struggle for the adoption by US state legislatures of laws on an equal number of teaching hours for scientific creationism and evolutionary teaching. Data from modern astronomy, physics, geology, the entire complex of biological sciences, theoretical achievements of the concept of self-organization show the complete scientific failure of scientific creationism, which is pseudoscience.

Attitude to the creative beginning of the world in science

The origin of ideas of understanding the world as a creation among scientists dates back to the 18th century.

Creationism in biology

Researchers who have studied living things have found that they change over time. However, as K. Linnaeus (1707-1778) argued, there are exactly as many species as were created at the beginning of the world, and new ones do not arise.

Although archeological and paleontological data spoke of the extinction of certain species of animals and plants, the creationist scientist J. Cuvier (1769-1832) created a “theory of catastrophes,” of which there were several dozen in the history of the Earth. They influenced plants and animals.

The theory of human origin in creationism

The creationist reasoning of biologists is called into question by the research of Charles Darwin. Today's creation scientists:

• do not deny human evolution;
• they believe that his soul and mind are of Divine origin.

Thus, a person is considered as a two-part “biological object”, contrary to the statement of St. Maximus the Confessor about the absolute, according to God's plan, unity of soul and body.

Science or pseudoscience?

In the 20th century A whole movement is being formed that unites supporters of creationist ideas, called “scientific creationism.” Based on data from natural studies, he asserts a literal understanding of the Bible, outwardly similar to the vision of Creation by the holy fathers:

• claims that the world arose no more than 10,000 years ago;
• denies the evolution of plants and animals;
• rejects human evolution.

At the same time, it is noteworthy that creationists are trying to present the Bible as something it never was. From their point of view, this is not a Book of Revealed Truths, but a kind of natural science textbook, literally describing the world from a “scientific” point of view. It is not surprising that opponents of the theory demand that scientists experimentally confirm each of their statements, which is not always possible. That is why such creationism is assessed by many members of the scientific community as a pseudo-theory.

Pros and cons of creationism

Evolutionism criticizes creationism for being methodologically unscientific. The fact is that, despite all the pros and cons of this concept, its provisions are not verified by scientific methods.

Divine origin of man

The same concept of God the Creator does not meet the principles of verifiability/falsifiability and Ockham’s principle. Thus, it is more of a metaphysical concept or religion than science.

That is why the very proof or refutation of creationism using the scientific method does not make sense, since any arguments are broken by the impossibility of falsifying a system that includes the miraculous as the main link.

William Dembski, mathematician, philosopher and theologian. The scientific world does not recognize the criteria they developed, which are used by creationists as scientific

Pros of creationism:

1. Combines divine and scientific approaches to the creation of the world.
2. Allows you to use the scientific apparatus to solve some theological issues.
3. His postulates can be easily taught in school.

Another advantage of creationism is the fact that the philosophy of this concept raises important questions.

For example, these are the differences between an object that arose as a result of natural causes and an artifact, that is, an object that is the result of the intervention of an intelligent principle.

At the same time, the Behe ​​and Dembski criteria used by creationists do not meet the requirements for the necessary conceptual and mathematical rigor and clarity, and therefore this concept has not received recognition from the scientific community.

The scientific community does not recognize modern creationism.

Disadvantages of creationism:

Modern creationism has weaknesses that prevent its widespread dissemination.

1. The lack of strict criteria, which prevents the recognition of the ideas of creationism by the scientific community.
2. The fundamental unprovability of his postulates from a scientific point of view.
3. Theological criticism, indicating the presence of atheistic ideas in creationism.
4. Negative perception by the majority of representatives of both the scientific and religious worlds.

Religious conservatives are the most active in promoting the ideas of creationism, thus trying to resist the penetration of modern scientific knowledge into the religious environment.

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Scientists who are proponents of the idea of ​​Creation

Nevertheless, scientists who are supporters of the idea of ​​Creation are now united in communities, publish magazines, and have their own Internet pages. There are similar organizations also in Russia.

Young-earth and old-earth directions

Among the directions of modern creationism we can highlight:

• “young earth” – adherents of a literal understanding of the 6 days of the creation of the world;
• “old-earth” – supporters of an allegorical understanding of biblical words about the time of the creation of the world; Proponents of this theory consider evolution to be an instrument of creation.

Russian creationists often make contact with the Church and participate in discussions.

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A presentation of the collection “The Evolution Hypothesis: Myths and Facts” took place at the Moscow Church of the Holy Trinity on Sparrow Hills, in which about a dozen scientists from Moscow State University took part.

The theory of intelligent design and scientific creationism claim to be scientific

Creation theory has branches that claim to be scientific, these are the theory of intelligent design and scientific creationism. They try to explain the creation of the world within the framework of the methodology of natural science of the 18th - early 19th centuries, with some reservations.

Thus, their adherents recognize the variability of species of plants, animals and bacteria, and also accept the postulate about the variability of the laws of nature.

Alchemists in their laboratory. Wood engraving by G. Weidnitz. Creationists use natural science methodologies from the 18th and early 19th centuries to confirm their concept. Photo: istoriia.ru

The theory of intelligent design is that the complexity and purposefulness of living things is explained by the design of a creator or some kind of “agent”.

At the same time, supporters of this theory distance themselves from religion and focus on the teleological and telenomic aspects of the concept. They retain the presence of the subject of the plan, but may not do this in a religious sense.

Creation theory is based on the methodology of science of the 18th - early 19th centuries.

Scientific creationism or “creation science” is the branch of creationism that argues that it is possible to obtain scientific evidence for the biblical act of creation and, more broadly, biblical history (in particular, the Flood) while remaining within the framework of scientific methodology.

At the same time, supporters of this movement insist on the veracity of the version of the creation of the world proposed by the Book of Genesis, considering it from both scientific and theological consequences.

World creation. Day 1,2,3. Nativity Cathedral in Mytishchi. Supporters of “scientific creationism” recognize the veracity of the version of the creation of the world proposed by the Book of Genesis, trying to explain this process from a scientific point of view. Photo: pravoslavie.ru

"Scientific creationists" usually put forward the following postulates:

1. The need to contrast “operational science” about natural phenomena at the present time with “historical science”, which speaks about past events. This is due to the fact that only such a science can experimentally test hypotheses about natural phenomena occurring now, but events of the past cannot be verified in any way.
2. “The originally created race,” or “baramin.” The meaning of this postulate is that supposedly there are species of animals and plants originally created by God, which can change in the process of evolution.
3. “Flood geology”, which speaks of the simultaneous deposition of most of the sedimentary rocks of the earth's crust with the burial and rapid fossilization of remains due to the global flood in the time of Noah. On this basis, the stratigraphic geochronological scale is rejected.
4. Gravitational time dilation in near-Earth space, Planck's constant, mass of elementary spaces, etc. Such concepts are used to explain the multibillion-year ages of the Earth and the Universe. A search is also underway for phenomena indicating a young (less than 10 thousand years) age of the Earth and the Universe.
5. Among other statements, a frequently encountered thesis is that the second law of thermodynamics excludes evolution (or at least abiogenesis).