Author: henry

… and he really is a creationist. His name is Todd C. Wood, he teaches at Bryan College in Dayton Tennessee, and he blogs at the creatively named Todd’s Blog.

Now for reasons that may have something to do with the college’s name and location, Bryan College often strikes people as an obscurantist sort of place, determined to set education back by a century. My own experience belies that reputation. I was introduced to Bryan College by a Hebrew student who was a Presbyterian Church in America youth pastor. He needed a year of Hebrew for ordination and took it from me. During that time I also heard the president of Bryan College speak and explain some of his views on education.

Through those connections I became aware of Dr. Kurt Wise, author of Faith, Form, and Time (link is to my review), which is the one book on young age creationism I recommend if you are only going to read one on the topic. (Dr. Wise prefers “young age” to “young earth” as he is in fact dealing with the age of the universe.)

Now my main reason for calling Dr. Wise, and now Dr. Wood “honest creationists” is not how they deal with the scientific evidence, though that is good to see. In fact, I read quite a number of posts by Dr. Wood before linking to this one, because I don’t like to pile on with the “how honest of this poor creationist to say that we’re right” line. At that point it’s like saying “This creationist is a good guy because he sees the evidence for evolution, but stubbornly refuses to believe it.”

But I believe it’s very much different when we understand just why these men will stand up to what they acknowledge is a large body of evidence. Their epistemology starts elsewhere. They have a higher source of knowledge. They believe that revealed knowledge, as in scripture, has precedence. I may disagree, but it’s nice to have it laid out in plain words.

The particular point of honesty–and I know there are a number more creationists that will agree here–is that both Dr. Wise and Dr. Wood acknowledge, or better proclaim that their starting point is scripture, and what’s more a particular understanding of it. Quoth Dr. Wood:

It starts with going back to the most basic convictions about origins that I have. For me, that starts with my convictions about the mode of scriptural inspiration, i.e. verbal, plenary inspiration. I don’t believe that the Bible is merely a human book that contains the word of God. I believe it is the Word of God. I also do not accept the modern and popular doctrine of accommodation, which basicallys says that by putting His revelation into human language, God was forced to use terms that were not precisely accurate. As a result, science takes an active role in interpreting the Scripture, since any part may be accommodated and therefore not literally true.

Now I profoundly disagree with that, but what I find dishonest in the work of some creationists is that they try to claim that simply doing science, starting from its current state, one can conclude that the universe was created recently (6000 or so years) and quickly. In order to make a political point and get creationism in the public school curriculum, they cut their view off from its foundation.

Now as I understand it, both Dr. Wise and Dr. Wood maintain that with the proper research and time and effort to produce the necessary body of scientific work, a sound scientific foundation can be made. In his book which I previously mentioned, Dr. Wise makes a point of listing things that need to be researched in order to produce such a theory.

Now I profoundly disagree with their understanding of scripture and of the relationship of scripture and science. I don’t even see my view as accommodation. I believe scripture does not address science, and that this is because God never intended to address science through scripture. But it’s nice to have that out at a start. That’s what I call being honest.

Two people can say that they believe the Bible, yet that is really meaningless until we know just what each one believes about the Bible.

So I’ve added a subscription to Todd’s Blog to my Google reader, and I’m enjoying his posts.