Jack Krebs at Panda’s Thumb claims that I have “come clean” as a young earth creationist. There are a couple of problems with his announcement: (1) It’s not true, and (2) there’s nothing in my words that he quoted to justify his claim.
Krebs seems to think that my recent statements clarifying my views represent either a compromise or a “retraction” of my earlier views. But that is false. It’s a matter of public record that I am an evangelical Christian. I have publicly defended the complete trustworthiness and inerrancy of Scripture; but my comments in The End of Christianity led some to believe otherwise. The purpose of my recent statement was to make it clear that I believe in biblical inerrancy.
As a matter of literary genre, I continue to think that the book of Genesis is not a science textbook. But I do think that the events referred to in the opening chapters of Genesis describe real events that took place in history (though God’s initial creation from nothing is, in a sense, the very initiation of history itself rather than “in” history). I am of the opinion that the days of Genesis 1 refer to God’s workweek rather than to six twenty-four hour days. I also know that orthodox Christians disagree on this question. That disagreement is not, however, a disagreement over the trustworthiness of Scripture, but rather, over its best interpretation.
Krebs seems to think that by saying that the creation events are historical I must be saying that God’s creation days are each twenty four hours long and took place sometime in the last few thousand years. I assume that more careful readers of my comments will not make the same mistake.
More importantly, and contrary to Krebs’ insinuation, nothing in my view of Scripture contradicts my belief that nature provides strong empirical evidence of intelligent design. As I have explained many times before, the design inference is not based on the Bible or any other sacred text. It is based on what can be logically ascertained from nature’s own data. Anyone who wants to understand my real views on intelligent design and its relationship to science should read The Design of Life (co-authored with Jonathan Wells) and also consult my peer-reviewed work at www.EvoInfo.org.
I might add that my views on Christian theology should be just as irrelevant for evaluating the scientific evidence I present for intelligent design as Richard Dawkins’ views on atheism are irrelevant for evaluating the scientific evidence he presents for Darwinism.