Conversations with a YEC

Over the past week or so, I have had the honour of having Philip Rayment, the creator of A Storehouse of Knowledge visit my blog and leave comments.  Philip is a young-Earth Creationist (YEC).

Philip shared many of his views, mainly on my Creation/Evolution blogposts.  Below is a small selection of what he had to say.

On the origins of science:

[S]cience was developed within /and because of/ Christianity, as it was Christianity that taught that nature itself was not divine, that a rational God made a world that could be rationally investigated, that we, being made in God’s image, were rational beings with the ability to do that investigation, and so on. Almost all the founders of scientific disciplines were creationists, studying God’s creation. John Lennox said recently: “Also, it was the Christian belief in an intelligent Creator and intelligible universe that ‘de-deified’ the universe and paved the way for modern science. If anything, ardent atheism might take science backward to the immature reasoning of pantheistic societies.”

Regarding the foundation of scientific knowledge:

The foundation of scientific knowledge is that we were created by a rational Creator who created a rational universe and us as rational, intelligent, observers. Without that foundation, science couldn’t operate. And that, historically, IS one of the reasons that science got started.

How Creation Science operates:

[T]he hypothesis is not that “God did it”, but that He did it in a particular way, specifically (for example), He created over a period of six days only a few thousand years ago. This is what many anti-creationists don’t get. Creationists make SPECIFIC claims that are as open to being falsified as any unique past event can be. It is very specifically NOT a vague “God did it” claim that could be invoked no matter what the evidence.

On whether YEC is science or not:

I put both creation and evolution in the same scientific category. Both are views about the past, which are not empirically testable, because we can’t observe, repeat, or test the past. If you want to say that creationism isn’t (strictly) science, then you won’t get an argument from me, as long as you agree that the same applies to evolution.

On whether YEC is a salvation issue or not:

Yes, it’s a salvation issue in the sense that it might cause someone to reject Christianity, but it’s not a salvation issue in the sense that one can’t be a Christian and believe evolution.

On whether YECs begrudge scientists for ignoring religious writings (other than the Bible) when conducting their work:

Of course not. They are books of false religions and cannot be relied on for accurate information. As Christians, we believe the Bible to be true, and therefore the same doesn’t apply. (And, of course, the Bible’s reliability can also be demonstrated by comparing it to other historical sources and archaeological sources.)

On why YECs ended up rejecting geocentrism and accepting heliocentrism:

What happened is that YECs such as Copernicus and Galileo did real science and rejected the Greek “science” that much of the church had adopted and tried to justify biblically. Rather like YECs today do real science and reject the “science” of evolution that much of the church today has adopted and tries to justify biblically.

I don’t have anything to add.  I just thought it would be good to have it all on one page here to keep it all straight.