Thanks to all those who wrote in response to my article, “Unintelligent Debate.” Many of the letters were from Young Earth creationists who accused me (in sneering tones) of sneering at them or charged that my criticism of the Young Earth position was “sneaky” or “underhanded.” In fact my criticism was quite straightforward. I invite such readers to take a closer look at the rhetoric of their own movement. I would also ask them to re-read what I wrote, and note the emphasis on that which unites us as believers in the God who made us. That was no mere token gesture on my part: that is the basis of the entire article. If anything I wrote was legitimately a source of offense, I regret that.
Not all the letters from the Young Earth camp were in this vein. For example, I received a helpful response from the scholar Paul Nelson (he prefers to describe his position as “traditional creationism”), who told me that Howard Van Till’s viewpoint has shifted in the direction of process thought. Hence, while my comments are accurate insofar as they apply to theistic evolutionists in general, they are evidently no longer accurate as a characterization of Van Till in particular.
I was very encouraged to receive a number of letters from readers who welcomed the call for a re-orienting of the conversation and who commended CT for publishing such a piece. Whatever our position in the ongoing debate over creation and evolution, we have a lot of work to do. As Christians we should undertake this task with the confidence that all truth is God’s truth.
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Related Elsewhere:
More Intelligent Design discussion is available at Books & Culture‘s Science Pages.
More Christianity Today articles on ID from our Science & Health page includes:
The Art of Debating Darwin | How to intelligently design a winning case for God’s role in creation. (Sept. 08, 2004)
Unintelligent Debate | It’s time to cool the rhetoric in the Intelligent Design dispute. (Sept. 03, 2004)
The Dick Staub Interview: William Dembski’s Revolution | The author of Intelligent Design set out to answer the toughest questions about the movement he helped promote. (March 30, 2004)
‘A Nuclear Bomb’ For Evolution? | Critics of Darwinism say skull’s discovery isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. (Aug. 14, 2002)
Design Interference | William Dembski fired from Baylor’s Intelligent Design center. (Nov. 28, 2000)
Your Darwin Is Too Large | Evolution’s significance for theology has been greatly exaggerated. (May 25, 2000)
