Creationism in schools

The end of the week saw a discussion in the UK about creationism in schools, prompted by some remarks by the Director of Education at The Royal Society. The Royal Society is (I think) the oldest of the learned societies in the UK. Exactly what Professor Reiss said I have not been able to find, so I do not know whether the discussion was actually prompted by his remarks or by the media response to them.


The gist of the discussion was that creationism should be allowed to be discussed in science lessons in schools, and that science teachers should be able to manage such a discussion in their classroom. Such a discussion in the media nearly always ends up begging key questions, key questions that usually relate to defining exactly what your terms mean.


I take it that creationism is a teaching that the world was - literally - created in six days, in the form described in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, and at a time determined by the calculations of the passage of time in the Biblical accounts. This teaching is problematical in a number of ways:

(1) in its understanding of the nature of Sacred Scripture, not just as a question of how different types of Scriptural literature are to be understood, but as to how Sacred Scripture needs to be integrated into a living tradition that engages with the surrounding culture;

(2) in its understanding of the nature of human reason and the ability of that reason to come to firm knowledge of the world around it, particularly in the physical sciences but also in other spheres of knowledge;

(3) its lack of precision in understanding creation as an act of "bringing into being" and "sustaining in being", which can be distinguished from physical processes of development in the material that is thereby created (what might be referred to in a kind of shorthand as "evolution"); and

(4) in its inability to be referred to an authoritative teaching authority that can define that this is or is not a correct Christian understanding.

All of these problems arise from the origin of the idea of "creationism" in non-denominationally oriented Pentecostal/Evangelical house or community churches.


Unfortunately, creationism also causes a problem in public debate for mainstream Christian denominations such as Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism. This is because their doctrine of creation - in the sense of (3) above, and which is quite compatible with "evolution" understood as development and progress in the physical world - is confused by secularist thinkers (deliberately?) with "creationism". The presence of any teaching of a doctrine of creation in schools is therefore attacked, particularly if that teaching is suggested as being compatible with the teaching of science. Secularists will apply the word "unscientific" to any teaching of a doctrine of creation - fair enough, if by that they mean that it is not something arrived at by the methods of study appropriate of the physical sciences, but quite wrong if by that they mean that it is contrary to a right use of human reason. Mainstream Christian denominations need to wise up to this problem, perhaps by teaching anew and more vividly their understanding of creation in relation to science.

So, in terms of the media discussion of recent days: Should the discussion of creationism be banned from science lessons in schools? Well, no, in the sense that any direction to "ban a topic" does not relate to the reality of the wide range of things that just come into conversations in the classroom. Should creationism be taught in science lessons in schools? Tricky ... I see no reason why the methods of study of science should not be brought to bear on the idea of creationism. I do not think that creationism can stand up to the evidence of human reason as it has developed its understanding of science ("evolution"), but I think those are the terms in which it should be addressed in the classroom, not in terms of a doctrinaire opposition to it. As in the teaching of any topic in any subject area, this needs to be done in a way that is appropriate to the level and abilities of the pupils in the class, so would need to be handled very differently in Year 7 than in Year 13. Should a more mainstream doctrine of creation be taught in the science lesson? As above, but I think in this case the scientific evidence will need to recognise that the idea of creation needs human reason to engage in a wider way than just that appropriate to the physical sciences, and scientific reasoning will need to recognise its just boundaries.

I heard a most interesting side comment during the discussions which took place on the radio. This was during an interview, I forget now whether it was Today (ie a morning current affairs programme) or PM (the early evening current affairs programme). The speaker was opposing the idea that creationism should be discussed in science lessons, and, in passing, observed that "religion was itself an outcome of evolution". Now, I found this very interesting because, rather than this being something that would belittle the import of religion for the human person which is what I think the speaker intended, it opens up the possibility of man being of his nature religious. We then have to engage in a proper study of this phenomenon that is "religion" to find out exactly what it is, unless of course an anti-religious prejudice limits us to a sociological study that puts it all down to "social construct" or stops us from undertaking any study of the question at all. The realist phenomenology in the early years of the 20th century has a literature on the religious nature of the human being which would need to be included in any honest study of this subject.