Creationism

In its broader sense, creationism is the belief that the universe was created by a personal God, at a specific time, and for a specific purpose. In its narrower sense, creationism is the belief that the account of creation as related in the Judeo-Christian Bible is completely reliable. This is held to be the case because of the unique authority of the Bible, and because contemporary science has confirmed its account as related in the Book of Genesis. More specifically still, creationism has come to amount to the following set of assertions: that the earth was a special creation by a creator; that the law of entropy reveals deterioration in the earth as opposed to the supposed evolutionary ideas of progress; that life is also a special creation by a creator; that, once created, each species remains fixed according to its initial model; that Homo sapiens has an ancestry distinct from the animals; that the flood as reported by Noah is a historical event, and that, as reported in the Book of Genesis, the earth is relatively young.

The core feature of these assertions, for creationists, is that they are true because they are found in the Bible. It is only an incidental corollary that science is believed to have confirmed them. The strong emphasis on the Bible explains the largely Protestant nature of contemporary creationism. In contrast, Catholic and Orthodox varieties of Christianity have had fewer qualms about accommodating evolutionary teaching within a Christian perspective. No less a Protestant than Martin Luther spoke in terms of a 6-day creation and a worldwide flood. In the United States the Adventist prophet Ellen White (1827–1915) was one of the first to insist specifically on the main features of what is now called creationism.