Creationism - National Center for Science Education

Charles Hodge, the renowned Princeton Theological Seminary preacher, author
and editor, was perhaps the foremost exponent of this view. Hodge stated that theology
was a science, and that the theologian was “to be guided by the same rules as the Man of
Science.” Systematic theology is the classification of the facts in the Bible, exactly as
natural science is the systematization of the facts of nature. In the section “The Inductive
Method as applied to Theology” in his Systematic Theology, Hodge says:
The Bible is to the theologian what nature is to the man of science. It is his store-house of facts; and is
method of ascertaining what the Bible teaches, is the same as that which the natural philosopher adopts to
ascertain what nature teaches. [1883:10]
That method is the inductive method. Facts are gathered, then arranged systematically,
so that general principle emerge. “It is the fundamental principle of all sciences, and of
theology among the rest, that theory is to be determined by facts, and not facts by theory”
(1883:14).
The true method of theology is, therefore, the inductive, which assumes that the Bible contains all the facts
or truths which form the contents of theology, just as the facts ofnature are the contents of the natural
sciences. It is also assumed that the relation of these Biblical facts to each other, the principles involved in
them, the laws which determine them, are in the facts themselves, and are to be deduced from them, just as
the laws of nature are deduced from the facts of nature. [1883:17]
If natural science be concerned with the facts and laws of nature, theology is concerned with the facts and
principles of the Bible. If the object of the one be to arrange and systematize the facts of the external
world, and to ascertain the laws by which they are determined; the object of the other is to systematize the
facts of the Bible, and ascertain the principles or general truths which those facts involve. [1883:17; also
quoted in Marsden 1980:112, Barr 1981:272-273, Cavanaugh 1983:151]
Very much based on this view of truth, the Princeton theologians developed the
doctrine of biblical inerrancy, which was to be so crucial to creationism and Biblescience
and to fundamentalism generally.
This view of truth as an externally stable entity placed tremendous weight on the written word. If truth
were the same for all ages, and if truth was apparent primarily in objective facts, then the written word was
the surest means permanently and precisely to display this truth. ... At Princeton it was an article of faith
that God would provide nothing less than wholly accurate facts, whether large or small. Common Sense
philosophy assured that throughout the ages people could discover the same truths in the unchanging
storehouse of Scripture. [Marsden 1980:113]
In his book What Is Darwinism?, published the same year (1874) as his
Systematic Theology, Hodge rejected evolution as being absolutely unacceptable and
unreasonable. He considered the Design argument incontrovertible, and intrepreted
Darwinism as being inexorably opposed to biblical supernaturalism, arguing that either
Darwin was wrong or that God did not exist.
COMMON SENSE PHILOSOPHY
Scottish Realism, or Common Sense philosophy, was formulated by Thomas
Reid, Adam Smith’s successor at the University of Glasgow, his follower Dugald Stewart
at the University of Edinburgh, and other late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century