Attraction of the opposites: reception of the Theory of Evolution in Young Earth creationists

Abstract

The history of the Young Earth creationism can be divided into two stages, namely the period of Scriptural geology, which lasted from the 1820s to the 1860s mostly in Britain, and the modern period, which began in the USA in the 1920s and continued into the 21st century. During both these periods, some Young-Earth creationists made attempts to employ the notions of evolution in order to bolster a highly literalistic interpretation of the biblical narrative about the Creation and the Flood. In their opinion, the hypothesis of ultra-rapid evolution off ered a plausible explanation of how a small number of species which were in Noah’s Ark could have produced the very diverse modern fauna of terrestrial organisms without supernatural interventions on the part of God. The fact that the elements of the theory of evolution were accepted by some prominent Young Earth creationists demonstrates that it would be an exaggeration to ascribe uncompromised hostility towards the idea of evolution to the Young Earth movement as a whole.

Keywords

• младоземельный креационизм
• теория эволюции
• Дарвин
• всемирный потоп
• адвентизм
• Елена Уайт