Belief in Creation as Fanaticism?

Is everyone who believes "a God created them" just a blind fanatic? Or is our deep pleasure in Haydn's "The Creation" just a romantic surge of the spirit? Can a rational person believe in a Creator at all? On this point, I just want to listen, without polemics, to what faith and reason say about it. In reaction to my article in the New York Times, a scientist wrote to me that he would like to believe, but he simply could not "believe in a Creator God, an old man with a long white beard". I replied to him that no one actually expected him to believe such a thing. On the contrary, that kind of conception of the Creator--perhaps child-like, but certainly childish--is a long way from what the Bible says about the Creator, and what the clause in the Creed "I believe in God, the Father, maker of heaven and earth", means. In my letter to him, I responded that it would be a good thing if his scientific knowledge and his religious knowledge were a little more nearly on the same level, and that his high level of knowledge as a scientist were not accompanied by a religious knowledge was still that of a child.

At this point we should also mention another frequent misunderstanding. It concerns so-called "creationism". Often nowadays in polemics, belief in creation is lumped together with "creationism". Yet believing in God the Creator is not identical with the way that, in some Christian circles, people try to understand the six days of creation spoken of in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis as if this had been literally reported, as six chronological days, and try by all possible arguments, even scientific ones, to prove that the earth is about six thousand years old. Attempts like that to take the Bible literally, as if it were making scientific statements at this point, are what is called "fundamentalism". To be more exact, in American Protestantism this view of the Christian faith has called itself "fundamentalism" from the start. Starting from a belief that every word of the Bible was directly inspired by God--that is, starting from an understanding of literal inspiration--the six days of the creation are also taken to mean what they say, word for word. It is understandable that many people in the U.S.A. are energetically opposed to this view--even so far as going to court and taking legal action against such things being taught in schools. There is, of course, also the legitimate concern with critical questions about teaching "Darwinism"--but that is a different matter.

The Catholic position on "creationism" is clear. Saint Thomas Aquinas says that one should "not try to defend the Christian faith with arguments that make it ridiculous, because they are in obvious contradiction with reason". It is nonsense to maintain that the world is only six thousand years old. An attempt to prove such a notion scientifically means provoking what Saint Thomas calls the irrisio infidelium, the mockery of unbelievers. Exposing the faith to mockery with false arguments of this kind is not right; indeed, it is explicitly to be rejected. Let that be enough on the subject of "creationism" and "fundamentalism".