NOAH Creationism, ID, and Steiner I. At the Creation Museum, there is a model of Noah's ark. [1] Within the ark are shown many animals, including dinosaurs. Nowadays, at the beginning of the 21st century, many Anthroposophists are encouraged by the emergence of creationism and its sibling, intelligent design. They argue that these theories show the fallacies in Darwin’s theory of evolution — and from there they leap to the proposition that Steiner’s evolutionary schema is vindicated. [2] Steiner taught, among other things, that humans didn’t evolve from animals — he said that animals evolved from humans. “A major portion of the animals, particularly the higher animals, rose within earthly evolution only because human beings needed to use their elbows (of course, I speak here only pictorially). At a particular stage in their earthly development, human beings, to develop further, needed to rid their nature, which then was much different than it is now, of the higher animals." [3] This is certainly different from Darwin’s view, but is it in fact compatible with creationism and/or intelligent design? It is certainly not compatible with the most common form of creationism in the USA. Most American creationists believe that the Bible is literally true. Steiner didn't believe this. He often asserted that the Bible is wrong on any number of matters. One clear example is Steiner's take on the story of Noah and the ark. Steiner agreed that a huge flood occurred in the distant past — he said the flood is what destroyed Atlantis: “Then came the Atlantean Flood and the dawn of the later, post-Atlantean epochs of civilization....” [4] Atlantis, of course, is not mentioned in the Bible. So even on this first point, where Steiner agrees with the Bible that a flood occurred, he goes in a very different direction. On other points of the Noah story, Steiner even more clearly denies the literal truth of the Bible. He said, for instance, that Noah and even Adam were not a real individuals: “'Adam' or 'Noah'. These names did not refer to the life of an individual but to the stream of memory of whole groups and tribes....” [5] This is a critical point. If Adam was not a real person, then the creation story in the Bible cannot be literally true. And certainly the Bible's account of the great flood cannot be literally true if Noah was not a real person. But this is what Steiner taught. Not only did Steiner deny that Noah was a real person, he argued that there was no literal ark: "The Ark represents the construction built by unconscious divine forces." [6] The “construction” Steiner refers to is not an earthly vessel of any kind, and it was not consciously built by Noah. It was a spiritual representation of a boat carrying humans “across the waters of the astral world into earthly existence.” [7] II. Let’s take a very brief detour. In this essay, I will concentrate on fundamentalist Christian creationism, although there are many other forms of creationism in the world: In a sense, anyone who believes that the universe was created instead of simply happening is a creationist. I will also generally differentiate creationists from the advocates of intelligent design (ID), taking the view that ID is somewhat more intellectually defensible because its leading advocates attempt to use the scientific method. This distinction is debatable, but making it will allow me to consider the full range of American creationist thought, from the reflexive, zealous assertion that the Bible is the unquestionable Word of God, to the deliberative ruminations of sophisticated creationist (ID) researchers. Steiner’s differences with creationists of all types become starkly apparent when we see what Steiner taught about matters aside from the Bible itself. One example, for now: While rejecting the literal truth of the Bible, Steiner affirmed the truth of Norse myths: “Myths and sagas are not just ‘folk-tales’; they are memories of the visions which people perceived in olden times ... At night they were really surrounded by that world of Nordic gods of which the legends tell. Odin, Freya, and all the other figures [i.e., gods] in Nordic mythology were not inventions; they were experienced with as much reality as we experience our fellow human beings today.” [8] The gap between Steiner and fundamentalist Christian creationists is unbridgeable. But there is also a gap between Steiner and every other form of creationism — in Norse myths, the universe was not created, it simply happened, strangely. To the degree that Steiner affirmed this view, Anthroposophy is estranged from all creationist belief. III. Returning to the model ark with the model dinosaurs inside — one point on which Steiner and the Bible may seem to agree, aside from the reality of a great flood, is the existence of dragons. Depending on how one translates ancient Hebrew, there may be references to dragons in the Hebrew Bible. For example, here is one translation of Jeremiah 51:37: “And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.” [9] Moreover, there certainly are references to dragons in the New Testament, such as in Revelation 12:3 “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his head.” [10] But these Biblical references to dragons may be mistranslations and/or mystical visions, not descriptions of real flesh-and-bone animals. For instance, a more reliable translation of Jeremiah 51:37 is “Babylon will be a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, an object of horror and scorn, a place where no one lives.” [11] And the passage I quoted from Revelation is clearly a symbolic vision, not a description of anything existing in nature. By contrast, Steiner believed in the literal existence of dragons, which he said were fire-breathing dinosaurs: ‘Yes, those beasts, they did breathe fire, the Archaeopteryx [a dinosaur], for example.’
“A teacher: 'You mean that the animals whose bones we see today in museums still breathed fire?' “Dr. Steiner: ‘Yes.'” [12] IV. Let’s consider the possibility that there may have been dinosaurs (possibly including dragons) on the ark. One difficulty is that many Biblical scholars say the flood occurred a few thousand years ago while science says the dinosaurs became extinct many millions of years ago. Setting that aside, let’s see what we can determine. The Bible says that the ark was 300 cubits long, by 50 cubits wide, by 30 cubits high. [Genesis 6:15.] This translates to a length of 450 feet, a width of 75 feet, and a height (or depth) of 45 feet. And, according to the Bible, God told Noah: "You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them." [Genesis 6:19-21, New International Version.] This was tall order — it seems to include every creature except those living under water. If dinosaurs still roamed the earth, Noah had to get two of each type. Plus all the food they would need. How many dinosaurs could fit inside the ark (even if we leave out all the other creatures the ark was supposed to carry)? Brontosaurs (i.e., apatosaurs) were pretty big — about 70 feet long, weighing about 30 tons (60,000 lb.) each. When they stood erect, their heads were about 40 feet above the ground (or floor). Tyrannosaurs were smaller, weighing about six tons (12,000 pounds), but they, too, stood about 40 feet tall. The very biggest dinosaurs, Seismosaurs, were about 150 feet long, standing as much as 80 feet tall, and weighing about 170,000 pounds each. [13] Remember that Noah had to have two of each of these kinds of dinosaurs on the ark. The total weight for just these six animals would have been about 484,000 pounds. Then add in all the food Noah would have had to provide these creatures. This might have doubled the total weight assigned to these six animals: something in the range of 968,000 pounds.  The ark would have needed to be very strong and buoyant, obviously. And it would have had to be extremely big. If Noah provided room for the animals to turn around, then the compartment for the brontosaurs would have had to be about 100 feet long, almost 100 feet wide, and — to enable the beasts to stand up — at least 41 feet high. For tyrannosaurs, the compartment should have had to measure at least 60 feet long and wide and about 41 feet high. For the biggest dinosaurs, Seismosaurs, the compartment would have needed to be about 250 feet long and wide and about 81 feet high. Notice that the compartments for the brontosaurs and Seismosaurs would have exceeded the width of the ark, and the compartment for the Seismosaurs would have exceeded the ark’s height. Noah might have used various space-saving strategies, such as restraining the dinosaurs so they couldn’t move more than a few feet, and forcing the Seismosaurs to bend their heads down, and perhaps putting different sorts of dinosaurs in the same compartments (provided these creatures wouldn’t eat each other). Even so, the ark obviously had to be enormous to accommodate dinosaurs. Consider a few other difficulties. Coaxing tyrannosaurs aboard, for instance, would have been a challenge, and restraining them would, too. With Gods’ help, Noah could have done anything, so he may have done precisely what I’ve just described. But he almost certainly could not have done it in a vessel 450 feet long, by 75 feet wide, by 50 feet high. And don’t forget that Noah had to cram vast hosts of other creatures aboard (along with food and water for them all). It certainly seems that creationists face a dilemma. If the Bible is literally true, meaning that the ark was the size the Bible says, then there doesn't seem to be enough room on board for the dinosaurs and their provisions. [14] V. Let's turn our attention to intelligent design (ID), defining it as the search for a design behind the facts of nature — a design that may have been drawn up by God, or some other god(s), or some other mysterious entities. ID may be the same as creationism, in many instances, or it may vary from it. The most sophisticated ID researchers presumably attempt to do real science, gathering evidence, looking at it carefully and objectively, and then framing a theory that explains the evidence. In at least some cases, however, ID advocates start with the premise that there is a design and then they try to fit the facts to this premise. Whenever they operate in this manner, they are working backwards and are not doing real science. Conventional biologists also attempt to do real science — although if they start with the premise that the conventional evolutionary theory is right, and then try to fit the facts to this premise, then they, too, are not doing real science. But a large number of conventional biologists avoid this trap; they do real science. The main differences between conventional evolutionary researchers and ID researchers are: • The conventional team has compiled a mountain of evidence supporting conventional evolutionary theory, while ID researchers have compiled very little evidence for ID. • Whereas most ID researchers would probably be distressed to find that the evidence undercuts their theory, the best conventional biologists would love to discover evidence that undercuts the conventional view — they would be delighted to overthrow Darwin and create a new theory that became the new convention. A hypothetical Dr. Smith, in other words, would love to disprove Darwinism and establish Smithism. Anthroposophists who realize that Christian creationism doesn’t fit their own beliefs sometimes embrace some form of intelligent design instead. But in doing so, they are fooling themselves. Steiner's evolutionary schema is not neat, it is not monotheistic (which is ok by some ID advocates, but not all of them), and it does not represent a single coherent design. Here are some of Steiner's views: Steiner's universe has no presiding omnipotent God. Rather, it is an arena of almost innumerable gods. He told Waldorf teachers, "[W]e are actually carrying out the intentions of the gods." [15]. Steiner also said "Monotheism or monism can only represent an ultimate ideal; it could never lead to a real understanding of the world...." [16]  Steiner found many flaws in the Bible, such as when he said that the Apocrypha (mystic teachings that contradict the Bible) "are more correct than what is written in the Gospels." [17] Clearly, Steiner was not Christian creationist. But was he,in effect, an ID advocate? Well, there is not single controlling design in his universe. The good gods more or less agree on things, but they are opposed by the bad gods. "[W]e are watching the battle waged by the good gods against the evil gods — in two directions evil." [18] The two directions are faulty spiritualism and excessive materialism — the snares laid by the demons Lucifer and Ahriman. And, in Steiner's universe, the bad gods can win sometimes, ripping apart the good gods' design, at least temporarily. Here's one example: "Lucifer and Ahriman ... fought against this harmonious tendency of development in the evolution of humanity, and they managed to change the whole process so that various developments were shifted and displaced. While there should have been basically only one form of human being ... Lucifer and Ahriman preserved [earlier human types] ... even into the time after the Atlantean flood. Thus, forms that should have disappeared remained. Instead of racial diversities developing consecutively, older racial forms remained unchanged and newer ones began to evolve at the same time. Instead of the intended consecutive development of races, there was a coexistence of races. That is how it came about that physically different races inhabited the earth and are still there in our time although evolution should really have proceeded [unimpeded]." [19] The good gods can often prevail, turning the bad gods' devilment to good account. Here's a longer version of a quote I cited,above: “In the interworking between the earthly and spiritual worlds the destinies of men are continually being wrenched from the pinions of Lucifer and the claws of Ahriman, for verily the gods are good! The unrighteousness originating from the activities of Lucifer and Ahriman behind the scenes of existence is led by the good gods into the path of righteousness again ... we are watching the battle waged by the good gods against the evil gods — in two directions evil." [20] The good gods can prevail, but there is no guarantee that the good gods will always prevail. Steiner admitted the role played in the cosmos by chance and error. "Cosmic error is certainly not impossible." [21] If cosmic error becomes general, everything will break down in chaos and no design will be fulfilled. For instance, Ahriman poses grave dangers which may doom humanity." The human being is thus in danger of drifting into the Ahrimanic world [a realm ruled by Ahriman], in which case the spirit-soul will evaporate into the cosmos." [22] Generally, the dangers posed by Lucifer and Ahriman apply more to individuals than to humanity as a whole, but there are no guarantees. If the intentions of the good gods are not realized, chaos may result, or the intentions of the evil gods might prevail. In the latter case, a sort of intelligent design would win out, but it would be the evil design of malevolent intelligences. VI. Steiner did not go where fundamentalist Christian creationists go — he did not accept the Bible as the literal word of God. He preached some beliefs that are just as remarkable as the creationists': He said that the Flood really happened and that Atlantis really existed. He partially accepted the Bible, but to a great extent he rejected its literal meaning. Most American creationists insist on the literal truth of every last word in the Bible, and yet they resemble Steiner in taking strange liberties with that holy book. Steiner said the Flood destroyed the lost continent of about Atlantis; creationists say the Flood happened during a period when humans and dinosaurs were both present on the Earth, whereas the Bible says no such thing. (And certainly science does not.) Creationists, ID researchers, and Steiner all do badly when we analyze their beliefs. What do I believe? For what it's worth, my opinion is that the story of Noah and the ark may be true, but only as a symbolic myth or parable. But my opinion isn't important. The important opinion, for people considering Waldorf schools, is Steiner's. And his opinion seems to be utterly ridiculous. Steiner’s occult teachings are incompatible both with the Bible and with modern science. In this sense, his views are far less plausible than those of serious scientists, somewhat less plausible than those of sophisticated ID advocates, and even less plausible than those of fundamentalist Christian creationists. Scientists base their views on the hard evidence of their disciplines; fundamentalist creationists base their views on what is, to them, the undeniable Word of God. Steiner based his views on nothing but his own clairvoyance. “[M]y knowledge of spiritual things is the result of my own perception.” [23] He gazed as through a dark glass, blindly. Clairvoyance doesn't exist. [24] Steiner's "perceptions" are fantasies. — Roger Rawlings  [R. R., ~2005.] To get the real lowdown on Noah — as on everything else — we need to turn to Rudolf Steiner, naturally. You may find a few surprises. Combining belief in the Bible and belief in Atlantis isn't the half of it.  “Evolution continued, and little by little the human soul/spirits who had fled to other planets began to return to the earth again ... Evolution happened in such a way that what had crystallized out as man during the latter part of Lemuria and during Atlantis was gradually endowed with soul/spirits who had different characteristics according to whether they came down from Mars, Mercury, or Jupiter.” [Rudolf Steiner, GENESIS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2002), P. 126.] ENDNOTES [1] See “Going Up” on this Web site. The prevailing scientific account of creation is that the Big Bang was a mysterious event in which intrinsic characteristics of matter and time — not yet bodied forth — suddenly did body forth, coming into being for reasons not yet understood. This theory may be correct, but in its present form it is neither intellectually nor emotionally satisfying; much work remains to be done for the theory to become fully detailed and convincing. Most people who do not accept the scientific account can be considered creationists of one stripe or another. They hold that an external agency — in most accounts, God or several gods — intentionally caused the universe to exist. The creator(s), exercising miraculous will and power, made the universe. Often in Western societies, the creator is identified as the Biblical God. Even some scientists accept this identification — they see the scientific account of creation as describing the method employed by the creator. Intelligent design can often be considered identical to creationism — the creator is the designer, the intelligence behind creation. Alternatively, intelligent design can be seen as a subcategory of creationism in which investigators proceed cautiously, piecing together evidence that suggests a design, while withholding judgment — at least temporarily — as to the identity of the designer. In this essay, "Noah", I will — perhaps arbitrarily — use the term "creationism" to refer primarily to the strain of creationist thought that is closely linked to fundamentalist Christianity. And I will use the term "intelligent design" to refer primarily to the effort to prove the existence of a design and identify the designer in a scientifically valid manner. Some advocates of intelligent design may make this effort in all sincerity; some may not. My intention is to distinguish between forms of creationist thought that have little or no scientific validity, and those that may have more. If the distinction I make is fallacious — if no form of creationism or intelligent design research represents good science — then the criticisms I direct at creationism apply equally to intelligent design. [2] This reasoning is invalid, illogical. If Darwinism is wrong, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Steinerism is correct. There are many other possible alternative explanations of our evolutionary history. There are certainly gaps in the fossil record that leave the conventional, Darwinian theory incomplete. But saying that X is unproven, and then leaping to the conclusion that therefore Y must be true is the logical fallacy known as argument to ignorance. To be precise, argument to ignorance says that something is true because it hasn’t been proven false. Thus, Anthroposophists may claim that Steiner was right because he hasn’t been proven wrong. If we don’t know something, we don’t know it. We cannot then claim to know the opposite. All we can logically say is that we don’t know. (Note, by the way, that argument to ignorance can also be used to, illogically, support Darwin: His views must be right, since they haven’t been proven wrong.) [3] Rudolf Steiner, THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), pp. 69-71. [4] Rudolf Steiner, THE FESTIVALS AND THEIR MEANING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p. 198. [5] Ibid., p. 294. [6] Rudolf Steiner, THE TEMPLE LEGEND (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1985), p. 138. [7] Ibid., p. 138. [8] THE FESTIVALS AND THEIR MEANING, p. 198. [9] http://dragonsinn.net/bible-1.htm. [10] http://www.biblegateway.com/ [11] Ibid. [12] Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, Foundations of Waldorf Education (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 26. [13] For the factual information in this essay, I rely mainly on various encyclopedias, primarily the BRITANNICA. There are various candidates for largest dinosaur. In addition to the Seismosaurs there are (or were) Argentinosaurs, Ultrasaurs, etc. [14] Although God commanded Noah to bring aboard ship two of every living creature [Genesis 6:19], the Creation Museum says — somewhat arbitrarily — that Noah only had to take approximately 100 dinosaurs along, one pair from about 50 different types. One hundred dinos, with all their food, would still be quite a load, but granted, if Noah selected only the smaller sorts — averaging, let's say, merely a couple of tons each — the problems of transporting humongous prehistoric lizards around would be somewhat alleviated. [See Kenneth Chang, "Paleontology and Creationism Meet but Don't Mesh," THE NEW YORK TIMES, June 30, 2009, p. D4.] The museum also argues that Noah was similarly selective with all other forms of animals, bringing along many sorts, but not by any means all. Isn't this contrary to the Bible? Isn't it, indeed, cheating? The museum declares that the limited number of creatures aboard the ark quickly spread out to become all the multitudinous creatures we know today. This is evolution, which presumably shouldn't be in a creationism museum. "'[T]o explain how the few species aboard the ark could have diversified to the multitude of animals alive today in only a few thousand years, the museum said simply, "God provided organisms with special tools to change rapidly."' [paragraph break] "'Thus in one sentences they admit that evolution is real,' Dr. Bengston [a visiting scientist] said, 'and that they have to invoke magic to explain how it works.'" [Ibid.] In effect, the museum admits that Noah could not possibly have taken a pair of every variety of dinosaur. So instead of several hundred or thousands of dinosaurs, the museum cuts the consignment down to 100. This is a step in the right direction, certainly. But the real answer should be that Noah took along zero dinosaurs, since they all went extinct so very long before Noah was born. According to the museum, however, the earth is not nearly as old as science says, and dinosaurs did not live so long ago. Rather, the Earth is about 6000 years old, and the Flood occurred is 2348 BC. And there were plenty of dinosaurs around for Noah to pick from. Besides admitting that the ark couldn't contain a pair of all types of the dinosaurs, the museum seems to make an even greater confession without realizing it. If Noah couldn't fit a pair of every sort of animal aboard (with or without dinosaurs), and if we had to rely on evolution to populate the planet after the Flood, then the story of Noah and the ark ceases to be literally true, and creationism implicitly concedes the need for evolution. Despite of (or partly because of) these implicit flaws in the museum's arguments, scientists who visit the museum are appalled. "'I think they should rename the museum — not the Creation Museum, but the Confusion Museum,' said Lisa. E. Park, a professor of paleontology at the University of Akron." [Ibid.] [15] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 54.
[16] Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), p. 115. [17] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 615-616. [18] Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. 2 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1956), p. 251. [19] THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN (Anthroposophic Press, 1990), p. 75. [20] KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. 2, p. 251. [21] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 649. [22] Ibid., p. 115. [23] Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 6. [24] “According to the U.S. National Research Council, ‘the best evidence does not support the contention that these phenomena exist.’” [David G. Myers, PSYCHOLOGY (Worth Publishers, 2004), p. 260.] “After thousands of experiments, a reproducible ESP phenomenon has never been discovered, nor has any individual convincingly demonstrated a psychic ability [sic; emphasis by Myers].” [Ibid., p. 260.] [R.R., 1993.] |