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Henry M. Morris

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Henry M. Morris
Henry M. Morris

Henry Madison Morris, Ph.D. (October 6 1918 – February 25 2006) was an American young earth creationist, Christian apologist and hydraulic engineer. As founder of the Creation Research Society and the Institute of Creation Research, he is considered by many to be the "father of modern creation science."

Contents

Biography

Morris grew up in Texas in the 1920s and 1930s and was a religiously indifferent youth. He graduated from Rice University with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1939. Shortly afterwards he became a Christian and adopted Biblical inerrancy.

On January 24 1940 he married Mary Louise, and they later had six children. From his graduation to 1942 he was a hydraulic engineer working with the International Boundary and Water Commission. based in El Paso, Texas. He then returned to Rice to teach civil engineering from 1942 until 1946. Between 1946 and 1951 he worked at the University of Minnesota, where he was awarded a master's degree in hydraulics in 1948 and a Ph.D. in hydraulic engineering (with a minor in geology and mathematics) in 1950. In 1951 he became professor and head of civil engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, holding that position until 1956. He was then professor of applied science at Southern Illinois University, 1956–1957. Following that he was professor of hydraulic engineering and chairman in civil engineering at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

In 1961, Morris, with Bible scholar John C. Whitcomb, wrote a book entitled The Genesis Flood that brought to widespread attention the concepts of creation science and flood geology. In this book he acknowledged that his position was strongly influenced by George McCready Price, a Seventh-day Adventist schoolteacher who wrote in defence of creation over against evolution in the early part of the 20th century. In 1963 Morris founded the Creation Research Society with nine other like-minded individuals. In 1970, he founded the Institute for Creation Research (ICR).

While the greater bulk of his published writings address creation science and evolution themes, he had also written Many Infallible Proofs, and The Bible Has The Answer, which are both works of general Christian apologetics.

His son John D. Morris (born 1946) took over presidency of ICR when his father retired.

On February 1 2006, Morris suffered a minor stroke and was hospitalized. Reports from ICR said that his mind was functioning very well, but he could not stand without getting dizzy. Morris was moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation facility near his son's home (and ICR) in Santee, California[link], where he died.

Beliefs

Morris made a distinction between operational science and origins science. He believed that operational science cannot be used to prove or disprove God's creative act, but that evidence of past events must be viewed through an interpretive framework. For example, in his book Scientific Creationism he stated:

" ... it must also be emphasized that it is impossible to prove scientifically any particular concept of origins to be true. This is obvious from the fact that the essence of the scientific method is experimental observation and repeatability. A scientific investigator, be he ever so resourceful and brilliant, can neither observe nor repeat origins!
This means that, though it is important to have a philosophy of origins, it can only be achieved by faith, not by sight."
In this, Morris set himself against many philosophers of science such as Robert Pennock and Michael Ruse. These philosophers see no important distinction between past and present data, but claim to use falsifiability and testability as the demarcation criteria for science. Other philosophers of science agree with Morris, such as intelligent design proponent Stephen Meyer.

Even though Morris claimed that science can't completely answer the question of whether the Bible's creation story is literally and historically true, he had written several books about scientific evidence that he believed fits better into a creationist framework than the mainstream science framework. Many creationists (for example, Answers in Genesis) have followed Morris' lead.

The mainstream scientific community rejected both his philosophy of science and his evidence in favor of creationism as pseudoscience, and claimed that Morris' representation of evolution as a complete religious system is a straw man. Morris' position had also been the subject of debate among Evangelical scholars of the Old Testament and among Evangelicals working in various fields of science.

Controversy and criticism

The work The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris has been criticized for taking quotes out of context and completely misquoting sources [link].

In 1991, Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS) granted the Institute for Creation Research accreditation. This created controversy because the TRACS "board of directors was none other than Henry Morris, founder of ICR."[link] Four years later TRACS' government recognition was put on probation for 18 months until it complied with staff and accreditation changes.

Bibliography

Morris' writings

Morris wrote or edited some forty books, including:

Historical background and assessments

External links

 

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