The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

George McCready Price (George E. McCready Price through Price 1902) was the penname of George Edward Price (1870-1963)— McCready being his mother’s maiden name (Clark 1966, p. 16; Numbers 2006, p. 89). Price joined the Seventh-Day Adventist church at about the age of 14 (Clark 1966, p. 12-13; Numbers 2006, p.89), presumably becoming a believer somewhere around about that time. His formal education included two years of a ‘classical course’ in college and a one-year training course at a teacher’s college (Clark 1966, pp. 13-14; Numbers 2006, p. 91)— all his college degrees being honorary (a B.A. from Loma Linda medical college as he was leaving a teaching position there in 1912 [Clark 1966, pp.31-32; Numbers 2006, p. 107] and a M.A. from Pacific Union College some time before 1931 [Numbers 2006, p. 107]). Beyond that, Price was a voracious reader, self-taught in the sciences. For over sixty years, from 1902 to his death in 1963, Price published something on the order of 30 books, at least a dozen tracts, and more than 800 articles—most through Seventh- Day Adventist publications and publishers, but many others in a wide variety of Christian publications. Both Morris (1993) and Numbers (2006) consider Price the most important and influential creationist of the first half of the twentieth century. In 1905, and again in 1906, Price edited two different, short-lived young-age creationist journals (no copies of which apparently exist), and in 1941 Price founded the first young-age creationist society—with journal—though it only lasted for a few years. He also directly trained, and/or heavily influenced, several creationists influential in the middle of the twentieth century including Harold Clark, Frank Marsh, and Clifford Burdick. George McCready Price also had a substantial influence on creationists outside of the Seventh-Day Adventist church. Henry M. Morris (1993:88) admitted that after he had ‘a life-changing experience’ in 1943 reading Illogical Geology (Price 1906), he read most of Price’s books. In fact, many of HenryM.Morris’s arguments were heavily indebted to the writings of George McCready Price. In spite of that, Price’s poor reputation and his association with Seventh-Day Adventism (which Morris considered a cult) caused Morris—in print, anyway—to gradually distance himself from Price (Numbers 2006, p. 220). In The Genesis Flood , for example, though it contains much that comes from Price, very few of Price’s ideas are credited to Price (Numbers 2006, pp. 223-224). Because of this, many current creationists are unaware of the contribution Price made to the modern creation model. The purpose of this paper is to expose modern young-age creationists to the ideas of Price, so as to restore the credit due Price and to partially explain the intellectual heritage of modern ideas and controversies in young-age creationism. PRICE’S CLAIMS What follows is an attempt to accurately summarize George McCready Price’s ideas in a brief space of a single paper. This paper summarizes a considerable amount of information in very succinct fashion—often suffering, for a lack of space, from a format that approaches a list or outline. Also, in an attempt to make the account as brief as possible, the only references provided are to the earliest appearance of that particular idea in Price’s books (not in the more than 800 articles), unless a later book provides a noteworthy elaboration not found in the earliest book. As a further effort at abbreviation, only those positions of Price that are most relevant to modern creationist discussions are included. The reader should also understand that the arrangement of the material to follow is the invention of this paper’s author and not George McCready Price. Most of Price’s work was critical of uniformitarian and evolutionary perspectives. Consequently, Price committed a vast percentage of his published words on just a few of what he considered the most critical arguments against wrong ideas. Price believed himself called by God to demolish the false scientific edifices, so that others after him could build the correct ones. Thus, Price did not often present even the basic components of a positive, coherent creationist model, and devoted very little discussion to those components when he did mention them. This means that Price’s ideas are presented below in an order in text and time quite unlike the order that Price ever presented them. 1. Price’s Theology A. The Nature of Revelation Price (1916, p. 81) believes the Bible is a source of absolute truth, designed to provide information from God that humans could not discover on their own (Price 1916, p. 211; Price 1934, pp. 152- 153). Because of this, Price (1916, p. 13) believes that the Bible is authoritative over the conclusions of science. Viewing Scripture through his appreciation of logic, Price believes Scripture is an example of divine inductive logic. Price (1916, pp. 29-35) believes God, in Scripture, lays out history and facts, and from those demonstrable truths argues with syllogistic certainty to absolute truth. As a consequence, Price sees the Bible—and Christianity—founded on the historicity of Genesis. This explains why Price devoted his life to demonstrating the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis. The fact that the logical structure of Scripture was explicitly the creation of God explains why Price did not accept that the Bible was derived from ancient near eastern sources. Instead, Price (1920b, pp. 38-39) suggests that any similarities between ancient near eastern sources and the Bible might actually be due to a common source for the two—namely, actual history—which precedes the two. Price (1911, pp. 170-171) believes God will reveal a scientific (deductive) case for scriptural truths which is built on the demonstrable facts of the book of nature—a case that will leave people in the end times ‘without excuse’. That Price believed he was called to present this case explains Price’s enthusiasm and productivity on the matter of creation and the Flood. B. Specific Scripture Passages Price does not often refer to specific passages of Scripture. The passages that Price interprets in a manner relevant to the current creation model are given below with Price’s interpretation, more or less in order of appearance in Scripture: (1) Price believes Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:8-11 demand a 144- hour Creation Week ( e.g. the title of Price 1922). Thus, Price rejects Augustine’s germ theory (Price 1934, p. 71), as well as the gap theory (Price 1902, pp. 112-113) and the day-age theory as viable interpretations of Genesis 1. Consequently, Price also rejects pre-Adamite theory (Price 1934, p. 8), progressive creationism (Price 1906, p. 19), and theistic Wise ◀ George McCready Price ▶ 2018 ICC 684 INTRODUCTION