Those who subscribe to an analogical creationism, are confronted with several competing theories. This post will try to characterize the three as represented by Henry Morris (ICR), Hugh Ross (RTB), and William Dembski (DI). Now I realize that ICR would take umbrage to call their Biblical literalism "analogical", but inasmuch as they have a lengthy analogical defense of their literal hermeneutics, I would call them analogical, since the only difference is their insistence on a "quartz-time scale" for 24 hours.

Now, from the outset, we should point out that all three groups are doing something different, and all three groups think the other two are doing it wrong. The best way I can think of to characterize these views is with a Venn diagram showing their placement at the intersection of Theology, Science and Philosophy:
Three Creationist views vis-a-vis Religion (theta), Science (sigma) and Philosophy (phi).
The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) unabashedly takes the view that the Bible is normative over science, and adopts a nominalist (God can do anything) philosophy coupled with a secret (Gnostic) knowledge that renders scientific observations faulty without a special hermeneutics of an ancient text. This raises doubts that it may not be very compatible with science, as indeed, history bears out.

The Discovery Institute (DI) takes the view that no religious texts are needed to infer a great deal of philosophical truth from observations. It invokes Aristotle's purpose, or "intelligent design" (ID) as a means to defeat Materialism's anti-teleological stance. It is primarily a philosophical position, but looking to science for support (argument from design, natural law, etc.) One would suspect that it doesn't discriminate among various religious creation stories, and indeed, people of many religions have supported this effort.

Reasons to Believe (RTB) takes the view that Western Science and the Bible are compatible and complementary accounts of the same phenomena. With only small liberties in the order or definitions of Biblical words, Hugh Ross has assembled a large number of scientific "facts" that he finds compatible with the Bible. Since many of these "facts" were thought to be evidence of the Bible's innaccuracies, Hugh spends a great deal of effort in "scientific apologia" reconciling the two. My difficulty with his view is that he never questions the approach of science, the epistemology of the scientific method, or the clear metaphysical inconsistencies between a materialist science and a non-materialist Bible.

Each have their strong points, and each their weak points. ICR finds it unconscionable that DI doesn't use scripture, and finds in RTB a willingness to compromise with materialism that they fear will doom the church. DI finds ICR's insistence on Gnostic epistemology a tremendous barrier to science, whereas RTB's insistence on materialist epistemology is likewise incapable of explaining biology (Ross' PhD is in Astronomy). RTB finds ICR's denial of materialist science to be rejecting the real advances of the 20th century, whereas they view DI's attempt to argue Aristotle without Aquinas a misguided collusion with atheism without apologetic power.

RTB
Here's RTB on the problems with DI:

Winning the argument for design without identifying the designer yields, at best, a sketchy origins model. Such a model makes little if any positive impact on the community of scientists and other scholars. Such a model does not lend itself to verification, nor can it make specific, credible predictions. On both counts, scholars, particularly scientists, would be reluctant to acknowledge the concept’s viability and give it serious attention. Nor does this approach offer them spiritual direction.

Here's RTB on the problems with ICR:
Note the emphasis of Hugh Ross on the "scientific method" by which he means, scientific naturalism. As ID is quick to point out, many conclusions of both the Bible and biology are incompatible with the scientific method. Furthermore, Hugh Ross gives epistemic truth value to hypotheses generated by the scientific method, even when such hypotheses are atheistic in character. Sooner or later, he will find that (a) the scientists will accuse him of being religiously biased in his rejection of certain hypotheses; and (b) the theologians will accuse him of being heretical in his acceptance of certain hypotheses.

ICR
Here is a recent (July 2007) column on ID that attempts to make ICR a subset of ID:
However the philosophical problems are more severe than ICR recognize which show up  in this ID article (April 2006):

By ignoring this historical evidence—especially that in the Bible—the Intelligent Design movement alone cannot possibly succeed. In the meantime, it is diverting interest among Christians away from the much more cogent case for scientific Biblical creationism and thus tragically hindering a true witness for Christ and the Bible.We do heartily commend the Intelligent Design scientists for the brilliant new arguments and evidences they have added to the traditional case for Intelligent Design.
But we insist the issue does not stop there. The Biblical testimony is all important, not to mention the very strong scientific evidence for recent creation and the global flood. Since the latter events cannot be proved scientifically (not being repeatable) they can always be explained away if one so desires, but it is certainly stronger than the scientific evidence for evolutionary uniformitarianism, (that evidence is not repeatable either!). The only way we can be absolutely sure of what happened in prehistoric times is for someone who was there and who is trustworthy to tell us what happened.

Note how ICR and RTB are united in their critique of ID, it isn't evangelical enough. Also note ICR's comment about the truth of the Bible "cannot be proved scientifically", which indicates the problem they have with epistemology, as well as a divergence from RTB.  But their real beef with RTB is hermeneutics: they don't think an inerrant Bible is compatible with a billion year-old world. Here is ICR on the errors of RTB and "progressive creationists":
Note that ICR is adamant about it's hermeneutics, and RTB is adamant about its scientific method. These are the rocks on which they stand. What is the rock for DI?

DI
The Discovery Institute has links to numerous ID blogs, here is a recent blog entry on why ID =/= Creationism. But perhaps an article written by DI fellow Stephen Meyer captures it best:

Contrary to media reports, ID is not a religious-based idea, but an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins. According to Darwinian biologists such as Oxford University's Richard Dawkins, living systems "give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose".
But, for modern Darwinists, that appearance of design is illusory, because the purely undirected process of natural selection acting on random mutations is entirely sufficient to produce the intricate designed-like structures found in living organisms.
By contrast, ID holds that there are tell-tale features of living systems and the universe that are best explained by a designing intelligence. The theory does not challenge the idea of evolution defined as change over time, or even common ancestry, but it disputes Darwin's idea that the cause of biological change is wholly blind and undirected.

Note how DI tries to distance itself from ICR without saying a word about the Bible, hermeneutics, Christianity or young earth. ICR folks find this either (a) secular; or (b) deceptive. DI views it as a single-minded goal of liberating science from materialist philosophy. These are the same reasons why they don't get along with RTB, though they refrain from naming either organization on their website (or at least when I searched it last.)

The one thing DI is adamant about, their rock of witness, holds that ID is non-religious.  Now I blogged earlier on a debate between Frances Beckwith and Robert Miller on the same phenomenon, but in an ironic twist, Beckwith is a fellow with DI and argued for a religous Aristotle, whereas Miller is an evolutionist arguing for a non-religious Aristotle!  Perhaps it is this ambiguity that has the secular blogs (and Judge Jones) referring to ID as "crypto-creationism". In any case, Beckwith and DI need to reconcile their stories, either Aristotle is or is not religious, as he himself would uphold the law of the excluded middle.

YACC
And this is where my theory comes in. I would strive to be somewhere in the middle of this diagram, where the "?" is located. Now mind you, with the possible exception of DI, this is disputed territory. But ICR has stated that their views CANNOT be proved by science, and RTB has stated that the scientific method OPERATES ON the Bible. These are all claims of precedence, of presuppositions, of prior commitments. YACC attempts to take all three emphases equally, giving equal weight to science, to philosophy and to religion.

As we have extensively blogged, the Scientific Method is faulty, and cannot be trusted to operate either on the Bible or Philosophy or Biology. Likewise, a hermeneutic that doesn't take the recursive character of language into account, that doesn't recognize the gulf between man and God spanned by language, is a defective interpretive schema. Nor a philosophy that is centered on purpose without regarding the Purposer, a philosophy that excludes itself from the very area of study is no more consistent than the materialism it rejects. We need a new Scientific method (which is just an old Aristotelean one); we need a hermeneutic that understands recursion, Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem, and the Holy; we need a philosophy that includes itself, and God, and man.

So YACC must be Trinitarian. We are not unaware that this is a difficult subject, with more than one century relegated to the subject in theology alone. We may not get it right in this first attempt, but nevertheless think that any attempt is better than living with inconsistent and duelling dualities. The good news is that ICR, RTB and DI have done all the heavy lifting, and all that is needed now is an integrative scheme. As you might have guessed, language is the key, and recursion the glue that holds these three emphases in proper tension.

And the best way to explain it, is to do it. Earlier posts on Qoholeth and Job show how recursion affects hermeneutics. Posts on Quantum Mechanics & Prayer, or Viruses & Sin, point to the role of purpose in physics and biology theorizing. And my halting attempts at metaphysical history revealed by sex, or Gnostic influences on science talk about the influence of basar / sarx / flesh on our philosophical development.

In a future post, we continue this trinitarian approach to Genesis 3 and its significance for science and philosophy.