Creationism

God, Science or Both?

/ The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

WHEN YOU PONDER THE vastness of the universe, the wonder of the natural world, or the mysteries of the human mind, what do you think? Some of us see nothing but a material world, machinations of which we believe are best explained by the logical reasoning of science. One of the world’s most famous and endearing scientists, Stephen Hawking, did not believe in God or heaven. Hawking invoked the name of God in his seminal book A Brief History of Time, writing that if astrophysics could find a “theory of everything”—in other words, a comprehensive explanation for how the universe works—they would glimpse “the mind of God.”

However, in later interviews and writings, such as 2010’s The Grand Design, which Hawking co-wrote with Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking clarified that he wasn’t referring to a creator in the traditional sense. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist, he wrote, adding, “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” In other words, Hawking was perfectly at ease with believing something came from nothing.

In Hawking’ s Brief Answers to the Big Questions, his last book before his death March 14, 2018, he said, “People have always wanted answers to the big questions. Where did we come from? How did the universe begin? What is the meaning and design behind it all? Is there anyone out there?” (p. 3). He states the big question in cosmology: Did the universe have a beginning? He notes that many scientists were instinctively opposed to the idea, because they felt that a point of creation would be “…a place where science [breaks] down. One would have to appeal to religion and the hand of God to determine how the universe would start off” (pp. 12-13). He clearly states in Brief Answers, “I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science.” He added, “If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn’t take long to ask: What role is there for God?”

To Hawking and many like-minded scientists, the combined laws of gravity, relativity, quantum physics, and thermodynamics could explain everything that ever happened or ever will happen in our known universe. He said, “If you like, you can say the laws are the work of God, but that is more a definition of God than a proof of his existence.” Hawking’s number-one “big question” is definitely a big one: Is there a God? Trying to prove God does not exist is basically impossible. How does one prove a negative?

CHRISTIANITY AND REASON: THE THEOLOGICAL ROOTS OF SCIENCE

Christianity helped form the heart of Western civilization, shaping ideas and institutions that have persisted for two millennia. Yet there seems to be an inherent antagonism between science and theology. In fact, militant atheists are prone to portray an ongoing war between the two. The conflict, Sam Harris writes, is “zero sum.” Zero-sum basically means if one party gains an advantage, another party must suffer an equivalent loss. In economic theory, a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which each participant’s gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the loss or gain of the utility of the other party.

It is worth noting that science as an organized, sustained enterprise arose in human history in Europe, during the period of civilization called Christendom. Pope Benedict XVI argues that reason is a central distinguishing feature of Christianity. An unbiased look at the history of science shows that modern science is an invention of Medieval Christianity, and that the greatest breakthroughs in scientific reason have largely been the work of Christians.

Sam Harris said, “If God created the universe, what created God?” His sentiments are echoed by several atheist writers: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Carl Sagan, Steven Weinberg. They argue the problem of infinite regress—a sequence of reasoning or justification which can never come to an end. Certainly, they say, there has to be a chain of causation, but they ask, “Why does it have to stop with God?” Dawkins makes the further point that only a complex God could have created such a complex universe; but he said we don’t have the luxury of accounting for one form of unexplained complexity (the universe) by pointing to an even greater form of unexplained complexity (God). Consequently, Dawkins concludes that “the theist answer has utterly failed” and he sees ” no alternative [but to] to dismiss it.”

CHRISTIANITY AND THE INVENTION OF INVENTION

Nicolaus Copernicus wrote, “So vast, without question, is the divine handiwork of the Almighty Creator.” Lists of the great ideas of modern science typically contain a major omission. On such lists we are sure to find Copernicus’s heliocentric theory, Kepler’s laws, Newton’s laws, and Einstein’s theory of relativity, yet the greatest idea of modern science is almost never included. It is such a big idea that it makes possible all the other ideas. Interestingly, the greatest idea of modern science is based not on reason but on faith. Consider the scientific method for proving a hypothesis. A scientific hypothesis is the building block of scientific method. Many describe it as an “educated guess,” based on knowledge and observation.

Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard argued that scientific method could neither prove nor disprove any religious belief. Instead, religion requires a leap of faith. He said, “You either believe or you don’t believe. But you’re never reasoned into or out of any religious tenets.” Faith, however, is not a highly acclaimed word in the scientific community. Physicist Richard Feynmand wrote in The Meaning of It All, “I do not believe that the scientist can have that same certainty of faith that very deeply religious people have.” Astronomer and Carl Sagan protege Neil deGrasse Tyson complains that “the claims of religions rely on faith” and boasts that “the claims of science rely on experimental verification.” But where is the scientific verification that something came from nothing? Physicist Eugene Wigner has said that the mathematical order of nature “is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it.” Feynmand confesses, “Why nature is mathematical is a mystery. The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle.”

There is no logical necessity for a universe that obeys rules, let alone one that abides by the rules of mathematics. Yet the universe seems to be ordered. It does seem to follow rules. Without this irrational faith that the universe simply “knows” to follow a certain order, modern science is impossible. Dinesh D’Souza asks, “Where did Western man get this faith in a unified, ordered, and accessible universe? How did we go from chaos to cosmos? My answer, in a word, is Christianity.” Men such as Thales, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras posited a universe that operates through discoverable rules of cause-and-effect. Prior to this, much was based on mythical cosmologies chock full of ideas of an “enchanted universe.”

CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE

Churches began to build schools in Europe during the tail-end of the Medieval period, starting first with elementary and secondary grade levels. Eventually, they began to establish universities in Bologna and Paris. Oxford and Cambridge were founded in the early thirteenth century, followed by universities in Rome, Naples, Salamanca, Seville, Prague, Vienna, Cologne, and Heidelberg. These institutions were affiliated with the church, but they were independently governed and operated. The curriculum was a mix of secular and theological, leaving plenty of room for the study and advancement of new scientific knowledge. Interestingly, many of America’s earliest colleges and universities—Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Northwestern, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown—began as Christian institutions.

Francis Bacon—a devoutly religious man who did expository writing on the Book of Psalms and on prayer—used the inductive method to record experiments. He is considered by many to be the founder of scientific method—the “inventor of invention” if you will. It was under the supervision of the church that the first medical research institutions and the first observatories were built and supported. From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, a period of several centuries, the church did more for Western science than any other institution. Agnostics and atheists are prone to believing science was founded in the seventeenth century in revolt against religious dogma. In reality, science was founded between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by great leaders in their fields who were theists.

Here is a partial list of leading scientists who were Christian:

  • Nicolas Copernicus—Mathematician
  • Johannes Kepler—Astronomer
  • Galileo Galilei—Astronomer
  • Tycho Brahe—Astronomer
  • Rene Descartes—Philosopher, Mathematician, Scientist
  • Robert Boyle—Philosopher, Chemist, Physicist
  • Isaac Newton—Mathematician
  • Gottfried Leibniz—Mathematician, Philosopher
  • Pierre Gassendi—Priest, Philosopher, Mathematician, Astronomer
  • Blaise Pascal—Mathematician
  • Marin Mersenne—Mathematician
  • George Cuvier—Naturalist, Zoologist
  • William Harvey—Physician
  • John Dalton—Chemist
  • Michael Faraday—Scientist in electromagnetism and electrochemistry
  • William Herschel—Astronomer
  • James Prescott Joule—Physicist
  • Charles Lyell—Geologist
  • Antoine Lavoiseir—Chemist
  • Joseph Priestly—Theologian, Philosopher, Chemist, Educator
  • William Thompson, 1st Baron Kelvin—Mathematician
  • Georg Ohm—Physicist
  • Andre-Marie Ampere—Physicist
  • Nicolas Steno—Scientist in anatomy and geology
  • Louis Pasteur—Chemist, Inventor
  • James Clerk Maxwell—Mathematical Physics
  • Max Planck—Theoretical Physicist
  • Gregor Mendel—Geneticist

A UNIVERSE WITH A BEGINNING

Do latest findings in modern science support or undermine the Christian claim that there is a God? Carl Sagan once said, “…the cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever will be.” Interestingly, in a stunning confirmation of Genesis, modern science has discovered that the universe was created in a primordial explosion of energy and light. Not only did the universe have a beginning in space and time, but the origin of the universe was also a beginning for space and time. Space and time did not exist prior to the universe. If you accept that everything that has a beginning has a cause, then the material universe had a non-material or spiritual cause. Atheists are unwilling to accept that the creation of the universe was, in fact, a miracle.

Ravi Zacharias, in his book The End of Reason, says “nothing cannot produce something.” He adds, “Not only is there something; the laws of science actually break down right at the beginning.” The very starting point for an atheistic universe is based on something that cannot explain its own existence. The scientific laws by which atheists want to account for the beginning of the universe did not even exist as a category at the beginning of the universe because according to those very laws matter cannot simply “pop into existence” on its own. Atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russell said that the universe is “just there.” Obviously, that is not a scientific explanation. In fact, according to science, nothing that exists (or that is) can explain its own existence.

I don’t mean to pick on atheist theories, but read the following thoughts from Stephen Jay Gould

We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because comets struck the earth and wiped out dinosaurs, thereby giving mammals a chance not otherwise available (so thank your lucky stars in a literal sense); because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a “higher” answer—but none exists… We cannot read the meaning of life passively in the facts of nature. We must construct these answers ourselves—from our own wisdom and ethical sense. There is no other way.

Ken Ham made a very interesting statement during his February 4, 2014 debate with Bill Nye on the merits of creationism versus evolution:

Non-Christian scientists are really borrowing from the Christian worldview anyway to carry out their experimental observational science… When they’re doing observational science using the scientific method they have to assume the laws of logic, they have to assume the laws of nature, they have to assume the uniformity of nature.

Mr. Ham made the point that creationists and evolutionists really have the same evidence when discussing the topic of origins. We have the same Grand Canyon, the same fossils, the same dinosaurs, the same humans, the same radioactivity, the same stars and planets, and so on. So the issue is not about evidence, but is rather an argument about how the evidence is interpreted in relation to the past. Frankly, its about one’s worldview. Accordingly, this becomes a worldview/religious debate. It is our worldview, based on our starting point (God’s Word or man’s theories), that drives the interpretation of evidence. This is especially relevant when the discussion is about the origin of the universe.

Sire (2015) said a worldview is not just a set of basic concepts, but a fundamental orientation of the heart. Phillips, Brown and Stonestreet (2008) clarify this even further, stating, “A worldview is the framework of our most basic beliefs that shapes our view of and for the world, and is the basis of our decisions and actions.” (p. 8) Assumptions and biases affect data interpretation. What we see depends, to some degree, on what we expect and are predisposed to see. Successful homicide detectives never approach a crime scene with a preconceived notion of what happened.

IS THERE AN END IN SIGHT?

Stephen Hawking gave a lecture in 1996 called “The Beginning of Time.” He discussed whether time itself had a beginning, and whether it will have and end. I assume this means Hawking did not accept the biblical concept of eternity. He said, “All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago.” Regarding whether the universe will end, he said “…even if the universe does come to an end, it won’t be for at least twenty billion years.” For me, coming to a conclusion such as this requires a great deal of faith and a pinch or two of conjecture.

Many astrophysicists and theoretical physicists seem to hold the scientific opinion that we live in a closed universe, which means there is sufficient matter in the universe to halt the expansion driven by the Big Bang and cause eventual re-collapse. In other words, the Big Bang caused the universe to burst into existence, and it has been gradually expanding; however, gravity will supposedly pull everything back in, leading to another Big Bang. I read a post on howstuffworks.com that explains a closed universe this way:

Tie one end of a bungee cord to your leg, the other end to the rail of a bridge and then jump off. You’ll accelerate downward rapidly until you begin to stretch the cord. As tension increases, the cord gradually slows your descent. Eventually, you’ll come to a complete stop, but just for a second as the cord, stretched to its limit, yanks you back toward the bridge. Astronomers think a closed universe will behave in much the same way. Its expansion will slow down until it reaches a maximum size. Then it will recoil, collapsing back on itself. As it does, the universe will become denser and hotter until it ends in an infinitely hot, infinitely dense singularity.

An open universe, on the contrary, means the universe will continue to expand indefinitely. Those holding to this theory believe galaxies will run out of the raw materials necessary for making new stars. Stars that already exist will burn out. Galaxies will become coffins filled with dust and dead stars. At that point, the universe will become dark, cold and, unfortunately, lifeless. Creation.com discusses whether the Bible supports the theory that our universe is expanding. We have been told, since Hubble’s discovery in the late 1920s, that the universe is expanding. Hubble found proportionality between the red-shift in the light coming from relatively nearby galaxies and their distance from Earth.

Hubble initially interpreted his red-shifts as a Doppler effect, due to the motion of the galaxies as they rushed away from our location in the universe. Later, Hubble became disillusioned with the recession interpretation: “… it seems likely that red-shifts may not be due to an expanding Universe, and much of the speculation on the structure of the universe may require re-examination.” He said that what became known as the Hubble Law could also be due to “some hitherto unknown principle of nature,” but not due to expansion of space.

What Do the Scriptures Say?

Psalm 104 presents a description of the biblical account of how the universe was formed. Verse 2 says, “The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent” (NIV). Verse 5 says, “He set the earth on its foundation; it can never be moved.” We must remember that God did not provide the Scriptures as a “science” book. Rather, it is a love letter to His creation. Science certainly attempts to explain the how and God explains the why of creation. Regardless, the Bible does not attempt to make strict scientific pronouncements. You won’t find a verse that says, “Thus says the LORD: The universe is expanding at X rate.” God says in Genesis 1:6-7, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse, and it was so. God called the expanse heaven” (NASB).

The prophets of the Old Testament knew that God had stretched out the heavens—a description that bears an uncanny similarity to the theory of an expanding (or open) universe. According to science, what was often considered a metaphorical, poetic expression turns out to be more literal than ever thought. An expanding universe does not negate the biblical account of creation. The great majority of scientists would say that matter is not eternal—that matter did not exist prior to the Big Bang. In fact, the prevailing theory is that nothing at all existed prior to the Big Bang, including time and space. At the moment of the Big Bang—the moment of creation—time began. Space began. Matter began.

McDowell and McDowell (2017), in Evidence That Demands a Verdict, describes what they call “concordist interpretations,” which are driven by what some believe are remarkable agreements between Scripture and modern science. Astronomer Robert Jastrow has said such instances of concordance are significant: “Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation… That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact” (Durbin, SCBTF, 15, 18).

Zoologist Andrew Parker was so struck with the consistency between the sequence of creation events in Genesis 1 and the modern scientific understanding of these events that he wrote The Genesis Enigma, in which he describes this consistency and concludes as follows:

Here, then, is the Genesis Enigma: The opening page of Genesis is scientifically accurate but was written long before the science was known.  How did the writer of this page come to write this creation account? I must admit, rather nervously as a scientist averse to entertaining such an idea, that the evidence that the writer of the opening page of the Bible was divinely inspired is strong. I have never before encountered such powerful, impartial evidence to suggest that the Bible is the product of divine inspiration.

Perhaps you will find the following excerpt from the Afterword of Nathaniel T. Jeanson’s Replacing Darwin: The New Origin of Species, rather powerful:

In the beginning, around 6,000 years ago, God created “kinds” of creatures—the original min. Representing creatures somewhere between the rank of subgenus and order, these min contained millions of heterozygous sites in their genomes. As they reproduced, shifts from heterozygosity to homozygosity led to diverse offspring. Less than 1,700 years after the creation of these min, their population sizes were dramatically reduced. At least for the land-dwelling, air-breathing min, their population sizes were reduced to no more than 14 individuals. In some cases, their populations declined to just 2. However, because this population bottleneck was so short, the heterozygosity of the Ark passengers would have been minimally effected. For sexually reproducing min, a male and female could have possessed a combined four copies of nuclear DNA. These copies could have been very different, preserving a massive amount of speciation potential.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Whenever I bring up science and faith, my secular friends either go mute or they try to start an argument. Not the “forensic point-counterpoint kind,” but the “You’ve got to be crazy! What is wrong with you?” kind. They say, “With the advent of modern science, how can you still believe that whole “creationism and the Earth is only 6,000 years old” garbage. They’ve decided miracles cannot happen. They’re convinced that the creation story of Christianity is nothing but an “enchanted” fairy tale. But scientists cannot escape the question of God. Nature is well-ordered and follows the laws of gravity, relativity, quantum physics, and thermodynamics. Nature bears the marks of a designer. Finally, science is only one source of truth.

Science cannot exist without the assumptions of a stable creation, with meaning, purpose, or the laws of nature to govern it. Without the assumptions brought about by Christianity, modern science would have no footing whatsoever. If nature were inherently self-serving and motivated merely by survival rather than to the giving of life, the stability of natural laws would be unknowable. Nature itself would be a moving deception. We would not have the ability to even perceive such a reality if it existed.

 

References

Hawking, S. (1988). A Brief History of Time. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, S. (2018). Brief Answers to the Big Questions. London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton.

McDowell, J. and McDowell, S. (2017). Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth For a Skeptical World. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishing.

Phillips, W., Brown, W., and Stonestreet, J. (2008). Making sense of your world: A biblical worldview, second edition. Salem, WI: Sheffield Publishing.

Sire, J. (2015). Naming the elephant: Worldview as a concept, second edition. Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press.

Zacharias, R. (2008). The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Press.

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The Lie: Evolution versus Creation

/ The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

Raised in a Christian Home

I WAS RAISED IN A Christian home where the Bible was believed to be the infallible, inerrant Word of God. When I entered high school I came face-to-face with the idea of evolution. If Genesis was not literally true, then what part of the Bible could I trust? Genesis clearly details the creation of the world. One of my friends is a pastor. I recall him suggesting that I accept evolution, but then add it to the Bible—in other words, it is okay to believe that God used evolution and millions of years to bring all forms of life into being. Certainly, this is not what we’re told in Genesis. Another pastor friend of mine whose blog I follow commented that believing God’s creation was helped along by evolution is “a slippery slope.”

The Holy Bible.jpg

If God did not mean what He said in Genesis, then how could I put stock in the rest of the Scriptures? Not only this, but believing in evolution and millions of years meant allowing death, disease, fossils, thorns, animals eating each other, and suffering to be in existence millions of years before man! How could this be true given God’s proclamation that His creation was “very good” before the Fall?

Christianity is Under Attack!

We are living in challenging times. On the whole, our Western culture, once permeated by Christian thinking, is becoming increasingly anti-Christian. We are seeing steady increases in gay marriage, support for abortion on demand, unwillingness to obey authority, reluctance to work, marriages being abandoned, an increase in pornography, a growing level of lawlessness, and increasing promulgation of atheism. Christians are fighting for their own religious freedom and being labeled as the bad guys.

Under Attack

What has happened in society to bring about these drastic changes? Why is it that many people are cynical and seem to be closed to the Gospel when we talk about Jesus? There must be some foundational reason for this change. In 1 Chronicles 12:32, we read of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times. Do we have a good grasp of the times in which we live? What is the fundamental reason for the collapse of Christianity in America? Consider the recent proliferation of the phrase “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.” Nativity scenes, crosses, and the Ten Commandments are being banned from view in public places. Creation, prayer, and the Bible have largely been eliminated from the nation’s secular education system. Today we see culture invading and changing the church rather than the church having an impact on culture.

No Single Birthplace?

Secular researchers say it is time to drop the idea that modern humans originated from a single population in a single location. The origin of our species has long been traced to east Africa, where the world’s oldest Homo sapiens fossils were discovered. About 300,000 years ago, the story went, a group of primitive humans there underwent a series of genetic and cultural shifts that set them on a unique evolutionary path resulting in the human population we have today. You. Me. My mom. Your brother. Everyone.

Evolution Graphic

Recently, a team of prominent scientists called for a rewriting of this traditional narrative, based on a comprehensive survey of fossil, archaeological and genetic evidence. Instead, the international team argue, the distinctive features that make us human emerged mosaic-like across different populations spanning the entire African continent. Only after tens or hundreds of thousands of years of interbreeding and cultural exchange between these semi-isolated groups, did the fully-fledged modern human come into being.

Secular scientists note telltale characteristics of a modern human – globular brain case, a chin, a more delicate brow and a small face – seem to first appear in different places at different times. Previously, this has either been explained as evidence of a single, large population trekking around the continent en masse or by dismissing certain fossils as side-branches of the modern human lineage that just happened to have developed certain anatomical similarities. The latest analysis suggests that this patchwork emergence of human traits can be explained by the existence of multiple populations that were periodically separated for millennia by rivers, deserts, forests and mountains before coming into contact again due to shifts in the climate. Natural barriers such as theses created migration and contact opportunities for groups that may previously have been separated, and later fluctuation might have meant populations that mixed for a short while became isolated again.

Some experts paint a picture of humans as a far-more diverse collection of species and sub-populations than exists today. They allege between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago our own ancestors lived alongside a primitive human species called Homo naledi found in southern Africa, a larger brained species called  Homo heidelbergensis in central Africa, and perhaps myriad other humans yet to be discovered.

Replacing Darwin

Unlike typical jigsaw puzzles, the puzzle of the origin of species does not come in a box. No cover exists. The final number of pieces is unknown. In fact, nearly all pieces must be actively sought. Consequently, with each new discovery, the potential for massive overhaul lurks in the background. I’m reminded of the comment I heard from a facilitator at a Werner Erhard seminar. He said, “There’s what we know, and there’s what we don’t know, but more importantly there’s what we don’t know that we don’t know.” Keeping with the jigsaw analogy, let’s consider the state of the puzzle prior to Darwin’s day. Just a century before Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, the first pieces were discovered.

Jigsaw-Puzzle.jpg

In a jigsaw puzzle, edge pieces constrain the arrangement of the center pieces. Since species are defined by their traits, the origin of traits constrains the puzzle of the origin of species. The origin of leopards and cheetahs depends on an answer to the origin of spots. The origin of toucans relies on the answer to the origin of large, colorful beaks. The origin of the blue whale is bound up in the origin of baleen. The origin of scorpions and the origin of stingers go hand-in-hand. The answer to the origin of traits represents the edge pieces to the puzzle.

dna.jpg

Exactly how does DNA control traits? The mystery of the how concealed the answers to several critical questions. Could the mechanism by which DNA controlled the behavior of traits be altered? Could it be changed to an entirely different program? Could leopards become whales? Could toucans change into scorpions? Could jellyfish become jaguars? These might sound like ridiculous questions, but the answers awaited the discovery of the mechanism by which DNA interfaced with traits. But alas, there are several paradoxes regarding this issue. In in each generation all traits are erased—only to be rebuilt again.

Consider what it takes to form a new species. For a fish to become a spider, significant morphological changes must occur—an endoskeleton must transform into an exoskeleton, fins must become legs, an aquatic form of respiration must transform into a terrestrial form of respiration. Prior to the discovery of DNA, scientists looked for various solutions to these paradoxes. One theory centered on physics and chemistry. For example, consider the physics of transforming a single cell into a complex adult. Many chemical and physical barriers would have to be overcome. Obviously, physical beings don’t spontaneously assemble themselves.

Darwin and Genetics

Darwin Portrait

Darwin wrote the following comment in a notebook in 1837: “One species does change into another” [Italics mine]. Yet his theory of natural selection lacked an adequate account of inheritance, making it logically incomplete. Lack of a model of the mechanism of inheritance left him unable to interpret his own data. Instead, Darwin proposed a rather bizarre developmental theory of heredity (which he called pangenesis). Essentially, he suggested that all cells in an organism are capable of shedding minute particles of inheritance he called gemmules, which are able to circulate throughout the body and ultimately accumulate in the gonads. The theory of pangenesis originated from the claim that characteristics acquired during an organism’s life were inheritable.

Many criticized Darwin’s pangenesis. To test the theory, Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton in London conducted a series of blood transfusion experiments. Galton transfused blood between different colored rabbits. Galton hypothesized that the blood contained gemmules that would influence the color of the offspring. By transfusing the blood from a white rabbit to a black rabbit, the black rabbit would have different colored descendants than normal black rabbits, which did not get transfused blood. But the result of the experiment contrasted Darwin’s prediction. Black rabbits with the blood from white rabbits produced offspring that were all black. Galton concluded that gemmules did not exist. Darwin’s comeback was perhaps gemmules existed in bodily fluids other than blood.

Creation and Religion

Biblical creation is based on the Genesis account of origins from the Word of God—the One who is a witness to all that occurred when the universe was created. Most non-believers have a difficult time with the concept that God is “outside of time itself.” God’s creation consists basically of a threefold view of history—a perfect creation, corrupted by sin, to be restored by Jesus Christ. This account is divided into seven distinct periods referred to by Ken Ham as the Seven Cs of Creation.

  1. Creation: In six days God created the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them from nothing. Each part is designed to work with all the others in perfect harmony. God created the different kinds of plants and animals, and He made a special garden (the Garden of Eden) in which He created the first two human beings. When God completed His work of creation, He called it all “very good.”
  2. Corruption: We no longer live in the world God originally created. Because our first parents (Adam and Eve) placed human opinion about God’s Word (as we still tend to do today), struggle and death entered the world, and God cursed creation. Charles Darwin called this “struggle to the death” natural selection and offered his idea as a substitute for an Intelligent Designer. Evolutionists later added accidental changes in heredity (mutations) to their evolutionary belief. But such processes as natural selection and mutations do not creat; instead, they bring disease, defects, and decay into the world God created. Paul describes this now fallen world in Romans: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8:22, NIV).
  3. Catastrophe: After mankind’s sin and rebellion (the Fall), the earth became so filled with violence and corruption that God destroyed the world with a global Flood and gave it a fresh start with Noah, his family, and the animals in the ark. Fossils—billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth—remind us of God’s judgment on sin. Most of the fossil record is actually the graveyard of the Flood that occurred about 4,300 years ago. Of course, this same fossil record is used and manipulated by secularists as purported evidence for millions of years.
  4. Confusion: In Genesis 11, we see that after the Flood, man disobeyed God’s command to spread out over the earth. Instead, they congregated together to build a tower to the heavens, likely to worship the heavens instead of worshiping and obeying the God who made the heavens. As a result, God simply confused their language so that groups began speaking in different languages. Family groups then began separating from each other and moving out over the earth to  develop various people groups, which resulted in the diverse cultures and nations we have today.
  5. Christ: It is unfortunate that despite the Flood the earth again became filled with violence, corruption, and death because of human sin putting man’s opinion above God’s Word. God had a plan from eternity promised back at the beginning (Genesis 3:15) to save man from sin and its consequence of eternal separation from God. God’s Son stepped into human history to become Jesus Christ, the God-man. Fully God and fully human, Christ came to heal and restore, and by His death and resurrection, He conquered death. We may be born again into eternal life as new creations in Christ. As Romans 10:9 tells us, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
  6. Cross: What was God doing on the cross? What was He accomplishing through the crucifixion? Unfortunately, there are growing numbers of Christians who are having an increasingly difficult time answering that question. There is a diminishing sense of God’s holiness, an increasing denial of man’s sin nature, and a disproportionate sense of self-worth. Both the shame and the shear brutality of the cross have become blurred. The Roman Empire was notorious for performing crucifixions. In fact, they coined the word excruciating to describe the horrible act. Excruciating is an adjective which means extremely painful, causing intense suffering. The Latin word excruciātus (derivative of crux cross) translates as “to torment or torture.”
  7. Consummation: As surely as God created the world and judged the world with the Flood, our ungodly world will be destroyed by fire (2 Peter 3:10). For those who trust in Jesus, however, there awaits eternal life in the new heavens and the new earth. There will be no more corruption because God’s curse will have been removed. But for those who reject God’s free gift of salvation, the Bible tells us they will suffer a second death—eternal separation from God (Revelation 20:14).

Is Evolution a Religion?

Why do evolutionists not want to admit that the molecules-to-man evolution belief is really a religion? This is so because whatever you believe about your origins affects your whole worldview, the meaning of life, and so on. If there is no God and we are the result of chance, random process, it means there is no absolute authority. And if there is no one who sets the rules, then people can do whatever he likes or hopes he can get away with.

Evolution is a religion that enables people to justify writing their own rules. The sin of Adam was that he did not want to obey the rules God set. Instead, he wanted to do what he wanted to do. He rebelled against God, and we all suffer from this same sin: rebellion against the absolute authority of God. The evolutionary (millions of years) belief has become the so-called scientific justification in today’s world for people to continue in this rebellion against God.

In the beginning.jpg

The Book of Genesis gives us the true and reliable account of the origin and early history of life on earth. Increasing numbers of scientists are realizing that when you take the Bible as your basis and build your worldview upon it, then the evidence from the living animals and plants, the fossils, and the cultures fit with what this account details to us. This confirms that the Bible really is the Word of God and can be trusted completely. The secular humanists, of course, oppose this because they cannot allow the possibility of God being Creator. They have fought successfully to have prayer, Bible readings, and the teaching of creation forced out of the public school curriculum. They have deceived the public into thinking this is eliminating religion from schools and leaving a neutral situation. This is absolutely false! God’s Word states, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad” (Matthew 12:30).

How Old is the Earth?

The question of the age of our planet has produced heated debate for centuries. The primary positions are simply stated thus: (a) young-earth proponents believe the biblical age of the earth and universe is about 6,000 years; (b) old-earth proponents believe the age of the earth to be about 4.5 billion years and the age of the universe is about 14 billion years. Obviously the range between these two schools of thought are immense.

Where Did a Young-Earth Worldview Come From?

Simply put, it came from the Bible. Of course, the Bible doesn’t say explicitly anywhere, “The earth is 6,000 years old.” Good thing it doesn’t; otherwise it would be out of date the following year. God gave us something better. In essence, He gave us a “birth certificate.” Genesis 1 says that the earth says that the earth was created on the first day of creation (Genesis 1:1-5). From there, scientists are able to begin calculating the age of the earth. Ken Ham suggests a rough calculation to show how this works. The age of the earth can be estimated by taking the first five days of creation (from earth’s creation to Adam), then following the genealogies from Adam to Abraham in Genesis 5 and 11, then adding in the time from Abraham to today.

Ham tells us Adam was created on Day Six, so there were five days before him. If we add up the dates from Adam to Abraham, we get about 2000 B.C. (4,000 years ago). So a simple calculation is as follows: 5 days + ~2,000 years + ~4,000 years = ~6,000 years. Of course, the first five days are quite negligible. Cultures throughout the world have kept track of history as well. From a biblical perspective, we can expect the dates given for creation of the earth to align more closely to the biblical date than billions of years. The examples are provocative. The Anglo-Saxons believe there were 5,200 years from creation to Christ. Ancient British history indicates 5,228 years from creation to Christ. The Irish chronology shows creation occurring at approximately 4000 B.C. Historians have done meticulous work that cannot be ignored. Their dates of only thousands of years are good support for the biblical date of about 6,000 years, not billions of years.

The Origin of the Old-Earth Worldview

Prior to the 1700s, few believed in an old earth. The approximate age of 6,000 years was not really challenged until the 18th century. Opponents, as Ken Ham notes, essentially “left God out of the picture.” The idea of millions of years really got traction through geology. It is noteworthy that geologists believed geological layers were formed slowly over long periods of time based on the rates at which we see them accumulating today. James Hutton (1726-1797) is considered the father of modern geology. Hutton said, “The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now… No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle.”

This viewpoint is called naturalistic uniformitarianism. It ignores any major catastrophes like The Great Flood. Thinking biblically, we know that the global Flood in Genesis 6-8 would wipe away the concept of millions of years, for this Flood would explain massive amounts of fossil layers. Most Christians fail to realize that a global flood could rip up many of the previous rock layers and redeposit them elsewhere, destroying the previous fragile contents. This would destroy any evidence of alleged millions of years anyway. So the rock layers can theoretically represent the evidence of either millions of years or a global flood, but not both.

Concluding Remarks

When we start our reflection on these types of questions with God’s Word in mind, we see that the world is about 6,000 years old. When we rely on man’s fallible (and often demonstrably false) dating methods, we can get a confusing range of ages from a few thousand to billions of years, though the vast majority of methods do not give dates even close to billions. Cultures around the world give an age of the earth that confirms the Bible. Radiometric dates, on the other hand, have been shown to be wildly in error. The age of the earth, as well as questions regarding evolution versus creation, ultimately comes down to a matter of trust—it’s a worldview issue. The question is, will you trust what an all-knowing God says on the subject or will you trust imperfect man’s assumptions and imaginations about the past that regularly are changing.

 

Creation vs. Evolution: Inside the Nye/Ham Debate

/ The Accidental Poet / 2 Comments

On February 4th, 2014, on a stage in Petersburg, Kentucky, Bill Nye and Ken Ham were involved in one of the most important debates in the last few decades. Even though one of the debaters (Bill Nye the “Science Guy”) would strongly disagree on this point, it really was a debate between atheism/agnosticism/secular humanism and biblical Christianity. The agreed-upon topic was, “Is Creation a Viable Model of Origins?” However, the thrust of the debate from each side respectively was, “Do we ultimately trust in man’s word or God’s word?”

The new book on the debate from Bodie Hodge and Ken Ham, Inside the Nye Ham Debate, delves into the history behind the debate, offers an in-depth review and examination of the debate itself, and responds to Bill Nye’s questions and statements made during the debate. The book follows the format of the debate, with a post-debate perspective from Ken Ham, an appendix (including a complete transcript), and two additional appendixes on the age of the earth and the Trinity. The book is available through Amazon.com.

Bill Nye’s tactic (even admitted to by Mr. Nye) was to throw a bunch of data at Ken Ham, knowing that he would not have time to respond to every point. Nye stated that he was simply using a tactic by the late Dr. Duane Gish against Ken, but this is not accurate and is an unfair characterization of Dr. Gish’s debate stratagem. In reality, Nye’s debate strategy was nothing more than elephant hurling, refusal to acknowledge counterpoints to his arguments, and a decided commitment not to stay on topic. Furthermore, he continually tried to frame things in an ad hominem way, referring to biblical creation as “Ken Ham’s model” and creation-affirming Christians as “Ken Ham’s followers.” This is a typical strategy used by atheists (or anti-theists if you prefer) when debating creationists.

Stuart Burgess, Ph.D., professor of engineering design at the University of Bristol (UK), wrote one of two forwards to the book. I like his comment, “I sincerely hope that more secular scientists will do what true scientists should do, be open-minded about the evidence.” Dr. Raymond V. Damadian, inventor of the MRI and writer of the second forward to the book, commented, “Regarding evolution, the scientific evidence needed to sustain it does not exist.” Dr. Damadian added, “Specifically, the intermediate life forms necessary to sustain the concept of evolution have never been shown to exist.” Darwin specifically claimed that all organic beings have descended from a single primordial form. Darwin argued that the critical scientific evidence necessary to sustain his hypothesis is proof of these so-called intermediate life forms, and that such life forms demonstrate “natural transition” of one KIND of life form to another KIND of life form, thereby enabling successive anatomic and physiological transitions required for life to progress to a higher and higher order of complexity.

In terms of human ancestry, as Dr. Damadian puts it, the skulls of our postulated ape “ancestors” differ remarkably from human skulls. The skulls of all apes house approximately 400 cc of brain, in contrast to the human skull which houses 1200 cc of brain. If humans are descended from the apes, where are the fossil remains of the intermediate life forms necessary to substantiate such an origin? Where are the 800 cc fossil skulls, or the one-inch fossil skull frontal bones, needed to contain the brain of such intermediate life form, or any other intermediate brain volume for that matter?

It is interesting to consider the debate surrounding the world-famous Scopes trial that occurred in Tennessee in 1925. This debate, although won by the creationists, set the stage for a takeover of the education system by evolutionists, and the removal of Christianity from schools and culture in subsequent years. The roots of the debate between Nye and Ham can be found in Bill Nye’s YouTube video posted on August 23, 2012, wherein he stated, “…teaching creationism [is] not appropriate for children.” Nye further stated, “If we raise a generation of students who don’t believe in the process of science, who think everything that we’ve come to know about nature and the universe can be dismissed by a few sentences translated into English from some ancient text, [we’re] not going to continue to innovate.”

Here’s an important question, which is raised by Bodie Hodge in the Introduction to Inside the Nye Ham Debate: “Am I biased? The truthful answer is yes. But so is everyone else. If someone believes they are not biased, then part of their bias is that they have deceived themselves into thinking they are not biased.” [Italics mine.] Phillips, Brown and Stonestreet (2008), in their book Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview, state that truth is absolute; if not, then nothing is true. They state, “If a worldview is true, we can expect to find at least some external corroborating evidence to support it. This does not mean that something is true because there is evidence for it, but rather evidence will be available because something is true.” It is critical to note that evidence is always subject to interpretation, and interpretation also can be subject to bias. This was the very subject matter of the World Views class I took last semester at Colorado Christian University. Philips, et al, define worldview as, “…the framework of our most basic beliefs that shapes our view of and for the world and is the basis of our decisions and actions.” Sire (2015) further expounds on worldview, stating, “a worldview is a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or unconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic makeup of our world.” [Italics mine.]

It is Bill Nye’s contention that evolutionary belief is required to be able to “do” science, and that failure to believe in cosmic and biological evolution will hamper scientific literacy and progress. The accomplishments of creation scientists over the last 400 years make that argument laughable, and yet Nye continues to cling to that untenable position. During the debate, Ken Ham answered the harder questions with Scripture, reason, and data, while Nye often responded to the hard questions with “It’s a great mystery” or “I don’t know.” Obviously, each man interprets data according to his worldview: Bill Nye with a naturalistic/materialistic worldview, and Ken Ham with a biblical worldview.

Ultimately, what shines forth from this book in every section is that it is not primarily a debate exposition, but it is an apologetics tool that shows the emptiness of humanism and gives glory to God. I have placed the book on my Amazon wish list, and suggest that those interested in the endless argument between Darwinism and creationism grab a copy for their own library.  No score was kept to declare a winner in the debate. Prior to the event, Ham commented, “I don’t see it as a debate to win or lose. I don’t believe people should go away saying ‘Bill Nye won’ or ‘Ken Ham won.’ I want to passionately deal with what I believe, and I want Bill Nye to passionately speak on what he believes.” In a letter published in Skeptical Inquirer after the debate, Nye wrote that by “a strong majority of accounts, I bested him.” It’s been said, however, that research done to challenge God has the disease of prejudice.