Theistic Evolution—Did God Monkey Around?
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So how did life, the
universe and all things in it come about? I
know, I know…. God created it…right? Are
you sure?…Yes…Good. But how did
He
go
about creating
it? Did He
actually speak everything into existence
or did He use another process? Not
sure…huh? Well, what did
He tell us He did?
Shouldn’t that be the first place that we as Christians look, the
message that He sent us that transcends space and time, the one
containing
the most relevant timeless answers
to
the biggest questions in the universe, the
most accurately translated
and
most
printed document in History,
God’s Extraterrestrial Message
directly
from Him to us?
But how
do we know it
is true?
Well,
to be honest, this (as well as any other belief
system including Evolutionary ‘Theory’)
requires the “F-word”….
Faith.
What
lens do you use?
If we
look at the universe and all contained within it through the lens of Naturalism,
then
we are sure to only look at God’s Word as a book of values, morals, dogma, and
mythology. We will place our Faith
only in things that can be explained naturally without any possibility for
super-natural influence. No matter
what the evidence, we will not take into consideration
even
the remote possibility of something
non-Natural; and we would call ourselves ‘good
scientists’
in the process, saying that we are
not allowing any bias to taint our conclusions.
But on the other
hand, if we view the universe and all contained within it through the lens of Super-Naturalism,
then we will place our Faith in the Word of God. We
will use the Scientific Method
while assuming that the
Bible is Truth or as
Francis Schaeffer
put it
“true
Truth”.
This is not a naïve stance; what we are admitting is that everyone has a
bias, perspective or Worldview
by which they interpret the universe around them.
It is important to realize that we don’t need to try to
“prove”
the Bible true. The Bible is true
Truth, whether we believe it or not and whether or not we can find evidence
doesn’t change that fact.
For example,
before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the tallest mountain in the world?
Mt. Everest, of course!
Facts don’t
change just because of our limited or incorrect understanding of them.
The
first thing we must do is look at the Bible and determine how much of it we
believe. Do
we believe it in part or in whole? If in part,
then which
parts do we throw out and why? If in whole,
then how can we be sure that we aren’t being duped?
If the Bible is “true Truth” then it is the Absolute
Authority in all matters on which it touches, and the Worldview it puts
forth is applicable to all areas of life, we must then
accept it in whole. If, it is not
“true
Truth”
in even one area, then it cannot be trusted at all.
In this case, it is
“All or Nothing”! We
cannot pick and choose or play “Bible Roulette”
and just throw the dice to see what we believe.
We must also understand that God means what He says, and everything He
says is important and necessary.
5
“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in
him.” (Proverbs 30:5 NIV)
We
must take care not to blend the ways of the world with the ways of God.
12
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to
death.” (Proverbs 14:12 NIV)
So
did God create the universe the way He said he did in Genesis or did He ‘Monkey
Around’?
What we are talking about is Theistic
Evolution, or Progressive
Creation to some.
It is the idea that God started things off and then used Darwin’s ‘Theory’
of Evolution to make things come about. There
are differing views within the Theistic Evolutionary camp, some believe that God
is sort of like a watchmaker and just wound things up and let ‘Evolution’
take place, this is more of a Deist stance.
Others believe that God had a hand throughout the Evolutionary process
and intervened from time to time controlling certain areas that needed help and
made sure things went in the right direction.
They say this is why there is obvious elements of ‘Design’
throughout
the universe.
Both
are very wrong.
When looking at these arguments what we are seeing is the Dialectic
Process as it pertains to the “Creation
Myth”.
On one hand we have the Biblical account of Genesis (Thesis),
on the other hand we have “Scientific Facts”
of Darwinistic Evolution
(Antithesis),
when the two are blended we reach Theistic Evolution (Consensus
or Compromise)…for a more detailed
explanation of the Dialectic Process, see our article entitled Spiritual
Warfare and the Dialectic Process: Sucking
the Poison from the Snakebite…
How
long did it take?
For
many years almost everyone has been taught in school that everything is a result
of natural evolution over billions of years starting with the ‘primordial
soup’. But
the Bible nowhere allows for billions of years, according to the Bible (if
you do the math) the Earth, and the universe are no
more than 10,000 years old (being generous—it’s
probably closer to 6,000).
The Bible is God’s written communication to us.
Why would He say that everything was created in six days if it actually
took billions of years? It just
doesn’t make any sense. Why would
He say ‘six days’
if He meant
‘six ages’
or ‘six thousand years’.
This is in reference to the word ‘day’
in the Genesis account. In Hebrew
the word
‘day’ as
used in the Creation account is ‘yom’.
Some will argue that the word ‘yom’ can mean ‘a
24 hour period, daylight, age, expanse of time, eon’.
But they fail to realize the context of the word and how it is used.
In Hebrew, just as in English the word ‘day’ can have many meanings
and the implied
and
intended meaning
depends upon the
context of the sentence
in which it is used. For example,
“In
my Grandfathers day, it took six days to drive across the United
States during the day.”
If English is your native tongue, then you understand what I was trying
to get across.
“In
my Grandfathers time or age, it took six 24 hour periods to drive
across the United States during the daylight.”
So, if context
is important, then how is the word ‘yom’ used in
context,
in Genesis.
Hebrew
scholars will tell you that if there is a number associated with the word
‘yom’ and/or those numbers are in sequence then it means a 24 hour period.
Furthermore, if there is an indication of sunrise and sunset, then it
means a 24 hour period. As is the
case in the Genesis account, the ‘days’ are numbered and in sequence, i.e. “
the first day…the second day…” etc.
Furthermore, there is an indication of sunrise and sunset connected to the
‘days’, i.e. “ and the evening and the
morning were…” It also never ceases to amaze me
that the only time that the definition of the word ‘yom’ is in contention is
in the Genesis account of creation. The
word ‘yom’ appears 2239
times in Scripture of those 2239 times it literally means
‘day—a
24 hour period’ 1270 times, it means ‘days—multiple
24 hour periods’ 669 times, ‘time’ 58
times, ‘year’ 7 times, and ‘age’
only 6
times. Scripture plainly intends for us to understand that God
created everything in the space of six 24 hour periods, i.e. six literal days of
Creation. At last count, 6
days doesn’t equal ‘billions of years’ and is
therefore not enough time for God to ‘Monkey
Around’
and use natural evolution to get
everything done.
What’s
in a Worldview?
Others will argue that when Jesus said;
6“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’” (Mark 10:6 NIV)
that He
was only speaking on the subject of divorce.
I agree the preceding text (in context)
is speaking about divorce, but
why would Jesus say that humans were ‘at the beginning of creation’
if they
were not. If humans were not there
‘at the beginning of creation’, He could have made the same point by simply
saying, “God did not intend for man and
woman to divorce, so unless there is marital infidelity, don’t get
divorced.” Some will continue this argument agreeing
that God didn’t intend for man and woman to divorce, but Jesus said that Moses
had given them permission to give a ‘writ of divorce’
to their spouse and
that this is evidence that God ‘changed
how He does things’ and
say that this establishes a precedent for God using Evolution in creation.
They have faulty logic in this. They
presume that if something is not as God intended it that God can change.
But scripture says that;
17Because
God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the
heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. (Hebrews 6:17 NIV [emphasis
added])
God’s
purpose doesn’t change therefore He doesn’t change.
What we see is God’s Grace in action.
The Biblical Worldview for a Christian, that is, what the Bible
emphasizes as its foundation are these four pillars:
God’s Intended Creation (His purpose for everything and everyone)
Man’s Fall (this tainted God’s creation with sin, not as He intended—God didn’t change anything, mankind did.)
God’s Redemption (His Grace in action in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ—God still hasn’t changed, He wants to fix the problem mankind has made.)
God’s Restoration (His Restoration of His Creation back to His original intended purpose—accomplished through the finished works of Jesus Christ—Notice that God still hasn’t changed.)
The
Apostle Paul wrote;
21”whom
heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has
spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”
(Acts 3:21 KJV [emphasis added])
20For
since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power
and divine nature—have been clearly seen, [by whom if not humans] being
understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans
1:20 NIV [emphasis added])
If we
insert billions/millions of years anywhere into the Biblical account, if we add
a process into Creation that is opposite or in disagreement with what God has
given us in His Word or if we take words away from what He has said, we are in
danger.
18I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this
book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described
in this book. 19And if anyone takes words away from this book of
prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the
holy city, which are described in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19 NIV)
The
‘book’ that is referred to isn’t just the book of Revelation; it is the
entire Word of God, for if we change even the smallest part of God’s Word we
are setting ourselves up as our own god. For
Jesus the Christ is the Word made flesh.
1In
the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He
was with God in the beginning.3Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made.
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the
Father, full of grace and truth.
(John 1:1-3, 14 NIV [emphasis added])
We
cannot hope to reconcile Evolution with the Bible; they are as oil
and water, and they just don’t mix. If you do mix them,
as in Theistic Evolution, then you have neither.
There are other problems with Evolution other than the fact that they disagree with the Bible; they question the scientific validity of the theory. I will only mention a few of them here.
The
following were copied from The Institute for Creation Research
Impact #384 Evidence for a Young World, D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D.,
Associate Professor of Physics at ICR (June 2005)
Comets disintegrate too
quickly.
According
to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the Solar
System, about 5 billion years old. Yet
each time a comet orbits close to the Sun, it loses so much of its material that
it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years.
Many comets have typical ages of less than 10,000 years old1.
Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a)
comets come from an unobserved spherical
“Oort
Cloud” well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b)
improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often
knock comets into the Solar system, and (c)
other
improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough
to account for the hundreds of comets observed.2 So
far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or
realistic calculations. Lately,
there has been much talk of the “Kuiper Belt,” a
disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the Solar System just
outside the orbit of Pluto. Some
asteroid-sized bodies of ice exist in that location, but they do not solve the
evolutionists’ problem, since according to evolutionary theory, the Kuiper
Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were
no Oort Cloud
to
supply it.
I find it interesting that the only way Evolutionists can ‘explain’ the discrepancy is basically to make up something like an “Oort Cloud” or “Kuiper Belt”, neither of which have been observed to even exist! Yet, this is still called ‘good science’ because the only other thing to do is admit that there is no proof in comets of any astronomical age past 10,000 years old!
Biological
material decays too fast.
Natural
radioactivity, mutation, and decay degrade DNA and other biological material
rapidly. Measurements of the
mutation rate of mitochondrial DNA recently forced researchers to revise the age
of “mitochondrial Eve”
from a theorized 200,000 years down to possibly as low as 6,000 years3.
DNA experts insist that DNA cannot exist in natural environments longer
than 10,000 years, yet intact strands of DNA appear to have been recovered from
fossils allegedly much older: Neanderthal
bones, insects in amber, and even from dinosaur fossils.4
Bacteria allegedly 250 million years old
apparently have been revived with no DNA damage.5
Soft tissue and blood cells from a dinosaur have astonished experts.6
Interesting how a few facts can mess up a ‘Theory’. So far, so good. All of the evidence is supporting the literal Word of God and a Young Earth, not billions of years. Let’s take a look at some more.
Not
enough Stone Age skeletons.
Evolutionary anthropologists
now say that Homo sapiens existed for at least 185,000 years before agriculture began, 7 during which
time the world population of humans was roughly constant, between one and ten
million. All that time they were
burying their dead, often with artifacts. By
that scenario, they would have buried at least eight billion bodies.8
If the evolutionary time scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last
for much longer than 200,000 years, so many of the supposed eight billion stone
age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artifacts). Yet
only a few thousand have been found. This
implies that the Stone Age was much shorter than evolutionists think, perhaps
only a
few hundred years in
many areas.
The
only reason there is age discrepancies between the Biblical account and
Evolution is that in order for evolution to be true, it would have to have taken
billions of years. If it didn't evolve, then it is not necessary to have
billions of years in the process. In other words, proponents of Theistic
Evolution have greater faith in Evolution than they do in the Bible, and
Evolution is unworthy of that kind of faith.
As
you can see, there are many problems with Darwinistic Evolution alone.
Why would one want to believe that God did things by trial and error ‘in
the beginning’ and then pulled a fast one on us
and didn’t tell us in His Word? It
just doesn’t fit the rest of the picture does it?
You see God didn’t Monkey Around
with Creation; it happened just the way He said
it did in His Word. We see that the
evidence supports the Word of God; this is how
we can know it is true, and therein lays our
hope.
5And
hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts
by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. 6You
see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the
ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for
a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates
his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
(Romans 5:4-8 NIV)
So
how does the
Bible say that God created everything? Well…He
spoke it…and it was so.
Did
it really happen that way?
The evidence shows that His Word is ‘true
Truth’ it doesn’t invent Oort
Clouds or Kuiper Belts
at all…but at some point, you do have to have…FAITH!
Remember, it doesn’t mean Blind Faith,
just Real Faith…with
Reason.
11Then
God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on
the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.”
And it was so. (Genesis 1:11 NIV)
21So
God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing
with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird
according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:21 NIV)
25God
made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their
kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their
kinds. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:25 NIV)
27So
God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and
female he created them. (Genesis 1:27 NIV)
The mammals didn’t come
from the fish, and nothing came from the ‘primordial soup’ and it didn’t
take billions or millions of years, it took just 6 days for God to make all that
there is. Each animal after its
kind, and in like fashion, God
didn’t Monkey Around
when it came to you and me.
Three
monkeys sat in a coconut tree
Discussing things as they are said to be
Said one to the others, "Now listen, you two,
There’s a rumor around that can’t be true
That man descended from our noble race
The very idea is a great disgrace."
"No monkey has ever deserted his wife
Starved her babies and ruined her life
And you’ve never known a mother monk
To leave her babies with others to bunk
Or pass from one on to another
Till they scarcely knew who is their mother.
Or build a fence around a coconut tree
Why
starvation would cause you to steal from me."
"Here’s another thing a monkey won’t do
Go out at night and get in a stew
Or use a gun or club or knife
To take some other monkey’s life
Yes, man descended, the ornery cuss
But, Praise the Lord, it wasn’t from us."
—Author Unknown
Mark Long
25 July 2005
Bibliography
1. Steidl, P.F., Planet, comets, and asteroids, Design and Origins in Astronomy, pp. 73-106, G. Mulfinger, ed,. Creation Research society Books (1983)
2. Whipple, F. L., Background of modern comet theory, Nature 263:15-19 (2 September 1976). Lievison, H.F. et al. See also: the mass disruption of Oort Cloud comets, Science 296:2212-2215 (21 June 2002).
3. Gibbons, A., Calibrating the mitochondrial clock, Science 279:28-29 (2 January 1998).
4. Cherfas, H., Ancient DNA: still busy after death, Science 253:1354-1356 (20 September 1991). Cano, R. J., H. N. Poinar, N.H. Pieniazek, A. Acra, and G.O. Poinar, Jr. Amplification and sequencing of DNA from a 120-135-million-year-old weevil, Nature 363:536-8 (10 June 1993.) Krings, M., A. Stone, R.W. Schmitz, H. Krainitzki, M. Stoneking, and S. Paabo, Neandertal DNA sequences and the origin of modern humans, Cell 90:19-30 (11 July 1997.) Lindahl, T, Unlocking nature’s ancient secrets, Nature 413:358-359 (27 September 2001.)
5. Vreeland, R. H., W. D. Rosenzweig, and D. W. Powers, Isolation of a 250 million-year-old halotolerant bacterium from a primary salt crystal, Nature 407:897-900 (19 October 2000.)
6. Schweitzer, M., J.L. Wittmeyer, H.R. Horner, and J.K. Toporski, Soft-Tissue vessels and cellular preservation in Tyrannosaurs rex, Science 207:1952-1955 (25 march 2005)
7. McDougall, I., F.H. Brown, and J.G. Fleagle, Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia, Nature 433(7027): 733-736 (17 February 2005)
8. Deevy, E. S., The human population, Scientific American 203:194-204 (September 1960)