Anchor Points
"My Father’s World"
Genesis 1:1-25
February 6, 2000
Anchor Point #2:
God has created all that is...
Introduction
¡§Inherit the Wind¡¨ ¡V A Cinematic Travesty
¡§I was postmodern, when postmodern wasn¡¦t cool!¡¨
Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee were men ahead of their time! They wrote the script for the 1960 film ¡§Inherit the Wind¡¨, for which Spencer Tracy received an Academy Award nomination for best actor. So popular was the film that it was reprised in a made-for-TV movie in 1988 starring Kirk Douglas and Jason Robards. Based upon the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial regarding the teaching of evolution in Tennessee public schools, the cinematic version contains breathtaking historical revisionism. For writers Lawrence and Lee, the truth about the historical events mattered little; certainly not enough to get in the way of a good story. Toward end of the story, defense attorney Henry Drummond (film counterpart of Clarence Darrow, the real-life attorney) is left alone onstage in the courtroom with his reflections. He picks up a copy of Darwin¡¦s Origin of Species and a copy of the Bible, ¡§balancing them thoughtfully, as if his hands were scales. He half-smiles, half-shrugs¡¨, then jams the two books together into his briefcase. The intended symbolism is that the Bible and Darwinism can co-exist.
Central point: ¡§The Bible and Darwin can balance each other, if we allow (evolutionists) to do the balancing.¡¨ ¡V from Defeating Darwinism by Phillip Johnson
Darwinism vs. Christianity: What are the stakes?
3 Possibilities:
1. The ¡§Grape Nuts¡¨ Solution ¡V Theistic Evolution
A Convoluted Attempt at Synthesis
¡§I am still a creationist and now I am also an evolutionist!¡KEvolution is the science that studies how God created the species.¡¨ --posted on the Internet by a European college student
Problem is that it doesn¡¦t square with Scripture¡Xwe have to take a diminished view of Scripture in order to believe this. Nor can the committed Darwinist buy into this approach. Like GRAPE NUTS: No grapes, no nuts!
2. The ¡§98-Lb. Weakling God¡¨ Solution ¡V ¡§Different planes of truth¡¨
A Condescending Attempt at Appeasement
¡§(It is) false¡Kto think that the theory of evolution represents an irreconcilable conflict between religion and science¡KA great many religious leaders accept evolution on scientific grounds without relinquishing their belief in religious principles. As stated in a resolution by the Council of the National Academy of Sciences in 1981, however, ¡§Religion and science are separate and mutually exclusive realms of human thought whose presentation in the same context leads to misunderstanding of both scientific theory and religious belief.¡¨
--Frank Press, President of the National Academy of Sciences, in
Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences
¡§I take it as now self-evident, requiring no further special discussion, that evolution and true religion are compatible.¡¨ --George Gaylord Simpson
¡§Stephen Jay Gould condescendingly offers to allow religious people to express their
subjective opinions about morals, provided they don¡¦t interfere with the authority of scientists to determine the ¡¥facts¡¦¡Xone of the facts being that God is merely a comforting myth.¡¨
-- Phillip Johnson, in The Church of Darwin, published in Wall Street Journal, 8/16/99
This is the ¡§Inherit the Wind¡¨ approach: you can take the Bible together with Darwinism, as long as we all understand that the Bible is just myth as opposed to fact. You can talk about God if you like, says Darwinist, so long as you don¡¦t assign Him any meaningful function¡Xa 98-lb. weakling God is acceptable! There may be no contradiction between some forms of religion and Darwinism¡Xbut that religion is BOGUS religion!
3. The ¡§To the Death¡¨ Solution ¡V Winner takes All!
Two Mutually-Exclusive Approaches
¡§The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised,
impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments.¡¨
--1995 Position Statement of the American National Association of Biology Teachers
¡§Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.¡¨
-- George Gaylord Simpson
¡§In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.¡¨
-- Genesis 1:1
This is what is at stake; nothing less. The entire system of Christianity collapses if Darwinism is true. The entire Darwinist apparatus is bogus if ¡§in the beginning, God created.¡¨ No ground can be given by either side on the basic question of origins; there is truly a mutual exclusivity to the 2 positions!
The Darwinist Approach (Underlies both Modernism and Post-Modernism)
1. Darwinism involves more of a philosophical commitment than an evidential commitment!
¡§Oops, your prejudice is showing!¡¨
Writing that scientists must stick to philosophical materialism regardless of the evidence, one writer justifies this on the grounds that ¡§we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.¡¨
-- Richard Lewontin
Darwin ¡§made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.¡¨
-- Richard Dawkins
¡§Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule. Rule No. 1: ¡¥Let¡¦s see how far and to what extent we can explain the behavior of the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and material causes, without invoking the supernatural.¡¨
-- Richard Dickerson, an expert in chemical evolution
Scientific American displayed this attitude several years ago in firing a new
writer several years ago when they found out he was a non-believer in Darwinism, even though his work was not deficient nor was he writing in an area that touched on origins!
„h Doesn¡¦t allow that the evidence might lead back to God. God is A PRIORI ruled out!
„h Shouldn¡¦t science be about testing the evidence and following it¡Xwherever it leads?
„h Phillip Johnson asked, ¡§What question do the Darwinists fear the most? What makes them most angry?¡¨ REPLY ¡V ¡§What if the physical evidence is at odds with the philosophy that nature is all there is?¡¨
2. Darwinists regularly play logical and semantic games, often playing fast and loose with the truth!
¡§Is evolution true? Well, YES! And NO!¡¨
I am using the term ¡§Darwinism¡¨ rather than ¡§evolution¡¨ for just this reason; the fact is that we cannot speak of the bare term ¡§evolution¡¨ as being true or false, for it is both. It means ¡§change¡¨, and everyone acknowledges that change DOES take place. We call the relatively minor adaptations that creatures sometimes make MICRO-evolution; UNDENIABLE! The idea that new species came into being through chance/natural selection, that there was an upward evolution from the amino acids and primordial ooze right up to present-day WWF wrestlers (well, maybe that¡¦s a bad example) is what we call MACRO-evolution.
„h The Old ¡§Bait n¡¦ Switch¡¨ ¡V ¡§Micro¡¨ vs. ¡§Macro¡¨ evolution
Darwinists often point to examples of MICRO-evolution and then use those
examples to try to prove MACRO-evolution (peppered moths, Galapagos finches, etc.).
„h Ad Hominem Attacks
It gets UGLY! The recent attacks on the Kansas State Board of Education
(in which their decision was misrepresented consistently and where they were likened to, of all things, Neanderthals!) reflect this. Richard Dawkins ¡V ¡§It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked¡K). Interestingly, ironically, astonishingly, he says that what he dislikes re creationists is that they are intolerant!
„h Straw Man Arguments
For instance, taking the WORST of the scientific claims made by
creationists and using those to paint all creationists with that brush.
„h Selective Use of the Evidence
National Academy of Sciences, an organization which loses credibility when
it attempts to speak on origins, has at times resorted to attempts to outright CON people when it comes to the nature of the evidence. In its 1998 booklet ¡§Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science¡¨ prepared for public school teachers, evidence is selectively used and contrary evidence is willfully not mentioned!
3. Darwinists come up short when it comes to the actual evidence!
The ¡§Joe Friday¡¨ Problem¡¨:
A. ¡§Irreducible Complexity¡¨
Molecular mechanisms are irreducibly complex. They are made up of many parts that interact in complex ways, and all of the parts need to work together. Any single part has no useful function unless all the other parts are also present. Darwinism suggests a tiny step-by-step development, but this cannot answer this problem.
Without being able to explain the ¡§Just the facts, Ma¡¦am.¡¨
mechanism which produces such complexity
as exists in a single cell, you cannot establish
the validity of Darwinism. Amazingly, Darwinists
have hardly even attempted such an explanation!
B. ¡§The DNA Problem¡¨
DNA carries genetic information that is passed down from generation to generation.
But there are two domains involved in DNA: the medium and the message. The DNA molecule itself is the medium, but does not explain where the message comes from!
*ILLUSTRATION ¡V OVERHEAD, NOTE PAPER, DISKETTE
C. ¡§Statistical Probability¡¨
The fifteen-billion-year estimate as to the age of the earth given by Darwinists simply doesn¡¦t allow enough time for the myriad of evolutionary changes to take place which are suggested by Darwinism.
D. ¡§Fossil Frauds and Foibles¡¨
Taken as a whole, the fossil record is a disappointment to Darwinists.
¡§Archaeoraptor¡¨
(The Latest Fraud!)
National Geographic, in its Nov. 99 issue, labeled a new fossil of a critter they called ¡§Archaeoraptor¡¨ as a ¡§true missing link in the complex chain that connects dinosaurs and birds.¡¨ Well, the link is still missing, I¡¦m afraid; USA TODAY, Jan. 25, ¡§The ¡¥missing link¡¦ dinosaur-bird featured by National Geographic magazine in November is a fake! It is either, acc. to the article, an ¡§honest mistake¡Kor¡K a breathtaking forgery.¡¨ With egg on its face, NG claimed that the article would have been yanked had the truth been known. Not so, acc. to Storrs Olson, curator of birds at Smithsonian¡¦s Natural History Museum. He warned NG back in November that it was a fake, but NG ran with the story anyway. Says Mr. Olson, ¡§The problem is, at some point the fossil was known by Geographic to be a fake, and that information was not revealed.¡¨ Add Archaeoraptor to the list that includes Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, and other fakes; add to this the overall disappointing evidence from the fossil record, and Darwinism has more egg on its face.
4. Darwinism, as Christianity, must at some point take a step of faith!
¡§We¡¦ve got a shortage of eyewitnesses!¡¨
¡§By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God.¡¨ Hebrews 11:3
Either explanation of origins ultimately requires placing faith in something. Frankly, I don¡¦t have enough faith to believe in Darwinism!
According to Darwinist Richard Dawkins, each single CELL ¡§contains a digitally-coded database larger, in information content, than all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica put together.¡¨ AND THIS HAPPENED BY CHANCE???
The Genesis Account
1. God, the uncreated First Cause, by His spoken word created the universe, thus establishing a particular relationship between Himself and His creation. ¡§And God said¡K¡¨
A. God is above His universe.
B. God is distinct from His universe. As opposed to pantheism, which suggests that God is in everything, and that everything is God.
C. God is the only allowable deity in His universe.
¡§I am the LORD; that is My Name; my glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to graven images.¡¨ ¡V Isaiah 42:8
THIS IS WHY WORLD MISSIONS MATTERS! FOR US TO NOT CARE ABOUT WORLD MISSIONS/EVANGELISM IS TO NOT ULTIMATELY CARE ABOUT THE GLORY OF GOD! ¡§Oh, God, get over it! What¡¦s the big deal if people worship other gods?¡¨ This is why postmodernist pluralism is antithetical to Christianity.
2. God is then in charge of space-time history, which has a definite beginning and a definite purpose.
And in a postmodern world searching for meaning/purpose in life¡Xremember last week¡¦s questions: 1.) Who am I?; 2.) Why am I here?; 3.) Where am I going?¡Xwe can with confidence say that there is an answer to those questions, and it is bound up in an understanding that ¡§in the beginning, God created¡K¡¨
3. Everything in God¡¦s universe is said to be ¡§good¡¨.
A. By definition, God¡¦s creation is ¡§good¡¨ in its relation to its being created by God.
B. It is ¡§good¡¨ in that it is beneficial for the crowning achievement of His creation: man. NEXT WEEK!
C. The goodness of God¡¦s creation sets the stage for what goes wrong in the world: sin. THE WEEK AFTER NEXT!
Implications of the Genesis Account of Creation
1. God¡¦s creation is sufficient reason to praise Him.
¡§Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.¡¨ Rev. 4:11
¡§The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.¡¨ Ps. 19:1-4
2. Man is responsible to God for his actions. NEXT WEEK!
3. History has order and meaning. SAID ABOVE.
Encouraging Recent Developments
1. Significant scientific works have begun to buttress an intellectually defensible Argument from Design.
„h Darwin¡¦s Black Box by Michael Behe
„h Intelligent Design by William Dembski
„h Darwinism: Science or Philosophy? ed. Jon Buell & Virginia Hearn
„h Genesis and the Big Bang: The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and the Bible by Gerald Schroeder
2. Several non-scientific works have exposed the poor logic and bad arguments advanced by leading Darwinists.
„h Darwin on Trial by Phillip Johnson
„h Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds by Phillip Johnson
3. Even some Darwinists are making honest admissions regarding the improbability of their own arguments¡Xeven if unwilling to abandon them.
Consider, for instance, the words of these Darwinists:
Richard Dawkins ¡V ¡§Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.¡¨ Of course, he then goes on to try to prove that, despite appearances, this cannot be true.
Paul Davies, a prof of mathematical physics, in The 5th Miracle: The Search for the Origin of Life: Said that not long ago, he thought that science was close to solving the mystery (of origins) but upon investigating the subject to write the book, he became convinced that ¡§we are missing something fundamental about the whole business.¡¨
Practical Thoughts as we Stand for Truth
1. Let¡¦s not fight our allies! There is Biblical room for legitimate disagreement over details; these are intramural squabbles!
„h ¡§Young earth¡¨/ ¡§Old earth¡¨ creationists
„h Six 24-hour days creationists / ¡§Day-age¡¨ theorists
„h ¡§Gappers¡¨ / ¡§Non-gappers¡¨
2. It is a noble calling to ¡§join the Wedge¡¨(Johnson). This is a group of scientist who are using ¡§wedge¡¨ strategies to earn a hearing for the argument for Intelligent Design (creation).
3. We must employ critical thinking as we consider the claims of Darwinism. Some suggestions from Phillip Johnson:
„h Learn to distinguish between what scientists assume and what they investigate.
„h Learn to use terms precisely and consistently.
„h Keep your eye on the question of the mechanism of evolution.
„h Learn the difference between testing a theory against the evidence and using selected bits of evidence to support a theory.
„h Learn the difference between intelligent and unintelligent causes.
NY Times article on paleontology, speaking on some recent scientific discovery, reports this: ¡§This discovery dramatically curtails the time available for life to have evolved naturally on earth, and could focus more attention on the disputed hypothesis¡K¡¨ WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? CREATION? ¡§that life originated elsewhere in the universe and somehow reached the earth from afar.¡¨ I.e., Darwinism isn¡¦t working too well here; we¡¦ll see if it works on another planet! AMID THE GRASPING FOR STRAWS, STAND STRONG: ¡§In the beginning, God created!¡¨
