Chapter
I - Introduction
There are many reasons why evolution cannot be accepted
as being how the animal and vegetable creation came into being. Reasons that
come to mind are listed in my next chapter. However certain things need I think
to be said first.
(1)
If we follow what is said in the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament) we
cannot without straining the text to an unreasonable degree make the idea of
evolution fit into it.
(2)
The theory of evolution makes everything come into existence by mechanistic
processes. Intelligence is shut out, because effectively that brings God into
the picture and that cannot be entertained, because science cannot research
God!
(3)
Following on from (2) above it is clear that most evolutionists are
materialists, that is, they do not admit the existence of what is spiritual.
This is clearly contrary to what is taught in the Bible, because we have there
what is spiritual as well as what is material, for example, Paul speaks of
“flesh and spirit” (2 Corinthians
7:1). A concordance will show many other passages. On the other hand we do not
want to become spiritualists like the so-called Christian scientists. Mrs. Eddy
wrote: “Divine metaphysics explains away matter. Spirit is
the only substance and consciousness recognised by divine Science” (Science and
Health page 278). This is going to the other extreme.
(4)
Effectively those that espouse evolutionism are idolaters, that is, they simply
make man arise from what is material. Intelligence is shut out. In Jeremiah
2:26/27 we have: “As a thief is ashamed when he is found, so shall the house of
Israel be ashamed - they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and
their prophets - saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou
hast brought me forth”. I have no doubt that the scientific establishment will
have to admit that they have gone off the rails in taking evolutionism on
board. In other words, teaching that all living things just came into existence
from inanimate matter without a mind being involved.
(5)
What I have written in my book “Creation as presented in the Bible and to
Common Sense” goes into in some depth what the Bible teaches as to creation and
also to what can be seen by simply using our common sense. Personally, I have
no doubt that evolutionists have a beam in their spiritual eyesight (Matthew
7:3-5) which is hindering their vision so that they cannot see that what they
are so dogmatically maintaining is wrong.
(6)
In my last book on the subject of creation (see (5) above) I pointed out that
what we have in Genesis 1:2 is a newly born earth and gave reasons for what I
wrote, referring particularly to Job 38:8/9. Since then I have ascertained that
the idea is not modern but was held by the Greek philosopher, Philolaus. He is reported to have said: “There is an
analogy between the birth of a human being and the birth of the cosmos.”
(Christianity Restored Part I, page 322, note 110) This is not so strange if we
consider that in the heavens there are such things as black holes into which
stars can disappear. Is it not possible that the earth came out of one when it
was born?
(7)
One has also noticed that Michael Servetus who was burned to the stake by the
Calvinists took the waters above the heavens in Genesis 1:6-9 to be literally
rainwater as I am inclined to do (Christianity Restored Part I, page 303). He
also held that the the earth “bore animals which it
possessed within itself” (page 309). The existence of fossils appears to
support this thought, if we consider that they are simply the form of the
creatures that came out of the earth. This is in accord with my own suggestion,
but I would not be dogmatic. However, I cannot envisage any other way that the
fossils for the most part got into the layers in the earth, if we accept that
the layers were laid down when the earth was brought into existence as
described in Genesis one. The layers are too orderly to have been laid down in
the flood. I can see no reason for making the flood an agent of creation. If
the earth had been completely changed by a violent flood the ark would almost
certainly have been wrecked, or, if not, the animals in it, as well as Noah and
his family would have been injured if not killed by the violence involved. I
appreciate that the form of the ark was such that it would have been stable on
the waters, but one cannot assume that it would have remained steady if there
were great tsunamis washing over it. To maintain that it was, one would have to
introduce the thought that there were miracles involved about which Scripture
says nothing. Further, we are told that
all animals outside the ark died, but nothing about fishes dying. No doubt some
did die as a result of rushing rivers, etc. but what the Scripture says does
not fit with the evidence that most fossils are of fishes. Apart from the flood
we know that there are such things as earthquakes, erupting volcanoes and
tsunamis that could affect the earth’s surface and may well involve the burial
of creatures in the earth when they are overwhelmed by volcanic ash or
whatever. All this bears thinking about. Those that hold the gap theory to
explain the existence of the fossils that are in the earth, effectively bring a
judgment into Genesis 1 about which Scripture says nothing. However, making the
flood account for the layers in the earth laid down by water effectively makes
the flood creatorial. Here we must say that Scripture says nothing about such
creatorial work in connection with the flood. We must of course distinguish
such things as frozen Mammoths from fossils properly speaking.
(8)
Today we have two main strands of anti-evolutionist organisations. On the one
hand, there is the creationist strand and, on the other, the intelligent design
strand. The strength of the creationist strand in my view is that, in addition
to the creation which shows the wisdom that was involved in the making of it,
it also shows that the creation is fallen and therefore there are the effects
of this in the world we see around us. If the creationists have a weakness it
is that they have not convincing scriptural answers to the evolutionists in
every respect. The intelligent design movement’s strength lies in the fact that
there is abundant evidence of design in the universe and this
shows beyond reasonable doubt that there was a designer whatever the
materialists may dogmatically assert. Their weakness is that they have not
always got a convincing reason for the evil that is in the world. In order to
explain this one has to go to the early chapters of Genesis which tell us of
man’s fall.
(9)
In June 1979 I wrote: “The ancient HISTORY of man, recorded in Genesis may in
due time be corroborated by archaeological evidence,
other ancient records, etc. but the CREATION itself can never I think be
corroborated in this way. Fossils may disclose something of physical history,
but they do not disclose spiritual origins. Neither can we expect to find in
man’s history books a true account of his own origins, for the simple reason
that he was not there to witness them. While therefore further scientific
discoveries may prove theories of the origin of physical phenomena, such as
evolution wrong, they will never go so far as to prove the Bible right. If they
could it would cease to be necessary to have faith to “apprehend that the
worlds were framed by the word of God” (Hebrews 11:3)”. If the intelligent
design movement wins the day, the scientific establishment will have to give
evolution up, but the question of how the cosmos came into existence will
remain something to be known only by divine revelation which is accepted by
faith.
(10)
The evolutionist’s great fault is that he leaves out intelligence, and
therefore God, in the organisation of the cosmos. The creationist’s mistake is
often to leave out the matter of work (directed energy) in the organisation of
the cosmos. Further, he is liable to think of Genesis 1 as the creation of
everything, whereas it actually only covers the material creation that we see
around us and does not cover the heavens in which God dwells and the invisible
thrones, etc. that we get spoken of in Colossians 1:16.
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