Debate over evolution continues
The ongoing debate over worldviews between evolutionists and those who believe in creationism is far from ended.
It is not an argument between science and religion as most evolutionists loudly insist. Neither is this a contention about “facts” verses feelings. Nor is it reason and reality opposing superstition and folklore.
There are gifted and eminent scientists who may be found in either group. For example, Dr. Raymond Damadian, the inventor of the MRI, used world-wide in medical diagnoses, is an avowed believer in Creationism as are many other notable men and women of science. The main argument then is about “ultimate authority.” It is a conflict about “belief systems.” Is the ultimate authority regarding human purpose, destiny, behavior and the determination of what is real and true to be found in man or God?
After a number of years in secular state colleges, it is no surprise to me that the atheists, naturalists, and secularists would aggressively promote evolution. What does bother me are the religious “fence straddlers.” It is the professing Christians who are either too cowardly or unwilling to be perceived as ignorant and unlearned or backward who are most harmful. These advocates of “theistic evolution” who claim that this issue is irrelevant and that both theories may be true in their own realm is absurd and debases both science and Christianity.
All arguments and counter arguments aside, there are real and legitimate consequences which Christians must face if evolution is true and the first 11 chapters of Genesis are nothing more than ancient superstition. Among these are the following:
1. When in the Bible does God begin to tell the truth?
2. Was Jesus lying, mistaken, or ignorant when he spoke about people and events in Genesis such as Adam and Eve and Noah’s flood?
3. How can Christians claim that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God, filled with wisdom and truth, without sin and a perfect substitute for our sin if he was clearly mistaken or misled about the historicity of people and events?
4. If Christ and the bible are wrong and unreliable regarding the teaching of humanity’s past, how may they be trusted or relied on for teachings about the future?
5. If the miraculous and divine are removed from the Bible and Christ, then his person and alleged life are meaningless. It means he healed no diseases. He did no miracles. He died no vicarious death nor did he rise from the dead. He was not the wisdom of God and his life and death and shed blood are no more meaningful than is any other man’s. In a word, there is no hope for any of us.
6. Two plus centuries of Christianity are abolished. Any alleged purpose or plan or design of God in any aspect of our life or the events of this world is utter foolishness, non-existent, and a fantasy.
7. Life-past, present, and future- is nothing more than a hopeless fatalism. Every instance of pain, every time of suffering, every tear is without significance. The greatest misery of suffering is not due to the physical or even emotional pain.
It comes when there is a denial, or doubting that the suffering has a purpose. We can handle suffering so long as we can see purpose in it. But the evolutionist rightly sees neither rhyme nor reason for any event in our life or even for life itself. Carl Sagan, the renowned physicist and evolutionist crusader, claimed that he had devoted much of his life ” to debunking the absurdity of a personal God who intervenes in lives or who even cares about individuals.” Sagan continues with, “Our existence itself is but a random, insignificant and meaningless nothing. There is no purpose or reality other than the survival of those most fit. The secrets of evolution are time and death- time for the slow accumulation of favorable mutations and death to make room for new species. Any compassion to the weak and helpless is misguided and merely delays the inevitable.”
Creationism or evolution. Which view is reality? We must each “fill in the blank.” In the beginning,_________
William “Ed” Nicholson is a resident of Dunbar.