Lesson 10 – Engaging Society with a Creationist Worldview


See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.
-- Colossians 2:8

Speak the truth, but speak the truth in love.
-- Ephesians 4:15

I – UNDERSTANDING THE ENGAGEMENT

Every person starts the process of engaging an issue with pre-conceived notions about the matter. Each person explicitly or implicitly, consciously or unconsciously, decides ahead of time which self-evident truths they will accept and use to investigate and draw conclusions about a matter. This applies to all issues that we engage with our five sense (i.e., “inside the box” of naturalism as shown in the diagram in Lesson 3), as well as all philosophical and theological issues “outside the box” e.g., truth, goodness, beauty and origins. Before we even enter into a discussion, each of us has presuppositions regarding the eventual conclusion we reach --

• Is it good or bad?


• Is it noise or music?


• Am I in love or not?


• Is it God or nature?


• Is it a self-evident truth?


• Is it real or imagined?


• Was it created or did it somehow evolve?

Trying to prove ultimate premises is an absurdity. Naturalists recoil at the thought that they have ultimate premises. They think they start with a blank slate, but in fact they cannot afford to have their premises exposed to analysis. Most people don’t know that naturalism (nature is all there is) is only an assumption and not a fact. So they attempt to convince people, especially students, that the truth of naturalism has been verified by science. Science took a wrong turn when it allowed those in the academy to become devoted to the ideology of naturalism rather than insist, as their primary duty calls them, to test all reasonable theories impartially. For creationists the process is clear. The Bible says that God is real and nature is real, and we are to, “Test all things and hold fast only to that which is true” (1 Thess 5:21).

The basis for true science[i]

Naturalism, the ideology that there is no transcendent realm beyond nature, has become the dominant self-evident truth of science since Darwin’s day. As I previously stated, naturalism is not based on a scientific conclusion. Science cannot prove that “nature is all there is” anymore that religion can prove that God exists. A correct starting point for any discussion then is to realize that either or both premises must be assumed since neither can be proven. Without assumed philosophical presuppositions further discussion would be incoherent. To the unsuspecting public, and to the many scientists who are simply unaware of the difference between science and ideology, the presupposition of naturalism is portrayed as the only objective starting point. Both theism (God exists) and naturalism (only nature exists) are faith propositions and warrant the benefit of evidence gathering and logical analysis in any scientific investigation. The most scientific conclusion should be the one which has the best evidentiary support.

Originally science was conceived as the search for truth, wherever the path may lead. But naturalism artificially restricts scientific inquiry to only those paths which can be observed and measured. That means inquiry is artificially restricted to “objects” or “things” that can be inspected, experimented on, and ultimately controlled. Think about that for a moment. Think about truth, goodness and beauty. How about feelings; our spiritual dimension; our belief about God; our soul? These are not things that can be measured objectively with the 5 senses alone. Neither are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. These are all part of the human experience that separates us from things and animals. But these “things of real life” are not considered objectively real by the academy. The implicit naturalistic assumption is that someday these subjective phenomena will be reduced to chemistry and physics or to an equation and they will become objective. In this kind of system, one could never conclude that creation is a valid theory because the source of it (God) is eliminated from consideration before we even begin the inquiry.

C.S. Lewis warned that the rise of naturalism would lead to what he called “the abolition of man,” for it denies the reality of those things that are central to our humanity, e.g., our sense of right and wrong; of purpose; of beauty; of God. And, if we deny the things that make us truly human, then we will create a culture that is, by definition, inhuman, If we treat morality as totally subjective, then the culture will be stripped of all objective morality. If we deny the reality of human virtues that make us superior to the beasts, then those virtues whither away and reduce us to the level of beasts. Thus while science has created technological advances, it ends up destroying the very things that make life worth living. We gain control over the natural world at the cost of our own souls. “For men of old,” wrote Lewis, “the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline and virtue.” The purpose of life was defined in terms of the growth of the soul, and there was an abiding moral standard to which to conform. But for the contemporary, technological mindset, “the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.” This mindset acknowledges no abiding standards, so there is nothing to check the human desire for control and domination. Watch naturalistic scientists being interviewed on TV and you quickly realize that many have been stripped of their ability to evaluate the ethical consequences of their own work. Consider the current public discussion regarding stem-cell research and cloning. The debate is mostly about the technical aspects (What can be done?), seldom on the ethical implications (What should be done?). The Christian must play a key role in communicating with our friends, family and neighbors, and through the media about what it means to be human – to be created in the image of God and its profound moral implications. Ethical understanding has not kept pace with the brilliance of technological discovery and as a result, science and technology blunder on without any clear moral guidance. Christians are God’s agents to provide that guidance – especially Christians who are called into the field of science.

Yet despite the ominous weaknesses of naturalism, it is no easy task to dislodge it from its position of intellectual dominance. It has invested naturalistic scientists with enormous power. If science is the only source of knowledge, then their discipline trumps all others and they alone speak with authority to the culture. If Christians are to stand against the attacks on our faith made in the name of science, the first target needs not to be evolution but its underlying philosophical assumption – naturalism.

Naturalism is a self-contradicting assumption and is basically incoherent. If all human activity is reduced to naturalistic mechanisms, then so are the scientists who are expounding this philosophy. They would not be capable of transcending the natural world with an ability of unbiased rational thought, free deliberation, and the capability to formulate theory or recognize objective truth. The proponents of naturalism are claiming that they alone are the single glaring exception to their own assumption. This is blatant self-contradiction. Also, since naturalists assume that everything that exists is capable of being explained in terms of natural forces, then this very idea must be explainable in terms of natural forces, e.g. by brain chemistry. But if it is explained by brain chemistry alone, then it can be neither true nor false; neither rational nor irrational. How would one ever distinguish between a hallucination and reality if it is just a matter of brain chemistry? How would we ever know that the “idea” of naturalism was rational or illusionary? C.S. Lewis wrote, “In order to think, we must claim for our reasoning a validity which is not credible if our own thought is merely a function of our brain and our brain is a byproduct of irrational physical processes.” Our task as Christians is to expose the flaws in naturalism which has invested science with this ultimate intellectual authority. We must do it not because we are against science, but because it is antithetical to the original conception of science which is to seek truth wherever the path may lead.

II – UNDERSTANDING THE EVOLUTIONIST’S “RULES OF ENGAGEMENT”

Every civilization has its own creation myth. In our time and culture, evolution continues to be the official government-sponsored creation story. The prestigious National Academy of Science states it this way, “Much as Darwin proposed, natural selection is the process that gives direction to evolution [and] .... accounts for the apparent design of organisms ... Adaptations, whether expressed as simple metabolic reactions or as a complicated organ like the human eye, are considered by the overwhelming majority of biologists to be the result of natural selection.”[ii] To the scientific community evolution is not a theory, it is fact; macroevolution is a proven extrapolation of microevolution (adaptation) and is held beyond reproach, even though much evidence disconfirms it. Darwinian theory gave a scientific basis for man to brake away from a search for God and in doing so has set himself adrift in a cosmos without a purpose or goal. No other intellectual revolution in modern times has so profoundly affected the way man views himself and his place in the universe. Douglas Futuyma, writes in one of the most widely used evolutionary college textbooks, “Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no purpose, and is the product of mere mechanical mechanisms, but this seems to be the message of evolution.” If the evolutionary scientists are right, believers in God are deluded. But, on the other hand, if evolution is not true then it is the evolutionary naturalists who are deluded.

Evolutionism (the expansion of naturalism into all aspects of human understanding) has wrongly claimed ground once off-limits to science, e.g., seeking to explain moral behavior, human relationships, cultural customs, and even religion as products of natural selection. This destructive impact of the Darwinian naturalistic worldview has become so commonplace it hardly registers as news anymore. The only way to stand against such a comprehensive naturalistic worldview is to articulate a Christian worldview that is equally comprehensive and consistent. Critics dismiss Christianity as irrational, yet it alone provides a consistent, unified worldview that holds true both in the natural realm and in the moral, spiritual realm. The biblical doctrine of man being made in the image of God gives a solid basis for human dignity and moral freedom that is compatible with the compelling witness of human experience. Unlike with the evolutionary psychologies, Christians can live consistently on the basis of their worldview because it alone fits the real world.

As Christian parents we must give our children a level of confidence that the Christian worldview is superior to the secular one they will encounter in school. Otherwise they may not survive the cognitive warfare they face in the world today. We must prepare our young people before they leave for college by teaching them that Christianity is not just religious truth, but the truth about all reality.

Biological evolution is just assumed to be true

In spite of the disconfirming evidence, all biological phenomena are interpreted in Darwinian terms. Evolution is assumed to be true and every professional scientist is subject throughout his or her working life to its continued affirmation. Sir Julian Huxley, the grandfather of the modern new-Darwinian movement wrote, “The first point I want to make about Darwin’s theory is that it is no longer a theory but a fact.... Darwinianism has come of age so to speak. We are no longer having to bother about establishing the fact of evolution.” Richard Dawkins, the leading Darwinian evangelist today wrote, “The theory (of evolution) is about as much in doubt as the fact that the earth goes around the sun.” In his famous book, The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins said, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA) has written: “If you doubt the power of natural selection I urge you, to save your soul, read Dawkins’ book” (bolding mine). Stephen Jay Gould stated, “Before Darwin we thought that a benevolent God had created us.” Jacques Monod writes, “Chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution.” Such claims are statements of faith not science. Once a community of faith elevates a theory to the status of a self-evident truth its defense becomes irrelevant and its proponents no longer think it is necessary to establish the theory’s validity by reference to empirical fact. (This is often true of religion as well.) When that happens, however, we leave the realm of science and enter the realm of ideology. Only a minority of evolutionists will admit that they are dealing with more than science alone. Maybe they are unaware of the difference between science and ideology. One of our jobs as Christians is to be able to point out the uncritical philosophical “step of faith” taken by the evolutionist. Therein lays the opportunity: insist that one examine all the evidence (dis-confirming as well as confirming) before making a philosophical or ideological assumption. After all, isn’t that what we want the scientific method to be? Christians can argue that proper methodology be employed to discover the logic of the facts; and evidence should not be evaluated by a methodology that just assumes the point in question.[iii]

Macroevolution (as a fact) has been shown to be objectively untenable under unbiased investigation. Evolution continues to succeed solely by the promotional effort of its community of believers. Its success is entirely man-made and not based on the preponderance of the evidence, but rather on philosophical speculation. The legacy of the evolution myth has created a widespread illusion that the theory was all but proven a hundred years ago and that subsequent research in biology, paleontology, zoology, genetics, molecular biology, etc. has provided ever-increasing evidence for it. As we have shown in this course, nothing could be further from the truth. The supporting evidence was so patchy in Darwin’s time that he himself had increasing doubts about macroevolution. The only aspect of his theory that has received empirical confirmation is “adaptation” (microevolution). Extrapolation of adaptation (Darwin’s Special Theory) to macroevolution (Darwin’s General Theory that all life on earth evolved by successive gradual fortuitous mutations) is a highly speculative hypothesis without any direct factual support, and is far from the self-evident axiom that supporters want us to believe.

The wall of separation between science and religion

Scientists are in the business of explaining the physical world. If a hypothesis involves the “transcendent” the modern mind, particularly scientists, are loath to engage it. There is great anxiety that if theism were allowed to be given scientific consideration (even just a “toe in the door”), there would be no stopping religious speculation in science. Myth and fantasy would eventually come flooding in to destroy the scientific enterprise altogether. Hence, an impenetrable wall of separation is put up by the scientific community to prevent any supernatural hypothesis from being considered. This fear is unfounded because the scientific method is self-correcting. As long as logic prevails, only theories with strong evidentiary support (no matter what the source – even religious) will become and remain scientifically viable. We talk as if we are an open-minded society, and teach our children that they must think for themselves. Yet in our institutions of learning (where academic freedom supposedly reigns) we manipulate the teaching process to cultivate people to think just as we want them to think. Evolutionists are currently in charge of the secular institutions, hence the evolutionary paradigm is used to indoctrinate, not teach people to think for themselves.

Improper extrapolation

There is obviously an enormous difference between the evolution in the color of a moth’s wing and the evolutionary development of a human mind. Microevolutionary differences between Hawaiian fruit flies and Galapagos finches are utterly trivial compared to the alleged macroevolutionary differences between a rat and a dog, or an eel and a butterfly! Extrapolation of models of most natural phenomena is usually only valid within limits, and evolutionary biology is no different. Consider, for example:

• To predict of the seasonal effects of weather (macro models) from models of pressure systems (micro models), one needs to take into account completely new factors, i.e., the tilt of the earth’s axis, the revolution of the earth around the sun, etc.



• To predict the flight of a golf ball one needs to take into account the spin effect on the dimple pattern (micro model). Without the lift generated by the spin the golf ball would travel less than half the distance predicted by a macro model without the spin effect.



• When complex systems undergo only gradual change they may be able to be modeled by simple equations. But when the variables reach certain limits a “jump” to a new type of explanation may be required. For example, the flow of a stream of water may be smooth (laminar), until it reaches a boundary that drastically changes the flow (turbulence). There is a radical change of the fluid dynamics at the boundary layer, as well as the physics and mathematics required to explain it.

Clearly, living beings are complex systems. Evolutionary extrapolation from the micro level to the macro level does not necessarily hold. There seems to be a distinct barrier beyond which further change is impossible. Therefore it must be explained by the introduction of new parameters or replaced by another theory. Dogs can be cross-bred only so far. They can’t be changed into their human masters. The history of science is replete with theories that were once thought to be generally valid over an entire domain, but which eventually proved valid only in a restricted range.[iv] Macroevolution is such a hypothesis. It cannot be legitimately formed by extrapolation of microevolution. The macroevolution paradigm survives for reasons other than scientific.

Suggested reasons why Darwinian evolution has become dogma

The rebellion against the tradition of the Church that began in the Enlightenment intensified in the 19th century. Science was answering more and more questions about the universe, and the necessity of a “God of the gaps”[v] explanation was becoming less and less needed to explain the mysteries of nature. Darwin was the first to attempt to bring the study of biological life into the sphere of modern science. Darwinian evolution advanced a very attractive hypothesis that there was no necessity for a “God of the gaps” to explain the origin of species. Science could explain it all. This was at a time when people were looking for an escape from religious dogma. Theistic science had, by its very nature, discontinuities (gaps) in which God worked in “miraculous” ways. This was very disconcerting to scientists who wanted to discover continuous laws of nature that make appeals to God unnecessary.[vi]

Nineteenth century optimism, fueled by Hegelian[vii] optimism, gave rise to an underlying philosophy in all fields of study. Unbounded progress through Hegelian synthesis was possible. Evolution was and continues to be the best naturalistic explanation for the origin and progression of life. Since “we don’t know” is not an attractive conclusion in the scientific community, evolution is seen as the best naturalistic explanation for the origin of the species, even if confirming evidence does not exist. Biological science has since promoted evolution from a theory to a paradigm, and it will reign until a better naturalistic explanation comes along.

The flaw in today’s evolutionary methodology is that only naturalistic hypotheses are allowed to be considered. Naturalistic methodology disavows intelligent design, for example, from even proposing theories about the physical universe. There is no scientific basis for this prohibition. Any legitimate scientific theory should be allowed consideration. The evidence and the logic of the facts will then sort out whether a hypothesis is worthy of further consideration. That is the classical scientific method. The evolutionary version of the scientific method, however, gets away with unspoken and biased philosophical assumptions.

God-of-the-gaps

Science is concerned that the hypothesis “God did it” would be used to explain-away every “gap” in empirical understanding instead of pushing further and harder for a natural explanation. They worry that cultivating a “God-of-the-gaps” mentality would degenerate the scientific process and emasculate science. An example is cited when Sir Isaac Newton appealed to the “God-of-the-gaps” to account for certain anomalies in the motion of the heavenly bodies. A few years later Laplace scientifically accounted for those anomalies by natural law. We don’t seem to realize, however, that naturalistic scientists also postulate “gap explanations” -- a sort of “science-of-the-gaps.” For example, Albert Einstein postulated an unknown fifth force of physics to explain an apparent anomaly in his General Theory of Relativity. At that time he did not want to believe that a creation event occurred, i.e., the big bang as predicted by his General Theory. He was afraid that would give strong evidence (if not proof) that God exists. Later, however, he did come to accept the creation event calling his fifth force theory “the greatest mistake of his career.”[viii] Einstein later became a strong theist, although not a believer in a personal God, after reflecting on the scientific and mathematical evidence. That did not diminish his capabilities as a scientist. The scientific enterprise is self-correcting. As long as one is not fearful of new or even “strange” ideas, and does not become arbitrary and dogmatic about what is “allowed” to be postulated, the enterprise works remarkably well.

Miracles are repugnant to the modern mind

Creationism introduces discontinuities into science, i.e., unaccountable breaks in the chain of causation. Scientists like to have a vision of nature as a seamless garment of causal connections. Miracles are temporary suspensions of natural law and obvious discontinuities in the chain of causation. But modern science has its own “miracles” they just don’t call it that. The Big Bang is science’s creation event when everything in the universe that “is, ever was, and will be” came into being -- out of nothing, the greatest miracle of all time! That’s a major discontinuity in the chain of causation. Quantum physics has replaced Newtonian mechanics for describing the movement of sub-atomic particles. It predicts that particles “jump” from one location to another without ever being in between. That certainly is a discontinuity. Obviously, these theories have not undermined a scientific understanding of the universe – it has only amplified the mystery of it. When the Big Bang was first proposed many scientists were concerned that the postulation of a creation event would destroy the scientific enterprise since it would give strong support for a Creator God to the detriment of scientific explanation. That has not happened. Science continues to generate non-theistic theories without any difficulty. My point is that theistic options (as long as they can be postulated and investigated in scientific terms) should be part of the enterprise, especially at points of disjunction like creation events where science resorts to its own “miracle” or “science-of-the-gaps” explanation.

Underlying metaphysical assumptions

Scientists are very concerned about taking metaphysical, i.e., “beyond physics” positions. Metaphysics makes claims about reality which are “prior to” and “more fundamental than” scientific or common sense observations. In the case of creation, one is forced to make a metaphysical commitment when the question being considered is, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” One has arrived at the limits of the physical (natural) world and is pressed to make a metaphysical assumption either consciously or subconsciously; admittedly or implicitly. Once a metaphysical position is adopted it shapes, rather than is shaped by, those observations. That is, metaphysical commitments have priority and if challenged the observations yield to that position rather than the reverse. The scientist may fail to understand that this is true for everyone. Nobody stands apart from the universe in a neutral position of judgment. Everyone has a set of presuppositions and prior assumptions that color his or her evaluation of the evidence. Thomas Kuhn in his 1970 groundbreaking work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, argues that only through “paradigm shifts” does science make any real advances. Our set of prior assumptions determines, to a great extent, the theories (paradigms) that we come up with. Only as a person or community is open to testing their fundamental assumptions can they ever hope to advance the understanding of nature.

Are scientists really unbiased?

Many believe that scientists evaluate all things from an unbiased point of view without any metaphysical lens at all. That is simply not true. As David Bohm, legendary professor of Physics at the University of London admitted back in the 1960’s:[ix]

It seems clear that everybody has got some kind of metaphysics, even if he thinks he hasn’t got any. Indeed, the practical “hard-headed” individual who “only goes by what he sees”, generally has a very dangerous kind of metaphysics; i.e., the kind of which he is unaware.... Such metaphysics is dangerous because, in it, assumptions and inferences are being mistaken for directly observed facts, with the result that they are effectively riveted in an almost unchangeable way into the structure of thought.... One of the best ways of a person becoming aware of his own tacit metaphysical assumptions is to be confronted by several other kinds. His first reaction is often of violent disturbance, as views that are very dear are questioned or thrown to the ground. Nevertheless, if he will stay with it, rather than escape into anger and unjustified rejection of contrary ideas, he will discover that this disturbance is very beneficial. For now he becomes aware of the assumptive character of a great many previous unquestioned features of his own thinking.

Some evolutionists are starting to acknowledge their bias

Harvard genetics professor and atheistic scientist Richard Lewontin explained his bias quite candidly in The New York Review of Books:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment; a commitment to materialism [naturalism]. It is not that the methods and institutions of science compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. (bolding and brackets mine)

The evolutionary mindset in academia[x]

In 1981 the U.S. National Academy of Science pronounced that religion and science are separate mutually exclusive realms of human thought whose presentation in the same context leads to misunderstanding of both scientific theory and religious belief. But why should we accept these rules of the Academy – the starting assumption that God has never acted in ways accessible to scientific investigation? Why not challenge the rules and insist that science follow the data wherever it leads?

We must bring theology back into the sphere of public objective knowledge and not just be satisfied with it residing in “distinctively Christian” universities. In secular academic circles “distinctively Christian” means “distinctively inferior.”[xi] Many intellectuals are critical of Christian institutions which require faculty to affirm adherence to the fundamental doctrines of the Church. They say it is inconsistent with academic freedom. Also, they say that religion should be confined to the private sphere where its illusory beliefs are acceptable if they “work for you.” Also, they assume that taking a strong position for God is associated with intolerance, even when we promote diversity and the rights of minorities. In the liberal academy the intellectually elite set the rules that naturalism pronounce what is real, true, objective and rational (facts), while religion is relegated to the realm of subjective opinion and non-rational experience.

Education in all departments of the secular universities assumes the following credo but never spells it out:

In the beginning were the particles and the impersonal laws of physics. And the particles somehow through chance and time became complex living stuff. And the stuff imagined God, but then discovered evolution.

Either God created us, or we created God – that is, we created the idea of God out of some emotional or personal need. If man created God then he has the power to dispense with his own creation – and in today’s secular university he has.

Conclusion

I have attempted to show that the problems of the neo-Darwinian synthesis are utterly intractable not only for the “mutation-natural selection” mechanism, but for any “undirected natural process,” i.e., one without-intelligent design. These problems for the evolutionist include: the origin of life, the origin of the genetic code, the origin of multi-cellular life, the origin of sexuality, the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record, the biological explosion that occurred during the Cambrian era, the development of complex organ systems, the development of irreducibly complex molecular machines, among many others. If indeed neo-Darwinian evolution is a myth, why then is it held so tenaciously? As I have shown, it is because we are dealing with something more than a straight forward determination of scientific fact. We are dealing with metaphysics and a worldview that is in direct competition with the Christian worldview. The naturalistic metaphysic is so pervasive and powerful that it not only rules out alternative views, but even worse -- it does not permit itself to be critiqued. Fallibility and tentativeness, which are supposed to be part of the scientific methodology, find no place in the metaphysic that undergirds Darwinism. It’s no wonder that evolutionism and creationism shun one another.

III – UNDERSTANDING THE CHRISTIAN’S “RULES OF ENGAGEMENT”

The table below gives a side-by-side comparison of worldview differences between the naturalist’s neo-Darwinian synthesis and the creationist’s understanding of biblical revelation.

	Neo-Darwinian Synthesis	Biblical Revelation
Presuppositions [Lesson 1, 10]	Nature is all there is, ever was, and every will be. All aspects of reality are subject to evolution. There is no plan or purpose. God is not relevant to the discussion.	God exists and created nature and everything that exists in it in accordance with His plan and purpose. All aspects of reality are subject to Him.[Ps 24:1; Ps 14:1; Job 42:2]
Initial Cause of the Universe [Lesson 4]	Spontaneous generation of all of nature -- matter, energy, space and time out of nothing, or by an unknown cause.	God created all nature and its information content out of nothing (ex nihilo). [Gen 1-2; Heb 11:3; Ps 33:6]
Intelligent Design [Lesson 7, 8]	None – random process/chance mutation and natural selection gives the appearance of having been designed -- (Cosmological evolution).	God created all things in accordance with His divine design, will and purpose.[Jn 1:1-4; Ps 19:1-4; Prov 3:19]
Origin of Life [Lesson 5]	Spontaneous and evolutionary generation of life from non-life (Chemical evolution).	God created all life – plant and animal.[Gen 1:11, 20-22; Rev 4:11]
Origin of the Species [Lesson 6, 7]	Biological evolution (mutation and natural selection) accounts for the development of all the species.	God specially intervened to create each “kind.”[Rms 1:20-25; Ps 104:24,25]
Limits of Evolution [Lesson 6]	None. The fact of adaptation (microevolution) can be extrapolated to macroevolution which produces all the new body plans and parts.	Adaptation is a fact, but bounded. There are divinely ordained limits of variation within each created “kind” of living being. Macro-evolution cannot be extrapolated.[Gen 1:11-12; 21-25; 2:19; 6:20]
Humankind [Lesson 6]	Man is an evolved animal and is ultimately no different than a rat or a bacterium.	Man is the crown of God’s special creation, made in His image and uniquely distinct from all other creatures.[Gen 1:27;Ps 139:13-16; Is 44:24]
Consciousness and Soul [Lesson 9]	Consciousness evolves out of matter. Conscious and soul experiences are physical not supernatural phenomena, and cease to exist when we die. Our “mind” is nothing more than our physical brain.	Our soul is our true self and our connection to God. The soul is our ego (the self) and it contains our consciousness and animates our body through the mind. The brain dies with the body, but our mind and soul live on forever. [Mt 10:28; 2 Cor 5:8; Gal 5:17]
Social Evolution [Lesson 2]	Philosophical absolutes such as truth, goodness and beauty are non-existent. Man invents his own fundamental principles in accordance with his needs. There is no “higher law” for us to discover.	God is the Sovereign over His creation and has established absolutes and limits. Man discovers these fundamental principles and limits by studying God’s Word and nature.[Ps 19:7; 119:42; Rms 2:15]
Truth [Lesson 3]	There is no absolute truth. All values are relative. Most all opinions are equally valid but not necessarily equally beneficial.	God’s general revelation in nature and special revelation through the Bible are absolute truth. His truth is perfect and authoritative. [Ps 119:160; Jn 17:17; Rms 3:4]
Good and Evil [Lesson 3]	Good and evil are merely social conventions. Ethics (the grounds for morality) is a matter of opinion (relative). Human behavior has been programmed in our genes by natural selection.	There is absolute “good and evil,” “right and wrong.” Morality has been revealed by the Creator and we are to cling to good and abhor evil. We are responsible for our actions before a holy God.[Gen 1:31; Rms 12:9; Is 5:20-21]
Beauty [Lesson 3]	Beauty is the eyes of the beholder. All expressions of creativity are equally valid.	God is the source of absolute beauty. Reflecting the mind of God in one’s expression of creativity is the highest ideal.[Ps 96:5,6; Ps 90:17; Ps 111:2-4]
Future of Humankind [Lesson 9]	Endless progression of the human race to an unknown destiny of higher capability. There is no afterlife.	Divinely ordained destination of the human race to a final judgment of every person and an eternal life of blessing or curse in the afterlife.[Acts 17:30; Rev 20:11-15; 21:1]

What is the apologetic challenge for the Christian?

Many skeptics just don’t want there to be “Anything” beyond nature. If God exists, logically one might have to be accountable to Him. One might have to be concerned that the Sovereign is a Personal Being who sets the rules (Law in an absolute sense) and is active in administering justice, including a final judgment. Bertrand Russell admitted that this was one of his major problems with Christianity. He wanted to set his own moral standards without any interference from God. As Dostoyevsky reminded us, however, “Without God, anything is permissible.” The calling for the Christian is to witness to the fact that God is a loving God who has created us for a purpose and works all things together for the good to those who love Him. That the boundaries that He establishes are for our own good and protection; and that abundant life exists eternally with the Creator.

We should be about promoting the re-establishment of theistic science where both nature is real and God is real. Darwin said in the Origin of the Species, “A fair result can only be obtained by examining both sides of [a] question.” Point this out to your evolutionist friends. Engage them to view the data from both paradigms. The culture war between theism and naturalism has been characterized as a conflict between science and religion, when in reality it is a conflict between two metaphysical interpretations of the nature of reality and the significance of human life. As I have previously shown, prior philosophical commitment can easily override any theory (creationist or evolutionist) that flows naturally from the data. Therefore, educating both sides to the worldview differences and assumptions is a primary mission of the apologist. Unless some progress is made in recognizing the role metaphysical thinking plays in science, the creation and evolution debate will simply rage on much as it has in the past 150 years with people on both sides failing to hear or understand the other.

Our most important apologetic task is to clearly articulate the gospel of Jesus Christ and pray that the Holy Spirit will lift the blinders from the eyes of the unbelieving. Remember, this is God’s work. Our job is to be informed, humble and open-minded vessels through which He can accomplish His purposes.

Conflicting creationist’s positions within the Church

The Bible clearly teaches that God created nature (the heavens and the earth) and that nature reveals His glory to all mankind -- saved and unsaved (Psalm 19, Romans 1 and 2). Since nature is a revelation of God (general), both nature and the Bible (special) are inerrant revelations. Reconciling the two, however, can be a challenging matter of interpretation. When any one group of Christians claim they have the only correct biblical interpretation of nature and it supersedes whatever nature reveals through direct observation, they are setting themselves up for cultural and theological conflict. We need to remember the lesson of Galileo when he faced-down those in the Church who claimed his account of a heliocentric universe could not be true. The Church said that the Bible clearly taught that the sun moved around the earth (in passages such as Joshua 10:13 and Ecclesiastes 1:5). However, it was the Church’s interpretation of Scripture that proved in error, not Galileo’s interpretation of nature.

Some of the entrenchment by the evolutionary establishment which maintains an “old earth” position is brought on by intransigent “young earth” creationists. The “age of the cosmos debate” among Christians is at most a minor doctrinal point and is certainly not a criterion for salvation. Young-earth creationism imposes an interpretation on the age of nature, i.e., the earth is only thousands of years old. This is untenable to most all practicing astronomers, even Christian ones. To be dogmatic on this issue is grounds for the scientific community to shun creationism altogether and the Bible which “allegedly” teaches it.

There are intransigent “old-earth” creationists as well. They are 100% percent certain that astrophysics reveals the age of the universe to be 10-20 billion years old and they do not allow even the possibility that God might have created the universe with the “appearance of age.” No one was around to confirm what really happened at the creation event; and we can’t reproduce the original event in a laboratory. Therefore, we need to give each other some slack on this issue.

Theistic evolutionists (I prefer to call them “theistic creationists” since most believe in the Creator God of the Bible and His special work in creation), are sometimes treated by fellow Christians like collaborators with the Nazis during World War II. Personally I don’t see how one reconciles the “impersonal, undirected and chance” aspects of evolutionary theory with God’s “purposeful, directed and designed” process of creation, but many do while successfully maintaining an inerrancy position regarding Scripture.

We must remember that our argument is not with fellow followers of Jesus Christ and the Bible, although it is perfectly healthy to challenge and sharpen one another. Our disagreement is with the anti-Christian wing of the Darwinian establishment – people who believe as Richard Dawkins does that, “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, but I’d rather not consider that.”

Evangelicals – be aware (and beware) of your biases

Evangelical scholar Mark Noll critiques a common bias among some groups of evangelicals. In The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, he writes:

In their enthusiasm for reading the world in light of Scripture, evangelicals forget the proposition that the Western world’s early modern scientists had so successfully taken to heart as a product of their own deep Christian convictions – to understand something, one must look at that something. The result is a twofold tragedy. First, millions of evangelicals think they are defending the Bible by defending creation science [young-earth creationism], but in reality they are giving ultimate authority to the merely temporal, situated, and contextualized interpretations of the Bible that arose from the mania for science of the early nineteenth century. Second, with that predisposition, evangelicals lost the ability to look at nature as it was and so lost out on the opportunity to understand more about nature as it is. By holding on so determinedly to our beliefs concerning how we concluded God had made nature, we evangelicals forfeited the opportunity to glorify God for the way he had made nature. In a mirror reaction to the zealous secularists of the twentieth century, evangelicals have gone back to thinking that we must shut up one of God’s books [the “book of nature”] if we want to read the other one.” (brackets mine)

IV – ENGAGING SOCIETY WITH A CREATIONIST’S WORLDVIEW

There has been an on-going battle between evolution and religion ever since the Huxley versus Wilberforce confrontation of 1860. The Scopes (monkey) trial of 1925 solidified the modern battle lines, but science and religion should not be enemies. There was a time when both flourished and cooperated to the mutual benefit of each other and the culture. There is no reason why that can’t be true today as well. Christians and evolutionists engaged in the culture war are talking past one another. As I have shown, there are presuppositions and biases on both sides and by understanding that and wanting to do something about it there is hope of improving the communications.

The Bible instructs us that to the extent is depends on us, be at peace with all men and women (Rms 12:18); contend for truth (Jude3) but when you speak it, do so in love (Eph 4:15). And don’t be quarrelsome, but with gentleness and respect teach and correct those who are in opposition (1 Pet 3:15; 2 Tim 2:24-25). Now that we have been educated on the topic, and understand the mindset of those who oppose us, how do we go about this engagement? Here are some suggested ways.

Pray

• Local School Boards who have taken up the fight to teach the controversy


• Encourage those in the creationist’s movements. Pray for their preparation, intellectual honesty, wisdom and courage to make their views known, and be Godly witnesses for Jesus Christ


• Pray for gentleness and respect among the various Christian groups with differing views


1. Intelligent design movement


2. ICR – Biblical creationism


3. Hugh Ross – progressive creationism


4. Theistic evolution


5. Historical creationism – an emerging textural interpretation of the Bible.[xii]

Learn

• Study Genesis 1 & 2 and the sections of the Bible dealing with the creation account


• Understand why the issue of creation is so fundamental to our faith


• Study the notes given out in this class


• Buy and read some of the recommend books and DVDs in the bibliography (Lesson 1)


• Review the recommended websites


• Keep up-to-date. Internet is a great way. Go to http://www.news.google.com/, and search on “evolution” and “intelligent design.” Create a Google alert and receive daily, weekly, or monthly notification of all news items in this category.


• Visit http://www.gtbe.org/ (Gateways to Better Education), http://www.family.org/ (Focus on the Family), and http://www.breakpoint.org/ (Breakpoint with Charles Colson) for insight regarding the impact on you family


• With these notes, lead a class on this topic in a small group study format


• Encourage the pastors in your church, especially in Jr. High, High School and College to make this subject a priority. Give a balanced perspective considering the various Christian positions.


• Attend special seminars on the topic


• Host a special seminar at the church. Use your own teachers or outside speakers


• Study the Santorum Amendment to the White House Education Bill of 2001, passed by the U.S. Senate 91-8 and signed by President Bush. It is the best teaching guide for School Districts to follow in preparing students to understand the controversy and to distinguish verifiable scientific theories. It will help you be an informed participant in public discussions regarding the subject. The Santorum Amendment states:


1. Good science education should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science; and


2. Where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help students to understand why this subject generates so much controversy and should prepare students to be informed participants in public discussions regarding the subject.

Teach and Engage

• Talk to you children. Know what they are learning. Supplement their education with these notes. Review textbooks such as Of Pandas and People developed by “intelligent design” scientists


• Teach your children how to respectively ask tough questions in the classroom which will reveal the evolutionary bias. See Chuck Colson’s Ten Questions about Origins at the end of this section.


• Engage your family, friends and neighbors in discussions about the controversy going on in the School Districts across America


• Help your local School Board by supporting efforts to teach the controversy


• Use the information in these notes to enhance your witnessing and defense of the faith


• Use this information to engage the skeptics you have encountered and lead them to the Lord
.

• Write letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, rebuttals to newspapers, magazine articles, e.g. National Geographic, and TV programs, e.g., PBS’ Evolution.


• Write to museum boards e.g., Smithsonian Institute, and the National Academy of Sciences


• Rebut the lobbying organizations that fight teaching the controversy in the public schools, e.g. National Center for Science Education, http://www.ncse.org/ and the ACLU, http://www.aclu.org/.


• Participate in blog sites on the topic

Support

• Your local church and pastor in making this topic relevant to the entire Body


• Run for School Board or other local office to have impact in your community


• Support the legal organizations that are on the front line opposing the ACLU and NCSE, e.g., the Alliance Defense Fund, http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/, the American Center for Law and Justice, http://www.aclj.org/, and the Christian Legal Society, http://www.clsnet.org/.


• Support the research organizations that are supporting this effort (see the websites listed in Lesson 1).

Chuck Colson’s Ten Questions about Origins[xiii]

1. What fossil record is there of any transitional fossils indicating that one order evolved into another order?


2. Is there any evidence of an order that was at one time a different order? I recognize that there is adaptation within an order, different breeds of dogs for example, but I don't know of any case where there is any evidence of a dog becoming a horse.


3. What scientific evidence is there to support a natural origin of life? (The evolutionist may point to the Miller-Urey experiments in 1953, much celebrated at the time. They initially said they had reproduced the precise conditions under which in the primordial soup life could have arisen. But after experts looked at it, it turned out that there was frequent human intervention and had the process been left to itself, it could not have worked. In short, there is no evidence.)


4. How does one support the conclusion of the American Society of Biological Teachers that evolution is “unsupervised, impersonal and random?” What scientific (as opposed to philosophical) basis is there for this statement?


5. (A follow-up question for 4) Is this not inconsistent with discoveries about DNA, which indicate that there is a mathematical formula determining the complexity of human beings? Do mathematical formulas have naturalistic origins?


6. How do we reconcile the second law of thermodynamics with the universe as we know it? If the universe is indeed winding down, does that not presuppose that sometime and by some means it was being wound up? By what means?


7. What is your answer to Dr. Michael Behe’s findings (Darwin’s Black Box) about the irreducible complexity of the cell structure, that is, his mousetrap example? All the parts of a cell had to work at once otherwise the cell doesn't work. Thus evolution of one part at a time is not reasonable.


8. What caused the Big Bang?


9. What did Einstein mean when he said, “God does not play dice with the cosmos?” If he considered evidence of intelligence in the universe, why shouldn’t we?


10. What evidence is there for genetic mutations that increase the biologically useful information of the genome? Or to put it another way: What evidence is there for genetic mutations facilitating macroevolutionary change?

When you ask these questions, beware. Aggressive evolutionists will attempt to intimidate you, dismiss the questions, laugh at them, claim that they’re ridiculous, or say that you’re basing it on your faith. Stand your ground. This is not based on your faith. These are common sense inquiries that anybody in an academically free environment ought to pursue. They are not unreasonable questions, even though that is what your adversary will say. Or he will tell you that you really don’t understand or that you have to be more into science to grasp this, or it’s too complex a concept to explain. If it’s too complex to explain, how could anyone teach it?

The one you must never let evolutionists run away from is Einstein. Naturalists in the evolutionist lobby do not allow anybody to talk about intelligent design because they say it comes from faith. It doesn’t. There is a respectable school of science and Einstein raised these questions. So why should they be stricken out of inquiry? If you can get a naturalist to acknowledge that they can be discussed, he’s finished, which is why he’ll fight so hard to reject the questions. He’s finished because there is much more scientific evidence for design than there is for natural origin.

Everything we say about natural origin is speculation, just as the God hypothesis that we believe in is speculation because nobody was there at the creation. But we can look at the character of the universe and draw certain conclusions. Because of a prior philosophical commitment to naturalism this is precisely what the naturalist refuses to do.

Conclusion

Today’s debate is foiled before it even begins because naturalists claim that “creationism” and “intelligent design” are not scientifically acceptable hypotheses. But science is about evidence gathering, making inferences and drawing conclusions to best explain the available information. The naturalist has a metaphysic that filters the data before a conclusion can be reached -- arbitrarily deciding beforehand what data is "scientifically acceptable" to him or her. I have shown that this is a “scientifically unacceptable” presupposition. Suppose we were playing Scrabble and I removed all the vowels beforehand because a,e,i,o,u, y are "unacceptable letters." Then I declared that Scrabble is not a real game because I can't spell any English words. You probably would say, "Wait a minute -- you're not allowing me to bring to the table all the pieces that makes Scrabble a real game." The naturalist has rigged his argument the same way. The "Designer-hypothesis" is not allowed on the table from the start. After some play he reaches the conclusion that the Designer doesn't exist because there no evidence that the Designer exists. The naturalist can't scientifically prove that the Designer does not exist, so he has no right to proclaim a priori that my hypothesis is "scientifically unacceptable." It is a non sequitur.

Einstein empirically and mathematically explored the universe and concluded that a “God of order” must exist, and "does not play dice with the world," i.e., God is an intelligent agent. Recently atheistic philosopher Anthony Flew conceded the same point of intelligent agency on the basis of the scientific evidence. Both obviously started with intelligent agency as a hypothesis that was "scientifically acceptable." The naturalist has decided, however, beforehand that evidence for a lawgiver or a designer can't be brought to the table. Then, by his rules, God doesn't exist. I agree with that conclusion -- I can't make English words without vowels.

Why not put the vowels back in the bag and play real Scrabble. There's nothing to be afraid of with the scientific method -- it is self-correcting and filters out erroneous presuppositions and illogical conclusions. The scientific method is not afraid of religion or philosophy -- it doesn't care from where or who a hypothesis came -- a Muslim, an atheist or a Christian. The scientific method simply says, place your bet on whatever hypothesis you want -- but then you must go test it. You must collect all the data you can and use it to verify or falsify your premise. You must use logic to conclude which hypothesis makes the most sense. Since neither the naturalist nor creationist can prove their conclusion empirically, one must draw their conclusion by making the best inference that explains the available information. This should be a search for truth, wherever the evidence may lead.

The toughest intellectual barrier to the Christian faith is not the question of whether God created the world. One intuitively knows that the universe is orderly and suspects it must be the result of an intelligence of such superiority that it overshadows all human intelligence. It can’t be merely random matter bumping around endlessly in space and by chance creating all things. What stymies people is something much deeper than the doctrine of creation: it is the problem of sin which they refuse to face. Sin blinds their eyes so that they willfully reject the doctrine of the Creator (2 Cor 4:4; Rms 1:18).

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason [only], the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
- Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers

Leading a person to this “final rock” does not bring him or her to knowledge of the Rock of the Bible. That can only be accomplished by the work of the Holy Spirit. However, be prepared for Him to use you in leading the genuine seeker to Christ. Pray that,

“God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will”
- 2 Tim 2:25-26


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[i] Adapted from How Now Shall We Live?, Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey, (Tyndale House Publishers, 1999), ch. 40.
[ii] Science and Creationism, A View from the National Academy of Sciences, (1984; pp. 5, 23). This document also states, “Teaching creationism is like asking our children to believe on faith ... that the dimensions of the world are the same as those depicted in maps drawn in the days before Columbus set sail.”
[iii] Evolutionary methodology is filled with circular reasoning, i.e., the conclusion assumes the point in question (also called “begging the question”). It sounds as if there is logical deduction of new information, but in reality it is repetition of the same information only in different words.
[iv] An example is Newtonian mechanics – the simple laws of motion you are taught in High School physics. It explains well the flight of a baseball, but it does not hold as the velocity of the ball approaches the speed of light. New parameters, developed by Einstein and others, must be introduced. Sometimes the whole model needs to be replaced.
[v] Unfortunately some of us are too quick to say “God did it” while searching for scientific explanations of physical phenomena. Sure, “God did everything” but that knowledge should not be used to stifle scientific inquiry. The early scientists kept probing, “How did God do it?” Through the natural laws He created? By direct special intervention? With great passion they attempted to “seek God’s mind after Him.” God beckons us to seek Him and to understand Him and His creation, and there should be no end to our curiosity and inquiry.
[vi] At some point, however, we reach a limit to our scientific inquiry beyond which we must employ philosophical and theological reasoning. See “The limits of Naturalism” in the diagram in Lesson 3.
[vii] German idealistic philosopher Georg F. Hegel (1770-1831) formulated the famous “dialectic” -- a new idea (thesis) will soon be diametrically opposed (anti-thesis). The conjunction of the thesis and antithesis will result in a new thesis (synthesis). Progress is continually forthcoming as the process continues onward and upward ad infinitum.
[viii] Recently some astrophysicists have re-introduced Einstein’s fifth force of physics to explain the apparent higher rate of big-bang expansion of the universe at its outer limits. The point is that scientists as well as theologians resort to “gap” explanations when no better alternative exists. Each side needs to be more humble about their assumptions and conclusions.
[ix] Toward a Theoretical Biology, Some Remarks on the Notion of Order, (Edinburgh University Press, 1969).
[x] The Right Questions, Truth, Meaning & Public Debate, Phillip E. Johnson, (InterVarsity Press, 2002).
[xi] Three evangelical Christian universities come to mind that are successfully competing academically with their secular counterparts while maintaining their commitment to Jesus Christ. Baylor University is on a mission to compete in most major fields and at all levels through the Ph.D. program; Wheaton College at the undergraduate liberal arts level; and Biola University in their philosophy department.
[xii] This view says that the “6 days of creation” is the account of God preparing the “promised land” as a place for humanity. Genesis Unbound, John Sailhamer, (Multnomah Books, 1996).
[xiii] Taken from Breakpoint, 8/29/2004, http://www.breakpoint.org/.