The Christian Post features an article on Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institute of Health.
Collins believes in God, which is good, but believes in theistic evolution, which basically means he believes that God used evolution as a mechanism for biological change to bring organisms from simple, primordial organisms to what we see today.
And he doesn't believe the earth is relatively young, as young-earth creationists do.
“There is simply no way to come up with an explanation of the earth being two thousand years old without basically throwing out all the basic principles of cosmology, theology, chemistry, physics and biology,” commented Collins excitedly.
Actually, young-earth creationists believe the earth is 6,000-10,000 years old (Jesus lived and died just 2,000 years ago).
God certainly could have used evolution as theistic evolutionists believe; it's well within His power and His creative genius to have done it this way. However, the theory of theistic evolution--like atheistic evolution--presents some insurmountable problems, scientifically.
In order to believe in the materialistic formation of stars and planets as atheistic evolutionists do (I don't know of Collins ascribes to this or not), you have to throw out the basic principles of cosmology and thermodynamics (in other words, disorganized matter has never been observed to come together to form an organized system--such as a planet or star--without a little help from an intelligent designer). Gas clouds don't start spinning faster, compress, and fire into stars. It's never been observed, and it defies the laws of physics.
In order to believe in naturalistic processes and evolution you also have to throw out the basic principles of chemistry and biology, because we have never observed new genetic information being formed, and there is no evidence that this has ever happened, outside of the theory that it happened (i.e. evolution). When changes in organisms occur (mutations, or say the division in canine breeds), we see the loss of genetic information in favor of other dominant genetic traits, but never new genetic information. Spontaneous generation (life from lifeless elements) has also never been observed, and is scientifically unsupported.
For the believer in God (i.e. the Christian), there are also theological problems with theistic evolution.
The evolution model posits that death has always been a part of the universe as God designed it. Conflict, disease and death are part of the natural order.
This is in direct conflict with what the Bible teaches, no matter how you slice and dice it. The Bible teaches that God created the universe perfect, and it "was good." Can you really believe that a perfect, all-powerful and loving God could create a system where death, disease and suffering are central? To me, not only does that conflict with what the Bible says about our origins, it conflicts with what we know of God's character. In a sense, that would be like building a car that already had rust spots and other broken or ailing parts, one where the steering or brakes were about to fail, and calling that a "good car." Just doesn't make sense.
But not only does the theistic evolution scenario go against the Old Testament account of creation, it flies in the face of foundational New Testament Christianity.
Both Old and New Testaments say that the reason our world is filled with conflict, disease, suffering and death are because of man's sin. There was no sin in creation, and no death and suffering, until humanity committed the first sin. Adam and Eve chose their own way over God's way; consequently, they and creation which was under their dominion were cursed to operate in this fallen, corrupted condition.
Now, if sin, death, conflict, and suffering were part of the natural order, why would Christ have to come and die to save us from what was natural, from the way things were supposed to be? And if God didn't want things to be this way (remember, theistic evolution posits that God intentionally created the world where conflict and death were part of the natural order), why did he create them that way and then send His Son to suffer and die to rectify the problem? Do you see the paradox?
The whole reason Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth in the first place was to redeem humanity, to save us from our sins and conquer death. The Bible teaches that one day (hopefully soon), God will judge the earth for its sins, and those who have accepted the redemption of Jesus will be saved out of that judgment. God will then destroy this corrupted earth and create a new one where there will be no sin, no suffering, no death.
The Bible teaches that the earth is in this terrible condition because man exercised his free will to sin and bring all this bad upon us. Theistic evolution teaches that God meant all this bad stuff to be this way.
I once believed in theistic evolution. But at that time, I neither understood the scientific conflicts nor the theological conflicts. If you believe the Bible, once you understand what both the Bible is saying and what theistic evolution posits, you can believe one or the other, but not both.
They say two completely different things about our past, our present and our future.
1 comments:
Thanks for the excellent post on the ideas of evolutionists Dr. Collins.
The writer is very informed on the fallacy of the teachings of evolution. There are many who claim to be Christians, yet they belittle the Bible. How they can live this way is a huge puzzle.
Many people, when they can't provide evidence for their theory, adopt the strategy of falsehood. Such is the case with many of those who have fallen victim to the propaganda of renowned evolutionists.
If evolutionists want to end the arguments all they have to do is, get their brilliant heads together and assemble a 'simple' living cell. This should be possible, since they certainly have a very great amount of knowledge about what is inside the 'simple' cell.
After all, shouldn't all the combined Intelligence of all the worlds scientist be able the do what chance encounters with random chemicals, without a set of instructions, accomplished about 4 billion years ago,according to the evolutionists, having no intelligence at all available to help them along in their quest to become a living entity. Surely then the evolutionists scientists today should be able to make us a 'simple' cell.
If it weren't so pitiful it would be humorous, that intelligent people have swallowed the evolution mythology.
Beyond doubt, the main reason people believe in evolution is that sources they admire, say it is so. It would pay for these people to do a thorough examination of all the evidence CONTRARY to evolution that is readily available: Try answersingenesis.org. The evolutionists should honestly examine the SUPPOSED evidence 'FOR' evolution for THEMSELVES.
Build us a cell, from scratch, with the required raw material, that is with NO cell material, just the 'raw' stuff, and the argument is over. But if the scientists are unsuccessful, perhaps they should try Mother Earth's recipe, you know, the one they claim worked the first time about 4 billion years ago, so they say. All they need to do is to gather all the chemicals that we know are essential for life, pour them into a large clay pot and stir vigorously for a few billion years, and Walla, LIFE!
Oh, you don't believe the 'original' Mother Earth recipe will work? You are NOT alone, Neither do I, and MILLIONS of others!
J.C.
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