Special Creation (the belief that the origin of the universe and all of life came into being by divine decree) was a feature of the predominant worldview in the time when some of our great scientists of the past lived.
For example, Sir Isaac Newton in writing about the planetary system said, "Though these bodies may indeed continue in their orbits by the mere laws of gravity, yet they could by no means have at first derived the regular position of the orbits themselves from those laws. Thus, this most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."
(note the capital B)
Biologists also, before Darwin that is, thought that the study of life gave the appearance of having been purposefully designed.
But Darwin caused the whole discipline to change direction.
Darwin's famous "Origin of Species" was a long argument against creation by design, promoting the theory that all living things were produced by unguided natural forces from a common source.
In fact he was quoted as saying, "I would give absolutely nothing for my theory of natural selection, if it require miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."
Typical modern Biology textbooks include statements like "By coupling the undirected, purposeless variations to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made the theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.
(Douglas Futuyma's "Evolutionary Biology" College Text)
However, science is beginning to show signs of realising the limits of space-time based explorations.
In 1953, the discovery of DNA opened some eyes.
Not only does DNA contain information, but functional information not dissimilar to computer software code.
BIll Gates, Microsoft pioneer, said that "DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created".
In 1996, Michael Behe, a university biochemist, published a book titled "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" which focused on biological systems which are 'irreducibly complex' at the molecular level and could not have been developed slowly over long periods of time.
Even modern neo-Darwinists admit that undirected natural selection and random mutation can produce organs and structures that give 'the appearance' of having been designed.
The Center for Science and Culture in Seattle, Washington was founded in 1990 and describes itself as "the institutional hub for scientists, educators, and inquiring minds who think that nature supplies compelling evidence of intelligent design".
Dr Stephen Meyer, philosopher of science and director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture, publicly claims that Intelligent Design is detectable by science, and has written two books, "Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design: and "Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design" to advance his argument.
However, let's be clear.
The sort of evolution that is being challenged by most proponents of Intelligent Design is Darwinianism, not the 'small changes over time' type of evolution, nor the small adaptations due to environmental changes (microevolution), nor even the production of new species from a common ancestor (macroevolution).
But Darwinianism, chance macroevolution, which asserts that all organisms, including mankind, descended from a common ancestor without any input, either at its beginning or on the journey, from an intelligent source.
Such is the fleeting glimpse of God currently being seen: there's still a long way to go to get back to the view of our great scientists of the past.
However if scientists continue to be brave enough to be honest about what they see in the science they explore, especially at the molecular level, their influence might spread widely...
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made. so that people are without excuse.
[Romans 1 : 20 NIV]
Of course, I have omitted mentioning the many Creation Scientists who have either never been Darwinianists, or have transferred from that camp as they became Bible-believing Christians during their careers.
Creation Ministries International is staffed by several of these men and women and https://creation.com is a great website to visit and explore evidence and arguments for special creation.
Blessings, Barry
I read lots of creation-evolution literature, mainly to justify and strengthen my Biblical creationist views and to bolster my scientific and theological arguments against Darwin's General Theory of Evolution (GTE).
I haven't written on GTE in my BLOG as the BLOG's focus is on God's extravagant grace and the reconciliation of all creation to Himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, I might begin to do so in the future, as belief in GTE (yes, it is a belief system) has some serious implications for Christians and the foundations underlying their Christian faith.
Today's post about Charles Darwin is consistent with my main focus without directly addressing GTE.
There are many quotes from The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82 by Charles Darwin available on the Internet, but one of them is especially relevant to some of the points I have made in several previous posts.
Charles Darwin was initially training to be an Anglican minister, but "I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation".
"I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."
We have seen in many previous posts that poor translations in most popular Bibles of verses involving "hell", "eternal" and "age-during or age-ian" have distracted readers from God's true gospel that Jesus' death and resurrection have secured the eventual reconciliation of all His creation. (Check out *God's Biblical Plan* posted on January 8th for a recent quick summary.)
In addition, the mainstream church has rarely preached this gospel message, promoting rather that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world will not be successful and that God will annihilate or endlessly torment most of His creation at the final judgement.
Who would really want to be committed to such a cruel and unsuccessful god, whose stated purpose for the world could be so easily sabotaged?
But this is not the case at all. The gospel of Jesus Christ is really good news - not a mixture of good news for some and bad news for the majority.
In all his wisdom and insight God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ.
This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head. [Ephesians 1 : 8 - 10 GNB]
and Jesus' own words:
"When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to me." [Jesus quoted in John 12 : 32 GNB]
because
Christ himself is the means by which our sins are forgiven, and not our sins only, but also the sins of everyone. [1 John 2 : 2 GNB]
I can't help wondering what Darwin's influence on the world might have been if he had not been so influenced by the incorrectly translated text he was reading, and become an Anglican clergyman instead.
Blessings, Barry
It's my turn to lead a Bible Study at my church this week. One of the Scripture passages chosen by the Lectionary for this week is Romans 5 : 12 - 21, one of my favourites. So I will need to be careful that I don't slip from my prescribed role as facilitator of the group into one of preacher/teacher for the morning. 😎
It is only a short passage, but it deals a fatal blow to several of the world's favourite views (beliefs).
Belief in the Theory of Evolution
(I won't get side-tracked by the "scientific" aspects of this theory, which are erroneous and predominantly quite unscientific. I will just mention one of the Biblical challenges to this theory.)
Therefore just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people ....
(verse 12 NIV)
Note the order of events here.
Man then sin then death.
The Theory of Evolution requires the opposite - long ages of death to precede the arrival of humans on earth.
Belief in Man's Free Will
Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people,
so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.
(verse 18 NIV)
We do not choose our destiny, God does.
We are allowed to make choices along the way, which determines how difficult or enjoyable and rewarding the journey becomes.
But the end result has already been determined by God.
(mentioned again in Eph 1 : 9 - 10; Col 1 : 19 -20; etc.)
Belief in Eternal Torment in Hell
For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners,
so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
(verse 19 NIV)
A righteous outcome for all hardly makes room for an eternity in hell or any other place that might be a separation from God.
Romans 11 : 32 also reinforces this point with ...
For God has bound everyone over to disobedience (unbelief) so that he may have mercy on them all. (NIV)
These are very brief comments on these unBiblical, misleading world views.
However if you would like to discuss any of them further, add a comment below and let's start a conversation.
Blessings, Barry
This used to be a simple question to answer.
In my much younger days of scientific and mathematical research and practice, theories were hypotheses (informed guesses drawn from the observation of multiple examples) that could be verified or falsified by experimentation.
Further, a theory had to be capable of producing practical, duplicate examples and of predicting future events.
Indeed, a scientific theory could only be considered a statement about reality if it followed these principles of scientific theory.
As human beings on planet Earth, we are most commonly aware of gravity, now considered a universally established and accepted law, because of our confidence in its ability to withstand all challenges to its ability to describe reality.
Science that follows these principles could be called by numerous descriptors - operational, experimental, observational, structural sciences.
We will call them the "exact sciences" here.
Indeed, it has become imperative to use such a term now that the science space has been invaded by philosophy (or religion, if I were brave enough to use that descriptor).
These historical-interpretative theories, like creation, evolution and significant components of cosmology, speculate about the origin of the universe and its inhabitants.
They might use the currently observable (but not original) data around us, but can hardly produce duplicate origin examples or be subject to a verifiable/falsification process.
Origin events only happen once (do not have multiple examples) and, since observers were not available at the exact time of their happening, contemporary scientists have no examples (original or duplicate) to experiment on, to be verified or to be falsified.
These philosophical theories have hijacked the "science" descriptor, possibly because it is scientists who usually tout them, or because a relationship to the exact sciences has been attributed to them.
We shall discuss this relationship possibility in a future post.
To these historical-interpretative sciences, if they must be called science at all, we will give the name "origin sciences", as they do not follow the principles of science theory as do the "exact sciences".
Three origin sciences are staunchly defended belief systems about what happened in the unobservable past and will be discussed on this blog over the course of the year.
But for now, just a brief introductory description of each ...
Evolution is a philosophical doctrine based on matter and materialistic principles driven by mutation and selection.
To many it has become a basic, universal principle that is taken for granted: to others it is seen as imaginative speculation.
Creation is a biblical doctrine based on the existence of a Creator, the God of the Bible, who was present at the origin events and whose creative activities cannot be explained by natural laws.
To many it is a basic principle that is taken for granted: to others it is seen as an unenlightened view based on the assumption that the Bible is the literal Word of God.
Theistic Evolution is a doctrine based on a marriage of evolution and creation - God used evolution as a means of creating.
To many it is a means of accommodating science and the Bible: to others it describes a marriage of incompatibles, a random process lacking in purpose and design with a deliberate, planned process of intelligent design and purpose.
We shall discuss and evaluate their competing claims as possible explanations of the unobservable past in future posts.
So, to answer our lead question, science has become a mix of exact and origin studies, those that follow the traditional principles of scientific theory and those that are belief systems that have scientific connections.
As usual, your critical review is invited and will be most welcome.
Blessings, Barry
