Ariel A. Rotha <\/b><\/p>\n
How can creationists explain, within a short chronology, 50 superimposed forests of upright petrified trees in apparent position of growth? That was the first question faced (see the March-April 1993 Liberty) by 43 creationist theologians, scientists, college presidents, and church administrators during an 11-day geology field trip through four Western states. In this second article of a three-part series on creation and evolution, Dr. Ariel Roth, director of the Geoscience Research Institute, discusses differing concepts of how life originated<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Fifteen major wars have started and ended since the middle of the nineteenth century, when Darwin\u2019s Origin of Species<\/i> (1859) challenged the Biblical account of creation. No guns have been fired in the origins conflict, no territory has changed hands; but barrages of alleged scientific facts have captured university centers and changed the loyalties of millions who were once committed to the Genesis hypothesis: \u201cIn the beginning, God. . .\u201d<\/p>\n
Today it\u2019s \u201cin the beginning,\u201d Big Bang. The six days of creation week are replaced by an intricate geologic column that measures time in epochs. We are told that an evolutionary process, devoid of God, resulted in development of all forms of earthly life. These ideas have permeated many areas of intellectual inquiry, including psychology, sociology, geography, and theology.<\/p>\n
However, some evolutionists outdo creationists in raising problems about their theory. While evolution is broadly accepted, a satisfactory mechanism for the process has yet to come forth. Over the past two centuries at least five major evolutionary mechanisms have been introduced only to be replaced by new ones. At present newer and more complex proposals are competing for survival.1 However variant their viewpoints, most creationists and evolutionists agree that the stakes in the dispute are of epic consequence.<\/p>\n
Superpowers<\/b><\/p>\n
Science is a much-admired enterprise. It can grow plants that glow in the dark, and the technology based on science can build electronic chips less than a square inch that contain a million functional units, and instantly send full-color messages around the world. Such achievements bring science well-deserved esteem while masking its limitations. For example, science cannot adequately answer questions about the origins of consciousness (mind), concepts of good and evil, or free will.<\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 7:1 (Winter 1994) p. 9<\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 7:1 (Winter 1994) p. 10<\/p>\n
The Bible, to the contrary, while sending no full-color messages, does point the way to communication with heaven. It reveals origins and destinations, and claims inspired authorship. Though the secularizing influences of the past two centuries have eroded confidence in its messages, the Bible commands markets no other book approaches\u2014more than 127 million copies are distributed yearly. The American Bible Society alone has published 5 billion Bibles or portions thereof. Mao Zedong\u2019s Red Book<\/i> places a distant second, with a mandated distribution of only 800 million copies.<\/p>\n
Respect for both science and the Bible remains so immense that the war between them is really a clash of Titans.<\/p>\n
Roots<\/b><\/p>\n
Much of their warfare is, in a sense, fought underground, in the geologic column, where hundreds of thousands of different fossil species have been found. In the lowest level, the Precambrian, fossils are rare and their authenticity often debated. Most fossils are found in the overlying Phanerozoic level, which forms about two-thirds of the total volume of sediments. Human fossils exist only in the upper part of this level. The main conflict between science and Scripture is over how this column is to be interpreted.<\/p>\n
The creationist believes that the fossils represent remains of life-types created by God during creation week and buried by the Genesis flood. Factors involve (1) an original, well-ordered, unique ecology buried by gradually rising waters; (2) sorting by water current; (3) faster motility of larger organisms; and (4) sorting in water by density. The evolutionist believes that the column resulted from a naturalistic evolutionary theory while usually preserving God\u2019s involvement in the process.<\/p>\n
Eight Columns of Attack<\/b><\/p>\n
At present, many different interpretations exist for the geologic column. The major ones are:<\/p>\n
1. Creation<\/b><\/p>\n
Based on the most direct reading of Scripture, this model teaches that life on earth was created in six literal days, with a short period between creation and the Genesis flood, a major catastrophe <\/p>\n
Farther up the Ordivician, part (14 million years) of the Pennsylvanian-lower arrow-and part (5 million years) of the Permian-upper arrow-are missing<\/i><\/b>.<\/b><\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 7:1 (Winter 1994) p. 11<\/p>\n
trophe that produced most of the fossiliferous sedimentary layers. This model fits well with, among other things, the design and orderliness in nature together with catastrophic geologic interpretations.<\/p>\n
The problem: it disagrees with several scientific interpretations that specify long ages\u2014especially radiometric dating, the rate of molten rock cooling, of fossil reef formation, and of successive forest growth.<\/p>\n
2. Gap Theory2 <\/b><\/p>\n
After creating earth life in the distant past, God destroyed it in a judgment against Satan. This ruin was followed by the creation described in Genesis 1 and 2. This model has little scientific or scriptural support. If a gap had existed, a distinct blank period should appear in the fossil record. None has.<\/p>\n
3. Progressive Creation3 <\/b><\/p>\n
God\u2019s multiple creations over long time periods are documented by the increasingly complex life forms from the bottom to the top of the geologic column. This theory fits both the evidence of gaps in the fossil record, which supports creation, and the alleged long ages in the geologic column, which supports evolution.<\/p>\n
Yet neither science nor Scripture suggests this progressive means of creation. The presence of the vicious Tyrannosaurus rex<\/i> in the earlier fossil record makes evil, in the form of predation, appear before humans\u2014a progression that negates the genesis story of a good God and a good creation followed by the fall of humanity and the consequent evil.4 <\/p>\n
4. Theistic Evolution5 <\/b><\/p>\n
God directed continuous evolution from the simple to the complex. This model fits well with many concepts of evolution. The theistic component answers questions that evolution can\u2019t: how life originated, the development of complex, interacting biological systems, and the source of man\u2019s higher mental capacities.<\/p>\n
However, gaps in the fossil record, especially those between the major groups of organisms, don\u2019t suggest continuous evolution, nor does the evolution of advanced life forms fit the Biblical Creator.6 The slow, vicious struggle of evolution, leaving a trail of extinct taxa, challenges the creative power, knowledge, and goodness of a God who does not forget the sparrow (Lk 12:6) and whose ideal for life includes the lion and the lamb living together peacefully (Is 11:6; 65:25).<\/p>\n
5. Deistic Evolution7 <\/b><\/p>\n
God started life, and then allowed naturalistic evolution to progress. This model addresses how life originated, perhaps the most difficult issue for evolutionists.8 <\/p>\n
However, this model struggles with the main issue in theistic evolution: reconciling the loving God depicted in Scripture with the struggle and competition of evolution. Also, how do inept, intermediate stages survive while changing from one functional type to another? How could an intermediate appendage that is neither a good leg nor wing permit an organism to survive? Major changes that have detrimental intermediates are difficult to justify in the economy of evolution. And how did human beings attain such characteristics as love, morality, and freedom of choice through a naturalistic process?<\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 7:1 (Winter 1994) p. 12<\/p>\n
6. Pantheistic Evolution9 <\/b><\/p>\n
According to this view, God, as part of nature, progresses with evolution. Nevertheless, He is still God.<\/p>\n
The problems: besides those of deistic evolution, this model contradicts the biblical teaching that God is the Creator, not part of the creation itself.<\/p>\n
7. Space Ancestry10 <\/b><\/p>\n
Addressing the problems that naturalistic evolution faces regarding the origin of life on earth, which have become more acutely popular in the past few decades, this model suggests that extraterrestrial life forms seeded or modified life here.<\/p>\n
This flight of fancy suffers from lack of support, either scientific or scriptural. Doubts arise too about the ability of life to travel through space by natural means. Also, pushing the origin of life to a corner of the universe doesn\u2019t answer the basic question of how it got started.<\/p>\n
8. Naturalistic Evolution11 <\/b><\/p>\n
Various life forms have developed without intelligent design or supernaturalism.<\/p>\n
This model fails to answer such important questions as: How do complex life systems originate without a designer? or, as seen in earlier models, How can one bridge the gap in the fossil record? or, How can humanity\u2019s higher characteristics, such as free will, love, and morality, originate from a purely mechanistic system?<\/p>\n
Of the above models, only the first has Biblical support. Several do involve the concept of God, but impute characteristics to Him that do not harmonize with His revelation in Scripture. The most scientific<\/i> model\u2014naturalistic evolution\u2014has serious scientific problems.<\/p>\n
The Biblical Thrust<\/b><\/p>\n
The Bible describes a short creation period of six literal days several thousand years ago that produced all basic life forms. Long ages are not suggested. Also, primordial earth is described as empty and dark (Gen 1:2). Because light is necessary for many of the life forms now locked in the fossil record, the concept of an extended period for the development of advanced life forms before creation is unbiblical.<\/p>\n
The intermediate views between creation and naturalistic evolution assume that the Genesis account is allegorical. Genesis teaches only that God is the Creator; the facts of the story aren\u2019t true. This approach undermines the Bible as a whole because the leading personalities in the Bible refer to the Genesis creation and flood as factual.<\/p>\n
Peter: \u201cLong ago by God\u2019s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed\u201d (2 Pet 3:5, 6 NIV; see also 1 Pt 3:20).<\/p>\n
Paul: \u201cFor as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be <\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 7:1 (Winter 1994) p. 13<\/p>\n
made alive. .. So it is written: \u2018The first man Adam became a living being\u2019\u201c (1 Cor 15:22, 45). Paul believed also in the Genesis flood (see Heb 11:7).<\/p>\n
Jesus Christ: \u201cHaven\u2019t you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female?\u201d (Mt 19:4). \u201cFor in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark\u201d (Mt 24:38).<\/p>\n
Thus, those who accept the Biblical account of creation are in good company. Also, why would God take millions of years to create the world and then ask His followers to keep the fourth commandment\u2014the Sabbath\u2014(Ex 20:8\u201311) as a memorial to a mere six-day creation? It would be a strange God indeed who would allow His prophets to be deceived on the important question of beginnings, only to wait for Charles Darwin to deliver the truth!<\/p>\n
Public Skepticism<\/b><\/p>\n
Despite the attraction of so-called scientific models, the public remains skeptical.<\/p>\n
A 1991 Gallup poll of adults in the United States revealed that only 9 percent believe in naturalistic evolution (model 8), whereas 40 percent believe that God was instrumental in the evolution process (models 3 and 4) and 47 percent that humans were created by God within the past 10, 000 years (model 1). (Four percent didn\u2019t know.)<\/p>\n
Over the past century, churches have accommodated the intermediate views, such as deistic or theistic evolution. Several factors can be cited for this shift.<\/p>\n
First, scientists are viewed as unbiased appraisers of data. Because they generally are evolutionists, Christians have concluded that the Biblical account of beginning must be erroneous.<\/p>\n
Second, leading Biblical scholars deny the validity of the Genesis account, which lends further support to the scientific view.<\/p>\n
Third, church support for Biblical creation has been perceived as challenging both academic authority and academic freedom.<\/p>\n
Fourth, in the heated conflict between science and the Bible, creationists have given quick and often erroneous answers, which are then criticized by knowledgeable people.<\/p>\n
And finally, in today\u2019s relativistic intellectual environment, scientists and theologians tend to question everything. Skepticism, relativism, and agnosticism are respected\u2014firm positions, suspect. This attitude has influenced the churches, weakening their faith in the \u201ctruth\u201d of creation.<\/p>\n
Well they might ponder a sobering question Jesus asked: \u201cWhen the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?\u201d (Lk 18:8).<\/p>\n
Evolution: No Workable Model<\/b><\/p>\n
Though science has rejected the Biblical creation model, it has failed to produce a workable model of its own. The problem has worsened in the past few decades, as the complexities of even the simplest organisms have been discovered to be so immense that the organization of life by itself cannot be reconciled with basic knowledge of chemistry, physics, and probability.<\/p>\n
Many scientists, though rejecting creationism, have repudiated Darwinian evolution. Nobel laureate Francis Crick (of Watson-Crick DNA proposed that the problems of life originating on earth are so great that life must have arisen elsewhere in the universe and then been transported here.12 Australian scientist Michael Denton called Darwinian evolution \u201cthe great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century.\u201d13 Swedish embryologist Soren Lovtrup, in Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth<\/i>, wrote: \u201cI believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?\u201d14 <\/p>\n
Though it has become almost fashionable among scientists to criticize many aspects of evolutionary theory,15 science still clings to the general concept of evolution, even without a plausible mechanism to explain the process. <\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 7:1 (Winter 1994) p. 14<\/p>\n
Because the concept of God is not acceptable in current scientific thinking, the creation alternative is rejected out of hand. God was part of scientific interpretation when the foundations of modern science were laid, but no longer.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s at stake in this clash of the Titans is not so much where humans have come from, but where they are going. The attack on biblical creation is inevitably an attack on biblical salvation. If Scripture can\u2019t be trusted regarding humanity\u2019s origins, why should it be regarding its destiny? Thus, the stakes in the dispute are indeed of epic consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ariel A. Rotha How can creationists explain, within a short chronology, 50 superimposed forests of upright petrified trees in apparent position of growth? That was the first question faced (see the March-April 1993 Liberty) by 43 creationist theologians, scientists, college presidents, and church administrators during an 11-day geology field trip through four Western states. In … Continue reading “CLASH
\nOF THE TITANS”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}