evolution
Not afraid to shy away from controversy, we thought we'd put a talk study thingy on around the topic of evolution - and after someone did a search under evolution and we realised we didn't have any content about this!
This is from a Christian perspective. Personally, I do not believe in evolution. It's a theory at best, unproven, with many scientists (including secular ones) not believing in its validity. But I recognise that some Christians do believe in evolution.
INTRO
Evolution is a theory created by a man called Charles Darwin who was a famous scientist. There are many stories that on his deathbed, having become a Christian, Charles Darwin said that he no longer believed in the theory of evolution. This is as yet, unproven. (Click here)
Theory means:
1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.
3. A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.
4. Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory.
5. A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment: staked out the house on the theory that criminals usually return to the scene of the crime.
6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
The theory is that over time, things evolve into other things. So this means that things can improve - so for example animals who live in dry deserts have learned over time how to survive. This is within a species of animal. For example, humans are getting taller.
The more controversial theory is that species can evolve into other species. So the theory is that humans came from monkeys and before that from what's been called 'Primordial Slime' - so basically from mud.
UPDATE - MAY 2006
A great book to read is 'The Case for a Creator' by Lee Strobel. In this book, we find that science and the Bible and not incompatible. In fact, many scientists, physicists, micro-biologists and even astronomers, are now suggesting that the evidence points to the fact that there was a creator. In fact, some of the previous scientific 'evidence' (we still sometimes see in books), has been rejected - often by the original authors, or shown to have been made up.
Let's have a brief look at some of the evidence. Please read the book for more. This is a very loose summary only! Please visit the Case for a Creator website - for more and to find how to get the book and DVD.
- The sun is 400 times bigger than the moon; the sun is 400 times further away from earth than the sun is. Therefore, it is possible to have a solar eclipse. It is now widely accepted that the earth is the only place in the known universe that a solar eclipse could be seen, the one place where mankind is..
- It is increasingly believed that earth is unique. Only in this part of the universe are all the elements so perfectly balanced so as to sustain the earth and human life. While some believe there many be an infinite number of universes, others would reply that this fact shows even more clearly that there is a creator.
- We all have bacteria in our bodies. These bacteria are powered around the body by little motors on their backs. These motors are called flagellums. These motors are so incredibly efficient, they are more efficient and relatively powerful than the most powerful motors we have, spinning at 10,000rpm (revolutions per minute), despite the fact these are microscopic organisms. Moreover, these flagellums can stop and change direction with almost one immediate turn.
- The cosmological constant. This is (according to answers.com): an arbitrary constant in the equations of general relativity theory. Forget what it is. Know that this figure needs to be very precise. If it was greater or lower than it is, the universe would be in a big mess. In fact, this is such a small number to aim at, that the likelihood of this being a chance number is something like 1 to the power of a million, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion!
- The concept of the universe simply happening is doubted by many. In fact, even if the universe did suddenly come together, there must have been an initiating factor, something that made it happen. This points to a creator. To paraphrase one scientist: something only exists if something makes it exist - if it exists, it must have had something happen to make it exist - so there must be a creator.
- There is six-feet of DNA coiled up inside our body's 100 trillion cells, containing a four-letter chemical alphabet that spells out precise assembly instructions for all the proteins from which our bodies are made. Every time we find DNA, it is sequential, complex and relates to an independent pattern - and thus needs an intelligent designer. What we find with DNA is that is has all this and no other explanation, other than a highly intelligent and creative creator, can expplain it.
- Consciousness. We have a consciousness that is beyond our brain - this manifests as emotions, soul, desires, choices etc. It has been shown that a consciousness exists long after a brain has stopped functioning. This is separate to the brain. If the universe came together from an unconscious, nothing-ness, how do you explain consciousness? You can't, unless you recognise there was a Creator, God.
THE BIBLE AS TRUTH
We believe as Christians this isn't true. Not only has the Bible predicted accurately over 400 events in history, many scientific finds back up the Bible. It isn't science that people believe has discredited the Bible, it is scientific theories. There is a big difference. A theory, like the evolution theory, is a proposal that has not been fully proved. True science is based on fact, not theory.
2 Timothy 3.16 says:
'All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness..'
We see that Jesus himself knew the Old Testament brilliantly, often quoting it. It is real clear that Jesus accorded the Old Testament absolute authority, using it, repeating it, never querying it, and even pointing to prophecies fulfilled or to be fulfilled from it.
In John 14.16, Jesus promised the Holy Spirit do his disciples - the Spirit of Truth. In John 16.13, Jesus spoke again of his Holy Spirit:
'But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.'
So Jesus gives authority to the New Testament by telling his disciples that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of all truth and that he will guide the disciples (and us today) into all truth, speaking only what he hears (from God the Father), who alone is perfect.
As a Christian, if we challenge the truth of the Bible, we challenge the fundamentals of our faith. It's no accident that people who spend time doing this often lose their faith or the heart for their faith. It's chasing useless knowledge and it's pointless. Believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. believe what Jesus says and accept the authority of the Bible equally - Jesus the living Word, the Bible the written Word. (1 John).
THE BIBLE AND CREATION
If evolution is correct, it means that over millions of years (around 4.6 billion actually), species have developed into other species.
Many Christians believe that it is impossible for one species to become another - for example, an elephant can't become a giraffe and a monkey can't become a man. Evidence for this can be found in Genesis 1.24-28:
And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
So, the key points here are:
1. God said let the land produce living creatures who will multiply according to their KIND.
2. God made the creatures and saw that they were GOOD.
3. Man was made in the likeness of God.
4. Man was made to rule over and look after animals and creation.
We'll come back to some of these points later looking at The Bible and evolution..
So, if we did believe that evolution between species possible, we would also need to believe that the world has developed over millions of years.
In Genesis, we find the Bible tells us that God made the earth in 6 days and on the 7th day, God rested. Many Christians believe that this is a literal translation - 6 days means 6 days. Why would it mean anything else?
Well, for some, the confusion arises around the Hebrew word that is used for the word translated into English as 'day'. The Hebrew word is 'Yom' and this word can also mean 'period of time'. So, for some Christians, they believe that God created the world in 6 periods of 'time'.
However, on a personal level I believe that 6 days means 6 days. The first time the word 'Yom' is used in the Bible is in Genesis 1.5:
God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.
In this, we see that the Bible uses the word 'Yom' in context to a period of day and night (after the first 'day'). So it is reasonable to assume that when the same word is used in the same chapter of the Bible, that the word 'Yom' continues to mean a day in earthly terms? I think so.
The plural of 'Yom' is 'Yamim' and this is used hundreds of times in the Old Testament and always means 'days.' This includes in Exodus 20.11 where God spoke directly to Moses and said:
For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
We also read in Genesis 1 that before God shaped and created, the world was a nothing. Nothing. No electrical forces operating on primordial slime, no forces, no evolutionary elements. Nothing. God then created.
I'm not sure what the problem is with God being able to create the world in his time and way as the Bible records. I realised others disagree but this is my strong conviction. Are we on dangerous territory when we start to almost re-interpret the Bible in line with modern thinking? Surely modern thinking should be subject to the Word of God as the final authority.
And if we accept 6 days was a guideline, an easy way for us humans to accept God's creation of the world, at what point does Genesis become literal and figurative. I mean, if we do not accept 6 literal days, do we accept Adam and Eve were literal, or the devil, or the garden of creation. How do we take a paragraph of Genesis and state that part of the paragraph is literal and half is representative? No, we start to land on tricky ground and ground that can undermine the Bible and faith. Not that we don't consider and think about these things - it's that we must accord the Bible the highest authority.
THE BIBLE AND EVOLUTION
What does the Bible say? Well, the Bible isn't completely clear on this topic as the Bible tells us there are far more important things to worry about like caring for and loving other people. Many people believe that the Bible has been discredited and doesn't agree with science.
So let's look at evolution and the Bible and ask what does all our study of the Bible and creation mean anyway? Why bother with the questions and the theology?
Well, if we accept that the Bible is true and that it means God created the world in 6 actual days, there is no room for the theory of evolution. This refers back to the 4 points made in the section above:
1. God said let the land produce living creatures who will multiply according to their KIND.
2. God made the creatures and saw that they were GOOD.
3. Man was made in the likeness of God.
4. Man was made to rule over and look after animals and creation.
So let's re-look at these 4 points:
1. We see that God made animals within their kind, to breed within their kind, only. We also find the order of God's creation contradict the view of evolution too. (Genesis 1).
2. God directly made man. Period. No evolution or development. What's more, man could communicate with God, he was given instruction by God to name all the plants and animals etc. Not exactly a work in progress!
God saw that man (and woman) were good. So was his creation. Can you imagine God creating perfection, declaring it to be 'good' and then waiting for it to 'mature' or 'evolve.' Nor can I. If we think of the clearest Biblical picture of our eternal future in heaven with God to be Eden then we realise that it was perfection.
Even if we accept man evolved, how do we explain Eve? Here was a woman created out of the body part of a man. No evolution, no development, Adam wasn't asleep for a few million years. No, we cannot accept the Biblical argument as being compatible with evolution at all.
3. Man was made in the likeness of God (as the trinity). This means man wasn't made as a primordial sludge or monkey. Otherwise it means that God would be primordial sludge or a monkey. Yet God created an awesome world and universe, created all the infinite-ness of humans, animals and planets. And we know that God is to be feared, revered and is all-powerful, the unquestioned authority! And who is our model of perfect humanity? Jesus, the man. Fully man yet fully God.
4. Man was made to rule over and look after animals and creation. As said above, man was made to be in charge of animals. No doubt who was the most advanced, unique and unparalleled creation by God. Only man can talk to God, be in direct relationship with God - man (and woman) was set apart from day one. There is no equal and man is no animal.
What would believing in evolution mean?
As a Christian, believing in evolution naturally leaves you with many doubts about your faith..
If we evolve from sludge, there is no need for a creator. Evolution believes in survival of the fittest, leaving the poor, the weak to die off. It is aggressive, domineering and conquering. Evolution supposes that there is no God, so man becomes god in effect. Man as god breaks God's law, God's rules and we see the consequences of this around us each day. Evolution leaves no hope, no after life, no heaven. Evolution leaves man as one of the animals, not distinct from other animals. The concept of God breathing life into mankind is no more.
Science
Let's look briefly at science. Science does not produce any absolute truths in this area. There are many ways of dating the age of the earth. Many of these scientific estimates vary wildly (4000 to millions of years). There have been no 'half-ape-half-man' discoveries made, very few discoveries that point to anything that is an 'in-between' stage of evolutionary development between species. Very little evidence points to cross development between species. On the other hand, some science dates us all back to one person (the so called 'Eve' gene), other science dates everyone back to one place.
But what about the dinosaurs?
What of them? In the last year there have been around 500 extinctions of animal, insect, bird. The dinosaurs were simply one of the creations of God (if they were in fact as we think they were). As you may well read, one of the dinosaurs people thought definitely existed was the brontosaurus. It has now been definitively proved this dinosaur didn't exist at all.
There is a fairly major Biblical event found in Genesis. You may have heard of it - it's called the Great Flood and it's found in and around Genesis 7. This devastation that man brought upon himself would have been sure to have destroyed many animals and everything else, producing the right conditions for fossilization.
Did dinosaurs exist? Probably something like them yes. Job 40 and Psalm 104 both mention giant creatures of the deep. These were called 'behemoth' meaning:
1. Something enormous in size or power.
2. A huge animal, possibly the hippopotamus, described in the Bible.
But surely Noah took 2 of every living creature onto the Ark? Good point. Whatever the truth, we find that the stories of the behemoth died out. Could the Loch Ness Monster theories be a legacy of the behemoth the Bible speaks of? Who knows! I ain't about to try to find out either..
Phew! We'll add more content and as ever, develop and clarify as we learn more. Thanks for stopping by.
