THE CREATIONIST RESPONSE TO THE TEACHINGS OF EVOLUTION
A Paper
Presented to
Dr. Steven Bramer
Dallas Theological Seminary
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Course
Old Testament History 302
By
D. Lance Waldie
January 30, 1998
THE CREATIONIST RESPONSE TO EVOLUTION
There are a handful of views with regard to the origins of time. The two most prevalent views seem to be the theory of evolution and Biblical creationism. The Biblical account of creation has the greatest validity not only because it comes from the inspired Word of God, but also because the theory of evolution presents a very weak case; too weak to be considered legitimate. This paper will focus on some of the main points in favor of Biblical creationism and the young earth theory. Special creation will be defended in three ways: first, through a brief study of what the Bible says, second, through arguments against evolution, and third, through the use of common sense.
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE TEACH?
The Biblical account uses many verbs to describe God’s actions in creation: "created," "made," "said," "called," "set," "formed," "caused," "took," "planted" and "blessed." The Genesis account tells the reader the who, the how, the order, and the completeness of the process of creation. Aspects of creation are taught in Luke 3:38, Romans 5:14, 1 Corinthians 11:9, 15:22, 45, 2 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Timothy 2:13-14, and Jude 14. At least 17 times in Genesis 1 God is mentioned as Creator. While reading Genesis 2:7, it is clear that God created man and he used the dust of the ground to do so. This could not refer to the formal ancestry, since it is to dust that man returns—and not a return to animal state, as seen in Genesis 3:19. Furthermore, the first man of the Bible was made in the image of God and thus bears no resemblance to evolution’s first men.
Some Bible scholars believe that the first eleven chapters of Genesis, which include the creation account, should be taken as an allegory. However, allegorizing Genesis would of necessity affect the interpretation of many New Testament passages and discredit the authority of Jesus Christ. Jesus accepted the account of Adam and Eve (Matt. 19:4, Mark 10:6) and also the historicity of the Flood (Matt. 24:38, Luke 17:27). If the words of Jesus are not trustworthy in these particulars, then one may well be able to discredit His words in other matters. If evolution is true, the "allegory" that God allegedly gave in those early chapters of Genesis is an entirely inaccurate one—and one can only conclude that in giving it God was either untrue or unintelligent.
WHAT DOES SCIENCE TEACH?
In contrast to creationism the theory of evolution teaches that mutations are needed over long periods of time in order to produce an intelligent human race. As mutations evolved, natural selection, or survival of the fittest, joined in and humans became humans. Mutations are alternate forms of existing conditions, which means that some condition had to exist prior to the first mutations. For this to occur would be an impossibility because, according to evolution, something came from nothing. Mutations have to come from something, but in their beginning there was nothing that produced something! A case in point would be the fact that protozoa have no teeth. If they have no teeth, and humans evolved from protozoa, then where did the genes come from for humans to have teeth?
For the vast amount of mutations and the workings of natural selection that have led up to the formation of the human race a great deal of time is needed according to the theory of evolution. This is why the age of the earth is dated at around 5 billion years old. According to the evolutionists, mutations are produced through natural selection, and mutations guarantee natural selection; however, neither phenomena can be proved by itself. One of the problems with mutations, which are observed today, is that they are almost always harmful. Most mutations bring about deterioration, breakdown, and disappearance of some organs. Beneficial mutations have never been observed.
Other problems with mutations and natural selection, and the fact that they need many millions of years to work, are the laws of physics. Random impersonal chance does not produce complexity and organization, only greater chaos. According to the laws of physics all energy and matter are governed by the same laws of thermodynamics. According to the second law of thermodynamics, all things are moving towards a state of chaos -- not complexity. One only needs to leave their car in the garage for about ten years to see how it moves toward a state of deterioration. It will not be in better shape after any period of time. On the contrary, the car, just like the earth and everything in it, is dealing with the problem of entropy. Everything moves from complexity to a state of chaos. Furthermore, the greater the time span the greater will be the chaos and disorganization. This is an observable phenomenon even today, and it is a problem that evolution cannot overcome.
WHAT DO THE FOSSILS SAY?
It surprises many to learn that the methods used for dating rocks (radiometric, fluorine, and uranium-lead methods) provide no absolute dates, and in many instances the results are contradictory, inconsistent, or give results which are unreasonable. Carbon 14 dating, which seems to be believed by all, also begins to have an important margin of error after several thousand years. In other words, if the object being dated by the carbon 14 method is older than a few thousand years the testing will be inaccurate.
Since evolution claims that man has been around for such a long period or time and that he evolved from ape-like forms it would seem logical to assume that there would be fossils of these men and women in their intermediate state. There are none. All fossils found of humans are in their full state of being as we know them today. Furthermore, the fossil record shows the sudden appearance, fully formed, of all the complex invertebrates (snails, clams, jellyfish, sponges, worms, sea-urchins, brachiopods, and trilobites) without a trace of ancestors. The fossil record also shows the sudden appearance, fully formed, of every major kind of fish (supposedly the first vertebrates) without a trace of ancestors. This, in itself, proves that evolution has not occurred. If evolution had occurred, our museums would contain thousands of fossils of intermediate forms. However, not a trace of an ancestor or transitional form has ever been found for any of these creatures!
The evolutionist argument for an old earth with reference to an old date for fossils is an argument that is circular and weak. The succession of organisms has been determined by a study of their remains buried in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains that they contain! In order to find the date of a fossil one must find the date of the rock. But, in order to find the date of the rock, one must know the date of the fossil within the rock. In other words, the date of the rock depends on the fossil, but the date of the fossil depends on the rock! This cannot possibly reveal precise results.
Evolution has been postulated but never observed. In a broad sense, evolution is unproven and un-provable, consequently, it cannot be considered fact. Since it is not subject to test by ordinary methods of experimental science -- observation and falsification -- it cannot even be considered a scientific theory. On the other hand, creationism is the same way. It cannot be proven either, nor can it be observed, but it is not being taught as fact in schools and universities around the world.
EVIDENCE FROM THE SUN AND MOON
Dr. Russell Akridge has found evidence that the sun is shrinking, and he finds that it shrinks at approximately five feet per hour. This data was taken from tests that spanned a 400-year solar period of time, and the five feet per hour remained constant during that time. Since the sun is about one million miles in diameter it makes sense that if its deterioration has remained constant for just 100,000 years it would be twice the size it is now. If the sun was twice the size it is now then there would be an impossibility that man, or any other life form, could survive on the earth with the sun’s intense heat at that time. In fact, 20 million years ago, the surface of the sun would have touched the earth! This is hardly possible given the fact that evolutionists claim that the planet is 4.6 billion years old!
Dr. Thomas Barnes claims that the earth and the moon are too young for evolution, over billions of years, to have occurred. The laws of physics show that the moon should be receding from the earth. From the same laws it can be shown that the moon could never have been closer than 11,500 miles from the earth (if it were it would have exploded). Given that the moon’s present speed of recession is known, if one were to multiply this recession speed by the presumed evolutionary age, the moon would be much farther away from the earth than it is -- even if it had started from the earth (which is an impossibility). This is simple proof that evolution could not have occurred.
Dr. Barnes claims that the earth’s magnetic age is the "Achilles heel" of evolution, and that there is nothing more devastating to the doctrine of evolution than the scientific evidence of a young earth age. That evidence is provided by the rapid depletion of the energy in the earth’s main magnet, its electromagnetic dipole magnet in the conductive core of the earth. Its electric current is using up the magnet’s energy. Given that the rate of energy consumption is now known, scientists can logically conclude that the earth’s magnetic age is limited to thousands of years, not the billions claimed by evolutionary scientists.
USING COMMON SENSE
It would appear that a little common sense might come in useful for the believers in evolution. Louis Pasteur, in 1860, proved that life cannot form out of non-life, but evolutionists believe by faith that life did come from non-life -- an idea that takes more faith to believe than believing in the Creator God Himself. Is the human race, with all its intricacies and precision, just an accident or an intended creation by a Creator God? If people believe that the human race is only a highly evolved animal species then it would appear that all acts of human cruelty could be justified by the fact that humans are little more than wild beasts. If that is the case then evolution only justifies the immoral society that prevails today. People can live any way they please and not be held responsible.
The hopelessly illogical premise here is what evolution believes to be fact -- that is that nothing plus chance equals everything. How can anything times nothing equal anything but nothing? Even the laws of probability say no. One statistician says that for all of life to have come into being through chance would be the same as throwing dice and coming up with snake eyes ten million times in a row. That simply cannot happen, and one does not need a math degree to figure that one out -- only a little common sense.
In addition, the "complex metabolic motor" is what every living cell contains. This is the ability of the cell to extract energy from its environment in order to supply energy for the reproduction of the cell and other cell needs. For life to exist there must be what is known as the "metabolic motor," but this metabolic motor can only be produced by life! How then, when no life exists, can substance come into being, which are absolutely essential for life (such as DNA), but which can only be produced by life? It cannot, and a little common sense shows that this is impossible without a governing force that brings all life into being.
David Buckna and Denis Laidlaw are both public school teachers in British Columbia, and they have made an exhaustive list of some of the more pressing questions for evolutionists dealing with common sense.
In conclusion, evolution is a complete world-view. It is an explanation of origins and meanings without the necessity of a personal God who created and upholds all things. It is in and of itself a philosophy of faith. Its fallacies are fourfold: First, it contradicts the Biblical record of creation as given to Moses by God. Even Christ, in Matthew 19:4-6 quoted from the Genesis account as historically accurate and authoritative. Second, it is inconsistent with God’s methods. The standard history of evolution involves the development of innumerable misfits and extinctions, useless and even harmful organisms. If this is God’s method of creation, it is strange He would use such wasteful and inefficient processes. The natural selection process of "survival of the fittest" completely contradicts God’s methods of love, unselfish sacrifice, and Christian charity. Third, the evolutionary philosophy is the intellectual basis of the anti-Christian and anti-God systems that have plagued mankind for centuries. The Nazis and the Marxists used evolution as the scientific basis for communism. Furthermore, if all humans came about through chance then there is no real basis for self-esteem and no basis for morality because we are just animals at best at the core of our being. Finally, evolution is contradicted by the basic laws of science. The first two laws of thermodynamics teach that nothing is being created that has not already been created, and everything that is created is moving towards a state of chaos. These two laws alone contradict the tenants of evolution. Evolution says everything goes "upward" towards a state of complexity, but the laws of science say they go "downward" towards a state of disarray.
To be fair, neither evolution nor creation can be proved. Both views cannot be observed, and both views require faith. For the creationist, the Bible stands, and has stood, the test of time. It is worthy of a deep investigation for studying the origins of the earth and the human race. It has proven itself over and over again through the centuries. Evolution has not stood the test. Close scrutiny reveals many problems with this line of reasoning, and there are many questions that must be answered regarding this theory if it is going to continue to be taught as a theory.
WORKS CITED
Morris, The Bible Has the Answer,
Carlson and Decker, Fast Facts on False Teachings,
Ryrie, Contemporary Answers to Biblical Questions,
Gish, Evolution, the Fossils Still Say NO!
Boyd, Boyd’s Handbook of Practical Apologetics,
Morris and Whitcomb, The Genesis Flood,
Martin, The Evolution of a Creationist,