Evolution-theological
problems for
Christianity
This page
is mainly written for Christians although it may be of interest
to others. The site's main
purpose is to present
rational and scientific evidence against Darwin's 'theory' of evolution
and the belief that life originated by the random joining together of
simple molecules (see main menu).
Mistaken science should be challenged with good science, not theology.
However, evolution has very important theological implications for
Christianity, which I consider
here.
The 'average' Anglican,
Catholic and Evangelical believes that God made everything, but assumes
that evolution is how
God did it. This compromise default position is called Theistic Evolution. The first 11 chapters of
Genesis are re-interpreted as parable, still somehow relevant but not
historically true. Several Popes, the present
Archbishop of Canterbury and countless other Christian leaders who wish
to be 'modern' assure us that discarding Genesis 1-11 leaves our
Christian faith essentially intact. I believe that this view is seriously
mistaken, as I will try to explain. Note that this page
is written to Christians and
is about theology rather than
science. The science is elsewhere. I Therefore make no apology for
asserting Biblical doctrines without fully explaining or defending them
here, if you want that go to links and God.
Click below for key themes and outline discussion.
God's
glory and honour
Man and woman made in God's image
Reliability
of the Scriptures
Nature of the
Fall and Original Sin
The
words of Jesus
Christ's sacrifice on the cross
Effects of widespread acceptance of
evolution
Many genuinely
committed Christians today,
certainly in Britain, suppose that molecules to man
evolution is no problem for their faith. They accept evolution without
giving it very much thought, and some of them wish that people like me
would shut up about it. They believe that Jesus is the
Son of God and their Saviour, that they are sinners saved by grace,
that heaven is their home, that the Creed is true (even if we don't
understand it all), that Jesus fulfilled prophecies, performed
miracles, 'spoke like no other man', died for their sins, was raised
from the dead, ascended to heaven, from where He and the Father send
the Holy Spirit, and from whence He will come in the fullness of time
to
judge the living and the dead and to set up His eternal kingdom on a
renewed planet earth in which there will be no more sin or death. But,
without as I say giving it much thought, these honest and sincere
Christians accept evolution as a 'scientifically proven' explanation
for the origin of life.
They're dead wrong.
God's
glory and honour
Man's chief end is to worship and glorify God and to
enjoy Him for ever in heaven, so the catechism says. The Bible is full
of exhortations to worship God. We are exhorted to fear and obey God,
to respect and accept his commandments, to acknowledge His greatness
and wonderful attributes such as mercy, kindness, wisdom, justice,
compassion. It is not that God needs our worship, it is more that we
need to worship Him. It does us good to reflect on the divine and
eternal nature of
God, express wonder and admiration of His wisdom and power. His laws are wise and good, we avoid much misery NOW (let alone in eternity) by following the Maker's instructions-He is wiser than we are and knows best. We should
consider his loving kindness and mercy, and how great a love He has
shown us through Jesus,
we should live accordingly and, no apologies for this, we should
rightly fear
His great, and totally just, anger at wicked human attitudes and
behaviour (sin) and take great care that we will be
able to stand in the coming Judgement, about which there is so much in
the Bible (and so little from our 'Christianity Lite' pulpits these days). It is
right for us to worship, honour and-no apologies for this-fear God.
Evolution robs God of His glory.
It sweeps Him out of the picture. Evolution diminished God, it makes
Him seem weak and inconsequential, if He is there at all. To be sure,
every Christian hymn book
contains many songs and choruses which praise God for his work in
creation, too many examples to number. But if evolution is true, what
is there to praise Him for? The process begins and is carried along by
the blind, random working of chemicals. If evolution is true, millions
of deformed and stillborn creatures resulted as 'Mother Nature' blindly
tried out one DNA mutation after another before finally getting it
right by accident. Millions, if not billions, of years of blind chance
leading to mutations, deformity and death. How does that fit with the
repeated statement in Genesis 'and God saw all that He
had made, and behold it was very good'?
Theistic Evolution suggests that all God did was set up the conditions
for the 'big bang' light the blue touch paper, retire immediately and
leave the rest to time and chance, and the first thing that happened
once the earth cooled down enough to support organic life was that the
emergence of some kind of chemical sludge, which billions of years
later gave rise to bacteria, which eventually led to other
organisms-through a process involving accident, deformity and death. In what way
was this 'very good'? How does this glorify God? Again, I'm not writing
this for atheists, but to try to show the Christian who accepts the
atoms-to-us-by-accident instead of the Bible account of origins, needs
to think, next time they worship God as Creator, just what is he or she singing
about?
I wrote above that mainstream British Christians (it's not the same
everywhere else, perhaps we are suckers for Darwin since he was
English) accept that God created through evolution, but I wonder how
enthusiastic and sincere that belief is? If Theistic Evolution was
true, then we ought to believe it, preach it-AND GLORIFY GOD FOR IT. I have never
come across any hymn or prayer mentioning evolution. I'm sure there must be
some-there have always been bizarre sects on the edge of the church and heresy within-but
if God did create through evolution, we ought to praise Him for it, and
we ought to thank the scientists who opened our eyes to this aspect of
God's glory. In fact, we find there is an embarrassed silence
on the subject, just as if the Theistic Evolution believing Christians
really knew deep down that the materialists had really got one over on
the God squad through Darwin, and were in denial since they couldn't
quite give up on Jesus, but didn't want to argue with the scientists.
The periodic table of chemical elements is true, verifiable science,
raises no difficulties for the Bible, and fills me with wonder. Same
for the unbelievable wonder of the immune system, and the wonders
revealed through the Hubble space telescope. I glorify God for these
wonders in nature, which at worst (for the Christian case) are neutral,
at best (as I agree, together with the Psalmist and Saint Paul) redound
to the majesty, power and wisdom of Him who created them. However,
evolution is not neutral in this sense, it does not, like the wonders of the cosmos and intelligent design in the human body, make us want to glorify God, it
makes
Him seem irrelevant, redundant, an impotent spectator, a bystander to the great processes of evolution.
Man
and woman made in God's image
The Bible asserts that God made men and women 'In His
Image'. This is foundational to the entire sweep of the Judaeo-Christian
narrative. He made us in His image so that he could commune with us in
a special way. Plants and animals relfect God's creatitivity, but not His Image. We are different in a qualitative way, there is a huge jump, an unbridgeable gap between the highest animal and the lowest human. Theistic evolutionists accept that we are indeed made in
God's image, although we could discuss just what that means (and see
below under sin).
The question to them is AT WHAT TIME did man and woman come to bear
God's image'? I read a quote from an evolutionist, attacking the idea
of the sanctity of human life: he said 'I refuse to accept that X million generations ago
on the plains of Africa, an animal whose life wasn't sacred gave birth
to one whose life was sacred.' I suggest that this sums
up the problem nicely. If we are no more than the products of chance
movemement of chemicals which came from the big bang by accident, then I see no basis for saying that we are
made in God's image, and therefore no reason other than sentiment for
regarding the taking of a human life as a problem. Inefficient humans
may be liquidated-that's what Natural Selection does. Adolf Hitler writing in Mein Kampf ('My struggle') wrote, in the context of condemning Aryans 'breeding' with 'lower' forms of humanity (Jews, Slavs etc) that this would unravel the forces 'to which we owe our existence as men'. Hitler clearly understood evolution's claimed that we had arisen from ape like ancestors by a gradual process. If we owe 'our existence as men' to such processes, in what way are we made in the Image of God'? when did the Image coem to be part of our nature-at what stage, and by what process, in the evolutionary progress from slime via jellyfish, reptile, mouse and ape to human did our ancestors take on the Divine Image?
More evolutionists believe that human life is no more important that animal life than have the nerve to admit it in public, especially since the Hitler episode. Here is a problem
for the Christian who accepts evolution but still wants to accept the
Bible as God's word-If our distant ancestors were 'made in God's image' and were 'a little lower than the angels',
with the capacity to communicate with and know God, how did this
capacity
'evolve'? Did we evolve gradually into God's Image, or did God
intervene directly at some stage as we travelled along the long and winding road from our supposed ape like ancestors, and their ancestors back to the primaeval slime? Was the slime made in God's image or is there a discontinuity? If so, at what point? Of course, the
evolutionists argue that our
consciousness must have 'evolved gradually', (they say that about everything-so slowly, in fact, that no evidence can be seen) until we became able to ask
serious questions, at which time we allegedly 'made God in our own image'. 'And so man created God in his own image'. The
Christian believer who is trying to hold on to both positions (evolved
from slime, yet made in God's image) has some tricky compromises to
make, and will probably end up with a deeply problematic synthesis
which doesn't really work (as it contains theological monstrosities and
unresolvable logical contradictions). This will probably, as we see, lead to a
weakened Christianity.
Assuming, brother and sisters in Christ, that you believe there is an enemy of men's souls who seeks to deceive us (as the Lord Jesus frequently asserted), do you really not see any evidence of his fingerprints here? What about 'by their works you shall know them'? Is it really just a co-incidence that the foremost deniers of God are the foremost promoters of Darwinism?
Theistic evolution to all intents and purposes just co-opts the
fully materialistic view of evolution into
a Christianised context. Christians adopt this position much as a
conquered nation accepts the reality of defeat and learns to speak the
invader's language-it does this with no joy but as it is necessary to
survive. Theistic evolution does not merely state that we are descended
from ape like ancestors, but before that from amphibians, fish,
invertebrates, microbes, and before that-dirty water and sparks. And
before that, the 'big bang', or whatever uncreated first cause is
currently in vogue as a substitute for God. Of course there isn't a
SHRED of evidence for any of this, as
explained elsewhere, but we're looking here at the
implications for Christianity if evolution WERE true. I cannot see how
gradual, random descent by trial and error naturalistic processes over
billions of years from slugs, reptiles, mice and such things
is compatible with men and women being made in God's image.
If we are not made in God's image, as evolution asserts, this has
profound implications for sanctity of life questions such as abortion
and the elimination of the unfit (see 'From Darwin to Hitler' by
professor Richard Weikart).
Reliability of the Scriptures
The church has always been divided over all sorts of matters,
the reasons for this are found in the Bible, e.g. Pauls' letters to the
Corinthians and Galatians, and can be summed up by
saying that the church is made of flawed humans who don't always live
up to the standards expected of us, and also God's enemy, Satan, is
permitted to attack the church. When he can, Satan will stir up his
friends like Nero, Mao, Stalin and jihadi Islamists to physically rob, torture, imprison and kill Christians who will not
renounce their
faith, as we have seen from the beginning of the church (I was named
for
Saint Stephen, as I was born near his saint's day. Stephen was stoned to death for telling the truth to people who were in denial, read the
account in Acts, chapters 6 and 7). When Satan is unable to attack the church in this way, he
sows
discord and false doctrine to attack the church that way. There has never been a
time when there was not heresy (false teaching) and division in
the church.
As a Protestant, I
assert that the Bible is the word of God and the basis of our faith.
Roman Catholics, and they are still the biggest Christian denomination
globally, assert that doctrine comes also from the church hierarchy,
notably the Pope and his cardinals. This is not the time or place to
argue Protestant versus Catholic, God knows who is His, but the
Catholic church asserts that it is Bible based, it's just that they add
a few things, de-emphasise a few other things, and emphasise different things than the various Protestant
sects (sect by the way is not a pejorative term, it simply means section
or division of, so all churches are sects), 'The Church' is the body of all true
Christians on earth, whose members are known to God-and Satan.)
(please forgive the above background information. This is a non-sectarian site. The old saying is true, there is no perfect church, but if there was, someone like me would spoil it by joining because of my imperfection. All are one in Christ). Anyhow, the Bible is considered
by Christians to be the Word of God and our rule of faith and conduct.
Ah, says Satan, but are you sure?
That is EXACTLY what he said to Eve (Genesis
chapter 3 verse 1) 'Are you SURE God
said that?'. Satan, the trickster, the imposter, the sower of discord, the polluter, the liar, the thief, the murderer,
ALWAYS encourages us to doubt God and think we know better than His
word.
Acceptance of molecules to man evolution BY DEFINITION requires us to
discard a straightforward reading of the first 11 chapters of Genesis. I will say more below about
the theological consequences of that below. Theistic evolutionists will
say 'Ah, we're not throwing God's word out,
just understanding it differently in the light of modern science. No
harm done!' Let's take a look at that very significant claim.
The different books of the Bible was written down by men who knew no
more-and no less-about the
physical nature of their world than other similarly educated men of
their time and place. The Babylonian administrator at the time of
Daniel, the Levitical priest of 600 BC, the first century AD
Palestinian ploughman all knew plenty of things. They were not fools,
but none of them knew a lot of the things we know now, for example the
speed of light, the chemical formula of water, or that we are formed in
our mother's wombs as a result of, amongst other things, the
interpretation and actioning of digital information carried on DNA
molecules.
They knew a lot about light, water, seed and birth, but not the things
we know as they hadn't been discovered yet. Science has now explained
LOADS of things which were not known in former times. As a result,
Biblical references for example to lightning, the 'four corners of the
world' etc have been 're-interpreted' as poetical. Very
obviously, much of the Bible IS intended and written in a poetical
style. When God described Israel an 'the apple of My eye', He clearly
was not referring to a literal apple in a literal eye, that would be as
absurd 4 thousand years ago as it is now. It's obviously a figure of speech. There are many similes, metaphors,
parables and other figures of speech throughout the Bible, to say
nothing of the apocalyptic visions in Daniel, Ezekiel, John's
Revelation and elsewhere. The question is, when the obvious sense of a
portion of the Bible is that it is written as history, IS IT history or is it a parable, fable or something else? How do we know? If
Genesis 1-11 is a parable-a story representing a deeper meaning than the obvious sense- then what does the parable or fable signify?
Prior to Darwin, the first 11 chapters of Genesis were understood by
believers as, to all intents and purposes, accurate history. Brief,
written down from oral tradition much later, much shorter on detail than pagan creation stories, but accurate-containing all that we needed to know. Darwinism
says, no, it's not accurate at all. In fact, Charles Darwin later made it
clear in his letters that he rejected the Bible in it's entirety, as do
his true followers
today-a lesson for Christian evolutionists to ponder.
What I am leading up to is, if we allow people who have no sympathy to
the Christian faith to tell us Christians that science has proved that the first
11 chapters of the Bible are legend, possibly concealing a 'symbolic truth' that people in
former times were too ignorant to understand (which was why THEY needed
the symbolism-WE of course are MUCH WISER than those bronze age
rednecks!), then
WHERE DOES IT STOP?
To put it simply, if we cannot trust the historical accuracy of
the Bible as God's word from the beginning, then AT WHAT POINT does it
become historically accurate? Atheist evolutionists like professors
Steve Jones and Richard Dawkins are quite clear-REJECT CREATION, REJECT
THE WHOLE LOT and this is what people who have swallowed Darwinism
whole have very often done. It is worthy of note that Muslims, who have
never accepted any suggestion that their 'holy book' is anything other
than literal truth, are growing in confidence and
numbers in Britain as weak, nervous, apologetic Christians decline in numbers and
influence.
Brother and sister Christian, do you believe that Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, turned water into wine, fulfilled Isaiah, Moses and other ancient prophecies (as we sing at Christmas) died in some kind of supernatural transaction, ('The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world') to bear the burden of our sins, and was raised from
the dead with an imperishable new body, ascended to heaven, and will come from
heaven to judge the living and the dead? If you deny this, you are no Christian-that is the creed, accepted by Catholics, Anglicans, Orthodox Christians and Evangelicals, that I have just set out. Do you believe the creed? If so, why then doubt that 'all
things were made through Him' as it says in the first few verses of
John's Gospel? May as well be hanged for a creationist sheep as a
resurrectionist lamb. Do you really believe that accepting the creed minus the creation makes Christianity easier to commit to? I mean COMMIT as a DISCIPLE, not half heartedly assent to? I assert rather that it is our doubt of our own holy book that is the stumbling block, rather than 'creationism'. Consider this, does Satan (if you accept Jesus and the apostles' frequent references to Satan's existence and determination to destroy the church by all possible means as being true) waste energy attacking that which is no threat to him?
Nature
of the Fall
It is a very horrible thing to contemplate the fall of man
and it's consequences. I wish this ugly teaching would go away. But it won't, and nor will the observable reality of human sin. Listen to the news, day or night, any time. As some atheist writers concede,
'Original Sin is the one doctrine of the church which can
be demonstrated by direct observation.' I am addressing
myself to Christians here-ask yourself this question if you ask no
other and are about to quit this site.
Do you think that God created
men and women in their present condition, subject to lust, sin, folly, madness, disease and death, AND THEN SAID 'IT IS VERY GOOD'?
As it says in Ecclesiastes 'Behold, this
alone I found out, that God created man upright, but they have sought
out many devices.' In Genesis chapter 6 we read that mankind had
corrupted their way before God and filled the earth with violence,
making God so angry that He sent the flood to destroy nearly all of
them and make a new start with Noah's family. This is an appalling
statement which we almost never hear about in church these days-you
can't get much more politically incorrect or intolerant than the Noah
flood!
Clearly, if God made us in His image, as Christians do not doubt, then
to look at human history from antiquity to today, something has gone
HORRIBLY wrong. Slavery, piracy, murder, theft, lies, sexual abuse,
misogyny, tyranny, war, drug dealing, gambling (which I have just heard on the radio now accounts for £10 billion lost per annum-doubled under New Labour and still on the up) avoidable poverty (which most poverty is) to say
nothing of natural disaster and disease-these things do not speak of a
perfect creation. Forgive me for putting it like this, but if YOU were God, would YOU make a world like this, where
perverts kidnap torture and murder little children, where half a
million perish in a flood, and where the Marxist dictator Mugabe is able to destroy the economy
of an entire country, throwing millions nto poverty and terror, just because of his resentment and vanity, and (perhaps
even worse) while people who could stop him won't, because of misplaced
racial loyalty, bribery, or because they just
don't care?
The Genesis account does not make for comfortable reading (neither do
many of the words of Jesus) but it is a coherent account, explaining
that God made everything good, gave Adam and Eve a 'probationary
command' before handing the keys to the planet over to them (C S Lewis begins to imagine how it might have turned out if they had done the right thing in his brilliant book 'Voyage to Venus'), but was
then compelled to curse the earth and start 'plan B' after they
rejected him. Of course, and I know some of you are reading this with a
mixture of laughter, contempt and rage, this sounds awful, but my starting point
for the Christians I am writing this for is that logically, since we are considering 'the God hypothesis', that EITHER God made
us sinful from the beginning, OR we BECAME sinful. The fact that we ARE sinful is not in doubt. How does this fit
with the theistic evolution scenario?
If the Genesis account is true, the human race is in very much worse
trouble than it realises. Not that the words of Jesus leave us in any
doubt about this, but 'debunking' Genesis undermined the dire, repeated warnings Jesus gave about the coming Judgement. If there is any truth in the reality of God's (and man's)
enemy Satan, the the liar will be going all out to deceive and muddle us as to the
true nature of our problem and it's ony solution. This perfectly fits the
hypothesis that Darwinistic molecules to man evolution was deliberately
devised to damage the church and it's message. Over to you, brothers and sisters. Remember your church history-if your softy 'living for today' pastors teach you any-the the leadership has been fatally wrong more than once before now, and Reformation has been necesary to get the church back on to something like the right track. Is it unthinkable that we could be deceived over the matter of evolution? decide on th ebasis of the evidence, not the default position of the currently fashionable view.
The words of Jesus
The beautiful opening words of Saint John's Gospel are well known; they are often
heard at Christmas, for example the service of nine lessons and carols
which is broadcast from King's College, Cambridge on Christmas Eve.
vss 1-3 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things
were made through Him, and without Him was not made anything that was
made."
and verse 10 "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him"
and so on. Not exactly cryptic, is it? The first verses of John's Gospel
mirror the first verses of Genesis. We read that the Eternal and Glorious Christ Himself, who at the proper time took on human form but as God had always existed as a member of the Triune God, was the
Creator of all things from Day One.
Jesus often referred to Genesis as literal history.
Defending marriage, he said 'Have
you not heard that He created them male and female from the beginning?'
On the coming Judgement, something Jesus was ALWAYS warning of, but
which church leaders today are very shy about, he compared the Day of
Judgement to the Noah flood (Matthew 24 vs 37) saying that 'just as it
was in the days of Noah, so shall it be on the day of the Son of Man." He clearly intended to be understood as comparing one past watery global catastrophe with a future final one, next time by fire. If you remove the literal truth of the Genesis flood, this comparison becomes meaningless.
Other references can be found, I could reference them all but cannot do better than suggest you read
the four Gospels yourself with an Old Testament (OT) reference Bible. It
will be found that whenever the Lord referred to Genesis or other OT scripture to support a
point he was making, HE treated it as accurate history. As we read from
John 1 vs 1-3, He should know, He was there.
The same applies to the rest of the New Testament, Jesus and Peter both refer to the
Noah flood as a historical event and a warning to us of the coming judgement, ('won't be water but fire next time') and in a very
significant reference, Paul at the start of his key explanation in
Romans chapters 1-8 of how God's plan of salvation for us in Christ
actually works, BEGINS by setting out the fact that the evidence of creation points to God's existence and divine nature. It's worth looking at
this in full since it is a foundational scene-setting scripture for the creation versus evolution conflict.
Romans ch 1 vss 18-25 "For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their
wickedness suppress the truth, for what can be known about God is plain
to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of
the world, His invisible nature, namely His eternal power and deity,
has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they
are without excuse, for although they knew God they did not honour Him
as God or give thanks to Him, but thy became futile in their thinking
and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they
became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images
resembling mortal man or birds or animals and reptiles. Therefore God
gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the
dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged
the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature
rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen."
It is foundational to Christian theology, Catholic, Orthodox and
Protestant, that Christ died for our sins so that we could be
reconciled to God. Paul sets out the reasoned systematic theological justification
for this position in the first 8 chapters of Romans, what you could call Salvational Christology. The first thing he
writes, having got the greetings and salutations out of the way, is the
above. The only straightforward reading I can make of this passage of
Bible is that Paul is asserting that EVERYONE KNOWS DEEP DOWN that the marvellous things which
exist COULD NOT have made themselves by accident but SPEAK PLAINLY OF A
GREAT MAKER GOD whom it is then up to us men to seek. Paul says this evidence from Creation is so strong and so obvious that the ungodly and unbelieving will have NO EXCUSE at the Judgement. If Paul is wrong here, why trust anything else he says? Why read any more of his argument if his initial premise is false? It is therefore logical to suppose that if the enemies of the Gospel wish to attack God's message of reconciliation and forgiveness of sins through Christ, which is the essential matter of chapters 1-8 of Paul's letter to the Romans, this is an
excellent starting point from their perspective. Weaken the foundations and the whole structure will topple.
Christ's sacrifice on the cross
As mentioned in the last paragraph, the atoning, sacrificial death of Jesus
on the cross and His resurrection are the central facts of the
Christian message. Without this, there is no Gospel (see 1 Corinthinas 15)-might as well go with John Lennon's former views as expressed in the song 'Imagine'. Of course there are heretics who deny this, but as
mentioned before, and read the NT for yourself,there have always been heretics. In a funny sort of way, they validate orthodoxy. Why bother to counterfeit something worthless? Why attempt to disable an enemy who poses no threat? As throughout this site, I am talking about mainstream
Christianity in a sense wide enough to include believers who are
Catholics, Anglicans and most mainstream groups e.g. baptists,
evangelicals, pentecostals, methodists etc but excluding Jehovah's
Witnesses, Mormons and various others who '..twist the scriptures to
their own destruction' (2 Peter ch 3 vs 16). the Lord knows who are
His, but these are mainstream points of Christian theology, and I am
arguing that they are not compatible with the full evolutionary picture.
As Paul wrote in Romans, Christ's atoning sacrifice was necessary on
our behalf to redeem us from the effects of original sin, plus our own
sins which we chose to commit. We need a Saviour, all Christians will admit, but why? Because we
went wrong. Could God have deliberately created a world which included
sin? No. He made us 'good' as the Genesis account stresses. However, He gave us
free will since he wanted us to love and serve Him freely, not as
programmed automatons, but it went wrong. Christ and His sacrifice, and all the events which would prepare the ground for them,
became necessary.
The onus is on the Christian Theistic evolutionist, if he or she wants to hold
to both Christ and Darwin, to explain away all the above points if
Genesis is to be taken as a parable. If evolution is true, then 'all truth being God's truth' accepting it should lead to a BETTER appreciation of the work of Christ. If course, the position of the
atheistic evolutionist is clear-none of it happened and death leads to
extinction, with no God, no judgement, no heaven or hell, no rules but
what we make ourselves. And this leads us on to the final category of
difficulties I address here.
Effects of widespread
acceptance of evolution
Evolution is the
main foundation stone of atheism. There is no need for a
Creator God since He has been displaced by science, THEREFORE we'll
lose the Lawgiver, Judge, Saviour and Redeemer God as well, and go our
own way as we please. Dawkins puts it very well in Blind Watchmaker, 'Darwin made it possible to be an
intellectually satisfied atheist.' He preceded this statement by
mentioning another 'well known atheist' who didn't think the issue of
biological origins was important. Dawkins thought (rightly) that it
was.
Of course there were atheists before Darwin ("The fool has said to himself 'there is no
God' "as we read in the Psalms) but they had no way to explain
life (see Romans 1 quote above). Evolution strikes at the heart of
theistic belief in general and the Christian religion in particular, by
purporting to explain away creation without a Creator. I suggest that his
was intended, consciously or sub-consciously, by the people who put the system together. See Malcolm
Bowdens's book 'The Rise of the Evolution Fraud' for more on the dedicated
group of atheists and revolutionaries who occupied key posts in the
British scientific establishment and using patronage and other dodgy practices, fixed the system so that evolutionism
became hard-wired into the educational and scientific systems without proper investigation, becoming an orthodoxy it was then impossible to challenge. People
like Huxley and Lyell HATED Christianity and wanted it to die. They
have been quite successful, fewer people in Britain would claim to be
any sort of Christian today, and of those, the faith of many is greatly
weakened. In countries where the 'medicine' has not been
swallowed, at least not in the same dose, the church is in far better
shape.
Can anyone possibly doubt that the
acceptance of evolutionism has gravely harmed the church?
If evolution is true, it should be good for us, since if God is God, there can be no
truth but
God's truth. Jesus said 'I AM THE TRUTH'. I am MORE in awe of God as a result of my scientific
knowledge of immunity, astronomy, anatomy, cell biology, protein synthesis, chemistry, mathematics, sight and
the workings of the brain. Speaking to Christians, I ask "Can
'truth' that turns people away from God and weakens their faith be
'God's truth'?"
Thomas Hardy wrote a couple of poems about the loss of his Christian
faith, which happened after he read Origin of Species. One was called
'God's funeral' and although not directly touching Darwinism did wonder
what would become of us without the beliefs that had guided us before we buried them in a grave dug by 'modern science'. This one is written as a bit of
a joke, but makes the deadly serious point that Darwinism is a
superhighway to atheism, and that rejecting Genesis leads to rejecting
Jesus, or at least watering Him down until Church is less
important than football or recreational shopping.
No consideration of the effects of Darwinism is complete without
considering Marx and Hitler. Both these men, and their key disciples,
(for example Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot) were thoroughly anti-Christian and philosophically Darwinist. This is considered in scholarly depth by
Andrew Sibley in his book 'restoring the Ethics of Creation' and
Richard Weikart, professor of European history in California, who wrote
'From Darwin to Hitler'. Both their books are reviewed with links in
the books section.
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf ('My Struggle') about 'the iron logic of
nature' and about how it was the destiny and duty of the
racially superior Aryans to displace inferior races such as the Jews.
Pure Darwin, whose book is fully titled 'the Origin of Species by Means
of Natural Selection...or the preservation of FAVOURED RACES in the
STRUGGLE for life' (my capitals). Professor Wiekart gives hundreds
of references proving that the Nazis were inspired by Darwinism-it wasn't just 'one mad man, six million Jews' as Captain Beefheart wrote in his song 'Dachau blues', there was a widespread racial Darwinism amongst the key German thinkers behind Nazism. If you don't like that, check it out in the above mentioned books. Racial
struggle was certainly not the only reason for world war 2, nobody suggests this,
but Darwinistic views on 'the preservtion of favoured races in the struggle for life' (Darwin's words) and the abandonment of Christian ethics
were main contributory factors for the unprecedented depths of depravity seen in the death
camps where the extinction of the 'less favoured races' was
attempted.
Mao and Stalin killed comparable numbers to Hitler, but they lived to old
age and ruled until their deaths, so were able to cover their tracks to a large extent and so the numbers of their victims cannot be accurately measured,
but were certainly in Hitler's ball park. Both men were Marxists,
Darwinists, and atheists. Hitler killed out of hate and a desire to
steal land from 'inferior' races or his 'favoured' race, but Mao and Stalin were more
motivated by politics. Marxism was seen as a 'scientific' and
'progressive' way of life which justified, for example, forcing farmers
off their land and into 'collective' farms. These 'scientific' changes proved so inefficient
that mass starvation caused millions of deaths. All of this flowed from
these atheist dictators' belief that they had the right to run people's
lives for them, without any restraint from the Ten Commandments or any
other God-given restriction on human evil. Richard Dawkins wrote, 'Darwin made it possible to be an
intellectually satisfied atheist'. Darwin also made it easier to be a conscience-free dictator. The Bible teaches
that we came from God and will return to Him, and will be judged and
rewarded or punished for what we did and what we failed to do, and that
this will apply to rich and poor, with kings and dictators especially
required to give account. 'Intellectually
satisfied atheists' together with the intellectually satisfied pagan Hitler turned the 20th century into the bloodiest yet.
Marx was an atheist who absolutely hated Christianity, blaming it for everything wrong in the world today without seeing any of it's benefits, just like Dawkins today. Marx was grateful
for the ammunition Darwin had provided which he could use against theistic religions (of course, many would argue that atheism, and certainly Marxism, is a religion).
He believed that society evolved in a 'progrressive' way, that science had got rid of God, that
evolution was our origin, socialism our destiny. Marx and Darwin are
true bedfellows. Darwin may not have intended it, but his 'theory'
helped enable a lot of VERY BAD people to find an intellectual justification and remove religious prohibitions to aloow them to go ahead with their wicked work,
free from any restrictions imposed by divine laws or by worries about having to answer to an angry God on the Day
of Judgment. The results can be seen in the briefest perusal of 20th
century history.
Pol Pot of Cambodia killed somewhere between 1 and 2 million, who can
tell? Their bones are in the jungle. He had received a modern, liberal, godless education in Paris, France. Like Hitler, Stalin,
Mao and other atheistic 20th century leaders (e.g. communist leaders
like Mengistu, Ceacescu, Hoxher and others who probably only murdered
in the low hundreds of thousands,-say only about as many as the total
for the Albigensian crusade which atheists are so fond of referring to an an alleged example of Christian barbarity) were Marxists, therefore Darwinists.
Darwin is praised as a 'liberator' of men's minds. He was that-he
liberated them from God's rules for personal conduct and from fear of the God who executes vengeance on
oppressors, thieves and murderers.
Dear Christian brother and sister, how do you feel about sharing the
same 'scientific' origins world view as the worst mass
murderers the world has ever seen? Especially when that world view is so inextricably linked with rejection of the Bible and the God of whom it speaks?
Incidentally, it always saddens me (amuses also, but more sad than
amused) to note how atheists, with all their demands for 'evidence',
are always keen to talk about 'The Crusades' (*) which happened so many
centuries ago, but don't want to talk about-or shrug off- the orders of
magnitude worse and far more recent mass murders, wars and genocides of the 20th century,
which are much easier to study. Certainly the Marxist
inspired terrors were intellectually supported by 'scientific' atheism to which Darwinism is foundational. It is just about possible to get
an atheist to admit that Stalin was an atheist, a Darwinist, and
did kill quite a few people at least partly in the name of 'scientific progress', but
that it was ONLY because he was a bad man, not because he was an atheist.
However, the same people will assert that alleged misdeeds by
supposed Christians (e.g. the Northern Ireland conflict) were ALWAYS ENTIRELY
due to Christianity. Nobody (including you and me) looks at evidence through
unbiased eyes, we just have to struggle to overcome bias (assume we believe in the concept of True Truth) and be open to
conclusions which may take us out of our comfort zones. Let's try to be
honest, we have to face reality now or later. Now is better.
(*) see 'The
Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades' by Robert Spencer, in which he examines
the view that Jihadi Islam was 'crusading' (i.e. involved in invasion,
forced conversion, murder, theft and conquest) against Europe and surrounding
countries for CENTURIES before Christendom's eventual armed response,
which was essentially defensive. Compare the 2 religions' founders-Mohammed leading armies of conquest with his sword, rewarding his followers with loot and slaves, and Jesus submitting meekly to death on a cross and telling His followers to be willing to do the same. Engage brain and read some history before spouting biased cliches about 'the crusades'.
CONCLUSION as Richard Dawkins said when confronted with evidence from
scientific studies which showed that Christians lived longer, stayed
married longer, had more grandchildren and were healthier physically
and mentally that non-churchgoing controls, 'Well that sure as Hell doesn't mean it
(Christianity) is true!' I hope and pray, that Hell is not 'sure', but
have to agree with him, although I feel certain that if the studies' results had shown a negative health impact he would have used them AGAINST Christianity! Christianity is proved to be 'good for you' here and now in this life, but that doesn't prove it's true (only that it gives an evolutionary advantage!?! so if it's a 'virus', it's a beneficial one.)The fact that Darwinism is bad for Christianity
could mean that one OR THE OTHER is false, or misunderstood, but does
not by definition disprove evolution. The fact that the most prolific mass murderers (Hitler, Stalin, Mao) who ever lived were Darwinists does not prove that Darwinism is wrong, at least not scientifically, but to Christians and others who believe that reality has a moral dimension, and that as our Lord said 'by their fruits shall ye know them (false prophets)' it's serious food for thought and should be put on the scales.
There is no need to rely on ethical arguments to disprove evolution, the science facts do
that very well. (click
here to return to main menu) However, if as convinced
Christians, whether Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican or Free Church, our
starting point is that Jesus Christ is the trustworthy and faithful One, the eternal Word of God, and the Christian message
is true, and neccessary, then if the Darwin message damages Christianity, what does
that tell us about it? How does that make us feel? Has 'modern science' done away with the Tempter, and the scarier parts of Jesus' message? The Austrians (according to professor Peter H Soyer, an Austrian skin cancer specialist I heard speak at the Royal Society of Medicine in London last year) have a saying 'If it looks like a crow, hangs out with crows, honks like a crow, it gets shot like a crow.' I say if we trust Christ, we should shoot, or at least seriously distrust, 'theories' which inspire and comfort those who hate and act against Christ and against the humanity He made in His image, perhaps independently of other apparent evidence for or against them-but ESPECIALLY if all the other evidence is against them, which is certainly the case for the Darwin mythos.
Wake up brothers and sisters, correct me if I'm wrong (no forum here at
present but you can comment on my blog ) but if I'm
not wrong, you've been had.
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