Equivalent Faith Required

The Pug was a product of an alternate adaptation method ...

So, there is a video that just came out done by Living Waters ministry. This ministry is known most for Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron’s use of street ministry to challenge people’s perception and belief in God. Often, they will ask questions (some leading) to people on the street in an effort to bring about the point that we are all guilty of breaking at least one of God’s commands, and thereby guilty fully before God, and in need of Christ’s salvation.

At times, I think it’s a great method, and you can often see the look of change in people’s eyes. Other times it just makes people more mad to be challenged in their belief, and they move on.

As I watched this newer video they produced, it occurred to me that many of the things Atheist and Agnostic people claim are in fact based on faith in something. For a group who tends to shy away from faith in anything greater than themselves, I found this intriguing.

I’ve discussed elsewhere my thoughts on evolution, creation, and general perspective on how we all came about. It’s no secret I fall more into the realm of a literal 6 day creation, if nothing else because I believe God has the capability and power to do so, and the Bible tells me so. I use the latter phrase more jokingly serious, as I know most out there see that as the ultimate cop-out to a great scientific discussion.

Still, I can’t help but question some of the scientific discussions going on out there in relation to evolution. We hear on documentaries all the time about this or that happening millions and billions of years ago. If it is a Christian-produced documentary, we may be more likely to hear thousands of years mentioned, but quite often even they have adapted the scientific consensus of life and changes in life happening over the past millions/billions of years.

One argument that appeals to me for intelligent design, is made mention of in the article, “Chance, Evolution or Intelligent Design,” by Louis Markos Ph.D.

In one section, he suggests:
“...DNA could not have been assembled either by chance or by a blind accumulation of small changes.
Chance could not have done it, for our DNA is frontloaded with carefully coded information. That information is not random; it’s specified. It adheres to a pattern that is separate from the physical components of the DNA and could not have arisen from them.
Blind selection also could not have formed the DNA, for the process by which DNA replicates itself is irreducibly complex. That is to say, it could not have come about by a series of small steps, because it has no survival value until all the components are in place.”


This idea is what propels me further towards the assumption that evolution on a macro scale, or on a random animal kind into a human kind scale, would not have been possible. The components must all be functioning together for the organism to function.


Now, admittedly I have little interest (other than in an apologetic context) in Darwin or any of his findings, and have therefore not read his “Origin of Species” book. But, I’ve listened to, and heard countless arguments by scientists and atheists condemning any possibility of intelligent creation. And, in some cases, I’ve seen some great discussions from the scientific community supporting intelligent creation, even if their “intelligent being” isn’t necessarily admitted by them to be the Christian God of the universe.

*For a great watch on Netflix, I would recommend God of Wonders, which presents some good cases for Intelligent Design.* 

So, as I’m watching this short documentary by Ray Comfort, I’m realizing that during these interviews, when he asks the individuals to provide even one instance (of the 1000s they say they can point to) of a kind changing to another kind (i.e. monkey to man), there is no one who can provide an example. One guy gets close by pointing to a fish that turns into an entirely different fish, but as Ray points out, “it’s still a fish!”

When Comfort asks the interviewees why they believe that evolution is true, they point to a professor, textbook or scholarly article that informed them. Much like Christians can point to the Bible for our reference, these evolutionists can simply point to others who went before, and their blind faith in the findings of those individuals. They have a trust in the scientists that have provided data supporting evolution, in the same way that Christians have faith in the tangible evidence for faith in Christ.

As Mike Fabarez of Focal Point Ministries points out in multiple sermons, Christianity is not illogical. There is evidence both physical and otherwise that points to the truth of Christianity, and its historical accuracy (paraphrase). In truth, we have thousands of manuscripts for the New Testament, and the entirety of the Old Testament to work from. And, the scholars working on these documents (originally and today) are not adding or changing information to suit an ulterior purpose.

My purpose in comparison is that both sides use some amount of faith, and evidence to the same extent. Evolutionists have Darwin’s writings and Richard Dawkin’s preaching to look to, and a blind faith in things that happened millions of years ago that no one can physically (directly) observe. Christians have faith in Christ and in the writings of the early church; as well as, the entirety of the Hebrew Old testament writings, and faith in their inspiration by God, despite us personally not having been there.

So, we reach here an impasse in which both sides could technically argue that each are using the same methods. Therefore it is up to the individual to make a decision for belief in one or the other. And this is where I think the Christian dialogue takes over in providing an answer to many more questions related more directly to who we are as people, and where our lives are going. For the one with faith in science and evolution, what is the end goal? Discovery? How does that affect one's overall existence? Can it bring an individual any closer to fulfillment? To God? Christianity can take impersonal concept/force (evolution) and provide a personal, knowable savior (Christ). For me, this makes the choices easier to distinguish between. Though, some would still argue that knowing Christ does not automatically discredit an evolutionary belief. And, I suppose if God really wanted to demonstrate his power of creativity, he could have kickstarted the evolutionary process. But, more likely to me, creation was made, and was "very good." No death or disease was there, and so the idea of survival of the fittest does not fit well within the "garden" context.

 Now, once sin had entered the picture, adaptation and mutation into lesser forms, and forms with shorter life spans, does make some sense, as God did say,

"...but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will surely die." Genesis 2:17

This verse can confuse some who expect that in the following chapter when Adam and his wife do eat from the tree, they don't immediately drop dead. What is meant in this warning, is that they would die physically (death would become a reality for all mankind) and spiritually (they would be separated from fellowship with God). So, over time, we see that man dies. The lifespans of the early people were much closer in relation to God's perfect creation, so initially we see man still living quite a few years. After the flood, God shortens man's lifespan to closer to 120 years max (Genesis 6). And, over time, as sin's effect has perpetuated itself on our world, we now see that life spans are rarely above 100 years old.

Science says we are living longer, but compared to historical figures like Noah, Abraham and Moses, our lives are quite short. This is a product of sin's curse on the earth itself, and God's curse to man for disobeying. Look around the world today. There are many more disasters and sinful actions of people causing death and destruction throughout the world. This would not have initially been the case post garden, as much of it is a product of time, and the ever increasing sinfulness of mankind.

In addition, animals appear to be changing in a negative, not positive way. We do not see change or addition on the evolutionary scale into a higher form, but to lesser forms. By this, I mean that we see adaptations on a micro scale occurring from the original dog kind to what my pug looks like now. For example, did pugs have long snouts originally? Yes, and now they've been bred into flat-faced dogs. So, I'm more prone to think that the original designs were just fine, but our sin caused the curse on the earth to begin a process of micro changes in animal kind over time. But, for humans,

"Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Genesis 2:7

we have a direct correlation to our creator who breathed life into the first man. Our intelligence was not gained over time in some evolutionary process. We were too precious to God for that to have been his method. God created us "in his image," in that instant. In fact, since God is really the only being in the universe who can say, "tree," and have a tree show up with no previous seed or raw material.

My point is that while some evolutionary change over time is possible, the idea that God created us in perfection originally, and made the whole of creation perfect initially, seems to negate any sort of death or suffering being a part o the original creation prior to the fall. Take a look at the picture above from Dan Lietha. It is a great representation of the macro evolutionary viewpoint's primary failure in relation to the Biblical timeline. If natural selection and survival of the fittest played a part in creation, then by the time man comes along, we would be atop a massive pile of bones of animals that had evolved and died before us. It doesn't fit well with the Genesis account, and it doesn't fit well in the context of God's appreciation for his creation.

In a previous blog post, I spoke about the essential and non-essential Christian doctrines, and how we are to interact with other Christians regarding these. When it comes to the Genesis account, and to the discussion of evolution and intelligent design, we need to refer back to the section of that blog which mentions that in everything, we have charity with one another. We cannot approach these disagreements within the faith in anything other than charity to one another, because much of this discussion does not directly affect whether or not Christ has saved an individual. Within Christianity, disagreement on this, while unfortunate, is not entirely detrimental to the spiritual standing of a believer.

Personally, I find that the scriptural story of creation is so tied into what Christ eventually did for us, that believing it at face value, strengthens my personal faith walk. For others, just simply seeing God’s power, however he may use it, is enough for their walk. Still, until the scientific community learns to create something from nothing (ex nihilo), I’ll stick to God’s evidence as presented in the Bible, and my relationship with God through my salvation in Christ. At the end of the day, even the most brilliant scientist is a human, and subject to the same curse of sin by which those of us who put our faith in Christ’s promise are forgiven. To me, this is a much more powerful truth on which to focus. Also, I don’t really like monkeys...;)

Take some time to watch the documentary by Ray Comfort that was mentioned above in the post at this link: http://www.evolutionvsgod.com 

-Challenge your views and plan your next museum visit to the Creation Museum (a ministry of Answers in Genesis and Ken Ham): http://creationmuseum.org