Creation or Evolution?

Creation or Evolution?

 

 

Scripture instructs us to be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us about why we believe our Christian faith.  “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that you have….”  (1 Peter 3:15) 

 

And you can count on someone asking you if as a Christian you believe that God created human beings like it says in the Bible. And when they ask, if your answer is “yes”, then they will remind you that only uneducated folk believe in creation.  And they will scoff at you and tell you that there is scientific proof that we humans are on this planet because of evolution.   Sophisticated person don’t believe ancient myths and Bible stories that were written long ago, they will say.  

 

 Modern persons know that the theory of evolution is what they must believe if they want to be considered intelligent. They are to say that they believe that after the “big bang” produced our world, then we humans gradually over billions of years began evolving, starting out as amoebas and moving up the chain to becoming fish and then crawling out of the sea and evolving into apes before finally progressively evolving into becoming the human beings that we are today!  They even have pictures of fish walking out of the sea and furry monkeys bent over walking on all fours and over the billions of years gradually losing more and more of their fur and straightening up and finally walking on two legs and turning into people!  

 

Mass media wrongly portrays the theory of evolution as scientific fact!  But scientists have never found the “missing link” – a link between the species of apes and the human species.  They never found a fossil that is part ape and part human even though they keep searching! They need to find some piece of evidence in order to prove that we humans evolved from apes.  But without any proof they insist that evolution is true anyway. 

 

 Even though the theory of evolution has not been proven scientifically, the lie that it has continues to echo down from one generation to the next.  And this misconception continues on as we Christians are told that the theory of evolution makes it impossible for us to believe the account of creation in the Bible.  If we stop believing that God created us then we can be off the hook from having to obey His laws! 

 

People often criticize the Biblical story of creation because it seems to say that God created the world in seven days.  Sincere Christians hold many different interpretations of the creation story in Genesis.  Some believe in a literal seven-day creation.  But many Christians interpret Genesis 1 differently.  The Hebrew word for “day” in the Biblical creation story has many different meanings.  The word “day” can mean a thousand years and it can also mean “a very long period of time.”  So the creation of the world could have taken billions of years and not be in conflict with the story in Genesis 1.

 

Also billions of years could have passed between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.  Genesis 1:1 says: ”In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”   And Genesis 1:2 “Now the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” 

 

The Bible is not primarily a scientific book, but a theological one.  It offers personal and spiritual explanations. Several of the main points of the creation story in Genesis 1 is to answer the questions of “Who?”  and “Why?”.  Who? (Who are we humans?)  (Who is God?)  The creation story in Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve were created on purpose by God their Father and that humans were created in Gods’ image.  God is holy and good and all loving and everything He made was good. We humans were created as God’s children.  Human life is sacred. We belong to God and are loved by Him.

 

 And “Why?” (Why were humans created?)  Adam and Eve (humans) were created to be loved by God and to love Him back.  To share God’s work. We were created to fellowship with God and trust Him. And we humans were given dominion over the earth to take care of it. Adam and Eve were told to have children and enjoy living and obey God by not eating the one forbidden fruit.  We are given free will and we can choose to obey God or to disobey Him.

 

Unlike the story of creation in the Bible, the theory of the evolution of the human race does not answer any of these questions.  The evolution theory never answers the “Who?” or the “Why?” We are left to wonder if we humans are just accidents or if a god somewhere somehow intelligently planned that we human animals would evolve over billions of years from fish or amoebas and chimpanzees?  Our forefathers were apes and monkeys. The theory of evolution does not answer the question: Why do humans exist?  Are we worth anything? Guess we are on our own to figure that out.  The theory of evolution cannot speak to our deepest needs. 

 

There are two types of evolution – micro evolution and macro evolution.  It is necessary to distinguish between micro-(evolution or changes in a species) and macro-evolution (changes or evolution across the species).  The theory of the evolution of humans would entail Macroevolution, or evolution across the species.  

 

 Microevolution means that evolutionary changes and development take place within a species.  For example, the horse has increased greatly in size and developed in other ways over time.  This form of evolution has been observed and there is ample evidence for it.  When we are told that evolution has been scientifically proven, we are only talking about microevolution or changes occurring within a species.

 

  

 

Macroevolution means evolution that jumps over the species barrier from one species to another – the example being apes changing into humans.  No scientific evidence has been found of one species evolving into another species.  Just because evolution can occur within a species does not mean that one species can evolve or change into another species.  Cats don’t evolve into dogs and birds don’t evolve into lizards. The theory of evolution (macroevolution) (one species evolving into another) is still taught in schools as the theory of evolution.  It is taught as if it is the assured results of modern science.  To teach an unproven theory as a scientific fact is not only to lie but I believe it is bad science.

 

We believe that since everything has a cause, there must be a first cause.  There is a story of an agnostic man speaking to a small crowd in the streets of Hyde Park and attacking the belief that God created the world and we humans in it.  He was arguing that nothing caused the world to exist. That the world just happened during the big bang all on its own.  As he was speaking, a soft tomato was thrown at him.  “Who threw that tomato?” the speaker demanded angrily.  A young man from the back of the crowd laughingly replied, “No one threw it – it just threw itself.”  This argument is not a proof, but it is a pointer.  It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing!   

 

Psalm 100 speaks beautifully to the fact that God is our Creator.  “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.  Worship the Lord with gladness.  Come before His Presence with joyful song.  Know that the Lord is God.  It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves.  We are His people, and the sheep of his pasture.  Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.  Give thanks to Him and praise His name.  For the Lord is good.  His love endures forever, and His faithfulness continues through all generations.”  (Psalm 100)

 

Some of the ideas in this blog were taken from Nicky Gumbel’s booklet “Searching Issues”