I’ve still been thinking about creation and evil, so I thought I’d write a follow up to what I wrote last week about the problem of evil. It is fashionable for Christians, anxious to distance themselves from any alleged conflict between faith and science or faith and reason, to say that biological evolution presents no theological or biblical interpretive problems. Historically, those Christians who have rejected evolution for theological reasons have identified the problem with evolution as death before sin—millions of years of millions of animals dying. They reasoned that because death is an evil that results from sin (
The loss of silly so called scientific knowledge is a rather low one and Paul's teaching that 'all of creation was subjected to futility' not willingly but because of the divine hope is the best answer possible to the Problem of Evil.
First, for the scientific knowledge. Mr. Keysor has identified the biological impossibility of evolution fairly well but to go into a little more detail: DNA does not simply sit in a cell by itself. It is 'packed' into a protective substrate which ensures that it is not changed, because 'ALL MUTATIONS ARE BAD'., and this is a very key point. Mutations invariably result in a less functional and frequently entirely non-viable lifeform. While the complexity argument is good and sensible it is important to notice that the entire cell division process is designed to eliminate mutation. The entire process is 'policed' by a protein called RNA transcriptase which ensures that mutation doesn't happen especially in critical areas.
Variation of offspring does not happen by mutation. It happens 'epigenetically', what used to be called microevolution. What this means is that the actual DNA is not changed. Rather the 'packing material' contains read instructions for the RNA, essentially it says when the cell is being built, "Start on page 3 and read to page 20. Skip every fifth word and read 'U' as 'E'". These changes are in response to the environment and allow adaptation but are specifically reset in the production of egg and sperm. You see, the science that you were worried about throwing out has already advanced to the point of throwing out evolution if only its practitioners can be brought to admit the consequences of their own discoveries. Of course, these 'discoveries' too will in large part be revised in a few years. Like the old Higher Critics of Scripture, the Tubingen school of the 19th century is who I have in mind, who began by claiming that John's Gospel was a product of the 3rd century and ended by admitting that it was produced within the Apostle's lifetime, science makes a lot of nonsense claims against scripture which it then is forced to backpedal on until no positive claims are left only a filthy smear of doubt which needs to be wiped away.
But the Problem of Evil, while highly upsetting, is not really so problematic. Once it is acknowledged that evil does not have a positive existence but is only a defect, an incompleteness and a lack, then it is clear that the Problem of Evil is really only the Problem of Time, the problem of God starting with seeds rather than full grown trees, of His moving creation from the imperfect to the perfect.
And what if Darwin's theory of evolution is a false theory? Briefly, a few problems:
(1) There is the problem of the genetic mechanism. For a fish's fin to develop into an amphibian's leg requires highly sophisticated genetic alterations in the DNA for the skin, the nerves, the muscles, and the bones, all of them happening simultaneously and by accident. This is a complete impossibility, unless you accept divinely guided evolution. And Darwin knew nothing about the genetic mechanisms and their highly sophisticated complexity, no one did in his time. He imagined that changes just sort of happened somehow.
(2) How did the first unicellular organism develop into male and female? One secular book I read on the mysteries of science said that this is such a complete mystery that there has not been even one single serious attempt to explain this phenomenon according to a Darwinian scenario. Did one organism split into two separate organisms with completely formed and functioning male/female reproductive organs, or did two separate organisms produce offspring, one with a female system and one with a male - both of these two parent organisms being, by coincidence, in the same place at the same time?
(3) The difference between microevolution and macroevolution. Darwin used examples of microevolution (and that guided by human intelligence) to make the giant leap to macroevolution. Everyone knows that microevolution, variations within an existing species, occurs all of the time, but transformations of one species into another have never been observed. After thousands of generations fruit flies remain fruit flies.
Personally I have no difficulty in believing that God spoke the universe and earth and the creatures in it into existence by his spoken word alone. There are ambiguities in Genesis, but they do not detract from the main point: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Many people embrace Darwinism not because the science compels them, but because they personally prefer a universe without God.
The creation of the world has never been observed in a laboratory or repeated in controlled experiment. It is and remains a complete mystery outside all of the known laws of physical science. Ditto for the emergence of the first man and the first woman.
The loss of silly so called scientific knowledge is a rather low one and Paul's teaching that 'all of creation was subjected to futility' not willingly but because of the divine hope is the best answer possible to the Problem of Evil.
First, for the scientific knowledge. Mr. Keysor has identified the biological impossibility of evolution fairly well but to go into a little more detail: DNA does not simply sit in a cell by itself. It is 'packed' into a protective substrate which ensures that it is not changed, because 'ALL MUTATIONS ARE BAD'., and this is a very key point. Mutations invariably result in a less functional and frequently entirely non-viable lifeform. While the complexity argument is good and sensible it is important to notice that the entire cell division process is designed to eliminate mutation. The entire process is 'policed' by a protein called RNA transcriptase which ensures that mutation doesn't happen especially in critical areas.
Variation of offspring does not happen by mutation. It happens 'epigenetically', what used to be called microevolution. What this means is that the actual DNA is not changed. Rather the 'packing material' contains read instructions for the RNA, essentially it says when the cell is being built, "Start on page 3 and read to page 20. Skip every fifth word and read 'U' as 'E'". These changes are in response to the environment and allow adaptation but are specifically reset in the production of egg and sperm. You see, the science that you were worried about throwing out has already advanced to the point of throwing out evolution if only its practitioners can be brought to admit the consequences of their own discoveries. Of course, these 'discoveries' too will in large part be revised in a few years. Like the old Higher Critics of Scripture, the Tubingen school of the 19th century is who I have in mind, who began by claiming that John's Gospel was a product of the 3rd century and ended by admitting that it was produced within the Apostle's lifetime, science makes a lot of nonsense claims against scripture which it then is forced to backpedal on until no positive claims are left only a filthy smear of doubt which needs to be wiped away.
But the Problem of Evil, while highly upsetting, is not really so problematic. Once it is acknowledged that evil does not have a positive existence but is only a defect, an incompleteness and a lack, then it is clear that the Problem of Evil is really only the Problem of Time, the problem of God starting with seeds rather than full grown trees, of His moving creation from the imperfect to the perfect.
And what if Darwin's theory of evolution is a false theory? Briefly, a few problems:
(1) There is the problem of the genetic mechanism. For a fish's fin to develop into an amphibian's leg requires highly sophisticated genetic alterations in the DNA for the skin, the nerves, the muscles, and the bones, all of them happening simultaneously and by accident. This is a complete impossibility, unless you accept divinely guided evolution. And Darwin knew nothing about the genetic mechanisms and their highly sophisticated complexity, no one did in his time. He imagined that changes just sort of happened somehow.
(2) How did the first unicellular organism develop into male and female? One secular book I read on the mysteries of science said that this is such a complete mystery that there has not been even one single serious attempt to explain this phenomenon according to a Darwinian scenario. Did one organism split into two separate organisms with completely formed and functioning male/female reproductive organs, or did two separate organisms produce offspring, one with a female system and one with a male - both of these two parent organisms being, by coincidence, in the same place at the same time?
(3) The difference between microevolution and macroevolution. Darwin used examples of microevolution (and that guided by human intelligence) to make the giant leap to macroevolution. Everyone knows that microevolution, variations within an existing species, occurs all of the time, but transformations of one species into another have never been observed. After thousands of generations fruit flies remain fruit flies.
Personally I have no difficulty in believing that God spoke the universe and earth and the creatures in it into existence by his spoken word alone. There are ambiguities in Genesis, but they do not detract from the main point: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Many people embrace Darwinism not because the science compels them, but because they personally prefer a universe without God.
The creation of the world has never been observed in a laboratory or repeated in controlled experiment. It is and remains a complete mystery outside all of the known laws of physical science. Ditto for the emergence of the first man and the first woman.