Part 3 - A TALE OF TWO THEORIES
The scientific theory (remember, it’s not a fact until it’s been verified or observed) is that the Universe is roughly 14 billion years old and the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old. It was created as a result of the ‘Big Bang’ – a sudden and enormously powerful explosion of matter.
THE BIG BANG THEORY
There are lots of theories as to what caused the ‘Big Bang’ and what the catalyst for life on this planet may have been. There is much debate amongst scholars and many variations into these theories. It is true to say that many within the scientific community are willing to accept these theories as being a means to explain the origins of the Universe. But it’s a highly implausible means and none can explain some fundamental questions about the ‘Big Bang’ itself.
The theory states that the Universe was compressed into one super-dense sub-atomic particle. Where did that particle come from?
This particle then exploded. What triggered that explosion?
But the death blow to this theory comes when you start to look at the size of the Universe. Let’s say I give the scientists the benefit of the doubt and use the oldest age they give for the actual ‘Big Bang’ itself. We would be talking six trillion years. Science readily accepts that matter cannot travel faster than light. Therefore the Universe cannot be more than six trillion light years in diameter. NASA’s own website constantly says that the Universe might be infinite - nobody can find a definitive boundary or edge that they can use as a reference point so they have to take their best guess starting with a faulty premise - exactly how the flat earth theory was born.
There is no evidence to support the Big Bang theory. The theory has serious flaws for which there are no explanations offered. It simply doesn’t stand up.
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Up until the late 1800’s, the Biblical account of creation was accepted as fact and that was that. The world was created in six days in a pre-formed state – i.e. all the plants, animals and the first two people appeared in those first days and in the order indicated by the Bible.
Then a guy called Charles Darwin came along and said this was impossible – it couldn’t possibly have happened the way described in the Bible and he then offered another explanation – that we evolved over many hundreds of thousands from apes to man.
Darwin wrote all this down in a series of books (more of which later) which were filled with a great deal of complicated theories as to how this would happen.
I’m sure Darwin had no idea at the time of the effect his books were going to have.
Some members of the scientific community poured over these books and hailed Darwin’s writings as the biggest breakthrough in modern times.
But on hearing this, people who believed in God’s word, people who went to church every Sunday and who had built their lives on the principles of the Bible began to second guess themselves. They looked down on their Bibles having believed every word came from God and asked themselves a very obvious question. If the book of Genesis is wrong, either in whole or in part, then what else is wrong? What else is untrue? What else was made up, altered or added after the fact?
And when you begin to think like that and when doubts like that begin to permeate your thoughts then there is only going to be one outcome – you begin to lose faith…
In his autobiography, Charles Darwin wrote, "I had gradually come to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the beliefs of any barbarian."
Darwin is usually depicted as a Christian minister who lost his faith because he believed that the Biblical account of creation in the book of Genesis was, in his view, wrong. And once he lost faith in that, he lost faith in the entire Bible.
But it wasn’t quite like that…
Charles Robert Darwin was born 1809. His father, Robert, was an atheist as was his grandfather. Not only did they share atheism in common but both his father and grandfather worked in the medical profession.
The grandfather, Erasmus, was the author of a book called ‘Zoonomia’, which was published in 1803. This book puts forward the theory that every species evolved from another although didn’t really offer anything you could call a credible theory to back this claim up.
And here lies the first surprise as the theory that evolution took place to create man was nothing new and was around long before Charles Darwin arrived on the scene.
There was already a strong undercurrent of various theories and thoughts as to how one species might have evolved from another. Every single one of them though was designed to discount God or the biblical account of creation. And in trying to do that, the scientific community tried to imagine a set of circumstances that would fit their theories.
The theory of evolution sounded as good as any but the trouble was that nobody had published anything that had any real scientific gravity to it.
When Charles grew to be a man he went to medical school to follow in his father's footsteps. By this time Darwin was an avowed atheist himself. The courses at medical school took in various subjects, as well as medicine, and one of his tutors was something of an expert in zoology.
On the subject of zoology Darwin was like a sponge - soaking up all the information he could. On the subject of medicine Darwin was a disaster - he found he couldn't stomach the sight of blood. He left school without his degree and a rather disappointed Robert Darwin conceded that his son would not be carrying on the family tradition.
Question now was - where did Charles go from here?
His father thought it best he went to Cambridge to study theology and become a minister in the Anglican Church because such ministers were paid by the state and led fairly comfortable lives in nice sleepy villages. The son took the advice of the father and signed up.
It was back to school for Darwin.
At Cambridge Darwin again showed he had a great talent for the natural sciences but quickly realised he was having trouble even faking an interest in theology.
Despite this, he actually passed his theology degree in 1831 but by now influential people at the college, and beyond, knew Darwin's talent and interest in nature.
He was invited by the Royal Navy to be their official Naturist on a voyage around the world on a ship called HMS Beagle. Darwin instantly accepted, no doubt greatly relieved to escape the pulpit, and the wheels of fate were in motion.
On the five-year voyage Darwin filled several notebooks with material where he was trying to record what he saw - he took numerous samples of the life around him and he always had one eye on his grandfather's book trying to prove the links and theories in that.
Eventually he came up with his theory of evolution - we descended from apes and all life evolves to better adapt to its surroundings. The strong survive and replicate; the weak die and become extinct. It’s survival of the fittest. Sickness, starvation and natural disasters weed out any further undesirables to leave those creatures who have what it takes to survive their environment the best.
It’s not just the book of Genesis that disagrees with this theory - Jesus certainly didn’t subscribe to it either. Jesus healed the sick. Jesus fed the hungry. Jesus calmed the storm. Jesus brought the dead back to life.
Evolution embraces death and disease as a mechanism for controlling numbers but the Bible’s attitude toward death and our origins is completely different.
“[It was] God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.”
Isaiah 45:18
“…before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me…”
Isaiah 43:10
In John 1:18 mankind is described as ‘the most important of all things made’.
In Psalm 17:8 we are described as ‘the apple of His eye’.
“Before I formed thee in the [womb] I knew thee…”
Jeremiah 1:5
“Long before He laid down the Earth’s foundations, He had us in mind.”
Ephesians 1:4
You were ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ according to PSALM 139:14.
The Bible is very clear when it comes to the creation process. It is equally clear when it comes to death…
“For the wages of sin is death,”
Romans 6:23
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
Romans 3:23
“By one man sin entered the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”
Romans 5:12
In evolution, death is a necessary requirement to weed out the weak but in the Bible the only reason death even exists is due to sin. Before Adam sinned, there was no death. Without death, you can’t have evolution.
The Bible often refers to God as ‘Father’ and the original translation underlines the context as being a parent\child relationship. So your Father in Heaven devised a way for you to deal with your sin.
If sin equals death then what if somebody else died in your place for your sin so your slate could be wiped clean?
God sent His one and only Son, Jesus Christ.
Christ sacrificed himself for all sin. He was able to do this because He himself did not sin –
He was, literally, a perfect sacrifice.
The Bible tells us that God made us in His own image in the same way as you look in a mirror you will see your own image but that image is less than you. Christ wasn’t a reflection of God in the same way we are – Christ was much more than that.
“Those that have seen me have seen the Father”
John 14:9
“…the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 6:23
Having not sinned Himself, the resurrection three days later saw the completion of God’s plan to deal with your sin.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16
The Bible makes another thing very clear - all roads DO NOT lead to God. There is only one way to beat death...
“Jesus [said] I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
John 14:6
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God [is still] on him.”
John 3:36
The Bible characterises death as a defeated enemy.
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
1 Corinthians 15:55; Hosea 13:14
But that defeat comes only while dealing with the sin problem while you’re alive.
“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”
Hebrews 9:27
So, on one hand we have the Darwin’s evolutionist theory that death is an unavoidable and necessary natural mechanism and we have the Biblical explanation of death as an enemy.
This is why Darwin’s theories had such a seismic impact when published. Back in Darwin’s day, Christianity dominated the civilised world and the Bible was simply accepted a face value.
Darwin’s theories and his handful of books immediately gained ground with a scientific community grappling with these evolutionary ideas and even though many of the writings were shrouded in pseudo scientific mumbo jumbo and none of them could ever be really proved, they caught the imagination of his peers and lent the concept of evolution some much needed credibility.
But the theories had real problems in them. It wasn't really science. It was guess work. And what's more, Darwin himself knew there were huge problems with his theory.
Darwin said in My Life & Letters, vol. 1 page 210 that 'Not one change of species into another is on record. We cannot prove that a single species has evolved’.
‘The absence of transitional forms - between species... presses greatly on my theory. Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graded organic chain; this is my most obvious and gravest objection urged against my theory’.
Origins of the Species, vol. 2, chap 9 6th Ed.
In one of his notebooks Darwin wrote 'Why, if species descended from other species by fine graduations do we not find transitionary forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of being as we see it - well defined species?'
On page 37 of his book Evolution of Plants he referred to the sudden appearance of flowering plants and insects as an 'abominable mystery’.
But the supreme irony of Darwin's life is surely summed up on page 15 of a book called After Its Kind, "I imagine that probably all organic beings which ever lived on earth were first called into life by God.”
The very theory that destroyed the faith of countless people was the only thing that ever pushed him, however briefly, toward God. And destroy the faith of countless people it did. This theory was presented as a scientific fact, which, to this day, is still happening.
People were led to believe that science had somehow proved the Bible to be inaccurate or just downright wrong and untrustworthy. And because they lost their faith in that part of the Bible, they lost faith in the entire book.
The Bible provides less than a chapter on creation and Darwin provided books, notes and samples.
Darwin was very articulate and clever where as the language of the Bible would have seemed simplistic and antiquated by comparison. And, more than all of this, his peers were ready to believe in Darwin, or anyone else, who spoke their kind of language.
God could of just as easily given us an entire and detailed scientific breakdown of creation but nobody would have ever understood it so what’s the point. Genesis provides easy to grasp information that can be universally understood.
The theory of evolution has never been proven. No scientist, geologist or zoologist has ever proven a single word of Darwin's theory. Even today, we know about countless millions of species - not a single transitionary animal or insect has ever been found.
There are many journals and some notable Doctors in the field of biology who are offering anywhere between $1 million and $250,000 for proof of evolution – this money has, thus far, gone unclaimed.
Yet this theory is taught to our children as fact.
