The questions
1. What would I do if there were no privacy? What if it would be printed on tomorrow’s front page? If you knew you’d get caught? If all your friends would find out?
2. What would my parents, grandparents, mentor, role model, hero say to do?
3. What would Jesus do?
4. What is the most difficult thing to do?
5. What if I knew I would have to tell my children, grandchildren about this?
6. What would I tell my children or best friend to do in this situation?
7. What will I be most proud of having done? The pain of discipline is always less than the pain of regret.
8. What if I wait a day or a month or a year, will it still be a good decision? The bigger or more permanent the decision, the more you should wait.
9. What kind of person would be most likely to do this thing? Are they people you are wanting to be like? What would a despicable person do? Do the opposite. How would the person you are trying to become do it?
10. If the people this act will affect were my own best friends and loved ones, would I do it?
11. What is the most loving thing to do?
12. What if she were your sister, mother, daughter…? Would you be proud to tell the 15 year old son of your current girlfriend 25 years from now every aspect of your relationship and how you treated his mom before she met his dad?
13. What will make your soul the most beautiful?
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Why origins views matter
Note: As you read this side-by-side comparison, keep this very important caveat in mind. Most people in this country believe quite strongly in the moral conclusions which flow from a Creation view. Many of them also believe in Evolution. The point of this comparison is that holding Evolution as a historical view of the origin of human life most naturally leads to a set of moral conclusions which are radically different from and incompatible with those which lead naturally from a Biblical Creation view. Rather than having a debate about the factual merits of either claim in a historical sense, I think it's very useful to look at it from the standpoint of implications. If we really embrace Evolution and then are willing to follow that through to its moral and political conclusions, we find ourselves arriving at an abominal conclusion. For this reason alone, I believe we should embrace a Creation view. What most Americans do here is straddle the fence, embracing Evolution as a factual theory but then embracing (most) of the Creation moral system. But if the conceptual foundation for that far more desirable moral system evaporates, then it's no longer intellectually honest to keep those conclusions.
To give one example, there is a rather infamous article (Why Men Rape, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2000) in which rape is explained and justified as an evolutionary adaptation that not only isn't wrong but actually makes sense from a gene-propagation viewpoint. Now the article's authors (and every other person I've ever met who believes in evolution) deplore rape, and the article's intent is to clarify the origins of rape-inclincation so that it can properly be treated and prevented. But a more natural observation is that they are right and there isn't really any good reason for us to abhor rape, except that we embraced a religious perspective which condemned it. So, we have three choices on this particular issue:
1. Fully embrace Evolution by applying it consistently to our ethics by endorsing rape,
2. Partially embrace Evolution and yet refuse to apply it consistently to our ethics by remaining opposed to rape without a logical ground for that objection.
3. Embrace Creation and oppose rape as a violation of God's Will and the dignity of women made in His image.
People who oppose religion regularly try to put us in the position of having to accept the most unappealing implications of our other intellectual commitments. I think it's only fair to require the same thing of those who offer an alternative worldview to religion. Do most ordinary people who believe in Evolution accept its moral implications? Of course not. Not even core of ardent academic advocates for Evolution do so? Why not? Because the conclusions are abominable. But this dogmatic refusal turns out to be one of the very best reasons to reject Evolution in the first place.
One other observation. When the implications of Evolution are presented this way, the theory's defenders scoff and offer theories about how Evolution might actually work to create the current morality we enjoy. What they never seem willing to notice is that the morality we all want to believe in is inseparable from the religious backstory given to justify it. If religious morality is an Evolutionary adaptation to benefit society, then religion itself is an Evolutionary adaptation to benefit people. But it's not enough to believe this half-heartedly the way someone who views it AS an adaptation would. For these things to work, we have to REALLY believe them deeply AS IF they are real. Hence, Evolutionary theorists should pretty much just stop proclaiming their theory (which underminse the beneficial impact of religious thinking on ethics) and let our beneficial religious adaptations do their thing. There's just no clean way of keeping their theory and also keeping the real benefits of Biblical Creation morality.
With these notes in mind, here are the two theories compared concerning their most natural ethical implications.
Evolution view of the nature of human life
1. Animals with reason (degree/kind)
2. Random, accidental
3. Value by skills, strength
4. Some are worth more than others
5. Genetics, environment, programming
6. No purpose
7. Improving over time (Cavemen)
8. Can’t have knowledge
1. Entirely separate, soul, morality, God’s image
2. Designed, planned
3. Infinite individual value regardless of skills
4. All are equal
5. Free will
6. Purpose
7. Getting worse over time (Early men were smart)
8. Can have knowledge
Comparing Evolution and Creation on a variety of concepts.
Human Rights
Evolution—Myths, there’s only strength
Creation—Real things, protect the weak from strong
Life
Evolution—Common, not special
Creation—Unique and precious
Marriage
Evolution—Social arrangement, myth
Creation—God’s designed purpose for us
Family Structure
Evolution—No formal structure
Creation—Parental authority, nuclear family = building block of society
Clothing
Evolution—For warmth, only functional
Creation—To cover nudity, why we’re against pornography
7 Day week
Evolution—Why not something other than this?
Creation—Essential. It’s the foundation of time, beneficial
Knowledge
Evolution—Still guessing
Creation—God defines Truth, revealed despite our limitations
Government
Evolution—Control animals, do good
Creation—Limited, with authority in certain areas, prevent evil
Population
Evolution—Scarcity, Zero-Population-Growth is a goal
Creation—Abundance, be fruitful and multiply
Purpose of life
Evolution—Nothing, live and die
Creation—To glorify God, there is a purpose to everything
Sex
Evolution—As much as possible, no rules, anything goes
Creation—A blessing within marriage for a purpose
Morality
Evolution—At best, no rules at all, at worst, being vicious is good, might makes right.
Creation—Give, serve, be kind, follow rules and principles
Environment
Evolution— Animal rights, environmentalism, they are as precious as we are, ironically not at all, also.
Creation— We have dominion with responsibility
Science
Evolution—Just a silly game we play
Creation—Discovering the rules God built into the universe
Soul
Evolution—Nope
Creation—Real, the actual basis of human identity
Afterlife
Evolution—Nope, enjoy life now
Creation—Accountability, Eternal destiny
Races
Evolution—Each race is different, and racism makes perfect sense
Creation—All equal because all from Noah. No races.
Who has really taken the ideas of Darwin seriously?
Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin, Castro. Foundation for communism. People are animals.
Hitler--Kill off inferior races
Malthus, Jacues Cousteau and Ted Turner—abortion, cut down reproduction, scarce resources
Education
Either it doesn’t matter and we shouldn’t teach it or it does matter and we should discuss how so.
If you teach kids they are animals and then they act like animals, should you be surprised?
"Why not teach them both theories and let them decide for themselves?" They're kids! Plus, the prior question is whether it really matters, back to the dilemma above.
What if they started teaching that Jesus never lived or wasn’t resurrected as a scientific fact in school?
“That to compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of opinions which he considers abhorrent is tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson
Implications for Christianity
Creator, Accountability, Sin, Death, Blood sacrifice, Cross, resurrection
If not created perfect, don’t need atonement
Paul, Jesus were fools for believing in Genesis.
Authority of Scripture, Bible is a lie, no need for Jesus to die
God—stupid, incompetent, vicious, liar.
Why would you want to believe in this theory? Advocated by people who hate religion.
“Makes atheism respectable.” Icthus bumper stickers.
How do you separate the mythology from the hyper-accurate detail in Genesis?Education and parental obligation—introduce to God.
A Scriptural analysis of the Theory of Evolution
Biblical problems with evolution
~Jesus said in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6 that the creation of Adam and Eve was the beginning. If it was not the beginning, then Jesus is a liar. Also look at Luke 17:26-29, Luke 20:37, Luke 24:25-27 and 44, John 1:3. Jesus also says “It is written” 39 times and “Have ye not read?” 9 times in the gospel. He clearly believed and taught that the Old Testament was historical and reliable.
~John 5:45-47—“if you don’t believe Moses and the prophets, you won’t believe me.” Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, particularly Genesis. Jesus is affirming both the authorship and the authority of those books.
~Exodus 20:11—The version of the ten commandments written in the stone by the finger of God. Many try to discount Genesis, but they have much more trouble with this one. After all, if anything in the Old Testament can be taken literally, it’s got to be these commandments. (See Exodus 31:18)
~1 Corinthians 15:45 and Romans 5: 12-14 Paul bases his whole theology of salvation on the sin of Adam and our option to enter into the second Adam: Jesus. A myth is not a good foundation for a true theology.
~John 1:36 and Exodus 12 and Genesis 3:21 Jesus is the Lamb of God, which is meaningless without the historical exodus from Egypt and Passover which can only be understood in the context of blood sacrifice stemming from Genesis. If we were not made perfect and then sinned, we did not need a blood sacrifice for our sins. Then, Jesus did not need to die. (See also Matthew 26:28 and Hebrews 9:22)
~2 Peter 3:3-6—Three things people don’t understand when they mock the Bible: Creation, Water, and Flood. Also, they mock because they do not want to accept the moral restrictions God brings.
~Romans 1:20—Conscience, Evidence of world, Word. We can see God in His creation.
Why it matters conceptually for a Christian:
There are five essential features of Christian salvation theology: Creator, Accountability, Sin, Death, Redemption. The entire Christian faith rests on these five things. Otherwise, there is no need for Christ to die. If we don’t stand in need of redemption, then Christ did not have to die, and He died in vain as a fool. After all, He even prayed to the Father to “take away this cup from me, nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” Jesus was clearly convinced it was the direct Will of the Father that He be crucified. But if He did not need to die in order to redeem us from sin (because the world was created sinful with death included) then why would the Father command Jesus to go to the cross? And if the Father did not so command Jesus, then Jesus is not the messiah and certainly not divine. Either possibility is unacceptable. In other words, if there were millions of years of death before Adam, then there were millions of years of sin before Adam (since death comes from sin, Romans 6:23) and the Creation was never created perfect and in need of a redeemer. The whole concept of blood sacrifice which eventually culminated in the Cross goes away.
How do you expect to convert people if you don’t even take your own “Holy” book seriously? The biggest stumbling block to Christianity is Christians who cannot answer questions which intelligent new converts ask them, and the majority of these questions come from the very first book in the Bible, often because they haven’t even read the whole thing.
Implications of theistic evolution for our concept of God.
~God is too stupid to know what He really wants. He had to wait and see how it evolved.
~God is incapable of doing what He wants in one short period of time as it says in Genesis.
~God is vicious, creating a carnage-infested world on purpose. Is that really God’s best?
~God is a liar. When He pronounced everything very good in Genesis 1:31, He was wrong.
The real issue is whether we are going to trust God and His Word and start from there or whether we are going to trust our eyes and our minds and start with what we see rather than what we are told by God. Are we going to take the words of a perfect God who was there or the words of fallible men who weren’t there? Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” 2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
There is no reason for a Christian to compromise on this issue, and the implications of compromise are devastating for theology. What possible motive could there be to do so other than putting the theory of men above the Word of God?
Miscellaneous Issues
1 Objection: This is just a divisive issue. Don’t stir up the pot.
Answer: What issues are worth fighting over among us? When does heresy become serious enough? The truth is divisive. (Luke 12:49-53) “One should not judge a method or message on the basis of whether it is divisive or not, but on the basis of whether it is truth and based on the Bible.” Ken Ham
2 Objection: You should worry about saving people, not disputing peripheral stuff.
Answer: That’s how we got in this mess: by failing to teach the relevance of the Old Testament to people, the foundation of the New Testament erodes. If we fail to address the source of the problem, we will continue to reap failure in the end results. You cannot fix a problem that developed from the foundations up by repairing the symptoms. You must fix the problem at the source. Besides, evolution is the number one stumbling block to people receiving the message of Christianity with an open mind. It’s amazing how many people will at least listen once they come to recognize just how shaky the idea of evolution is.
“What I am saying is this: issues such as abortion are just symptoms of the foundational change. Thus, one can’t change the culture back to a Christian philosophy just by attacking the issues. Christian morality can’t ultimately and consistently stand on the wrong foundation of evolution. If the approach is merely to try to get politicians to change the laws about abortion, homosexual behavior, and the like, it won’t work in the long run. Even if some laws were changed to be more consistent with Christian thinking, what happens if new legislators who don’t accept Christianity get voted in? They’ll just change the laws back again. You can’t change a system from the top down when it has changed from the foundation up. Fighting the issues may bring these things to people’s attention. And it may stimulate much discussion and debate. But in the long run, this approach will not change society.” Ken Ham
3 Objection: It’s not clear what a day means in Genesis.
Answer: The Hebrew word “Yom” can mean either an ordinary day or an indeterminate period of time. However, the key to textual interpretation is to let the text interpret itself. Every time the word, “Yom” is used in the Old Testament along with a number (1st, tenth, etc) it always means an ordinary day. When it means a period of time, it is always used without a number. Besides, if a “day” is actually a period of time, then what in the world does it mean to say “And the evening and the morning were the Xth day.”? Also, where does the Sabbath come from?
4 Objection: Time is different for God, look at 2 Peter 3:8, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
Answer: Ignore the fact that this is telling us that God lives outside of time not that time cannot be measured, and consider the implications of this way of interpreting such a passage. This means that every reference to time in the Bible becomes unreliable. Any mention of time could be thousands of times off in duration. Besides, simply observe that this is just after Peter has just told us how absolutely crucial the creation, waters, and flood are in verses 5-6. Why would Peter soundly affirm the creation story and then write about time in a way which completely undermines the creation story? But okay, if a day is a thousand years, then when the Bible says that Adam lived to be 930 years old, that must mean he really lived to be 930 x 365 x 1000 years = way too old! There is no fundamental need to mention units of time in the accounts given, why not leave them out entirely unless they have some meaning and accuracy? The earmarkings of a genuine historical account are that it includes information which can be falsified and which is not necessary to the main point. If “wise men” really wrote the Bible all on their own, why would they put in things like names dates and incredible life-spans. This just isn’t the way people write fables.
5 Objection: Maybe there’s a gap of time between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 1:3.
Answer: Same as above, why not just tell the whole story? Also, Genesis 2:1 says “thus” indicating this is the complete story. Besides, if there is a big gap, then what did God mean when He said in Exodus 20:11 “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Are we really to understand that when God carved in the tablets of stone with His finger that He really meant “For in six days (after billions of years) the Lord…”?
6 Objection: But most of the Old Testament is just fables and tales to explain what we didn’t understand.
Answer: But all around this supposedly embellished or invented account are all sorts of names, dates, places, and measurements, none of which have been invalidated and most of which have been affirmed by modern archaeology. How do you find a razor so thin as to cut out and save the parts which are literally accurate from the parts which are fables? Why didn’t or why couldn’t God just tell us the truth in the Bible? Genesis is in the history section of the Old Testament, clearly not poetry or prophecy.
7 Objection: Couldn’t there have been people, time, or anything before Adam and Eve?
Answer: Jesus calling Adam and Eve the beginning. This means either He was confused or lying, neither of which is a particularly acceptable conclusion.
8 Objection: Don’t Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 contradict each other?
Answer: Sure they do if you read them as different accounts of the same period of time, but that’s not what they are. Genesis 2 is an expanded description of the events of day 6, which were glossed over by Genesis 1. You can’t read Hebrew texts like it’s a Western text, they don’t always read in chronological order like that. Besides, let’s consider the possibility that these two chapters were just written by men as differing accounts of creation. What kind of colossal fools would these men have to have been to then place them side by side in the very first pages of the book for anyone to compare and see the contradiction? Perhaps the words are accurate since it seems at best uncharitable to assume that the “great and wise scholars” who are thought to have written the Bible were so ignorant they didn’t see this problem. Think of it like this, when someone invents something, he usually designs it to not look contradictory, but this error seems so blatant that it either must be right or they were complete idiots. The rest of the Bible is too brilliant to have been composed by idiots, so…they must have been right.
9 Objection: Creation is religion and evolution is science.
Answer: The Christian religion is a religion based entirely on a factual history which requires certain things to be factually true or else it is false. If Jesus did not really life, die, become resurrected, and ascend, then Christianity is all a big mistake. Even Paul says so. (1 Cor 15:17) If this world developed all on its own by natural processes, then there is no creator. If there is no creator, then God is just something we invented to make ourselves feel better. Evolution is not science any more than Creationism is. Both are historical, since they deal with unique, unobservable, unduplicateable phenomena.
Educational issues
~“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” Luke 17:1-2
~Education is a parent’s responsibility, not the government. And the primary purpose of education is to introduce a child to God by teaching him His commands and nature. Deut 6:4-6
~“Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state.” Adolf Hitler
~“The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scritures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell….I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God’s Word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now.” Martin Luther
~Remember, this is a historical issue, not a scientific one. In the schools, this issue is presented as historical fact, but yet it directly contradicts the clearest reading of the Bible. If someone were to teach that Jesus never existed as a matter of historical fact, or that He was never resurrected as a matter of medical or scientific fact, surely this would be an unacceptable State sponsorship of anti-religion. Evolution in the public schools is no different. It is a historical claim with anti-religious implications.
Other thoughts
Keep this in mind. The ideas in this handout are taken specifically from the perspective of whether evolution can be squared with the Bible or with Christianity. Can someone be a Christian and believe in evolution? Sure. Because being a Christian doesn’t mean you know everything or live perfectly. It’s a beginning. Salvation is dependent on grace, not on works, even mental works. The problem is that eventually as you understand what it means to believe in Christ as a Redeemer, you understand that the two ideas are truly incompatible. From the very beginning, shedding of blood has been the only way to atone for the sins of man and bring man into a right relationship with God. Even following the expulsion from Eden, God finds the leaves Adam and Eve use to cover themselves insufficient and He slaughters an animal and makes “coats of skins” for them to wear. Genesis 3:22. This means blood had to be shed. Eventually this need for blood is what made the Cross so necessary. If there was death and sin before Adam, then the whole foundation for needing a Redeemer in Jesus falls apart.
Many people want to mythologize Genesis and claim that those things never really happened. They are just some kind of “useful story” to help us understand things. Why can’t God have chosen to use True events to help us understand things? The idea here is that you can only explain the Truth by using lies and fictional stories. How does that make any sense? Besides, there are a whole lot of very important concepts which come directly from Genesis such as the commands to procreate, live in marriage, wear clothing, work or labor, not murder, rest one day in seven and so on. Such concepts do not have much intellectual vigor if they are understood as coming completely out of mythology.
The Icthus (A Greek Acronym for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, which, when spelled in Greek, the first letters of this phrase also spell out the word for fish.) has long been a symbol which Christians have used to identify themselves, both because of the linguistic ties and for the “fishers of men” concept. You can see these symbols on many cars in America today. In response to the Icthus bumper signs, atheists contemptuously place similar looking symbols on their cars only with little legs and feet added (to look like an amphibian, which is evolving into a “better” way of thinking) and the word “Darwin” printed inside the body of the fish/reptile. If evolution is really a non-religious or religion-neutral idea, then why would people who believe in it take this approach? Why would they replace an acronym for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior” with Charles Darwin’s name? Think about it, why on earth would a Christian want to compromise and reconcile himself with people who would use the theory of evolution as a way to mock and ridicule Christianity? If you really think there is no incompatibility between the two, then ask someone with such a bumper sign on his car if he agrees. Even atheists seem to get this point of incompatibility better than many Christians:
Quotes
“Christianity is—must be—totally committed to the special creation as described in Genesis, and Christianity must fight with all its full might, fair or foul, against the theory of evolution….It becomes clear now that the whole justification of Jesus’ life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam’s fall into al life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.” G. Richard Bozarth in The American Atheist, Sept 1978, p 19.
“Selection is the blindest, and most cruel way of evolving new species, and more complex and refined organisms…the more cruel because it is a process of elimination, of destruction. The struggle for life and the elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against which our whole modern ethic revolts. An ideal society is a non-selective society, it is one where the weak are protected; which is exactly the reverse of the so-called natural law. I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution.” Jacques Monod—biologist and philosopher
I believe it was Richard Dawkins (Possibly one of the Huxleys) who said, “Darwinism has made atheism respectable.”
“I came to the conclusion that there were two factors which destroyed Christianity in Western Europe. One was the theory of evolution, and the other, liberal theology….Liberal theology is just evolution applied to the Bible and our faith.” Josef Ton, pastor of the largest Baptist Church in Romania now living in exile in the U.S.
Finally, consider this.
The original lie told to Eve by Satan in the Garden of Eden went through three stages.
1. Questioning God’s Words. (Genesis 3:1)
2. Outright denial of God’s Words. (Genesis 3:4)
3. A promise to develop into more evolved beings (gods) (Genesis 3:5)
The theory of evolution says the same three things in the same order.
1. Couldn’t the Earth be extremely old? (Question the Bible)
2. Adam and Eve never existed, nor was the world created by God, perfect, in six days. (Deny the Bible)
3. If you wait around, people will evolve into something better. (You will be as gods.)
There isn’t anything new in this idea of evolution. It’s just the same old original lie spruced up with some brand new bells and whistles to distract us from the real message it contains.
~Jesus said in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6 that the creation of Adam and Eve was the beginning. If it was not the beginning, then Jesus is a liar. Also look at Luke 17:26-29, Luke 20:37, Luke 24:25-27 and 44, John 1:3. Jesus also says “It is written” 39 times and “Have ye not read?” 9 times in the gospel. He clearly believed and taught that the Old Testament was historical and reliable.
~John 5:45-47—“if you don’t believe Moses and the prophets, you won’t believe me.” Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, particularly Genesis. Jesus is affirming both the authorship and the authority of those books.
~Exodus 20:11—The version of the ten commandments written in the stone by the finger of God. Many try to discount Genesis, but they have much more trouble with this one. After all, if anything in the Old Testament can be taken literally, it’s got to be these commandments. (See Exodus 31:18)
~1 Corinthians 15:45 and Romans 5: 12-14 Paul bases his whole theology of salvation on the sin of Adam and our option to enter into the second Adam: Jesus. A myth is not a good foundation for a true theology.
~John 1:36 and Exodus 12 and Genesis 3:21 Jesus is the Lamb of God, which is meaningless without the historical exodus from Egypt and Passover which can only be understood in the context of blood sacrifice stemming from Genesis. If we were not made perfect and then sinned, we did not need a blood sacrifice for our sins. Then, Jesus did not need to die. (See also Matthew 26:28 and Hebrews 9:22)
~2 Peter 3:3-6—Three things people don’t understand when they mock the Bible: Creation, Water, and Flood. Also, they mock because they do not want to accept the moral restrictions God brings.
~Romans 1:20—Conscience, Evidence of world, Word. We can see God in His creation.
Why it matters conceptually for a Christian:
There are five essential features of Christian salvation theology: Creator, Accountability, Sin, Death, Redemption. The entire Christian faith rests on these five things. Otherwise, there is no need for Christ to die. If we don’t stand in need of redemption, then Christ did not have to die, and He died in vain as a fool. After all, He even prayed to the Father to “take away this cup from me, nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” Jesus was clearly convinced it was the direct Will of the Father that He be crucified. But if He did not need to die in order to redeem us from sin (because the world was created sinful with death included) then why would the Father command Jesus to go to the cross? And if the Father did not so command Jesus, then Jesus is not the messiah and certainly not divine. Either possibility is unacceptable. In other words, if there were millions of years of death before Adam, then there were millions of years of sin before Adam (since death comes from sin, Romans 6:23) and the Creation was never created perfect and in need of a redeemer. The whole concept of blood sacrifice which eventually culminated in the Cross goes away.
How do you expect to convert people if you don’t even take your own “Holy” book seriously? The biggest stumbling block to Christianity is Christians who cannot answer questions which intelligent new converts ask them, and the majority of these questions come from the very first book in the Bible, often because they haven’t even read the whole thing.
Implications of theistic evolution for our concept of God.
~God is too stupid to know what He really wants. He had to wait and see how it evolved.
~God is incapable of doing what He wants in one short period of time as it says in Genesis.
~God is vicious, creating a carnage-infested world on purpose. Is that really God’s best?
~God is a liar. When He pronounced everything very good in Genesis 1:31, He was wrong.
The real issue is whether we are going to trust God and His Word and start from there or whether we are going to trust our eyes and our minds and start with what we see rather than what we are told by God. Are we going to take the words of a perfect God who was there or the words of fallible men who weren’t there? Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” 2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
There is no reason for a Christian to compromise on this issue, and the implications of compromise are devastating for theology. What possible motive could there be to do so other than putting the theory of men above the Word of God?
Miscellaneous Issues
1 Objection: This is just a divisive issue. Don’t stir up the pot.
Answer: What issues are worth fighting over among us? When does heresy become serious enough? The truth is divisive. (Luke 12:49-53) “One should not judge a method or message on the basis of whether it is divisive or not, but on the basis of whether it is truth and based on the Bible.” Ken Ham
2 Objection: You should worry about saving people, not disputing peripheral stuff.
Answer: That’s how we got in this mess: by failing to teach the relevance of the Old Testament to people, the foundation of the New Testament erodes. If we fail to address the source of the problem, we will continue to reap failure in the end results. You cannot fix a problem that developed from the foundations up by repairing the symptoms. You must fix the problem at the source. Besides, evolution is the number one stumbling block to people receiving the message of Christianity with an open mind. It’s amazing how many people will at least listen once they come to recognize just how shaky the idea of evolution is.
“What I am saying is this: issues such as abortion are just symptoms of the foundational change. Thus, one can’t change the culture back to a Christian philosophy just by attacking the issues. Christian morality can’t ultimately and consistently stand on the wrong foundation of evolution. If the approach is merely to try to get politicians to change the laws about abortion, homosexual behavior, and the like, it won’t work in the long run. Even if some laws were changed to be more consistent with Christian thinking, what happens if new legislators who don’t accept Christianity get voted in? They’ll just change the laws back again. You can’t change a system from the top down when it has changed from the foundation up. Fighting the issues may bring these things to people’s attention. And it may stimulate much discussion and debate. But in the long run, this approach will not change society.” Ken Ham
3 Objection: It’s not clear what a day means in Genesis.
Answer: The Hebrew word “Yom” can mean either an ordinary day or an indeterminate period of time. However, the key to textual interpretation is to let the text interpret itself. Every time the word, “Yom” is used in the Old Testament along with a number (1st, tenth, etc) it always means an ordinary day. When it means a period of time, it is always used without a number. Besides, if a “day” is actually a period of time, then what in the world does it mean to say “And the evening and the morning were the Xth day.”? Also, where does the Sabbath come from?
4 Objection: Time is different for God, look at 2 Peter 3:8, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
Answer: Ignore the fact that this is telling us that God lives outside of time not that time cannot be measured, and consider the implications of this way of interpreting such a passage. This means that every reference to time in the Bible becomes unreliable. Any mention of time could be thousands of times off in duration. Besides, simply observe that this is just after Peter has just told us how absolutely crucial the creation, waters, and flood are in verses 5-6. Why would Peter soundly affirm the creation story and then write about time in a way which completely undermines the creation story? But okay, if a day is a thousand years, then when the Bible says that Adam lived to be 930 years old, that must mean he really lived to be 930 x 365 x 1000 years = way too old! There is no fundamental need to mention units of time in the accounts given, why not leave them out entirely unless they have some meaning and accuracy? The earmarkings of a genuine historical account are that it includes information which can be falsified and which is not necessary to the main point. If “wise men” really wrote the Bible all on their own, why would they put in things like names dates and incredible life-spans. This just isn’t the way people write fables.
5 Objection: Maybe there’s a gap of time between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 1:3.
Answer: Same as above, why not just tell the whole story? Also, Genesis 2:1 says “thus” indicating this is the complete story. Besides, if there is a big gap, then what did God mean when He said in Exodus 20:11 “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Are we really to understand that when God carved in the tablets of stone with His finger that He really meant “For in six days (after billions of years) the Lord…”?
6 Objection: But most of the Old Testament is just fables and tales to explain what we didn’t understand.
Answer: But all around this supposedly embellished or invented account are all sorts of names, dates, places, and measurements, none of which have been invalidated and most of which have been affirmed by modern archaeology. How do you find a razor so thin as to cut out and save the parts which are literally accurate from the parts which are fables? Why didn’t or why couldn’t God just tell us the truth in the Bible? Genesis is in the history section of the Old Testament, clearly not poetry or prophecy.
7 Objection: Couldn’t there have been people, time, or anything before Adam and Eve?
Answer: Jesus calling Adam and Eve the beginning. This means either He was confused or lying, neither of which is a particularly acceptable conclusion.
8 Objection: Don’t Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 contradict each other?
Answer: Sure they do if you read them as different accounts of the same period of time, but that’s not what they are. Genesis 2 is an expanded description of the events of day 6, which were glossed over by Genesis 1. You can’t read Hebrew texts like it’s a Western text, they don’t always read in chronological order like that. Besides, let’s consider the possibility that these two chapters were just written by men as differing accounts of creation. What kind of colossal fools would these men have to have been to then place them side by side in the very first pages of the book for anyone to compare and see the contradiction? Perhaps the words are accurate since it seems at best uncharitable to assume that the “great and wise scholars” who are thought to have written the Bible were so ignorant they didn’t see this problem. Think of it like this, when someone invents something, he usually designs it to not look contradictory, but this error seems so blatant that it either must be right or they were complete idiots. The rest of the Bible is too brilliant to have been composed by idiots, so…they must have been right.
9 Objection: Creation is religion and evolution is science.
Answer: The Christian religion is a religion based entirely on a factual history which requires certain things to be factually true or else it is false. If Jesus did not really life, die, become resurrected, and ascend, then Christianity is all a big mistake. Even Paul says so. (1 Cor 15:17) If this world developed all on its own by natural processes, then there is no creator. If there is no creator, then God is just something we invented to make ourselves feel better. Evolution is not science any more than Creationism is. Both are historical, since they deal with unique, unobservable, unduplicateable phenomena.
Educational issues
~“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” Luke 17:1-2
~Education is a parent’s responsibility, not the government. And the primary purpose of education is to introduce a child to God by teaching him His commands and nature. Deut 6:4-6
~“Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state.” Adolf Hitler
~“The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scritures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell….I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God’s Word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now.” Martin Luther
~Remember, this is a historical issue, not a scientific one. In the schools, this issue is presented as historical fact, but yet it directly contradicts the clearest reading of the Bible. If someone were to teach that Jesus never existed as a matter of historical fact, or that He was never resurrected as a matter of medical or scientific fact, surely this would be an unacceptable State sponsorship of anti-religion. Evolution in the public schools is no different. It is a historical claim with anti-religious implications.
Other thoughts
Keep this in mind. The ideas in this handout are taken specifically from the perspective of whether evolution can be squared with the Bible or with Christianity. Can someone be a Christian and believe in evolution? Sure. Because being a Christian doesn’t mean you know everything or live perfectly. It’s a beginning. Salvation is dependent on grace, not on works, even mental works. The problem is that eventually as you understand what it means to believe in Christ as a Redeemer, you understand that the two ideas are truly incompatible. From the very beginning, shedding of blood has been the only way to atone for the sins of man and bring man into a right relationship with God. Even following the expulsion from Eden, God finds the leaves Adam and Eve use to cover themselves insufficient and He slaughters an animal and makes “coats of skins” for them to wear. Genesis 3:22. This means blood had to be shed. Eventually this need for blood is what made the Cross so necessary. If there was death and sin before Adam, then the whole foundation for needing a Redeemer in Jesus falls apart.
Many people want to mythologize Genesis and claim that those things never really happened. They are just some kind of “useful story” to help us understand things. Why can’t God have chosen to use True events to help us understand things? The idea here is that you can only explain the Truth by using lies and fictional stories. How does that make any sense? Besides, there are a whole lot of very important concepts which come directly from Genesis such as the commands to procreate, live in marriage, wear clothing, work or labor, not murder, rest one day in seven and so on. Such concepts do not have much intellectual vigor if they are understood as coming completely out of mythology.
The Icthus (A Greek Acronym for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, which, when spelled in Greek, the first letters of this phrase also spell out the word for fish.) has long been a symbol which Christians have used to identify themselves, both because of the linguistic ties and for the “fishers of men” concept. You can see these symbols on many cars in America today. In response to the Icthus bumper signs, atheists contemptuously place similar looking symbols on their cars only with little legs and feet added (to look like an amphibian, which is evolving into a “better” way of thinking) and the word “Darwin” printed inside the body of the fish/reptile. If evolution is really a non-religious or religion-neutral idea, then why would people who believe in it take this approach? Why would they replace an acronym for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior” with Charles Darwin’s name? Think about it, why on earth would a Christian want to compromise and reconcile himself with people who would use the theory of evolution as a way to mock and ridicule Christianity? If you really think there is no incompatibility between the two, then ask someone with such a bumper sign on his car if he agrees. Even atheists seem to get this point of incompatibility better than many Christians:
Quotes
“Christianity is—must be—totally committed to the special creation as described in Genesis, and Christianity must fight with all its full might, fair or foul, against the theory of evolution….It becomes clear now that the whole justification of Jesus’ life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam’s fall into al life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.” G. Richard Bozarth in The American Atheist, Sept 1978, p 19.
“Selection is the blindest, and most cruel way of evolving new species, and more complex and refined organisms…the more cruel because it is a process of elimination, of destruction. The struggle for life and the elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against which our whole modern ethic revolts. An ideal society is a non-selective society, it is one where the weak are protected; which is exactly the reverse of the so-called natural law. I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution.” Jacques Monod—biologist and philosopher
I believe it was Richard Dawkins (Possibly one of the Huxleys) who said, “Darwinism has made atheism respectable.”
“I came to the conclusion that there were two factors which destroyed Christianity in Western Europe. One was the theory of evolution, and the other, liberal theology….Liberal theology is just evolution applied to the Bible and our faith.” Josef Ton, pastor of the largest Baptist Church in Romania now living in exile in the U.S.
Finally, consider this.
The original lie told to Eve by Satan in the Garden of Eden went through three stages.
1. Questioning God’s Words. (Genesis 3:1)
2. Outright denial of God’s Words. (Genesis 3:4)
3. A promise to develop into more evolved beings (gods) (Genesis 3:5)
The theory of evolution says the same three things in the same order.
1. Couldn’t the Earth be extremely old? (Question the Bible)
2. Adam and Eve never existed, nor was the world created by God, perfect, in six days. (Deny the Bible)
3. If you wait around, people will evolve into something better. (You will be as gods.)
There isn’t anything new in this idea of evolution. It’s just the same old original lie spruced up with some brand new bells and whistles to distract us from the real message it contains.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Homework 7 (Due 6/29 by 5:00 PM)
Note: HW 6 was never posted, and, since the material has already been covered, I just went ahead to HW 7. Don't worry, there are plenty of points available to get the grade you want.
Part 1
1. Can you be morally required to do something which is impossible? Why?
2. Who has the authority to decide how a piece of property will be used? Why?
3. Who has the authority to set the rules for a pet? Why?
4. Who has the authority to set the rules for a child? Why?
5. Who has the authority to set the rules for adults? Why?
6. Can there be moral rules without reference to God? Why?
7. Can it ever be morally right to try to do something which will fail? Give an example.
8. Can it ever be morally right to do something which will cause people pain? Give an example.
9. What is the difference between a moral temptation and a genuine moral dilemma?
10. Describe how you solved the last major ethical decision you made.
11. When you don’t know what to do on your own, how do you decide?
12. Why do we read and study the lives/biographies of great men and women of history?
13. Are good intentions more or less important than good results? Why?
Part 2
Please answer the following questions in the order given, one at a time, without reading ahead. Rank your agreement with the statement on a 1-5 scale:
1 = Disagree strongly 2 = Disagree somewhat 3 = Neutral 4 = Agree Somewhat 5 = Agree strongly
Then answer the “why?” portion in your own words. Keep your answers short and try to go with your first response. As before, the actual answer you give is not so important. The important thing is to think of where you get your answer. Try to be honest. Don’t try so much to defend your answers as to simply assess where your answers come from in your own thinking. Also consider how strongly you hold each of your answers. I want you to think about the implications of the questions and also of your answers, all the while looking for patterns and structure.
1. It is wrong for you to kill an innocent person. Why?
2. It is wrong for you to have slaves. Why?
3. It is wrong for you to walk around naked in public. Why?
4. It is wrong for you to use LSD. Why?
5. It is wrong for you to worship an idol. Why?
6. It is wrong for you to impose the beliefs you accept on someone else. Why?
7. It is wrong to teach your children to have your beliefs. Why?
8. It was wrong for the United States to bomb on Hiroshima, killing thousands of innocent people. Why?
9. It is wrong for the Sudanese to own slaves. Why?
10. It is wrong for women living in the Amazon jungle to walk around without covering their breasts. Why?
11. It is wrong for American Indians to use hallucinogens which are otherwise illegal in the U.S. Why?
12. It is wrong for a pagan to worship the statue of a god. Why?
13. It is wrong for public school teachers to force children to learn the facts they choose to teach. Why? It is wrong for a Satan-worshiper to teach his child to cast spells and sacrifice animals. Why?
Part 1
1. Can you be morally required to do something which is impossible? Why?
2. Who has the authority to decide how a piece of property will be used? Why?
3. Who has the authority to set the rules for a pet? Why?
4. Who has the authority to set the rules for a child? Why?
5. Who has the authority to set the rules for adults? Why?
6. Can there be moral rules without reference to God? Why?
7. Can it ever be morally right to try to do something which will fail? Give an example.
8. Can it ever be morally right to do something which will cause people pain? Give an example.
9. What is the difference between a moral temptation and a genuine moral dilemma?
10. Describe how you solved the last major ethical decision you made.
11. When you don’t know what to do on your own, how do you decide?
12. Why do we read and study the lives/biographies of great men and women of history?
13. Are good intentions more or less important than good results? Why?
Part 2
Please answer the following questions in the order given, one at a time, without reading ahead. Rank your agreement with the statement on a 1-5 scale:
1 = Disagree strongly 2 = Disagree somewhat 3 = Neutral 4 = Agree Somewhat 5 = Agree strongly
Then answer the “why?” portion in your own words. Keep your answers short and try to go with your first response. As before, the actual answer you give is not so important. The important thing is to think of where you get your answer. Try to be honest. Don’t try so much to defend your answers as to simply assess where your answers come from in your own thinking. Also consider how strongly you hold each of your answers. I want you to think about the implications of the questions and also of your answers, all the while looking for patterns and structure.
1. It is wrong for you to kill an innocent person. Why?
2. It is wrong for you to have slaves. Why?
3. It is wrong for you to walk around naked in public. Why?
4. It is wrong for you to use LSD. Why?
5. It is wrong for you to worship an idol. Why?
6. It is wrong for you to impose the beliefs you accept on someone else. Why?
7. It is wrong to teach your children to have your beliefs. Why?
8. It was wrong for the United States to bomb on Hiroshima, killing thousands of innocent people. Why?
9. It is wrong for the Sudanese to own slaves. Why?
10. It is wrong for women living in the Amazon jungle to walk around without covering their breasts. Why?
11. It is wrong for American Indians to use hallucinogens which are otherwise illegal in the U.S. Why?
12. It is wrong for a pagan to worship the statue of a god. Why?
13. It is wrong for public school teachers to force children to learn the facts they choose to teach. Why? It is wrong for a Satan-worshiper to teach his child to cast spells and sacrifice animals. Why?
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