Evolution as Religion

Evolution as Religion

A University professor was asked in the 1970s, “Do you believe in God? He answered, “I believe in evolution”. Here is the nub of the problem. A valid branch of knowledge about the world is made to take the place of religion. Evolution has been hijacked from its place as a scientific theory, into “the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.”

The debate is also confused by the red herring about whether God made the world in six days or billions of years. Let us discuss that first. In the Middle Ages, most people probably took it for granted that this was literally true. But the greatest theologians (e.g. St Thomas Aquinas) taught that this was an open question. The six days could represent six Ideas in the eternal plans of the Almighty. When all six had been brought forth, the creation of the world was complete. We are given a strong hint in Genesis that something like this is to be understood: The sun was not created until the fourth day. In that case, how were the first three days measured? The real point of the story is that all was created according to the Plan of an all-powerful, and all good, Creator. We take this too much for granted these days: a little study of the “creation myths” of other ancient peoples shows them to be surprisingly childish and often revolting. One must ask, where did such an unphilosophical people as the Ancient Hebrews get this wonderful picture of Creation?

On the other hand, the evidence that the process of evolution has occurred and continues to occur is, frankly, overwhelming. Not all biologists subscribe to 'Natural selection of random mutation' but all do affirm that the actuall process takes place. it is telling that those adamantly opposed to Evolution are not specilists in the field, but have come to the subject already predetermined to reject it.

The real disagreement between Creation and Atheistic Evolution – that attempted replacement for religion – is that Atheistic Evolution takes a natural process (natural selection) which is clearly seen to operate as a tidying-up process that weeds out the less fit members of a species [the deformed and unfit members have few or no offspring and hence do not contribute to the next generation] and elevates it, in the absence of evidence, to the main creative mechanism driving the processes of life and the creation of new species. For example, wild mammals that cannot produce milk will be eliminated from the herd, as their offspring will starve. Seagulls born with faulty wing feathers will be eliminated because they cannot fly. But this mechanism cannot convincingly be invoked to explain milk or feathers in the first place. Natural selection weeds out, it does not create.

In addition, atheistic evolution begs the question by stating that selection works on random variation. But how do we know that something is random unless we already know that there is no God? How do we know He has not planned the variation? This is a very large topic, but it merits more thought than is normally given it in textbooks. There are huge holes in the logic of the “theory of everything” that tries to make random chance the driving force behind the whole universe. Natural Selection by Random Variation is hijacked to explain the most intricate and integrated biological systems.

A very telling example is given by the evolution of languages. Most European languages seem to have developed, or evolved, from a common ancestor spoken about 6000 years ago near the Black Sea. Migrating tribes carried the language which split into the dialects that are the ancestors of our modern languages. Much of this development can be reconstructed with a fair degree of accuracy (although it will never be perfect). A language is a loose thing, with an internal logic, but there is plenty of scope for new words to develop and old ones to be forgotten. One word can be lost without affecting the others. Yet in the case of biological systems, it is not at all obvious that integrated systems can be formed piecemeal.

In addition, it has not yet been possible even to describe what conditions might have given rise to the first living cell…. organic chemistry would seem to actually prevent it.

So what did happen? Perhaps with a little more humility it will be admitted that we still have not all the scientific answers to “Life, the Universe, and Everything”. It would be fun to know more.

The Other Side – "Evolution and Creation"