Response to gotquestions.org - Creation vs. Evolution
I found this great site called “GotQuestions?.org“ I agree with the vast majority of their site. So far, I only differ on their Creation FAQs. I thought it might be useful if I provided the Geocreationist responses:
Question: “What does the Bible say about Creation vs. evolution?”Here are some excerpts from gotquestions’ answer:
“The vast majority of evolutionary scientists hold that life evolved entirely without ANY intervention of a higher Being. Evolution is by definition a naturalistic science.”
“Darwin’s goal was not to disprove God’s existence, but that is one of the end results of the theory of evolution. Evolution is an enabler of atheism.”
“According to the Bible, anyone who denies the existence of God is a fool. Why, then, are so many people, including some Christians, willing to accept that evolutionary scientists are unbiased interpreters of scientific data? According to the Bible, they are all fools!”
“Foolishness indicates an inability to properly apply knowledge. Proverbs 1:7 tells us, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” “
“God, and the supernatural, cannot be observed or tested (so the argument goes), therefore Creation and/or Intelligent Design cannot be considered a science. As a result, all data is filtered through the preconceived, presupposed, and pre-accepted theory of evolution, without alternate explanations being considered.”
“Evolution denies the need for a God to be involved in the universe. Evolution is the “creation theory” for the “religion” of atheism. According to the Bible, the choice is clear. We can believe the Word of our omnipotent and omniscient God, or we can believe the illogically biased, “scientific” explanations of fools.”
I agree with everything above. However, I still disagree that world was created 6,000-10,000 years ago. There are evil processes all over the world, and that doesn’t mean they are entirely false. I consider Mormonism to not be true, but I agree that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. Therefore, I think it’s wrong to throw out everything that secular scientists conclude.You can read about “Evolution and Geocreationism” in more detail, but the gist of it is that any creation theory that includes an absent God is wrong. Evolution assumes an absent God. However, the mechanism of Evolution, Natural Selection, could still be a valid mechanism that God uses and manipulates for His purposes. God provides inputs (the Cambrian Explosion?), destroys results (the KT Impact), and sometimes skips the process altogether (the missing transitional fossils?). God can turn it on and off like a switch. The key is that God was an active participant and not a mere observer.
January 21st, 2007 at 12:32 am
Darwin’s goal was not to disprove God, I agree. But I don’t agree that evolution leads to atheism. Darwin believed in evolution but was not led to this end result. He believed in God and referred to a creator 7 times in his ‘Origin of Species’. So the person we know as the founder of evolution(it was actually his predecessor Huxley), actually believed in a creator. He however did not profess the Christian God, but that was due to the problem of Evil, not the problem of Evolution. And many famous Christian thinkers have professed faith in God as well as a belief in Evolution such as CS Lewis and Billy Graham. Which goes to show that there is no ‘problem’ of evolution.
January 21st, 2007 at 2:38 pm
A lot of good points, but think you misunderstood something.
> Darwin’s goal was not to disprove God, I agree. But I don’t agree that evolution leads to atheism.
I agree with this statement, that Evolution doesn’t “lead” to atheism. After all, I know Christian Evolutionists, which proves your point. However, I believe Evolution “enables” atheism (the word used by GotQuestions.org), because it’s a theory defined without God. Add Got to the mix, and it’s not Evolution anymore. What is it? Well, I haven’t found a word for it yet (http://geocreationism.com/evolution-and-geocreationism/).
One possible innaccuracy in your comment…
> And many famous Christian thinkers have professed faith in God as well as a belief in Evolution such as CS Lewis and Billy Graham.
I think the quote you are referring is the one on http://www.answersincreation.org/billy_graham.htm. The key excerpt is, “I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man.”
This doesn’t actually say he believes in Evolution. I think Graham is saying that it isn’t important whether God used Evolution or not… **God’s** point is that He made us.
Finally, I recommend reading my essays on “Evolution and Geocreationism”, I and II. I propose that God did in fact use something like Evolution, where an accumulation of changes was allowed by God to result in new species. But, while some changes were “natural”, others were divine. While some species appeared “naturally”, God created some directly. While some species died out “naturally”, some were killed off by God. God basically nursed the entire process along, upkeeping the “species tree” to have the exact shape and form He wanted it to have. God wasn’t absent, and was not a casual observer. However, while being evolution-like, it isn’t Evolution, because Evolution is open-ended and requires no participation by God. God’s participation however was critical.