S2 E15: Evolution, Creation, and Biology {Worldview Series, Part 5} – Reformed Faith and Family
A Christian Legacy
This is part five of a series of conversations centering around building a thoroughly Christian worldview. The following discussion is going to center around biology – the study of life. Currently we seem to be living in a culture of death. It is important for Christians to arm themselves and their families for the culture war that is here, not coming, but current. We celebrate life as Christians because we know who the Author of life is, and that every soul created is made in His image.
There are few ideas more basic to Christianity than God being the author of life, yet there are few Christian doctrines that have been under greater attack in the past couple hundred years.
In history, when people believed that God was responsible for both the existence and the design of every living creature on earth, it followed that He also had the right to order and set parameters for those living creatures. If He designed and created, He had the authority to define what is natural and unnatural, what is good and what is evil.
Throughout Christendom’s history, there have been those who wished to subvert popular belief in God and dependence upon religion for both understanding and interacting with their environment. By undermining belief in God’s authority over life, one could gain traction incrementally in convincing the populace to no longer give credence to God’s commands.
An Alternative Framework
To accomplish this end, an alternative narrative for our existence and the forces that guide life in our world was needed. Without it, the best the atheistic thinkers could hope to accomplish was to tempt people with something they might desire far more than the fear they held of likely punishment. While there had been many theories for the existence of life and the purpose that might be attached to it, nothing provided an acceptable alternative, in popular opinion, to biblical creation until Darwin and his formulation of naturalistic evolution.
Sadly, many Christians, including theologians and seminary professors, lacked confidence that the clear teaching of Scripture would ultimately be vindicated against the false claims of the theory of evolution. Multiple paths were created to alter the traditional understanding of Creation such that the timeline and mechanics of evolution could be made to fit. Sadly, that compromise has had devastating effects within Christendom as generations of professing Christians have been taught to seek a path of accommodation when society or science demands it.
A Faulty System
The reality is that naturalistic evolution, or survival of the fittest as it was described by Darwin, cannot hold up to scrutiny. Over time, many key tenets have been shown to be false, both in regard to the timeline required and the gaining of information over successive generations. Had Christians not cowered at the attack of Darwin and his converts, the masses may have at least held on to skepticism long enough to realize it was not the true reflection of reality it claimed to be.
Let me just mention a couple of things that naturalistic evolution cannot explain, where creative design can. This is only meant to be a small sampling:
First, there is no genetic mechanism where new information is added to the genome. With each successive generation, information is lost from the genetic information of the organism’s parents. Mutation is only a corruption of existing genetic information, and has itself never been shown to provide an advancement in a species or greater survivability.
Secondly, there are irreducible biological systems. These are biological components such that a great deal of complexity and interaction is required for their function to perform. Any absence of even one of the fully developed parts would make the whole both ineffective and actually detrimental to the organism. A clear example of this phenomenon is the eye. The eye is a vastly complex organ that cannot work without each component being fully developed and working together. Evolution cannot account for how any of the components of the eye could have progressively, individually developed in any beneficial way for survival.
Celebration of Life or Culture of Death?
Central to Christianity is the celebration of life. God is the author of life. God’s design and purposes for all living creatures is beautiful and wonderful. Chief among the intricate and valuable living creatures of God’s creation is man. Man is unique. Man is created in the image of God, containing an eternal soul, and the ability to think, communicate, and create. God created mankind as male and female, and He charged them with reproducing and filling the whole earth with His image. They were to extend the wonder of the Garden in which He placed them across the whole earth. Faithfulness to God produces the flourishing of life.
Godless ideologies have always brought death. They invariably work toward the destruction of life. Pagan societies throughout history, across the globe, have been marked by sexual exploitation, human trafficking and slavery, human sacrifice, and even cannibalism. Godless ideologies take their cue from the doctrine of demons, who have labored since the Fall of man into sin, in the Garden, to bring about the destruction of God’s creation. Their main target is mankind made in the image of God.
A Godless Ideology
Naturalistic evolution is a godless ideology; have no doubt about that. It removes any value from life. It removes any purpose in life. It removes anything unique and special from the race of men. Everything “evolves” by chance and is therefore meaningless.
Devoid of a biblical worldview, informed by naturalistic evolution, many of the horrors of ancient pagan ideologies have found their way back into once Christian cultures during our modern era. Where pagans used to leave unwanted children exposed to the elements, or offer them in the flames to their gods, we have codified abortion as the fundamental sacrament of the age. Where pagans used to employ cult prostitutes to satisfy the lusts of the flesh as an act of demon worship, we have removed any and all barriers from the enjoyment of casual and consequence-free sexual exploration in all its forms.
As the Christians worldview has been replaced by the many children of naturalist evolution, think of the myriad ways in which we have moved away from the celebration of life. God called mankind to be fruitful and multiply. Now we pretend that the world is overpopulated and mankind is a scourge on the earth. Children have gone from being a blessing and an asset to the family, to instead being considered a burden and something to be delayed or avoided altogether. The elderly were once celebrated as honored and wise, and now we lock them in homes and fast-track assisted suicide to rid ourselves of the inconvenience.
Where we once celebrated the unique nature and roles designed for men and women, to the building up of family and communities, we have buried all distinctions. Men and women are seen as interchangeable, in the workplace and in the bedroom. Homosexuality and transsexuality have become the tool wielded to create barren homes and pockets of community that can create no life and have no future.
No Small Matter
I don’t think we can overstate the importance of viewing life through a biblical lens. It is no small matter to trade God as the author of life for billions of years of random chance. It isn’t enough that we acknowledge the spiritual value of seeing God as creator, if we continue to operate within the world as if He were not.
Psalm 24:1 (ESV)
1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,
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