Sermon Tone Analysis

/In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters/.

Is the universe twenty billion years old?

Can we emphatically state that the earth is four and one-half billion years of age?

Perhaps there exists evidence that the earth is relatively young.

Would such evidence make any difference to those who are determined to ignore God and what He says concerning the beginning of all things?

For the conscientious thinker the age of the earth determines in part his view of how all things came to be.

In the realm of thoughtful postulates there are five views of origins which we will examine in a cursory fashion during the course of this message this evening.

Though I will present and discuss five views of origins, in reality there are but two views as we have already seen in previous messages.

Either God is behind all that has been, all that is and all that ever shall be, or there is inherent within matter the ability to change into ever more complex forms.

Either there is a personal, moral God behind the universe, or the universe itself assumes a godlike existence.

Consequently, we must either worship the God who is or we are reduced to de facto worship of the universe.

*Neo-Orthodox Evolution* — Despite the association with the name of Charles Darwin, the concept of evolution is not new.

Among the ancient Greeks, for example, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Epicurus, and Lucretius were all evolutionists.

Likewise, Aristotle (384 – 322 b.c.) believed in a complete gradation in nature accompanied by a perfecting principle.

This was imagined to have caused gradation from the imperfect to the perfect.

Man, of course, stood at the apex of this gradation.

There were evolutionists in more recent times who preceded Darwin.

Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626), René Descartes (1596 – 1650) and Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) were each inclined to an evolutionary point of view.

The first biologist to make a contribution to evolutionary thought was the French naturalist Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707 – 1788).

Another naturalist who contributed to evolutionary thinking was Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin (1731 – 1802).

The first fairly complete postulate of evolutionary thought was advanced by the Chevalier de Lamarch (1744 – 1829) who became a professor in zoology at the Museum of Natural History in Paris and later popularised his views in Philosophie Zoologique.

It was Charles Darwin, however, who captured the world’s attention.

His postulate was developed to a degree that none of the others were.

Furthermore, his concepts were supported by an impressive array of observations which had been initially collected during an around-the-world tour of the *HMS Beagle* (1831 – 1836)

Darwin’s concepts may be arranged according to four postulates and two conclusions.

Postulate number one addresses *variation*.

There are variations within individuals of the same species.

Postulate number two notes *overproduction*.

In most cases, more individuals are born to a species than can possibly survive to maturity.

Conclusion number one presents *the struggle for existence*.

In order to survive, individuals must compete with other members of the same species.

Postulate number three presents the concept of the *survival of the fittest*.

In a competitive environment only those individuals best fitted to survive will survive.

Postulate number four notes the *inheritance of favourable characteristics*.

Fit individuals pass their “good” characteristics on to their descendants.

The final conclusion is that *new species arise by the continued survival and reproduction of the individuals best suited to their particular environment*.[1]

In the one hundred years since publication of Darwin’s Origin, considerable work has been focused on the chief mechanism of evolution according to Darwin.

The chief mechanism of evolution is natural selection—the impersonal preference given to a particular variation in a species permitting one individual a competitive advantage over another individual.

Supposedly, this explains the variety of forms we recognise in the world of nature.

There is a flaw in the mechanism, however.

Natural selection may explain how certain individuals have more offspring than others do and therefore survive, or survive and have offspring while other less favoured individuals do not.

It cannot, however, tell us how there came to be the various organisms or “good” characteristics of organisms in the first place.

There is no “selection” by nature, nor does nature “act” as it is said to do in biology texts.

One organism may indeed be “fitter” than another from an evolutionary point of view, but the only event that determines this fitness is death (or infertility).

This is not something which helps *create* the organism, but it is rather something which terminates the organism.

Evolutionists have dealt with the problem by appealing to mutations as the primary source for variations.

This was first proposed in 1905 by a Dutch botanist, Hugo de Vries, in a work entitled Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation.

Later it was suggested that mutations are caused by cosmic radiation.

Even a cursory consideration of this concept reveals that evolution is incapable of predicting, rather finding itself in the position of reacting to flaws in the system as they are exposed.

The only “evidence” for evolution is the fossil record.

However there are serious problems with this ancient record.

A historical sequence is presented by the fossil record … if we accept that the fossils date the rocks in which they are found.

This, however, presents a circular argument which is meaningless.

The age of rocks is determined by index fossils found within given strata.

The age of fossils discovered within given strata is determined by the age of the rocks which form the strata.

For the evolutionist this is a win~/win situation, even if scientifically meaningless.

If evolution were true we would expect to find a fossil record which is finely graded with generally continuous development from simplest forms to the higher, more complex forms.

There are, however, only sudden jumps.

There are no gradual developments.

The major groups appear suddenly and there is no evidence of transitions.

Evolutionists have countered this problem by arguing that the fossil record is incomplete.

However, it has been incomplete since Darwin first postulated evolution and it remains incomplete despite repeated palaeontological studies.

In the ultimate analysis evolution is supported less by evidence than by hope.

The neo-orthodox doctrine of evolution has become the religion of people who wish to exclude submission to the Creator.

Though such is possible, it is impracticable to present a full refutation of the evolutionary viewpoint in the time allotted.

I do wish to present Christians with some areas of deep concern, however.

Even if evolutionary dogma were true, the doctrine fails to account for the origin of matter.

Either matter must be eternally present or it must be created.

The evolutionist tacitly believes that matter is eternal or is forced to concede that his views are merely reactionary and incapable of predicting events.

Again, evolution fails to account for the form of matter.

The simplest building blocks of matter are atoms, which are incredibly complex.

A simple atom such as hydrogen presents a complex form consisting of a proton, a neutron and an electron, all operating in accordance with fixed laws of physics.

Evolution can account for neither this form nor for the laws which govern the form.

Form and the laws are inherent in the matter, suggesting a Creator who transcends the creation.

The emergence of life defies evolutionary thought.

Though I will deal with this in some detail in a later message, evolution is stymied by even the origin of bio-organic compounds such as amino acids, nuclides and sugars from inorganic atoms and molecules such as hydrogen, water, carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonia.

If there is difficulty in postulating how these compounds arose, imagine the difficulty of accounting for the presence of biopolymers such as proteins and nucleic acids.

Life is not so simple as to postulate these two steps, but the biopolymers must unite in precise form to account for even simple life forms such as single-celled plants or animals.

This is not a matter of a single event of low probability; it requires a series of events, each with unbelievably small probability.

One writer says, *for all practical purposes the probability of this series of events may safely be regarded as zero*.[2]

The last great challenge to evolution is human personality.

In theological terms we would grapple with the emergence of the soul and the spirit.

How can evolution account for man becoming God-conscious?

One writer asks, *Where did the soul of man come from?

Why is it that the highest and best animals are unable to pray?

They are unable to communicate in a rational way.

They are unable to do the things that man is able to do.

The lowest type of man upon the face of the earth is far higher than the highest of the animals, because he has the capacity to worship God and can be brought to be a child of God; able to live to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, and that is true of none of the animals*.

This writer concludes, *I am not ashamed to say that I believe in the first chapter of Genesis, but I should be ashamed to say that I held to any form of evolution*.[3]

*Theistic Evolution* — A Christian simply cannot accept atheistic evolution.

Origin without the hand of God is unacceptable to the Christian.

This does not mean that some Christians have ceased to search for a compromise with the generally accepted scientific view and the Christian position of a Creator.

A surprising number of Christians either intentionally, or by default, hold to what has come to be called theistic evolution.

That is, they speak of God as Creator and of evolution as the means by which He created all things.

The major difference between the theistic evolutionist and the atheistic evolutionist is that the theistic evolutionist believes that the God of the Bible is providentially guiding the evolutionary process, while the atheistic evolutionist attribute the identical development to time and chance.

In the view of the theistic evolutionist the four great gaps inherent within the evolutionary view are addressed through appeal to the God of Creation.

At each of the points of conflict the theistic evolutionist appeals to God.

Though evolution cannot explain the origin of matter, theistic evolution says that God created matter.

Whereas the form of matter can be neither predicted nor explained by evolution, the theistic evolutionist appeals to God as the One who gives form to matter.