I am amazed the more I study at the increasing case for Creation over Evolution.  Yes, I am a man of faith and have been since a young man.  However, I have struggled with the oxymoron: A Evolutionary Christian.  You see I was one.  How do I justify the Bible and its creation account and my knowledge of the fact of evolution?  I mean that is the way it is taught isn’t it?

In nearly every science venue I see evolution touted as the marrow of truth.  But as I studied the newest claims and statements by science’s leading voices I began to revisit the question of evolution and creation.

Could they co-exist in a Christian’s belief system? What about the Icons of Evolution aren’t they evidence enough?  If God created all things good why did they evolve to something better?  Why is there such a tenacious defense of evolution by science?  How could gasses come together and have such an explosion that all that we see in the Universe was created instantly?  And isn’t that the way God created anyway?

I had so many questions.  So I began my search.  It did not affect my faith in God and His Son Jesus Christ.  I had had numerous encounters with God and my faith was unshakable throughout my walk with Him.  In my mind there is no question that God exists. He was a part of the establishment of all that we see. He sent His son to deliver us from sin.  He is a most personal God, which I will spend eternity with after I leave this earth.  But how was he apart of the establishment of the universe?  Was it Creation or Evolution?  And does it even matter?

I want to say right up front after much study and maturing in my spiritual walk it matters greatly.  Here are just a few of the facts I came across in my journey to find the truth.

First, I listened to the scientists themselves express their confidence in the theory of evolution as well as those who supported creation.

Dr. William Province of Cornell University said it best, “if Darwinism is true, then there are five inescapable implications: there’s no evidence for God; there’s no life after death; there’s no absolute foundation for right and wrong; there’s no ultimate meaning for life; and people don’t really have free will.”

I was caught between believing in the fact of evolution walking with the intelligent and scientific minds or the religious and blind faith.  I suddenly realized it is impossible to believe both Darwinian Evolution and Biblical Creation.  They do not coexist.  Certainly there are evidences for Microevolution, but does that advance evidence for Macroevolution that is true Darwinian Evolution.

First, I began to notice the fervency of the scientists on both sides of the fence.

Leading evolutionary scientists have advanced the principle of theological liberation, no need for a God, as if they are in the pulpit of a new church.  Even textbooks sound theological in nature.  As the textbook Evolutionary Biology declares: “By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.” Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer, 1986), pg. 3

Richard Dawkins makes no bones about it in his book the ‘Blind Watchmaker’ when he said, evolution “made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: Norton, 1987), pg. 6.

Here’s the lot of it as expressed by Michael Behe, “The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself—not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. … The reluctance of science to embrace the conclusion of intelligent design … has no justifiable foundation. … Many people, including many important and well-respected scientists, just don’t want there to be anything beyond nature. Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p.232

So I found myself questioning those who were propagating the theory I had be told was fact not theory as possible zealots of a faith unwilling to look at other possibilities.  However, I then came across new scientific advocates who were seemingly open to new investigations and possibilities.

Astronomer Robert Jastrow elaborated. “The essential element in the astronomical and Biblical account of Genesis is the same,” he explains. “The chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply, at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”  Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee (2014-08-12). The Case for Christianity Answer Book (pp. 21-22). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Quoting Nano scientist James Tour, a professor at Rice University’s Department of Chemistry and Center for Nano scale Science and Technology, with a doctorate in organic chemistry from Purdue University and post-doctoral work at Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin, Tour is on the cutting-edge of research into the molecular world. He has written more than one hundred and forty technical research articles and holds seventeen United States patents.

“I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation,” he said. “Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.” Zondervan Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee (2010-02-23). Case for Christ/Case for Faith Compilation (p. 111).

Who should I listen to: those who are open or those who are closed? Why are these scientists at odds?  Is it true science driving scientist today or agenda’s that dance around the facts to their own preconceived conclusions?  Then other questions began to crowd my thoughts.  Could it be that the Big Bang theory is accurate?  If so how does it affect my views of Creation and Evolution?  Which makes more sense? That somehow gasses in just the right manner came together and a bang was of such power that it created all that we see and can’t see in the vast space, or that a designer which created all that we see with purpose and meaning?

Dr. William Lane Craig explained in The Case for a Creator. “The cause of space and time must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal being endowed with freedom of will and enormous power,” he said. “And that is the core concept of God.”

In an interview with Dr. William Lane Craig in the book, “A case for faith”, Craig lays a foundation for a belief in God from Creation.  “Both philosophically and scientifically,” Craig said, “I would argue that the universe and time itself had a beginning at some point in the finite past . . . This is commonly known as the Big Bang, and it is accepted almost universally by scientists worldwide. But since something cannot just come out of nothing, there has to be a transcendent cause beyond space and time which brought the universe into being.”

“Scientists have been stunned,” Craig declared, “to discover that the Big Bang was not some chaotic, primordial event, but rather a highly ordered event that required an enormous amount of information . . . [The universe] had to be fine-tuned to an incomprehensible precision for the existence of life like ourselves. That points in a very compelling way toward the existence of an Intelligent Designer.”

Mark Mittleberg wrote in his book “Confident Faith” “But that leaves us with the realization that something outside of the universe caused it. That “something” would have to be big enough, smart enough, powerful enough, and old enough— not to mention have enough of a creative, artistic flair— to be able to pull off such a grand “effect.” That sounds suspiciously similar to the divine being described in the book of Genesis, which starts with these words: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

In our interview for The Case for a Creator, physicist Robin Collins gave an example of just one of these areas, the cosmological constant, which represents the energy density of empty space. “There’s no way we can really comprehend it,” he explained. “The fine-tuning has conservatively been estimated to be at least one part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion. That would be a ten followed by fifty-three zeroes. That’s inconceivably precise.” The interviewer asked, “Can you give me an illustration?” “Let’s say you were way out in space and were going to throw a dart at random toward the Earth. It would be like successfully hitting a bull’s eye that’s one trillionth of a trillionth of an inch in diameter. That’s less than the size of one solitary atom.” 10 Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee (2014-08-12). The Case for Christianity Answer Book (pp. 24-25). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Dr. Michael Behe, author of ‘Darwin’s Black Box’ wrote, “Darwin said, ‘If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.’ And that was the basis for my concept of irreducible complexity. “You see, a system or device is irreducibly complex if it has a number of different components that all work together to accomplish the task of the system, and if you were to remove one of the components, the system would no longer function. An irreducibly complex system is highly unlikely to be built piece-by-piece through Darwinian processes, because the system has to be fully present in order for it to function.”

“Evolution can’t produce an irreducibly complex biological machine suddenly, all at once, because it’s much too complicated. The odds against that would be prohibitive. And you can’t produce it directly by numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor system would be missing a part and consequently couldn’t function. There would be no reason for it to exist.”

‘What about the finely tuned machines of the cellular world?’ If evolution can’t adequately explain them, then scientists should be free to consider other alternatives.”

Behe is right, yet in most schools and in the scientific communities at large there is little tolerance for anyone who has any ideas which conflict with evolution.  It seems science has made evolution its primal tennet of it’s faith.  Without evolution, their house of cards – at least to them – seems to crumble.  How sad! Yet there are scientists who venture past the failed theory of evolution to seek knowledge of our past.

Ok, so doesn’t the fossil record verify evolution?  No especially, as a matter of fact it is just the opposite.

David M. Raup, the curator of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, said: “We are now about one hundred and twenty years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species, but the situation hasn’t changed much. … We have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time.” David M. Raup, “Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology,” Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History, January 1979, quoted in Paul S. Taylor, The Illustrated Origins Answer Book, 4th ed., (Meda, Ariz.: Eden, 1993), 108; and in Hank Hanegraaff, The Face that Demonstrates the Farce of Evolution (Nashville, Tenn.: Word, 1998), 34.

Ok so how about the facts we have been given which verify without doubt that evolution is truth?

What about the experiment by Dr. Stanley Miller in which he was able to reproduce amino acids, the building blocks of life?  Doesn’t that prove that evolution could have begun with some gases in a primordial soup?  “Sagan called it the single most significant step in convincing many scientists that life is likely to be abundant in the cosmos.”   Robert Shapiro, Origins (New York: Summit Books, 1986), 99.

No this experiment has been pretty much thrown out as it was predicated by a controlled atmosphere with the only gases that would work in the perfect environment, pretty much impossible for there to have been at any time including primordial.

“Miller and Oparin didn’t have any real proof that the earth’s early atmosphere was composed of ammonia, methane, and hydrogen, which Miller used in his experiment. They based their theory on physical chemistry. They wanted to get a chemical reaction that would be favorable, and so they proposed that the atmosphere was rich in those gases. Oparin was smart enough to know that if you start with inert gases like nitrogen and carbon dioxide, they won’t react.”

“From 1980 on, NASA scientists have shown that the primitive earth never had any methane, ammonia, or hydrogen to amount to anything,” he said. “Instead, it was composed of water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen—and you absolutely cannot get the same experimental results with that mixture. It just won’t work. More recent experiments have confirmed this to be the case.”

Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee (2010-02-23). Case for Christ/Case for Faith Compilation (p. 93). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

So why do textbooks and scientists still use this as an illustration of the origins of life?  Maybe thy have an agenda.

What about Heckles Embryos?  These drawings have been used in textbooks for decades as proof of evolution.  The drawings were supposedly from the embryo’s of several different species of animals and in the first stages all appeared exactly the same.  However, “the first problem with them is they have been faked.” Johnathan Wells, PHD – “The drawings were created to closely follow other animals so as to justify evolutionary principals. Scientists know that the embryos of animals are not most similar in the early stages as Heckle purported” a failed evidence.

Even so because embryos are similar may indicate just as well a creator who uses the same methods to develop His creation.

Some have tried to show the connection between birds and reptiles in the science community of faith. “Paleontologists have been on a frenzy to try to locate an actual reptilian ancestor for birds. Driven by an all-consuming commitment to the evolutionary theory, their zeal has resulted in some recent embarrassments.

National Geographic joins the fray often to tout the evidence for evolution. In an article in 1999 National Geographic said there is now evidence that feathered dinosaurs were ancestors of the first bird.  But although there was no retraction by National Geographic the claims brought from evidence in China were proven fake.

“A Chinese paleontologist proved that someone had glued a dinosaur tail to a primitive bird.  He created it to resemble just what scientists were looking for.”

Lee Strobel, “The Case for the Creator”(2004) p. 70

Alan Feduccia, an evolutionary biologist from the University of North Carolina was quoted in Discovery magazine. “There are scores of fake fossils out there, and they have cast a dark shadow over the whole field.  I have heard there is a fake-fossil factory in northeast China, in Liaoning Province, near the deposits where many of these recent alleged feathered dinosaurs were found.”

The dark shadow talked about by Feduccia gives us doubts about any of the so-called fossils and their categorizing by scientists.  For instance; the legend of the Java Man.  It is so accepted as evidence of the evolution of man that in the 1998 edition of ‘The Origin of Species’ it is on the very cover.  However, as you study you find that the only bones we got from the supposed Java man was nothing more than a skullcap, a femur (thigh bone), three teeth, and a Marvel Comics imagination.  Again a few indiscriminate bones were formed into a full-fledged missing link.  One prominent scientist Sir Arthur Keith says, “The skull cap was distinctly human and reflected a brain capacity well within the range of humans living today.” Marvin L. Lubenow, Bones of Contention, pg. 86

The gill theory as well indicates a singular creator as much as evolutionary brotherhood.

I think there is enough evidence for the guiding hand of a creator that only a fool or someone with an agenda could not see it.  The makeup of DNA and RNA is so complex that only a guidance system could create or recreate it.  Klaus Dose of the Institute for Biochemistry in Mainz, Germany, admitted that the difficulties in synthesizing DNA and RNA ‘are at present beyond our imagination.’31 Klaus Dose, “The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers,” in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 13 (1988), 348.

“Absolutely.” Behe has said, “the probability of linking together just one hundred amino acids to create one protein molecule by chance would be the same as a blindfolded man finding one marked grain of sand somewhere in the vastness of the Sahara Desert—and doing it not just once, but three different times. In other words, the odds for all practical purposes are zero. That’s why even though some people who aren’t educated in this field still believe life emerged by chance. Scientists simply don’t believe it anymore.” Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee (2010-02-23). Case for Christ/Case for Faith Compilation (p. 101). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Scientists have tried to come up with creative theories to try to explain how biopolymers (such as proteins) became assembled with only the right building blocks (amino acids) and only the correct isomers (left-handed amino acids) joined with only the correct peptide bonds in only the correct sequence.  Again the scientist uses the longevity theory, given enough time (Billions of years) an accident could happen which would assemble this complex compound.

“Scientists once believed in the idea of random chance plus time yielding life, because they also believed in the steady-state theory of the universe,” Bradley said. “This meant the universe was infinitely old, and who knows what could happen if you had an infinite amount of time? But with the discovery of background radiation in 1965, the Big Bang theory came to dominate cosmology. The bad news for evolution was that this meant the universe was only about fourteen billion years old (at best).  More recent work has verified that the earth is probably less than five billion years old. This is certainly not sufficient time necessary for the earths cooling, the climate to be developed and subsequent life to evolve for the Darwinian evolutionary theory to be complete.”  Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee (2010-02-23). Case for Christ/Case for Faith Compilation (pp. 100-101). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

This theory was bolstered by the discovery of amino acids in the famous Murchison meteorite that fell in Australia in 1969, as well as in another meteorite that plummeted into Antarctica some 3.8 billion years ago.  Crick and Leslie Orgel have gone even further by suggesting that life spores may have been intentionally sent to earth by an advanced civilization, perhaps, some have speculated, with the intention of making earth a wilderness area, zoo, or cosmic dump.

This theory that extraterrestrials brought it here and impregnated the earth with the life is even better than Marvel Comics.  The question comes.  Where did the extraterrestrials come from?  How were they created or did they evolve?  So why are scientists so enamored with finding life on other planets?  It bolsters many of their theories they now teach as fact.

In July 1999, international conference of origin-of-life scientists wrote: “Before the end of the conference’s second day, researchers had to agree that extraterrestrial delivery could not have supplied all the needed prebiotic molecules. Christopher Chyba, a planetary scientist from NASA, said that even though spacecraft have confirmed some organic compounds in comets out in space, ‘at these velocities, at least ten to fifteen miles per second, the temperatures you reach on impact are so high that you end up frying just about anything.  Besides, even if they made it to earth, you still have the problem of how they would have become assembled into living matter.”  Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee (2010-02-23). Case for Christ/Case for Faith Compilation (p. 105). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

There are several others: Vents in the Ocean, Life sprang from Clay to name a couple.  There are as many theories for origin as there are scientists.

As I studied evolution appeared more like it emerge from a Jules Verne story than scientific studies.  I kept coming back to creation as the logical and most supported by science itself.  Even Hawking seems to opt for theories, which take an amazing imagination.  His belief that the Universe had no beginning only was is the most incredible.  For Him there was no beginning and no end – only continuation.  As he said himself, “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, have no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place then for a creator?”

Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time”.

It appears Hawking formulates his theory based on an absence of a creator more than based on evaluation of credible evidence.  Aren’t many of other scientists doing just the same thing?  So when they see the same evidence I do are they thrown headlong in a different direction?

The Word of God says it clearly.

Romans 1:18-20- “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

II Peter 3:4-7

They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

Romans 1:22-23

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Isn’t this what man has always done.  He exchanges God for the things he can see.  He worships his inventions or theories, which he derives from nature and the natural things, rather than God.

The truth is found in Genesis chapter 1:1-

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This is not some archaic primitive understanding of the beginning of the Universe.

The Bible is the word of God and it gives us God’s revelation to man on creation to the extent that man can understand.

Many Christians maintain both Faith and Science.  Faith in God does not sacrifice the educated scientific mind, only the adherence to the theory of Darwinian evolution.   Some Christians however do feel they can hold to Darwinian evolution and it does not affect their faith.

There are some key questions that must be answered by Evolutionary Christians.  Is there original sin?  When did sin begin? Who was the original man?  Does man have purpose?  Does life have meaning?

Then what about the Bible?  When it mentions again and again God’s creation in the Bible by Jesus and the prophets and the disciples, is this an error or primitive religious writings that had no access to science?  Did Jesus know the truth and only refer to creation as a way of putting things in the language of the day?  What about the inspiration of the scriptures? Is the Bible even valid?  If you can’t trust one part how can you trust any of it?  So if you don’t accept creation what other doctrines given the church by God do you throw out?

We believe the Bible to be inspired by God himself and it is written as God wanted it written.  It is the truth of God and gives us unmitigated truth.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work”  II Timothy 3:16-17