God and Evolution

Stands to Reason ^ | Gregory Koukl

[Khepera]

What is the problem with evolutionists referring to "Mother Nature?"

I've got tons of fishing magazines at home; they're laying everywhere. This one is entitled In-Fisherman and it is one of the best fishing magazines around. It's very helpful in educating you about fishing--fresh-water fishing in particular. But they have these short sections in the beginning--snippets, side-bar type things. This one is entitled "New View of Eye-Spots." It talks about how they are reassessing why these creatures have eye-spots. The purpose for eye-spots, according to evolutionary theory, is to trick the larger fish into attacking the eye-spot and away from the vulnerable spot on the fish in order to give the shad a chance to get away. But now there's a case of a shad, which is a small bait fish that larger fish eat, that has an eye-spot right in the middle of its body, which seems to be the most vulnerable spot. Why would they have an eye-spot there if the purpose of an eye-spot is to provide a protective advantage for the shad?

There's a comment made in the article, "The spots on the sides of shad may have evolved as a way to help the species maintain formation while schooling or spawning and not for defense against predators." Here's another case where you have the evolution language mixed with design language. It "may have evolved as a way to help." In other words, there is a purpose for this and that's to help schooling fish. It's so interesting when one explanation based on evolution doesn't work and they try to come up with another explanation, but both of these explanations imply design and purpose.

I then began reading a book called Big Bass Magic . This author is quite a conservationist, and I'm glad for that. He advocates catch and release, which is big among bass fishermen because we catch our fish for the sport of it and then let them go unharmed. Of course, then they can return to their natural habitat, spawn and enjoy a long life there and maybe be caught again, so we have a resource that is maintained.

The author writes this unusual paragraph. Listen carefully to the words: "Generally, today's fish management has its roots in the agencies and programs of the forties. The purpose at that time was to determine how to exploit what was considered the lavishly over-abundant fish resource."

Let me pause for a moment. He used the word "purpose." Who has the purpose? Fish management people, right? "The purpose at the time was to determine how to better exploit what was considered the lavishly over-abundant fish resource."

He continues, "We often still find that attitude in fish management today, and it is typified by the much publicized statement that any fish that grows up, dies of old age and is never caught is a wasted resource. Well, that presumes that in nature no purpose is served by the complete life of that fish, and it is too much for me to take when that is denied. Nature would not allow a bass, for instance, to reach ten pounds if a bass that size served no purpose in the balance of the ecosystem."

If you are an evolutionist, you are not a theist in the sense that your theism has anything to do with the real world.

He's saying, look, older bass, bigger bass, the ones that people catch and hang on their wall really serve a purpose in the ecosystem. Notice how he used the word purpose to describe the intent of fishery management and then he used the word purpose to describe the intent of nature. Now, what the heck is that? Nature is not a person, therefore nature cannot have intent. Only agents have intents. Nature doesn't. Nature is just a general way of describing the accident of cause and effect in a naturalistic system. So to say that nature has a purpose that is served by the complete life of the fish in the ecosystem is to say something that is nonsense. It's ironic that it is said so glibly without a blush by a man who is deeply committed to evolution.

Now, I think that his gut-level observation is accurate. I think it seems clear that there is some purpose for the full life span of different species, but we can only make a comment like that if there is someone behind the scenes that is purposing, such that the things that we see have purposes. I think it is obvious there is a designer and that's why it is very easy for this man to talk about the purpose of individuals in wildlife management in the same breath as talking about the purpose of nature. It appears that both nature and wildlife management individuals are people that purpose. I think he is right, but nature is not like a mother nature that is to be worshipped. What we call nature is really the purposes of God. It is so obvious that even this evolutionist can't speak in such a way as to avoid that conclusion, which goes to make another point.

If you are an evolutionist, you are not a theist in the sense that your theism has anything to do with the real world. If you want to believe in God and believe in evolution, fine, go ahead and do that, but don't act like your belief in God has anything to do with the real world. It doesn't. Your belief about the real world is evolution, and that means time and chance. If you believe that God has something to do with the real world, then you can't be an evolutionist because evolution is run by chance, not by God, by definition.

Secondly, if you are an evolutionist, then please be honest with yourself and everyone else and abandon this Mother Nature language and all of this purpose talk that you invariably allow to be smuggled into your language when talking about the natural realm. You are rationally obliged, if you want to be intellectually honest, to refer to the rest of the time/space continuum world in entirely chance terms. No more Mother Nature language. No more purpose language. No more design language. Nothing.

I think if you consistently talk in a way that fits your basic world view you will see how ridiculous that world ends up being. It becomes untenable. It can't be held because the world is obviously designed. Things obviously fit into ecosystems with a particular purpose. They obviously have their place. Bodies are obviously artifacts. Mouths were made for eating. Hands were made for grasping. Legs were made for walking. They don't just happen to do that because they accidentally formed that way through the forces of nature acting on mindless matter. That, by the way, is the thing that gives human beings purpose. Not only are their bodies purposeful but their lives are purposeful as well.

Why? There is an intelligent Creator who is behind everything. A Creator we see quite obviously, as Paul says in the book of Romans, and as you say consistently every time you use the words Mother Nature.

[f.Christian]

Evolution is a dirty needle...aids---mad bone-fossil disease!

[Osinski]

Yeah, that was kinda funny.

But, what I really wanted to say is that the idea that this "creationism" is somehow exclusive of "evolution" is difficult to comprehend given all the findings to date. I like the "Sons of God" impregnating the "Daughters of Men" theory myself.

[ppaul]

Note that fossils separated by more than about a hundred thousand years cannot show anything about how a species arose. Think about it: there could have been a smooth transition, or the species could have appeared suddenly, but either way, if there aren't enough fossils, we can't tell which way it happened.
(from the informative link you supplied)

There ain't no evidence otherwise - but we sure cannot accept that humans were created, can we?
We gotta believe in evolution.
To do otherwise would not be "scientific".
We'd have to admit that there is a God.
That is unacceptable to us highly learned, evolved, minds.

[balrog666]

Praise to God and his glory.

And his inventions of polio, syphilis, and mad cow disease. /satire

[spqrzilla9]

If you believe humans "evolved" from pond slime billions of years ago, rather than being uniquely created as human beings by the Creator - you've got a hell of a lot more faith than I have. And a bleak hereafter.

Amusingly, you are the egotistical and arrogant one since you are claiming that one has to match your beliefs for salvation. Jesus didn't require one to renounce evolution to be saved.

[Osinski]

"Well, excuse me Mr. Conceited Intellectual Giant Elitist."

Boys, I think we got ourselves a new slogan.

[ppaul]

Jesus didn't require one to renounce evolution to be saved.

No he didn't.
He said we just need to believe him.
You cannot believe him and believe he didn't create us.
That's calling him a liar.

[RonF]

You're setting up a straw man here. "In-Fisherman" is hardly an authoritative source for evolutionary theory.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The evolution versus creation argument is mental masturbation. Who cares?

The only theological issue of importance for Christians is whether or not Jesus Christ redeemed us by dying on the cross for our sins and conquered death by rising from the grave three days later.

If He did, then all this other stuff is irrelevant.

If He didn't, then all this other stuff is irrelevant.

[general_re]

That handle is still available for interested freepers ;)

[Salgak]

Uh, I hate to pop your halo,but. . .

If you look back to Genesis, you see a historical record that parallels the findings of astronomers, astrophysicists, geologists, and biologists. In fact, that was the masters thesis of a buddy of mine when he was in seminary. His argument was this: Religion and Science are NOT at odds: Religion is about the question "Why", and Science about "How". . .

With all the physical evidence in place, either one of two things happened.

(1) God created the world and the universe "x" number of thousands of years ago, and made it "old". But by doing so, He had to lie to us in the physical record, to get us to solve the riddles he put in place as to how the world worked, i.e. science.

--OR--

(2) God created the Universe in such a way that he planned it to turn out the way it did. "Let there be light" becomes the Big Bang, and all the rest occurred along planned, pre-programmed lines.

Now, take whichever view you want, but I find scenario two FAR more awe-inspiring. But then, as an engineer, I see God as the Ultimate Engineer and Designer.

Scenario one is like placing the balls on a pool table in a particular pattern. Scenario two is going from the racked balls on the pool table, and getting them to that pattern with a single shot to set it all off. . . .

[Dimensio]

We gotta believe in evolution.
To do otherwise would not be "scientific".
We'd have to admit that there is a God.

Ignoring for a moment that this is a false dilemma, did you have a specific "God" in mind, or were you just referring to a general "god"? If the former, to which God were you referring and if the latter, what traits would be present in this "God"?

[WriteOn]

Einstein: "God doesn't play dice."

When you understand the tremendous depth of this statement, you'll understand the poverty of both evolution and creationism qua theory.

[spqrzilla9]

Jesus didn't claim that.

[Dimensio]

The tremendous depth of Einsten's dice quote? He was expressing his personal doubt with quantum theory. Where is the depth in that?

[ppaul]

God has revealed his "tarits" to mankind in the Scriptures - the Old and New testaments.
You don't have to believe it.
In fact - you cannot, unless God reveals it to you first.

[Khepera]

Here is the way I see it. I have studied the fossil record in College. I was very interested in Geology and Archeology and studied the fossil and Geological artifacts at some length. I just have a different perspective.

The universe looks old. Exactly as it would look if it's really old. As if it has one, specific, consistent history. As if it has been expanding for fifteen billion years from a single point. As if light has been traveling through it, lensing through gravitational fields, and as if events hundreds of thousands of light-years away have sent light at right angles to us, hundreds of thousands of years ago, which reflected off other objects and then came toward us. We can use Euclid's geometry to show how far away these objects are and how old their light is.

The Earth looks old. Exactly the way it would look if it's really old. As if it's been around for four-and-a-half billion years, and was hot and molten for the first half-billion of it, as if the continents have been gradually moving for the entire time, and as if the oceans and rivers and streams and tectonic flows have been shaping it, slowly, for all that time. As if Africa and South America have been receding from each other for millions of years, as the deposits have built up on the continents and the sea floor has spread, with the magnetic iron and nickel in the volcanic deposits recording the Earth's changing magnetic field, exactly in time with the changes we have been measuring. It looks just as if radioactive isotopes have been here, changing into their stable daughter elements in accord with the laws of physics, changing the ratios of those daughter isotopes in exact proportion to the elements (not the isotopes) found in the rock, just exactly as if they've been doing so for hundreds of millions, or billions, of years.

Life on Earth looks old, exactly like it would be if it's really old, as if it's been here for almost the entire history of the Earth, as if it's been changing all that time, with new species appearing, each similar to something that was here before. As if coral, dated to three hundred million years ago by the radioactive material in the rocks it was growing on, was showing four hundred days in a year, exactly matching the predicted slowing effect of lunar tides on the Earth's rotation over three hundred million years.

Life on Earth looks as if it's descended from a common ancestor. Exactly like it, just as if it's arranged in a nested hierarchy of similarity, instead of all the infinite other ways it could have been arranged, and as if the junk, noncoding DNA in each animal has exactly the same similarity relationship as the morphological hierarchy, like the errors in DNA, shared in the nested hierarchy, such as why humans and chimps and gorillas can get scurvy but all the other mammals can produce their own vitamin C.

Certainly God could have created the Earth six thousand years ago. Or last week, for that matter. But regardless of when it was created, it was created to look exactly as if it had all this history.

Thanks to a fellow Freeper named whatajoke who articulated this for me while clarifying my position.

[apochromat]

Is this topic extinct yet?

[ppaul]

"tarits" = "traits"
Sorry, my mistake.