The Modern Creation Trilogy. Dr. Henry M. Morris

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Not only is such distinctiveness true in the organic realm of plants and animals, but also in the inorganic realm. “There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another” (1 Cor. 15:40). That is, the earth is quite different from the stars and the other planets (as has been abundantly confirmed in this age of space exploration), and therefore must have been the object of a distinct creative act by God. It was, in fact, created by God on the first day (Gen. 1:1–5), whereas the heavenly bodies were not made until the fourth day (Gen. 1:14–19).

      Furthermore, even the stars (and this term in the Bible includes all celestial objects except the sun and moon), were each created with its own particular structure. “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory” (1 Cor. 15:41). The tremendous variety of heavenly bodies revealed by modern astronomy — planets, comets, meteors, white dwarfs, red giants, variable stars, star clusters, binary stars, dark nebulae, interstellar dust, radio stars, quasars, neutron stars, etc. — also confirms this statement. No two stars, out of the innumerable host of heaven, are exactly alike, even though they look alike superficially, as mere points of light. Each was created with its own structure and purpose (though these matters are presently beyond our knowledge, perhaps awaiting exploration and utilization in the eternal ages to come). Although there are many theories to explain how the many “species” of stars and galaxies may have evolved from one into another, there is no observational evidence whatsoever of such imagined evolution.

      Perhaps the most striking biblical statement of the absolute uniqueness of each of the foregoing created entities is found in 1 Corinthians 15:42–44: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. . . . There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” That is, the radical difference in kind between man’s natural body and his glorified resurrection body (And obviously the one does not by natural processes evolve into the other!) is taken as analogous to the unbridgeable gaps between the created kinds of things in the present universe.

      Numerous other passages in the Bible also clearly prove special creation, but those discussed above should be adequate to demonstrate that so-called “biblical evolution” is a semantic confusion, about like “inorganic metabolism” or “Christian atheism.” The Bible simply does not permit evolution in its hermeneutical system.

      2. Evolution Contradicts the Bible Record of a Finished Creation

      The fundamental premise of evolutionary philosophy is that the origin and development of all things can be understood in terms of basic natural laws and processes that can be studied in operation right now. This assumption flatly contradicts the biblical statement that “He rested from all his work which God created and made” (Gen. 2:3) after the six days of creation. “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed” (Exod. 31:17). “The works were finished from the foundation of the world” (Heb. 4:3). Scientifically, this scriptural statement of the completion of the creative process anticipated by thousands of years the discovery of the law of conservation of mass/energy. It is also significant that whenever the verb “created” is used in connection with the heavens and the earth, it is always in the past tense. Creation was a completed event of the past; it is not continuing in the present.

      3. Evolution Contradicts the Universal Principle of Decay

      Ever since God said “Cursed is the ground” (Gen. 3:17), the “creation itself” has been waiting to “be delivered from the bondage of corruption” (Rom. 8:21). “All flesh is grass . . . the grass withereth, the flower fadeth” (Isa. 40:6–7). “The earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner” (Isa. 51:6). There is in effect a universal principle of disintegration and death, both in the physical creation (“earth shall wax old”) and in the living world (“all flesh is grass”). This is nothing less than the curse, pronounced by God on man’s entire dominion because of man’s sin, reflected in the scientific realm by the universal law of increasing entropy. It is obvious that the evolutionary concept of a universal process of order increasing from molecule to man is incompatible with the universal process of decay and decreasing order.

      4. Evolution Is Incompatible with Christian Ethics

      The essence of the evolutionary process is survival, because obviously no organism can contribute to evolution unless it survives and reproduces. The concept of natural selection entails a struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. The weak and misfits are exterminated; the strong and fertile survive. If God had anything to do with the evolutionary process, it does seem strange that He would utilize a method which squarely contradicts the system of ethics He established for the man He created by this process. Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt. 5:38–39). The chief good of evolution is struggle and survival, but the essence of Christianity is sacrifice and death, as demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ.

      Theological Contradictions Apart from Scripture

      Many people believe in God without any strong commitment to the Bible as His Word. Therefore, the fact that the teachings of the Bible cannot be harmonized with evolution is of no particular concern to them, since they accept the inspiration of Scripture only in a very loose and generalized way, if at all. To them the Bible is merely a valuable book in terms of religious insights and ethical values, but not in matters of science and history.

      However, even apart from Scripture, there are still a number of serious contradictions in theistic evolution (assuming that the God who supposedly created things by this process is really a personal, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, gracious, loving, purposive God). Most theistic evolutionists (not considering pantheistic evolution) would probably agree with such a concept of God, and, of course, that is the type of God revealed in the Bible. But if God is like that, it seems completely incongruous that He would use evolution as His method of creation, for the following reasons: