Creative Science 4 - Why?
by Lance Ponder(94)http://fkiprofessor.xanga.com
“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15. (NKJV)
Does it make any difference what you choose to believe about origins? If not, then this document and every assertion made by anyone with any belief about origins is wasted. If it does matter, then why?
Either there is a Creator or there is not. If there is, then the Creator is either impersonal (deism) or personal (theism). Belief in a Creator provides hope and purpose. Without a Creator the question, “why are we here?” is left unanswered. If there is a Creator, then there is hope for finding out that answer and learning our purpose. If there is a Creator and He is personal, then perhaps he has revealed the answers to these questions already. Belief in the reality of Creator is not the same thing as saving faith, but scripture suggests the belief that God does not exist makes the prospect of salvation from sin and the gift of eternal life unlikely.
There are many practical reasons to seek an answer to where we come from beyond those stated in scripture. After the essentials of air, water, food, and shelter, humans need love and purpose. We need a sense of value and purpose for our mental health. Without it we are negative, fatalistic, and depressive. It is a basic human need to believe in a Creator because we derive a sense of hope from the idea we were created for a purpose. Beyond this very basic mental health need, we need to have some grasp of where we came from in order to have an idea where we are going. God reveals our origin, our destiny, and our purpose for the present through scripture.
Morality is another practical reason to consider origins. Morals are standards for right and wrong behavior. Morality is the overall set of codes we observe for right and wrong. The codes of right and wrong given in scripture are objective absolutes established by God. Any other codes are subject to the human author. This means human morality is subjective. Standards set by one person vary from the standards of another. This means that standards vary relative to the individual. This is called moral relativism. In a society, when biblical morality is dropped, then whoever controls society establishes the standards. We are told by evolutionists that we should accept Evolution because it is scientific and reasonable, but suppose this is not true. I believe the real reason to accept Evolution is to deny God. The principle reason for denying God is to deny moral absolutes that hinder the desires of the flesh.
It is worth noting that many Christians add Evolution to their faith because they have been made to believe Evolution is scientific fact. A number of theories are presented to pacify those who feel conflicted, but each such theory does not stand up to scrutiny. The intention here is not to slam those who hold these beliefs, but to point out that these beliefs are neither biblically nor scientifically sound. Purely natural (atheistic) Evolution makes more sense than belief in a God who lied about the facts in His revelation of Genesis and who used countless ages of death to perfect humanity only let them fall from grace anyway.
To function properly, the human mind seeks a sense of order. When we spin around quickly we get dizzy and loose our bearings. Most of us fear the unknown because our minds cannot make sense of the unknown. We are thrilled by magic tricks and secretly try to figure out how they are done because we know there must be a logical reason why the trick worked. Our minds require a sense of order. Scripture tells us that God is a God of order. He created the universe and all life in a few days and it was all very good. It was orderly. Disorder, destruction and death entered only after God was rejected by His own creation. Adam and Eve hid themselves because they sensed the order of things was upset. God’s word tells us that death results from disorder. Evolution is the belief that order rises from disorder and that with time and chance anything is possible. Scripture teaches that all things are possible through God (Mk 10:27). Creation is the belief that a divine supernatural mind we call God established the initial order and without His intervention time and chance will only lead to destruction, chaos, and death. Our beliefs about our origin dictate how we must interpret the order and disorder we observe around us.
Either scripture is the revelation of God by God to and through men or it is a human invention. If true then there is a God who creates and who loves us and has a plan for our good. If scripture is a human invention then there is no God, no savior, and no known purpose or hope beyond our last breath. We can claim to believe in Jesus Christ, but what does faith really mean if we reduce Creation to allegory? When Creation becomes no more than a moral lesson, we remove its power and ultimately nullify the gospel itself. Jesus Christ referred to events recorded in the early chapters of Genesis as literal history. His first public miracle recorded by John is the creative act of turning water to wine. Infinitely more important, Jesus died as a sinless atoning substitute for sinful humans who would repent and believe. Evolution claims that God is a human invention. If God is an invention, sin must also be an invention. Evolution claims life originated millions of years ago and that humans lived and died long before the concepts of God and sin entered the minds of men. The bible plainly teaches man and all animals and plants existed before sin entered the world and before human (and presumably animal) death took place. The contradiction is vast and not easily dismissed – even by those who seek to compromise scripture with the popular notion of Evolution. If death existed before sin, sin cannot be the cause of death. If sin doesn’t cause death, the death of a sinless man cannot possibly have atone for sin. Evolution nullifies the entire gospel message. Creation is the basis of the entire gospel message. What we believe about our origin matters.
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> Introduction/Preface
> Part 1 - Beliefs
> Part 2 - Religion
> Part 3 - War of the Words
> Part 4 - Why?
> Part 5 - Materialist Origin Model
> Part 6 - Creationist Origin Model
> Part 7 - Mind Over Matter
> Part 8 - Causality
> Part 9 - Cosmic Organization
> Part 10 - Cosmic Evidence
> Part 11 - Big Bang Mystery Cult
> Part 12 - White Hole Cosmology
> Part 13 - The Sun of God
> Part 14 - No Place Like Home
> Part 15 - Catastrophe or Uniformity?
> Part 16 - Down the Drain
> Part 17 - Rock & Roll
> Part 18 - Fossil Fuel
> Part 19 - Fossilization
> Part 20 - The Fossil Record
> Part 21 - Chemistry and Physics
> Part 22 - Quantum Physics
> Part 23 - Inorganic Radioactive Dating
> Part 24 - Organic Radioactive Dating
> Part 25 - Life from Non-Life
> Part 26 - Cells - The Building Blocks of Life
> Part 27 - Natural Selection
> Part 28 - Common Descent or Common Design?
> Part 29 - Missing Links
> Part 30 - Filling In the Gaps
> Part 31 - Dinosaurs
> Part 32 - Biological Anthropology
> Part 33 - Social Anthropology
> Part 34 - Sociology
> Part 35 - Morality
> Part 36 - Education
> Part 37 - Pragmatism
> Part 38 - Common Genesis Objections
> Part 39 - Christianity and Creation
> Appendix, Bibliography, Etc...
Article submitted Friday, August 21, 2009 & read 488 times.
Leave Your Comments:
» left by Teresa (341 days 18 hours ago.)
Hi Lance, you said it well; Evolution and Creation do not go together and Christians should not adhere to the idea that God used evolution to start the process, otherwise the very beginning of Scripture is a lie, and we know different. Looking forward to part 5. Thank you for sharing this wonderful lesson. May God have his way with it! TeresaRespond to this comment
» left by Marijo Phelps(250)(309 days 10 hours ago.)
I hope you are on your way to a published book here! To me, even theistic evolution makes no sense. If He said it, why should we continue to reinterpret? Soon and very soon, when we see Him we shall be like Him - and have many questions answered too I suspect! Thanks for taking time and putting this down so well. MarijoRespond to this comment