With the rise of technology and the explanation of all nature through science and evolution, is God out of a job? Is faith no longer reasonable? What does the scientific evidence say? Today, fascinating discoveries in science are reopening the question of God.
Let’s begin with a disclaimer: No side can “prove” anything absolutely. We must live day-to-day believing things based on probability. For example, the weatherman may say that there’s a 60% chance of rain tomorrow. Though it’s not a certainty, we probably would bring an umbrella just in case. Or what about race horse betting? Perhaps there’s a 1 in 10 chance that Blue Bailey is a winner? Or maybe a 1 in 100 chance? Would you bet your money on those odds?
So what is the chance that life in all its complexity could form without the influence of an intelligent, powerful Being named God?
Let’s start basic: What are the odds that one protein molecule of the simplest bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium, formed by chance processes? A protein is made of various parts; how likely did these parts join randomly? Dr. Dwain Ford, former professor of chemistry, puts the odds at 1 in 10 with 451 zeros after 10! Compare that with the number of carbon atoms that could fill the whole earth: 1 in 10 with 50 zeros after 10 (In Six Days, p. 139). That’s not even close to 1 in 10 with 451 zeros! Not even the most insane soul at the race-track would bet on such astronomically low odds. Even the simplest life is complex. Yet that’s only the odds of a single protein molecule forming randomly; a single cell requires thousands of proteins. And cells are much simpler than snails, birds, or humans. Thus, the odds are very high that life was created not by chance, but by an intelligent God. It’s as close to certainty as you can get.
Yet if God created life, who created God?
Here’s some helpful logic:
1. Whatever has a beginning has a cause.
2. The universe has a beginning.
3. Thus, it has a cause.
God has no beginning. Thus, He has no cause.
We all must believe in something that has always existed, either God or the universe. If the universe has no beginning, then it doesn’t need a Creator for its cause. But even atheistic scientists say that the universe (including matter, space, and time) had a beginning. Thus, both atheists and theists, though disagreeing on many points, agree that the universe had a beginning! It couldn’t have created itself, since it would have had to exist before it existed! Thus, it needed a Creator to come into existence. God, however, is eternal and never “began to exist,” so He doesn’t need a Creator.
Okay, so God began it all. But don’t scientists believe that evolution is responsible for life?
Let’s consider DNA, the informational foundation of life. This microscopic code (or instruction manual) within a cell is composed of certain chemicals arranged in specific sequences. These arrangements form the letters of a language that communicates to a cell all the information it needs to manufacture everything for life. The DNA in a single human cell contains the information equivalent of 4,000 books! Can evolution explain this vast amount of information?
A molecular biologist named Sam (apparently he didn’t want to give his surname) said some remarkable statements about DNA in an interview (“The Biologist” p. 2, qtd. in In the Beginning by Walt Brown, p. 16):
Biologist: “I’m a bit like an editor, trying to find a spelling mistake inside a document larger than four complete sets of Encyclopedia Britannica. Seventy volumes, thousands and thousands of pages of small print words”. . . . .
Interviewer (George Caylor): “Do you believe that the information evolved?”
Biologist: “George, nobody I know in my profession truly believes it evolved. It was engineered by ‘genius beyond genius,’ and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book. Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise. A bit like Neil Armstrong believing the moon is made of green cheese. He’s been there!”
Interviewer: “Have you ever stated that in a public lecture, or in any public writings?”
Biologist: “No. It all just evolved.”
Interviewer: “What? You just told me – ?”
Biologist: “Just stop right there. To be a molecular biologist requires one to hold on to two insanities at all times. One, it would be insane to believe in evolution when you can see the truth for yourself. Two, it would be insane to say you don’t believe in evolution. All government work, research grants, papers, big college lectures – everything would stop. I’d be out of a job, or relegated to the outer fringes where I couldn’t earn a decent living.”
That interview helps explain why many scientists, though seeing for themselves much evidence for a Creator, still believe in evolution.
But if God created the universe and life, wouldn’t we have to accept miracles?
Skeptics claim believing in miracles is unreasonable. But is it reasonable to believe that the information in DNA, the equivalent of 4,000 books, arose by chance? This contradicts everything known about complex informa-tion: It’s always the product of an intelligent mind. Not even the most unreasonable person would believe that simpler forms of information such as computer code, encyclopedias, or even grocery lists formed without an intelligent mind, so why should DNA be the exception?
If DNA formed by chance, it would be a “secular” miracle even more incredible than religious miracles.
Why? Because it wouldn’t have the benefit of a powerful God to explain it. Jesus’ resurrection is more credible than DNA arising by chance, because a powerful God caused the resurrection, while evolution says no intelligent being caused DNA to exist.
So a miracle caused by God is a more reasonable explanation than a miracle caused by nothing. A miracle of God would not be contrary to scientific law, since God created the scientific laws in the first place when He set up the universe. So He is perfectly capable of intervening in His natural laws to cause a supernatural outcome for His own purpose.
But isn’t evolution the only legitimate science?
Evolution doesn’t have a monopoly on science. One vital part of science is the ability to make predictions that either confirm or refute a theory. Creation scientists have made predictions that have come true. Dr. Walt Brown, an MIT-graduate mechanical engineer, devised a flood theory that posited that a salty water chamber once encircled the earth 10 miles underground. In 1980 he predicted that traces of this water were under major mountains. Around 2001, evidence of this salt water was found under the Tibetan Plateau, which is beside the Himalayan Mountains (In the Beginning, p. 125). Brown published (p. 332) a list of 39 predictions. This ability to test creation theory shows that it is true science.
Many scientists are questioning evolution
Many books critical of evolution aren’t even written from a religious viewpoint, such as The Great Evolution Mystery; Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth; and Darwin Retried. Science Digest reports that “Scientists who utterly reject Evolution may be one of our fastest-growing controversial minorities… Many of the scientists supporting this position hold impressive credentials in science” (Larry Hatfield, “Educators Against Darwin,” Science Digest Special (Winter 1979), pp. 94-96. qtd in ChristianAnswers.net). Many scientists are challenging evolution in light of its inadequacies.
5 common arguments for evolution that don’t stand up to scrutiny:
1. Mutations and natural selection
Natural selection is “survival of the fittest.” Through mutations, or random changes in a creature’s genetic code, natural selection weeds out the bad and keeps the strong “innovations” in nature until new kinds evolve. But to work for evolution, mutations must add new information to the gene pool that natural selection can work with. Yet mutations are “mistakes” in the genetic code; they often lose information that the genetic code once had. This loss of information cannot be the mechanism for cell-to-man evolution, which requires new information not previously in the genetic code. Even the common example of modern day evolution, bacterial resistance, often relies on mutations that lose information, such as the disabling of a certain gene. This loss of information can never be used for the rise in complexity required in major evolutionary change.
To say that mutations, which are mostly harmful, are the key to evolving more complexity is like saying that by going 99 miles south, then 1 mile north, then 99 miles south, then 1 mile north, etc., that eventually you will arrive at north before south. A species will die out from mutations before it will ever evolve higher complexity.
Because natural selection must work within an organism’s genetic code, it is limited in its abilities. This limitedness is exhibited in artificial breeding, where human ingenuity should at least copy the evolutionary power supposedly held by nature’s chance. But repeatedly in the search for better egg production, milk production, etc., breeders have eventually slammed into walls from where no more change could be mustered (Evolution: Fossils Say No, p. 33). Whether natural or artificial, small changes can’t lead to cell-to-man evolution. Even worse, species adaption can reduce genetic information from its formerly wide variation, which then reduces the ability of the species to survive in varied environments (Refuting Evolution, pp. 35-36). As an example, the survival of a long-haired type of dog, having lost its genes for short hair in the process of adapting to a cold climate, may then be reduced if the climate warmed (Ibid., pp. 34-36). Thus, neither natural selection nor mutation can lead to upward evolving.
2. Darwin’s Tree of Life
This tree shows many transitional forms (creatures evolving into different kinds) leading up to modern species. If this tree is real, millions of transitional fossils should exist. But the actual fossils are starkly absent, as admitted by evolutionists Dr. David Raup, Dr. Colin Patterson, and Stephen Jay Gould (In the Beginning, pp. 62-63). Eminent evolutionist Gould admitted:
“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.” (“Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History, Vol. 86 May 1977 p. 14 qtd. in In the Beginning p. 63.)
3. Archaeopteryx and other “missing links”
Despite Darwin’s prediction of countless transitional fossils (Origin of Species, p. 163), only a few questionable “missing links” have been unearthed:
Archaeopteryx: It’s not a half-bird, half-reptile, as even evolutionist Alan Feduccia admits: “It’s a bird, a perching bird.” It has modern bird feathers and other features of modern birds. Its teeth do not say anything about reptilian ancestry, since some reptiles don’t have teeth while some birds (now extinct) did have teeth.
The North American horse series: This series reverses in South America: the fossil of a more “primitive” horse was discovered in rock above the more “advanced” horse. Since creatures are supposed to become more complex the higher they are in the fossil record, this would be “devolution.” Yet the horse series itself consists mostly of horse varieties that are no more evolved from each other than are today’s horse breeds. Only the first in the series isn’t a horse but another animal, so it shouldn’t be in the series (Refuting Evolution by Jonathan Sarfati, p. 133).
Ape-men: Many of these fossils are fragmentary and hard to interpret. One “ape-man” called Nebraska Man was based on just one tooth, later discovered to belong to a pig. Other “ape-men” are based on bone fragments that are only a fraction of the whole body. Some alleged ape-men were later discovered to be just apes, while others were reclassified as true man. Neanderthal man, for example, was a true human whose fossils sometimes exhibited bone disease, giving the false impression that he stooped like an ape-man.
4. The similarity of Haeckel’s embryos
Actually, evolutionists have known for years that Haeckel’s embryos, a common sight in textbooks, are frauds. Haeckel doctored his embryo drawings to look very similar in an attempt to prove that embryos grow according to evolutionary descent. Now it’s known that embryos of different animals look very different from each other, even at the beginning stages.
5. The Miller-Urey experiment’s creation of amino acids, the simplest elements of life
Textbooks hail this experiment as evidence that life formed by chance. But only amino acids were made, which are very basic elements that compose proteins, the structure of cells. To say that life can form randomly because amino acids form randomly is like saying if bricks can form randomly, then buildings can, too. A simple protein requires 100-150 amino acids in a specific sequence, much too specific for chance to create. Also, this experiment used a model of earth’s early environment that’s no longer accepted by scientists, so the experiment is no longer valid.
Thus, science doesn’t debunk God. Rather, science affirms God’s existence. I can say many more things about how science is a witness to God and His Word:
. . . the scientific evidence for the Genesis flood, such as the 1,000s of mangled fossils around the world.
. . . how the flood worked through scientific laws
. . . why scientific evidence shows that the earth is only 1,000s of years old, despite old-age dating.
. . . how we can see starlight so far away even if the earth is young (it’s a neat answer!)
. . . how all those animals fit in the Ark.
. . . where Cain got his wife.
If you want to learn more, check out Dr. Walt Brown’s www.creationscience.com/onlinebook
Two other excellent websites are www.icr.org (Institute for Creation Research) and www.answersingenesis.org.
Or you can email me at askwitnessingGod@gmail.com
Witnessing God 