"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead" Romans 1:20
It was just after 10 AM on 11th February - the day before the anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday. I was listening to Richard Dawkins being interviewed on Colourful Radio's Sunday morning religious programme Faith. I began to wonder if he had visited a style guru since the autumn when he was 'on tour' promoting his latest book: "There are good people that are religious"; "I don't want to be accused of saying that all religion is bad". The presenter, Jan Oliver, a Christian who said she had stopped believing in creation since starting to study psychology, was somewhat overawed by interviewing the eminent professor, so much so that at one point she called him "Professor Darwin"!
I was listening carefully, being the next to be interviewed. The question being asked that morning was, "Can people believe in evolution and God at the same time?" That was the first question put to me and one of the few times I found myself able to agree with Dawkins - it must be possible, as people say they do it. A second point of near agreement was that Dawkins questioned if they really believed in God, whilst I questioned what type of god they believed in. Picking up on John Mackay's central point in his 2005 debate with John Polkinghorne, I pointed out that evolution relies on death, weakness and violence - the very opposite of the good which Jesus Christ did when he healed the sick and raised the dead. Perhaps the biggest surprise for the presenter came when she started a question referring to the beauty of God's creation and I pointed out that whilst there is a remnant of beauty in creation, the world in which we live is actually quite an awful place, having been damaged by centuries of human sin. We will return to that point later.
The same thing happened on Tuesday 13th March at Edinburgh University where Alister McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, and Peter Atkins, Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University, debated the question "Darwin and humanity: Should we rid the mind of God?" The hall was so full that many who had squashed in were asked to leave for safety reasons. Atkins also sought to assert that atheism did not require evidence and that the burden of proof lay with those who say that a god does exist. However, at best it is agnosticism, not atheism, which is the default position. The agnostics say that for whatever reason they do not know whether God exists. Atheism is an assertion and as such should either be made in faith or be based on facts which can be tested. Atkins however repeatedly protested that his atheism was not a faith position.
It is not the atheists' favourite verse from the Bible, but there is no getting away from Psalm 14:1 which states, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" For an atheist to demonstrate that their position is one of evidence not faith, they need to show that there is no rock in the universe under which a god might be hidden which remains unturned. It is foolish to express certainty in such an important matter without practically excluding every possible place a superior being might be found. Of course they cannot do that, so they resort to the defence that there is no evidence for God. However, what they fail to do is explain what the evidence for a god would be that can be observed by science. (It has to be noted that these days science has become defined as naturalistic - i.e. its purpose is to explain everything without reference to God. Thus modern naturalistic science has no way of even being able to consider what the evidence for God might be.)
What is the observed evidence for this? Not a lot. Dawkins said in Dec. 2004, in an interview on the American TV channel PBS, "Evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." More recently, this time in an interview for the BBC World Service Heart and Soul programme (25 March 07), he made this bold claim, "Nowadays even if there wasn't a single fossil anywhere on the earth, we still have cast-iron, water-tight evidence for the fact of evolution." Where is this rock-solid evidence to be found? In genetics. But wait a moment, less than 12 months ago his fellow atheist and co-champion of evolution, Prof. Steve Jones said in a lecture at the Royal Society (11 Apr. 06), "I always think that the finest evidence for evolution comes from fossils..." The strange thing is that Steve Jones is Professor of Genetics at University College, London. If the genetic evidence is so clear, why can't a leading professor of genetics see it?
The TalkOrigins Archive is one of the most prominent anti-creation web sites and it boasts answers to all the claims creationists make. Its response to the late Henry Morris's statement, "Species may undergo minor changes, but the range of variation is limited to variation within kinds" which is fully based upon Genesis 1, is to quote the case of Helacyton gartleri. These are better known as HeLa cells and are actually human cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks (hence HeLa), an American woman, a few months before she died of the disease in 1951. The only reason they are still alive long after her death, and therefore can be claimed to have some kind of separate existence, is that cancer cells lack the normal checks and balances that stop them dividing. HeLa cells remain cells, not independent organisms. Whilst degenerative mutations have continued to affect them, they still continue to be malignant human cells incapable of independent life outside of specially prepared cultures kept at normal body temperature. One wonders why, if the evidence for one kind of creature becoming another is so abundant, a group of campaigning anti-creationists cannot provide better examples?
Have you ever wondered why it was important to The LORD that things in His creation would reproduce "after their kind"? We know He always does things for a purpose; in the Ten Commandments He said he took six days to create everything, followed by one day to rest, to set us an example. So why did He create plants and animals with reproductive stability? (To avoid confusing you, I should explain that Biblical kinds are not what are called species today - they are wider than that. For a number of reasons it is not possible to be sure what the created kinds were, but it is best to think of them being more at the level of classification of dogs rather than bulldogs and Alsatians, of bears rather than polars and grizzlies, and of cats rather than Bengal Tigers and Siamese.) Why were things created to reproduce after their kind? Could it be because they were created by one who says of Himself, "For I am the LORD, I do not change;" (Malachi 3:6) and about His Son, through whom He created all things, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8)?
The verse at the start of this article states that the Creator's "invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead." Atheists often ask how we know which god is telling the truth. The Intelligent Design movement has no answer, but Christians do. The creation reflects the nature and power of its Creator. He does not change and neither does what He has made. Yes, for a number of reasons creatures vary over time, but they remain the same kind. In the same way, The LORD allows us to see different aspects of His character - at times we witness His righteousness and his wrath, whilst at others His compassion and mercy - but He remains constant, as James said with confidence, "with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning" (1:17). The Christian understanding of creation is that all creations reflect the character of their creator. The skilled craftsman turns out a better product than any apprentice would do. Jesus did not need time to create the universe because he had the talent to do so in a moment, just as he could turn water into wine without waiting for grapes to grow and their juice to ferment. He took six days about it to set us an example of how to both work and rest, and He created animals and plants to reproduce after their kind because He is constant.
White light is actually a complete blend of how many different colours of light? Just three; red, green and blue - a different set of primary colours from those in paint and dyes. When you next sit in front of your computer monitor, or watch the television, remember that those numerous dots which flash on and off before your eyes reflect the nature of the Godhead. Three colours blend together to reveal a multitude of shades and hues, but when all three are burning brightly, then perfect white is seen. In the same way we can experience the work of the Father, or the Son or the Holy Spirit in our lives in different ways at different times. However, to be in full fellowship with our Creator we need to walk in the light as He is in the light - to experience the blessing of full fellowship with all three persons of the Godhead. We might not be able to explain how red, blue and green light combine to give white light, but we know they do. In the same way, no-one will ever be able in this life to know how three persons are one in the Godhead, but we can benefit from knowing all three and witnessing their united grace and mercy towards us.
In our new DVD, "God's Signature in Creation - Allah or Christ?" John Mackay develops this theme to show how evidence of the Godhead in the world around us is the hallmark of the Creator. By contrast Islam maintains that Allah, though often portrayed as the same as the God of the Bible, has no son. He is a lone god, not a triune Godhead. Does the evidence in creation point just to a designer and leave us to take our pick as to whether that designer was Allah or Christ or a god of one of the many alternative creation stories or just a force in the universe? Or do "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork" (Ps. 19:1)? Biblical creation goes far beyond arguments against evolution - it is about declaring the power and nature of the Godhead to men and women who want to go their own way, not His.
My lesson in horror extended to human society too. Quite often violence and death pour out in great force as if a dam has burst. I recently watched Spielberg's "Schindler's List" for the first time. An account of WWII violence towards Jews by the Nazi movement and how one member of that party, Oskar Schindler, was moved by the unrestrained violence towards other human beings to do what he could to protect some. No film can fully convey the inhumanities of war, but this one testifies very vividly that man is as bloody and as violent as the animals. How does this awful reality portray the character of the one who claims to be the Creator of everything? To answer that, we need first to establish whether men act like animals because we have evolved from them, or do animals act like men because we have corrupted them?
Whilst there were many things I appreciated about Bill Craig's arguments, there was one point which concerned me. One of his common arguments is that animal behaviour has no moral value. This means, he explains, if one animal kills another, that is neither right nor wrong, and it is the same when one takes food from another - it is not 'stealing' as such. At this point I found myself pondering how Craig might understand Genesis 6:12 & 13, "So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, 'The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.'" All flesh includes all animals for they perished in the Flood alongside men and women. Since then, Genesis 9:5 has also come to mind, "Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man." Does not The LORD in both places speak of animals bearing a moral responsibility for their actions? Yes, He does. The implication is that they are not 'dumb animals' driven by instinct, but that they make choices.
This is fully consistent with the Bible's explanation of why the earth is full of bad things. Life today has not emerged from some primeval chemical soup by a process where the strongest and most aggressive survive. Instead, human rejection of God and His ways introduced sin and death into the universe. After Adam humans have continued to want to make their own moral codes, permitting themselves to do what pleases them rather than their Maker. Thus we were no longer able to look after creation as good stewards. Our sin - laziness, greed, pride, ambition and so on - spread throughout creation. Our privileged position was not lost, but we became an example of all that is bad and we passed on our bad habits to the creatures which had been given into our care. Violence spread throughout the pre-Flood world to the extent that The LORD could not permit it to continue unchecked. Next time someone remarks that a person is acting like an animal, you could remind them that actually it is animals which act like fallen humans.
The French biologist Jacques Monod, in an interview broadcast by ABC (Australia) 10 days after his death in 1976, when asked about possibility of God using the processes of evolution replied, "If you want to assume that, then I have no dispute with it, except one (which is not a scientific dispute, but a moral one). Namely, selection is the blindest, and most cruel way of evolving new species, and more and more complex and refined organisms. I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution." Christians who say they believe the theological implications of creation whilst not wishing to question evolutionary theory on scientific grounds have to take notice of Monod's objection, which he identified as a moral not a scientific matter. If theology has nothing to say about morals, then it is valueless.
Biblical theology portrays a universe which its Maker could describe on completion as very good because it reflected His own character. In His wisdom He then handed the care of what He had made over to a man who was part of that work - though unlike the rest He was created in His Maker's image, which means amongst other things that he possessed free will. Unlike us today, this man had only one matter in which he was able to exercise that free will in contradiction to His Creator's command. When his beautiful wife was deceived into disobedience, Adam, fully aware of the consequences, chose fellowship with her before fellowship with his Lord. In this way he not only introduced death into the good world, but became the source of all rebellion in the universe. Following his bad example, animals in their laziness then began to desert their herbivorous diets (Gen. 1:30) in favour of meat - possibly dead animals at first, but in time aggressively speeding up the process by killing what they wanted to eat. It was just over 1,500 years later when The LORD declared all flesh had become corrupt and had filled the earth with violence. A time-out had to be called. He knew that sin was not only firmly lodged in the human heart, but that its consequences had invaded the whole of creation. At the start of the new society on a planet now scarred by judgement and no longer "very good", He therefore declared that He would require the life of every human or animal which killed a human being. In this respect He considered animals as morally accountable as humans.
Violence was never part of His design for this world because it does not reflect His nature. The human race has to hold its hands up and take full responsibility for it all! Next time you are watching David Attenborough on the TV, don't just watch out for his insistence on things being the product of millions of years of blind chance, remember too that it's not 'natural' behaviour but unnatural when a predator kills to keep itself alive. Don't blame them though - remember that if Adam had not opened the door to sin, corruption and death, someone else would have done and it could very easily have been you!
Sceptics do ask valid questions at times, which Christians need to be equipped to answer. David Attenborough asked one in terms of River Blindness - a question which John Mackay has answered in our DVD, "Did a Good God Create Bad Bugs?" Monty Python effectively threw out the same challenge in their parody of the old children's hymn, 'All things bright and beautiful'. The third of their five verses declares, "All things sick and cancerous, All evil great and small, All things foul and dangerous, The Lord God made them all." I hope this article has challenged you to understand that He did not! And to realise that it is men and women who have introduced all evil great and small into a creation which was indeed very good when it was handed into our care.