REFORMED WITNESS
Volume IV, March 1996, Number 3
'By Their Fruits' - The Test Of Evolutionism
Part I
Article by Dr. Henry Morris of the Creation Research Institute
Originally appearing in The Sword and Trowel, Issue 1995 No. 4
Whether people are aware of it or not, they hold to one of two 'world views' in their attitude to life. Either they believe that a Creator made the world (creationism), or that it has evolved by pure chance (evolutionism). These are the only two world views. This is why the issue of our origins is so vital.
There has been a significant revival of creationism over recent decades, but evolutionism still dominates the educational, scientific and political spheres in every nation of the world, so far as I know.
In response to the revival of creationism there have been at least 40 books published in the past 20 years, critiquing this view, and seeking to restore faith in evolution. I want to begin with a quote from the author of one of these books, Dr. Douglas Futuyma.
Most of his views I would disagree with, but this particular statement is valid. He says, 'Creation and evolution between them exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the Earth fully developed, or they did not. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must have been created by some omnipotent intelligence.'
The only options
Those are the options, and there are no others. Either we can explain all things by processes which are still going on, and which we can observe - or we cannot. If we cannot, then at least some of the basic systems of the world must be explained by processes which are not going on today, which are not natural processes, but supernatural processes completed in the past. This is creation versus evolution. One or the other must be true, and they cannot both be true.
I want to encourage you to recognize that creation is the true world view, the true explanation of origins, and also to encourage you in realizing its importance in these days. It is especially important to pastors and other Christian leaders who seek to influence the younger generation, because they will not hear this through the schools or the media.
This is not simply a peripheral matter which you can take or leave. It is a vital issue, and is the basis of every decision about beliefs. It determines what we believe about the meaning of life, about our place in life, and about destinies.
The Scripture recognizes these two world views, and in His Word, God makes it plain that He is the Creator of all things, and that natural processes could not possibly have evolved this complex universe. In the first chapter of Romans we read:
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations [their reasonings], and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves; who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature [the creation] more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
To worship and serve the creation means to worship the highest apex of development, which is man himself. In other words, man worships himself as God, instead of the Creator. The real issue, therefore, is whether we take a God-centered or a man-centered world view. We must determine which of these two world views is true.
As far as the Bible is concerned, we may assert that the Bible teaches only creation. There is not a hint of Evolution anywhere in the 66 books of the Bible. There is no mention of long ages of evolutionary development. The Bible tells us that all things were created fully functioning right from the beginning by an omnipotent, trancendent, Creator God.
The Christian test
We could also apply a scientific test to determine which of these two world views fits the real facts of science. This is not the theme of this address, but I must just give my testimony, having studied in this field for a long time, and having read very many books by evolutionists (numbered in their hundreds), along with the unnumbered articles. I have come to the conclusion that there is not a single fact of science, in any field of science, which supports the evolutionary world view in any degree whatsoever. All the real facts of science support creation, just as taught in the Bible.
I would like to deal chiefly in this address with the test of fruit advocated by the Lord Jesus Christ. What are the fruits or results of the two world views? In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7) the Lord Jesus Christ said - 'Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit... Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.'
Is evolution a good tree? Does it produce good fruit in society, and in the lives of human beings, or evil fruit? And what about the creationist world view? Does it produce good or evil fruit? Of course, the conclusion that I will try to draw is that all of the fruits of the evolutionary tree are corrupt, false, and incredibly harmful in world history, whereas the creationist tree has produced good fruit in every area.
Anti-Creator
We must recognize at the outset that the evolutionary world view, so dominant in education and society generally, is consciously antagonistic to and opposed to the creationist world view.
Sir Julian Huxley was the first Director-General of UNESCO, and probably the leading light of this century in the evolutionary establishment. He was the chief author of the system known as neo-Darwinism, and wrote many books on the subject.
At the great Centennial convocation held at the University of Chicago in 1959, commemorating the centenary of Darwin's book, The Origin of Species, Huxley said, 'Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the Creator of organisms from the sphere of rational discussion.'
According to Sir Julian we cannot even talk about God if we want to be rational in this brave new world, because, as Darwin pointed out, natural selection can account for any known form of life, and there is no need or room for supernatural agency. Evolution, said Huxley, can explain everything, and therefore it is irrational to believe in God. But, of course, he was wrong about that.
Probably the leading evolutionist at Harvard University is Ernst Mayr and he says that evolution has an impact on every aspect of man's thinking, including his philosophy, his metaphysics, and his ethics. It is not simply a biological theory; it pervades every area of life. He goes on to say that today, of course, there is no such thing as a theory of evolution. It is a fact of evolution. In his estimation it is a proven fact.
Huxley also said, "Today we are enabled to see evolution as a universal and all-pervading process.' He meant that the whole of reality is evolution. It pervades astronomy, chemistry, physics, sociology and economics. Everything is involved in the state of evolution, according to Sir Julian.
When Darwin's book first came out, England and America were professedly largely Christian. But of course all that changed, so that now you dare not let it be known that you are a creationist if you want to hold a significant position in a university in America. In the Gifford Lectures in England in 1990, Mary Midgely said, 'Today it is the admission, not the denial, of belief in central Christian doctrines that can damage the reputation of an academic in Britain.'
Two leading younger evolutionists are currently the most articulate I am aware of. Dr. Stephen Jay Gould (a Marxist) of Harvard University, a very prominent and extremely popular author, says, 'We now view Homo sapiens as a happy accident of the last geological moment.' Dr. David Hull of North Western University in Chicago, says, 'The evolutionary process is rife with accidents, incredible waste, death, pain and horror.'
Whatever 'god' may be implied in evolutionary theory, he is not the Protestant God of waste-not, want-not. He is not a loving God. The 'god' of Darwin is careless, wasteful, indifferent, even diabolical.
'World of Jokedom'
Isaac Asimov was the most prolific science writer of all time. Before he died he had written more than 500 books covering every field of science. He said, 'If anyone asks me, I will admit to being an atheist. However in the world of jokedom, God and Satan, angels and demons, Adam and Eve, and all the paraphernalia of mythology exist, and I accept them gladly. Anything for a laugh.'
The evolutionary world view is militantly anti-Creator. This is a major fruit. To Huxley God is irrational, to Gould man is an accident, to Hull God is cruel, to Asimov God is a joke. This is what we have to contend with if we are going to reach society today, particularly the younger generation.
There is such passionate commitment to the evolutionary world view that one would think evolution must have an incredibly strong scientific base, and also have contributed much to science. You hear people say that if you were to take evolution away from the schools they would cease to be scientifically credible, and we would raise a generation of scientific illiterates.
A most interesting statement was made fifteen years ago by evolutionist Dr. Horace Judson. In a review article on the century of the sciences he commented on the great applications that have been made of modern science, and then said, 'Still even today, certain major sciences offer scant prospect of practical application. Astronomy and cosmology are of little earthly use. Evolutionary theory has not bred a single new species of animal or vegetable, let alone improved the intensity of our pleasures, or the intelligence or docility of our children.'
This was surely a painful admission for an evolutionist to make. But many other admissions should be made. No one has ever seen evolution take place. No one has ever seen one type of organism evolve into a different type. There are no transitional forms in the fossil record. Despite the presence of billions of fossils in the Earth's crust, preserving the record of the past, no one has ever seen a true intermediate form among them.
Anti-moral values
The laws of thermodynamics, and other laws of physics, say that evolution is impossible on any significant scale. To summarize, no one knows how evolution works, no one has ever seen it happen, it has never produced anything of value, and therefore we ought to accept it as a scientific fact. That is the world view which is taught to our young people today.
What are some of the other fruits of the evolutionary tree? Having destroyed belief in a reasonable, omnipotent, omniscient, loving, gracious and merciful God such as the Bible speaks of, it proceeds to destroy Christian ethics and values. Charles Darwin, in the very last paragraph of his famous book, indicates what we might anticipate from this tree. He says that the most exalted objective which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, has been produced by terrible means, namely, by a war of nature; by famine and destruction. Man is the result of a struggle for existence, the survival of the fittest and the extermination of the weak.
A modern evolutionist, very much featured in the United States, Dr. Carl Sagan, says almost the same thing. He says, 'The secrets of evolution are death and time. The deaths of enormous numbers of life forms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment, and time for a long succession of small mutations that were by accident adaptive.' So random variation, chance, time, struggle, suffering and dying produced the higher animals, and finally man.
Stephen Gould says, 'Natural selection is a remarkably inefficient, even cruel, process. Selection carves adaptation by eliminating masses of the less fit, imposing hecatombs of death as preconditions of limited increments of change.' This statement appeared in a natural history magazine in June 1994.
In another article, speaking of Darwin, he says that Darwin commented most forcefully upon the inefficient and unpleasant character of evolution in writing to a friend in 1856. He reflected on what a book a devil's chaplain might write about the clumsy, wasteful, inefficient and horribly cruel works of nature.
People who think that in some way you can unite Christian doctrine and evolution really do not understand either. Christianity cannot co-exist with evolution. The very essence of evolution is - me first; struggle for existence; the best survive; the strong exterminate the weak.
Isaac Asimov, as I said, wrote over 500 books, and as far as we know, he died an atheist. Being one of the chief opponents of creationism in the United States, he called us an army of the night, going forth with our Bibles held high and destroying true science.
If anyone knew science , I suppose he did, having explored every field. But even he could only say - 'Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect He doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.' Let no one attribute their atheistic convictions to scientific evidence, for there is none. All the real facts of science support creation as taught in the Word of God.
Evolution is the basis of atheism, of anti-Christianity. It is the basis of humanism - the exaltation of man to be God. The American Humanist Association was founded by Julian Huxley when he lived in the United States. (My first degree was from Rice University in Texas. The first chairman of the biology department at Rice was Julian Huxley, and he left his imprint on that university.)
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Next month we conclude Dr. Morris' article, as he explores more of the horrible consequences of a century and a half of evolutionary thinking, contrasting it with true science and the basis for real knowledge of life's origin - the Word of God. - Editor.
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