“Reality! What a Concept!” The subject line is a quote from one of my favorite comedians, Robin Williams. I consider it a most profound utterance of wisdom. I have chosen to apply this gem of wisdom to an examination of the arguments concerning the teaching of Evolution and the counter concept of Intelligent Design. What is the reality here?
Evolutionary scientists claim that the introduction of Intelligent Design theory is just a back-door attempt to justify the teaching of Creationism. Further, to even consider the theory of Intelligent Design was tantamount to re-defining what science really is and how it is properly conducted. Perhaps this is true. The word science means “knowledge” and, if it means ALL knowledge, then excluding the concept of God means we are excluding that particular area of knowledge.
While I agree with the scientific establishment that pure science should be based solely on the observations of nature, without invoking the inferred workings of a Deity, the reality of the matter is nature itself was ordained by God and the observed “laws” of nature, which guide our observations, were preordained by Him. That is an inescapable reality of life. And those who choose not to accept the existence of God do so in an attempt to escape the reality that the great “I AM” really is.
Agreed! God can not be observed or measured by scientific instruments or, for that matter, scientifically proven to even exist. But the reality is that the workings of God can, indeed, be observed when measured against the Light of the Word of God.
Evolutionary theory espouses the concept that the universe brought fourth life and consciousness by itself, and that this consciousness, today engendered in the form of its highest evolutionary accomplishment (mankind), is now self aware and looking back and observing itself. That line of reasoning is rather pantheistic, and a religious belief system in its own right, when you boil it down to the lowest common denominator.
I have no problem with the big-bang theory that the universe exploded out of nothing (or a singularity), and then expanded to become everything. The mathematics of physics certainly points toward such a reality. And that reality is accepted by science. But science can not answer WHY that singularity ever was in the first place, and why it produced an extremely structured and well ordered universe in the second place. Who was the Designer? Was there a Designer? This is the real crux of the argument.
Some folks argue that the seeds of life on the Earth were brought here by comets or asteroids in the distant past. Fair enough, so where were those seeds first made and by whom, and when? Others will claim that life was sown here by space aliens or some superior race of beings. Fair enough, so where did they come from and who designed them, and when? That kind of reasoning is only an attempt to dodge the issue. And every one of these arguments arises from denial of a greater reality.
The physical sciences can only take us so far in understanding the cosmos and all things within it. Evolutionary theory says that man’s nature (to kill) is an evolved instinct and a normal part of nature. If this is normal, then why does civilized society find murder and death so abhorrent? Why should we fear and constantly struggle against what is natural? We do so because it is not natural. There is something fundamentally wrong within the cosmos which also can not be observed with the instruments of science. If it is impossible to quantify God, is it any more possible to quantify evil? Why does evil even exist? Science can’t answer that question, either.
What is the soul and why do different people have different personalities? Science can not define the soul or explain individualism in being. All these things are beyond the purview of the physical sciences, yet they are all things that can be observed. They are a reality. If then, scientists attempt to investigate and find answers to these questions, would they be guilty of re-defining what science and the scientific method is? No! In universities around the world researchers in diverse fields of the behavioral sciences are seeking these very answers. Researchers into paranormal activity are seeking answers to observed phenomena that can not be explained by the normal laws of the physical sciences. Although many of these latter scientists are branded as off-the-wall kooks by mainline scientists, they still receive a greater degree of respect from the general scientific community (and the public) than is accorded to any Creationist. Why is that? Science can’t explain it!
The ongoing controversy of “Creation vs. Evolution” will never be resolved to the satisfaction of the secular scientific community (or the Creationists). It cannot be resolved in a secular context regardless of the well-intended efforts of many on either side of the debate because the current focus of the argument is emotionally and factually misdirected.
Armed with only the observations of current and historical geologic processes and other empirical data, and assuming natural history has been a continuum across billions of years, the present secular paradigms of geological and evolutionary theory are about the best belief system that the educated mind of carnal mankind could be expected to conceive and accept from the available physical evidence. Without the input of Biblical Authority, current theories are, in reality, incomplete. And many questions and mysteries remain unresolved, especially in relation to the origins of mankind.
Secular scientists are confident to point out scientific inaccuracies of the Bible because they have been led to view the Bible through the distorted lenses of traditional Biblical interpretation. What scientists have successfully contradicted, and should be applauded for doing so, is refuting the traditionally-held Biblical interpretation: Specifically, that all things were created out of nothing only about six thousand years ago, as espoused by the Young Earth Creationists.
However, when you get down to the solid core of what the Bible actually and truly says, Scripture compared to Scripture, there is no scientific evidence in existence today to refute what it actually says: all life, indeed an entire ancient world order, had already perished from the face of the Earth long before the seven days of Genesis. The rightly-divided Scriptures reveal that the seven days of Genesis are a REGENERATION of the heavens and earth, and that life on this planet has not been an actual continuum. This is a Biblical fact that both sides find hard to swallow.
Both the Bible and scientific data are most certainly in agreement on one very key point: This planet Earth is very, very old, and if God authored both the Word and Earth’s geologic record, no real contradiction in fact can possibly exist. The fault MUST be INTERPRETIVE, on both sides of the debate.
Noah’s flood and Divine creative intervention by a Holy God are not factored into the world’s accepted origins model, because God can’t be observed or quantified in a physical system or seen under a microscope, although the results of His work can be observed and quantified. For these reasons there is an unbridgeable gap between secular Empirical Science and the Christian faith in respect to both Creation and Noah’s flood.
Empirical Science is the pursuit of quantifiable facts and repeatable observations and is limited to the physical sphere of reality. From this purely physical perspective, the geological evidence appears to indicate that this planet and the life on it are the result of natural processes over time, and that the existence of all life forms and extinction must be credited to a natural process of random mutations and selection by nature itself. In such a paradigm of interpretation, the researcher’s faith is in a theory or synthesis of theories which seems to best fit the observations.
The Christian, on the other hand, must also deal with spiritual things, which are just as real as physical things, but can only be seen through the agency of faith by the illumination of the Word of God. A true born-again Christian (who is also a scientist) cannot be fully objective in an empirical perspective in dealing with the question of origins. The acceptance of God’s words on matters of original sin and supernatural agency hold us accountable to a higher interpretive system; a system which has no place of welcome in the institutional physical sciences of the world. No amount of compromise will be acceptable to either the Naturalists or Creationist extremes of each respective school.
That being said, please do not misunderstand. A lot of good knowledge emerges from the practice of good science and the scientific method, and there are a lot of good Christians who are scientists. But when it comes to matters of origins and the things of God, natural science (without God) is as much out of its depth in providing the full truth as the Young Earth Creationist is who ignores solid scientific data.
