BARRY BEUKEMA
Contrary to what many people think, the choice here is not between science and religion, but between two different religions.
As the anti-creationist M. Ruse admitted in the National Post (May 13, 2000), “Evolution is promulgated as an ideology- a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality... Evolution is a religion.” Contrary to what our children in public high school and university are being taught, evolution has not been proven by science.
Far from it. As L. Harrison Matthews rightly conceded in the foreword to the 1971 edition of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, “evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory- is it then a science or a faith?”
Not only is evolution an unproven theory, but unlike the Biblical account of creation, its faith is maintained against insurmountable evidence to the contrary. As Darwin himself said, “By this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed. Why do we not find them imbedded in the crust if the earth?” The continued failure to find any evidence of transitional forms prompted A. Lunn to write a parody of such faith, saying, “Now faith is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links unseen.”
But not only are there no transitional forms, our knowledge of genetics provides the fatal objection to evolution.
For Darwinism to be true, for one kind of organism to evolve into a more complex one, for amoebas to turn into men, you need an unfathomable increase of DNA, the information contained in every living cell that determines what that organism will be and what particular characteristics it will display.
All that natural selection and survival of the fittest demonstrate is a loss of DNA, never again. And the same is true for gene mutations.
So far, all we have observed with mutations is the breakdown, corruption, or loss of information, never any addition.
The Bible says that God created all living things “according to their kinds” (Genesis 1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25), not becoming other kinds, and that is exactly what we see, and have always seen, in the world around us. The Bible says that God created man in His own image, and as qualitatively different from the animals, so that we might care for the world as God’s representatives, and know and love God as no other creature can (Genesis 1:27-28).
This, too, explains why human beings are so different from the animals; why we have a sense of right and wrong, and why we inherently believe that there must be more to life than mere existing and dying. Contrary to evolution, the Bible says that we did not start out bad and become progressively better, but that we started out good and became bad; that the death and misery that marks our world is the result of an historic rebellion against God by our first parents, Adam and Eve (Genesis 3). And the Bible declares that this God, in His great love, sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to our fallen world, to pay the penalty of our sin by His death on the cross, that whoever believes in Him should be reconciled to God as His dearly loved children, and restored to His glorious image.
Evolution says you started as slime, that you are your own maker, and, therefore, your own master. Evolution says death is good, that this life is all there is, so live as you please, regardless of God and others. Christianity says we were made to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
Barry Beukema is the pastor of Redeemer United Reformed Church of Lacombe.