Charles Darwin and Christianity
Newsweek is currently honoring Charles Darwin by attempting to explore the evolution of his journey from faith to true science. The article was written by Jerry Adler, who obviously is no friend to conservative Christianity.
"Darwin alone remains unassimilated, provocative, even threatening to some—like Pat Robertson, who recently warned the citizenry of Dover, Pa., that they risked divine wrath for siding with Darwin in a dispute over high-school biology textbooks (click here for related story). Could God still be mad after all this time?"
I am no Pat Robertson fan either, but secularists insist on placing Robertson upon the pedastool as the head of conservative Christianity. My favorite analogy to this error is calling a liberal a Bush supporter simply because he / she is an American citizen. Still I don't think it is fair to say that Robertson's comments reveal that he is "threatened." Throughout this article Adler makes Christians out to be little idiots who revolt and whine if anything causes them to question their immature beliefs in God.
"But the man is, in fact, fascinating. His own life exemplifies the painful journey from moral certainty to existential doubt that is the defining experience of modernity."
I agree with this statement. Further the case can be made clearly that the logical conclusion of existential doubt is Nihilism. "Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated" (The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Thus the statement is sad and self-refuting, since after all Adler is attempting to say something with meaning and value.
"He had the advantage that by his time geologists had concluded that the Earth was millions of years old (today we know it's around 4.5 billion); an Earth created on Bishop Ussher's Biblically calculated timetable in 4004 B.C. wouldn't provide the scope necessary to come up with all the kinds of beetles in the world, or even the ones Darwin himself collected. "
The arrogance of Adler is amazing. He states that he "knows" that earth is around 4.5 billion years old. This is akin to claiming divinity. Some people call me nuts for trusting in the truth of God's Word, but it has got to be truly irrational to make as bold a claim as Adler makes here. Here is a man, like the rest of us, who probably looses his car keys on occassion, but he knows the earth is 4.5 billion years old? Surely he sees how improbable his knowledge in this area is if he is relying purely on observations in nature.
"Darwin's greater, and more radical, achievement was to suggest a plausible mechanism for evolution. To a world taught to see the hand of God in every part of Nature, he suggested a different creative force altogether, an undirected, morally neutral process he called natural selection. Others characterized it as "survival of the fittest," although the phrase has taken on connotations of social and economic competition that Darwin never intended."
Natural selection is not evolution. Even the most outspoken Creationists agree that Natural Selection is part of the scheme of nature. Adler is making Christians look stupid by claiming that they do not see the obvious - change within certain species of animals. Darwin's observations were very helpful to science in this area, but Natural Selection is not the same as macroevolution.
"So it was apparent to many even in 1860—when the Anglican Bishop Samuel Wilberforce debated Darwin's defender Thomas Huxley at Oxford—that Darwin wasn't merely contradicting the literal Biblical account of a six-day creation, which many educated Englishmen of his time were willing to treat as allegory. His ideas, carried to their logical conclusion, appeared to undercut the very basis of Christianity, if not indeed all theistic religion."
This is true. This is why I deny that Darwin's ideas were accurate. Nor would a true Christian ("educated" or otherwise) consider the Biblical account of creation mere allegory. The problem is a problem of presuppositions. Read this article to see what I mean.
"William Howarth, an environmental historian who teaches a course at Princeton called 'Darwin in Our Time,' dates Darwin's doubts about Christianity to his encounters with slave-owning Christians—some of them no doubt citing Scripture as justification—which deeply offended Darwin, an ardent abolitionist."
You cannot prejudge a belief system by the errors of some of its adherents. Too bad Darwin did not meet Christian abolitionist William Wilburforce.
"More generally, Darwin was troubled by theodicy, the problem of evil: how could a benevolent and omnipotent God permit so much suffering in the world he created? Believers argue that human suffering is ennobling, an agent of 'moral improvement,' Darwin acknowledged. But with his intimate knowledge of beetles, frogs, snakes and the rest of an omnivorous, amoral creation, Darwin wasn't buying it. Was God indifferent to 'the suffering of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time'?"
Darwin did not grasp basic Biblical logic. Read this article by Steve Cowan if you struggle with the supposed problem of evil.
"So it's not surprising that, down to the present day, fundamentalist Christians have been suspicious of Darwin and his works—or that in the United States, where 80 percent of the population believe God created the universe, less than half believe in evolution. "
Here again Adler acts as though he is a cat and all of us little Christians are the mice. I am not suspicious of Darwin. I appreciate many of the scientific advancements he made. But that does not mean that he was correct about all of his conclusions. My disbelief in evolution has nothing to do with Darwin. It has everything to do with God. I believe that the Bible is God's accurate word and provides all that I need for an accurate understanding of the world and life. All true science will accord with what the Scriptures teach because God is the Creator of all things. This is often described as being narrow minded (an incorrect conclusion) when in fact it is being God-minded. I take His word over any human's word. But don't get the wrong idea - this is not blind faith. Consider my CHRISTOCENTRIC APOLOGETIC.
"ID posits a supernatural force behind the emergence of complex biological systems—such as the eye—composed of many interdependent parts. Although ID advocates have struggled to achieve scientific respectability, biologists overwhelmingly dismiss it as nonsense."
I am pro-ID for evangelsitic purposes. Since it is closer to the truth of creation, it might open the door for students in public schools to question the the logic of evolution. It certainly is not nonsense, but my children will learn the scientific and biblical truth that God created the world in six days.
"Where is God? it is the mournful chorus that has accompanied every new scientific paradigm over the last 500 years, ever since Copernicus declared him unnecessary to the task of getting the sun up into the sky each day...For all his nets and guns and glasses, Darwin never found God; by the same token, the Bible has nothing to impart about the genetic relationships among the finches he did find. But it is human nature to seek both kinds of knowledge. Perhaps after a few more cycles of the planet, we will find a way to pursue them both in peace."
God is much closer than you could possibly imagine. There are not two kinds of knowledge - there is one true knowledge. It concerns God and His creation. Scripture is clear, there will be only one more "cycle of the planet." Adler is right, then there will be peace.
"Darwin alone remains unassimilated, provocative, even threatening to some—like Pat Robertson, who recently warned the citizenry of Dover, Pa., that they risked divine wrath for siding with Darwin in a dispute over high-school biology textbooks (click here for related story). Could God still be mad after all this time?"
I am no Pat Robertson fan either, but secularists insist on placing Robertson upon the pedastool as the head of conservative Christianity. My favorite analogy to this error is calling a liberal a Bush supporter simply because he / she is an American citizen. Still I don't think it is fair to say that Robertson's comments reveal that he is "threatened." Throughout this article Adler makes Christians out to be little idiots who revolt and whine if anything causes them to question their immature beliefs in God.
"But the man is, in fact, fascinating. His own life exemplifies the painful journey from moral certainty to existential doubt that is the defining experience of modernity."
I agree with this statement. Further the case can be made clearly that the logical conclusion of existential doubt is Nihilism. "Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated" (The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Thus the statement is sad and self-refuting, since after all Adler is attempting to say something with meaning and value.
"He had the advantage that by his time geologists had concluded that the Earth was millions of years old (today we know it's around 4.5 billion); an Earth created on Bishop Ussher's Biblically calculated timetable in 4004 B.C. wouldn't provide the scope necessary to come up with all the kinds of beetles in the world, or even the ones Darwin himself collected. "
The arrogance of Adler is amazing. He states that he "knows" that earth is around 4.5 billion years old. This is akin to claiming divinity. Some people call me nuts for trusting in the truth of God's Word, but it has got to be truly irrational to make as bold a claim as Adler makes here. Here is a man, like the rest of us, who probably looses his car keys on occassion, but he knows the earth is 4.5 billion years old? Surely he sees how improbable his knowledge in this area is if he is relying purely on observations in nature.
"Darwin's greater, and more radical, achievement was to suggest a plausible mechanism for evolution. To a world taught to see the hand of God in every part of Nature, he suggested a different creative force altogether, an undirected, morally neutral process he called natural selection. Others characterized it as "survival of the fittest," although the phrase has taken on connotations of social and economic competition that Darwin never intended."
Natural selection is not evolution. Even the most outspoken Creationists agree that Natural Selection is part of the scheme of nature. Adler is making Christians look stupid by claiming that they do not see the obvious - change within certain species of animals. Darwin's observations were very helpful to science in this area, but Natural Selection is not the same as macroevolution.
"So it was apparent to many even in 1860—when the Anglican Bishop Samuel Wilberforce debated Darwin's defender Thomas Huxley at Oxford—that Darwin wasn't merely contradicting the literal Biblical account of a six-day creation, which many educated Englishmen of his time were willing to treat as allegory. His ideas, carried to their logical conclusion, appeared to undercut the very basis of Christianity, if not indeed all theistic religion."
This is true. This is why I deny that Darwin's ideas were accurate. Nor would a true Christian ("educated" or otherwise) consider the Biblical account of creation mere allegory. The problem is a problem of presuppositions. Read this article to see what I mean.
"William Howarth, an environmental historian who teaches a course at Princeton called 'Darwin in Our Time,' dates Darwin's doubts about Christianity to his encounters with slave-owning Christians—some of them no doubt citing Scripture as justification—which deeply offended Darwin, an ardent abolitionist."
You cannot prejudge a belief system by the errors of some of its adherents. Too bad Darwin did not meet Christian abolitionist William Wilburforce.
"More generally, Darwin was troubled by theodicy, the problem of evil: how could a benevolent and omnipotent God permit so much suffering in the world he created? Believers argue that human suffering is ennobling, an agent of 'moral improvement,' Darwin acknowledged. But with his intimate knowledge of beetles, frogs, snakes and the rest of an omnivorous, amoral creation, Darwin wasn't buying it. Was God indifferent to 'the suffering of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time'?"
Darwin did not grasp basic Biblical logic. Read this article by Steve Cowan if you struggle with the supposed problem of evil.
"So it's not surprising that, down to the present day, fundamentalist Christians have been suspicious of Darwin and his works—or that in the United States, where 80 percent of the population believe God created the universe, less than half believe in evolution. "
Here again Adler acts as though he is a cat and all of us little Christians are the mice. I am not suspicious of Darwin. I appreciate many of the scientific advancements he made. But that does not mean that he was correct about all of his conclusions. My disbelief in evolution has nothing to do with Darwin. It has everything to do with God. I believe that the Bible is God's accurate word and provides all that I need for an accurate understanding of the world and life. All true science will accord with what the Scriptures teach because God is the Creator of all things. This is often described as being narrow minded (an incorrect conclusion) when in fact it is being God-minded. I take His word over any human's word. But don't get the wrong idea - this is not blind faith. Consider my CHRISTOCENTRIC APOLOGETIC.
"ID posits a supernatural force behind the emergence of complex biological systems—such as the eye—composed of many interdependent parts. Although ID advocates have struggled to achieve scientific respectability, biologists overwhelmingly dismiss it as nonsense."
I am pro-ID for evangelsitic purposes. Since it is closer to the truth of creation, it might open the door for students in public schools to question the the logic of evolution. It certainly is not nonsense, but my children will learn the scientific and biblical truth that God created the world in six days.
"Where is God? it is the mournful chorus that has accompanied every new scientific paradigm over the last 500 years, ever since Copernicus declared him unnecessary to the task of getting the sun up into the sky each day...For all his nets and guns and glasses, Darwin never found God; by the same token, the Bible has nothing to impart about the genetic relationships among the finches he did find. But it is human nature to seek both kinds of knowledge. Perhaps after a few more cycles of the planet, we will find a way to pursue them both in peace."
God is much closer than you could possibly imagine. There are not two kinds of knowledge - there is one true knowledge. It concerns God and His creation. Scripture is clear, there will be only one more "cycle of the planet." Adler is right, then there will be peace.
posted by Jason Dollar | 12:18 PM
8 Comments:
Once upon a time, during the 16th Century, men who fervently believed that the Biblical account of existence (Creation) was the literal and 'only truth' burned people at the stake for saying that the earth was not the centre of the universe. They burned people at the stake for claiming that our galaxy was but one of many. They burned people at the stake for claiming that the earth went around the sun, and not vice versa. Copernicus. Bruno. Galileo. All suffered to one extent or the other at the hands of people who 'knew' the 'truth'. And it was those who did the burning who were wrong. They were not different people to Christians today - the mentality is the same (although fortunately there are no longer any Sunday morning human barbeques).
Mr Dollar one again claims that it requires 'divine' knowledge to know that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. It doesn't. What it requires is honest observation, measurement and anaylsis of the results to know the age of our planet. Constant denial of Darwin's Theory of Evolution is rampant amongst Christians, but I don't hear any of you denying Einstein's Theory of Relativity, without which you would have no lighting, energy, satellites, cameras, televisions, dvd's or indeed computers with which to write these messages upon. The silicon chip relies upon Einstein's discoveries in order to operate. It was science that learned, by effort and trial and error and success to place these things at our disposal. Those who did so did not sit around praying for piles of plastic and silicon to spontaneously and miraculously arrange themselves into a computer.
Evolution is no different - everything evolves, even our own technologies. As for ID and its rather silly Irreducible Complexity, take a look at the common garden mole (same name in the US)? It is virtually blind, living all of its life burrowing underground. Yet its skull contains a perfectly normal orbit for the eyeball, and all of its relative species have sharp eyesight. The mole specialised to live underground, and lost the need for keen eyesight - its eyeball became reduced in complexity. Its known as devolution, and is observed, like evolution, everywhere.
Truth is found by eliminating the impossible, via experiment and observation. The Bible has been found impossible and indeed incoherent for hundreds of years via this method. Genesis did not occur. Evolution - universal, galactic, stellar, planetary and biological, DID occur, and we see its signature every day.
Why not let your children make up their OWN minds, instead of trying to teach them something that remains unsupported by everything that has made our species a success - LEARNING. Far beter than superstition.
DC
"Mr Dollar one again claims that it requires 'divine' knowledge to know that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. It doesn't. What it requires is honest observation, measurement and anaylsis of the results to know the age of our planet."
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Honest observation???? Okay. I'll accept that. Produce the observer from 4.5 billion years ago and we'll talk.
But don't expect us to believe the findings and interpretations of men who have ruled God out of the equation from the outset.
There are no neutral facts. Everyone interprets the facts according to their presuppositions. Scientists are no different. They begin without the true God and therefore their findings exclude the true God. No surprise. Your assertions are no less grounded in faith than Christian assertions. The only difference is that your assertions are actually contradicted by the facts and findings. Where are the transitional forms? No one can ever come up with those transitional forms! And that breaks the back of the evolutionary giant to all those of honest heart and rational mind.
I guess this debate will go on until we will all know the truth one day. The sad thing is, when those who denied the truth finally acknowledge it with no questions,it will be too late (Philippians 2:9-11; Revelations 20:12-15). But in the meantime it seems as though the more this subject is debated and God's majesty is revealed, the more harder the hearts become of those who choose not to believe. Notice that I said "those who choose not to believe".I don't believe that there is a such thing as true atheism. To not believe in something is to know that it exists but choosing not to acknowledge or put hope in it( according to me). I believe that the devil exists but I don't put my trust in him or believe in him. The reason why I'm getting into this is because the cause for evolution is to deny that a Higher Being took part and continues to take part in the universe's existence. Will an atheist say that God created everything?No!That's why they support evolutionism to cancel out any thing that may have something to do with God. Another point, for people who don't believe in something,"atheists" sure are fervent about about it. Apparently a denial has to be going on for these people to be so vocal about something they "don't believe in".
Conclusively,God is ready to embrace those who are without him and won't remember the unbelief they once had. I pray that those who are in denial may find this peace that God through Jesus Christ wants to give.
This is in response to Anonymous.I do feel and believe very much the same.What I would like to ask the atheists and nonbelievers(some nonbelievers don't call themselves atheists)is what are they trying to defend if they don't supposedly believe in God?They do not realize that God created the very air they are breathing,and so on.And yes,you're correct in my opinion that they choose not to believe.It is a choice.I choose everyday to continue believing and praying.It is a choice everyday to have trust and faith in God.But,here is something,if these people do not believe in God,then they actually do not believe in anything.Of course,they will deny that and say they love their spouse and kids.But we know who makes love possible.So yes,we could go on and on with this debate,and we unfortunatly will continue to observe this.So I pray too that the lost will come to God and it is their choice.But,I made my choice a long time ago.
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