Christian Evidences

EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIANITY

If the theory of evolution is correct, then death did not come by Adam as Paul states in his epistles; rather, death is the mechanism by which man has evolved. The theory of natural selection is dependent upon the assumption that there was death in the world before the appearance of man and that death played a part in the development of mankind, since man would have been the product of the process of the survival of the fittest. Thus, the theory of natural selection places the origin of death prior to the existence of man. On the other hand, the Christian view of redemption is that man's fall introduced sin and physical death into the world and that Jesus Christ redeemed us from these effects of the fall through his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection. According to the Christian view, death resulted from the fall of man. If this is so, then how could man have evolved through a process of natural selection, since death is the mechanism through which the survival of the fittest must necessarily occur?

Natural selection could not possibly have taken place apart from the mechanism of physical death inherent in the process of the survival of the fittest. If men evolved as a result of this process, then physical death could not have resulted from man's fall. Rather, man's tendency to die would have been inherited from his immediate forbears. Yet, the Christian faith is based upon the recognition that death took place as a result of the fall of man. Man must therefore have existed before death. Paul wrote in Romans 5:12 that, "just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned." The Christian message is that Christ has redeemed mankind from sin and physical death. If Adam did not bring these things into the world, then Jesus Christ could not have acted as the "second Adam" to redeem mankind from these things. Paul wrote in I Cor. 15:21-23:

For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming.

Thus, the theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the Christian view of redemption.

There are many categories of evidence that have been used in support of the theory of evolution. The evidence from classification, for example, is that animals and other life forms can be graded from the most simple to the most complex, indicating that there has been a development from lower to higher life forms. It appears, also, that there has been an adaptation of animals and plants to their environments. Their existence in every conceivable set of conditions all over the world in many different environments suggests that, though natural selection, they became adapted for the circumstances in which they live.

However, there is no reason not to believe that all of the animals were distributed almost everywhere after they dispersed from Noah's ark, and that those life forms which survived in any given place were the ones most suited for the particular environment that they happened to inhabit. As far as the evidence from classification is concerned, the evolutionary biologist T. H. Morgan, in his book, A Critique of Evolution Theory, does not consider the evidence from classification to be a satisfactory indication that evolution has occurred. Although it is true that there are varying degrees of complexity among organisms, from the one-celled microorganisms to the higher mammals, this in itself is not an adequate indication that evolution has occurred.

Another form of evidence that has been advanced for the theory of evolution is the homology of structure and function that can be observed between different animals species. These similarities seem to be distributed in a somewhat continuous fashion throughout all species. There is a remarkable similarity between how a human being is constructed and how monkeys and other primates are constructed, down to the lowest forms. For example, the monkey has the same number of bones in its foot as a human. These similarities often do not jump from one species to another, but seem to be very continuous. If you find two animals that seem very similar, chances are that there will be another in existence which is a living compromise between the two. This struck Darwin in his travels as he encountered various unusual species previously not known to exist.

Although the same biological structures, modified to varying degrees, occur from species to species, evolution is not the only possible explanation. An alternate hypothesis, that a common environment necessitates homologous structure, is equally viable. Since all species find themselves in a similar environment, similarity in structure may exist simply because a given particular structure is most efficient for a given environment. Perhaps God did not create creatures with five feet, for example, simply because it is not a convenient structure for the use of creatures in our environment.

Moreover, cytochemistry has recently given confirmation for the hypothesis that each species is independent of the others. It has been discovered that if the cytoplasm of any cell is centrifuged, the particulates of the centrifugate always differ in chemical formula in differing species. Each species has its own distinctive formula.

The fixity of the species, according to which God created all life forms "according to their kinds" (Genesis 1:21, 24, 25), is also evident in consideration of the fact that animals of different species cannot cross-breed and bring forth fertile offspring.

Another consideration often used in favor of the theory of evolution is in the area of embryology. Haekel stated that "ontology recapitulates phylogeny." In other words, the stages of the development of an embryo repeat the various stages of evolutionary development. However, as has been pointed out by Julian Huxley, the well-known advocate of evolutionary theory, in his book, Evolution In Action, "this is not strictly true; the individual does not run through the adult stages of its evolutionary ancestors. What is often does do is to pass through ancestral developmental stages." Huxley's "evolutionary ancestors" and "ancestral developmental stages," however, are merely postulated. There is no fossil record of the hypothesized ancestors or of their stages of development. More recently, the evidence of embryology for the theory of evolution has fallen out of favor among many biologists.¹

Some people use as evidence for the theory of evolution the very rare appearance of gills on some newborn babies. This is sometimes taken as an indication that we have evolved from fish- like animals that lived in the water. However, it should be noted that small alterations in the genetic code, or mutations, due to radiation, can cause problems of this kind. A mutation can easily account for gill formation without the necessity of presupposing that this could only occur if we evolved from animals which had gills.

Others have proposed that the very fact that mutations take place demonstrates that evolution has occurred. However, most mutations are either lethal or nearly lethal. In fact, there is real doubt that any mutations are really favorable. Furthermore, the chance that a mutation will be preserved in the gene pool, even if favorable, is remote. The evolutionary biologist Hampton L. Carson has stated that one of the great dilemmas in modern evolutionary theory is that most of the mutations found repeatedly within such populations as those of the various Drosophila (fruit-fly) species do not constitute the kind of differences which distinguish species.²

Vestigial organs are also often cited as evidence for evolution. The appendix in humans, for example, has no useful function, but perhaps it is a vestige of an organ that had a useful function for our earlier ancestors.

It is important to remember, however, that the fact that a function has not been demonstrated for an organ is no real evidence that it has no function. For many years the endocrine glands were regarded as vestigial organs, but we now know that they have a very important function in the secretion of hormones. Sir Arthur Keith, the well-known anthropologist and paleontologist, believed that the appendix is not a vestigial organ, but an organ, the function of which is not known.³

The existence of marsupials in Australia, but no placental mammals, seems to support the idea that evolution was at the marsupial stage when Australia was cut off from the rest of the world. But again, evolution is not the only possible explanation for this situation, and, in fact, whether one postulates that evolution has taken place or that marsupials travelled to Australia from Noah's ark and arrived there ahead of the placental mammals, who then found it inaccessible due to geographical changes, one runs into the same problems in either case. John W. Klotz has written:

If only those animals on the ark survived, how did they achieve the present distribution? It is possible, of course, that they traveled by means of land bridges from Mount Ararat to the places where they are now found. The development of a land bridge, however, is not as easy as it sounds. It requires tremendous changes in the earth's crust. Heavier rocks, it is believed, must be replaced by lighter rocks if submerged areas are to rise.

At the same time the evolutionist has this same problem. He, too, wants land bridges to explain the migration of animals from one area to another. And if land bridges radiating from Mount Ararat to various parts of the world are difficult to erect, so are the land bridges of the evolutionist.

Some evolutionists have asked: "Why is it that there are no marsupials in Asia and along the Malay Peninsula, where they must have been found in their travels from Mount Ararat?" It is possible to suggest an answer. It may be that these forms have become extinct in Asia and along the Malay Peninsula. Possibly they were able to live in some of these areas for only a very short time and traveled almost immediately to those places included in their present range. The evolutionary scheme itself requires that animals have become extinct in many areas in which they once lived.

Indeed, in this case it requires that these same animals--the marsupials--have become extinct in these same areas. In late Cretaceous and early Tertiary times the marsupials were almost world-wide in their distribution, according to the evolutionists. However, the marsupials could not compete with the placental mammals when they arose, and so died out in all regions except those from which the placental mammals were excluded.⁴

According to T. H. Huxley, "The primary and direct evidence for evolution can only be found in paleontology." However, the geological data do not always support the theory of evolution, but often contradicts it. Evolutionary theory hypothesizes the existence of common ancestors, the remains of which should be observable in the geologic strata. However, none of these "missing links" have been found since the search for them began over one hundred years ago. None of the thirty hypothesized links between land mammals and whales have been identified, nor have any of the twenty hypothesized links between wingless mammals and bats been found.

The archaeopteryx, which was of the Jurassic period, is often considered to be common ancestor of birds and reptiles. However, it is clear that this animal was a toothed bird, since it was warm blooded and had feathers. It is often hypothesized that birds developed feathers from the scales of early reptilian forms, but features and scales originate at entirely different layers of the epidermis. Any intermediate form can actually be easily identified as a member of one or the other of the two species of which it is supposed to be the common ancestor.

Evolutionary sequences of fossils are constructed with the assumption that evolution has occurred. Thus, the evolutionary arrangement of the fossils of horses, for example, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, is artificial, for each skeleton was found in a different part of the world. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether the smaller horses actually existed in an earlier period of time than the larger horses. It is possible that all types of horse inhabited the world at the same time. The hoof of a modern horse was found in strata older than that of the eohippus, which is supposed to be prehistoric ancestor of the modern horse. Facts such as this, although frequently discovered, are not taken into consideration in textbooks on evolution. It is often the case that facts that tend to disconfirm evolutionary theory are actually held suppressed.

In his book, Limitations of Science, J. W. N. Sullivan compares the universe to a clock which is in the process of running down. As time passes, the energy of the universe becomes more disorganized. However, if this law of entropy (the second law of thermodynamics) is true, then the energy of the universe should have been more organized in the past, and still more organized in the distant past. Eventually we reach a point of perfect organization, and it is impossible to extrapolate any further. These considerations suggest that the universe actually sprang into existence in a state of perfect organization at some time in the past.

It would appear that the creation of the universe out of nothing by God is a very good explanation for its existence. Moreover, the acceptance of the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures with respect to origins solves many more problems than it creates. The presuppositional nature of truth is often responsible for difficulties in these matters, for there are usually alternative presuppositional systems, which, although unpopular, may explain the data as easily or more easily than others. The facts, when evaluated from the Biblical perspective, certainly do not disconfirm the Biblical presuppositional system.

1 See, for example, H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation (London: Evangelical Press, 1966), pp. 56-65.

2 Hampton L. Carson, "Genetic Conditions Which Promote or Retard the Formation of Species," Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 24 (1959): 95.

3 Sir Arthur Keith, The Human Body (London: Williams and Norgate, 1912), p. 236.

4 John W. Klotz, Genes, Genesis, and Evolution, 2d ed. (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1970), p. 211.