THE DECONSTRUCTION OF EVOLUTION’S BLIND FAITH

A young Christian had written to the Biologos Foundation website that he no longer knows what to believe. Consequently, he is now suicidal. A “moderator” on this theistic evolution website responded:

·       Let's be honest. Any foundation for "why Christianity is true" can ultimately be deconstructed. There is no argument or proof that can get you from skepticism to faith. At the end of the day, Jesus is Lord, or he isn't. But you are only going to be convinced Jesus is Lord by personally encountering Jesus. There is no path to Jesus via science, logic, or philosophy.

This is very typical thinking for a Christian who has given herself over to marrying evolution with the Bible. In the process, she has compromised the Bible so severely. As a result of evolutionary indoctrination, the theistic evolutionist (TE) believe that it is historically and scientifically inaccurate and that, therefore, there is no longer any way to prove the Bible’s claims.

Generally, we prove the unknown or the uncertain by what we already know as fact. However, the TE has gutted the Bible of any defense for its truth claims by claiming that the Bible only speaks authoritatively in areas of theology and spirituality and not when it speaks about the physical world.

Consequently, Christianity has been reduced to a blind leap into the darkness of uncertainty where the only comfort available is “personally encountering Jesus.” This represents a rejection of the life of the mind and evidences (which have already been surrendered to evolution) for feelings. The Christian, therefore, is left to think:

·       My faith is no more valid that the faith of others, who also claim that their feelings or mystical experiences have validated their particular brand of faith.

Once we have abandoned the life of the mind, life is reduced to a confusing, uncertain, and truncated existence, perhaps even to a suicidal existence. Instead, we require cognitive assurances. Paul wrote that God had provided teachers and preachers so that the believer would no longer live in an unstable and insecure land of shadows:

·       …to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. (Ephesians 4:12-14)

When we reach a point where we know what we believe and why we believe it, we find great riches. Paul, therefore, prayed that we’d attain:

·       …all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2-3)

According to the TE moderator, a “full assurance of understanding” is not possible. Instead, we are condemned to the darkness of uncertainty.

Interestingly, the moderator’s position is essentially the same as that of another evolutionist, Richard Dawkins:

·       Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

However, this statement does not at all capture of robustness of a Biblical faith. The Bible NEVER instructs us to take a blind leap of faith. Instead, it consistently admonishes us to embrace the light of truth and its supporting evidences. For example, Moses had reasoned with the Israelites:

·       Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. (Deut. 4:34-35)

Israel simply had to recall the evidences. Moses did not insist upon any mental gymnastics in order to believe. Jesus even counseled that He shouldn’t be believed without the supporting evidences:

·       "If I [alone] testify about myself, my testimony is not valid.” (John 5:31)

He then went on to provide supporting evidences: the testimony of Scripture, John the Baptist, the Father’s miraculous confirmations, and Jesus’ miracles:

·       “Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. Even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." (John 10:37-38)

·       If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. (John 15:24).

Jesus had even given His disciples a regular diet of the miraculous to support their faith, for example:

·       "I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am He.” (John 13:19; 14:28-29)

However, the moderator (and Biologos) claims that “There is no argument or proof that can get you from skepticism to faith.” However, without proof and hard evidence, Christianity would have remained a mere relic on the dump-heap of history:

·       After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3; 2:22)

Even today, we have many historical evidences for the fact of the resurrection. However, the moderator claimed that “Any foundation for ‘why Christianity is true’ can ultimately be deconstructed” and, consequently, is insubstantial. If this is so, how can we explain the fact that many atheistic scientists have become theists and even Christians based on the evidence of science?

The leading atheist of the 20^th century, Antony Flew, confessed that the evidence had led him to believe that there must be an intelligent Designer:

·       Almost entirely because of the DNA investigations. What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together. It’s the enormous complexity of the number of elements and the enormous subtlety of the ways they work together. The meeting of these two parts at the right time by chance is simply minute. It is all a matter of the enormous complexity by which the results were achieved, which looked to me like the work of intelligence.” (Antony Flew with Roy Varghese, “There is a God: How The World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind,” 75).

Reviewer Lita Cosner pointed out that:

·       Flew was particularly impressed with a physicist’s refutation of the idea that monkeys at typewriters would eventually produce a Shakespearean sonnet. The likelihood of getting one Shakespearean sonnet by chance is one in 10690; to put this number in perspective, there are only 1080 particles in the universe. Flew concludes: “If the theorem won’t work for a single sonnet, then of course it’s simply absurd to suggest that the more elaborate feat of the origin of life could have been achieved by chance.” (78)

Instead of the Christian truth claims having been “deconstructed,” it was Flew’s atheism and belief in the claims of evolution. Perhaps, Biologos and the TE also need their faith in evolution deconstructed.