Monday, October 23, 2017

THEISTIC EVOLUTIONISTS AND THE MURDER OF APOLOGETICS





At one time, Christian apologetics held sway in the world of science. Why? There was no satisfying explanation for the ubiquitous evidences of design. It had, therefore, been concluded that design required a Designer. However, as atheist Richard Dawkins had claimed, “Darwin has made atheism respectable.” Darwin provided a natural, non-intelligent, non-designed competing explanation, at least for the origin of the various species. However, since Darwin, naturalism has gone wild, proposing explanations for the origin and fine-tuning of the universe, life, suns, planets, and even morality, consciousness, religion, and everything else. It has become an all-encompassing religion, even though there is no evidence whatsoever that anything has ever occurred naturally.

Sadly, “Christian” evolutionists (CEs) have followed suit by claiming that, in light of naturalistic explanations, there is no scientific (or material) evidence for God. Ron Choong, the head of Academy for Christian Thought in New York City, has written:

·       Darwin suggested that there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of God. That is correct!

Choong’s words parallel those of many other CEs. However, can we take such a stance in light of the Scriptures, which teach us that we are “without excuse” if we deny His “plain” evidences?

·       The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)

In light of the Bible’s teachings that an open mind will not allow us to deny the physical and scientific evidence for God’s existence, what argumentation do the CEs use in support of such a counter-biblical position?

For one thing, they deceptively claim that they have a higher regard for Scripture than do other Christians. Nevertheless, they claim that Genesis 1-11 are fable, myth, or parable – not meant to be taken historically but spiritually. They argue:

·       If we take the Bible as history, the Bible is wrong, because it reflects the erroneous beliefs (not just the language) of the surrounding cultures.

·       Therefore, only a spiritual message is intended in these chapters, not a historical one.

·       After all, the Jesus spoke in parables. Therefore, we too have the right to understand Genesis 1-11 as a spiritual parable.

·       Since evolution is about the physical world and the Bible is not, there can be no contradiction. Consequently, when the Bible seems to be about the historical, it is not. When it relates that Adam and Eve had experienced no shame (Gen. 2:25 and guilt) and had rebelled against God to bring resulting in death (Gen. 3), we should only take this spiritually and not historically.

However, when the New Testament refers to these chapters, it always refers to them as events that had taken place historically (Matthew 19:4-6; 24:37-39;  2 Peter 2:4-9; 3:5-6; Romans 5:12-18; 1 Corinthians 11:8-9; 15:21-22, 45). And let’s not forget about the genealogies beginning in Genesis 5:1-32, which unmistakably re-affirm the historicity of the earlier chapters.

In this, the CEs have disregarded Scripture. They have violated Jesus’ teaching about not having a second master (Matthew 6:24). Their master is evolution, which they have imposed upon Scripture, coercing it to agree with their first love.

What has resulted from this? In “Saving Darwin,” the former co-head of Biologos Foundation promoting CE, Karl Giberson, was candid about the impact of evolution on his faith:

·       Acid is an appropriate metaphor for the erosion of my fundamentalism, as I slowly lost confidence in the Genesis story of creation and the scientific creationism that placed this ancient story within the framework of modern science. Dennett’s universal acid dissolved Adam and Eve; it ate through the Garden of Eden; it destroyed the historicity of the events of creation week. It etched holes in those parts of Christianity connected to the stories—the fall, “Christ as the second Adam,” the origins of sin, and nearly everything else that I counted sacred.” (9-10)

However, after this admission, he reassured his readers that this is where the corrosive effect of Darwin’s acid would stop. However, just a few years later, he wrote that he now agreed with Dawkins that the God of the OT was horribly genocidal but that “Modern theology has moved past this view of God.”

How has the CE murdered apologetics? Let’s examine the nature of apologetics to see how. It proceeds from:

·       The physical to the spiritual,
·       The seen to the unseen,
·       What is known to what is unknown (like any science),
·       The evidence of design to the Designer.

However, the CE ascribes the “physical…the seen…the known…the evidence” to blind naturalistic processes and not to God. As a result, the CE doesn’t believe that we have scientific or even physical evidence for God. Instead, they have helped mindless naturalism gobble up all of the evidence for itself. Consequently, God stands naked of any physical historical evidence, against the many Biblical assertions that the historical message is inseparable from the spiritual message and even necessary for the spiritual teachings. For example, there is no basis to believe in the spiritual message of the Cross and the Resurrection apart from the fact that Jesus was historically crucified and rose. And His disciples needed to be convinced of His resurrection:

·       He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

Peter appealed to the historicity of the Genesis account to prove a spiritual lesson – the coming judgment of God:

·       For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly…then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. (2 Peter 2:4-9)

Moses even appealed to the Israelites based upon the miracles they had historically observed (Deuteronomy 4:34-37). Had these not occurred, there was no reason to endure the coming hardships. I think that the same thing is true for us.

Against the CE claims, there have been numerous atheists who have later rejected naturalism because of the scientific evidence. Perhaps the most famous atheist of his day, Antony Flew, abandoned atheism for theism because of the scientific evidence:

·       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).

If Flew had changed his mind, let us also pray for the CEs.

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