Sunday, October 16, 2022

BIOLOGOS, COMING-OUT STORIES, AND SUB-OPTIMAL BODY STRUCTURES

 


The Biologos Foundation has been given massive amounts of money to promote evolution among the churches. One of their strategies are coming-out stories of creationists who have become "Christian" evolutionists once they became acquainted with the "evidence." Here is the latest:

• Kramer, who is 27, no longer sees things that way. Today, he accepts all evidence for the scientific process of evolution—“the whole nine yards,” he says. In fact, he says, evolutionary science has helped him understand his faith better. “Science shows us a world of order and beauty, even in the midst of darkness and disorder,” he says. “I see the light of God in this.” This view is known as theistic evolution, the belief that God is the guiding force behind evolution…Now, I’m able to look at this through the lens of faith and say thank God that he has allowed us to find this discovery and this process of evolution,” Kramer says. “I can rejoice in how beautiful, how important, how creative the whole thing is."

How has evolution caused Kramer to understand his faith better? You will not find any evidence of this within this 3-paged article. In fact, there is absolutely no evidence of this claim anywhere!

Here's what you will find from evolutionists - the alleged antagonism between faith (Christianity) and science. While there are many conflicts between the Bible and the theory of evolution, evolutionists find it more useful to reframe the conflict as "faith vs. science," instead of "faith vs. evolution." It just makes us fundamentalists seem more mindless if we are opposed to science rather evolution.

They use another diversionary technique by claiming that, if God is truly omnipotent, He can create through evolution. However, this is not the issue. Instead, our issue is that evolution violates the Bible, not God.

But the theory of evolution also violates their assertion that God is guiding the process. After all, even God cannot guide an "unguided" and "random" process.

What proofs have led Kramer to embrace evolution? The article only cites one--that sub-optimal (less than perfect) body parts point to natural causation rather than to God's perfect designs, and they should be perfect, shouldn't they:

• [Sub-optimal] "Structures like this provided ‘proof of evolution—paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce’,” [Stephen Jay] Gould wrote."http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/12/how_an_evangelical_creationist_came_to_accept_evolution.3.html

They claim that the human eye is sub-optimal. Supposedly, we have a blind spot. Hmmm? It seems like I can do pretty well despite this alleged
"blind spot." Amazingly well!

Sadly, Kramer, now an employee of Biologos, believes that his eyes are better explained by a guided non-guided process than by God. However, Scripture claims that Kramer has no excuse in coming to such a conclusion:

• The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, 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 people are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)

Besides, even if we do have sub-optimal structures, these might not be the result of less-than-optimal work of evolution. Instead, these might have resulted from the Fall and genetic corruption resulting eventually in death.

There is also the question of the identification of sub-optimal structures. To do this, we would need an objective standard for what are maximally optimal structures. However, such a standard might be beyond our reach. We are incapable of establishing such a standard. We’d have to be able to weigh all the possible trade-offs or costs required to achieve our models of perfection.

There also seems to be an additional logical problem. Identifying examples of the non-optimal fail to address the evidence of ID. Just imagine that you are part of an expedition searching for ID on Mars. For the thirty days appropriated for this probe, no such evidence is found. However, on the last day of the probe, you discover in a cave what clearly seems to have been a library. However, the leader of the expedition discounts your evidence saying:

• Our negative findings of the first 30 days completely overwhelm the contrary evidence you found on the last day.

Of course, his reasoning is highly flawed. The probe conclusively found evidence of ID, despite the failures of the first 30 days.

Likewise, even if there is evidence of non-design, this evidence fails to disqualify the apparent evidence for design (ID).

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