Institute for Creation (Credulous) Research (Retards), PO Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021 Voi
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Institute for Creation Research, PO Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021
Voice: (619) 448-0900 FAX: (619) 448-3469
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No. 209 "Vital Articles on Science/Creation" November 1990
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Evolution and the Wages of Sin
by John D. Morris, Ph.D. *
Copyright (c) 1990 by I.C.R.
All Rights Reserved
* Dr. Morris is Administrative Vice President of ICR.
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Dr. E.O. Wilson, Harvard entomology professor and chief spokesperson
for the field of evolutionary sociobiology, and bitter enemy of Biblical
Christianity, has for decades written insightful articles supporting his
viewpoint. Several years ago, he explained his own background and how
he came to his present stand:
"As were many persons from Alabama, I was a born-again Christian.
When I was fifteen, I entered the Southern Baptist Church with
great fervor and interest in the fundamentalist religion; I left
at seventeen when I got to the University of Alabama and heard
about evolutionary theory." (Wilson, E.O. "Toward a Humanistic
Biology." _The Humanist_, September/October, 1982. p. 40.)
Interestingly enough, many of the leading anti-Christian voices in
this country today come from Christian homes. They know, perhaps better
than many Christians, that evolution and Biblical Christianity are
incompatible-irreconcilable world views, as has been pointed out many
times on these pages. In this article, the point at which evolution and
Christianity most seriously conflict will be explored.
Whatever else evolution may be, it requires tremendous lengths of
_time_. According to evolution, single-celled organisms underwent
spontaneous generation from non-living chemicals some three billion or
more years ago. Multicellular life arose about a billion years ago,
with fish appearing about 500 million years ago. Dinosaurs flourished
from about 230 to 65 million years ago, after which time mammals began
to rule the earth. Man descended from ape-like creatures within the
last three million years.
But evolution also involved _death_. Organisms have been living and
dying for aeons in the "struggle for existence," with natural selection
allowing the "survival of the fittest" while insuring the extinction of
the less fit. For instance, it was the extinction of the dinosaurs
which allowed the mammals to dominate and eventually lead to man's
emergence. All of this multi-billion-year "history" is recorded in the
fossil record, where the remains of multiplied trillions of dead things
are entombed in rocks supposedly dating from times long before man. As
Carl Sagan wrote, "The secrets of evolution are death and time -- the
deaths of enormous numbers of life forms that were imperfectly adapted
to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations
that were by accident adaptive, time for the slow accumulation of
patterns of favorable mutations" (_Cosmos_, 1980, p. 3.)
In other words, death plays a prominent part in evolution. In fact,
to an evolutionist, death is normal, death is good, death provides the
fuel for evolutionary change; death produced man. Charles Darwin, in
the very last paragraph of his treatise, _Origin of Species_, after
explaining his proposal of evolution by natural selection, and after
championing the concepts of extinction and bloodshed as the mechanism
for evolution, wrote his conclusion:
"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most
exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the
production of the higher animals [i.e. man, ed.] directly
follows."
In other words, death is the natural order of things, and death brought
man into existence.
But how does the Christian religion understand death? As recorded in
the Bible, just a few thousand years ago God wrote with His finger on a
tablet of stone (so we couldn't misunderstand) to inform us that "in six
days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,
and rested the seventh day" (Exodus 20:11), thereby providing a model
for our work week (the Fourth Commandment). No time is found here for
billions of years of evolution (see Impact #184), only a rapid,
supernatural creation.
Furthermore, things were quite different in the original creation.
Evidently, man and all animals possessing true life in the Biblical
sense (with the "breath of life," with blood in which is "the life of
the flesh," with consciousness not present in the plants and perhaps
certainly of the invertebrate animals) were created to live forever.
There was to be no carnivorous activity by man (Genesis 1:29) nor
animal, for "to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air,
and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I
have given them every green herb for food: And it was so" (v. 30). No
meat eating, no bloodshed, no death for any "living" thing in the
original creation.
Mankind, especially, was created to live forever. Adam and Eve were
created "in the image of God" (Genesis 1:27), the holy, sinless,
eternal, deathless Life-giver. That image is now marred by sin, but
originally it was not so, for the Creator called all in that world "very
good" (Genesis 1:31), and placed in it the Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9).
What sort of world could the God of the Bible call "_very_ good"? At
the very least, the original world must have been far different from our
present one.
God did place in that world an opportunity for both man and woman to
prove their obedience to their Creator and return His love. As Creator,
He established (and only because he was Creator did He have the
authority to establish) the rules for proper conduct, as well as the
penalty for disobedience, He declared, "Of the tree of the knowledge' of
good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: For in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17).
The lie of Satan, however, has always included the idea that there is
no penalty for sin. In tempting Eve to disobey, "the serpent said unto
the woman, ye shall not surely die" (Genesis 3:4). As we know, the lie
was believed, the penalty for sin denied, and sin entered the world.
But even though the authority of the Creator was disputed and ignored,
that authority remained, and He acted in His holy justice. The
resultant curse on all of creation was the curse of death, and touched
not only mankind -- "for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return"
(Genesis 3:19) -- but the animals (v. 14), the plants (v. 18), and even
the earth itself (v. 17). At that point, the "creation was made subject
to vanity (or futility)" -- the "bondage of corruption." Indeed, "the
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now"
(Romans 8:20,21,22).
Note that it was "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by
sin" (Romans 5:12). This death not only entails spiritual death, but
also physical death, as is made abundantly clear in the classic passage
dealing with the physical resurrection of the dead. "For since by man
came death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (I Corinthians
15:21-22). If Adam's sin did not bring physical death, Christ's
resurrection from physical death does not bring eternal life.
It is obvious then, that death is very important to the Christian
world view. Death is the result of the entrance of sin into the world.
But it is much more than that, for it is also the atonement for sin --
the just payment for sin. The first death recorded in Scripture
occurred when God, Himself, slaughtered animals to provide a covering
for sin -- the clothing for Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21). Later, we see
that the system of blood sacrifices for sin had been instituted, for God
accepted Abel's animal sacrifice while rejecting Cain's bloodless
sacrifice (Genesis 4:3-5; Hebrews 4:4). As developed in both Old and
New Testaments, "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness
of sin" (Hebrews 9:22, see also Leviticus 17:11, etc.).
Thus we can see that God was not only acting in His justice in
pronouncing the curse of death for sin, but in His grace, as well. For,
by establishing the penalty for sin to be death, He made it possible for
Him to send His beloved Son to come and die to pay the ultimate penalty
for sin as a substitute. The "wages of sin" may be death, but "Christ
died for our sins" (I Corinthians 15:4). Only the holy Creator, the
righteous Judge, could be the sinless Substitute.
Evolution and the Bible most seriously conflict at this point (their
respective views of death, which are central to each viewpoint). If
evolution (or even just the concept of an old earth, with death and
fossils predating man's sin) is correct, then death is natural; death is
normal; death produced man. Most importantly, in this view, death is
not the penalty for sin, for it _preceded_ man and his sin. But if death
is not the penalty for sin, then the death of Jesus Christ did not pay
that penalty, nor did His resurrection from the dead provide eternal
life.
While belief in creation and the young earth may not be essential for
salvation (many Christians wrongly believe and do many things the Bible
teaches against), if evolution is right, if the earth is old, if fossils
date from before man's sin, then Christianity is wrong! These ideas
destroy the foundation for the Gospel and negate the work of Christ on
the cross. Evolution and salvation are mutually exclusive concepts.
Many times evolutionists understand this issue better than
Christians. In his article, "The Meaning of Evolution," atheist G.
Richard Bozarth claims that "Christianity has fought, still fights and
will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, for evolution
destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus' earthly life was
supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin,
and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of God.
Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer who
died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity
is nothing" (_American Atheist_, February 1978, p. 30).
Thus the issues of death and time reveal the utter incompatibility of
evolution, in any form, with Christianity.
But the story doesn't end there. The Bible reveals not only the
origin of death, but how this issue will one day be resolved.
There will come a time when this world, so marred by the effects of
sin and death, including fossils and graveyards "shall melt with fervent
heat, the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up....
Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a
new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (II Peter 3:10,13).
The ultimate victory over death will then be realized. "And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain:
For the former things are passed away" (Revelation 21:4). In our
eternal, deathless home, we will have continual access to "the Tree of
Life.... And there shall be no more curse" (Revelation 22:2,3).
This, then, is the message of Creation! Far more than the origin of
species and the age of rocks, it is the big picture -- the work of Jesus
Christ from eternity past to eternity future. As Sovereign Creator, and
only because He is Creator, He had the authority to set the rules and
the penalty for disobedience, and to judge that disobedience. But as
Creator, and only because He is Creator, could He redeem the fallen
creation under the guidelines He had established.
And only as the Creator -- the Author of Life -- could He arise from
the dead of His own accord. Then, as Creator, Judge, and victorious
Redeemer, He alone is worthy to take the throne of the universe and
reign in righteousness.
"Thou are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: For
Thou hast created all things" (Revelation 4:11).
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This "Impact" was converted to ASCII, for BBS use.
Comments regarding typographical errors
in the above material are appreciated.
Don Barber, ICR Systems Administrator
Fax: (619) 448-3469
All ICR staff members adhere to a Statement of Faith
in the form of two documents:
"Tenets of Scientific Creationism"
and "Tenets of Biblical Creationism."
(see Impact No. 85)
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We believe God has raised up ICR to spearhead Biblical Christianity's
defense against the godless dogma of evolutionary humanism. Only by
showing the scientific bankruptcy of evolution, while exalting Christ
and the Bible, will Christians be successful in "the pulling down of
strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that
exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into
captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (II Corinthians
10:4,5).
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