I am officially caught up to where I was over a month ago!
DOCTRINES OF FAITH
Doctrine 16 / 36: Creation versus Evolution
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). The question of whether God created the universe or if it has evolved, is not a question of interpretation of the Bible, but rather, whether the Bible is true or not. Those that reject the fact that God created, reject the fact that the Bible is true.
The Bible teaches that God created this universe out of nothing, by the power of His words. He spoke the worlds into existence before there was any matter (Hebrews 11:3). The Bible teaches that this was done when time began, "in the beginning." In this can be seen the power of God in His ability to create something out of nothing. We see the eternality of God in that He existed "before" time began; He is outside of time and not subject to it. God even gave us the details of how He made the worlds in the first chapter of Genesis. It took Him 6 days to create the world and all that is in it (Exodus 20:11). These are considered 24 hour days in that each of the six days was an "evening and a morning" (Genesis 1:5). During these six days, God created life, as humans and the animals were created on the fifth and sixth days of creation, all of them "after their kind."
The idea of evolution happens when men determine that there is no God. The faith of evolution (and it is a faith, as it is not a theory that can be subjected to the scientific model) is the result of man's refusal to acknowledge that there is a God and that He will judge him one day. The result is a man-made fairy-tale to describe how this universe came into being. And even though there is no proof for evolution, it is easier for a man to live a sinful life if he can get rid of the notion that he will be held accountable for his actions.
The biblical account of creation is completely logical. It assumes an eternal, omnipotent God as the origin. Evolution, on the other hand is illogical. Whereas creation states that God created out of nothing, evolution has no answer for the question "and where did that come from?" Evolution claimed that the universe evolved from an explosion of gases during a "Big Bang." But, about the gases, "where did they come from?" Evolution can not get back to a first beginning. Evolution has to claim that something came from nothing. Some evolutionists would try to assume that "God" must be illogical, as the question could be applied to Him, "Where did God come from?" The answer is in the fact that God is eternal. Science accepts the fact that the universe has a beginning ("Big Bang"), and therefore is not eternal. When evolutionists admit there there is something eternal, they get one step closer to God.
The timing of evolution is also flawed. The theory of evolution says that this universe is billions of years old, and the earth is hundreds of millions of years old. It bases its dates of fossils on what layer of the the geographic layer it is found. However, the geographic layers are dated based upon which fossils are in them. It is a circular reasoning. The Bible teaches that there was a global flood during the days of Noah that did violence to the earth, and this provides satisfactory explanation for different fossils being found in strange places. The other biblical explanation for a world that looks older than it is, is that God created things with appearance of age. That is, when God created Adam, he did not create a day-old baby, but rather a man. The same could be true of the universe.
Evolution also has no answer for the origin of life. For something that is lifeless to bring forth life, is just not something that happens. Science can not explain this, yet it embraces it is fact. One of the major tenants of the theory of evolution, as was explained in Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species," is that should be innumerable examples of fossils showing the transition of the lower life form into the higher life form. However, not only are there not found innumerable examples of these, there has yet to be found even one indisputable example. This is one of the greatest flaws in the theory of evolution.
Some people try to rationalize the world's theories, and mix them with Christianity. They make claims such as, God created, yet He created using the evolutionary process. They do not take literally the first three chapters of Genesis, where God says it was six days, and where Adam and Eve were the first two human beings. Their biggest discrepancy is that they can not put the fossils (dead animals) before the time of Adam. The Bible clearly teaches that "by one man's sin, death entered into the world" (Romans 5:12). If death did not exist before Adam, then there could be no fossils older than him. The Bible teaches that Adam was created about 6,000 years ago, not millions.
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."
I went to see Expelled in the movie theaters Friday night after Home Bible Study, and I think it is a very worthwhile movie. It is not a Christian movie, so don't go with the expectation of such. It is simply a movie that exposes some of the characteristics of some of the more prominent evolutionists.
