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This is Chapter 4, Objections to Progressive Creation, of the outline of a book that I plan to write on Progressive Creation.
Moreover, evolutionists criticise creationism on scientific grounds (e.g. Eldredge, 1982 & 2000; Futuyma, 1983; Gallant, 1975; Godfrey, 1983; Kitcher, 1982; McGowan, 1983; Montagu, 1984; Selkirk & Burrows, 1988; Strahler, 1999; Wilson & Dolphin, 1983; Young, 1985, etc), thereby implicitly admitting that creationism is a rival scientific theory. Indeed, some evolutionists explicitly admit that creationism is a rival scientific theory. For example, Darwin himself mentioneed "creation" (or its cognates) over 109 times as a rival theory in his Origin of Species (Jones, 2002), and in his Descent of Man, Darwin admitted that his primary objective was "to shew that species had not been separately created" and thereby "overthrow the dogma of separate creations" (Darwin, 1871, p.92). Darwin's "bulldog" T.H. Huxley listed "the `special creation' hypothesis", which included "every species to have originated from one or more stocks, these ... arising by natural agencies-but being produced, as such, by a supernatural creative act," as along with "the ... `transmutation' hypothesis" (naturalistic evolution) being the only two kinds of hypotheses that "profess to stand upon a scientific basis, and, as such, alone demand serious attention" (Huxley, 1896, pp.53-54). More recently Dawkins has included "creationism" along with Lamarckism, neutralism and mutationism as "rival theories" to Darwinism (Dawkins, 1986, pp.287, 316-317). [top]
Evolution is Religious Furthermore, evolution itself depends on religious assumptions about what God would, or would not, do. For example, Gould gives as the second of his three strongest arguments in favour of evolution a theological assumption that "a wise creator" would always create creatures with perfect "structures ... starting from scratch ... in each case" and never allow "imperfections" to arise in their subsequent history (Gould, 1983, p.258). Similarly, Gould argued that "a sensible God would never" create an orchid's flower or a panda's thumb from component parts used for other purposes elsewhere (Gould, 1980, pp.20-25; Johnson, 1994, p.17; Hunter, 2003, pp.70-71). Futuyma also (Futuyma. 1983, pp.46,48) relies heavily on this "God would not have done it that way" theological argument (Johnson, 1993, p.70. Cf. Nelson, 1995; Nelson, 1998, Behe, 1997). Religious philosophies underlying evolution include: Gnosticism (Hunter, 2001) and Epicureanism (Wiker, 2002).
Gnosticism The key characteristic of Gnosticism is a radical dualism between God and the universe, that maintains God would not intervene directly in the universe, but only through one or more intermediaries, such as a demiurge, secondary causes, or evolution (Hunter, 2001, pp.149-150). Modern manifestations of Gnostic thinking include: 1) the claim that God created through natural laws and secondary causes, within which He would not subsequently intervene; 2) the belief that one should not look for signs of God's work in nature; and 3) the positing of a radical separation of "religion" and "science." Theistic evolutionist Van Till's claim that God intervening in the universe to create new species at different times is "theologically awkward" and that creation must be "Fully Gifted", with no "discontinuities," in order to "attest to the greatness of the Creator," is an example of modern Gnostic thinking within Christianity (Hunter, 2001, pp.169-170; Van Till, 1999, pp.187-188, 246-247). The claim for a radical dichotomy between "science" and "religion", most prominent of which is Gould's "Principle of NOMA, or Non-Overlapping Magisteria", in which the domain of "science" is "the factual character of the natural world," whereas that of "religion" is the "utterly different, realm of ... meanings, and values" (Gould, 1999, pp.4-6; Gould, 1992, p.94), is an example of modern gnostic thinking within atheistic evolution (Hunter, 2001, p.149). [top]
Nevertheless, Progressive Creation is falsifiable in three main ways. First, Progressive Creation would be falsified if Christianity was falsified. For example, if an authentic first century grave was found in Palestine bearing the inscription: "Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Joseph and Mary", or similar, then I would accept that Christianity was false (1Cor 15:12-20), and therefore so was Progressive Creation. A second way that my theory of Progressive Creation could be falsified if the Bible's teaching of creation and/or my understanding of it, was falsified. For example, if it was shown that the universe never was created but has always existed, or if young-Earth creation was true, and the Earth was created in six literal days only about 10,000 years ago. A third way that Progressive Creation could be falsified is scientifically, if naturalistic evolution better explained the same data. For example, if my claimed best evidence for Progressive Creation, was found to have a better naturalistic explanation, then I would have no alternative but to accept that my theory of Progressive Creation was falsified. This raises an interesting point that Behe (2000) made. Creationist and Intelligent Design theories are actually inherently more falsifiable than comparable naturalistic theories. This is because even one plausible naturalistic explanation will always trump a supernaturalist theory. But the reverse is not the case. Because naturalistic evolutionists, if all else fails, can and do appeal to unknown, and even unknowable naturalistic causes that science has not yet discovered, and indeed may never discover (e.g. Shapiro, 1986, p.130; Behe, 2000), it is naturalistic evolution, which is truly unfalsifiable! [top]
But this list in Leviticus of animals which were not to be eaten was intended to be a
simple and practical guide for the ordinary Israelite in his hunting of wild animals for food, not
to teach modern zoology (Archer, 1982, p.126; Allis, 1970, p.963). In the case of the rabbit in
(Lev 11:6), while it does not actually chew cud as a ruminant like a cow or sheep with a four-
chambered stomach (Hickman, Roberts & Larson, 2000, p.379) it appears to do so by moving
its jaws sideways (Archer, 1982, p.126; Barker, 1985, p.159; Allis, 1970, p.151). As Lev
11:1-6 makes clear, the prohibition was against eating animals with a cloven hoof, and since
all cud-chewing animals had a cloven hoof, the verse is pointing out that rabbits, though they
appear to chew the cud, do not have a cloven hoof (Archer, 1982, p.126). As for the
Bible allegedly teaching that a "bat is a bird" (Lev 11:13-25), in Leviticus the dietarily
unclean animals are classified by domain: "animals that live on land" (Lev 11:2-8); "creatures
living in the water" (Lev 11:9-12); air animals, including "birds" (Lev 11:13-19); bats (Lev
11:19); "flying insects (Lev 11:20-11:23). So Lev 11:19 is not including the bat among the
birds, but placing it after the birds and before the flying insects. This shows that
writer of Leviticus was aware that a bat is not a bird! The allegation that the Bible
teaches in Lev 11:20-23 that "insects have four legs" is similarly false. It is clear from
the permitted insects in Lev 11:22 the "locust, katydid [bush-cricket], cricket or grasshopper"
that the writer is referring to those flying insects that have two large hindlegs for jumping
leaving four legs for walking (Allis, 1970, p.151; Barker, 1985, p.159; Ragge, 1977,
pp.4:294,296)
Critics are fond of claiming that the Bible teaches that PI (p) is equal to 3 because in 1Ki 7:23 and 2Chr 4:2 it says of a "Sea [basin] of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim" that "It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it" (Dalton, 1999). Thus Plimer claims that "Either the Bible is wrong and that PI is equal to 3.14159 or that the biblical PI is only approximate. Accordingly the Bible must be in error" (Plimer, 1994, pp.17-18). But Plimer's argument is fallacious on at least two counts. First, PI is not "equal to 3.14159," since the latter is also an approximation. PI is in fact a transcendental number that by 1988 had been determined to 201 million decimal places (Borowski & Borwein, 1989, p.448)! Second, the Bible says nothing about PI. The Bible is simply using round figures the same way that most people, and even experts, use in everyday life (Archer, 1982, p.198-199; Geisler, 1999, p.79), and 3 is the value of PI to the first significant figure (Harris, 1969, pp.30-31). Interestingly, by taking into account 1Ki 7:26 which it says: "It was a handbreadth in thickness", and assuming that a cubit measured 18 inches (45.7 cm) and a handbreadth 3 inches (7.6 cm), the inner diameter of the bowl would be 174 inches (442 cm), and the inner circumference would be 540 inches (442 cm), which yields a value for PI of 540/174 or 3.10, which is only about a 1% error from the typical value for PI of 3.14! (Peil, 1999). Since this was a bronze casting, the inner circumference would be the outer circumference of the mould. There is even one set of measurements, a cubit of 17.75 inches (45.1 cm) and a handbreadth of 4 inches (10.2 cm), that with an outer diameter of ten cubits and an inner circumference of thirty cubits, yields a ratio of 355/113 (O'Connor & Robertson, 2001) or 3.14159! Using the standard Hebrew cubit of 17.5 inches (44.5 cm) (Wiseman & Wheaton, 1962, p.1321; Myers, 1987, p.247. Cf. Unger, 1966, p.720; Davis, 1924, p.287), and the handbreadth of 2.9 inches (7.4 cm) (Wiseman & Wheaton, 1962, p.1322; Myers, 1987, p.460. Cf. Unger, 1966, p.720; Davis, 1924, p.287), in this calculation still yields a PI of 3.10.
In general the Bible is a book for all peoples of all ages, so its reference to nature must necessarily be the ordinary popular language of appearances that even a scientist reverts to when speaking with non-scientists (Ramm, 1955, p.46; Strong, 1907, p.223). As Calvin noted in his commentary on "firmament" in Genesis 1:6, "For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere" (Calvin, 1554, p.79; Ramm, 1955, pp.65-66; Carnell, 1959, p.93; Poythress, 1999, p.91). However, it is a mistake to dismiss the Bible's statements about nature as unscientific and false, merely because they lack the modern scientific form of systematic arrangement, because this is true of its theological and ethical content also (Henry, 1957, p.267). Indeed, the Bible's use of popular or common language, rather than a technical scientific vocabulary, confers a permanent and universal intelligibility upon its words (Henry, 1957, p.267; Johnson, 1987, p.8). [top]
"What kind of God can one infer from the sort of phenomena epitomized by the species on Darwin's Galapagos Islands? The evolutionary process is rife with happenstance, contingency, incredible waste. death, pain and horror. Millions of sperm and ova are produced that never unite to form a zygote. Of the millions of zygotes that are produced, only a few ever reach maturity. On current estimates, 95 per cent of the DNA that an organism contains has no function. Certain organic systems are marvels of engineering; others are little more than contraptions. When the eggs that cuckoos lay in the nests of other birds hatch, the cuckoo chick proceeds to push the eggs of its foster parents out of the nest. The queens of a particular species of parasitic ant have only one remarkable adaptation, a serrated appendage which they use to saw off the head of the host queen. To quote Darwin, `I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.' Whatever the God implied by evolutionary theory and the data of natural history may be like, He is not the Protestant God of waste not, want not. He is also not a loving God who cares about His productions. He is not even the awful God portrayed in the book of Job. The God of the Galapagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent, almost diabolical. He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone would be inclined to pray." (Hull, 1991).Leaving aside the fact that Darwinian evolution which is supposed to be a purely scientific theory, relies on theological arguments about what the Darwinists, the vast majority of whom are atheists/agnostics (Larson & Witham, 1998, 1999), think God would, or would not, have done (Johnson, 1992, 1994), some evolutionists themselves have, both wittingly and unwittingly, suggested reasons why God would allow evil. For example, the non-Christian physicist Freeman Dyson hypothesises "that the universe is constructed according to a principle of maximum diversity. ... that the laws of nature and the initial conditions are such as to make the universe as interesting as possible" and "As a result, life is possible but not too easy. ... Not all challenges can be overcome, and so we have tragedy. .... In the end we survive, but only by the skin of our teeth." (Dyson, 1988, p.298). Similarly, Gould, in admitting that evolutionary theory cannot answer "the question of the ages-why do humans exist?" concedes that "We ... must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes ... and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way." (Gould, 1989, p.323. My emphasis). Gould here unwittingly affirms what Christian philosophers and theologians call the "free will defense" to the problem of evil (Plantinga, 1974, pp.29-34; Clark, 1993, p.13)! [top]
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Created: 8 August, 2003: 5 June, 2005.