Blog

by Steve Risner

[This blog post is part of a series. The previous post is here, and the next post is here.]

This is hopefully the last week we will be covering the introduction to godofevolution's blog post called “10 theological question no young-earth creationist can answer.” We will be getting to those questions soon! “Ray Comfort explains why true Christians can’t believe in evolution or the water cycle” is our required reading for the day. This week, not surprisingly, is another attack on a Christian who stands for the truth of the Bible. Although Ken Ham is mentioned in this blog post by Tyler, he is not the subject, which may shock many of you. I was a little surprised. The subject of Tyler’s mockery is Ray Comfort. Ray has done some great work for the Kingdom. He’s probably also done some fairly poor work as we all have, I’m sure. His goal, however, is to spread the Good News. He’s produced movies that he’s offered for free viewing on the internet, so money is obviously not his motivation. But let’s not waste anymore space here. I want this to be a single post rather than a series.

I want to start by noting a few hilarious comments Tyler makes about his own conduct. He claims he doesn’t spend time on the Facebook pages of Ken Ham or Ray Comfort—he avoids them because they’re childish. What’s interesting here is he’s constantly commenting about Ken Ham and, to a lesser degree Ray Comfort, so he must be spending a fair amount of time stalking these two. We’ll see later on who the childish person is once we see Tyler’s remarks.

He also calls his belief a “fringe view that Christianity and evolution need not be mutually exclusive.” I found this an interesting statement since many theistic evolutionists I’ve encountered love quoting numbers to say they’re in a vast majority of Christians who accept the truth of the Bible, so-called, and the truth of Darwinism. I’m not sure if Tyler has claimed this, but many like him have. I personally don’t believe such statistics are easy to come by with any degree of conclusive determination, regardless of who is or is not a majority. I’ll leave it at that.

Tyler then mocks Ray Comfort’s belief that a Christian should not accept the shaky belief system we call evolution. He says, as a result of his belief in evolution, “then I’m basically an atheist.” Now, let’s keep in mind, I did not say he’s an atheist. However, it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish between Tyler’s words and beliefs when compared to those of an atheist. In fact, Tyler links to comments made by an atheist, PZ Myers, and supports his word over Ray Comfort’s. Holding hands with atheists to attack Bible-believing Christians is never the right thing to do. Meyers claims he was selectively edited and that what was left out was his educating Mr. Comfort on why evolution is true. Since we know that evolution from a single common ancestor is nothing more than a belief system founded in humanism, it’s hard to believe a scientist could defend a religious belief like Darwinism against the Bible. But the point remains: joining forces with atheists to undermine Biblical teaching is foolish for anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ, regardless of your particular position on a topic.

Something Comfort said that seemed particularly offensive to Tyler was, “A Christian who believes in evolution is like an atheist who believes in God.” You can’t hold two opposing views at the same time—the law of noncontradiction. Darwinian evolution and Biblical creation are opposing views. It’s two beliefs that are mutually exclusive, as many Christians and evolutionists will plainly tell you. Of course, the rescuing device for Tyler is to suggest God really didn’t mean what was written at least in the first 11 chapters of Genesis anyway. He tries to connect this issue to a Christian believing in the water cycle (but I believe he insinuates you can apply it to any scientific idea—which of course excludes Darwinian evolution). He very inaccurately says the Biblical position is that, “Precipitation comes from God alone, not some messy, unguided process of ‘evaporation’ and ‘condensation.’” The desperation in his claims is approaching embarrassment. Come on, Tyler. You can’t think creationists believe this. In a response to Ray Comfort on his Facebook page (which he said he doesn’t go to), Tyler doctors up a post and provides an image for us to view. He makes childish statements like “Jesus spoke English?” and actually stated “Your mom...” but believes Ray and Ken Ham are the childish ones here. I enjoy irony like the next guy, but this is almost a little too much. But anyway, let’s break down what the water cycle is, how it’s actually described in the Bible (long before science caught up), and why Tyler seems to be out of his mind here.

The water cycle is a description of how water is distributed across the planet in a cyclic fashion as it evaporates, is carried to a location as vapor, condenses as precipitation falling to the ground, only to start the process over again.

This cycle is the planet’s washing machine—removing dust from the atmosphere and flushing streams and rivers clean. It’s also necessary to all aspects of life as it provides water and nutrients around the globe. I’m sure we’re all aware of the importance of water for life. So what does the Bible say, if anything, about the water cycle?

You can look into the history of the water cycle, who talked about it when and how it developed over time. I’ll not bore you with that and take up a lot of space in the process. But the Bible actually does talk about this process rather remarkably. The book of Job mentions quite a bit of what we today call the water cycle. Contrary to natural philosophers and scientists much later than Job, this book provides a reasonable description of the concepts that outline the water cycle.

Job 26:8, “He wraps up the waters in His clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.”
Job 36:27-28, “For He draws up the drops of water,they distill rain from the mist which the clouds pour down. They drop abundantly upon mankind.”
Job 38:33-34, “Do you know the ordinances of the heavens or can you establish their rule over the earth? Can you lift up your voice to the clouds so that an abundance of water will cover you?”
Job 38:37, “Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?”
Job 28:26, “... when He made a decree for the rain and a path for the thunderstorm.”

These passages were not intended to give us scientific descriptions of something, but God uses the water cycle to demonstrate that He does not deal with us by chance. Just as nature is bound by a set of laws, so is God’s Kingdom bound by laws. It was to show us God’s in charge, not us. Notice how in Job 38 God specifically claims that there are laws that govern the universe and that man has nothing to do with them. God created them in the beginning. That’s awesome if we consider how profound, at the time of the writing of Job, these statements were! From earliest known non-biblical writing about the water cycle until it was supported by evidence was over 2000 years! Yet the Bible made mention of this long before. The books of Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah also mention various parts of this cycle as well. It’s not contrary to the Bible to understand that scientific principles which God ordained are governing the universe including the water cycle.

Tyler makes one statement that truly grieves me because it shows the shallowness of his understanding of the Bible, his Savior, and the discussion at hand. He says, “What is so wrong with thinking that the same God who uses a natural process to send the rain upon the earth, would also use a natural process when he filled this planet with life?” The answer is: there are too many reasons to get into in this blog post but let me touch on a few. 1) Almighty God, who created the heavens and earth and all that’s in them, has the ability to create out of nothing everything we know of. He said that’s exactly what He did, which is contrary to theistic evolution’s version of the story. 2) There is literally no known natural process that Tyler could be referencing here—none. There is nothing in nature that can account for the origin of life or its amazing diversification. I can’t stress that enough—there is NOTHING natural about Darwinian evolution, i.e. evolution from a single common ancestor. 3) The story of Redemption is intimately connected to our understanding of creation and sin and death as described in Genesis. However, the water cycle has nothing to do with any of this and is not contrary to God’s Word. So you can accept science and be a Christian, but you really can’t continue to accept evolution’s tale as you journey down this path we call the Christian life.

When you study the Word of God and truly explore its depths, you find amazing truths like those we discussed today and so many others. I’ve rarely seen Tyler reference Scripture unless he’s misapplying it to mock those who believe the Bible. That’s unfortunate. I just got back from a conference that was dedicated to equipping people to go out and fight the fight for Biblical Christianity against secular humanism. We spent the majority of our time just discussing the Word of God. Would a theistic evolutionist’s conference focus so much on the Word of their Creator? I don’t know, but I suspect the time spent on His Word would be short. I admit I could be wrong, but if they study His Word, they seem to have poor memories. Question #1 next week!

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