Blog

by Steve Risner

For the last two weeks, I’ve been talking about a meme a theistic evolutionist I’ve interacted with online was trying to speak out against. He initially claimed that being “anti-evolutionary” was akin to apostasy. This, of course, after my initial reaction of hilarity, is a sad to me and dull statement that has no connection to reality if we are supposed to think this person is a Christian. Apostasy means someone has abandoned a well-accepted and traditionally held religious belief. Perhaps this person thinks the Apostles and early Church Fathers were evolutionists and believed in the Big Bang, but I’m pretty sure that’s not true. The overwhelmingly held and traditional view on creation and the book of Genesis was that of its historical accuracy as a narrative on what actually took place. There is literally no room at all in the Bible for deep time or the Big Bang or abiogenesis and universal common descent. None. In my last post, I considered that this believer may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing like Christ talked about in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. I believe he should reject the humanism he seems so strongly to want to push on us and come out from among the unbelievers he so desperately wants to hold hands with while he bashes well-established Christian doctrine and those who adhere to it.

This all started with a meme. I’m not sure if the meme pictured here is the correct meme, but I suspect it was very close to this. He broke one of my personal rules: never argue with a meme. But that’s okay; it makes for good content when someone does.

What’s equally tragic here is he falls prey to the old canard that if you say something he disagrees with, you’re a liar and you’re sinning. This, of course, makes no sense even to a child. He tries to suggest that someone saying what this meme says is lying and bearing false witness in the name of Christ. What an absurdity. If I say Tom Brady is the GOAT (greatest of all time) quarterback and he disagrees, he would necessarily have to call me a liar rather than just accept my take on the information as different from his own but equal in standing. Of course, no evolutionist (theistic or otherwise) would ever even consider saying that creation and the Bible have any standing on the matter of origins, or that either could have anything about origins correct from a scientific standpoint. But it’s not because of merit. It’s because that would topple universal common descent because it’s such a naïve and impossible origins tale. Giving anything equal footing would undermine it very quickly. In fact, it stands contrary to so much we know scientifically it’s amazing it’s held up so long.

I believe the reason for that is a simple one, however: they cannot allow a divine foot in the door, according to Dr. Richard Lewontin (not a creationist by any means). In fact, Dr. Lewontin said this: “It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

In other words, even if it’s crazy and makes no sense, even if it’s naïve and only something children would accept, even if it defies all logic and reason and literally stands opposed to what we know with near certainty in science, we must stick with materialism and naturalism because the only other alternative is God and the supernatural. Don’t tell me there’s no bias in science. Some, like Dr. Lewontin, are honest enough to admit it.

As I stated 2 weeks ago in the first part of this series, 2 Corinthians 6 starting with verse 14 tells us that mixing with the world does not produce righteousness or truth. It is a bad idea every time. Theistic evolutionists and most old earth creationists want to take bits and pieces of the Bible but hold their so-called “science” at a much higher level of authority. They will stand on the humanist fundamentalist interpretation of nature and smother the Truth found in Scripture with it, choking it until the story they tell about origins has no resemblance at all to that found in the Bible. They try (very unsuccessfully) to incorporate Genesis (for TE’s it’s very little and for OEC’s a little more) into their science fiction. They believe this makes them some sort of intellectually superior Christian when, in reality, it frequently makes them wishy-washy Christians who stand opposed to the very clearly stated narrative found in the Bible.

There is no doubt the Bible teaches us that God created the heavens and the earth in 6 literal, 24-hour days. There is no question it says this. The first chapter of the Bible goes into detail about it. The second chapter specifically tells about man’s creation. From there we see the corruption of man and all of creation and finally, in Genesis 6-8 we see the judgement of God on man and his sinful state as a whole (you can read about that here, here, here, here, and here as well as here, here, here, and here). After the Flood, the Bible clearly informs us about the Tower of Babel (read more here, here, and in this post series) and the Table of Nations, which explains the origins of all people groups in the world. There is no doubt what the Bible intends to tell us with these passages of Scripture. Theistic evolutionists and many old earth creationists reject all of these things. The entire Bible is built on these opening chapters, and they reject them completely.

There is no question that the Bible is uniform in its teachings on creation. Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 both tell us that God made everything—the sea, the earth, the heavens, and everything that’s in them in 6 days, and He rested on the seventh. If you just use the Bible, there is no way to come up with a different narrative. None at all. We know that the Flood, which could help account for the geography and topography of the earth as well as the many sedimentary layers we find all over the globe, was global because of the reading of Genesis 6-8. The totality and universality of the language in these chapters leaves no doubt the intended message was to convey a complete flooding of the entire world, killing every land animal on earth and all humans except those found on the Ark.

As a Biblical creationist, I hold a Biblical worldview and believe the origins narrative in Scripture is accurate and true. I accept it first and then look at the data. This, in my opinion, is what every believer should do. This is not just applicable to origins but to everything we encounter in the world around us. The Bible should always be our stating point, not something we manipulate and cram into the current trends of society. If we approach the Bible as though it must bow to the currently popular but ever-changing interpretation of fallen man about the corrupted creation he is observing, we will lose every time.

I’ve said enough this week. Next time, we’ll look at this theistic evolutionist’s response to a few points of the meme. It’ll be fun.

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