Origins

THE QUESTION OF ORIGINS: How Do the Various Models Compare or Who's Been Monkeying with the Family Tree?

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Dr. Paul Manuel—2000

Until the twentieth century, most of Christianity, indeed, most of western civilization attributed the world in which we live to the creative act of God. The popularization of Darwin's theory of evolution and its adoption by scientific and academic communities radically changed that perception. The prevailing opinion in society today is that all higher life forms developed from lower life forms without any involvement from God. This fundamental shift in our collective view of how it all began presents a dilemma for Christians.

• They want to believe the biblical account of creation but do not know how to square what scripture says with what science teaches.
• They want to communicate their faith but do not know how to answer the objection that, right from the beginning, science disproves the Bible.

How should we answer The Question of Origins, and does science contradict the Bible on this issue? We will examine four models, each of which appears at a different place on a continuum of Options for the Question of Origins, views that treat the biblical account of Genesis in various ways. Let us begin by reading that account (Gen 1:1-2:3).

Options for the Question of Origins

Fiat Creationism	Progressive Creationism	Theistic Evolution	Secular Evolution
Gen 1 is actual.	Gen 1 is abridged.	Gen 1 is mythical.	Gen 1 is false.

At one end of the continuum, is the biblical model familiar to most people...

I. Fiat (young earth) creationism¹

A. Presuppositions

1. System: We live in an open universe that includes natural and supernatural forces.
2. God: The supreme being is author and sustainer of all things.
3. Bible: The scripture is a fully reliable source of information about the origins of life.
4. Origins: The biblical account of the beginning is actual (in real time).²

B. Premises

1. Cause: God created everything in six literal and consecutive days.
2. Process: Each species is distinct and separate (reproducing "after its own kind").
3. Fall: Adam's sin introduced physical death for all.
4. Flood: The deluge was global and accounts for most of the fossil record.

C. Problems

1. Astronomical: It fails to explain why the light from distant stars (e.g., Andromeda galaxy) required millions of years to reach earth (Newman in Moreland 1999:108).
2. Geological: It fails to explain why the fossil record shows different types of sedimentary layers (e.g., from shells, from soil, from evaporation) deposited under different conditions (Bradley in Moreland 1999:77) and during different periods (Newman in ibid., P. 111).³
3. Methodological: It justifies the universe's extreme antiquity by asserting that it merely has the appearance of age.

The way Fiat Creationists deal with the extreme antiquity of the universe, which abundant scientific evidence seems to support, is by asserting that God created the universe with the appearance of age. Adam, for example, would have had a naval despite the fact that he was not born (and, therefore, had no umbilical cord). Unfortunately, while this "solution" may resolve one problem, it raises more difficult ones, not the least of which is why God would use such a deceptive or, at least, misleading method (see Moreland 1999:86-87).⁴

At the opposite end of the continuum, is the secular model familiar to most people and its religious counterpart. Because these appeal almost exclusively to the findings of science, it will be helpful to review the task of science before we look at those models,. Despite the aura of authority the scientific community projects, the scientific process is not open-ended. There are limits to what we can realistically expect when attempting to answer the question: What can science discover?

Authentic science is a way of knowing based upon testable descriptions of the world obtained through the human interpretation in natural categories of publicly observable and reproducible sense data, obtained by interaction with the natural world. To say that something is scientific is not to say that it is absolutely true, but only that its description fits these criteria; to say that something is not scientific is not necessarily to say that it is false, but only that such insight and knowledge comes via other routes than the scientific one. (Bube in Moreland 1999:253)

This definition applies more readily to the physical sciences (e.g., astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, physics) than to the social sciences (e.g., medicine, psychology), which often include human opinions in their research. Regardless of the specific discipline, science does not, indeed, it cannot explain everything. With that limitation in mind, let us look at other options for the question of origins, beginning at the other end of the continuum.

II. Secular evolution

A. Presuppositions

1. System: We live in a closed universe that includes only natural forces.
2. God: There is no supreme being.
3. Bible: The scripture is an unreliable source of information about the origins of life.
4. Origins: The biblical account of the beginning is false.

B. Premises

1. Cause: The universe is the product of undirected time and chance.
2. Process: Higher life forms developed from lower life forms.
3. Fall: Adam was a fictional character; (physical) death was always present.
4. Flood: There was no deluge; the fossil record developed over time.

C. Problems

1. Methodological: It espouses naturalism as a worldview that claims an ability to explain the cosmos (apart from any reference to God).⁵
2. Geological: It fails to account for pervasive discontinuity in the fossil record (i.e., the absence of intra-species transitional forms).⁶
3. Statistical: It makes the mathematically unlikely assertion that the delicate balance necessary to sustain life and the complexity of life itself arose by accident.⁷
4. Ethical: It reduces the notions of right and wrong to subjective opinion, effectively eliminating personal responsibility. 
5. Theological: It denies the existence and involvement of God.

Some Christians, accepting the validity of evolution, yet not being comfortable excluding God from the process, have attempted to harmonize the biblical account with secular evolution. The result has been...

III. Theistic evolution

A. Presuppositions

1. System: We live in a closed universe that includes only natural forces.
2. God: There is a supreme being, but He does not interfere in the natural process.
3. Bible: The scripture is a partially reliable source of information about the origins of life.
4. Origins: The biblical account of the beginning is mythical.

B. Premises

1. Cause: God created the raw material and let nature take its course (deism).
2. Process: Higher life forms developed from lower life forms.
3. Fall: Adam was a fictional character; (physical) death was always present.
4. Flood: There was no deluge; the fossil record developed over time.

C. Problems

1. See 1-3 in the problems of Secular Evolution.
2. Theological: It limits God's involvement in the world to so-called redemptive acts (e.g., resurrection of Jesus), and it denies God's continued work in sustaining what He has made.⁸

Evolution is about change, how differences develop on two main levels (Special Theory and General Theory), only one of which has strong support (Thurmon 1978:41).

• The first level of change is called microevolution (small change).

• This is the "variation among different populations of the same species," such as racial differences, animal breeds, and varieties of plants.⁹
• There is abundant, observable evidence for this kind of change and no conflict with scripture.

• The second level of change is called macroevolution (large change).

• This is the "divergence of populations [to] form different species," such as reptiles becoming mammals.
• There is little evidence for this kind of change, most of which is indirect, and it is this point which conflicts with scripture.¹⁰

The fossil record, for example, preserves the remains of many creatures now extinct (e.g., dinosaurs, which probably perished before the flood), but it contains few remains that prove a transition from one species to another. This is most pronounced in the Cambrian explosion (570 million years ago), when all the major body plans for animals appeared in the fossil record at the same time—a pattern inconsistent with Darwinian gradualism" (emphasis added; Pearcey 2000:44).

Unfortunately, proponents of evolution do not generally make the distinction between micro and macroevolution. A case in point is

...the variation in beak size among finches on the Galapagos Islands. A recent study found that during a drought, the larger birds survived better and thus the average beak size increased slightly. Evolution in action? Not exactly. When the rains came back, beak sizes returned to normal. All that the researchers discovered was a cyclical variation that allows finches to survive under changing conditions. They found no evidence of novel structures arising. Yet in a serious distortion of the evidence, a 1998 NAS booklet (Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science) describes the increase in beak size without mentioning the return to normal size. (Pearcey 2000:45)

Even the assumed evolutionary progress of man has recently come into question. A new study of Neanderthal DNA suggests that the genetic code of prehistoric (cave) man may not be linked to modern man. In other words, Adam's descendants actually may be an unrelated species (Chang 2000)¹¹

The difference in evidence means that we can speak of microevolution as fact but must refer to macroevolution as theory (perhaps even only hypothesis).¹² This is an important distinction, because it means that scripture and science—the facts of science—do not conflict. It is only in the realm of speculation where there is a real difference of opinion. Questions of origins are actually nonscientific¹³ because they are not subject to repeatable observation and experimental verification (testing). The best science can predict is how things may have happened. This could be the most telling charge against evolution (of either variety) that it uses the evidence of microevolution (which is verifiable) to justify macroevolution (which is unverifiable).

Toward the middle of the continuum, is a model that attempts to reconcile what scripture actually says and what science actually supports.

IV. Progressive (old earth) creationism

A. Presuppositions

1. System: We live in an open universe that includes natural and supernatural forces.
2. God: The supreme being is author and sustainer of all things.
3. Bible: The scripture is a fully reliable source of information about the origins of life.
4. Origins: The biblical account of the beginning is abridged (in compressed time).

B. Premises

1. Cause: God performed several (fiat/discrete) creative acts over millions of years.
2. Process: Each species is distinct and separate (reproducing "after its own kind").
3. Fall: Adam's sin introduced spiritual death for man; physical death already existed.¹⁴
4. Flood: The deluge was local and accounts only for some of the fossil record.¹⁵

C. Problems

• N/a¹⁶

There are three versions of the Progressive Creationism view, each of which understands the days of Gen 1 in a different fashion.

• The day-age view holds that each "day" represents a geological age.
• The intermittent-day view holds to literal days separated by geological ages.
• The framework (or concordist) view holds that the "days" are literary devices rather than chronological indices.

The first and third variations both treat "day" figuratively, as a series of extended periods. According to proponents, we are now in day six, the age of man, and day seven, when God rests, is yet future. What is the problem with this scenario?

One reason God gives the Israelites that they should keep the Sabbath is to follow His example in the past, because He "rested on the seventh day" (Exod 20:11; Gen 2:2).¹⁷

The second version does not have this problem, and Robert Newman, professor of New Testament at Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, PA, reconstructs the process in Gen 1 (Moreland 1999:107-108).

Apparently, the narrative is presented so that we readers are observing the events of creation as they unfold around us, as though we are at ground level (once the planet has been formed), rather than imagining we are watching everything from some vantage point out in space. The story goes like this: The earth (with the sun and other planets) was once a shapeless, empty gas cloud. As it contracted under its own gravity, it became dark within (and so to the reader, dark everywhere around). Then the whole cloud began to glow (the observer sees light everywhere). The planetary material was pushed out of the Cloud and formed up into a rotating planet, with day on the sun side and night on the other side (the observer sees light separated from darkness, the light called "day" and the darkness "night"). The earth's atmosphere was produced from within the planet, separating its waters into surface and atmospheric; the plates making up the crust moved about to open up ocean basins and provide dry land. Plant life appeared and removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, lowering earth's temperature, providing oxygen for animal life, and clearing the sky so that the sun, moon, and stars became visible to the observer on the earth's surface. The various forms of animal life appeared on the earth. Finally, human beings were created.

The intermittent-day view may be the most likely answer to the question of origins, at least the answer that deals with a majority of the data.

What is the attraction of evolution that makes proponents so vehemently opposed to alternative theories which attribute first cause to God? Why do they embrace this theory (actually, just a hypothesis) with a certainty that goes beyond what the evidence for it warrants? J.P. Moreland, a professor of philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology, offers two reasons (1999:87-89):

• The assumed "authority of science, coupled with the belief that...creationism is religion not science, means that evolution is the only view of origins that can claim the backing of reason."
• Evolution is an explanation for secularists "of who we are and how we got here that serves as a guide for life."

For those who have declared religion to be irrational and who have made evolution the very reason for their existence, any alternative, especially if it involves God, would be unthinkable, because it would require a radical (and destructive) revision of their world view.

In the bibliology unit of A Reader's Digest Approach to Theology study (Manuel 2013), we noted two kinds of revelation: the general revelation of God we find in nature and the special revelation of God we find in scripture. Science and theology offer parallel and complementary methods for studying both kinds of revelation. Those who hold to evolution (theistic or secular), however, advocate an inseparable divide between the two disciplines.¹⁸ To avoid any conflict of interest or undue influence, science investigates the natural realm, and theology investigates the supernatural realm. Nevertheless, if God is the author of both realms, as we believe He is, there should be no conflict in the results of the two investigative methods, and any conflict that does arise is likely due to our own inadequate treatment of the facts.¹⁹ In other words, when someone who looks only at the scientific branch of revelation asserts that evolution proves the Bible is false, it is appropriate to ask, "What proves that evolution is true?" Likewise, it is important for someone who looks primarily at the theological branch of revelation to refrain from asserting more than what the Bible clearly supports. If God is the author of both realms, there should be no conflict in the results of those two investigative methods (no fictitious history on either side). Moreover, if God is the author of both realms, there should be some overlap in the results of those two investigative methods (especially if the natural derived from the supernatural). Science should inform our understanding of God (e.g., the age of His creation), and theology should inform our understanding of the world (e.g., the moral responsibility of man).

So, where do we go from here? How can we answer the proponents of evolution, who claim that the universe came into being all by itself? One of the most productive responses is from something called Intelligent Design. Uniting young earth and old earth advocates, this movement counters the assertion that only natural forces explain what we observe by appealing instead to the evidence that someone has directed those forces to produce what we observe.²⁰

In cosmology, the so-called anthropic principle tells us the universe itself is finely tuned to support life. "Imagine a universe-creating machine...with thousands of dials representing the gravitational constant, the charge on the electron, the mass of the proton, and so on. Each dial has many possible settings, and what you discover is that even the slightest change [in the current setting] would make a universe where life is impossible." Yet, strangely, each dial is set to the exact value needed to keep the universe running. Astronomer Fred Hoyle, though an atheist, states the implication bluntly: "A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics." (Pearcey 2000:47)

There is a similar appreciation by many in biology. "It is universally recognized by origin-of-life researchers that the formation of the simplest living cell under realistic, early-earth conditions seems almost impossible to imagine" (Bradley in Moreland 1999:219).

As with many such issues, it is easier to adopt an extreme position (at either end of the continuum) than it is to wrestle with ambiguity. Fiat Creationism's answer to the apparent age of the universe—that God created it to look old—is too facile and pat a response to the empirical evidence. Evolution's answer (both the theistic and secular versions) to the apparent order of the universe—that it came together by chance— demands at least as much faith as does belief that God did it.

The Bible does not answer the question of origins in the detailed way we might wish. There are uncertainties, gray areas, and gaps that caution against our adopting any of these positions dogmatically. Nevertheless, while we do not know everything, the little we do know is of far greater value in understanding our world than the much we do not know. In other words, while we do not have exhaustive knowledge to settle the matter, we do have sufficient knowledge to formulate a tentative view of origins that does justice to the evidence, both physical and biblical.²¹

I mentioned before that science cannot explain everything. Theology is, likewise, limited. Although the scriptures state many things in unambiguous terms, other matters are either not as clear or not addressed. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect more from science or from theology than they can reasonably deliver. The question of origins may be one such subject about which we should strive to find an answer but recognize that it may not be (in the words of Regis Philbin on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?") our "final answer."²²

For the Bibliography and Endnotes, see the pdf here.