The Darwinian Worldview and the Creation Worldview

This morning I was teaching eighth graders about the implications of the idea of evolution. I showed them this Powerpoint slide:

Sadly, there was an example of the Darwinian worldview in the news today. The father of a child born with birth defects in Toledo, Ohio posted signs about a fund raiser for his four-month-old child. But someone posted three additional signs next to his that read: "Stop asking for money. Let the baby die. It's called Darwinism. Happy Holidays." You can read more about it below.

Let the baby die' signs target Ohio family with sick infant: report

As I said in a sermon this year: "If all we are is matter, then nothing really matters." (Text  Audio   Video) 

Quantum Mechanics, Creation, & God

The book "Quantum" by Manjit Kumar weaves together both the discoveries and theories of Quantum Mechanics along with the personal and spiritual lives of the physicists involved. 

QM began with Max Planck's discovery in 1900 that the relationship between heat and the frequency of light generated by a heated body is not a smooth line on a graph. Rather, when Planck examined the most minute increases of heat, he found the light freqency would hold steady and then suddenly jump. 

The personal story behind this is fascinating. Planck was the last person you'd expect to make this discovery. He was told when he wanted to major in physics that almost everything had been discovered in this field. The job of a physicist was simply to extend the decimal places on all the known constants. But this kind of science suited the conservative and methodical Planck. Little did anyone know that he would blow the roof off classical mechanics. 

In classical mechanics we understand the physical world through cause and effect. Strike a baseball with a bat, and we can predict where it will go and how far, etc. Yet in the atomic and subatomic world we have discovered effects that just don't make sense. Light shining on a photo cell produces an electrical current giving us the impression that light is a particle. Light shining through two slits creates wave patterns showing that it is a wave. Fire a single electron at two slits and things get really weird. It seems as though the electron passes through both slits and apparently is capable of ending up in several different places that only God knows and why.

That last statement is what this book is really about. Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg took these discoveries and emphasized the randomness and unpredictability of the physical world. Albert Einstein and Erwin Schroedinger felt that this was not a complete understanding of the weird effects of QM. The author mentions a number of times Einstein's famous dictum: "God does not play dice." When Bohr died, the last drawing on his blackboard was that of Einstein's Light Box mind experiment which challenged the idea that the physical world is ultimately random. 

QM just boggles the mind, which is why I appreciate Richard Feynman, who said no one understands it. 

However I think QM is important because it points to the realty of things that the Bible teaches such as creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) or that things are not always what they appear to be! 

The author doesn't really go into the spiritual beliefs of Max Planck, but I hope to learn more about that. Here is a quote by Planck about science and religion:

While both religion and natural science require a belief in God for their activities, to the former He is the starting point, to the latter the goal of every thought process….No matter where and how far we look, nowhere do we find a contradiction between religion and natural science. 
(Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, 1949, p. 184; pp. 185-186.)

Loving Nature - St. Boniface

     The creation of God is very important to us. In the Catechism we remember:  “God has made me and all creatures. He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears and all my members, my reason and all my senses and still preserves them. He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life...

     In a number of places, as in Psalm 148, the Bible says that the creation itself praises the Creator. The creation is the handiwork of God and shows us His wisdom and power (Psalm 19).  Jesus showed a great appreciation for nature. Many of His teachings were given in the lecture halls of grass, sea, hills, and sky. He prayed in the fields and in the gardens.

     But people have always been tempted to fall in love with the creation and to look upon it as god. Paul warned about this problem in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans when he said there are those who “exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (Romans 1.25). Moses warned to “take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage” (Deuteronomy 4.19). 

     On June 5th the church remembered St. Boniface, who was the first missionary to the Germanic people. They worshiped nature gods such as Woden (from which we still get the name “Wednesday”) and Donar (the German version of Thor). These gods were worshiped with sacred trees and sacrifices of both animals and humans. One of the most significant acts of Boniface was to chop down the sacred Oak of Donar. When the god did not strike him down, the people were amazed and converted to Christianity.  Since then many barbarians who worshiped nature gods were converted to Christianity.*

     However, today many people are reverting.  First they turn away from the belief that God is the Creator of the universe to the idea that the universe created itself. Then they conclude that the universe, the creation itself, is god.  (This was the view of the philosopher Spinoza.) The tragedy of this is that the universe, as beautiful as it may be in many respects, gives us no moral guidance or forgiveness of sins for that matter. Nature may be beautiful one minute, but it can be “red in tooth and claw” the next (In Memoriam, Alfred Lord Tennyson). Richard Dawkins uses this phrase in his book The Selfish Gene as he explains that selfishness is simply the reality of life. Selfishness is the only law that that the nature god teaches just as St. Paul warned.

     It is important that we worship the Creator rather than the creation. This is because the creation is flawed, broken, and fallen. To worship the creation is to worship death and destruction, meaninglessness and emptiness. But the God who created all things to be very good is also the God who can renew the goodness of creation. He sent His Son into this world to remove sin and all its effects.  This is why the Apostle Paul also said in Romans chapter eight that “… the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (8.21).  So, just as we are forgiven of our sins by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, so, in God’s greater plan of salvation, the creation will also be delivered from its present corruption.

     So, the best thing anyone can do for this creation is to confess our sins to the Creator and believe in the Savior.  With sin thus removed and restrained we can acknowledge the Creator and serve Him in His creation. Amen. 

*However he did not fare as well with the Frisian Tribe. After baptizing a great number of them he and fifty-two of his companions were killed. The ancient Ragyndrudis Codex was found at the spot and contains incisions that could have been made with a sword or axe.

The Faith of Evolution

Last Tuesday evening Bill Nye and Ken Ham debated for three hours about Creation and Evolution. I was glad to see that over three million people tuned into the debate. That shows how much interest there is in this subject. I wondered how many people actually watched the whole debate. Like many of these debates, a great number of significant statements are made, but most of them are not really examined carefully.

Bill Nye tried to claim that the creation point of view is anti-science and will do great harm to the progress of science and technology. Ken Ham pointed out that there are many creation scientists and inventors. He also pointed out that in the past it was creation scientists such as Johannes Kepler who said "Science is thinking God's thoughts after Him." Kepler once thought of becoming a theologian, but then concluded: "I now see how God is by my endeavors, also glorified in astronomy, for 'the heavens declare the glory of God.'"

Ken Ham stressed the Biblical teaching of a young earth by appealing to the Bible. Bill Nye provided several observations indicating a much older earth (ice cores, ancient trees, etc.). Ken Ham responded with a slide that showed there are over a hundred different observations about the age of the earth. Most of them contradict each other. I wish Ken would have shown a few specific examples such as galaxies winding up too fast or the decay of earth's magnetic field.

It wasn't until late in the program that the problem of complexity was really discussed. As far as I am concerned this is what lies at the heart of this whole debate. The universe is infinitely complex. The more complexity we discover the more we realize there is to discover. Both creationists and evolutionists can agree on this. The disagreement comes when we ask, "How did it get here?" Creationists argue that it had to be created. Evolutionists insist that complexity can and does emerge by a random process of change. Does that really happen? Do things become complex by themselves without intelligence?

Evolution has tried to explain the origin of life without God's involvement. Instead of the Creator, evolutionists believe in a mindless, random process of improving changes. They happen so slowly they can't be observed.  The probability of this happening to the extent that this could have created the universe as we know it is beyond all comprehension. But, as evolutionists will tell you, given enough time and enough universes, anything can happen.  Evolutionists see this as a marvellous mystery. But at what point does it become their faith?

The Christian and the Environment

This is a brief Bible study that we had in our Men's Ministry Saturday, August 14, 2010.

Introduction
The environment has been a growing concern in our American culture. President Teddy Roosevelt's love for nature compelled him to preserve beautiful landscapes for all Americans to enjoy. President Woodrow Wilson established the National Park Service. The demise of the last Carrier Pigeon caught people's attention as have other extinctions. But along with concern for the environment has grown an almost religious devotion to it. Henry David Thoreau called for an intimate relationship with nature. Photographer John Muir argued for the inherent rights of nature. NASA scientist James Lovelock taught the Gaia Hypothesis that life on earth is to be understood as one organism. This is an important part of Deep Green ideology and was featured prominently in the film Avatar. Environmental disasters certainly raise awareness of the importance of taking care of the environment. The main question in this Bible study is this: How should Christians care for the environment without falling into the temptation to worship it?

1. What does the Bible say about our relationship to the environment in the following passages?

Genesis 1:28 - Man was given dominion over the earth.
Genesis 2:15 - Man was commissioned to care for the earth.
Psalm 8.6 - Man was given dominion over the earth.

2. Has the Biblical language of "dominion" led to exploitation of the environment?

Secular humanists often complain that the Biblical teaching of "dominion" has led to destruction of the environment. The idea of dominion divorced from caring and good stewardship could certainly lead to this. But dominion is not an isolated concept for Christians, and this type of dominion is a mischaracterization of Christianity.

3. How does Psalm 96.11-13a help us with a Christian view of the environment?

In a number of places the Bible portrays the creation itself glorifying God. This does not mean that plants and animals have souls and a faith relationship with God. However, it does show that creation has a role to play in bringing glory to God (see Psalm 19).

4. How does God's covenant with Noah and the creation in Genesis chapter nine help us see the importance of caring for the environment?

God's covenant with Noah was also a covenant with the earth. He promised not to destroy it again with a flood. His plan to preserve life on the ark shows us His love for the creation.

5. What is the purpose of caring for the environment for a Christian?

By its very existence the creation glorifies God. God loves His creation. We should love what He loves and take care of it as a testimony to Him.

Every part of the environment holds within itself the mystery of creation. By avoiding wasteful and unnecessary destruction of creation we help to preserve the mystery of life. Who knows what benefits (medicines, etc.) may be discovered in any corner of God's creation.

6. What can we as Christians do to "care" for God's creation?

Study environmental issues and take care to avoid unBiblical beliefs such as pantheism and panpsychism.

Work for energy efficiency and reduce trash output.

Support efforts to protect species while working to balance human needs.

A Flash of Beauty

I saw two Indigo Buntings on the bike trail this evening. What a beautiful example of God's creation. Unfortunately for city people like me, these little birds prefer farmland and woods so we don't often see them. Some migrate to the United States from as far away as South America. They fly at night using the stars to navigate.