Westland Free Methodist Church

“The Challenge of Faith Series:  Evolution Explains Life”

Psalm 8         March 25, 2007

 

Read Psalm 8

 

In Oklahoma a few years ago, a man was accused of strangling a 21 year old girl.  The man admitted to dreaming that he had killed the woman earlier.  Another person overheard him talking to the woman earlier in the evening of her death.  Then the clincher came, a detectives came up with hairs that matched the suspect.  And with that the man was considered guilty and was put on death row.  For 9 years he awaited execution.  The problem?  The man was innocent.  New DNA testing was coming on the scene, and it was proved that this man was not the killer they thought he was.  What was used as a match of evidence years ago, was merely said to be very similar.  The word the technician used was “consistent”. 

 

Let’s take another view of the evidence before us.  Is the world the result of evolutionary forces, or is there an intelligent designer in the universe? 

 

Charles Darwin stated that evolution explained the origin and development of life. 

 

At the end of the 2^nd millennium of Christ, Time magazine said, “Darwinism remains one of the most successful scientific theories every promulgated.”

 

Charles Templeton said, “it’s simply beyond dispute that all life is the result of timeless evolutionary forces.”

 

The textbook Evolutionary Biology declared, “By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.”

 

And our atheist, Richard Dawkins, from last week, says this:  “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

 

There is no doubt creation and evolution have been at odds for many years as many had his beginning in the garden of Eden. 

 

If you have any doubts about creation by an infinite God, listen to these 5 inescapable implications drawn upon by a self declared atheist, William Provine of Cornell University:

1. There is no evidence for God
2. There’s no life after death
3. There’s no absolute foundation for right and wrong
4. There’s no ultimate meaning for life
5. People don’t really have free will.

 

These are the implications of evolution. 

 

You might think that this is a theological versus science problem, but in the last 25 years it has become much more of a science versus science problem.  You see sometimes, we have to let the bible stand on it’s own.  For there is no other truth outside of God’s truth.  And God’s truth is compatible with the kind of science God ordained.  Let’s see what this is all about. 

 

It has been known for many years that science is resistant to even allow creationism to be debated among the list of possible theories of the origin of life. 

 

Here’s what Michael Behe of Lehigh University said: 

“the result of these cumulative efforts to investigate the cell—to investigate life at the molecular level—is a loud, clear, piercing cry, ‘design’”.

 

He goes on:

“The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself—not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs…the reluctance of science to embrace the conclusion of intelligent design…has no justifiable foundation.  Many people, including many important and well-respected scientists, just don’t want there to be anything beyond nature.”

 

Darwin’s theory of evolution claims that life began millions of years ago with simple single-cell creatures and then developed through mutation and natural selection into the vast array of plant and animal life that populate the planet. 

 

Here’s the problem that scientists are having with Darwin’s theories.  Darwin believed that the molecular cell was the smallest object to be considered in the universe.  But what has happened since his time is that science has not stopped it’s discovery.  It known now that the one cell contains millions of molecules.

 

In 1979 David Raup the curator of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago said:

“We are now about 125 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded.  We now have a quarter of a million fossil species, but the situation hasn’t changed much…we have even fewer examples of evolutionary ancestors that Darwinists require.”

 

Now listen to this.  This is from Charles Darwin himself:

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive, slight modification, then my theory would absolutely break down.”

 

Klaus Dose of the Institute of Biochemistry in Mainz Germany, admitted that the            “the difficulties in synthesizing DNA and RNA are at present beyond our imagination.”

 

But he goes on:

“Frankly, the origin of such a sophisticated system that is both rich in information and capable of reproducing itself has absolutely stymied origin-of-life scientists.  As the Nobel Prize winner Sir Francis Crick said, “the origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get it going.”

 

Of course, science is not done.  They still seek out further theories like;

1.      Random Theory

2.      Chemical Affinity

3.      Self-Ordering Tendencies

4.      Seeding from Space

5.      Vents in the Ocean

6.      Life from Clay

 

But when they gathered at the 1999 international conference on origin of life it was described as grim—full of frustration, pessimism, and desperation.  Not if they had invited the creationists.

 

Almost all of these scientists are atheists.  They know they have to be.  Finally, one noted scientist admitted, “The problem of the origin of life has turned out to be much more difficult than I, and most other people, envisioned.”

 

There is one Christian scientist that I want to quote today.  His name is James Tour, a professor at Rise University’s Department of Chemistry and Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology.  He begins his lecture with this: “ I build molecules for a living.  I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that is.”

 

He says later in his talk, “I stand in awe of God because of what he has  done through his creation.  Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith.  If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.”

 

Upon one examination we find the hairs of man convicting him of murder, and then upon closer examination, we find we were wrong all along.  One man today finds himself free.  And in the same way, Creationism itself is being freed by so many.  It may not have hit our schools yet, but the pendulum is swinging in favor of God.  It always has.

 

Read Psalm 8 again.

 

Evolution explains life.  Maybe it’s more like, Life explains evolution.

 

Story of Theory of Evolution.