Did Human Beings Evolve Outside The Garden Of Eden When God Created Adam & Eve?

            Science and Historical Christianity have seemingly been at odds with each other. The study of Historical Adam & Eve is a topic that contributes a good deal to this conflict.

            Dr. Joshua Swamidass’¹ recent book The Genealogical Adam and Eve: The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry, however, strives to bridge the gap between evolutionary science and the conservative understanding of Adam and Eve.

            Proponents of evolutionary science believe that humans evolved as a population sharing common ancestors with apes and chimpanzees. On the other hand, a traditional or conservative understanding of the book of Genesis is the belief that Adam and Eve were created by God. They were the first humans. All of mankind descended from them.

            These two views contradict each other (or so it seems). 

            Dr. Joshua Swamidass’ position is that there is enough room to accommodate both these views and that they do not necessarily contradict each other.

            How is this possible?

            First, Dr. Swamidass establishes the distinction between genetics and genealogy within the context of ancestral study. Upon establishing that distinction, he posits the Biblical narration of Adam and Eve as the genealogical ancestry and that of science as the genetic ancestry.

            Second, he posits the presence of human beings outside the Garden of Eden. In other words, when God created Adam & Eve and made them reside in the Garden of Eden, there were other human beings outside the Garden, who were the products of God guided evolution. Thus he builds a bridge between theology and science.

            It’s quite important to note that Dr. Swamidass is committed to the de novo² creation of Adam & Eve.

            In an interview with Christianity Today, Swamidass explains how these seemingly contradictory views could be true:³

There’s been a lot of conflict about how science expresses its understanding of Adam and Eve. It has to do with misunderstanding the word ancestor. We can understand it in the genetic sense, meaning someone we get our DNA from. Or we can mean it in a genealogical sense, meaning someone whose lineage we descend from.

Genetics works in a very nonintuitive way. For example, my parents are both equally 100 percent my genealogical ancestors, and the same is true with my grandparents and great-grandparents. But my parents are each only one half of my genetic ancestry; my grandparents are one quarter; my great-grandparents are one eighth. Genetic ancestry just dilutes to the point where the majority of our genealogical ancestors pass on no DNA.

Why is that important? Scripture doesn’t tell us about genetic ancestry. It does, however, tell us about genealogical ancestry. Historically, we’ve believed that Adam and Eve are the ancestors of everyone. We can ask: Does this mean genetic ancestors or genealogical ancestors? Well, Scripture can’t possibly be talking about genetic ancestry. It has to be talking about genealogical ancestry.

That recognition really opens up an immense amount of space for theology. As Christians, we’ve had a lot of anxiety over what science is telling us about Adam and Eve. But these conflicts are based on what science says about our genetic ancestors. If we focus on genealogical ancestors instead, there might be far less conflict than we first imagined.

…If we keep straight what the science is actually saying, the story of Genesis could be true as literally as you could imagine it, with Adam being created by dust and God breathing into his nostrils and Eve being created from his rib. But evolution is happening outside the Garden, and there are people out there who God created in a different way and who end up intermingling with Adam and Eve’s descendants. It’s not actually in conflict with evolutionary science [Emphasis Mine].

            While there seems to be a point of convergence between evolutionary science and Historical Christianity, there could be a number of theological conundrums.⁴

            First, the Bible seems to unequivocally imply that there were no humans before the creation of Adam and Eve (cf. Genesis 1 26-29, 2:18, 20b, 3:20). Dr. William Lane Craig explains, “When you look closely at the text itself, the text is pretty clear that there weren't any other people around. Genesis 2 says there was no man to till the ground and therefore God created Adam out of the dust of the Earth. And when it comes to finding a suitable mate for Adam, God parades all these animals before Adam and there was no one found that would be a suitable partner until God created Eve. And what was she then given the name? She was called “the mother of all living.” So I think that the story itself says pretty clearly that Adam and Eve were the only human beings around.”⁵

            Second, if there were humans outside the Garden, then, Dr. Swamidass cannot refer to Adam & Eve as the universal ancestors of mankind. At most, Adam & Eve would be the ancestors of their descendants.

            It is highly plausible that the humans outside the Garden would have had their own children and they would have had their own descendants. A part of these descendants would not, in any way, be connected with the descendants of Adam & Eve (they would not have interbred with the descendants of Adam & Eve).

            These people are then totally disconnected from Adam & Eve. If so, Adam & Eve cannot be the ancestors of these people. Therefore, according to Swamidass’s view, Adam & Eve cannot be the universal ancestors of all mankind. To consider Adam & Eve as the universal ancestors of all mankind would be incorrect.

            Third, there is an ontological likelihood of a flagrant divergence between the humans outside the garden and Adam & Eve. While Adam & Eve were created in the image of God, the other humans, who were evolving outside the Garden would not be in God’s image.

             This then leads to another theological conundrum. Those created in the image of God are worthy of honor and respect; he is neither to be murdered (Genesis 9:6) nor cursed (James 3:9). Being made in the image of God also attributes characteristics such as ‘righteousness,’ ‘holiness’ (Ephesians 4:24), and ‘knowledge’ (Colossians 3:10) to man. Furthermore, those created in the image of God and those who believe in Christ are to be conformed to the likeness of Christ (Romans 8:29) and will one day be like Christ (1 John 3:2).

            Those evolved humans outside the Garden would have none of the above characteristics since they were not created in the image of God. Therefore, the evolved humans cannot be the recipients of God’s grace and beneficiaries of Christ’s atoning death.

            Here is Dr. Craig’s explanation of the situation, “What it would imply is there are people who are just like me and you in every way (rational, self-conscious, self-reflective, trying to do right and wrong, loving their children, having an aesthetic appreciation of beauty and ugliness, of right and wrong) and yet they are not in the image of God and therefore are not truly human and therefore are not recipients of God's grace or beneficiaries of Christ's atoning death. And I find that unconscionable…”⁶

            Dr.Craig also reminds us that if such humans do exist now, then evangelizing to them is totally futile.

            Fourth and finally, the traditional or conservative understanding of the term human is to reference it with the image of God i.e. every human is created in the image of God. But Dr. Swamidass disagrees with this definition, “One of the other surprising things in dialogue with theologians through this . . . one of the key things that I wrote was a chapter explaining how the term “human” has no precision in science to the point that really there's really no claim that scientists have to be normative in that discussion. Theologians really have the right to define “human” on their own terms. Right? But the problem is you go talk to theologians and they can't define “human” in an agreement with one another! They have a broad, broad range of views. One way to do it, which I actually don't think is a most helpful way, is by equating human with the image of God – saying if someone's in the image of God then they are human, and if they're not in the image of God then they aren't. I think that that's a problem actually. I don't think that that makes sense…”⁷

            Dr. Craig rejects Dr. Swamidass’ view that humans are merely descendants of Adam and Eve i.e. that humans cannot be defined as those made in the image of God, “I think this attempt to drive a wedge between the image of God and human is unacceptable. Listen to the words of Genesis 1:26 and following: “and God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion . . .” Then it says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” That's clearly not just referring to Adam. That's referring to man generically. I think Mike was quite right in his comments. “Adam” is not used as a proper name in Genesis until later in the story, but here we're talking about adam meaning “man,” and it's used with regard to a plurality – male and female, them. So we mustn't, I think, try to drive this wedge between being in the image of God and being human. On the contrary, what makes us human is that we are in the image of God unlike all the rest of animal creation. No other animal in Genesis 1 is created in the image and after the likeness of God. That's what makes us human. Now, Josh says to be human is simply to be a descendant of Adam and Eve. In this way he can approximate the traditional view of Adam and Eve that in fact they are the parents of every human being that has ever lived but only at the expense of having these folks outside the Garden who look like human beings, act like human beings, but they're really not human. And that just gives me the chills frankly.”⁸

            To conclude, Dr. Swamidass’s endeavor to bridge the conflict between evolutionary science and Historical Christianity remains untenable. For instance, the four theological conundrums that are presented, which are the consequences of his theological position, deeply undermine the essence of Historical Christianity. In other words, Historic Christianity would be substantially diluted doctrinally, if Dr. Swamidass’ views are to be upheld.

            A liberal Christian or the doctrines of liberal Christianity (which has already compromised the core doctrines of Historic Christianity) may agree with Dr. Swamidass’s position. But the doctrines of Historic Christianity remain in conflict with his views. Hence, it could be reasonably concluded that Dr. Swamidass’ stand about the historical Adam & Eve does not reflect the essence of Historic Christianity.

Endnotes:

¹A Computational Biologist, who uses artificial intelligence to explore science at the intersection of biology, chemistry, and medicine.

²In the beginning, out of dust and a rib.

³https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/january-web-only/genealogical-adam-eve-evolution-joshua-swamidass.html

⁴Much of the information for this section has been sourced from Dr. William Lane Craig’s critique of Dr. Josh Swamidass. This is from two articles entitled Josh Swamidass on Adam and Eve – Part 1 and Part 2.

⁵https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/josh-swamidass-on-adam-and-eve-part-1/

⁶https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/josh-swamidass-on-adam-and-eve-part-2/

⁷Ibid.

⁸Ibid.

Websites last accessed on 28^th March 2020.

The Conflict Between Evolution And Ethics (Evolution Cannot Explain Ethics) – Part 2

            While some atheists believe morality and human freedom are meaningless and illusory, other atheists believe in objective moral values. Atheist neuroscientist, Sam Harris, posited the existence of objective moral values in his book, Moral Landscape.

            Is it plausible to postulate objective moral values in a godless paradigm that atheists subscribe to? If there are objective moral values, there should be a source for these values. Hence we ask, “What is the foundation for objective moral values?”

            Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, disagrees with Sam Harris. Dr. Craig asserts the impossibility of a foundation for objective moral values in the atheistic worldview. Here’s an excerpt from his article, “Navigating Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape”:¹

A great merit of Sam Harris' recent book The Moral Landscape is his bold affirmation of the objectivity of moral values and duties. To say that moral values and duties are objective is to say they are valid and binding independent of human opinion. For example, to say that the Holocaust was objectively evil is to say it was evil even though the Nazis who carried it out thought it was good. And it would still have been evil even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in brainwashing or exterminating everyone who disagreed with them, so everybody who was left thought the Holocaust was good…

The question then is, what is the best foundation for the existence of objective moral values and duties? What grounds them? What makes certain actions good or evil, right or wrong? Traditionally, God has been the highest Good (summum bonum) and His commandments constitutive of our moral duties. But if God does not exist, what foundation remains for objective moral values and duties?

Consider first the question of objective moral values. On atheism, what basis is there for affirming objective moral values? In particular, why think that human beings have objective moral worth? On the atheistic view human beings are just accidental byproducts of nature who have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust called planet Earth — lost somewhere in a hostile and mindless universe — and are doomed to perish individually and collectively in a relatively short time. On atheism it is hard to see any reason to think that human well-being is objectively good, anymore than insect well-being or rat well-being or hyena well-being. This is what Harris calls "The Value Problem." [3]…

The purpose of Harris' The Moral Landscape is to solve the "value problem," to explain the basis, on atheism, for the existence of objective moral values. [4] He explicitly rejects the view that moral values are Platonic objects existing independently of the world. [5] So his only recourse is to try to ground moral values in the natural world. But can he do that, since nature in and of itself is morally neutral?...

On a naturalistic view, moral values are just the behavioral by-products of biological evolution and social conditioning. Just as a troupe of baboons exhibit co-operative and even self-sacrificial behavior because natural selection has determined it to be advantageous in the struggle for survival, so homo sapiens — their primate cousins — exhibit similar behavior for the same reason. As a result of sociobiological pressures there has evolved among homo sapiens a sort of "herd morality" that functions well in the perpetuation of our species. But on the atheistic view there does not seem to be anything that makes this morality objectively true…

So how does Sam Harris propose to solve the "value problem"? The trick he proposes is simply to redefine what he means by "good" and "evil" in nonmoral terms. [9]He says we should "define 'good' as that which supports [the] well-being" of conscious creatures." [10] He states, "Good and evil need only consist in this: misery versus well-being." [11] Or again: "In speaking of 'moral truth,' I am saying that there must be facts regarding human and animal well-being." [12]

So, he says, "Questions about values … are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures." [13] Therefore, he concludes, "It makes no sense … to ask whether maximizing well-being is 'good'." [14] Why not? Because he's redefined the word "good" to mean the well-being of conscious creatures. So to ask, "Why is maximizing creatures' well-being good?" is on his definition the same as asking, "Why does maximizing creatures' well-being maximize creatures' well-being?" It is simply a tautology — talking in a circle. Thus, Harris has "solved" his problem simply by redefining his terms. It is mere word play.

At the end of the day Harris is not really talking about moral values. He is just talking about what's conducive to the flourishing of sentient life on this planet. Seen in this light, his claim that science can tell us a great deal about what contributes to human flourishing is hardly controversial. Of course, it can — just as it can tell us what is conducive to the flourishing of corn or mosquitoes or bacteria. His so-called "moral landscape" picturing the highs and lows of human flourishing is not really a moral landscape at all.

On the next to last page of his book, Harris more or less admits this. For he makes the telling admission that if people such as rapists, liars, and thieves could be just as happy as good people, then his moral landscape would no longer be a moral landscape; rather it would just be a continuum of well-being, whose peaks are occupied by good and evil people alike. [15] What is interesting about this is that earlier in the book Harris observed that about 3 million Americans are psychopathic, that is to say, they do not care about the mental states of others. On the contrary, they enjoy inflicting pain on other people. [16]…

Thus, Harris has failed to solve the "value problem." He has not provided any justification or explanation of why, on atheism, objective moral values would exist at all. His so-called solution is just a semantic trick of providing an arbitrary and idiosyncratic redefinition of the words "good" and "evil" in nonmoral terms.

            The second question that needs to be addressed is, “Are we obligated to be morally right?” If so, “Who are we obligated to, from within the atheistic worldview?” Dr. Craig dissects this aspect and provides a conclusion to this subject:²

That takes us to a second question: Does atheism provide a sound foundation for objective moral duties? Duty has to do with moral obligation and prohibition, what I ought or ought not to do…

First: Natural science tells us only what is, not what ought to be, the case. As philosopher Jerry Fodor has written, "Science is about facts, not norms; it might tell us how we are, but it wouldn't tell us what is wrong with how we are." [17] In particular it cannot tell us that we have a moral obligation to take actions that are conducive to human flourishing.

So if there is no God, what foundation remains for objective moral duties? On the naturalistic view, human beings are just animals, and animals have no moral obligations to one another. When a lion kills a zebra, it kills the zebra, but it does not murder the zebra. When a great white shark forcibly copulates with a female, it forcibly copulates with her but it does not rape her — for there is no moral dimension to these actions. They are neither prohibited nor obligatory.

So if God does not exist, why think we have any moral obligations to do anything? Who or what imposes these moral duties on us? Where do they come from? It is hard to see why they would be anything more than a subjective impression ingrained into us by societal and parental conditioning.

On the atheistic view, certain actions such as incest and rape may not be biologically and socially advantageous, and so in the course of human development have become taboo, that is, socially unacceptable behavior. But that does absolutely nothing to show that rape or incest is really wrong. Such behavior goes on all the time in the animal kingdom…If there is no moral lawgiver, then there is no objective moral law; and if there is no objective moral law, then we have no objective moral duties…

Second: "ought" implies "can." A person is not morally responsible for an action he is unable to avoid. For example, if somebody shoves you into another person, you are not to blame for bumping into this person. You had no choice. But Harris believes that all of our actions are causally determined and that there is no free will. [20]… But if there is no free will, no one is morally responsible for anything. In the end, Harris admits this, though it's tucked away in his endnotes. Moral responsibility, he says, "is a social construct," not an objective reality: "in neuroscientific terms no person is more or less responsible than any other" for the actions they perform. [21] His thoroughgoing determinism spells the end of any hope or possibility of objective moral duties on his worldview because we have no control over what we do…

…The fact remains that whether we experience the illusion of free will or not, on Harris' view we are thoroughly determined in all that we think and do and can therefore have no moral responsibilities.

Conclusion

On Harris' view there is both no source of objective moral duties and no possibility of objective moral duty. Therefore, on his view, despite his protestations to the contrary, there is no objective right or wrong.

Thus, Sam Harris' naturalistic view fails to provide a sound foundation for objective moral values and duties. If God does not exist, we are trapped in a morally valueless world in which nothing is prohibited. Harris' atheism thus sits very ill with his ethical objectivism.

Endnotes:

¹https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/navigating-sam-harris-the-moral-landscape/

²Ibid.

Website last accessed on 31^st August 2018. 

The Conflict Between Evolution And Ethics (Evolution Cannot Explain Ethics) – Part 1

            With regard to morality, Christians believe that human beings are moral beings with the knowledge of good and evil and with a disposition to conform to the rules of right conduct. In answering the question, “How are human beings moral beings?” the Bible teaches that we, who are created in the image of God, have the moral law written in our hearts by God (cf. Romans 2:15). With regard to the question, “Why are we moral beings?” Christians would assert that we are moral beings to glorify God.

            The atheist, on the other hand, rejects God’s existence. Thus the atheist rejects creation and subscribes to evolution.

            So the atheist should answer these two questions:

            (1) How did human beings become moral beings?

            (2) Why does morality exist in a human being?

            Before the atheist answers the abovementioned questions, an important question that needs to be answered is, “Are human beings moral beings?”

            Infants are not born as “blank moral slates,” says an article in Mail Online, “Professor Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale University in Connecticut, whose department has studied morality in babies for years, said: 'A growing body of evidence suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life. 'With the help of well designed experiments, you can see glimmers of moral thought, moral judgment and moral feeling even in the first year of life. 'Some sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bones.'”¹

            Since human beings are moral beings, it is incumbent upon the atheist to answer the question, “How and why are human beings moral beings?”

            Some atheists believe that morality is an illusion, whereas other atheists believe that there are objective moral values. A proper study should consider both positions. Hence, we adopt a two-pronged scheme to understand this subject:

            (1) In the first scheme of study, we consider atheists’ contention that morality is illusory, meaningless, or that it is impossible to explain without positing God. If atheists believe that morality is an illusion (there is no morality), then the question, “How and why are human beings moral beings?” need not be answered. This is addressed in this article.

            (2) The second scheme of study will take into account the book Moral Landscape authored by the New Atheist, Sam Harris, who posits objective moral values. So we should examine the possibility of the existence of objective moral values without any source (because atheists reject God, who is the source of everything that there is) and without any possibility of objective moral duty (if there is no source, there is no need to be dutiful)? This would be addressed in PART 2 of this article.

Part 1: Morality Is An Illusion In The Evolutionary Paradigm

            Some atheists believe that any deep meaning to morality, such as the existence of objective moral values, is illusory. Christian apologist, William Lane Craig’s article entitled “Can We Be Good without God?” expounds this position by citing the atheist philosopher Michael Ruse, “Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science, writes, The position of the modern evolutionist . . . is that humans have an awareness of morality . . . because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth . . . . Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says ‘Love they neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves . . . . Nevertheless, . . . such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory . . . .”²

            Here’s Craig’s interpretation of Michael Ruse’s rejection of objective moral values, “As a result of socio-biological pressures, there has evolved among homo sapiens a sort of “herd morality” which functions well in the perpetuation of our species in the struggle for survival. But there does not seem to be anything about homo sapiens that makes this morality objectively true.”³

            Then there are atheists who believe that it is not plausible to explain the ‘how’ of morality in human beings without positing the existence of God. Christian apologist, Brett Kunkle of the Christian apologetics ministry Stand to Reason says, “J.L. Mackie, one of the most prominent atheist philosophers of the 20th century, said this: “Moral properties constitute so odd a cluster of qualities and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events, without an all-powerful god to create them.” ⁴ (Emphasis Mine).

            Secular philosophers understand that evolution deprives morality of its meaning in the atheistic worldview. Craig cites the eminent American Philosopher and ethicist, Richard Taylor, to emphasize this fact, “The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, not noticing that, in casting God aside, they have also abolished the conditions of meaningfulness for moral right and wrong as well. Thus, even educated persons sometimes declare that such things are war, or abortion, or the violation of certain human rights, are ‘morally wrong,’ and they imagine that they have said something true and significant. Educated people do not need to be told, however, that questions such as these have never been answered outside of religion. [2]

            He concludes,

            Contemporary writers in ethics, who blithely discourse upon moral right and wrong and moral obligation without any reference to religion, are really just weaving intellectual webs from thin air; which amounts to saying that they discourse without meaning.”⁵

            Moral obligations are also a meaningless term in the atheistic worldview. Brett Kunkle writes, “If humans are simply more developed animals, why think there are moral duties to which they are obligated? Male great white sharks are under no obligation to refrain from forcibly copulating with female great whites. Male lions are under no obligation to refrain from killing all the young lion cubs in a pride they have just taken over. Notice, we do NOT use moral terms to describe such behavior. We do not call the shark’s behavior “rape” and we do not call the lion’s behavior “infanticide.”

            Natural science is a descriptive enterprise, only telling us what is the case, not what ought to be the case. For example, nature can describe what it is to be healthy, but it cannot generate a moral obligation to be healthy.”⁶

            Brett Kunkle also cites Richard Taylor, who has understood that evolution cannot explain moral obligations, “The idea of political or legal obligation is clear enough…. Similarly, the idea of an obligation higher than this, referred to as moral obligation, is clear enough, provided reference to some lawgiver higher…than those of the state is understood. In other words, our moral obligations can…be understood as those that are imposed by God…. But what if this higher-than-human lawgiver is no longer taken into account? Does the concept of moral obligation…still make sense? … The concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. [3] .”⁷

            Furthermore, evolution deprives human beings of any intrinsic value thereby rendering morality a meaningless term. Kunkle cites Richard Dawkins, who explains this fact, “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference…. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. [4]”⁸

            Kunkle goes on to add, “On a naturalistic evolutionary scenario, human beings are nothing special. The universe comes into existence through the Big Bang and, through a blind process of chance and necessity, evolves all the way through to us. The same process that coughed up humans also coughed up bacteria. Thus, there is nothing intrinsically valuable about being human. Indeed, on this view, to think humans beings are special is to be guilty of speciesism, the view that one’s own species is somehow superior to other species…But what other result should we expect from valueless, cause-and-effect physical processes? There is no reason to think that an impersonal, valueless process could produce valuable, rights-bearing persons.”⁹

            Finally, evolution hits a vital nail in the coffin of morality when it deems freewill or human freedom as non-existent, “If we are the products of evolutionary forces, how did moral freedom and responsibility emerge? There is no reason to think, given our supposed materialistic and deterministic origins, that we have free will. Atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel states that there is “no room for agency in a world of neural impulses, chemical reactions, and bone and muscle movements”; naturalism strongly suggests that we are “helpless” and “not responsible” for our actions. [5]

            Of course, if there is no free will, then no one is morally responsible for anything. Determinism puts an end to objective moral duties because on this worldview, we have no control over what we do. We are nothing more than puppets in a cause-and-effect universe.”¹⁰

            In conclusion, since evolution deems morality and human freedom as meaningless and illusory, evolution cannot explain ethics.

Endnotes:

¹http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1275574/Babies-know-difference-good-evil-months-study-reveals.html

²https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/can-we-be-good-without-god/

³Ibid.

⁴https://www.str.org/blog/why-evolutionary-ethics-fails-to-account-for-objective-morality#_ftn3

⁵https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/can-we-be-good-without-god/

⁶https://www.str.org/blog/why-evolutionary-ethics-fails-to-account-for-objective-morality#_ftn3

⁷Ibid.

⁸Ibid.

⁹Ibid.

¹⁰Ibid.

Websites last accessed on 27^th August 2018. 

Why Do Scientists Reject Darwinian Evolution?

            Darwinian evolution is marketed as if it is absolutely right and that the contending claims of the Creation and Intelligent Design community are absolutely wrong.  But the fact remains that the Darwinian evolution and Neo-Darwinism are light years away from adequately and reasonably explaining the origin of life.

            You are wrong if you think that all scientists believe in Darwinian evolution. Not all scientists believe in evolution (macroevolution). Quite a few reputed and credible scientists reject evolution.

            You are very wrong if you think that scientists who believe in God and Creation are the ones to reject evolution. Although Christian Research Journal mentions a few nonreligious scientists who reject evolution, I present two nonreligious scientists for your consideration:¹

…Another nonreligious scholar who is both a skeptic of Darwinian evolution and an ID sympathizer is David Berlinski. Trained in philosophy at Princeton, and later a postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology and mathematics at Columbia University, he is also a senior fellow at Discovery Institute. In 2009, Berlinski published a volume titled, The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays, offering critiques of biological and chemical evolution…

…Berlinski elegantly and comprehensively critiques Darwinian theory. First, he tackles the fossil record:

The facts in favor of evolution are often held to be incontrovertible: prominent biologists shake their heads at the obduracy of those who would dispute them. Those facts, however, have been rather less forthcoming than evolutionary biologists might have hoped. If life progressed by an accumulation of small changes, as they say it has, the fossil record should reflect its flow, the dead stacked up in barely separated strata. But for well over 150 years, the dead have been remarkably diffident about confirming Darwin’s theory….there are gaps in the graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms but where there is nothing whatsoever instead.45

Berlinski observes that the complexity of the cell is “insignificant in comparison with the mammalian nervous system; and that far impossibly ahead, there is the human mind, an instrument like no other in the biological world, conscious, flexible, penetrating, inscrutable, and profound.”46 In his view, these complex features imply design: “We never attribute the existence of a complex artifact to chance. And for obvious reasons: complex objects are useful islands, isolated amid an archipelago of useless possibilities….An artifact is the overflow in matter of the mental motions of intention, deliberate design, planning, and coordination. The inferential spool runs backwards, and it runs irresistibly from a complex object to the contrived, the artificial, circumstances that brought it into being.”47

According to Berlinski, “Darwin’s theory of evolution rejects this counsel of experience and intuition,” and instead relies on “sheer dumb luck.”48 After quoting scientists who doubt Darwinism, he notes that evolutionary theory is “in the doubly damned position of having compromised the concepts needed to make sense of life—complexity, adaptation, design—while simultaneously conceding that the theory does little to explain them.”49

...Another famous atheist who supported ID was Fred Hoyle (1915–2001), a theoretical physicist at Cambridge University. His 1983 book The Intelligent Universe maintained, “Darwinian theory is wrong because random variations tend to worsen performance, as indeed common sense suggests they must do.”52 Elsewhere Hoyle famously stated, “If one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure of order must be the outcome of intelligent design.”53 (Emphasis Mine).

            Furthermore, Dissentfromdarwin.org lists reasons that compel scientists to reject Darwinian evolution:²

Genetics — Mutations Cause Harm and Do Not Build Complexity: Darwinian evolution relies on random mutations that are selected by a blind, unguided process of natural selection. This undirected process has no goals. Being random, it tends to harm organisms and does not improve them or build complexity. As biologist Lynn Margulis, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences until her death in 2011, said: “New mutations don’t create new species; they create offspring that are impaired.”1 Similarly, the past president of the French Academy of Sciences, Pierre-Paul Grasse, contended that “[m]utations have a very limited ‘constructive capacity’” because “[n]o matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution.”2

Biochemistry — Unguided and Random Processes Cannot Produce Cellular Complexity: Our cells are like miniature factories using machine technology but dwarfing the complexity and efficiency of anything produced by humans. Cells use miniature circuits, motors, feedback loops, encoded language, and even error-checking machinery to decode and repair our DNA. As Bruce Alberts, former president of the U.S. National Academy of Science, observed: “[t]he entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines.”3 Darwinian evolution struggles to explain the origin of this type of integrated complexity. Biochemist Franklin Harold admits in a book published by Oxford University Press: “There are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”4

Paleontology — The Fossil Record Lacks Intermediate Fossils: The fossil record’s overall pattern is one of abrupt explosions of new biological forms, and generally lacks plausible candidates for transitional fossils, contradicting the pattern of gradual evolution predicted by Darwinian theory. This non-Darwinian pattern has been recognized by many paleontologists. University of Pittsburgh anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz states: “We are still in the dark about the origin of most major groups of organisms. They appear in the fossil record as Athena did from the head of Zeus — full-blown and raring to go, in contradiction to Darwin’s depiction of evolution as resulting from the gradual accumulation of countless infinitesimally minute variations.”5 Likewise the great evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr explained that “[n]ew species usually appear in the fossil record suddenly, not connected with their ancestors by a series of intermediates.”6 Similarly, a zoology textbook observes: “Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form. Moreover, most major groups of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, and with no fossils yet discovered that form a transition from their parent group.”7

Neo-Darwinian Evolution Has Been and Continues to Be Critiqued by Mainstream Scientists: Everyone agrees that microevolution occurs. But mainstream scientific and academic literature is saturated with skepticism about the neo-Darwinian claim that microevolution offers an adequate basis for justifying macroevolutionary claims. Günter Theißen of the Department of Genetics at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany wrote in the journal Theory in Biosciences that “while we already have a quite good understanding of how organisms adapt to the environment, much less is known about the mechanisms behind the origin of evolutionary novelties, a process that is arguably different from adaptation. Despite Darwin’s undeniable merits, explaining how the enormous complexity and diversity of living beings on our planet originated remains one of the greatest challenges of biology.”8 A 2011 paper in Biological Theory stated, “Darwinism in its current scientific incarnation has pretty much reached the end of its rope,”9 and in 2012, the noted atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel argued in an Oxford University Press book that “the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false.”10

Evolutionary biologist Stanley Salthe likewise describes himself as “a critic of Darwinian evolutionary theory,”11 which he insists “cannot explain origins, or the actual presence of forms and behaviors”12 in organisms. Biologist Scott Gilbert has stated in a report in Nature that “[t]he modern synthesis is remarkably good at modeling the survival of the fittest, but not good at modeling the arrival of the fittest,” and evolutionary paleobiologist Graham Budd admits: “When the public thinks about evolution, they think about the origin of wings and the invasion of the land, . . . [b]ut these are things that evolutionary theory has told us little about.”13 Eugene Koonin writes in Trends in Genetics about the increasingly undeniable reasons to doubt core neo-Darwinian tenets, such as view that “natural selection is the main driving force of evolution,” indicating that “the modern synthesis has crumbled, apparently, beyond repair” and “all major tenets of the modern synthesis have been, if not outright overturned, replaced by a new and incomparably more complex vision of the key aspects of evolution.” He concludes: “Not to mince words, the modern synthesis is gone.”14 Because of such criticisms, Cornell evolutionary biologist William Provine believes the Darwinian claim that “Macroevolution was a simple extension of microevolution” is “false.”15

            In all of this, I have not even mentioned the refutations of Dr. James M. Tour. He is one of the most acclaimed and established scientific minds in existence today.

            I’ll just mention his remarkable credentials, in case you are not familiar with his name:

Professor James M. Tour is Rice University Chao Professor of Chemistry, computer science, mechanical engineering, and materials science. A renowned leader in his field, he is the premier scientist at Rice University, and his work is often cited in leading scientific journals.1 After Nobel Laureate Rick Smalley’s untimely death, the prolific Tour has successfully carried on Smalley’s groundbreaking nanotechnology research. This ‘world-class scientist’ has revolutionized one of the most challenging fields of science.2

Of the more than 720,000 scientists who published chemistry papers in academic journals during the last decade, Tour was among the ten most-cited authors in the world. He authored 135 papers during this time, and the Thomson-Reuters list of research most referenced by other scientists in their scientific work ranked him in the top ten. Tour’s scientific achievement “spans an incredible breadth, from building tiny cars and trucks out of molecules, to making computer memory from graphite, building tiny missiles that carry drugs to tumors and trying to cure radiation sickness.”1 Wade Adams, director of Rice’s Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, noted that Tour is an “incredibly creative … chemist. He makes molecules dance.”1

One of his most recent achievements to add to his already long list was to convert shortbread into graphene, a high-tech carbon form that is a promising material for high-speed circuits. A single thick layer of graphene is strong enough to hold the weight of an elephant.3”³

            If you wish to read a quick overview of Dr. Tour’s refutation of evolution, please read his article entitled “Origin of Life, Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creation and Faith (Updated June 2018).”⁴

            Scientists are under pressure to not question or debunk evolution, “…they face pushback from peers who feel they are betraying science: “We’ve been told by more than one of our colleagues that, even if Darwin was substantially wrong to claim that natural selection is the mechanism of evolution, nonetheless we shouldn’t say so. Not, anyhow, in public. To do that is, however inadvertently, to align oneself with the Forces of Darkness, whose goal is to bring Science into disrepute.”13 They observe that in the ivory tower, “neo-Darwinism is taken as axiomatic,” “literally goes unquestioned,” and contrary views are “ipso facto rejected.”14… Significantly, many of these scholars and scientists share an acute awareness of the hostility faced by critics of the evolutionary consensus. Their stories suggest that neo-Darwinism retains its academic prestige not so much by the power of reason, but by the power of intimidation. One cannot help but wonder how many other Jerry Fodors or Thomas Nagels exist, waiting silently until they have academic freedom to publicly join the ranks of Darwin-skeptics.”⁵

            Finally, here are David Berlinski’s witty yet thoughtful and factual words to conclude this short essay:⁶

…Look — Tens of thousands of fruit flies have come and gone in laboratory experiments, and every last one of them has remained a fruit fly to the end, all efforts to see the miracle of speciation unavailing.

Look — The remarkable similarity in the genome of a great many organisms suggests that there is at bottom only one living system; but how then to account for the astonishing differences between human beings and their near relatives — differences that remain obvious to anyone who has visited a zoo?

But look again — If the differences between organisms are scientifically more interesting than their genomic similarities, of what use is Darwin's theory since its otherwise mysterious operations take place by genetic variations?

These are hardly trivial questions. Each suggests a dozen others. These are hardly circumstances that do much to support the view that there are "no valid criticisms of Darwin's theory," as so many recent editorials have suggested.

Serious biologists quite understand all this. They rather regard Darwin's theory as an elderly uncle invited to a family dinner. The old boy has no hair, he has no teeth, he is hard of hearing, and he often drools. Addressing even senior members at table as Sonny, he is inordinately eager to tell the same story over and over again.

But he's family. What can you do?

Endnotes:

¹http://www.equip.org/article/non-religious-skeptics-darwinian-evolution-proponents-intelligent-design/

²https://dissentfromdarwin.org/resources-for-students/why-is-darwinian-evolution-controversial/

³https://creation.com/james-tour-darwin-skeptic

⁴https://www.jmtour.com/personal-topics/evolution-creation/

⁵http://www.equip.org/article/non-religious-skeptics-darwinian-evolution-proponents-intelligent-design/

⁶http://www.discovery.org/a/2450/

Websites last accessed on 11^th August 2018.

Could Christians Believe Theistic Evolution?

            Darwinian evolution is the unguided change in the gene pool of a population through mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift over long periods of time. The key word in Darwinian evolution is “unguided.” The term “unguided” refers to God’s absence in the neo-Darwinistic evolution equation.

            Theistic evolution, on the contrary, reconciles Darwinian evolution to theism by importing God into the fabric of evolution. Since evolution is diametrically opposed to creation (a belief that God created the universe as in the creation narrative in the book of Genesis), the question we need to ask is “Was God involved in evolution or did God create the living and the non-living as in the Biblical narrative?”

            Theistic evolution broadly states that God guided the evolutionary process over millions of years. This view of evolution smuggles God through the back door into the neo-Darwinistic evolution equation! This evolution seems to be for science-lovers and Bible-doubters (of the creation narrative) who believe both in God and the Darwinian evolution.

            Christians who believe in theistic evolution ought to resolve these strong dilemmas:

Diluting God’s Attributes

            On one hand is the creation account where God created everything by the power of HIS Word in six days. On the other hand, the theory of evolution, under the assumption of being scientific, posits the evolved existence of the living and the non-living over millions of years.

            Why did God wait for millions of years to create? It seems that God’s powerless; hence HE waited for HIS creation to evolve over millions of years. Attributing powerlessness to God is a severely debauched position.

            While creation is teleological with a purpose, goal and an end, evolution is accidental. Chaos is a means to evolution, for evolution is absolute randomness.

            The wise and almighty God would not create the universe through chaos. In other words, what mandates God to create the universe out of randomness? God would not cause construction from destruction, for to cause it in such a manner is to mitigate God’s wisdom.

Debunking Adam, Eve & The Bible

            Those who believe in evolution discard Adam & Eve as the first human beings. Science does not provide us with any evidence whether the first human evolved was a male, female or a transgender or whether both man and woman evolved at the same time.

            Discarding Adam & Eve is infinitely troublesome for a Christian.

            To reconcile evolution without Adam & Eve from within the biblical framework would essentially undermine the Bible. The Bible teaches that Adam & Eve were actual human beings created in the image of God.

            Adam & Eve are not limited to the book of Genesis but they appear repeatedly in the Bible. In Luke 3: 23-38, Christ’s genealogy is traced back to Adam. Adam being a myth would contradict Luke. Why did Luke go through the trouble of tracing Christ’s lineage if Adam was a myth? If Adam was a myth, then the Bible cannot be trusted.

            The Bible speaks about Christ as the last Adam. If Adam was a myth, then Christ may also have not existed. Therefore, theistic evolution effectively undermines the Bible. (Thankfully, both the Bible and extra-biblical resources affirm the existence of Christ.)

Disbelieving Christ

            Theistic evolution, in its essence, motivates a disbelief in Christ.

            Consider this simple instance. Evolution scandalizes Adam & Eve into mythical personalities. But Christ taught the existence of Adam and Eve, ““Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’” (Matthew 19: 4, NIV, Emphasis Mine).

            If Christ referred to the existence of Adam & Eve, we should either believe evolution or Christ. We cannot believe in both evolution and Christ, since they mutually contradict each other in the context of Adam and Eve.

            Evolution implies that Christ lied about Adam & Eve. If Christ lied about Adam and Eve, then one could think that Christ lied about everything else also. Hence, theistic evolution motivates a disbelief in Christ.

Demeaning Salvation

            Creationism posits goodness of all God’s creation. Although he was created good, man disobeyed God when he ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil a.k.a. the fall (Genesis 3: 6-7).  Salvation was necessitated by the fall of man.

            If Darwinian evolution is true, there was no fall to begin with. Death and suffering are intrinsic to the world even before the creation of human beings. Theistic evolution posits man’s intrinsic selfishness and negates the fall of man, “According to Karl Giberson in Saving Darwin, human beings were flawed and sinful from the very start because they were produced by an evolutionary process driven by selfishness. Thus, there was no “Fall” from original goodness in the history of humanity.” ¹

            If there was no fall – an act of disobedience to God, there is no need for salvation – an act of belief and obedience to God.

            Moreover, the future of salvation is to restore everything to its original state of goodness by eliminating evil and death to usher new heavens and a new earth for an eternal cohabitation of man with God (cf. Acts 3: 21). If theistic evolution is true, the original state of the earth was death and suffering, not goodness. Death will continue to exist without a plausibility of restoration.

            Salvation presupposes man’s sinfulness, and is predicated on the fact that Christ, God-incarnate, came into the world (in the form of a man), to sacrifice HIS life to save man of his sins.

            Sin, according to the Bible, was not caused by God but entered into the realm of mankind through the freewill of angels and man. Theistic evolution, by virtue of undermining Adam & Eve and the subsequent fall, posits sin and evil’s existence even before the existence of the first humans. Notwithstanding that, the theistic evolutionist posits God as the creator of evil and sin.

            This view of the divine renders God as a maximally evil being. An evil God would not liberate man from evil and sin. Therefore, biblical salvation is demeaned by theistic evolutionists.

Denigrating Biblical Interpretation

            The Bible should interpret itself. You and I cannot impose our views into the Bible. Similarly, science cannot interpret the Bible.

            Theistic evolution interprets the creation account from within the framework of science. Allowing science to interpret the Bible is gross injustice to God and HIS living Word.

            Science does not possess the power or the authority to interpret God’s Word. God is greater than science. God causes science. In fact, science is a mere means to understanding God’s architecture of this universe. So the “means” has neither the power nor the authority to interpret the actions of the “cause.” 

Conclusion

            Organizations such as BioLogos² advocate for harmony between science and religion. They seduce and strangle the Christian churches to evolve their teaching from creationism to theistic evolution so to be aligned to the 21^st century thought.

            That which undermines God should be rejected categorically. Theistic evolution rigorously undermines God, “In the initial years after Darwin’s theory was proposed, most theistic evolutionists believed that God guided the evolutionary process to specific ends. However, as the Darwinian view of the undirected nature of evolution gradually solidified in the scientific community, defenders of theistic evolution increasingly disowned the idea of guided evolution. Consequently, many leading proponents of theistic evolution today insist that Darwinian evolution by definition is an undirected process and that not even God knows what the process will produce with certainty or specificity.”³

            Theistic evolution is “design by chance” - an oxymoron. Just as the concept of “married bachelor” cannot even be a figment of one’s imagination, design by chance is an utterly imaginative concept.

            Significantly, theistic evolution presents strong dilemmas as stated above. Therefore, Christians should not believe in theistic evolution.

Endnotes:

¹ http://www.discovery.org/a/10091

² http://biologos.org/

³ http://www.discovery.org/a/10121