On some recent speaking engagements in California I spoke regarding the subject of evolution. I used an article from the Wall Street Journal as “show and tell.” It’s titled “Man vs. God” and has a picture of Darwin just about the same size as its picture of God.

 

I thought it was a particularly poignant because James Watson, who is a Nobel Prize winner and also well known as co-discover of the structure of DNA, made a statement that shows us that we are in a war of ideas. He said, “Charles Darwin will eventually be seen as a far more significant figure in the history of human thought than either Jesus Christ or Mohammed.” This isn’t by some wild eyed liberal that everyone writes off as crazy, this is someone who has won the prestigious Nobel Prize and was co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.

 

It shouldn’t surprise us that pagan intellectuals write or think like this, they’re pagans exercising their job descriptions. The problem is that their message is heard by multitudes because we as Christians haven’t given a reasonable answer. In other words, we haven’t exercised our job description, which is to be ambassadors for Christ. Some Christians are secret agents who have never blown their cover before the unregenerate world.

 

In the article in the Wall Street Journal, on one side you have Richard Dawkins, and if Thomas Huxley was Darwin’s “bulldog,” Richard Dawkins has been aptly described by some as Darwin’s “rottweiler.” Dawkins makes various statements that are of great concern. He says, “Evolution is the creator of life… the greatest show on earth, the only game in town.” “Evolution is God’s redundancy notice, his pink slip.” “God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.” This is the Darwinian evolutionary point of view.

 

This is set up as a Pro/Con, on the one side, you have the Darwinian evolutionists and on the other hand you have someone who supports the notion of a creator. In that particular corner stands Karen Armstrong. What does she say? She asks, “But what of the pain and waste that Darwin unveiled?” What of the “death and racial extinction”? What of the callous cruelty and evolutionary waste? Her answer is that the notion of God like any “good myth showed you how to cope with mortality, discover an inner source of strength, and endure pain and sorrow with serenity” in an arbitrary world controlled by natural selection. Her point is not that God is real; the idea is that a belief in God can help you deal with the pain and waste that Darwin unveiled. In this view, the Bible is no more than psychology book that can help you cope with the evolutionary process.

All of this is being said in an age of scientific enlightenment in which the fossil record is saying no to evolution. It’s being communicated in an epoch of time, in which ape-men, fiction, fraud, and fantasy abound. It’s being communicated in a time when design without a designer is ever more untenable. In an epoch of time in which empirical science explodes the myth of Darwinian evolution. If you’ll notice I’m very careful with my words because we as Christians certainly believe in microevolution or changes within kinds, but the notion that a lizard becomes a bird is singularly untenable in an age of scientific enlightenment.

My point in saying all this is to note that we are in a war, a battle, and it is crucial that you as a believer are equipped to give a reason for the hope that lies within you with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15). We somehow have this notion that science is the child of secularism, that is false. Science could have only arisen within a Christian worldview. A secularist could have come up with alchemy but not chemistry, with astrology but not astronomy. The notion that secularism birthed science is completely false and as Christians we are commanded to know how to answer those who are leading our children and our children’s children astray. This should not be done by bolviating but with gentleness and respect, using our well reasoned answers as springboards or opportunities to share the grace, truth and love of the one who spoke and the universe leapt into existence.

We have many resources on this topic ranging from a brand new DVD called Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record to a classic DVD we have recommend in the past entitled The Privileged Planet and much, much more. You can check these out at our Website of www.equip.org or by calling us at 1-888-700-0274.

Recommended Resources:

Darwin’s Dilemma
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The Privileged Planet
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As quoted by Alister McGrath (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mcgrath/Shewsbury%20Darwin%20Festival%202007.pdf) and quoted by Tom Frame in his book, Evolution in The Antipodes: Charles Darwin and Australia (University of New South Wales Press Ltd, Sydney, Australia, 2009) 2. (http://books.google.com/books?id=VdbZB2yCcsIC&pg=PT9&lpg=PT9&dq=James+Watson+Charles+Darwin+will+eventually+be+seen+as+a+far+more+significant+figure+in+the+history+of+human+thought&source=bl&ots=2Ypm4-doG1&sig=eu8qluxBcvYTZo5NyOO_ioweZ2Y&hl=en&ei=tgy5Srv3FMS_tgeQrcX0Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=James%20Watson&f=false) . All websites accessed 9/22/09.

 

“Man Vs God” with Essays by Richard Dawkins and Karen Armstrong, The Wall Street Journal 9/12/09 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574405030643556324.html#U10156404922R1E)

Ibid.