Category Archives: Apologetics

Any Valid Examples of Evolution?

Posted on by
Reply

Email To Russ Miller (CreationMinistries.org):

“My child’s school is teaching her she evolved from primates. Are there any valid examples of evolution?”

Answer: Millions of examples of Micro-evolution, better called micro-adaptations or variations, could be shown. Adaptations are simply ‘kinds bringing forth after their kind’ as Scripture tells us will happen. These are caused by the sorting or loss of the genetic data they inherited from their parents. Never has a viable example of Darwinian/Macro change, such as a primate becoming a human, been found. This would require the addition of massive amounts of new and functionally beneficial genetic information. Real science, based on the observation of existing evidence, knows of no viable example of nature adding this kind of data to an existing gene pool. Thus, Genetic loss (Gene Depletion) + Selection prevents Darwinian style change to occur.

Some Further Russ Miller Quotes:

“Darwinian evolutionism is a religious belief that puts one’s faith in a single celled creature having come to life before mutating to bears, beavers and biology professors. Yet it’s estimated a single celled bacteria requires genetic data that’s 10,000 times more complex than a space shuttle. 1 in 10 to the 50th power is considered absolute zero & the odds of life forming by natural processes has been calculated to be 1 in 10 to the 40,000th power (1 in 10 to the 18th would cover every second for 30 billion years). Mathematical probability alone refutes Darwinism.”

“The next time you’re asked if you believe in evolution, correctly respond, “I believe in Biblically and scientifically correct micro-evolution.” Let me explain. Darwinists show kids pictures of brown moths and yellow moths; then discuss how they’ve descended from a common ancestor over ‘millions of years.” Well, drop the “millions of years” and I agree they have a common ancestor, it was a moth. They’ve simply ‘brought forth after their kind’ as God’s Word tells us will occur and as real science always finds. This is micro-evolution, not never-observed Darwinian-macro evolution. The ability to micro-adapt was placed in their gene pool from the start by their Creator who gave His created kinds a tremendous range of genetic variation which allows them to adapt to various climates & conditions.”

“Population studies show if we began with 4 couples (off the ark) 4,500 years ago and averaged 2.2 kids per couple we’d have around 7 billion folks today…which is what we have.”

“We constantly hear about the search for THE missing link, as if such a discovery would cause the Darwinian chain to materialize. But macro evolution requires billions of links leading from the supposed first cell to the millions of kinds of plants and animals living on earth today, yet never has a viable link of any kind been found that proves Darwinian change occurred; and Darwinism requires billions of these links. Scripture warns us to avoid false science, which some believing will err concerning their faith. Indicating that finding a ‘missing link” would cause the whole Darwinian chain to come together is science falsely so called.”

“The Bible says creatures will bring forth their kind and warns us to beware of false science; yet billions have lost their faith due to Darwinian bait & switch con games presented in science classes. For instance, texts present a Biblically correct example of a variation within a kind (also called micro-evolution or adaptation), such as a fly bringing forth a fly with shorter wings (caused by the sorting or loss of the parent’s genetic data), then switch the discussion to Darwinian (macro) evolution which requires the addition of new and beneficial genetic data. Observation-based science is a Believer’s true friend so don’t be fooled by false teachings and put your faith in the Word of God.”

“Following the 1969 moon landing, moon rocks were aged using radiometric dating techniques. One rock was sliced into pieces & sent to 8 labs for testing. As usual, a wide range of dates (10,000 to 3.6 billion years) were obtained with only the desired age of 3.6 billion years being published. But New Scientist magazine reported, “Signs of volcanic activity indicate the moon formed “just a few million years ago.” Well, that’s only about 1% of what we’ve been told and couldn’t this also prove the moon is just a few thousand years old? Absolutely! Since no one observed the creation of the moon, I’ll humble myself to accept God’s uncompromised Word.”

“Jesus said Satan was the father of lies and one of the Devil’s most successful tactics is to get man to twist what’s good into something Satan can use to serve his evil purposes. Take ‘natural selection.’ 24 years before Darwin’s book came out, Biblical creationist Edward Blyth showed how natural selection eliminated harmful mutations & helped creatures adapt to various climates in the post-flood world. Darwin twisted this into something that has misled billions of people yet, as I like to point out; natural selection is God’s Quality Assurance program. It removes genetically weaker variations & mutations, preventing them from corrupting the gene pools our heavenly Father created. Without natural selection most creatures would go extinct within 1,500 years.”

“FB message: “There are 100’s of creation myths. What evidence do you have that the Bible’s story is the right one?” Thanks for your vital question as where a person will spend eternity hangs in the balance! A great way to tell the Truth from the 1,000’s of myths about our origins, whether they are evolution, creation or alien based, is by the 100’s of Biblical prophecies fulfilled. Then add to the Bible’s amazing ability to correctly predict the future the Archaeological finds that always support the Scriptures; the Biological proofs, as kinds only being forth after their kind; and the Geological evidences of the Global Flood and it’s what I call a ‘Done Deal.'”

“Hebrews 11:3 tells us we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God through faith, so the things which are seen were not made of things which appear. Our DNA doesn’t appear to the naked eye, yet our DNA contains the data to produce more than 100,000 different proteins, each with a unique function. Human technology can store data on the surface of a computer chip. However, DNA stores data in three dimensions and, if written out in 500 page books, a pinhead sized holder of DNA could hold enough data to make a pile of books that would extend from earth to the moon 500 times! Talk about incredible design! Romans 1:20 tells us the invisible things from the creation will be clearly seen so unbelievers will stand without excuse. Put your faith in the Word of your Creator.”

Is There a God?

Posted on by
Reply

Article by Sinclair Ferguson (original source here)

Answer the question “Is there a God?” in around 775 words? Is this perhaps the easiest assignment Tabletalk has ever commissioned, since the answer is so clear? There are no consistent atheists, only people hiding from God. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). God is the inescapable given who undergirds all things.

Or, is this the hardest assignment Tabletalk has ever commissioned? A comprehensive answer might fill an entire library. What follows, then, is only a stray fragment from one chapter in a book in that library.

➝ 1 God the Creator is the only solution to Gottfried Leibniz’s and Martin Heidegger’s ultimate riddle: “Why is there something there, and not nothing?”

Ex nihilo nihil fit—“Nothing comes from nothing.” Let us note that nothing is not a “pre-something”; it is not “something reduced to a minimum.” Nothing is NO thing, no THING. Nothing—a concept impossible for the mind to comprehend precisely because nothing lacks “reality” in the first place. To transform Rene Descartes’; famous dictum Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) we can say, Quod cogito, non cogito de nihilo (Because I am, I cannot conceive of nothing).

That leads to another Descartes-esque thought: Quod cogito, ergo non possibile Deus non est (Because I think, therefore it is impossible that God does not exist). The cosmos, my existence, and my ability to reason all depend on the fact that life did not and could not come from nothing, but requires a reasonable and reasoning origin. The contrary (time + chance = reality) is impossible. Neither time nor chance is a pre-cosmic phenomenon.

➝ 2 This God must be the biblical God, for two reasons. The first is that only such a God adequately grounds the physical coherence of the cosmos as we know it.

Second, His existence is the only coherent basis, whether acknowledged or otherwise, for rational thought and communication. Consequently, the nonbeliever of necessity must draw on, borrow from, indeed intellectually steal from a biblical foundation in order to think coherently and to live sanely. Thus, the secular humanist who argues that there are no ultimates must borrow from biblical premises in order to assess anything as in itself right or wrong.

I have recently tried a simple but unnerving experiment, directing my mind to think its way into the assumption that there is no God, and then to explore the implications. I strongly discourage performing this mind experiment. It leads inexorably to a dark place, a mental abyss where nothing in life makes sense, indeed, where there is no possibility of ultimate “sense.”

Here, all that we think of as good, true, rational, intelligible, and beautiful has no substructure to give these concepts coherence. Thus, the nature of everything I am and experience becomes radically deconstructed and disconnected from my consciousness of them. That “consciousness” that seems intelligible is then an unjustifiable fabrication of my own imagination. And then that imagination ceases to have coherence in itself.

In essence, then, my highly complex consciousness becomes merely an inexplicable series of intricate chemical reactions grounded in no rationality and having no inherent meaning. “Meaning” itself in any genuinely transcendent sense is itself a meaningless concept.

As experimenters in the pilgrimage of consistent atheism, we will then conclude that it is the “atheists” who are driven to despair, as they yield to the unbearable conclusions of their premises, who are the only consistent atheistic thinkers with the courage of their convictions. Those who calmly claim to be atheists are unmasked as in fact refusing the conclusion of their professed convictions, repressing what they know deep down to be true (that God is)—the very point Paul makes in Romans 1:18–25.

The novelist Martin Amis recounted a question that the Russian writer Yevgeni Yevtushenko asked Sir Kingsley Amis: “Is it true that you are an atheist?” Amis replied, “Yes. But it’s more than that. You see, I hate Him.” Far from being able to deny the existence of God, he confessed both God’s existence and his own antagonism toward Him.

Amis was not alone. Neither a knight of the Realm, nor any of us, can escape being the imago Dei (however mutilated). We can therefore never deny the Deus of whom we are the imago. For God has placed a burden on us: “He has put eternity into a man’s heart” (Eccl. 3:11). As Augustine said, our hearts are restless until we find our rest in Him.

Why then does the Bible not ask the question, “Is there a God?” Because its first sentence answers it: “In the beginning, God… .”

Making Sense of Scripture’s ‘Inconsistency’

Posted on by
Reply

Article by Tim Keller: Making Sense of Scripture’s ‘Inconsistency’ (original source here)

I find it frustrating when I read or hear columnists, pundits, or journalists dismiss Christians as inconsistent because “they pick and choose which of the rules in the Bible to obey.” Most often I hear, “Christians ignore lots of Old Testament texts—about not eating raw meat or pork or shellfish, not executing people for breaking the Sabbath, not wearing garments woven with two kinds of material and so on. Then they condemn homosexuality. Aren’t you just picking and choosing what you want to believe from the Bible?”

I don’t expect everyone to understand that the whole Bible is about Jesus and God’s plan to redeem his people, but I vainly hope that one day someone will access their common sense (or at least talk to an informed theological adviser) before leveling the charge of inconsistency.

First, it’s not only the Old Testament that has proscriptions about homosexuality. The New Testament has plenty to say about it as well. Even Jesus says, in his discussion of divorce in Matthew 19:3–12, that the original design of God was for one man and one woman to be united as one flesh, and failing that (v. 12), persons should abstain from marriage and sex.

However, let’s get back to considering the larger issue of inconsistency regarding things mentioned in the Old Testament no longer practiced by the New Testament people of God. Most Christians don’t know what to say when confronted about this issue. Here’s a short course on the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament.

The Old Testament devotes a good amount of space to describing the various sacrifices offered in the tabernacle (and later temple) to atone for sin so that worshipers could approach a holy God. There was also a complex set of rules for ceremonial purity and cleanness. You could only approach God in worship if you ate certain foods and not others, wore certain forms of dress, refrained from touching a variety of objects, and so on. This vividly conveyed, over and over, that human beings are spiritually unclean and can’t go into God’s presence without purification.

But even in the Old Testament, many writers hinted that the sacrifices and the temple worship regulations pointed forward to something beyond them (cf. 1 Sam. 15:21–22; Pss. 50:12–15; 51:17; Hos. 6:6). When Christ appeared he declared all foods clean (Mark 7:19), and he ignored the Old Testament cleanliness laws in other ways, touching lepers and dead bodies.

The reason is clear. When he died on the cross the veil in the temple tore, showing that he had done away with the the need for the entire sacrificial system with all its cleanliness laws. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for sin, and now Jesus makes us clean.

The entire book of Hebrews explains that the Old Testament ceremonial laws were not so much abolished as fulfilled by Christ. Whenever we pray “in Jesus name” we “have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19). It would, therefore, be deeply inconsistent with the teaching of the Bible as a whole if we continued to follow the ceremonial laws.

Law Still Binding

The New Testament gives us further guidance about how to read the Old Testament. Paul makes it clear in places like Romans 13:8ff that the apostles understood the Old Testament moral law to still be binding on us. In short, the coming of Christ changed how we worship, but not how we live. The moral law outlines God’s own character—his integrity, love, and faithfulness. And so everything the Old Testament says about loving our neighbor, caring for the poor, generosity with our possessions, social relationships, and commitment to our family is still in force. The New Testament continues to forbid killing or committing adultery, and all the sex ethic of the Old Testament is re-stated throughout the New Testament (Matt. 5:27–30; 1 Cor. 6:9–20; 1 Tim. 1:8–11). If the New Testament has reaffirmed a commandment, then it is still in force for us today.

The New Testament explains another change between the testaments. Sins continue to be sins—but the penalties change. In the Old Testament sins like adultery or incest were punishable with civil sanctions like execution. This is because at that time God’s people constituted a nation-state, and so all sins had civil penalties.

But in the New Testament the people of God are an assembly of churches all over the world, living under many different governments. The church is not a civil government, and so sins are dealt with by exhortation and, at worst, exclusion from membership. This is how Paul deals with a case of incest in the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 5:1ff. and 2 Cor. 2:7–11). Why this change? Under Christ, the gospel is not confined to a single nation—it has been released to go into all cultures and peoples.

Once you grant the main premise of the Bible—about the surpassing significance of Christ and his salvation—then all the various parts of the Bible make sense. Because of Christ, the ceremonial law is repealed. Because of Christ, the church is no longer a nation-state imposing civil penalties. It all falls into place. However, if you reject the idea of Christ as Son of God and Savior, then, of course, the Bible is at best a mishmash containing some inspiration and wisdom, but most of it would have to be rejected as foolish or erroneous.

So where does this leave us? There are only two possibilities. If Christ is God, then this way of reading the Bible makes sense. The other possibility is that you reject Christianity’s basic thesis—you don’t believe Jesus is the resurrected Son of God—and then the Bible is no sure guide for you about much of anything. But you can’t say in fairness that Christians are being inconsistent with their beliefs to follow the moral statements in the Old Testament while not practicing the other ones.

One way to respond to the charge of inconsistency may be to ask a counter-question: “Are you asking me to deny the very heart of my Christian beliefs?” If you are asked, “Why do you say that?” you could respond, “If I believe Jesus is the resurrected Son of God, I can’t follow all the ‘clean laws’ of diet and practice, and I can’t offer animal sacrifices. All that would be to deny the power of Christ’s death on the cross. And so those who really believe in Christ must follow some Old Testament texts and not others.”