Word of Salvation – Vol. 43 No. 05 – February 1998

 

Why Believe in Creation?

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde on Hebrews 11:3

Scripture Readings: Genesis 1:1-2; Hebrews 11:1-3

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s been a long, hard day at Uni.  Not only were there lectures, tutorials, pracs and assignments due.  Today was the first day the lecturer taught evolution.  That night a Christian student goes home and reviews the notes he took in class.  He is confused.  Why?

1. His lecturer is teaching that evolution is “the origination of living things by development from earlier forms, not by special creation.”
   The Bible teaches that God created the heavens and the earth, as well as every living creature that moves.
2. The lecturer said: “Environmental changes… have caused organisms to develop into many different species, and simple organisms to develop into more complex organisms.”
   The Bible says: “So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living moving thing with which the water turns, according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind.” (Gen 1:21)
3. The lecturer said: “Humans and apes do have similar features which could show that we have developed from the same ancestor.”
   The Bible says: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Gen 1:27)

So who is right – the lecturer or the Bible?
And what is true – evolution or creation?

Or can somehow both be true at the same time?  Did God start the world by creation and finish it by evolution?  Did he perhaps take billions of years to get the earth to what it is today?

So maybe there is no contradiction after all.  Why not close the book and have a good night’s sleep?

These are common questions and to answer them I want to do three very important things.  So please listen carefully.  It may not always be easy to listen today, but at the end of the day you’ll be ever so glad you did!  Some of these things may be hard to understand, but please hang in there.

So, what are these three important things I’d like to talk about?

1. Science and the Bible;
2. The Theory of Evolution;
3. The Belief in Creation.

So, we begin with:

I.  Science and the Bible

A.  Let me start by making a statement that may blow your mind.

There is no conflict between Science and the Bible!  Science and the Bible agree perfectly!  There is not a single contradiction between them!  Why?  Because God stands behind both.  God is both the Creator of nature and the author of Scripture.  He made the world and He wrote the Bible.  When it comes to God there is no contradiction between what He does and what He says.  The Bible records what He has said and Science studies what He has made.  So Science and the Bible are like a happily married couple who live together in perfect harmony.

So then, why is there strife?  Why all the tensions, the bickering, the arguments, the debates?  Why all the fuss about creation and evolution?  Why, does an Australian scientist like Dr lan Plimer take issue with the Creation Science Foundation?  Why?

Is the problem between Science and the Bible?  No.  The conflict is between a particular understanding of Science and a particular interpretation of Scripture.  Because we are human we sometimes draw the wrong conclusions from our scientific observations.  Because we are human we sometimes misinterpret the Bible.

Let me give you some examples:

For many years scientists believed in a substance they called ‘phlogiston.’ It was the matter and principle of fire.  Some substances were rich in phlogiston, like charcoal or oil.  Even zinc and phosphorus had their fair share of phlogiston.  But then a Swedish chemist showed that the whole phlogiston theory was nonsense.

But sometimes people got the Bible badly wrong, too.  For hundreds of years Christians believed the sun revolved around the earth and that the earth was the centre of the universe, and they could quote the Bible to prove it!  In Psalm 104:5 it says: “God set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.” But then Copernicus came along and taught that all the planets (including Earth) revolved around the sun.  A bit later, Galileo constructed a telescope, looked into the heavens and announced that Copernicus was right.  So was the Bible wrong?  No, but the old interpretation of Psalm 104:5 was certainly wrong.

So, Science and the Bible don’t conflict.  But our misunderstandings of Science and the Bible often do conflict.  Let me try and make that clearer by showing what Science does and does not do, and what the Bible does and does not do.

B.  So, let’s begin with Science?

1.  What does Science do?  Or let me put that another way – what do you do in Science?  At school or at university what do you do in the Science laboratory?  You conduct experiments.  And what do you do when you conduct experiments?  You weigh, you measure, you observe results, you test theories, and you draw conclusions.

When I was at high school, one of my most prized possessions was a chemistry set.  One of the first experiments I did was to turn sugar into carbon.  Heat it up enough and sugar turns into black, useless carbon.  Every time I did it, it produced the same result.

From there you go on to bigger and better things.  My favourite was to produce hydrogen sulphide – otherwise known as rotten egg gas.  No matter how often I did the experiment, lo and behold, it produced the same result – rotten egg gas.

In my own boyish way I had discovered the scientific method.  Do the same experiment under the same conditions and you get the same results.

Now the scientific method has been used over the years to do some wonderful things for humanity.  Think about it:

• because of Science, we can fly in supersonic jets from one continent to another;
• because of Science, we can watch colour television;
• because of Science, we can play video-games and use our modems or communicate on email.

2.  So, Science has made our lives very pleasant and very interesting, but marvellous as it is Science also has its limitations.  Let me illustrate.  Somewhere between the ages of 12 and 20, pretty well every human being asks himself or herself some pretty basic questions that demand answers: Who am I?  Where did I come from?  Where am I going?

Now I want to put it to you that these are three questions that Science cannot answer.  It can try, but it won’t get very far.

(i)  Who am I?

The question of identity is beyond the reach of Science.  The most that Science can do is answer the question, what am I?  As any chemistry student knows, a human being is made up of certain elements calcium, carbon, oxygen, iron, phosphorus, nitrogen and zinc that would sell for just a few dollars.  That’s not a very satisfying answer.  It doesn’t give you much sense of worth as a human being and it certainly doesn’t answer the question of identity.

(ii)  Where did I come from?

Again, Science can give a limited answer.  We know a lot more now about life in the womb, about how life begins.  Modern discoveries about genes and chromosomes have given us detailed information undreamed of before.  But when it comes to the bigger question, we are none the wiser.  How did humanity get here?  How long has humanity been here?  Every honest scientist will admit that these are questions that Science cannot answer.  Scientists may guess, but that’s all.  They can come up with sophisticated guesses and elaborate theories.  But at the end of the day that’s all they are guesses and theories.

(iii)  Where am I going?

Just by observation, the scientist can give you a pretty clear answer on that one.  You’re going to the grave.  You’re going to die and decompose.  But when it comes to the human race, scientists can only guess what our destiny might be.  At the end of a book about Geology this is how one British scientist described our human destiny:

“As we continue to pollute the land, sea and atmosphere, more and more species will disappear… the land will become more and more over-populated by us and our domestic animals.  The sea will be over-fished and the whole complex ecosystem will whimper to its end.  We shall certainly be outlived by the bacteria and blue-green algae, but that is only fair, as they were here first.” (D. Ager, The New Catastrophism, (CUP,1993).

Pretty depressing stuff!

So, for all its marvels, Science cannot answer those deepest questions of the human heart which we all long to have answered.  And why can’t Science answer these questions?  Because it was never meant to.  These are not scientific questions, they are deeply religious questions.

C.  For satisfying answers, we don’t turn to our science text books, but to the Bible.  To each of these questions the Bible gives a very clear and satisfying answer:

(i)  Who am I?

I am a creature made in the image of God.  That’s my identity.  As a human being I have a quality that no animal can claim to possess – I am the image of God.  So I am worth more than a few dollars.  I am a creature of infinite value.  I matter to God.

(ii)  Where did I come from?

Where is my origin?  It is in the very mind of God.  As David says in one of the Psalms:

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb… All of the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:13, 16)

So, I was created by the very hand of God.

(iii) Where am I going?

What is my destiny?  Again the Bible is very clear.  It not only speaks about this creation, but about a new creation that God is preparing.  As the apostle Peter said, “…we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13).  There, God will live with his people forever.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes – and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.  That’s where I’m going.  That’s my destination.  That’s my destiny.

So, the Bible gives satisfying answers to our deepest questions.  But the Bible, too, has its limits.  The Bible isn’t a scientific textbook.

When you’re doing your homework in Science and Maths, you don’t go to the Bible to look for answers.  For example, you don’t go to the Bible to solve an algebra problem; and you can study it all you like but you won’t find the periodic table of Chemistry.  That’s not what the Bible is for.  When properly understood, the Bible doesn’t contradict Science, but that still doesn’t make it a scientific textbook.  There are some questions that Science was never meant to answer, but there are some questions that the Bible wasn’t meant to answer, either.

This brings us to the second main topic which is:

II.  The Theory of Evolution

A.  My basic question about evolution is simply this: Is it really true?  The way the student heard it explained in the lecture, is that the way it really happened?  What Charles Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species back in 1859, was that right?  Did a simple form of life, completely by chance and without the help of God, gradually become more complex?  Over millions and billions of years did life slowly change till we are where we are today?  Do all forms of life – from amoeba to humans – have a common ancestor; maybe a single living cell, somewhere way back in the dim and distant past?

B.  For a moment I want you to imagine that you’re on a walk with a friend from out of town.  You’re showing him around your neighbourhood and you come across this beautiful house surrounded by a magnificent garden.  It’s so nice you stop to admire it all.  The owner notices you, and you start up a conversation:

“That’s quite a garden you have there.  You must be some gardener.”

“Oh no,” he says, “it all grew up by itself.  I’ve never planted a thing and I’ve never pulled a weed.”

“Yeah, sure,” you think to yourself.  You don’t quite know what to say, so you change the topic.

“I really like your house.  Who was the builder?”

“As a matter of fact,” he says, “the house got here by itself, too.  It took a long time mind you, but it happened all by chance.  No one built this house.  Of course, it was here a long time before we moved in and I wasn’t around, but sure as eggs, that’s how it happened.”

Let me give you another illustration.  I remember this one from my RI teacher in high school, so it must be pretty good.  He said, “Boys, imagine that I were to give you a bucket and all the parts of a watch, and then, if you shook that bucket for five million years, would you produce a watch?  Well, then, if the universe is infinitely more complicated than a watch, could it ever have come about by chance?”  Good question!

When we see a watch, we think of a manufacturer.  When we see a house, we think of a builder.  When we see a garden, we think of a gardener.  And yet, when some people look at themselves, at the world, and at the universe, they never think of a Creator.  The best thing they can come up with is chance and a mysterious process called “natural selection.”  Our planet swarms with life and it all just happened.  Amazing!

C.  But, of course, there’s more to all of this than a few simple illustrations.  There are some very competent scientists today, not necessarily Christians, who are having some real problems with Darwin’s theory of evolution.

An example is Michael Denton, a medical doctor and scientist from Sydney.  Back in 1985 he wrote an excellent book called Evolution – A Theory in Crisis.  There he states quite categorically:

“There can be no question that Darwin had nothing like sufficient evidence to establish his theory of evolution.” (p 69).

And again:

“Darwin himself admitted… there was absolutely no evidence that any of the major divisions of nature had been crossed in a gradual manner.” (p 73).

And finally:

“Today there is a widespread illusion that the theory of evolution was all but proved 100 years ago and that all subsequent biological research… has provided ever increasing evidence for Darwinian ideas.  Nothing could be further from the truth!” (p 77).

So why do people believe it?  Partly because there is such a thing as micro-evolution.  Within a species there are changes.  An example often mentioned is the Peppered moth.  It comes in two forms – dark and light.  After the industrial Revolution, the dark one became more common.  But the point is that it was still a moth.  Science has never been able to show that one species turned into another in any major way.  It just does not happen and there is no proof that it ever did happen.  Even today you have distinct species.  You don’t have a creature that is halfway between a fish and a bird, for instance.  Sure, there are minor changes within species, but evolution on a grand scale is still just a theory.

But there is another reason why people were so keen to believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution.  A spiritual reason!  Here is an explanation for the world that doesn’t need religion.  If you believe this view, you don’t need a Creator, you don’t need God.  You can sound ‘scientific’ by explaining things entirely in terms of natural causes.  But as soon as you do that, you’ve turned Science into religion.  You’ve gone way beyond the evidence.  You’ve made evolution into a dogma that you believe in by faith.  This is no longer a theory, but a religion.  I had an atheist friend in high school.  He told me, “You believe in creation and have faith.  I believe in evolution and have facts.” Not really.  We both had faith and he had more than me!

So, that brings me to my third point:

III  The Belief in Creation

So why do I believe in Creation?  Why do I believe that God created the heavens and the earth?  Why do I believe in Genesis?  Do I believe in Creation because I don’t believe in evolution?  Or is it because I can prove creation?  If Science can’t prove evolution, can it perhaps prove creation?  Can scientific research show that God created the world and that Genesis is true?  No, it can’t.  Science can’t prove creation and Science can’t disprove it.  Why not?  Because it’s not a scientific question.  It’s a religious question.  It belongs to those three questions we looked at earlier:
            – who am I?
            – where did I come from?
            – where am I going?

So, if Science can’t prove creation, why do I still believe it?  Now here I’m not giving you my personal answer or my experience.  I want to give you the Bible’s answer, which sounds just so dreadfully simple and honest: We believe in creation by faith.  Hebrews 11:3 says “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

In other words, the visible universe was not made out of equally visible raw material.  It was called into being by divine power.  To believe that is not a matter of blind faith, it is a matter of taking God’s word for it.  We have it on the say-so of God Himself.  Come to think of it, that’s not such a bad basis.  After all He was the only one who was there when it happened.  When it comes to creation, there’s only one surviving eyewitness and that was God Himself.

To have faith is to take God at his word.  That also puts us in very good company.  You will notice how Hebrews 11 continues:
            “By faith Noah…”
            “By faith Abraham…”
            “By faith Moses…”
            “By faith David…”

If you believe in creation, you’re up there with the best of them.  Here were people who believed in things that they couldn’t see, in things that were hard to believe, but nevertheless they took God at his word.  When it comes to creation, we should do the same.  Then we can read Hebrews 11 again and add our own names to the honour roll of faith.
            “By faith Abraham…”
            “By faith Isaac…”
            “By faith Jacob…”
            “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command…!”

Conclusion

When you believe in creation you know something that, tragically, many people in Australia today don’t know.  You are valuable and you are significant.  Why?  Because you were made in the image of God.  Now let me make that very personal:

…(name)… is a very valuable person because she was created in the image of God.

…(name)… is a very valuable person because he was created in the image of God.

Each of us is a very valuable person because we were all created in the image of God.

We all matter to God.  And do you know how much?  How much are we worth to God?  What was the price He paid for us?  How did He calculate our value?  By sending His Son to die on the cross for us.  After we had sinned He bought us back by the blood of Jesus shed on the cross.

So, why are we valuable people?  For two reasons:
            We were created in the image of God; and,
            We were redeemed by the Son of God.

Therefore,
            I know who I am;
            I know where I’ve come from; and
            I know where I’m going.

Praise God!

Amen.