A thorough comparison of the scientific and technical debate between creationists and evolutionists is beyond the scope of this website. The purpose of this article is to examine the argument behind the arguments. Why is creation vs. evolution an issue? How did the argument come to be in the first place? And what are the eternal ramifications?
One of the great ironies about the creation vs. evolution debate is that, at the core, the adherents use the same methodology, but one side won't admit it. Evolutionists claim to use the scientific method. The scientific method involves background research, constructing a hypothesis (an educated guess), testing, and analyzing results to determine if the hypothesis was true. It is obvious to anyone willing to step back and review the situation that the scientific method is not applicable to circumstances that are neither observable nor testable. This certainly includes the development of the world and the life on it. Radiological testing has been shown to be inaccurate, fossils can only indicate where a creature died, and the only testimony of the ancient past is in cultural and religious stories. The physical evidence is spectacularly inconclusive. In order to make sense of it, a presupposition must be in place. In the case of the creation vs. evolution debate, that presupposition is: was there a Creator, or not?
If this is the case—if both sides use the same methodology but different presuppositions to argue their cases—why is the creation vs. evolution debate so vitriolic? It has to do with the culture surrounding the development of the evolution belief. For thousands of years, the world's understanding was that in some form or another, an outside, non-human deity created the world and brought life to its surface. Different cultures had different ideas about how involved that deity remained in human affairs, but all agreed the creator had a hand in setting expectations on mankind's behavior and beliefs. Of course, the Judeo-Christian tenet was that God created the world and rightly expected to be worshiped as Creator.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, however, a worldview developed that inflated the worth of mankind. Humanism influenced the culture positively in that it valued each individual, but it also caused horrible damage when it sought to replace reliance on God's Word with human intellect and logic. This was not a new phenomenon. Paul said of all the godless and wicked people, "they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen" (Romans 1:25). What was peculiarly unique was the ability of this new rise of humanism to set the stage for a worldview completely without God. Not that He could be ignored, but that He didn't exist.
It was into this culture, primed for atheism, that Darwin's evolution developed. And save for a handful of deistic evolutionists, there it has remained. Humanism taught that mankind is responsible for building a just society and an ethical culture. In evolution, it climaxed in the belief that, unwittingly, mankind developed its own existence. If mankind does not need a creator to develop morality and truth, then there is no need for a deity in present human affairs. Humans are free to live as they may. But mankind is only completely free from God and religion if there truly is no God at all. Evolution provides a means of completely ignoring our dependence on God by allowing for the possibility that He does not exist at all.
The idea that the world does not have a creator is so foundational to the origin of evolution that proponents don't realize they are taking an ideology as fact. They don't realize they have a presupposition at all. And they cannot see that their presupposition is identical in effect to the creationists' presupposition that there is a creator. The argument for evolution begins with the refusal to admit bias, and continues with inconclusive evidence carefully interpreted in accordance with that bias. "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie…" and are so blind to it that they cannot see the faults in their own arguments. God gave ample evidence for His work in creation (Romans 1:20), but "the fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). A fool is not someone who is not intelligent. He is someone who cannot apply the facts correctly. Evolutionists may have extensive knowledge of the data, but they cannot make the leap to wisdom because "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Proverbs 1:7). There is no wisdom without God. There is no way to correctly interpret the origin of life without God.
The argument about creation vs. evolution has turned into a mud-slinging brawl of scientific fallacies and political expediencies. But, at its core, it was always about the question: "Do we need God?" Ironic that the first sortie in the creation vs. evolution war took place in Genesis 3. The argument starts with a decision—God, or no?—and every subsequent movement is determined by that presupposition. The decision is not a trivial one. If there is a Creator, all mankind is responsible to Him and valued by Him. We are dependent on Him for life, and we are beholden to His decisions regarding the consequences of our choices. If there is no Creator, then our lives are random chance and our only worth is that which we determine. And we are all fools.
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