Tuesday 7 August, 2012

Read Genesis 2

 

To really understand what you believe about creation and God’s Word in Genesis 1-3 take the time to answer this question.

 

If you were to video the start of the universe and the beginning of life what do you think you would see in that video? Would you see essentially what is described in Genesis 1 and 2 or would you see evolutionary processes occurring? Would you see something totally different or a mixture of the two? How long would your video run for? Seven days or billions of years?

 

By honestly answering that question you are beginning to understand and expound where you stand on the issue of creation versus science/evolution.

 

To understand the stance between the Bible and science, within the parameters of Genesis 1-3, we need to understand the basics of evolution. Evolution is a self perpetuating process (popularised, but not invented, by Charles Darwin) which claims that all life forms have developed gradually over long periods of time with minute changes along the way.  These changes generally are mutations, often called accidental mutations, that benefit the species and enhance its chance of survival in the environment. As more and more changes/mutations occur within a species that species will change and develop and eventually form new species.  We are concerned primarily with macro evolution, the change from one species to another completely different species rather than with micro evolution which shows how one species can change to suit their environment. This latter process might more correctly be called adaptation.

 

Evolution thus states that all life began billions of years ago - currently 4 ½ billion years ago but this figure has been revised regularly over the centuries.  From a ‘primordial’ soup, life began when ‘something’ happened to induce life to form or begin. Christians who hold to evolution would argue that this ‘something’ was God’s work. Non-Christians argue it was electricity or some other ‘force’ of nature present at the time.  From this soup, now containing living proteins and the most basic life forms, mutations (DNA mutations mostly) began to occur.  These changes continued to occur over millions of years and allowed all of our present life forms to be formed.  If a particular change or mutation benefited survival, that change was naturally  ‘adopted’ by the species and continued through the procreation process while non beneficial changes died out.  Over the necessary billions of years these small mutations and changes formed and branched out into the life systems and organisms that we see today.

 

The process is driven by natural selection – or the survival of the fittest.  The organisms that survive well are the ones that breed and pass on their traits to the next generation while those that are not strong are the ones that die and do not breed.  Hence by breeding and natural selection a species comes to exist and either thrives or dies.  By further natural selection processes this species will produce new and different species.  Death and dying are an integral part of this process as is suffering and a struggling for life or survival.  Without death and the struggle for life evolution simply could not proceed. Evolution without death is a non event. It simply cannot proceed forward as both bad traits and  good traits will remain in the specific population.

 

Prayer:

¨ As Creation Research preach this weekend, pray that God would use them powerfully to bring many to believing the Biblical testimony of Creation. Pray that God’s Word would be powerful and active, bringing conviction upon all.

Pray that Creation Research would be able to teach and equip us to defend the Word, to promote it and to preach it fearlessly in our contexts. Pray that many would come to faith in Christ as we reach out with the Word of life.