Comments on Creation vs Evolution
COMMENTS ON CREATION VS. EVOLUTION
Virgil Warren, PhD
We face a challenge in fleshing out our worldview. Sometimes a well-informed perspective needs to incorporate information of such a technical and detailed nature that we non-specialists are never sure how well we grasp it. On the other hand, specialists who work at the detailed level in a few fields have the opposite disadvantage: they are not well equipped to grapple with the big picture. They tend to make unwarranted extrapolations, which they set contrary to theism and creationism. Scientists frequently let “hard science” bleed over into philosophy of science without seeming to realize it. As a result, the relative certainty scientists may have about the specifics of their research they tend to transfer to the philosophical inferences they make from that work.
It is particularly frustrating to hear evolutionists repeatedly say that creationism is not scientific, as if that were bad—as if the explanation of origins can legitimately come only from what science can address—as if the evolution hypothesis itself were scientific. Creationism is not positively scientific because any appeal to supernatural agency invokes causalities beyond the natural order, which cannot be demonstrated. Were they demonstrable, they would not be supernatural; but if they cannot be demonstrated, they are disallowed up front—an interesting Catch-22 if creationism is the case. Creationism is scientific negatively speaking, however; experience tells us that “dead people don’t rise”; so, if a dead person rises, we invoke supernatural causation. The conviction is that reality can exhibit a result that natural causalities cannot originate.
We can say that creationism is at least as scientific as evolution; or, to put it the other way around, evolution is just as much philosophical/theological as creation. Evolution is a hypothesis for explaining the background of what we see; evolution is not something we see. If it is not observable, it is like creation, which appeals to invisible supernatural cause. The difference is that the one postulates natural invisible causes while the other posits a supernatural one. The supernatural cause has the advantage of adequacy while the natural may have the conceivable advantage of parsimony. The supernatural cause also has the advantage of being able to originate independent natural groupings whereas evolution must bridge from one grouping to another, which not only says something for which there is no basis but something that the Mendelian laws of inheritance, for example, give us every reason to deny.
These points are not new, but we note them because the mechanisms scientists propose for getting things from base condition to present complexity we have no relevant examples of in real life. The mechanisms are postulations only, not facts per se. Our impression is that they either fly in the face of what we do know, or they are not what is needed to get the job done. As an example of the latter, chance bounded only by physical laws is not sufficient cause. In biological evolution, virtually all the observable realities amount to various kinds of formal similarity between one kind of organism and the next—from one order of being to a higher one; but theoretically there is more than one way to account for that similarity. What we are trying to explain is like a dot-to-dot that has pattern. Evolutionists mentally draw a line from one dot to the next throughout the picture and create an “evolution tree”; the line represents a series of imaginary gradations within the same dimension as the dots. Creationists agree that formal similarity more likely implies a connection between two kinds than no connection does, but they put the connecting mechanism in another plane from the data itself. They put the connection in supernatural Mind, supernatural Person.
Two additional points are in order. One is (a) the idea that “God used evolution to create,” as the statement often goes. That statement is incoherent unless it means that God created mass-energy and embedded within it the capacity for self-complexification, and thereafter did nothing more than let mass-energy take its course. For the terms evolution and creation to represent parallel ideas, however, the dividing line between them must be placed where there is a natural break in the realities—at the place between causality outside the physical order and causality internal to that space-time realm. If we do not appeal to external causation, we are speaking of evolution; if we do appeal to external causation, we are speaking of creation. The former is endogenous causation; the latter is exogenous causation. “Creating by evolution” is a nonsense phrase under these definitions. It is like a “human tree” or a “bovine frog.” We should adopt definitions that correlate with the issues of the discussion.
Under creation, then, we put any scenario that appeals to “super”-natural along the way from base condition to present complexity, regardless of the number of interventions and regardless of how long a period of time it is during which they have occurred. The issue is one of kind, not degree or frequency. Not only can creationism vary as to the number of interventions, it can also allow for more change than we had thought could be accounted for by environmental factors in concert with potential genetic variation and other mechanisms like mutation. “Progressive creation,” then, would not refer to creating by evolution, but to stretching out the creative interventions over a longer period of time than traditional creationism envisions. Progressive creationism would contrast, not with creationism, but with fiat creationism, which pictures the whole creative endeavor as occurring at virtually the same time in nearly continuous fashion.
No conflict exists between scriptural parameters and an ancient universe such as evolutionary scientists suppose, if it is not clear that Genesis 1 means “days” as twenty-four-hour periods or that Genesis 1:1 falls within day one. Other documents in our apologetics group list several cues within the biblical material itself that look away from the more restrictive view even if it is a conceivable concept as such or even a conceivable interpretation of Genesis 1. What is conceivable and what is required are two different things. On the other hand, in all candor, we do well to question whether the universe is as old as evolutionists think. The only chronometric conflict between Genesis and evolutionary theory lies in the biosphere, particularly the antiquity of mankind. A biblical framework cannot stretch the time frame for the latter beyond a few thousand years.
Another point has to do with (b) complexification rather than modification. The difference is what writers mean by micro-evolution vs. macro-evolution (or a general theory of evolution). Micro-evolution refers to observable change, while macro-evolution refers to a general theory of unobserved change that can supposedly be extrapolated from the observable data to explain “the whole thing.” To be relevant to the creation-evolution variable, the distinction between micro- and macro-evolution must include increasing the number of factors harmoniously related within a self-replicating organism. For evolution to be true, it must produce increased complexity. This point brings in the need for a sufficient cause for the truly “new,” the truly additional. Extrapolating from micro- to macro-evolution acts as if it is possible in a practical (not just theoretical) sense for enough changes in degree to bring about changes in kind. But in observable change, it is questionable whether we have any precedent for such a thing. Extrapolating from something like the peppered-moth kind of change to a gills-to-lungs kind of change equivocates degree change with kind change. That is the background behind the definition of evolution as “endogenous complexification over time.” It is complexification, not just alteration; and it is complexification by internal factors, not external ones. If we do not make the terminological distinction in this way, we have no meaningful distinction relevant to the creation-evolution controversy.
All these comments on “progressive creationism” bring up a point of paramount importance. As far as mechanics of change are concerned, there is no difference between atheistic evolution and progressive creationism if by the latter we meant that “God used evolution to create.” The only difference is that in progressive creationism God would be involved up front bringing mass-energy into existence. Otherwise, “progressive creationism” and “theistic evolution” would be synonymous. “Create” would mean simply to come into present form, and evolution would also mean coming into present form by internal causes. The only difference from atheistic/ materialistic evolution would be the intentionality on God’s part prior to the process. Prior intentionality would, indeed, give purposive character to the resultant universe, which impersonal materialism could not do. Admittedly that is a significant gain we should not depreciate. But causally, the process itself would take place the same way. For creation to differ from evolution, it must involve supernatural intervention along the way. If in progressive creationism God simply brought mass-energy into existence and allowed it to complexify itself by means of supposed in-built capacities, there would be no difference between the evolutionary scenario and the creationist one. For communication purposes, contrasting terms should correlate with contrasting realities.
If mass-energy over time can self-complexify, God is not necessary for explaining things as they now stand. This is what disturbs creationists about evolution and capitulations to it by Christians. Postulating God is over-explanation; since parsimony calls for sufficient explanation vs. overkill, God becomes an overkill factor; atheism becomes the simpler explanation and therefore the more likely one. A theistic viewpoint would not rest even in part on anything intuitively or discursively obvious from the universe. The basis for theism would be limited to history; our apologetic would rest solely on other people’s testimony about experiences of supernatural intervention or on direct personal experiences of it. If that is the situation, well and good; but that does not seem to be the situation from anything science can show. Although the theistic proofs based on origin, cause-effect, form, and so on, may not create a necessary conclusion in favor of transcendent personal theism, they do make that view more likely than the alternatives—and that is all we need: practical likelihood rather than theoretical necessity. But if we restrict divine activity simply to originating mass-energy, we have the same situation as matter eternally existing with those characteristics. The likelihood approach, rather than favoring theism by virtue of theistic proofs, favors atheism by virtue of parsimony. Instead of Person willing matter into existence, matter brings person into existence epiphenomenally—if, of course, a scientist admits that person is a different kind from thing. The pattern amounts to the Romans 1 reversal: humankind switches to matter [creature] as the ultimate frame of reference instead of God [creator], who is blessed forever (1:25).
Pinches’ article “Table of Nations” in ISBE says that mongoloids and genroids are not covered in the lineage of Noah. That sounds more like an affirmation than a demonstration. If we knew ahead of time that they did not descend from Noah’s three sons, we could handle the table of nations the way he does and detach it from the rest of Genesis. But in the larger picture Genesis presents, such an approach does not account for universal sin and death before the flood because Genesis 3 would pertain only to the Adamic line. A local flood that would have eradicated only the descendants of Adam and Eve supposes that they were relatively few after so many centuries and had not spread out very far from their point of origin. It also leaves apparently unanswerable questions about the accuracy of data in the flood narrative. Water deep enough to cover all the hills in an area that big and water present on land as long as the narrative states would not stay in so small an area for that long that deep. To retain any value for the chapters, we would have to treat them as if they were like many Greek plays, which took basic historical events and added all kinds of subevents that did not really happen, and words not actually said, and meanings not really involved in the kernel event. Given the way the rest of the Old Testament refers to the materials and the way the New Testament writers use them, we would not suppose that such an analysis represents the genre and content intended by the author.
The point about Cain’s finding a wife has not troubled biblical creationists because they do not first of all consider general evolution viable. The point is often brought up in connection with arguments for the antiquity of the universe and the human race. The creation-evolution question is not one about time (antiquity) but mechanisms of complexification. Secondly, insofar as “stellar” evolution may be explained by demonstrable chemical, electrical, gravitational processes, there is no difficulty from a scientific standpoint; and since scripture does not speak precisely enough to eliminate the time frame in which such an operation would have occurred, it would not eliminate an ancient universe. It is when evolutionists start extrapolating across “breaks” in nature—like inorganic to organic and monocellular fission to bisexual fusion—that their theory becomes dubious, because they are equivocating different kinds of changes. If evolution of mankind from lower orders were already known to be true, we would be more inclined to read the Cain episode in that light. But his finding a wife can fit into creationism as well. Whenever a fact can fit two views, it does not prove or disprove either one—even if it seems surprising under one of them.
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