Pictured above is my newest book called, Creation and Evolution: The Ongoing Conversation. The reason I call it, The Ongoing Conversation, is because there are three classes of people that exist on either side of the debate. These fall under the classification of skeptics, seekers, and firm believers. In addition, there is one other class of individuals that believe in both creation and evolution, called theistic evolutionists, who basically believe that there is a God who created the universe, but who also used the process of evolution to create humanity.
Since this is a hotly contested issue that rages on between Christian and non-Christian as well as within Christianity, I decided to share my viewpoint in this book on why I believe in supernatural creation and that mankind is created in the image of God. Below is the link to Amazon if you would like to order my book:
I have also reprinted the introduction from my book (below) to give you a flavor for why this ongoing conversation is so important:
Introduction
Creation or Evolution?
The Bible teaches creation while most modern-day scientists teach evolution. The implications of who is right are enormous. Are we made in the image of God as the Bible states, or are we made by accidental chance as Darwinian evolution claims? If the Bible is right, then we have tremendous intrinsic value. But suppose evolution is the way we made our way into existence. Then the only conclusion is that we are the product of a vast chain of random mutations, with our great-great-great-great-etc. grandparents being the chance collision of random molecules.
If Darwinian evolution is a fact, then we must face the sad reality that we came from nothing, and when we die, we go back to nothing. The question we must consider is whether mindless molecules created the magnificent minds we possess and whether a person can ultimately find real meaning without God. In the remainder of this series of essays, I would like to share with you my observations on why I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist and believe in evolution.
Some say that there is a middle-ground position we can take called theistic evolution. Under this scenario, God exists and He used evolution as the mechanism to bring about mankind. I contend that this is a direct attack on the very nature and character of God. Theistic evolution posits that God used trial and error over millions and millions of years to get it right and to bring about humanity. God, as a result, used millions of years of death and decay, survival of the fittest, and a host of fortuitous events to bring you and me into existence. This chaos flies against the very character of God and in the face of Genesis 1:31: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” It also assumes that death and decay take place before the Fall of Adam and Eve, which is impossible.
Another major problem with Darwinian evolution is that scientists who believe in it can’t tell us where the original matter came from for the evolutionary process to have had matter to work on. Inanimate matter is required for evolution to have something to act upon to create the first life. Evolutionists have no good answer as to where this matter came from. Only the Bible goes the final step by stating in Hebrews 11:3: “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.” Only an all-powerful God could create a universe out of nothing! I am much more comfortable casting my lot with Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
I would like you to consider a thought-provoking experiment concerning the Apple iPhone. If you could take an iPhone apart into all of its components and place all of these parts in a box, how long would it take for the iPhone to reassemble itself by simply shaking the box? Most rational people would say that you could shake the box forever, and the parts would never reassemble into an iPhone.
Let’s compare the iPhone experiment to what our evolutionist friends believe: that given enough time, random molecules can evolve into complex organisms. First, the evolutionists already have a distinct advantage in that they already have all of the parts needed to assemble the iPhone. Therefore, there’s no need to form new parts through the mutation process. But let’s toss in the instruction manual on how to assemble all the component parts in the box—another advantage. Will this help? Quite frankly, no. Finally, let’s put the box into a big room with some of our best scientists and Apple inventors and ask them to reassemble all of the components into an iPhone. The only catch is they can’t use any tools.
Well, here we have all of the components, the detailed instructions on how to assemble our iPhone, and the best minds in the world, but without tools, the iPhone will never be assembled. Yet even with all of these advantages over the true evolutionary process, which basically starts with nothing, the evolution of the iPhone is still impossible.
Finally, to suppose that a human being, who is infinitely more complex than an iPhone, could evolve through some blind random process takes a lot of faith; far more faith than I possess.
I leave you with two possible scenarios: One says that an all-powerful God created the universe—and yes, you and me—or that the evolutionary mantra of “nobody times nothing equals everything” is true. I ask you to ponder your choices.
In the following pages I will share 45 short essays designed to help us think biblically, scientifically, and logically about how human beings came into existence, and why the creation model is far superior to the theory of evolution.
My sincere prayer is that as we journey together on this fascinating adventure, you will come to realize why you are indeed “fearfully and wonderfully made” by our awesome and wonderful God (Psalm 139:14), and not the product of a chance collision of random molecules.