Background
My article, The Case for Christ, was condensed from my original research for readability, but the additional information is important. Therefore, I created several pieces so that I could share the extra content with readers. This is one of those articles. Click the link above to see the original post on The Case for Christ.
Introduction
My original paper on The Case for Christ covered how to view objective history and that miracles exist. Here, I will show two reasons for rejecting Darwinian Evolution, and that the God of the Bible is the intelligent cause behind creation. This is additional supporting evidence making the case for Christ.
Evolution rejected
Some might say that we evolved and therefore there is no intelligence behind the origin of the universe. While this paper cannot deal fully with the arguments against Darwinian Evolution, two points need to be made concerning it. These two arguments point to an intelligent cause for the beginning of life, and call for a rejection of Darwinian Evolution. They are: 1) an understanding of DNA, and 2) the fossil record.
DNA
Our latest understanding of the DNA molecule and the amount of information it contains would also lead us to an intelligent cause for life. “It turns out that a single strand of DNA carries the same amount of information as a volume of an encyclopedia. Granting that there may have been enough energy available to do the work [of creating DNA], the only systems we know which can harness the energy to do this kind of work are either living (but these were not around before life began) or intelligent” ”1 The conclusion here is that the vast amount of information contained in DNA points to intelligence, that it could not have come about by chance, and that it is a basic building block of life. In addition, the numbers are staggering:
“One scientist figured the odds for a one-cell animal to emerge by pure chance at 1 in 10⁴⁰⁰⁰⁰. [One followed by forty thousand zeroes!] The odds for an infinitely more complex human being to emerge by chance are too high to calculate! The only reasonable conclusion is that there is a great Designer behind the design in the world.”2
Fossil Record
Much examination and research has been done looking for transitional forms in the fossil record. The expectation by evolutionists is that they would be able to find the transitional fossils that would demonstrate gradual change. The lack of these transitional fossils have brought some scientists to develop another theory. They suggest that instead of gradual change, there were sudden leaps from one stage to another which they call ‘punctuated equilibrium’. However, the punctuated equilibrium theory does not provide a mechanism or cause that would make sudden leaps possible. So, the transitional fossils do not exist, and the punctuated equilibrium theory has a huge missing piece, leading me to agree with creationists who would say that:
“The fossil evidence clearly gives a picture of mature, fully functional creatures suddenly appearing and staying very much the same. There is no real indication that one form of life transforms into a completely different form.”3
“Now that we have new evidence about the nature of the universe, the information stored in DNA molecules, and further fossil confirmation, the words of Louis Agassiz resound even more loudly than they did when first written in 1860:
‘[Darwin] has lost sight of the most striking of the features, and the one which pervades the whole, namely, that there runs throughout Nature unmistakable evidence of thought, corresponding to the mental operations of our own mind, and therefore intelligible to us as thinking beings, and unaccountable on any other basis than that they owe their existence to the working of intelligence; and no theory that overlooks this element can be true to nature.’ ”4
Conclusion
I affirm that there is an intelligent cause behind the creation of the universe, specifically, the God of the Bible. I deny that Darwinian Evolution gives a viable explanation for the origins of the universe and should be rejected based on the evidence of the information contained in DNA and what the fossil record actually reveals.
Appendix
There are some who believe that the theory of Darwinian Evolution is true. For them, tampering with human DNA poses no ethical dilemma. I write about this in my paper titled, Genetic Revolution.
1 Norman Geisler & Ronald Brooks, When Skeptics Ask, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2003), 224
2 Geisler & Brooks, 22
3 Geisler & Brooks, 229
4 Geisler & Brooks, 231