"I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth."
Apostles' Creed, Article I
"We should emphasize the words, 'maker of heaven and earth.' What is meant by these words, 'I believe in God the Father almighty, maker...etc.'? Answer: I hold and believe that I am a creature of God..."
Martin Luther, Large Catechism, Creed, Article I
Can we please stop apologizing for believing Genesis 1 and the first articles of The Creeds?
It struck me today that I have not posted on creation, and that it does not go without saying in our current culture. It should go without saying that I believe that "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1. But it needs to be established among us, without apology. So this is my apology, without apology. (It's a play on words...apology also means to defend... never mind.)
So having established that I believe God created the heavens and the earth, I want to add that I am not a "Young Earth Creationist." (A young earth creationist believes that the universe was created less than 6000 years ago, because if you take everything in the Bible literally - which we should not - then counting backwards comes to less than 6000 years to Adam.) The reason I am not a Young Earth Creationist is star light, and the speed of light. (Even if our calculation of the speed of light is somehow off, we will never get to 6 thousand years from 6 billion.) I have heard the arguments. But as followers of Jesus and created creatures of God, we really don't get to take something that makes no sense and try to make sense of it by saying "God did it."
But notice that atheistic evolutionists do exactly the same thing. They take something (more than one actually) that makes no sense and try to make sense of it by saying, "Time did it."
Atheistic Evolution makes no sense. It's just impossible. Darwin recognized that a system that could not be brought about by progressive approximations could not be explained by his theory (which required successive approximations)...a system like... the eye for instance. Vision requires an eye, an optic nerve and a brain capable of interpreting the light signals. Assuming a positive mutation resulted in an eye somehow (There has never been an observed positive mutation apart from human - design - intervention.) that eye would not give any competitive advantage. It would not work. Same with an optic nerve without an eye, or brain capacity. The only way the eye works is fully formed as an entire system - designed, created, installed.
Atheistic evolutionists have been forced to concede for some years now that the DNA molecule could not have formed by random chance. Now a scientist would conclude that the hypothesis of random combinations of chance had failed and abandon it. But not our plucky evolutionists. When faced with the Cambrian Explosion, our storytellers came up with "giant leap evolution." When faced with the building block of life being unable to be formed by random chance, they came up with...wait for it...this is my favorite... alien DNA seeding! Science? Or blind faith? And faith in what?
If you do not believe me, I recommend you rent (or buy) and watch Ben Stine's documentary, "Expelled." One short clip is a part of our confirmation class each year. It is the clip of Stine interviewing Dr. Dawkins. In the clip Dawkins actually promotes the feasibility of alien DNA seeding! I show my students because if I told them he said that, they would not believe me. So I show them. I also suggest you rent the movies "Mission to Mars" starring Gary Sinise and the newer "Prometheus." They are both good movies, but warning here that Prometheus is R for a reason. (It is the prequel to "Alien".) If you want, just watch the opening scene promoting the "theory" of alien DNA seeding and making this ridiculous fairy tale viable for the public. Mission to Mars does the same thing, but in the last scene rather than the opening scene.
Now for my brothers and sisters in Christ who are "Theistic Evolutionists", I admit that Theistic Evolution is not impossible, and does not deny directly the truth of the Scriptures, Creed and Confessions. Conceded. But I hope that you will also allow that I can believe both The Faith and Science by not buying into the argument that evolution works (worked) because "God did it." (Sound familiar?) Possibly. But since this process has never been observed moving one species to another in the history of history, and in fact no positive mutation giving a competitive advantage has been observed, and, since science is based in observation and recording, I will remain a skeptic regarding evolution. So what are / were dinosaurs? Um...extinct species created by God? Humans have shown a remarkable ability to move species created by God to extinction. Natural occurrences can do the same.
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
