Difference between revisions of "Creation or Evolution (For Teens)"
Ewakefield2 (talk | contribs) (→Abiogenesis) |
Ewakefield2 (talk | contribs) (→Transitional Forms) |
||
| Line 49: | Line 49: | ||
#Genesis 1:6-8 Day Two – Sky and Sea | #Genesis 1:6-8 Day Two – Sky and Sea | ||
#Genesis 1:9-13 Day Three – Land and Vegetation | #Genesis 1:9-13 Day Three – Land and Vegetation | ||
| − | #Genesis 1:14-19 Day Four – Stars, Sun and Moon | + | #Genesis 1:14-19 Day Four – Stars, Sun, and Moon |
| − | #Genesis 1:20-23 Day Five – Sea creatures including fish and | + | #Genesis 1:20-23 Day Five – Sea creatures including fish and birds |
#Genesis 1:24-29 Day Six – Animals and Mankind | #Genesis 1:24-29 Day Six – Animals and Mankind | ||
**The Cambrian explosion actually fits with Genesis. God "spontaneously" created all of the forms of life we see. | **The Cambrian explosion actually fits with Genesis. God "spontaneously" created all of the forms of life we see. | ||
Revision as of 16:15, 17 September 2018
Contents
Objectives
- Students will have an informed understanding of what evolution actually entails.
- Students will be able to accurately critique evolution based on the Bible.
- Student will recognize that a Creator is a reasonable perspective on origins, but students will also recognize that faith is still necessary.
Introduction
- What does the term evolution mean to you?
- Evolution is a hot topic in fundamental circles, and we need to have a strong apologetic for creation. However, a strong apologetic also means we must actually know what evolution teaches. No qualified biologists believe that monkeys are currently turning into humans or anything of this form. Evolution is a well-reasoned, but flawed perspective to which some very intelligent people subscribe. All too often we fight evolution with straw man arguments. These are arguments in which we build up a ridiculous perspective and then celebrate the ease with which we burn it down. If we are to defend creation, we must reject straw man arguments and focus on the fundamentals.
Evolution is the supposed process by which the first cell evolved into the diversity of life we see today. Natural selection and mutations are considered its driving force. However, evolution has never been observed and natural selection and mutations cannot add the information necessary to change one kind into another.[1]
Implicit in this definition are several key components that we can tackle from a biblical perspective:
- Abiogensis
- Macro-evolution
- Transitional Forms
- Reducible Complexity
In this lesson we will look at each of these components and present the challenges posed to evolution and ways in which creation handles these challenges.
Main Body
Abiogenesis
Abiogenesis is the view that life could naturally spontaneously emerge from non-life. The second law of thermodynamics holds that the amount of usable energy in any system decreases over time (Note: it is not that the amount of energy decreases but the usable energy decreases). Applied to evolution this law says that things are not moving to greater complexity but actually less complexity. As scientific knowledge advances the likelihood of abiogenesis has decreased. However, we are not just critiquing evolution. We are looking at the Bible. The Bible actually solves the problem of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Specifically, according to the Bible, we are not in a closed system. There is a transcendent God who chooses to interact in the system we call our universe.
- How does the Genesis 1:1 deal with the notion of abiogenesis.
- Genesis 1:1 shows the God created ex-nihlo. In other words from nothing God developed everything.
Macro-evolution
All animals experience small changes through natural processes such as breading. For example, some dogs have short legs, other dogs have long legs. Some dogs are bread to hunt, others are bread to be hypoallergenic. These small changes within a species are often called micro-evolution. It is worth noting that creationists don't actually dispute these minor variations. These are smalls observable changes that do not contradict the Bible but actually exist in unison with the idea of mankind having dominion over creation. The breading of dogs for specific tasks is one way in which mankind can exercise dominion.
According to macro evolution, new structures and organs can be the result of mutations. The ultimate result of macro-evolution is the development of new species through the process of gradual evolution.
- Does the Bible indicate that macro-evolution is false?
- In Genesis 1:20-25 the word kind provides a taxonomic classification. God uses this word in the same place where he commands the creatures to be fruitful and multiply. In other words, God intended for creation to have micro-variations, but never cross-species variation.
Transitional Forms
According to evolution we should see a slow transition of fossils from simple to complex life. This is not what we see. Instead we see abrupt changes.
The so-called "Cambrian explosion" refers to the geological record that sees an abrupt explosion of fully formed marine invertebrates.
- According to the record of Genesis 1, how did life emerge?
- In Genesis, we see that God created specific forms on specific days.
- Genesis 1:3-5 Day One – Night and Day
- Genesis 1:6-8 Day Two – Sky and Sea
- Genesis 1:9-13 Day Three – Land and Vegetation
- Genesis 1:14-19 Day Four – Stars, Sun, and Moon
- Genesis 1:20-23 Day Five – Sea creatures including fish and birds
- Genesis 1:24-29 Day Six – Animals and Mankind
- The Cambrian explosion actually fits with Genesis. God "spontaneously" created all of the forms of life we see.
Reducible Complexity
In order for evolution to be possible, there must be a way to trace the evolution from a single celled organism to a complex organism. This path must be clear and would require that complex organisms be broken in to less complex organisms tracing all the way back to a simple organism. However, this is not the case. Irreducible complexity refers to the fact that some items are as simple as they could be.
- To what does the phrase "build a better mouse trap" refer?
- Build a better mousetrap refers to the idea that it would be hard to improve on such a simple design.
- One example of an irreducible complex process is the bacterial flagellum.
An irreducibly complex system is one that requires several interlacing parts to be present at the same time, where the removal of one or more parts causes the whole system to malfunction. Destroy one part and the whole system falls apart. The purported mechanism of evolution, on the other hand, is that a new trait will confer a selective survival advantage, and thus enable its possessors to compete better than organisms without the trait. In neo-Darwinian evolution, a new trait would have to be completely developed—no halfway measures would do. Given this requirement, new features are so complex that neo-Darwinian gradualism is very improbable because an incompletely developed trait would offer no selective advantage.[2]
- What do Jeremiah 10:12-13 and Psalm 104:24 say about the engineering of creation?
- What can we learn from Proverbs 8:22–31 in the context of Proverbs 8?
Conclusion
Hopefully the above challenges to evolution convince you that evolution, like creation requires a leap of faith.
Occam's razor states that if there exist two explanations for something then the simpler one is usually better. Creation requires a simple belief in God and is therefore the better explanation. However, create. has its challenges, don't walk out thinking that creation is an easy explanation devoid of a need for faith. The creationist and evolutions alike rely on faith to explain the origins of life.
