“World-proof Yourself for College,” Jay Wegter, www.gospelforlife.org
Darwinian Evolution; Scientific Theory or Religious Philosophy?
I. Naturalism’s claim to provide a material explanation for all phenomena (including human origins and behavior) is a philosophic endeavor, not a scientific endeavor.
A. Darwinism sought to debunk Christianity’s truth claims.
B. Secularism pits ‘science’ against the Bible; making the two appear to be mortal enemies.
C. Darwinism functions philosophically like a universal acid.
II. The Devastating Flaws in Evolutionary Theory:
A. The ‘Icons’ of evolution are debunked by empirical science, but are still found in textbooks.
- Darwin’s Beaks 2.) Dysfunctional Fruit Flies 3.) Doctored Moths 4.) Haeckel’s Embryos
B. There is a lack of evidence for evolution in the fossil record.
C. Mutation and natural selection do not form a creative process.
D. Darwin tried to prove that things only ‘appear’ to be designed.
E. Evolution has a prior commitment to philosophical naturalism.
III. How does Darwinism affect Culture? A. Have we been ‘fooled’ by our selfish genes?
B. If all behavior is adaptation, there can be no such thing as objective morality (Eph 4:17-19).
C. No one can live a worldview of total determinism with man a mere biological machine.
D. Evolution fails as a moral guide suggesting human values are merely ‘mental mutations’.
IV. What is our Christian Response in deconstructing Darwinism?
A. Refuse to place God’s truth in a religious, subjective category.
B. Emphasize that God’s ‘fingerprints’ of design are everywhere in creation (Ps 104).
Intelligent design proponent Michael Behe coined the term, “irreducible complexity.”
C. Stress that Darwin’s theory fails his own proposed test.
D. Learn how to construct a case for intelligent design in origins (Job 38-41).
E. Explain that the first cause of order, uniformity, and rationality cannot be chaos.
F. Teach your children why they may have confidence in the Christian Worldview.
V. A proposed strategy in responding evangelistically to a Darwinist:
- Begin with the confidence that the unbeliever lives in God’s world, NOT the world of their imaginings.
- Regardless of the unbeliever’s presuppositions, he has to live in God’s world.
- Press the antithesis (push the worldview collision) by stating that ‘big bang chaos’ is a woefully inadequate first cause of logic, personhood, justice, meaning, unity, love, goodness, beauty, morality, etc.
Conclusion: In order to engage our culture, we must be willing to enter a cognitive battle over origins (Rev 4:11; 10:5-7; 14:6-7).