I was listening to my podcast from BBC News and very often, while listening to some of the stories they consider, a tumult of emotions come over me.  Today is no different.  Apparently, the Vatican, which has no real bearing on my life, but does represent a “face of Christianity” to the world…so, I must argue against it when I feel it is not rightly dividing Scripture.  The article includes three quotes pertaining to Darwin’s and the Bible’s view on the origins of the world and Life.  I am going to argue against these representations, because none are correct according to Scripture.

The first:

Pope John Paul II said that evolution was “more than a hypothesis”.

  I do agree that evolution is more than a hypothesis.  It is a theory.  This, however, does not give it any more weight than a speculative guess.

The second:

A leading Catholic Cardinal, Christoff Schoenborn, of Vienna, a former student and friend of Pope Benedict XVI caused controversy by saying that Darwin’s theory of natural selection was incompatible with Christian belief. 2006. [emphasis mine]

Darwin’s theory of natural selection is not incompatible with Christian belief.  Darwin’s theory of evolution is.  Natural selection is something we see very easily in genetics.  It can’t be argued against.  Survival of the fittest is natural, and something that God put in the order of life.  Some refer to natural selection as “microevolution” but this is not correct.  There is no evolution in natural selection.  What I mean is that if a pair of dogs with genes for long hair and short hair are placed in a certain environment, say, the tundra, and they mate and produce a litter of puppies.  Some of those puppies will be born with short hair and some with long hair, maybe even some with medium hair.  The puppies with the short hair will die quickly because they do not have the necessary gene to protect themselves from the cold.  However, the puppies with the long hair…or I guess I should say fur…will survive to maturity (granted there is no other genetic problem or disaster in their location).  This means that those puppies will grow and be able to produce offspring, and as those without the long fur characteristic continue to die in that climate, only those with long fur will be able to survive and pass on their gene of long fur.  Conversely, if those two original dogs are placed in the hot, dry climate of central Mexico, the puppies with long fur would overheat and die.  Only the dogs with short fur would be able to survive in that kind of climate.  Essentially, though, it is not an addition of information to the puppies genetic make-up, but rather a loss of information, as the surviving dogs lose the gene capable of producing the other length of fur.
  Evolution, however, implies the adding of information to the DNA of a creature to change it so that it can survive in a new climate.  There’s no way that this could be so, though.  I mean, honestly, it’s ridiculous when you think about it.  A giraffe, for instance, has a great long neck, and its heart is massive and so strong so that it can pump the blood all the way to the giraffe’s brain so it won’t die.  Now, when the giraffe lowers its head to get a drink, all of that blood would rush to its head, causing its brain to hemorrage and the giraffe to die.  So, did the giraffe think…”Oh, I better do something to fix this problem…I’ve died.”  No, God created it with a series of valves in the giraffe’s neck that, once the head begins to be lowered, cuts off the flow of blood to the brain.”  But then, when the giraffe raises its head again and needs to take off running because an enemy is coming, there is no blood flowing to the giraffe’s brain and therefore it passes out and dies.  So, the giraffe must have thought, “Oh no!  I’m dead.  I better evolve something to help me cope with that so I won’t die.”  No.  God put a special muscle in there so that as the giraffe raises its head again, the valves open and blood can flow through at a rate that won’t overload the brain.  It speaks of design and not chance or survival.

And three:

A leading American scholar of biology, Prof Francisco Ayala, plans to tell the conference that the so-called theory of intelligent design, proposed by Creationists, is flawed. “The design of organisms is not what would be expected from an intelligent engineer, but imperfect and worse,” he said. “Defects, dysfunctions, oddities, waste and cruelty pervade the living world”.

I will admit that the world we see today is full of defects, dysfunctions, oddities, waste and cruelty.  However, God did not create it to be this way.  He created it perfect and whole and without defect.  But man sinned in the garden, and through that sin, death entered the world.  The Bible says, “For the creation waits with eager longing for the reavealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” (Romans 8:19-22; emphasis mine)  All of creation is falling into a whirlpool of decay and destruction because of the sin of man and the entrance of death into the earth.  Well, not even just the earth, but even to outer space (the destruction of stars and black holes and such).  And as we get closer and closer to the time that Christ will come back, things will continue to get worse.  This is why I think global warming is inevitable and unchangeable.  Of course, I will do my part not to contribute as much as I can to it, and to take care of my environment, but there really isn’t much that can be done.  This world is on a fast track to destroy itself and nothing but Christ’s return will stop it.

I know that some people will read this and think me uneducated and narrow-minded, but I hope that some will read it and consider that there might be truth in it.  It’s not truth because I say it, or even present a good argument (if you think it is good).  It’s truth because it’s in the Bible.  We look at the science through the lens of the Bible, not the Bible through the lens of science.  Science, as pertaining to origins, is completely hypothetical, and every equation and calculation we use to pull fact from history is subjected to our own personal belief.  Some people do not want to have to answer to an Almighty Creator God and therefore draw their calculations to purposefully exclude Him.  They throw millions of billions of years into the equation and so the answer will include millions of billions of years.  However, if you just look at it through the lens of Scripture, things make perfect sense.  Science, by way of evolution, has so many gaps and question marks, it’s a wonder that it’s still a valid take on origins and life history.  The Bible’s take, however, has no question marks or gaps where things can be explained.  Whatever happened to the idea that “the simplest answer is usually the correct answer.”

Here is the full article for you:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7920205.stm