Evolution- the study of origins (Part 5)

Water is the most universally effective chemical solvent known, dissolving more substances than any other liquid, though being itself exceedingly stable chemically. It thus provides the fluid medium in which extremely slow chemical reactions may proceed rapidly. It constitutes the fluid medium in the body which makes the body a functioning chemical plant of high efficiency. Water also has almost the highest heat capacity of any known substance and therefore is probably the ideal stabilizer of the temperature of the planet, absorbing enormous amounts of heat without itself becoming too warm for life and then surrendering that heat without itself becoming too cold. Its unusual properties in all three states -- solid (ice), liquid, or gaseous (vapour) ‹ within the temperature ranges common to the earth make it tremendously important as a mechanical agent in modifying the earth's surface, weathering the rocks and creating a bed for the first plants, and allowing for its own re-circulation by evaporating into cloud formations and then being condensed and precipitated. Its ability to absorb large quantities of oxygen at comparatively low temperatures guarantees survival of living organisms in oceans and lakes. Its exceptional property of expanding slightly just above the freezing point allows it to form a protective layer of ice that floats on the surface and prevents large bodies of water from freezing solid and destroying marine life.

           Meanwhile, the earth has a proper relative proportion of land and water surface in order that the land may be neither parched through insufficient precipitation nor turned into a swamp through excess. The topography of the land is such that it assists in the process of watering the earth by causing turbulence in air currents which pass over it, thus bringing about the breakup of cloud formations.

           (6) The existence of the moon is also of fundamental importance tothe earth. As far as is known, it is the largest satellite relative to the size of its parent body. From this point of view it is, in fact, huge. The moon has sufficient mass to cause tides, and tides are of great importance in keeping the oceans fresh. The possession of a moon of such a size by our earth is of importance in more than one way to life as we know it. What currents do in vitalizing rivers, tides do for the oceans.
     All these coincidences add up to an impressive testimony to the uniqueness of the earth as a theatre for the unfolding of God's plan. In his book Man on His Nature, Sir Charles Sherrington remarked:

     A great American physiologist, Lawrence Henderson, has set forth the particularity of the physical and chemical conditions whose occurrence on the face of the earth render possible the existence of the systems we call living. Certain anomalous properties of water in conjunction with universal powers and space-relations of the carbon atom, along with exceptional conditions of radiation and temperature, are shown to form a sort of conspiracy of circumstance allowing life to be, both here and now.

     Dean H. Kenyon and Gary Steinman, in their book Biochemical Predestination, would go one step further and argue that the raw materials for life were created in such a form that life must have been predestined by them.  They put it this way: "Biochemical Predestination means that the limits beyond which evolutionary processes could not stray, would be determined largely by the properties inherent in the evolving bodies as preset by the (raw) materials from which the (finished) materials were fabricated."

           We are often told that the chances of life on other planets like the earth are very considerable, and there is no need to suppose that the existence of life here is really so exceptional. I think the total situation is more complex than the public has been led to believe. In a paper entitled, "Some Cosmic Aspects of Evolution," which G. G. Simpson contributed to a symposium held in Europe in 1968, he dealt with some aspects of the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe and concluded with the following remarks:

     The chances that anything like man, or for that matter like any other terrestrial species except perhaps the most primitive, exists elsewhere in the universe are, I think, the same as the chances that any other planet has had exactly the same history as earth -- and as its inhabitants -- in every essential detail for two billion years and more.

      In my opinion those chances are effectively nil for the mere one hundred million planets of Shapley's minimum or even for Hoyle's less reasonable billions of billions.

     I therefore earnestly doubt whether there are any manlike beings waiting to greet us anywhere in the universe. The opposite opinion, even though it has been advanced by some eminent and sensible men, seems to me to underestimate either the complexity or the rigidity of historical causation.

     Our earth therefore may be somewhat more significant than we might suppose, even though astronomers have shown that it is such a tiny speck of material in an inconceivably vast universe. The question arises, can such a tiny speck, looked at from this point of view, be really so important? The answer, I think, may be found this way: There are two alternatives. One would be to make the earth much larger relative to the universe. And the other would be to make the universe much smaller relative to the earth. As we have seen, the first alternative is out of the question; the size of the earth cannot be changed very much. Then what of the latter alternative? What would happen if the universe were made smaller? Is it not true that in due time we should pierce through space until we have found its boundaries? Then suddenly it would not seem so big after all. At first this might not matter very much. But in the end and in a subtle way, when we found we could comprehend the whole of it, our view of the Creator would begin to contract and He would seem to become smaller as our exploration became more complete. In a way, man's greatness is sensed by the magnitude of his achievement, and the immensity of the universe -- for the Christian -- adds not a little to our sense of awe and our worship of the Creator. If it is true that the universe is expanding, there is little need to fear that we can ever catch up to, or overtake the greatness of God.

           And this touches one other point. We are making an assumption that the universe was created a very long time ago. It is quite conceivable that God could have created everything instantaneously and set the stage for man in a moment. Yet this would have two effects: First, it would have prevented us from seeing how wise, methodical, and orderly is God's work. The suddenness of instantaneous creation is frightening rather than reassuring and, as a rule, God has only adopted this method when He desired to make a special impression. It is not His normal way. Moreover, "taking time" implies a certain determination, forethought, and unchangeableness of purpose, as though the end result was something greatly to be desired how ever long it took to achieve. It seems to have taken a long time to prepare the earth for man, and so long as we believe it was a preparation for man, we can derive considerable assurance and

 comfort from the knowledge that God was prepared to work so patiently. Yet from His point of view, there may have been no delay involved. Le Comte du Nouy made this remark:

     To an imaginary being, with a life span of ten thousand million years evolution would seem very rapid. To God, whom we cannot even conceive in relation to time, it may well have been instantaneous.

     There is no doubt, of course, that God could have created the world instantaneously, although this would have involved the making of many things in such a form that they would appear to have an age which they did not, in fact, actually have ‹ trees with tree rings that did not signify age, humus which was not constituted of decayed vegetation, and so forth. Scripture shows that this kind of "creation with a history" has often occurred in a miraculous way whenever it was absolutely necessary. Thus Moses' rod became a serpent (Exodus 4:2‹4) which was probably of comparable length, and therefore of a specific age, since serpents grow with age continuously. When the Lord restored Malchus' ear (Luke 22:51), it was the ear of a man, appropriate to his age even though it had certainly been created instantaneously. There are many such illustrations in Scripture. Undoubtedly the Lord could have accelerated the preparation of the earth for man in the same way, but evidently a better purpose was served by working in a manner more in keeping with human experience in order that man could, if he would, see that it was all done specifically in preparation for his own coming.

           Unfortunately, for a little over one hundred years, since Lyell and Darwin's time, man has not been willing to see the whole process as purposeful with respect to himself. The insights of previous generations of naturalists have been, and largely continue to be, laid aside as inappropriate to the naturalistic world view. But the categorical denial of teleological explanations, a denial which at first seemed so stimulating to our understanding of the natural order, is now beginning to prove to be a barrier to further advances in understanding, and there is a new wind blowing.

To be continued . . .

Part 4 the Earth as regarding Evolution

The Fitness of the Earth
     IT IS a curious thing that so long as man was viewed as the centre of the universe because of his unique relationship to God, the earth which is his home automatically achieved its special status by association, and very little thought was given to its peculiar fitness in performing this function. It was only after man had been dethroned and the geocentric concept of the universe had been abandoned, that man suddenly began to realize what a unique body the earth really is.
     The uniqueness of the earth as a setting for life is indeed quite extraordinary and the fact is very widely recognized among scientists who nevertheless view it as a purely accidental circumstance. The kind of uniqueness here in view involves a number of factors: (1) its size, (2) its rate of revolution, (3) its mean distance from the sun, (4) the variations in its distance as it circles the sun, (5) the constitution of its surface, and (6) its satellite, the moon.
     (1) The size of the earth determines the constitution of its atmosphere, and the constitution of its atmosphere determines the nature of the living forms upon it. (6)
If it were much larger, it would have retained a large percentage of gases inimical to life. If it were much smaller, its gravitational forces would have been insufficient to retain virtually any atmosphere at all. The smaller planets with smaller gravitational fields lose a large proportion of their lighter elements during the cooling process. The larger planets retain most of their original atmosphere. Actual measurements show that although the weight of Jupiter is only 317 times that of the earth, so great is the amount of atmospheric strata around it that its volume appears to be 1300 times greater than that of the earth. The planet Mercury, on the other hand, has a mass approximately one twenty-third that of the earth and is known to have no appreciable atmosphere surrounding it, its gravitational field being too weak to retain nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapour.
     The earth has, as a result, just sufficient mass that it is able to hold around itself a blanket of gases which both supports life and shields it from lethal rays of the sun. Its size is such that poisonous gases which formed as the earth cooled were not held in the atmosphere but escaped into space. The carbon dioxide, which was held, ultimately supported luxuriant vegetation, which in turn purified it for animal life by setting oxygen free through photosynthesis. Gases, like all other things, have mass, some being heavier than others. It so happens that the gases unsuitable for life were light enough and the earth's gravitational pull small enough that they were lost into space and thereby eliminated.
     (2) The rate of revolution of the earth is just right for the continuous renewal of the atmosphere for animal life. Nothing gets too cold or too hot over most of its area, and plants have just sufficient times of light and of darkness to perform their function of regenerating the air (since the unique stability of carbon dioxide depends upon alternating light and darkness)
.
     (3) The distance from the sun determines the mean temperature of the atmosphere and the earth. The pliable materials of which living tissue is composed are made up of chains of molecules which retain their physical characteristics within a comparatively narrow range of temperature variation. It appears that apart from the very exceptional properties of carbon in forming these long chainlike molecules, such structures as ourselves and all other pliant forms would not be possible at all. It is only in a very restricted range of temperature that these carbon compounds are stable. If the temperature becomes too cold, these chains become inflexible, and if the temperature becomes too high, they lose their bonds and disintegrate. The range of temperature within which living flesh can continue without artificial protection is quite small relative to the ranges of temperature which may exist on a body in space.
     (4) The seasonal variations which take place throughout the year, due to the 23° axial tilt of the earth, are very important for the continuance of human life. Were it not for these changes, micro-organisms which cause diseases and which are favoured by certain environmental conditions, would multiply so extensively that the
human race might very well suffer extinction because of them. Man is not the only animal to suffer on this account. Consider what would happen to the mosquito population if the conditions ideal for their multiplication were to persist throughout the year all over the globe. Surgeon-General C. A. Gordon pointed out that not only does the persistence of a particular temperature and humidity have to be taken into account here, but even the length of day. The length of day, of course, is governed by the rate of revolution of the earth about its axis. In his paper, Gordon gave a chart showing the distribution throughout one year of some of the major diseases caused by these micro-organisms.  Were the conditions favouring any one of the disease micro-organisms maintained throughout the year, the consequences would probably be disastrous for man.
     (5) The surface of the earth is part water, part dry land, in a ratio of approximately 3 to 1. The uniqueness of water has been pointed out by countless authorities so that the existence of water in a fluid state is itself fundamental to the continuance of life. On this point Harold Blum makes the following observations:

     Water makes up perhaps 80 to 90% of all living organisms, and may be regarded as their principal environmental component, since even forms living in air maintain an aqueous internal environment in one way or another. Most of the water on the earth is in the liquid state, but it is also of importance as an environmental factor when in the vapor state and even as a solid.
     Water seems admirably suited for the major role it plays in maintaining a relatively constant temperature for the earth's surface, a matter of paramount importance to living organisms, which can serve only within a very restricted range of temperature. It owes this aspect of its fitness to several properties.

     Blum then elaborates upon these properties. His elaboration leaves one filled with wonder at the power and wisdom of God in creating such a medium. But this medium requires a quite specific environment for its continued usefulness. That is to say, it is useful in a unique way -- in a unique environment. Blum sums this up by saying:

     So fitness partakes of the nature of uniqueness, the uniqueness of the earth as an abode of life is a matter that strikes one more forcibly the more he tries to break out of the circle. Not only is the earth as it is, but it has reached that state through an evolutionary process, each step of which has been dependent upon the one preceding it.The stage upon which living systems bowed their debut was set by all the preceding events in the history of the earth ‹ or, for that matter, of the Universe. These events placed important restrictions upon the nature of life and its evolution.
     Life, it seems, did not arise and evolve as a system free to vary in any direction whatever; but as a system upon which great restrictions were placed, some of them even before the earth came into existence.
     Harold Blum concludes his chapter "Fitness of the Environment" with these words, "This aspect of fitness is not, then, universal, but exists only in relation to the planet Earth, or to planets that are very nearly like the Earth.''

To be continued . . .   

Evolution Part 3: Two world views

The fundamental difference between the Christian and the purely naturalistic view of the world in which we live is simply that the former sees the world as having been deliberately planned as a habitation for man, whereas the naturalistic view sees man only as an accidental by-product of an entirely purposeless process. These two diametrically opposed views are epitomized by juxtaposing two quotations, one from the Word of God and one from man. The Word of God reads:

For thus saith the Lord God that created the heavens,
God Himself that formed the earth and made it;
He hath established it, He created it not in vain,
He formed it to be inhabited.                             (Isaiah 45:18).

     According to man, in this instance G. G. Simpson:

     There was no anticipation of man' s coming. He responds to no plan and fulfills no supernal purpose. He stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long unconscious, impersonal material process, with unique understandings and potentialities. These he owes to no one but himself, and it is to himself that he is responsible. He is not the creature of uncontrollable and indeterminate forces but is his own master.

     Now, why is there such violent opposition between these two views? I think it exists for several reasons. To begin with, the first world view clearly introduces plan and purpose (what is technically known as the concept of teleology), and plan and purpose involve a Planner and a Purposer who stands above and outside of the programme. And the existence of such a creative agency inevitably introduces the probability of supernatural intervention. Supernatural intervention, no matter how infrequent it may be, if it occurs at all, electively removes the possibility of any complete scientific understanding by pure intellect alone. Such intervention will inevitably involve events which can only be explained by reference to forces beyond experimental control because they are outside the system. In addition to this, the introduction of a personal Planner at once brings up the question of human responsibility in cooperation or opposition to the plan, since man clearly has the ability to perceive the purpose and therefore to advance or retard it. Both G. G. Simpson and Sir Julian Huxley, the great prophets of the naturalistic world view, have openly acknowledged this fact. For example, Sir Julian speaks of the "glorious paradox" of a process which through eons of time, though quite without direction, finally produced a creature, man, who by reason of his possession of self-consciousness and the ability to make delayed decisions is freed from the previous all-pervasive determinism of the natural order and can therefore undertake that which no creature before him had been able to undertake, namely, the directing of his own future. Indeed, he sees man as the introducer of purpose into a hitherto purposeless universe.  Henceforth man will direct evolution.

           So these two views are indeed diametrically opposed. The second has really rejected the first for two stated reasons: supernatural intervention is a scientifically unmanageable concept, and moral responsibility to some Agency other than man is psychologically unacceptable. Scripture is clear in saying that man is both spiritually and intellectually in need of redemption, and so long as he is unredeemed, his spiritual and intellectual perceptions and tendencies are distorted.

           The very existence of a Purposer introduces a whole "other world," interacting with this world to place either complete understanding or complete control out of man's reach unless he cooperates with God. And it calls man to humble himself, to place his will and his intellect at the service of the Lord instead of attempting to act as an entirely autonomous and self-sufficient creature. Unless he will accept the lordship of Christ in his life, a bondage which is really a freedom, he is forced to accept bondage to himself with his fallen nature, a bondage which is fatal. The naturalistic world view parades as an objective exercise of the intellect but is really the display of a rebellious spirit pretending to be self-sufficient and omnicompetent, cloaking itself in the garb of an unselfish humanitarianism that is entirely deceiving and self-deceived. Naturalism or scientific materialism is, in fact, a false religion, based on a faith which, like the Christian faith, is supported by a creed and a hierarchy (evolution and the contemporary evolutionary authorities), and is every bit as dogmatic and narrowminded as it rightly accuses the Medieval Church of having been. As H. J. Eysenck said, "The mantle of the Inquisition sits uneasily upon the shoulders of the scientific establishment."     Or as R. E. Gibson put it, "The present tendency is for the scientific community, now grown powerful, to behave much as the Church did in Galileo's time.

           It, too, has its "scriptures," the pronouncements of its recognized authorities. It believes in miracles and has its shrines (and its sacred bones): and it has its prophets and its martyrs. In short, it is simply another religious world view, for man is indeed incurably religious. Only, it is pretending not to be religious and has so far been highly successful in maintaining the pretense.

           Now the question is, Which religious world view is the most reasonable one? An examination of the evidence shows increasingly that the truth lies clearly in the Christian world view, in the view reflected in Isaiah 45:18. The world was indeed formed as a habitation for man, though it is to be gratefully acknowledged that we owe to science much of our understanding today of how this fitness for habitability by man has come about. If we once allow that the whole process of preparation was teleological, did have an end in view from the beginning, did involve divine intervention often creatively and sometimes in judgment, and that the world was prepared as a stage for the acting out of a drama specifically involving the confrontation of man and God under unique circumstances, then many striking phenomena in the preparation of the earth are wonderfully illuminated.

           These phenomena can be usefully reviewed even within the confines of such a short Paper as this. The phenomena to be considered are three. First, very briefly, the evidence that our world was specifically prepared to sustain life. Secondly, that creative activity was clearly demanded at many stages along the way, because there are an enormous number of critical missing links between groups of animals which evolutionists hold must have been related to one another by intermediate forms but which are nowhere to be found. Thirdly, that there has been a direction of the course of events, which supports the view that the earth was being furnished specifically for the coming of man. In short, the impression of plan and purpose pervades the whole programme to such an extent that it becomes virtually unintelligible unless they are admitted, and all explanations which exclude them become stilted and artificial. The evolutionist must really commit a kind of intellectual suicide in order to maintain his position that the whole drama has been the result of a freak accident. Scientific materialism constitutes a darkening of the intellect, so that its proponents, though professing to be wise, really become foolish, degrading their spiritual nature by worshipping the human intellect of the creature rather than the wisdom and greatness of the Creator.
     So we have these three matters to consider in order to make a reasonable assessment of the relative merits of the two world views.

To be continued. . .

Science and Supernatural Selection

There  is a broad measure of agreement among professional geologists that the evidence points to an orderly succession of stages through which the surface features of the earth have passed to reach their present form, and that this probably took a very long time to come about. It was matched by an orderly succession of living forms, which began to appear rather later in the presently accepted time frame but has nevertheless been going on for a very long time relative to the span of human history. These two broad conclusions, based on an enormous amount of research into the earth's past history, are accepted both by a very large number of informed Christians and by the vast majority of qualified geologists and biologists. This does not by any means guarantee that they are true: but it certainly represents the present consensus of opinion in both circles. The universe is probably very old, and life began a very long time ago and shows an orderly progression from simple to complex. We are talking only about the matter of a succession of forms; we are not talking about any linear evolution of these forms from one another.
     When we come to consider the how of these immensely drawn out sequences of geological and paleontological events, we find somewhat less agreement among the scientists themselves, and even less among informed Christian people. The fact is that the evidence can be interpreted in more than one way, and the preferred interpretation always depends upon certain basic and usually unstated assumptions. These assumptions hinge upon the question of whether natural laws are sufficient to account for all past events or only for some of them.
     The origin of matter out of non-matter is clearly not one of these natural events, because it is an inconceivable phenomenon for which we have no experience whatever that would serve as a guide to understanding it by analogy. It is inconceivable to us that matter never had a beginning; and it is equally inconceivable to us that matter came suddenly into being out of nothing. These are really the only two alternatives, and both are simply inconceivable. Yet one of them must be true.
     So scientists accept what amounts to the eternity of matter, inconceivable though that is, simply because the only alternative, direct creation, is clearly incredible to them. In other words, they accept what is inconceivable rather than what is incredible, because they prefer a non-supernatural explanation to what they view as a supernatural one. Having started along this route, they are bound to follow it consistently and thereafter to reject any concept of divine interference unequivocally -- indeed, dogmatically. They really have no choice.
     Many Christian people, however, do not find direct creation out of nothing objectionable at all, although it is still not something we can actually conceive of in our minds. Having admitted supernaturalism to this extent, we do not find it at all irrational to allow the idea of divine interference subsequently during the course of geological history. But there is from this point on much disagreement as to whether such intervention by God was either necessary or likely. Could He not have so designed the universe and our world that it would be capable of unfolding according to His plan without any such intervention? The answer certainly is, Yes! Indeed, I am fully persuaded that God is an economist where miracle is concerned and that more than 99.9 percent of all events happen as the result of natural law. But, and this is the crucial point, God has intervened throughout past time (and still does!) to perform what can only be described as miracles -- using this word in the present context as Augustine used it, i.e., to mean the bringing about of events which are not so much contrary to Nature but contrary to what we know of Nature. In God's view, there are no miracles, there are merely alternative routes to accomplishing the same end.
     So the basic question really is this, Did God merely wind the clock of Nature up, adjust its tempo, and then let it run its course thereafter on its own? Or does He constantly intervene in a supernatural way to do things which cannot possibly be accounted for in terms of natural law as we understand it in the laboratory or in the field?
     In this study, my object is to show that God has intervened, not to disrupt the natural order but to introduce into it courses of events that make the whole process something more than simply a natural development. Such intervention made Revelation necessary in order to complete man's understanding of the mind of God, even as Revelation was not necessary for him to understand the workings of Nature wherever God has not intervened. As a consequence, so long as the scientific view maintains its integrity as truly scientific, it must conduct its search apart from Revelation and thereby impose limits upon its understanding, though what understanding it does achieve may well be very nearly correct as far as it goes. Revelation is needed to complete our understanding, particularly our understanding of God's creative acts and His acts in judgment.
     I do not think these interventions were called for because God was unable to design a natural order that would suit His purposes without them. But I believe He chose to do otherwise so that we could see how He was quietly at work preparing the stage for the enactment of a drama which was to serve uniquely to display His love. This drama was to involve the special creation of a unique creature, Man, with freedom of will and a moral sense. This was to be followed by the trial of that man and the working out of his redemption when he failed the test. This redemption involved, in turn, the coming of the Creator Himself as a man, into man's world to sacrifice Himself for man and as a man. Man therefore had to be quite an exceptional creature, a creature in which God could perfectly express Himself in terms of human personality. Man's body and man's spirit had to be such that God could do this as man and for man.  Moreover, the natural order had to be such that this tremendous event could be brought to pass without either violating that natural order or the person of the Creator Himself.

           The Creator had to be born as man is born but without man's corruption, and He had to grow up and live as men might have lived, while still being subject to the physical world in which man labours, eats, grows tired, and sleeps. And in due time, He had to give His life voluntarily as the sin-offering which would be truly human (and therefore acceptably substitutional), yet far exceeding the value of any one human life (and therefore sufficient for all who would claim it for themselves).

           And since this sacrifice was to be the sacrifice of a man on man's behalf, we must assume that there was a first true man who fathered all other men thereafter, whose family is unequivocally "the family of man," whom the Redeemer truly represented in His Person. There can be no half-men who are capable of some kind of half-redemption.

Nor can even the first man have been any less human than the last, for the Redeemer must be a redeemer in retrospect, back to the very first man, even as He must be in prospect forward to the very last.
     Adam, then, was redeemable; and to be truly so he must have been potentially like the Lord Jesus Christ as Man. In this sense, Jesus Christ was the last Adam. But Jesus Christ was also the prototype of Adam since He was the Redeemer before the world began (Revelation 13:8). Adam was created in His image (Genesis 2:26). It could not be otherwise.

           So I am proposing that God was at work from the very first, moving toward this objective, the preparation of the earth as a stage for the coming of such a creature as man is. And because He is God, He had the right to adopt any plan that seemed best to Him. The plan He did adopt has allowed secular man to uncover to a remarkable degree the workings of Nature and to be in a position to discern (if he would but do it) how much evidence there is of plan and purpose in the course of past events. Orderly preparation is everywhere apparent to the eye of faith; and throughout the whole process God has, I believe, combined creative activity with providential superintendence over the work of His hands.

           But I think we need a new term to describe this providential creative superintendence, and I am proposing that we call it Supernatural Selection. This is what the present study is really about. Let me just state as briefly as I can what I mean by this term. Among living creatures, offspring differ from their parents, and this fact provides a means whereby select lines may be encouraged and unwanted lines may be allowed to disappear. If this occurs by accident, it is termed "Natural Selection." When it is performed by man, it is termed "Artificial Selection." Natural Selection is a purely fortuitous process involving no conscious direction as its strongest proponents see it. Artificial Selection depends upon the presence of man and cannot therefore have been operative prior to his appearance. But I believe there is evidence that the progress of forms from simple to complex has not been by chance but by design. This process has resulted, I suggest, from the operation of Supernatural Selection, a form of selection which has the purposefulness of Artificial Selection but also introduces supernatural forces.

           It is widely agreed that Natural Selection is not strictly creative. Artificial Selection in a way is creative, but only in the sense that it is directed consciously toward a foreseen objective. Supernatural Selection differs from the other two in that it is a creative process whereby are introduced entirely new forms and therefore, presumably new genes and new gene combinations. The natural order is not the cause of this introduction of novelty, but it is rather the condition of it. By combining these three kinds of selective processes -- natural, artificial, and supernatural -- I believe we have a much better account of the way in which God prepared the earth for the coming of man.

           I am proposing that the term "Supernatural Selection" be taken to mean that God intervened within Nature, sometimes by acting directly upon the environment to change the conditions of life, sometimes providentially to change the directions of life (as when overruling the chance division of genes in the dividing cell), and sometimes creatively to introduce entirely new forms of life when the total ecology had been suitably prepared to accommodate them. And I believe that this makes better sense of the evidence and is more in harmony with the Christian world view than either blind evolution or fiat creation.

To Be continued . . .

Evolution- preparation of earth for mankind

Questions about the earth's past geological history have sparked conflicting answers. How old is this earth? Did it evolve by chance ‹ or was it created by God? Is our planet billions of years old ‹ or was it an instantaneous creation of only a few thousand years ago?
     There are four basic alternatives ‹ the purely non-theistic evolutionary view, the theistic evolutionary view, the creationist view (young earth or flood geology), and the view explored in this Paper which argues for that particular form of catastrophism that sees a discontinity between our present world and "the world that then was" (2 Peter 3:6), which was disastrously overwhelmed and left a desolation as described in Genesis 1:2 and then reconstituted in Genesis 1:3-31. 

THE ISSUES in the conflict between Science and Scripture with regard to the earth's earlier history during the ages which preceded the coming of man have become almost impossibly confused. On the one hand, we have the confirmed evolutionist who finds no place whatever for the supernatural in his scheme of things, and therefore no place for God. He holds that everything has happened purely by chance, and that the process has occupied an immense period of time to be measured in billions of years. He rigidly excludes anything that smacks of catastrophism, holding to Lyell's dictum that the present is the key to the past. The progressive change from simple to complex forms of life has neither involved unbridgeable discontinuities nor divine interferences. The apparent gaps in the record do not represent discontinuities in the great chain of life. At the other extreme are those who, as openly confessed creationists, believe that virtually all the past is in one way or another stamped with the hallmark of instantaneous creation. Everything that has existed -- the universe, our solar system, the planets, trees, animals, and man -- came into being by fiat creation not more than a few thousand years ago. They interpret the phenomena of stratified rocks containing fossils as evidence of a global catastrophe in Noah's time and are therefore commonly referred to as "flood geologists."

           Then there are creationists who believe that evolution was God's way of "creating." This seems to me really an abuse of language, but those who hold this view look upon evolution as a kind of creative process in itself. But they would admit that fiat creation was probably involved in the origination of matter, of life, and possibly of man as well.

           A fourth school, of which I count myself a member, holds that we simply do not know precisely how God ordered the world in geological times prior to man, whether by direct creative activity or by something akin to evolution. Those in this group believe, as I do, that something went wrong and a catastrophic judgment brought that older world to a disastrous end, leaving it ruined and desolate, as Genesis 1:2 describes it. Then followed a re-creation at a tremendously accelerated rate, over a period of six literal days, at the end of which, as for a jewel, the setting was reconstituted. Man was then created to be the star of the piece and to dominate the stage thereafter. Much of the geological evidence of catastrophism that has been commandeered by the flood geologists is believed, by this school, to belong between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. Such a concept is anathema to those creationists who believe in a very young universe, not because it is catastrophic, but because it makes concessions to the concept of a very ancient world -- and this invites an evolutionary interpretation of that world. On the other hand, it is almost as unpopular with theistic evolutionists who see no need for it and no evidence of it, because it does involve the catastrophic and badly conflicts with current uniformitarian philosophy among geologists.

           So we have certain atheistic and theistic alternatives, all of which are held by people who honestly believe that the evidence entirely supports their own particular view. And it is no longer possible, it seems, for the protagonists to really communicate with one another usefully. But being the creatures we are, we each hold fast to the view that best serves to integrate the knowledge we have of the evidence, and this study is merely one man's attempt to do just this from a biblical as well as a scientific point of view. Frankly, I think it can be shown that the direction in which geological theory was heading just before Lyell and Darwin turned the tide was very much that which I am proposing in this Paper. The evidence now has accumulated to such an extent that I believe this older view should be brought forward again and re-examined. Certainly the Lyellian view of geology is beginning to show signs of bankruptcy, even as I think the Darwinian view of paleontology has done.

           The informed Christian assuredly has two great advantages over the non-Christian. In the first place, he almost certainly will have a rather good idea of the data upon which the evolutionist rests his case, whereas the non-Christian evolutionist has probably read almost nothing of a serious nature from the Christian point of view. In this respect, he is likely to be seriously unaware of the weaknesses of his own position. In the second place, the Christian has the tremendous advantage of being willing to accept the light of Revelation which, by its very nature, supplies data that cannot be obtained any other way.

 So here is the situation as I see it: We have four basic alternatives -- the purely nontheistic evolutionary view, the theistic evolutionary view, the young earth or flood geology view, and the view to be explored in some detail in this study, which argues for that particular form of catastrophism that sees a discontinuity between our present world and "the world that then was" (2 Peter 3:6), which was disastrously overwhelmed and left a desolation as described in Genesis 1:2 and reconstituted in Genesis 1:3-31.To be continued...