In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth


The opening phrase of the Bible states, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” I thought of that verse recently when a brochure was placed on my desk Thursday. “Creation Fair 2010” the brochure was titled.

I commend the Akron Fossils and Science Center (www.akronfossils.com) for hosting this fair. Designed to offer evidence for intelligent design and creation rather than accidental occurrence of life, the brochure makes the fair look very inviting. .

In the past decade or so there have been serious issues raised by scientists themselves regarding the Darwinian theory of life, usually called “evolution.” The heart of the controversy is that the empirical evidence and the materialist philosophy are at odds with one another. That is, the evidence from science does not support the philosophy that life just happened and that matter is all there is. Or, as Carl Sagan put it, “The cosmos is all there is, ever was, or ever will be.” The evidence points to an Intelligent Designer, a Supreme Engineer, God. The philosophy of current Darwinian theory is that “all living things are the accidental products of a purposeless universe.”

Ironically, on Monday of last week I was visiting at Caesar Creek State Park in Ohio (south of Columbus, off Interstate 71). This state park possesses a treasure trove of fossils – so many that you are welcome to take them home with you, provided each fossil fits in the palm of your hand. I took two. The evidence for a world submerged in water is overwhelming. The only way to explain away a worldwide flood is to say that this portion of Ohio was under water millions or billions of years ago. How the life forms were pressed into rock or sludge and preserved as fossils rather than dying and rotting in water or being eaten by scavengers is not addressed. Of course, a great flood with the water violently moving and eventually vigorously receding provides an excellent explanation. But that might invite God into the study. No longer would it be science. Why not?

It is not considered science due to an underlying philosophy, not due to the evidence.

Just one last thought – and that poses another problem, incidentally. If matter is all that exists, what is mind? What is thinking? Is there such a thing as information? Am I conscious or am I dreaming? Is there reality or are all delusional? What is truth or are there many truths, perhaps no truth? What is reason?
Anyway, there is in evolutionary philosophy an idea called “reductionism”. This is the idea that everything, including everyone’s mind, can be reduced to a simple, material base. From this very simple, single molecule (or particle, or cell – depending on who is speaking), all life has emerged – people, animals, birds, trees, plants. In his best-selling book Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe – a molecular biologist – explains that even a basic molecule is irreducibly complex. This very complexity calls for an explanation. The only explanation that fits the evidence is, of course, an Intelligent Designer. Behe permits the reader to know that the interaction of proteins and enzymes, indeed the entire molecular structure, is mind-boggling. His description of the molecular structure for vision is in itself enough to convince an unbiased observer that this can not be reduced to one simple particle. It is simply impossible. Molecular mechanisms are intricately designed.

I think I’ll go to Creation Fair 2010. I am interested in learning more of how…

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”