In part 1 of this article, we began to explore the dynamics around the question, "Is creation relevant?" What we found is that to God, it is quite relevant - it is the first thing he wants us to know about himself, as indicated in the first verse of the Bible - "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." But today, due to a desire to make and live one's own reality, people are throwing away what God has clearly created and instituted in order to fashion a world made to their own likings and tastes - whether such a world is true or not. And since they have rejected God's truth - the world they fashion is increasingly distant from the truth of what God created. And thus like the shadow of Mordor over Tolkien's middle earth, the shadow of self deception grows increasingly long over the lives of people today.

In our previous exploration, we left off pondering the  question "how do we begin to address this problem of a rejection of absolutes and the creator?" - the Creator being of course the ultimate absolute. Which is where we pick it up today.  In order to address the problem, we must understand what is at the root of the problem of people rejecting the Creator and His teaching on creation. Otherwise we will merely  be treating symptoms, while the disease continues to ravage the body (Some of those symptoms - 80-90% who make a profession of faith fall away; 2/3 of professing young adults leave the faith by the time they leave college; the falling numbers of people adhering to Biblical truth, etc.). Thus we must understand why people reject the creator.

In a 2009 study conducted by nationally recognized religious pollster The Barna Group found that:

"Seven out of ten adults (70%) say that God is the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe who still rules it today. That includes the 93% of born again adults who hold that conviction."[1]

So people understand who God is, but not necessarily the impact He should have on their lives. The Barna survey was focused on Christian worldview in general and not the creator in specific, so once again we need to dig a little deeper. I did so with another informal survey of my own.[2] According to Barna, most adults agree to the definition of God as an "all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe who still rules it today. " I asked people "If people are created, do you agree that they are morally accountable to their creator?" Virtually all said "yes."[3]. This seems to indicate that the  70% who believe there is a creator also believe if people are created, they are morally responsible to that creator.

Yet when asked, "If what’s true and real is different from what you prefer, how should you live?" The vast majority I spoke with indicated that you should "deny the truth and live and do what you want" with only a small minority saying you should "live according to the truth."  Those saying you should deny the truth included self-described believers in God. What we're seeing here is a confirmation of the Genesis account. The majority of people are making the same choice as Adam and Eve.  Adam and Eve were given the choice of obedience and living according to the truth of God's word (eat any fruit but the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil - Gen 2.16-17) or do what you want and suffer the consequences (eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and in so doing elect to die), and they chose to do what they want and eat of the tree of knowledge, and so elected to bring death into the world.

There is a significant difference however in the beliefs of people today and that of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve most certainly knew they were created by God.  There was no one spouting theories of evolution because there were no other people. The only other person they knew was God[4], and though we have no record of what God told them in terms of their origin (the book of Genesis was technically given to Moses), if God told them anything (which I think is likely), it certainly was along the lines that He was God, their creator. In contrast, half of Americans today believe they are products of some form of evolution.

In a 2012 Gallup poll[5], 42% of Americans said they believe humans were created while 50% say they believed humans evolved - with 31% of those (about 2/3 of the people who believe in evolution) saying God was involved in the process (Theistic Evolution) and 19% (about 1/4 of evolutionary believers) saying God was not involved. In total we have 58% of Americans who either believe in some form of evolution, or are clueless about where humans come from, with the number of people believing evolution occurred completely without God's involvement growing.[6]

In a section that calls Christians to purity, the apostle Paul reminds Christians of the importance of limiting your deepest relationships to like minded believers  with the rhetorical questions:

What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?
2 Cor 6.15b-16

But that sword cuts two ways. If believers are better off with like minded believers, it is not a stretch to think that unbelievers would feel themselves better off with like minded unbelievers. Thus they put themselves in echo chambers and "safe rooms" of people who think as they do - which is why we increasingly see legislation to limit Christian expression, and campuses with  students who refuse to hear thoughts from speakers outside of what they already believe.

And what will they eventually hear in such echo chambers and safe rooms?  The logical conclusion of evolutionary thought: that since humans came about through a process of evolution, there could not have been an Adam and Eve. And if there was no first couple, there was no first sin, and thus no inherited sin nature. Thus death is not a consequence of man's[7]  sin.  Instead of death being a result of man's sin and the "last enemy to be destroyed" (1 Cor 15.26), death is considered as a  normal part of life, and in fact was necessary for evolving creatures to a higher state. In that case,  if man is not guilty before his creator for his sin, what need have humans of a savior? And if there is no need of a savior, there is no need of a gospel message, thus no need for a messiah to come and die for your sins. Thus Christ, the creator and savior becomes irrelevant. So if humans are just evolved creatures, with no moral compass, then why not "deny the truth and live and do what you want?" as indeed it seems many are doing today.

So it's understandable how people today arrive at the justifications that they do to follow man's inclination of the heart that lead them away from God. Indeed watching the steady march of culture further and further away from God as they deny their creator to affirm Godless philosophies such as "gay marriage", "transgender" identities, etc. one gets a new appreciation for how the world of old arrived at a time when God decided to send the flood because people had grown so far from him that  "...every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." (Gen 6.5)

Thankfully for us, God has promised not to send another global flood and has sealed that promise with the sign of the rainbow. (Gen 9.13-16). Even so, is there any hope to reaching a culture held predominantly under the sway of materialistic scientists (those who believe only in the material world) who tell them they are no different from animals since they evolved from animals? Yes, there are still many who can be "snatched from the fire" (Jude 1.23) As the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal has been paraphrased as saying, "There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator..."[8]  This appears truly to be the case, because even in spite of a belief in evolution, people are still interested in knowing about the creator.

Returning to my informal survey, when asked, "If you had undisputed evidence that people were designed and created, would you believe?" the overwhelming answer was "yes." This even from some evolution believing atheists. That, I believe, is the God shaped vacuum longing for fulfillment, longing for the truth. I believe we who have the truth need to become better at presenting that truth in a concise, winsome way.   So here is my first attempt at a concise presentation of undisputed evidence that humans were created by an infinitely wise God. No doubt this can be shortened and further refined, and others created, by it's at least a starting part.

How the iPad points to a Creator

Above is a picture of an iPad. You've seen an ipad before, right? You know that it is a complex piece of technology meticulously designed and manufactured which allows it to do what it does. You see it currently has a picture of Adam and Eve on it. In order to display that picture, it uses light emitting diodes (LEDs), information storing chips, electricity storing batteries, etc. Now if I take the basic components, metal, glass, silicon, etc. And blow them up in a big bang, do you think given enough time that gravity and the forces of nature alone would ever come up with an iPad with this precise picture?

You know that's impossible, right? I'm going to give just two of the many scientific reasons why that couldn't happen.

1. Irreducible Complexity
2. The Embedded Information

1. The iPad is an irreducibly complex system. In order for it to work, you need many interconnected parts like circuits boards, memory chips, a battery, etc. And these are not any components - they are all specially designed to work together. For example, the batter is not just any battery, it must have the correct form factor, connectors, voltage output and properly charged. The parts are uniquely designed and precisely assembled to make an iPad work. An iPad also needs an operating system. What is an operating system? A set of coded instructions. Codes and instructions are results of intelligence, which brings us to the next impossible to evolve item.

2. Embedded information. The iPad requires embedded information with the Operating System (Apple iOS) being a good example of such intelligence. Do you ever see an operating system occurring naturally in nature? No. Why not? Because it's a concept. An idea. It's information. The essence of information is not the physical medium it's on like a hard drive, memory chip or book. The essence of information is not material. In the case of the information that is the Apple operating system, it has been expressed as computer code. Where do codes come from? Only an intelligent mind. Where does information come from? The only known source of information is the mind of an intelligent agent.  Consider the picture that's displayed on the iPad - a close up from "The Fall of Man" by Hendrick Goltzius. Would that come about naturally? No. Just like Mount Rushmore, that picture contains specific information. And as Mount Rushmore is not a result of a weathered mountainside, the picture that's displayed is not a result of random colors appearing. It's the product of an intelligent mind acting to express an idea.

You agree that an iPad with that specific picture on it could never come about by random, accidental processes right? The iPad and the information embedded in it is all the result of intelligence.

Now consider a component that makes up every living thing: The cell.

1. Biological cells are irreducibly complex
Like an iPad, the cell is made of many specific components that must work together perfectly, without which it won't function. That makes it irreducibly complex. Consider this: Proteins are the workhorse of the cell. They are responsible for most cellular processes and life would be impossible without them. But proteins are too complex to be made by accident[9], so they must be carefully crafted. But the process to make them requires forethought, planning and multiple components. They cannot be made by unguided, Darwinian processes. That makes the process to make a protein irreducibly complex and impossible for Darwinian processes to create. In creating a protein, an RNA copy (messenger RNA or mRNA) of a portion of DNA is made. This copy can then be read by a ribosome to form a protein. Thus:

"....you need DNA to make proteins, you need DNA to make RNA, and you need RNA to make  proteins. So it's worse than what came first - the chicken or the egg?"[10]
Jeffrey Tomkins,  PhD. Genetics

It's not a two part problem - which came first chicken or the egg, but a three part problem, which came first DNA, RNA or Proteins?

2. Biological cells contain embedded Information
Like the iPad the cell contains embedded information. The key question is, what is the origin of that information? Much of that information is stored in DNA. DNA is  found in every cell of the body and is a requirement of life. Scientists have recognized a number of things about DNA. It is the most efficient information storage and processing system known to man. It contains coded information. It incorporates processes that come from  information system theory like error correcting codes.[11] (Which begs the question how can there be an error in a system made by chance? "Errors" imply there is a correct design from which something has deviated. And how would a system with no designer come up with such code?)

Two things I want you to take particular notice of: 1. DNA contains information. 2. That information is coded information.  These are undisputed facts. Where do codes come from? They don't happen naturally, they are the product of an intelligent mind. And where does the information come from? Consider this:

"...There is no naturalistic explanation, no natural cause that produces information. Not natural selection, not self-organizational processes, not pure chance."[12]
Stephen Meyer, Philosopher of Science, author Signature in the Cell

It is undisputed that DNA contains information. But the only known source of information is an intelligent mind.  Evolution has no answer. Here's another problem for evolution - how does the cell "read" the information?

"The information in the DNA requires enzymes to read it. But the instructions to build those enzymes are on the DNA. So which came first, the enzymes, or the DNA? "[13]
Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. Physical Chemistry, Author Refuting Evolution
 

So here we have anothe chicken or the egg problem.  Both of these chicken or the egg problems regarding building proteins and reading information from DNA are unsolvable by evolution theory.

Summarizing, looking at the cell - a foundational building block of life - there are numerous proofs that it could not have happened by unguided processes using only time and chance as evolutionists claim. Some of these are:

1. Multiple components of the cell are irreducibly complex
   They cannot be produced by Darwinian slow "blind" processes
2. DNA is the most efficient information storage and processing system known to man that contains coded information. Who designed such a complex system? Who wrote the code?
3. And most importantly, where did the information contained within DNA come from? Information cannot be produced by time and chance or any known natural process. It is only produced by an intelligent mind.

If you've been listening to the pseudoscience of evolutionists, time to wake up and face the facts. Darwin had no concept of information theory, DNA or the complexity of cells. Evolution may have seemed feasible when people believed life consisted merely of a blob of a mixture of chemicals. But in this age where the complexity of cells with their micro biological machines, and information rich cellular systems are recognized, the theory of evolution does not have a scientific leg to stand on.

For those who believe we are a product of goo-to-you-via-the-zoo evolution, the question becomes, are you willing to acknowledge the obvious and believe  the truth, or will you continue to blindly follow those committed to a theory with zero explanatory power simply because in its denial of God, it allows you to feel comfortable making up your own make believe world where you, like Adam and Eve, can do things your way instead of God's way?

The heart of the creator calls out to the God shaped hole in our hearts. Will you answer?

Duane Caldwell | posted 7/3/2016
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