War of the World Views: Powerful Answers for an "Evolutionized" Culture (18 page)

Past and Present

We all exist in the present; and the facts all exist in the present. When one is trying to understand how the evidence came about (where did the animals come from? how did the fossil layers form? etc.), what we are actually trying to do is to connect the past to the present. However, if we weren’t there in the past to observe events, how can we know what happened so that we can explain the present? It would be great to have a time machine so that we could know for sure about past events.

Christians, of course, claim they do have, in a sense, a time machine. They have a book called the Bible, which claims to be the Word of God who has always been there and has revealed to us the major events of the past about which we need to know. On the basis of these events (Creation, Fall, Flood, Babel, etc.), we have a set of presuppositions to build a way of thinking which enables us to interpret the evidence of the present.
¹

Evolutionists have certain beliefs about the past/present that they presuppose, e.g., no God (or at least none who performed acts of special creation); so they build a different way of thinking to interpret the evidence of the present.

Thus, when Christians and non-Christians argue about the evidence, in reality they are arguing about their
interpretations
based on their
presuppositions
.

That’s why the argument often turns into something like:

“Can’t you see what I’m talking about?”

“No, I can’t. Don’t you see how wrong you are?”

“No, I’m not wrong. It’s obvious that I’m right.”

“No, it’s not obvious.”

And so on.

These two people are arguing about the same evidence, but they are looking at the evidence through different glasses.

It’s not until these two people recognize the argument is really about the presuppositions they have to start with, that they will begin to deal with the foundational reasons for their different beliefs. A person will not interpret the evidence differently until they put on a different set of glasses—which means to change one’s presuppositions.

A Christian who understands these things can actually put on the evolutionist’s glasses (without accepting the presuppositions as true) and understand how they look at evidence. However, for a number of reasons, including spiritual ones, a non-Christian usually can’t put on the Christian’s glasses—unless they recognize the presuppositional nature of the battle and are thus beginning to question their own presuppositions.

It is, of course, sometimes possible that just by presenting “evidence” one can convince a person that a particular scientific argument for creation makes sense on “the facts.” But usually, if that person then hears a different
interpretation
of the same evidence that seems better than the first, that person will swing away from the first argument, thinking they have found “stronger facts.”

However, if that person had been helped to understand this issue of presuppositions, then they would have been better able to recognize this for what it is—a different interpretation based on differing presuppositions (i.e., starting beliefs).

Debate Terms

Often people who don’t believe the Bible will say that they aren’t interested in hearing about the Bible. They want real proof that there’s a God who created. They’ll listen to our claims about Christianity, but they want proof
without mentioning the Bible
.

If one agrees to a discussion without using the Bible as these people insist, then we have allowed them to set the terms of the debate. In essence these terms are:

1. “Facts” are neutral
   . However, there are no such things as “brute facts”;
   all
   facts are interpreted. Once the Bible is eliminated from the argument, the Christians’ presuppositions are gone, leaving them unable to effectively give an alternate interpretation of the facts. Their opponents then have the upper hand as they still have
   their
   presuppositions.
   
2. Truth can/should be determined independent of God
   . However, the Bible states: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10); “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7); “but the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
   

A Christian cannot divorce the spiritual nature of the battle from the battle itself. A non-Christian is
not
neutral. The Bible makes this very clear: “The one who is not with Me is against Me, and the one who does not gather with Me scatters” (Matthew 12:30); “And this is the condemnation, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the Light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

Agreeing to such terms of debate also implicitly accepts their proposition that the Bible’s account of the universe’s history is irrelevant to understanding that history!

Ultimately, God’s Word Convicts

1 Peter 3:15 and other passages make it clear we are to use every argument we can to convince people of the truth, and 2 Corinthians 10:4–5 says we are to refute error (as Paul did in his ministry to the Gentiles). Nonetheless, we must never forget Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing apart of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Also, Isaiah 55:11: “So shall My word be, which goes out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall certainly do what I sent it to do.”

Even though our human arguments may be powerful, ultimately it is God’s Word that convicts and opens people to the truth. In all of our arguments, we must not divorce what we are saying from the Word that convicts.

Practical Application

When someone says they want “proof” or “evidence,” not the Bible, one might respond as follows:

You might not believe the Bible, but I do. And I believe it gives me the right basis to understand this universe and correctly interpret the facts around me. I’m going to give you some examples of how building my thinking on the Bible explains the world and is not contradicted by science.

One can of course do this with numerous scientific examples, showing, for example, how the issue of sin and judgment is relevant to geology and fossil evidence; how the Fall of man, with the subsequent Curse on creation, makes sense of the evidence of harmful mutations, violence and death; or how the original “kinds” of animals gave rise to the wide variety of animals we see today.

Choose a topic and develop it:

For instance, the Bible states that God made distinct
kinds
of animals and plants. Let me show you what happens when I build my thinking on this presupposition. I will illustrate how processes such as natural selection, genetic drift, etc. can be explained and interpreted. You will see how the science of genetics makes sense based upon the Bible. Evolutionists believe in natural selection—that is real science, as you observe it happening. Well, creationists also believe in natural selection. Evolutionists accept the science of genetics—well, so do creationists.

However, here is the difference: evolutionists believe that, over millions of years, one kind of animal has changed into a totally different kind. However, creationists, based on the Bible’s account of origins, believe that God created separate kinds of animals and plants to reproduce their own kind; therefore, one kind will not turn into a totally different kind.

Now this can be tested in the present. The scientific observations support the creationist interpretation that the changes we see are not creating new information. The changes are all within the originally created pool of information of that kind—sorting, shuffling or degrading it. The creationist account of history, based on the Bible, provides the correct basis to interpret the evidence of the present; and real science confirms the interpretation.

After this detailed explanation, continue:

Now let me ask you to defend
your
position concerning these matters. Please show me how
your
way of thinking, based on
your
beliefs, makes sense of the same evidence. And I want you to point out where my science and logic are wrong.

In arguing this way, a Christian is

1. using biblical presuppositions to build a way of thinking to interpret the evidence.
   
2. showing that the Bible and science go hand in hand.
   
3. challenging the presuppositions of the other person (many are unaware they have these).
   
4. forcing the debater to logically defend his position consistent with science and his own presuppositions (many will find that they cannot do this).
   
5. honoring the Word of God that convicts the soul.
   

If Christians really understood that all evidence is actually interpreted on the basis of certain presuppositions, we wouldn’t be in the least bit intimidated by the evolutionists’ supposed “evidence.” We should instead be looking at the evolutionists’ (or old-earthers’
²
)
interpretation
of the evidence, and how the same evidence could be interpreted within a biblical framework and confirmed by testable and repeatable science. If more creationists did this, they would be less likely to jump at flaky evidence that seems startling but in reality has been interpreted incorrectly in their rush to find the knockdown, drag-out convincing “evidence” against evolution that they think they desperately need.

The various age-dating methods are also subject to interpretation. All dating methods suffer, in principle, from the same limitations—whether they are used to support a young world or an old world. For instance, the public reads almost daily in newspapers and magazines that scientists have dated a particular rock at billions of years old. Most just accept this. However, creation scientists have learned to ask questions as to how this date was obtained—what method was used and what
assumptions
were accepted to develop this method? These scientists then question those assumptions (questions) to see whether they are valid and to determine whether the rock’s age could be interpreted differently. Then the results are published to help people understand that scientists have not proven that the rock is billions of years old and that the evidence can be interpreted in a different way to support a young age.

Consider the research from the creationist RATE group (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) concerning the age of zircon crystals in granite.
³
Using one set of assumptions, these crystals could be interpreted to be around 1.5 billion years old based on the amount of lead produced from the decay of uranium (which also produces helium). However, if one questions these assumptions, one is motivated to test them. Measurements of the rate at which helium is able to “leak out” of these crystals indicate that if they were much older than about 6,000 years, they would have nowhere near the amount of helium still left in them. Hence, the originally applied assumption of a constant decay rate is flawed; one must assume, instead, that there has been acceleration of the decay rate in the past. Using this revised assumption, the same uranium-lead data can now be interpreted to also give an age of fewer than 6,000 years.