2.1 The Origin of Man (OB1)

Evolution: In his book The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin concludes as follows: “The most meaningful result in this book, that man descended from a lowly organized life form, will be a stumbling block for many. I regret that. But there can hardly be any doubts about our descent from savages. According to current evolutionary teachings, man’s genealogy not only reaches back into the animal kingdom, but right back to simple inorganic molecules: Primeval soup, primitive slime, primeval cell; single-celled organisms then became multi-cellular: worms, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, primitive primates, apes, ape-men, hominids, man.”

Nobel prize winner Jacques Monod regards our existence as a necessary consequence of a game of chance [M3, p. 137]: “The universe was not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man. Our number came up in the Monte Carlo game. Is it surprising that, like the person who has just made a million at the casino, we should feel strange and a little unreal?”

Rupert Riedl also emphasizes the purposelessness of human existence [R2, p. 221]: “Man was not planned. In fact, the causal chain of events leading up to man was coincidental. But the results are in the last place necessities. . . . The alternations between necessary chance and accidental necessity has now moved completely inwards: at present the required prejudgements originate inside the central nervous system as preconceived representations. The coincidences of becoming human thus lies in the unpredictability of the convergence of causes. When the first ugly mammals originated from earlier reptiles, nobody could have predicted their chances . . . when the first fishes crawled onto dry land, the question of whether octopus brains were more suitable, was not yet settled.”

No fossils of intermediate forms have ever been found.

Scientific Objections: Paleontology is primarily concerned with the placement of fossil finds in an evolutionary structure. However, no fossils of intermediate forms have ever been found (discussed more fully in [J2]). At present, there is a full complement of competing hypotheses, and no unified representation exists [H2]. On informatical/theoretical grounds it can be stated that there will never be a phylogenetically based genealogical tree of man [G9], because there is no source of new information in evolution. Changing environmental conditions (for example, a different climate or changed biotopes) do not qualify as a source of information for new biological structures.

The Bible: The following aspects in the creation of man are clearly described in the biblical account.

1. Plan: It is so trivial that it seems unnecessary even to mention it, but the purpose (intention, concept, plan) of each act of creation is explicitly stated beforehand. In Genesis 1:26, this purposefulness is clearly formulated: “Let us make man.” We find the same expression of the will of God in Revelation 4:11: “. . . by your will they were created and have their being.” These testimonies leave no room for a purely coincidental evolutionary origin of man over millions of years.
2. Implementation: The best concepts are worthless unless they have real applicability. But what God decides, He accomplishes: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). This verse concisely describes the “making” of man, which is explained in more detail in Genesis 2:7 (compare Figure 21 in [G5, p. 169]). It also provides a glimpse of the conceptual purpose: Man was made in God’s likeness, in His image. We are His work; we have been created purposefully!
3. Conclusion: By the merging of the “dust of the ground” and “the breath of life,” something completely new emerged in creation: “. . . and the man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7).

According to the Bible, man has been directly created by God. The three phases of creation of man as described in Genesis resemble an engineering project, as is customary in the production of industrial goods. These general principles are as apparent in the manufacture of a simple stapler, as when high performance computers are made. All these artifacts have been preconceived—intellectually planned. It is unrealistic and contrary to all our experiences to ignore preconception in the case of creation. All evolutionary concepts are mired in a materialistic matrix and are therefore methodically insufficient for explaining the origin of man. How can an agnostic “leitmotif ” come to grips with a God-given spirit? It is an “a priori” fallacy based on false presuppositions (see assumption E3).