Science or Philosophy?

Growing up in a non-Christian environment, I had a “big picture” understanding of the world around me that was shaped by the thoughts and ideas derived from the secular influences I was immersed in. Whether at the state schools I attended or through the TV, movies, and magazines I read, I was constantly on the receiving end of a consistent and cohesive narrative.

The “Scientific” Story of Evolution?

That narrative was the story of evolution, declared as a supposedly reasoned, thoroughly rational, and above all else, “scientific” way of explaining all of existence.

How did the universe come about? Simple—cosmological evolution (typically, the big bang). How was earth formed? Easy—geological evolution (over billions of years of slow processes). Where did life come from? Not a problem—chemical evolution (non-living chemicals formed the first life form). What caused all the biodiversity we see? Rudimentary—biological evolution (through natural selection). And how did we arrive? Quite basic, actually—anthropological evolution (from lower ape-like creatures).

This explanation of everything was well-packaged, always portrayed and presented as a concise explanation of reality that was thoroughly researched—complete with charts, graphs, dates, and diagrams that provided it with clarity and seeming intellectual credibility.

As a young person trying to “figure it all out,” I was naturally drawn to this way of thinking, as subjective reasoning based on emotion or personal preference seemed extremely arbitrary to me. The way I looked at it, there were a lot of really nice people out there that thought some kooky things, but I wanted something solid to believe in.

Of course, what I failed to understand was that although “many people [like myself] seemed convinced that the theory of evolution is based on an analysis of brute facts,”1 there was actually a huge underlying philosophy that drove these materialistic conclusions long before the facts were examined (and long before I was ever born for that matter). And why do I say that?

Only Two Options to Explain Reality

“The question of origins (where did everything come from) has only two possible answers. Either the universe arose by itself or it didn’t. If it did [“make itself”] then some sort of cosmic evolution must have taken place to account for reality. If it didn’t then there must be a Creator.”2 No one has ever presented an intelligent third option.

Although the popular version of evolution today is typically associated with Charles Darwin, “the idea of evolution is not a modern concept.”3 “These ultimate starting axioms have been the same throughout history.”4

“The ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Greeks and Romans all had ideas of millions of years and/or biological evolution into their beliefs all without access to facts commonly held up today [by modern evolutionists] as proof of evolution (geologic column, DNA, natural selection, radioisotope dating, hominid fossils etc.).”5

The fact is, there have always been people who have doubted the existence of God and have followed that doubt to its logical conclusions by applying it to their interpretations of what they observed in nature. As a poignant example, Charles Darwin’s atheistic grandfather Erasmus formulated similar ideas and published them in a book called Zoonomia in 1794, some 65 years before Charles’ The Origin of Species.

Zoonomia outlined a completely naturalistic explanation of the world, which “included the ideas that the earth was formed from a cosmic explosion, life began in the sea, became progressively more complex and eventually became people, and that all happened over millions of years. Again, notice that all of these assumptions were concluded without the common ‘evidences’ that evolutionists point to today.”6

And note that my conclusion isn’t simply the musing of a biased creationist. Secular professor of biology Douglas Futuyma also laid out the scope of possibilities regarding the question of origins quite succinctly when he stated,

Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from preexisting species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence, for no natural process could possibly form inanimate molecules into an elephant or a redwood tree in one step.7

What “Has to Be” If There Is No God

To account for the incredible diversity of things in our universe, naturalistic processes must have happened over an immense amount of “deep” time if there is no Creator.

As correctly stated by Futuyma, “believing that our universe with such vast complexity could come into being fully formed is simply not viable. . . .  To account for the vast diversity of things in our universe, all of these [naturalistic] processes must have happened over an immense amount of ‘deep’ time”8 if there is no Creator.

To arrive at a point where we can observe all that we see around us today, “there would have had to have been, and presumably are, innumerable changes [from simple to more complex] taking place in matter over time.”9 So, in essence, the concept of millions of years is an absolute philosophical necessity for an atheistic worldview. It is a proverbial “hill to die on” for naturalists.

So “all of these conclusions could be derived from a simple general belief that God does not exist (atheism), prior to influence from specific physical evidence whatsoever. From that point forward every fact one sees could be interpreted according to that view. These would then be correlated to create a history about the universe that supports those beliefs.”10

Same Facts—Different Explanations

At this point, some might object and say that, yes, philosophically, these elements are required for an atheistic worldview, but if that’s what the facts prove, then it’s simply confirmation that their worldview is correct!

However, it’s not quite that simple. Why? Because facts don’t “prove” anything. Facts are always interpreted, and then the interpretations can be used as evidence to support whatever proposed historical narrative one desires. Case in point: fossils.

Both biblical creationists and evolutionists will point to the fossil record (observable facts) to support their beliefs about the past, but they interpret those same facts and arrive at completely different conclusions.

For example, evolutionists will typically assign vast ages to dinosaur fossils, as according to their proposed naturalistic history of life on earth, dinosaurs existed millions of years prior to humans, mostly dying out about 66 million years ago, though some eventually evolved into birds. They typically cite the rock layers in which these fossils are entombed, claiming they were laid down slowly over millions of years of sedimentary deposition.

However, biblical creationists interpret the same fossilized bones (facts) as being evidence of the historical account of Noah’s Flood and its effects that caused the rapid burial of the majority of the fossil record. So which explanation is “right”?

We would argue that a dinosaur (some of them being over six feet tall when slumped over in death) would have to have been buried extremely fast for it not to have decayed and become disarticulated. We would also point to the discovery of soft tissues remaining inside many of these bones as powerful evidence of a massive cataclysm a short while ago (approximately 4,400 years) that buried them rapidly.

However, neither group has a time machine in which to travel back and verify their interpretations of the exact same facts with absolute certainty, so it is up to each individual deliberating these explanations to decide which interpretation is better than the other. And the same goes for whatever other facts one points to in the origins debate.

Creation—The Better Explanation

Arch-antitheist and evolutionist Richard Dawkins, in speaking about the evidence for evolution in defense of his atheistic worldview, once said,

You have got millions and millions of pieces of evidence which no reasonable person can possibly dispute.11

However, these facts he points to can easily be disputed and interpreted toward a biblical explanation far more convincingly than to the materialistic counterparts. For example, no one has even proposed a reasonable explanation as to how DNA (which Dawkins admits being like a digital code12) could have occurred without intelligence. It must have its origin from an intelligent mind as no coded language system has ever been observed to come about naturalistically. Or what about microbiology or astronomy? Which is the more reasonable explanation of the incredible complexity we observe in the simplest of living things all the way to the mind-boggling precision in space discovered through incredibly powerful telescopes?

When interpreted correctly, these facts point to our wonderous Creator—the God of the Bible—quite easily but fly in the face of naturalistic interpretations. The challenge is, most people (including Christians) have only ever seen an evolutionary explanation of these facts and so conclude they must somehow be correct. Most don’t even realize there are other interpretations available and think the evolutionary interpretation itself is akin to “fact.”

Why Do So Many Believe the Story of Evolution?

“It’s easy to see why so many people believe in the story of evolution today because state run school systems and media throughout the Western world teach it as ‘fact’ and ‘science’ to impressionable children everywhere.”13 However, this “interpretation of everything” is based on a philosophy called secular humanism (founded on atheistic principles), not derived from science, as so many believe.

Again, “all of the core elements of the grand theory of evolution (cosmological, geological, chemical, biological, and human evolution) are simply a logical, philosophical outworking of the basic concepts of classical atheism applied to the world we live in.”14

They do not “fall out of the facts”; rather, all of these are applied to any facts we observe in order to make a seemingly cohesive narrative that conforms to and confirms the preexisting belief that interprets these facts as evidence for evolution. Ultimately, at the core of the materialist’s worldview is the very basic concept of “simple to complex” over millions of years.

Shine Truth into Darkness

The “evolutionary teaching is a self-perpetuating concept. Because evolutionary ideas support a naturalistic rather than a theistic worldview,”15 many have adopted an atheistic attitude and rejected biblical teaching. However, like me, people will often change their minds if exposed to a better explanation of the world we live in. So don’t be shy to share creationist explanations with the people you know, because they are the better explanation of reality.

Due to the scientific and philosophical illogicality and the obvious moral implications of that system, atheistic reasoning has always been deemed questionable by astute thinkers. For example, Sir Isaac Newton (undoubtedly one of the greatest scientists who ever lived) once said,

Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.16

No wonder God’s Word declares,

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” (Psalm 14:1)