Atheists from the Past Cloning Compromise Within the Church Today

I can but admire the courage and clear foresight of the Anglican divine who tells us that we must be prepared to choose between the trustworthiness of scientific method and the trustworthiness of that which the Church declares to be Divine authority. For, to my mind, this declaration of war to the knife against secular science, even in its most elementary form this rejection, without a moment’s hesitation, of any and all evidence which conflicts with theological dogma-is the only position which is logically reconcilable with the axioms of orthodoxy.1

This 1899 quotation from Thomas Huxley (Darwin’s bulldog) clearly demonstrates the lines that were drawn in his (and most other people’s) mind surrounding the “science vs. faith debate.” His main point was that people could either believe the Bible and deny the facts of science or believe science and deny the Bible.

For those who’ve been following along with our series, we’ve seen that secular thinkers like Huxley were just one of many who helped orchestrate the massive shift in Western culture we see today, beginning many years before him.

The shift was done so primarily through establishing the idea of millions of years of evolutionary deep time as the “scientific” explanation of the history of the world, which contradicts the Genesis creation account in the Bible.

Ultimately, Only Two Views

In his book Science and Hebrew Tradition, Huxley emphasized his view that the entire New Testament was based on the Old Testament’s accounts. He argued that the Genesis account of creation and Noah’s flood were disproved by the science of his day, which rendered the Bible’s entire narrative questionable in his mind.

With secularists mandating the teaching of the story of evolution as “science” in the state-run school systems, this narrative communicated its overarching message—that is, science has disproved the Bible’s history—to the general population throughout the West. Eventually, evolution became the dominant “creation story” believed by and regurgitated to most people, even many professing Christians.

Anyone who dissents against the story of evolution is mocked and gaslit today, especially if they also object to the idea that the earth is millions of years old. The majority of Christian leaders, authors, Bible professors, and seminaries have bent their knees in obeisance to these lies, hold to the idea of an ancient earth exclusively, and have adopted full-blown evolution into their worldview to a large degree as well.

What is truly disturbing is to see them not only mock and gaslight their fellow believers who do trust in the Genesis account (such as myself) as being “science deniers” but also trivialize and condescend God’s Word as being simplistic and naïve as well.

“The Magic Man in the Sky”

Take, for example, Dr. William Lane Craig. As a well-known apologist, he is often praised and touted as a staunch defender of Christianity. Yet, he boldly claims God used evolution to create and that Genesis should not be taken as real history, deriding the whole idea as silly and unscientific.

In one of his teachings, observe how he mockingly describes the idea that God created out of nothing (which is what the Bible describes) using the hypothetical creation of ducks as his subject.

All of a sudden, out of nothing, some ducks would appear on the surface of the lake. Now I think it’s certainly within God’s power to create ducks in this way, but I must confess that it smacks a little bit too much of magic.2

Now, the last time I heard the idea of God creating as being like someone using magic, it wasn’t from a Christian such as Craig professes to be but from an atheist commenting on one of my videos. As a matter of fact, Bible skeptics equating Christians’ belief in God to being like believing in a “magic man in the sky” is basically a meme at this point.

Poof! Ta-da! Something out of nothing. Ha ha, so funny!

So let’s get this straight. As a professing Christian who says he believes in the omnipotent God of the Bible, it somehow strikes Craig that the idea that God would create something out of nothing is like magic? What do you think the average atheist would say to that? I know what I would have said before I was a Christian.

“So what about the universe? Where did it come from—did your God create it from nothing? Isn’t that idea a bit too much like magic? Or is your God limited to only using preexisting matter to somehow create something?

So where did those things come from if your God didn’t create them?

If he is, then he’s not actually the creator—he’s simply a “shaper of things” that were already there, right? So where did those things come from if your God didn’t create them? And where did your God come from if there was stuff already there before he was?”

“What about the water Jesus turned into wine instantaneously? Because water is only made of H²O (hydrogen and oxygen) and wine has carbon in it (even nonalcoholic wine or grape juice), so where did the carbon come from that wasn’t there before?

What about the loaves and fishes Jesus miraculously created—they weren’t there before he performed his miracle either, right? Poof! Sounds like magic! Are you really that naïve that you still believe in a magic man in the sky!”

Embarrassed by Genesis?

However, rather than providing biblically based answers to questions like these, Craig leans into the atheistic worldview by mocking the plain reading of Genesis and collaborating with their millions of years/evolutionary worldview. He declares he doesn’t want Genesis to mean what it plainly says because of evolutionary explanations in “science.”

I would be disingenuous . . . if I were to say that I don’t want the young earth creationist interpretation to come out true. To me that is a nightmare, my greatest fear is that the young earth creationist might be right in his hermeneutical claim that Genesis does teach those things that I described earlier. And I say that would be a nightmare because if that’s what the Bible teaches, it puts the Bible into massive, I think irredeemable, conflict with modern science, history and linguistics and I don’t want that to happen.3

Because of this type of mockery (which Craig, a supposed champion of the Christian faith, participates in), Christians are often either browbeaten and painted as unintellectual simpletons (i.e., those simple-minded creationists) or have become so similar in belief to the world that one can hardly differentiate them, except for the “Jesus stuff” so to speak.

Interestingly, the (now deceased) vocal atheist William Provine (PhD in biology from the University of Chicago) once said, “As the creationists claim, belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.”4

In fact, the Bible quite similarly describes this result as well, in Proverbs 26:4: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.”

Indeed, here we see Dr. Craig, admittedly a very smart person, reduced to an extremely foolish and vulnerable position (in the context of trying to defend the God of the Bible) because of his evolutionary views, which conform to atheistic beliefs in many ways.

Discrediting the Supernatural

It’s always astonished me (considering my own former atheistic worldview based on my belief in evolution) to see how blind someone like Craig can be in his promotion of evolution. How could he see it as somehow being a benefit to God’s kingdom and to Western culture at large when, because of it, the damage to society is so overwhelmingly easy to see!?

Just look at the following quotations from Cambridge University professors Peter Lawrence and Simon Morris and University of Chicago’s Dr. Jerry Coyne, respectively (all of whom are atheists and evolutionists).

These were parts of their responses when approached (alongside 10 other modern-day scientists) for their assessment of Darwin’s Origin of Species during its 150-year celebration.5

“In this vital mission to discredit the supernatural, nothing has proved more important than The Origin of Species.”

“First and foremost, The Origin is an exorcism of the doctrine of special creation, and conducted by one of the most skilled exorcists science has ever seen.”

“[Darwin] . . . in the end so convinced his readers that they not only bought his ideas, but in the process jettisoned three thousand years of religious explanation for life and its apparent design.”

Obviously, the introduction of long ages and the story of evolution has been the fulcrum point that began the undermining of Western culture. As we’ve seen, the clear distinction of Western society was its foundational reliance on the Bible’s teachings as factual.

The Gospel Is Based on Biblical History

As Huxley and his ilk have been pointing out for years, the story of evolution contradicts the historical accounts in Scripture so profoundly that a child can see it. So those professing Christians like Craig and the others who have collaborated with this naturalistic worldview have only helped the West’s downfall.

For all the Christians that might push back and point to his “many victorious debates” with atheists to contradict what I’ve said, his success has been largely in defense of theism or deism, rather than defending the trustworthiness and authority of God’s Word and belief in our Creator, Savior, and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Just look at his answer to whether he believes in the virgin birth: “I’m reasonably confident.”6

That answer sounds a little soft in comparison to the Apostles’ Creed, doesn’t it?

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
    Creator of Heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,
    who was born of the Holy Spirit
    and the Virgin Mary.7

And what about his take on the absolute authority and inerrancy of Scripture? “I don’t insist on the inerrancy of Scripture.”8

So he’s reasonably confident in the virgin birth but doesn’t believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. For a supposed defender of the faith, he sounds wishy-washy to me.

Indeed, defense of the idea of a creator who somehow can’t communicate the first 11 chapters of his Word without the special revelation of so-called modern science will almost certainly not lead people to trust the rest of God’s Word (which isn’t inerrant according to Craig), including the most vital message of all.

The most viral message, of course, is the offer of salvation made possible through the willing sacrifice of the last Adam, Jesus Christ, on the cross of Calvary to pay the penalty for sin and death introduced by the first Adam that God created. Several scriptures clearly demonstrate:

“The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 1 Corinthians 15:45

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. Romans 5:12

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 1 Corinthians 15:47

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. Romans 5:18

Skeptics Often Understand What Many Christians Don’t

The support for the historicity of the Genesis account is clear throughout the New Testament, and without it, the gospel is simply illegitimate—which informed skeptics understand.

The support for the historicity of the Genesis account is clear throughout the New Testament, and without it, the gospel is simply illegitimate—which informed skeptics understand. Just look at what the atheist Frank Zindler said in his debate encounter with Dr. Craig, who doesn’t believe in a literal Adam because of his acceptance of evolutionary anthropology.

The most devastating thing though that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin, there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation, there is no need of a savior. And I submit that puts Jesus, historical or otherwise, into the ranks of the unemployed.9

You see, no matter whom you think supposedly “won the debate,” I believe Zindler scored the most powerful blow against the Christian faith and trust in God’s Word with this statement, to which Craig had no real answer. To later go on and show that “there is a better chance that God exists than the idea there is no God” doesn’t really matter because belief in God doesn’t save anyone!

Only by admitting your sin and being saved by faith by accepting Jesus Christ’s sacrificial act on the cross as a payment for your sin (therefore accepting him as your Lord and Savior) will save you from hell.

The “New” Based on the “Old”

However, just as Huxley loved to point out to people years ago, belief in the New Testament accounts (which is primarily where all the details concerning the doctrine of salvation I just mentioned are found) is based on the Old Testament’s historical authenticity. That includes Adam and Eve as real people—specially created by God—something Craig denies.10

Just look at how Huxley attacked biblical authority in this manner.

A certain passion for clearness forces me to ask, bluntly, whether the writer means to say that Jesus did not believe the stories in question, or that he did? When Jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that “the Flood came and destroyed them all,” did he believe that the Deluge really took, place, or not?11

Indeed, Jesus believed in the Genesis flood. Many professing Christians say this global event was just a localized flood or never happened and is just a teaching metaphor because of their acceptance of evolutionary “deep time” beliefs.

If no Flood swept the careless people away, how is the warning of more worth than the cry of “Wolf” when there is no wolf? If Jonah’s three days’ residence in the whale is not an “admitted reality,” how could it “warrant belief” in the “coming resurrection”?12

Here we see Huxley (just like so many Bible skeptics who came after him) hammering his point home. If the history isn’t real, neither is the theology!

If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive “type,” comparable to the profound Promethean mythus, what value has Paul’s dialectic.13

Astonishingly, it’s as if Huxley was anticipating the church of the future, where many professing believers (like Craig) do not hold Adam to have been a real person.

And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who, on this theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legendary quicksands?14

Here we have the “mic drop” message, delivered by an anti-Christian atheist from well over 100 years ago, against biblical authority that many Christians need to grasp and truly understand.

Huxley was absolutely right. Jesus believed what the Old Testament plainly taught and often based his teachings on them directly. However, Craig (and other professing Christians who deny a plain reading of Genesis) is willing to admit that he believes Jesus (God in the flesh) held “false beliefs” about the Old Testament typically held by other Jews of his era.

Did God stoop so low in condescending to become a man that he took on such cognitive limitations that Jesus shared false beliefs typically held by other ordinary first century Jews? Since I have good reason to believe in his deity, as explained above, I would sooner admit that Jesus could hold false beliefs (that ultimately don’t matter) rather than deny his divinity.15

You heard that right, according to Craig, Jesus believed falsehoods (and he’s particularly talking about Genesis in this reference). Falsehoods that were believed by the Orthodox Jews of his day (and the vast majority of Christians including the church fathers and the Reformers up until the last 200 years or so by the way). And why did they believe those supposed falsehoods? Obviously, it was because of what the Bible plainly says!

Of course, that is the same way we can know we are truly saved from our sin (because of what the Bible plainly says). However, if Jesus himself believed falsehoods and what Orthodox Jews and Christians have also believed for thousands of years based on what the Bible clearly teaches was incorrect as well, what possible hope could we have in trusting any part of the Bible’s message of salvation?

Unfortunately, what we are seeing today is the false beliefs of skeptics from the past reanimated through modern-day avatars from within the church. These skeptics spread doubt, distrust, and disbelief, not confident Christianity with solid answers for the faith as is commanded in 1 Peter 3:15: “In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”

Join us for Part 12, the conclusion of our series, where we will discuss how understanding our arrival at this point in history can help us fight back against the forces of change that brought us here and help us forge a better future based on a true understanding of our past—the plain reading of the Genesis account.