For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. (2 Peter 3:5-6)
It is helpful to remember that the arguments concerning creation versus naturalistic evolution are not a new scientific issue. The apostle Peter understood that the philosophy that rejected the message of Scripture was not scientifically based, but rather it was an open and conscious rejection of the evidence available in the “things that are made”—demonstrating that the very character of the Godhead and His eternal power are “clearly seen” (Romans 1:20).
In our own lifetimes, evolutionary scientists continue to generate sophisticated arguments to ignore the “clearly seen” evidence. Their own top-tier colleagues have begun to promote the (new) Darwinian idea—the notion that life originated from a primordial conglomeration of chemicals that over vast ages and through randomly generated combinations resulted in a “common ancestor” from which all life developed. Rejection of this fanciful tale is not limited to creationists! Nor has the naturalistic community just recently come to the conclusion that these theories will not work.
Sir Fred Hoyle and his brilliant associate Chandra Wickramasinghe, both well-established British astronomers and mathematicians, co-authored the book Evolution from Space in which they strongly condemned the possibility of life originating by chance from anything in the natural universe:
No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for the practical reason that the whole observable universe is not large enough to contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary typewriters, and certainly not the waste paper baskets required for the deposition of wrong attempts. The same is true for living material….The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it….It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.1
This book was written nearly 30 years ago! Yet, no one has refuted their computations. Many have willingly rejected their insistence, but the proof still stands.
Dr. Richard Lewontin, a Harvard University geneticist, biologist, and social commentator, wrote an article in The New York Review of Books entitled “Billions and Billions of Demons.” Written less than 20 years ago, the article acknowledges that those who are “the initiated” of the scientific world are well aware of the need to formulate and process data that will prevent creationist thinking—even though it is an obvious effort to stop a “divine foot” from getting in the door:
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism....It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.2
Acts & Facts readers will probably recognize Dr. Lewontin’s quote. Our speakers frequently cite it because it reveals a “willing ignorance” on the part of those who formulate the “evidence” foisted upon the naive public and struggling student bodies of the world.
One of the most common misunderstandings among Christians is that the biblical account of creation can be allegorized or harmonized with the evolutionary system of science. This is not possible. Both the evolutionary explanation for creation and the biblical account are faith cosmologies—that is, they are “stories” of how things came to be. But neither can be put to scientific testing. Science requires that you can test, reproduce, and falsify or prove the “story” that is being evaluated. Since neither evolution nor creation can be subjected to those criteria, each individual is left with the absolute choice of believing one or the other. In fact, it is only the Christian apologists who attempt to homogenize the two messages. The evolutionary naturalist never does and scoffs at the Christian who attempts to gain his favor by denying the words of the Creator—words only the Christian professes to believe.
These opposing belief systems can easily be compared by a simple chart listing the foundational points upon which they rest.
While the evidence for the scientific confirmation of the biblical model is vast and significant research is ongoing, the resistance to this evidence is increasing. Critiques of the evolutionary models are even increasing from among their own colleagues! However, all of those who embrace those naturalistic presuppositions are united in resisting any acceptance of a theistic or supernatural intrusion into the discussions.
The one exception to that resistance, interestingly, is the growing acceptance of Panspermia. This theory insists that life exists in some form throughout the universe and has found its way onto our planet by assorted space detritus (meteorites, ice crystals, etc.) or through the design of some form of super-intelligence that exists in another galaxy. Usually, the argument is based on the known lack of evidence for an evolutionary origin of life which then requires a non-evidentiary solution—that is, a presupposition (without evidence) that explains the predisposition to “believe” in naturalistic evolution of all things.
During the 30 years since Sir Fred Hoyle made his comments about life, and the 20 or so years since Dr. Lewontin arrogantly demanded that scientists design experiments to produce the anti-creation dogma of naturalistic evolution, genuine science probed deeper into the universe and peered into the unimaginably tiny world of the atom and the unfathomably complex world of the genome. There is more evidence now than ever before for the omniscient design of everything! Using the actual facts of science, man has built an exhilarating world of cities, computers, and commerce that now “has dominion” over the world as never before. The science and technology that enable man to do such things are based on the proven order, purpose, and precision of “the things that are made.”
Only a fool looks at the overwhelming and worldwide evidence and then says, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1).
“Willingly ignorant,” indeed! It is not surprising that God insists that those who reject the evidence that He has imbedded in the very creation itself are “without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
References
- Holye, F. and C. Wickramasinghe. 1984. Evolution from Space. New York: Simon & Schuster, 148.
- Lewontin, R. Billions and Billions of Demons. The New York Review of Books. Posted on nybooks.com January 9, 1997.
* Dr. Morris is Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Creation Research.
Cite this article: Morris III, H. 2013. Willingly Ignorant. Acts & Facts. 42 (3): 5-7.
