Why I belive in Biblical Creation rather than Evolution by Geoff Thompson

"For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." Romans 1:20
           

                                                By Geoff Thompson

If people wanted to give me a title re my Christian beliefs they would probably tell you I am an evangelical,fundamentalist, creationist type of Christian.I would probably satisfy that label.

Before I continue let me say one thing at the outset. I have a very good sermon in my collection of tapes called “Hearing God’s Word”.

In it the speaker points out that the moment we put a “label” on a Christian we immediately because of our bias , restrict ourselves from possibly ever hearing what God might want to say to us through that person. All truth is God’s truth is what I believe no matter the source. That does not mean I am a Universalist.

So why would I want to tell you my views on the creation debate.

Well it just might be useful to someone exploring faith in God and related matters.

I don’t believe I alone can convince anyone to believe my position.

I have tried with a few people.

As a young person, I am now 69, I had a great interest in the natural world, animals, birds and the heavens and the plant world to a lesser extent.

I knew pretty much in the early stages what evolution taught. I had a basic belief in God having attended a Christian Sunday school until I was 12 years old at which time I walked away from the Church.

I loved stories about animals, particularly the Jungle books by Rudyard Kipling.

When I became a Christian at age 28 I still had a basic belief in evolution and thought well that was probably how God created everything.

I must have read a few books by “Creationists” or “Intelligent Designers” which  is the current more in vogue title for such people. Some of them argued very convincingly for the creation account of the Bible.

I became more and more challenged by such writings and eventually came to my current position.

Some of the things that I found were important in having a Christian creationist view point are included hereunder.This by no means a treatise of this subject. There are many who have written excellent material on the subject who can do a far better job than I can.

1. Jesus is our Creator. He and others in the New Testament quite clearly accepted Adam and Eve and Noah as real people. The Bible claims God the Father as Creator, Jesus the Son as the Creator and the Holy Spirit as the Creator.Another way of understanding that  God is a triune God.

2. For many Christians as, JB Phillips once wrote, “Your God is too small.”

If God is the Creator of the Universe He is big enough to create an already functioning universe or earth with a command.

How big is your God?

I believe God is that “big”

3. There is much scientific knowledge recorded in the Bible. Read the books, I am not going to document it here.

Things that the writers of scripture at the time they wrote them must have been under inspiration of the Holy Spirit as according to scientific discovery they were not known  at the time.

Eg That snowflakes all have a unique individual design.

That in one part of the world people would be sleeping at night while others were awake during the day.

That electricity could be used to communicate.

You might say such things are coincidental but when there are  many so called coincidences  one can conclude there is a greater power at work.

4. Human Psychological theory is dependent on evolutionary teaching to a great extent and academics will admit to you as I once found out when I started to study Psychology, there is no agreed paradigm for Psychology. Eg all scientists and most laypeople would agree the Law of Gravity is an agreed paradigm but not so is there an agreed paradigm in psychology. Every few years a new theory of Psychology becomes the in thing. Eg Transactional analysis in the seventies, the teachings of freud earlier , the Cognitiive behaviour therapy of the present times.A more accurate assessment and explanation of human behaviour and psychology is able to be constructed based on the Biblical view of man in my opinion and that of people like C.R. Solomon and F.C. Hunting who are noted on this blog. This is based on the Biblical teaching that mankind is created in God’s image eg. Body, soul and spirit which equates to the triune God. Oswald Chambers (author of My Utmost for His Highest)was also a man with a deep Christian understanding of human behaviour.

Dr Paul Kaschel  when speaking in Adelaide once at a seminar on the “Exchanged Life” told how he had once been in charge of a secular psychiatric hospital and he had been fully qualified in secular therapy.

He pointed out however that using techniques of the day thay could get some people well enough to go home but the minute some storm in their life came along they would be back in hospital.

He likened what they were doing in therapy to making a dirt road full of potholes passable by filling them in with dirt and gravel but the minute a storm came along they were washed out and the road became treacherous again.

He discovered a more excellent way to help people through Jesus.

Using evolution and the idea that we were cavemen and the danger and flight response is  part of that scenario rather than what is taught in Genesis is why there is no agreed Paradigm in Psychology.

5. Being able to trust the whole Bible is paramount to discovering the “full”   

    salvation that Jesus offers.

6. Many people are ignorant of the Spiritual world ie. Those with a rationalist   scientific viewpoint. There is an unmistakable presence of evil in this world.How does evolution explain that?

7. You would have to be a fool to ignore the existence of  a creator. People will of   course say that I am a fool for believing the bible. Well I am in good company.Read Romans 1:18-23

  

8. I believe it is possible for people to become “creationists” or “intelligent

designers” without becoming Christians. I know of one such person at least.

12. Many people give examples of variation within a species as support for the theory of evolution. 

This has nothing to do with the transition from one species to another that evolution maintains.Variation within a species  is not counter to a creationist viewpoint.

There are and always will be millions of so called “missing links”.

The fossil records support Creation and not Evolution. See the book by Duane Gish.“The Fossils say no!“
Below is a youtube talk given by the late Dr. Gish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8H35GDLNuw

13. I believe the only thing that really gets in the way of belief in God and as the  

Creator is the human failing of pride and the fear of being considered “unintelligent”.

We all of us in our fallen state want to be as God ourselves and control our own destiny.

We all have a definite appointment with our creator, if He exists, one day.

I don’t doubt He does.

Why not investigate the claims for creation and the wider question of Jesus Christ now before we meet our maker.

Someone once coined  the phrase. “ If Christ is the answer, what are the questions?

There are lots and I find the Bible satisfies all the questions I have come up with.

Start studying the Bible seriously today and put your scepticism and judgements to one side and you will be surprised at what you will find.


Below is a link to a significant Creationist, Intelligent Design Ministry if you want to explore further. Please note I am not saying there is no such thing as helpful science in many fields.
The science I believe in is evidence based and demonstrable by repeated experiments after developing a hypoyhesis.

http://creation.com/

Ps. You will notice a gap in my numbering system. Not a freudian slip but my having problems with the formatting.