What About the Genesis Genealogies?

The best biblical counterargument to an old earth is not what you would expect. It is not found in Genesis 1 or 2, nor is it found in the account of Noah’s Flood. To me, anyway, those passages are easily interpreted to be consistent with an old earth using standard rules of hermeneutics. Biblically speaking, I feel comfortable with the old-earth interpretations of those passages. No, the best counterargument is found in the genealogies of Genesis, namely Adam’s genealogy in Genesis 5 and Shem’s genealogy in Genesis 11. Personally, these genealogies probably prevented me from believing in an old earth more than any other argument. So, I guess it is time for me to explain why these passages are not truly problematic for old-earth creationists.

But first the problem. Simply put, if we take the genealogies of Genesis as complete records without missing generations, we must conclude that Adam existed only about 4000 BC (or, 4004 BC, if you appreciate Ussher). Compounding the problem, the genealogies of Gen. 5 and 11 seem to interlock each generation with the next generation in a way that seems to guarantee that no generations are missing. If it weren’t for this latter fact, it would be fully reasonable to presume that many generations are missing.

The answer is not obvious, and I have never heard a strong biblical defense of how there can be missing generations. However, I believe that there are good reasons to believe that the genealogies of Genesis have been telescoped—truncated to a bare minimum. What follows are those reasons.

1. It was common practice to condense genealogies by skipping generations

There are several examples of obviously telescoped genealogies in the Bible. I’m not going to bother going through all of them in any detail, since that would be a major study. I’d just ask you to ‘trust me’ on it, or read a good article that goes into some detail about these examples ^[1]. Some examples are Matt. 1, Moses’ lineage (cf. Ex. 6:16-20; Num. 26:57-59; 1 Chr. 6:1-3; 23:6; 23:12-13), and Num. 16:1. It seems to have been a common practice to only highlight important ancestors. This was likely done to make memorization of genealogies much easier and so to better preserve the roots of an individual.

2. Unique poetic flare of the two genealogies indicates potential for unusual interpretation

There are two strong indications that these two Genesis genealogies are partly poetic. That certainly does not mean that these people were not real, but it could indicate an unusual interpretation is required. Both lists in Genesis 5 and 11 have perfectly unique structures from all other genealogies in the Bible. As a result, it does not seem unreasonable to think the author had something different in mind.

The repeated phrase, “And he had sons and daughters,” is likely a poetic flourish to the lists. Why doesn’t it specify the number of sons and daughters? Why bother mentioning that they had other children? I think I have an answer to those questions, which I’ll mention soon.

The other poetic aspect of these lists is that there are precisely ten generations from Adam to Noah (inclusive) and from Shem to Abraham (inclusive). The parallel nature of these two genealogies seems to be intentional, similar to the repeated fourteen generations of Matt. 1.

Each generation in Gen. 5 and 11 repeats the same phrasing, which is often a poetic device. We see this exact thing in Gen. 1, where, “It became evening and it became morning…” is repeated at the end of each day of creation.

3. Genesis minimizes intermediate periods of time

If you consider the whole of Genesis for a minute, regardless of whether you believe in an old earth or a young earth, you will notice that Genesis focuses on three periods of time: (1) Adam’s time; (2) Noah’s time; and (3) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s time. Even under a young earth interpretation, the vast majority of Genesis—46 of 50 chapters—is devoted to a few hundred years of time out of about two thousand years. So, only parts of four chapters, Gen. 4-5 and Gen. 10-11, deal with around 2000 years of history (or more); whereas, the remaining forty-six chapters cover about 350 years of history. Even in the young-earth view, this would mean that there are about seventy times more words per year dedicated to the 350-year period compared with the number of words per year for the other 2000 years! Clearly, Genesis has little to say about the vast majority of time up until Abraham.

It would be little surprise, then, if Gen. 5 and 11 were merely highlights of important figures in the genealogical history. It would be consistent with the whole focus of Genesis if these two lists were majorly telescoped. No matter what your view is of the age of the earth, Genesis does only highlight a few crucial time periods in the ancient history of mankind. There would normally be no reason to believe that the genealogies are complete lists. If many thousands of years had passed until Abraham, it would make much sense to condense the genealogies from hundreds and hundreds of individuals to only twenty significant individuals.

4. The significance of year figures is hard to determine

Some young-earth creationists assume that the main reason for the year figures in Gen. 5 and 11 is to let us calculate total elapsed time. However, that is probably not true for two reasons. For each individual, there are three year figures in Gen. 5: (1) the age of the individual when they begot the next generation, (2) the number of years the individual lived after they begot the next generation, and (3) the total number of years the individual lived. Only (1) is needed to determine the elapsed time from beginning to end. Either (2) or (3) is entirely unnecessary for computational purposes, since (3) is always just the sum of (1) and (2). There seem to be several purposes, then, in listing these year figures.

Another reason why elapsed time does not seem to be the purpose is that no total length of time is given at the end of the lists. When the total is important and a main point, it makes sense to list the sum of all previous figures. In the numbering of the people of Israel, we see that the totals were given (Num. 1), since the total was very significant. No totals are given in Gen. 5 or 11.

The total age that each person lived seems to have little other purpose than to show us that people were blessed with very old age before the Flood. The Septuagint, which was likely used by the apostles, contains several different year figures than the standard Hebrew Massoretic text. Apparently, God was not too concerned about these figures being preserved accurately for all ages. (The Hebrew version is preserved, by the way.)

The bottom line is that the genealogies contain year figures that serve little more purpose than to remind us repeatedly of the reality of these people and of their highly unusual life spans—that and to add to the poetic nature of the lists. For sure, the numbers are not there just for mathematicians and chronologists to have fun and figure out the age of the earth (if that is a reason at all).

5. There is another possible interpretation that fits with the old-earth view

I indicated earlier that there does not seem to be an easy way to reconcile these genealogies with an old earth. True, there’s no obvious way, but I believe there is a reasonable interpretation that fits with the old earth view.

The phrasing that is used over and over again in these passages could reasonably be translated as follows, I believe:

Person-X lived A years, and [then] was begetting Person-Y. 
After he [started] to beget Person-Y, Person-X lived B years;
And he was begetting male and female descendents.
*So all the days of Person-X were A+B years; and he died.

(*This last sentence is only used in Gen. 5.) Without getting into a detailed explanation of this, “son” in Hebrew can mean “male descendent,” “daughter” can mean “female descendent,” and “beget” can be loosely used to mean something like “produce a descendent.” For a defense of this, please see the article linked to below ^[1].

So, to explain the above phrasing, let me paraphrase and offer an amplified version of the first half. The latter half does not need any amplification.

Person-X lived A years, and then he begot the next progenitor of Person-Y, continuing his ancestral line.
After he begot the next progenitor of Person-Y, Person-X lived B years…

The Hebrew verb form of the first “begot” in this repeated phrase is in the imperfect form, normally indicating ongoing, incomplete, or a progressive action. From what I understand, the word “begot” can genuinely be translated as “[he] was begetting/generating” in both Gen. 5 and 11 for the first instance of the word in the repeated phrase listed above. Most genealogies do not use this verb form for “begot.” The use of “begot” in the imperfect tense is relatively rare when associated with a male subject. There are 499 cases of the Hebrew word “begot” (Strong’s Word H3205), and there are several forms of the word. Genesis 5 and 11 use two rare forms of “begot,” basically meaning “[he] was begetting” and “[he] caused to beget,” though there are no English equivalents to these Hebrew words. The “[he] was begetting” form is used 49 times in the Old Testament but only 14 times outside of Gen. 5 and 11. Of those 14 other times it is usually used in connection with begetting multiple descendents, as you would expect since the verb form can indicate ongoing action. The “[he] caused to beget” form is only used 18 times in the whole Old Testament and only once outside of Gen. 5 and 11. Also, only the genealogies of Gen. 5 and 11 use these verb forms consistently with each new generation. I don’t think the significance of the uniqueness of these two genealogies can be overestimated.

So, the “beget”-verb forms are very unusual and consistent between Genesis 5 and 11 and supports the interpretation that many generations are missing. That being said, it looks clear that there are no generations missing between Adam and Seth, Seth and Enosh, Lamech and Noah, Noah and Shem, and Terah and Abraham. However, for poetic reasons, I suggest that Moses intentionally kept all the verb tenses the same.

Finally, the repeated, consistent use of the phrase, “And [he] was begetting sons [male descendents] and daughters [female descendents],” is another possible indication of missing generations. The “sons” and “daughters,” as we’ve noted already, can mean more generally male and female descendents. So, there is no need for this to mean that every individual had at minimum five children: the primary male descendent, plus two sons and two daughters. All this could indicate is that they had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren—many descendents of both gender. This phrase is nonspecific, I believe, because it is poetically drawing attention to the fact that large time intervals passed, and countless descendents were born. If it was only speaking of the immediate next generation of children, then it would have been significant to mention how many sons and daughters were born, as in 2 Chr. 11:21 and 13:21, or as in the case of Job 42:13. It makes better sense to interpret these references to male and female descendents as an ongoing multiplication of children and grandchildren, etc. In that case, it would be impossible or insignificant to place a specific number on the male and female descendents born.

In line with this interpretation, we see that when specific information is given about children, as in the case of Noah and Terah, the father of Abraham, they do not always have five or more children. Noah had only sons and no daughters (Gen. 5:32). Terah had apparently only three sons and no daughters (Gen. 11:26). In the Gen. 5 genealogy, we have the first eight generations having, “sons and daughters,” but the last father, Noah, only has three sons and no daughters. Similarly, in the Gen. 11 genealogy, we have the first eight generations having, “sons and daughters,” but the last father, Terah, only has three sons and no daughters. To me personally, that seems like much more than an unlikely coincidence. It fits in beautifully with the interpretation of these genealogies as being telescoped with countless generations missing.

Here’s an example to help summarize this interpretation. When it says, literally, “Eber lived 34 years, and [then] was-begetting Peleg,” it means that after Eber lived 34 years, he begot the specific child who belonged to the ancestral line leading eventually to Peleg. The “was begetting” verb allows for this interpretation by being imprecise and possibly alluding to ongoing, multiple births or generations that produced the descendent Peleg. When it says, literally, “After he caused-to-generate Peleg, Eber lived 430 years,” it means that Eber lived 430 years after he begot the specific child belonging to the ancestral line of Peleg. You see, Eber probably had several children who were not a part of Peleg’s ancestral line. When Eber begot the child who was a part of that line, he did his part to cause the eventual birth of Peleg. Eber could do no more than provide one link in the chain leading to Peleg. Once Eber made that link in the chain, he lived 430 years, and had many male and female descendents, and then he died.

Summary

The genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 are clearly unique in several ways. They are poetic in nature to some degree, which allows for a more flexible interpretation. The Hebrew language that was originally used by Moses is very flexible and nonspecific. The genealogies utilize rare verb forms that could indicate ongoing or progressive action (multiple generations) was involved in the “begetting” of a descendent. The ancient Hebrew culture seems to have often telescoped genealogies by habit to make memorization of lineage easier. Doubtlessly, the focus of Genesis is on specific time periods within a long period of time, with only brief summaries made of the intervening periods. Genesis 5 and 11 are a part of those summaries, and we would not expect a detailed listing of individuals if hundreds of generations had passed. All of these points make it reasonable to interpret these genealogies as being telescoped. I believe we have seen that even a literal understanding of the Hebrew can support this interpretation, and the specific Hebrew wording is best explained by realizing that there are missing generations.

[1] http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/genesis_genealogies.html

Theological Implications of Animal Death Before the Fall

(Warning: This is a somewhat disorganized ramble.)

Much ado has been made over animal death existing before the Fall. Some young-earth creationists (YECs) have even gone to the extreme of saying that God could not be a loving and good God if He allowed pain and death to exist before sin entered the world. Where are they getting this from in the Bible? (I have discussed this topic somewhat in a previous post ^[1]. Please refer back to this post for other thoughts about the topic of sin and death before the Fall.)

The Bible actually says nothing about there being no animal death before the Fall. The closest you can come to finding that thought is in the phrase, “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). However, the description “very good” is purely subjective. What about the creation was “very good”? There are two places in the Old Testament where the current state of creation, which includes plenty of death and pain, is deemed “beautiful” or spoken of in connection with “good” (Ecc. 3:11; Psalm 104:28). The current condition of the world definitely has much good in it, whether or not it is merely a shadow of its former beauty. It is not logically sound to assume that God would not have called the current state of the world “very good,” since there are many ways in which the current world is indeed good. Is it impossible that God would have called the world “very good” when there was animal death? I think not. It is mostly our emotional bias that hesitates to think that God would consider this current state of the animal kingdom to be good.

Romans 8 is a good place to go to see how God views the pain and death and futility of the whole of the world. If you read this chapter, you will see plainly that the earth was subjected to futility by God because He wanted to build anticipation for a future perfect world. There is no indication in the passage that the “birth pangs”—the sorrow and futility—of the world in general were caused by sin, namely the fall of Adam. Yes, human suffering and death are from sin and the Fall, and that is important to understand theologically, but the rest of creation was subjected to unpleasantness because of God’s mysterious eternal plans. The Creation is as a woman that is about to give birth. There is pain associated with the birth process, but something beautiful is happening. The birth of the child pictures the New Creation to come that is perfect. Such a perfect state has not been born yet, and it has never existed. Before the Fall, it was not perfect, just “very good” using some measure.

So, is there a problem with animal death before Adam? If there was animal death before Adam, should we feel sorry for the poor animals and shake our fists at God and say, “You are not just and good”? There have been some who have abandoned the Faith because of the cruelty of life. How could God be so good and loving and just but have created a world filled with violence and pain and death? The YEC answers this by trying to shift all the blame to human sin, and more specifically the Fall of Adam. But, does the Bible justify that blame, and does that answer our concerns about suffering and futility of all of Creation?

The objection that YECs raise concerning death before Adam is fundamentally flawed in three ways. First, there is no Biblical passage that indicates that animal suffering and death began because of the Fall of Adam. YECs, in my opinion, abuse Romans 5, Romans 8, and 1 Corinthians 15 severely. These passages do not in any way directly tie animal death with Adam’s Fall. That is important to note. If we are trying to say that Adam’s sin caused all the “woes” of the world, then the Bible should say something to that effect. It does not. The Fall caused all human woes but not necessarily any other problems. If the Fall caused all problems in the world, then you would expect that to be pointed out somewhere in the Bible. Surely the Curse detailed in Genesis 3 should have said something about animals suddenly having pain and suffering and dying! But, no, God does not say to Adam and Eve that the animals would suffer in that way because of their sin.

Second, the YECs use bad logic to suggest that if animal death existed before the Fall, then God subjected the animal kingdom to unjust punishment—i.e., punishment not the result of any sin. This is flawed logic on at least two accounts. For one thing, animals are amoral and never commit sin making them worthy of punishment. There is no reason why Adam’s sin should have been imputed to innocent animals in the first place. Adam’s guilt did not make the animals guilty and worthy of punishment. Animals are worthy of neither paradise nor painful futility. God can do with them as He pleases. Soulful animals are devoid of knowledge of God and receive the rewards of their ignorance and vanity. They act in ignorance and so receive the fruits of ignorance: futility, pain, and death. Only knowing and serving God brings unending life. The animals were never inherently worthy of unending life.

For another thing, even if we did believe that all the “woes” of the world need to be connected with the Fall, God knows the future and could just as easily have placed the curse upon all Creation before the Fall as after it. Logically, there is no reason why God would need to wait until after Adam sinned to place the curse on Creation. Take redemption in Christ as an example. People before the Cross of Christ were able to have Christ’s perfect blood applied to them long before He shed His blood, because God knew the future and knew that Jesus Christ would come and make atonement for people. It is perfectly fair for God to act in the past based upon knowledge of the future. It would be perfectly fair for God to place a curse of futility on all animals long before the Fall precisely because of the Fall, knowing that it was going to happen. Logically this is a possibility, even if it is not what God was doing.

There is no reason why animal suffering and death necessitates injustice to them. Even if amoral animals were somehow deserving of a lifetime free from pain, there is no logical reason to believe that God could not somehow balance out the pains with pleasures. There is no reason to believe that God could not ensure justice for the animals, since He governs every ‘random’ event in nature. Animals receive the undeserved gift of life and pleasure in it. They have their rewards. Justice demands nothing more than a “net zero”—a tooth for a tooth. There is no saying that animals that do harm to other innocent animals do not receive punishments in life making for justice. There is nothing, in purely logical terms, as farfetched as it may be, for God to also make for perfect justice for the animals at the point of their death. The point here is that there are possibilities that may be beyond our limited notions of what God could do to ensure perfect justice throughout the animal kingdom, regardless of there being pain and suffering and death. All of this, once again, is under the presumption that animals somehow deserve a higher justice. I am not convinced that they are worthy of anything.

A very important point is that if animals deserve no pain in life, we should not be allowed to kill them. Killing animals involves some measure of pain for them. God would never have required animal sacrifices if animals are so innocent as to be worthy of paradise. Clearly, pain and death of animals is not always an injustice to them. The Fall of mankind didn’t magically make animals suddenly deserving of pain. If animals do not now deserve a painless life that never ends, then they never deserved it, not even before the Fall.

Third, the YECs pretend to solve the dilemma of general problems in the world by placing all the blame at Adam’s feet (and all mankind, since all people were in Adam), even though justice doesn’t work that way. Just imagine if I robbed someone and a judge said that he was going to fine me $100 and also kill all my neighbor’s pets as my punishment. How is it just for my neighbor’s poor pets to be killed because of my transgression? It is not! Justice, in general, only applies to the one offending and the one offended. To somehow try to make animal suffering about justice pertaining to Adam’s sin would be absurd, in my opinion. The animals did not deserve to be punished for Adam’s sin. The most we could say is that the world has been subjected to futility to teach man about his sin. If that is why God put the world under futility, then it is even more obvious that God could have prepared the world far in advance for this lesson for humanity. Again, God did not need to wait for Adam to Fall, even if the world is primarily suitable for after the Fall. I hope that is clear. YECs ultimately solve nothing by tying animal woes to man’s sin, I believe; and, YECs prove nothing by assuming that all death must be the result of the Fall. Any way you look at it, God would be perfectly just and fair to subject the world to decay and death before man arrived on the scene.

The problems in nature could have served as a lesson to Adam before the Fall. It would have shown him that life apart from God is vain and futile. It would have amplified his sin if he could see what death was all about. It would have made him appreciate the life he had with the Lord even more! Is that not consistent with how that in eternity there will be those who are lost, and we will forever be fully aware of what we’ve been saved from? If Adam and Eve lived in a less than perfect world, doesn’t that make the importance of knowing God all that much more evident?

So, is there anything we can say about the nature of God if problems existed in nature before Adam sinned? Yes, I believe there are some possible implications. God would then appear to be One who is planning far in advance, who enjoys building anticipation, who makes things better and better in time, who gives people no excuse of ignorance (not even Adam and Eve), who consistently shows that ignorance of Him is not bliss, who rewards only those who seek Him (animals don’t seek Him), whose plans and counsels stand without fail, and who does not punish others (even animals) for someone else’s sin. I don’t see how any of this is inconsistent with God’s nature as revealed in the Bible. The theological implications could be worse, I think, if you believe that futility did not exist before the Fall.

What about God’s goodness? There are two possible answers, to reiterate what’s above. Animals may be under bondage because of Adam’s sin, even if that bondage preexisted the Fall. More likely, animals generally receive God’s goodness in life, and their suffering is more the result of their own ignorance of Him and His holiness. Just as God says that He is good to all, since He sends the sunshine and rain on all people (Matt. 5:45), He is good likewise in sending the rain and sunshine on all animals. The animals enjoy good things in life. Their suffering, by the way, is less than for humans, since they have a much lower degree of awareness. God is, and always has been, good to the animals.

It is true that many animals need—and are designed—to kill other animals, but they are mostly ignorant of what they are doing. God says that lions are “filled with good” when they go out and kill other animals (Psalm 104:28). At the same time that a gazelle receives pain, a lion is being rewarded with a good thing in life. However, most gazelles, if they could live and talk after death, would tell us that life was worth it, even if they did get eaten by a lion. So, even the sad fight for survival in the animal kingdom does not nullify the goodness of God in life. (By the way, there are plenty of creatures that die of old age and escape being killed by other animals. Generally those animals with less awareness are lower down on the food chain—like insects—and hardly care if they’re eaten.)

I’m not saying that this isn’t a difficult and emotional topic to navigate through. I do empathize for the poor animals. But, I think if we carefully consider this topic, we’ll understand the goodness of God. We’ll understand that He has a higher purpose for subjecting the world to futility. We’ll understand that animals generally receive more good than evil in their lifetimes. This topic reveals more about us than God. Are we optimists or pessimists? Do we understand true justice? Do we limit God and assume to much about what He can or cannot do? Do we think God’s goodness is a gift or inherently deserved?

How was the world “very good”? It was very well designed. It was filled with beauty and complexity and intricacy. It was perfectly suited for the future unfolding story of redemption. It was very well planned. It was filled with good things, from foods to rainbows to sunsets to mountains to kinship to unfailing laws. The whole of nature is very well organized. Order fills Creation. We could perfectly truthfully say, “Creation is very good in its design, but yet filled with futility and suffering for God has subject it in hope of a better world.” Should it astonish us that Genesis 1 and 2 focus on the goodness of Creation and ignore the problems in it? The lesson to take away from that is that when a person is walking in a pure and undefiled relationship with God even the problems of life can’t get them depressed. A perfect relationship with God makes life so much more beautiful. Adam and Eve were so grateful and impressed at the goodness and wisdom of God. They had no reason to let the problems among the animal kingdom get them down. Just think of the implications this has for our own happiness in this imperfect world! “Know God, know peace; no God, no peace.”

[1] http://createdevolution.blogspot.com/2011/07/bcoe-what-about-sin-and-death.html

Things Evolve, But How Much?

The purpose of this blog is not really to support evolution of any kind, but rather to elucidate the veracity of the Bible by showing that the evidence in creation is consistent with the Bible. If a form of designed evolution is true, then that must glorify God in some way. I am convinced that Genesis 1 leaves room for some kind evolution of life. However, considering some of the marvels of nature, I cannot help but wonder if even a designed evolutionary process can account for all the complexity. It is fully possible that God has been creating new life forms for hundreds of millions of years. I would leave that door open. What should be intuitively obvious, though, is that a designed evolutionary process is exceedingly more plausible than an un-designed one.

It seems clear to me that there are countless small evidences that macroevolution of some kind has happened through the ages. All of these small evidences seem to amount to a significant pile of evidence. Yet even so, I would not be shocked if these evidences are wrongly interpreted and God has simply been taking existing designs in nature and tweaking them and creating new species at His leisure. The apparent macroevolution could be nothing more than miraculous redesigns by God. That seems a bit strange to me, but I really don’t know God well enough to say He would not do that. Who has known His infinite mind, anyway? The fact that there is so much genetic similarity between all living organisms does not prove evolution, only that there has been a common origin for all life. The common origin may be nothing more than God’s mind. Who is to say that God could not have intentionally left a sort of fingerprint on all living things? Common designs could just as easily indicate a common Designer. (Now, Reasons to Believe is the place to go to find resources pertaining to this basic idea of old-earth creationism.)

There are other possibilities that fall somewhere in between the two ideas—designed evolution and old-earth creationism. There may have been a good measure of limited macroevolution occurring through the ages and instances of new creations by God. It is clear that God has made animals capable of microevolution and some speciation.

There is definitely potential for some kinds of evolution in all life. There is even an example of a strain of bacteria that was shown to be able to re-evolve the ability to metabolize the sugar lactose in a unique way. I hesitate to show these kinds of examples because I—again—am not trying to prove evolution on this blog. Michael Behe tries to explain why this is a bad example of macroevolution resulting in an irreducibly complex feature ^[1], but much of his explanation is apparently shown to be inaccurate or insufficient ^[2]. However, even this example of evolution does not show an “unlimited evolutionary potential” even according to the godless evolutionists. All it shows is that organisms are really good at changing genetically to survive, which could show design as much as anything else. Did the bacteria really randomly mutate, or was it programmed to genetically reorganize and “intelligently change” as needed? I do not know if there was any investigation into whether or not the bacteria truly “mutated” randomly. I believe the evolutionists merely assumed that the bacteria randomly mutated the necessary new pathway to metabolize lactose. From what I have heard, it looks as if chance and randomness cannot explain the efficiency of the adaptation. Evolution, whatever the scope, is designed and efficient. (See Answers in Genesis' analysis of this example of evolution for more info and what appear to be good reasons why this does not support un-designed evolution ^[3].)

I’m not comfortable agreeing with Michael Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity, partly because I believe that designed evolution may be so brilliant and efficient so as to allow for the evolution of “irreducibly complex” components. The key question to answer, in my opinion, is do purely chemical processes explain the origin of DNA-based life and the rest of the complexity in life? The answer seems to be a resounding “no!” Pure chance—luck of the draw—could never explain the immense complexity of cellular life. It is so complex that our understanding of “simple” cells has only just begun. Random evolution also should not have resulted in an overabundance of complexity in designs among all living creatures. Randomness and evolution completely fail to explain all of life. And as best I can tell it hasn’t been getting any better at explaining it, only worse the more complex we understand everything to be.

In the end, however, it all boils down to faith. Proof of God is impossible, just like proof of Him not existing is impossible. Proof of the Bible is also impossible. But, there are plenty of reasons to believe in Him and His Word. It isn’t proven, but regardless of the nature of evolution, the Bible has plenty of support from the evidence.

[1] http://www.trueorigin.org/behe02.asp
[2] http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/AcidTest.html
[3] http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v4/n1/analysis-of-barry-halls-research

Human Migration

Here's another chart for those people, like me, who appreciate charts. This chart shows the possible migration of pre-humans and humans from Adam's time onward. The dates are estimates. I believe that this explains all the genetic evidence we see today, such as that the Africans are genetically most closely related to the "pre-humans" (early Homo sapiens living in Africa). The genetic history of mankind is complex, given that there has been intermarriage between humans and "sons of God" (pre-humans).

To the unbelieving world, Adam and Eve would appear to be nothing more than highly-evolved humans who lived in Mesopotamia, and the Flood of Noah's day would seem to be nothing more than a large, local flood in Mesopotamia. The Bible gives us invaluable insight into the past events and helps us understand that there has been a huge difference between pre-humans (nothing more than animals) and humans (made in God's image).

[EDIT: Most believe that humans did not get to the Americas until somewhere around 16 Ka, but this date has been pushed back^[1] to about 30 Ka recently, and I suspect the actual date is closer to 50 Ka, as shown in the picture.]

[1] http://phys.org/news/2013-11-ancient-giant-sloth-bones-humans.html

Click to see a larger version.

Insects and Their Instincts

I’ve discussed the physical complexity of creatures but have not yet discussed the mental complexity of creatures, which in some ways seems more amazing than the physical dimension. Now, it is interesting to me that Darwinian evolutionists mostly avoid trying to explain the development of complex behaviors. Evolution mostly focuses on how the physical aspects of animals changed through time. However, perhaps one of the biggest quandaries with naturalistic evolution is that the physical attributes would be useless without corresponding mental abilities. So, mental circuitry had to be developed simultaneously with physical designs. No animal would survive, for instance, if it had no desire to eat. No bat would be able to “see” unless it instinctively used its echolocation and could interpret it. Birds would not be able to keep their wings in top shape unless they instinctively knew to preen the feathers. The list could go on indefinitely. Instinct is necessary but can be highly complex.

Insects are of special interest to me personally. Every insect seems to know its purpose in life and be busy going about doing its business with efficiency and skill. Every flying creature knows how to fly. Every bug knows where to find food. Every spider knows how to make its web efficiently. There does not seem to be a single creature that is in the process of figuring out their equipment or mutating the instinctual ability to more adeptly survive. Insects are so perfectly designed to do what they do. Random evolution cannot come close to explaining this complexity of behavior. If insects are slowly, randomly evolving into other insects with new physical features then there should be plenty of insects that act with great inefficiency and that are confused about what to do and how to do it. Random evolution would never produce insects that are all efficient and that have complex instincts.

The first point of consideration is how does DNA determine instinctual behavior? How does a bunch of instructions in a genome specify that an ant will build an anthill, for example? Any robotics engineer will tell you that it cannot be just a couple of simple routines that define how the ants build their anthills. It takes a good number of efficient algorithms. The DNA has to be very precisely constructed to produce the “intelligent” behaviors we see in creatures. It’s not anywhere close to being as simple as an on and off switch. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of switches precisely sequenced and put to the right settings.

The sheer complexity of instincts in creatures is overwhelming. How random changes in organisms could ever produce such efficiency and complexity is beyond baffling. It’s impossible. For every one random beneficial change, you’d have tens of thousands of random harmful changes. Random changes would tend, then, towards a loss of complexity of behavior. You would end up with very little unnecessary efficiency. Only the complexity that was highly beneficial to survival would be selected. Anything else would quickly be randomly mutated out of existence.

Consider ants some more. There are ants that literally work as farmers and grow fungi and harvest it. Ants seem to have memories. An ant will go out scouting for food and know about how far it has travelled from home based on its number of steps and the position of the sun. Ants can run tandem with each other, slowing down or speeding up based on the speed of the other ant. They can communicate with pheromones. They can store up for seasons of drought. They can literally shepherd aphids and harvest honeydew from them. They will move the aphids to “greener pastures” when necessary. All of these things are relatively complex behaviors that require complex circuitry. Their brains are hardly large enough for much of any inefficiency. I believe it is clear that random mutations cannot explain this kind of instinctual efficiency. Some of the instincts are unnecessary. Ants did not need to learn how to shepherd aphids. They could have survived just fine (like most other ants) without this complex behavior. Darwinism cannot account for this specialized design in ants.

One example that I like is a little inchworm that can drop down from trees using a silk-like line. Producing this silky substance would take many genetic changes, and the instincts needed to use it would also take a separate set of genetic modifications. One set of changes would be useless without the other set of changes. Insect life is filled with examples like this where one set of physical changes would be useless without a companion set of changes in instinct. As said before, we have to wonder why there aren’t organisms with physical designs that are not yet being utilized, since the instinctual changes haven’t occurred yet. The necessary instinctual changes would always be after the physical changes.

This same inchworm can also literally roll its silk line back up when it wants to. It flexes to the left and then to the right repeatedly to collect the line into a ball in its “feet.” By doing this, it is able to slowly make its way back up to the tree branch from which it came. This is a good example of a relatively complex behavior that is not highly necessary for survival. Consider the instincts that this little worm needs just to wind up the line: (1) it has to somehow determine that it doesn’t like the place where it came down, (2) it has to know to flex back and forth repeatedly, (3) it has to continue this behavior until it gets back to the top, and (4) it has to relocate and drop down in another place when it gets back to the top. These four points seem simple but would undoubtedly take thousands and thousands of genetic changes. An undesigned, random evolution cannot account for this complex genetic “program” that defines this instinct, since it would probably take billions of years to randomly stumble upon it. And, even when this instinct would randomly evolve, it would likely be shortly mutated out of existence, since it doesn’t seem to be important for survival. If it were important for survival, then the inchworm would have gone extinct before it could evolve the behavior.

Life is replete—completely filled to the brim—with examples like this of complex and efficient designs. Naturalistic evolutionists openly admit that Darwinian evolution does not normally produce greater and greater complexity. They know that randomness cannot do that! But, if uncreated evolution does not normally produce increased complexity, then whence came all the complexity in life? Efficiency in designs and instinct is the rule not the exception. If naturalistic evolution predicts complexity will be the exception not the rule, but life has complexity as the rule, then it is a poor, poor theory that is not consistent with reality. In other words, it is a failed theory since it cannot accurately account for reality.

(Other beautiful examples of complex behaviors: (a) honeybees that can visit flowers using the shortest route to conserve energy, (b) flying fish that maximize their time flying in the air by using the right angle of exit from the water, (c) birds that can fly so adeptly as to precisely copy the motions of moths they are chasing, (d) spiders that create designs on their webs to attract insects, and (e) whales that can travel in extremely straight lines for hundreds of miles. Now tell yourself a hundred times that these things "just happened" and maybe you'll believe it...)

Falsifying the Theory of Created Evolution

So, I said I'd address whether this theory of designed evolution is falsifiable or not. The simple answer is that it is falsifiable. It makes certain predictions as I've mentioned in a previous post. If none or few of those predictions were valid, then this theory of designed evolution would be essentially falsified.

The best way to falsify a major element of this theory is to show that macroevolution is fully operational today, such that fruit flies can still evolve into dragonflies or something similar. So far, tests on flies have shown no ability for them to evolve beyond minor adaptations.

One way to falsify that evolution was designed would be to show that purely random processes, like mutations, could account for the complexity in life and the past quick progress of evolution. If randomness can easily account for efficiency in organisms, then there would be no basis for believing that evolution was a designed process and it would be more logical to presume it was purely the result of nature. So far, evolutionists are stumped as to how complexity seems to be so commonplace in nature. If complexity were rare then evolution would seem to be nothing more than an accident, but complexity is too common. They also are aware that evolution has proceeded at a rapid speed, which is also hard to understand.

Probably the best way to totally annihilate the idea of created evolution is to show a relatively likely step-by-step process whereby inorganic life could result in DNA-based, cellular life given the known conditions of the early earth. Even though a few steps for such a process have been hypothesized, there is currently no known pathway from beginning to end that could explain how modern cell types formed from natural chemical processes. The few steps that have been proposed are hypothetical and could easily be nothing more than the result of creative imaginations trying to find answers to the origins of life. One step that is proposed is that RNA replicators formed, but the currently known RNA replicators are long chains of RNA (over 100 nucleotides) that would have been extremely unlike to have formed by accident even over millions of years. Thus, currently, the created evolution theory stands as viable.

Another easy way to demonstrate that evolution was not created (at least by a wise Designer) would be to show that most cells are inefficiently designed. It would be unthinkable that an infinitely wise God would create a bunch of inefficient cells, since these are the building blocks of life, and there is no evidence that cells were ever more complex or efficient. However, as it turns out, scientists are finding that cells are like efficient, complex, ingenious factories. Once again, the idea of created evolution is reasonable. All evolutionists need to do is prove that most cells could have been built more efficiently by showing an alternative design. But, we hardly have begun to understand the full complexity of cells, so that would be an unrealistic dream.

All in all, the evidence for design is quite overwhelming if a person remains open to the idea. There is no good evidence to show that life was just a random accident.

Why Scientists Mostly Deny God

Do you ever wonder why the majority of scientists deny God? There are two primary reasons.

The Presumed Infallibility of Science

Scientists are trained to think that all things can be answered by investigation and the scientific process. They trust their senses and the power of observation and the triumph of the intellect. They want clear evidence, certainty and proof. They want to discover the universe's laws and be able to form equations for every aspect of it. Though this isn't generally a bad thing, it presents a problem when we turn our thinking to the unfathomable and the infinite realm.

Humans are finite beings experiencing three dimensions and confined to a dimension of time. Just like we cannot truly imagine more than three dimensions, we cannot truly imagine something being infinite. When it comes to the philosophical topic of existence, scientists still want evidence. If there is a Creator, they think to themselves, we want to hear His voice and see His figure. They would like to observe Him using instruments, if possible. If God isn't definable using equations and laws, then He can't exist. There's just one big problem: logically, an infinite Being would not necessarily be observable or definable by finite creatures using their crude mathematical formulas. An infinite God wouldn't logically be small enough to fit into a definable, finite box. His existence would be unimaginable and could be transcendent above our universe and our limited observations. Yet, the normal scientist is too proud to admit his inability to wrap his finite mind around an infinite God.

The scientist is trained to look for a natural explanation for the origin of the universe and human existence. If he doesn't find good answers, he tirelessly presses on believing that answers will eventually turn up. Herein lies a problem. If some things are not answerable by finite beings using their finite observations, then those things will never be answered by science, but the scientist will persistently look for answers ad infinitum assuming blindly that an answer can be found. In such a case the scientist will vainly be looking for answers forever, finding only phantom mirages that eventually disappear upon closer scrutiny. He will be caught in an infinite loop of desperation. This is the state of the majority of God denying scientists; they try to explain existence apart from God and clutch the naturalistic explanations until they find them to be flawed.

God can never be believed until humility is found. The person who is trusting their own intellect has made Reason to be their god and savior. They are unwilling to admit that their god Reason can be fundamentally flawed because it is finite. If a mystery is presented, like, "Where did the universe come from?" they will simply say that is a problem that they are working on that will someday be solved by science. Mysteries are always just waiting to be solved by their savior Reason. Reason always triumphs in the end. What they fail to understand is that Reason doesn't have answers for the Infinite. If the universe has existed forever, then Reason fails to understand that. How could something not have a beginning? If God has always existed, then Reason fails as well. How could anything be uncreated?

The more honest or humble scientist will admit that science can't answer the imponderable question of existence of something as opposed to nothing. Infinite existence is not something that finite beings like us can appreciate, since we are finite and view everything through the lens of our own small existence. Yet, the typical agnostic scientist will raise the objection that God is no more reasonable than an uncreated universe that has always existed. But is that really true? For all the world, the universe seems clearly to have had a clear beginning! We call it the Big Bang. How did the universe exist forever? That idea is speculation and not hard science. So far, there is no good evidence that the universe has always existed, and the simplest answer is that the universe had a definitive beginning. If the universe appears to have had a beginning and yet has always existed, then we are crossing into the realm of the imponderable once again.

The universe is actually quite complex. Do we know that God would be more complex in His essence? Personhood is hard to define and to compare with a tangible universe. A Spirit like God is pure personality and does not require laws and equations. Raw personality is in some sense simple. We know by experience that imagination can be complex. Yet, we do not understand how imagination produces complexity. It is a mystery. The whole universe may be nothing more than an expression of God's infinite imagination. Cars are expressions of humans' imagination and ingenuity. In that sense, we cannot explain the existence of cars using mere physics and the laws of nature—i.e., why would cars specifically of necessity come into existence? Imagination does not seem to be predictable at any level or definable by science. If science cannot even explain why simple cars needed to exist or what will exist in a hundred years, then why would we think that science would be able to explain why the universe exists? Why would we think that an infinite Mind could not create a complex universe using His imagination such that no amount of observation and reason would be able to understand how it came into existence? Personhood is, and always has been, beyond the full understanding of science. Science doesn't have all the answers.

The only answer to existence is that there was something or someone who existed outside of time that is eternally unchanging and a constant. The Bible 'understood' this long ago. God is said to be Someone who "inhabits eternity" (Isaiah 57:15), who had no beginning (1 Chr. 16:36; Ps. 93:2), who is the self-existent "I Am Who I Am" (Ex. 3:14), who views time relatively (2 Peter 3:8), and who never changes (Mal. 3:6). He is the eternal Being who is unbound by time. This is scientifically and philosophically profound.

We need to add that the simplest answer is not always the correct answer. Occam's razor is only a rule of thumb. No one in their right mind really believes that the simplest answer is always correct. Generally, the simpler theories are better and more often correct, but not always. When you take the subjective experiences of people, the brilliant accuracy of the Bible, the complexity of existence, the unlikelihood of life coming into existence by itself, the spiritual nature of humans, the apparent finiteness of the universe, and the appearance of intelligent creation all throughout life on Earth into account, an infinite Creator seems like the simpler theory to where existence came from.

The Sinful Bias of Humans

The Bible says several times that man naturally has no interest in God (cf. Ps. 10:4; Rom. 1:21). More than that, man is said to naturally be at enmity with God (Rom. 8:7). Mankind is somewhat like a wife who has unreasonably divorced her husband just because she wanted more freedom. People are naturally aware of God's existence but they also are naturally disinterested in God. There is a natural bias against God according to the Bible. Herein lies a problem. There is a relationship problem, and no one really wants to acknowledge the true God.

Scientists are especially bad, since they become convinced that they have logical ways to get God off the hook, so to speak. They become too trustful of their own abilities to reason and explain things. Those who are smarter are better at reasoning themselves around inconvenient truth. Being smart is not always helpful. Many scientists have brilliantly—I say brilliantly!—found what look like ways to explain our existence apart from the power and wisdom of God. But they are self-deceived. They have unwittingly let their bias against God rule their thinking and poison their judgment. Their smart minds have fulfilled the desire of their hearts to run away from God, for you see the ultimate way to run from Him is to get your mind to think He doesn't exist. Once the mind has denied Him, the conscience can be easily suppressed and God's voice silenced. When someone doesn't want to believe something, it is common for them to resort to denialism.

Scientists generally reinforce one another's denialism. It is the blind leading the blind. In that, too, they find a sense of security apart from God. If "everyone" believes it, after all, how can it be wrong?

If the Bible is correct then you would expect there to be a lot of deniers of God's existence. The "wise of this world" are said to be especially blind to the truth (1 Cor. 1:26-28). That was written long before science really flourished. The wise of St. Paul's day were the Greeks and other philosophers, not scientists. Today, the wise are the scientists. The Bible accurately predicted that such people who are considered wise in the world would not often accept the truth of God. So, if you feel attacked as stupid for believing in the Bible, recognize that that is more confirmation of the Bible and humbly flee from the desire to have all the answers to existence . . . answers that others only proudly pretend to have.

NEWS: Mitochondria More Complex Than Previously Known

It's been awhile since I wrote anything, mainly because I feel like I've covered 'everything' and any new posts will just be a rehashing of what I've already written about. But it's news time. For naturalistic evolutionists, news has come out that is quite devastating to basic Darwinism. Two different news items need to be discussed.

ATP-Synthase Arrays in Mitochondria^[1]

One is about new, efficient ATP synthase arrays in the mitochondria of basically all eukaryotic cells from yeast to fungi to humans to potatoes to protists (ancient, tiny organisms). These arrays in the cells' powerhouse are optimized for efficiency. Not only is ATP synthase efficient, but so are these arrays of them. The design is basically the same across all eukaryotic-based life. The arrays are being compared to an efficient factory for producing the energy currency of the cells. Now, to fully appreciate this find, let's remember that eukaryotic cells are thought to have formed somewhere around 2.7 Ba, with strong evidence of them around 1.7 Ba. Complex life, including even plants, didn't form until much, much later sometime around 1 Ba to 500 Ma.

The fact that all eukaryotic life has these efficient arrays indicates that the original, last common ancestor of all eukaryotes had this array. Fungi formed somewhere around 1.4 Ba, which means that this design had to have originated even earlier.

Why would a simple, lowly fungus need this efficiency for survival? (Remember, evolution does not drive greater and greater efficiency. Evolution is about the survival of the fittest organisms, supposedly. Those organisms that cannot survive well die out. All that is 'needed' for an organism is for it to be able to survive well. Designing better efficiency isn't on the agenda of evolution. We need to ask, why is there no diversity of designs across diverse organisms in the case of this ATP synthase array? This is devastating to Darwinism because such efficiency should not have evolved before it was needed! Cynobacteria lived happily for about a billion years before eukaryotic cells without this efficiency. There was no evolutionary pressure to cause this kind of efficient design in eukaryotes.

Even if there were evolutionary pressure, what happened to the less efficient designs? Organisms using the less efficient designs all died out? All of them? I'm not going to buy that idea. Plants are supposedly very inefficient in their photosynthesis, but they certainly haven't died out. They've flourished. Inefficiency -- or what we think is inefficiency -- does not necessarily result in extinction. There is no reason that eukaryotes with less efficient mitochondria should have all died out.

Keep in mind that this design that was found in the mitochondria is very efficient. We aren't talking about a so-so efficiency. Evolutionists have historically already been flabbergasted at the degree of efficiency in nature, because evolution cannot adequately account for high efficiency being relatively common in nature. Inefficiency should be the norm if evolution opporates by chance. Intuition says that it can't be purely randomness that has driven evolutionary changes. Evolution has operated way too efficiently for it not to have been designed. The idea that evolution could have improved its own efficiency over time is beyond absurd. Evolution is not intelligent or alive.

Another point is that mitochondria supposedly came from a symbiotic relationship with prokaryotes within prokaryotes. The story goes that bacteria invaded other cells and eventually, over millions of years, the invaded cells formed an unbreakable bond with the bacteria and changes happened to where the bacteria became mitochondria -- the essential powerhouse of the cells. There's one small problem with this theory: there's no evidence of the intermediate period of increasing interdependence. We don't find eukaryotes with halfway-formed mitochondria. Now we have even more evidence against this story. Mitochondria were complex and efficient from the earliest times, it would seem most plausible now. This shatters the fanciful story of increasing symbiosis and increasing efficiency. We should find cells with varying degrees of so-so efficiency in their mitochondria if this story were true. Instead, it seems much more likely that bacteria devolved from mitochondria. Such a process would more easily leave little evidence, which is what we observe.

It could be argued that these efficient arrays were needed for survival (for some unknown reason) and that is why they evolved so early. The problem is twofold: (1) they should have then died out before the efficiency randomly formed over a long time, and (2) there is no known reason why such high efficiency would be necessary for survival. And yet, because only an efficient design exists, that implies that it became necessary assuming Darwinian evolution is true. However, again, it does not seem apparent why it is needed.

All of this indicates that evolution is not responsible for the complexity in organisms. There was a Designer behind it all.

Study Says that Life May Be Rare in the Universe^[2]

A new study done by evolutionists and coming out of Cornell University suggests that complex life may be exceedingly rare in the universe, despite life forming early on Earth. The implications are obvious. If this is true, then it shouts design -- or at least winning a huge cosmic lottery. But, what is acknowledged to some degree is that sentient life on Earth (e.g., you and me) has appeared on the scene none too soon. At the same time, evolution has proceeded so rapidly that it is unthinkable that sentient life could have formed sooner than it has. To sum it up, evolution has been unbelievably rapid, but if it were any slower, Earth would not be a habitable place for sentient life like us.

This raises the question that I love to harp on. How did evolution happen so quickly, like during the Cambrian Explosion, unless it were somehow programmed into the genetic makeup of organisms? It seems that evolutionists all agree that evolution got very lucky several times: (1) the formation of cellular life really early on in Earth's history, (2) the formation of multi-cellular organisms early on, (3) the explosion of diverse animal phyla, and (4) the formation of intelligent beings. All of this seems to have happened very fortuitously. The moon was helpful. The large oceans were helpful. The magnetic field. The eventual oxygen-rich atmosphere. The diversity of life allowed for a food chain. The upright walking nature of humans allowed for larger brains (theoretically). The list goes on and on. There were several near-extinction points, also, in history that would have resulted in the end of complex life if rapid evolution were not possible.

Earth is ideal for complex life. It appears as if all of history was working towards this common goal of our existence. Perhaps that was because of a wise Designer and all-knowing Creator who planned every moment of this long history of the universe. Every quanta of energy created in the early universe, when it was small, was extremely precisely placed to result in Earth forming as it has and to result in every solitary event in history. I'm not talking about a random, chaotic Big Bang from an infinitesimal point. I'm talking about a designed sphere of energy and perhaps particles that was stretched out. Then God formed the first cell(s) that also, similarly, was extremely precisely packed with every scrap of information necessary for life forming as it has and for evolution to proceed efficiently. It was a perfect plan. Doesn't that make more sense than winning a cosmic lottery that was probably not even likely to happen anywhere in the known universe?

[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/08/04/1103621108.full.pdf+html
[2] http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.3835v1 [abstract only]

Accurate Predictions of Designed Evolution

If (and, yes, it is a big 'if') the thesis of this site is correct, and the first cell had all the genetic information necessary for complex life to form, then you would expect certain things to be true. You would expect and predict these things to be true (don't mind that there are some almost repeat items):

1. Organisms would often share body part designs and genetic sequences nearly identical to other organisms, even mostly unrelated organisms (convergent evolution) [highly verified]
2. Even simpler organisms would contain useful but unused genes, if possible [partly verified]
3. "Simple" organisms would be found with genes for more complex organisms [highly verified]
4. Evolution would be able to proceed rapidly and in jumps, since new genes for complex traits could become expressed instantly [verified]
5. Evolution would have been quite efficient in the past [verified]
6. Evolution in general would remain fast, whereas expression of new genetic information (body part designs) would eventually end [partly verified]
7. Formation of species would seem to slow down over time [verified]
8. The complexity of cells generally would be great, and they would be highly efficient, containing some of the most efficient designs in nature [partly verified]
9. It is reasonable that if animal life were to diversify rapidly at the start (Cambrian Explosion), then animals would initially have a sort-of grab-bag set of body features that would eventually decrease in diversity over time [verified]
10. There would only be a few basic design types for basic features, like immune systems and sight and digestive tracts and blood cells, etc. [partly verified]
11. Many genetic codes for cell types and functions within cells would be highly conserved across many diverse animals and plants [verified]
12. Rigorous mechanisms would be built-in to preserve genetic information (since information can only be lost and not gained in this theory) [partly verified]
13. An evolutionary pathway from inorganic life to basic cells would be impossible to find for the conditions of the early earth [jury is still out]
14. Genetic mutation would almost always be a negative change to a species [partly verified]
15. Efficient mechanisms would be built-in to allow for silencing or expression of genes per environmental variables [partly verified]
16. Complex/efficient designs would be found in some of the earliest animals [verified]
17. The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) cell type would have likely been quite complex rather than simpler [partly verified]

Now, many of these points cannot easily be explained by naturalistic, Darwinian evolution. However, in designed evolution as I envision it all of these points become expected. Most of these points are now known to be true, and the rest are becoming more and more probable. So, logically, the thesis presented on this blog is well established and supported by the evidence. Month by month I see new research that confirms these predictions. Darwinian evolution, on the other hand, is failing over and over again to really explain how complexity formed.

The information for complexity was created, not slowly brought into existence by trial and error through unguided evolution. According to observations, functional information is always created.

I challenge any reader to try to debunk this thesis or to show evidence that seems to contradict it.

The First Cells

One thing I keep on saying is that the original cell type that was created contained vast stores of genetic information, mostly unexpressed (or non-coding genes). The evidence is beginning to point in that direction, as I will show in this post.

Now, keep in mind that Darwinian evolutionists adamantly believe that life arose by naturalistic means. It only took the natural laws of nature to form life. The science behind the formation of the first cells or pseudo-cells is weak, at best. There is much difficulty hypothesizing how some primitive, reproducing life would have formed from inorganic matter. Even the simplest cells are astoundingly complex. Therefore, the Darwinian evolutionist desperately wants to find evidence for a simpler form of life as a kind of missing link between non-life and modern cells. They will resist as perfectly unbelievable the idea that the original life on earth was as—or more—complex as modern cells. In their minds, starting with their presuppositions, life must have arisen from non-life and in relatively small steps of progress. To postulate that the first cells were complex is unscientific by their very core assumptions. However, their core assumptions may be wrong (and I firmly believe are wrong).

Here is some recent evidence that supports my hypothesis. Recent evidence shows that so-called simple bacteria are not always so simple. Some have cytoskeletons, similar to eukaryotes ^[1]. Some have internal compartments, like eukaryotes with their mitochondria and other organelle. They can work cooperatively and display multi-cellular behavior, like eukaryotes ^[4]. All of these structures and abilities take genetic information. So, genetic information shared between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is quite significant, it would appear. That shows possible common descent.

The ability for cells to swallow large particles (endocytosis) is something that some eukaryotes can do, but it recently has come to light that some prokaryotes can also do it. This is quite significant:

To have one trait possessed by complex cells - membrane-bound DNA - could be a coincidence. To have two seems unlikely. What's more, most members of the larger group that G. obscuriglobus belongs to, the Planctomycetes-Verrucomicrobia-Chlamydiae or PVC group, have proteins that are very similar to those that control endocytosis in eukaryotes. The big question is whether this is a case of parallel evolution, or whether complex cells and bacteria shared a common ancestor capable of endocytosis.

If there was a common ancestor, the implications are huge. It means the shared ancestor - known as the last universal common ancestor, or LUCA - and its contemporaries must have been much more complex than they have always been assumed to be. Since the ability of PVC bacteria to form membranes around their nucleus involves many of the same proteins as endocytosis, it is even possible that LUCA had a membrane-bound nucleus too. This would turn our picture of how life evolved on its head. Rather than being "primitive" cells, modern bacteria may be streamlined, simplified versions of a more complex ancestor - perhaps not so much prokaryotes as "post-karyotes". ^{[3] (emphasis mine)}

Even traditional evolutions are forced to confront the strange and dreaded idea that the ancient ancestor of all modern cells (LUCA) was more complex than bacteria—which are already complex. This is disturbing to naturalistic evolutionists, and so don't expect this idea to become popular. It'll be buried quickly as totally unscientific. But, I wanted to show that the evidence is mounting, even if it'll be mostly ignored and excused away. [Edit: Another piece of evidence is leading people to believe that the LUCA was more complex than bacteria ^[5].]

All in all, the model that I propose (and certainly others share in my basic belief) fits the evidence better at this point than the alternative model that genomic complexity increased with time and chance and mutations.

One idea has been that archaea formed before the other two cell types known today. However, even this idea is falling apart as genetic codes are being analyzed. There is at least one case of where archaea share genetic information with eukaryotes but not with prokaryotes ^[2]. This appears problematic since archaea supposedly formed before prokaryotes which formed before eukaryotes, and we would therefore expect the genetic information of archaea to be most similar to prokaryotes and not eukaryotes. If archaea share genetic code with eukaryotes but not prokaryotes, that would suggest that archaea gave rise to eukaryotes and that prokaryotes were of a different evolutionary branch. Possible, but then we are left with an even greater evolutionary jump without intermediate forms between archaea and eukaryotes. That increases the dilemma for the standard evolutionary model.

So, how did different cell types arise? Archaea and prokaryotes were likely a simplification of eukaryotes—probably the result of mitochondria becoming independent entities. Absurd? Actually, that idea is held by some mainstream scientists, so I hardly think it is absurd. So, eukaryotes are much, much more ancient than most scientists are willing to admit at this point. The evidence will also begin to point that way, I believe. The date of origination for eukaryotes has been pushed back several times, but I wonder if evidence for 4 Ba eukaryotes—if such evidence were found—would even be recognized as such, especially given evolutionists' strong bias against such a timeline. Perhaps such evidence has already been found and overlooked.

[1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128211.800-not-so-simple-bacteria-with-backbone.html
[2] http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001100
[3] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20690-not-so-simple-gulping-bugs-with-the-nuclear-option.html
[4] http://www.newscientist.com/special/not_so_simple
[5] http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-universal-common-ancestor-complex-previously.html

BCOE: What About Sin and Death?

We now come to the most important theologically topic associated with this old-earth vs. young-earth topic.  How could death have existed before sin?  According to the New Testament death only entered in as the result of sin—the sin of Adam and Eve.  We must say unequivocally that this is true.  Both Adam and Eve were sentenced to death because of their sin in the Garden of Eden, and so all of humankind was plunged into futility and doomed to death. 

Death of man.  Here is the key to all.  Let us examine the passages and see if this is justified.  I’ve included each verse that mentions death.  (Emphasis is mine.)

¹²Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. . . . ¹⁴Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. ¹⁵But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. . . . ¹⁷For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) . . .
²⁰ . . . But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, ²¹so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.  –Romans 5:12-21 (NKJV)

Verse 12 says that death entered because of sin of man.  It says specifically, “Thus death spread to all men.”  The whole passage is clearly talking about human sin and human death.  Human sin resulted in human death.  There is nothing in these verses that indicates human sin resulted in animal death.  The context does not require that death be referring to anything other than death of people.  In fact, the most obvious interpretation is that death was a judgment of sin, and since man sinned death would come strictly upon man.  It is a stretch to interpret death in this passage to be a death falling on all living things.  That could be an application, but it is not the direct interpretation.  The phrase at the beginning, “death spread to all men,” seems pretty clear to me.

Another passage is 1 Corinthians 15:21-22:

For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

Who is in Adam?  The animals?  No, only Adam’s physical descendents.  Therefore, the point of the phrase “in Adam all die” is that all of Adam’s descendents would die.  The animals are not under consideration, it seems.  “In Christ all shall be made alive,” certainly does not mean that all men without exception shall be made alive, but only those who are “in Christ”—believers in Him who are His people.  The “in Adam” and “in Christ” phrases make a clear parallel and only apply to those who are born of Adam or born of Christ.  So, the correct interpretation is that being born of Adam means death, but being born of God means eternal life.  Animals clearly aren’t represented in these verses, and so the word “death” does not directly apply to animals.

Theologically, therefore, death is the punishment of sin, but the sin was man’s sin and so death would only need to fall on man.  There is no theological basis for saying that death could not have been already over the animals before Adam fell.  We are only told that Adam and Eve were not doomed to death except until they sinned against God.  Being dogmatic about anything more than that is adding to Scriptures, I believe.

The other passage that is used to “prove” there was no death before the Fall is Romans 8:19-23:

¹⁹For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.  ²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; ²¹because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.  ²²For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.  ²³Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. (NKJV)

However, this passage does not mention the Fall or Adam or the original sin.  It only talks about the futility and the decay of the present world that has been happening “until now.”  There is no indication here that the world was once not subjected to futility, or that the world was ever free from corruption.  One might be able to interpret this passage as saying that the creation was subjected to futility because of the sin of Adam; but, one could also interpret the passage as saying that the creation was subjected to futility from the very beginning because God was preparing the world with sin and redemption in mind, knowing all along that it was going to happen.  The point is that this passage is inconclusive about when the “futility” and the “groans and labors” began.  It is quite clear that these things are negative, but we cannot tell from this passage when it all began. 

“Because of Him who subjected it in hope,” can only be referring to God subjecting the world.  Many, if not all, commentators agree with this.  The “in hope” phrase seems to make it clear that this was God doing the subjecting.  The passage would seem to be saying that the creation was unwillingly subjected to futility from the beginning even up “until now.”  The “not willingly” only indicates that the creation do not choose this state of decay.

Is it unlike God’s nature to “plan ahead” and do something with something future in mind?  Would it be uncharacteristic of the Lord to prepare the world with the Fall of mankind in mind from the very beginning?  I don’t believe it would be unjust, uncharacteristic, or unusual of God.  No matter how one looks at it, the futility of the creation is not direct punishment of sin.  Death of man alone is the punishment of sin.  The creation was subjected to futility as a witness to man after the Fall, and “in hope” of a better age of rest, but it was not subjected to the bondage of decay because it deserved judgment.  There is a difference.  So, God could justly subject the world to this decay and death of animals before sin came into the world, and yet offer Adam and Eve a way to live forever if they did not sin.  The death of man was not guaranteed just because animals had been subjected to that.

Nor can one argue that Adam and Eve before the Fall deserved a “perfect” and always enchanting world without any difficulties or minor annoyances.  Consider the angels who have not fallen.  They are constantly interacting with this futile world, and they are apparently constantly battling with the fallen angels (cf. Daniel 10:10-13).  They do not have a perfect world or environment just because they are perfect beings.  Yes, the angels have their rewards for their labors and struggles, but so also, I’m certain, did Adam and Eve have their rewards from their labors and struggles in knowing the Lord God.  The YEC position tries to defend the idea that the world was perfect before the Fall just because sin hadn’t entered in.  (Well, actually, sin had entered in because clearly Satan had fallen at some point before Adam and Eve.)  However, that is nothing more than an assumption, as best as I can tell.  There was nothing in the justice of God to demand that the world be created in a state of perfection—only that God have a good and meaningful purpose for the futility and groans to which the creation was subject.

It is my personal opinion that Romans 8:19-23 actually more easily supports the idea that the earth has always been groaning and laboring with futility and decay.  Notice that the passage compares the earth to a woman giving birth.  The child, which is the state of perfection and glory, hasn’t been born yet.  The child has never been seen yet.  The idea from the passage is that the state of perfection for the universe has never existed yet and is a future blessing that is held in anticipation.  The phrase “until now” also seems to support this idea that the world has been continuously in “birth pangs” from the beginning of time.  The idea that the child was once alive and somehow reentered the womb of the mother is ridiculous.  So, it seems to me that this passage more easily supports the belief that the earth has never enjoyed a state of perfection, but it is subject to futility in hope of a future time of recreation of all things.

BCOE: Other Bible Passages Alluding to an Old Earth

The old-earth interpretation makes sense of the missing “morning and evening” for the Seventh Day of creation.  For all of the first six days, the phrase, “there was morning and there was evening,” is used, but for the seventh day this phrase is conspicuously absent.  The young-earth interpretation cannot account for that, but the old-earth view can.  The seventh day is an ongoing time period that began right after Adam and Eve were made, according to the old-earth view.  (We address the issue of the Sabbath later on.)

Another interesting thing found in the Old Testament is several references to certain features of the earth being really, really old.  “Everlasting hills” is used in Genesis 49:26, which would give the idea of the mountains being ancient.  Indeed, mainstream scientists will tell you that many of the mountains are very old.  “Ancient mountains” and “everlasting hills” is also used in Deuteronomy 33:15 and Habakkuk 3:6.  YEC cannot adequately account for the Bible calling the mountains or hills ancient.  The Bible, I believe, is interpreting itself and pointing to the fact that the earth is ancient by telling us that the hills and mountains are ancient.  If the YEC view is correct, then there would be no little or no point in calling the mountains and hills ancient, since they are very close to the same age as everything else—and that age is quite young.

Psalm 89:36-37 says, “His offspring shall endure forever, his throne as long as the sun before Me. Like the moon it shall be established forever, a faithful witness in the skies. . . .”  This could easily be understood as saying that the sun and moon are ancient heavenly bodies that have continued for countless long ages.  How much more full of meaning these verses become when you believe that the sun and moon have existed for billions of years!  It puts the faithfulness into the “faithful witness” phrase that refers to the moon.

Perhaps the best passage for seeing the ancientness of the world is Psalm 90, which was penned by Moses, who, of course, also was inspired to write Genesis 1.  Psalm 90:2 says, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the land and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting You are God.”  The YEC position diminishes the full effect of this verse.  Here is the beauty of the verse when viewed from an old-earth perspective: “Before the mountains were brought forth [some tens or hundreds of million years ago], or ever you had formed the land [some one to three billion years ago] and the world [some four and a half billion years ago], even from everlasting [eternity past] to everlasting You are God.”  The verse appears to be going back farther and father in time to show the eternality of God.  It makes perfect sense to be reversing in time like that, as we have previously noted concerning the Proverbs 8 passage.

Psalm 146:6 says, “Blessed is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose help is in Jehovah his God, who made the heavens and earth, the sea and all that is in it; who keeps truth forever . . .”  The YEC position seems to interpret the creation of the heavens and earth and the sea as something that happened all in one moment—or, at least in one 24-hour day.  The old-earth view, however, sees the heavens being made first, then the earth, and then the sea.  This order is significant as we’ve seen earlier, and makes sense of the order of creation listed in Psalm 146:6.  The order is not trivial but highly meaningful.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in His time; also He has set eternity in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end.”  If you read this verse without bias, I think you can see how it might be more fittingly referring to an ancient world than a relatively young world.  “No man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning . . .”  With billions of years of history of the universe, how true this becomes!  If the earth is only about six thousand years old, then the Bible records the “work” of God in some detail, and we are left wondering what is unable to be discovered about history.  Notice also the phrase that says that God “made everything beautiful in His time.”  Was “His time” a week or vast ages of time?

Genesis 2:3 says, “. . . He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”  Why does this verse use the word “created” and also “made”?  In the Hebrew, one word speaks of making from scratch, and the other word means forming through use of already existing materials.  The six days of creation involved both creating supernaturally and also forming things from preexisting materials.  Why is this important?  The old earth view proposes that several things happened through “natural” processes, like the formation of the water cycle and atmosphere, and the land.  Other created things were clearly supernatural, like the making of the initial universe and a spiritual human being.  The young earth view, however, would generally tend to propose that everything was supernaturally formed from nothing—the universe, the stars, the earth, the land, and all of life.  Therefore, the old earth view more naturally interprets Gen. 2:3 as indicating two basic types of creation: supernatural and natural.

If the earth is only six thousand years old, would you feel comfortable saying that the world was made “of old”?  The apostle Peter doesn’t shy away from saying that: “For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old . . .” (2 Peter 3:5).  It’s all relative, we could suppose, but this verse clearly says that the universe is “old,” whether we’re saying that is relative or not.  The idea of an “old earth” is biblical, then, at least in a relative sense.  To be literal, the Greek word for “of old” (ekpalai, “ἔκπαλαι”) means, “long ago.”

Basic Cell Types Never Evolved

Consider if you, as an alien from another world, saw a thousand different houses each built with doors, lights, couches, rugs, A/C units, plumbing, sinks, etc that were all very similar in design. You would assume rightly by implication from the designs that these houses were built by intelligent beings who were reusing basic devices, supplies, and inventions over and over again with some variation. You would, in this case, be sure that the basic building components were designed. Theoretically, a complex computer program could generate houses using the basic components, but the components themselves would be marked by design. The individual components, in many cases, are more complex in design than the overall house structure. (In other words, some components require more intelligence to design than the building blueprint. No disrespect to architects.)

Taking this analogy to another level, if you saw that the TVs, A/C units, doors, dish washers, etc were all nearly identical from house to house, you would assume that the same intelligent developer was responsible, or you might assume that the house equipment was so perfect and efficient that no one would think of using other equipment.

As it turns out, living organisms are built using cells, and there is only a relatively small number of cell types. According to recent studies, it has been concluded that cell types only “evolved” once ^[1]. The design of a heart cell, for example, has remained relatively unchanged for 500 million years. The photoreceptor cells have remained “unevolved” for about 500 million years. Starting around the Cambrian explosion, many kinds of cells sprang into existence. These basic cell types haven’t changed significantly for 500 million years or more. So, I ask you a simple but critical question: How is it that such complex and useful building blocks of life forms formed rapidly over tens of millions of years and then stopped evolving for hundreds of millions of years? Another simple but critical question: How is it that there are no known intermediate types of cells? If hundreds of cell types could spring into existence over about 20 million years, how is that hundreds of cell types haven’t been springing into existence over and over again during the last 500 million years?

Evolution apparently formed the necessary cell types, and then started working on how to rearrange cells to form basic body plans, and then finally decided on tweaking body plans to form specific species. Thus, it appears that great complexity sprang into being rapidly, followed by complex body plans, finally followed by relatively simple adjustment to those basic body plans. The majority of the complexity seems to have appeared instantaneously without intermediate steps. This is consistent with the genetic information being created and rapidly expressed, but it is not consistent with the idea of randomly mutating organisms that stumble upon greater complexity through millions of years. Random evolution does not account for the rapid rise of complex building components (cell types).

Now, an ordinary evolutionist is forced (for better or for worse) to assume that the basic cell types and genetic information for complex creatures was covertly developing millions and millions of years before complex life formed (~550 Ma). Somehow (through random processes, we are told) eukaryote cells were amassing a library of useful designs (a “toolkit”) for later use. You think I’m joking? I’m not, for I have seen actual science articles suggesting this very idea ^[2]. They suggest that somehow, through unknown processes, simple life was genetically evolving into more complex life without much physical evidence to show for it! Through millions of years, life was “experimenting” and trying to find good designs and was “saving” useful designs. The problem with all of this is that it lacks any good evidence. The other problem is that it sounds way too much like an intelligent process, for how would life know to save just the “good” designs? The process whereby this would happen is not exactly known.

The evidence supports a rapid emergence of complex cell designs. Naturalistic evolutionists don’t have any grounds for assuming that cell complexity gradually evolved. The evidence is nonexistent. The only reason they believe that the cell types gradually evolved is because they have unshakable faith that evolution (or some natural process) can explain exactly how we got here—how space, time, and matter conspired together to make intelligent, complex beings called humans. It’s the greatest conspiracy theory ever made... and like all giant conspiracy theories, the evidence is misinterpreted and the theory is taken on faith.

[1] http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/News/2011/05/Study-Suggests-Successful-Blueprints-are-Recycled-by-Evolution/; http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-successful-blueprints-recycled-evolution.html
[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2280037/; http://www.nymc.edu/sanewman/PDFs/Developmental-genetic%20toolkit.pdf; http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Paleobiology/CambrianExplosion.htm