I grew up with Jane Ahlin. She writes for the Fargo Forum. She’s a smart woman. I respect her opinions. I differ with them much of the time. She wrote a column for the Forum on Intelligent Design and Faith. You should read it. At first blush it seems rational and logical.
But I will assert it is wrong in its basic assumption: What you believe is a matter of faith and matters only to you.
It matters to the human race.
I am a student of genetics and evolution, two degrees, BA in Botany and a BS in Horticulture. I am well familiar with all the arguments for and against evolution. I do not approach the arguments as methodology for God’s intents without the core question coming up soon. Plants and animals evolve. Of that there is no doubt. The humble willow is one of the fastest changing species on the planet. They adapt, interbreed, reorient and become new varieties at breakneck speed. All willows are hybrid.
Intelligent design isn’t about willows, The issue is MAN!
Were we created or are we a blood and bone willow tree in essence? The real question at the core is, does man have a divine nature breathed into him by God? Or are we simply the latest iteration of a constantly changing panoply which will become something else given enough time?
As a Bible student I divide the first two verses of Genesis into two times.
1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth
AND
2. the earth was without form and void……..
I won’t get into a teaching about the time period represented between verses one and two represented by the AND. I can demonstrate from scripture that there was a significant time lapse there. Something happened at AND. The fossil record backs it up.
Then, after the AND, the creation story happens culminating in the ultimate creation MAN. Likeness of God, breathed into by God, fellowship with God. Divine nature imparted. And the fall.
It doesn’t matter if you determine in your heart that God uses adaptive change (evolution?) to create and modify plants and animals. I don’t believe that. I do believe that God created as he said he did in his book. After their kind. Read the Genesis account again.
Where the crunch comes is if you somehow believe that we are little more than hairless ascended apes without divinity in our being. If we are willing to accept that belief we are then willing to accept as OK the killing of invalids (Terri Schaivo), aborting of babies we don’t want, and genocide of races we consider less than human.
That’s where HITLER and DARWIN come in. I heard a lecture in the last year given by Richard Weichart. And I have read this essay in this regard written by an orthodox priest. If you are willing to evaluate all sides please read them.
What we believe matters. It is not an innocuous act of faith or lack of it. It is a matter of life or death. We are all getting older; we are all at risk of disease or accident that could put us at risk of being eliminated for Darwinian reasons. I mean it’s better for the species isn’t it. That’s what the Terminal Timmy article was all about.
I don’t put my faith in my back pocket to consider how God does what he does using whatever means he decides to use. He’s God after all. In the end, God will be proven right and every man a liar. Romans 3:4. That’s what the bible says. I guess I’ll believe him on this side of the veil. I’d hate to get to the other side and find out I was deceived.
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