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The topic to which we address ourselves this evening is the argument between the creationists and the evolutionists. Therefore, let me begin with some frank explanation. In the first place, I do not profess to be a scientist of any kind. Therefore, if this evening you are expecting me to deal with all sorts of involved technical scientific evidence for and against the position of evolution, then I'm sorry you will be disappointed. I am not a scientist and would not take it upon myself to deal with such things.
I reserve every Britisher's right, of course, when I listen to the experts and find the experts disagreeing among themselves, then I reserve to myself the Britishest right of sitting upon the jury as a tolerably educated layman and making up my own mind where the experts disagree. For alas, it is a well-founded fact that above of all evidence, the evidence of experts has to be watched very, very carefully. But I am not a scientist. Nevertheless, the topic we have chosen, and evolution in particular, do raise certain basic philosophical and logical questions.
It is on those logical and philosophical presuppositions that I shall be largely speaking this evening. Secondly, I wish to confess forthwith, if you didn't happen to know it, that I am a believer, and I in particular believe in creation by God Almighty of this universe in which we live. And to make it abundantly clear and to declare my own hand so that you will see where I am biased, and I am very biased. I never met anybody who wasn't. Ponder that well.
I am biased. That I might declare my bias, I read now a passage of the New Testament. It is found in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter eleven and verse 1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen. For therein the elders had witness born to them. By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of the things which do appear.
By faith we understand that the worlds have been made by the word of God. That is my position. I believe in creation by God Almighty. I hold that upon the ground of faith, responding to the evidence of God's word and responding to the evidence of the create- of the universe around me as I understand that evidence. I shall be tonight defending that position against the attack from foe and also from misguided friend.
As I do so, I would like you please to understand that I am not thereby declaring myself to be against science or against scientific method. The very opposite is true. What I conceive of as do- of myself as doing here this evening will in fact be, in some part, not only defending a Christian's faith, but striking a blow in the cause of science, and I mean that very sincerely.
Evolution is a theory, or perhaps more accurately put, it is a model that scientists use as a way of trying to understand some of the evidence of the universe around them. But it is an unproven theory, and as far as its being a model is concerned, of course, like all models, it is at the moment a tentative model. It can explain certain things.
There are a lot of things it cannot explain. Very good. It is common practice for science to construct hypotheses and use tentative models. But let us distinguish now very clearly in our minds unproven theory and tentative model on the one hand, from proven fact on the other. Tonight I wish to strike a blow for science.
In urging it upon us all that we shall always give very careful attention to the need to distinguish very careful- clearly between unproven theory and established proven fact. All true scientists recognize that evolution, if it be worthy of the name of a theory, then is an unproven theory. And some of their leading proponents have described it as not only unproved, but unprovable.
But alas, in many an infant school, elementary school, higher school, and the junior reaches of universities and technical colleges. People frequently fail to distinguish between unproven theory and proven fact. And they teach our children, and they teach our undergraduates the theory of evolution as though it were proven fact. And the BBC is an awful sinner when it continually disseminates the theory of evolution as though it were proven fact.
You say, does it matter all that much? Evolution is a widely held theory. That is true. But anybody with the slightest notion in his head of the history and philosophy of science will easily remember occasions in the past where certain theories came to be the dominant theory and held sway in people's minds for years, if not centuries, and held such a fast sway that anybody who dared to disagree would have been regarded as obscurantist or cranky or eccentric.
And history has chosen- shown that some of those dominant theories, so widely held, prove wrong. And so long as they were tenaciously held, they eventually came to be a stumbling block, a difficulty in the way of true scientific progress. Let me cite you one ins- instance of what I mean. In the third century BC in Alexandria, there was a bevy of some of the most brilliant scientists and men of knowledge that this world has ever seen.
Among them was Er- Eris- Eratosthenes, who made a very, very good shot at measuring the circumference of the Earth, not such a good shot at measuring the distance of the Earth from the moon and from the sun. There was also a certain Aristarchus. Aristarchus perceived from his study of astronomy and mathematics that the Sun must be the center of our planetary system. But alas, Aristarchus's true insight that the sun was the center of our planetary system and not the earth was brushed aside, and for literally centuries, another theory held place.
It held that the earth was the center of the planetary system. And the sun went round the Earth. Well, if you hold that theory, you find it very difficult to account for what the planets do in their courses. And there was invented a most ingenious and complicated mathematical system to account for the movement of the planets on the basic theory that the Earth is the center and the sun and all the rest go around the Earth.
It was to many folks very convincing. And as I say, the idea that the Earth was the center was a theory that then lasted for centuries. It was wrong. It was popular. It was wrong. All scientists held it. It was wrong nonetheless. And when some scientists began at last to question it, then alas, it makes sorry reading, doesn't it? The professing Christian church weighed in against the scientists.
Not knowing her science, and I'm afraid not knowing her Bible either very well, the church added her weight to support the then reigning theory that the Earth was the center. It wasn't. And all further progress in astronomy was largely held up because people had been taught to accept as fact what was only an unproven theory. It is my submission that if our young people are taught the theory of evolution as though it were fact, and are not taught to distinguish between unproven theory and established fact, then instead of it promoting science, it will in the end be an obstacle to true scientific progress.
So that if I do no more this evening, to say that much on the behalf of science, I shall feel I have done an exceedingly valuable thing, and I shall sleep happy in my bed tonight. Secondly, you have heard me confess that it is by faith that we understand the worlds were made by the word of God. A Christian, a creationist, unashamedly confesses that.
He does not mean that there is no evidence for creation. What he means is that when you have put all the evidence you can get hold of together, then still you will not have proved it by some scientifically demonstrable thesis. That the worlds were made by the word of God will remain a thing that in the end you will accept if you accept it by faith. Let me remind you, before I say anything more, how many other things there are that you accept on faith, which you would regard me as stupid if I tried to say that they could be scientifically proved.
You accept the beauty of flowers by faith. You can't prove that kind of thing. You accept the love of friend and mother, of wife and children, in the last analysis, by faith. And he would be a stupid man who refused to believe in the beauty of flowers because the beauty of flowers could not be proved scientifically. But having confessed that Christians believe by faith and understand it by faith that the worlds were framed by the word of God, I want now to point out that that doesn't put a Christian in an inferior position, scientifically speaking, from the man who is wedded to the theory of evolution, let
me repeat, as a fact, then you have taken a step of faith. I say that because in the minds of many young people it seems to be a disadvantage somehow that Christians believe in creation and understand it thus by faith, when it is put to them that those that accept evolution accept it not by faith, but because it's been proved. That is quite untrue. Here, at least, believer in creation and believer in evolution stand on equal terms.
They both have believed in what they have believed, I say. Oh yes, the evolutionist will say he's got a lot of evidence to support his faith. The believer in creation will reply, yes, and I've got a great deal of evidence to support my faith too, and a great deal better evidence than your evidence. Next, let me deal with another popular misconception. The misconception that arises because so very often the Bible's account of creation is dismissed on the ground that it is very old and ancient.
And in the popular modern mind, anything that is old and ancient is very often thought to be necessarily untrue. Well, certainly the doctrine of creation is very ancient. You will find it on the first page of the book of Genesis. But of course, the doctrine, the theory of evolution is exceedingly ancient. Its modern form may go back to Darwin, but there were centuries before Darwin older versions of the theory of evolution. It is a very ancient thing.
It is not some brilliantly new modern idea, given birth to out of the very womb of modern physics and chemistry and geology, the concept of evolution as a theory for explaining the universe is exceedingly old. All privileged schoolboys know that Lucretius wrote about it in the Latin tongue. He got his ideas from the Epicurean philosophers, and Democritus in particular.
And Lucretius liked the idea of evolution, and he'll tell you why. To him, evolution is a godsend because it teaches him to believe that when a man dies, the atoms of his body come asunder, and the atoms of his soul likewise come asunder, and nothing survives death. And therefore, says Lucretius, since evolution proves that man does not survive his death, there can be no judgment after death.
And that, and the thought of it, Lucretius found a very great relief. We should guard, shouldn't we? We should be careful to guard, and we shall do if we're good scientists, in letting such wishful thinking lead us in the direction of accepting evolution, and therefore the ditching of all ultimate moral standards, but to return. In Lucretius' day, in centuries before the, uh, our Lord, in Democritus and others, some of the early Ionian philosophers, in their concept of evolution, they thought that, um, the earth itself, for instance, suddenly began to swell with wombs, and then these wombs came out of the earth, and presently they gave birth to, to human creatures.
They thought perhaps that the Earth itself spontaneously generated life. They thought that, uh, the Earth originally, by spontaneous generation, produced all sorts of curious combinations of legs, arms, heads, noses, eyes, mouths, chins, and all the rest, most of which were quite unworkable and didn't survive. They got devoured by the nearest tiger who had evolved a little bit more efficiently. But eventually, by dint of survival of the fittest, the best permutation that Earth had accidentally pushed up survived.
So that that notion of evolution combined with the survival of the fittest, is an exceedingly old theory. As we look back on those early versions of evolution, we can't possibly accept them. Why not? Science makes it impossible. How's that? Well, the notions that you can get an arm and hook it on somewhere, or a head or two, or one or two feet, a liver or kidney here and there pushed on, and that they would ever survive or begin is so ludicrous that science now makes it impossible.
You see, since those early days, science has revealed how fantastically complicated a thing like a human eye is. It is so complicated that you have to have the whole lot or nothing. They have pointed out to us recently, haven't they, how complicated the cell is. And what earlier generations thought was a very simple bit of biological mechanism is now becoming, under the scientist's hand, an exceedingly complicated thing.
And the more nature is seen to be complicated, the less possible it becomes for that kind of accidental permutation bringing into effect such a complicated system as, say, man is. The crude forms of evolution, therefore, were dumped fairly early on. It was not till late in the Christian period that the idea of spontaneous generation was eventually proved by science to be likewise impossible.
Therefore, more modern theories of evolution have had to construct much more intricate models, dealing at much smaller and tinier levels. But many of us will want to know, but are the present models any more respectable scientifically in the end than the earlier ones?
We guarantee that further scientific research will not make the present models as impossible as scientific research has already made those ancient models. As I say, in science, in biology, things get more complicated, not less, and the apparently simplest systems are now seen to be fantastically complicated. So then, we shall not just dismiss the view, the teaching of Holy Scripture, the Word of God, simply because it is ancient, and fall into the trap of thinking that the concept of evolution must be right because it's modern.
We need to adjust our thinking. The concept of evolution is exceedingly ancient. Then let me turn to the other side of the story. We hear that the Bible's account is very ancient, and that it is an ancient myth. But then, uh, if you follow popular thinking and talk, you will discover that people are using the word myth in very loose senses.
In the ancient world, if Plato told you a myth, what he would mean by a myth is an account of what probably happened. Not a fairy story, but an account of what must have happened, even if he couldn't have guaranteed you that it happened exactly this way, yet nevertheless it was a likely story. It was his estimate of how things very likely happened. That was the Greek concept of myth, not a fairy story.
Ah, you say, ah, but when we call the story of Genesis a myth, we mean it was only one of those old pagan idolatrous stories such as you get in Babylonia, in the creation myth, uh, of Babylonia or Sumeria or somewhere like that. Oh, you mean it in that sense? Well, then you will observe, won't you, how starkly different the biblical account is from those other ancient stories. In all the other stories, you will find that gods, and there are several, gods are the products of matter.
That the universe first exists, and then the gods come out of it. They are all uniformly that way. Anyone who will know anything about ancient myths will immediately perceive that the biblical account in Genesis is exceedingly, significantly different. It stands solitary in proclaiming that God is the pre-existent God, and that he made all that is.
Moreover, far from being a myth, such as the other ancient Near Eastern myths, the very first chapter preaches, of Genesis, preaches such monotheism, that is, it announces there is one God, supreme God. That liberal and hostile critics have given it as their judgment that Moses could not have written Genesis. Goodness me, how could he, at that early date, have come up with such stark monotheism? We needn't accept their datings of Genesis.
What we may observe is their own confession that the story of Genesis with these pre-existing gods who created all things by the word of his power is so starkly different from all the other myths that please, if you want to call Genesis a myth, you will be scientific enough, won't you? To distinguish in what, uh, kind of sense you are using this word myth. You will distinguish it from all those other myths with which the ancient world is full.
But now let me proceed to the heart of the matter. And first of all, I want to define for you the sense in which I am using my term. Because a great deal of confusion in this matter, as you know, has been caused by the very many different senses that are given to the word evolution. So, on the Bible side, I would ask you to distinguish very carefully what the Bible calls creation and those other processes which you may describe as maintenance and development.
The Bible does not teach us that all things were made at once. That is an interesting thing that the very first page of the Bible tells us that all things were not made at once. Secondly, the Bible tells us that of one blood, God hath made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. That is the Bible position. I ask you to notice what it implies. It implies, of course, the biblical story that man, Adam, the first man, was a special creation.
But then it asks us to note that all succeeding men have not been special. That the vast variety of human types that you can now see upon the face of the earth have come into being by a process of development. Of one blood, he has made all men, black and yellow, red and white, with all the permutation of size and color of hair and facial features and, uh, and bent of the cranium and goodness knows what else. All those interesting variations and permutations have arrived by a process of development out of what was originally created.
Now that itself the Bible teaches us. There are some people who use the word evolution of that pro- process. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that they do so because it confuses the issue. One had better keep it as development. But if that is all you mean by evolution, then of course you are saying what the Bible says. Only please observe that even here there is a difference, isn't there?
The Bible's view would not be that that development was totally random. The Bible's view would be that the development has in part been controlled by the basic potentials of the original gene, and that the develop- though very wide, has taken place within the framework of possibilities that were implanted in the original gene. And therefore, it has not been completely random.
If that is what the Bible means, then it talks ab- uh, teaches, it talks of creation on the one hand, then development and maintenance on the other. What is normally meant by the term evolution? Well, normally two different things are meant. They share certain features, but basically are different. One view is the out and out materialistic view of the universe. It denies that there is any God.
It therefore has to assume that matter is eternal, and it then must assume that all we now see around us is the result of blind, purposeless force working on equally blind, mindless matter. The stark materialistic view of the universe. Other people there are who accept a different idea of evolution.
They believe in God as the one who originally created all things. But they hold that whereas God created the original stuff, God himself has used evolution as a process by which to bring about the vast variety of things that we now see. In my humble estimation, both views are wrong. Let me deal with the first. The first view of evolution conflicts at once and obviously with the biblical view that God created heaven and earth.
It also conflicts, uh, necessarily with the consequent statements of Genesis chapter one that each stage of creation, strictly so called creation, was sparked off and initiated by a word of God. Let me pause a moment and preach it at you because it's veritable gospel as well as, in my estimation, fact. This is the message of Bible, and upon this you'll have to make up your mind sooner or later. Bible says that not only did God create it all, but that at each major stage of development, God interposed with a creative word.
So Genesis one proceeds thus, and God said, and God said, and God said. It is saying that this world came to be because God not only created the matter, but at each subsequent stage of creation, the, uh, development was initiated by God's word, instinct with his mind, with his purpose, with his rationality, therefore with meaning.
Thus is the Bible saying that this universe is a meaningful place. That behind it lies the rationality of God, the purpose of God, and therefore meaning. Materialistic evolution denies it. We'll pass by what, in my estimation, is grossly inadequate evidence upon which to deny it and to support the counter-theory of evolution.
Let's come to the nub of the matter. Let us see what follows from embracing the idea that all we see around us is the product of blind force working purposely and at random on blind matter. As Professor C. S. Lewis was never tired of saying, if that be true, if it be true, for instance, that your brain and my brain are the ultimate result of blind, mindless force working on blind, mindless matter, then you have thereby made absolutely impossible any chance of proving anything, even the theory of evolution included.
Materialistic evolution cuts its own throat. You say, please explain. Well, let's go over it again. Materialistic evolution states that everything, so let's take your brain, that's one of the most important things in this universe at the moment, at least on this planet, your brain, your reasoning power, your mind, your logic, the very thing you want to use to prove certain things by. Ah, but materialistic evolution says your brain is an accident.
It always was. It is now, therefore. Your brain, says this theory, is the result, very long distant result, but a result of blind, mindless matter being worked on by blind, mindless force. They biffed into each other, they reacted, they permutated, they got together, they came apart, but in the end, uh, it all churned up your brain. Quite oh, your brain isn't very significant, is it?
And the thoughts that you're having now are the long result of a vast chain of accidents. Oh, would you say that's stupid, my good sir, because I- I've been doing a lot of very clear logical thinking recently, and I can show you that my brain is a very logical system, and it works very logically. And if a thought goes in there, it must come out there. Yeah, I know, I know that. Let me tell you a story. During the war in England, there were things known as, um, now what were they known as? They were dear girls, they were, they worked on the land. So they did their national service.
And I worked on the land too, and one of them told me a story that she went out with a thrashing gang once, with an old big old thrasher thing. Fierce machines they were, for thrashing the corn. You put the corn in at the top, sheaves, straw and everything, and the straw went through, and the straw went that way, and the corn went the other way. Delightful machine. One day, one of the girls fell in the top. Oh, it was an accident. A terrible accident. Granted the first accident, you could have, you could have known logically where she'd come out.
Because you could follow the laws of the machine, and you could say, yes, if she went in there, well, the bits and pieces will come out there, and they did. Because you could have traced her through, so to speak, that ghastly thing. Do you suppose it was any less an accident when she came out as when she went in? Because your brain is a marvelously construct machine now, let that not deceive you. If your brain at the very beginning was the result of an accident, all that flows from it is an accident. And if you sit there propounding to me the theory that your brain is the end of a long chain of mindless accidents, then, sir, I cannot logically accept anything you say as proof.
You have cut from beneath your feet any possibility of logically proving anything, ultimately, the theory of evolution included. You heard me say at the beginning that tonight I was hoping to strike a blow in defense of science. I repeat it now. The issue is none less than the validity of reason. If you accept that this universe is ultimately irrational, meaningless, mindless, one colossal accident, then you have cut from beneath your feet the very basis of science and scientific progress.
The Bible preaches preacher. that science is a worthy occupation because it can rely on the presupposition that behind our universe is intelligent mind, purpose, plan, rationality. It was made by the word of God. I come then to the second version of the theory of evolution. The idea that many Christians, believers in God of various kinds, hold, they hold it largely because they think that science has made it necessary for them to hold it.
That, in my mind, is a sad mistake, but still. This is why they hold it, and therefore they s- feel themselves obliged somehow to reconcile the notion of evolution with Bible. They say, therefore, that God originally made everything, but that he used evolution as a means of developing man. Well, that won't do. Not if you want still to believe Bible. The Bible, as I say, does preach to you that God has used both creation and development.
But Genesis one is very careful to define to you the difference. You will see that each major stage of creation is initiated by a word of God, and God said. On each of the days of creation, you will find that phrase once, and God said. It was not, please, it was not. It wasn't a cell here, and one of these days, way came a random little bit of cosmic rain, went biff without intending to go biff.
And something was churned up that God, uh, hadn't thought of. It was a random thing. No, the major stages were sparked off, deliberate act of creation, and God fed. But even more significant, on two of the days, you will read that God fed twice. Why twice on certain days? Well, because on the first of those days is the question of the gulf between the inorganic and the organic. God said, let the dry land appear.
As yet it's still inorganic. Then let life in the form of herb appear. Ah, but that wasn't just a developmental thing. The appearance of life, according to Genesis, sparked off by a creative word of God. On day six, sundry animals are made. Yes, they're made, and God said, let the earth bring forth the animals. But on day six also man was made. How was man made? Just by an ongoing development out of the animals?
No, sir. For after the animals were made by divine word and God said, then we read one more, and God said, dividing between the animal and the human creation. Secondly, we have to consider what the New Testament says about the first man, and what it says about, uh, the fall of that man.
The New Testament's explanation of why everybody sins is this, that the first man sinned and fell. In the same way as salvation proceeds from that second man, Jesus Christ our Lord. Being in Adam, because we descend from him, we are sinners because the first man fell, fell and the race was ruined. Being in Christ, we are saved by the result of the work that is passed on to us in that union with Christ.
We must therefore adhere to the Genesis story if we are to accept the New Testament's account of our sinership and, uh, the account of our salvation. Oh, says somebody, but surely we're not expected to accept that bit, are we? About a literal Adam. Couldn't that bit be a myth? Couldn't the story of Adam in the garden taking the fruit be a myth? Couldn't Adam be the name for mankind, for every man? After all, there comes a time, doesn't there, when the little toddler for the first time experiences a guilty conscience.
He goes into the pantry, perhaps, and does what he's done before, puts his hand in the sugar or in the jam and licks it. But this time, and for the first time, he experiences a sense of guilt and an estrangement. Say some, couldn't that, uh, be that Genesis is merely holding up in the story of Adam a picture of what happens to every individual man? Every man falls. This is a parable. This is a myth. Well, it's a very ingenious explanation. Yes, it is true that every man or woman comes to the point in early childhood where he first senses guilt.
That won't do for the Genesis story. For the New Testament takes the Genesis story not to show us that all men are sinners, not to describe to us the fact that all men sin. The Genesis story is there to explain to us how it is that all without exception do sin. Why do they sin? If evolution be true, why doesn't evolution, good old beldame evolution, why doesn't she do one of her magical miracles that she's supposed to do now and again?
And why doesn't she turn up an absolutely sinless man? Why is it that every man, woman, boy, and girl born into this world turn out to be sinners? That is what, uh, Genesis and the Epistle to the Romans are talking about, and the answer is this, that every man and woman born into the world sin because the human race was ruined in its first parents. And I remind Christians that if the Bible be wrong in what it tells us about sin and its diagnosis and its origin, then you'd have very little reason to trust Bible when it came to preach to you how that sin can be forgiven and man be redeemed and restored.
They then are some of the issues that seem to me to be important, philosophically and theologically speaking, in this vast topic. I haven't regaled you with what perhaps to you would have been more interesting, all sorts and kinds of scientific evidence, because I am not a scientist. I may have the w- uh, word in the ear of your chairman and suggest that when I have finished my little hors d'œuvre, he shall bring a fo- uh, along a real scientist to talk to you and put before you the scientific evidence. That would be a very worthy thing to do. But I close by saying this, I do try to keep my ears open, though I'm not a scientist, and I do observe that scientists do not all accept evolution.
And for very good reason. The fossil record that is supposed to prove it lacks the missing links. When, by definition, if the theory were true, the missing links would be more numerous than the established species. Because according to the theory, the missing links were all sorts of tiny gradations all the way along, that only eventually gave, uh, rise to the big new chain.
Where are the missing links? Then I observe, as I said earlier, that the biologists are saying that the chemistry of the cell and the structure of the cell is becoming so, so obviously so complicated as to make evolution at that level very pronouncedly difficult. I observe that the professor of genetics at Queen, the more he studies, the more, so he tells me, he doesn't believe evolution. I observe the professor of rheumatology at Leeds walks the country giving talks to show that he doesn't believe evolution.
He is a good gentleman whom evolutionists consult because he is a bone man, and they come to inquire about the fossil bones and other kinds of bones that they dig up and they use as the basis for their reconstructions of early man. They come and consult him because he's an expert in bones. He does not believe the theory of evolution. So let me remind the Christians, you are not obliged to believe it on scientific grounds. By all means, study the evidence and collect as much as you can and weigh up the matter, but please don't feel yourself obliged on scientific grounds to accept as fact what at best is only an unproven theory and a tentative.
And you have shown extraordinary patience up to this late hour, and I thank you for your attention.
