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Dozens of Times
Dozens of times, the Scriptures, both old and new, tell us that God made everything:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1)
Moreover this great truth is lauded by all the major creeds and statements of faith, from the Apostles Creed (300 ish?):
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
to the Westminster Confession (1650 ish):
It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create or make of nothing the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible...
It is very hard, if not impossible, to conceive of there being such a thing as a Christian who does not believe that God is the glorious Creator of all things.
That being so, our children are growing up in a world where Evolution is taught as the "origin" truth - the mechanism by which all things came into existence. In brief, evolution teaches that things develop over time from simple to complex, gradually and without the input or help of any mind, intelligence or God.
So the universe itself, they say, has evolved from a simple "singularity" of near-zero dimensions to the amazing complexity we see in the night sky. Solar systems, of which there are thousands, have evolved from a simple ball of gas to a central star with revolving planets. And living things have evolved from single celled creatures (anything but simple!) to multi celled creatures.
What do we tell our kids?
Seven truths to impart to our children
We need to teach our children that God is the glorious Creator of this wonderful world, and there is not a jot or line in all of science that need move us from that certainty, which we take and believe by faith (Hebrews 11:2). Let God be true and every man a liar.
When it comes to the theory of evolution, we can inform our children to gently question the theory in seven ways:
1) Why believe a temporary theory? Evolution is only the current origins theory, it could easily be replaced. Two great scientific theories were replaced in the 20th century, science is always changing. In 1900 scientists believed that the universe was unchanging and eternal. By 2000 they believed that the universe had a beginning and was expanding. In 1900 geologists believed that continents drifted around, by 2000 they believed that the earth's crust was made up of plates. Theories change: take an interest in them, but why hitch your wagon to a falling star?
2) Why believe in a hypothesis that contradicts a fixed theory of physics? The theory of evolution runs against a fixed theory in physics (the second law of thermodynamics) that says as time goes by, all systems left to chance and law move from order to disorder, from complexity to simplicity. But evolution teaches that as time goes by systems move from disorder to order, from simplicity to complexity!
Leave the complex Eiffel tower to the elements, to time and to chance, and you will end up with a simple pile of rust. Form an enormous mound of iron ore and leave it to time and chance: over time, it will not turn into the Eiffel tower. Not without intelligence and energy. The only way to move from disorder to order is for a mind (intelligence) to devise a plan to change that mound of iron ore into a tower of Eiffel.
The second law is a common- sense theory. Bedrooms naturally move from order to disorder! The only way for them to move from disorder to order is human intelligence (normally in the form of a mother).
Gardens left to themselves become untidy. It take a mind and a body to make them move in the opposite direction.
3) Why believe in a theory that denies the role of intelligence to build complex machines? Following straight on from the last point, every complicated device we have ever come across in the world, from laptops to trains, from watches to rockets required a mind to invent it. Now scale up complexity hundreds or thousands of times so we get near the intricacy of a single cell (of which our bodies are made of 40 trillion!) Is it really feasible that such complexity could ever come about by chance? The most complicated objects nature can make all by itself, such as snow flakes are simpletons compared to the most basic cell.
A single cell can be likened to a whole bunch of chemical factories which then reproduce themselves! Can we envisage a suite of self-producing chemical factories being made by time and chance and law?
4) There's not enough time to build even one part of a cell! And following on from our last point. Just suppose the Big Bang theory is correct for a moment. Well that gives evolution 14.5 billion years for time and chance and law to produce you and I. The problem is that the most generous calculations show that there is not enough time to produce even one simple protein (proteins are the machines inside each cell which do the work, and there are thousands of them in a typical cell). In fancy language "The probabilistic resources of the universe are not sufficient to make even one part of a cell, let alone the whole cell."
Using a car analogy: there is not enough time for one wheel to get together by chance, let alone an engine or the whole vehicle.
5) How did life explode 540 million years ago (if it did)? Again, assuming that the timescales of evolutionists are correct, we find an explosion of life forms called the "Cambrian Explosion" 540-530 million years ago. How could organisms appear in one moment that have no ancestors in the fossil record? That doesn't sound like gradual evolution, does it now?
6) How do you get from matter which does not think, to mind which does? You and I are different from all the creatures in the world because we have incredible minds which can create and dream and have hope. If you don't put cinnamon into a cake at the start, you won't have a cinnamon cake at the end. If you don't start with mind, you won't end up with mind. The philosopher Thomas Nagel - not a Christian - is so adamant that present day matter-mind evolution is wrong he thinks it will be the subject of the comedians one day:
“I would be willing to bet that the present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two” (Mind and Cosmos, page 128)
7) The most important truths of Genesis 1,2 and 3 have nothing to do with science. It is vital not to get caught up in the swirl of scientific data and theories but to stand back and teach our children the main teachings of Genesis 1,2 and 3. Which are:
1. God existed before anything else.
2. God made everything else
3. Humans are above all the animals, made in the image of God
4. God designed us to work in a particular way, we are social beings, we know the difference between right and wrong, we are heterosexual, we are male and female, with an order between the sexes
5. God made us to know him, to have a relationship with him
6. We now have fallen natures, that's why we feel and do wrong. And that's why you can't go from "what I feel" to "this must be right" because what I feel may be coming from the fall. We are all messed up by the fall and so it should not surprise us when we find people mixed up sexually and mixed up gender wise.
7. We need a Saviour. Because we are now sinners separated from God, we need a Saviour who will reconcile us back to God.
How important these truths are for today! And isn't it interesting that none of these truths depend on the age of the earth or whether God created everything in six days? They are independent of how we interpret time frames in Genesis 1 and 2 and 3.
Sometimes Christians dispute the sciency issues forgetting that there are far more important issues at stake; and when we fight over, or concentrate on, secondaries, Satan laughs.
Summary
Our kids will learn about the various theories of evolution at school. If we do not teach them at home - from a Christian point of view, the primary teaching environment - evolution could erode their trust in Scripture (even though it is filled with much non-sense) and their faith in God.
We need not fear a line of science because not there is not a fact or a theory that in any way disproves the glorious truth that God made the heavens and the earth.
And this same God, we want our kids to hear, can be known through Jesus Christ, and can give us new life today and bright hope for tomorrow.
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