CHAPTER X - Evolution

by Dr. A. Ray Stanford

To cover exhaustively the subject of evolution and creation would obviously require much more information than we can include in one chapter, but this is written to help you get some idea of how you could answer a lost person if he should offer his belief in evolution as an excuse not to receive Christ as his Saviour.

For further information on evolution you might want to read some of the books recommended in Chapter 22. Winning an argument on evolution might make you feel brilliant, but remember that if your presentation aggravates the lost person, you run the risk of his not trusting Christ because he got mad from losing an argument.

If you can answer the person's questions on evolution simply and quickly and go immediately back to the plan of salvation, you will accomplish much more than if you spend hours in needless arguing. Your scientific knowledge is not the power of God unto salvation, even when you are witnessing to a person who is interested in science-it is still the gospel that is the power of God unto his salvation. Wisely keep this in mind.

DEFINITIONS

Materialistic Evolution: Existence and progression of life without help from God.

Theistic Evolution: Progression of life from some primitive form which God might have created, but which evolved without the help of God from the first form of life onward.

The Biblical Doctrine: God created everything. “ALL things were made by Him, and without Him was not ANY thing made that was made” (Joh 1:3).

At the end of the chapter we will give many verses in the Word of God which expressly teach creation.

Below is information of which, if you know, you can briefly present one or two things, and perhaps be able to turn the conversation back to the gospel quickly, without getting into a big discussion with the person and having him “lose face.” This is your aim.

FACT OR THEORY?

Evolution, transmutation of species, has never been proven. The reason for this is very simple. It has never happened! Evolution is no more than the imaginations of men who deny the Word of God and so are desperately struggling for some explanation of the origin of life. It is here. Somehow it got here. God says He created it. Those who do not accept God's Word must seek some other explanation. The evolutionist is trying hard. But somehow he isn't getting anywhere.

Even Charles Darwin himself, recognizing that although there is mutation within the species, there are no transmutations-no changes from one species (or family) into an other, wrote in his book, My Life and Letters, Volume One, Page 210, “Not one change of species into another is on record. We cannot prove that a single species has been changed (into another).”

THE MISSING LINK

The great search for the “missing link” points out the error of the theory of evolution more emphatically than anything I know of. Now think this through. Here we are, completely developed human beings. Evolutionists teach that the closest animal down the ladder from man probably is the ape, the gorilla, or some similar, if yet unidentified, animal. Their theories on what animal this is change from time to time. Whichever animal they think would be closest to the human being-they are trying to find a “missing link” from it to man.

But if evolution were true, there would be no need to SEARCH for a “missing link” because there would be SO MANY MORE “in-betweens” than there are terminals, since the fully developed man would be a result of many years of small changes from (let us say, for the sake of this illustration) the ape to the man.

Archeologists would constantly be digging up skeletons, millions and millions of them, part man and part ape. There would have to be skeletons of ALL the various stages of development from ape to man. But WHERE ARE THESE MILLIONS OF SKELETONS? Why is anyone looking for a “missing link” anyway? The whole CHAIN of missing links is missing! 

ORIGINAL MATTER

Probably the biggest problem, because it is certainly insurmountable, to the materialistic evolutionist is: Who or what is responsible for the FIRST piece of matter?

Regardless of their particular theory of HOW the world was formed, they cannot deny it has been formed, and they cannot tell where the first matter CAME FROM, which was used in making the world.

In Jer 10:12 God tells us what He used to create the earth. He used His power (in the Hebrew, His “energy”). It is interesting to note that in our own lifetime Albert Einstein formulated the Relativity Equation, E=MC2, which is exactly what God said in the Bible 2,600 years ago.

Simply put, his formula states that matter and energy are equivalent. One can obtain energy (E) equal to the quantity of matter (M) multiplied by the square of the speed of light (C) (186,000 miles per second). God told us, long before the scientific world recognized it, that matter was created out of energy.

Evolutionists would like to make those who believe the Bible feel ignorant for believing so in this age of knowledge. But anyone who thinks the Bible disagrees with science either doesn't know the Bible very well or isn't speaking of real science.

God says of the men in this age of knowledge who deny His Word, that they are “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2Ti 3:7).

Since they will not accept God's explanation of the origin of the earth, they must try to find some sort of reasonable explanation on their own. Sorry, but evolution isn't it. It isn't reasonable, and it isn't even POSSIBLE.

SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

Quoting from the book, Evolution and Human Destiny, by Kohler, “One of the most fundamental maxims of the physical sciences is the trend toward greater randomness- the fact that, on the average, things will get into disorder rather than into order, if left to themselves. This is essentially the statement that is embodied in the Second Law of Thermodynamics.” This scientific law actually refutes and contradicts the theory of evolution in its entirety. The whole universe is NOT getting better and more specialized; it is running down; it is wearing out. 

“LADDER OF CREATION”

Many evolutionists teach that the following, in order, evolved upward from the beginning: atom, molecule, protein molecule, virus, bacteria, algae, protozoa, metazoa, man. This cannot be true. The protein molecule couldn't develop from just atoms and molecules, unless protein, were already present. Man has been trying to create protein from various chemicals and compounds and has been unsuccessful. Only God can create protein.

The virus could not exist before higher life than the virus had been created because the virus requires a “host cell” to live off of. A virus cannot live off of just atoms, molecules, and protein molecules. So, you see, the “ladder of creation,” created by the evolutionists to prove their theory, actually in itself disproves the theory of evolution.

FIXITY OF SPECIES

When your dog is going to have a litter, don't worry that she will have a litter of monkeys instead of a litter of puppies. That she will have puppies was determined when her chromosomes joined with her mate's chromosomes at conception.

You see, a dog has only 22 chromosomes, whereas a monkey has 54. Half the total number of chromosomes are contained in the female reproductive cells and half are contained in the male. So the exact total number are brought together in the offspring.

Man has 46 chromosomes. This chromosome count is a steady factor. This determines what is called the “fixity of species” because the chromosome count doesn't vary. People always give birth to people. Dogs always give birth to dogs, etc.

It is the genes that produce variety within the species. Genes allow for people to be short, tall, fat, thin, blond, brunette, etc., but still all PEOPLE.

The chromosomes make crossing of the species an uncrossable barrier. This certainly would hinder any evolution. It would stop it dead in its tracks!

THE HORSE

A standard “demonstration” of evolutionists has been the horse, the “EOHIPPUS.” They give a long list for the supposed evolution of the horse, as follows:

Eohippus

Orohippus

Epihippus

Mesohippus

Miohippus 

Anchiterium

Hypohippus

Parahippus 

Merychippus

Hipparion

Protohippus

Pliophippus

Genus Equus

What the evolutionists do not tell you is that fossils of the little Eohippus rodent and fossils of the Equus Nevadensis and Equus Occidentalis (fully developed horses as we know them today) are contemporary. They are found in the same “geological age” strata.

Why try to manufacture some “evolution” of the horse when you already have a horse?

FOSSILS

What does the record in the rocks show us? The record in the rocks and the record in the Bible agree perfectly. When life is found, all forms of life are found. When a family appears, it is completely and fully developed. No fossils of “in-betweens” are ever found. There aren't any. This must really mystify those who accept the theory of evolution.

“ONION SKIN” THEORY

Most evolutionists teach that the earth is layered into many strata, and that in each stratum, starting with the deepest and going up to the top layers, are the remains of different forms of life in the order of progressive evolution. This is not true. There is not one place on earth where more than four strata occur, and in each stratum all kinds of life are found, and not in the order the evolutionists would have us believe.

The “ages” that the evolutionists teach that different stages of life have been found within are (1) Azoic (without life), (2) Archeozoic (beginning life), (3) Proterozoic (early life), (4) Paleozoic (old, ancient life), (5) Mesozoic (middle life), and (6) Cenozoic (new, recent life). Within the Cenozoic age is another group of ages called the “cenes”: Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene (recent, old life; dawn life; less recent life; more recent life; and most recent, human life-respectively).

The supposed times of these “ages” differ from one evolutionist to the next, some teaching that in the Archeozoic age of beginning life fossils date back to one billion years ago.

NATURE'S BALANCE

God has so arranged His creation that there is a delicate balance in nature which serves to maintain everything in its proper relationship, and without which the earth would be complete chaos.

For instance, animals take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. Plants take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Plants could not live without animals, and neither could animals live without plants. But evolutionists teach plants evolved LONG before animals came upon the scene. This is impossible.

Another balance is that plants give off alkali and animals give off acid. Without plants the world would be too acid. They need each other to maintain conditions suitable for one another.

ONTOGENY RECAPITULATES PHYLOGENY

This is the theory that the human fetus in the mother's womb goes through all the phases of the evolutionary process. Evolutionists capitalize on things like the structure in the embryo which RESEMBLES gill slits of fish in APPEARANCE, saying that the embryo is now going through this particular stage of evolution.

A scientist should know that RESEMBLANCE of APPEARANCE does not in any way prove RELATIONSHIP in fact. My fountain pen and the fountain pen of an “Undercover Agent” might resemble each other in appearance, but his pen is really a radio transmitter and receiver. 

The human embryo doesn't go through any stages of evolution.

THE FIRST SEX

Simple forms of life reproduce by “mitosis,” which is cell division. The cell splits, and then there are two. The result is two of whatever you had one of before-just one more of the same thing, not a step up some “evolutionary scale.”

Let me ask you a question. If evolution were true, when would life have gotten tired of reproducing by mitosis and desired to reproduce by another means, by sex? One “glob” would have to say to another “glob,” “Let's change our way of reproduction. I'm tired of doing it the same old way. I'll develop into a male, and you develop into a female.”

But before they could ever reproduce, they would have to develop the reproductive organs completely and perfectly, or they would not function. Sometimes I wonder if the evolutionist stops to realize how complicated the reproductive organs are. If there is just one tiny thing wrong, reproduction is hindered.

Before that first enterprising “glob couple” could have ever developed functioning reproductive organs, they would have been long dead and gone. Did that “glob couple” THINK out the problems and TELL another “glob couple” to carry out their project?

THE EYE

Evolutionists cannot conceive how the human's intricate eyes ever evolved. It is a tremendously delicate, complex organ. They say perhaps the eye developed from some light-sensitive spot like a freckle.

Personally, it taxes my imagination and challenges my intelligence much less to accept the fact that God CREATED us with all our faculties than to try to believe the theory that the human eye evolved from some freckle. An ophthalmologist must spend many years in specialized study after college even to understand the eye well enough to treat it. How could something without even human intelligence actually design and put together the human eye? It would be impossible!

The eye certainly had to be CREATED BY GOD. “I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well” (Ps 139:14). 

THE “GAP” THEORY

Ge 1:2, in the King James, reads, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep....”

The word “was” should properly be translated “became,” as we see from the oldest manuscripts below:

(1) Chaldee-became desert and empty.

(2) Septuagint-became unfurnished and empty.

(3) Aramaic-became ruined and uninhabited.

(4) Vulgate-became dreary and empty.

Ge 1:1 says “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” THERE IS A TIME LAPSE, A GAP, between the events in Ge 1:1 and Ge 1:2. There could be millions of years between the two verses. No one knows for how many years the earth was laid waste. We do know from Isa 45:18 that God did not create the earth in a state of waste to begin with. “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it, he hath established it, he created it NOT IN VAIN, he formed it to be inhabited....”

We believe that after the fall of Satan God judged the earth, and at that time the earth became ruined. God made it desolate after previous life. In the time of Ge 1:1, and before the time of Ge 1:2, any of the true historical ages and the true ancient fossils would fit. The Bible does NOT say that the earth is only 6,000 years old. The Bible does not date the original creation spoken of in Ge 1:1.

THE BIBLE SAYS GOD CREATED PLANTS

Ge 1:29, “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the . . . earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

Isa 41:19-20, “I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together; That they may see and know and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath CREATED it.”

GOD CREATED ANIMALS

Ge 1:24-25, “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And GOD made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

1Co 15:38-39, “But GOD giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is NOT the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.”

Ps 32:9, “Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding....” Animals do not have a spirit. They do not have mental discernment. They could not decide to better themselves via “evolution.”

Ps 36:6, “. . . O Lord, Thou preservest man and beast.” Notice, it is not the “survival of the fittest.” It is God who preserves. 

GOD CREATED MAN

Ge 2:7, “And the LORD GOD formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Prof. E. Slossen, analytical chemist in Washington, D.C., proved that the dust of the ground contains 14 elements and that man's body contains the exact same 14 elements.)

Job 20:4, “Knowest thou not this of old, since man was PLACED upon the earth?” Man didn't arrive through evolution. He was placed!

Job 32:8, “But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” Notice the contrast between man in this verse and animals in Ps 32:9. God made the difference from the beginning. Man didn't somewhere along the way “pick up” a spirit!

Job 33:4, “The SPIRIT OF GOD hath MADE me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.”

Ps 100:3, “Know ye that the Lord He is GOD: it is HE that hath MADE us, and not we ourselves....”

Ro 9:20, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to HIM that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus?”

Isa 43:7, “Even every one that is called by My Name: for I have created him for My glory, I have FORMED him; yea; I have MADE him.”

Isa 45:12, “I have MADE the earth, and CREATED MAN upon it: I, even My hands,. have stretched out the heavens, and all their hosts have I commanded.”

Ps 95:6, “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our MAKER.”

GOD CREATED HEAVEN AND EARTH

Ge 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

Ro 1:20, “For the invisible things of Him from the CREATION of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”

Joh 1:10, “He was in the world, and the world was MADE by Him, and the world knew Him not.” Isa 45:18, “For thus saith the Lord that CREATED the heavens; God Himself that FORMED the earth and MADE it; He hath established it; He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord, and there is none else.”

GOD CREATED EVERYTHING

Heb 3:4, “For every house is builded by some man; but He that built all things is God.”

Col 1:16, “For by Him were ALL THINGS CREATED, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: ALL THINGS WERE CREATED BY HIM, and for Him.”

Ac 17:24, “God that made the world and ALL THINGS therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.”

Re 4:11, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power, for Thou hast CREATED ALL THINGS, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.”

Re 10:6, “And sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who CREATED heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer.”

Ac 4:24, “And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and ALL that in them is.”

IN CONCLUSION

Science cannot prove evolution because it is not a fact. The Bible clearly teaches creation as you have just read. Please remember as you witness to a lost person, if the subject of evolution should come up, to answer it as quickly as possible and get back to the plan of salvation.