While the typical visitor to the Creation Museum is a Christian who probably already believes in creation, we do get visitors who are highly skeptical of creation and the Bible. This year, I had the opportunity to conduct a special workshop at the museum for about 50 students and their teachers involved in a class on evolution at Ohio State University. They were respectful and attentive, but most were clearly disinclined to consider even the possibility of creation. They seemed absolutely and unalterably convinced that random genetic change and natural selection explain the chance origin of everything in the biosphere.
I apparently failed to dissuade them of their views by pointing out the statistical improbability of evolution or the logical weaknesses of evolutionary claims and assumptions. They didn’t seem particularly impressed when I described the profound integrated complexity of various organs of our body. They didn’t even bother to challenge my claim that evolution contributes nothing to the understanding and advancement of empirical science. Evolutionism was their worldview, and I doubt any scientific arguments are likely to change this.
How, we might ask, can these bright young students and their teachers be so absolutely certain that unguided and goalless natural processes have produced everything in the cosmos? The answer is quite simple and can be summed up in two words: how else? After all, there can be no more compelling evidence for something than to be convinced there is no other way. Thus, if one is dead certain that everything that is real is material (matter, energy, time and space), then what other explanation for the origin of the cosmos and the biosphere is there than it all just happened by the intrinsic properties of nature? Since creation involves divine intervention and thus is not a purely naturalistic process, the very possibility of its occurrence is out of the question for the materialist.
I wasn’t surprised by the sort of questions I got from the group, but I was a bit surprised by one of their claims. It appeared to be a widely held opinion among them that evolution is completely compatible with Christianity. This gave me the opportunity to briefly compare and contrast the essence of evolutionism with the essence of biblical Christianity. I explained to them how Christianity critically depends on the real history of both the first Adam and the second Adam. I told them how Adam’s fall into sin led to suffering and death and how our salvation was achieved through the redemptive work of Christ. I concluded that any worldview that makes death both natural and permanent fundamentally undermines the very essence of Christianity.
I wish I could tell you of a mass conversion after my brief testimony, but such was not the case. Rather, they explained to me that the compatibility of evolution and Christianity should be obvious to anyone who understands that the Bible was written by pre-scientific people and is thus a collection of myths that should not be confused with science (i.e., evolution). They seemed puzzled that some Christians don’t understand this. They pointed out with great satisfaction all the Christians who do understand that the Bible is a book of myths. Didn’t I see, they asked, that once Christians understand that Christianity is just one of thousands of religions that have stemmed from the imagination of man, it removes all conflict between Christianity and evolution? What a terrible price to pay for compatibility!
