Where is the Unique Accusation?

There is not a unique accusation that can be levied against Christianity to which evolution is immune. Additionally in some ironic twist, the accusations levied against Christianity are unanswerable apart from Christianity. To prove this we will look at three of the most common accusations that secular apologists levy against Christianity: Who invented God? Where did we come from? Why is there suffering?

Who Invented God?

This question is illogical as will be explained soon but what the asker is really asking is a prime mover argument. Something had to push over the first domino. Christianity, of course, claims that God is. The Bible opens with "In the beginning God." Exodus 3 continues this presupposition when God tells Moses to tell the people "I AM sent you." "TO BE sent you." These are claims of being, existence, but more importantly self-existence, dependent upon nothing. To ask who invented God is illogical because to be God necessitates non-dependence. If your definition of God is limited in any way then he would not be God. Whoever or whatever created would be before him, would be before him thus what you call god isn't God.

While materialists find the Bible's argument completely unacceptable they are stuck answering the same question. The acceptance of the material demands the fundamental question, where did the material world come from? Rupert Sheldrake in the preface to his work Morphic Resonance: The Nature of Formative Causation, quotes Terence McKenna, "Modern science is based on the principle: 'Give us one free miracle and we'll explain the rest.'" He then goes on to expound on what is required of that one miracle, "The one free miracle is the appearance of all the mass and energy in the universe and all the laws that govern it in a single instant from nothing."¹ Deriding Christianity's prime mover while requiring a miracle to explain evolution's prime move is logically inconsistent and is flatly hypocritical. Logically, they both have a Creator, but only one is willing to admit it.

Where did we come from?

Christianity clearly states that God created the universe and all that is in it. Yet, it does not end there, it states that we alone are unique amongst the material creation. We are in a sense, hybrids containing a physical body and a spiritual soul. Genesis 1:24 recounts, "So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good." According to its kind is important and Genesis 1 makes this statement ten times. The Hebrew word min means kind or species. Christianity claims that kinds or species reproduce, but only after their kind, or within their species.

Evolution on the other hand claims we are descended from apes. However, evolution does not end there. Evolution claims that if we rewound time far enough back, we could see the point of life's original origin, possibly in a primordial soup or a life-carrying comet. Thus, if you logically think about it, there aren't really any species, just continual gradual transitions of life pursuing an undirected and indiscriminate transition, many of which fail while occasionally others thrive. At what point in the incredibly gradual process can a species be considered no longer in its parent's species? It's illogical, but is this not what Charles Darwin said in his revolutionary work, On the Origin of Species, "all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before."² While this does add an ironic twist to his book's title. The conclusion is unavoidable given his argument. If you can't definitely say when one animal is a different species than its parent how can you claim the vast diversity we see in nature is of a different kind or species?

Returning to our question, where did man come from? Evolution cannot even claim the species of man exists or differentiated man from our predecessors's species, Christianity claims we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

Why is there suffering?

This argument is old, like real old, as in older than Christianity. A Greek philosopher named Epicurus posed this as a trilemma more than 2300 years ago. A trilemma is not to be confused with a dilemma which is a difficult situation that typically has two equally undesirable options. Epicurus' trilemma contains three equally undesirable options. In its most basic form it reads as:

1. Is God willing to prevent evil but unable to do so? Then he is not omnipotent.
2. Is God able to prevent evil but unwilling to do so? Then he is malevolent.
3. If God is both willing and able to prevent evil then why is there evil in the world?

It seems that taking a crack at Epicurus' trilemma is a right of passage for anyone that wishes to be a philosopher, everyone from David Hume to C.S. Lewis has taken a stab at it. Notre Dame's Alvin Plantinga published an excellent short book on it in God Freedom and Evil. But Richard Dawkins claims that "the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."³ To quote an actual philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche states of evolution, "that every stage of evolution possesses a special and incomparable happiness neither higher nor lower but simply its own. Evolution does not have happiness in view, but evolution and nothing else."⁴

It seems the biologist and the philosopher agree, evolution just is. To ask the question, why is there suffering, implies something is wrong. However, evolution claims things are what they are, there is no notion of good or evil, right or wrong, justice or injustice, thus the question, why is there suffering is either an invalid question or you must turn to Christianity for the answer. Christianity answers that all suffering, all injustice, all pain regardless of how small is a result of sin ... even human death itself.

Christianity states that Jesus, "though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:6-8). He did this to save us from suffering, injustice, pain, sin and death and he calls us to follow him. Meaning he calls us to humble ourselves just as he did. And to "do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Philippians 2:3-4).

Evolution calls for survival at any cost. Nietzsche also said, "Every will must consider every other will its equal—would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness."⁵

Please juxtapose these two positions as we ask why is there suffering. One position argues that something is very wrong and the Creator came to redeem and correct his creation. He calls us to humble ourselves and count others more significant than ourselves. To look after the interests of others. Meaning he called us to stop inflicting suffering. The other position claims that things are what they are, there is no good or evil, right or wrong. It claims that considering others equal would be, quote, "a principle hostile to life."

Christianity has not only a reason for the suffering but more importantly an answer to the suffering. Evolution denies it exists.

Who invented God? Where did we come from? Why is there suffering? Three questions we hear levied against Christianity all the time but it is actually Christianity that provides an answer.

FOOTNOTES