The Battle Over Origins: Is It Worth the Fight? Part 1

On February 15, through an opportunity provided to me from our pastor, I (David) was privileged to give a sermon titled "The Battle Over Origins: Is It Worth the Fight" looking at what the Bible teaches in regard to God's creation. It was borne out of a heart that was very troubled by the direction of many churches throughout this nation stating that evolutionary theory and the Holy Scriptures are compatible with one another. In fact, there has been a growing endorsement from churches that have come out in support of "The Clergy Letter Project", which makes the following claims:

"... the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children."

While we would agree that there is no contradiction between the facts of science and the truth of God's perfect Word, we stand in opposition to the notion that there is any way that the Word of God can be harmonized with a purely naturalistic interpretation predicated on death and suffering. We will uphold the clear teaching of the Bible that God is the great Creator and that it was sin that brought about the death that we see in the world today.

For this blog, the sermon will be partitioned in numerous sections each a part of their own separate post. Here is the first in this series of posts:

Introduction

The opening words of the Holy Bible read “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” While most Christians would agree that God is the Creator of the world, many of those same Christians are placing the opinions of men above the truth and authority of God’s Word. The question of origins is not a debate over science versus religion, as many have claimed—but is actually a debate of two very distinct and diametrically opposed worldviews. On the one hand is the worldview that upholds that the Bible is the ultimate authority, being perfect, without error, and the standard by which everything else in the entire universe is to be judged. On the other hand is the worldview that so-called scientific evidence as interpreted by man is able to judge the accuracy of the Word of God. There are even those in the Church who have attempted to blend these two opposing worldviews by claiming that there is no contradiction between evolutionary theory and the Bible through compromising the clear teaching of Scripture to accommodate academia’s popular view of the origin of the world.

As a consequence of the clash of the two opposing worldviews and the confusion that is being spread in the attempt to syncretize these worldviews, there are many questions that need to be answered, including the following:

1. Could God have used evolution over long periods of time starting with the simplest forms of life in order to bring about the diversity and complexity of the various species that we see in the world around us today?

2. Has science proven that there are errors in the Bible’s chronology in its account of the origin of the created cosmos—particularly in regard to the book of Genesis?

3. Is it enough to uphold the belief that God is the Creator of the time-space-matter continuum without adhering to a literal interpretation of Genesis?

4. What specifically does the Bible teach about the beginning of the created world?

In order to answer these questions, we will be looking to the inspired Holy Word of God to ensure that our thinking is set aright and that we are basing our conclusions on God’s truth and not on man’s fallible opinions. We know that God’s Word is always true and that we can stake everything on what is taught in Holy Scripture.