The Failure of the Naturalistic View of Origins: Not Observable or Repeatable

When you look around, do you see evolution?  I don't.  I also don't see evidence of it.

Yesterday out evangelizing, two other men with me, I talked to a professing former Christian, who now claims to be an agnostic.  That he was agnostic wasn't surprising.  I talk to those about every week.  However, he claimed to have been a Christian, who went to Cal-Berkeley and left Christianity.  He said he "was" a Christian.  He said he "believed," past tense, in Jesus Christ.

In as nice a way possible, I challenged his former "belief," saying that he wasn't believing if he left the belief.  This is based upon scripture, where belief comes from.  I quoted 1 John 2:19 that if he was "of" believers, he would have no doubt continued with them, so that his departure manifested that he never was "of believers."  This is the teaching of the NT.  Someone is truly a disciple of Christ, a disciple indeed, if he continues.  If he does not continue, he never was.  That is in fact how you know, is through continuation.  When you leave, you prove you never were "of" and not truly a disciple.

With the above being said, what he said caused him to leave is the lack of evidence for Christianity.  I asked him what kind of evidence he would need to believe.  He wouldn't say.  Maybe he couldn't say.  I never said this to him, but based on scripture, just because someone doesn't like the evidence doesn't mean that there isn't enough.  God gives enough evidence for someone who will believe.  It's not intellectual problem, but a volitional one.

I told him there was a lot of evidence, documentary evidence, which is better than eyewitness testimony.  I told him about Peter in 2 Peter 1, who saw Christ on the mount of transfiguration, but said that prophesy was superior.  I said that 30 percent of the Bible is prophesy and all of them were fulfilled, the fulfillment accomplished after the prediction according to old manuscripts, like the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I brought up this being mathematical probability.  I gave him examples of fulfilled prophesy.

I also talked about the resurrection of Jesus, which was observed by 500 witnesses, who were still living in the Apostle Paul's day, when he wrote 1 Corinthians 15.  We have a bases for believing divine intervention, design, which is scientific.  It's just that it isn't allowed on the state school campuses.  Why is that?

He said the lack of evidence wasn't all, that he was a scientist.  My youngest daughter reminded me later when we headed back to the church building that very often when people say that they're scientists, I will answer right away, I'm a scientist too, and I do.  Actually, I think I'm one, but those saying they are scientists are in fact not.  He then said that today Roman Catholicism is at least evolutionist, but some kinds of Christians are anti-science.  I told him Christianity wasn't anti-science, that even the founders of modern science were almost all Christians and that Christianity was scientific.  The Bible says the world is round and teaches blood circulation, which wasn't accepted until modern times.

Then he said that he needs something observable and repeatable.  I said, you don't see evolution today.  There isn't evidence of evolution.  I told him there is on a micro level, but not a macro one, which is what evolution is talking about.  Micro can't be conflated to macro.  I know he knew what I meant, but I don't think that micro-evolution is even evolution.  When microbiological creatures evolve, they aren't a new species.  They've just adapted.

I mentioned the evidence of irreducible complexity and DNA.  These look like design.  Design is rejected, not because it is not scientific, but because it doesn't fit a presupposition.  We know that.  People don't want design to be true.  It's not that it isn't true. They just don't want it.  The rejection isn't scientific.

I also told him that there isn't evidence of evolution in the fossil record.  It isn't observable.  Accidents don't turn into progress.

What I was telling him is that we had science.  The Bible is 100% true.  Relying on scripture is the correct epistemology, because God's Word is pure, untainted.  You can depend on it.  This is very much like documentary evidence used in a court of law, rather than eyewitness testimony, because we can't trust our lying eyes.

Later, a young man with me, a member of our church, who just graduated from West Point, very intelligent, mentioned to me in exasperation with this man, that science is just a method, one that he wasn't depending on, because evolution isn't observable or repeatable.  Part of science, he continued, is an openness to challenge.  A part of science is the willingness for opposition to a proposed theory.  Present science isn't open to challenge.  It is a closed system, that is, unscientific, more in line with the dark ages and the inquisition.

I believe this man was convicted.  I believe it.  However, his rejection is rebellion against evidence, not a lack of evidence.  He wants to do what he wants to do, and he uses pseudo-science, so-called "science," to justify his rebellion.  It's tragic and destructive to and for him, and many like him.