Darwinism and a Biblical Journey of Faith
Darwinian macroevolution might more accurately be labeled as the philosophical conjecture-of-the-gaps.
Line-up similarly related mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, or plants in sequential order in their respective groups, and no matter how closely similar they match, the gaps between each living thing in terms of physical characteristics, internal organs, behavior, molecular protein variance, and uniquely beneficial survival features…are distinct and discontinuous enough to support the exercise of a useful taxonomic, classification grouping system.
The historical term used to describe the distinct uniqueness of each living creature within a similar group is “typology”…that living things stay true to type…the immutable law of the inheritance of similar characteristics from parent to offspring.
If typology did not visibly predominate in the natural living world, there would be no clear differentiation between living creatures on which to base a system of classification, for use in the fields of comparative anatomy and taxonomy.
But the naturalistic scheme that would connect all living things using continuously unbroken graph-lines presupposing gradual development from common ancestors to radically branching new species evolving over long periods of time…called common descent…is entirely hypothetical, speculative conjecture.
This concept is broadly termed macroevolution…the idea that species can put out variant traits chosen by natural selection for enhanced survivability and thus reproductive advantage…that will over time change fish into amphibians, reptiles into birds, and primitive mammals in modern human beings.
Neither Darwin…at the time of the writing of his classic book On The Origin of Species…or any other evolutionist has ever produced empirical evidence for the existence of the radical changes required for macro evolution to occur.
Macro evolution is a philosophical extrapolation…an extension of microevolution.
Micro evolution is scientifically established and uncontroversial.
The horse series in the fossil record demonstrates microevolution…a gradually developing adaptive sequence of variant traits…remains for eons of time always horses and nothing but horses.
This is evidence for genetic variability to produce micro evolutionary adaptation to changing, ecological environments…through variant traits chosen through natural selection…which supports typology…not common descent.
The boundaries that define of the limits of genetic variability are evidenced in the human enterprise of artificial selection in the breeding of 125 different types of dogs…yet this also illustrates the strict constraints of typology in our inability to breed dogs that are as large as elephants…or to breed dogs into something else entirely.
The empirical facts about each living creature, no matter how similar or how different from other closely related creatures as classified by the human system of taxonomy, cannot justifiably be connected in a continuous series of gradual development without first articulating the hard empirical methodology of scientific fact-based evidence…of how a duck and an eagle can both come from a common ancestor, or on a more general level how a reptile can change into a bird, or how an amphibian can change into a fish or vice-versa, or how a small-sized, ancestral land mammal can change over time into an elephant or a hippopotamus.
A philosophical worldview does not normally take the place of factual scientific evidence when critical thinking is in play.
Pure speculative conjecture alone cannot be used as the filler-material between the discreet and discontinuous gaps separating living things…to hypothetically connect the dots…when there is no scientific reason to connect the dots…outside of the philosophy of naturalistic materialism that supposedly requires us to do so…and still credibly be labeled “science.”
Naturalism is already the commendable working hypothesis in all branches of science.
But naturalistic materialism…and scientific fact-based evidence…are not interchangeable in the hypothetical extrapolation of Darwinian micro evolution into macro evolution.
Discontinuous “types” based upon characteristic differences are still the criteria in-use today in modern taxonomy…as it was 160 years ago…because the hard scientific reality shows distinct mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and insects that do not blend together in overlapping, indistinguishable continuity in our present world…or in the historically ancient fossil record…unless we artificially piece them together using the intelligently designed program of common descent…like we piece together disparate images on to an art poster collage.
The idea that one species can radically change wholesale into another entirely different species…requires clear word definitions and the clearest of understanding.
Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands radiate over time into distinct types of finches, but they are still finches and they are still birds.
The genetic constraints on variability in Darwin’s finches…that validate the concept of typology in the natural living world…prevail.
The concept that all of the diversity in nature is connected by continuity…by common descent…must be supported by the strongest observational evidence. Scientific investigation must supply the empirical evidence for this notion.
After nearly 160 years of intensive research, it has not.
The discontinuity in nature observed by the leading naturalists and biologists prior to 1859, and the contrasting universal continuity required by any purely naturalistic scheme like Darwinian evolution, both differ at this fundamentally critical point of continuity or discontinuity.
Why is this important for Christians today?
Darwinian evolution would be easier to prove if it described a reality in nature that consisted of overlapping relationships that blurred the uniquely distinctive features of living things to the point of making taxonomy and comparative anatomy…a totally subjective exercise.
Just as continuity and discontinuity are at polar opposite ends of the spectrum, a biblical-quality journey of faith is discontinuous with worldly conventional thinking.
The same God who created animals and plants having uniquely distinctive features allowing for clear-cut, objective classification, also created God-composed journeys of faith that are divinely discontinuous with humanistic philosophies and man-made religions.
Borrowing from scientific terminology, a God-composed journey of faith is coherent and functionally integrated…in a world that has purpose and meaning.
Our innate, differing human abilities…like genetic variant traits put out for natural selection to choose…in a biblical-quality journey of faith are co-adapted to interact with life events and circumstances in a coherent manner.
By contrast, an autonomous, self-directed life is partially a random, trial-and-error search strategy that is dysfunctional…that veers off in a non-productive, distracting trajectory…in terms of our ultimate direction and purpose.
In this present age in history there are a multitude of career and personal options. Only our Creator God knows the one right, fulfilling life-script for each of us.
Darwinian evolution by random chance is the worst possible program as our guide to life. Our optimum life-course cannot be found by chance.
The narrative stories of faith recorded in the Bible are beyond human invention and contrivance to begin with, and are too complex and directional to be the result of random chance discovery.
They require the direct participation of God to imagine, initiate, orchestrate, and to finally bring to a positive outcome.
The Cross in the Christian Life 