Tag: materialism

            Satan (Lucifer), like many of us today, thought he knew better than God. 

            Satan persists today in his rebellion against God because he thinks his destiny is to replace God.

            The error of sin in human nature is to insist upon being in complete control as junior gods sitting atop the thrones of our lives, a position that we are only partially qualified to occupy.

            This is where the “I will do this and I will do that,” self-serving, God-less attitude comes from. 

            By contrast, the example that Jesus sets for us with enormous personal difficulty in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the way that He opened up for us in life through His own painful death on the cross, is based upon the words: “nevertheless, notmy will, but thine, be done.”

            Satan and unregenerate mankind, by contrast, hate the idea of submitting themselves to the loving and unselfish rulership of God in their lives to such an extent that they will actually go to the extreme measure of attempting to kill God Himself to get rid of this idea. 

            When God willingly allowed Himself to be crucified through the Second Person of the Trinity, through Jesus the Son of God, He unmasked the truly evil character of the go-it-on-our-own-without-God approach to life. 

            Stubborn pride is that strong within self-autonomy.  It will refuse God any participation in our lives if this participation infringes even a little upon our own will and way. 

            This is why the world pushes Jesus Christ away.  This is why the gospel message of love and forgiveness is so inexplicably offensive to the world. 

            This is the central issue at the core of our existence.  When we are operating as our own god, atop the throne of our lives, we are lost (Jn. 8:24).

            This is the root cause behind humanity’s problems. 

            This issue cost Jesus Christ His life, on our behalf, through the cross.  It will likewise cost us death to our self-in-charge natures when we choose to follow Christ. 

            An essential part of becoming born-again in the Spirit is not only acknowledging Jesus Christ as Savior, but also restoring Him to His rightful position as Lord in our lives.  

            In the motion picture Ben Hur, staring Charlton Heston, toward the end of the movie Judah Ben Hur, his future wife Esther, and his mother and sister are sitting on the side of a long stairway as the condemned prisoner Jesus is ascending the steps carrying His cross. 

            Judah Ben Hur’s mother Miriam, and his sister, Tersa, both have contracted leprosy.  Esther had thought to bring the two women to hear Jesus preach, and thus give them the hope that there was a life after death, free of leprosy.  But instead of being able to listen to the teaching of Jesus as they had hoped, all four were surprised to find that Jesus had been tried, condemned, and sentenced to death by crucifixion. 

            As Jesus approached them carrying His cross, Esther asked in amazed astonishment “how can this be?’  How could the religious rulers in Jerusalem and the Roman authorities have condemned Jesus, a teacher of righteousness and the healer of so many people, to something as unthinkable as execution by Roman crucifixion? 

            At the cross is where the stark contrast between the vulgarities of human sin crashes up against the divine love of God. 

            Mankind at that moment was unwittingly displaying its own worst condition. 

            In open view, for all to see, was the futility of man’s wisdom and self-works when they exist apart from God, as mankind was performing the most embarrassing indignity possible in putting to death its own Creator.  Nothing remotely imaginable could be more wrong than this. 

            To God’s everlasting credit, this very same misguided and inexcusable action by the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and Roman rulers, was providing the means for salvation and eternal life to mankind through a divine atonement for man’s sins. 

            At that moment in history, the two opposing viewpoints and lifestyles available to all human beings through the freedom of choice…being self-autonomy apart from God leading to sin, and fellowship with God leading to holiness…violently crash with deadly impact against each other at the cross of Christ. 

            If ever there was a persuasive and clearly demonstrated argument for the wrongness of man going his own way apart from God, the cross is that argument. 

            Man’s actions on that day condemned not Jesus, who had done nothing wrong, but condemned the practice of a religion that conspires with a “civilized” Roman judicial system that can both be so far off-the-mark that they end up killing the God and Creator of the universe (Jn. 1:1-3). 

            If ever there was a well-stated, practically demonstrated argument for trusting and relying upon a capable and loving God to show us the correct approach to life, the cross is that argument. 

            Salvation, redemption, and a new resurrected life of love and peace is made possible by God through this enormous blunder by mankind in putting to death the Creator of life itself on a cross fashioned crudely out of two large, heavy pieces of wood and some metal spikes. 

            That God is intelligent and well-intentioned enough to take the worst action in all of human history, in all of eternity, and turn it right-side up into the very means to provide forgiveness, cleansing from sin, and re-birth into a new spiritual life of joy and peace, is something so sublimely powerful it may take a lifetime in heaven to comprehend and appreciate.

            On one side of the cross was the enormous tally of all of history’s offenses, misdeeds, sorrows, injustices, and shortcomings that are a result of fallen mankind going its own way apart from God. 

            On the other side was the contrasting approach of Jesus using surrender, faith, dependence, and reliance upon the Father’s and His own uniquely ingenious plan to cancel-out the weight of this massive debt of human sin (Rev. 13:8). 

            No wonder Jesus sweated great drops of blood when finally confronted with the insurmountable task of nullifying this great mass of self-centered rebellion, using only His own spotless and blemish-free life, and a lamb-like surrender and reliance upon the will of the Father. 

            No wonder Jesus had to return moments later to the same spot in the Garden of Gethsemane to pray a second time “more earnestly” (Lk. 22:44). 

            At the cross is where Christians must take their cue to venture-out on the path of faith and trust in God, to match the stories of the lives of people of faith as patterned in the Bible. 

            Self-autonomy, self-reliance, and self-direction are on the wrong side of the cross, in the territory of man-made religion, in the camp of the spiritually blind religious leaders and the worldly-minded Roman authorities who crucified Jesus.     

            C.S. Lewis said that we are not just imperfect people who need growth, but we are rebels who need to lay down our arms. 

            Laying down our arms occurs when we repent of our sins, recognize our need for God, and accept Jesus into our lives. 

            But this is not a one-time event at our Christian conversion.  The Christian life as a disciple involves a desire, a bend-of-the-heart toward daily surrender and yielding to God.  It involves placing Jesus Christ at the top of our priority list.  That is why Jesus said we have to pick up our cross daily (Lk. 9:23). 

            For the Christian disciple, the attitude of “I want to do things my way,” has to be crucified on the cross. 

            The calling of God for our lives, which displaces our own self-in-charge nature, establishes a Godly context, a clear set of goals, and a very specific arrangement of situations and circumstances.  This then fashions a path of faith within the course of our lives where the old rebel in us has increasingly more difficulty expressing itself. 

            A genuine walk of faith set-up by Jesus Christ creates constructive and positive things to do that lead to personal growth and ministry to others, absent the rebellion of self-sovereignty. 

            When Moses received his calling at the burning bush, and obediently set-off toward Egypt to deliver the Israelites, he began living in the non-rebel mode. 

            After Paul was converted on the road to Damascus, it was the action of following Jesus within this new context of being the missionary evangelist to the Gentile world, which enabled Paul to now live as a non-rebel. 

            When Jesus said to Peter in Luke 22:32, “And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren,” it is within the actual context of strengthening the newly born Christian church in Jerusalem that Peter is fulfilling his calling, in living as a non-rebel. 

            This is why the genuine gospel message of repentance, salvation, faith, trust, and transformation into a new person “in Christ” is so important.         The “truth that will set us free” is the life following Jesus in non-rebellion to His leading. 

            This is why we follow a crucified and resurrected Son of God. 

            The will and way of Jesus was crucified to the will of God the Father, in the Garden of Gethsemane and at Calvary, for the benefit of all of mankind. 

            Jesus went before us in this regard.  The fact that Jesus Himself was without sin, tells us that the way of the cross is perfect. 

            This is one of the key character attributes which qualifies Jesus to be our leader.  We learn daily how to “lay down our arms” and become a non-rebel, in terms of our relationship with God, by following the sinless, perfect non-rebel in this regard…Jesus Christ. 

            Every born-again Christian can examine themselves as to who is in charge in their lives, self or Jesus Christ. 

            Every Christian can enter into their personal “prayer closet”, get on their knees, lift their arms up to God, and ask God to assume a greater role in their lives. 

            Every Christian can ask God in prayer to open-up our spiritual eyes, and unclog our spiritual ears, so that we can see and hear God better in the specific ways that God would like to lead us.  

            If it is possible for God to weep in heaven, this is the type of sincere request from His saints that will probably bring tears of heartfelt joy to God’s eyes. 

            Our walk of faith, our purchase of the knowledge of good and evil through a God-composed journey of faith life-script, means that much to God. 

            Jesus died and rose again that we might have an abundant life through this living journey of faith now and forever.

            Modern scientific investigation was alwaysgoingto arrive at a point in timewhen it reached the inescapable recognition of the need for a Designing Intelligent Agent.

            The organized complexity of the information content now reveals scientifically an architectural and engineering Artisan of incomparable precision at the highest standards of craftsmanship. 

            This Artisan has complete mastery of the database of information to create everything material and non-material in existence in the universe, because He Himself created all of this information.

            Because the natural world was always this complexstarting at the Big Bang creation of the universe 13.7-billion years ago and the formation of our planet earth 4.5-billion years ago, this paradigm-changing epiphany was waiting all this time for human scientific discovery to catch-up. 

            The functional coherence of organized complexity now points to intelligent design as the only remaining plausible option. 

            Not everyone will become PhD scientists, able to navigate through the technical facts spanning several disciplines of research, now supporting design and thus agency in nature.  

            Not everyone has a college degree in philosophy, able to parse the subtle arguments for and against theism and atheism.

            Winning a consensus that favors design in today’s scientific and philosophical communities, thereby rejecting the atheistic version of materialism, would be without question a monumental event in human history.

            But the discovery by modern science of the inescapable presence of design in the natural world, based upon a fuller understanding and appreciation of information in this new Age of Information, and thus the existence of an intelligent designer God expands a million-fold when filtered through the biblical narrative stories of faith. 

            Making a compelling argument to the general populace that a faith-journey following the perfectly precise and accurate God of the Bible as the one true worldview narrative excluding all others (Mt. 7:13-14; Jn. 11:25, 14:6) is a bottom-line conclusion immerging from both science and Christian living today.

            As Abraham receives his calling in the city of Haran and travels south to Canaan, with each step he takes God is displacing the conventional life he would have otherwise lived in Haran with an extraordinary life-script Abraham could not have dreamed-up in his wildest imagination.

            Displacing our ways with His higher ways is boldly presumptuous and to borrow the British expression “cheeky” of the God of the Bible, to think He knows better than we do in this area of moral values and optimized destiny for human lives.

            But this is precisely what we see in the biblical narrative stories of faith, buttressed now by the modern-day discoveries that the Creator of the physical universe knows what He is doing beyond anything we previously could have imagined.

            This is where confidence in the Creator of the universe connects with confidence in the God of the Bible, who can compose life-scripts for believers today that have genuine purpose and meaning.

            The final end-point purpose of the scientific researchepiphany in nature of the existence of a Designing Agent, having the foresight to capably marshal all of the varied components needed to fashion this functional universe, can rightfully then make the logical connection to validate this same high competence of the God of the Bible in composing journeys of faith life-scripts.

            In my opinion, the timeless God of the Bible knew full well that Darwinian macroevolutionary theory would eventually fail, given further human scientific investigation.

            The exploration into the theory of evolution as the explanatory mechanism for the vast diversity of life was a worthwhile endeavor…it was a good try…it had to be fully investigated through human scientific discovery.

            From the perspective of Charles Darwin in 1859, the extrapolation from microevolution to macroevolution “had legs.”  It appeared to be able to take us somewhere as he pondered the variant traits being put-out as genetic mutations in the finches living on the 13 islands of the Galapagos Archipelago.

            But Darwin did not know about the hydrogen atom that has one and only one proton in its nucleus, which exhibits a well-defined essence that differentiates it from a helium atom that has two protons.

            There are no one-and-a-half protons as transitional intermediates between a hydrogen atom and a helium atom.

            All of the fundamental elements in the Periodic Table have a whole number of protons in their nucleus, without fractional intermediates.

            Certainly, the movements of plate tectonics that formed Mount Everest occurred over a long and gradual period of time.  But Mount Everest was always a mountain.  Mount Everest was never a river, a cloud in the sky, or a tree-forest.

            An elephant is not a giraffe.  A lion is not a cheetah.  A modern human is much different than a modern ape.

            Gradualism is not prolific in the natural world.

            Darwin’s finches are not in transition towards becoming something else.

            Darwin’s recognition of microevolution at the time was insightfully brilliant, but his theoretical extrapolation to macroevolution using genetic mutation and natural selection was in error because the database of facts he was working with was premature by at least 100 years. 

            The divinely timeless God of the Bible also knows that the worldview of materialism will also fail in the areas of science, philosophy, ethics, culture, and for many people in the court of public opinion.

            Modern science now or in the very near future will reach the point of the inescapable conclusion that our natural world has its origin and maintenance through an intelligent designing agent.

            Then our decision to reject God will not be based upon science, but based rather upon the more fundamental and timeless question of who is capably in-charge regarding the broad course and destiny of our lives…ourselves or God.

            This lifts Christian faith today in the living God of the Bible way above science in relative importance, turning on its head the modern materialistic idea that the factual empiricism of science takes precedence over biblical faith in God’s leadership knowledge and abilities, regarding the ultimate purpose and meaning in life now and for all eternity.

            Scientific investigation and the biblical narrative stories of faith exhibit the same high-quality of purpose-driven intensity in their search for truth, although they use different methods of research.

            These two different methods of research should not cloud the parallel commonality between science and biblically defined faith (Heb. 11:1; Prov. 3:5-6), which upon closer scrutiny reveals human nature at its highest and best[1], in the two complementary areas of the pursuit of factual knowledge and moral judgment.

Random and Undirected Serendipity Will Not Reach Function

            Finally, the entire edifice of Darwinism applied to biology is built upon a faulty foundation.

            Darwinism is bult upon the idea that chance over time will find truth, that random and undirected events will reach function.

            But the natural world is fixed, settled, and determinate, in that we study the laws of physics and chemistry in action and then modify our views to match reality.

            The natural world does not change to suit us.

            If the scientific method tells us anything, it tells us that the truth inherent in the natural world is there for us to discover and to the best of our abilities work with it to our benefit.

            But such things as the speed of light, the force of gravity, and the expansion rate of the universe are beyond our ability to change if we thought we could do better and improve upon them.

            If we could change the rotation speed of the earth, would a shorter or a longer day/night duration be more optimum than the 24-hour period now?

            Darwinism assumes an uncertain, not yet settled, unknown, and indeterminate reality in flux in the natural world, of progress moving slowly in a positive direction towards some future improved-upon function.

            But modern science in the 21^st-century tells us plainly that the truth of the physics, chemistry, and mathematics of the physical universe were fixed and settled-upon early in the age of the universe.

            When we observe ever-increasing complexity in the architectural body-plans and lifestyle habits of living organisms over the vast geological history of the earth, there must be another explanation other than the indeterminate, random, and undirected causes theorized through Darwinian evolution.

            Otherwise, the truth underlying function in the natural world is thrown haphazardly up into the air and is governed by the serendipitous happenstance of blind chance.

            Genetic mutations generated by random chance, producing variant physical traits chosen through natural selection for enhanced survivability and reproduction, is the engine that drives Darwinian evolution.

            If science is the search for truth, then the indeterminate relativism of blind chance is emphatically not the reality we observe in the natural world.

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[1] “How did we miss this?”  Podcast streamed live on You Tube interview “The Jesus Effect” of J. Warner Wallace on his book Person of Interest, published on Mike Winger, Dec. 20, 2021.

            Moravec’s Paradox makes the insightful observation that because modern machines can perform complex calculations like finding the square-root of 3,492 in a spit-second, we naturally make the incorrect assumption that machines can also perform “simple” functions that a one-year-old child can do.

            A one-year-old child giggles and laughs when I play “peek-a-boo” by taking my hand away from covering my face and saying “peek-a-boo!” then putting back my hand to cover my smiling face.

            A young child instantly grasps the nature of this game.

            But this is many times more complex in the individual instructions that must be broken-down for a machine to duplicate this same child’s game…to even begin to approach a smiling face and cheerful voice that could elicit laughter from a child.

            The one-year-old sitting on the floor building a small tower using square wooden blocks is an activity that seemingly is so simple that a child can do it.  Yet for a machine this child’s play is many times more complex, requiring the computer code-language instructions that must be programmed into the machine involving the concepts of the recognition, grasping, positioning, balancing, and not knocking over the other blocks as the tower is built.

            Humans have roughly 100 different nerve cell-types[1], billions of neural networks, and trillions of neural network connections inside the limited cranial volume of the mind/brain.[2]

            If we theoretically attempt to manufacture an Agatha Christie machine robot that can artistically create bestselling murder mystery books, we would have to produce the same high-level independence of yes/no decision-making. 

            A human-like machine using artificial intelligence would have to be able to create the physical context for a child to correctly recognize that “peek-a-boo” is a humorous game, and equally difficult for an Agatha Christie machine robot to differentiate that some brilliant storyline plots create spellbinding suspense, but an infinite number of alternate, less brilliant plotlines do not.

Housing Construction and Debugging

            An interesting aspect that is part of the career of building construction that I worked in, is that houses are too large in size to be fully assembled in one central, factory location and then shipped to their individual building sites.

            This means that the debugging that can occur on the mass-production assembly-line during the initial trial-run phase, to get the manufacturing of each identical product assembled in the most efficient and cost-effective way, cannot be utilized in new housing construction because of this inhibiting factor of large size.

            Everyone knows in new building construction that the architects, engineers, and interior designers cannot invest the time to produce perfect design plans and still economically make a profit.  

            Every new building construction project, starting with the smallest size house (two-bedroom/two-bath), must individually debug the problems and mistakes onsite as they arise, that otherwise would be identified and corrected in-mass through upfront, initial trial-runs that are the normal process for identical products being manufactured in large numbers on mass-production assembly-lines.

            The key point here is that the issues and problems discovered as they arise unexpected during the various phases of the new housing construction, can beneficially be pushed backwards in time on mass-production assembly-lines to the highly condensed, upfront, trial-run phase…because the products can be shipped after they are fully assembled.

            This vital feature eliminates the respond-in-the-reactive-mode, daily occurrence in housing construction of “putting-out fires” as unexpected and unanticipated problems are unearthed as each new phase of the work materializes…which otherwise would be unacceptable on a daily basis in mass-production manufacturing.

            Extending this concept to the creation of the universe at the Big Bang, how difficult would it be to manufacture an essentially error-free physical universe without the benefit of a trial-run?

            The speed of light generated at the Big Bang has one optimum numerical value, but has an infinity of possible “no” choices that were deliberately rejected at time t=0.

            The force of gravity generated at the Big Bang has one very specific value that coordinates and integrates within an accompanying suite of other mathematical constants and values in the cosmos, with an infinity of possible “no” choices that appear to be deliberately rejected according to recognizable, upfront intention…again at time t=0.

            The expansion rate of the universe generated at the Big Bang has one fine-tuned value that enables other realities to compliment and coalesce into a universe that supports complex life like ourselves. 

            This expansion rate appears to have no conceivable trial-run debugging phase to achieve error-free function, popping-out at the Big Bang at time t=0.

            Murder mystery stories can go in enumerable directions, some of which produce timeless bestsellers and some that do not.

            Quantum mechanics now tells us that mathematics can be constrained upfront to limit the solutions coming out of a wave function to enable a universe like ours to pop-out of non-material mathematics into a physical world, at the first moments of the Big Bang.

            This requires a Mathematical Physicist in existence prior to the creation of time to put-in the required constraints into the quantum physics equation to actualize a functional universe like this one.[3]

            This moderating discretion of choice-making between function reveals “yes” options and “no” rejections that could otherwise have created a life-prohibitive universe.

            According now to the most recent science this intelligent choice-making had to be in existence before the Big Bang creation of space and time, putting-in the necessary constraints into the quantum mechanics of the mathematical wave-function equation even before there was such a physical reality of quantum mechanics.

            The limitations of large size imposed upon the pursuit of mistake-free efficiency in new housing construction reveals that the foresight of human designers to imagine final outcomes on paper that materialize into physical buildings, still lacks the quality of divinely timeless foresight that could eliminate upfront every crash and collision of building elements competing for the same space.

            These crashes and collisions are commonly resolved daily on every new mass-production assembly-line having the feature of an initial, trial-run debugging phase.

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[1] On the Origin of Phyla—Interviews with Dr. James Valentine, by Access Research Network, published on Oct. 22, 2014, on You Tube.

[2] Moravec’s Paradox – Why are machines so smart, yet so dumb? On Up and Atom published July 8, 2019

[3] The Return of the God Hypothesis: Interview with Stephen Meyer with Dr. Sean McDowell, May 13, 2020 on You Tube.

            Newly introduced organisms fit-in right away

            One theme put forward in these blogs is that the ever-increasing complexity that has produced the vast diversity of life-forms we see today, is always introducing living organisms that are at the perfected edge of specified refinement.  

            What is staring us in the face, when we look at biology, is the reality that human designed and manufactured products are always complete and functional at the forward edge of specified, refined completion for their intended use.

            Human agency universally produces functionally complete objects, from fully cooked, baked lasagna at our favorite Italian restaurant, to a bicycle that has two wheels, to a new automobile that has brakes, to computer software programs that are debugged and operational, and to completed murder mystery books that are spell-checked and edited for good grammar.

            We do not see in the vast diversity of life today any organisms that are in major transitional development part-way towards some future outcome going from barely functional to more functional to completely functional. 

            We presently do not see works-in-progress other than the things that have dynamic change as part of their defining nature, such as the formation of deltas where rivers meet the sea, the erosion of geography due to wind, rain, snow, and ice, the eventual shrinkage and cooling of our sun, and the continued expansion of the universe.

            We do not see dynamic change as the universally prolific paradigm of development in the natural living and non-living world.

            Applying Charles Lyell’s dictum of using the present to interpret the past in the historical sciences like geology, this present-day evidence then tells us that living organisms enter into existence with specified, refined maturity at the forward edge of their conceptual essence. 

            Living organisms enter into the world functionally complete enough to fit into their biodiverse and ecologically balanced niches, to be able to survive and to reproduce “right-out-of-the-box, no assembly tools required.”

            Modern science tells us that the proverbial watch we find on the beach that points towards the existence of a watchmaker, is not a quarter or half completed watch, but a fully completed watch at the end-point of its functionally defined essence.

            If the scientific fact-based evidence of embryonic development exhibits directional aim towards sustainable, fully mature function in living organisms at the molecular level, then this line of thinking is in direct contrast to the simple-to-complex ideology of random and undirected processes applied to biology.

            This is a key departure from the “nature makes no sudden leaps” concept proposed by Charles Darwin in 1859.

            The concept of blocks of different new cell-types introduced in grouped clusters enables immediate function in new architectural body-plans capable of integrating into the complexity of the current biodiversity and ecology of a particular era.

            This then harmonizes with the leaps of development from bi-pedal, upright walking pre-human ancestors 4 to 7-million years ago, to the near vertical spike upward of the human capacity from the first appearance of a letter alphabet in Egypt around 3,200 B.C. to humans walking on the moon in 1969.

            If the Darwinian concept that “nature makes no sudden leaps” is false, if the true reality is that development occurs at the mature end-points of function as the result of massive inputs of information at the molecular level inside living cells, then the current controversy over the clear absence of a gradual linear progression from pre-humans to modern humans is resolved.

            The differences between Australopithecus (4-7 million years ago), Homo habilis (2-million years ago), Homo erectus (1.8-million years ago), Cro-Magnon man (being early Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago), and modern humans can more plausibly be explained by the additions of new blocks of cell-types in clusters, to produce improved development and function.

            This then resolves the ideological rift between naturalistic materialism and intelligent design currently being debated within the realms of philosophy, theology, and science.

            This is discussed more fully in the chapter Human Development and Evolution. 

            I see the transitional leaps of early life at 3.8-billion years ago from the single-cell bacteria to multi-cellular algae floating on top of the oceans, to the Precambrian jellyfish having 10 to 12 new and different cell-types, to the radiation of new creatures with architectural body-plans having 30 to 40 different cell-types during the Cambrian Explosion at 535-million years ago…as increasing complexity throughout geologic history to our present day.

            This is always occurring at the guided and directed level of putting-out functionally mature organisms able to adapt and survive at the first moments of their introduction, factoring-in the genetic mutations that also over time put-out beneficial variant traits to be chosen by natural selection to enhance adaptation to changing environments.

            This non-Darwinian thinking encompasses large jumps of development tied to the introduction of a coordinated ensemble of new cell-types to achieve immediate function. 

            These large jumps of development arise from the abstract informational concepts of living organisms into their actualized material expression, altogether bypassing transitional, trial-and-error intermediates. 

            This is empirically the fact-based evidence in the fossil record and what we observe today in the natural world.[1]

            This non-Darwinian approach requires the intentionalrelease of well-timed, physical expressions of information that consistently produce fully functional living organisms. 

            These strategically released inputs of information come from within living cells that could not plausibly be explained through an accidental, trial-and-error, small-step progression over long stretches of time that would be easily detectable as on-going today to molecular biochemists.

            We see in this present “miracle” of information in living cells the use of material molecular mechanisms to build and accurately position the different cell types in architectural body-plans to create such diverse organisms as hawks, spiders, sea crabs, whales, wolves, and humans. 

            We see the same quality of actualized information that produces the distinctive architectural body-plan of the African bull elephant and the instinctual lifestyle habit of its intimidating full-speed charge. 

            If all of the artistic, creative information resides in the living cell, if all of the work takes place molecularly to produce functional living organisms before they make their grand entrance onto the stage of the living world, this then reduces the Darwinian model of mutation/selection to the more limited minor role of pre-engineered, microevolutionary variability adaptable to changing environments.

            It is inconceivable that Agatha Christie would sit in front of her typewriter or laptop computer and randomly hit the keys with her eyes closed and her mind on other things, hoping through a trial-and-error, accidental process that she could produce complex and highly specified information arranged in the form of a classic murder mystery who-done-it story.   

            It is inconceivable that the complex and highly specified information we find being coordinated and integrated inside living cells towards functional end-point outcomes could be the product of mindless and undirected processes.

            Darwin’s initial extrapolation in 1859 from microevolution to macroevolution in his book The Origin of Species as an explanation for the vast diversity of life on earth, is no longer plausible in this new Age of Information because incremental, trial-and-error gradualism as the means to produce complex and specified systems of information does not work.[2]

            The physical universe requires a timeless creator.

            Darwin’s fundamental condition that nature makes no sudden leaps locks his theory into the materialistic dynamic of change over time, which no longer works when applied to the complexity we find in the living world.

            But a timeless, Spirit-Being God can input the new information or turn-on a gene regulatory network switch to release 5, 10, or 20 new and different cell-types together to produce new architectural body-plans in time t=0.

            This can be represented by a “width-less”[3] vertical line on the two-dimensional x/y-graph of change (vertical axis) over time (horizontal axis) over the course of geological history.

            We do not have a PBS documentary, video recording of Agatha Christie composing her murder mystery book And Then There Was None.

            I never personally met Agatha Christie.  For all I know, she could be a divinely timeless God who produces her books in a split-second, or she could be a normal human being taking 6-months to write each book.  The physical, end-result product today would look the same either way.

            Common descent in biology can be true without utilizing Darwin’s model of small, incrementally progressive steps fueled by random and accidental serendipity.

            Common descent can simply have another and better explanation, being a divinely timeless God inputting massive infusions of information at various points in time, represented by “width-less” vertical lines on the two-dimensional x/y-graph, these lines having zero-time durations.

            For a brilliant and up-to-date, 35-minute refutation of Darwinian evolution see Gunter Bechly Explains What The Fossil Evidence Really Says, hosted by Discovery Science, published November 23, 2021 on You Tube.

            This is how true science operates.  New, more correct information surfaces to clarify or replace earlier theoretical hypotheses with better explanatory hypotheses.

            Science can be roughly defined as the elimination of possibilities.  Scientific investigation has dispelled “old-wives” tales, magic, superstition, and wild speculation regarding the causes of phenomena in the natural world.

            These are some of the key questions in our current modern age, as Christian faith and the investigative field of science begin to coalesce from different angles to reach some final answers.

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[1] Fossil Discontinuities: Refutation of Darwinism & Confirmation of Intelligent Design—Gunter Bechly, published Oct. 11, 2018 on You Tube by FOCLOnline.

[2] Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Chevy Chase: Adler & Adler, 1985), 308-325. 

[3] See on the Internet Moravec’s Paradox – Why are machines so smart, yet so dumb? On Up and Atom published July 8, 2019, and The Essence of Calculus, sections one and two, describing change over time and the concept of limits, in 3Blue 1 Brown.

            The present is the key to understanding the past.

               The great geologist Charles Lyell in the 1820’s provided the general methodology for doing research in what are now called the historical sciences.  This involves making reasonably accurate inferences about the past by studying what occurs in the natural world today. 

            Times past are not accessible to direct observation except from photographs, audio recordings, motion pictures, and by peering into deep outer space through a telescope of past events that occurred millions or billions of years ago in the distant universe.

            The present-day understanding of molecular biochemistry is due in large part to the unraveling of DNA through the ten-year long Human Genome Project.

            Complimentary advancements in computers and computer programs over this same period now enable biochemists to study in living cells what are called developmental gene regulatory networks (DGRNs). 

            These DGRNs, along with other epigenetic factors (factors other than DNA) instruct the molecular machines inside cells to assemble different cell-types and then tells them specifically where to go in the developing embryos of tens of millions of living species. 

This then produces such diverse organisms as elephants, lions, hawks, the common housefly, and human beings.

            The material properties of the typewriter keys, the ink ribbon, and the sheets of paper that translate the abstract creative storytelling from the mind of the book writer into the physical medium of paper and ink, is an easily understood reality today. 

This is closely analogous to the translating of the abstract creative information from the genetic code in DNA into the material flesh-and-bones of living organisms.

            Scientists correctly study the material mechanics of the processes taking place inside living cells. 

            Using Charles Lyell’s methodology for the historical sciences, we can now make reasonably accurate inferences going back in time regarding the increasing complexity of life-forms on earth following the gradually linear addition of differing new cell-types. 

            These new and different cell-types support increasingly more complex architectural body-plans[1].

            But in the same way that the physics and chemistry of how ink bonds to paper will not explain the inspired artistic creation of the fictional murder mystery story itself, a complete understanding of the nanotechnology occurring within living cells will not explain the creation of the material parts of flesh-and-bones coordinating together into the functional coherence of an architectural body-plan.

            Understanding the material mechanics of the molecular nanotechnology in the cell will not explain the adult instinctual lifestyle habits of a charging African bull elephant chasing lions away from a watering hole.

            Developmental gene regulatory networks and epigenetic factors now tell us how different cell-types are constructed on-schedule and in the proper sequence from the DNA code, and then sent-off to their specific xyz-coordinate locations in their unique body-plans, during embryonic development. 

            But there is also another source of information that matches flesh and bones with extremely fine-tuned lifestyle habits. 

This other information specifies for successful function within differing past geological eras, within the interrelated biodiversity of predator/prey relationships, and within the unimaginable complexity of diverse ecosystems. 

This might be compared to the sophisticated blend of physical reactions and mental acuities to be able to safely navigate driving an automobile on the freeways of Southern California.

            Like Charles Lyell’s program of studying the present to understand the past in geology, we now today have a large part of the understanding of the molecular biochemical processes in living organisms that can be extrapolated back in time to help unravel the mystery of how we arrived at the vast diversity of life today.

            During a particular season every year in Africa functional baby elephants are born.  This is just one amongst enumerable examples of the present-day life-forms we can scientifically study, working backwards through the embryonic development phase to chromosomes, DNA, and physical traits.

            In other words, science today has an enormous sample-size of finished products in the form of ten-million living species types to study. 

            This allows molecular biochemists to work in reverse through the complex architectural body-plans and lifestyle habits of mature functioning organisms, to be able to track the progressive trajectory of the initial genetic information contained in the paired chromosomes of the male and female parents from developing embryo to mature adulthood.

            In plain language, we know that the material mechanisms in operation inside living cells can take abstract creative information and translate it into actual organisms that can grow, survive, and reproduce, because we see these varied and diverse life-forms all around us in live-action.

            The challenge since Darwin in the scientific field of biology is to figure-out how this all works.

            But the worldview of scientific materialism that attempts to reduce the charge of a full-grown African bull elephant to its flesh and bones material parts is as illogically nonsensical as saying that the book And Then There Were None can write itself.

            The reality of the universe is too rich to be the product of purely materialistic causations.

            Science cannot exclude agency and still attempt to reach full explanation. 

            Mass/energy is not a sensible substitution for agency in the creation of information.  The creative origin of information cannot be reduced by narrow ideology to material mass/energy causations alone.

            One of the themes of this book is that no matter where the current research in the field of molecular biochemistry finally lands in terms of a more complete understanding of the material mechanismsin living cells, the complexity of these molecular systems has already left the mindless and undirected program of naturalistic materialism miles behind.

            Intelligent agency is required at the front-end to furnish the complex and specified information needed inside living cells to produce over time the vast diversity of material life we see in the natural world. 

            This information is also required to produce the abstract and intangible end-point functions that differentiate between the instinctual lifestyle habits of an elephant, lion, leopard, cheetah, zebra, wildebeest, water buffalo, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and giraffe…to name some of the large mammals in Africa.

            This is similar to the distinct and discrete information expressed through differing literary genres.

            Returning to Agatha Christie producing purely abstract information at the front-end of the story-writing process, this creative information then morphs through the required transitional phase of the material mediums of ink, paper, and the finished print form into a physical book. 

            But then this same information expresses itself to the book reader as again the creative storyline of the murder mystery that Agatha Christie purposely intended, as the intelligent designing agent.

            One contention made by Christian theists today is that the God of the Bible introduced all of the material mass/energy and the non-material laws of physics, chemistry, and mathematics in the first split-seconds of the creation of the universe at the Big Bang. 

            The creativity behind the incredible functionality of the force of gravity, the speed of light, and the expansion rate of the universe…to my thinking is also therefore capable of inputting all of the genetic information, the assembly instructions, and the timetable schedules of unfolding complexity released inside living cells, to produce the remarkable material mechanisms now being studied by molecular biochemists.

            I need to say here at the outset of this book that I am not a theistic evolutionist, and I am not a deist.  I am an old-earth, day/age creationist. 

            Having worked in building construction as a career, I am skeptical of complex things falling into place on their own. 

            This would then especially apply to living organisms that must be up-and-running with operational function in-place within the narrow demands of ecological and biodiverse niches, entering into life in the “fast-lane” at the leading-edge of their well-defined essences just to be able to grow to adulthood, survive, and to reproduce.

            To my thinking, the informational package within living cells beginning 3.8-billion years ago has the preprogrammed agenda to pump-out increasing complexity starting with the single-cell bacteria, by adding new and different blocks of cell-types in grouped clusters over time, to support new and innovative architectural body-plans.

            But the addition of new and different blocks of cell-types in grouped clusters to produce incremental steps of mature function, cannot occur through Darwinian macroevolution, but requires a designing agent possessing targeted foresight.

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[1] On the Origin of Phyla—Interviews with Dr. James Valentine, by Access Research Network, published on Oct. 22, 2014, on You Tube.