What we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. —Werner Heisenberg
The above words were written by quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg, the German 1932 Nobel Prize winner whose work first shifted the world of science from focusing on the incomplete study of old quantum theory to modern quantum mechanics. Though his role in Adolf Hitler’s regime has made him the subject of some controversy (he was appalled by Hitler’s Aryan race dogmas and despised the political maneuverings of the madman against Heisenberg’s fellow Jewish university academics, but he remained dedicated to science in a day when such dedication would brand one as compliant to the Führer’s agenda), nobody can question that Heisenberg was one of the most brilliant minds in human history.
Heisenberg’s famous quote makes a fundamental, as well as a radical, law of the universe stand out: We finite humans view the workings of nature and our planet with a limited perspective. The more we observe and test from that incomplete perspective, the more we render scientific theories that cement themselves in the related fields of research as the supreme truth by which all other observations will be compared. But even the greatest and most impressive of all these “laws” we establish about the universe are still subject to our own methods of questioning and examination and are, therefore, flawed.
I share this early on to express one major element of my study throughout this series partly based on the book Before Genesis: Though I do believe science is a necessary part of the human journey in unpacking the mysteries of the universe, I admit that, at any moment, crucial information could be updated in our research databases across the world that uproots all we think we know about a topic today, replacing it with better science tomorrow. But all we can do as finite humans is work with the knowledge we have now, so I write with that in mind, respecting sciences that have been deemed empirical for the moment.
But, to address the fattest elephant in the room right away so most Christian readers can breathe a sigh of relief and hopefully lower any defensive walls they’ve raised in anticipation of my potentially stripping God of His creative role in the universe, let me also say this: In no way does this series endorse the platform of evolution that proposes anything in the cosmos came about randomly, by accident, by coincidence, or from any other approach that renders us all a result of a glorified cosmic sneeze or merely the fortuitous side effect of primordial soup. Nor does this series and the book it is partly based on rest on a Deist (or equivalent) position that views God as having wound the clock and sat back to watch it tick on its own.
This planet and every living thing on it found their origin in a loving Father who has a precise purpose for each of His creations. If not even a sparrow can fall to the ground that He doesn’t know about (Matthew 10:29–31)—and if even the lilies of the field that seem inconsequential are so important to God that He has gone out of His way to dress them in beauty rivalling even that of Solomon’s royal splendor (Matthew 6:28–29)—then we know God is aware of, and involved in, the formation of, and plan for, all creatures great and small.
Chuck Missler, one of SkyWatch Television and Defender Publishing’s dearest friends who has now gone to be with the Lord, was an astounding philosopher, theologian, and quantum physicist. Before he passed on, he released a twenty-four-session video collection (each session is about an hour and a half long). It’s probably the most exhaustive and detailed study of Creation I’ve seen. Missler’s brilliance and understanding of the metaphysics of the universe are so overwhelmingly above the average study of Mosaic Hebrew that if he says something definitive on God’s handiwork—and proves his theories with mathematics and science—then it’s worth having a look at.
I’m going to use an example from his teachings now, but I want to warn the reader first that this following sneak peek at Missler’s presentations is not how the rest of the series will read! Bear with me to get the gist of this example, and everything that follows will make use of more common language. (And I promise I won’t keep talking about math!)
In only his fourth video of the twenty-four, Missler starts with a clever, intentional deception to illustrate a concept.[i] Without telling his audience that he’s performing an object lesson, he approaches the microphone wearing a long string of black and white wooden beads. Some of the beads are short and round, while others are long, resembling bone beads common in tribal jewelry. Taking them off and holding them up for all to see, he then says he was messing around with beads one day when he accidentally dropped them to the floor. He picked them up and strung them “randomly” on a string to store them. Then, he got to looking at the beads and realized they miraculously spelled out Genesis 1:1 in Morse code, “all by absolute, random chance.” In the audio, somewhere off-camera, one or two people sound like they’re sold on the story, as I can hear the faintest murmuring of discussion about the details. The rest of the audience, however, is not fooled, and a few tentative chuckles bubble up. “Why are you laughing?” Missler asks. And, of course, this question spurs another wave of laughter. He continues:
You know, it’s interesting, you haven’t done the math, but you know, just from your gut, that this is not possible for three hundred and forty-seven beads to arrive in exactly that order that would represent that kind of intelligence.… Could this have occurred by random chance? Well, let’s analyze that a little bit.
There are three hundred and forty-seven beads here, and they are either black or white, so there’s an “alphabet” of two, right? So, the chance of any particular sequence…emerging happens to be two [letters], raised to the three-hundred-and-forty-seventh [bead] power.
[On his slide, he shows this equation as: “Prandom chance = 2-347 = 2.8869 x 10-104.] That’s roughly equivalent of ten with a hundred and four zeroes after it. Now, that’s a big number. It’s probably bigger than anyone in this room, including me, can imagine.… You see, any number [that is] more than ten with fifty zeroes after it is defined in physics as “absurd” [in the calculations of probability that something happened by coincidence].[ii]
Yet, as Missler goes on to point out, a random-happenstance story like his tale about beads is far more acceptable and likely than random evolution could ever be: “This is just a simple string of three hundred and forty-seven elements,” he says. “You wouldn’t allow me to try to sell your kids [on the idea] that this happened by accident, but you send them to school, where they teach them that we happened from an accident. You and I came from a rock.”[iii] The audience laughs again, contemplating the absurdity of the implied math. Then, he nails his point:
In your blood, you have a thing called a “hemoglobin,” right? Hemoglobin happens to consist of five hundred and seventy-four elements, not from an alphabet of two but [from] an alphabet of twenty. [He goes on to show on a slide the twenty amino acids involved in the hemoglobin sequence, and explains that they have to appear in a very specific order.] If you don’t get the specific order, it’s called “hemoglobinopathy.” It’s usually fatal. [In other words, humanity would never have existed in the first place if this sequence wasn’t perfect; we would have died out with the first humans subjected to almost-certain death caused by blood disease.] The formula for these linear arrangements [in the hemoglobin]…comes out to ten with six hundred and fifty zeroes after it!… What’s the likeliness that [the] hemoglobin happens by accident? That’s really, really absurd, okay?[iv]
The “formula for linear arrangements” computation on the slide looks like this: N=n!/(p! x q! x r! …). This leads to 10650 possible “permutations” in the formation of this single human trait.
(That’s complicated mathematics I don’t expect all readers to understand. I sure can’t follow it; but I do get the point he’s making.)
This equation is such an unbelievably high number that the hemoglobin alone argues for Intelligent Design, and that is supported by the timeline:
The possibility of chance, now—you need to understand some of these numbers. If you assume the world has been around for eighteen billion years, as many scientists do, that’s only ten to the eighteenth [10 with18 zeroes following it] seconds. If you take the entire history of the universe as conceived by the astronomers—call it sixteen, eighteen billion, whatever—that’s only about ten to the eighteenth seconds in the history of the universe. That is a biiiiig number! [With the hemoglobin, we’re] talking ten to the six hundred fifty [10650]? You gotta be kidding![v]
In other words, it’s a mathematical impossibility that our hemoglobin, with a “random chance” of 10650, could have developed in 1018 seconds in the model of evolutionary science’s history of the universe since the Big Bang. There simply aren’t enough seconds in the millions of years evolution demands for this to have randomly developed—and, as Missler said, this is math that even physicists of all fields agree is absurd, and therefore impossible.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW VIDEO:
LUCIFER AND SATAN ARE DIFFERENT ENTITIES CONNECTED TO A PRE-ADAMIC BATTLE?
As I indicated, ten to the fiftieth [1050] is “absurd” [to scientists, physicists, and mathematicians in coincidence-probability equations], and the specificity of the hemoglobin is far beyond any rational comprehension of it being ascribed to “chance.” [Missler uses “winning the Idaho lottery” as an example:] I understand the odds are about one in eighty million to win. What’s your chances of winning it every day for ninety days in a row?[vi]
In case you missed it: According to Missler, winning the lottery ninety days straight—with each win being subject to one chance in eighty million—is the same likelihood required to equal the odds of the hemoglobin occurring by itself, on accident, by chance, or randomly, etc. With this same math in mind, he goes on to discuss other parts of the human body, and the calculations are just as unbelievable. He likewise proves his point by showing code-cracking probabilities in relation to the “code” intrinsic to the human body, the nucleus, electrons, cells, plasma membranes, equilibrium, proteins, atoms, amino acids, gravity and similar laws of nature, and other variables of our earthly reality.
In the sixth session, he uses his wristwatch to illustrate even more concepts kids are being taught in public schools—none of which are mathematically or scientifically possible. The watch is a complicated mechanism, yet even the most impressive one in the world is rudimentary when compared to the wrist it’s strapped onto. He follows this example by bringing up the invention of a camera, showing that it, too, is quite simple when compared to the human eye. He goes on to discuss what we know of complex system assemblies (cars, for example) that require all subsystems within them to be functional for the whole system’s survival: If one part of a car’s engine is not operating, the whole vehicle rapidly breaks down. A mechanic is needed to fix it. The human body, however—when its various healing processes and overall functions are analyzed—can be compared to self-modifying, self-programming, self-diagnosing, and self-repairing machines!
Human scientific study and invention, for all of its incredible achievements, has never been able to design a computer or machine that can come close to this performance.
To illustrate the magnificence of the human body’s ability to self-replicate its DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid that replicates and stores genetic data inside our cells that essentially makes us who we are), Missler instructs all members of his audience to give him two strands of fishing line, each 125 miles long, shove it through an opening in the side of a basketball, then “unzip it, copy it, and put it back in at three times the speed of an airplane propeller without tangling.”[vii] In addition, every cell on Earth has derived from another living cell, and no one has ever been able to answer how all cells required for life on Earth could have popped into full function at the same time in order for life to evolve.
Which came first, proteins or DNA? One can’t exist without the other, so they had to have been created at the same time.
Of course, scientists theorize that RNA (ribonucleic acid, similar to DNA but instead of replicating and storing genetic information, it converts the DNA data to protein material) was the first “builder” in the sequence, but for as many explanations that surface behind this theory, more questions arise showing it to be impossible once all relevant details are brought into the picture. And that’s the problem: Scientists claiming to have the answer nearly always share a part of, but not the whole, picture. It’s a proof-texting-style loop that will never end, unless scientists do the unthinkable and admit we simply don’t know. And just about the time it finally starts to sound believable for humans, the whole discussion of evolution starts over when applied to animals.
Missler uses the examples of dolphins, woodpeckers, beetles, giraffes, and several other species of life in the animal/bug kingdom to show that life couldn’t have carried on past the first day or week if evolution was the sole source of engineering. For instance, as Missler discusses in the seventh session: The giraffe’s long neck is handy for reaching high branches for food, but what about getting water? Its heart is two and a half feet long. Bending down for water would cause an embolism (when the blood vessels burst in the brain) if it weren’t for the creature’s unique circulatory system, including sponge-like vessels designed to act like a blood-brain reservoir. If the giraffe suddenly raised its head without this type of circulatory system, it would pass out from lack of blood to the brain. If any of the many moving parts in this area of the animal’s biology were out of place for even a day, the whole system would fail and the giraffe would fall dead, never surviving long enough to pass its genetics down to its offspring. Again, all parts had to be in full working order at once for the giraffe to even exist in its current form. Yet, we are taught to believe that, somehow, evolution was able to anticipate this long-neck lifestyle in advance and order the development of the whole system over millions or billions of years without the extinction of the giraffe species.
And don’t get Missler started on Darwinism. In session seven, he goes down a list of findings that “support” Charles Darwin’s monkey-man hypothesis and he shows slides demonstrating that many weren’t at all what they were claimed to be. For example: The Heidelberg Man discovery of 1907 was only a jawbone, proving nothing on its own; the Nebraska Man finding of 1922 was a single tooth, which scientists proclaimed at the time to be of the earlier Homo sapiens family, but was later discovered to be a pig’s tooth; the jawbone of a modern-era ape was the fraudulent platform upon which a “scientist” named Charles Dawson deliberately filed down, treated with salts to increase the appearance of age, and built the monkey-man link called the Piltdown Man in 1912 (his dishonesty was proven in 1953); all evidence of the 1921 Peking Man completely disappeared when questions of its authenticity arose, proving, well, nothing; the Neanderthal Man found in the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf, Germany, was proven by the International Congress of Zoology to be the bones of an elderly man with arthritis in 1958; the Java Man remains found in 1922 were a skull cap, femur bone, and teeth, which were kept away from peer-reviewed study until the demand for analysis could no longer be ignored, and aside from the fact that the teeth were eventually determined to originate from an orangutan, the skull cap and femur bone alone showed no evidence of Darwinian evolution.
“The main point,” Missler says, “is that, in a hundred and twenty years of searching, no intermediate stages [of man] have been found [to support Darwinian evolution]. The missing link has been a fool’s errand.”[viii]
It’s no joke: Our children are being taught only the part of the picture secular educators want to emphasize; they are not learning about the probability calculations of Intelligent Design, even though that requires less faith and imagination to conceive.
Though Missler didn’t say it outright, I will: It takes far more faith to believe in random evolution than it does to believe in Intelligent Design.
We won’t go through the rest of Missler’s presentation on this study, as the point has been made: The idea of the natural evolution of humans without the involvement of an intelligent Creator is rubbish. Even if we could argue our way around the miniscule possibility that we did develop as a result of the Big Bang billions of years ago, there simply wasn’t enough time from the Bang to today for that kind of evolution to take form.
Therefore, this series will not be a study on the sciences of evolution and how they interact with theology.
In fact, though I will discuss science in a few areas (like chapter 4 in the book Before Genesis does), nothing about this series should be considered anything close to a science manual or a companion to one. I share this brief input from Chuck Missler to illustrate how human-guided, scientific pursuits are flawed—science can be demonstrated, but even the most reliable demonstrations are not the whole picture. I do believe Earth is very, very old, but I also believe it has always been under the guiding hand of God: nothing random about it.
Though there are many cosmological views, only two ever get any real attention: naturalistic evolution (the Big Bang theory, Darwinism, etc.), and Creationism (God as the Intelligent Designer of the Earth and all its inhabitants). Some popular approaches to cosmology, such as Theistic Evolution, may appear at first glance to be in their own category, but they fall under these two “parent” terms in some way or other, as we will cover over the next couple entries.
Historically, it has been largely implied (if not directly stated) that the first of these categories is the scientific view, while the second is the theological view. It is assumed by both religious and irreligious folks that these two views cannot agree, no matter how we approach the subject, because each cancels out the other: If God created the world, as stated in Genesis, then science is tossed in the wastebasket because it disregards God’s eminent role in our planet’s existence. The opposite is also true: If our planet came about naturally and on its own, then the whole portrait of Creationism is put to the fire because God is not needed and, by extension, faith in Him as God is questionable or useless. Meanwhile, a barrier is raised, leaving no room for compromise between the two groups: Generally, Christians think followers of science lack faith, while followers of science think Christians are religious fanatics who won’t let go of their pet theologies even in the face of true, demonstrable science. Either way, there appears to be a giant “DO NOT CROSS!” line on each side—a “pick what side you’re on, but don’t ride the fence” position—prohibiting any imaginative mind from blending aspects of the two views into one that reasonably acknowledges elements of truth in both. This is a travesty that causes undue division, as the harmony between God and science is not at all hard to find, despite that many have been groomed by modern society to think otherwise.
Most of today’s Church is unaware that many potential cosmological explanations do consider God and science together, and in a way that doesn’t compromise the scriptural record. The number of scientific theories that are compatible with Creationism is overwhelming; that’s not even a shock to those who know what the Bible truly says on the topic and who stay up to date on advancing research in the origins of Earth. But, within the Church, the deficit of knowledge regarding this very compatibility—and in many cases, the staunch refusal to even give ear to any possibility outside the mainstream rendering of Genesis, because to do so would be an affront to God—has made it difficult for believers across the globe to reach those who can’t bring themselves to believe in God while “science has all the answers” (a view that’s not always reliable but should be addressed with compassion and an open mind).
For some readers, due to the celebrated theories of Charles Darwin (and the near-universal acceptance of his teachings in most schools and universities in many recent decades), potential unity between science and Creationism forces the notion that God used science to gradually develop Adam from a long line of chimpanzees or some similar ape species over millions or billions of years. Right away, we can see how the “ape Adam” hypothesis conflicts with the Creation account in Genesis, which describes God forming Adam from the dust of the ground. “Adam was not a monkey!” preachers rail from the pulpit. “Evolution is absurd! Unfaithful! It denies God’s handiwork!”
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW VIDEOS:
THE EARTH IS OLD… AND YOUNG… WITH A PRE-GENESIS BATTLE? WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF TOHU, BOHU, AND THE CHAOS DRAGON?
DID A GALACTIC BATTLE BEFORE THE CREATION OF ADAM & EVE RENDER EARTH “DARK AND VOID”?
But not all scientific theories related to humanity and Earth’s origins rest on Darwin’s dated speculations. For example: There is a crucial difference between microevolution and macroevolution, despite the similarity in spelling: Microevolution (with an i as the second letter) describes improvements, changes, or natural selection within a species over time based on their biological needs (as one example). Macroevolution (with an a as the second letter) describes one species literally becoming another over time (such as the “man from monkeys” theme).
Some species of birds that have migrated and settled in colder climates have, over years, produced larger and larger offspring that are more resistant to inclement weather. If we were to study one of these species in a lab, we would determine that the creature is still a bird (not a lion or dog or anything else), but that its very biology has changed to adapt to new environments throughout generations of breeding. This is microevolution, and it’s not merely a theoretical possibility, it’s a scientific reality that is consistently evident in the animal kingdom. In contrast, macroevolution identifies the possibility that a bird species, over billions of years, develops traits from other species it doesn’t share DNA with, crossing over and becoming something different and new. (I’m not suggesting that any scientist or lab has ever claimed a bird could become a lion or dog. This example is intentionally absurd to help readers get the gist of what’s being explained.)
More often than not, even Christians who believe in a literal rendering of Genesis acknowledge the possibility that the human body has evolved through microevolution since the time of Adam. Yet a man is still human, sharing basic traits of the human race with everyone else: two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, eight fingers, two thumbs, ten toes, and a belly button that proves he, too, was connected to a human female at the time of birth through an umbilical cord like the rest of us. That is true even if, say, a colder climate has altered a man’s biology in some minor way to ensure his survival in a given region. Even though we cannot see under the skin, we are aware that similarities dominate in this area as well: one stomach (not four or more like cows and other animals); regular digestive fluids (not the hot, corrosive liquid that explodes forth from the Bombardier beetle); one brain (not nine like the octopus), and so on. A Samoan male is likely to be far larger and taller than a Bolivian male who, on average, stands around a foot shorter. Both of these men are obviously human, while microevolution (and a family tree, of course) has played a part in modifying the way their bodies respond to the environment. We don’t have to believe either of these men came from monkeys in order to observe a type of evolutionary activity within their DNA that makes them different from each other. Our very own power of sight attests to microevolution every day, and it’s not a shock.
When Christians say, “I don’t believe in evolution,” those outside the Church who are knowledgeable of such differentiations in science are tempted to ask, “Which branch of evolution are you referring to?” Christians therefore remain unequipped to engage in the debate from a learned position, showing their hand of cards to be deficient from the beginning of the conversation. We have so distanced ourselves so far from having anything to do with “that other, faithless cosmological explanation” that, to the world, we’ve crawled into the cave of irrelevance. We celebrate our separatist seclusion, pat ourselves on the back, and believe we’re being the faithful Body of Christ, meeting every Sunday to congratulate ourselves on being the enlightened ones who reject “that ridiculous monkey idea” (for example), while in reality, we are the ones who lack enlightenment when we believe science (and its many related fields of study) represents any kind of threat to God and faith. Keep the following statement in mind as you read through this series:
Willful ignorance is spiritual negligence.
Why? Because, in order to reach the lost, we need to know how to reach them. As long as we refuse to engage in conversation about how science and faith can merge, we remain disconnected from the very souls we’re called to minister to. In the meantime, we continue to argue without knowing the facts, which leads to defending an incomplete and weak position, making us only look more uneducated and foolish when we’re confronted with the world’s developing sciences.
Microevolution is simply an easy example to build my case upon, as it obviously blends just fine with theology. But are there other areas of the science-vs.-theology battle that can go together just as harmoniously? If so, how far do they go? Can the Word of God finally have as much relevance to the world as the laboratory? And is it possible that God-fearing Christians can at least appreciate (note that I didn’t say “blindly accept”) what labs demonstrate to be true, choosing to praise God for His science instead of ironically rejecting a part of His creativity through resistance to it?
And most importantly: Is there, perhaps, an explanation about the origins of our planet that can also identify with and unite both Young and Old Earth interpretations of Genesis, while also allowing scientists to have a voice?
Whoa. What? How can Earth be old and young at the same time?
Well, that’s not quite what I said, is it? I said the two interpretations of Genesis can merge. And they do, in my theory, while also respecting our developing science and those who study it.
I know that’s asking a lot, and it certainly sounds impossible this early on, but when you read the coming pages, I believe you’ll see that this is more than just a possibility or mere speculation, though it may not be the Sunday school lesson you’ve heard before.
This is all well and good, Donna, but what does this really have to do with Jesus? Isn’t the Gospel all about Him? Shouldn’t we be focusing on the testimony of Christ first and foremost, instead of entertaining the possibility of a merger between theology and science’s answer to the great cosmological question about the age of the Earth?
Believe me, preparation in this area is a powerful tool for evangelism.
UP NEXT: Learning from Galileo: Yesterday’s Silenced Heretic; Today’s Celebrated Genius
[i] Missler, Chuck, “Genesis: Session 4: 3rd Day: Chapter 1:9–13,” fourth video from “Genesis: An Expositional Commentary,” Koinonia House; this story was told in the first eight minutes, alongside the discussion of relevant math. This series, along with the study book, can be purchased from Missler’s personal ministry website at the following link: https://store.khouse.org/products/genesis-an-expositional-commentary; permission to quote granted to Tom Horn for all his projects prior to death; emphasis only added where vocal emphasis was applied in the original presentation.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Missler, Chuck, “Genesis: Session 6: 5th Day: Chapter 1:20–23,” sixth video from “Genesis: An Expositional Commentary,” Koinonia House, 41:38–45:10. This series, along with the study book, can be purchased from Missler’s personal ministry website at the following link: https://store.khouse.org/products/genesis-an-expositional-commentary.
[viii] Missler, Chuck, “Genesis: Session 7: 6th Day: Chapter 1:24–28,” seventh video from “Genesis: An Expositional Commentary,” Koinonia House, 34:00–35:36. This series, along with the study book, can be purchased from Missler’s personal ministry website at the following link: https://store.khouse.org/products/genesis-an-expositional-commentary.
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