Origin of Man

     My son came home from school one day when he was in the fourth grade and asked me: “Dad if we came from monkeys why is there still monkeys.”  I don’t think the question of evolution could have been asked any better or any more profoundly.  Our society today seems to find it necessary to push this false teaching that man wasn’t created but rather has come about through millions of years of evolving.  I wonder if this has anything to do with society’s lack of regard for human life; or better yet the sanctity of human life.  After all if man did come from animals then it should be alright to act like animals.  The problem with the concept that man is more animal-like, is that man does things because of his imputed sin that animals don’t even do.  This begs the question, did mankind come about by a process of evolution, or is man the product of the Creator?  One of the most widely debated forums today is the question of how man originated.

     Origin is a very important concept to properly understand.  A wrong understanding will affect your behavior and how you view things in this world.  When you don’t have a concrete belief of a starting point for the beginning of man you have no sense of identity or self worth.  We all need a mentally satisfying explanation of where we come from.

     Clearly there is an underlying common theme to all of life.  Inquisitive people will naturally wonder why this is so.  Until the time of Darwin, over 130 years ago, most scientists considered the underlying commonality of all living animals to be evidence of the handiwork of their common Creator.  It seemed quite reasonable to these that God would use the same underlying principles to design and create the various kinds of animals.  Dr. Menton comments:

Today, evolutionists insist that the underlying similarity of all animals, including man, and our ability to arrange and classify them into groups, is compelling evidence for their progressive evolution from a common ancestor. They insist that there is simply no other thinkable explanation for their similarities. Evolutionists argue further that the degree of similarity between any two animals attests to their degree of evolutionary “relatedness,” and thus how recently they separated from a common ancestor. They are quite certain, for example, that the similarities between apes and humans prove they evolved from a common ape-like ancestor “only” 2 or 3 million years ago. By comparison, evolutionists say we are far more distantly “related” to our insect “relatives.” The Living World exhibit at the St. Louis Zoo at one time had a sign by a dish of fruit flies that confidently declared: “humans and flies had a common ancestor 630 million years ago.” This hypothetical “common ancestor” is not identified because no one has the slightest evidence of what it looked like, or even if it existed at all!

When it comes to similarities between animals and humans, evolutionists ignore certain facts if those facts do not fit into their scenarios.  Careful examination show remarkable similarities between humans and animals that have been labeled as “distant relatives.”  For example the squid isn’t even close to being similar to a person, yet the eye of the squid is very similar to that of a human being.  This is a difficult argument to prove on the part of the evolutionist.  After all there are similarities in a canoe and an aircraft carrier; yet they are very distinct.  A kite, even, compared to a 747 jumbo jet, they both have characteristics that make them fly but they are both also very unique.

     I was able to obtain a public school biology text book not long ago and noticed quickly that it contrasts evolution with the biblical account of creation.  This book says:

“For thousands of years, most people believed that each separate species of organism had been specially created.  This view was set forth in the bible’s book of Genesis.  From time to time philosophers proposed that the living world changed over centuries, but by the mid-seventeenth century most of the western world took the word of Genesis literally and believed that animals and plants were created during the six days of creation.  From about 1750 on, however, many people became convinced that species changed over the ages (Camp).”

This book went on to talk about Charles Darwin the Father of the Theory of Evolution; a man that actually studied theology, and even as a young person believed in creation.  Did Charles Darwin believe that each species was a special creation of God?  He actually says:

“As many more individuals of each species are born that can possibly survive; and as , consequently, there is a frequently reoccurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in a manner profitable to itself, under the complex and varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving and thus be naturally selected .  From the strong principles of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.”

Presented with the facts more and more scientists are rejecting the theory of evolution.  I must ask: does it sound like Darwin even believes what he wrote?

     What is evolution?  It means a change in any direction.  There are actually legitimate uses for the term even though in Evangelical circles the word is negative when used in relation to origins.  Evolution in relation to origins “theorizes that several billion years ago chemicals in the sea, acted on by sunlight and cosmic energy, formed themselves by chance into one or more single-celled organisms, which have since developed through beneficial mutations and natural selection into all living plants, animals, and people (Ryrie).”  So when we talk of evolution in relation to the origin of man, evolutionists tell us that mankind came about by a series of mutations and natural selection.  Basically a “blob” in the swamp somewhere turned into a tadpole and that progressed and formed and boomed until here we are in 2009 intelligent man flying to the moon and building computers, and a handful worshiping the one true God.

Thanks for reading this part – I will continue with more tomorrow.  The High School text book I was referring to is:

Camp, Karen; Biology: A Journey into Life; Saunders Pub, page 249