Creation Human origins David Wallace MEng Tom Cameron PhD

Creation What’s your question? Why are dinosaurs not mentioned in the Bible? How do dinosaurs fit in? How come science says it took millions of years for the earth to form, and Genesis talks of 6 days? How could the world be made in 7 days – is it something to do with different perspectives on time? Could God have used the Big Bang? What about people who say God can’t be real because everything has been explained by science? If we are evolved from monkeys, how come we are still not evolving? Where do you draw the line in believing the “descended from monkeys” story? Does it matter if man came from monkeys? Why did God want to make us anyway? Why did God make Adam first? Why do women get such a hard time – periods, pain in childbirth. Creation Human orgins

Atheistic evolution Theistic evolution Evolutionary creationism Old earth creationism Intelligent design Progressive creationism Day-age creationism Gap creationism Young earth creationism Geocentrists Flat earthers God No God Science rejected Minority science God and science Increasingly literal interpretation of Bible More “special creation” interventions by God Majority science

Creation This session: human origins Evidence for and against evolution Randomness or design Genesis 3 – Adam and Eve What makes us special as humans

Creation Top Ten Reasons Eve Was Created 10. God was worried that Adam would frequently become lost in the garden because he would not ask for directions. 9. God knew that one day Adam would require someone to locate and hand him the remote. 8. God knew Adam would never go out and buy himself a new fig leaf when his wore out and would therefore need Eve to buy one for him. 7. God knew Adam would never be able to make a doctor's, dentist, or haircut appointment for himself. 6. God knew Adam would never remember which night to put the bins on the street. 5. God knew if the world was to be populated, men would never be able to handle the pain and discomfort of childbearing. 4. As the Keeper of the Garden, Adam would never remember where he left his tools. 3. Apparently, Adam needed someone to blame his troubles on when God caught him hiding in the garden. 2. As the Bible says, It is not good for man to be alone! 1. When God finished the creation of Adam, He stepped back, scratched his head, and said, "I can do better than that!"

Creation Aims Read the Bible properly: –interpret positively passages of scripture that have been abused to force conflict between science and faith. Think about God and science together Spot the bias: don’t be a sponge Do science at school Avoid the creationist caricature Worship God: inspired by science

Creation Tensions between scientific and Bible accounts of human origins 100,000 years Random chance Purposeless Natural selection An evolved ape Gradual change Nothing special On the sixth day Orderly Purposeful By God’s hand Formed from dust Adam and Eve Special to God

Creation Tensions between scientific and Bible accounts of human origins 100,000 years Random chance Purposeless Natural selection An evolved ape Gradual change Nothing special On the sixth day Orderly Purposeful By God’s hand Life into dust Adam and Eve Special to God

Creation Agreement of the sciences Earth 4.5 billion yrs old Universe 14 billion yrs old Geology Geography Biology Astronomy Physics 6 days of creation 4004 BC (Ussher’s calculation) Apparent conflict with the Bible Tom

Creation Irrelevant story Myth Literary framework Day-age theory Young earth creation Relationship Principles What happened Sequence of events How long it took What does it communicate? Layers of meaning in Genesis 1

Creation Tensions between scientific and Bible accounts of human origins 100,000 years Random chance Purposeless Natural selection An evolved ape Gradual change Nothing special On the sixth day Orderly Purposeful By God’s hand Life into dust Adam and Eve Special to God

Creation Random mutation In evolution, the mutations that result in change are described as random. But note that selection is not random – it has a direction. We use the word “random” in all sorts of ways, we say in the lingo “That was completely random” usually just to mean “something curious” but with a hint of it being puzzling or meaningless. In science “random” means that a particular event cannot be predicted, but the pattern of lots of events has a statistical distribution. It is a confession of ignorance.

Creation Random ≠ purposeless Call centre calls arrive with a random distribution Yet every call has a purpose

Creation Genesis: Human purpose Stewards of the earth Relationship with God

Creation Tensions between scientific and Bible accounts of human origins 100,000 years Random chance Purposeless Natural selection An evolved ape Gradual change Nothing special On the sixth day Orderly Purposeful By God’s hand Life into dust Adam and Eve Special to God

Creation Evolution by selection Tom Sexual Natural Artificial selection  species change over time

Creation The origin of species Is this how new species came about? Or was it God’s special creation? Is this how humans came about? Or did God do something special? Sexual Natural Artificial selection  species change over time Tom Later

Creation How much special creation did God do? Were humans created as an event or a process? If a process, how much did God guide the process?

Atheistic evolution Theistic evolution Evolutionary creationism Old earth creationism Intelligent design Progressive creationism Day-age creationism Gap creationism Young earth creationism Geocentrists Flat earthers God No God Science rejected Minority science God and science Increasingly literal interpretation of Bible More “special creation” interventions by God Majority science Creation was a series of events over 6 days. Evidence of process we might find is in fact remnants of the flood.

Atheistic evolution Theistic evolution Evolutionary creationism Old earth creationism Intelligent design Progressive creationism Day-age creationism Gap creationism Young earth creationism Geocentrists Flat earthers God No God Science rejected Minority science God and science Increasingly literal interpretation of Bible More “special creation” interventions by God Majority science Creation was a series of events but the 6 days were spread out. The gaps were millions of years.

Atheistic evolution Theistic evolution Evolutionary creationism Old earth creationism Intelligent design Progressive creationism Day-age creationism Gap creationism Young earth creationism Geocentrists Flat earthers God No God Science rejected Minority science God and science Increasingly literal interpretation of Bible More “special creation” interventions by God Majority science Each “day” of creation involved processes that took millions of years, guided by God.

Atheistic evolution Theistic evolution Evolutionary creationism Old earth creationism Intelligent design Progressive creationism Day-age creationism Gap creationism Young earth creationism Geocentrists Flat earthers God No God Science rejected Minority science God and science Increasingly literal interpretation of Bible More “special creation” interventions by God Majority science God intervened at key critical moments in the process to bring about various “leaps in complexity”.

Atheistic evolution Theistic evolution Evolutionary creationism Old earth creationism Intelligent design Progressive creationism Day-age creationism Gap creationism Young earth creationism Geocentrists Flat earthers God No God Science rejected Minority science God and science Increasingly literal interpretation of Bible More “special creation” interventions by God Majority science There is evidence of irreducible complexity in the way biological things work which proves there must be a God

Intelligent Design the universe the evolution process humankind a given animal species a particular organ like the eye a capability like language in humans is too complex orderly adaptive apparently purposeful beautiful to have occurred randomly or accidentally Since Thereforemust have been specially created by a being who is sentient intelligent wise purposeful

Creation The universe is improbably suitable for carbon based life Space capsule story Universe appears fine-tuned to allow the existence of life

Creation Forces of expansion Forces of contraction (gravity) Universe Expansion is very slightly stronger than contraction, by Precision of the Big Bang energy is equivalent to aiming from earth and hitting a one-inch target at the edge of the observable universe. If expansion was any stronger, stars would not exist. If expansion was any weaker, universe would have imploded in a big crunch

Creation The universe is improbably suitable for carbon based life Space capsule story Universe appears fine-tuned to allow the existence of life (the anthropic principle) –Universe expansion vs contraction forces –Energy state of the electron –Exact level of the weak nuclear force

Creation The universe is improbably suitable for carbon based life Space capsule story Universe appears fine-tuned to allow the existence of life (the anthropic principle) Possible conclusions –It was chance –It was by design –There is a multiverse –There is an undiscovered Grand Unified Theory

Creation Unexplained marvels Multi-cellular life The eye The brain Language Photosynthesis Sex Death Parasitism Social organisms Symbiosis Irreducible complexity? Purposeful design? Random?Guided? The trouble with “God of the gaps”… Both? New Scientist 9 April 2005

Creation Intelligent Design and biology Tom

Atheistic evolution Theistic evolution Evolutionary creationism Old earth creationism Intelligent design Progressive creationism Day-age creationism Gap creationism Young earth creationism Geocentrists Flat earthers God No God Science rejected Minority science God and science Increasingly literal interpretation of Bible More “special creation” interventions by God Majority science Evolution was God’s idea. He did intervene at times to create helpful mutations.

Atheistic evolution Theistic evolution Evolutionary creationism Old earth creationism Intelligent design Progressive creationism Day-age creationism Gap creationism Young earth creationism Geocentrists Flat earthers God No God Science rejected Minority science God and science Increasingly literal interpretation of Bible More “special creation” interventions by God Majority science Evolution was God’s idea. He has gently tended the process.

Atheistic evolution Theistic evolution Evolutionary creationism Old earth creationism Intelligent design Progressive creationism Day-age creationism Gap creationism Young earth creationism Geocentrists Flat earthers God No God Science rejected Minority science God and science Increasingly literal interpretation of Bible More “special creation” interventions by God Majority science Evolution will eventually explain everything. God is an unnecessary notion to fill the gaps we can’t explain yet

Creation Weaknesses in evidence for evolution Tom

Creation Tensions between scientific and Bible accounts of human origins 100,000 years Random chance Purposeless Natural selection An evolved ape Gradual change Nothing special On the sixth day Orderly Purposeful By God’s hand Life into dust Adam and Eve Special to God

Creation An evolved ape Tom

Creation Nothing buttery “Nothing but” an evolved ape Behaving like animals is OK Ruthless competition is simply “survival of the fittest” Not guilty: his genes made him do it Animals have as many rights as humans

Creation Mechanism ≠ The reason why The fallacy in reductionism Why is the kettle boiling?

Creation God breathes life into dust Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Gen 1:26-27 The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being Gen 2:7

Creation Dust Same chemistry as the rest of the earth –Enough iron for one small nail (etc)

Creation What makes humans distinct from animals? Self-conscious in a radical new way Language Rational skills Creative powers Moral beings God-consciousness Sin Separate from other hominids because of God’s inbreathing God’s image

Creation Tensions between scientific and Bible accounts of human origins 100,000 years Random chance Purposeless Natural selection An evolved ape Gradual change Nothing special On the sixth day Orderly Purposeful By God’s hand Life into dust Adam and Eve Special to God

Creation Dating Adam & Eve Counting genealogies: 4004BC Urbanisation and metalworking: –Cain built a city Gen 4:17 –Tubal-Cain made bronze & iron tools Gen 4:22 –Did God breathe on the whole race 10-20,000 years ago? Single pair of ancestors ,000 years ago? –Eve hypothesis/mitochondrial DNA?

Creation Adam and Eve Radically positive view of women –From the side  equality –In the image of God, male and female he created them Pattern for marriage union Concrete illustration of the fact of sin: rebellion

Creation Tensions between scientific and Bible accounts of human origins 100,000 years Random chance Purposeless Natural selection An evolved ape Gradual change Nothing special On the sixth day Orderly Purposeful By God’s hand Life into dust Adam and Eve Special to God

Creation Psalm 139: Special to God 1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.a 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.