[Apologetics] Final Paper on "In Defense of Christian Worldview Against Scientific Naturalism (93/100, 7/24/20250)

Charles Darwin, author of On the Origin of Species

Introduction

        Despite its lofty status as the de facto dominant widely accepted explanation for the origin of life, the Darwinian theory of evolution has started to show some major chinks in its armor lately. Present and clear challenges have been brought on by the diligent works of the group of the Intelligent Design scientists creationists and ushering of the cutting edge twenty-first century technology, which aided the discovery of the far  more complex biochemical nature of life in general than originally assumed.

Analysis of the Opposing Worldview

        According to the claims by the evolutionists at large regarding the origin of life, it evolved from a simpler form to a more complex form via inducement of series of more favorable intermediate form in-between over long intervals of time. When pressed further, they generally pledge an allegiance in a phenomenon described as “ex nihilo”, which means that life evolved from nothing.  That bold conviction in itself, perhaps a huge leap of unwarranted faith in the sphere of seemingly illogical pseudo-science when considered against numerous failed laboratory experiments of the past to prove its claim, beckons a philosophical question which thus far lacks the validation that should be intellectually proved eventually and satisfactorily to the wondering sensible minds at large—one wonders and others demand.

        Charles Darwin, an iconic and pioneering figure in the early stage of  discipline of scientific naturalism, wrote in his ground-breaking book titled On the Origin of Species, “It is, no doubt, extremely difficult even to conjecture by what gradations many structures have been perfected, more especially amongst broken and failing groups of organic beings; but we see so many strange gradations in nature, as is proclaimed by the canon, “Natura non facit saltum (nature does not make jumps),” that we ought to be extremely cautious in saying that any organ or instinct, or any whole being, could not have arrived at its present state by many graduated steps.”

Darwin furthermore tried to explain the lack of intermediate forms found in nature by saying, “A broken or interrupted range may often be accounted for by the extinction of the species in the intermediate regions. It cannot be denied that we are as yet very ignorant of the full extent of the various climatal and geographical changes which have affected the earth during modern periods; and such changes will obviously have greatly facilitated migration.”[1] Darwin’s argument is plausible and descriptive concerning the morphological and physical changes an organism might have undergone to arrive at its present form since he incorporates the environment and its harsh elements present within well into a class struggle which human individuals can easily relate to and are said to have gone through themselves—allegedly.

         Mechanism called natural selection aided the process of evolution per the evolutionary theorists. Richard Dawkins, a world-leading atheist and an author of best-selling books on the very topic wrote in The God Delusion, “Books about evolution are believed not because they are holy. They are believed because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence. In principle, any reader can go and check that evidence.”[2] What is natural selection exactly then, according to their buttressed evidence?

         Per Darwin, “Natural Selection—its power compared with man’s selection—its power on characters of trifling importance—its power of all ages and on both sexes—Sexual Selection—On the generality of intercrosses between individuals of the same species—Circumstances favourable and unfavourable to Natural Selection, namely, intercrossing, isolation, number of individuals—Slow action—Extinction caused by Natural Selection—Divergence of Character, related to the diversity of inhabitants of any small area, and to naturalization—Action of Natural Selection, through Divergence of Character and Extinction, on the descendants from a common parent—Explains the Grouping of all organic beings.”[3] In other words, natural selection in Darwin’s own words is the driving engine which promoted the end results in divergent and distinct physical features observed within a species at its terminal evolutionary nodes today through myriads of both favorable and unfavorable interactions which have taken place over eons of time. In a struggle for the  scarce (food) resources, the characteristics acquired by the fitter surviving species then stuck, and became hereditary.

         Another key point worthy of being mentioned is the evolutionists’ claim regarding the  opportune and fortuitous events  by some rare random chance occurring in each designated subsequent intervals over a long stretch of time such as mutation which aided the overall process of natural selection to take place; according to them, this random event of mutation helped lead to the overall struggle in dire fight of the survival of the fittest with stronger set of genes being passed onto the following generations. That indeed requires a huge leap of faith against what appears to be a mathematically improbable stack of odds.

Critique of the Opposing Worldview

          An idea becomes an obsession on its way to becoming a fairy tale castle of a socio-cultural phenomenon as it has been the case with Darwin’s widely popular evolution theory and its supportive mechanism called natural selection aka the survival of the fittest. However, can this seemingly a castle built on a pure fanciful idea of sand withstand the tornadoes and waves of storm which the 21^st century cutting edge biochemical scrutiny can bring about at all? Michael Behe wondered in countering, “Life is lived in the details and it is molecules that handle life’s details. Darwin’s idea might explain horse hoofs, but can it explain life’s foundation?”[4] Darwin et al: Welcome to the wonderland of the biochemical factory of the 21^st century as in the discovery of the DNA and its elucidated mechanisms and functions in excruciatingly complex minute details, which was unimaginable and unthinkable in the nineteenth century! Behe, a proponent of the Intelligent Design, gives a complex set of mind-blowing chains of biochemical mechanisms and new discoveries unearthed lately—with the aids of cutting edge technology which the twenty-first century science could only afford to have--which rendered the total intentionality and the supreme intelligence behind the design of even a very simple form of life, which is something Darwinian evolution of mere randomness could have never been able to explain or foreseen before.

        Indeed, as it turns out life is way more complex and advanced even in its most simple form (“irreducible complexity”) in terms of biochemical mechanisms as it has been revealed lately than what the scientific naturalists originally thought it to be. Natural selection fails miserably  because the fully functional and “viable” life form mandates a fully developed functionality, not an intermediate form which renders itself non-competitive or sterile in harsh and often cut-throat natural environment for survival in the light of the astoundingly complex nature of life form revealed in terms of biochemical functionality.

Richard Dawkins, hardened & unrepentant atheist

Dawkins and his colleague named Bernd-Olaf Küppers at one point carried out a (in situ) computer simulation of random mutations, and at the  end they got a terse, poetic if not poignant reply of “Methinks it is like a weasel,” from their computer, a line from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet . “In biology, where different survival depends upon maintaining function, selection cannot occur until functional sequences arise,”[5] Stephen Meyer points out. “A completely nonfunctional polypeptide would confer no selective advantage on a hypothetical protocell, even if its sequence happened to “agree one bit better” with an unrealized target protein than some other nonfunctional polypeptide.”[6] Life needs the in-built complexity and preciseness for its absolute survival, even for a nanosecond when exposed to the environment in vivo.

          Furthermore, what is known in the academic circle as the #1 nemesis  or killer against the Darwinian theory of evolution is called “the Cambrian mystery” or “the Cambrian Explosion”: The Cambrian period, which happened approximately 500 million years ago,  is defined as the  period during which the explosion and appearances of the vast number of new fully-formed and functional species out of nowhere for no apparent good reason happened. It just did. Like a magic.

         How about the fossil record itself, the footprint of the past possibly unlocking the mysteries surrounding the origin of life or at least the earnest and forward processes of something becoming one? “The fossil record is now 100 times more elaborate than during the lifetimes of Darwin and Wallace. The increase in the number of unknown fossils has revealed even more jumps in the flow of life from the simple to the complex than were known in Darwin’s time. The very basis of Darwin’s theory of evolution is that nature does not make jumps; yet the jumps are most prominently there for all to see. Punctuated equilibrium is now the accepted theory for many paleontologists. Smooth evolution is admittedly inadequate as a theory.”[7]  Hitherto there has never been found any “missing links”, the intermediate forms, in the fissile record as the scientific naturalists and its adherents have fervently advocated and loudly claimed to account for the Cambrian mystery for example. How did it come about?

         As one of the Darwin’s adversaries named Agassiz pointed out, “Rather, the problem, according to Agassiz, was the selective incompleteness of the fossil record. Why, he asked, does the fossil record always happen to be incomplete at the nodes connecting major branches of Darwin’s tree of life, but rarely—in the parlance of modern paleontology—at the “terminal branches” representing the major already known groups of organisms? These terminal branches were well represented, often stretching over many generations and millions of years, while the “internal branches” at the connecting nodes on Darwin’s tree of life were nearly always—and selectively—absent.”[8]

          Another stern rebuke the nature seemingly presents against natural selection other than the Cambrian Explosion is the phenomenon observed named “the Left Handedness of creation”, from which the origin of life and the universe it contains within could be elucidated and traced back.  The singularly occurring form of the molecules in their left-handed mirror images vs. the righthanded in corresponding supersymmetry puzzled the scientists for a while. Furthermore, an evidence of ever-expanding universe with estimated 200 billion galaxies now found unmistakingly seems to point to one irrefutable direction: the universe had a distinct beginning at one point with a Supreme Designer at work, who initiated it; it is not a leap of faith, but a highly probable  astronomical observation based on Hubble expedition and world class scientists’ findings gazing into the mysteries of constellations of stars in heaven far above us for a long stretch of dreamy sleepless nights.

Defense of Christianity

           A burden of proof does not rest solely on the shoulders of the Bible-believing Christians who advocates the creationism; it also falls on the naturalists as in the atheists and agnostics alike as well to prove their claim beyond any reasonable doubts. It is just a dynamics of a bilaterally countering earnest discussion and truth-seeking endeavor where the adversaries or antagonists of each belief system should responsibly behave. Hence, in that regard the naturalists fail miserably: in some regards they are deceptively dishonest and in self-denial even in the face of irrefutable facts presented to them.

        On the other hand the Christians and their worldview are grounded on solid foundations: generally-speaking, the Christian worldview just gives more coherent, sensical, logical, and lucid explanation even when limited in offering detailed explanations for some major scientific upheavals or discoveries presented for clarification.

        Overall, the creationism does not contradict itself but rather strengthens its core teachings and narratives when looked in closely. Furthermore, what the Bible claims have also been found and confirmed by the scientists of the highest order and competence in the field. Many previously unbelieving scientists have converted to Christianity in their journey of discovering the truth in the various fields of science disciplines thus far. Some are world class scholars with well-established academic credentials and achievements.

         As John Lennox pointed out, “The truth is that the laws of nature describe the universe; but they actually explain nothing. We pause to reflect that, from the perspective of science, the very existence of laws of nature is a mystery in itself. Richard Feynaman, a Nobel Laureate in physics, writes:…the fact that there are rules at all to be checked is a kind of miracle; that it is possible to find a rule, like the inverse-square law of gravitation, is some sort of miracle. It is not understood at all, but it leads to the possibility of prediction—that means it tells you what you would expect to happen in an experiment you have not yet done.”[9]

         However, there are plenty of tangible and proven scientific evidences which are now present at person’s disposal if one is only willing to explore and look into them earnestly with open and inquisitive mind as Hugh Ross extends an invite; “In the words of physicist Lawrence Krauss, a self-described atheist, the cosmological constant “would involve the most extreme fine-tuning problem known in physics. Since the breakthrough discovery, technological advances have expanded the possibilities of additional discoveries beyond what was ever possible before the turn of the century. Other dramatic discoveries have been unveiled, revealing, for example, the geometry of the universe, the cosmic inflation event, and accurate measures of cosmic expansion rates throughout the history of the universe. Together with the cosmological constant, these discoveries provide a treasure trove of evidence worth sifting through.”[10]

         In the end, people will believe what they want to believe: as the natural selection may perhaps go out of the fad in the light of biochemical refutation whose argument it deems it cannot win at some point, then the unbelievers will come up with something else to believe in (anything but God) and build their temple of idol worship, perhaps even in the Extraterrestrial Beings. To them, it is far-more acceptable to stomach and tolerate ETs than to believe in the Creator, the Omnipotent and Omniscient God of the Bible as Gerald L. Schroeder pointed out, “To account for life’s so rapid appearance, today’s scientific theories require either life was planted on Earth from outer space (!), or that an exotic property of molecular self-organization rapidly joined the necessary chemicals into self-replicating molecules and then a yet-to-be-discovered series of catalysts developed these fecund molecules int life itself.” [11] Schroeder then summarily dismisses the randomness of the natural selection as being something utterly improbable to occur “even if the entire universe were the laboratory and testing ground for these random reactions” over eons of available time given.

Conclusion

         It has been adequately shown that the Intelligent Design argument of  the Christian worldview with recent discovery of complex set of biochemical mechanisms is simply superior in its assertions and elucidations, and makes a far more sense for the origin of life than what the “venerable” Darwinian evolutionists have long presented to the public and the academic community at large.

Bibliography 

Barrow, John D. And Silk, Joseph. The Left Hand of Creation: The Original and Evolution of the Expanding Universe. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Behe, Michael J. Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution With a New Afterword. New York, NY: Free Press, 2006.

Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species. 1859. Reprint. New Delhi, India: New Baskerville by  Aptara, 2020.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Boston/New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2006.

Hoekema, Anthony A. Created in God’s Image. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994.

Lennox, John. Can Science Explain Everything?. India:TheGoodBook, 2019.

Meyer, Stephen C. Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2014.

Meyer, Stephen C. Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal The Mind Behind The Universe. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2021.

Meyer, Stephen C. Signature in the Cell: DNA and The Evidence for Intelligent Design. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2009.

Ross, Hugh. The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Latest Scientific Discoveries Reveal God. Covina, CA: Reasons to Believe, 2018.

Ross, Hugh. Hidden Treasures in the Book of Job: How the Oldest Book in the Bible Answers Today’s Scientific Questions. Grand Rapids, MI: BakerBooks, 2011.

Ross, Hug. Why The Universe Is the Way It Is. Grand Rapids, MI: BakerBooks, 2008.

Schroeder, Gerald L. Genesis And The Big Bang: The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and The Bible. New York, NY: Bantam Book, 1992.

Schroeder, Gerald L. The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom. New York, NY: Free Press, 1997.

[1] Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, (1859. Reprint. New Delhi, India: New Baskerville, 2020), 387.

[2] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, (Boston/New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2006), 282.

[3] Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 75.

[4] Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, (New York, NY: Free Press, 2006), 4.

[5] Stephen C Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and The Evidence for Intelligent Design. (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2009), 282. 

[6] Stephen C Meyer, Signature in the Cell, p. 282.

[7] Gerald L. Schroeder, Genesis And The Big Bang: The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and The Bible, (New York, NY: Bantam Book, 1992), 162-163. 

[8] Stephen Meyer, Darwin’s Doubt, (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2014), 24.

[9] John Lennox, Can Science Explain Everything?, (India: TheGoodBook, 2019), 35.

[10] Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Latest Scientific Discoveries Reveal God. (Covina, CA: Reasons to Believe, 2018), 45.

[11] Gerald L. Schroeder, Gerald L. The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom. (New York, NY: Free Press, 1997), 29.