Origin of Life: Creation or Evolution?

Having done Masters (M.Sc) in Zoology in my college days, I was a sworn adherent of evolution theory, as propounded by Charles Darwin in his book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” published in 1859. Though Darwin was not the first person to suggest evolution, he got all the credit for it, may be because famous people like Aldous Huxley popularized his work.

We now know it as the evolutionary theory, by which we mean every organism in the course of its life, undergoes changes in its genetic material, due to mutations in the DNA of its cells and these changes, if found favorable in its surroundings, gives it an advantage in the struggle for survival and thereby giving the organism a better chance of passing on these advantageous traits to the off springs. The off springs start off with an advantage over the other members of the species and thus establish themselves in life. The ill-adapted members die off and lose the chance of passing on their genes to the next generation. Such changes lead to the formation of new species and races and this happens over millions of years, either through a process of incremental changes or through sudden leaps.

Though I generally believed in the Bible, when scientific explanations like these were available I gravitated towards that. Even after I became a believing Christian, I still held on to the evolutionary ideas, superimposing it on creation. Well, God created the heavens and the earth and all that there is in six days, says the Bible. But who knows how many human years equal one day of God? It could be millions or billions of years. So in the process of explaining the creation, why not use evolutionary approach, and we can understand God’s creation in a more scientific manner applying evolutionary process to creation account. Or so I thought! 

  

It took me some time, a few years to realize that people adopting the view of evolution are really anti-God, just as Darwin himself was, for he was an atheist. At the age of 42, he lost his favorite and beloved daughter Anne, who was just 10 years old when she died. Her death affected him deeply and once for all he set his face against God, whom he thought was heartless for having taken his daughter, who did no wrong, at such a tender age.

Evolution really proposes that natural selection, a natural force was all that was necessary for producing new species and there was no need for a God to do that. In the 19^th century it caught up the imagination of the intellectuals and the creation account of Genesis chapter 1 in the Bible lost its credibility in the eyes of these people, and along with it Bible and Christianity.

That is when I realized that I either believe that God created everything as written in Genesis, or life evolved on its own over millions or billions of years due to a process of natural selection. There is no overlapping of each other or mixing of these two approaches. Evolution is in actuality antagonistic to God and creation. Once I realized that I gave up my admiration for evolution and depended entirely on God’s wisdom and power to produce all kinds of life on earth and let them adapt themselves to the various climates and geological locations so that they can survive.

A dog may have many varieties or breeds, but a dog remains a dog and no new race or a new animal has been produced so for. Even when due to human ingenuity such hybrids are produced, they are not able to reproduce. Similarly there is really no solid evidence for evolution or natural selection, for the scientists have not been able to show a single ‘missing link’ or an ancestor that showed characteristics of both the animals, say for example, an animal that shows the characteristics of human beings and apes. According to evolutionists, humans evolved from apes. If so, where are such ‘missing links’ or hybrid animals, either living or fossils?   

Anthropologists construct a whole human being and his family from a tooth or a jaw bone and tell us these were the intermediary humans, but it is far-fetched. No reliable data or evidence is available.

I would rather believe that God created man as His crowning glory, someone created in the very image of God Himself, with an ability to think and rationalize. He was created above all animals including apes. He was created to rule them, take care of them and nurture them, as God’s viceroy on earth. Human being is not a mere animal, albeit highly evolved animal, a descendant from apes. He is the glory of God’s creation, crated in His image, to be His viceroy on earth.

Biblical account of man is much better and reliable and trust worthy than the imaginations and creations of scientists, who had their own axes to grind.