A psychology professor openly
ridiculed Christians in one of my university classes with more than seventy
students. As the instructor made sarcastic remarks about Christians in the news
and preached his atheistic ideas, I wondered why no one challenged him. One day
I raised my hand.
“You said this textbook will be outdated in
ten years,” I began. “So what you are saying today might not be true in ten
years?”
The questions flowed.
“Can you prove evolution? Isn’t
it true you accept it by faith? Are you aware that many scientists have thrown
out missing links because they couldn’t find them? Did you know scientists are
even putting forth the idea that man might have fallen from outer space?
“How did creation turn out so
perfectly without a Designer? Why aren’t monkeys turning into humans now?”
He admitted that, yes, the
textbooks and the theories and knowledge in them would soon be outdated; that
he didn’t have all the answers; and, “Yes, we do accept some things by faith.
But when something is universally accepted, we treat it as fact.”
I should have asked, “Then because
the God of creation and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are universally
accepted, that should be treated as fact?”
A few weeks later, I asked a
science teacher if the first and second laws of thermodynamics violated
evolution. The teacher had opened the class on the environment by stating
everything would be based on evolution.
No more than thirty-five pages
into the text, Living in the Environment,
by G. Tyler Miller Jr., the class was studying the law of energy degradation,
also known as the second law of thermodynamics. The law states that matter, if
left to itself and undergoing physical or chemical changes, will always change
in the direction of decreased order and decreased energy content. The
entire universe obeys this law, and this includes every chemical reaction.
In words plain and simple, the
law means anything left to itself will slowly fall apart. Every old barn with
the roof sagging and the walls falling in demonstrates this law. Despite
galaxies thought to be expanding (are they expanding, or are we increasing our
knowledge?), scientists will tell you the entire universe is slowing down,
growing old, and, as the saying goes, is running out of steam.
The second energy law also tells
us energy tends to flow or change spontaneously from a compact and ordered form
to a dispersed and random, or disordered, form.
“No one has ever found a
violation of this law,” Miller states.[1]
When the teacher read that, I put
up my hand. “Isn’t evolution a violation of this law?”
In order for evolution to occur,
many complex chemical changes must take place, and they must all be in the
direction of increased order and energy to move from the simple to the
complex.
The teacher paused a moment,
cleared his throat, and said, “Well, evolution is the only violation.”
The theory of evolution also
violates the first law of thermodynamics, which simply says energy (or matter)
neither can be created nor destroyed.
A story goes that God and Satan
were having a discussion.
“I can do anything you can,”
Satan said, stretching his puny body so he looked taller.
God smiled. “OK. Make a man.”
Satan bent over and began
scraping up dirt.
God grabbed his shoulder. “Use
your own dirt.”
How we got here, why we are here, and where we are going are matters of faith. Each Individual decides what he will believe. Some do believe in evolution, with God starting the process. But we have to decide whether we accept the first verse in the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth: (Genesis 1:1).
AUTHOR BIO:
Ada Brownell, a
devoted Bible student, has written for Christian publications since age 15 and
spent much of her life as a daily newspaper reporter at The Pueblo Chieftain in Colo. After
moving to Springfield, MO in her retirement, she continues to free lance for
Sunday school papers, Christian magazines and write books. She is author of
three non-fiction works, one novel, and is critique group leader of Ozarks
Chapter of American Christian Writers.
Among
her books: Joe the Dreamer: The Castle
and the Catapult, released Jan. 15, 2013; Swallowed by Life: Mysteries of Death,
Resurrection and the Eternal, released Dec. 6, 2011; and
