From: psm@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Phil Malin)
Subject: Re: Is evolution contrary to creation?
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
Distribution: aus
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 00:22:08 GMT

iant@cc.uow.edu.au (Ian Tait) writes:

>Phil, I'm not in the habit of flaming anyone but hardest thing I find
>to swallow is your logic.......

>>First of all I must state that I find evolution a bit hard to swallow.  God
>>created man differently to the other animals - man has a soul.  It seems strange
>>that God would evolve humans from another species and then place a soul into
>>it.

>You know the mind of God? - If s/he wants to evolve humans from another
>species why shouldn't s/he include a soul

Okay, I agree with this.  Obviously I don't know the mind of God but from
the bible we know that humans are different to other animals - they were
_created_ in God's image.  It's possible that they did evolve but personally
I find it difficult to believe.

>>Also, there is evidence about prehistoric animals before man was evolved.
>>Some of these were obviously carnivores - therefore they killed.  But God
>>created the world perfect, without death.  i.e. nothing died.

>If nothing died then nothing was born either or we would have had wall to 
>wall living things. Your speculation defies logic and the observed evidence.
>You cannot have fossils of LIVING organisms!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm afraid that to me this does not make sense.  The bible states that
God _created_ the living creatures blessing them and saying "be fruitful
and increase in number..." (actually this particular verse, Gen 1:22, is
referring to the creatures of the sea and the birds in the air.  Later verses
talk about land creatures).  So this shows that there was something born
without death (to me anyway).  After the fall of man was a different story,
sin had entered the world and accordlingly so had death.

>>Now comes my theory...

>>If God created the world perfect there would be no death.  Everything would
>>be perfect.  But if man sinned, suddenly imperfection would enter and permeate
>>all of creation.  To me this is like a discontinuity on the time line of man.
>>That is why I don't trust the theories modern day scientists have to offer
>>about the origins of man.  How can they predict back to a time when a
>>discontinuity blocks their path?  They can't.  Their predictions will be
>>false.  It's difficult to explain without a graph.  Consider;

>1. You don't predict back, you predict forward.

Okay then, how about extrapolate backwards.

>2. Your argument is based on an assumption ("if man sinned...imperfection
>would enter...") which is then used as a fact to prove your conclusion 
>("a discontinuity blocks their path")

To me it is a fact based on faith.  It is obvious that I consider it a fact
because it is part of my belief.  I can't see any problem with this (unless
you're not a Christian and wouldn't believe it anyway, or you are a Christian
who doesn't believe in the bible's description of the fall of man).  I
suppose I should have said '...But _when_ man sinned imperfection entered and
permeated all of creation...'

>3. It is impossible to explain even with a graph

Why?  I was just pointing out that you cannot extrapolate backwards if there
is a discontinuity in your way.  In that case there are an infinite number
of possible paths (although only one would be the true one).  It was merely
an analogy used to help explain my point.

>>	   world.  From that point until now science can predict (I assume)
>>	   quite accurately what happened.  If they try to predict further
>>	   back they will be entering into a region which science can't possibly
>>	   know about.  I will even go so far as to say that modern physics
>>	   wouldn't even describe that time.  The world was in a totally alien
>>	   state to what it is now.

>Science is quite comfortable with describing and interpreting the past and it 
>will place limits of confidence on those descriptions based on the amount
>of data available. Science is even arrogant enough to commence its description
>of the universe right from the first few millionths of a second after time 
>itself commenced.

It doesn't concern me how comfortable science is.  I'm a christian so I believe
what the bible says.  Call me a fundamentalist if you want.  I was only offering
a possible reason linking what the bible says (that I believe is true) and
what observed data we have.  Obviously there are flaws in my 'theory' but
what theory hasn't.  There are things that I cannot explain, such as dinosaur
fossils, etc... but understand that I'm coming from the other end of the
spectrum.  Scientists look for the beginning based on observations made
today, I'm starting from the beginning working torwards today.



Phil Malin
psm@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au