Was Darwin Right

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.

The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you; We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."

God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this? Let's say we have a man-making contest." To which the scientist replied, "Okay, great!" But, God added, "now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam." The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt." Source unknown

The article below by Dr Dennis Bonnette explores whether Darwinian evolution can explain the evolution of the spirit and man from ape ancestry. Please see early man page of this site for rebuttals of the supposed skeletal evidence for early man.

Quite aside from experimental science arguments about evolution, unaided natural reason proves that atheistic evolution is false regarding one of its most important claims – the origin of man himself. We need not study paleoanthropology to realize that true human beings could not be merely the product of purely materialistic evolution – and this for two clear reasons.

Everyone knows that mankind exceeds all the other animals of Earth by possession of culture, religion, technological progress, art, politics, and science. Some evolutionists would claim that lesser animals, especially lower primates, bear some vague analogy to these attributes, but everyone really knows that such claims push the boundaries of credibility. Still, how do we prove that man’s possession of these qualities is truly unique to him alone and that they place him qualitatively and essentially superior to all brute animals? We can show that such properties are uniquely possessed by man because man alone has both sense and intellective powers, while brute animals possess only sense powers and not intellect. This conclusion is demonstrated in my Ape-Language Studies page on this web site.

Man exhibits intellect by his ability to form universal concepts, make judgments, and reason. We shall focus here on the manner in which universal concepts clearly manifest properties that are strictly spiritual in nature – unlike the images which are found in sense knowledge and which are shared by lower animals.

Can you imagine a man or a triangle? Of course, you can. Now try to imagine humanity or triangularity. You cannot do it. Whatever image you have of a man or even of many men does not fulfill the universal concept which expresses the essence of every man in every age in every part of the globe. Whatever triangle you imagined (probably an equilateral one) presents the shape and sensible appearance of only a single triangle or perhaps a few of them, but not the essence of the three-sided plane figure that can be expressed in potentially infinite shapes, sizes, and appearances. Images are always concrete, singular, particular, sensible, and imaginable. In contrast, the universal concept (1) entails no sensible qualities whatever, (2) can have varying degrees of extension when predicated, and (3) is entirely unimaginable. Indeed, for most words or meanings, you have no “proper” image. What image do you have for words, such as, “inequality,” “amortization,” or even “the?” Words express meanings, not pictures. Most words are associated only with arbitrary physical sounds or phonetic spellings that fit only the language of the speaker. Translation is based on communication of meanings (essences), not sounds or written words. Animals may make word-like sounds or signs; but man alone understands the words he says or writes.

The distinction between image and concept manifests the radical difference between the material and spiritual orders. Images cannot escape the individuating, quantifying conditions of matter – and that is why they are always of this particular thing with these sensible qualities: this single black, tall, male, old man or that blue, scalene, three-foot tall triangular plaster statue. Concepts manifest their spiritual nature because, though they express the essence of every man or triangle, they have the particular sensible qualities of none. It is the ability to form concepts that is the basis for human possession of genuine language, and the ability to translate from one language into another the same meanings that constitute our understanding of the nature of things. Brute animals are forever restricted to manipulation of sense images that grasp merely the sensible appearances of things, not their intrinsic natures. This is more fully explained on my Ape-Language page.

Because man can form these universal spiritual concepts, he must possess some spiritual component in his nature. Mere matter can never give rise to true spirit because the lesser can never give rise to the greater.

Does anyone seriously think that no one on Earth has ever done a really evil act rightly deserving of punishment of some sort? Would we totally exonerate Stalin, Hitler, and Bin LadEn from all their crimes against humanity? If not, we have just implicitly recognized the existence of human freedom. To hold anyone responsible for something he could not avoid doing would be entirely unjust and contrary to reason. Since we do hold some evil-doers responsible for their heinous misdeeds, we must realize that some of them, some of the time at least, committed evil acts they need not have committed. That is to say, they were free to not do these acts, but chose to do them anyway.

What does freedom’s existence imply? Purely material things are absolutely determined by their natures to act in a predetermined manner. The entire order of natural science depends on physical things acting strictly according to their physical natures. Thus sodium tends by nature to combine with chlorine, birds seek worms, fish swim, and so forth. Even brute animals, acting on the variegated dynamism of constantly changing sensible objects, still respond instantly to the immediate stimuli – without freely choosing their objects. That is why we may put a dangerous dog to sleep, but we do not accuse it of being morally reprehensible for its behaviour.

But man acts with true freedom, bearing the consequent awesome responsibility for his acts. Hence, man is not bound by purely material forces and must possess some spiritual component in his nature. And, as noted above in the case of man’s formation of spiritual universal concepts, mere matter can never give rise to true spirit because the lesser can never give rise to the greater.

Therefore, both from the fact that man forms spiritual concepts and from the fact that he acts with genuine freedom, it follows that human nature possesses a spiritual component which mere material evolutionary processes could never explain, precisely because they are merely material forces and mere matter cannot produce true spirit. Moreover, these spiritual components are at the very center of our humanity because man is distinguished from lower animals by his intellective knowledge and freedom of choice.

God Alone, Not Materialistic Evolution, Must Create Man’s Spiritual Component

Since the lesser cannot give rise to the greater, mere matter cannot account for spirit – regardless of how the material forces of nature interact in any proposed evolutionary scheme. But a central spiritual component (soul or spirit?) does exist in man as shown above. Since every man is born into this world, every man has a beginning in time, and hence, his spiritual component requires a cause. But pre-existing matter cannot be an adequate cause for new spiritual reality. Only spirit can beget spirit. Human parents may form the material components of a new human being, but they do not produce that spiritual component which comes from no pre-existent matter. Rather, such spirit simply begins to be from no prior state of being. That is, it is created from nothing. Only an infinite power can create from nothing. And an infinite power must reside in an Infinite Being, namely, God.

Darwinian materialistic evolution fails its most crucial test – for it cannot adequately account for the origin of the most perfect of all living organisms: Man. Adequate explanation of human origins cannot be had unless God Himself directly intervenes in the order of nature, by an individual act of creation in the production of each human being. To top

Darwinism And The Rise Of Degenerate Science, by Dr Paul Back - A chapter is devoted to the age of the Earth.

The Naked Emperor: Darwinism Exposed, by Antony Latham

The videos below are in the Christian Answers web site, with permission for linkage requested.

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