EVOLUTION AND ITS ROLE -

EVOLUTION AND ITS ROLE - PART 1 OF 2

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July 28, 1998 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The following is Part 1 of "Evolution and Its Role," excerpted from the important book, Occult Invasion: The Subtle Seduction of the World and Church, copyright 1998, by Dave Hunt, Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon 97402; used by permission of the author (order from The Berean Call, P.O. Box 7019, Bend, OR 97708. $11 + $2 S/H) --

Far from being a scientific theory of recent origin, evolution was an established religious belief at the heart of occultism and mysticism thousands of years before the Greeks gave it "scientific" status. And the central core of the ancient mystical theory of evolution is the lie of the serpent to Eve in the Garden, the belief that we are evolving ever upward to godhood. Sounding like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Masonic authority W.L. Wilmhurst in his book The Meaning of Masonry declares:

"This-the evolution of man into superman-was always the purpose of the ancient mysteries [occultisms].... Man, who has sprung from the earth and developed through the lower kingdoms of nature, to his present rational state, has yet to complete his evolution by becoming a god-like being and unifying his conscience with the Omniscient."[W.L. Wilmhurst, The Meaning of Masonry (Bell Publishing, 1980), pp. 47, 94, as cited in Alan Morrison, The Serpent and the Cross (K&M Books, 1994), p. 230.]

New Age leader Robert Muller, for many years Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, expresses much the same: "I believe that humanity... has a tremendous destiny to fulfill and that a major transformation is about to take place in our evolution." [Robert Muller, ed., The Desire to Be Human: A Global Reconnaissance of Human Perspectives in an Age of Transformation (Miranana, 1983), p. 17.] Muller states clearly:

"Decide to open yourself... to the potential of the human race, to the infinity of your inner self, and you will become the universe... at long last your real, divine, stupendous self." [Robert Muller, "Decide to Be," in Link-Up, 1986, p.2]

EVOLVING UPWARD TO GODHOOD

The goal of evolution, as portrayed for thousands of years before Darwin, has always been to journey through endless reincarnations until union with the Universal Mind, or All, has once again been achieved. Barbara Brown of UCLA Medical Center declares that we are "evolving to a higher level of mind... [called] supermind."[Barbara Brown, Supermind (Harper & Row, 1980), pp. 6-7, 19.] At Esalen, the New Age center in the Big Sur area south of San Francisco where the Human Potential movement began, Michael Murphy and George Leonard offered a seminar on "The Evolution of Consciousness," which suggested that "a transformation of human consciousness as momentous as the emergence of civilization is underway." Darwin also recognized the spiritual implications of his theory. In The Descent of Man he wrote:

"Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen... to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future."

Whether Darwin fully realized it or not, the mystical goal of the theory of evolution he championed had always been to become "God." In The Atman Project, Ken Wilbur lays it out clearly: "If men and women have ultimately come up from amoebas, then they are ultimately on their way towards God."

In Up from Eden Wilbur identifies this belief in man's ascension to godhood as the heart of what has been "known as the 'perennial philosophy'... the esoteric core of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, ....... ." As Jon Klimo in his book Channeling summarizes it, the "truth of truths" of the channeled material is "that we are God" and only need to "realize" it. So the serpent's lie to Eve continues to dominate the ambitions of modern man, and evolution is his hope that the lie will one day be realized.

Evolution plays a key role in the occult. Theodore Roszak pointed out that mysticism is "the parent stock from which the theory of biological evolution springs." [Theodore Roszak, Unfinished Animal (Harper & Row, 1980), pp. 74-75.] Anthropologist Michael Harner reminds us that "millennia before Charles Darwin, people in shamanic cultures were convinced that humans and animals were related." [Michael J. Harner, The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Healing and Power ( Harper & Row, 1980), p. 57] Evolution, as the core belief of Hinduism and witchcraft, is at least as old as the theories of reincarnation and karma, in which it is a key element.

EVOLUTION, REINCARNATION, AND WITCHCRAFT

Of course, evolution must be an essential part of the belief in reincarnation and karma. There is no point in coming back in an endless cycle of death and rebirth unless progress is being made upward. That progress is allegedly accomplished through evolution, not only of the body but of the soul. Since reincarnation is a belief basic to witchcraft, it is not surprising that it is amoral. If a husband beats his wife, the cause-and-effect law of karma will cause him to be reincarnated in his next life as a wife who is beaten by her husband. That husband (who will have been prepared by his karma to be a wife-beater) must in turn come back in his next life as a wife beaten by her husband; a murderer must in turn become the victim of murder, and so forth endlessly.

The perpetrator of each crime must become the victim of the same crime, which necessitates another perpetrator, who in turn must become a subsequent victim at the hands of yet another, ad infinitum. Rather than solving the problem of evil, karma and reincarnation perpetuate it.

Apropos to our subject of the occult, evolution opens the door to belief in a mysterious "Force" pervading the universe, a Force which evolutionists believe brought life into existence and has directed its astonishing development over billions of years. It is a Force, too, which presumably has even greater heights of evolutionary development in store for mankind. Clearly this force is a substitute for God.

Evolution is a religion without any support in fact. C.S. Lewis wrote: "If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind... ."[Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon, The New Spirituality (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1988), p. 155] That simple logic destroys Darwinism. If man is the chance product of impersonal evolutionary forces, then so are his thoughts-including the theory of evolution.

A SURPRISING DEVELOPMENT?

Most non-Catholics were surprised when Pope John Paul II, in a formal statement sent to the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Science on October 23, 1996, announced that evolution was a scientific theory acceptable to the Church. Evangelical leaders such as Charles Colson, Bill Bright, J.I. Packer, Pat Robertson et al., in joining forces with Rome, assured their critics that Catholicism accepts biblical inerrancy. Yet the Canons and Decrees of the Second Vatican Council (Roman Catholicism's highest authority) declare: "Hence the Bible is free from error in what pertains to religious truth revealed for our salvation. It is not necessarily free from error in other matters (e.g. natural science)" [emphasis in original]. [Vatican II, Vatican Council II, Divine Revelation (Knights of Columbus paraphrase edition), III.11e.] Evolution is "scientific," and the Bible is not infallible when it comes to science.

Allegedly infallible popes have made dogmatic but embarrassingly unscientific pronouncements based upon false biblical interpretations. Choosing to blame the Bible rather than admit the folly of its leaders, Roman Catholicism denies that the Bible is "free from error" in matters of science. Here is a brief excerpt from the Pope's statement to the Academy:

"I am pleased with the first theme you have chosen, that of the origins of life and evolution, an essential subject which deeply interests the Church.... We know, in fact, that truth cannot contradict truth. ... I would remind you that the Magisterium of the Church has already made pronouncements on these matters....

In his Encyclical Humani generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man.... Pius XII stressed this essential point: if the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God.... For my part... [I have said that] the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences.... Today... the theory of evolution... has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence... of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favour of this theory."[Pope John Paul II, "Message to Pontifical Academy of Sciences," in L'Osservatore Romano, 30 October 1996, pp. 3,7]

John Paul II was simply reiterating the official position of his Church. In May 1982, on the hundredth anniversary of Charles Darwin's death, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences held a conference of scientists in honor of Darwin and issued this statement: "We are convinced that masses of evidence render the application of the concept of evolution to man and other primates beyond serious dispute." [Father Edward Daschbach, S.V.D., "Catholics and Creationism," in Visitor, October 21, 1984, p.3] As a further example of endorsements by the Roman Catholic Church, in 1967 the New Catholic Encyclopedia had declared confidently:

"Evidence ... supports... the fact of organic evolution. The best judges of the matter are the specialists who, over a period of 100 years, have assembled the necessary evidence. For them the fact of evolution has been established as thoroughly as science can establish facts of the past not witnessed by human eyes." [New Catholic Encyclopedia (McGraw-Hill, 1967), vol.5, P. 689.]

DELIVER US FROM FURTHER EMBARRASSMENT

The shameful case of Galileo explains why Pope John Paul II warned that "the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences...." In enforcement of Church dogma, Pope Urban VIII threatened an elderly and very ill Galileo with torture if he would not renounce his claim that the earth revolved around the sun. On his knees before Rome's Holy Office of the Inquisition, in fear for his life, Galileo recanted of this "heresy"-with his lips but not in his heart. That the sun and all heavenly bodies revolved around the earth remained official Roman Catholic dogma for centuries, with one "infallible" Pope after another affirming it. Only in 1992 did the Vatican at last admit officially that Galileo had indeed been right.

John Paul II's quotation of Pope Leo XIII that "truth cannot contradict truth" is a capitulation to science. Rome's theologians must take care that their interpretation of biblical truth agrees with the latest scientific theories. Yet Peter, who Catholics say was the first Pope, declared that all Scripture was inspired of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). Surely the Holy Spirit's knowledge of science is not dependent upon the theories of scientists, who often contradict one another and must revise their theories periodically! If the Bible is not infallible when it comes to science, then why believe it is infallible regarding salvation or anything else?

Nevertheless, Edward Daschbach, a Catholic priest, without any apparent sense of betraying Peter and the Bible, explains the official Roman Catholic position:

"The Church, then, does not accept... the literal interpretation of the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis that would lead us to think that God, for example, actually made two grown adults suddenly from clay and rib.... Catholics should be against creation-science for at least three serious reasons:

First: It effectively teaches a distrust of science and ultimately hurts religion as well. By defending a literal understanding of the opening chapters of Genesis... creation-science sets itself squarely against the world of true scientific discovery.... The myths used by the Genesis authors are simply tools with which they communicate their religious beliefs.

Second: Creation-science is contrary to the method of interpreting Scripture favored universally by scholars and strongly approved by our Church. This favored approach... [allows us to] accept the divine revelation contained in Scripture, while accepting at the same time human author's errors in matters of science or history....

Third: Creation-science leads to deep prejudice and bigotry against the Catholic Church. The case in point is the Book of Revelation. When creation science advocates ply their fundamentalist tools to this final scriptural book, the Church often becomes a target for vehement attack...." [Daschbach, S.V.D., Visitor, p.3.]

THEISTIC EVOLUTION: A CONVENIENT COMPROMISE

The Pope stands firmly with a theory which contradicts not only the Genesis account of creation but other key portions of the Bible as well. And today's leading evangelical magazine, Christianity Today (begun and still backed by Billy Graham), supports the Pope in his endorsement of evolution. An editorial declared:

"John Paul II was... reminding scientists that if they were to be faithful Christians there were limits beyond which their science could not take them... no theory of evolution was acceptable... that did not recognize the direct divine origin of the human soul." [Editorial, "The Pope, the Press, and Evolution," in Christianity Today, January 6, 1997, p. 18]

This issue was discussed at a gathering of mostly professing evangelicals at Biola University in Southern California in mid-November 1996. There were scientists from various fields, along with journalists, theologians, and educators "representing 58 state colleges and universities, 28 Christian academic institutions, and 18 other organizations." While all agreed that God was involved in the process (which Darwinism denies), there was wide disagreement on the extent of that involvement, all the way from a strict biblical creationist view to the belief that God used evolution to create various species over a period of millions of years and finally infused a pair of them with human souls. [Belz, "Witness for the Prosecution," p. 18] The latter theory is called theistic evolution.

In contrast to the intimidation by science and the lack of confidence in the Bible's inerrancy to which both Catholics and many Protestants have succumbed, consider these stirring words from the famous preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

"We shall with the sword of the Spirit maintain the whole truth as ours, and shall not accept a part of it as a grant from the enemies of God. The truth of God we will maintain as the truth of God, and we shall not retain it because the philosophic mind consents to our doing so.

"If scientists agree to our believing a part of the Bible, we thank them for nothing: we believe it whether or no. Their assent is of no more consequence to our faith than... the consent of the mole to the eagle's sight. God being with us we shall not cease from this glorying, but will hold the whole of revealed truth even to the end." [Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Greatest Fight in the World.]

THE SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES OF THEISTIC EVOLUTION

Genesis lays the foundation for all of Scripture. If its account of creation isn't reliable, then neither is the rest of the Bible which rests upon it; and Christ is proven not to be God and Savior, but a mere man who foolishly took a mythological story of Adam and Eve literally (Matthew 19:4,5). Yet Pope John Paul II, as John Tagliabue, writing for the New York Times, reported, "has put the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church firmly behind the view that the human body... is the product of a gradual process of evolution." [John Tagliabue, "Pope says God and Darwin can co-exist happily," in The Times-Picayune, October 25, 1996, p. A-3.]

Adam is mentioned about 30 times in nine books of the Bible. Thus to discredit the biblical account of Adam's creation punctures so many holes in the Bible that it can no longer contain a consistent theology For example, Luke 3:2-38 traces Christ's genealogy to Adam, and Christ is even called "the last Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45). That tide would be demeaning in the extreme if Adam were a prehuman creature that had evolved from lower life forms, as Catholicism officially affirms.

Christianity Today was not the only popular evangelical magazine to favor theistic evolution. So did New Man, at that time the official magazine of "Promise Keepers," the men's movement that sprang up a few years ago under the leadership of University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney and has since grown phenomenally. That periodical expressed its agreement with the Pope's position on evolution even before he stated it Furthermore, New Man argued:

"Remember, however, that the debate over how God created the world-through millions of years of evolutionary work or through a few words spoken over a few days-is not the central tenet of Christianity." ["Fathers, faith and fossils," in New Man, July-August 1996, p. 54.]

The truth is that Christianity is not an isolated development of the New Testament but is inextricably linked with all of the Old Testament and therefore stands or falls upon its accuracy or inaccuracy. Paul declared that the gospel which he preached was "the gospel of God" and that it had been foretold by the Hebrew prophets in the Old Testament (Romans 1:1-3) and was the fulfillment thereof. The Bible is one Book. If any part contradicts any other part, then the whole of Scripture is undermined. If the Bible is wrong in its account of man's origin, then why should we trust its teaching about man's redemption?

To support evolution to any degree and in any form is in fact to demolish Christianity. Interestingly enough, the Satanic Bible declares, "Satan represents man as nothing more than another animal, sometimes better, but more often worse than those who walk on four paws, because by the pretext of his 'divine intellectual and spiritual development,' he has become the most vicious animal of all." [Anton Szandor La Vey, Satanic Bible (Avon, 1969), from the nine satanic affirmations with which the book begins.] The American Atheist knows what is at stake:

"Destroy Adam and Eve and original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God and take away the meaning of his death." [The American Atheist, 1978, p. 19, as cited in The Christian News, November 11, 1996.]

A THEORY THAT SHOULD BE DISCARDED

In their desire to be in harmony with science, Roman Catholicism and certain evangelicals are backing a dead horse. Growing numbers of scientists are abandoning evolution as completely untenable because the evidence against it is overwhelming. British astronomer and mathematician Sir Fred Hoyle, though he finds the idea of God creating life distasteful, admits, "The scientific world has been bamboozled into believing that evolution has been proved. Nothing could be further from the truth." [George W. Cornell, "Scientist calls Darwin evolution theory absurd," in Times-Advocate, December 10, 1982, p. A10.] Australian biologist Michael Denton, an agnostic and former evolutionist, and author of Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, says science has so thoroughly discredited Darwinian evolution that it should be discarded. Mathematics professor Wolfgang Smith says evolution is a "metaphysical myth... totally bereft of scientific sanction." Teilhardism and the New Religion (Tan Books, 1988), p. 242, as cited in The Christian News, November 11, 1996, p. 15.]

When in 1952 Stanley Miller introduced simulated light into an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, water vapor, and hydrogen and seemingly produced several kinds of amino acids (the building blocks of living creatures), the scientific world was sure it could create life in a laboratory. The pursuit of this chimera, however, has only revealed greater problems. Klaus Dose, a prominent evolutionist, shares his disillusionment:

"More than 30 years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance." [Klaus Dose, "The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers," in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 1988, pp. 13, 348.]

Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, confessed: "I had been working on this stuff for more than 20 years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. It's quite a shock to learn that one can be misled for so long." Patterson "started asking other scientists to tell him one thing they knew about evolution." Biologists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York had no answer. Continues Patterson:

"I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, "I do know one thing-it ought not to be taught in high school." [Thomas E. Woodward, "Doubts About Darwin," in Moody, september 1988, p. 20.]

Evolution is taught as fact in Catholic schools, where, as the New York Times noted, evolution is "a standard part of the curriculum." [Times-Picayune, October 25, 1996, p. A-3.] Leonard DeFiore, president of the National Catholic Educational Association in Washington D.C., says, "We start with the premise that all creation came from God. Beyond that it's a scientific issue." [Mary Beth Marklein, "Pope:Evolution, religion don't clash," in USA Today, October 25, 1996, p. 3A.] As cited in the beginning of the chapter, Roman Catholic Stephen F. Smith writes, "In Catholic school here in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., we were taught that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was gospel truth." [Stephen F. Smith, "Is Darwinism a Religion?" in The Catholic World Report, December 1996, p. 50.] Lehigh University biochemist Michael J. Behe writes of his days in Catholic schools:

"I don't remember exactly what was said about life, other than it came from God, and ..... . the leading scientific explanation for how He did it was Darwin's theory of evolution." [William Bole, "Of biocemistry and belief," in Our Sunday Visitor, December 1, 1996, p.6.]

Nothing could be more in opposition to Christian belief. Oxford University zoologist Richard Dawkins demonstrates that evolution allows atheists to justify their unbelief. Ironically, however, Dawkins, a leading evolutionist, admits in his book The Blind Watchmaker that "biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." [Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (Longman, England, 1986), p.1.] Isn't it amazing how everything "chance" produces always looks as though it had been designed!

Continued in Part 2